Voynich-like Symbols in a Florentine Manuscript

[todihk]

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Well, it's not a new speculation that some ancestor of stenography "artis velociter scribere" (the art of writing quickly) might be related to Voynichese, but there are good reasons why it is not likely: Voynichese has too few common glyphs and they are too predictable to be a compressed form of writing.

Thanks to both of you for your thoughts! And thanks, nablator, for clearing up the black squares.

I think there’s a small misunderstanding about what I’m suggesting.

I’m not really thinking of ordinary shorthand, where words are simply shortened to write faster.

What caught my attention about the Florentine Ars notaria is how the signs are constructed. It uses a limited set of basic shapes, which can be modified by adding strokes or other elements in different positions.

So even a relatively small number of basic signs could produce many different combinations. That’s why I’m not sure the small glyph inventory and predictable patterns in Voynichese necessarily rule out this kind of system. Of course, that doesn’t mean they explain those patterns either.

The CLS connection is interesting, too. It seems to describe something similar from the Voynich side, although that doesn’t mean the two systems are related.

What I’m particularly curious about is f87r. Since the unusual signs appear right after the Ars notaria, could someone have been experimenting with the rules described on the preceding pages?

I’m not claiming that’s what happened, but I think it’s worth looking into. Especially since some of the shapes seem to appear in both places.