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The claimed Voynich page
- The claimed Voynich page
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RE: The claimed Voynich page
Fabrizio Salani > 20-03-2026, 06:24 PM
(20-03-2026, 02:29 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
C. S. Lewis drew inspiration from the town of Narni to write his famous novel.Quote:You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Latin: Narnia) is an ancient hilltown and comune (municipality) of Umbria, in central Italy
Narnia is real!
Narni is rich in history, and Umbria is the birthplace of Perugino, Pinturicchio, and countless manuscript authors from various periods. Throughout Umbria, there are numerous antique markets and dealers. The person who sold it to me (who died a few years ago) was a restorer of antique furniture, and although retired for several years, his heart remained on "antique wood" and he had neither the financial need (€110.00!!!) nor the reason to deceive me. -
RE: The claimed Voynich page
Fabrizio Salani > 20-03-2026, 06:33 PM
(20-03-2026, 02:18 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Fabrizio: is there any chance at all that your contact was messing with you, or that someone had fooled him?
You see, if someone showed me a copy of a Voynich Manuscript page they found in, of all possible pieces of furniture, a Wardrobe from, of all possible places, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I would be at least a bit skeptical.
I remember that it wasn't a wardrobe, but he defined it as a piece of furniture for the countryside, for the sacristy, a "Madia". -
RE: The claimed Voynich page
ReneZ > 21-03-2026, 06:32 AM
In any case, all this happened one year after the appearance of the Gritti book, and the weird publicity surrounding it.
In my opinion, this is less likely to be part of that publicity, but it is still possible that this is a forgotten leftover of it.
Not betting any money on that though. I just don't know. -
RE: The claimed Voynich page
Fabrizio Salani > 21-03-2026, 08:11 AM
[quote="ReneZ" pid='81777' dateline='1774071166']
In ogni caso, tutto ciò accadde un anno dopo la pubblicazione del libro di Gritti e la strana pubblicità che lo circondò.
A mio parere, è meno probabile che questo faccia parte di quella campagna pubblicitaria, ma è comunque possibile che si tratti di un residuo dimenticato di essa.
Non ci scommetterei comunque dei soldi. Semplicemente non lo so.
[/citazione]
Un modo alquanto strano di pubblicizzare un romanzo. Vale la pena notare che in Italia, almeno all'epoca, il manoscritto Voynich non era famoso come lo è oggi. Certo, era noto ad alcuni amanti dei libri antichi, ma niente di più. Infatti, quando ho chiesto al professore che lo aveva analizzato (lo stesso che aveva analizzato la "Bibbia di Borso d'Este" e che aveva convinto il suo collega di Modena a condurre una ricerca di laboratorio), non conosceva il manoscritto e ha dovuto informarsi. Si potrebbe pensare che il misterioso Aldo Gritti, che si spaccia per un prete con documenti storici originali e inediti sul manoscritto, ne abbia distribuito uno in suo possesso come augurio di buona fortuna per la vendita del libro romanzato (cosa che evidentemente non ha funzionato, almeno in termini di vendite, visto che non ci sono state edizioni successive), ma sto chiaramente divagando. -
RE: The claimed Voynich page
Fabrizio Salani > 21-03-2026, 08:25 AM
(21-03-2026, 08:11 AM)Fabrizio Salani Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="ReneZ" pid='81777' dateline='1774071166']
It would be interesting to ask this "A. Gritti" if he ever made or had a copy made of any page of the manuscript, for publicity purposes to his book, or to show him images of my parchment to see if he recognizes it, but I have no idea how to contact a pseudonym. After all these years, I don't see any problem he would have with making any kind of statement.
In ogni caso, tutto ciò accadde un anno dopo la pubblicazione del libro di Gritti e la strana pubblicità che lo circondò.
A mio parere, è meno probabile che questo faccia parte di quella campagna pubblicitaria, ma è comunque possibile che si tratti di un residuo dimenticato di essa.
Non ci scommetterei comunque dei soldi. Semplicemente non lo so.
[/citazione]
Un modo alquanto strano di pubblicizzare un romanzo. Vale la pena notare che in Italia, almeno all'epoca, il manoscritto Voynich non era famoso come lo è oggi. Certo, era noto ad alcuni amanti dei libri antichi, ma niente di più. Infatti, quando ho chiesto al professore che lo aveva analizzato (lo stesso che aveva analizzato la "Bibbia di Borso d'Este" e che aveva convinto il suo collega di Modena a condurre una ricerca di laboratorio), non conosceva il manoscritto e ha dovuto informarsi. Si potrebbe pensare che il misterioso Aldo Gritti, che si spaccia per un prete con documenti storici originali e inediti sul manoscritto, ne abbia distribuito uno in suo possesso come augurio di buona fortuna per la vendita del libro romanzato (cosa che evidentemente non ha funzionato, almeno in termini di vendite, visto che non ci sono state edizioni successive), ma sto chiaramente divagando.
I tried to contact Rizzoli publishing house in 2017 to get in touch with the author, but they told me that since it's a pseudonym, he obviously doesn't want to be identified. Well, I tried. -
RE: The claimed Voynich page
Koen G > 21-03-2026, 08:40 AM
Fabrizio: I'm investigating that angle and learned a lot more. A lot of circumstantial evidence, but no smoking gun yet. Investigation ongoing. -
RE: The claimed Voynich page
asteckley > 22-03-2026, 07:53 AM
(12-03-2026, 11:11 AM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(11-03-2026, 06:22 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Matching the height of the cover of the Voynich MS to 235 mm, I get that the text in the Voynich MS is roughly 9% larger.
That's awesome, thankyou! I got similar results.
Depending on my exact lines, I got ~9.5% height difference, and ~7.5% width difference. The exact numbers depended on the exact rotation and choice of where to draw the boundaries. A stray word, longer space or including downwards tails/flourishes somewhere skews the numbers slightly. Using the top loops of the p and the top crossbar of the p makes a difference etc etc
But the copy is always clearly smaller than the VMS.
I’ve been catching up on this interesting thread. I don’t have time to do a full analysis myslf right now, but I wanted to suggest something to both of you—eggyk and oshfdk—since your posts suggest you have the necessary technical skills.
So far, it seems you’ve been comparing the VMS folio and the copy by looking at selected heights and widths. If you’re willing to take it further, here’s an approach that might yield more insight:
- First, select several dozen anchor points from identical locations on both folios—the more points, the better. These should be clearly identifiable features that correspond between the two documents, such as specific points in the script or details in the plant drawings. Ideally, the points should be distributed across the entire page.
- Next, analyze the distances between pairs of these points, recording the corresponding measurements from each document. Instead of comparing just a few heights and widths, this gives you a large set of distances taken at different angles and from many locations across the page.
- From there, create a visual map showing the distortion vectors (both magnitude and direction) across the entire page.
Earlier in the thread, the possibility of a camera lucida was mentioned. But as we know, this device wasn’t invented—or at least wasn't patented—until the early 1800s, although that doesn’t necessarily rule out some inventive individual's use of one earlier. However, if the document is genuinely from an earlier period, a more plausible explanation might be the use of a concave mirror projection setup, as described by Hockney.
It was mentioned earlier in this thread that Hockney’s theory (i.e. the Hockney–Falco thesis) is not well respected. That’s not entirely accurate, or at least not particularly relevant here. While there is debate about his broader claims regarding the role of optical devices in the development of Western/Renaissance art, it is far less controversial that such optical tools did exist and that they were used during the Renaissance—centuries before the invention of the camera lucida.
A concave mirror projection system (or a camera lucida for that matter) could be indicated by a smoothly varying distortion across the page (or disjointed pattern of such distortions). It could also account for the combination of strong agreement in overall structure—such as in the drawing and general layout of the script—alongside the inaccuracies in finer details like individual glyphs or leaf edges. These projection systems do not produce perfectly sharp images. Even a skilled user might accurately capture the main elements of a page while struggling to resolve finer details clearly. So if they simply "did their best" and filled in glyphs and details that they couldn't make out clearly, it could easily result in the kind of mixed precision observed here.
(It could also explain the gross departure of the root system from the VMS original -- that lower section may have been entirely "off-screen". Or the person just got tired and decided to abandon the tedious equipment and free-hand his own root system.) - First, select several dozen anchor points from identical locations on both folios—the more points, the better. These should be clearly identifiable features that correspond between the two documents, such as specific points in the script or details in the plant drawings. Ideally, the points should be distributed across the entire page.
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RE: The claimed Voynich page
Bernd > 22-03-2026, 09:22 AM
I agree with this and wanted to suggest something similar. It should be possible to determine if the distortion pattern fits better with a Camera Lucida, concave mirror, or other modern projection system. The problem I see is that both digital source images need to be distortion free for such comparison. Are they, especially the VM scans? Largely, I guess.
We'd also need distortion data of projection devices. An improvised optical system with non-parallel, non-flat source- and projection surfaces might create unexpectedly complex distortions. I think I noticed some pincushion distortion but I can't say if this was the optimal solution to reconcile the 2 images.
I also agree that the text inaccuracies might be the result of optical errors in the projection, but I can't imagine why you would choose such approach to begin with instead of directly copying or at least proof-reading the text. Even for someone unfamiliar with 'Voynichese', some errors are obvious. It also looks like the canvas might have been shifted and then re-aligned while copying the text. It however shows that the artist put emphasis on the drawing instead of the text. Which makes zero sense if the copy was created to help decipher the manuscript. So it probably wasn't. -
RE: The claimed Voynich page
eggyk > 22-03-2026, 11:26 AM
(22-03-2026, 07:53 AM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A concave mirror projection system (or a camera lucida for that matter) could be indicated by a smoothly varying distortion across the page (or disjointed pattern of such distortions). It could also account for the combination of strong agreement in overall structure—such as in the drawing and general layout of the script—alongside the inaccuracies in finer details like individual glyphs or leaf edges. These projection systems do not produce perfectly sharp images. Even a skilled user might accurately capture the main elements of a page while struggling to resolve finer details clearly. So if they simply "did their best" and filled in glyphs and details that they couldn't make out clearly, it could easily result in the kind of mixed precision observed here.
(It could also explain the gross departure of the root system from the VMS original -- that lower section may have been entirely "off-screen". Or the person just got tired and decided to abandon the tedious equipment and free-hand his own root system.)
It is also possible that the text and the illustration were copied seperately, which may cause a different relative position across the page. The workflow would have been something like "copy text -> reposition image -> copy plant in better position" (or the reverse, with plant first and text after, or simply multiple times across the entire copying). If that is the case, extrapolating distortion between the text and the plant may not work, even if a camera lucida was used.
Actually, some slight evidence that this is indeed the case are the words directly above the plant. They appear to me to have been squished and shortened in order to fit in the existing gaps and in order to not touch the plant.
Note the y in both, one has been made smaller in order to be seperate from the plant, and the other has its tail move off to the left. dchcKhy has been shortened to something like dchthy. The word dam is also incredibly close to the leaf in the copy, surely closer than any distortion would cause? I'm open to being wrong on that though.
The copier has clearly made mistakes (or choices) to put certain text or features in a different place, like the dy in the first word and different spelling across the entire text, so we will have to be as careful as possible to take that into account too.
(22-03-2026, 07:53 AM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So far, it seems you’ve been comparing the VMS folio and the copy by looking at selected heights and widths. If you’re willing to take it further, here’s an approach that might yield more insight:
- First, select several dozen anchor points from identical locations on both folios—the more points, the better. These should be clearly identifiable features that correspond between the two documents, such as specific points in the script or details in the plant drawings. Ideally, the points should be distributed across the entire page.
- Next, analyze the distances between pairs of these points, recording the corresponding measurements from each document. Instead of comparing just a few heights and widths, this gives you a large set of distances taken at different angles and from many locations across the page.
- From there, create a visual map showing the distortion vectors (both magnitude and direction) across the entire page.
This is a great idea if we can do it well. I can try, but that may be beyond my abilities given the inconsistencies between the two
- First, select several dozen anchor points from identical locations on both folios—the more points, the better. These should be clearly identifiable features that correspond between the two documents, such as specific points in the script or details in the plant drawings. Ideally, the points should be distributed across the entire page.