RE: Where are the numbers?
R. Sale > 06-03-2017, 08:56 PM
I can agree that there are certain parts of the VMs that can be easily seen as having the appearance of belonging to a hausbuch type of document. What leads me to the alchemical-herbal description is the number of pages devoted to plants. The number of pages that appear as plant monographs is such that the VMs would seem to contain more information on plants and herbal cures than is found in a typical hausbuch. And so I find 'herbal' is an important descriptive term. We could call it an alchemical-herbal-hausbuch.
But a hausbuch is intended to contain important and useful information. Has the VMs provided any important and useful information? It is a text that has been under investigation for a century. What has the VMs investigation revealed? Any of the important and useful information of a hausbuch?
If the VMs were an alchemical-herbal-hausbuch of information, it would be a cultural product of accumulated knowledge etc. While that perception may have appeared valid in the 15th century, it hardly seems so today. The VMs appears to be a cultural product from an unknown source, but it is not. There is no "Voynichese" cultural source to actually support this facade. The VMs is built on deception. It is a complete creation of an unknown reality. It's sort of like a hoax or forgery, but it has a purpose. The creation has a purpose; there is something hidden behind the facade.
Having something hidden on the pages of a manuscript can be a problem, but there are ways to work around the difficulties. Finding something intentionally hidden in a manuscript, and demonstrating that it was intentionally hidden by the author also has its difficulties. Let's just say that it was placed there for the reader to find. Then it's just a question of whether the reader finds it or not. Mostly it's been not. When both the topic and the elements are not known, recognition does not occur.
The potential reconstruction of the Oresme cosmos with VMs parts is an interesting possibility. Perhaps the two essential parts are separated for purposes of deception, but a clear, simple nebuly line is there (f68v) as a clue. The Fieschi connection to the tradition of the red galero (f71r) is disguised by a radial orientation. The visual possibilities are confirmed by traditional placement. The extent of hidden construction is demonstrated by the placement of the heraldic papelonny patterns, to correspond in quadrant and sphere with two blue-striped patterns on the following page - or two. Not to mention - the pun. All this is hidden behind the facade in the pages. And it cannot be found by those who do not know the pattern and its name. But they were put in place by someone who did know the heraldic tradition quite well. Meanwhile in some modern references, these traditional details of the heraldic furs are now omitted and even the possibility of investigative discovery is closed off.
The VMs author knows the science and the history of their time. And they know it well, very well. And so they expect the reader to do the same, - to find the reality of science and history as it was perceived at the time that some unknown VMs 'author' person(s) put pen and paint to parchment to make the VMs. And it might now be said, even as the method of disguise has been discovered in each case, that this author has established one clear point in science and another in history and that both would have been well and widely known to other educated contemporaries. The question is whether the grounding in historical fact is sufficient to support further investigation behind the facade. If there is a purpose for this carefully disguised construction, where does it lead?