Beatrice > 25-12-2018, 08:20 PM
nablator > 25-12-2018, 09:24 PM
(25-12-2018, 08:20 PM)Beatrice Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello Beatrice,Hello everyone
I am new here and I would like to ask youwho were the first palaeographers to assert that the Ms is written in a humanist script. Does any member from this forum know something about that? Is there any paper about it?
-JKP- > 25-12-2018, 10:12 PM
ReneZ > 26-12-2018, 09:49 AM
-JKP- > 26-12-2018, 12:08 PM
-JKP- > 26-12-2018, 12:18 PM
Beatrice > 26-12-2018, 07:30 PM
Quote:Hello Beatrice,
I would be very surprised if any paleographer ever gave credence to this piece of nonsense.
The source is on page 9 of An Elegant Enigma, by Mary D'Imperio, quoting Jeffrey Krischer:
"The date of the manuscript was again placed in the sixteenth century by Mr Rodney Dennis (curator of manuscripts in Houghton Library of the Harvard College library). Mr Dennis identified the script to be in the style of the sixteenth century humanist script."
Beatrice > 26-12-2018, 07:44 PM
(25-12-2018, 10:12 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's difficult to make this kind of judgment about text that is in some way invented or ciphered.
If you look at alphabets that have been invented (in contrast to those that evolve slowly), you frequently find that they are more disconnected and widely spaced than evolved scripts. I noticed this when investigating cipher alphabets, and also the many alphabets that have been invented by missionaries working in areas where there was no written text
The various shapes in the VMS that are based on Latin abbreviation shapes lean more toward Gothic than Humanist styles, but the spacing is more similar to Humanist (but... this might be a coincidence, for the reasons given above).
Beatrice > 26-12-2018, 07:56 PM
(26-12-2018, 09:49 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There was extensive correspondence in the original mailing list about this topic, as the result of a report from Sergio Toresella, who may not be a palaeographer, but certainly has a vast knowledge of medieval herbals.
He spent some time with the original MS in or just before December 1995:
"The VMS is, with certainty, authentic; not a fake. It was manufactured
in the period 1450-1460. It was in France for a while: the month names
on the zodiac diagrams are in French in a French handwriting. The book
itself comes from Italy; the mysterious writing is done in a round
humanistic style found only in Italy in the second half of the 1400's.
There are similarities between the organization of the VMS (including
the balneological section!) and that of other Italian herbals of the 1400s."
(There was quite a bit more).
In summary: the date of 1450-1460 follows from his identification of a humanistic style.
nablator > 26-12-2018, 11:02 PM