[Conference] Voynich at Histocrypt, June 23-25, Belgium

[Anton]

I agree with what, conferences serve not only for listening to presentations, but for gathering people thus facilitating their communication. Were that anywhere nearby me, I would definitely visit the venue.

although I feel sorry for him as he will probably get inundated with Cheshire questions in the Q&A.

lol, sad but highly probable

[-JKP-]

It would be fun to go.

Unfortunately, I'm tied to my business.

I used to be able to go to conferences quite regularly. It was fun. I met a lot of interesting people and it was a business expense, so I was able to deduct it. That's when I was developing "shrink-wrapped" software. The nice thing about shrink-wrapped software is that once the package is ready, you just ship it (and you can hire people to do that). I had a LOT more free time.

Unfortunately, Internet piracy has made it unprofitable, so now I have to do contract work (mostly for the manufacturing and media industries) and I can't really get away.


But I hope all the attendees have a great time and I look forward to hearing post-conference impressions.

[ReneZ]

It's always much better to meet with people and talk face to face.
Two weeks ago I was in Milano, and was glad to use the opportunity to meet up with Marco. Great occasion!

I have met Rich three times now, and it has always been a pleasure talking to him.
But when it comes to online discussions about the Voynich MS, I have learned to recognise, in the meantime, when it is pointless to continue discussing. Even when the temptation is sometimes there :-)

As regards the Cheshire publication, I am not at all worried. There are so many far more interesting things to talk about. And by then it is likely not to be on people's minds too much anymore.
Plus, who knows what still comes between now and then...

[ReneZ]

The proceedings have been published  already:

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Note that it does not include invited talks or talks on the so-called "Exposition Track". That means that the Voynich MS is not discussed in this publication.

The Rohonc codex is, and it is one of the talks that I am looking forward to.

[ReneZ]

In the meantime, Klaus Schmeh has published a first You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .

[ReneZ]

The paper pointed to by Helmut in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a summary of my talk at this event.
This is of course not a scientific publication, and does not have anything that is really new. It represents what I considered interesting and could relate in 30 minutes, in front of a group of people interested in cryptography and with some familiarity with the MS.

With respect to David's questions:

I would like to know more about the assertion

Quote: The clothes worn by the figures in the zodiac are typical for the 1420’s and would be unknown even a few decades later

I believe I gave the source in Koen's thread about finding similar garments in online manuscripts.

I don't remember hearing about the Friedman anagram before, where did he leave it?

This is discussed in detail in the Zimanski paper:
Zimanski, Curt A.: William F. Friedman and the Voynich Manusript. Philological Quarterly, Vol. XLIX, no.4, October 1970.
which is also reprinted in:
Brumbaugh, Robert S. (ed.): The World's Most Mysterious Manuscript - The Voynich "Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978.

It is also mentioned by Bill Sherman in his essay on cryptographic attempts in the Yale photo facsimile.

[ReneZ]

I should add that it was a great pleasure to meet with both Ninja Forum member 'davidsch' and Giuseppe Bianchi.

[Koen G]

I'd add that the images we gathered in that thread confirm the ca. 1420 focal point and the fact that this fashion lasted only a few decades.

About the seller to Rudolph, what was the name you suggested in 2012?

[MarcoP]

With respect to David's questions:

I would like to know more about the assertion

Quote: The clothes worn by the figures in the zodiac are typical for the 1420’s and would be unknown even a few decades later

I believe I gave the source in Koen's thread about finding similar garments in online manuscripts.

Hi Rene,
after a good deal of searching, I found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the "Gemini from wedding imagery" thread.

In an unpublished report, in 2014 a curator of the Morgan library was asked to state an opinion about the costumes in the MS. He stated that this is usually a good indicator, because MS illustrations would represent the actual habits, and not those of more than 20 years in the past (or future  Smile ).

He pointed to 1420, but I don't know on which pages this was based.
The wide sleeves also seen with Virgo seem quite characteristic to me, and I remember a blog entry about this a few years ago.

As an avenue of attack, this seems to be as good as any.

Is this the post you were referring to? Is there any hope that this report will be published at some time?

[ReneZ]

The name I suggested in 2012 is Carl Widemann (with other spellings). The slides of the talk (including all typos) can be seen at academia.edu:
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However, I don't want to make any statement about the direction in which the research has been going, and I can only advise to wait for news. In any case, I also don't know everything about it.

With respect to the expert opinion about the garments in the zodiac section, Marco indeed found the right reference. The internal report was quite informal and I don't think it will every be published. However, all the interesting points in it have already been included in various places, for example the presentation in the Folger library in 2014, the Yale Photo facsimile, my web site, and the bullet points in the paper of Histocrypt 2019.
A more formal description of the clothing analysis will be included in a future publication.
In any case, it has been presented very visually, when perhaps not quite as academically, in Koen's blog / the Gemini thread quoted above.