RE: [split] About knowing the history of Voynich research
R. Sale > 10-04-2020, 01:09 AM
I'm not a real student of this aspect of VMs investigation, I know Voynich wanted to sell it, and that he apparently believed it to be a Roger Bacon manuscript, or just claimed that it was as part of the hype. Unfortunately, I became interested before the hoax theory, otherwise I'd be doing something else.
There is, of course, the physical history of the book itself. It's probably genuine, but possibly fake.
Much early research either went into plant identification or language investigations, and these continue to persist, without reaching beyond their closely defined limitations.
What has happened with the combination of an interested VMs community and improved internet access to illuminated manuscript images, is the potential for matching certain authentic medieval images with specific folios in the VMs. What sort of relationship explains the existence of the similarities and the differences in the comparable representations? But there is more to it than that. Knowing the history of the Voynich involves knowing the traditions of the VMs era - the cosmos, cloud-bands, heraldry in both armorial and ecclesiastical forms, the Agnus Dei, the laws of Deuteronomy, etc. All of which have been carefully manipulated and transformed to remain just inside the bounds of recognition for those also familiar with the same traditions. I believe we are on the right path when rediscovered tradition helps to explain something in the VMs.