I hope I am posting it in the right forum.
We are used to think about Voynich Manuscript as something valuable, even very valuable.
Emperor Rudolph presumably paid a nice sum for it, possibly beliving it was a lost work of Roger Bacon.
Later Wilfrid Voynich himself believed he will be able to sell it for big money.
But let's take the mainstream view that VM was made in the 1400s. Now imagine some people in the 1400s can see the shiny and new Voynich Manuscript.
Would they consider it valuable? What would the think?
It wouldn't be for them any ancient artifact, antiquity or relic. They would probably realize that it is new.
And they would see bad pictures and the writing impossible to understand.
The cleverest of them would probably know that there are many writing systems in the world. Arabs have their writing, Greeks have another one, Jews yet another one and so on. And somewhere far, far away live people who have black skin, a language impossible to pronounce and possibly yet another writing.
I would say they wouldn't really so excited by unknown writing because it would be quite natural for them that there are strange things that they don't understand.
And if it seemed a work of pagan or a sorcerer, some people possibly would feel a strong desire to burn it
So would anyone be willing to pay a big money for the new VM in the 1400s?
Were there even collectors, as we understand it today, in the 1400s?
I am considering an option of VM being a fake made for selling it to a rich collector but don't I know the reality of 1400s enough to say if it is possible.
How do you think?