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Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
- Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
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RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
Jorge_Stolfi > 03-04-2026, 02:57 PM
(02-04-2026, 07:38 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Missing folios <from voynich.nu>
The following 14 folios are missing from the MS:
Those are the folios that we know are missing because of the folio numbering. But the folio numbers were added after the book was bound.
But we know that the bifolios originally were in a different order.
Which implies that the binding was not done by the Author or with his assistance.
Which makes it rather likely that more bifolios were lost before then...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
Rafal > 07-04-2026, 12:27 PM
I'd like to add some historical research context to "charlatan theory".
I believe the first person who mentioned charlatans in the context of Voynich Manuscript was Sergio Toresella, an expert on medieval herbals, who did it yet in the 1990s.
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Sergio Toresella, an expert on ancient herbals, pointed out that the Voynich manuscript could be an alchemical herbal—which actually had nothing to do with alchemy, but was a bogus herbal with invented pictures, that a quack doctor would carry around just to impress his clients. Apparently there was a small cottage industry of such books somewhere in northern Italy, just at the right epoch. However, those books are quite different from the Voynich manuscript in style and format; and they were all written in plain language.
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Sergio Toresella believes the VMs was written for the purpose of impressing the clients of some charlatan.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to locate any original text by Toresella.
Specifically I couldn't find online his article:
'Gli erbari degli alchimisti.' In Arte farmaceuticae e piante medicinali --erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri,
Liana Saginati, ed. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70.
Does anybody have this or other works of Toresella and would be willing to share them here?
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RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
nablator > 07-04-2026, 01:45 PM
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RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
Stefan Wirtz_2 > 07-04-2026, 03:40 PM
(07-04-2026, 12:27 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..]
'Gli erbari degli alchimisti.' In Arte farmaceuticae e piante medicinali --erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri,
Liana Saginati, ed. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70.
Does anybody have this or other works of Toresella and would be willing to share them here?
I have this book, and posted the re-typed texts some time ago here:
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(of course copyright on it)
He said very few things about the VMS, mostly imaginations and fantasies, without delivering any proof for his assumptions then or later. -
RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
Rafal > 07-04-2026, 07:34 PM
Okay, I was able to read Toresella. And I feel obliged to share my observations
He actually writes very little about Voynich Manuscript, about one page of text. But he indeed says it is probably a kind of charlatan manuscript.
He focuses only on the herbal part of Voynich and assigns it to a bigger groups of so-called "herbals of the alchemists":
It will be good to clarify immediately that the term "Herbal of the Alchemists" refers to a collection of plant illustrations, almost always fantastical, which cannot be traced back to any of the herbals mentioned so far. The name was given by the great Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), who had gathered a certain number of these herbals and bound them together with this label: "Plants of the Alchemists." In the absence of a better definition, I will also use this term.
Actually this stuff was discussed here in 2017. The term seems a bit controversial but I won't go deeper into it:
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If I understand correctly, "Herbal of the alchemists" is a bit wrong name and a misnomer. It should be rather called a "herbal of charlatans" as Toresella says:
But who were these alchemists? References to alchemists in relation to herbals or healing practices are incredibly scarce and vague,especially in the earlier periods, namely the 14th and 15th centuries. Overall, they were assimilated to empirical doctors, wandering herbalists and apothecaries (figure 12), charlatans, elderly women
knowledgeable in herbs, barbers, castrators, "Jewish practitioners," deceivers, and peddlers of miraculous remedies.They were associated with performers and entertainers who crowded the squares of medieval towns and cities. They were even compared to beggars and panhandlers, soothsayers, swindlers, actors, and jugglers. Those who used the herbals of the alchemists plied their trade in the squares, often with extraordinary success, as itinerant healers.
Toresella says that Voynich Manuscript is a herbal of alchemists but doesn't argue much for that. In his paper it is a herbal of alchemists just because the plants seem fantastical:
Among the herbals of the alchemists, we must also include the one contained in the Voynich manuscript. It is the strangest, most mysterious, and enigmatic herbal
known because it is written in a coded language that has resisted the attacks of the most powerful American electronic processors.
The important thing for me is that he confirms that charlatans owned and used manuscripts:
However, a good number of these herbals are clearly the working tools of a quack doctor from the fair who probably sold his remedies and art by presenting them with a written and illustrated text that left the educated public and the illustrious assembly astounded.
(...)
We will present a very interesting case that can demonstrate how an herbal might have originated. Around 1230, during the reign of Frederick II of Swabia,
two copies were made of a beautiful Byzantine herbal from Pseudo-Apuleius, probably dating back to the 6th century. One of these copies reached Florence,
perhaps in the early 15th century, where it served as inspiration for a new copy, with a distinctly 15th-century taste. A client of the same writing workshop,
a charlatan named Master Ghino, wanted his herbal to have the same figure on the frontispiece as the Pseudo-Apuleius herbal. Additionally, he decided,
on his own initiative, to depict himself grandly, on horseback, holding a herb in his hand, in the same pose as the 15th-century codex depicts the doctor entering the city -
RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
Rafal > 07-04-2026, 07:44 PM
And here is the page from Master Ghino charlatan manuscript together with some Voynich pages.
(the quality of image reproductions in Toresella article is at the level of an underground punk zine from the 1980s
)
As I said the important thing for me in his article is the claim that charlatans owned and used illustrated manuscripts and even ordered them at workshops. They were apparently affordable for them.
Would you people agree with such claim? -
RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
MarcoP > 07-04-2026, 08:50 PM
Personally, I find the subject interesting but I think Toresella’s arguments are rather thin.
By “charlatans” I understand we mean people who deliberately lie e.g. by claiming they have knowledge that they lack. Something that we know that actually happened was that fake medical ingredients were sold, e.g. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
”Minta Collins” Wrote:It is interesting to note that in the Liber Augustalis of Frederick II, compiled at Melfi in 1231, legislation not only limited the number of pharmacists allowed to practise but stipulated that the making of medicines had to be by two pharmacists controlled by masters of medicine. Doctors were not permitted to sell medicines, and all doctors had to swear to denounce ill-practices among the pharmacists. The text of the “Tractatus de herbis” pays special attention to substitutes and counterfeit products and how to recognise them.
So medical frauds were a thing.
Other aspects are less clear.
The herbal of Master Ghino (Florence Redi 165) is not available online. I think a facsimile has been published, but I haven’t seen it. The manuscript appears to be a legitimate herbal, like many others, maybe with above average artistic quality. Years ago I transcribed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that I found reproduced in a book.
I don’t know what elements we have to support the idea that the manuscript was made for Ghino. Does the name appear in the professionally written text or in the clumsy addition discussed by Toresella? The drawing and text that were added at the beginning of the manuscript certainly are of very poor quality, but I am not sure that this is enough to conclude that Ghino was a charlatan.
What is currently known as the “Alchemical Herbal” is a well defined text made of 98 plants with consistent illustrations and descriptions. The plants are often unrecognizable and the text contains many magical elements. Copies of the Alchemical Herbal are typically bound together with plants from the solidly scientific (for medieval standards) “Tractatus de Herbis” tradition. It’s difficult for us to understand how the “Alchemical Herbal” was used, but I am not sure that a proper physician from a medieval university would have entirely rejected any form of magic. So, again, I am far from sure that these manuscripts are connected with charlatans (meaning deliberate frauds). -
RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
Rafal > 07-04-2026, 09:46 PM
Thanks for the clarification, Marco.
So, if I understand correctly, the whole idea of "alchemist manuscript" which is supposed to be actually charlatan manuscript is controversial.
And Master Ghino being a charlatan is controversial too.
By the way, here are more pictures from Master Ghino: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
For me it looks like any good quality herbal manuscript. But well, I'm not the best man to judge it
I suppose we are coming to the problem I have already briefly mentioned before.
There is a very thin line between a legitimate medieval doctor and a charlatan. Were people like Paracelsus doctors or charlatans?
I would give some rules of the thumb:
- a doctor had some diploma or belonged to a guild while charlatan didn't
- a doctor had stationary practice while charlatan travelled a lot to avoid angry clients
Ghino is portrayed as travelling man which would fit charlatan stereotype. But there may be more to it. -
RE: Voynich Manuscript as a charlatan's prop
nablator > 08-04-2026, 01:17 PM
(07-04-2026, 09:46 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is a very thin line between a legitimate medieval doctor and a charlatan. Were people like Paracelsus doctors or charlatans?
The books by the Paracelsian Bartholomäus Carrichter (1510–1574), the Practica (which was published posthumously in 1575) and two books combining astrology and medicine, were frequently reprinted: Kräuterbuch (1575) and Von der Heilung zauberischer Schäden (1608).
According to a contemporary named Jean Crato, he was nothing more than an "uneducated charlatan" whose ignorance caused the death of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I.
Source (in French): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.