Voynich manuscript created by Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici's sons

[bsbanks]

Who could have created the Voynich Manuscript?
Whoever created the VM was well educated in art, languages and most likely music.
The creator would most likely have been wealthy to afford the time required to create the VM and able to afford the vellum and inks.
It's my opinion that the creator was not an adult. The art is not particularly good and the script seems unstructured. I think the creator
was an early teen. 
It's been pretty well accepted that the VM originated in Italy in the 15th century, there is little doubt about that.
The creator was most likely very wealthy. Where does that lead, Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici.
Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici was a wealthy art and manuscript collector. But he was not a teenager. However in the mid 15th century
his two sons were, Piero (1416) and Giovani (1421).
It is reasonable that 2 wealthy, well educated teenage boys that had access to old manuscripts would themselves be tempted to create their own manuscript.
It would also be reasonable to assume that their father being a collector of manuscripts would have in his collection a manuscript written by Roger Bacon and that the boys would have seen that manuscript and have been influenced by it. I know that the Roger Bacon connection
to the VM has been ruled out. I'm not suggesting that Bacon had anything to do with the VM, only that the Medici boys may have been influenced by it.
It's likely that Medici, being a manuscript collector would have access to vellum and inks and would have encouraged his sons in manuscript creation.

I think the two Medici boys formed a secret society (secret societies were all the rage) with perhaps three other well educated teens, a 15th century dead poets society so to speak. This group of teens decided to write a manuscript that tells a story.

What is the story?   
The story is about a star travelling through the heavens. It would seem that the VM s not in order.
The story starts with the introduction of the star families with the astronomical illustrations and the cosmological illustrations.
The next section would be the story of the heavenly bodies giving life, quire 13.
The biological illustrations followed by the history and tales of the main character 8and. 8and is one of the stars named on F68r1 bottom right. F68r1 and F68r2 are clearly star families.

The plants in the biological section are simply fanciful creations that provide art for the manuscript. I doubt that the plants actually have anything to do with the story. 
I believe the reason the plants are completely unidentifiable is because the artist(s) were not good enough to draw actual plants accurately.

The script?
The script is not a language. This is a combination letters and words that represent musical sounds.
The text also acts as mnemonic devices that would remind the orator of key words in the story.
Lisa Fagin Davis has identified that there are five scribes in the VM. Those five scribes are the
authors and were the story tellers.
1. The orator
2. Bells/chimes
3. Lute
4. Whistle/flute
5. Percussion

The words and letters would tell musicians what instrument to be played and the sound.
For example every time 8and appears it might be a certain combination of instruments and tones specific to that word. In some cases where additional letters are found with a word such as o8and
then that might represent the instrument combination with the addition of another instrument.
At that same time something about 8and that would need to be added to the narration.

I think Rene Zandbergen got it right, the VM is a musical transcription. Mr. Zandbergen's analysis is genius. However it may not be that complex. I would add to his analysis that the text also represents mnemonics for the narration.

So the story of 8and is told in poems on vignettes through the biological illustrations and shorter poems are found in quire 20, each separated with a star.

These stories would be told and performed for the Medici court, family, friends etc... 

What happened?
Why didn't the story of the VM, the script, the secret society get told, why did it disappear?
The members of the society grew up and moved on. I suspect that the manuscript was kept by Piero because he, like his father was a collector of manuscripts. He most likely put this on a shelf as a memory of boyhood fancy and forgotten. Then a hundred years later his manuscript collection was passed on and the rest is VM history. 

Conclusion
I think this is a book of stories illustrated, written and performed by five teenagers for amusement.
When they grew older the book was shelved and forgotten. Simply a fanciful book of children's stories.

[Oscroft]

Hi, just a few comments on your basic assumptions...

Whoever created the VM was well educated in art, languages and most likely music.

We can see art and language in the manuscript, but I don't see any real evidence of music.

It's my opinion that the creator was not an adult. The art is not particularly good and the script seems unstructured. I think the creator
was an early teen.

I'm an adult, but my art is no better than the manuscript and my scripting skills are poorer. Most adults at the time probably couldn't even read or write.
 

It's been pretty well accepted that the VM originated in Italy in the 15th century, there is little doubt about that.

 
As far as I can tell, that has not been accepted at all, and there very much is plenty of room for doubt. Just look around the many discussions of possible origins on this forum for a start.

The creator was most likely very wealthy. Where does that lead, Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici.

Was there nobody else very wealthy at the time... or were there many wealthy people?

I don't want to sound discouraging, but if you want people to consider your ideas seriously, I think you need to work on your basic assumptions. Then for further steps, look for actual evidence. And to be honest, all I see here is fanciful imaginings - though that can be fun in itself, so good luck.

[JoJo_Jost]

Dead Poets Society...

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Whoever created the VM was well educated in art, languages and most likely music.

The person who actually wrote the text on vellum was quite probably not the Author (the person who chose the contents, composed the text, and invented the script), but a Scribe recruited by the Author.

This Scribe apparently had some experience with a pen, but probably only for purposes where the handwriting had to be clear but not beautiful -- like letters, accounting logs, petitions, etc.   

We can infer that the Scribe was not used to write books, because he did not score guide lines to get even margins and evenly spaced lines.  And he had zero artistic education: we can see on the Zodiac pages how his drawings of the nymphs progressed from "6-year-old style" to maybe "11-year-old style", and basically stopped there.  

He knew how to use a compass and a straightedge, but could not divide a circle into four equal parts, nor plan space for the text and figures -- so much so that his Herbal pages often have the roots extending all the way to the bottom edge if the page or flowers that extend across the binding fold, his round diagrams often run into the side edges, and in some of his Zodiac pages he had to put the last 4-5 nymphs on top of diagram.

In fact, this Scribe apparently was either not very bright or quite uneducated, because we have found that he copied many illustrations from other manuscripts without understanding some details.  Like turning a rosary or light chain into three linked flower garlands(?), or a urine sample flash into a perfume bottle.

The Author probably knew more than one language, but that is just a guess -- there is nothing in the VMS itself that supports that conclusion.  The "marginal writing" on some pages probably was written by later owners (like most marginal writing on most manuscripts).  If the Zodiac month names are original (which they may not be), they suggest, if anything, that he did not quite know the language that he was trying to write them in.

The creator would most likely have been wealthy to afford the time required to create the VM and able to afford the vellum and inks.

Quite the opposite.  The vellum is of rather poor quality, probably offcuts or rejects that he may have got from other scribes.   

There is evidence that the ink was not the permanent and waterproof iron-gall one that was normally used on vellum, but some improvised formula that came off by rubbing and was washed off by water (or sauce) spills.   

The colored paints were probably applied (rather crudely) by a later owner too, and anyway they do not use any expensive pigments.

All that, together with the unprofessional Scribe, indicates that the Author was not wealthy at all.

It's my opinion that the creator was not an adult. The art is not particularly good and the script seems unstructured. I think the creator was an early teen.

Change "creator" to "scribe", and I will agree.  

The Scribe could well have been the Author's 13-year-old nephew who had learned to use a pen but not much else, and was willing to do the job for candy money.

That would fit his style on the nymphs -- that suggests keen interest on the naked female body, but no real experience with the same...

It's been pretty well accepted that the VM originated in Italy in the 15th century, there is little doubt about that.

Carbon-14 dating indicates that [most of] the vellum was manufactured around 1420, although one of the tested sheets may have been a couple of decades older.  The styles of dresses in the Zodiac are consistent with a date shortly after that.  (Except for the dresses of most nymphs and the absence of fig leaves, that suggest instead a date around Saturday October 30, 4004 BCE.) 

If we have correctly identified the source of some illustrations, the date may be a couple decades later, say 1430-1450.

However, I am not aware of any evidence that puts the creation of the book in Italy.  IIUC, people who have put a lot of work into that question say that the dress styles and the presumed sources of some drawings rather point to an area just north of the Alps, in Switzerland or Germany.

It would also be reasonable to assume that their father being a collector of manuscripts would have in his collection a manuscript written by Roger Bacon and that the boys would have seen that manuscript and have been influenced by it. I know that the Roger Bacon connection to the VM has been ruled out. I'm not suggesting that Bacon had anything to do with the VM, only that the Medici boys may have been influenced by it.

But there is nothing in the VMS that indicates even some remote influence by Roger Bacon.  Rapahel Mnishovsky's claim about Rudolf and "Bacon's book" was probably based on hearsay; and even if Rudolf did buy the VMS thinking it was Bacon's, we know now that he was just mistaken.

The story is about a star travelling through the heavens. It would seem that the VM s not in order.
The story starts with the introduction of the star families with the astronomical illustrations and the cosmological illustrations. ...I doubt that the plants actually have anything to do with the story.

But the Herbal sections take more than half of the book, and the Astro/Cosmo pages are only a dozen or so.

I think Rene Zandbergen got it right, the VM is a musical transcription.

IIUC, that was just an amusing exercise.  Did he really claim or suggest that Voynichese could be a musical notation?  I don't think so.

I think this is a book of stories illustrated, written and performed by five teenagers for amusement.

 
When I first saw the VMS, I thought of that too.  The "Nine Islands" archipelago on the big fold-out resembles the drawings that I did myself as a kid, of the settings for the fantasy stories that my brother and I used to tell each other.  (Sigh. To think of how much smarter kids were before D&D, videogames, and TikTok...)

However, the language is way too consistent, and the images are in fact too boring, for being the product of kid's imagination.  While the Scribe may have been a teenager, the Author surely was an Adult with a good education, who owned several books of the sort that only a scholar would have.

All the best, --stolfi