I was recently contacted by phd student Gerard Cheshire, who wrote a paper proposing an Italian language solution for the VM. Even though somewhat strangely there's no reference to the MS in the title.

The paper can be dowloaded here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I haven't had time to look at it yet but will comment later.

Next Friday, November 10th, in Burgos, Siloe will present its facsimile of the VMS. Stephen Bax and Rene Zandbergen will take part to the event.

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This is a continuation snipped from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I was wondering if a more accurate dating for Voynich’s catalogue #31 would be possible.
R. Prinke on the VMS ML archive names a rather rough timeframe of 1903-1915. X. Ceccaldi on the same list says “after 1915”. Anthony (surname avoided) states “after 1911”, etc.

Of course this probably more has to do with the “spy” activities of the Voynichs, which stopped sometimes before or during WWI.
But what would an agency do for the Voynichs? It sounds like a headquarter but maybe not like a stash of bookes at display.

It seems peculiar that the word “agency” is printed in italics on the catalogue cover, yet the address is reproduced slightly wrong: Correct would be “Peter-Jordan-Straße” instead of “Gasse”. It was named like this by the senate in 1904. Also, the house n° 27 happens to be in the 19th district, as the street now spans two districts, but it was built to this length only after 1909.

A.S. Levetus must be Amelia Sarah Levetus, a very interesting figure. She was an art historian and one of the first women to lecture on economics at the viennese university, etc. Essentially, what she did in house °27 was to run a language school, “She owned and taught at an English language school where she also organised a conversation club, the John Ruskin Club, which boasted a diverse programme of events and guest lectures on British history, culture and politics and offered trips to the UK”.

If you are interested, let’s try and add some pieces to the puzzle.

In a moment of madness I started double checking the numbers mentioned in this poll: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Of course, all the numbers seemed correct.
However, a number of these stars appears to have a washed out circle in the middle, so I'd like to discuss that, as well as the fact that many of the unpainted ones also have a dot off-centre.

An example of the washed out circles in the centres (f103r) - see it? I don't remember any discussion being made of this before


There's also the fact that a number of stars have dots in the centre of them (f103r again)


Any thoughts on why this might be? Is it a failed ink that has faded over time?

I met the statements of the MB researchers on not correctness of the transcription of sh "bench" with an apostrophe. I also have a doubt.
Let's start the discussion on the left side of the bench (S).
 Along with the ordinary symbol "c + '  ", there is an elongated form, with the help of the horizontal bar, "c-". Figures 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. (6, 8, 10 are examples of the same words, but with the usual S). And in some cases, the line is intentionally painted fatter than the apostrophe, that there is a difference in comparison with "S". The most interesting is Figure 13, since here this ligature is used as a line label, and the crossbar can not be qualified as a connecting line.
There are two cases of writing a dash (crossbar) together with an apostrophe issuing from the right end of the crossbar, but without the initial "e" symbol. Fig. 16 and 17.
It follows that such a long version of the left side of the bench can not be transcribed as S.
There are a large number of benches in which the "i" symbol is used as the left foot. There are cases when such benches are written together with an apostrophe. Fig. 1-4. How can they be transcribed? There are 3 options.
 1 / r + h by analogy with sh, when the left leg is  -"e".
2 / i + h + '       h with an apostrophe.
3 / The apostrophe belongs to the crossbar. This is the code 164 V101
Fig. 18, 19 as a line label and very similar to the presence of this code in the text - Fig. 20.
 
I'm a supporter of the third option. Perhaps the ligatures in examples 16-20 are equivalent.
   
To be continued. YOUR CONSIDERATIONS?
 

At the top of the right margin of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there is a peculiar column of six characters (possibly s l l o r s). They only partially align with the text (in particular, the characters are six, but they only span five lines).
Have you seen similar things in the VMS or in other manuscripts?

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Looking at the "strange thing" on folio 116v, I wonder if maybe an oven is shown. The side view of an oven is illustrated in the Washington Haggadah ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  ). Matzo is baked, a bread made from unleavened dough. Eating this bread, as well as eating  an "immaculate" lamb all up, is part of the Passover Seder in Judaism ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , Yehuda, Rothschild Haggadah, Northern Italy, c. 1450 ).

In the Christian tradition it was ( and still is ) customary to make different bakery products at Easter, but there is no fixed recipe. Accordingly diverse are these products. In German-speaking regions for example, there are many regional (early modern high German) names for this (ger.) "Gebildbrot": greding, gredmich, gredman or gredling....

Easter lambs were still slaughtered in the late Middle Ages, but mostly in the Greek Orthodox Tradition. - Illustrations of the Bible also show the preparation of a lamb ( see image no. 3, Historien Bibel, Germany, between 1375 and 1400, MS M.268, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  ). These ovens have no similarity to "the thing" on f116v.



Edit: The man on image no. 2 has a prominent goiter caused by iodine deficiency. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  is an explanation ( Kohn, Rachael,  The Washington Haggadah by Joel ben Simeon: a Fifteenth Century Manuscript from the Library of Congress, The Australian Journal of Jewish Studies,  January 1, 2012 ).

Quote:... in the late 1990s when this rather silly 'central European' storyline was first produced ...

Quote:8. Cipher ms. Vel. (date uncertain, authorities hesitate between the XIIIth and XVth c.; we suppose it to be not much older than 1500),
[...skipped...]
The country of origin seems to be some part of Central Europe.
[...skipped...]
It was later in the Collegio Romano, in Rome,
[...lots skipped...]

There are 129 full-page plant illustration pages, aka Large Plant pages) in the Voynich Manuscript.

These are as follows:
Quire 1-7:
on f1v-56v (109 illustrations, f12 is missing)
Quire 8:
on 57r, 65r & v, 66v (4 illustrations)
Quire 15:
on 87r & v; 90r1, r2, v1, v2 (6 illustrations)
Quire 17:
on 93r-96v (10 illustrations)

Among these, there are a few instances where two plants are depicted on a single page.
These are:
f27r, f40v, f42r, f43v, f87v.
There is also the ambiguous f35v, which could be two plants, or one.
Another way of looking at this total then, is to say there are 134 large plants depicted in the Voynich Manuscript (or 135 if we count You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as two plants).
But it is unclear to me whether some of these pages that show two plants are meant to depict two stages of growth of the same plant or two distinct plants.