28-12-2018, 09:10 AM
I really don't want to state any opinion on whether the text in the MS does or does not show features of a humanistic hand, but I can provide some more background information.
As I wrote, this was proposed in 1995 by Sergio Toresella. There was a further explanatory comment about this from Jim Reeds, which I have not yet been able to find. I did not remember the comment in D'Imperio, quoting the paper by Krischer, who got feedback from Rodney Dennis (curator of manuscripts in Houghton Library of the Harvard College library). This was many years earlier.
The opinion of Toresella was highly regarded in the Voynich mailing list for many years, but there were also voices who criticised this, suggesting that the writing looked more like a Caroline script. This specific comment was from Barbera Barrett.
Much more recent opinions have been reported here in this forum.
The problem with all this is that it is almost impossible to judge the real expertise of the various people making the suggestions, and it is also not at all uncommon for people at the highest level of experience to disagree.
Finally, more generally about humanistic writing. This is a special case, since it is not some general evolution of handwriting, but it was a deliberate change introduced by a specific group of people. It therefore came about in a relatively short time frame. One can see how the earliest proponents were still influenced by the Gothic script, and they were also still happy to use the common abbreviations for pro- , -rum , - us etc.
A few decades later, the humanistic handwriting looks different, does not seem to use abbreviations anymore, and became the example for typesetters' fonts. It was used specifically for writings with humanistic contents, and not for writings related to medicine (among others).
On a side note, a number of the books that Voynich acquired from the Jesuits, together with the Voynich MS, are fine examples of humanistic handwriting. They trace back to various humanist libraries, such as those of Mathias Corvinus, king of Hungary, of Marc Antoine Muret and of Alphonse king of Aragon and Naples.
As I wrote, this was proposed in 1995 by Sergio Toresella. There was a further explanatory comment about this from Jim Reeds, which I have not yet been able to find. I did not remember the comment in D'Imperio, quoting the paper by Krischer, who got feedback from Rodney Dennis (curator of manuscripts in Houghton Library of the Harvard College library). This was many years earlier.
The opinion of Toresella was highly regarded in the Voynich mailing list for many years, but there were also voices who criticised this, suggesting that the writing looked more like a Caroline script. This specific comment was from Barbera Barrett.
Much more recent opinions have been reported here in this forum.
The problem with all this is that it is almost impossible to judge the real expertise of the various people making the suggestions, and it is also not at all uncommon for people at the highest level of experience to disagree.
Finally, more generally about humanistic writing. This is a special case, since it is not some general evolution of handwriting, but it was a deliberate change introduced by a specific group of people. It therefore came about in a relatively short time frame. One can see how the earliest proponents were still influenced by the Gothic script, and they were also still happy to use the common abbreviations for pro- , -rum , - us etc.
A few decades later, the humanistic handwriting looks different, does not seem to use abbreviations anymore, and became the example for typesetters' fonts. It was used specifically for writings with humanistic contents, and not for writings related to medicine (among others).
On a side note, a number of the books that Voynich acquired from the Jesuits, together with the Voynich MS, are fine examples of humanistic handwriting. They trace back to various humanist libraries, such as those of Mathias Corvinus, king of Hungary, of Marc Antoine Muret and of Alphonse king of Aragon and Naples.
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