15-01-2026, 12:42 PM
Some insightful thoughts here. I'll try to add some stuff.
1) Writing the Voynich Manuscript in the 1400s hoping that one day you'll find some rich patron who would buy it would be very risky.
More possible option is that it was ordered by some rich man for him. But if he was rich then why did he accept such a low quality drawings? As I still understand vellum was much more expensive than work hours of the scribe. So if he could afford vellum then why not a better artist???
2) if it was ordered by a wealthy man then in theory he should understand it. I can't imagine a scenario in which someone asks for gibberish to be made for him
So "done on order" option strongly suggests for me that the text is meaningful. Which brings a lot of problems
3) VM had a big lot of luck that it survived. A Medieval text with poor drawings and unreadable text had a big chance to find its final place in some Renaissance dumpster. If there were ever similar manuscripts it could be their fate.
4) people like Georg Baresch or Athanasius Kircher had different mentality than people from Medieval Ages. They belong to early Enlightenment period, their lives overlap with lives of people like Isaac Newton. For them VM was roughly the same as it is for as - relic, antiquity, riddle, treasure, enigma, sphinx which probably wasn't for medieval people
5) I am not sure sure that people expected to find in VM some "big stuff" like recipe for philosopher's stone, ways to communicate with angels or meaning of life. Yes, some people expect it even today but they are "specific" people
A rational man in the past would probably think from the imagery that it is some medicinal book for pregnant woman and nothing more. Or not?
6) If we assume that Rudolph bought it for 600 ducats, then he bought it with other books in a lot.
7) Speaking of Rudolph, I feel that John Dee and Edward Kelley were somehow involved. In the past I considered that it was them who faked it but now I think they were just involved. Karl Widemann who presumably sold the books for 600 ducats/florins to Rudolph was a buddy of Kelley. And I feel it could be Dee and Kelley who suggested Roger Bacon. They were English just like Bacon and it seemed reliable that they were experts in English manuscripts and could find some rare one. In fact they perfectly realized that VM is not English, found it somewhere else and cheated Rudolph assigning it to a famous man for a better price.
Does it make sense?
1) Writing the Voynich Manuscript in the 1400s hoping that one day you'll find some rich patron who would buy it would be very risky.
More possible option is that it was ordered by some rich man for him. But if he was rich then why did he accept such a low quality drawings? As I still understand vellum was much more expensive than work hours of the scribe. So if he could afford vellum then why not a better artist???
2) if it was ordered by a wealthy man then in theory he should understand it. I can't imagine a scenario in which someone asks for gibberish to be made for him
So "done on order" option strongly suggests for me that the text is meaningful. Which brings a lot of problems
3) VM had a big lot of luck that it survived. A Medieval text with poor drawings and unreadable text had a big chance to find its final place in some Renaissance dumpster. If there were ever similar manuscripts it could be their fate.
4) people like Georg Baresch or Athanasius Kircher had different mentality than people from Medieval Ages. They belong to early Enlightenment period, their lives overlap with lives of people like Isaac Newton. For them VM was roughly the same as it is for as - relic, antiquity, riddle, treasure, enigma, sphinx which probably wasn't for medieval people
5) I am not sure sure that people expected to find in VM some "big stuff" like recipe for philosopher's stone, ways to communicate with angels or meaning of life. Yes, some people expect it even today but they are "specific" people
A rational man in the past would probably think from the imagery that it is some medicinal book for pregnant woman and nothing more. Or not?6) If we assume that Rudolph bought it for 600 ducats, then he bought it with other books in a lot.
7) Speaking of Rudolph, I feel that John Dee and Edward Kelley were somehow involved. In the past I considered that it was them who faked it but now I think they were just involved. Karl Widemann who presumably sold the books for 600 ducats/florins to Rudolph was a buddy of Kelley. And I feel it could be Dee and Kelley who suggested Roger Bacon. They were English just like Bacon and it seemed reliable that they were experts in English manuscripts and could find some rare one. In fact they perfectly realized that VM is not English, found it somewhere else and cheated Rudolph assigning it to a famous man for a better price.
Does it make sense?