1 hour ago
New missing piece: Córdoba?
While researching the “primer analogy”, looking more closely into Bessarion, and following historical references in the Voynich forum, I came across Fernando de Córdoba almost by accident.
Core idea
Fernando de Córdoba's De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis may provide a historical comparison to the structure of the Voynich Manuscript that has so far received surprisingly little attention.
This is explicitly not an attempt to declare Córdoba the author of the Voynich Manuscript, nor to claim that his work provides a direct key to Voynich.
The more interesting question is whether the general, multi-layered and combinatorial method described by Fernando shows functional similarities to structures that are already known in the Voynich Manuscript or are currently being investigated.
Facts about Fernando de Córdoba's De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis and the structure of the Voynich Manuscript
According to Fernando's own account, Bessarion explicitly instructed him to interrupt his ongoing study of Plato and Aristotle and work instead on the De artificio.
The work was dedicated to Bessarion in 1468/69. The exact date of Bessarion's original request is unknown.
→ Could Bessarion at this point already have had an idea related to “Voynich”, or even had access to an already existing Voynich Manuscript?
Highly hypothetical.
Fernando describes his goal as a:
Its basic idea can roughly be described as:
The basic system
Córdoba distinguishes, among other things, 25 transcendental determinations:
perfection, quantity, possibility/power, duration, rest, force, inclination, being or non-being, mediation, limit, principle, degree, order, unity, number, positive, privative, habit, measure, and so on.
From these, theoretically:
25 × 25 = 625 possible combinations
can be produced.
In addition, there are 31 absolute perfections.
These are organised using basic distinctions such as:
absolute / relative
substance / accident
real / rational
simply / in a certain respect
act / potency
simple / composite
necessary / contingent
infinite / finite
independent / dependent
positive / negative
identical / different
If there is any relation to the Voynich Manuscript, its own system could of course contain a completely different number of such “categories”.
The numbers 25 and 31 are therefore not meant to be transferred directly to Voynich. They belong first and foremost to Córdoba's own system.
Llull, Scotus and Aristotle
According to Rafael Ramis Barceló, the work is not simply inspired by Lullism, but represents a strong connection between Llull and Scotism.
Scotus is one of the most prominent scholastic authors in the work. The Scotists are even the most frequently mentioned philosophical school.
In simplified terms, one could say:
Llull mainly provides the idea of the method.
Scotus provides a large part of its philosophical fine structure.
Aristotle is also an important basis for the logical and demonstrative structure.
One important difference from Llull himself is that Córdoba's system does not necessarily require combinatorial wheels.
Combination is not abandoned. It is transformed and integrated more strongly into a logical, scholastic system of investigation and demonstration.
Antecedent, consequence and relationships
In the second book, Fernando develops rules for:
antecedent, consequence, agreement, difference, opposition and relationships between concepts.
Bonilla counts, among other things, 85 possible rules of comparison.
Fernando is strongly influenced here by Aristotle, particularly the Topics and the syllogistic tradition:
premise → conclusion
Combination is therefore not removed; it is made logically traceable.
One might say that:
In a sense, this allows one to move through a space of relationships.
The principle is not:
A + B + C = secret meaning
but rather:
A has relation R to B.
B includes C.
C contradicts D.
D belongs to class E.
This produces a rule-governed catalogue of concepts — obviously not in our modern mathematical terminology, but functionally similar.
This particular point may be considerably more interesting for Voynich than the search for a simple, classical cipher.
A small basic inventory can generate an enormous space of possibilities
Fernando himself makes some remarkable claims.
By combining transcendental concepts + related concepts + subordinate concepts + question forms + rules, he says that an enormous number of possible arguments can be generated for a single question.
At one point, he speaks of more than 60,000 possible lines of argument.
This does not mean that a medieval scholar would have had to write out 60,000 possibilities.
It simply means:
A system based on such procedures could outwardly generate a very large number of different “words” or combinations even if the underlying grammar consisted of relatively few elements.
This is obviously not evidence that Voynich works this way.
But it does provide a historical mechanism that makes this general type of behaviour understandable.
From universal concepts to concrete things
It becomes even more interesting when Fernando moves from universal concepts toward more concrete things.
He begins with general categories and then moves increasingly toward specific classes.
The surviving description includes, among other things:
the heavens, elements, seas, rivers, mountains, winds, stones, fish, animals, birds, etc.
This suggests that the “universal Ars” was not intended simply as philosophy reflecting on itself.
It was meant to be applied to real domains of knowledge and objects in nature.
The basic scheme would therefore look roughly like this:
This comes surprisingly close to a formal system for organising knowledge.
The ten questions
In the third part, Fernando shows how one is supposed to find all possible questions relating to a given object.
To do this, the ten types of questions are combined with the different levels of concepts and categories.
For example:
and then the same procedure is repeated with subclasses and properties.
The system therefore does not merely generate answers.
It first generates the space of possible questions.
As a theoretical idea, this is extremely important.
Fernando is attempting to formalise the process of scientific investigation itself.
The later parts of the system
The final parts are shorter or less completely developed.
Fernando attempts to establish:
This gives the whole work an almost algorithmic form.
Not an algorithm in the modern mathematical sense, but a rule-based workflow.
The problem of the missing Practica
This leads to one of the most interesting problems in the transmission of the work.
Fernando repeatedly refers to a “Practica” or “Exercitatio”, in which the application of the Artificium was apparently supposed to be demonstrated in practice.
He even states that certain things would be explained there by means of examples or viva voce — orally.
This practical elaboration has not survived.
Whether it was ever fully developed as a separate work cannot currently be established with certainty.
Bonilla explicitly points out in his edition that Fernando repeatedly refers to this Practica or Exercitatio. No separate, completely preserved practical work is known.
This means:
We should therefore not make the mistake of claiming that Voynich is Fernando's lost Practica.
There is absolutely no evidence for that.
What we can say is:
The early Bessarion copy in the Marciana
The important early Bessarion copy of the De artificio is now held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana:
Marc. Lat. Z. 481 (=1915), fols. 4r–88v.
It contains Bessarion's ex libris and his coat of arms.
At present, I have not found a freely accessible complete online viewer for this codex.
It is therefore currently not possible to check directly whether this early copy contains, besides text, initials and decoration, any schematic, tabular or other visual forms of organisation.
A direct examination of this manuscript would therefore be particularly interesting for the Voynich comparison.
And Plato?
This is where Bessarion becomes important.
As mentioned earlier, according to Fernando's own account, Bessarion caused him to interrupt his work on Plato and Aristotle and instead write the De artificio.
This fits remarkably well with Bessarion's intellectual environment and with the way in which, between Byzantine traditions influenced by Aristotle, Plato and Plethon, he did not simply want to discard Aristotle and replace him with Plato.
The aim was to compare knowledge and, where possible, to “reconcile” it.
Technically, however, Fernando is by no means simply a Platonist in the De artificio.
Bonilla already emphasised in 1911 that the actual work was much more strongly shaped by Aristotle, Scotus and Llull than by Plato.
Monfasani's later research has tended to confirm rather than contradict this impression.
One could therefore say:
And what about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r?
The unusual pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. had already been connected with one another long before this Córdoba comparison.
Their possible relationship should therefore not be attributed to Fernando.
Whether these pages actually represent parts of a general rule system or application system must be tested independently of the historical comparison.
Córdoba does not provide a key to them.
For this reason, a statistical investigation of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is being carried out deliberately separately from the historical Córdoba hypothesis.
The results and the methods used in those tests will be presented in a separate post.
This should make it possible to examine later whether the statistically observed structures actually fit such a historical comparison, without mixing the two approaches from the outset.
What possibilities arise from the relationship between Voynich, Bessarion and Córdoba?
The following examples are explicitly speculative.
They are intended to illustrate possible historical directions, not to prove any of them.
Possibility A: A common origin
The similarity between Voynich and Córdoba's work could represent a kind of family resemblance.
They would not necessarily have to know one another.
Both could have a common origin and represent different developments within a reform of the Lullian tradition.
Possibility B: Only a historical comparison
Voynich and the De artificio may have no direct genealogical connection at all.
Córdoba could still be relevant because his work demonstrates that a comparable type of method was historically real in the fifteenth century.
This would be the most cautious possibility.
Possibility C: Voynich influences Bessarion
Bessarion gains access to the Voynich Manuscript.
He is able to understand its content and therefore encourages Córdoba to “create” a universal language or universal method influenced by Llull.
Possibility D: Bessarion cannot understand Voynich
Bessarion gains access to the Voynich Manuscript.
He cannot understand its content, but while investigating it he develops the idea of creating a universal system or universal language.
Córdoba is subsequently encouraged to pursue this idea.
Possibility E: Voynich is created within Bessarion's circle
Bessarion himself, or a Bessarion circle, creates Voynich.
As a basis, he — or the circle — uses the De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis in order to apply its own script as a universal language in practice.
Possibility F: Voynich as the practical application
Voynich represents the missing practical part of the work of De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis.
Again:
There is currently no direct evidence for this.
The chronological problem with E and F
The parchment was radiocarbon-dated to 1404–1438.
This establishes the production date of the parchment, but does not necessarily date the writing itself to the same period.
However:
A “Bessarion circle”, meaning a close group of people within his network, could also potentially have written Voynich collectively — purely hypothetically.
However, the chronological factor remains an important obstacle to this possibility.
Additional thoughts
Why might Córdoba have been overlooked until now?
Could the inaccurately transmitted hare story — historically documented differently from the way it was presented in the forum in connection with Cusanus — be one reason why Cusanus / Nicholas of Cusa was investigated, while Córdoba remained largely overlooked?
Is Bessarion the pivotal figure?
His network, his history, his motives and his opportunities could explain a great deal.
Even without factual evidence, Bessarion remains a possible and fascinating candidate in the history of the origin and development of the Voynich Manuscript.
Sources
Fernando de Córdoba and the De artificio
Adolfo Bonilla y San Martín, Fernando de Córdoba (¿1425–1486?) y los orígenes del Renacimiento filosófico en España. Episodio de la historia de la lógica. Madrid: Victoriano Suárez, 1911.
This remains one of the most important sources for the De artificio. It contains extensive discussion and textual material relating to the 25 transcendental determinations, the 625 combinations, the 31 absolute perfections, the rules of comparison, the claim of more than 60,000 possible arguments, and Fernando's references to a Practica and Exercitatio.
Rafael Ramis Barceló, “Fernando de Córdoba y el lulismo del siglo XV,” Mediaevalia. Textos e estudos 34 (2015), pp. 127–144. DOI: 10.21747/21836884/med34a8.
Particularly important for the modern reassessment of Fernando as a syncretic rather than simply anti-Lullian thinker, the connection between Lullism and Scotism, and the interpretation of the De artificio as an attempt to construct a general method for all sciences.
John Monfasani, Fernando of Cordova: A Biographical and Intellectual Profile. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 82, part 6. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1992.
The major modern biographical and intellectual study of Fernando, including his relationship with Cardinal Bessarion and the wider intellectual context of his works.
Bessarion and the Marciana manuscript
John Monfasani, Bessarion Scholasticus: A Study of Cardinal Bessarion's Latin Library. Byzantios: Studies in Byzantine History and Civilization 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.
Important for Bessarion's Latin and scholastic library, his intellectual circle and the manuscript tradition associated with his collection, including Marc. Lat. Z. 481 (=1915).
Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, Marc. Lat. Z. 481 (=1915), fols. 4r–88v.
Early manuscript witness of Fernando de Córdoba's De artificio associated with Bessarion.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Bessarion.”
Useful as a modern overview of Bessarion's relationship to Platonism, Aristotelianism, scholasticism and the Plato–Aristotle controversy.
Llull and fifteenth-century Lullism
Ramon Llull Database, Universitat de Barcelona.
Bibliographical resource for Ramon Llull, Lullism and the transmission and transformation of Lullian thought.
Rafael Ramis Barceló, “Fernando de Córdoba y el lulismo del siglo XV,” Mediaevalia 34 (2015), pp. 127–144.
Especially relevant for Fernando's position within fifteenth-century Lullism and Scoto-Lullism.
Voynich: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r
Minutes of the Teddington Voynich Meeting, 1998.
Important because the possible relationship between You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was already explicitly discussed there. The participants noted the rare word dairal, unusual sequences on both pages, and the possible significance of 17 elements on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. versus 34 on f66r.
The statistical investigation referred to in this post is separate from the Córdoba hypothesis and will be presented independently.
Voynich dating
University of Arizona radiocarbon analysis of Beinecke MS 408, carried out in 2009.
Four parchment samples were tested. The commonly cited combined result places the parchment in the 1404–1438 range with approximately 95% probability.
The important limitation is that radiocarbon dating dates the parchment support, not the act of writing on it.
René Zandbergen, “Radio-carbon dating of the Voynich MS,” Voynich.nu.
Detailed documentation of the Arizona measurements, calibration and surviving internal report.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, Beinecke MS 408.
Repository and manuscript record for the Voynich Manuscript.
Earlier Voynich discussion
Voynich Ninja, “A Cusanus Ladin Hypothesis” discussion, 2022.
Relevant to the earlier discussion involving Cusanus, Llull and Bessarion, including the transmission of the so-called hare/hunting anecdote.
This forum discussion should be distinguished from the primary and scholarly sources listed above.
Note: This post was originally written in German. The English translation was produced with AI assistance. AI was also used to optimise paragraph structure and visual readability. The underlying arguments, hypotheses, source selection and conclusions are my own.
While researching the “primer analogy”, looking more closely into Bessarion, and following historical references in the Voynich forum, I came across Fernando de Córdoba almost by accident.
Core idea
Fernando de Córdoba's De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis may provide a historical comparison to the structure of the Voynich Manuscript that has so far received surprisingly little attention.
This is explicitly not an attempt to declare Córdoba the author of the Voynich Manuscript, nor to claim that his work provides a direct key to Voynich.
The more interesting question is whether the general, multi-layered and combinatorial method described by Fernando shows functional similarities to structures that are already known in the Voynich Manuscript or are currently being investigated.
Facts about Fernando de Córdoba's De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis and the structure of the Voynich Manuscript
According to Fernando's own account, Bessarion explicitly instructed him to interrupt his ongoing study of Plato and Aristotle and work instead on the De artificio.
The work was dedicated to Bessarion in 1468/69. The exact date of Bessarion's original request is unknown.
→ Could Bessarion at this point already have had an idea related to “Voynich”, or even had access to an already existing Voynich Manuscript?
Highly hypothetical.
Fernando describes his goal as a:
Quote:“unica et indivisibilis ars”In other words, a single and indivisible method.
Its basic idea can roughly be described as:
Quote:“I am developing a method by which the possible questions, concepts, relationships, proofs and conclusions relating to any field of knowledge can be generated systematically.”So the aim is not simply to collect existing knowledge, but to create a systematic procedure or rule-based method through which knowledge can be investigated and generated.
The basic system
Córdoba distinguishes, among other things, 25 transcendental determinations:
perfection, quantity, possibility/power, duration, rest, force, inclination, being or non-being, mediation, limit, principle, degree, order, unity, number, positive, privative, habit, measure, and so on.
From these, theoretically:
25 × 25 = 625 possible combinations
can be produced.
In addition, there are 31 absolute perfections.
These are organised using basic distinctions such as:
absolute / relative
substance / accident
real / rational
simply / in a certain respect
act / potency
simple / composite
necessary / contingent
infinite / finite
independent / dependent
positive / negative
identical / different
If there is any relation to the Voynich Manuscript, its own system could of course contain a completely different number of such “categories”.
The numbers 25 and 31 are therefore not meant to be transferred directly to Voynich. They belong first and foremost to Córdoba's own system.
Llull, Scotus and Aristotle
According to Rafael Ramis Barceló, the work is not simply inspired by Lullism, but represents a strong connection between Llull and Scotism.
Scotus is one of the most prominent scholastic authors in the work. The Scotists are even the most frequently mentioned philosophical school.
In simplified terms, one could say:
Llull mainly provides the idea of the method.
Scotus provides a large part of its philosophical fine structure.
Aristotle is also an important basis for the logical and demonstrative structure.
One important difference from Llull himself is that Córdoba's system does not necessarily require combinatorial wheels.
Combination is not abandoned. It is transformed and integrated more strongly into a logical, scholastic system of investigation and demonstration.
Antecedent, consequence and relationships
In the second book, Fernando develops rules for:
antecedent, consequence, agreement, difference, opposition and relationships between concepts.
Bonilla counts, among other things, 85 possible rules of comparison.
Fernando is strongly influenced here by Aristotle, particularly the Topics and the syllogistic tradition:
premise → conclusion
Combination is therefore not removed; it is made logically traceable.
One might say that:
Quote:Fernando turns the Lullian combinatorial machine more strongly into a scholastic search and demonstration machine based on Aristotelian philosophy.Fernando also describes a procedure by which one can move from concepts to their consequences, antecedents, opposites and so on.
In a sense, this allows one to move through a space of relationships.
The principle is not:
A + B + C = secret meaning
but rather:
A has relation R to B.
B includes C.
C contradicts D.
D belongs to class E.
This produces a rule-governed catalogue of concepts — obviously not in our modern mathematical terminology, but functionally similar.
This particular point may be considerably more interesting for Voynich than the search for a simple, classical cipher.
A small basic inventory can generate an enormous space of possibilities
Fernando himself makes some remarkable claims.
By combining transcendental concepts + related concepts + subordinate concepts + question forms + rules, he says that an enormous number of possible arguments can be generated for a single question.
At one point, he speaks of more than 60,000 possible lines of argument.
This does not mean that a medieval scholar would have had to write out 60,000 possibilities.
It simply means:
Quote:A small, finite inventory of rules and basic elements can create a very large space of possible states.And this is structurally important.
A system based on such procedures could outwardly generate a very large number of different “words” or combinations even if the underlying grammar consisted of relatively few elements.
This is obviously not evidence that Voynich works this way.
But it does provide a historical mechanism that makes this general type of behaviour understandable.
From universal concepts to concrete things
It becomes even more interesting when Fernando moves from universal concepts toward more concrete things.
He begins with general categories and then moves increasingly toward specific classes.
The surviving description includes, among other things:
the heavens, elements, seas, rivers, mountains, winds, stones, fish, animals, birds, etc.
This suggests that the “universal Ars” was not intended simply as philosophy reflecting on itself.
It was meant to be applied to real domains of knowledge and objects in nature.
The basic scheme would therefore look roughly like this:
Code:
universal operators
→ general categories
→ field of knowledge
→ concrete class of objects
→ concrete object
→ questions
→ relationships
→ possible conclusionsThe ten questions
In the third part, Fernando shows how one is supposed to find all possible questions relating to a given object.
To do this, the ten types of questions are combined with the different levels of concepts and categories.
For example:
Code:
quid + plant
quare + plant
quantum + plant
ubi + plant
cum quo + plantThe system therefore does not merely generate answers.
It first generates the space of possible questions.
As a theoretical idea, this is extremely important.
Fernando is attempting to formalise the process of scientific investigation itself.
The later parts of the system
The final parts are shorter or less completely developed.
Fernando attempts to establish:
-
[]how the objects belonging to a science can be derived from the subject of that science,[]how possible conclusions can then be produced,
- and how tracing the antecedents backwards can eventually lead to the first principles of that science.
Code:
object → properties → relationships → questions → propositions → consequences → first principlesNot an algorithm in the modern mathematical sense, but a rule-based workflow.
The problem of the missing Practica
This leads to one of the most interesting problems in the transmission of the work.
Fernando repeatedly refers to a “Practica” or “Exercitatio”, in which the application of the Artificium was apparently supposed to be demonstrated in practice.
He even states that certain things would be explained there by means of examples or viva voce — orally.
This practical elaboration has not survived.
Whether it was ever fully developed as a separate work cannot currently be established with certainty.
Bonilla explicitly points out in his edition that Fernando repeatedly refers to this Practica or Exercitatio. No separate, completely preserved practical work is known.
This means:
Quote:We largely possess the rulebook, but apparently not the complete exercise or application book.For Voynich, this gap is methodologically important.
We should therefore not make the mistake of claiming that Voynich is Fernando's lost Practica.
There is absolutely no evidence for that.
What we can say is:
Quote:At present, we do not know what a practically applied Cordoban system would have looked like on the page.And for that reason, we should not automatically expect its practical application to resemble a theoretical Latin treatise.
The early Bessarion copy in the Marciana
The important early Bessarion copy of the De artificio is now held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana:
Marc. Lat. Z. 481 (=1915), fols. 4r–88v.
It contains Bessarion's ex libris and his coat of arms.
At present, I have not found a freely accessible complete online viewer for this codex.
It is therefore currently not possible to check directly whether this early copy contains, besides text, initials and decoration, any schematic, tabular or other visual forms of organisation.
A direct examination of this manuscript would therefore be particularly interesting for the Voynich comparison.
And Plato?
This is where Bessarion becomes important.
As mentioned earlier, according to Fernando's own account, Bessarion caused him to interrupt his work on Plato and Aristotle and instead write the De artificio.
This fits remarkably well with Bessarion's intellectual environment and with the way in which, between Byzantine traditions influenced by Aristotle, Plato and Plethon, he did not simply want to discard Aristotle and replace him with Plato.
The aim was to compare knowledge and, where possible, to “reconcile” it.
Technically, however, Fernando is by no means simply a Platonist in the De artificio.
Bonilla already emphasised in 1911 that the actual work was much more strongly shaped by Aristotle, Scotus and Llull than by Plato.
Monfasani's later research has tended to confirm rather than contradict this impression.
One could therefore say:
Quote:The broader goal shows a Platonic tendency toward the unity of knowledge.
The machinery underneath is predominantly influenced by Aristotle, Scotus and Llull.
And what about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r?
The unusual pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. had already been connected with one another long before this Córdoba comparison.
Their possible relationship should therefore not be attributed to Fernando.
Whether these pages actually represent parts of a general rule system or application system must be tested independently of the historical comparison.
Córdoba does not provide a key to them.
For this reason, a statistical investigation of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is being carried out deliberately separately from the historical Córdoba hypothesis.
The results and the methods used in those tests will be presented in a separate post.
This should make it possible to examine later whether the statistically observed structures actually fit such a historical comparison, without mixing the two approaches from the outset.
What possibilities arise from the relationship between Voynich, Bessarion and Córdoba?
The following examples are explicitly speculative.
They are intended to illustrate possible historical directions, not to prove any of them.
Possibility A: A common origin
The similarity between Voynich and Córdoba's work could represent a kind of family resemblance.
They would not necessarily have to know one another.
Both could have a common origin and represent different developments within a reform of the Lullian tradition.
Possibility B: Only a historical comparison
Voynich and the De artificio may have no direct genealogical connection at all.
Córdoba could still be relevant because his work demonstrates that a comparable type of method was historically real in the fifteenth century.
This would be the most cautious possibility.
Possibility C: Voynich influences Bessarion
Bessarion gains access to the Voynich Manuscript.
He is able to understand its content and therefore encourages Córdoba to “create” a universal language or universal method influenced by Llull.
Possibility D: Bessarion cannot understand Voynich
Bessarion gains access to the Voynich Manuscript.
He cannot understand its content, but while investigating it he develops the idea of creating a universal system or universal language.
Córdoba is subsequently encouraged to pursue this idea.
Possibility E: Voynich is created within Bessarion's circle
Bessarion himself, or a Bessarion circle, creates Voynich.
As a basis, he — or the circle — uses the De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis in order to apply its own script as a universal language in practice.
Possibility F: Voynich as the practical application
Voynich represents the missing practical part of the work of De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis.
Again:
There is currently no direct evidence for this.
The chronological problem with E and F
The parchment was radiocarbon-dated to 1404–1438.
This establishes the production date of the parchment, but does not necessarily date the writing itself to the same period.
However:
Quote:A substantially later inscription would in principle be possible, but would have to be demonstrated independently.Since Córdoba's work was completed in 1468/69, Possibilities E and F create a substantial chronological conflict.
A “Bessarion circle”, meaning a close group of people within his network, could also potentially have written Voynich collectively — purely hypothetically.
However, the chronological factor remains an important obstacle to this possibility.
Additional thoughts
Why might Córdoba have been overlooked until now?
Could the inaccurately transmitted hare story — historically documented differently from the way it was presented in the forum in connection with Cusanus — be one reason why Cusanus / Nicholas of Cusa was investigated, while Córdoba remained largely overlooked?
Is Bessarion the pivotal figure?
His network, his history, his motives and his opportunities could explain a great deal.
Even without factual evidence, Bessarion remains a possible and fascinating candidate in the history of the origin and development of the Voynich Manuscript.
Sources
Fernando de Córdoba and the De artificio
Adolfo Bonilla y San Martín, Fernando de Córdoba (¿1425–1486?) y los orígenes del Renacimiento filosófico en España. Episodio de la historia de la lógica. Madrid: Victoriano Suárez, 1911.
This remains one of the most important sources for the De artificio. It contains extensive discussion and textual material relating to the 25 transcendental determinations, the 625 combinations, the 31 absolute perfections, the rules of comparison, the claim of more than 60,000 possible arguments, and Fernando's references to a Practica and Exercitatio.
Rafael Ramis Barceló, “Fernando de Córdoba y el lulismo del siglo XV,” Mediaevalia. Textos e estudos 34 (2015), pp. 127–144. DOI: 10.21747/21836884/med34a8.
Particularly important for the modern reassessment of Fernando as a syncretic rather than simply anti-Lullian thinker, the connection between Lullism and Scotism, and the interpretation of the De artificio as an attempt to construct a general method for all sciences.
John Monfasani, Fernando of Cordova: A Biographical and Intellectual Profile. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 82, part 6. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1992.
The major modern biographical and intellectual study of Fernando, including his relationship with Cardinal Bessarion and the wider intellectual context of his works.
Bessarion and the Marciana manuscript
John Monfasani, Bessarion Scholasticus: A Study of Cardinal Bessarion's Latin Library. Byzantios: Studies in Byzantine History and Civilization 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.
Important for Bessarion's Latin and scholastic library, his intellectual circle and the manuscript tradition associated with his collection, including Marc. Lat. Z. 481 (=1915).
Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, Marc. Lat. Z. 481 (=1915), fols. 4r–88v.
Early manuscript witness of Fernando de Córdoba's De artificio associated with Bessarion.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Bessarion.”
Useful as a modern overview of Bessarion's relationship to Platonism, Aristotelianism, scholasticism and the Plato–Aristotle controversy.
Llull and fifteenth-century Lullism
Ramon Llull Database, Universitat de Barcelona.
Bibliographical resource for Ramon Llull, Lullism and the transmission and transformation of Lullian thought.
Rafael Ramis Barceló, “Fernando de Córdoba y el lulismo del siglo XV,” Mediaevalia 34 (2015), pp. 127–144.
Especially relevant for Fernando's position within fifteenth-century Lullism and Scoto-Lullism.
Voynich: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r
Minutes of the Teddington Voynich Meeting, 1998.
Important because the possible relationship between You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was already explicitly discussed there. The participants noted the rare word dairal, unusual sequences on both pages, and the possible significance of 17 elements on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. versus 34 on f66r.
The statistical investigation referred to in this post is separate from the Córdoba hypothesis and will be presented independently.
Voynich dating
University of Arizona radiocarbon analysis of Beinecke MS 408, carried out in 2009.
Four parchment samples were tested. The commonly cited combined result places the parchment in the 1404–1438 range with approximately 95% probability.
The important limitation is that radiocarbon dating dates the parchment support, not the act of writing on it.
René Zandbergen, “Radio-carbon dating of the Voynich MS,” Voynich.nu.
Detailed documentation of the Arizona measurements, calibration and surviving internal report.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, Beinecke MS 408.
Repository and manuscript record for the Voynich Manuscript.
Earlier Voynich discussion
Voynich Ninja, “A Cusanus Ladin Hypothesis” discussion, 2022.
Relevant to the earlier discussion involving Cusanus, Llull and Bessarion, including the transmission of the so-called hare/hunting anecdote.
This forum discussion should be distinguished from the primary and scholarly sources listed above.
Note: This post was originally written in German. The English translation was produced with AI assistance. AI was also used to optimise paragraph structure and visual readability. The underlying arguments, hypotheses, source selection and conclusions are my own.