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Where are the letters penned by Voynich?

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• Where are the letters penned by Voynich?

• RE: Where are the letters penned by Voynich?

  Tisquesusa > 07-10-2016, 10:12 PM

  R. Sale Wrote: Tisq, Tisq,
  I believe the VMs analysis was performed by McCRONE, not McCLONE. That would be toooo punny.

  
  Haha, sharp reading. Good point.
  
  

  Quote:Additionally there are two points that have been raised in the matter of possible forgery, which have never been addressed by the forgery proponents.

  
  As far as I know very little has been done in the analysis of a forgery. So far only Richard Coloma has proposed that of the well-known analysts. So many people, so many ideas. Every "proponent" is different.
  
  

  Quote:1) The blue mushrooms in the recipe section (f91 or there about).
  The 'magic mushrooms' of European origin were always thought to be Amanita, which is red with white spots. The effects of Psilocybe species, which stain blue when cut or damaged, were not recognized until the research of Gordon Wasson in the 1950s in Mexico. Some decades later, Psilocybe species were discovered in the Balkan area.
  (Investigations by SteveD on VMs-list)

  
  First you start with 1 assumption: "the blue mushrooms in f91 or there about are Psilocybe". That is not a fact, it's an interpretation. But as with all the plants and symbolism in the manuscript, it is not conclusive. None of the plants have been identified without a shadow of a doubt. There are many ideas and parts of the plants do look like certain real plants, but none of the plants (or funghi) have a 100% match for the leaves, roots and flowers/fruits. That makes the claim that "mushroom A must be Psilocybe" extremely tricky.
  
  

  Quote:Why are blue mushrooms in the VMs?

  
  Impossible to answer. Only the author(s) know(s).
  
  

  Quote:They would not have have been know to modern science before WMV's death.

  
  Which is not true. Psilocybe species grew in Europe way before the 15th century. Certain species of the genus are from the New World, but many other species are endemic to Europe. So even in the case "f91 must be a Psilocybe", that can be based on a European funghus. Or any other one, because by the 1910s, the New World was known and Voynich could have talked to a Mexican who knew about this magic mushroom.
  
  You make a second assumption; that only after the work of Wasson, this genus was known to be hallucinogenic. That may be so in the scientific community, but luckily there is a whole world outside of that.
  
  

  Quote:If they were copied from another source.

  
  Voynich had access to many many books and could have taken examples from virtually anywhere. Or the people he ordered to write this VMS.
  
  

  Quote:Where is that source?

  
  Nobody knows, if there needs to be a source. It can be purely invented; as the evidence of never 100% conclusive herbal (and funghal) analysis proves.
  
  

  Quote: Wouldn't that source have more value than the forged copy?

  
  Again a question based on an assumption. There's no way to know what the forger (if is a forgery) thought when forging it.
  
  

  Quote:2) The Fieschi connection to Roger Bacon
  Based on armorial heraldry, ecclesiastical heraldry and a number of positional confirmations, I have made the argument that VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a representation of the Fieschi involvement in the origin of the tradition of the red galero. Anyone can use the same illustration to make the same arguments.

  
  Or anyone can use the illustration to conclude anything else. There is no 100% conclusive research on about anything. Only the zodiac seems to be represented and that similarity is quite strong. But even there there are problems; the order and missing folios.
  
  

  Quote:However, in order for appropriate material to be included in the illustration, someone who was familiar with the history of the origins of this tradition needed to take the relevant information and construct the images properly. History records that Ottobuono Fieschi and Roger Bacon knew each other. (Goldstones' "The Friar and the Cipher")

  
  There is no firm evidence for anything related to Bacon.
  
  

  Quote:So, given that WMV was promoting a connection between Roger Bacon and the VMs, that the illustration demonstrates valid connection to Roger Bacon, and that the construction of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. requires the knowledge of relevant information, *why* was there never a hint of any of this ever even suggested? No mention of heraldic possibilities whatsoever by WMV. Assuming that he knew what was in the the illustration, having put it there himself, would he never make the slightest reference to this historical connection when it would do so much to support the connection he definitely wanted to prove? It seems very unlikely.

  
  Again you take a route of assumption built on assumption.
  
  There is simply no way to know what Voynich thought. His promotion of Bacon might have been a choice he made to gain popularity. He even may have regretted that same strategy later but it was too late to change it. Anything is possible.
  
  

  Quote:And, again, if copied from some unknown original source, doesn't a greater value reside with the original and not with the copy?

  
  
  Apparently this was the choice made by Voynich, in case he let it forged. He didn't promote the copy (which doesn't need to be old or valuable anyway).
  
  There are many more arguments for the forgery theory than that too. The financial motive is always a strong possibility, but "fame" is another one. It worked; everybody now talks about the Voynich manuscript. Quite curious, isn't it?
  
  The discussion went slightly off-topic (although it is related to the premise stellar proposes -and I agree with that stance-), but as said by someone here before; the text could well have been written by other people than Voynich himself (if he'd be smart he'd did that anyway), so any letter/handwriting analysis, no matter how well done, doesn't prove anything about the order for forgery.
  
  It may well be that it wasn't Voynich himself who was writing the VMS in different hands and with Currier A and B and all. 
  
  The suggestion of various authors has been based on detailed analysis of hands and scribes, and then there is the "12-year old painter" destroying the smooth curves of the plants, a point that I raised from the start on, but seems to be little discussed in any analysis of the VMS.

• RE: Where are the letters penned by Voynich?

  Diane > 08-10-2016, 05:08 AM

  Rene,
  You say:
  
  

  Quote:Rene:
  ... the Barschius letter that was actually hidden by the Jesuits..

  
  This idea is new to me.  Could you explain in a little more detail - I'd be very interested to read the evidence, especially if its source is identifiable and reliable.  Puzzling.  I simply can't imagine why the Jesuits would want to do that.  Does your primary evidence (presumably documentary) shed light on the question?

• RE: Where are the letters penned by Voynich?

  R. Sale > 08-10-2016, 06:56 PM

  Tisquesusa,
  
  Thanks for your reply. I see from Helmut's suggestion, perhaps you have looked into the discussion history of the vms-list and the blog of H. R. Santa-Coloma. Meanwhile I was a subscriber to the list during that time, though I am not a proponent of the modern forgery hypothesis. If the is any 'real' forgery taking place IMO, it would be in the possibility that the VMs could have been produced a century or so after the actual parchment dates and perhaps the images and style used were intentionally out of date.
  
  Let us examine the "blue mushrooms". What is this? Well, it might be mushrooms or it might be something else. Nothing is 100%, as you say. But if it is something else, it needs to be something that possesses an even greater visual similarity to the VMs illustration than that found in a possible  representation of blue mushrooms. What could that something be? There have been no suggestions, not even bad ones, let alone better.
  
  Given the potent nature of the VMs pharmacopoeia, as suggested by some investigators, there is some reason to suggest that the items represented in these illustrations are not inert ingredients. That is to say they were not perceived as inert ingredients at the time.
  
  So how does a modern forger decide to put representations that strongly resemble blue mushrooms into a fake medieval 'composition'? How is this information available to such a person circa 1910? These are just questions raised by the illustrations. Should they be considered by modern forgery proponents?
  
  In reference to the White Aries illustration, you say: 'Or anyone can use the illustration to conclude anything else. There is no 100% conclusive research on about anything. Only the zodiac seems to be represented and that similarity is quite strong. But even there there are problems; the order and missing folios."
  
  Please indicate any examples where other researchers have used this illustration (f71r) to conclude something... anything. There is 100% certainty about some things - among them are certain historical facts. Hence the significance of a VMs illustration that establishes historical grounding. The illustration has a complex structure indicative of intentional construction. And yet this intricate, illustrated depiction of the historical origins of the tradition of the cardinal's red galero has been sitting on the page the entire time. And only the forger knew it was there.
  
  Moreover, and ironically, the details of this historical grounding coincide with the times and the life of Roger Bacon. And while Voynich might have been willing to fabricate such a connection, for some unknown reason, he never made use of the data this illustration actually contains.
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