Archive of communications of the Journal Of
Voynich Studies
Index
of Subjects in all Volumes
Vol. IV, 2010
326
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 1-4-2010 8:50:12 PM EST
J.VS: Mathematical Sparse Coding
analysis of illustrative artworks
Dear Colleagues
Here in a 4 JAN 2010 BBC online news article is some interesting
information on mathematical sparse coding techniques
as used in the analysis of image art, specifically to distinguish
genuines from fakes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8440142.stm
" Computer method 'spots art fakes'
A simple method to distinguish artistic fakes and imitations has been
demonstrated by researchers. The approach, known as
"sparse coding", builds a virtual library of an artist's works and
breaks them down into the simplest possible visual elements.
Verifiable works by that artist can be rebuilt using varying
proportions of those simple elements, while imitators' works cannot.
The work is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. "
" The method works by dividing digital versions of all of an artist's
confirmed works into 144 squares - 12 columns of 12 rows each.
Then a set of "basis functions" is constructed - initially a set of
random shapes and forms in black and white. A computer then
modifies them until, for any given cut-down piece of the artist's work,
some subset of the basis functions can be combined in some
proportion to recreate the piece. The basis functions are refined
further to ensure that the smallest possible number of them is required
to generate any given piece - they are the "sparsest" set of functions
that reproduces the artist's work. "
" However, Professor Rockmore said that although authentication of
works was an application that would appeal to many people,
sparse coding could lend its analysis to a number of problems in the
study of art. "Our hope is that it becomes more of what people
call technical art history," he told BBC News. "
Very good. The illustrations in the Voynich manuscript would seem to be
great candidates for this kind of analysis. Check them to see
not only if the one same illustrator was at work throughout the VMS,
but also of course to have a data set which can be compared with
non-VMS illustrations.
One wonders if an advanced version of this technique could be fruitful
with the Voynich text - treating the handscript as if it were an
illustration.
Of course here I am thinking most curiously about the hypothetical
steganographic hand-script text-art in VMS folios, in particular f76r,
where in the upper half of that page's text I have proposed is embedded
the illustration of a man, perhaps the Voynich manuscript author's
portrait,
holding with both hands to his eyes a rectangular optical filter plate,
presumably indicating that sophisticated optical techniques are
required in order
to see what he has hidden in his mysterious manuscript. [1]
Berj / KI3U
[1] Various pictures of the hypothetical optical physicist and presumed
VMS-author, embedded as steganographic handscript text-art
in Voynich folio f76r, are deposited in the J.VS Library:
Blink1bVMSf76r.bmp
Blink2bVMSf76r.bmp
are suitable for blinking, and are available in J.VS Lib. deposit #
18-1-2008-04-15 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/18-1-2008-04-15/
Several other pictures, including more blinks, are in J.VS Lib. deposit
# 14-1-2007-10-22 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/14-1-2007-10-22/
Extensive discussion, with earlier references, of this f76r curiosity
(as well as others) is found in J.VS communication # 156
(and Re:'s # 157, # 163), "J.VS: The Voynich hypothetical f76r text-art
portrait: how was it done?" (Vol. II, 4 FEB 2008):
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolII2008.htm
Further discussions are found in J.VS Volume II communications # 158,
161, 164, 181, 182, 183, 185, 191, and
Volume III communication # 317:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolIII2009.htm
********************************
327
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 1-11-2010 11:29:21 PM EST
J.VS: J. Malcom Bird's June 1921 VMS
article in Scientific American
Dear Colleagues
J. Malcom Bird's June 1921 article on the Voynich Manuscript in the
journal Scientific American:
The Roger Bacon Manuscript
Investigations Into Its History, and the Efforts to Decipher It
is now available online via google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?
id=maxDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA492&dq=malcom+bird+roger+bacon+scientific+american&cd=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Berj / KI3U
***********************
328
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 1-19-2010 9:29:21 PM EST
J.VS: The phonetisation of the Voynich
Manuscript text: Voynich text to synthetic speech
Dear Colleagues
As you recall, a couple of years ago our colleague Jan Hurych began
urging experiments with phoneticizing VMS text
by means of speech synthesis, that is coverting a Voynich text
transcript into readable/listenable voice via a conversion table
and a voice program.
Jan last night let me hear some of his recent results, and I was very
excited by them and urged him to let others hear this also,
even though he says he is not yet ready to write up a paper on this
work. However Jan this morning did put one sample
of his experimentation online, a sample of Voynich f2v:
on http://hurontaria.baf.cz/voice1.wav
More will follow soon.
Berj / KI3U
***************************
329
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 1-22-2010 1:28:02 PM EST
J.VS: Slime Mold Networks and the VMS
Dear Colleagues
Here is a BBC news online article dated 22 JAN 2010 :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8473316.stm
" Engineers 'can learn from slime' "
" The way fungus-like slime moulds grow could help engineers design
wireless communication networks.
Scientists drew this conclusion after observing a slime mould as it
grew into a network that was
almost identical to the Tokyo rail system. The scientists describe
their ideas for "biologically
inspired networks" in the journal Science. They have incorporated the
slime mould's efficient
strategy into a mathematical formula. This "slime formula" could help
engineers develop better, more
efficient designs. "
" One of the researchers, Dr Mark Fricker from Oxford University, UK,
told BBC News that the whole
idea of using slime moulds in this way came from Toshiyuki Nakagaki, a
scientist also based at
Hokkaido University. A decade ago, Dr Nakagaki showed that the slime
could find the most efficient
way through a maze. "
So then what does this have to do with the Voynich Manuscript?
Well, first of all, botanical concepts being a major component of the
VMS, it is entirely
conceivable that the VMS author concerned him/herself to some degree
with slime mold. Indeed our
colleague Dana Scott, who has long been compiling plausible VMS
botanical identifications, years ago
brought up the possibility of slime, at least green slime, being
represented in VMS illustrations.
This idea becomes even more interesting when we look at pictures of
slime molds in the classic 1904
work of the polymath scientist Ernst Haeckel: Kunstformen der Natur
(Artforms of Nature).
Haeckel's work is in general a valuable resource for investigation of
the VMS illustrations.
In his book, specifically concerning slime molds, Haeckel's
illustration of Mycetozoa :
http://de.academic.ru/dic.nsf/dewiki/987530
gets up my VMS interest - compare for example Voynich illustration
f83v, the part where two VMS
ladies / nymphs are each holding green bulbs excreting a stream of
something, with the Haeckel
specimen at the right of bottom-center, which shows excretions
emanating from soccer-ball like
bulbs. This also harkens back to the possibility, actually I myself
would say near certainity, that
the VMS author employed optical magnifications during work, perhaps
even with early microscopes.
Needless to say, slime can be symbolic, and within old suspicions that
the VMS botanicals often
suggest shematics of some kind rather than straightforward if crude
plants, we might fathom f83v
using slime symbolically in some way.
Moreover, if we are correct in this tentative f83v interpretation, then
on account of similar
graphics in other VMS folios, even in non-botanical sections of the
VMS, for example f86r, and
certainly the dramatic nine-rosettes foldout, we can then entertain
that perhaps the VMS author in
some way conceived of networks of slime. Perhaps there are to be
recognized among the strange VMS
illustrations some slime networks providing pointers to navigating the
VMS maze.
Hence, taking in the later stages of the developing slime network shown
in the video-clip of the
above BBC article, compare with the general organization of the Voynich
nine-rosettes foldout.
There may be more slime and slime networks in the greater Voynich
picture than we generally appreciate.
Berj / KI3U
*******************************************
330
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 1-24-2010 7:08:52 PM EST
J.VS: Petrus Barschius of Cracow; 1647
FYI from Berj / KI3U and Greg Stachowski (mostly Greg's work) :
Google books has scanned and made available for download the following,
“Statuta nec non Liber Promotionum Philosophorum Ordinis in
Universitate Studiorum Jagiellonica ab
anno 1402 ad annum 1849.”
which appears to be a listing of promotions (that is, conferring of
titles of doctor, master,
bachelor) of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, between 1402 and
1849, as compiled by one
J. Muczkowski in 1849 [1][2].
Of potential interest to us as potential relatives of Georg Baresch
(a.k.a. Barschius) are mentions of:
* one “Mart. Barscius Crac.” an “excellent man”,
made Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in
1636 (p. 303 of the book, 568 of the PDF)
* one “Petrus Barschius Crac.”, an “adolescent,
carefully examined in the good Arts and
Philosophy” in 1647 (p. 320 of the book, 585 of the PDF).
The “Crac.” following the names is most likely short for
“Cracoviensis”, “of Cracow”, thus making it
less likely that these are relatives of our Baresch. Also Petrus
Baresch is perhaps too young to be a
brother, if anything he would be a son or nephew.
Dealing with the Latinised names of course brings with it the
possibility that several different
vernacular names may map to one Latin name.
[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=u-EAAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-
PA320&dq=barschius&lr=&as_brr=1&cd=5#v=onepage&q=barschius&f=false
[2] the book is mis-titled “Zabytki z dziejów, oświaty i sztuk
pięknych, Volume 1”, which is merely
a frontispiece indicating the book is part of a collection of
incunabula relating to the arts and
education, in this case held by the Polska Akademja Umiejętności (also
incorrectly listed by Google
as the author, who was Muczkowski), a learned society founded in the
19th century. whose name is
rendered in English as “Polish Academy of Learning”, or occasionally as
“Polish Academy of Arts and
Sciences” or “Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters”.
**********************************************
331
From: Jan Hurych
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 01-27-2010 10:59:26 AM
J.VS: PHONETISATION OF THE VM - FIRST
RESULTS
Refer also to: J.VS communication #328 (Vol. IV, 19 JAN 2010) " J.VS:
The phonetisation of the
Voynich Manuscript text: Voynich text to synthetic speech "; and the
subsequent voynich.net vms-list
thread (launched 20 JAN 2010) " VMs: Phoneticizing Voynich text with
synthetic speech ".
The choice of a language and conversion of VM transcript is critical
for the phonetisizing. Beside Latin
and Czech, the English is the next contender. It seems that our
conversion of VM transcript to Latin
does not really crack the secret of the VM. It is actually only
decoding the arbitrary font of EVA into
Latin text per my Historical Latin Letter Frequency Table, and there is
probably another encoding still
present in the VM on top of it. I would like to continue searching for
medieval frequency tables -
as I was told there were several of them made at medieval time. In
reality, EVA actually provided only
monoalphabetical enciphering of VM letter symbols. By using the table,
we simply "deciphered" EVA
as well as any other monoalphabetic substitution cipher if it was
present in the VM already. All that of course,
provided the VM plaintext is in Latin. Not so surprisingly - by doing
that, we did not get the readable,
sensical plaintext in Latin. That's why I got the idea for
phonetisizing the result.
As for other languages, I tried Czech language conversion table but its
phonetisizing sounds, just superficially,
of course, similar to the Latin one, most likely because of the
sentence structure present in the VM. We may try
the other languages later but for the meantime, the best resources and
results we now have are still for Latin,
so I would suggest to stick to that one for the time being.
Pronounciation of medieval Latin is quite similar to International
phonetic table while English pronounciation
of the same text is quite different - so what we need is the true
phonetic method. Example: letter "a" can be
pronounced in English several ways, depending on the syllable,
surrounding consonants and the position of "a"
in the syllable. In Latin, there is only one way, that is as in English
"ah".
The English pronounciation of medieval Latin stemmed from the fact they
originally vocalized the written word
and did not bother about true Latin pronounciation. So sometimes it
completely distorted the sound of the word,
and I heard even priests often pronounce it English way (say suffix
"-atio" in Latin is pronounced as "ah-tsio" while
English pronounciation sounds like "ey-shio"). In this case, the
phonetic version could lead to erroneous conclusions.
Similar problem would be of course with other languages, typically with
French (surprisingly, not so much with
French Latin ;-).
The phonetisizing (by the way, I wanted to use the word "voicing" or
"vocalizing" or even "reading" but we are
doing here something else again) serves several purposes, namely as
another tool in the process of decoding the VM.
It is not accurate of course but may be quite inspirational. It is
simply just another tool how to crack the VM.
It may help in the search for the original language, the sentence and
word structure and/or information flow.
So far the VM researchers worked with written version only, so it is
for us completely new game. Also, we cannot
expect any deeply revealing results soon.
The existing text-readers, when they encounter unpronouncable word
(unpronouncable in English that is) are just
spelling it letter by letter, again in English spelling of course. It
is caused mostly by low frequency of vowels since EVA
provided just the arbitrarily chosen letters. To eliminate that
inconvenience, we have to break those words in syllables -
if it helps - or insert some vowels (the best is so called quiet
"e"). We do not know exactly which are the true vowels
in the VM plaintext but I compared it with Sukhotin's results and his
vowels basically agree with those in Latin conversion
(not in that order of course, but make it pronouncable all the same).
Also, the conversion shows those vowels
(that is a, e, i, o, u, y) have higher frequency than the EVA
arbitrary "vowels", so we are apparently on the right track.
Therefore, for the meantime, we should be able to carry on with the
existing conversion until we find the more accurate one.
Still, there are words that remain unpronouncable even in Latin
pronounciation, mostly the clusters of syllables. There are two
possible reasons: first is the mentioned inaccuracy of the table of
conversion (given the fact the some letter frequencies are
too close to the neighbours to establish the proper order), second is
there may be further encoding present in the VM -
say abbreviations, anagramming, even partial transposition
cipher, e.t.c.
So far we found only very few complete words (like several words
"saint" which of course should be "sanctus" in Latin,
so I believe it was only coincidence), and also some fractions of Latin
words (which may suggest the plaintext was in Latin
but somehow further modified).
Jan Hurych
**********************************
332
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 02-03-2010 7:58:18 PM
J.VS: The Voynich text speaks: latest
experiment converting VMS-text to synthetic speech
Dear Colleagues
As mentioned I have been experimenting upon our colleague Jan Hurych's
pioneering foundations of
converting Voynich text to speech by means of speech-synthesis software
and associated tools. [1]
I have sent to our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski for Library deposit #
28-1-2010-02-02
the recording, 2feb2010_KI3U-VMS-Speech-Expmt.mp3, in mp3 audio-file
format, of my latest (yesterday)
experiment [2]. This recording contains the conversion-to-speech of a
Voynich text-block of
approximately
four dozen consecutive VMS text groups / words.
This kind of work remains tedious, with many experiments necessary to
obtain an incremental
improvement. This particular experiment proceeded as follows:
1.) Make a tentative conversion table, mapping Voynich text-glyphs to
input-strings suitable for
various speech-synthesis programs.
2.) Try the table on various blocks of Voynich text, and change the
mappings, the chosen text-block,
and speech-synthesizer, with the aim of hearing the best obtainable
smooth flow of sound resembling
speech which might be a known or unknown language. In other words, go
for what sounds closest to
someone actually speaking a real language. This is different from, and
less difficult compared with
Jan's initial experiments of keeping the mappings conforming to results
which tend specifically
toward Latin-sounding.
3.) If necessary, fine-tweak the resulting recording, but uniformly,
with straightforward audio-
processing tools.
In the present experiment I used the SAPI5 TTSAPP speech-synthesizer
suggested by our colleague
Dennis Fedak / N3ZCK; the socalled "Microsoft Anna" English voice was
used. I then used the Audacity
audio software to do click-removal, so as to obtain a somewhat smoother
speech flow.
On hearing the results during the experiment I wondered if this is what
spoken language sounded like
in ancient Assyria, Babylon, or even Sumer. I wondered if Gilgamesh
lived in a speech-environment
resembling the one suggested in the present mp3 recording. This is an
indication of the very
interesting subjective reactions which attend this kind of
experimentation. As Jan pointed out it is
at the very least inspirational, and indeed one gets many novel ideas
about the VMS.
I noticed, or at least thought I noticed, that Currier's observation
that the VMS text-line is a
functional entity, comes across at least as often as not, in my
subjective reaction to the flow of
the synthetic speech.
In the present recording there are some utterances which do sound to me
like tending toward familiar
words, for example: Christus, datum, textus. At this stage I would give
Greek equal consideration to
Latin in the more difficult experimentation of keeping a mapping table
conforming to a specific language.
It would seem that the next step up from this level of experimentation
is to convert the text into singing.
That would be very exciting to hear, especially if one could find two
VMS text-blocks which seemed
related, in the sense of one block holding the lyrics to be sung, while
the other holds the accompanying
music in musical notation as per our original VMS-text-to-music
experiments. [3]
Berj / KI3U
[1] Refer also to:
[1-a] J.VS communication # 331 (Vol. IV, 27 JAN 2010) :
J.VS: PHONETISATION OF THE VM - FIRST RESULTS, by Jan Hurych.
[1-b] J.VS communication #328 (Vol. IV, 19 JAN 2010) :
J.VS: The phonetisation of the Voynich Manuscript text: Voynich text to
synthetic speech, by Berj / KI3U.
[1-c] voynich.net vms-list thread (launched 20 JAN 2010 by Berj / KI3U)
:
VMs: Phoneticizing Voynich text with synthetic speech
[2] http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/28-1-2010-02-02/
[3] see J.VS comms. # 166 - 172 (Vol. II, February, 2008) :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolII2008.htm
********************************
333
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 02-04-2010 11:05:39 PM EST
J.VS: The ancient language Bo dies out
Dear Colleagues
A BBC online news article dated 4 FEB 2010 by Alastair Lawson:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8498534.stm
reports:
" Last speaker of ancient language of Bo dies in India "
" The last speaker of an ancient language in India's Andaman Islands
has died at the age of about
85, a leading linguist has told the BBC. "
" Professor Abbi - who runs the Vanishing Voices of the Great
Andamanese (Voga) website - explained:
"After the death of her parents, Boa was the last Bo speaker for 30 to
40 years. "
The article also touches on other Adamanese languages. Quite
interesting is a provided audio
recording of the Bo language spoken by the lady who was its last
speaker and just died, Boa Sr.
Compare it with our recent synthetic Voynich speech experiments: very
different.
Berj / KI3U
*********************
334
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 02-13-2010 9:58:18 AM EST
J.VS: Hurych on Voynich group
frequencies: IS THE VM ENCODED? ( and how to solve it in that case)
Dear Colleagues
Our colleague Jan Hurych has deposited in the J.VS Library his 11 FEB
2010 paper:
IS THE VM ENCODED? ( and how to solve it in that case)
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/23-4-2010-02-12/
Jan discusses the Voynich text and text-attack methods; here's an
excerpt:
" If indeed the VM is using codewords, it also suggests the possible
method of solution: instead of
letter frequency, we will use the word frequency in our cracking
method. By frequency of course I do
not mean the frequency of the words with the same length, that would be
pointless exercise. Instead,
we will count the words that are exactly the same, that is they do have
the same order of the same
letters. The "top" words (with highest frequency) then could be
replaced by the "top" words of the
language in question. "
Berj / KI3U
**********************************
335
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 02-15-2010 10:57:42 AM EST
J.VS: The history of the Libreria
Franceschini
Dear Colleagues
As we know, in 1908 Wilfrid Voynich acquired control of a huge
collection of old books, many of them
possibly Risorgimento-confiscated Jesuit volumes, by buying the
Libreria Franceschini, Palazzo Borghese,
Via Ghibellina 110, in Florence. [1]
And this acquisition, about three years before the earliest claim
(1911) for the discovery of the
Voynich manuscript, seemed to mark Wilfrid's meteoric rise in the
antiquarian book field.
Since there is some uncertainty about just where Voynich found the
Voynich Manuscript, an Austrian
Castle versus the Villa Mondragone, or perhaps even somewhere else, we
have of course been curious
about the inventory of the Libreria Franceschini, and its history.
I've just found what appears to be an article on the origin of the
Libreria Franceschini in the
Italian Journal Minerva:
UN TESORO BIBLIOGRAFICO
Le origini della libreria Franceschini
Minerva, 11 OCT 1908, Vol. XXVIII N.43, p. 1025.
http://books.google.com/books?
id=9yoQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1025&dq=Libreria+Franceschini&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Libreria%20Franceschini&f=false
I can't read the Italian, but the article mentions 50,000 volumes,
Voynich, and many other names
which may be investigated. One Alice Zimmern, a writer, is mentioned.
There may be more about
Voynich in other issues of Minerva.
Berj / KI3U
[1] see the discussion about this between Xavier Ceccaldi and Dana
Scott in the May, 2003 vms-list archives:
VMs: Re: Re: Re: Re: Herbert Garland -- Palazzo Borghese
http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2003/05/msg00015.html
************************
336
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 02-21-2010 11:53:12 PM EST
J.VS: Some Wilfrid Voynich matters
across ten years before and after the Libreria Franceshini acquisition
Dear Colleagues
Here's a brief listing of some of the additional information gathered
since J.VS comm. #335.
My thanks to our colleague Greg Stachowski for straightening me out on
my confusing Helen Zimmern
with her sister Alice, also a writer, thus enabling finding the 1908
Pall Mall article referenced in the
1908 Minerva article (J.VS comm. #335, J.VS: The history of the
Libreria Franceschini, by Berj / KI3U,
Vol. IV, 15 FEB 2010).
As our colleague Jan Hurych pointed out, Wilfrid Voynich made the
Libreria Franceschini his
Italian-location headquarters: this is immediately seen on the cover of
Wilfrid's Catalog No. 31,
"An Illustrated Catalogue of Remarkable Incunabula, many with Woodcuts
and a Specimen of an Unknown
Xylographical Press, offered by Wilfrid M. Voynich", bearing also the
cat-and-mouse emblem, and listing,
besides his London main headquarters, among his Branch Houses (Paris,
Florence, Warsaw, Vienna) the
Florence address as: Palazo Borghese, Via Ghibellina, 110 [1].
Greg found "Stead's 'The Review of Reviews' for Australasia", 1908,
wherein:
" A MINE OF BOOKS.
In another article Miss Helen Zimmern describes an unworked mine in the
shape of a bibliomaniac's
hoard at Florence. This bibliomaniac bought indiscriminately everything
brought to his shop.
Quantity, not quality, attracted him. He bought and bought and stored
and stored with a view to the
future, being of opinion that this was the best way to furnish his
children with a patrimony which
would repay them a hundredfold. His name was Pietro Franceschini. Among
his friends was Carducci the
poet, and Gladstone was a frequent visitor when in Florence. When
Franceschini died, his son, the heir of
the congested bookstore, an engineer, who cared nothing for books, sold
the concern to the bibliographer,
Mr. Voynich. The agglomeration of years was investigated. Many finds
came to light, especially valuable
first editions of English works, for there seems no place like Italy
for picking up English curiosities ; and other
treasures are being disinterred daily by the indefatigable miners. "
Jan and our colleague Dana Scott recalled G. Orioli in his 1938
"Adventures Of A Bookseller"
commenting on Voynich and his Libreria Franceschini - that excerpt is
readily available in Dana's 19 JUL 2004
vms-list post:
http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2004/07/msg00336.html
Orioli's characterization of Wilfrid Voynich, delivered eight years
after Voynich's death, seems quite at odds with
the very positive characterizations referenced in J.VS comm. #309 (Vol.
III, 8 NOV 2009)
Now, the English-language article by Helen Zimmern referenced both in
the Italian-language Minerva article and
the above Review of Reviews, is:
" THE ROMANCE OF A LITERARY TREASURE-HOUSE. AN ACCOUNT OF A STRANGE
BIBLIOMANIAC AND HIS HOARD.
BY HELEN ZIMMERN. ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY MRS. AUBREY LE BLOND.
", Pall Mall, October, 1908.
This article is within Pall Mall Magazine's Volume 42, and is available
for download via google books.
Helen Zimmern (1846-1934) was a highly multi-lingual writer, and early
on in her career she
collaborated with her sister Alice on works much appreciated by
scholars of the time [2].
Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, i.e. Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed (1860-1934), was
a famous mountaineer, author,
photographer, and apparently the world's first lady cinematographer /
film-maker. So it appears that these
two interesting ladies crossed into Wilfrid Voynich's cosmic-grade
circle at least once.
Helen's article is eight full pages long and includes half a dozen
photographs by Aubrey, the first
and last of which are full-page shots of inside the cavernous Libreria
Franceschini - the last being
an intriguing shot of one of the socalled "dark rooms". Helen tells the
story of Pietro Franceschini [3] and
how, starting with a barrow, he amassed his vast collection of books
for the intended cultural benefit of his
children, the collection over the years growing to phenomenal size, and
taking as its permanent home the
form of a bookshop near Florence's Bargello on the Via Ghibellina.
This shop was somewhat obscure, but captured the attention of many
people of consequence, indeed one
story having it that even Queen Victoria visited incognito. Pietro's
cultured daughter's health suffered and so
she could not continue with the Library; her brother, an engineer, was
not interested, and after their father died,
he sold it to Wilfrid Voynich.
Quick key-notes on Helen's article:
1-1.) Helen explains why so many early and rare English works are
findable in Florence.
1-2. She refers to Voynich as " well-known bibliographer and authority
on early books " - this is in
1908 already, and many other references to Voynich from back then
confirm it to be quite true.
1-3.) After buying the library from Franceschini's son, Voynich with
his assistants began months of
going through the holdings, still unfinished at the time of Helen's
article.
1-4.) " Books, pamphlets, MSS. in every known and unknown tongue are
being disinterred daily by the
indefatigable miners. " - note "unknown tongue"
1-5.) Antwerp 1554 or earlier Bellero cat-and-mouse map - note
Voynich's cat-and-mouse coat of arms,
apparently orginally of the Sessa family of Venice 14th-15th c.
1-6.) " Babel of languages and books "
1-7.) " a book that had belonged to King Charles II. "
1-8.) " Two old Floretine playing-cards "
1-9.) " pamphlets ..... very early scientific treatises "
1-10.) " fine Dantes and Petrarchs "
1-11.) " rare woodcuts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, books
whose bindings tell that they
belonged to kings and popes; "
1-12.) " .... but ornamented on its cover by no less an artist than the
great Goya. "
1-13.) " in great proportion the books are uncut and in their original
bindings " - note it is conceivable that
Wilfrid rebound the VMS with a binding salvaged from the Franceschini
hoard.
1-14.) " the quaintest and most valuable discoveries in the backs of
the old bindings. "
1-15.) " Voynich never discards a book till he has stripped it of its
cover. "
1-16.) " And to think all this is but a scratching of the surface! "
Jan noted that Helen Zimmern wrote that Pietro had died eighteen months
before, and so he suggested
we try to bracket the time during which Wilfrid Voynich bought the
Libreria Franceschini. In reply I
sketched this scenario:
2-1.) Assume that this issue ( OCT 1908 ) Pall Mall appeared in SEP
1908.
2-2.) Assume there was a 3-months lead time to get an article into any
particular issue;
hence Zimmern's article, intended for the OCT 1908 isssue, reached Pall
Mall's editorial offices in JUN 1908.
2-3.) Assume that the "eighteen months before" can be referenced to JUN
1908.
2-4.) Therefore the month of death of Pietro Franceschini would be
around DEC 1906 - JAN 1907.
2-5.) After Pietro died, Helen says his son sold some items merely by
paper weight, before he encountered
Wilfrid and sold it all.
So, it looks like 1907-1908 is when Wilfrid acquired the Libreria
Franceschini, certainly well before the earliest
claim (1911) for the discovery of the VMS.
Jan also noted items 1-14.) and 1-15.) in the key-notes above and
commented again on the old oddity of Wilfrid
claiming that when he first found the Voynich Manuscript he initially
missed Marci's letter. [4]
The earliest direct indication of Wilfrid Voynich engaged in the book
trade which I have found is an
advertisement appearing in a series of issues of the newspaper "THE
ACADEMY", beginning with the
Saturday, July 30, 1898, issue. A picture of this advertisement is
available in the J.VS Library in
deposit # 29-1-2010-02-21 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/29-1-2010-02-21/
In this advertisement we see Voynich offering:
" W.M. VOYNICH and C.A. EDGELL, M.A. FIRST LIST of BOOKS OFFERED for
SALE, INCLUDING INCUNABULA,
EARLY AMERICANA, CONDEMNED and BURNED BOOKS, ENGLISH BOOKS before 1600,
PALMISTRY, the GREAT
SOCINIAN BIBLE &c. "
We can't help notice how similar this 1898 list is to some of the
classes of material in the Franceshini described
by Helen Zimmern ten years later: incunabili, early Americana, copies
with expurgated passages doubtless judged
obscene or sacriligeous, old English books, good stuff and rubbish,
monastic account-books. Therefore, it is
natural to wonder if Wilfrid Voynich had been one of Pietro
Franceschini's customers as far back as 1898,
obtaining from Pietro priceless treasures at Pietro's
characteristically generous prices, while also making
connections with people of consequence among Pietro's circle. And
perhaps Voynich waited, and when the
opportunity came he became the heir of Pietro's fabulous hoard.
Where-ever, and whenever, Voynich obtained the Voynich Manuscript and
associated matter, it is
reasonable to suppose that the Libreria Franceschini might have been
involved in some manner or
other. We know that during his research on his mysterious cipher
manuscript Wilfrid Voynich
contacted Bohemian archivists for help - can we establish when this
occurred at the earliest?
Was it perhaps before 1911?
Let us frame around Voynich's acquisition of the Libreria Franceschini
his early publications, exhibits, and lectures.
The list of these I've compiled from searching online follows in Table
336-1. I do not know what might be missing
from this list, and which might be duplicates.
--------------- TABLE 336-1
Voynich's dated output is sorted in order. Un-sorted is listed last.
Names appearing with Voynich, apparently his book-trade associates, are:
*) 1898 : Wilfrid M. Voynich & C.A. Edgell (Firm), Wilfrid M.
Voynich, C. A. Edgell - Antiquarian booksellers;
{ apparently Edgell received an M.A. from Cambridge in 1898, and did
some singing there }
*) 1902 : Voynich, Wilfrid M., firm, booksellers, London, Ernest George
Ravenstein - Maps;
{ Ravenstein appears to have been a long-established authority on
geography, in particular Russian }
*) 1903-1904 : Wilfrid M. Voynich, London, George Mackey, Birmingham
Sorted:
*) A first list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich & C.A. Edgell (Firm), Wilfrid M. Voynich, C. A.
Edgell - Antiquarian booksellers - 1898 - 66 pages
*) A first [-sixth] list of books offered for sale
Wilfrid M. Voynich, firm - 1900
*) A second list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich (Firm) - Antiquarian booksellers - 1900 - 212 pages
*) List of books offered for sale at the net prices affixed
Wilfrid M. Voynich (firm) - Rare books - 1900
*) List of books offered for sale at the net prices affixed
Voynich, Wilfrid M., firm - 1900
*) A third list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich (Firm) - Antiquarian booksellers - 1901 - 160 pages
*) A fourth list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London - 1901
*) A fifth list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich (Firm) - Antiquarian booksellers - 1901 - 86 pages
*) A sixth list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich (Firm) - Antiquarian booksellers - 1901 - 739 pages
*) A first list of books (second edition).
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London - 1902
*) A seventh list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London - 1902
*) An eighth list of books on exhibition by W.M. Voynich: I Soho
Square, London
Wilfrid M. Voynich (Firm) - Antiquarian booksellers - 1902 - 897 pages
*) Supplement to the eighth list of books ...: consists of an unknown
map, ....
Voynich, Wilfrid M., firm, booksellers, London, Ernest George
Ravenstein - Maps - 1902 - 958 pages
*) A ninth list of books
Wilfrid M. Voynich (Firm) - Antiquarian booksellers - 1902 - 1117 pages
*) Short catalogue of Second-hand books offered at the net prices
affixed by ...
Wilfrid M. Voynich - 1903
*) Second-hand books and manuscripts
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London, George Mackey, Birmingham - 1903
*) Second-hand books
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London, George Mackey, Birmingham - 1904
*) Wilfrid M. Voynich catalogue
Wilfrid M. Voynich - 1910
*) Early works on pure and applied science - part I - A-L , with index
of subjects
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London - 1912
*) Remarkable incunabula, many with woodcuts, and a specimen of an
unknown ...
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London - 1913. { This may be Catalogue No. 31 - see
[1] }
*) Catalogue
Wilfrid M. Voynich - 1914
*) Exhibition of manuscripts and early printed books from the
collection of W.M. Voynich;
Art Institute of Chicago, October 7 to November 3, 1915. { This is the
first public exhibition of the
"Roger Bacon Cipher Manuscript" which nowadays we call the Voynich
Manuscript. [5] }
*) Lecture: How to study fifteenth century books, by Wilfrid Voynich at
the Art Institute of Chicago,
January 16, 1917. [5]. { This is interesting in light of the recent
radio-carbon dating of some pieces of
VMS parchment to 1404-1438. }
Un-sorted Wilfrid Voynich output:
*) Valturius: De re militari : a XVth century manuscript executed at
Rimini in ...
Wilfrid M. Voynich - Illumination of books and manuscripts, Italian -
10 pages
*) Early works on English history, literature and science - part 2 -
E-L.
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London
*) Early printed books, many with woodcuts, and in fine bindings
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London
*) Early printed books, many with woodcuts -
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London
*) Rare books, printed in the XV, XVI and XVII centuries, not to be
found in ...
Wilfrid M. Voynich, London
*) A catalogue of rare books, printed in the XV., XVI. and XVII.
Centuries, not ...
Wilfrid M. Voynich (Firm) - Antiques & Collectibles - 19?? - 116
pages
*) An illustrated catalogue [of rare and early printed books]
Wilfrid M. Voynich (London) - Rare books
*) An illustrated catalogue of remarkable incunabula, many with
woodcuts, and a ...
Voynich, Wilfrid M., Firm - Bibliography - 19?? - 178 pages
--------------- End TABLE 336-1
We note from Table 336-1 that in 1912 Voynich published on early works
on pure and applied science.
This is the same period during which the VMS was allegedly found, and
we recall that Voynich
believed the VMS to be a scientific encyclopedia by Roger Bacon. We
also recall learning from Helen
Zimmern's 1908 article that the Libreria Franceschini was loaded with
rare early scientific works,
often in pamphlet form (see 1-9. above).
The main objective in this communication has been to organize early
Wilfrid Voynich and VMS data
within the perspective of his acquisition of the Libreria Franceschini,
so as to facilitate gauging the role,
if any, played by the Franceshini in the Voynich Manuscript story. That
this notion is quite reasonable
was evident during the recent J.VS teleconference of 19 FEB 2010
(participants: Jan Hurych,
Richard SantaColoma, Berj / KI3U) where among the altogether dozen VMS
topics we discussed:
3-1.) The likelihood of blank old parchments to be found in
Franceshini's "dark rooms".
3-2.) Wilfrid possibly obtaining manuscripts from Pietro Franceschini
before Pietro died.
3-3.) Old information that Wilfrid bought the Libreria Franceschini in
1909, is wrong - he acquired it sometime 1907-1908.
Subsequent to the teleconference the off-J discussions flowing from the
above branched out into some
discussion of parchments per se: parchment-making, parchment
properties, and palimpsests. Here's a
paper on history of parchment making, by Meliora di Curci, which we
noted:
The History and Technology of Parchment Making
http://www.sca.org.au/scribe/articles/parchment.htm
The alignment of fibres in the collagen which makes up the parchment
seems to offer clues about the
parchment's history. One interesting item di Curci writes is this:
" Low Relative Humidity Prolonged exposure to an environment under 40%
relative humidity will dry
out parchment and bring its water content to below 10%. Once again this
is a slow process which may
take several months or years. Prolonged exposure to this environment
will turn the parchment harder
and harsher, eventually cracks would appear in the surface and the inks
and paints will detach (Reed, 1975, p. 94). "
The inks and paints will detach she says. Hence perhaps such a
parchment could be restored and re-used,
if found otherwise undamaged.
The idea of the VMS being, at least partly a palimpsest, has been
pretty much discounted over the years.
Jorge Stolfi, in passing, brought up the idea of the VMS's f68v3 "T-O
map" as perhaps a palimpsest back in 2002
in a vms-list reply to Nick Pelling [6].
I think that maybe the idea does deserve some attention - after all the
existence of the alleged "Tepenecz" and
other barely legible writing on VMS f1r would seem to invite at least a
consideration of that folio having been a re-use.
The main arguement against VMS palimpsest these days seems to be that
the VMS folios show no indications of
scraping - a strange idea when we consider that scraping is a major
step in the manufacture of parchment.
I haven't scraped parchment, but I've scraped plenty of old
really-in-bad-condition suede leather, and I've been astonished,
completely surprised, at how fresh and lustrously new condition the old
suede can be restored to with serious dedicated
effort and patience.
Elsewhere on the net, the discussions about palimpsests seem to
indicate that there were processes which irreversibly
removed old writing from parchments - i.e. apparently no faint traces
would later re-appear. I really do not know enough
about this subject, but it seems worth looking into a bit more, rather
than dismissing it summarily.
Finally, the above data surrounding Voynich's acquisition of the
Libreria Franceschini, when followed up on in detail,
again confronts us with the almost unbelievably far-and-wide
high-quality spectrum of contacts Wilfrid Voynich enjoyed
around the world. One thing which I continue to notice is that some
among Voynich's admirers when they speak of him,
seem to suggest a sixth sense of sorts in the man Voynich. And one
wonders if Wilfrid and Ethel Voynich, and perhaps also
Miss Nill, were themselves interested in such notions, notions of the
paranormal. In their heyday it would not have been
necessarily frowned upon if the Voynich's had participated in seances,
say. One could fathom Wilfrid attemtpting to make
contact with the spirit of the VMS's author - presumably in his case
Roger Bacon.
Anyway, the closest I've come to finding any evidence of the Voynich's
involved with any paranormal investigations is
Dr. Erla Rodakiewicz (nee Erla B. Hittle). We recall that in her July
17, 1945 letter to Dr. Leonell Strong [7], Erla tells him
that Wilfrid was one of her closest friends, and that she had met him
in Italy in 1898. Well it turns out that Erla in 1911 was
living in Austria and was a member of the Society for Psychical
Research, the original and prestigous SPR - she is so listed in
the SPR's proceedings that year. I think she may have been in the SPR
some other years also. Interesting then, that someone
so close to Wilfrid was in the SPR.
Dana added to the Erla Rodakiewicz data this interesting item:
The Voynich MS
Letter of Friedrich von Hayek to Eric Sams
http://www.ericsams.org/hayektosams.htm
where we learn of a cocktail party in 1923 given by Erla, including
among her guests the anthropologist Franz Boas.
Wilfrid was there, and he apparently astonished the young Friedrich von
Haek with his phenomenal memory and knowledge.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Rafal T. Prinke dates the Voynich No. 31 Catalogue in the period
1903 - 1915 :
voynich.net vms-list post "Re: VMs: Voynich Catalogue No. 31", 26 JAN
2003
http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2003/01/msg00286.html
See Table 336-1 for a possible 1913 dating of this Catalogue.
[2] The sisters Zimmern cooperated at least in the early 1880's on
literary pursuits - they co-produced
"Half-Hours with Foreign Novelists". Perhaps they eventually got to
know Ethel Voynich.
[3] We must not confuse our Pietro Franceschini with another 19th c.
Pietro Franceschini, who
apparently was a scholar of some sort.
[4] The uncertainty about Marci's 1665/1666 letter, allegedly
accompanying the Voynich Manuscript
when found, is reflected in D'Imperio, pages 1-3, where she gives the
two versions, "found between
the pages of the manuscript", and "attached to the front cover".
Marci's letter was clearly enveloped in
the usual manner and wax-sealed: Jan comments that presumably,
according to standard VMS-history
indications, it would then have been Athanasius Kircher who broke the
seal and opened the letter since it
was written to him, but why then was this letter not Jesuit property?
On those same pages D'Imperio reflects another uncertainty in the VMS
story, namely where Voynich
found his manuscript: at the Villa Mondragone, or a castle.
[5] The Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, Volumes 1-12, is
available now online via google
books (~ 40.8 MB). It contains a half a dozen or so notices of Wilfrid
Voynich's activities.
[6] voynich.net vms-list post "VMs: Re: f68v3 ("Andromeda") and it's
T-O map...?", Jorge Stolfi, 28 SEP 2002.
http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2002/09/msg00207.html
[7] Glen Claston (GC) provides online the VMS correspondence of Dr.
Strong at Voynich Central here:
http://www.voynichcentral.com/transcriptions/Voynich-101/index.html
*****************************************
337
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 02-25-2010 11:57:09 PM EST
J.VS: Voynich and connections with
Psychical Research
Dear Colleagues
In J.VS communication #336 [1] I brought up the investigating of any
connections between Wilfrid and
Ethel Voynich, as well as Miss Anne M. Nill, with psychical research.
This is not to be confused
with long-plowed investigations of possible Dee and Kelley-as-medium
theories of the origin of the
Voynich Manuscript.
Why look into possible psychical activities on the part of the major
players in the early story of
the Voynich Manuscript?
The most critical answer is that if indeed any of the early major
players were more than casually
involved in paranormal work, then perhaps they experimentally employed
such work in their approach
to understanding the mystery of the VMS, and if we can find any records
of such experiments, we may
be able to glean some clue or other of what these major players may
have known or thought about the
VMS but never publicized.
So for example, if Wilfrid and Ethel Voynich ever sat in a seance at
which supposedly some
intelligent and willing spirit-librarian "came through", and Wilfrid
asked that spirit some
questions about his Roger Bacon Cipher Manuscript, then surely we would
be very interested in just
what questions Wilfrid asked. Would we not?
It is clearly beside the point here what we personally, or what
religion and science, think about
seances and such, rather the essential point is that this area of
investigation may yield new
information about what those early players most in the know about the
VMS, were thinking and
pursuing about it. Needless to say we would likewise be interested in
any mediumistic-like notes of
Baresch, Marci, Kircher, etc., at least as much as in anything
Kelley-the-medium.
Some folios from the VMS went missing during the 20th century - can we
find out something about
their fate along this present track? Were they perhaps used in a
seance, perhaps a seance which
required a "sacrifice" - in this case the cutting out of a folio from
the VMS? That's not such a
far-fetched thought when we consider that some of the VMS
illustrations, like f72v2 and f82r, can
easily give the impression of seance, trance-induction, trance
medium-ship, and astral-projection
and related techniques, and further that the nine-rosettes foldout can
be imagined as a complex
mandala-network. It is not impossible that a folio in the VMS
indicated, in some understandable
manner or other, that in order to lift the veil of the book's mystery,
this folio should be cut out
and sacrificed, perhaps by burning, in a seance.
In #336 we saw that the well-connected Dr. Erla Rodakiewicz, who had
met Wilfrid Voynich in Italy in
1898 and counted him as one of her closest friends, was a member of the
original (1882) and
prestigous Society for Psychical Research (SPR) at least in the year
1911, when she was living in Austria.
Dr. William Romaine Newbold, most notably of the University of
Pennsylvania, Wilfrid Voynich's
closest collaborator in the effort to demonstrate the Roger Bacon
Cipher Manuscript (Voynich Manuscript, VMS)
as the work of Roger Bacon, was not only a long-time associate of the
SPR, in particular the American
incarnation (ASPR), but prominent enough early on so as to have had the
lead-founder of the SPR,
Frederic William Henry Myers, read a Newbold paper at an SPR meeting
early in 1896 [2].
Newbold's extensive involvement in the world of paranormal research is
curiously absent from his
confusedly-written biography still currently presented online by the
University of Pennsylvania,
which does however remark at length on Newbold's VMS work [3]. In
contrast, the 1917 General Alumni
Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania is not so shy in its brief
sketch of Newbold.
Newbold appears with some regularity in the pages of psychical /
paranormal literature from at least
1895, that is the year before he became Dean of the Graduate School at
U. Penn, until his death in
1926. He participated in experimental seances and tested the
genuineness of spirits raised in seances.
We can learn quite a bit about Newbold's attitudes toward personal and
scientific evidence
from reading some of his psychical commentary.
For example, in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research, Part XXXIII, Supplement, Reviews,
Newbold at length reviews (dated November 11th, 1896) Nevius's 1896
"Demon Possession and Allied Themes",
ending his comments with:
" Dr. Nevius failed to see that the evidence which is sufficient to
bring a mass of phenomena under
an accepted category may be wholly insufficient to establish the
category. The evidence which he has
collected may be subsumed under several categories with equal ease, but
there is nothing in the
evidence to determine us to the choice of the spiritistic rather than
of another. That must be done
by the more complex considerations that fix for each man his attitude
towards the Universe. "
Also in Part XXXIII, Supplement, under "Psychical Research in American
Universities. By Harlow Gale",
Newbold is quoted:
" My own interest in the matter is very keen, and I regret very much
that my work leaves me no time
for original research. I do not, however, introduce it into my
teaching. In the first place I am
giving no courses in which the subject would naturally find its place,
and in the second, I am by no
means sure that it is desirable, either for the sake of the cause or
for the sake of the students,
to do so. I always, however, so far as possible, endeavour to arouse
the interest of any individual
student who seems possessed of the good sense and judgment which are so
essential in one who intends
to deal with such questions. "
One technique which Newbold (and other psychical researchers) employed
during a seance to test a
"spirit" claiming a certain identity, was to give it an expression in
some language which the
trance-medium facilitating the contact with the spirit did not know,
say Greek if that spirit should
have understood Greek. These experiments sometimes produced responses
from the spirit with "odd"
executions of the languages in question.
Now then, it seems entirely conceivable that Newbold would have gotten
the idea sometime during such
a seance experiment, where there was contact with a spirit claiming to
be able to bring back lost
knowledge, to put in front of the spirit (in actual practice the
trance-medium) a sample of the strange
VMS script, and ask: where is this from, who wrote like this, and when
and where?
And now the crucial point: assuming the spirit came back with some
answer which was not immediately
useless or ridiculous, Newbold's NEXT follow-up question((s) would
likely reflect what he, and perhaps
Wilfrid Voynich too, thought about the VMS at the time, and such
thoughts of Newbold and Voynich
may never have been publicized. But surely we would be interested in
what those thoughts were!
It was standard practice in experimental seances to make a careful
record of what was transpiring.
Hence Newbold's surviving private papers specific to psychical research
would seem to be worth
combing for any hint of something like the above involving the VMS. If
he did put some VMS script
before a spirit during a seance, which particular VMS text was it? Why
that text in particular?
In general the surviving private papers specific to psychical research
of anyone close to the Voynich's
in the early VMS days, would be worth a combing through to see if
anything VMS turns up.
So far as I know, this is virgin VMS territory.
Of course this means getting a better detailed picture of Wilfrid
Voynich's tremendous world-wide
web of contacts, an ongoing job important for Voynich work in general
anyway.
Judging from his July 1921 article in Harper's on the Roger Bacon Most
Mysterious Manuscript,
John M. Manly seems to have been familiar with Newbold's
Hilprecht-subconscious-reasoning paper [2].
Manly so far doesn't show up on the psychical radar, and he doesn't
really seem the type, but perhaps he
kept tabs on the field via his brother Charles M. Manly who worked with
Samuel Pierpont Langley on the
Langley Aerodrome - Langley was a Vice-President of the SPR at the time
of his death in 1906.
Turning to Ethel Lilian Voynich, the daughter of George Boole and Mary
Everest Boole,
Rafal T. Prinke has available online an excellent pdf document compiled
by him in 2002:
Genealogia Booleana
http://main2.amu.edu.pl/~rafalp/WWW/HERM/VMS/vms.htm
Therein Prinke writes in the entry for Ethel Voynich's mother :
" Mary Everest [1832-1916] pedagogist, mathematician (invented string
geometry) and spiritist (wrote
The Message of Psychic Science for Mothers and Nurses, besides many
other books) "
Indeed, ELV's mother's extensive output on the paranormal is easily
found by searching the internet.
In October, 1908, the same month Helen Zimmern's article in Pall Mall
on the Libreria Franceschini
appeared [1], Mary Everest Boole wrote in the Preface of her book, "The
message of psychic science
to the world", as follows:
" My father, T. R. Everest, was a learned occultist in days when
occultists were few. He did
everything in his power to call attention to the dangerous re-action
which must come if the clerical
and medical professions persisted in ignoring the phenomena of
Mesmerism, Trance and Clairvoyance. "
" Preface to Private Edition. In 1883 a small edition of the book was
published, but not advertised.
Very few copies of it were ever sold. The preface to that edition was
as follows :— .............
A society has lately been formed, called the Society for Psychical
Research, which announces itself as
willing to receive and examine, and as far as possible to classify,
evidence on such subjects as
thought-reading, clairvoyance, apparitions, and haunted houses. It is
not difficult to foresee that
the future history of this new movement will in many respects repeat
the experience of the past.
The leaders, many of whom are men of unquestioned ability, will pursue
their course in a spirit of calm
and patient inquiry, equally unmoved by the. satire and antagonism, and
by the over-excited
curiosity and too ready belief, which will seethe around them. They
will combine and utilise the
work of isolated observers ; and in due time the world at large will
profit greatly by their
labours. But meanwhile a terrible amount of quite needless suffering
will be caused to those who
take no part in the movement, by the mere unsettling of their ordinary
habits of thought. And the
occasion may perhaps not be inopportune to remind young women who have
not the leisure or the
aptitude for systematic investigation, of the same principles which
were so much forgotten by
unscientific readers in the first shock of surprise caused by the
publication of the " Origin of Species." "
With Erla Rodakiewicz, William Romaine Newbold, and Ethel Lilian
Voynich's own mother openly
involved in the paranormal field, we have Wilfrid and Ethel Voynich
well "surrounded" by at least
the opportunities to experiment paranormally with the VMS mystery. So
far as I can presently
ascertain, it is generally unknown if they did so. It's a point which
should be resolved, and if it
turns out that they did psychically experiment involving the Voynich
Manuscript, then it behooves us
to find out the details - we may well learn something quite interesting
in the hidden VMS story.
Berj / KI3U
[1] J.VS comm. #336 (Vol. IV, 21 FEB 2010):
J.VS: Some Wilfrid Voynich matters across ten years before and after
the Libreria Franceshini acquisition, by Berj / KI3U.
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolIV2010.htm
[2] On 28 DEC 1895 Newbold presented at a meeting of The American
Psychological Association:
A Case of Dream Reasoning. This is reported in The American Naturalist,
Volume 30, February 1896, p. 170;
The PSYCHOLOGY department of this magazine was edited by Newbold.
Newbold's lecture was apparently
attended by William James. Two of the three cases Newbold delt with
were Hilprecht's famous Assyriology dreams
(i.e. famous in Assyriology; Hermann Volrath Hilprecht was one of the
major figures at the dawn of U.S. Oriental-Archeology
which began with the Babylonian expeditions organized by the University
of Pennsylvania in the late 1880's.
At U. Penn Hilprecht and Newbold were friends.).
In the quarterly review and index BORDERLAND, Vol. III, No. 2, April,
1896, on page 224, is reported
that at the last meeting of the Society for Psychical Research, Mr.
Myers read an exceedingly interesting paper
on Sub-Conscious Reasoning by Newbold (the Hilprecht case) and it is to
appear in the forthcoming issue of the
Proceedings of the SPR.
[3] http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1800s/newbold_wm_romaine.html
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