Archive of communications of the Journal Of
Voynich Studies
Index
of Subjects in all Volumes
Vol. III, 2009
237
From:
Greg Stachowski
Date: Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 5:48 PM
To: Journal
of Voynich Studies
Subject: J.VS: Villa Mondragone
brochure link
For those interested in the history of
the Villa Mondragone, there is a PDF brochure in Italian and English
available from the Jesuits:
http://www.gesuiti.it/File/Pubblicazioni/Novià_editoriali/Villamondragone.pdf
Only one small mention of the VMS, but nonetheless
interesting.
*****************************************************************
238
From : Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To : Journal of
Voynich Studies
Date : Sat, 3 Jan 2009 16:51:52 +0000
Subject
: J.VS: Re: Villa Mondragone brochure link
A very
interesting and useful find Greg!
On Mondragone's history we
even get pictures of Pope Pius XI (Fr. Achille Ratti, friend of
Wilfrid Voynich) observing Marconi preparing a radio installation at
the Mondragone, in 1932.
Yes the VMS mention seems to be
based merely on the usual old assumptions, so popularly rehashed all
over everywhere. I wonder what made the authors choose f88r for the
one VMS picture.
I was hoping to find, but did not, something
on the villa's Sala Rossa, which today has that fresco?, the geometry
of which is so strikingly similar to the plan of the VMS nine
rosettes foldout. [1]
There are some interesting
architectural pictures to study, with VMS castles and tower-in-a-hole
coming into mind also.
This too is interesting:
"
From 1865 a deal has effect between the owner Marcantonio V Borghese
and the Jesuits in order to use the Villa as a college: the Jesuits,
in lieu of the rent, proceed to ongoing renovations of the building.
..... "
It would seem then that the renovating Jesuits
would begin to know every nook and cranny of the villa, far more so
than as ordinary renters, and be in a position to find any long lost
items under the dust, including manuscripts.
Berj
[1]
see J.VS communication #69 (12 AUG 2007, Vol. I):
J.VS: Jan's THE
VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT - DO WE REALLY HAVE ANY PROVENANCE?; by Berj /
KI3U.
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolI2007.htm
***************************************************
239
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Sat 1/03/09 8:51 PM
Subject: J.VS: The
Hippodrome of Constantinople and the f85v2-86r4 portion of the
Voynich Nine Rosettes illustration
Dear Colleagues
As you know from off-J discussions, as well as some brief
comments by me recently on vms-list, Jan Hurych and I have lately
done some exploring of construction patterns and geographic details
in and around civilization sites, around the globe by means of the
online internet geo-image service: Google Earth. [1]
We've
looked at man-made constructions and natural features that might be
reflected in some of the Voynich manuscript's illustrations. There
are many eye-catching artificial ground-patterns around the globe
that have some resemblance to VMS illustration components, especially
in the nine rosettes illustration, which for long is commonly
regarded as an elaborate Mappa mundi of some kind. Google Earth is a
modern tool for helping the traditional-methods searches.
Evaluating patterns is not easy of course, because each new
observed interesting pattern-similarity quickly causes a launch into
an intensive investigation as to its potential relevance, complicated
by the VMS illustrations' unknown stylization-degree, and the
particulars of modern images delivered by the Google Earth service.
For example, we are all familiar with long running attempts to match
ancient Jerusalem's details, with details in the nine rosettes
illustration - it is not so straightforward a task as one might hope.
Here I'd like briefly to point to an interesting exploration
possibility so as to show some typical research problems: comparing
parts of the VMS nine rosettes picture in its f85v2 and f86r4 panels
(the upper left, and upper central panels of the foldout) with the
ancient Hippodrome of Constantinople, which is situated near
Justinian's Hagia Sophia Basilica Cathedral.
As we know, the
VMS upper-left and upper-central rosettes are connected by an
elongated walled construction which is associated with what could be
cliffs, and water. This elongated construction has within it some odd
features, notably a column that is situated in a recess of some kind,
suggesting perhaps a fountain's column and its reflection, or as it
has also been called a "tower-in-a-hole".
Now, lets
plug these geo- latitude and longitude coordinates into the Google
Earth Fly-to box, so as to obtain the from-above altitude view of the
U-end half of the Hippodrome of Constantinople:
41.00566N,
28.975123E
We zoom in enough so that the U-end is close to
the bottom of the screen. We compare what we see there with the
above-mentioned VMS structure that bridges the f85v2 and f86r4
panels. There is a little bit of noticable similarity, and it starts
the ball rolling to investigate further.
The most interesting
thing is the circular structure bearing a central column, halfway
between the two obelisks. It is the remains of the famous ancient
Greek Serpent Column. Originally it was installed at Delphi to
commemorate the Greek victory after the Battle of Plataea in the
Greco-Persian wars, but later it was moved from Delphi to the
Hippodrome on the orders of Constantine. Today the Serpent Column
rests in a hole-in-the-ground, giving an impression of a little
tower-in-a-hole. But today's Hippodrome ground level is built-up over
what it was in ancient times, moreover the Hippodrome has not been
archeologically thoroughly excavated, and so it is uncertain if the
Serpent Column was originally intentionally placed in something
resembling a hole, round or other. [2]
So, that is just an
opening problem in trying to find out if the nine rosettes
illustrator had the Serpent Column in mind, even remotely, and
allowing for him discarding the details of the actual column's three
coiled serpents etc., when he sketched the f85v2 and f86r4 panels.
Was he aware of the Serpent Column, and did he borrow from its
situation only the mere geometric basics?
The nine rosettes
illustration is one of blending between somewhat realistic components
like the walls and castles, and rather abstract devices like the
rosettes themselves. To the extent it is a Mappa mundi, or just a
restricted Mappa, what rules apply to reading it, starting with its
orientation? Just to the left of the upper-left rosette is some
Voynich text. It indicates that in the manuscript's binding, the
foldout is correctly oriented, correctly with respect to the text in
the other folios.
The foldout illustration has two suns,
placed diagonally, one at the upper left corner, the other at the
lower-right, and it has been natural to think these give east-west
information. We might then rotate the rosettes counter-clockwise by
45 degrees and take the originally upper-left sun symbol to designate
the western direction. That would seem to rule out the oriental
Hippodrome possibility, unless the map's western extent was not much
farther west than Constantinople. To complicate matters, even before
any rotation of the foldout, the nearly bare-bones T-O map symbol at
the upper right corner of the rosettes would seem to be somewhat at
odds with the map orientation suggested by the line between the two
suns. Does a precession axis-angle enter into the considerations? So,
just where is east in the nine-rosettes "map" ?
There
are too many obvious differences between the VMS tower-in-a-hole, and
the Serpent Column and Hippodrome, to give much weight to the idea
that they are connected. But at the same time, the nine rosettes
illustration has so many ambiguities in orientation, style, and
symbolism, that we cannot even totally rule out a possible
connection. The good thing is that in following up each potential
lead, we add to our stock of classified relations. Nevertheless we
are back to needing at least one solid clue from the nine rosettes
that will allow us to pin this illustration to something known in
detail. The symbolized keys that make up the "hands" of the
"clock" in the nine rosettes foldout do seem to suggest
that such a clue is to be found within its panels.
Berj /
KI3U
[1] The online website for Google Earth is here:
http://earth.google.com/
[2] Some views and information
on the Serpent Column are here:
http://www.helleniccomserve.com/hippodrome.html
http://flickr.com/photos/23678282@N00/229543620
**************************************************
240
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Wed 1/07/09 4:42 AM
Subject: J.VS: An Angulis
Crucis cipher experiment: n-graph morphing and frequency banding
Dear Colleagues
Below follows a little
experiment with the Angulis Crucis cipher system discussed in J.VS
communication #234 [1]. In #234 I noted that if nothing else, the
Angulis Crucis can serve as a reference for general cipher work; it
allows quite a variety of cipher explorations while requiring only a
modest overhead in alphabet tables etc.
In comm. #234 only
the very basics of the system were presented, including the "LRTJ"
transcription system for it. From the basics it is quite apparent
that there are many possibilities for further manipulations in order
to modify, and strengthen the ciphering properties of Angulis Crucis,
whether it be employed steganographically with its original bracket
symbols, or remapped to other symbols, in particular alphabetic. Here
we will experiment with remapped Angulis Crucis, while building upon
its inherent properties.
Lets get something to encipher:
{1} have_a_nice_day
The symbols frequencies for the 9
involved symbols (ignoring the spaces) are:
{2}
a :
3/12 = 0.2500
e : 2/12 = 0.1667
c : 1/12 = 0.0833
d :
1/12 = 0.0833
h : 1/12 = 0.0833
i : 1/12 = 0.0833
n :
1/12 = 0.0833
v : 1/12 = 0.0833
y : 1/12 = 0.0833
Using
the LRTJ transcription table from comm. #234, Table 234-I., we
transform {1} into:
{3} RJJJTTJL_JJ_TRJRTLJL_TJJJJR
And
the frequencies for the LRTJ symbols are:
{4}
J :
12/24 = 0.5000
T : 5/24 = 0.2083
R : 4/24 = 0.1667
L :
3/24 = 0.1250
Now, an outstanding property of the Angulis
Crucis system is that it creates apparent n-graphs, including those
made up of repeating consecutive same-symbols. For example in {3} we
see a trigraph JJJ and a tetragraph JJJJ. Lets explore n-graphs
morphing around this n-graphs property with a new enciphering rule:
n-graphs are to be reversed in direction, say every pair of symbols,
beginning at left:
{5} JRJJTTLJ_JJ_RTRJLTLJ_JTJJRJ
Whereas
the data in {4} remains unchanged, the n-graphs spectrum has now
changed quite a bit, and in particular the JJJJ tetragraph has
vanished. A new JJJ trigraph is available with concatenation:
{6}
JRJJTTLJJJRTRJLTLJJTJJRJ
Before we re-parse, lets expand the
codes by introducing an example mapping alphabet:
Table
I. Example re-mapping of the Table 234-I. Angulis Crucis digraphs
system to 17 symbols, and optionally 26.
L = L
LL = A
LLL = B
LLLL = C
R = R
RR = D
RRR = E
RRRR =
F
T = T, U
TT = G, V
TTT = H, W
TTTT = I, X
J =
J, O
JJ = K, P, Y
JJJ = M, Q
JJJJ = N, S
Z = Z =
utility
Undoubtedly a statistical study of Angulis Crucis
applied to, say Latin, could point to better mapping assignments of
the optional nine letters O - Y, say for the purpose of flattening or
otherwise manipulating frequencies. However, with this remapping we
seem to be in Voynich familiar territory, because this expansion of
the cipher codes created a core code table of 17 letters, and the VMS
text is long famously regarded to revolve around primarily 17 Voynich
symbols. The mapping added a general utility glyph, Z, one that could
be assigned to stand for a true, or false group-separator space, or
even a wild card joker able to be anything from a frequency-altering
double, to a harmless filler.
We note a key feature of the
remapping table: it presents us with many possibilties for
transforming {6}, for example:
{7} JRKGLQRTRJLTLJYTPRJ (19
symbols)
{8} JRYTTLMRTRJLTLJJTYRJ (20 symbols)
{9}
JRJJTTLMRTRJLTLJJTJJRJ (22 symbols)
And of course each
possible transformation has its own set of symbols frequencies. Lets
reparse {7} :
{10} JRK_GLQR_T_RJLTL_JY_TPRJ
The
frequencies of its 9 symbols are:
{11}
R : 4/19 =
0.2105
J : 4/19 = 0.2105
T : 3/19 = 0.1579
L : 3/19 =
0.1579
K : 1/19 = 0.0526
G : 1/19 = 0.0526
Q : 1/19 =
0.0526
Y : 1/19 = 0.0526
P : 1/19 = 0.0526
And we
can compare {11} with {2} of the plaintext. The most interesting
thing here is that the process of getting to {11} has created more
pronounced frequency-bands:
{12} Showing the
frequency-banding in {11} :
R : 4/19 = 0.2105
J : 4/19 =
0.2105
-----------------
T : 3/19 = 0.1579
L : 3/19 =
0.1579
-----------------
K : 1/19 = 0.0526
G : 1/19 =
0.0526
Q : 1/19 = 0.0526
Y : 1/19 = 0.0526
P : 1/19 =
0.0526
And whereas we don't often mention it, the
so-called 16 or 17 commonest Voynich text symbols do exhibit
frequency banding across the corpus. Of course this experiment,
starting just with the little piece in {1} is far from producing
anything to generalize around, but it does diagram some interesting
possibilities for using Angulis Crucis principles as an analytic tool
to explore the Voynich text.
Berj / KI3U
[1]
Journal of Voynich Studies communication #234 (9 DEC 2008, Vol. II):
J.VS: The steganographic Angulis Crucis cipher-codes of Bernardus
de Martinitz in Kircher's papers; by Berj / KI3U.
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolII2008.htm
**********************************************************
241
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Wed 1/07/09 11:41 PM
To:
Journal of Voynich Studies
Subject: J.VS: Re: An Angulis
Crucis cipher experiment: n-graph morphing and frequency banding?
Dear Colleagues
I have found an error in
communication #240 that I will correct here.
In comm. #240
when rewriting {6} as {7}, specifically when remapping a "JJ"
to "Y", I accidentally kept a J and typed it before the Y:
JY. The corrected {7} becomes:
{7} JRKGLQRTRJLTLYTPRJ (18
symbols)
The corrected example parsing of {10} becomes:
{10} JRK_GLQR_T_RJLTL_Y_TPRJ
And the corrected {11}
and {12} become:
{11} Frequencies of the 9 symbols of {7}
:
R : 4/18 = 0.2222
J : 3/18 = 0.1667
T : 3/18 =
0.1667
L : 3/18 = 0.1667
K : 1/18 = 0.0556
G : 1/18 =
0.0556
Q : 1/18 = 0.0556
Y : 1/18 = 0.0556
P : 1/18 =
0.0556
{12} Showing the frequency-banding in {11} :
R
: 4/18 = 0.2222
-----------------
J : 3/18 = 0.1667
T :
3/18 = 0.1667
L : 3/18 = 0.1667
-----------------
K :
1/18 = 0.0556
G : 1/18 = 0.0556
Q : 1/18 = 0.0556
Y :
1/18 = 0.0556
P : 1/18 = 0.0556
By a frequency band
we of course mean a group of two or more symbols with very similar,
or identical frequencies, and distinctly separated in frequency
values from the next below, and next above symbols.
Berj
*******************************
242
From: Berj
N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Fri
1/09/09 6:03 PM
J.VS: Hemingway's coded communications
Dear Colleagues
Cuba is making available online
thousands of pages of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) documents, and:
" The archive includes coded messages which Hemingway
sent while using his yacht to search for German submarines operating
off the island. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7812902.stm
http://www.cnpc.cult.cu/
Berj / KI3U
*********************************
243
From:
Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent:
Wed 1/14/09 4:11 AM
Subject: J.VS: Are there
Hexaplaric-like markings in the Voynich Manuscript?
Dear
Colleagues
One thing is for sure from a careful high
resolution survey of the Beinecke SID images of the Voynich
Manuscript: the indications of possibly significant subtle details
across the manuscript's folios are very great in number. Lets have a
look at yet another curious couple of similar details, which seem to
appear each only once, on each side of folio 107.
Voynich
star-pages section page f107r is all text, except that it has 15
drawn stars, of varying constructions, running down the left margin
suggesting a connection to the text "paragraphs" to their
right. From the top, let us count down to the 11th star.
As
you can see, to the left of this 11th star there are three little
marks, roughly dots, close together horizontally. The SID image
suggests they were inked, and at the time the text was inked. Why
were they put there?
Flipping the page to f107v, lets look at
the top where the text begins. We see the first star and to its right
the page's first text group, GC-haisAy. On both sides of the star we
see three little marks, in a line. The righthand group of marks is
positioned between the star and the GC-h. These marks are closer to
short strokes than the more dot-like marks on the recto side, but we
might entertain some common significance. What could it be?
Searching for something to compare with, to this point all I
have been able to come up with is the so-called hexaplaric signs.
Early Church father Origen of Alexandria (died ~ A.D. 254) produced a
massive comparative six-versions comparison of the Old Testament
Bible, known as the "Hexapla", wherein he used a system of
text-criticism markings:
" Origen here had recourse to a
system of critical signs, invented and employed by the grammarian
Aristarchus (3rd century BC) in his edition of Homer. Passages of the
first class were left in the text, but had prefixed to them an
obelus, a sign of which the original form was a "spit" or
"spear," but figuring in Septuagint manuscripts as a
horizontal line usually with a dot above and a dot below; there are
other varieties also. The sign in Aristarchus indicated censure, in
the Hexapla the doubtful authority of the words which followed. The
close of the obelized passage was marked by the metobelus, a colon
(:), or, in the Syriac VSS, shaped like a mallet. ..... [1]
So,
there are variations of text-critical symbols, both in their graphic
aspects, and precise meaning. That's a mild way to put the general
picture.
The Greek-Uncials, Alexandrian text-type, Codex
Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03, a rather important and famous bible
manuscript, exhibits a hefty spectrum of text-critical markings. I
looked them over at the well-known and very interesting Vaticanus
webpages of Wieland Willker. [2]
In his Vaticanus website
sub-section, Observations in the Old Testament, the first image
Wilker presents of text-critical / hexaplaric signs, is the example
of three horizontal dots, which is what the three dots to the left of
the 11th star in VMS f107r call to mind. [3]
About these
Wilker writes:
" The text written by scribe A (according
to Milne/Skeat) is labeled with three horizontally aligned dots in
the left margin used as Obeli: . . .
These signs are many and
quite clearly unenhanced, probably original. "
So,
is the f107r horizontal triple of dots a hexaplaric-like marking in
the Voynich manuscript? I don't really know what to think for sure.
At the moment it is the best possibility I can entertain. It would
imply that the material in the VMS star-section, at least on f107,
records the writing of person or persons other than the VMS author.
If the VMS star section concerns astronomical data, perhaps the
triple on f107r by the 11th star is meant to indicate that the VMS
author is critical of what he is recording there next to the 11th
star, considers it legendary, or corrupted as to its accuracy.
Some
VMS students hold that the star-section material is "recipes",
as in medicinal preparations. In that case the triple by the VMS
author, or scribe, could equally well indicate criticism of the
recipe's accuracy, or reported application / effects.
Another
possibility, seeing as this is the Voynich Manuscript where so little
is as yet certain, is that the VMS author / scribe is experimenting,
perhaps even playfully as in creating the diversionary illusion that
a hexaplaric is to be understood.
As for the more complicated
case on f107v, there the star seems to be integral with the marks.
The simplest thought there is that emphasis may be being added to the
meaning of the marking.
Although, as best as I can tell,
these markings on f107 are unique in the manuscript, there are quite
a number of other possibilities in the VMS pages for the idea of text
criticism or text annotation. A rather strong example occurs on f2v
of the botanical section. In the second / bottom paragraph of text,
floating just above the first group, note the scribble there - what
is that thing? It looks like a script lower-case tightly connected
"fc". It is unmistakable for having been put there with the
same ink used for writig the text, and like many VMS text letters, it
has been emphasized, made heavier. It is no accident. The easiest
conclusion on it is that it is some sort of note concerning the text
below, or at least the group immediately below it. Now if we go down
to the second line of that second paragraph of f2v, we will see a
single dot to the left of the initial GC-8. On the high resolution
SID image that dot appears as it well might be inked. Here and there
throughout the VMS's pages we will find more examples of these little
nearly un-noticable dots to the left of text in the margin. Are they
hexaplaric-like signs, or pre-scripting text-aligment markers, or
something else like an ink check?
So, altogether we have here
another example of the Voynich manuscript's cornucopia of
details-mysteries. We find something interesting, and variously
subtle, and go hunting for comparisons in known materials. Sometimes
in doing that we hit on really odd coincidences: for example, we
can't help but notice that there is more than just a tiny resemblance
between the common VMS text group GC-M (EVA-iiin) and the sign for
the angel "Symiel" in Trithemius's Steganographia [4].
Berj / KI3U
[1] International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia: Septuagint, H. St. J. Thackeray. SBL Ministries:
http://www.sbl.org/biblestudies/biblejourney/dictionary/isbe/s/septuagint.htm
[2] Wieland Willker has online a website, in English and
German, devoted to Bible manuscripts, and there is much there of
interest in Voynich work, just for example: "Photographing
ancient manuscripts". [2a]
Willker devotes an entire
major section of his website to the 4th c. dated vellum Codex
Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03. [2b]
There in the sub-section,
General description of the codex, [2c], Willker writes:
"
Codex Vaticanus is considered unanimously the most important single
manuscript of the Bible we currently possess. With only a few
competitors (which are only fragmentary) Codex Vaticanus has the best
text of all known manuscripts. It deserves our utmost interest. "
" The Codex is still in the Vatican library and
deteriorates. Nobody seems interested in analyzing it. The master has
not yet been found... "
Willker devotes another major
sub-section to the socalled "Umlauts" of the Codex
Vaticanus:
" In 1995 Philip Payne discovered the so
called "umlauts" or double dots. These are two small
horizontally aligned points like those above the German ä, ö,
or ü. They are in the margin of the columns next to a line and
are scattered all over the NT. Payne concluded and all scholars seem
to agree with him, that these umlauts indicate lines where a textual
variant was known to the person who wrote the umlauts. "
"
The umlaut question appears to be more difficult than at first
thought, ..... " [2d]
[2a]
http://www.user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/ww_tc.html
[2b]
http://www.user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Vaticanus/index.html
[2c]
http://www.user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Vaticanus/general.html
[2d]
http://www.user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Vaticanus/umlauts.html
[3]
http://www.user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Vaticanus/observations-OT.html
[4] Joseph H. Peterson's digital edition of Trithemius's
Steganographia is available online at his Twilit Grotto: Archives of
Western Esoterica, here:
http://www.esotericarchives.com/tritheim/stegano.htm#chap14
*************************************************************
244
From Greg Stachowski
To Journal of Voynich
Studies
Sent Date 01-15-2009 4:57:46 PM
Subject JVS:
Interconnections
Some of you may remember that back
in 2007, I posted in J.VS comm #86 that WMV's name came up in the
list of Herbert Hoover's correspondence.
Well, looking at
Georg Agricola's De Re Metallica for our off-J discussion on alchemy,
I discovered that the first English translation was published in
London in 1912. The translation was made by ... Herbert Hoover,
together with his wife Lou. Herbert was of course a mining engineer,
his wife was a geologist and apparently a classicist.
The
Hoovers' translation is available online:
http://www.farlang.com/gemstones/agricola-metallica/page_001
Greg
*****************************
245
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Mon 1/19/09 8:43 PM
J.VS: The red botanical
illustration in Grueber's 7 OCT 1669 letter to Kircher, 558 APUG
143-144rv
Dear Colleagues
As you know, in our
off-J discussions our colleague Jan Hurych suggested some attention
upon the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Valentin Stansel /
Estancel (1621-1705) who was born in Moravia, and died in Brazil, and
had a strong career interest in comets. [1]
Jan suggested
starting with Kircher's papers, and so I did a quick search in
Athanasius Kircher's papers in the APUG and immediately came across a
letter to Kircher, apparently written 7 OCT 1669 in Tyrnavia (Trnava
in west Slovakia) by Joannis Grueber, and mentioning Valentiny
Stansel. This letter has, presumably drawn by Grueber, a botanical
illustration in red paint. [2]
Perhaps this botanical
illustration can be useful for comparisons with Voynich Manuscript
botanical illustrations. Grueber has drawn the plant not complete,
but some parts of it, including what appears to be its open flower.
To the left are some numbers in graphite?, and to the right some more
drawings which may or may not relate to the red plant, also in
graphite pencil. The reverse side of the plant page is worth a look
too: while basically blank, there is at its bottom right a watermark
or faint graphite illustration of something reminiscent of a
three-leaf clover, with a kidney-shaped leaf at its lower left.
Grueber's script is not easy to transcribe. In addition to
Stansel he seems to mention other Padres. I also see the word
"Baccoricas" or "Baccorica", which perhaps refers
to a Boehemian plant species - I don't know yet.
Who is
Johann Grueber (b. 1623) ? Amazingly, he turns out be a Jesuit
explorer, mathematician and astronomer who was an assistant to Fr.
Adamus Schall in China. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia entry on
Grueber states:
" Tonnier says: "It is due to
Grueber's energy that Europe received the first correct information
concerning Thibet and its inhabitants". "
" An
account of this first journey through Thibet in modern times was
published by Father Athanasius Kircher to whom Grueber had left his
journals and charts, which he had supplemented by numerous verbal and
written additions ("China illustrata", Amsterdam, 1667,
64-67). " [3]
Indeed, there is more Grueber material in
Kircher's APUG for us to look through. And of course Stansel. I am
especially intrigued with the result that Grueber connects directly
with Fr. Adamus Schall, since it is Kircher's 1664 letter to Schall
which contains the only known historical Voynich text-group outside
of the Voynich manuscript. [4]
So then, here we have some new
interesting grounds to explore in connection with the VMS, launched
so suddenly by Jan's almost-casual suggestions.
Thanks Jan!
Berj / KI3U
[1] Catholic Online encyclopedia
biographical entry on Stansel:
http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=11036
[2]
Grueber's letter, 558 APUG 143-144rv, appears to be missing a page or
pages, but four pages, including 144v with the botanical drawing are
here:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/143r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/143v.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/144r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/144v.jpg
These
pages do not have a date, place, and signature, but combining
information from the Luna Insight service, and the original Kircher
papers catalog entry which is here:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/001v.jpg
and
then making the assumption that old catalog "43" equates to
new "143" in 558 APUG, we obtain that Grueber wrote from
Tyrnavia on 7 OCT 1669. Of course this needs checking, because
immediately we have a dating problem: Grueber's death is reported as
1665, or 1680, depending on where you look [3]. In any case, the old
Kircher catalog page in APUG unambiguously has Grueber writing in
1669.
[3] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07041a.htm
[4]
The 1664 Kircher-to-Schall letter is discussed in J.VS communications
#13, 15, 82, 83, 139, 154, 161, 166, and 221. The original finding of
the apparent VMS text-group in the Kircher-Schall letter was posted
on voynich.net vms-list 18 FEB 2007, about which all information is
in J.VS comm. #83:
Journal of Voynich Studies communication
#83 (14 SEP 2007, Vol. I):
J.VS: Pictures: possible
Voynich-alphabet word in Kircher's letter to Schall
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolI2007.htm
J.VS
comm. #83 also has the link to the pictures of same on deposit in the
J.VS Library, accessible online. The particulars of the VMS
text-group and some Voynich letters around it in this 1664 Kircher
letter, giving the impression it "got away" from Kircher's
hypothetical extirpations, are one motivating factor for the
hypothesis of "Jesuit Secret Script" (JSS), considered in
comm. #221:
Journal of Voynich Studies communication #221 (13
OCT 2008, Vol. II):
J.VS: Image artifacts, or obliterated
Voynich-similar script?
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolII2008.htm
*****************************************************************
246
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of
Voynich Studies
Sent Date: 01-24-2009 11:55:27 PM
J.VS:
Two letters to Kircher from Martinus Santinus, S.J.
Dear
Colleagues
The most recent recap of information on the Jesuit
VMS-person-of-interest Martinus Santini / Santinus was posted by our
colleague Dana Scott on voynich.net vms-list:
Subject VMs:
Santinus Revisited
Sent Date 09-23-2008 3:32:27 AM
Rene
Zandbergen added interesting information in that thread. Dana's
thread had followed a post, also on vms-list, by Rene Zandbergen
reproducing a brief 2005 chronology of the life of Santinus:
Subject Re: VMs: [IC/VMS] Jan Hurych's article on the
"Raphael Hypothesis"
Sent Date 07-23-2008 8:19:27 AM
I've come across a couple of letters by Santinus to Kircher.
Since they seem to be absent in the above data collection, lets list
them now, and then we will have here all in this one communication a
handy guide to Santinus information:
APUG 567, 27rv
20
JUL 1640 letter from Prague by Martinus Santinus to Kircher; Dr.
Marcus (Marci) mentioned, and also it looks like a Padre Ignatius,
but no mention of Moretus; subject of letter seems to be science.
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/027r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/027v.jpg
APUG
567, 89rv
14 OCT 1645 letter from Prague by Martinus Santinus to
Kircher; heavily stained; subject seems to be chemical mysteries and
this letter may have significant potential in connection with
invisible-ink writing as per J.VS communication #221 [1].
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/089r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/089v.jpg
Berj
/ KI3U
[1] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #221 (13
OCT 2008, Vol. II):
J.VS: Image artifacts, or obliterated
Voynich-similar script?
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolII2008.htm
***********************************************************
247
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of
Voynich Studies
Sent: Date 01-31-2009 11:13:58 PM
J.VS:
The antique script communications-to-Kircher of Fr. Matthieu Coupain
Dear Colleagues
Taking the last letter of
Marci-to-Kircher at face-value, and therefore that in 1665 or 1666
Kircher received from Marci a mysterious manuscript that Kircher was
already aware of to some degree, we might conjecture that following
receipt of the ms Kircher would spend some time on it, and perhaps
compare its script with other scripts, and perhaps even exchange
letters with someone for such a purpose.
Recently off-J I
gave an example of the occassional GC-k gallows similar appearing in
Kircher's papers, 563 APUG 35v:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/035v.jpg
On
this particular example with its intruded-upon-from-left GC-k, our
colleague Greg Stachowski noted the relation to runes, of the entire
block of script.
In the old catalog of Kircher's papers [1],
this 563 APUG 35 document is listed as "Effigies quadam
numismatum". Indeed, we see drawings of a coin or coins and
associated details, possibly ancient Greek, along with the
interesting five lines of unusual script, with the GC-k, residing
within a square.
In the old catalog the next entry, 36,
shows:
P. Matthiac Coupain Soc. Jesu. Lugduni 30. Septembr.
1666.
Following up on this we find that 563 APUG 36-37rv is a
30 SEP 1666 letter to Kircher, written it appears in French, by a
fellow priest whose name appears spelled differently on 36r and 37r,
respectively "Matthieu Coupain", and approximately
"Matthiceu" or "Matthieu Compaius". Perhaps the
36r writing at the bottom of the page along with "Lyon" was
added by Kircher. Anyway, Matthieu's hand is very tough to read, but
from a first glance it seems that he is talking about inscriptions on
medallions, and so there is some reason to believe that the 563 APUG
35v document belongs with this 30 SEP 1666 letter:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/036r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/036v.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/037r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/037v.jpg
Looking
for more of Fr. Matthieu in the old catalog, we find the 558 APUG 48
entry:
P. Matthia Compairy (Compairus?) Lugduni 23 Decembr.
1666. [2]
Going there:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/048r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/048v.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/049r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/049v.jpg
we
find Fr. Matthieu's 23 DEC 1666 letter, written in Latin, and such
that it should be easier to transcribe than the 30 SEP letter. From a
first glance, in this 23 DEC letter he appears to discuss
numismatics, and obscure magical script. Thus there is more reason to
believe that the 563 APUG 35 document is connected with Fr. Matthieu.
Indeed, the database of the Athanasius Kircher Correspondence Project
(which is not perfect), as accessed via Luna Insight, groups the
above two letters with 563 APUG 35 under the name of the Jesuit:
Matthieu Compain.
I have so far not been able to find out
anything about Fr. Matthieu, however his last name is actually
spelled. But I think we might take a closer look at his letters,
determine if the correspondence with Kircher was fully two-way, and
get a better idea of what Matthieu and Athanasius had in mind in
their correspondence.
Berj / KI3U
[1]
Specifically the first page of Index Tomum IX :
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/001r.jpg
[2]
The second page of TOM I IV:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/558/large/001v.jpg
**************************************************************
248
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of
Voynich Studies
Sent: Thu 2/05/09 12:29 AM
J.VS: In a
Gaspar Schott letter: Santinus maybe
Dear Colleagues
After a brief look, Jan Hurych and I decided it is better to
note the following little datum rather than to let it slide. It won't
hurt to note it.
Have a look at the 2nd-last word in the
second line:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/561/large/279v.jpg
Is it Santinus as in Padre Martinus Santinus, or is it
Sultanus, Scaltanus, or whateverus?
This is the verso of a 9
MAR 1659 letter to Athanasius Kircher, S.J., from Kaspar Schott, S.J.
(~1608-1666) writing in Herbipoli (Wuerzburg) [1]. As we know, this
Jesuit mathematician / physicist and prolific writer was a friend,
and former student, of Kircher. In the Archivio della Pontificia
Universita Gregoriana in Rome (APUG) holdings of Kircher's papers are
quite a few of Schott's letters to Kircher, in addition to this one.
Schott's letters in APUG are nearly all quite challenging to
deal with on account of the faded ink, and his hand, and also he
seems to use abbreviations in strange ways: see for example in line
16 underneath "P. Beck" of line 15, where he gives the name
of a Padre that seems to start with a capital "C" but then
the next letter, which I'd expect to be a vowel, is written like a
classic VMS GC-1 (EVA-ch). I seem to remember he also wrote a GC-2
somewhere I saw.
I've only quickly scanned Schott's letters
in APUG, but it seems he writes to Kircher in Italian, and Latin, and
this one seems to be Latin. From the recto side I gathered he was
discussing planetary astronomy among other items. Common subjects in
his letters are mathematical and scientific and engineering subjects,
his Magia Universalis, and Kircher's Musurgia Universalis (Kircher's
exploration of the connection between music and medicine) [2].
Berj / KI3U
[1] Biographical information on the
fascinating Schott (Pied Piper of Hameln / Hamelin storyteller too!):
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13589a.htm
http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/issue_pdf/frontmatter_pdf/s4-I/8.pdf
[2] http://www.jstor.org/pss/902271
***********************************************
249
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Fri 2/06/09 1:05 AM
J.VS: Gaspar Schott's Shola
Steganographica
Dear Colleagues:
Gaspar
Schott's Shola Steganographica, 1665, is available for download (22.4
Mb) from Google books. The scan seems to be excellent, with dozens of
code tables, codewheels, pictures of code machines, and musical
notation resolving quite crisply. Schott's book is mostly in Latin,
but also has sections in German and Italian. The ideas of Trithemius,
Porta, and Kircher receive a lot of development. The range of subject
matter is rather amazing, and most surprising to me in this
crypto-book is the inclusion of a section on herbs! It has an index.
This book may prove useful in VMS work, and in any case ought give us
better facilities for understanding Schott's manner of writing,
especially his strange use of abbreviations, as seen in his letters
to Kircher.
Berj / KI3U
***************************************************
250
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Sat 2/07/09 5:17 PM
J.VS: Possibly ancient
Syriac Bible seized in Cyprus
Dear Colleagues
Here's some interesting manuscript news, with a good picture:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090206/lf_nm_life/us_cyprus_bible
" Authorities in northern Cyprus believe they have found
an ancient version of the Bible written in Syriac, a dialect of the
native language of Jesus. ..... Experts were however divided over the
provenance of the manuscript, and whether it was an original, which
would render it priceless, or a fake. "
In APUG we see
that Athanasius Kircher was quite interested in variations of Syriac
script.
Berj / KI3U
********************************
251
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of
Voynich Studies
Sent: Wed 2/11/09 2:44 AM
J.VS: P.
Santino, Prester John, and other APUG odds and ends
Dear
Colleagues
Briefly listed for handy reference in this
data-gram, following are a few odds and ends from the APUG Kircher
documents collection.
I. Santino, Schott, Gulden,
Grienberger, Kepler, Inchofer, Martinis, Martinio, Kinner, Berck,
Kedd.
In J.VS communication #248 I pointed to some oddities
in a 9 MAR 1659 letter of Gaspar Schott. One problem there was trying
to figure out a word that possibly suggested "Santinus".
There was some interesting discussion on this on the voynich.net
vms-list [1] and my last contribution there was to point to
"Saladinus AEgypti Suldanus" appearing in Schott's Shola
Steganographica (see J.VS comm. #249), as a possible clue to figuring
out what Schott wrote. At this point it seems unlikely that Schott
indicated Father Martinus Santinus in that 1659 letter, but Schott's
works and his peculiar handwriting style remain very much of high VMS
interest.
However, another Santinus possibility arises in 567
APUG 241-242 :
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/241r.jpg
where on the 10th line up from the bottom of 241r we see "P.
Santino". This is a 28 JAN 1629? letter from Paul Gulden in Graz
to Christoph Grienberger. Possibly there is a greeting to Athanasius
Kircher, and that is why this letter is among Kircher's papers. In
the letter telescopic observation of a comet is discussed, and Kepler
is mentioned.
Now, is this Padre Santino the same Padre
Santini / Martinus Santinus we are interested in as a possible lead
to more information on Baresch? As we know, names (not to mention
dates) are frequently a problem, and it is not just spelling
variations [2] like Kircher, Kirchner, Kirker, Kircherio, Chircherio,
and so on. The writers back then varied also in using the first and
last names after the Padre, and we can for example find P. Athanasius
or P. Kircher. Or, P. Melchior, where with the latter it could well
be that the thorny Jesuit Padre Melchior Inchofer is being meant.
There happen to be in APUG letters to Kircher from a Martinus de
Martinis who usually seems to write mathematics, and I am not
absolutely certain he is NOT a priest (see aliases below). So, we can
have this kind of sorting-the-name-out problem, as for example in
Mueller's 555 APUG 284 letter of 1661 wherein appears the priest
"Martinio" :
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/555/large/284r.jpg
And
we are reminded of the two "Cyprian Kinner" persons about
forty years apart that are yet to be definitively sorted out.
Here's a 3 DEC 1638 letter from Borges, 567 APUG 2, that
maybe can help clarify the Martin*** names:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/002r.jpg
Further complications arise with the use of protective
aliases, for example in 561 APUG 241r :
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/561/large/241r.jpg
we
see the writer, Theod Berck, admitting "alias Jod. K.", but
giving only "25 Febr." for the date without the year. [3]
II. S. Marci, P. Marcus, Milchior, doctor Marco,
Martinitz, Thurn.
567 APUG 5-6 :
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/005r.jpg
is
a 4 ??? 1637 letter from Milchior / Melchior Inchofer. On the 4th
line up from the bottom of 5r we find "S. Marci" or
possibly "S. Maria". An immediate thought is that "S."
stands for "Saint", but knowing about aliases and such, I
thought it would be hasty to just fly by it.
The verso, 5v,
on line 6 has "P. Marcus" followed by Noilius / Noclius ?;
Count Thurn is mentioned.
Melchior Inchofer's 11? JUN 1637
letter, 561 APUG 111 :
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/561/large/111r.jpg
also
mentions Thurn, and "Marcus". It would perhaps be too much
to hope for an odd variation of Minishovsky appearing in this letter,
but we note the M-something near bottom left. Perhaps Inchofer's 4
JUL 1637 letter, 567 APUG 152, can resolve these matters.
The
always interesting Count Bernardus Martinitz (J.VS comm. #234) in his
8? SEP 1640 letter:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/556/large/285r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/556/large/285v.jpg
writes
"doctor Marco" in the second line up from the bottom of
285r. As usual he mentions Trithemius. I am very curious if smudging
the date-line at the bottom of 285v that is his, or even Kircher's
fingerprint. [4]
III. Moretus, Moreti
I'm
still trying to figure out if, in his 5 FEB 1670 letter, it is news
to Ferdinand Hartman that Fr. Moretus / Moreti died (as far as we
currently know: in 1667):
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/559/large/093r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/559/large/093v.jpg
The
recto side is by Hartman, and the verso has writing by two other
fellows. Both sides show mention of Moretus. As we see, on the recto
side Hartman begins his letter (after some quick Greek Aristotle
something) by writing what looks to me that he just received the sad
news, from P. Carolus, of Moretus's death. And then something about a
memorial mass maybe. I am not sure, as this will take deeper Latin
than I've gone into yet. But, here's what I transcribe Hartman as
writing:
04: Scripserat misi P. Carolus Przichovsky
Wratislaviam / quo in [brum] Rdi P. Theodori Moreti demortui,
05:
ex Pragensi Mathensi ante annum missus [fueram] : / .............
which I am guessing reads something like:
04: Wrote
sadly Padre Carolus Przichovsky of Breslau / on Rev. Father Theordori
Moretus's death,
05: of Prague mathematics before the year of {
missus [fueram] : / ........ }
Przichovsky I take to be a
Polish Padre in Breslau, so he should know well of Theodoro Moreto:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/336r.jpg
Perhaps it means that three years after Moretus's death this
P. Przichovsky wrote a memoriam to Moretus? I wonder what the purpose
of the "/" is in Hartman's writing? It would seem strange
if Moretus died in 1667, and Hartman was just learning of it in 1670.
This ought to be fairly easily resolvable with some good Latin
crunching. Our colleague Jan Hurych has given us some sources for the
1667 death of Moretus:
http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/a27.htm
http://www.math.muni.cz/math/biografie/theodorus_moretus.html
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/Boyle/workdiaries/Register.html
http://www.nkp.cz/vystavy/utilitas/utilitas.htm
and Jan
points out that since Moretus died in Vratislav i.e. Wroclaw, or in
German Breslau, in Latin Vratislavia or Wratislavia, in Poland, then
there must be some Polish records, and I would think these would be
primary Polish Jesuit records.
Neither the old 1913 Catholic
Encyclopedia:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/m.htm
nor
the newer one:
http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/encyclopedia.php?letter=m
list Fr. Moreti, that I can see.
IV. Drebbel
Rich Santa-Coloma has firmly established Cornelius Drebbel as
a member of the VMS NOI. On vms-list recently [5] I gave 557 APUG
237-238, where in a 16 SEP 1647 letter to Kircher, Cyprian Kinner
mentions "Drebbeliano Globo". Since then I've come across a
mention of the exploration of Drebbel's perpetual motion, in 567 APUG
159:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/159r.jpg
where in his 8 MAR 1640 letter, Laurentius Mattenkloth, on
lines 16-17, writes "Motu perpetuo Drebbely". This letter
is one of the finer works of writing in all APUG.
V.
Presbyter Joannes
The legendary Prester / Presbyter John has
come up in Voynich talk, most recently mentioned on vms-list by
Wolfgang Fritsch [6]. Coincidentally I cam across Prester John in
APUG a few days ago. It is of course possible to imagine that the
conception of the Voynich nine rosettes foldout illustration had been
influenced by notions of Prester John's fabled realm. In 567 APUG
13-14, among other items like Kepler, Copernicus, and magnetism, we
find "Presbyteri Joannis Asiae" :
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/567/large/014r.jpg
and
considerable discussion of Prester John. I'm not sure yet who wrote
this letter, but possibly: Joan. Baptista Cisaty. This letter is also
visually entertaining for having "Radio", although meant
geometrically / archaically of course. [7]
VI.
Comment on viewing APUG images
Currently off-J, one of our
discussion threads in progress began when our colleague Greg
Stachowski noted that the archimede.imss.fi.it interface to APUG is
supposedly to be shut down at some point, according to the AK
Correspondence Project page, in favour of the Luna interface. For the
sake of good manners I'll suppress the literal version of my initial
thought reaction to this. The LunaInsight software from the Luna
Imaging company has never been my preferred method of viewing the
APUG images. My preferred method has been to grab an APUG image
directly via its archimede url with a good browser (currently
Firefox), magnify with the browser if desired, and if I want to do
serious examination of the image, then download it, and load it into
an imaging program that works efficiently, notably IrfanView.
LunaInsight I find wastes too much of my time for combing the image,
and coupled with the operating system which is the currently crowned
King of Bloatware, the quirks and bugs are worse than ever - they
waste time! Needless to say, if LunaInsight becomes the only way to
access APUG images, then all the references in VMS literature of the
type:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/563/large/005r.jpg
will no longer work, and what up to now has been a simple
click on the above url to see the image, turns instead into an
inefficient LunaInsight session. Well, it is not us who is paying to
have the APUG images available online, so as Greg points out, whoever
runs the archimede site may simply be unwilling to continue
committing the resources to it, particularly as the Luna site exists.
Now, I have found LunaInsight useful for access to the Kircher
project's text data, which I consider complimentary to the data I've
collected independently over the years, and in any case not to be
taken as 100% reliable. LunaInsight's thumbnail images is also
somewhat useful if the download happens to be only twenty or so,
before the program bugs kick in. Incredibly, the program will not let
you bring down less than 50 at a time, so that you can view bigger
thumbnail pictures.
Berj / KI3U
[1]
voynich.net vms-list thread:
VMs: A Gaspar Schott letter:
Santinus maybe?
launched by Berj / KI3U on 5 FEB 2009.
[2]
We have to remember also that like we sometimes do today, the boys
back then sometimes may have mis-spelled, aside from proper spelling
variations.
[3] I've seen at least a couple of
identifications of P. Jodukus Kett / Kedd = Theodorus Berck, and the
handiest at the moment is the Friedrichstadt Stadtgeschichte Heft 15:
http://www.stadtgeschichte-friedrichstadt.de/pdf/HEFT15.pdf
[4]
One can already guess another nutty scenario for consumption by the
Voynich science fiction world: DNA extracted from Kircher's
fingerprint is used to clone him. When he is fully grown (accelerated
in a special incubator of course) he is finally questioned about the
Voynich manuscript. Whereupon Kircher II answers: you don't have a
need to know :)
[5] voynich.net vms-list post:
RE: VMs:
Progress closing the 1610/20 gap...
Sat 1/31/09 5:51 PM; by Berj
/ KI3U.
[6] voynich.net vms-list thread:
VMs: Tower in a
hole
launched by Wolfgang Fritsch on 9 FEB 2009.
[7] Just
for fun, for a really archaic anticipation of wireless spark
telegraphy, see JOB 38: 35.
*************************************************************************************************
252
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Fri 2/13/09
5:14 AM
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
J.VS: Sphinx
manuscripts and Philibert dela Mare (1615-1687)
Dear
Colleagues
As we know, Baresch in his 1639 letter to Kircher
(557 APUG 353-354) refers to his mysterious manuscript as a "Sphinx",
and in the presumed last letter of Marci to Kircher (Beinecke MS 408
A), the mysterious book there is also refered to as being among
"Sphinges". By chance I've found another interesting letter
to Kircher which uses this word bibliophilically.
568 APUG
18-19 is a 7 FEB 1654 letter to Kircher from Philibertus delaMare in
Dijon:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/568/large/018r.jpg
and the old catalog entry:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/557/large/006r.jpg
records this letter as follows:
" Philiberti de
la Mare. Diuione. 7 Kalend. February. 1654. "
Michael
Kramer, here:
Un recueil de proverbes inédit du XVIIe
s. et Philibert de La Mare : une étude des mss. fr. 1599 et
6170 de la Bibliothèque nationale de France
http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=DSS_032_0331
writes:
" Selon le catalogue des manuscrits
français de la Bibliothèque nationale, les mss. 6170 et
1599 proviennent de la collection La Mare. Il s’agit de
Philibert de La Mare (1615-1687), conseiller au Parlement de
Bourgogne, ami de Saumaise, érudit, collectionneur de
manuscrits et de livres anciens et auteur lui-même. Sa
collection, enrichie d’une partie des archives de Saumaise
après la mort de celui-ci et citée en 1680 comme une
des curiosités de Dijon, contenait « une belle
collection de manuscrits anciens et de très volumineux
recueils de pièces modernes, dont beaucoup en original. "
So it would seem dela Mare would have some weight in what
makes for a manuscript accorded the label "Sphynx" in the
17th century. Of course he too is writing to Kircher, the Oedipus,
who is extraordinarily concerned with things ancient Egyptian.
In
dela Mare's letter, which at first glance seems to concern a
manuscript or manuscripts and his comments on oriental languages and
their script characters, the word "Sphinqis" appears on
line 16. Perhaps with an effort on this letter, we can learn
something VMS-useful about books that back then were called "Sphynx".
Berj / KI3U
************************************************
253
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Sat 2/14/09 4:50 PM
J.VS: Santinus in Kedd's
letter of 5 MAY 1635
Dear Colleagues
It
appears possible that Padre Martinus Santinus, in connection with
activities in Germany, is mentioned in the 5 MAY 1635 letter to
Kircher, written in Embricae / Emmerich, by Jodoeus Kedd (Theodorus
Berck):
561 APUG 203rv
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/561/large/203r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/561/large/203v.jpg
We
see what could be a corrected "P. Sandinus" on the 6th line
up from the bottom on the recto side. Of course as Rene Zandbergen
first motivated, the more we know of Santinus's movements, the better
presumably are our chances of bumping into Baresch again.
Berj
/ KI3U
*****************************
254
From:
Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent:
Mon 2/16/09 5:52 PM
J.VS: Re: Santinus in Kedd's letter of
5 MAY 1635
Dear Colleagues
The apparent "P.
Sandinus" in 561 APUG 203 has been convincingly resolved as "P.
Sandaeus", i.e. Maximilian Sandaeus, S.J. :
http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/s/s1/sandaeus_m.shtml
by the
efforts of Philip Neal and Rene Zandbergen:
voynich.net
vms-list thread:
VMs: Santinus check: Kedd's letter of 5 MAY
1635; thread launched by me Sat 2/14/09 5:51 PM.
Berj / KI3U
*****************************
255
From Greg
Stachowski
To Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent Date 02-20-2009
7:36:21 AM
J.VS: The growing need for Voynich Manuscript
Information Services
(Based on recent off-J
discussions)
The internet explosion of the last few years has
moved us beyond the time when following a simple mailing list and one
or two information websites such as voynich.nu were all that was
needed to maintain currency with VMS research. The vms-list itself
accrues posts at an average rate of about three thousand per year.
There are already some 25000 mails since the beginning of 2001 - a
period which covers many of the most significant recent developments,
including (but not limited to) the Tepenec signature debate, new
details of Mnishowsky and Baresch, and much work by Robert Teague,
Glen Claston, Nick Pelling, Dana Scott and many others.
In
addition, new websites have appeared or expanded rapidly, both
directly VMS-related such as J.VS itself or voynichcentral, or
containing information often related in some way to VMS research,
such as Wikipedia or the various digital repositories of documents
such as the Kircher Correspondence Project.
There is now so
much data, so widely scattered, that encompassing the available
information and searching within it is becoming increasingly
difficult. We will find ourselves going round in circles and
reinventing the wheel, as has happened recently both on vms-list and
in off-J discussions.
The power of Google, as harnessed for
example by Jan on his site (http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/) has
delayed the collapse by providing some search capability.
Nonetheless, effective searching still requires much knowledge, time,
persistence and hard work. There is very little direct cross linking
of resources, and the existing searches are necessarily limited by
the way existing information is stored. Even Jan's search, which is
very useful, cannot do things like: "give me all the posts by
Jeff Haley on Harriot" directly -- not from any failure of Jan's
or Google's, but from the fact that the archives he searches do not
expose that information in any meaningful way.
Thus, we now
face the need for (as Berj has called it) VMS "information
services". Whoever takes up the "information services"
challenge needs to address the storage issue, needs to address
tagging and cross-linking between different data stores - for
example, a reference to Harriot in a vms-list post should
automatically be linked to other Harriot-related VMS posts, articles
and materials; or, references to folio images should link to those
images, perhaps those on voynichcentral. All of this is doable with
current technology, but requires a certain amount of time and
dedication to be made to work properly. Nevertheless, unless this
challenge is met we will find VMS research either increasingly
fragmented or increasingly unworkable.
Greg
********************************************************
256
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Sat 2/28/09 2:46 PM
J.VS: Self-portrait hidden
under writing in a Da Vinci notebook
Dear Colleagues
This news seems worth following in considerations of hidden
material in the Voynich manuscript:
" A sketch found in
one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks could be an early self-portrait,
experts believe. The drawing had been obscured by handwriting for 500
years before being discovered by Italian scientific journalist Piero
Angela. After months of restoration work, the image was aged using
criminal investigation techniques and compared with older
self-portraits of Leonardo. The findings will be revealed on Italy's
RAI television channel. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7916351.stm
Berj /
KI3U
************************************************
257
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Wed 3/18/09 4:44 PM
To:
Journal of Voynich Studies
J.VS: Voynich text analysis and
elitist jargon versus plain talk
Dear Colleagues
Attitudes reflected in, and toward language, for whatever
purpose it is being used at the moment, even joking, have presumably
always been complex. So for example in the study of a book of jokes
by the ancient Greek writer Philogelos, we have considerations such
as:
" Some jokes are likely to baffle modern audiences,
however - especially the ones about lettuce, which only make sense if
you share the ancient superstition that the vegetable is an
aphrodisiac. "
That's from a 13 NOV 2008 BBC article,
online here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7725079.stm
This notion of the connections between attitudes
(including superstitions) and language, does enter our considerations
when we investigate the centuries-old Voynich manuscript's text,
especially when working with hypotheses that the text transcribes,
more or less directly, either some kind of natural language, or some
system of universal language.
Toward this, perhaps we may get
some useful ideas from a recent language controversy involving the
Local Government Association (LGA) in Great Britain:
"
Councils ban use of Latin terms
Several councils have banned the
use of Latin terminology
A number of local councils in Britain
have banned their staff from using Latin words, because they say they
might confuse people. Several local authorities have ruled that
phrases like "vice versa", "pro rata", and even
"via" should not be used, in speech or in writing. But the
ban has prompted anger among some Latin scholars. ..... Some local
councils say using Latin is elitist and discriminatory, because some
people might not understand it - particularly if English is not their
first language. ..... But the move has been welcomed by the Plain
English Campaign which says some officials only use Latin to make
themselves feel important. A Campaign spokesman said the ban might
stop people confusing the Latin abbreviation e.g. with the word
"egg". "
The 3 NOV 2008 online BBC article is
here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7705922.stm
We
see that the LGA suggests that the word "procure" be
translated to the preferable "buy". Now that, it seems to
me, is surely a reflection of mental attitude. I tend to think of
"buy" as closer to discretionary or consumer spending, and
"procure" closer to necessary spending, in any situation
where the difference is of some importance. Perhaps a plain English
campaign, if not careful, is itself liable to become elitist in
fostering a condition of imprecise thinking and expression.
In
an 18 MAR 2009 BBC article we learn that Councils get a banned jargon
list:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7948894.stm
The list of banned words is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7949077.stm
and
includes: Capabilities, Dialogue, Exemplar, Priority, Vision,
Welcome, and Wellbeing.
We don't know what the VMS text
author's attitudes toward language(s) were. We can surmise from the
design of his / her text that they possessed a great appreciation for
visual harmony, while retaining the controlled power of complexity -
we see that in the intruding gallows symbols. And so then, if that
text directly reflects the author's attitudes toward language, as it
surely would to some degree at least, we are naturally led to ponder
if the VMS author would have used "buy" as a universal term
which included "procure", or perhaps more specifically
within the context of the Voynich herbal / botanical folios, used the
word "grow" as a universal which included the notion
"expand". If so, then we might find, in some of the Voynich
text blocks, less sophisticated or more fuzzy expressions of
language, where a term like "grow" is an umbrella covering
among others the particular notion "expand", and
consequently the diversity of the VMS vocabulary is reduced.
Some
mature plants expand during daylight hours - are they thereby also
"growing"? Has our knowledge of the Voynich Manuscript,
especially since the availability of the high-resolution SID images
of it, been "growing" and / or "expanding" ?
Berj / KI3U
***********************************************
258
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Sat 3/28/09
3:35 PM
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
J.VS: Music
attacks on the Voynich text: A hidden message in the music of Ravel
Dear Colleagues
In a 27 MAR 2009 online BBC news
article, "Hidden clue to composer's passion" :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7968024.stm
we
learn concerning current studies of the musical works of Ravel
(1875-1937):
" The French composer, Maurice Ravel may
have left a hidden message - a woman's name - inside his work. A
sequence of three notes occurring repeatedly through his work spells
out the name of a famous Parisian socialite says Ravel expert David
Lamaze. He argues that the notes, E, B, A in musical notation, or
"Mi-Si-La" in the French doh-re-mi scale, refer to Misia
Sert, a close friend of Ravel's. "
This, besides being
interesting in its own right, reminds us that far more could be done,
than has been to date, in employing music theory in analytic attacks
on the Voynich text. And, as seen from the above, some experiments
could be extremely simple, requiring mainly a suitable transcription
system of the Voynich text, and familiarity with elementary music
theory as expressed in a trial language. Since some VMS hypotheses /
theories postulate as an extreme that the text is a meaningless
random hoax, it is, for example, also conceivable that only most of
the VMS text is random, but serves as a host for carrying multiple /
repeated displays of just one, or just a few words, perhaps a name or
names of special significance to the Voynich manuscript author,
encrypted with musical notation.
Musicians have their own way
of thinking - it would be of great interest to collect comments from
practicing musicians who are also advanced Voynich MS students,
concerning their reactions to the Voynich manuscript as a whole, and
their feelings and hunches about the VMS author's musical familiarity
and leanings.
During last year's particular music experiments
with the Voynich text I found Currier's transcription system to be
the most suitable. [1,2]
Berj / KI3U
[1] Currier's transcription system for the Voynich text is detailed in
D'Imperio:
The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio, Aegean
Park Press, c. 1976-80, ISBN 0-89412-038-7
An edition of D'Imperio's book is available online for downloading from
NSA (31.2 MB pdf) :
http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/publications/misc.shtml
[2] Music, as an approach to analyzing the Voynich manuscript, has been
considered to various levels in the following J.VS communications:
Vol. I: # 132
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolI2007.htm
Vol. II: # 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 203, 212, 217,
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolII2008.htm
Vol. III: # 248, 249,
http://geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolIII2009.htm
Some more music references can be found in these files in the J.VS
Library:
J.VS Library deposit # 1-1-2007-05-05/
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/1-1-2007-05-05/
files:
2JVSlibKI3U.htm
3JVSlibKI3U.htm
*************************************************
259
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Mon 3/30/09 3:39 PM
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
J.VS: The J.VS Banner, and the new
Library Index system
Dear Colleagues
The J.VS Banner, conceived and designed by our colleague Robert Teague,
has been installed on the web pages of the online Archive of the
Journal of Voynich Studies, and also on the new J.VS Library Index.
As a step toward addressing the general Voynich information management
problem he discussed in comm. #255, our J.VS Librarian, Greg
Stachowski, has completed the first online implementation of a new
indexing system in the J.VS Library. This new Library Index is accessed
here:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/new/
Berj / KI3U
***********************************************
260
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Tue 3/31/09 4:25 PM
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
J.VS: Philosophy of VMS research
successes vs failures; case study of a disappointed researcher
Dear Colleagues
A new paper by our colleague Jan Hurych has been installed by our
Librarian Greg Stachowski in the J.VS Library as deposit #
14-4-2009-03-30 :
VM PHILOSOPHY versus VM POLITICS
by
Jan. B. Hurych
The Library url for Jan's paper is:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/14-4-2009-03-30/
Jan's paper begins to fill a void in Voynich literature - he discusses
the Voynich research community's philosophy and attitudes toward, and
its interaction with, the efforts at progress of researchers, while
illustrating his points with an analysis of the disappointments and
frustrations of a particular Voynich Manuscript student, Dr. Leonell C.
Strong of Yale University, who was active in VMS work from the mid
1940's to the 1960's.
Jan's discussion is therefore different from the routine and more or
less straighforward action-reaction type of public or semi-public VMS
proceedings, for example, Manly's well-known 1931 "debunking" of
Romaine Newbold's VMS efforts.
To quote Jan and Greg from the off-J discussion on Jan's paper:
Jan says:
" While Strong was rather controversial person, so were the ways he was
treated. ..... But to the point: I guess we need some encyclopedia of
the "VM solution attempts" done so far - not to carry on with them,
just for completeness. For instance: how many people tried to crack the
VM as multialphabetical cipher and how did they go about it? What is
missing is some consistency and determination of voids ( i.e. methods
that were not tried for whatever reasons) - there might be some source
of new ideas. "
Greg says:
" Yes, Strong was badly treated. ..... The VM solution attempts thing
is a good idea. You are particularly right about the 'determination of
voids' - what hasn't been done is often as important as what has been.
It seems like the sort of project which is finite-time (as opposed to
actually cracking the VMS, which seems infinite-time at the moment :) .
"
Berj / KI3U
*****************************************
261
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Mon 4/20/09 10:00 PM EDT
J.VS: Some newly available online
Voynich Resources
Dear Colleagues
Lets get the Journal caught up with the newly available online
resources we've been discussing on vms-list (which serves beautifully
as a Voynich telegram bureau or BBS).
Beinecke has added some materials, pictures of Ethel Voynich's 1930
VMS-provenance-changing letter, and more, to the Voynich MS-408 online
offerings:
http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/pre1600.ms408.htm
The new matter starts off with a high resolution color picture of
Marci's critical last letter, and as we've determined on vms-list, it
looks now more than ever that its date is 19 AUG 1665, and not 1666. We
wish for an equally good image of the letter's verso so that we can
better study its seal. The letter's paper is revealed, especially along
the upper edge, as extremely interesting.
There is finally now online a copy of Wilfrid Voynich's 20 APR 1921
paper on the VMS he read to the Philadelphia College of Physicians,
officially introducing the VMS. Voynich's paper was accompanied by a
paper by Newbold, and this too is in the google books online offering:
http://books.google.com/books?id=tNcCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA415&lpg=PA415&dq=A+Preliminary+Sketch+Of+The+History+Of+The++Roger+Bacon+Cipher+Manuscript+Voynich&source=bl&ots=NFcbuVSVdg&sig=r0vdU3qTecMk69o51mXW4qHgSDM&hl=en&ei=TCLtSbr-BYicMt7U7PQP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3
The entire College of Physicians of Philadelphia 1921 Third Series
Volume 43 Transactions containing these papers can be downloaded from
the above url as a pdf of about 14 Mb.
Berj / KI3U
*************************************************
262
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Wed 4/22/09 8:00 PM
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
J.VS: Marci's last known letter to
Kircher: 10 SEP 1665
Dear Colleagues
Now that we've determined to high probability that the letter Wilfrid
Voynich alleged he found with the VMS, written by Joannes Marcus Marci
to Athanasius Kircher, S.J., is dated 19 AUG 1665, and not 1666,
therefore the last known letter from Marci to Kircher becomes 562 APUG
114, which is dated 10 SEP 1665.
It is now necessary to study the effects arising from this new
ordering: the 19 AUG 1665 uncertain-provenance letter comes the month
BEFORE the APUG-provenanced 10 SEP 1665 letter. Looked at differently,
we have a letter from Marci to Kircher, 562 APUG 114, written by Marci
the month AFTER Marci has supposedly sent to Kircher a mysterious book
etc.
The 10 SEP 1665 letter now needs to be re-studied for clues to what
happened the month before.
Berj / KI3U
*************************************
263
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
Sent: Thu 4/23/09 4:48 PM
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
J.VS: Re: Marci's last known letter to
Kircher: 10 SEP 1665
Jan Hurych says:
That is very interesting discovery!
But then again, wouldn't Marci mention the book in his next letter he
sent about a month later? I bet he would, but is there any hint about
it in that letter? And whom did he sent it by? There was no regular
mail as we know it today and both Baresh and Marci used probably the
Jesuit service with its "diplomatic" pouch, usually delivered
personnaly by next traveller to Rome. That also made for long time
delay before writing and the delivery of the letter because the letters
were probably written long time before the departure. That makes
comparison of dates sometimes inaccurate. But it looks strange Marci
would send two letters to Kircher within one month - the others are
usually almost a year apart.
Berj / KI3U says:
We should immediately look at the first two sentences in Marci's 10 SEP
1665 letter - I think they are most likely to give us a clue about the
month before. Philip Neal has a transcription of the 10 SEP 1665 letter
here:
http://voynichcentral.com/users/philipneal/marci35.html
Greg Stachowski says:
Berj wrote: " Now that we've determined to high probability that the
letter Wilfrid Voynich alleged he found with the VMS, written by
Joannes Marcus Marci to Athanasius Kircher, S.J., is dated 19 AUG 1665,
..... "
It bears noting that Wilfrid himself was unsure of the year, although
he, too, leaned towards 1665. In the paper in 'Transactions of the
College of Physicians', to which we now have access, he gives the date
as:
"19th August 1665 (or 1666)",
and repeats this each time he refers to the letter, a total of four
times. Voynich had direct access to the actual letter, in as pristine
form as possible, could study it at will, and had a lot of experience.
Yet he was unable to decide unequivocally on one or other year. Thus I
think it is somewhat pretentious to say that we can state the year with
any greater certainty, based on a digital image taken almost 100 years
later, the resolution of which - 125dpi - is about that of a magazine
image. Modern imaging techniques - say multispectral imaging - might
help here, but as far as I know that has not been done in this case,
and this is just an ordinary image.
By the way, Beinecke lists the date as "1666 [1665?]".
I take back the resolution point, I have just discovered how to get a
very much higher resolution image. Nonetheless I still think it is
significant that Voynich could not determine the date either. Having
said that, and also having looked at the very high resolution image, it
seems to me that on balance it is more likely to be 1665 (as Voynich
preferred) than 1666, there seem to be 3 strokes forming the disputed
digit, not a clear single stroke as in the two undisputed sixes.
Nonetheless it is not impossible that it is a 6, just not very, I
think, likely.
Berj says:
In any case, let us assume for the moment that the Voynich-provenance
Marci letter is dated 19 AUG 1665, that is the month before the 562
APUG 114 letter of 10 SEP 1665, and study the 10 SEP 1665 letter on
that assumption.
*****************************************************
264
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Thu 4/23/09 4:45 PM
J.VS: Thirty-nine examples of Joannes
Marcus Marci's signature for comparisons
Dear Colleagues
The developments discussed in J.VS communications # 262 and 263,
concern Marci's letter to Kircher which Wilfrid Voynich said he found
along with the Voynich manuscript - it now seems more likely that that
letter's correct date is 19 AUG 1665, and not 1666. Therefore the
Voynich-provenance Marci letter is NOT the last known letter of Marci
to Kircher, and instead the 562 APUG 114 letter, dated 10 SEP 1665,
appears to be the last known letter of Marci to Kircher. So, this opens
up new analysis of Marci's sending a mysterious book to Kircher. [1]
These developments prompted me to collect crops of all the images of
Marci's signatures or presumed signatures, so that we can quickly view
them one after another for comparisons.
Should, for example, it be clear that there is a radical difference in
the signatures on the 19 AUG 1665 and 10 SEP 1665 Marci letters, less
than one month apart, then we would be very interested to know why.
Having a handy set of Marci's signatures images also has many other
potential uses, for example should a new letter be discovered which
contains "Joannes Marcus Marci" but it is uncertain if indeed Marci
himself signed it, then we can compare it with the Marci signatures
collection.
I have sent to our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski, for deposit in the
J.VS Library as deposit #
22-1-2009-04-23 the zipfile: MarciSignatures.zip [2].This zipfile is
about 7 Mb in size and contains otherwise unprocessed image-crops of
these 39 examples of Marci's signature or presumed signature, with
their individual filenames providing all necessary identification as to
source etc. :
Joannes Marcus Marci signatures images:
1640aug3_MarciSig_557APUG124r.bmp
1640sep12_MarciSig_557APUG127r.bmp
1641jan12_MarciSig_557APUG64r.bmp
1641mar2_MarciSig_557APUG92r.bmp
1641oct5_MarciSig_557APUG65r.bmp
1642jan25_MarciSig_557APUG82v.bmp
1642mar15_MarciSig_557APUG71r.bmp
1642may10_MarciSig_557APUG69r.bmp
1642dec6_MarciSig_557APUG86r.bmp
1643mar28_MarciSig_557APUG88r.bmp
1643sep19_MarciSig_557APUG107r.bmp
1643nov7_MarciSig_557APUG90r.bmp
1643nov28_MarciSig_557APUG101r.bmp
1643dec26_MarciSig_557APUG105r.bmp
1644feb13_MarciSig_557APUG104r.bmp
1644jul9_MarciSig_557APUG97r.bmp
1644sep3_MarciSig_557APUG113r.bmp
1644oct29_MarciSig_557APUG115r.bmp
1645feb25_MarciSig_557APUG111r.bmp
1645jun10_MarciSig_557APUG116r.bmp
1646mar10_MarciSig_557APUG120r.bmp
1646sep8_MarciSig_557APUG117v.bmp
1646sep8_MarciSig_557APUG100r.bmp
1646dec29_MarciSig_557APUG128r.bmp
1647aug15_MarciSig_557APUG109r.bmp
1648jul11_MarciSig_557APUG84r.bmp
1649mar19_MarciSig_557APUG118r.bmp
1650jul23_MarciSig_557APUG122r.bmp
1650aug5_MarciSig_557APUG130r.bmp
1650dec10_MarciSig_557APUG123r.bmp
1650dec10_MarciSig_557APUG123v.bmp
1653mar8_MarciSig_557APUG126r.bmp
1654feb23_MarciSig_557APUG62r.bmp
1655aug7_MarciSig_557APUG94r.bmp
1655octX_MarciSig_557APUG95r.bmp
1655dec11_MarciSig_557APUG96r.bmp
1658aug19_MarciSig_557APUG99r.bmp
1665aug19_MarciSig_Beinecke408A.bmp
1665sep10_MarciSig_562APUG114r.bmp
For working with these images, the J.VS communication #4, and its
related Voume I communications #'s 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 14, are also very
useful [3]. We must be careful because some of the dates in the source
documents are uncertain for one reason or another, notably the badly
corrupted date-inking in the 557 APUG 97r letter, which is usually
taken to be July 9, 1644, from the 557 APUG 2r old Kircher
correspondence catalog entry. Size comparisons among the signatures are
difficult owing to unavailable information on the size of the source
documents, but I've cropped so as to include a word or two in addition
to the signature as a simple aid in that regard.
Even a quick run through the 39 examples indicates a grouping into at
least two broad style classes: a more cursive signature as in 557 APUG
113r ( 3 SEP 1644 ), versus a more hand-printed signature as in 557
APUG 116r ( 10 JUN 1645 ). Further analysis comparing styles with other
details like with / without first name, and / or sine, should be
interesting.
Berj / KI3U
[1] In vms-list discussions in the past several days I diagrammed once
more, probably the best yet, the two-books problem arising from
Godefridi Kinner's letters to Kircher of 4 JAN 1666 and 5 JAN 1667.
This problem directly relates to Marci's sending the mysterious book to
Kircher which, it is commonly assumed, is the Voynich manuscript.
Discussing the two-books problem on vms-list with our colleague Jan
Hurych made me realize the significance of the Voynich-provenance Marci
letter now being highly likely dated as 1665, and not 1666; this
significance then led to J.VS communications # 262 and 263. The
voynich.net vms-list thread containing the two-books problem was
launched with the post:
VMs: New additional VMS-associated pictures from Beinecke, by Berj /
KI3U, Sun 4/19/09 6:29 PM.
[2] Library of the Journal of Voynich Studies:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/new/
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/
[3] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #4 (Vol. I, 27 FEB 2007) :
J.VS: Just Latin, or something more? - Marci vs Marcus vs Marcius etc.,
by Berj / KI3U.
*****************************************************************************************
265
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Fri 4/24/09 4:26 AM
J.VS: Re: Marci's last known letter to
Kircher: 10 SEP 1665
Continuing from J.VS communication # 263 the discussion of the last two
letters from Marci to Kircher:
23 APR 2009
Jan says:
Greg, the part of the problem is that we do not know what was
originally written there [in the 19 AUG 1665/6 letter]. As Berj
suggests, it could have been incomplete "6" or even "5", later
corrected to "5".
Greg says:
This is true.
Jan says:
The original "6" - if it was indeed "6" - does not have any visible
upper arch - could we somehow reliably identify the traces of the whole
"6"?
Greg says:
Again, true.
Jan says:
Now for stronger lines (the final version) [seen in the letter], they
really vouch for final "5".
Greg says:
Again, true.
Jan says:
As for Voynich he could not have known any better so I would not rely
on him (unless he did the correction himself :-).
Greg says:
My point, somewhat diluted now, was that Voynich himself, having direct
access to the letter, wasn't sure of the date, although clearly his
preferred reading was '1665' since he put that first. So rather than
saying that 1665 was the absolutely correct date I was doubting it.
As to "unless he did the correction himself :-)" you jest, of course,
but as a serious note there is no reason, none at all, for him to do
so. Even in the darkest version of the conspiracy theory, of Voynich
faking the Tepenec signature and maybe the whole manuscript, there is
no reason to modify the date of the letter. It is largely irrelevant
which it is, 1665 or 1666, and indeed as you say Kinner's letter and
Marci's letter-timing pattern would prefer 1666, i.e. the 'unchanged'
version. Which in turn suggests that the change to a 5, if that is what
it is, was original and contemporary with the letter.
Jan says:
But there are several objections now against the final "5": Kinner's
letter suggests 1666, also previous Marci's letters were mostly about a
year apart and if these two would be only one month apart, Marci could
not - in the time he wrote the second letter - have any answer from
Kircher. Nor he could have any reply via Father Provincial who took off
probably several days later and the
trip and his business in Rome could take several weeks alone. Either
way, Marci would either repeat in the letter the info he sent [about]
the book, just in case it got lost. Even in the case that he knew the
book arrived, he would not in his excitment be silent about it. Either
way, is there in the September letter any indication it was written one
month or so after the VM was shipped?
That Kinner mentioned mistakenly two different dates himself could be
explained by the possibility that Kinner meant in his second letter
only "about a year ago" not remembering exactly when it was sent.
Greg says:
Yes.
Jan says:
As for the other objections however, they are not so easy to dismiss.
What is even more disturbing is the fact Marci probably did not get
from Kircher between 1665 and 1667 [the book], otherwise he would not
beg Kinner to especially inquire about it. He might have got the
message the book was delivered and even Kircher's letter via Father
Provincial when he returned from Rome, but that could not have been
sooner than say beginning of October 1665. It could suggest the VM was
indeed neglected by Kircher (Marci certainly was :-) or that Kircher
possibly soon abandoned the task of its decoding.
Greg says:
Do we know what Kircher was up to in later 1665 (and indeed 1666)? Is
there any evidence of him being busy with something else, something
more important than the VMS?
Jan says:
One little note: his curiosity shows that Marci was obviously
interested in solving the VM, even later by Kircher and that was the
real reason he sent it to him. That's also why he did not send it
immediately after Baresch's death - dying Baresch probably asked him to
carry on the solution himself first. Losing his eyesight however, Marci
knew he could not carry on and apparently believed
(like Baresch did) that Kircher can solve it.
Kircher disinterest, on the other hand, could be explained several
different ways.
Well, it looks like the correct date of Marci's historical VM letter is
rather important now that we have two Marci's letters in collision
course and two different datings by Kinner :-).
[commenting on an image processing experiment with the 19 AUG 1665/6
Marci letter] Jan says:
Greg, While embossment depends on the density of the scribble, it still
gives some idea, [see this] in [the] attached pictures, both positive
and negative.
Greg says:
Thanks, Jan, for the embossed images. One problem with them, though, is
that they broaden the stroke slightly, so some of the gaps disappear.
However there is no evidence of an upper arch in the disputed last
digit, as you said.
I played with trying to enhance the image myself. I thought I might be
able to enhance the ink density ( see attached ycbcr709F-compose.jpg ),
however it seems that the JPG compression artefacts (visible as little
squares) are of the same scale and very unfortunately placed and thus
the image is unreliable in this regard. In several places what looks
like lighter ink density matches
perfectly with the 8x8 JPG encoding grid and cannot be trusted. These
lossy images are no good for extensive image processing, especially
colour work.
Jan says:
Yes, the filtering by color probably would not help if the same ink was
used, but of course the more pressure, the darker the trace (which
usually happens when one wants to correct something).
Greg says:
Exactly.
Jan says:
Your picture shows clearly that the dash above the last digit is the
descending upper arch of preceeding, (second) 6, with rather generous
swing.
Greg says:
Yes.
Jan says:
Now there should be some third info making that 5 more probable, say
the date of visit of Father Provincial. We have however the first
letter by Kinner (as Berj stressed) which says Marci sent the letter
already, so neglecting those 4 days in January, it must have been sent
in 1665. As I said, with Kinner's vague memory in his second letter -
everything works for 1665, except again that Marci's letter one month
after VM departure is surprisingly silent about it. But I have some
explanation for that too.
The letter date is one thing and its delivery the other: what if the VM
letter - with the VM - was delayed say half a year, sitting at Father
Provincial office and waiting for his somehow delayed departure for
Rome (say due to his sickness - after all, Father Provincial was a
leading figurehead of the whole Jesuit Province (region) and it was
proper to wait for him to get better instead [of] sending somebody
else, sooner. In that case Marci had no reason to mention the VM which
he knew was still in Prague and he had no idea when it will depart for
Rome.
Greg says:
Yes. Alternatively rather than sitting in Prague, the Father Provinical
may have been delayed or diverted to some other part of the region on
Jesuit business, carrying the VM with him but delaying its arrival in
Rome. Some details of his movements in 1665-1667 would be useful.
Jan says:
By the way, Voynich could have had a reason to change the 6 to 5, if by
some mistake he learned that Marci died before August 1666 :-). Of
course he did not, but say some mistake in records he found.... :-)
Just kidding, of course, the ink is the same and he would have to fake
that as well.
Funny we do not have any confirmation the VM ever reached Italy: Marci
kept asking Kircher. . . Just kidding again, if the letter reached it,
so did the VM (unless the Father provincial has a hole in his pouch and
did not have a heart to tell Marci about it :-)
Berj says:
This is a fascinating dialog you guys are carrying on - things I didn't
think of. The 39 signature-image files [J.VS comm. #264] serve as a
pretty good catalog of what we have of Marci's letters to Kircher. As
you can see there is a gap from 19 AUG 1658 to the Beinecke-Voynich 19
AUG 1665 - note the same month and day. There is the recently
discovered (by Philip Neal I think it was) torn letter of 7 ? JAN 1646,
557 APUG 424r, but with its bottom torn off there is no signature of
Marci.
You really start to see things flipping through the signatures images,
and that causes you to check some of the source documents for further
details.
The Voynich-provenance 19 AUG 1665 letter at Beinecke is definitely
unusual in a couple of ways. Of course first of all is its paper - from
the image it looks like fine clean white machine-woven cloth, nothing
like the papers in the admittedly-lower-image-resolution APUG pictures
look. This letter was folded and sealed with wax, but judging from the
only picture of its verso which I have ever seen - brought back from
Beinecke by Dana - there is no writing whatsoever on the "outside" of
the sealed letter. In other words it was sealed, but not addressed -
how to explain that? That is supposed to be a rather critical letter
concerning a precious (to Marci) manuscript he has destined for
Kircher, yet the sealed letter presents a blank. Would the seal emblem
be enough? We need a good image of the seal to study and compare with
the seals on the APUG letters.
Finally, the signature differs in one way from all the other Marci
signatures: the norm in Marci's letters is that his signature is about
the same size, or larger, than the good-bye writing just preceeding it
(usually a word or two just above the signature). But in the
Voynich-provenance 19 AUG 1665/6 letter, we see an exception: the
signature is considerably smaller than the good-bye "Ad obsequia".
**************************************************
266
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Sat 4/25/09 12:01 AM
J.VS: Re: Marci's last known letter to
Kircher: 10 SEP 1665
Continuing from J.VS communication # 265 the discussion of the last two
letters from Marci to Kircher:
23 APR 2009
Berj says:
Have you guys looked at the first couple of sentences in Marci's (LAST)
letter of 10 SEP 1665, where he seems to be talking about "libellos
curiosos" ? Is there any hint in this letter that Marci sent anything
unusual to Kircher less than a month earlier?
24 APR 2009
Greg says:
This was what prompted my query. The first line after the greeting is
(as usual, first pass approximation):
"A year has gone by since I consigned a letter [or writing] to the Rev.
Father ...".
The next word is "Nadasdi". The only plausible interpretation of this I
have so far come up with is that it refers to one Ferenc Nadasdy, a
Hungarian nobleman, almost certainly a Count, who lived roughly
1625?-1671[*] and who, it seems was executed for being involved in a
plot against the Holy Roman Emperor. In at least the first half of 1665
he appears to have travelled to Rome.
The problem is, that the latinised surname ends in 'i' and I am having
trouble figuring out which case it is supposed to be in, thus hindering
my interpretation of the sentence (letters of Nadasdy? sent via Nadasy?
As far as I know, Ference was not a priest, so Rev. P. doesn't refer to
him, but as usual to AK). Hence my query.
It is possible (still working on the cases and syntax) that it was "a
letter to R.P. consigned [entrusted] to Nadasdi [for delivery]".
However, this is still extremely preliminary and should not be
considered reliable in any way.
* the Wikipedia articles on him disagree on the dates; one even has the
dates a century earlier and may refer to his father or grandfather, but
my Slovenian is a tad rusty. 1625-1671 is from the Hungarian article,
which is probably the most reliable.
Berj says:
r. Looks like Marci starts out talking about sending a book or books.
Btw, on a different matter, I seem to have an error in the filename of
Marci's 28 NOV 1643 letter - it should be 557 APUG 102r, not 101r.
Greg says:
I take it you want me to change it.
Berj says:
Nah - LunaInsight brings it up as 101r, even though Archimede blanks at
101r and brings it up on 102r. Lets wait til all those guys sort it out
:-)
Marci's signature in this 28 NOV 1643 letter is rather strange: the
second half of the "Marcus" suddenly drops downward. At first I thought
it was distortion in the paper, but it appears he just wrote it that
way. Curious.
Greg says:
Perhaps he was writing it on his knee in a carriage or something.
Berj says:
Interesting thought.
Anyway, back to Marci's AUG and SEP 1665 letters (with reference also
to Kinner's 1666 and 1667 letters): it seems to me we have some serious
sorting out to do, but first need a good idea of what Marci wrote on 10
SEP 1665. Then too, Jan's more-or-less in-jest comment that Fr.
Provincial may have screwed up the delivery, really might be taken as a
serious possibility. If I recall, not all the books that were sent back
and forth over the years, actually made it safely.
Jan says:
Greg,could it be Nadasy? I haven't seen it yet, but it might be
misspelled name. Nadasy was a Hungarian nobleman, the husband of
notorious Lady of Cachtice, the murderess of young girls, name
Bathory-Nadasy. Apparently her husband was on it as well, see:
http://members.tripod.com/~MvanderLinden/erzebeth.htm
The story is from 16th century. Apparently has nothing to do with the
letter, only with somebody of the name Nadasy. The termination - sdi -
is not so common there.
Greg says:
I think you missed my earlier mail, in which I suggested that it was
Ferenc Nadasdy, 1625?-1671, a relative of your Nadasdy (I believe the
family still exists). The family name is known to be latinised as
Nadasdi.
Jan says:
Berj, as I mentioned before, we do not have ANY confirmation the book
ever reached Rome. Well, the letter surely did but then again, even if
the book reached Kircher, it could have been lost during Risorgimento
purges. Of course, the letter survived (if it is no forgery) and could
have been inserted in another, totally different book (especially since
there is no identification in the letter that describes any VM details.
Baresch wrote more about the VM but his letter was not found in the
book either :-). The letter however addresses Athanasius so there is
certain connection after all. Too bad Voynich did not reveal the
sellers while they were alive, they could have confirmed the letter was
really in there and put the question in rest. The damage Voynich did to
the manuscript is so extensive that his unsatisfactory explanation just
makes his other information dubious as well.
No answer from Kircher is another strange detail (even if all Kircher's
letters in Prague are apparently lost, Kinner would probably describe
in his next letter to Kircher (was there any?) how happy Marci was when
he read Kircher is working on it. So much strange since we have 3
independent confirmations the book was really sent: first Marci's
letter and two letters by Kinner.
Also, what can we make about Marci's request via Kinner, asking how
much progress Kircher made: does that means he did not get any progress
report from him or even no confirmation of delivery at all? He
certainly did not get any progress report, we can almost feel his
curiosity. After all, it was VERY GENEROUS gift (and expensive, as
Marci quotes the original price). I would assume Kircher should
appreciate such gift from friend and let Marci know about it: he
himself valued his manuscript by rabbi Barachias so much he did not
even show it to anybody :-).
So the option the book was lost (and never found) cannot be easily
dismissed. Of course, the VM is only one book we have at hand and we
surely have full hands solving that one :-). Still, the provenance of
the VM could eventually turn quite differently . . .
****************************************
267
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Sat 4/25/09 4:50 AM
J.VS: Did Godefridus Kinner write
Marci's last two letters?
Dear Colleagues
During our current off-J discussions on the 1665-1667 Marci and Kinner
letters, last redacted in J.VS communication #266, our colleague Jan
Hurych commented:
" ..... No answer from Kircher is another strange detail (even if all
Kircher's letters in Prague are apparently lost, Kinner would probably
describe in his next letter to Kircher (was there any?) how happy Marci
was when he read Kircher is working on it. So much strange since we
have 3 independent confirmations the book was really sent: first
Marci's letter and two letters by Kinner.
Also, what can we make about Marci's request via Kinner, asking how
much progress Kircher made: does that means he did not get any progress
report from him or even no confirmation of delivery at all? He
certainly did not get any progress report, we can almost feel his
curiosity. ..... "
Indeed, we can almost feel Kinner's curiosity!
Thus Jan's comments prompted me to go have another look at Kinner's
letters, and compare them with Marci's. I was amazed to notice for the
first time how similar Kinner writes his numeral "5" to the way the
infamous "5" or "6" is written in the Voynich-provenance 19 AUG 1665/6
letter of Marci. And that's not all.
I've sent to our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski the new Library deposit
# 23-1-2009-04-24 containing 23 otherwise unprocessed image-crops, with
their filenames identifying sources etc. in one zipfile:
Compare_Marci_Kinner.zip
These images are for comparing the numeral "5" in Marci's letters with
some of Kinner's renditions of "5". Some more images are for comparing
the greeting lines in the letters of Kinner and Marci. This set of
images is not exhaustive, but extensive enough to get a good start on
these comparisons.
In the date-lines, compare Kinner's "5" from his 4 MAR 1665 and 5 JAN
1667 letters, with the "5" in Marci's 19 AUG 1665 letter. Then compare
the entire "1665" in Kinner's 4 MAR 1665 letter, and Marci's 19 AUG
1665 letter. To my eyes there is a great deal of similarity.
Looking over all the 5's in the dates in all of Marci's letters which
we have, it appears that the closest similarity to the "5" or "6" in
the 19 AUG 1665/6 letter is with Marci's 15 AUG 1647 letter, 557 APUG
109r . Otherwise Marci writes his "5" quite differently.
Now lets look at the greeting lines. Across the decades Marci always
abbreviates "Reverende" as "Rnde", and he does not expend any great
calligraphic effort on the initial capital "R" - a typical example is
seen in his 23 FEB 1654 letter. But all this changes in his last two
letters. There, suddenly we see the "Reverende" written out, and with
considerable calligraphic flourish. But that is the norm for Kinner!
All this has me wondering if during Marci's decline, attended by
increasing blindness and mental deterioration, Kinner sometimes acted
as a kind of secretary to Marci, in particular with Marci's last two
letters to Kircher that we have. We have long suspected that Marci's
last two letters were not written by his hand - it is interesting to
ponder if Kinner wrote for him.
If Kinner wrote the last two of Marci's letters, or even just one of
them, then the mystery points Jan raises, plus the points I raised at
the end of J.VS comm. # 265, start moving toward both potential
clarifications, and further major questions. In his condition, just how
much aware was Marci of Kinner's writing to Kircher about the
mysterious book?
Kinner may have been far more involved with the mysterious Sphynx book
than we have so far suspected, perhaps involved for many years.
Everything available of Kinner would need to be gone over with a fine
tooth comb from the new perspective, remembering also the Cyprian
versus Godefridus problem. And, what if anything, might Kinner have had
to do with Marci, shortly before Marci expired, entering the Societas
Jesu?
Berj / KI3U
**************************************
268
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Tue 4/28/09 3:15 PM
J.VS: The libellos curiosos in Marci's
10 SEP 1665 letter to Kircher
Dear Colleagues
In light of Godefridus Kinner possibly having written Joannes Marcus
Marci's last two letters (J.VS communication #267), here's a start on a
timeline focused on that, to help further investigations [1,2]:
* 11 OCT 1664 Kinner-to-Kircher letter, 562 APUG 130, Kinner reports
that Marci's powers are failing, and Marci's deteriorating eyesight
prevents Marci from writing.
* 19 AUG 1665 Marci-to-Kircher letter, Beinecke MS 408A, apparently
written for Marci by Kinner, signed plausibly by Marci himself, and
with "a Cronland" for the first time in a letter to Kircher. This
letter destines to Kircher (and is apparently sending herewith) a
Sphynx ms with a Roger Bacon attribution rumor, and is definitely
sending herewith decipherment attempts by the former un-named owner of
the manuscript. This is the Wilfrid Voynich provenanced letter which is
central to the standard theoretical VMS history, and the letter is odd
in several respects, including that it is uncertain if it was ever sent
to Kircher - see J.VS communication #265. For long the year in the date
was uncertain as either 1665 or 1666, but recently 1665 has emerged as
the most likely (J.VS comms. #261 and following; associated vms-list
discussions).
* 10 SEP 1665 Marci-to-Kircher letter, 562 APUG 114, apparently written
for Marci by Kinner, signed plausibly by Marci himself, and with "a
Cronland". Has considerable information including names; begins about a
member of the Nadasdi family, and "libellos curiosos" - possibly a
little book(s) of investigations into curiosities (note: the Voynich
manuscript is not a large book, being
approximately just 16 cm wide by 22.5 cm high; off-J discussions on all
this are currently in progress). This is now the last known letter in
Marci's name to Athanasius Kircher.
* 4 JAN 1666, Kinner-to-Kircher letter, 562 APUG 138, mentions the
Royal Society, and Kircher having read Marci's Philosophia. Mentions
Francis Bacon and New Atlantis (see R. SantaColoma vms-list posts on
that subject). Kinner asks (and per Jan Hurych's critical observation:
we can almost feel Kinner's curiosity) for an interpretation of the
arcane book Marci sent to Kircher:
" You will be the occasion of even greater joy if your craft and skill
can uncover the interpretation of that arcane book which he gave up to
you, and I would dearly like to know myself. "
* 12 or 22 MAY 1666 Father Schott dies. This serves as a reference for
sorting the relevant events and letters in these investigations.
(Recent Gaspar Schott material is in J.VS comms. #248, 249, and 251).
* 5 JAN 1667, Kinner-to-Kircher letter, 562 APUG 151, Kinner's first
letter to Kircher since the death of Fr. Schott. Kinner writes:
" Dominus Marcus has lost his memory of nearly everything but still
remembers you. He very officially bids me salute you in his name and he
wishes to know through me whether you have yet proved an Oedipus in
solving that book which he sent via the Father Provincial last year and
what mysteries you think it may contain. It will be a great solace to
him if you are able to satisfy his curiosity on this point. "
It appears that Kinner may have been acting secretarially for Marci for
a year before Marci's Sphynx ms letter was written - we could well
imagine Kinner handling many of Marci's old papers. This seems to
increase the likelihood that Kinner was aware of the identity of the
former owner of the Sphynx manuscript - why doesn't Kinner ever mention
the name to Kircher? A possible explanation is that Marci's mental
condition is too far deteriorated to recall the former owner's name (M.
Georgius Baresch ?), but that would also require Kinner never seeing
Baresch's name on any of Baresch's decipherment attempts.
What, if anything, is the connection between the Sphynx manuscript and
the "libellos curiosos" ? If the libellos curiosos is partly or all the
Voynich Manuscript, then does this mean that the subject matter of the
VMS is specifically focused on curious aspects of otherwise ordinary or
established matters, in botany, medicine, astrology / astronomy etc. ?
That could
help explain the VMS's odd
illustrations: they are exaggeratedly emphasizing not the ordinary
aspects, but the unusual aspects to the plants etc. being illustrated.
We note also the Royal Society (an English Institution), and the
Englishmen Roger Bacon and Francis Bacon, appearing in Kinner's
letters, both his own, and the ones he is writing for Marci. Is this
clustering of English themes significant? Did Kinner play an important
role in Marci's being invited into the Royal Society (Marci died just
before, so the invite came too late).
Berj / KI3U
P.S. As you know, J.VS CM has made progress with arrangements that will
soon see the public online J.VS Archive move to a new host server. CM
is working on making a smooth transition, and will make necessary
announcements as soon as practical.
[1] I've borrowed some material from my vms-list post of 20 APR 2009
wherein the Kinner two-books problem is diagrammed; voynich.net
vms-list post:
RE: VMs: New additional VMS-associated pictures from Beinecke, Mon
4/20/09 8:27 PM, by Berj / KI3U.
[2] For the summaries and translations of Godefridus Kinner's letters
to Athanasius Kircher see Philip Neal:
Athanasius Kircher's Prague Correspondents, Summaries of the
correspondence :
http://www.voynichcentral.com/users/philipneal/kircher_correspondence.html#kinner
***********************************************************************************
269
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Thu 4/30/09 4:53 PM EDT
J.VS: Theodorus Petraeus and the
distinctive "d" in Marci's last two letters
Dear Colleagues
A couple of days ago on vms-list I responded to comments of Philip Neal
on J.VS communication #267. [1]
Since Philip Neal brought up the topic of hunting for similars to the
408A "d", it seems indicated now to produce a list of what I have found
in that respect in my travels through APUG. Of course the 10 SEP 1665
letter of Marci, 562 APUG 114, exhibits the same situation as 408A,
where the body of the writing is in one hand, quite apparently the same
as in 408A, and the signature of Marci is in another hand, again the
same as in 408A. The 10 SEP 1665 letter has the same distinctive d's
seen in Beinecke MS 408A.
As Philip Neal, so too I have not found a smoking gun, which would
require not just similar d's but similar script in general, but there
are some interesting cases nevertheless, one very interesting one in
particular.
In d-hunting the object is to find a clue or connection, to the
Beinecke MS-408A 19 AUG 1665/6 letter of Marci to Kircher, that
somewhat odd letter which is so central to standard theoretical Voynich
manuscript history. As I shall attempt to show, the d-hunt is
potentially more complicated than just finding similar d's, that is
finding a similar hand, in some writings other than MS 408A.
First, my subjective reaction to the "d" in Beinecke MS 408 is that the
writer is at home with writing Greek: the d's in the letter appear
similar to a Greek alphabet lower-case letter delta.
The main distinguishing feature of the average 408A lower-case d-letter
is an indent to the left in the ascender. This indent is sometimes only
slight, but more often than not it is rather noticable. It appears to
me that in MS 408A usually the d is scripted starting at top, with the
nominal ascender formed first on the way down, and the d is then
completed with the line-level closing arc or loop. Variations are most
noticable on the ascender, especially at its terminus tip at the top.
The d sometimes resembles a little alchemical-symbol alembic,
especially in its third appearance, in the last word (partial) on line
4, "des-".
We ignore the capital-D's in the letter. Then altogether the letter's
24 lines exhibit 34 d's, of which the last one, on line 24, is the d in
Marci's "a Cronland" signature, and on account of this d being
completely different from the others which are of the hand of the
person who wrote the body of the letter, we ignore it also. So, we have
then 33 examples of the distinctive d of MS 408A.
Now, APUG is a handy reservoir of handwritings, and although d-hunting
is not restricted to just APUG, it is logically the first place to look
for a similar hand, in the hope of finding the identity of the person
who wrote the 19 AUG 1665/6 letter to Kircher for the ailing and
going-blind Marci. And as you know, I have recently taken seriously the
possibility that Godefridus Kinner is the writer of the last two Marci
letters (J.VS communication #267, also #268).
Here and there in APUG we do find some d's which come close to one of
the d-variations in MS 408A. Of the ones I have collected, the
following four APUG documents are some of the more interesting ones for
d comparisons, with one d in each pointed out:
565 APUG 178r : 2nd line, in "emendatorum". 1668 multi-lingual (incl.
Greek) treatise by M. Theodorus Petraeus (note: LunaInsight on APUG
gives "Petreius" - I disagree, as Theodorus Petreius the Carthusian
scholar flourished more than half a century earlier). I find only this
one document of Petraeus in all APUG: 565 APUG 178-179. It suggests
that Petraeus was right up Kircher's alley, and the two men, given the
opportunity, would have had much to talk about.
Petraeus has the best similars to MS 408A that I've come across.
Petraeus, c. 1588-1672, seems to have been an Ethiopic scholar from
Flensburg (Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany), and a collector of
oriental manuscripts, and in the habit of annotating. Around 1660 he
and J.G. Nisselius attempted setting up an Oriental press in Leiden.
[2]
It would appear that M. Theodoro Petraeo is a good target for VMS study
- perhaps he knew of the Voynich manuscript, or at least its script,
and perhaps somewhere in his papers there is an indication of same. I
wonder if Godefridus Kinner and Petraeus were acquainted, and even
perhaps corresponded. Can we find some Greek writing by Kinner? And, to
take off on an idea just suggested off-J by our colleague Greg
Stachowski, it is conceivable that if Kircher received the Voynich
manuscript, that for one reason or another he handed it off to someone,
say someone like Petraeus.
Three more APUG documents for d-work, all three from the 1630's:
557 APUG 390r : 8th line up from bottom, in the word "expedite". 1639
letter from Grothaus.
558 APUG 80v : 7th line up from bottom, in the word "dici". 1634 Examen
draft? written by Kircher.
561 APUG 111r : 5th line up from dateline, in "P. Mundbrot". 1637
letter from Melchior Inchofer.
Of course we would be remiss to neglect a look at the VMS itself, and
logically there the first place to turn is the Voynich manuscript's
last folio, f116v - there we immediately find an MS 408A similar d in
the famous anchiton / mchiton / michiton oladabas, that wonderful
phrase which sounds like a magical incantation conjuring up the secrets
of the universe in the light of a full moon, and which was forever
etched into Voynich studies by the great Prof. Romaine Newbold. As we
know, the text on f116v is an odd mix of alphabets letters and symbols
[3], including a few VMS glyphs, and several Greek crosses like the
ones atop the Jesuit letters of APUG and Kircher's letters found
elsewhere. And we know too that there is no certainty the f116v text
was scripted by the VMS author, rather than a later annotator or
hopeful decipherer.
Going through the variations of the d's in their sequence in the MS
408A letter, we soon suspect some patterns in the curling of the tips,
and the thought arises that perhaps the d's are mathematically encoding
something. So we investigate this:
TABLE 1
Let us assign:
-1 = ascender-tip curling left
0 = ascender-tip no curl
+1 = ascender-tip curling right
L denotes the line-number in the Beinecke MS 408A letter:
L01: -1
L04: -1, 0, -1
L05: -1
L06: 0, 0, 0,
L07: -1
L09: 0, -1, 0,
L10: 0
L11: 0
L12: -1, 0, 0, -1,
L13: 0, 0, 0,
L15: 0, -1,
L16: 0, -1,
L17: -1
L18: 0
L19: 0, -1, -1, 0,
L20: 0
L22: +1
In Table 1 we can see that the variations of the d's distribute in
patterns suggesting symmetries, and the single case of a +1 d occurs as
the last d, in the word "Ad" in the good-bye "Ad obsequia" just above
Marci's signature as the letter closes, as if to signal a closing, or
something along the lines of: connect the preceeding codes to the codes
to follow in a yet-to-come letter.
Interestingly, whereas both 408A and 562 APUG 114 begin with d = -1,
the 408A ends with +1, but the 562 APUG 114 ends with a -1.
Are the patterns shown in Table 1 just coincidental, or indicative of
conscious and intentional coding? If intentional, then there is a
plausibility of mathematical consciousness behind the patterns - this
is one of the stronger reasons for my seriously considering Godefridus
Kinner as the secretarial writer of the MS 408A letter (as well as the
562 APUG 114 letter), he being a
mathematician. [4]
I have not had a chance to make a table for 562 APUG 114, but I have
sent to our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski for a new library deposit #
24-1-2009-04-30 the zipfile:
d_crops_MarciLetter_Beinecke408A.zip
This zipfile contains crops of the 34 d's taken from the
high-resolution image of Beinecke MS 408A [5]. The filenames facilitate
orderly scanning, and identification, for example:
11_2L9_dMarci_Beinecke408A.bmp
shows the 11th d appearing in Marci's letter (from its begining), being
the 2nd d on line 9. If interested, you can use these files to modify
Table 1 above, and even increase the variations resolution beyond -1,
0, +1, and reach your own conclusion on whether or not intentional
modulation of the delta alphabet letter by the writer is probable. A
yes conclusion would then impact on d-hunting.
Berj / KI3U
[1] voynich.net vms-list post:
RE: VMs: Kinner and the last letters of Marci, Tue 4/28/09 11:37 PM, by
Berj / KI3U.
Here following the text reproduced in full:
Philip Neal wrote Tue 4/28/09 7:27 PM:
" Are you saying that you think Beinecke 408A is in Kinner's
handwriting? I do not think that they are remotely similar. "
I am saying yes I take it as a serious possibility that Beinecke 408A
came from a hand of Godefridus Kinner.
" The lower case d in Beinecke 408A is particularly distinctive and I
have kept an eye out for similar writing in the Kircher archive but
never spotted any. "
Agreed. Now, in Kinner's usual letters seen in APUG there is
considerable variation in his "d", as can be seen for example in 562
APUG 12r (29 NOV 1662), and even right in the opening three greeting
lines. Occasionally Kinner does come pretty close to the 408A
distinctive "d", as for example in 562 APUG 151r (5 JAN 1667), the 10th
line up from bottom, in the word "sed" near the right margin.
That said, on the possibility that Kinner wrote the last two Marci
letters, I know of nothing to rule out that Kinner had multiple
"hands". His usual letters tell me he had calligraphic skills. So,
Kinner may have possessed different hands useful for different
purposes. He may have been ambidextrous - I know of no information that
would rule that out.
If we think about it, anyone can develop at least a second distinct
hand, just by practicing switching physical hands for writing: in my
case I am right-handed, but I can, slowly and awkwardly but perfectly
legibly, write left-handed. Now if it were important to me to possess a
second and distinctly different hand, then I'd make it a habit of
routinely writing a sentence or two with my left hand, just so as to
develop a flowing practice - then when needed, I would be ready to
write more or less flowingly with my "other" hand.
If Kinner did write the last two letters of Marci, then I suspect this
is just what he did - switched physical hands, and the distinctive "d"
in the last two Marci letters, with its charactersitic indented loop
abruptly abbreviated at top end, is an indication of an ambidextrous
switch. Perhaps also that is Kinner's other hand we see writing
"Kinner", on the back of some of his letters, as we see by turning over
562 APUG 12r to 12v: that "Kinner" is quite different from the two
renditions on the recto.
So yes, this is theoretical, which is why J.VS comm. #267 is titled as
a question, but I am taking the possibility quite seriously. If during
the year and a half or so prior to Marci's death, Kinner was doing sort
of secretarial work for Marci, then it seems to me quite reasonable
that in cases where he was preparing a letter under Marci's name, that
he would write it in a hand different from his normal personal hand, so
as to create the letter in a "secretarial hand". Berj / KI3U
[2] Some information on M. Theodorus Petraeus (more is available online
in the Dutch language):
[2a] DIE HANDSCHRIFTEN-VERZEICHNISSE DER KÖNIGLICHEN BIBLIOTHEK zu
BERLIN. DRITTER BAND. VERZEICHNISS DER ABESSIMSCHEN HANDSCHRIFTEN VON
A. DILLMANN. MIT DREI TAFELN. BERLIN. Bit IIDKII KERE! DKK KÖNK;!..
AKADEMIE iIEK WISSEXStllAFT EX (li. MKiT). INlVEKSIlÄTSSTIiASSE 8.
1878.
http://www.archive.org/stream/diehandschriften03preu/diehandschriften03preu_djvu.txt
[2b] Well-versed in many letters, Non-western typography in Europe and
Leiden up to 1800, by P.G. Hoftijser, 2006:
http://www.brill.nl/uploadedFiles/361.pdf
[2c] From a google books offering we learn that Petraeus studied with
Golius at Leiden, and worked with Edmund Castell in England, and
Christianus Ravius of Berlin:
Eastern wisedome and learning, By G. J. Toomer, Oxford University
Press, 1996, pg. 37.
[2d] Inventory of the Oriental Manuscripts of the Library of The
University of Leiden, Volume 1, compiled by Jan Just Witkam, Ter Lugt
Press, Leiden, 2007 :
http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/inventories/leiden/or01000.pdf
[3] For example, in the top text-line on f116v, the second-last letter
of the second word, you could fairly deem it an Armenian alphabet
letter: a lower-case example of the 16th letter of the Armenian
alphabet, "hoh".
[4] The possibility of the MS 408A "d" reflecting mathematical
consciousness in its writer, via the d's affinity to the Greek delta,
and modulation of the tip of the delta, is certainly out there on the
conjectural arc, but we are better off noting interesting possibilities
however briefly, than just ignoring them. Here are some online
resources for the history of mathematical notation, useful for
estimating a European mathematician's involvement with the Greek letter
delta in and prior to the 16th century:
From Mactutor, Greek number systems :
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Greek_numbers.html
By Jeff Miller: http://jeff560.tripod.com/mathsym.html
In the section, Earliest Uses of Symbols for Variables :
http://jeff560.tripod.com/variables.html
Miller states: "Greek letters. The use of letters to represent general
numbers goes back to Greek antiquity. Aristotle frequently used single
capital letters or two letters for the designation of magnitude or
number (Cajori vol. 2, page 1)."
In the section, Earliest Uses of Symbols of Calculus :
http://jeff560.tripod.com/calculus.html
Miller states: "Delta to indicate a small quantity. In 1706, Johann
Bernoulli used d to denote the difference of functions. Julio González
Cabillón believes this is probably one of the first if not the first
use of delta in this sense."
[5] The 19 AUG 1665/6 letter: High_Res_Image: 1170955 (click on ZOOM) :
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/SearchExecXC.asp?srchtype=CNO
*******************************************************************************
270
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Fri 5/01/09 9:25 PM EDT
J.VS: The hidden 5th man in Voynich
f57v
Dear Colleagues
The mention on vms-list earlier today of the four persons in the
Voynich f57v illustration, reminded me to point out the possibility of
a fifth, hidden man in that illustration. This hypothetical fellow
would be hidden behind the fellow at the top / north of the 4-persons
ring.
To see him, we first rotate the f57v image clockwise 205 degrees. The
nomally north person is then at the bottom, not quite upright, but
angled a bit to the left. We see his / her backside, and we see only
the back of their head. But if we look closely at the right side of the
head, we see what could be another head just sticking out from in front
of the north-person's head. The face of this 5th man is so angled,
looking to the right, that it cannot be the face of the normal
north-person. Either this feature is an accidental result of the crude
rendering of the north-person's head, or it is meant to be a fifth man
hidden behind.
I've sent a labeled image crop to show this: cr205c1VMSf57v.jpg
to our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski as an addendum to library deposit
# 9-1-2007-09-16 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/9-1-2007-09-16/
It's yet another one of those VMS curiosities complicating the overall
picture.
Berj / KI3U
***********************************
271
From Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent 05-02-2009 12:36:57 PM
J.VS: Re: Did Godefridus Kinner write
Marci's last two letters?
[ off-J discussions following J.VS communication #267:
J.VS: Did Godefridus Kinner write Marci's last two letters? ]
25 APR 2009
Jan Hurych says:
Berj, very good observation!
First I quote Philip Neal:
" Gottfried Aloysius Kinner (Godefridus Aloysius Kinner)
Dates not known, around 1610 - 1670.
A Jesuit mathematician, tutor to Archduke Karl Josef of Austria
(1649-1664, younger half-brother of Leopold I). A longstanding friend
of Marci, shared his interest in alchemical medicine. Saw the
manuscript before it was sent to Kircher and twice raised the question
with him. "
There is also my comment ( in the VM List):
" I quote from Wydra's (Czech historian):
"GODEFRIDUS ALOYSIUS KINNER OF LOEWENTHURN
Godefridus Kinner was a Silesian from Reichenbach, a doctor of arts and
letters, philosophy, law and theology. He so shone in mathematics that
he was appointed to teach them to the serene prince Carolus Josephus
Archduke of Austria, brother of Emperor Leopold and Grand Master of the
Teutonic Order." "
Berj / KI3U says:
Teutonic Order - interesting!
Jan says:
Another Czech source at http://www.archive.org/details/MN5142ucmf_5
quotes the epitaph of St. Procopius in Latin, ending: "Cuius Honori
praesens Mausoleum Et brevis gestorum picta series Anno salutis MDCLXIX
posita fuere Godefrido Aloysio Kinner de Loewenthurn, huius Ecclesiae
Decano"
which means in English:
"Godefridus (friend of God, in Czech Bohumir, the name used there)
Aloysius Kinner, the dean of the Church of All Saints who in r. 1669
got made the new crypt there for St. Procopius".
(St. Prokopius was Czech saint who tried to convert the pagans in
Prussia who paid him back by chopping him by ax (y.1053). His remains
were later brought to Prague and in the time of Godefridus, the crypt
was probably in disarray).
So our Godefridus was apparently also a priest (dean) at All Saints, as
well as the mathematician and scientist. He wrote the book 'Elucidatio
geometrica problematis austriaci sive quadratur circuli' autore
Godefrido Aloysio Kinner ...( Kinner, Godefridus Aloysius, Prag 1653).
see http://libris.kb.se/bib/2740527
From the title we can see he worked on the quadrature of the circle -
as well as once did Marci which could bring them even closer. Of course
they knew each other anyway. As per Wydra "He also published on Prague
presses in 1633 a learned booklet on the second squaring of the circle
discovered by Fr. Gregorius a Sancto Vincente. He is praised by the
subscribers at the beginning of the book and they are (surprise,
surprise!):
"the famous Caramuel Abbot of Monserrat, Joannes Marcus Marci Dean of
the Faculty of Medicine, Theodorus Moretus S.T.D. Emeritus Professor of
Mathematics and Rector of the Clatovian College of the Society of
Jesus, and Josephus del Medico, doctor of medicine (rather mysterious
person)."
Comment on two different dates for the book (1633 and 1653, in two
different sources can be explained by two different publishings (or
just a misreading of the date?).
Conclusion: the above Kinner was no doubt a friend of Marci and
mathematician as well, so I would suspect Marci put him in his
confidence and they might have tried to solve the VM together. And yes,
he could have been the person who wrote last Marci's letters and so he
also knew what was all that correspondence about. Moreover, writing the
last Marci's letter, he would have known exactly WHEN the VM letter was
written (1665?) and WHEN (1666?) it was sent. So there is another
possible explanation for two dates mentioned in his letters, they might
not contradict after all.
You also bring another point: if Kinner did the correction, I think the
mistake was more likely made by Marci who just wrote the date and
signature (even being almost blind). The very lightly written digit
underneath 5 was probably not legible, so Kinner corrected it. And yes,
it might have been originally 5 as well, just barely readable so Kinner
just traced it (it seems to be most likely since there is a missing
arch for 6 altogether - of course even the arch for second 6 is barely
visible) ).
Berj says:
This seems more and more possible - Kinner must have had a go at the
mysterious book, and likely was itching to discuss it in detail with
Kircher.
Greg Stachowski says:
Very good Jan! This seems nicely plausible. (also very good Berj, for
noticing).
Jan says:
By the way, have you noticed the compassionate description of Marci's
health state? Moretus on the other hand does not mention Marci in his
letters at all (if I remember correctly, except what I take as some
ironical hints maybe).
Greg says:
Indeed. It all points to Kinner being very close to Marci, and probably
a nice guy as well.
Berj says:
I think the last letter we have from Moretus is 9 OCT 1642 when Marci
was in his prime. Still, it is curious that Moretus is so indifferent
to Baresch's Prague ms, unless it is of no mathematical interest. The
VMS, at least in my view, is definitely of mathematical interest, and
that works for Baresch's ms NOT being the VMS.
Greg says:
Time to study Kinner. And, come to think of it, this Josephus fellow.
Surely another character who would have been interested in the VMS?
26 APR 2009
Berj says:
Josephus del Medico - that name sounds like it could be an alias
pseudonym.
Greg says:
Surely 'alias pseudonym' is a tautology. :)
Anyway, after a relaxing afternoon of digging around the net, I have
identified him. Surprisingly, it is not an alias at all, but a
corruption of a real name: that of eminent Jewish doctor and
philosopher of the 17th Century, Rav [or Rabbi] Yosef Shlomo Delmedigo
of Candia [modern Heraklion, Crete] (1591-1655). He was also an
astronomer and mathematician, and a scholar of the Kabbalah.
'Delmedigo' was the name of a prominent Jewish family in Candia. I
suspect that the fact that he was a doctor lead to the corruption of
'Delmedigo' to 'Del Medico', which looks like 'The Doctor' (and my
first thought on seeing the name). The various other variations of his
name include:
Joseph Del Medico Cretensis ["of Crete"]
Yosef Shlomo Delmedigo
Yosef Shlomo Dilmadigo
Yosef Shlomo Rofe ['Rofe' = 'Doctor' in Hebrew]
Yosef Shlomo Rofei
Yashar Mikandia ["The Upright of Candia"]
Yashar of Candia
He died, by the way, in Prague (!)
From this review
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1082341&blobtype=pdf
of the canonical biography by Barzilay:
"Doctor, scientist, rabbi, philosopher, and rationalist, Yashar of
Candia (1591-1655), a Cretan Jew, was compelled to wander for much of
his life in Egypt, Poland, and Germany, at odds with both non-Jews and
the increasingly mystical Jewish communities he visited. This biography
of a universal scholar sets him in the context of early
seventeenth-century scientific rationalism and rightly emphasizes the
added difficulties of his Jewish predicament. Of his medical training
at Padua, little is said, although recent work on Harvey, his
contemporary there, would have altered the largely negative picture of
university medicine there, but the short section on his practice in
Poland, Holland, and Germany is illuminating on the life of a doctor in
the Jewish ghettos. At Amsterdam, the large number of Jewish doctors
forced him to give up medicine for a time, perhaps not unwillingly, and
the harsh contract he signed in 1631 to be the Jewish communal
physician at Frankfurt-am-Main does not imply much confidence in his
abilities. His medical writings, including a plagiarism of Galen's
commentary on the Aphorisms, are of minor importance compared with his
philosophical and scientific studies; yet, as this biography shows, it
was the money he made from his practice that enabled him to travel, to
buy his books, and at times just to exist."
Picture:
http://ha-historion.blogspot.com/2007/09/colorful-jewish-historical-figure.html
The biography by Barzilay referred to above:
http://books.google.pl/books?id=ubcfAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=Yosef+Shlomo+of+Candia&source=bl&ots=8HBHfzOkTb&sig=5g7WysGeURKx
gZ16XIL-sjFa0-c&hl=pl&ei=u3_0SZbHENCRjAf_wfW_DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PPP1,M1
A listing of a sale of one of his books:
http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/del-medico,-joseph.-various-authors.-likutim-sh-1-c-cs32l4ahto
Berj says:
If I remember correctly, GC was saying he thinks the VMS projects
Galenic medicine??? Or did he say Paracelsian. I'd have to go and look
all that up, as at the time I was not convinced one way or the other.
Jan says:
Hi Greg, another medicine man, probably interested in the VM:
Matthiolli, Hayek, Jan Jessenius, Marci, del Medico, Horczicky, pater
Schaffner (maybe), Nigroponte (was he a medical man?) Dobrzansky (who
took over after Marci), . . . and L. Strong (very, very late :-) .
Greg says:
Landini, even later :)
Del Medico would, I think have been interested in the VMS on many
levels, he seems to have been an all-rounder.
Jan says:
I would guess there were several more . . . Even Baresch hinted about
the medical content of the VM. Recently somebody wrote here about the
Jesuit who was teaching Marci medicine, I forgot his name. I wonder
when Harvey was in Prague if he learned about the VM from Marci ( I
hope he did not get his idea aboute blood circulation from the VM
plumbing sketches :-).
Dana Scott says:
r. As I recall, Harvey knew Andreas Cesalpino, a medical
professor/botanist in Pisa. Cesalpino had studied the circulation
system, which I believe helped Harvey gain insight into his own work
relating to the circulatory system. From what I understand, Cesalpino
had been one of Galileo's instructors.
Greg says:
Interestingly, apparently Harvey was at Padua at the same time as
Delmedigo. By the way, the Jewish Encyclopedia lists him as 'Joseph
Solomon Delmedigo':
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=228&letter=D&search=delmedigo
I missed that reference earlier.
Jan says:
Greg, it is interesting you mentioned that - another physician for our
list was Girolamo Cardano who was lecturing in Padua (of course much
earlier], he now famous discoverer of Cardan grille. And if I my memory
serves me right, Dr. Raphael also studied in Padua, of course he was
not a doctor of medicine. There is certainly lot of things in the VM
that can attract the scientific mind of physicians and I do not mean
just those naked girls :-)).
27 APR 2009
Jan says:
According to Czech sources, Marci had a correspondence with Galileo. I
wonder if he got acquainted with him via that del Medico fellow (G. was
his teacher) who resided in Prague since 1648 and was apparently also a
friend of Marci. By the way, Kircher must have known about Del Medico
who spoke Arabic, and [had] a rich library and collected old books in
Cairo. Are there any letters written by him in Kircher's archive? It is
unbelievable that except of letters by Baresch, Marci and Kinner, there
is no trace of the VM in other letters (so far, anyway). But then again
who else could possibly know Kircher had the VM? I am still wondering
why was Kircher ignoring the manuscript. Was he afraid of public
ridicule or did he consider the content too explosive?
Berj says:
Good point Jan. I haven't found any letters in APUG by someone
conceivably Jospephus Del Medico. Of course it is always possible he is
mentioned in someone else's letter - will keep an eye open for this.
28 JAN 2009
Jan says:
Berj, Czech sources claim that Marci was also involved in the discovery
of blood circulation, but apparently he was only a follower of Harvey,
since "Harvey announced his discovery of the circulatory system in 1616
and in 1628 published his work Exercitatio Anatomica ... (per
Wikipedia)... and there is no known contact between them before
Harvey's visit of Prague. Apparently Harvey based his discovery on
autopsies (first one in Prague was in 1600 by Jessenius). Harvey's
visit in Prague had probably very little to do with that subject.
William Harvey visited Prague with some other representatives of the
Royal Society in 1636, but the purpose of their visit were Marci's
knowledge of metal processing technologies (per dissertation work by
Margaret Garber).
Strangely enough, I could not find any other reference to that
knowledge of his on net, but in his book 'Philosophia..." he mentioned
Baresch had (also per Garber). Also there was a rumor in Prague that
Marci could do transmutations of metals ( I have read it somewhere
years ago and since then I am trying to find out where :-).
Berj says:
Perhaps back then anyone able to do some metallurgical chemistry, like
making amalgams, was rumored to be an alchemist in the more sensational
sense. I would suspect that Kinner would have been well aware of all
these details - Harvey's visit to Prague and so on.
*************************************************************
272
From Greg Stachowski
To Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent 05-02-2009 12:36:37 PM
J.VS: Off-J discussions: Kircher's
toponyms; speculations on Kircher's apparent silence regarding the VMS
29 APR 2009
Berj / KI3U says:
Guys, Take a look at the address side of Baresch's letter:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/557/large/354v.jpg
where is: Frudensi Buchoino, Sacerdoti Societ:
Is that entirely a title, or is Frudensi Buchoino the name of a person?
In other words another person to investigate for possible links to the
Baresch ms ?
Greg Stachowski says:
It's "Fuldensi Buchonio", the re is an 'l' on the crease and the dot of
the 'i' is after the 'n'. These are Latinised names of Kircher's
birthplace, which he used as part of his name in the fashion of the
time (c.f Marci a Cronland, Yosef Shlomo Mikandia). From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_Kircher#Life:
"Kircher was born on 2 May in either 1601 or 1602 (he himself did not
know) in Geisa, Buchonia, near Fulda, currently Hesse, Germany. From
his birthplace he took the epithets Bucho, Buchonius and Fuldensis
which he sometimes added to his name. He attended the Jesuit College in
Fulda from 1614 to 1618, when he joined the order himself as a
seminarian."
Berj says:
r tnx. So Baresch knew all that and carefully addressed his letter.
Greg says:
Indeed. I suspect it was fairly common knowledge, Kircher being famous,
or he could have got it from Marci or one of the others. He addresses
the letter very respectfully.
So I had a thought just know, brought on by being reminded that Kircher
was born in Germany (at Geisa, near Fulda). Now, remember this:
"The famous Renaissance Art (and especially Dürer) expert, Erwin
Panofsky, suggested that the MS is from about 1470 and is of the
opinion that it originates from Germany." (from
http://www.voynich.nu/origin.html )
We have always wondered why, once the VMS was sent to Kircher, it
disappeared. Was it lost, or was he not interested, or did he suppress
it? So the following is the wild, unsubstantiated thought of the week:
What if the reason Kircher was not interested in the VMS, apparently
did nothing with it, 'disappeared' it, was because he had seen it
before? Perhaps at Fulda, which has an ancient abbey and a long and
distinguished history? And perhaps seeing it there - and not being able
to crack it - sparked his interest languages and scripts? Somehow in
the intervening 35 years it had been lost in the turmoil of the times
and found its way to Rudolf's court, and thence to Baresch and Marci,
who, unaware, sent it to Kircher?
Of course this is not a serious suggestion, since there is no evidence,
just a discussion topic.
Berj says:
I've always had trouble believing Kircher would be disinterested in the
VMS. If he had seen it before, and was interested before, then I'd
think he'd be glad to see it again after such a long time, be
interested anew in it, and write Marci and Kinner about having seen it
before. It would seem he'd write Marci and Kinner anyway he'd seen it
before, even if before he wasn't interested in it.
30 APR 2009
Greg says:
Unless he was frustrated by it, and for example didn't want to let on
that the Great Kircher had been beaten by the MS before.
Jan Hurych says:
Hi all, if we logically dissect the problem, we arrive to several
categories of questions:
1a) Was Kircher disinterested in the VM? And if so, why?
1b) Is it possible he did not receive the VM after all?
1c) Was he interested but did not want to commit himself publicly?
2a) Did he carry on the cracking in secret?
2b) Has he got any results?
I guess the above questions are prompted by the fact that we do not
have ANY reaction by him to Marci's gift. The only references are from
Prague and namely Kinner's letters indicate that Marci hasn't got any
progress report and maybe even no answer whatsoever. And apparently
Marci also died without getting his answer. Maybe we should try each of
us answer those questions to our best. Here are my answers ( without
giving any details):
1a) No, all his other research indicates otherwise. / he was interested
in almost anything and he was world famous for "cracking" the
hieroglyphs.
1b) Possible, but being prompted by Kinner's letters (and possibly by
one more letter by Marci which did not survive) he could only pretend
he did not read that and avoid the answer. Apparently like with
Baresch, father Provincial confirmed the delivery was OK. However,
there is also the question why Kircher - apparently - separated Marci's
letter from the rest of his archive. Was he trying to hide it?
1c) Very probable: he was subject of public ridicule before. Also, the
content could have been heretical, but I do not think that would stop
him from carrying on secretly :-). Apparently he did not want anybody
to know he had the book. Why?
2a) Possibly - if nothing else is found, we could possibly identify
some of his scribbles in the VM
2b) "Results", maybe, but solution, no. Otherwise he could not possibly
keep quiet about it ( see the story about Barachias' manuscript he
owned - he milked it to the last drop :-). Besides, as a freelance, he
partly depended on his books as moneymakers (not too much via sale, but
dedications to rich fellows) and the VM would fill several books (as it
does today :-).
I deliberately did not want to cloud the case with the fact the VM
might not be the Prague manuscript after all - since so far we do not
have any tangible proof. There is also something strange in Kircher's
behavior: he got very valuable manuscript as a cordial gift, for free
and he treats his "friend" Marci worse than some stranger? Not even a
hint he was grateful? Especially when he knew Marci was sick and had so
much joy from all Kircher's letters (one of those moments being well
decribed in Kinner's letter)? No, there is something very weird there .
. .
Berj says:
Concerning: "2a) Did he carry on the cracking in secret?"
Lets put that together with a hint which comes from Greg's "disappeared
it" scenario. Suppose Kircher did get the VMS, and decided to hand it
to someone to work on, perhaps also collaborate with.
But at this stage it is uncertain he ever got the manuscript of the 19
AUG 1665/6 letter: that letter was never in APUG, and while folded and
sealed with wax, it seems to have no addressing on its "envelope". If
that letter was meant just to be attached to the book being sent, then
why fold and seal it, and NOT write at least Kircher's name on it as an
addressee?
Jan says:
Agreed, the whole package could have been marked with Kircher's name
however, so if he ever got it, he must have stashed it away from his
main archive - probably for reason he did not want anybody around there
to know he got it or even worked on it. By the way, that assistant of
his, was he still with him at that time? He was actually his P.R. and
he apparently adored him (there is a rumor he invented many favourable
stories about Kircher but I think some were created by Kircher
himself). I forgot his name, but I think it was German name.
Greg says:
Schott?
Jan says:
Right, it was Schott, sound German, too. Well, technically speaking,
Kinner seemed to be familiar with the VM case and his letter shows
certain curiosity of his own. Also, calling Marci "the old boy" shows
high degree of familiarity between two of them. It surely is worth
investigating.
**************************************************************
273
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Sun 5/03/09 11:00 AM EDT
J.VS: Roman Catacombs and Voynich
f86r5
Dear Colleagues
Here is some interesting news on "Shedding light on the Catacombs of
Rome" : a 3 MAY 2009 BBC News online article by Duncan Kennedy, with
pictures and a short video:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8027650.stm
from which:
" Rome's underground Christian, Jewish and pagan burial sites, the
Catacombs, date back to the 2nd Century AD.
There are more than 40 of them stretching over 170km (105 miles).
But, until now, they have never been fully documented, their vast scale
only recorded with handmade maps.
That is now changing, following a three-year project to create the
first fully comprehensive three-dimensional image using laser scanners.
A team of 10 Austrian and Italian archaeologists, architects and
computer scientists have started with the largest catacomb, Saint
Domitilla, just outside the Italian capital.
....... Dr Zimmerman says much of the work will be made available to
the public. "
This work may prove useful with VMS questions like: was the Voynich
Manuscript illustrator influenced by knowledge of the Roman Catacombs,
say in the design of the VMS f86r5 rosette? We recall that Prof.
Romaine Newbold worked on deciphering inscriptions on the walls of the
Roman Catacombs.
Berj / KI3U
********************************
274
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Wed 5/06/09 11:11 PM EDT
J.VS: Wenceslaus Ardensbach von
Ardensdorff writes Athanasius Kircher, October 1668.
Dear Colleagues
As you know, our colleague Jan Hurych has been encouraging us to dig
more deeply into students of Athanasius Kircher and Joannes Marcus
Marci (see for example J.VS comm. #248). As you recall from off-J a few
days ago, I found in a book, which we had noted before in J.VS comm.
#222, that one W.M. Ardensbach von Ardensdorff was "a pupil of Marci
and assiduous reader of Kircher". [1]
Wenceslaus Ardensbach von Ardensdorff, apparently also known as
Wenceslai Ardensbach de Bodensdorff Medici, de Ardensdorff, and so on,
was a medical doctor. I have found in the Kircher Carteggio the
following five letters from him to Kircher, all dated after Marci's
death:
564 APUG 95-96 : 16? OCT 1668, from Brunnae / Brno / Brunn.
558 APUG 14-15 : 22 MAR 1669, from Brunnae / Brno / Brunn.
559 APUG 97-98 : 25 AUG 1669, from Brunnae / Brno / Brunn.
559 APUG 53 : 4 APR 1670, from Brunnae / Brno / Brunn.
565 APUG 98-99 : 20 JUL 1672, from Olmutz.
Jan Marek Marci died 10 APR 1667, so therefore von Ardensdorff's
October 1668 letter was written a year and a half later. This letter is
four pages altogether, written in a good legible hand, though the print
appears small in the APUG online images:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/564/large/095r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/564/large/095v.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/564/large/096r.jpg
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/564/large/096v.jpg
It should not be difficult to transcribe this letter, and actually it
is possible to preliminarily read most of it as is, provided the
special symbols (alchemical, astrological, pharmacological) are
understood. I've had only a quick look at it since finding it a few
moments ago; von Ardensdorff's discussion seems to involve books,
transcriptions, metals, tinctures, alchemical procedures, and includes
these items:
Kinner, Dobrzensky, P. Behn ?, Praga, Doctor Marcus, Domino Miseron,
Ferdinand III, something valued at 40,000 florins, Dr. Froelser ?,
pharmacopeia, Dominus Richthausen, Barone de Chocos ?, transmutation.
These items certainly seem of interest to us in our efforts to deduce
more about the Sphynx manuscript that Marci destined for Kircher in
August 1665. The following statement by von Ardensdorff in a sentence
on 95r (10th line up from bottom) caught my eye:
" quam etiam Doctor Marcus Scriptum habuit "
Possibly it hints that a thorough study of this particular von
Ardensdorff letter can give us some clues to how Marci came into
possession of the Voynich / Prague Sphynx manuscript materials.
Berj / KI3U
[1] The making of the Habsburg monarchy, 1550-1700: an interpretation;
By Robert John Weston Evans, Edition: reprint, illustrated, Published
by Oxford University Press, 1984, ISBN 0198730853, 9780198730859, 531
pages. see pg. 336, footnote 63. This page is available online from
google books.
**********************************************
275
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Wed 5/13/09 12:46 AM
J.VS: Do we have another Marci letter:
557 APUG 67 ?
Dear Colleagues
In rummaging through my Voynichiana attic last night I came across a
barely distinguishable letter from APUG, which may be a Marci letter
that has not received much, if any attention - I am not sure yet.
Before rummaging on again I thought it better to list it so that we at
least know its identifications:
557 APUG 67 : 1642 letter from Marci to Kircher. I can't make out where
Marci mailed it from. Has two technical diagrams drawn on the left
margin, one is basically a wedge, the other appears to be a column in a
bowl suggesting a hydraulics experiment, or hygrometry, and I think I
can make out the word "vaccum" in the text. The letter is very faded
and the image of it is difficult to process for any improvement. This
letter seems to have slipped under the LunaInsight radar also. If the
old Kircher Carteggio catalog entry is still accurate in this case,
then this may be the 8 FEB 1642 letter written from Prague. It took
some doing for me to convince myself that it does indeed appear to be
signed by Marci:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/557/large/067r.jpg
Berj / KI3U
************************************
276
From: Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 07-03-2009 8:19:44 AM
J.VS: Cracking the two-centuries old
Presidential cipher
More ciphers news (on the cracking of the Patterson cipher by Lawren
Smithline following Patterson's descriptions of the scheme in his
letter to Thomas Jefferson):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124648494429082661.html?mod=yhoofront#articleTabs_interactive%26articleTabs%3Darticle
Have a look at the 'interactive graphics' tab on the page with the
article, it has a nice animation explaining the mechanism.
Greg
*******************************
277
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: Tue 7/07/09 2:37 PM
J.VS: Galileo's ink and the discovery
of planet Neptune
Dear Colleagues
Here's some news of interest in connection with analysis of ancient
inks, which in the Voynich ms concerns us in several ways, including
the problem of the time-difference between the inkings of, for example,
the so-called month-names in the centers of the "zodiac" panels, and
the regular VMS script inking on the same panels.
The web blog "Refreshing News" :
http://refreshingnews9.blogspot.com/2009/07/galileo-may-have-discovered-planet.html
reports via "pooja", 7 JUL 2009, on what it says comes from findings
which have been published in Australian Physics, and presented at
Melbourne University:
" Galileo may have discovered planet Neptune
Galileo's notebooks contain hidden clues that is likely to clinch his
discovery of Neptune in 1613, 234 years before the date of discovery
accepted now, according to a new theory.
David Jamieson, who heads the Melbourne University (MU) School of
Physics, is investigating the notebooks of Galileo from 400 years ago.
He believes that buried in the notations is the evidence that he
discovered a new planet that we now know as Neptune. "
" There is also a mysterious unlabelled black dot in his earlier
observations of Jan 6, 1613, which is in the right position to be
Neptune. "
" If the mysterious black dot on Jan 6 was actually recorded on Jan 28,
Jamieson proposes this would prove that Galileo believed he may have
discovered a new planet.
By using the expertise of trace element analysts from the University of
Florence, which have previously analysed inks in Galileo's manuscripts,
dating the unlabelled dot in his notebook may be possible. This
analysis may be conducted in October this year. "
Quite interesting. It also reminds me of that other VMS studies puzzle:
Jan's discovery of the Marci-letter arm-star diagram (J.VS comms. #4,
85, 121, 181).
Berj / KI3U
************************
278
From: Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 07-07-2009 3:34:58 PM
J.VS: Re: Galileo's ink and the
discovery of planet Neptune
I would have to check that we're missing a lot of Galileo's original
observing notes. That said, it seems far more likely to me that Galileo
put in the dot originally thinking it was a star (putting in background
stars as position references is normal in such visual observing of
moving objects such as planets), and noted the movement on the 28th
precisely by comparing the new observations with the old.
It also seems that if he went back and revised his earlier
observations, he would have labelled the 'star' in some way, not left
it as a dot.
I would be very surprised if the dot is in a different ink.
By the way, the possible discovery of Neptune by Galileo was noted
before:
" Galileo's observations of the moons of Jupiter were so meticulous
that American astronomer Charles Kowal and Galileo scholar Stillman
Drake, inspired by an article by Steven Albers in the March 1979 issue
of Sky and Telescope predicting that Jupiter must have passed over
(occulted) Neptune on January 4, 1613, examined Galileo's manuscripts
and found evidence that Galileo had indeed recorded the location of
Neptune in his notebooks, although not on the day of the occultation.
Another possible sighting was later located by E. M. Standish and A. M.
Nobili. "
from http://www.pacifier.com/~tpope/Jupiter_Page.htm
See also the 1997 paper by Standish and Nobili:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1997BaltA...6...97S&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
This includes a discussion of the mysterious ink spot. Jamieson is not
onto anything new, although the ink analysis might be. I really would
like to have heard or read a transcript of Jamieson's complete lecture:
http://physics.unimelb.edu.au/Community/Newsroom/Events/July-Lecture-Galileo%27s-invention-of-the-astronomical-telescope-and-his-remarkable-discoveries-moons,-stars-and-a-new-planet
which seems to be where he presented the ideas. It is possible that the
press release/announcement mangled what he was saying and that he fully
credited Standish & Nobili, and just added the ink analysis thing.
Reading the full press release:
http://newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/n-79
it's open to some interpretation as to what exactly Jamieson is
claiming for himself.
I still disagree, though, with his underlying premise - that Galileo
would have gone back and changed his notes.
Greg
*****************************
279
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 07-12-2009 8:19:00 PM
J.VS: Move of the J.VS
communications archives to new host servers
Dear Colleagues
The move of the J.VS communications archives to the new host
servers, those being the same which have hosted the J.VS Library, is
now accomplished, and effective immediately. Thank-yous to Dennis and
Greg for smoothing the process. The new url's are:
J.VS Archive front-page:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/index.htm
J.VS formal rules page:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSFormalRules.htm
J.VS Archive index of subject-lines of all J.VS communications:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSCOMsubjlines.htm
Archive Volume I, 2007, comms. #1 - 133 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolI2007.htm
Archive Volume II, 2008, comms. #134 - 236 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolII2008.htm
Archive Volume III, 2009, comms. #237 and up :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolIII2009.htm
The J.VS Library urls remain the same as before:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/new/
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/
It remains to do some redirect work on the old geocities-host archive
pages.
Berj / KI3U
*************************
280
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 07-14-09 11:01:06 AM
J.VS: The p-problem of the alleged
Tepenecz autograph on Voynich f1r
Dear Colleagues
As we know, the standard popular theoretical history of the Voynich
Manuscript, as originally seeded
by Wilfrid Voynich himself, has as one of its major pillars that,
thanks to an accident ultimately
involving chemical treatment, the bottom portion of the parchment of
the VMS's folio f1r allegedly,
according to Wilfrid Voynich, shows the faint, barely discernable
hand-printed writing: Jacobus de Tepenecz
And, this Tepenecz is none other than Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenecz (d.
1622), the director of Holy
Roman Emporer Rudolph II's (d. 1612) botanical gardens and alchemical
laboratory, who gained his
patent of nobility "de Tepenecz" from Rudolph sometime after 1608. [1]
Tepenecz is remembered also for his "Aqua Sinapis", a prototype of eau
de cologne [2]. More
importantly in Voynich manuscript matters, Wilfrid Voynich's suggestion
that Tepenecz's name
appears on his manuscript's f1r, fit remarkably conveniently with
Voynich's claim that his
manuscript was accompanied by an explanatory letter dated 1665 or 1666,
written to the polymath
Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, by (or in the name of) Kircher's old friend
the Bohemian physicist,
philosopher, and medical doctor Joannes Marcus Marci (d. 1667), with
Marci's comments in this letter
both placing a certain mysterious manuscript sometime in Rudolph's
court, plus mentioning a rumor of
the manuscript's attribution to the extraordinary 13th century
Franciscan friar-scholar Roger Bacon.
The alleged, and otherwise without-evidence, connection of the Voynich
Manuscript (Beinecke MS 408)
with Rudolph's court remains a major component in the popular
hypothetical history of the
manuscript. It serves also as a launching platform for further theories
as to the manuscript's
provenance, notably theories involving its one time possession by the
English mathematician and
paranormalist John Dee (1527-1609). Even Professor John Manly [3],
while on his way to later
devastating criticisms of early VMS student Professor Romaine Newbold,
nevertheless himself
accepted, apparently uncritically, the Tepenecz and Rudolf etc. story,
even adding to it his own
conjecture that it is probable that Tepenecz parted with the manuscript
when he was forced to flee
the disturbances of 1618 (i.e. the beginning of the Thirty Year's War).
[4]
The big problem in all this is actually seeing one or another version
of Tepenecz's name on f1r, and
seeing it there written as such and to be read. Who, asked to look at
the lower part of Voynich f1r,
and free to do whatever investigating they might like, microscopy,
infra-red and ultraviolet,
digital image processing and so on, BUT without ever first having been
told that some version of
Tepenecz's name is to be read there, has ever claimed to read it there?
No-one I've ever heard of.
Right at the start of this big problem is: just which version of
Tepenecz's name are we supposed to
discern at the bottom of f1r? In his April 20, 1921 presentation
lecture on his manuscript before
the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Wilfrid Voynich introduced
the assertion of the Tepenecz
autograph on f1r with "Jacobus de Tepenecz". But, in the photograph
Wilfrid provided of the bottom
of f1r, it is much easier to entertain "Jacobj" rather than "Jacobus"
[5]. Indeed, Manly in his
July, 1921 Harper's article [4], gives the f1r autograph as "Jacobj de
Tepenecz", which, Manly
writes, "appeared clearly". Decades later, D'Imperio gives the version
"Jacobj a Tepenece" [1].
These few examples dramatize the norm, since the beginning, of the
efforts to read an autograph,
associated with the historical Horcicky, somewhere on the bottom
portion of VMS f1r: there is no
consensus on which version of the full Tepenecz name. Moreover, the
alleged autograph on f1r has
also been described as a "signature", further clouding the interests of
precision in the matter.
Now, without even bringing in all the other problems with Voynich's
constructed history of his
manuscript, we have here a situation where, if the Tepenecz autograph
in the VMS is an illusion,
then much of the standard popular VMS history is severely compromised.
Remarkably, there is today
nowhere you can turn in order to see an unequivocal demonstration, that
in high probability one or
another version of the Tepenecz autograph actually appears on f1r of
the Voynich Manuscript!
Altogether then this must be considered a major Voynich manuscript
problem.
There certainly are in Voynich literature since Wilfrid's original
efforts attempted demonstrations
of a Tepenecz autograph on f1r, involving various levels of image
processing and reconstruction. But
if you study them closely, you see that none of them come close to high
probability: they rely on
starting with the goal of reconstructing a version of the Tepenecz
autograph under the assumption
that it actually is there, selectively picking some marks or portions
of them on f1r, ignoring many
other marks, and above all, in the original tradition of Wilfrid
Voynich, relying on the power of
suggestion. We can also find in Voynich literature verbal reports of
someone having examined the
actual manuscript f1r, or infra-red or ultraviolet illuminations /
photos of it, and seeing the
Tepenecz autograph, but without even so much as a sketch produced of
what was seen, and no
unambiguous identification, sufficient to locate them, of the infra-red
or ultraviolet photos.
The best attempted demonstrations of the Tepenecz autograph on f1r that
I know of were produced by
our colleague Dana Scott a couple of years ago:
http://www.voynich.us/photo.htm
As we can see, in addition to his blue demonstration images, Dana also
provides an image of
Wilfrid's original 1921 Plate 2 picture supposedly demonstrating the
Tepenecz autograph on f1r [5].
Wilfrid's Plate 2 picture is seriously problematic though: it differs
radically in some places from
the modern (2004) high-resolution SID image provided by the Yale
Beinecke Library, and the
differences are not easily explained as merely resulting from the
ravages of time, but unfortunately
compel at least the consideration that the bottom area of f1r was
actively altered AFTER the Plate 2
was made [6]. Since it was certainly altered before by Wilfrid, i.e.
with chemical treatment, the
overall status of what the bottom area of VMS f1r had on it originally,
is quite in doubt.
Even if a Tepenecz autograph appears in the bottom area of VMS f1r in
some form consistent with that
suggested by Wilfrid Voynich and the attempted demonstrations after
his, our colleague Jan Hurych
has shown that the alleged autograph is not similar to any known
variant of Tepenecz's signature:
" We could not confirm that the "signature" in the VM was written with
the same hand that wrote the
signatures No.1 and No.3. The script in the VM is also rather simple,
totally disconnected and
reminds some modern script, it may even stand for the one of the
twentieth century cursive. If there
was an intent to simulate Horczicky's signature, the forger apparently
had no idea how his signature
looked like, especially if the ending should truly be "-encze" as in
the signatures and not "-ence"
as in the VM. " [7]
Lets take a closer look at Dana's blue images which attempt, with
cropping and image processing of
the high-resolution color image of VMS f1r provided by the Beinecke
[8], to demonstrate the
existence on f1r of the autograph version: Jacobi Tepenec
To do this properly let us have the unprocessed f1r SID image handy for
comparison. Needless to say,
our observations are based on the Beinecke SID image of f1r, and not
the actual f1r parchment.
The first thing we notice is that the alleged "p" in the Tepenec has
its descender suddenly sharply
bending to the left after starting downward in expected fashion. That's
odd. Following the
traditional norm in this particular Voynich subject, Dana's image crop
suppressed the rest of it,
but the f1r SID shows that this descending device, after proceeding
downward for a ways, suddenly
sharply curves back to the right - overall, the "p" rather more
resembles the outline of a big nose
than it does a "p". Fairly easy to see on the SID below the "en"
following the p, is what looks like
a Voynich text symbol: GC-w (AGC-119).
This p-problem in the alleged Tepenecz autograph on Voynich f1r,
namely: if it really was originally
meant to be a "p" then why is it rendered as oddly as it is?, makes it
clear that when we attempt to
resolve the markings on the bottom of f1r in the chemically altered
area of the parchment, we must
work with the entire bottom of f1r, and not just a crop of the area
suggested by Wilfrid's Plate 2
indications. Otherwise we are editing with bias at the outset.
Even just some random elementary image processing experiments on the
bottom of the f1r SID indicate
that there are several possibilities for what was originally marked
there: Latin script letters as
per the alleged Tepenecz autograph, but also Voynich text letters, and:
drawings. Wilfrid himself in
his 1921 College of Physicians of Philadelphia lecture hints at this,
when he states: "Chemicals
were applied to the margins and the autograph, Jacobus de Tepenecz,
became visible, with some
illegible figures below it."
For example, it is possible to see the Tepenecz "p" as forming the
right shoulder of a male figure
which is facing to the right, with the "en" following the "p" forming
parts of the top of his head,
hair, and eyes.
There are many markings on the bottom of f1r, and the alleged Tepenecz
markings are just some of
them, which take on a misleading appearance of being an integrated
print-script "autograph", when
they are cropped for emphasis, and thereby are removed from the context
markings. Now, to give
Wilfrid's suggestion a fair benefit of a doubt, it is not inconceivable
that originally f1r did have
something resembling an autograph, but it was then at some point
crossed-out or over-written or
over-drawn, and what may have been originally a completely different
name, is pliable, via
suggestions, to be seen as some version of Tepenecz. It is to be
remembered that from the outset
having decided that Roger Bacon was the originator of his manuscript,
Wilfrid had great motive to
bring Rudolph's court into the manuscript's provenance, where Roger
Bacon manuscripts would have
been of great interest, and so the Rudolph court botanist Jacobus
Horcicky de Tepenecz would be an
ideal name to discover somewhere in the manuscript, and even better on
its first page.
The f1r raw SID shows that the "T" of the Tepenecz is not at all a
straightforward "T". Rather, it
appears to be part of a pair of almost-parallel slightly upward-angled
arcs, which are bisected by a
pair of short, nearly vertical parallel lines, with the inbetween space
filled in dark. Random
elementary image processing alternately reinforces this, or reinforces
a part of this structure to
resemble a "J" or "T". Dana's processing, while reinforcing the
impression of a "T", nevertheless
also reinforces the connection of the left part of the T's crossbar to
some other comparably sized
marks. Also, the alleged "e" following the alleged "T" can be seen to
be part of the lower of the
aforementioned almost-parallel arcs.
The particular size (magnification) of Dana's crop reinforces the
impression of an alleged, run-
together "ce" at the end of the "autograph", however, at full
magnification the SID image, raw and
randomly processed, severely changes that impression, and it is not
even certain if those marks are
alphabet letters. Wilfrid's Plate 2 seems to more suggest a
run-together "cz" than "ce".
Regarding the "Jacobi" Dana notes that it is "somewhat more difficult
to ascertain than Tepenec".
Suffice it to say that in order to get "Jacobi" in that area of f1r,
all sorts of markings have to
be ignored, and only specifically chosen marks must be lifted. All the
discernible marks in that
area could easily be from an original drawing / illustration, possibly
even one which had labeling.
We can entertain that the "Tepenec" markings have some plausibility on
their own, but without
relying on the assumption that a Tepenecz autograph exists on f1r, the
"Jacobi" is simply not
indicated.
Assuming that the "Tepenec" markings were indeed originally some Latin
script letters, it seems from
Dana's image they could just as well, if not even more convincingly, be
"Tireneo". If so, that might
indicate something connected to ancient Greek history, or the
Tyrrhenian Sea, or the legendary
Etruscan hero Tyrrhenus, or Tirana in Albania.
Berj / KI3U
[1] The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio,
Aegean Park Press, c. 1976-80,
ISBN 0-89412-038-7; pg.1. An edition is available online for
downloading here:
http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/publications/misc.shtml
[2] The Cipher of Roger Bacon, by William Romaine Newbold, ed. by Rolan
Grubb Kent, Philadelphia,
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928; pg. 34.
[3] John Matthews Manly, 1865-1940 : The University of Chicago Library,
Archives and Manuscripts,
Guide to the John Matthews Manly Papers 1892-1940:
http://ead.lib.uchicago.edu/view.xqy?id=ICU.SPCL.MANLY&c=m
[4] Manly, John M., The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World: Did
Roger Bacon Write It and Has
the Key Been Found?; Harper's Monthly Magazine, Vol. 143, July, 1921.
[5] Plate 2 from Wilfrid M. Voynich's 1921 "A Preliminary Sketch of the
History of the Roger Bacon
Cipher Manuscript"; Transactions of the College of Physicians of
Philadelphia, 43, 1921.
[6] voynich.net vms-list thread: Re: VMs: Tepenecz: three scenarios...?
See especially the post of Tuesday, January 30, 2007 3:04 PM by Berj /
KI3U. These posts are preserved in:
J.VS Library deposit # 1-1-2007-05-05, file 4vmsKI3Ulab.htm
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/1-1-2007-05-05/4vmsKI3Ulab.htm
[7] THE NEW SIGNATURE OF HORCZICKY (and the comparison of them all),
J.B.Hurych (23rd January 2007).
Library of the Journal of Voynich Studies, J.VS Lib. deposit #
2-4-2007-06-06 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/2-4-2007-06-06/
See also Jan's "THE HANDWRITING ANALYSIS OF SOME POSSIBLE AUTHORS OF
THE VM.".
Library of the Journal of Voynich Studies, J.VS Lib. deposit #
7-4-2007-10-28 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/7-4-2007-10-28/
[8] 1006076.sid high-resolution image of Voynich ms f1r (requires
LizardTech's SID image-format handling) :
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/SetsSearchExecXC.asp?srchtype=ITEM
(19 APR 2009 note: Beinecke as added some new VMS-associated images to
its online offerings, including
a color photo of Marci's last letter.)
*****************************
281
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 07-15-09 12:53:01 PM
J.VS: Athanasius Kircher: the Voynich
Manuscript in Rome
Dear Colleagues
Our Librarian Greg has installed " ATHANASIUS KIRCHER - THE VM IN ROME,
by Jan B. Hurych " :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/16-4-2009-05-17/
I really enjoyed reading this paper. Jan tracks Kircher's
career-spanning exploitation of his
mysterious Barachias manuscript as a reference frame for trying to
understand Kircher's silence on
the Prague / Voynich ms.
Believe me - this paper is FUN to read - thanks Jan.
Berj / KI3U
**********************
282
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 07-21-09 10:45:22 AM
J.VS: Commentary on Wilfrid Voynich's
1921 presentation of his manuscript
Dear Colleagues
An excellent new paper by our colleague Jan Hurych is now available in
the J.VS Library:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/17-4-2009-07-20/
VOYNICH NOW AND THEN.
Commentary to the Article of W.M. Voynich
in "The Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia",
Vol.33, 1921.
Jan. B. Hurych
From the opening:
" Recently, I had an opportunity to review the above article and
compare what was written there and what we know today.
For almost one hundred years we now still base the VM provenance on the
statements made by Mr. Voynich (WMV for short).
True, some of them hold today, the others were time by time corrected
or modified. The comments here should not be taken as
a criticism of Mr. Voynich - he surely did the great job - they are
just listed to direct the readers to other possible options.
The comments are ordered and the pages of the article are listed as
well. "
Thanks Jan.
Berj / KI3U
**************************
283
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 07-23-09 08:44:13 AM
J.VS: Database of medieval English
soldiers
Dear Colleagues
A new database online resulting from a British research project may
possibly be useful in some Voynich ms research:
The Soldier in later Medieval England: An exciting new AHRC research
project
Headed by Dr. Adrian Bell of the ICMA Centre and Professor Anne
Curry of the University of Southampton,
the project challenges assumptions about the emergence of professional
soldiery between 1369 and 1453:
http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/
A quick search of the database for English ancestors of "Baresch" or
"Barsch" yielded no hits.
In a 20 JUL 2009 report the BBC news website has some commentary on
this project and database:
Medieval battle records go online
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8160081.stm
Berj / KI3U
*******************************
284
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 08-11-09 11:09:01 AM
J.VS: Pitcher Plants and Voynich plant
illustration f40v
Dear Colleagues
Giant Pitcher Plants have been discovered by Christian missionaries in
the highlands of the central Phillipines; the available pictures
of them seem to prompt a comparison of the Voynich f40v plant
illustration with the carnivorous pitcher plants in general.
Here's an 11 AUG 2009 dated BBC online news article reporting on the
giant Phillipine Pitchers, which have been classified into
the Nepenthaceae family:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8195000/8195029.stm
Berj / KI3U
************************
285
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 08-17-09 11:57:21 AM
J.VS: Source material on fringe
VMS-author-suspect Julius Caesar of Austria
The J.VS Library now has ready a short article by our colleague Jan
Hurych, titled:
" JULIUS CAESAR OF AUSTRIA (born approx. 1586 - died 1609). "
It's Library url is:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/18-4-2009-08-16/
This Julius, a well educated insane murderer, was Rudolf II's son, and
he has been considered in the Voynich literature as a possible author
of the Voynich manuscript.
Berj / KI3U
*******************************
286
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 08-19-09 7:02:05 PM
J.VS: Writing and drawing with
150-million-years old ink
Dear Colleagues
Toward knowledge of "inks" in general, here is an interesting
illustrated news item dated 19 AUG 2009 from the BBC news website:
" Ink found in Jurassic-era squid
Palaeontologists have drawn with ink extracted from a preserved
fossilised squid uncovered during a dig in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wiltshire/8208838.stm
" The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a
rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac.
A picture of the creature and its Latin name was drawn using its ink. "
Dr Phil Wilby of the British Geological Survey is quoted:
" The structure is similar to ink from a modern squid so we can write
with it. "
The article concludes saying that part of the ink sac has been sent to
Yale University in America for more in-depth chemical analysis.
We recall from the VMS-list thread launched earlier this year by Jeff
Haley [1] that Yale, the Voynich Manuscript's custodian via its
Beinecke Library, has recently made arrangements for some sort of
analysis of the VMS's ink pigments, and the carbon dating of a piece
of its parchment.
Berj / KI3U
[1] voynich.net vms-list thread: "VMs: Carbon dating?? WHEN??",
launched by Jeff Haley Fri 5/08/09 1:01 AM.
*******************************
287
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 08-22-09 6:33:08 PM
J.VS: Revised edition of Robert
Teague's Dating of VMS Zodiac Section
Dear Colleagues
The revised / current edition of our colleague Robert Teague's work, "
Dating of the VMs Zodiac Section " has just been
installed by our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski in the J.VS Library:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/6-5-2009-08-22/
Berj / KI3U
*******************************************************
288
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 08-23-09 1:49:31 AM
J.VS: The ponderable "678 anno"
inscription in the Voynich nine-rosettes illustration
Dear Colleagues
In J.VS communication #239 we considered the possibility that the
Hippodrome
of Constantinople may have figured into the Voynich manuscript
illustrator's
thoughts when composing the VMS's nine-rosettes foldout illustration.
[1]
Constantinople comes immediately, if not prominently, into the Voynich
manuscript picture with
the biographical examination of the manuscript's originally suggested
author, Roger Bacon [2];
and also automatically as soon as the manuscript's dramatic and
climactic nine-rosettes
foldout (f85 & f86) is interpreted as a "Mappa Mundi", which is
often done [3]. For example,
in a 2005 vms-list post well-known Voynich researcher Glenn Claston
(GC) commented:
" I saw the spires for instance, in the center of the map, and first
thought of Constantinople,
while others would not think of this. " [4]
So then, whatever is being projected in the VMS nine-rosettes foldout,
be it just an unusual
world map, or multiply a map along with other themes, the VMS
researcher's set of possibilities
for this complex illustration may well include the profoundly walled
city of Constantinople,
explicitly or implicitly. And, like for a handful of other important
ancient cities, we tend to
remember some historically important dates for them, even if only
approximately. For Constantinople
history, one rather significant date is the 7th century year 678 - that
was the year, during the
Byzantine-Arab wars, when the Arab siege against the city collapsed,
due in part to the Byzantines'
use of the weapon of "Greek Fire".
I have been puzzling over the possibility that the inscription "678
anno" is discernable in the
Voynich nine-rosettes foldout. If true, if indeed the year 678 was
explicity inscribed in the nine-
rosettes foldout by its original illustrator, then it would be a
welcome piece of data consistent
with the above Hippodrome etc. considerations, and serve as a step
forward in the attempts to pin
down some idea of just precisely what is being projected by the
nine-rosettes, and the VMS in
general.
This tentatively identified inscription "678 anno" is found in the
foldout's upper-right f86r6
panel, the one bearing the northeast rosette and its two castles. At
top right of this panel
is a T-O map symbol, internally primitive with just three labels in
ordinary VMS text.
The upper and lower perimeter portions of the T-O have some cilia-like
embellishments.
Embedded in the upper of these are the markings which may be the "678
anno" inscription.
This inscription is quite tiny, but within the bounds of
precision-capability determined
for the VMS illustrator by the work of J.VS comm. #185 [5].
Have a look at the high-resolution SID image of f86r6. Possibly the
inscription, if that is
what it is, was intentionally formed by over-writing some of the cilia,
modifying them into
some characters. It will take a look at the actual manuscript f86r6
panel with a magnifying
glass to be really sure. Perhaps under magnification more of interest
will be found in this
area of the parchment.
I have sent to our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski two images for new
deposit # 25-1-2009-08-23.
These images are a crop of the f86r6 T-O from the Beinecke SID, taking
the TIF option, and a copy
of the crop with the "678 anno" emphasized with paint-ins. These two
tif images are suitable for blinking,
and are otherwise raw.
So perhaps items like Greek Fire, and the Theodosian Walls may become
more of interest in the
efforts to interpret the VMS nine rosettes illustration.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #239 (Vol. III, 3 JAN
2009):
J.VS: The Hippodrome of Constantinople and the f85v2-86r4 portion of
the Voynich Nine Rosettes illustration; Berj / KI3U.
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolIII2009.htm
[2] see for example:
[2a] Crusaders of Chemistry, by Jonathan Norton Leonard, Country Life
Press, 1930.
Has some commentary on the Voynich Manuscript in the chapter on Roger
Bacon; text available online.
[2b] ROGER BACON in Life and Legend, by E. Westacott, New York,
Philosophical Library, 1953.
Also comments on the VMS and its discovery, and Newbold; text available
online.
[3] see for example:
Notes on the Voynich Manuscript - Part 20 [1993 September 17], by
Robert Firth.
http://www.voynich.net/reeds/firth/20.txt
[4] voynich.net vms-list post: Re: VMs: Impressions; Wed, 7 Sep 2005
20:46:42 -0600, by GC.
[5] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #185 (Vol. II, 29 APR
2008):
J.VS: Voynich steganography reference: f80v CATWOMAN's cat-face versus
f1r Tepenece; Berj / KI3U.
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolII2008.htm
**************************************************
289
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 08-24-09 12:57:04 PM
J.VS: Moretus: The Messenger to Rome
Dear Colleagues
A new article by our colleague Jan Hurych is now available in the J.VS
Library:
" THEODORUS MORETUS or THE MESSENGER TO ROME "
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/19-4-2009-08-24/
This adds to our growing stock of VMS-related biographical matter.
Jan's article includes discussion of some
unpleasant possibilities in the Baresch-Marci-Moretus-Kircher circle.
Thanks Jan.
Berj / KI3U
**************************
290
From: Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 09-13-2009 4:19:28 PM
J.VS: Cracks in the Ice: Toward a
Translation Method for the Voynich Manuscript
Robert Teague has updated his paper,
"Cracks in the Ice: Toward a Translation Method for the Voynich
Manuscript"
in the library. The URL is:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/4-5-2008-01-12/
Greg
***********************************
291
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 09-24-09 8:23:19 PM
J.VS: Some curious markings on
Francisco Ximenez's APR 1655 letter to Kircher
Dear Colleagues
The APUG archive has several letters to Athanasius Kircher from the New
World by one Franciscus Ximenez,
over the period 1655-1672. One of these letters, 555 APUG 154-155rv,
written in APR 1655 in Angelopoly,
apparently the earliest of the series, has some odd markings on the
envelope, one of which seems to resemble an
essentially perfect Voynich-text GC-k / EVA-t glyph.
I'm not sure who this particular Ximenez is - he seems to have been
attached in some capacity or other to the Jesuit
Order in the New World. We must not confuse him with other Francisco
Ximenez's, for example Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros,
1436-1517 [1]. And of course Fr. Francisco Ximenez of Popol Vuh fame,
who was born eleven years after our Ximenez wrote
his letter [2].
A curiosity arises with another Ximenez letter to Kircher, 565 APUG
50rv, which seems to have been written by Ximenez on
26 OCT 1666 and includes his copy of an earlier letter written 6 FEB
1664 by Giovanni Paolo Oliva to Alejandro Fabian.
The Athanasius Kircher project data on Ximenez, accessed via Luna
Insight, gives:
Ximenez, Francisco (alias Francois Giliot) Jesuit (S.J.)
Ximenez doesn't sign himself as a Jesuit priest in his letters, but the
style of his letters suggests he is a Jesuit. So perhaps he was
operating somewhat secretly for a while, reminiscent of Padre Jodukus
Kedd, alias Theodorus Berck [3].
Have a look at the APUG image of the envelope of Ximenez's April, 1655,
letter:
http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher/555/large/155v.jpg
It is shown with the addressing upside down, and the Jesuit seal over
at the left. No image processing is necessary to see that
on and around the seal are some markings in various conditions. One can
get the impression of a column of symbols along the
left edge of the seal, and at the top we see what looks like a GC-k
glyph, apparently sitting atop a lower marking. This GC-k,
if that is what it is rather than an accident or artifact, has the
classic VMS GC-k shaping: the triangular left loop, and the round right
loop.
Was there more like it on the torn away parts of the seal? Was it
penciled there by someone long after Ximenez sent the letter?
Have a look also at the edge of the paper-fold just under the "+" cross
- there might be some very tiny writing there in the fold.
Unfortunately, until better information about this letter becomes
available, the limited resolution of the available jpeg image leaves us
little beyond a tantalizing possibility. Perhaps the effort to read
Ximenez's chocolate-mentioning letters may advance this curiosity.
In the meantime we can add this datum to our collection of VMS-like
glyphs in old Jesuit documents [4].
Berj / KI3U
[1] Catholic Encyclopedia:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15729b.htm
[2] From Laura Martin at Cleveland State University:
http://academic.csuohio.edu/guatespn/arriola/Comparison.html
[3] see for example J.VS communication #251 (11 FEB 2009, Vol. III):
J.VS: P. Santino, Prester John, and other APUG odds and ends
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolIII2009.htm
[4] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #221 (13 OCT 2008, Vol.
II):
J.VS: Image artifacts, or obliterated Voynich-similar script?
http://www.geocities.com/rfamperes/JVSvolII2008.htm
**********************************************************
292
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 09-28-09 7:03:00 PM
J.VS: Notes on Andreas Baresch (b.
1697), Gaspar Barthius, and Alejandro Fabian
Dear Colleagues
Following below is the redacted transcript of the off-J discussions
from the past couple of days
concerning Gaspar Barthius, and the Alejandro Fabian mentioned in J.VS
comm. #291, and the tracing
of descendents of Georgius Baresch / Barschius.
As we know, Baresch wrote to Athanasius Kircher in 1637 (this letter is
still lost), and again from
Prague in 1639 (557 APUG 353rv, found by Rene Zandbergen) trying to
interest Kircher in reading a
mysterious manuscript he possessed. Some VMS theories contend that
Baresch's ms is the VMS, thus
making Baresch's the earliest known mention of the "VMS". An alchemist,
Baresch was a friend of
Kircher's friend Joannes Marcus Marci, but little is known about him.
Recently Jeff Haley discovered
that Georgius Baresch was a schoolmate of a future martyr saint:
Sarkander / Sarcander (voynich.net
vms-list thread "VMs: Barschius graduation 1602", May 2009). Zandbergen
has estimated from known
information that Baresch was born around 1585 in Zinkovy in Bohemia,
and had died before 1662
( http://www.voynich.nu/curricula.html#bares ). If Andreas Baresch is
related to our George Baresch,
then less than half a century time separates them: it would be
interesting if Andreas turned out to
be a great-great descendent of George.
Berj / KI3U
Berj / KI3U says:
By the way, I came across:
Gaspar Barthius, Kaspar von Barth, German scholar and translator
(1587-1658).
Barth, Caspar von
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/barth.html
http://books.google.com/books?
id=78fbsJyIWsYC&pg=PA312&lpg=PA312&dq=Baricelli+Jesuits&source=bl&ots=k3iiqMk9yQ&sig=md89Ge_mDA4CisM
Am5cdn7stn0k&hl=en&ei=Qnm9Spm3Ec_d8QaBv5ytAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=35#v=onepage&q=&f=
false
and his name and dates of course prompted a look to see if any Baresch
connection. But Barthius
seems to have been a well known German scholar unrelated to our Baresch.
Another similar name I checked in that google books link:
Baracellus, Giulio Cesare Baricelli, Italian physician born 1574, wrote
Hortulus genialis (Cologne
1620). This Baracellus is mentioned in one of the APUG letters
somewhere.
By the way, Oliva [J.VS comm. #291] was the Jesuit General; don't yet
know who Alejandro Fabian was.
Greg Stachowski says:
Alejandro Fabian seems to have been a (presumably Jesuit) priest in
Puebla, Mexico, who was
interested in physics and mathematics and corresponded with Kircher on
those subjects, particularly
magnetism (there are letters from him to Kircher in APUG). I have read
that Kircher's Magneticum
naturae regnum was dedicated to him, but haven't verified this.
The definitive source on him is
apparently the work of one Elías Trabulse - references to his articles
crop up often when searching
for Alejandro. Unfortunately the texts themselves are not easily
accessible.
The best short description I found is this:
En esa época [17th C.] florece en Puebla el criollo Alejandro Fabián,
matemático y físico de
relieve, corresponsal de varios científicos europeos, entre los que se
encuentra el sabio jesuita Athanasius Kircher, con quien intercambió
ideas acerca
del magnetismo, expuestas en su Magneticum naturae regnum, obra que
Kircher
se sintió obligado a dedicar a su corresponsal mexicano.
from Breve Historia de la Ciencia en Mexico, by Luis Eugenio Todd,
Carla González Canseco and Carlos
González Morantes. It describes him as 'criollo', that is born and
raised in Mexico rather than come
in from Spain, though of (presumably) Spanish parents.
Jan Hurych says:
Here is the search for Gaspar Barthius:
http://www.ask.com/web?q=gaspar%20von%20barth&o=10508&l=dis
Berj says:
r Jan. Looks like another name for him is: Caspar Barthen
Greg says:
Interesting.
I wonder if 'our' Georg Baresch had any descendants or relatives who
had descendants - perhaps
someone, somewhere has put together a family tree which includes him?
Berj says:
Using links from Jan's list we get to:
http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA/sur/surc-B/surc-Bar/sur-Baresch/
where we get a distribution map of Baresch's currently living in
Germany:
http://www.verwandt.de/karten/absolut/baresch.html
It says there are 49 telephone listings, and 130 persons in Germany
named Baresch, living in 27
places, most of them in Unna.
The most common first name is Frank, so Frank Baresch.
Again from Jan's links, this shows one Andreas Baresch, born 1697, so
we are getting closer:
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/ancestorsearchresults.asp?standardize=N&last_name=Baresch
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/IGI/individual_record.asp?
recid=100143218028&lds=1®ion=5®ionfriendly=Continental+Europe&frompage=99
Andreas Baresch got married in 1722. Interesting that Andreas was in
Austria - shades of the VMS
found in an Austrian castle.
Greg says:
The town (St. Polten) is interesting - very old, not too far from
Bohemia, with a known Jewish
history and a 16th c. pharmacy. The sort of place the original Baresch
could well have been
associated with. Of course it's a very long shot.
Berj says:
I wonder if this "The Baresch Name in History" paperback is a computer
generated "book" :
http://www.amazon.com/Baresch-Name-History-Ancestry-com/dp/B000WRRDZG
Greg says:
Probably, given there are by their own admission 300,000 "titles" in
the series. I doubt it's worth
the 30 USD.
Jan says:
Apparently that is a compilation made on request. I wonder what
Voynichero asked for it.
Greg says:
It might just be someone with the name "Baresch", I expect given that
map Berj linked to that there
are enough of them.
[ end J.VS comm. #292 ]
*****************************************
293
From Greg Stachowski
To Journal of Voynich Studies
Date 09-30-2009 5:34:56 AM
J.VS: John of London's Star Table
Robert's list of star names from John of London's table of 1246 is in
the library. The address is:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/7-5-2009-09-30/
The table is described in Paul Kunitzsch's "Typen von
Sternverzeichnissen in astronomischen
Handschriften des zehnten bis vierzehnten Jahrhunderts" (1966; "Typ VI"
pp. 39-46);
scans of the appropriate pages were kindly provided by Joel Stevens.
I expect the deposit will be updated as more analysis is done of the
comprehensive notes by
Kunitzsch.
Greg
******************************
294
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-03-2009 9:10:09 PM
J.VS: Wilfrid Michael Voynich and
Ethel Lillian Voynich in Who's Who, 1903
Dear Colleagues
The Google books service has online the 1903 Who's Who, showing entries
for Wilfrid and Ethel Voynich:
http://books.google.com/books?id=vjsJAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA3-PA1419&lpg=RA3-PA1419&dq=voynich+wilfrid&source=bl&ots=F3c3j50xt7&sig=J6rilyxXi5X1ZUD441mfIBzoKas&hl=en&ei=L_HHSqmDFZfk8Abvu7nhCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11#v=onepage&q=voynich%20wilfrid&f=false
The entries have the Voynich's living at: 20 Great Russell Mansions,
Bloomsbury, W.C.
Wilfrid's entry gives as his name in Polish: Habdank-Woynicz
Berj / KI3U
*****************************
295
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-03-2009 10:13:07 PM
J.VS: Mrs. Voynich goes to Austria,
1897 / 1898
Dear Colleagues
The Google books service has online Volume 46 of "The Critic" [1],
where in the 15 January 1898 edition,
under the heading "The Lounger", next to a photo of Edward Everett
Hale, is a brief commentary on Wilfrid Voynich's wife Ethel:
" IT IS NOT surprising that even the English papers speak of E.L.
Voynich, the author of "The Gadfly", as a man. A more masculine
book has not been written for years, nor a more powerful. I take
pleasure in assuring her admirers that the author is Mrs. Voynich.
She is now engaged upon a novel, the scene of which is laid in Austria,
and she has gone to that country to get the local color.
Mrs. Voynich writes slowly and with great pains, so that the new story
may not be expected for at least a year. " [2]
Well, it seems it would be at least another dozen years before Wilfrid
would finally match his wife's accomplishments with a topper.
I thought it of interest to bring this little datum to your attention
on account of the persisting problem of just where Wilfrid really found
his famous manuscript: in an Austrian Castle, or in the Italian villa
Mondragone.
From the date and quote above it would seem that Ethel Voynich was on
her way to Austria by the end of 1897. What if it was really Ethel
who found the Voynich Manuscript? And, just to ponder some darker
thoughts, pocketed it from a castle she was visiting, say from castle
proprietors who didn't even realize they had the book among their dusty
belongings? And therefore years later, had good reason to change
the story of where the book was obtained. Nah .... or, hmmm ... I
wonder if that book Ethel was working on in Austria involved a castle.
Berj / KI3U
[1] ed. by Jeannette Leonard Gilder, Joseph Benson Gilder.
[2]
http://books.google.com/books?id=L5nPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PT26&lpg=PT26&dq=voynich+transcript&source=bl&ots=71s3eyYVHP&sig=qvQh5vqT5dOilwzaZqXFajf_KAY&hl=en&ei=wPzHSseEB8yrlAepyr2SAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=40#v=onepage&q=voynich%20transcript&f=false
***********************************************************
296
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-09-2009 12:37:17 PM
J.VS: Hildegard of Bingen's first
cosmology
Dear Colleagues
As we know, early on in Voynich Manuscript studies, St. Hildegard
(1098-1179) entered considerations
of possible association with the VMS, with the observations and work of
Father Theodore C. Petersen [1].
Hildegard developed her own version of Pythagorean macro-micro-cosmos
connection:
tubes channeling the macro's spirit into the micro-human-body.
I thought it would be useful to have in the J.VS Library some handy
reference material on Hildegard
which quickly shows why Hildegard is an attractive study in VMS
considerations. As a first step
toward depositing some Hildegard material, our Librarian Greg
Stachowski has installed a picture of
a drawing of Hildegard's first cosmology, said drawing constructed by
the Hildegard scholar Charles
Singer, who flourished a hundred years ago:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/26-1-2009-10-08/
The meta-data for this deposit gives the provenance details for the
picture. If we can locate an
even better resolution one we'll install it.
Our colleague Robert Teague notes that this drawing reminds him in some
way of the VMS "galaxy"
folio, f68v3. My own reaction is the resemblance to some of the
rosettes in the VMS's nine-rosettes
foldout.
More on Hildegard is online here:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/boe/boe29.htm
and of course in that excellent book:
Hypatia's Heritage
A History of Women in Science from Antiquity through the Nineteenth
Century,
by Margaret Alic,
Boston, Beacon Press, 1986, ISBN 0-8070-6731-8
Berj / KI3U
[1] The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio,
Aegean Park Press, c. 1976-80,
ISBN 0-89412-038-7
********************************
297
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-13-2009 12:38:28 PM
J.VS: Fingerprints on ancient artifacts
Dear Colleagues
We've a few times before considered the possibility of investigating
fingerprints in the VMS and
VMS-related documents. [1]
Along this vein here is some interesting news about Leonardo da Vinci
artwork:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8304021.stm
From this 13 OCT 2009 BBC news article:
" Finger points to new da Vinci art "
" A new Leonardo da Vinci portrait may have been discovered after a
fingerprint found on it seemed
similar to another discovered on his work. A Paris laboratory found the
fingerprint is "highly
comparable" to one on a da Vinci work in the Vatican. "
" A forensic art expert found the fingerprint near the top left of the
work, corresponding to the
tip of the index or middle-finger. It was "highly comparable" to a
print on da Vinci's St Jerome in
the Vatican, which was painted early in the artist's career when he was
thought not to use
assistants. "
So, it does not seem at all technically impossible, for example, to try
to develop positive evidence
toward the question: did Athanasius Kircher actually ever handle the
Voynich Manuscript?
Berj / KI3U
[1] see J.VS communication #102 (10 OCT 2007, Vol. I) specifically
commenting on VMS f11r, and comm.
#251 (11 FEB 2009, Vol. III) specifically commenting on the Count
Bernardus Martinitz to Kircher letter of SEP 1640.
*****************************
298
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-17-2009 10:42:29 AM
J.VS: Dying and dead languages
Dear Colleagues
From the BBC online news service here is a 17 OCT 2009 article by Tom
Colls :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8311000/8311069.stm
" The death of language? "
" An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But
that number is expected to
shrink rapidly in the coming decades. What is lost when a language dies?
In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by
predicting that by the year 2100, 90%
of the world's languages would have ceased to exist. "
French linguist Claude Hagege is quoted:
" If we are not cautious about the way English is progressing it may
eventually kill most other languages. "
The article provides some further data, including:
" 6% of the worlds languages are spoken by 94% of the world's
population "
" 133 languages are spoken by fewer than 10 people "
Ethnologue editor Paul Lewis is quoted:
" We would spend an awful lot of money to preserve a very old building,
because it is part of our
heritage. These languages and cultures are equally part of our heritage
and merit preservation. "
So all this recalls the question of whether or not the Voynich text is
recording an unenciphered
language. And if so, plus that it is a dead language, then the
difficulties of making sense of the
VMS text as such are tremendously compounded.
Berj / KI3U
*******************************
299
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-19-2009 11:40:56 AM
J.VS: Earliest painting of a watch
timepiece, and the "clock" of Voynich f85v1
Dear Colleagues
As we know, the little circular object tethered with text to the
southwest rosette in the f85v1
panel of the nine-rosettes foldout of the Voynich manuscript has long
been termed a "clock", this
idea going back at least to Robert S. Brumbaugh.
To have another comparison for it, here is from the BBC online news
service a 19 OCT 2009 article
with photos:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8313893.stm
" Painting features 'oldest watch' "
" Art experts think they may have found the world's oldest painting to
feature an image of a watch.
The Science Museum is investigating the 450-year-old portrait, thought
to be of Cosimo I de Medici,
Duke of Florence, holding a golden timepiece. "
" The first watches appeared shortly after 1500 in Germany and
horologists believe the picture,
painted by renaissance master Maso da San Friano around 1560, "may well
be the oldest to show a true
watch". "
Berj / KI3U
***********************
300
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-22-2009 11:48:09 PM
J.VS: Carrots in the Voynich Manuscript
Dear Colleagues
It has long been noted that some of the Voynich botanical illustrations
suggest carrots. The
comments on individal VMS folios in the VMS interlinear file [1] note
several "carrots". For
example, there is the carrot candidate on VMS folio f102v2, the third
botanical object in the
uppermost row, just to the left of the little blue cubic crystal with
the embedded eyes.
Now, why should carrots in the VMs merit an entire communication to
J.VS ? Well, it occurred to me
that if there are among the multitude of mysterious botanicals
illustrated in the VMS a couple or
more of the same object, and that object is reasonably ponderable as
identified, then maybe it is
worth looking into a bit. And so I looked for a history of the carrot,
and soon found online a
website with quite a lot of carrot history: "History of the Carrot"
[2].
This detailed and illustrated history by John Stolarczyk begins with
the third sentence saying:
" The Carrot has a somewhat obscure history, surrounded by doubt and
enigma and it is difficult to
pin down when domestication took place. "
Further on is written:
" It is said (with no documentary evidence) that the cultivated and
edible carrot dates back about
5,000 years ago when the purple root was found to be growing in the
area now known as Afghanistan. "
" The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides: Illustrated by a Byzantine in A.D.
512. gives an illustration of
an orange carrot, probably the first depiction and certainly well
before other illustrations in the
16th century. "
" Some scholars think that orange carrots did not to appear until the
16th century, although there
is a Byzantine manuscript of 512 ad, and an 11th century illuminated
script, both of which depict an
orange rooted carrot, and suggesting it was around long before. "
" The modern orange carrot was developed and stabilised by Dutch
growers in the 16-17th century,
evidenced from variety names and contemporary art works. "
" It is said, (without much historical reference) that the orange
carrot was developed in Holland as
a tribute to William I of Orange during the Dutch fight for
independence from Spain in the 16th
century. "
" Carrots were allowed to escape cultivation and subsequently turned
into the omnipresent and
delicate wild flower "Queen Anne's Lace" which in some US
counties is still considered a pest
today. "
As Stolarczyk continues with his history of the carrot, wild and
domestic, he presents many images
of carrots illustrated in old manuscripts, including the familiar MS
Ashmole 1431 [3]. Recently on
vms-list I commented again on MS Ashmole 1431 :
" Anyway, this particular Ashmole 1431 ms is the only one I've seen
that gives me the feeling that
the VMS botanicals illustrator may have seen it too, and borrowed
directly from it. Here's some of
my comments on it from 2006: ....... " [4]
Across the ancient illustrations of carrots presented by Stolarczyk we
find a truly remarkable
variety of renderings. Coupled with the appearance of MS 1431 in
Stolarczyk's presentation, I got to
wondering if the VMS's notoriously difficult-to-identify botanicals
have some particular emphasis
related to carrots. The thought even occurred to me: could traces of
carrot seeds be embedded in the
VMS?
The sunflower and the capsicum pepper are famously frontrunner
candidates for tentatively identified
VMS botanicals. Is it possible that the carrot can join them, and
moreover be a favorite of the VMS
author, he / she having had this plant in mind in some special way, and
projecting that in several
VMS folios? Stolarczyk writes:
" The carrot is one of the most important vegetables in the western
world. "
" The Carrot is the second most popular vegetable in the world after
the potato. When you read the
nutrition pages you will see and agree why it should be number one. "
Perhaps the author of the Voynich Manuscript, aside everything else,
was an early carrot advocate.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Version TEXT16E5 Interlinear archive of Voynich manuscript
transcriptions. Derived from
INTERLN.EVT file version 1.6 Created by Gabriel Landini, 27 September
1996. Split into separate
files (one per textual unit) by J. Stolfi, 10 october 1997. Version
16E6 is available here:
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/98-12-28-interln16e6/
[2] http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/
[3] MS. Ashmole 1431, Oxford Bodleian Library Ps. Apuleius, Herbal
England, St. Augustine's abbey,
Canterbury; 11th century, c. 1070-1100
[4] voynich.net vms-list post:
RE: VMs: De Ziphras: 1600 cipher manuscript, Mon 5/04/09 4:09 AM, by
Berj / KI3U.
*******************************************
301
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-23-2009 11:04:01 AM
J.VS: Wilfred M. de Voynich again
Dear Colleagues
Here's a by-the-way which may or may not have been noted before, but in
any case we'll note it now:
" - In the possession of Mr. Wilfred M. de Voynich. "
http://www.archive.org/stream/3edintroductiont00garruoft/3edintroductiont00garruoft_djvu.txt
That's from:
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE History of Medicine
WITH MEDICAL CHRONOLOGY, SUGGESTIONS
FOR STUDY AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA
BY FIELDING K: GARRISON, A.B., M.D.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL, MEDICAL CORPS, U. S. ARMY, SURGEON GENERAL's
OFFICE,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
W. B. SAUNDERS COMPANY
1921
The "de Voynich" reference may have appeared in earlier editions as far
back as 1913 - needs some
careful checking. We see the "Wilfred" versus "wilfrid" variation here,
and back in comm. #86 our
colleague Greg Stachowski brought the "de-Voynich" variation to our
attention [1].
If I'm reading it correctly, it appears that Voynich was in possession
of:
J. F. Payne: English medicine in the Anglo-Saxon times, Oxford, 1904.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #86 (18 SEP 2007, Vol. I):
J.VS: Herbert Hoover's correspondence: " Villalobar, Maquis de-Voynich,
W.M., 1916-1920 "
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolIII2009.htm
*************************************
302
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-24-2009 10:45:03 AM
J.VS: Re: Wilfred M. de Voynich again
Greg Stachowski says:
Some comments and corrections:
Some while ago I started to collect references to Voynich's
publications, etc., and so the name of
Garrison is familiar, although I don't immediately know if Berj's
reference in comm. #301 is on the
list - I don't have it to hand. There is, however, a paper:
"Figurations of skeletal and visceral anatomy in the books of hours"
from Annals of Medical History, 1917, i, 225-230, which is apparently
by Voynich and Garrison. This
one I have bookmarked - see:
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=no:056788073
The list didn't have much of immediate relevance to our studies, so it
has been sitting largely idle
while I do other things. Anyway it seems Garrison and Voynich knew each
other and since Garrison was
from Philadelphia it explains the Philadelphia College of Physicians
connection.
In Berj's reference I agree that it seems Voynich had a copy of Payne's
"English medicine ..." which
he lent to Garrison.
Now to the "de Voynich". The Garrison connection is the only place that
the "de Voynich" variant
appears, at least that I know of; there seems to be a misunderstanding
of comm. #86. In the Hoover
correspondence list, the "de" is not attached to "Voynich", it is
attached to "Maquis": the Maquis
de Villalobar. The hyphen indicated the range of names encompassed by
the alphabetically-sorted
correspondence file: from Villalobar to Voynich.
Dana Scott says:
Here is a reference I made to a Garrison letter back in 2004 :
http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2004/07/msg00442.html
Greg says:
I've only seen "de Voynich" in these circumstances. Garrison and
Voynich co-authored a paper, not a
book. The paper is 1917 but Dana's letter is 1920, so at least 3 years
(probably more) of them
knowing each other. Garrison opens the letter "My Dear Mr de Voynich"
which is familiar and friendly
for the time, although not very close friends. I expect the "de" arose
from a mistake by Garrison -
WMV doesn't seem to have ever used it himself - and my guess is that it
faintly amused Voynich
enough to let it stand.
[ end J.VS comm. #302 ]
**********************************
303
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-28-2009 11:27:22 AM
J.VS: The 1507 Waldseemuller Map of
the World
Dear Colleagues
As useful reference material for the old problem of: is the Voynich
Manuscript's time-origin pre- or
post- New World discovery?, here's an illustrated 28 OCT 2009 online
BBC News Magazine article [1],
titled "The map that changed the world" :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8328878.stm
Some excerpts from the article:
" Almost exactly 500 years ago, in 1507, Martin Waldseemuller and
Matthias Ringmann, two obscure
Germanic scholars based in the mountains of eastern France, made one of
the boldest leaps in the
history of geographical thought - and indeed in the larger history of
ideas. "
" The map represented a remarkable number of historical firsts. In
addition to giving America its
name, it was also the first map to portray the New World as a separate
continent - even though
Columbus, Vespucci, and other early explorers would all insist until
their dying day that they had
reached the far-eastern limits of Asia. The map was the first to
suggest the existence of what
explorer Ferdinand Magellan would later call the Pacific Ocean, a
mysterious decision, in that
Europeans, according to the standard history of New World discovery,
aren't supposed to have learned
about the Pacific until several years later. "
" Perhaps most significant, it was also one of the first maps to lay
out a vision of the world using
a full 360 degrees of longitude. In short, it was the the mother of all
modern maps: the first
document to depict the world roughly as we know it today. "
" Waldseemuller himself would later record that 1,000 copies of the map
had been printed, a very
substantial number for the day. But the rapid pace of geographical
discovery meant that copies of
the map were soon discarded in favour of newer, more up-to-date
pictures of the world, and by 1570
it had all but vanished from memory. "
" Fortunately, one copy did survive. Sometime between 1515 and 1517,
the Nuremburg mathematician
Johannes Schoner acquired a reprint of the map, bound it into an
oversized folio, and made it part
of his reference library. "
" The last remaining copy of the Waldseemuller map, beautifully
preserved in Schoner's folio, had
begun a long slumber - and wouldn't be roused again for some 350 years.
" As is so often the case with historical treasures, the map was
rediscovered by accident. In the
summer of 1901, while doing research in the library of Wolfegg Castle,
in southern Germany, a Jesuit
geography teacher named Joseph Fischer stumbled across the Schoner
folio and quickly realized what
he had found. "
" ..... and what is coming into focus is a document that is far richer,
far stranger, and much more
historically valuable than had previously been imagined. "
" The name America, for example, very probably represents not just a
tip of the hat to Amerigo
Vespucci but also a multilingual pun that can mean both "born new" and
"no-place-land" - a playful
coinage that seems to have inspired Sir Thomas More to invent his new
world across the ocean, one
meaning of which was also "no-place": Utopia. "
" Copernicus' view of space seems to have been influenced by the map "
There are lots of VMS-study-relevant tidbits here and there in this
illustrated article, including
even Prester John. It would be interesting to find out if Joseph
Fischer, S.J., and Wilfrid Voynich
ever crossed paths.
Berj / KI3U
[1] The article seems to be authored by, or based on work by Toby
Lester, stated as the author of
The Fourth Part of the World, being the story of the Waldseemuller map,
published by Profile Books.
*****************************
304
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-28-2009 8:57:39 PM
J.VS: Dr. Wilfrid Voynich writes an
opinion to Newbold's eventual Eulogizer; ELV's estate
Dear Colleagues
Online here:
http://www.archive.org/stream/universityofpenn01univ/universityofpenn01univ_djvu.txt
we have:
" The University of Pennsylvania
LIBRARY CHRONICLE
Volume I
1933
The University of Pennsylvania Library
Philadelphia, Pa.
Issued Four Times a Year
By and For the Friends of the Library
Of the University of Pennsylvania
Vol. 1 No. 1 March, 1933 "
Therein Dr. Josiah H. Penniman [1] relates, under the title: A UNIQUE
"PROGNOSTICON", how in 1921 he
was able, from the oak-board covers of a copy of a folio volume in
black-letter De Civitate Dei of
Augustine, dated 1490, to carefully extract pasted-in papers bearing
black-letter print, in the
German language.
The papers Penniman recovered turned out to be an 8-page pamphlet /
tract, containing the
Prognostication for 1490 of a Dr. Mellerstaed. Researching this,
Penniman found that Dr. Martin
Polich Mellerstadt had apparently written a great many
medico-astrological works during the latter
part of the fifteenth century, but Penniman could find no record of
Mellerstadt's 1490
Prognostication. Penniman then says:
"Dr. Wilfrid Voynich wrote me in 1922"
and quotes Voynich:
"It is quite possible that this little pamphlet is entirely unknown to
bibliographers"
Now, 1921, the year before Voynich wrote Dr. Penniman, was the year
Wilfrid Voynich, along with Dr.
Newbold, formally introduced the VMS with his lecture at the College of
Physicians of Philadelphia,
a stone's throw from U. Penn. By the time Wilfrid died in March, 1930,
three years before Penniman's
communication to the Friends of the U. Penn Library, Voynich's
manuscript, and he himself, had
achieved some notoriety among educated bibliophiles, worldwide. Several
questions are motivated by
Penniman's communication of course, but the first would seem to be:
When Wilfrid wrote to Dr. Penniman, did he sign himself as "Dr."
Wilfrid Voynich ?
Or, was Penniman, for one reason or another, assigning "Dr." to
Voynich's name?
It seems that Voynich's documentable handles keep on multiplying.
Penniman, the Provost of U. Penn at the time of Newbold's death in
1926, must have known Newbold
quite well, as we can surmise from an online biography of Newbold
provided by U. Penn, with a
picture of Newbold as a young man:
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1800s/newbold_wm_romaine.html
Where we read, while once again having to pardon someone for confusing
Roger and Francis:
" Newbold's biggest "discovery" was his decipherment of a coded text,
now commonly referred to as
the Voynich Manuscript, he believed had been written by Roger Bacon, a
thirteenth century English
monk, scientist, astrologer, and inventor. According to Newbold's
complex system for deciphering the
code, Bacon had made numerous scientific discoveries which no one else
would "rediscover" for
centuries. When he died in 1926, Newbold's version of the meaning of
the code in the Voynich
Manuscript was seen as the truth. Several years later, however, other
archeologists began to look at
Newbold's method with a critical eye. They correctly noted that
Newbold's system was faulty,
unreliable, and based on a number of unproved assumptions. Newbold's
interpretation of the Voynich
Manuscript was eventually completely disregarded by archeologists and
now many archeologists do not
even believe that Francis Bacon was the author of the manuscript in
question.
None of these questions regarding the validity of his decipherment
surfaced during his lifetime when
Newbold was a member in good standing of numerous academic societies
including the Classical Club of
Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society, the Society of
Biblical Literature and the
American Oriental Society.
Newbold died on September 6, 1926 shortly before he was to begin
teaching at the start of the 1926-
1927 school year. His memorial service was held in College Hall and was
very well attended. Speakers
included the University Provost, Josiah H. Penniman, and Newbold's
classmate in the Class of 1887,
James A. Montgomery. "
Undoubtedly many "acheologists" do not believe that Francis Bacon was
the author of the VMS. And, as
we know, for example by consulting D'Imperio, rumblings against
Newbold's VMS decipherment had
already begun well before Newbold died.
Returning to Penniman (1868-1940), from his online bio provided by U.
Penn:
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/pennimanjh.html
we find:
" Upon the retirement of Provost Edgar Fahs Smith in 1920, Penniman was
appointed Acting Provost. He
was elected Provost of the University in January 1923 and for more than
three years from July 1923
to late 1926 served as both President and Provost of the University. He
held the position of Provost
until 1939 when he retired. "
Like Newbold, Penniman had military connections in his background. I
should think there was a good
reason for Penniman recording Voynich as "Dr. Wilfrid Voynich". Looking
a bit further into Penn and
Penniman among the online offerings, we come across:
" L I B R ARY CHRONICLE
Vol. XXVI
WINTER 1960
No. 1
Friends of the Library
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
PHILADELPHIA
1960 "
http://www.archive.org/stream/librarychronicle26univ/librarychronicle26univ_djvu.txt
where the familiar De Ricci is seen; for example Norman P. Zacour
writes:
" A QUARTER of a century ago, when it first appeared, the
Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United
States and Canada, edited by Seymour de Ricci (New York, 1935-
1 940) Usted nine manuscripts in the possession of the University
of Pennsylvania Library. ..... And in the second place, the supplement
to the de Ricci Census, when it appears, will still contain only
manuscripts
prior to 1600 ..... "
And we come across Ethel Lilian Voynich too:
" WILLIAM OF AUXERRE. Summa aurea in quattuor libros senten-
tiarum [of Petrus Lombardus]. France{?), 14th cent.
Vellum. 351 ff., double columns. 24 x 16 cm. Red and blue initials with
ornamentation. H/morocco. Estate of E. Voynich (cf. De Ricci II, 1930).
"
Ethel Voynich died 27 JUL 1960, so it didn't take long for this
particular manuscript of Lilian to
find its new home in the U. Penn Library.
Berj / KI3U
[1] In 2004 our colleague Dana Scott posted Penniman - Newbold material
to vms-list in a list-thread
started by Nick Pelling:
voynich.net vms-list post: "Re: VMs: Re: Who got Newbold's papers...?",
Sat, 3 Jul 2004 09:50:23 -0700, by Dana Scott.
*************************************
305
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 10-28-2009 9:48:44 PM
J.VS: Re: Dr. Wilfrid Voynich writes
an opinion to Newbold's eventual Eulogizer; ELV's estate
Dear Colleagues
Here's a January 25, 1930 New Yorker Magazine article, obtainable by
subscription, mentioning
"Dr. Wilfrid Voynich" :
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1930/01/25/1930_01_25_011_TNY_CARDS_000194385
From the Abstract:
" Dr. Wilfrid Voynich is a collector of many interesting and valuable
illuminated manuscripts; has
manuscript in code by Roger Bacon, found in a castle in 1912.
Manuscript is one hundred and sixteen
pages(six missing) all in code, and has all sorts of discoveries in
advance of his period. Student
all over the world have copies trying to decipher it. "
Berj / KI3U
*****************************
306
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-05-2009 4:57:03 PM
J.VS: Jane Austen's Letters
Dear Colleagues
Of tangential interest, a 5 NOV 2009 -dated online BBC news article by
Claire Prentice [1] has some
interesting data on English novelist Jane Austen's (1775-1817) papers:
" Rare Austen letters cause excitement "
" A major Jane Austen exhibition, which has opened in New York, is
creating a huge stir among fans
and cultural commentators. "
" Only a small number of the author's personal letters survive "
" More than 100 items, including rare manuscripts and letters written
by the British author to her
family, have gone on display at the Morgan Library and Museum in
Manhattan. "
" In one, written to her niece for her eighth birthday, Austen wrote
each word backwards, creating a
puzzle for the young recipient. "
" Some of the letters on display have pieces cut out of them, most
likely to be passages relating to
health and other personal matters. "
" Written at a time when paper and postage were expensive, the letters
are also remarkable for their
economy, with Austen cramming as many words as she could into each
page. In some letters, she used
cross-hatching, whereby people at the time wrote both horizontally and
vertically on the same side
of one page to save money on paper and postage. "
It would be interesting to see the backward written letter. We've seen
the "cross-hatching"
technique in some of the Kircher APUG letters written two centuries
earlier, for example in
Theodorus Moretus's 25 DEC 1638 letter to Kircher, 567 APUG 7r.
Berj / KI3U
[1]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8340749.stm
***************************
307
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-07-2009 10:58:10 AM
J.VS: Ramon Lull, Doctor Illuminatus
Dear Colleagues
A paper on the Franciscan philosopher, poet and theologian Ramon Lull
(d. 1315) by our colleague
Jan Hurych is now available in the J.VS Library:
"RAMON LULL, DOCTOR ILLUMINATUS"
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/20-4-2009-10-16/
As we know, Lull and his work has been studied for possible VMS
connections at least as far back as
Father Theodore C. Petersen (1883-1966) of Catholic University in the
1930's.
D'Imperio in her classic work on the Voynich Manuscript writes this on
Lull:
" It is interesting to note that Lull's combinatorial method of
systematically listing and
considering all possible combinations of a few basic elements is a very
powerful and valuable mental
tool. Shorn of its medieval and religious purposes it survives into
modern logic and science, and is
useful to computer programmers, for example, in analyzing events in
data or elements of a problem
(I made use of it for the scheme of cryptanalytic hypotheses in Section
4.4.2). It also undoubtedly
inspired a number of cryptographic devices involving rotating discs. "
[1]
Berj / KI3U
[1] The Voynich Manuscript - An Elegant Enigma, by M.E. D'Imperio,
Aegean Park Press, c. 1976-80,
ISBN 0-89412-038-7, Section 8.1.
********************************
308
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-08-2009 00:08:22 AM
J.VS: An Ethel Lilian Voynich datum
Dear Colleagues
The Ukrainian Weekly of March 9, 1946, has on page 2:
" Selections from the "Kobzar"
by Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861)
Translated in 1911 by Ethel Lilian Voynich, English novelist,
(1864-1945) "
An image of the newspaper is online here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16476810/The-Ukrainian-Weekly-194610
Ethel died in 1960 as we know, not 1945. This then would appear to be
an example of what we've heard -
that for a long time in Iron Curtain countries, where Ethel's work was
very popular, she was
presumed to be deceased by the end of World War II, and late in her
life was happily discovered by
her fans over there to still be living in New York.
Berj / KI3U
**************************
309
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-08-2009 4:17:19 PM
J.VS: Mr. V - the KING and 'Sherlock
Holmes' of the old book trade; Howard Hampton papers
Dear Colleagues
Online are available images of some of the papers of Howard Hampton
(1898-1967) [1]. A sub-archive
of these papers principally date from the 1920's, although there are
some letters from the 1860s too
seemingly of interest to Lincoln and Civil War scholars, and a
handwritten affidavit and associated
matter apparently considerably older of interest in American Revolution
studies:
www.swco.ttu.edu/location/.../pdfs/.../Hampton_Box2_Folder002.pdf
Much of the material in this sub-archive concerns the acquisition of
rare old medical books by
physicians [2] (we recognize some of the old titles from routine VMS
research, but also there is
data on other valuable books), and in one personal letter from 1928
between doctors we see the
interesting comment that the Mayo Foundation is "waking up" to the
importance of medical history.
Both typed and handwritten letters are in the archive, some originating
from Europe. One gets the
impression from the letters that in the 1920's occurred a major surge
of interest in collecting old
medical books.
And Wilfrid Voynich was in the thick of it - we find him in this
material a number of times - we see
that Wilfrid was still very active in his antiquarian business within a
year of his death in March, 1930,
and on respected terms with physicians around the country associated
with the College of
Physicians of Philadelphia, where Wilfrid had formally introduced the
VMS with Newbold back in 1921.
We can see that Wilfrid's customers are routinely providing him with
general antiquarian
intelligence, even up to the minute, on the goings on in the rare book
trade.
There is a sheet bearing Voynich's printed name which appears to be a
short list of books he is
offering for sale. One item, Garrison's "In Defense of Vesalius",
includes in the brief description this:
" (see Bulletin of the Soc. of Med. Hist. of Chicago, Jan. 1915, p. 62)
"
The 1915 and Chicago caught my attention here because, as we know,
Voynich first exposed the VMS
that year, in Chicago.
There are reproductions of letters to and from (six) Wilfrid, and
letters between his customers
mentioning him. The six letters of Wilfrid, including some of his
sending envelopes, show his
corresponding include some news within his circle in addition to
business matters. These letters are
on Voynich's stationery, showing his coat of arms, his signature, and
one exhibiting Wilfrid's
interesting English grammar: December 15, 1928; July 6, 1928; July 12,
1928; July 23, 1928;
June 25, 1929; April 16, 1929.
Perhaps his peculiar English grammar, seen in his short April 16, 1929
letter to Dr. Miller, is a
clue to sorting letters he wrote entirely himself, from some which,
possibly, he first dictated to
Miss Nill or a secretary. Wilfrid closes this three-sentences letter:
" I am sorry to have missing seeing you in New York last October and
hope that you are con-
templating a visit here this spring perhaps. "
Facinating to read is the 1928 correspondence of Dr. Joseph L. Miller
of Thomas, West Virginia, and
Wilfrid Voynich, concerning a mystery with a copy of a book authored by
Lower (a predecessor and
follower of Harvey in the blood circulation work) owned by Miller and
compared with Voynich's copy
of Lower. The "Dissertatio de Origine Catarrhi" figures in the mystery
that Voynich and Miller are
working to unravel. Voynich's meticulous research eye for details is
clearly evident here -
yet another reminder that there is something odd about his claim that
when he first got the VMS, he
ignored the Marci letter he claimed was attached to the manuscript.
In this correspondence with Miller, Wilfrid closes thus on July 6, 1928:
" I also wish that I could come to see you as I should enjoy seeing you
with your books, but for the
present at least this is impossible. Perhaps sometime when I am in
Washington you will let me stop
off at Thomas, West Virginia, to see you. Dr. Hellman sailed for Europe
for a short holiday. "
Here are some of the comments on Wilfrid, sometimes referred to as "Mr.
V", from the various letters
(along with some asides to give an idea of context):
** August 23, 1928, Dr. Miller to Myrtle Crummer (Mrs. Leroy Crummer,
wife of Dr. Leroy Crummer of
Omaha, Nebraska, and herself a bibliophile; she routinely refers to her
husband simply as "Dr." or "Doctor".):
" Mr. Voynich is assuredly the 'Sherlock Holmes' of the old book trade,
and fortunately for his
customers, when he gets a bargain they also get one, as his rule is
only a certain percent of profit
on his investment, and not priced to the limit of the cutomer's desire
for it, or what the rarety of
the item would indicate. "
" Mr. V. wrote me he would be sailing this week for Europe, and no
doubt he will have some very
interesting things to offer us when he returns. "
** December 5, 1927, Mrs. Crummer to Dr. Miller:
" American book-sellers are always saying that more books are to be
found here than in England but
that is not my experience. "
** January 10, 19??, Mrs. Crummer to Dr. Miller:
" No one's best's better than Mr. Voynichs [page break] In our
experience he is the most honest man
in the game, and also strange as it may seem, for the really rare books
he is the CHEAPEST.
For instance he will charge $100 less for a rare Vesalius item that any
foreign bookseller will ask for
the same one. And yet with better than three months to search, I
finally had to take a 13th cent. MSS.
Constantinius Africanus, a nice thing, but a frill for a library from
our standpoint but Mr. V simply was not
able to turn up a really rare and fine old medical book that we did not
have, and it seems to me that is
another indication of how medical books are going. "
" For myself I was about the luckiest female in the U.S.A. Dr. gave me
the first Shelley Promethus
Unbound, and Dickens Tale of Two Cities in parts, so while our bank
balance is in a deplorable
condition, we are both very happy since Xmas. "
** January 20, 1928, Dr. Crummer writing to his colleague Dr. Miller:
" Speaking of the medical book sellers, after Mr. Voynich who is the
KING and rightly so of them
all, we are doing best with Tueber & Weil, ..... "
Well, I knew it was just a matter of time before we would find "KING"
in the still growing spectrum
of handles of WMV: King Wilfrid Voynich :-). Shall we look for "Emporer
Voynich" next? :-)
** January 27, 1928, Dr. Miller ? to Mrs. Crummer:
" Indeed one wonders at the millions of persons of considerable
intelligence boring themselves to
death in order to be conventional instead of coming out in the
open and displaying their 'crazy
streak' as we collectors do. "
Clearly, here at least, Voynich is catering to the unconventional. In
this sub-archive I could find no
mention of Ethel Lilian Voynich, Miss Nill, or Wilfrid's famous Roger
Bacon Cipher Manuscript, as
the VMS would have been known at the time, at least in correspondence
with Wilfrid. What we do get
is considerable material seeing Wilfrid in action just some several
years after the formal
introduction of the VMS, leaving us in no doubt, if ever there was any,
that Wilfrid was so
meticulous a bibliophilic researcher, that surely he left no stone
unturned in his investigation of the VMS.
And so once again: As Wilfrid positively knew of Georgius Baresch
(Robert S. Brumbaugh having
informed us in the 1970's), why did he never mention Baresch? If the
answer argues that he had not
yet found any more on Baresch, in particular the Baresch letter in the
Kircher APUG, then to that:
why to the end of their lives did Ethel Lilian Voynich and Miss Nill
also fail to at least mention
Baresch in connection with VMS-provenance research?
Berj / KI3U
[1] From the Inventory of John Howard Hampton's 1659-1957 Papers at
Texas Tech University,
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw/00153/tsw-00153.html
" Joseph Lyon Miller was a medical doctor from Thomas, West Virginia,
who collected and wrote on his
family's genealogy, particularly that of the Fielding and Davis
families. A rancher, John Howard Hampton
was the nephew of Dr. Miller and was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on
January 17, 1898. He began ranching
near Clarksville, Texas, later working on the 6666 Ranch and directing
ranch operations near Slaton, Texas
and Tucumcari, New Mexico. From 1956-1958, he served as president of
West Texas Museum Association.
Hampton donated extensive Indian and western collections to area
museums before his death in Tucumcari in 1967. "
[2] The "Dr. Rosenbach" mentioned several times among the papers in
this archive looks to be the
same Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach of which Hans P. Kraus, the donater of the
Voynich Manuscript to the Yale
Beinecke Library, has much to tell in his autobiographical "A Rare Book
Saga".
**********************************
310
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-10-2009 11:47:04 PM
J.VS: Prince Petru Baresch, his
Castle, and his 1532 Monastery Church of Watramoldawitza
Dear Colleagues
As a direct consequence of our currently ongoing off-J revisiting of
the Georgius Baresch notes problem [1],
I just chanced upon a new item which may prove interesting.
Available online via googlebooks:
imaged book (~ 15.1 MB pdf):
http://books.google.com/books?
id=DzgSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&dq=Watramoldawitza&source=bl&ots=2t3KLUQFYJ&sig=XKkx_L2xA6ukM86UD
Eplrm9D5e0&hl=en&ei=vg_6SsmcHI6nnQfgjKj2DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ#v=
onepage&q=Watramoldawitza&f=false
text-only of book:
http://www.archive.org/stream/zeitschriftfrst02wiengoog/zeitschriftfrst02wiengoog_djvu.txt
is the German-language:
Zeitschrift fuer oesterreichische Volkskunde, IV. Jahrgang 1898.
(Journal for Austrian Folklore, IV. Year, 1898.)
Beginning on page 255 is an article with nine illustrations by Aug.
Kochanowska of Vienna:
Die Klosterkirche in Watramoldawitza
(The Monastery/Convent Church in Watramoldawitza)
Kochanowska describes the church, its setting, and its typical
activities, in detail down to the
various odors, and wonderful echoes. Based on my so-far only quick
reading, two items would seem to
definitely interest us for further investigation: the Fig. 10
illustration of a drawing of the Monastery Church
of Watramoldawitza in its surroundings, and this statement by
Kochanowska on page 257-258:
" Das Kloster wurde im Jahre 1532 von dem rumaenischen Fuersten Petru
Baresch erbaut. Er selber
soll in dem Schloss, dessen Ruine (Abbildung 11) sich rechts an die
Mauer lehnt, gewohnt haben. "
(The Monastery was built in the year 1532 by the Romanian Prince Petru
Baresch. He himself is to
have lived in the Castle, the ruins of which (Illustration 11) lean
themselves at right against the wall.)
My immediate impression of the picture of the Monastery Church in Fig.
10 is that it has quite some
remarkable resemblance in many ways to the basic design of the main
castle of the Voynich
Manuscript's nine-rosettes illustration - on the northeast rosette
panel, f86r6. Kochanowska
describes the wall surrounding the Church's courtyard as high and
mighty and built with embrasures
(i.e. a merlon). He describes the architecture as Roman and Gothic with
numerous Byzantine elements.
Among the Monastery's possessions he reports illuminated parchment
manuscripts, and a monk's bones.
He emphasizes as characteristic, the Church's fresco paintings, being
of Byzantine style, and often difficult to demystify.
Now, could it be that Prince Petru Baresch, apparently in his prime
early in the 16th century, is an
ancestor of our Georg Baresch (born late in the 16th century)?
Speculating wildly, what if it turns
out that our Georg Baresch is a son, perhaps an illegitimate one, of a
Romanian noble family?
Speculating further, in light of the problem of just where the VMS
was found by Wilfrid Voynich,
i.e. in an Austrian Castle versus the Italian Villa Mondragone, suppose
that both stories are true?
That is, the VMS originated in Baresch's family at the Watramoldawitza
Castle, but eventually found
its way, per standard VMS-history theorizing (Risorgimento and so on),
to the Villa Modragone.
And Wilfrid Voynich knew about the Baresch - Watramoldawitza provenance.
We know for sure that Wilfrid knew about Georgius Baresch, but we've
been puzzling over why Wilfrid
(and Ethel Voynich and Miss Nill) never mentioned Baresch at all. This
problem too might be
resolved: Voynich was afraid that if he revealed the Baresch
connection, that some Baresch
descendant might come forth and claim ownership of the VMS - much
better to just have bought it from
the Jesuits of Mondragone, and then skip over Baresch in the provenance
on the way to his goal:
Roger Bacon. Prince Baresch of Watramoldawitza probably would throw a
real big wrench into Wilfrid's
works for a Roger Bacon of Oxford-and-Paris provenance.
Another little problem might be resolved: Baresch's refusal to part
with his manuscript, sending
only his notes to Kircher, until finally bequeathing it to his friend
Marci: it was a family
heirloom. And another problem, Baresch's circumspectness in his letter
to Kircher about the
manuscript's origin: suppose Baresch, somehow at odds with his family,
perhaps due to illegitimacy,
prefered a quiet exposure of the family heirloom. Pure speculation of
course. But we seek to solve
problems and must generate hypotheses to explore with.
I've not had a chance yet to really investigate the Watramoldawitza
monastery and Prince Baresch -
there is a lot of new material here suddenly, and name variations seem
to be, as usual, a factor in
obtaining more information, in particular some good modern pictures of
the monastery. But have a
look at Kochanowska's paper, and see what you think. It's pretty
interesting I think, and lives up
to those once-in-a-while excitements which attend Voynich Manuscript
research.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Our colleague Jan Hurych, speaking in J.VS communication #143 (vol.
II, 17 JAN 2008), formulates
a crucial question concerning alchemist Georg Baresch's notes on his
Prague Manuscript [1a]:
" Greg, this may be little off the subject but after careful reading of
the [standard] translation
of Marci's letter, he wrote he sent Kircher the book as well as
Baresch's attempts to solve it.
Those notes were not mentioned anywhere else. OK, Baresch sent the
copies of folios with the first
letter that were never found either, but the first letter was not
found, while the book delivered OK
and notes apparently with it too.
Why would Kircher put Marci's letter in the book without those
Baresch's notes? Could it be that
they were there but Voynich did not bother to publicize them? And if
they were not there, did
Voynich ask for them? After all, they may be somewhere else with lost
folios. "
[1a] Baresch's Prague ms is, in the standard-popular VMS-history,
conjectured to be the Voynich
Manuscript / Beinecke MS 408.
********************************
311
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-12-2009 1:48:21 PM
J.VS: The scientific smell of old books
Dear Colleagues
Here is an interesting 12 NOV 2009 BBC News online-article by Victoria
Gill:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8355888.stm
" Sniff test to preserve old books "
" The key to preserving the old, degrading paper of treasured, ageing
books is contained in the
smell of their pages, say scientists. Researchers report in the journal
Analytical Chemistry that a
new "sniff test" can measure degradation of old books and historical
documents. The test picks up
and identifies the chemicals that the pages release as they degrade. "
" The international research team, led by Matija Strlic from University
College London's Centre for
Sustainable Heritage, describes that smell as "a combination of grassy
notes with a tang of acids
and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness". "
" Their new method is called "material degradomics". The scientists are
able to use it to find what
chemicals books release, without damaging the paper. "
" The method, the researchers say, is not exclusively applicable to
books, and could be used on
other historical artefacts. "
Presumably they distinguish papers from inks. I wonder how long it will
be before we see material
degradomics for electronic printed matter :-).
Berj / KI3U
**************************
312
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-13-2009 2:28:39 AM
J.VS: Prince Petru Baresch / Bares
versus Petru Rares
Dear Colleagues
As you know, since J.VS communication # 310 a few days ago [1], we've
had some discussions on
vms-list [2] about the nature of the apparent equivalence of the name
variations "Petru Baresch",
as given by Kochanowska in [1], and "Petru Raresch" or "Petru Rares"
[3], the latter being by far the
more commonly seen version of the name of Petru IV, a voievod of
Moldavia, (d. 1546), builder of the
Watramoldawitza monastery [4], and other monasteries, castles, and
fortresses in Romania, and who
was an illegitimate son of the Moldavian ruler Stefan cel Mare, the
Great and Holy.
An underlying motive in our discussions is to ascertain whether or not
the name of Petru "Baresch"
is a proper variation of Rares, and therefore an investigation prospect
for the obscure alchemist
Georgius Baresch / Barschius, born late in the 16th c., and he being a
hypothetical owner of the
Voynich Manuscript in the 17th century. In other words, can more be
found out about Georg Baresch
and his Prague Manuscript by researching Romanian history and trying
variations of the name
"Baresch" which begin with "R".
The "Petru Baresch" with the "B" is crystal-clear in the original
reference given in [1], hence if
it is a mistake and should be "Raresch", then back in 1898 either the
author Kochanowska made
the error, or the confusion of B and R occurred somewhere in the
typesetting / printing process.
Our next discovery was another crystal clear example, the listing:
Petru Baresch, di E. Candella, a Bukarest.
in the 1901: Rivista musicale italiana, Volume 8. Our colleague Greg
Stachowski developed the
information that this listing refers to an opera written by Eduard
Caudella about our Petru IV.
So again, either somebody back in 1901 made an error switching "B" for
"R", or the case strenghtens
for Baresch being a legitimate variation of Raresch / Rares.
Moreover, our colleague Dana Scott pointed out that "Rares" was not
Petru IV's actual name, but a
nickname of his mother's husband - therefore so far only "Petru"
remains solid as the name of this
historical person; one way to take that I suppose is to fathom a
fluidity of sorts, permitting
Baresch and Raresch equivalence. We have indeed considered the Greek
example where "beta" has
come to be pronounced "veeta". So, quite simply: are "Baresch" and
"Rares" dialect variants of one
another?
Now to some new data. It turns out that there is a "Petru Bares" Street
in Bistrita, Romania :
http://www.worldtourismdirectory.com/directory/europe/romania/entry/82746/index.html
And here is yet another reference to our Petru IV with a "B"; the
French-Moldavian cultural bulletin
"Bastina", Dec. 1999 - Feb. 2000, uses "Petru Bares" for Petru IV Rares:
http://francemoldavie.free.fr/bastina/bastina05.pdf
So then, it looks more and more like there is indeed some sort of
equivalence between "Baresch" and
"Raresch / Rares" in certain contexts. And therefore at this stage it
looks good for trying to
develop some new Georgius Baresch information by considering for his
family-name the variations
"Raresch" and "Rares", and also shifting the focus from his reported
birthplace in Zinkovy in
Bohemia [5], some 900 or so kilometers to the southeast into Romania.
Parachronically we are developing, thanks to Greg, an appreciation for
the Polish artist Augusta
Kochanowska (1863-1927), for it appears it was she (Aug. Kochanowska)
who authored the main
reference given in [1] and created for it the truly beautiful
illustration of the Monastery Church
of Watramoldawitza. Her subdued and serene depiction of the monastery
back in her day fits nicely
into comparative studies of the castles in the Voynich Manuscript's
nine-rosettes foldout. And there
are plenty more related monasteries, castles, and fortresses to look
over in Romania. It would be
good to open a castles-and-such deposit in the J.VS Library, and place
Kochanowska's
"Die Klosterkirche von Watramoldawitza" in there as the first item.
Berj / KI3U
[1] J.VS: Prince Petru Baresch, his Castle, and his 1532 Monastery
Church of Watramoldawitza,
J.VS Vol. III, 2009, 10 NOV 2009.
[2] voynich.net vms-list thread:
VMs: Watramoldawitza monastery location, Thu 11/12/09 2:01 AM, launched
by Berj / KI3U.
[3] The "s" in Rares is an s-comma.
[4] Moldawitza Watra, Moldovita Monastery :
http://www.romanianmonasteries.org/bucovina/moldovita
[5] Per Rene Zandbergen, citing reords of the Clementinum.
http://www.voynich.nu/curricula.html#bares
******************************
313
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-13-2009 10:42:03 AM
J.VS: Re: Prince Petru Baresch / Bares
versus Petru Rares
I should add that I wondered if "Petru Bares" means "Petru IV", but
using online Romanian
dictionaries I could find no translation for "bares".
Even if "bares" = "fourth", it would seem there remains an equivalence
of usage, in some contexts,
of "Bares" and "Rares". That is to say in the case of our Georgius
Baresch we might be looking for
"George Fourth".
Berj / KI3U
***********************
314
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-13-2009 4:19:44 PM
J.VS: Christophorus Baresius; Prince
Peter Raresius
Dear Colleagues
Toward investigations of Georgius Baresch, here:
" LEYDEN STUDENTS. INDEX SOCIETY. PUBLICATIONS, 1883. XIII.
INDEX TO ENGLISH SPEAKING STUDENTS WHO HAVE GRADUATED AT LEYDEN
UNIVERSITY.
EDWAED PEACOCK, F.S.A.
LONDON : PUBLISHED FOR THE INDEX SOCIETY BY LONGMANS, GREEN & Co.,
39, PATERNOSTER ROW,
MBCCCLXXXIII. "
http://www.archive.org/stream/indextoenglishsp00peacuoft/indextoenglishsp00peacuoft_djvu.txt
is listed:
BARESIUS, Christophorus, Anglus, 4 Oct. 1650. 407.
The author, Edward Peacock, in the Preface, remarks:
" The following pages contain an Index of all the persons occurring in
this catalogue who could be identified as English-
speaking people. That it is perfect I do not believe, for at some
periods it was the habit to enter Students without
indicating their nationality, and there is also good reason for
believing that some refugees are put down as inhabit-
ants of the Netherlands who should have been given under England,
Scotland, or Ireland. It is hoped, however, that
almost every name of importance has been found. The strange forms into
which our names have been transmuted
by the Leyden registrars has been a source of much con- fusion. Some
are corrupted beyond hope of recovery, others
are arranged under wrong initial letters. The cross-refer- ences given
will be of some use in this matter, but many
of the forms are so uncertain that it was not always safe to offer aids
of this kind. Mere guesses, in this as in most
other matters, would mislead much more frequently than they would help.
"
Elsewhere, Google Books has online the imaged German-language
bibliographic weekly "Das Archiv", III. year, No. 1,
4 January 1890, published in Berlin:
http://books.google.com/books?
id=ILMvAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=raresius&source=bl&ots=kBnwDeCAxL&sig=Q3kQdv10bOWiIe5z3xlndmzTKj
s&hl=en&ei=hcH9SuO-
BsralAe0kOyZCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=raresius&f=false
Some familiar institutions are mentioned in there, e.g. the Carolinum
and Clementinum. Beginning on page 22 is an article on
the Romanian chronicles and later historical sources, by M.M. Harsu. On
the following page 23 Harsu briefly states that the
books and experiences mentioned by the chronicler Urechie in the
Foreword of his Chronicle, likely contain a description of
the fates of Peter Raresius, Prince of Moldau (1527-1546).
Berj / KI3U
*************************
315
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-30-2009 12:36:58 PM
J.VS: Royal Society puts historic
papers online
Dear Colleagues
From a 30 NOV 2009 BBC online news report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8385560.stm
" The Royal Society puts historic papers online "
" One of the world's oldest scientific institutions is marking the
start of its 350th year by
putting 60 of its most memorable research papers online. "
" One of the articles describes early experiments in blood transfusion "
" The papers published on the Trailblazing website were first printed
in the society's journal,
Philosophical Transactions. They were chosen from 60,000 printed since
the journal's foundation in
1665 - a date which makes it the oldest continuously published
scientific periodical in the world. "
The BBC writer employs the words "ill-advised" and "attempt" in
describing Franklin's kite
experiment:
" Also included is Mr Franklin's account of his ill-advised attempt in
1752 to show that lightning
was a form of electricity by flying a kite in a storm, and a 1970 paper
on black holes co-written by
Professor Stephen Hawking. "
" There is also an entertaining paper about a study of the
nine-year-old Mozart in London in 1770 to
determine whether he really was a child prodigy. Suggestions he was in
fact a midget adult were
dismissed by writer Daines Barrington on the grounds that young
Wolfgang was more enthusiastic about
playing with his cat than practising his harpsichord. "
Here is the url for the Royal Society: http://royalsociety.org/
It will be interesting combing the papers, whether or not we find any
VMS-relevant material in them.
Berj / KI3U
*************************
316
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-03-2009 4:22:19 PM
J.VS: Jan Hurych discusses the VM
Search and Research
Dear Colleagues
Jan's new paper: THE VM SEARCH AND RESEARCH
is now installed in the J.VS Library:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/21-4-2009-12-02/
and coincidentally times well with today's news, which we've been
noting on vms-list, that per the
analysis arrangements of Austrian film makers, the VMS dates between
1404 and 1438, they say:
http://derstandard.at/1259281171438/Ein-Schleier-weniger-ueber-dem-Voynich-Manuskript
And from Jan's paper:
" We were also too quick to assume as quite normal the fact that such
old manuscript was never
mentioned before, that is before Baresch. The manuscript that raises so
much interest today would
hardly have been ignored by scholars of the sixteenth and even earlier
centuries. And the rumor at
court mentioned by Mnishowsky? Nobody mentioned it elsewhere, not in
the books neither the courtiers
in their memoirs. These discrepancies are too serious to be put aside
just because they make the
existing provenance less credible. And what is more important - they
put the assumed date of the VM
origin in serious doubt. Hopefully, the carbon dating of the folios
that is now in the process may
narrow the span of the time the VM could have been written. True, it
will be only the time the
parchments were manufactured but at least we would know it could not
have been written earlier. As
with the Turin shroud, there will be always some doubts left and we
would have to rely also on some
historical facts. Nevertheless, that is what is the research all about:
the re-search. "
Berj / KI3U
********************************
317
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-06-2009 10:59:31 PM
J.VS: Revisiting Newbold's approach:
little people under the Voynich microscope
Dear Colleagues
Recently on vms-list I commented once again in defense of Newbold:
" But Newbold did begin with characters definitely written on the
medium. He spent
many hours examining them under a microscope. And his associate Dr.
Kent apparently agreed to some
of the qualitative Newbold perceptions, though quantitatively to a much
lower degree. As far as I
can tell, Manly, when he debunked Newbold's
micro-Greek-shorthand-embedded-as-strokes-segmentations
-in-VMS-glyphs assertion/hypothesis, just pulled his "cracks in the ink
of letters" debunk-argument
out of the air - he never provided any scientific evidence whatsoever. "
" I sometimes suspect that here and there in a few places in the VMS
text, Newbold's idea may be
worthwhile considering. The VMS, across it, often gives me the
impression of being crypto-
steganographically encyclopedic - that the VMS author experimented with
every manner of concealment
-transformations he could dream up. If so, then of course the
assumption of a single concealment
scheme, essentially uniform across the manuscript, would frustrate
grand solutions, pretty much like
the frustrations every serious VMS student is long used to.
So Newbold started with unequivocal script-glyphs and basically
hypothesized they are a carrier wave
composed of a rich spectrum of sub-carriers. " [1]
The above reminded me to finally bring to your attention some pictures
of individual Voynich glyphs
I've collected over the years in the course of following up, in spirit,
on Newbold's idea of very
closely examining individual Voynich text glyphs to see if it is
plausible that they incorporate
intentional micro-details, at the best available resolution - in our
case the Beinecke-provided SID
images. I present the following in the spirit of: should we have the
Voynich manuscript at hand
together with a good microscope, then lets have a close look at some of
these examples and see what
we think about them - are the micro-details just image artifacts, or
fortuitous combinations of
wear-and-tear on the parchment, cracking-ink effects, or are at least
in some cases evidence with
high probability that the VMS scribe intentionally rendered them?
The number of possible examples of this kind across the VMS text is
tremendous, so here following
are just a few dozen representative ones, including a few check images
for estimating effects of ink
cracking and so on. I have sent to our J.VS Librarian Greg Stachowski
the Library deposit
# 26-1-2009-12-06 [2]. It contains a selection of tif image-crops
obtained from the Beinecke VMS SID
images, done with the standalone MrSIDViewer, Version 2.0.0.50 . Here
is the list of the image crops,
along with subjective descriptors:
Table 317-1
1.) c3VMSf8r.tif ; GC-2 or GC-3 as a spots-check: note that the
well-situated spots making up the
"eyes" of the face are somewhat similar to heavier spots on the second
c of the pedestal glyph -
accidental or intentional?
2.) c3VMSf9r.tif ; stair-climbing intruding gallows
3.) c2VMSf10r.tif ; note the GC-8
4.) c3VMSf18r.tif ; pony gallows
5.) c3VMSf19r.tif ; flap ears
6.) c4VMSf24r.tif ; long-necked devil
7.) c5VMSf24v.tif ; note multi-stoke construction of this awkward tall
gallows GC-h letter
8.) c4VMSf27r.tif ; note apparently complex construction of upper
portion of the GC-y, possibly with
embedded micro-letter(s)
9.) c3VMSf27r.tif ; note apparently complex construction of upper
portion of the GC-y, possibly with
embedded micro-letter(s)
10.) c4VMSf30v.tif ; long-nosed two-faced plume
11.) c2VMSf31r.tif ; cracked-ink, or scribe-lines?
12.) c4VMSf31r.tif ; penguin "1"
13.) c1VMSf31v.tif ; little big-nosed doggie
14.) c2VMSf31v.tif ; worried intruder
15.) c2VMSf32r.tif ; designer handbag; possible embedded letters in the
hair-topped GC-9, including
GC-k, and a GC-y up against a tiny tall cross
16.) 2proc_c2VMSf32r.tif ; processed detail of c2VMSf32r.tif : cracked
ink, or embedded micro GC-k,
GC-y, and cross ?
17.) c4VMSf33v.tif ; padlock becomes curve-tailed doggie-face
18.) c6VMSf33v.tif ; bug-eyed GC-h gallows and bearded warrior GC-e
19.) c4VMSf35v.tif ; trimmed poodle
20.) c1VMSf36r.tif ; Erector Set gallows
21.) c5VMSf37r.tif ; page 37 numbers; magnified, the image can give the
impression of many
intentional micro-details in the "3" and "7", including well-crafted
heads and text letters.
22.) 2proc_detail_c5VMSf37r.tif ; processed detail of c5VMSf37r.tif :
cracked ink, or embedded micro GC-2 ?
23.) c2VMSf38r.tif ; note construction of the top portion of the GC-y
24.) c1VMSf39r.tif ; dog howling 8aii
25.) c2VMSf40v.tif ; note the tiny inked distorted hooked cross at
top-left of the GC-1, for
comparing with similar image elements uncertain as to cracked-ink etc.
or embedded intentional
design, for example in c4VMSf35v.tif trimmed poodle, and c5VMSf37r.tif.
26.) c2VMSf41v.tif ; Sergeant GC-h keeping the troops in line
27.) c1VMSf44r.tif ; GC-o head with a GC-7 hair-ribbon; note
groove-line in the parchment
28.) c1VMSf44v.tif ; note the exquisite rendering of the tiny
equilateral triangle emanating from the GC-a
29.) c5VMSf46v.tif ; GC-h sled-dog
30.) c5VMSf47r.tif ; Boxer-nose GC-h
31.) c5VMSf47v.tif ; GC-7 talks with aiiN
32.) c11VMSf48v.tif ; barely-keeping-it-together GC-k
33.) c4VMSf49v.tif ; Mr. GC-k mulls over the purchase of a little bench
34.) c9VMSf58r.tif ; GC-h child under control
35.) c5VMSf75r.tif ; angry! GC-h
36.) c4VMSf76r.tif ; pointy-nosed GC-j gallows man; for more on the
peculiar f76r text see J.VS
comm. # 138 (Vol. II) and references given there to handscript text-art.
37.) c4VMSf76v.tif ; camel gallows
38.) c5VMSf90v2.tif ; GC-h with head
39.) c1VMSf93v.tif ; intruding GC-k gallows with head
40.) c4VMSf95r1.tif ; pointy-nosed GC-f man
41.) c6VMSf95v2.tif ; fetch the ball
42.) c5VMSf96v.tif ; Snoopy intruding gallows
43.) c7VMSf99r.tif ; life can be hard
44.) c4VMSf101v2.tif ; so nice to c you
45.) c7VMSf101v2.tif ; sniff sniff
46.) c3VMSf102v2.tif ; Professor
47.) c8VMSf116v.tif ; Mr. Cross-in-his-mouth
48.) c2VMSf116v.tif ; Shroud of Voynich; check-patch for comparing
effects of parchment staining
In some of the above examples the micro-details are rather obvious from
the raw tif's. With other
tif's we can use the image-display program to magnify the tif,
resulting of course in blurring and
more and more uncertainty, but nevertheless watching for those possible
microdetails which remain
intact under all magnifications.
Some observations: if the micro-details arise from cracked ink, then
the ink seems to crack
perculiarly often in just the right way to produce effects suggesting
something non-random.
The tentative apparent micro-details, range from very tiny text-letters
and other symbols embedded
within the strokes forming the normal VMS text letters, to a kind of
Gestalt modulation, often an
anthropomorphic Gestalt modulation of the Voynich text letters,
especially the tall looped gallows
letters - making them appear as if they were little people, sometimes
animals, in a great variety of
poses and moods. [3]
These micro devices within the text-letters seem to be either absent,
or far, far fewer in the VMS
zoodiac month-names - if so, that would impact the debate on their
hand, that is whether or not the
month names were done by the original VMS scribe, or the VMS scribe in
old shaky-hand age. However,
with the notorious "michiton oladabas" folio, the f116v last page of
the Voynich Manuscript, the
situation is different: here we apparently have a strong example of an
anthropomorphic letter,
albeit not a Voynich-alphabet one - see 47.) in Table 317-1. Hence one
could speculate that if the
f116v writing came from a later hand than the original VMS scribe, that
this later scribe was
cognizant of the micro-detailing of the VMS text, and mimicked it.
For estimating the general fineness of the micro-techniques in the VMS,
and quite necesssary for any
evaluation of the examples in Table 317-1, we have the detailed optics
analysis of the "CATWOMAN"
illustration of f80v. From that analysis [4] we recall:
" I think from the foregoing it is reasonable to consider a medium to
good quality lens (by today's
standards) of about 4x to 5x. ..... We would want to know when and
where in Europe a 4x or 5x lens
of the-then-very-best quality was available. Well, apparently serious
interest in the possibilities
of lenses took off dramatically in the 16th century, Italian lens
makers produced the best examples
to the end of the century, and in the opening years of the 17th century
lenses of the above
specification should have been available from lens makers in the
Netherlands. ..... Therefore,
setting aside the possibility that someone very early, say Roger Bacon
(c. 1214-1292), possessed and
kept very secret some high quality magnifying lenses, then we can
choose about 1600 when pretty much
anyone with the necessary money could have bought a lens good enough to
use in rendering CATWOMAN.
..... In J.VS comm. #181 I stated that I believe that the presently
available high-resolution SID / TIF images
of the manuscript provided by Beinecke are not good enough to reveal
the full scope of
steganography in the VMS. ..... Although I have satisfied myself that
the major SID-visible details
of CATWOMAN's head can be done with a 10x lens, and even with a 2x lens
by someone with exceptional
and long experienced miniature-art skills, I suspect that the VMS
illustrator may have used several
magnification instruments, including some significantly greater than
10x. Perhaps even a microscope
of some kind was used, not necessarily compound, although possibly
compound - the quality of
magnification is equally an important factor, as Antonie van
Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) demonstrated in
the 17th century. A major consideration here is the effective focal
length because it limits how
much room there is between the objective lens and the work area to
permit manipulation of the
scribing instruments. "
From the just quoted we see that VMS dating comes naturally into the
picture when micro-details are
considered. Lacking unequivocal and definitive provenance
documentation, the attempted dating of the
Voynich manuscript must be based upon a set of independent clues which
mutually consistently
converge upon some date range. Trouble with the VMS is that
independently derived clues often point
in different time directions. The CATWOMAN analysis for instance goes
well with other post-Columbus
clues like the well known examples of the VMS sunflower and capsicum
pepper, and our colleague
Richard SantaColoma's studies of possible microscope depictions in the
VMS, while other clues
conflictingly provide for placing the VMS squarely somewhere within the
15th century.
So then, was Newbold onto something substantial? He certainly spent a
lot of time examining VMS text
letters under the microscope. And whereas his thesis was that the
micro-details were a kind of Greek
shorthand, his essential point was that micro-details do exist embedded
within the Voynich text
letters. It is too bad that Manly's cracked-ink dismissal of Newbold's
idea killed further thorough
and ongoing microscopic analysis of the VMS - otherwise we would now
have a hundred years of VMS
microscopy data to evaluate.
Berj / KI3U
[1] voynich.net vms-list post:
RE: VMs: OT: Newbold Goes to Torino; Sun 11/22/09 10:04 PM, by Berj /
KI3U.
[2] http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/new/
[3] Curiously and remarkably coincidental, our colleague Robert Teague
recently revealed that he had
for some time been developing a comic strip, "Gallows Humour", around
the idea of the VMS gallows
letters depicted as little persons in humrous situations within Voynich
manuscript context. And as
we know, Robert's charming work is now available in the J.VS Library
within the Voynich Manuscript
"Underground Art" section, as we eagerly await more of it :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/0-3-2007-10-09/
[4] Journal of Voynich Studies communication # 185 (Vol. II, 29 APR
2008) :
J.VS: Voynich steganography reference: f80v CATWOMAN's cat-face versus
f1r Tepenece
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolII2008.htm
*********************************************************
318
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-07-2009 11:03:21 PM
J.VS: Re: Revisiting Newbold's
approach: little people under the Voynich microscope
Dear Colleagues
Our Librarian Greg Stachowski alerted me to my having given in comm.
#317 the wrong Library deposit #
for the images associated with J.VS comm. #317. The correct deposit #
for it, said deposit
containing the images of selected VMS text characters for the purpose
of Newboldian analysis, is:
27-1-2009-12-06
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/27-1-2009-12-06/
Berj / KI3U
********************************************************
319
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-09-2009 12:45:20 PM
J.VS: The Antiquarian, Classicist,
Military, and Modern Eras of Voynich Manuscript Research
Redacted from off-J dialog 7 - 9 DEC 2009 :
Berj / KI3U says:
The modern era, as I understand it, begins with Currier and D'Imperio
in the late 70's. Back then
Gillogly and Jacques Guy were in it.
Greg Stachowski says:
I understand it differently. I define the modern era of VMS research
(not the modern era generally,
of course - that can go back to 1492 depending on definition!) to be
the start of the Internet-based
research era, which is the start of the vms list in 1991.
Currier and D'Imperio is the last of the previous era, in my view.
D'Imperio's book largely
summarised existing research up to that time. Not much happened in the
next decade, or at least not
much was published (apart from Stojko), until the two Jims (Gillogly
and Reeds) started the list in
1991 and then came the new transcription efforts (Guy, Landini,
Zandbergen), the interlinear files,
the Zipf analyses and so on. The foundations of the modern research
effort, in other words.
Gillogly, Reeds and Guy may have been interested earlier but they
didn't publish much, if anything,
until the 1990s. Guy's first article that I know of on the VMS is 1991.
Berj says:
Well this could become a good debate. Including the angle of people who
more or less grew up in the
digital age (you) vs those who grew up in the analog age (me). One
major reason I date the modern
VMS era from Currier and D'Imperio is that Currier made the first real
breakthroughs in finding
something out about the VMS text.
Greg says:
This is true. However, I would still place him and MD'I as the last of
the previous era - the era of
the military cryptographers, from Manly through Friedman to Currier and
MD'I. On the other hand,
what I call the modern era is characterised by:
1. (largely) amateurs in cryptopgraphy,
2. a wide range of people from different fields and backgrounds working
together through the
Internet, often never seeing each other or even the VMS itself,
3. the application of computing resources far exceeding those applied
before, for statistics,
simulation, transcription and lately image analysis.
There is also the nearly decade-long gap between "An Elegant Enigma"
and the vms-list and the modern
community.
Berj says:
Well in the early days you had in addition to military guys (and gals)
academic guys too, like
Newbold, Petersen, O'Neill, and Strong, and lets not forget the
antiquarians like the Voynich's
themselves and Miss Nill.
Greg says:
They were for the most part what I would refer to as an even earlier
era, perhaps the "Classicist"
era or the "Antiquarian" era. Of course the two overlap in this case -
Manly before Petersen. But
there seem to me to be two clearly separated blocks in terms of
approach: one, starting with Voynich
& Newbold and continuing to Petersen at least, where the approach
was from an antiquarian/classicist
background, informed by the external information such as the Bacon or
Dee rumours, and another, from
a professional cryptography background, starting with Manly and going
on to D'Imperio, based on the
internal nature of the manuscript. The modern (in my sense) approach
combines both.
Berj says:
As I understand it, you are using computing power and its sudden wide
availability and the social
consequences thereof as a major criterion for defining "modern VMS
research era".
Greg says:
Not computing power per se, but the Internet and its abiliy to
facilitate cooperation and distribute
information, in a way impossible in the time of MD'I, not to mention
earlier. Consider this very
discussion - it would have been largely impossible back then, or at
least not in this form.
The Internet has fundamentally changed the VMS research landscape,
changed the way VMS research
is carried out, and that change started with the vms-list in 1991, when
the nascent Internet met the
VMS. The increase in available computing power is a side issue which
goes along with that, though it
is, of course, important.
Berj says:
In my view the Internet has also considerably reduced the
signal-to-noise ratio in the VMS field -
even a simple search can bog you down going through seemingly endless
"Voynich" material put out
there by, even if well-meaning, folks who are tourists, or worse, in
Voynichland.
Greg says:
Oh, definitely. It has good and bad influences. Good like the easy
availability of the SIDs.
Bad like all the junk.
Berj says:
I'm not so sure that the Internet etc. is the best notion for
characterizing the history of VMS
research. I prefer breakthroughs as benchmarks, regardless of tools
(like computers) helping the
process. But to mesh with your idea of computers, Currier made his
breakthroughs with the aid of
computers I believe.
Greg says:
I characterise it by approaches; breakthroughs are nice but less
important. What is a breakthrough?
We can't tell - there have been very few unambiguous ones in vms
research.
Berj says:
Well wait a minute, if there were a sudden definitive solution to the
VMS text-problem then that
would be a breakthrough. And in my view that event would logically be a
VMS-historical benchmark,
whether or not computers and Internet and so on had any significant
role in the matter.
Greg says:
Of course it would be a historical benchmark. We have very few such
clear breakthroughs, though.
For example, Robert's work may or may not turn out to be one - at the
moment we don't know.
Now, did Currier make such a clear breakthrough that he should be
metaphorically detached from his
time and place, from his professional crypto environment, and
transplanted 10+ years into the utterly alien
(to him) Internet age, solely on that basis? I don't think so. You
would not call Eratosthenes a
modern physicist, although he knew the Earth was spherical and measured
its radius with considerable
accuracy. He still belongs in the era of Ancient Greek natural
philosophy, not in post 19th-Century physics.
Berj says:
Well then, would you say that the modern era of Voynich Manuscript
research dates to around 1991,
when the nascent Internet met the VMS, and during the first several
years of the modern era the
Internet contribution maintained a relatively good S/N, but eventually
the S/N began to degrade, and
still appears to be degrading?
Greg says:
Yes, definitely. Very much so.
Berj says:
The Antiquarian, Classicist, Military, and Modern era designations
might be good to place into the
J.VS Interactive Timeline.
Greg says:
An interesting thought.
[ end J.VS comm. # 319 ]
*************************************
320
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-10-2009 11:15:43 AM
J.VS: Rare words as an Author's
fingerprint
Dear Colleagues
Here's a 10 DEC 2009 online BBC news article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8404025.stm
" Rare words 'author's fingerprint' "
" A simple analysis of the words in a book is an indication of who
wrote it "
" Analyses of classic authors' works provide a way to "linguistically
fingerprint" them, researchers
say. The relationship between the number of words an author uses only
once and the length of a work
forms an identifier for them, they argue. "
" The work is published in the New Journal of Physics. Researchers also
suggest each author pulls
their works from a hypothetical "meta book". "
" In 1935, the Harvard University linguist George Kingsley Zipf
demonstrated a mathematical
relationship between the frequency of a word in a text and its rank in
the list of an author's most
used words. "
" Building on that idea, researchers at Umea University in Sweden have
found that language use isn't
as universal as Zipf's law might suggest. "
" They found that the authors had distinctly different "unique word"
curves. "
" The meta book concept proposed by the authors is not simply the list
of all the words they know,
but also the "distribution" of those words produced by an author,
whether in drafting an e-mail or
writing War and Peace. "
Berj / KI3U
***********************
321
From: Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-14-2009 6:29:50 PM
J.VS: radiocarbon dating of ancient
Japanese documents of known age
Those interested in the recently-announced radiocarbon dating of the
Voynich manuscript may find the
following paper interesting. The documents tested cover all the
hypothesised date ranges of the
Voynich Manuscript, and thus the paper may serve to illustrate some of
the techniques, issues, and
results.
"AMS radiocarbon dating of ancient Japanese
documents of known age"
by H. Oda, T. Masuda, E. Niu, T. Nakamura
Abstract:
" Radiocarbon ages of 17 ancient Japanese documents
of known age and 3 unknown samples were
measured by AMS. Radiocarbon dating on the known documents concluded
that the Japanese paper is a
suitable sample for radiocarbon dating because of small discrepancy
between the calibrated
radiocarbon age and the historical age due to the characteristics of
Japanese paper. From the dating
of the paper samples of unknown age, the wood-block prints, it was
clarified that they had been
produced between the 11th century and the first half of the 12th
century as the historical
information suggested. "
Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
Volume 255, Number 2 / February, 2003
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k7717n6888625323/
On the subject of radiocarbon dating, the following two papers may also
be of interest:
Details of the IntCal98 (International C14 Calibration curve, 1998
version), used in the Oda paper:
INTCAL98 RADIOCARBON AGE CALIBRATION, 24,000-0 cal BP
Minze Stuiver et al, Radiocarbon, Vol. 40, no. 3, 1998
http://www.college-de-france.fr/media/evo_cli/UPL12784_Stuiver98Radiocarbon___copie.pdf
A detailed overview of C14 dating:
The Remarkable Metrological History of Radiocarbon Dating
L A Currie, J. Res. Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. 109, 185-217, 2004
http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/jres/109/2/j92cur.pdf
Greg
********************************************************
322
From: Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-15-2009 2:43:00 PM
J.VS: Jean Perréal's (1455-1530)
"l'Alchimie" of 1516
Jean Perréal, also known as Peréal, Johannes Parisienus or Jean De
Paris, was an early-16th Century
painter and architect, who worked mostly for the Kings of France of the
period [1]
Of particular interest to researchers of the Voynich Manuscript is
Perreal's 1516 illustration, now
in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris: “L'Alchimie” [2][3], also known
as “The Alchemist talking
with Nature”, “Dialogue between the Alchemist and Nature”, “la
complainte de nature à l'alchimiste
errant”, and similar variations. The illustration is part of a
treatise, entitled “La Complainte de
Nature”, written by Perreal.
The image shows an alchemist of the period, outside his workshop,
talking with a nude female figure,
representing Nature, who is seated at the base of a strange,
intertwining vine-like plant, taller
than the figures.
The illustration and its allegorical meaning are extensively discussed
in Barbara Obrist's chapter
in “Chymists and chymistry: studies in the history of alchemy and early
modern chemistry” [4] some
of which is available through Google Books [5]. Perreal's illustration
is also used for the cover of
the volume.
As noted off-J. by Dana Scott, this plant bears a strong resemblance to
the plant on f22r of the
Voynich manuscript [6]. According to Obrist, Perreal may have been
inspired by a giant lily set up
in front of the gate of Lyons on the occasion of Francis I's entry into
the city in 1515. Without
suggesting that Perreal had anything to do with the Voynich manuscript,
and noting that the period
of the illustration is later than the recent radiocarbon dating [7] of
the Voynich manuscript
parchment, the similarity may point to a common source in alchemical
symbolic tradition.
The vine itself is labelled with text, including several times the word
“aqua”, the tube-like stems
thus perhaps bring to mind the various tubes with flowing liquids
illustrated in the Voynich
manuscript. Berj Ensanian has also suggested off-J. that the image be
searched for Voynich-glyph-
like symbols; the images available on the net are of relatively low
resolution, and no such symbols
have as yet been definitely identified.
Greg Stachowski
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Perr%C3%A9al
[2] http://www.marmottan.com/uk/enluminures/jean_perreal.asp
[3]
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/The-Alchemist-Talking-with-Nature-Posters_i2160518_.htm
[4] Obrist, Barbara, “Nude Nature and the Art of Alchemy in Jean
Perreal's Early Sixteenth-Century
Miniature” , chapter 10 (p.113) in Principe, Lawrence M., ed, “
Chymists and chymistry: studies in
the history of alchemy and early modern chemistry”, papers presented at
an International Conference
on the History of Alchemy and Chymistry, 19-23 July 2006, published by
Science History Publications
USA, 2007, ISBN 978-0-88135-396-9
[5] http://books.google.pl/books?
id=hDkXpAxVFOEC&pg=PA114&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[6] http://130.132.81.65/VOYNICHIMG/size4/D0007/1006116.jpg
[7] 1404-1438; ORF 2 – Universum documentary, Das Voynich-Raetsel,
aired 11 December 2009.
************************************************
323
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-15-2009 12:38:27 PM EST
J.VS: Re: Jean Perréal's (1455-1530)
"l'Alchimie" of 1516
Dear Colleagues
As we know, there are some similarities and even apparent overlaps
between some Voynich-alphabet
glyphs and some more or less common alchemical symbols - tables in
D'Imperio's book provide
immediately handy examples.
As regards searching Perreal's "l'Alchimie" illustration for possible
Voynich-glyph-like symbols
(aside from the obvious alchemical symbols and Latin inscriptions such
as on the vine), I suggest
examining these areas in the l'Alchimie painting :
1.) near the lower left corner of the illustration, at about the level
of lady Nature's right knee,
my impression is of some brown marks in the grass which are suggestive
of a Voynich gallows glyph.
2.) in the background on the mountain is possibly a GC-s / EVA-s,
although of course a GC-s can
easily arise from random noise and all by itself would mean almost
nothing.
3.) Lady Nature's wings.
4.) the blue sky at the top seems to have some embedded darker
marking-like patterns, and suggests
that for all areas of the illustration to be examined, that the picture
might be rotated to
different angles.
Berj / KI3U
*****************************
324
From: Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-23-2009 7:29:12 AM
J.VS: Re: Jean Perréal's (1455-1530)
"l'Alchimie" of 1516
Ernest Lillie has very kindly mailed me to say that the image was also
used for the cover of
Alexander Roob's "The Hermetic Museum - Alchemy and Mysticism",
published by Taschen in 1997
(ISBN 82288653X), and that the image is very clear there.
Greg
**************************
325
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-30-2009 9:49:14 AM EST
J.VS: MNISHOWSKY ONCE MORE
Dear Colleagues
Our colleague Jan Hurych's new paper "MNISHOWSKY ONCE MORE" is now
available in the J.VS Library:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/22-4-2009-12-29/
Berj / KI3U
********************************************************
326
J.VS Archive continued in
Vol. IV, 2010