If you want to lay bare a person’s inner cognitive world, you could do worse than locking them away with the Voynich Manuscript for a while and seeing what hypotheses they come up with about it, what unspoken assumptions they make about it, what methods they use to attack it.
- Patrick Feaster
Voynich Studies is always work in progress. It is like a shape-shifting text that changes before your eyes. At one minute it looks like one thing, but then it suddenly looks like another. At worst, I have compared it to a swamp. It is hard to find any solid ground underfoot. Here is a brief summary of where things stand in my explorations.
I should say at the outset that many of the conclusions I have arrived at were not by any means where I had hoped I would arrive. I wanted a later, more alchemical text, full of juicy secrets about the Prima Materia tradition in European alchemy, from somewhere like Prague. I am surprised - and a little disappointed - to find it is no such thing. I have been led to many of my conclusions reluctantly, but all you can do is follow the evidence.
- Patrick Feaster
Voynich Studies is always work in progress. It is like a shape-shifting text that changes before your eyes. At one minute it looks like one thing, but then it suddenly looks like another. At worst, I have compared it to a swamp. It is hard to find any solid ground underfoot. Here is a brief summary of where things stand in my explorations.
I should say at the outset that many of the conclusions I have arrived at were not by any means where I had hoped I would arrive. I wanted a later, more alchemical text, full of juicy secrets about the Prima Materia tradition in European alchemy, from somewhere like Prague. I am surprised - and a little disappointed - to find it is no such thing. I have been led to many of my conclusions reluctantly, but all you can do is follow the evidence.
* * *
The VMS is connected to the Ladin herbal tradition.
I am confident this is the correct identification. A high degree of certainty.
Nicholas of Cusa was involved.
Far less certain. But given the certainty of the identification of the Ladin tradition, and the involvement of a sophisticated (humanist) mind, the best scenario I can find suggests Cusanus. He seems unlikely (and a bit late) on the face of it, but he is a stronger candidate than he seems. I think it is a worthwhile line of investigation.
The text is meaningful. The work is not a hoax.
I'm as certain as you can be with an untranslated text. The strong evidence of the illustrations is that the work is meaningful, so very likely the text is too. I admit I started with this assumption, but I still see no reason to abandon it.
The text and illustrations form a unity and go together.
I am very confident this is a safe assumption to make.
The map depicts the Rosengarten mountains in the Dolomites in alpine northern Italy.
Very certain. The work concerns that region and that landscape.
The nymphs are nymphs and not pregnant women.
Very certain. The nymphs depicted are Hellenized versions of the nymphs from Ladin mythology.
The work concerns the phenomenon of the "alpenglow".
I have a strong degree of certainty about this. That is how I read the work and I think it is correct. I am certain the work depends upon a premodern understanding of that symbolism.
It is a work of traditional cosmology rather than proto-science.
I am very certain of this. It is the proper way to see it. It will contain a cosmology of the four traditional elements, fire, air, water and earth. It is likely to be more magical in nature than is usually admitted.
It is not a medical work.
There are no signs of anatomy, physiology, sickness or disease in the work. It is a work about herb gathering and herbal pharmacology but not a medical text as such. Fairly certain.
The work concerns a herb gathering tradition.
Certain. The Ladin tradition is a tradition of herb gathering, not herb growing. There are no signs of herb growing in the manuscript.
The work depicts real herbs, not fantasy plants.
Very certain. Mainly alpine herbs depicted in a cartoonish manner, but a catalogue of real plants.
There are Graeco-Islamic aspects to the cosmology.
Certain. There is evidence of a system of 360 stars and 28 lunar mansions and other systems typical of Graeco-Islamic cosmology.
It is a calendrical text. It concerns the calculation of calendars and festivals.
Very certain of this.
The text is not a natural language.
I wish it was, and I still cling to that hope sometimes, but it seems unlikely to be a natural language. Yet it looks like one! I am now more interested in the question as to why it looks like a natural language on the surface but almost certainly isn't one on closer inspection.
The background language is Ladin.
If the work depicts the Ladin herbal tradition then Ladin is naturally a language in the background somewhere. Unlikely to be the language of the text.
The text is made by some method of procedural generation.
Highly likely. In fact, the most likely solution. But not in order to generate a meaningless hoax. It is likely a meaningful text created by procedural generation.
Llullism – and the Ars Magna – is involved.
Uncertain but more likely than widely admitted. If the text is made by some method of procedural generation then the Llulian Art is a candidate method and might fit well the nature and context of the project.
The text is numeric in nature.
At least partially. Quite certain. I have resisted the idea the text is all numbers, but I am led to the view it is numeric in some way.
The text has been presented as "language of the nymphs" (if only as a literary device.)
An hypothesis rather than a certainty, but I think a very likely solution given the nature of the work.
The work is some form of catalogue, or index, or inventory rather than an expository text.
Increasingly certain. It seems to be the best paradigm to explain the observable characteristics of the text.
One scribe or more?
I don't regard it as an important matter. Certainly, more than one.
The person who designed and composed the text was not the same person as the illustrator.
Pretty certain. The illustrations are folkish. The text is far more sophisticated. The evidence is that a team of people worked on the production: several scribes, possibly several illustrators, and a colourist. I doubt that any of them were the person who instigated (and paid for) the project.
The book was made to be used.
Pretty certain. It is a work made to be consulted often. It had a utilitarian purpose. It is not a philosophy tome made to be read once and filed on a bookshelf.
The text is translatable.
I assume it is but accept it may not be. Even if we could reconstruct the method of generation, we may not ever know what it means without a key. I am confident the text would have contained an appropriate key, but it may now be missing (a far more likely scenario than a hoax.)
R. B.
The work concerns the phenomenon of the "alpenglow".
I have a strong degree of certainty about this. That is how I read the work and I think it is correct. I am certain the work depends upon a premodern understanding of that symbolism.
It is a work of traditional cosmology rather than proto-science.
I am very certain of this. It is the proper way to see it. It will contain a cosmology of the four traditional elements, fire, air, water and earth. It is likely to be more magical in nature than is usually admitted.
It is not a medical work.
There are no signs of anatomy, physiology, sickness or disease in the work. It is a work about herb gathering and herbal pharmacology but not a medical text as such. Fairly certain.
The work concerns a herb gathering tradition.
Certain. The Ladin tradition is a tradition of herb gathering, not herb growing. There are no signs of herb growing in the manuscript.
The work depicts real herbs, not fantasy plants.
Very certain. Mainly alpine herbs depicted in a cartoonish manner, but a catalogue of real plants.
There are Graeco-Islamic aspects to the cosmology.
Certain. There is evidence of a system of 360 stars and 28 lunar mansions and other systems typical of Graeco-Islamic cosmology.
It is a calendrical text. It concerns the calculation of calendars and festivals.
Very certain of this.
I wish it was, and I still cling to that hope sometimes, but it seems unlikely to be a natural language. Yet it looks like one! I am now more interested in the question as to why it looks like a natural language on the surface but almost certainly isn't one on closer inspection.
The background language is Ladin.
If the work depicts the Ladin herbal tradition then Ladin is naturally a language in the background somewhere. Unlikely to be the language of the text.
The text is made by some method of procedural generation.
Highly likely. In fact, the most likely solution. But not in order to generate a meaningless hoax. It is likely a meaningful text created by procedural generation.
Llullism – and the Ars Magna – is involved.
Uncertain but more likely than widely admitted. If the text is made by some method of procedural generation then the Llulian Art is a candidate method and might fit well the nature and context of the project.
The text is numeric in nature.
At least partially. Quite certain. I have resisted the idea the text is all numbers, but I am led to the view it is numeric in some way.
The text has been presented as "language of the nymphs" (if only as a literary device.)
An hypothesis rather than a certainty, but I think a very likely solution given the nature of the work.
The work is some form of catalogue, or index, or inventory rather than an expository text.
Increasingly certain. It seems to be the best paradigm to explain the observable characteristics of the text.
One scribe or more?
I don't regard it as an important matter. Certainly, more than one.
The person who designed and composed the text was not the same person as the illustrator.
Pretty certain. The illustrations are folkish. The text is far more sophisticated. The evidence is that a team of people worked on the production: several scribes, possibly several illustrators, and a colourist. I doubt that any of them were the person who instigated (and paid for) the project.
The book was made to be used.
Pretty certain. It is a work made to be consulted often. It had a utilitarian purpose. It is not a philosophy tome made to be read once and filed on a bookshelf.
The text is translatable.
I assume it is but accept it may not be. Even if we could reconstruct the method of generation, we may not ever know what it means without a key. I am confident the text would have contained an appropriate key, but it may now be missing (a far more likely scenario than a hoax.)
R. B.
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