Nicholas of Cusa remains a suspect.
If we take the Voynich language as a separate creation, removing it from the accompanying illustrations and the codex, and just consider it in isolation as a textual-linguistic phenomenon, Nicholas of Cusa must be among those considered.
The manuscript itself is certainly not likely to be a project in which he would be directly involved, but the language is a sophisticated invention in itself; it is impressive, the work of a formidable, inventive mind, and Cusanus is a candidate on those grounds.
Everything depends upon how we view the language and text. I regard it as a unique fusion of linguistics and cosmology.
Much counts against Cusanus, but let me briefly rehearse some points in his favor.
I am considering him as the inventor of Voynichese.
1. He was exactly contemporary with the Voynich ms. His dates are 1401-1464. The window for the Voynich is about 1400-1440.
This leaves a 20 year window, a period during which Cusanus was in his intellectual prime, his early twenties to his late thirties.
During this time, moreover, he was an independent person who pursued independent projects. Though often in the employ of the Church, he did not become a cardinal (as he is remembered) till late in life, and then reluctantly.
That is, he is remembered as a Catholic clergyman, but he was not beholden to a narrow orthodoxy and pursued an adventurous intellectual life, especially in his youth.
2. Most obviously, he was a leading Humanist scholar with deep secular intellectual and scientific interests.
It is generally agreed that the Voynich text, by design, reflects the open style of the early Renaissance revival of Carolingean miniscule. More generally, the manuscript displays wide-ranging intellectual curiosity that arguably reflects Humanist interests.
The Humanists of the period were not, in fact, a large circle. Nicholas of Cusa, a young genius from Germany, was a prominent figure in that movement.
We could say: if Voynichese is not his creation, he may have known the creator – if we accept it is from the Humanist mileu, 1400-1440.
3. Cusanus was a complex character and an accomplished polymath whose interests included linguistics, geography, cartography, cosmology, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, and a host of others.
He was also close friend and correspondent with many of the great scientific minds of his day. He was thoroughly up-to-date.
Arguably, aspects of his (early modern) cosmology are reflected in the Voynich ms.
In any case, and despite appearances, many of his known interests are encountered in the Voynich, especially in the cosmological sections.
I see Voynichese as cosmological in nature, and connected to the cosmological dimensions of the work.
Cusanus was a (Neoplatonic) cosmological philosopher, first and foremost. A cosmological language would reflect his specific interests.
Even more specifically, he was deeply engaged in the problems of Computus, and resolving the Eastern and Western calenders. He travelled Europe seeking out relevant manuscripts. He proposed his own calendar reforms.
I present Voynichese as calendrical in nature. No one knew Computus and the intriciacies of soli-lunar calendars as well as Nicholas of Cusa.
4. Another case of his independent intellectual pursuits was his dedicated study of Ramon Llull.
He was the foremost Llullian of his age, and collected Llull’s works from throughout Europe, even though he was careful to keep those interests in the background of his public life.
He rarely mentions Llull by name in his works or sermons. Llull, at the time, was being condemned as heretical and his name had become mixed up with alchemy and magic.
Cusanus made a deep and serious study of Llull’s Ars Magna and its systems, and appropriated them into his own cosmology and metaphysics.
There has long been suspicion of Llullian influence in the creation of the Voynich text – the generation of text through letter-wheels or volvelles. As well as the incipient idea of an artificial language.
It was from Llull that Leibniz would later explore the idea of artificial languages.
As one Voynich reseacher asked in the mailing lists years ago: Who, in the Middle Ages, could have created such a thing other than Ramon Llull?
In our historical window – a young Nicholas of Cusa.
5. Cusanus had a profound knowledge of Latin manuscripts.
Arguably, this is on display in the Voynich glyph set and text. By most assessments, the glyphs and text were designed by someone deeply familiar with Latin manuscript traditions, if not Latin shorthand and arcane abbreviation systems.
Cusanus was deeply learned in this field: profoundly well-read. He had a complete command of the esoterics of Latin texts.
In his search for the manuscripts of Llull, and for other reasons, he spent years travelling the libraries of Europe, hunting for rare and important texts.
The folkish illustrations in the Voynich are deceptive. The language is the creation of a highly literate man.
6. Nicholas read and spoke Greek. He was one of the first European intellectuals of the Renaissance to learn and master Greek.
On many assessments, there is Greek influence in the Voynich: Hellenic in the case of the nymphs, and Oriental/Orthodox in the architecture on the Voynich map, and possibly Greek influence in the glyph set.
Cusanus was deeply involved with attempts to reconcile Eastern and Western Christendom, and was of the view that many of their differences were linguistic.
He proposed ways that Latin and Greek theology and terminology might be reconciled.
He travelled to Byzantium and recovered important manuscripts from Greek libraries.
He was influenced by the Platonic school of Plethon, mainly through his close personal friendship with (Cardinal) Bessarion. He developed extensive Greek connections.
A Latin Humanist scholar also adept at Greek in the relevant period?
If there is a connection between MS Vaticanus graecus #1291 (Ptolemy’s Handy Tables) and the Voynich ms. – with the work in the library of the Bishops of Brescia – Cusanus is a possible link. It would be a work of natural interest to him. He would be one of the few intellectuals of the period well-positioned to understand it in depth.
7. Cusanus was German.
German seems to be part of the linguistic matrix behind the manuscript.
Latin. Greek. German. Those languages would point to Nicholas.
There is German marginalia and underwriting in the text. More generally, we can detect a distinct Germanic element in the work. Blonde nymphs. Zodiac motifs from German almanacs.
Modern studies of Cusanus’ life like to emphasize that he was a German in Italy. The geographical heart of his intellectual world was Brixen, half German/half Italian.
I think there are reasons to connect the Voynich ms. to that region: alpine northern Italy, the Sud Tyrol, the border between the Germanic and Italian worlds.
8. Most importantly, Cusanus was given to thought-experiments. That was his primary method. He was not an empiricist. His method was to explore matters with reason, and he would typically create thought-experiments to test ideas.
This experimentalism was very typical of him, and it is quite conceivable that such a creation as Voynichese could be a case of such a thought-experiment.
The Voynich manuscript itself is not in character, but a thought-experiment such as a cosmological language and (synthetic) script would not be alien to Cusanus. It is something he might do.
Moreover, we find evidence of linguistic experimentalism in his extant writings, an imaginative and symbolic appreciation of the possibilities of language.
We need only suppose that Cusanus attempted a synthetic language as part of his wide-ranging philosophical experiments.
9. He was a high-level diplomat involved in some of the most delicate negotiations of the era.
As such, we can be confident he was familiar with diplomatic ciphers. And he was smart enough, and curious enough, to know how they worked.
There is no evidence in his writings (that I’ve encountered) of any active interest in cryptography – why would he write about things that are secret? - but it might be a fair assumption that a diplomat in his position would be up-to-date with the most sophisticated ciphers of his day.
If the Voynich language is cryptological, such a thing would be within his reach.
10. Cusanus took an active interest in the affairs of the ‘layman’ and practical affairs more generally.
It is wrong to cast him as a high-brow theologian disconnected from mundane matters.
He was prolific and wide-ranging and was noted for his sympathy for the common man. Common matters like weights and measures, engineering, hydrology, were within his ambit.
He engaged in extensive thought-experiments on practical and non-theological matters.
An invented language, proposed for some practical purpose, is conceivably within his range of interests and intellectual habits.
* * *
Various areas of my research intersect at Nicholas of Cusa.
Even when I give up on him as too unlikely and look elsewhere, and cast other scenarios, he keeps reemerging.
This may only be because he was such a notable intellectual in the period, but he is still unusually qualified for such a sophisticated (and experimental) marriage of linguistics and cosmology as we encounter in Voynichese.
R.B.
