Re: Request For Status: Language vs. Cipher

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > [Rene:] ... apart from the alienness of plants and cosmology,
    > which is open to debate ...
    
Note that Baresch himself did not recognize the plants. Moreover, his
letter seems to say that he showed the VMS around to people in Germany
(Bohemia?), they could not identify them either.

I would say that the failure of those people is much more significant
than the failure of modern botanists and paleographers. Baresch and
his friends surely knew many of the classical medical plants, *and* 
the standard pictorial "language" of medieval herbals ---
better than any modern expert.

    > What seems certain is that they were not bound in the order in which
    > they were written. The next step implied above is a very reasonable
    > interpretation. (i.e. I also think they are bound in the wrong order.

I was thinking of the two-page "heated baths" illustration in the
biological section (f78v+f81r).  (I don't recall who noticed the 
channel connecting the two halves.)  Surely that bifolio was
supposed to be a centerfold.

All the best,

--stolfi