Fwd: Re: Toresella

[philip.marshall@xxxxxxxx]

If the VMS were penned in the second half of the XVI
>> century, then I have no difficulty in accepting the presence of  
botanical
>> samples from the Western Hemisphere; however, I am not convinced 
that
>> the sunflower identification is accurate. 
>
>	It was Brumbaugh that said that the sunflower and pepper showed that
>it was written after the discovery of the New World.  He thought that
>the text 
>was nonsense, written by Dee and Kelly to make money.  He did think 
that
>the 
>labels were meaningful, Latin enciphered in a rudimentary cipher.  We 
no
>longer 
>accept any of this.
>
>

More precisely, I believe that it was Hugh O'Neill who first identified 
(carelessly, I would say) the "sunflower" and "pepper" and emphasized 
that they would date the MS to after 1493 (when Columbus returned to 
Europe with seeds). Brumbaugh was responsible only for the 
popularization of O'Neill's provocative claim. 

-Philip Marshall