VMs: Re: DIE WELTWOCHE

["Petr Kazil" <kazil@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Can't resist to add a beginner's note ... And it's also a small "no
progress" report for the list.

> 1. Do people out there think a solution is imminent? Where will it come
> from?

My opinion is that this mystery - like so many other good mysteries - will
never be solved. However we may get a bit further in substantiating some of
the hypotheses.

I think the solution will come from some random discovery in an existing
book or library. Someone will stumble upon a piece of voynich text in a
margin of some other document. Or someone will recognize the "hand" of the
illustrator in some other work. Then we will have placed the VMS in space
(where did it come from) and time (when was it written). Even this small
step would be a big leap forward.

> 2. How do people one get hooked on the Voynich? I saw some notions
> of terrible addiction.

It's like the Loch Ness monster. It's exciting and anyone can have a go at
it.
Personally it's an incentive to learn more about early Renaissance culture -
and I learned a lot already. For example: individual thought was in it's
infancy, most works were compilations of texts of the respected authorities,
but personal experience and fact finding started to creep into the culture.
Then - where are the sources of the VMS? It can't be that original. Even
(for me) highly surprising works like Boaistuau's "Histoires prodigieuses"
is largely copied from old sources.

Take a look at these examples:
http://clendening.kumc.edu/dc/rti/popular_culture_1557_lycosthenes.html
http://clendening.kumc.edu/dc/rti/popular_culture_1503_reisch.html
http://www.buzbees.com/oldpage/bill/books/lycosthenes.html
http://www.wunderzeichen.de/Wunderzeichen/theorie.html

I havn't been able to find a copy of Lycosthenes. Does someone know about
one? I really looks interesting.

And this early picture (the one on the right) of the female reproductive
organs could be compared to the VMS pipeworks:
http://clendening.kumc.edu/dc/rti/reproduction_1612_duval.html

I'm reading Boaistuau right now - in French :-(
But there are some interesting pictures in there - even a volcano - and a
chapter on plants and stones. I'll publish the plant list sometimes. I've
checked his medicinal knowledge and it's quite wrong. For example he says
Rhododendron has positive properties but my Gessner/Orzechovski says that
most species are poisonous, with no positive properties at all ...

I've found another volcano picture - on an early Renaissance engraving. I'll
keep on looking through the Royal Library shelves at random. It's fun.

> 3. The list seems to be in a lull; does that mean people are frustrated?

I've just started and I'm frustrated already. I try to get a grip on the
pictorial language of the VMS and I try to speculate about the influences
that the author used while he composed the manuscript. But with every
interesting book I find (recently I've looked into Renaissance books
describing "wondrous events" like earthquakes, volcanoes and comets - that
the author should have known) I realize how different the manuscript is from
all other books from that period.

But there must be a connection somewhere with the "standard" culture of that
time. For example: in these times there were many "monsters" for sale, they
were usually crafted from body parts of different animals (bird + bat +
fish). They ended up in many "Wunderkammer". What if there's a connection
with the monstrous plants of the manuscript ...

> 4. How serious is the research that has been done lately?

There are some quite serious and knowledgeable people on the list. If they
can't crack it then probably nobody can. Still I think we could use more
medievists and iconographers on the team. And someone who's knowledgeable
about "marginal and lost European cultures" - just to tackle that hypothesis
(voynichese = a language that has died out).

> 5. Are there people out there who still think the ms. is a hoax?

This might be a good possibility. Still the author would have been
influenced by the culture of his time and this should be apparent in his
work.

> 5. Some people seem to lean toward the idea that its language is a
> monosyllabic East-Asian language such as Chinese or Vietnamese; what
> are the arguments and counter-arguments?

I would be delighted if it could be proven. But I think that the hoax theory
is more likely than this.

> 6. Does the Voynich-community ever meet in the real world, or is this
solely
> an Internet-community? How many people are involved in the deciphering
> on a regular basis? Are you friends?

I would like to meet some.
On the list they look friendly and slightly nerdy, my favorite kind of
people :-)
But it would be one way traffic. I haven't much to add yet.