VMs: Re: Spa architecture and inspirational sources

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Luis,

At 22:14 11/10/02 -0400, Luis Vélez wrote:
> Indeed! but one can still find the ocassional exception to that partition
> principle, as is the case of Lorenz Fries and his treaty on balneology.

I think finding potential candidates (like Fries) is extremely productive, 
partly because it had to be someone (!) but also because non-matches may 
make us more aware of what the matching criteria actually are. Key 
questions include:-
(a) Was X capable of making the VMS?
(b) Why (or for whom) was the VMS made?
(c) What function did the VMS perform?
(d) What links X with the VMS?
(e) Why was the VMS financially necessary for X?

> I'm also waiting for a reply from Richard Palmer, a specialist in Italian
> Renaissance Spas (would you believe there is such a thing?).

I certainly would, well done for finding him! :-)

If you're asking him about the VMS' spas, please make sure that you ask him 
if he knows of any Italian Renaissance spa built out of three separate *but 
sequentially linked* buildings (in the way that the VMS pages - when 
correctly reordered - describe).

If so, one key to cracking the VMS code may well be the "poem" page in the 
VMS - if we can find the plaintext to that poem (which almost certainly 
relates to the location of the three-section spa), we should stand an 
excellent chance. :-)

> With the progressive digitalisation of the manuscript and incunabula
> collections everywhere, the systematic chase for Voynichean art fingerprints
> has become something of a new sport - and a fun one, at that!

:-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....