Re: VMs: similar cipher marks

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Matt,

At 07:33 24/04/2003 -0700, Matt Welnicki wrote:
> As I am new to the mailing list, I appologize if I am
> duplicating efforts.  I have been studying the Voynich
> MS for a while and am taking the approach that looks at
> it as a nomenclator (with a combo of words and letter
> substitutions), common in England in the late 1500's to
> early 1600's.  To me, the symbols/letters in the
> Voynich somewhat resemble the Mary Queen of Scots
> ciphers and are probably common from that time period.
>
> If anyone else has taken this approach and has come
> across similar ciphers, I'd be interested.

Welcome aboard, Matt. :-)

If you were to draw a graph based on the apparent size of the cipherbet (as 
the Quattrocento progressed, cipherbets became fatter and fatter, a bit 
like Windows applications), you might find that a probable date for the VMS 
would be far nearer to 1450 - though opinions differ on this. :-)

So, before you rush to date the VMS based on its cipher, you may do well to 
look at MS Vienna 2398 - the Tranchedino cipher ledger from the Milanese 
Chancery. This is a collection of a large number of ciphers (with their 
owners and the date it was added to the ledger) from 1450-1500.

One reference for it is: Lydia Cerioni "La diplomazia sforzesca nella 
seconds meta del Quattrocento e i suoi cifrari segreti" (1970), which is in 
two volumes, the second volume comprising not only MS Vienna 2398, but also 
"di cifrari conservati presso l'Archivio di Stato di Milano (tavv. I - 
LXXII)" - yet more ciphers from Milan.

I've also spent some time recently trying (unsuccessfully so far) to track 
down a separate 1440 cipher ledger from Urbino that's mentioned briefly in 
Luigi Sacco (1947) - I think this is likely to be in one of the 200-ish 
"buste" in the portion of the Archivio di Urbino in the ASF (in Florence).

The VMS letters also share some similarities with those of Dr Timothie 
Bright's "characterie" - which gives rise to speculation that the VMS 
alphabet is based on a (possibly related, possibly unrelated) shorthand 
alphabet - there's a bit of a historical lacuna between Tironian notae and 
Bright's characterie, which (now probably lost) shorthand/tachygraphic 
systems would have filled.

Some stuff to think about, anyway. :-)

Best regards, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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