Re: VMs: Simonetta query

[ajb <ajb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick Pelling suggested...

>>Does anyone happen to know if Cicco Simonetta was left-handed?

>No, but it ~might~ be apparent from careful examination of his
>autograph diary and letters (of which I don't have any copies (digital
>or otherwise) to hand, sorry).

Thanks. Just following an aspect of my pet theory that the whole thing
is very intimately tied up with the extraordinarily uncommon and
unlikely personality and mental make-up of The Author, and therefore
that it might be useful to consider these aspects of the more likely
suspects. Reactions to left-handed-ness, in the cultural context of the
likely time of origin, might be relevant.

Perhaps....

And my personal opinions - 

As regards the manuscript itself, my own views for what they're worth
are - that Nick is pretty well right as to who and when and where etc;
but that the code or cypher is indeed unique. I believe it to be founded
intimately in the personality and mind and character of its creator:
that is to say, it is unique to him (or conceivably even her? if it is
not Simonetta after all) and based on some individual characteristic of
mind. I believe he was very likely a synaesthete or had some other
similar or related curious twist or kink in the brain (I have
synaesthesia myself to some degree) and that his mind-set and outlook
was so unusual that the code, or - as I suspect it might be - amalgam of
shorthand and private personal language, requires a radically different
viewpoint to unravel; and that conventional code-breaking techniques
will continue to founder until the appropriate kind of researcher
stumbles on the right 'inside-out' way of looking at it. When he wrote
the original (I think we might be dealing with a copy made by a person
or team who were unable to comprehend it) The Author would have been the
_only_ person capable of understanding it, and moreover, I don't think
he would have been able at all readily to teach his method to anyone
else either. I think the original may have been made by himself for his
sole private use, and that 'our' edition was at some point copied,
probably un-known to him and in his prolonged absence, by someone (or
someones) who didn't understand it but believed it to be extraordinarily
valuable. If Nick's supposition as to the author is correct, as seems
rather likely and entirely reasonable, we should perhaps look for the
solution to the enigma by examining all potential candidates for this
remarkable and highly unusual person as closely as we can - his
personality and behaviour - in as much as records survive, that is.

[Swap your pizza for whisky, anyone?]

Regards

Anthony

-- 

     If I had all the money I've spent on drink.....
                I'd spend it on drink.
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