Re: VMs: Another VMS herbal lookalike

[Elmar Vogt <elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Maurizio M. Gavioli wrote:
> At 13:00 13/02/2004 +0100, elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > Zitat von "J.Siemons" <siem@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> > > Is this posted before?>
> > > http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/bodl/130.htm>
> > > English,11th century too again.
> >
> > Fol44r is interesting. Along with the following pages, it looks like 
> > the "key
> > pages" found in the VM.
>
>
> Well, it seems to me a rather regular list of local names (sp.?) ("Other 
> [call it] "partemeon", French [call it] "oblaodia", other "diocolofam", 
> Neapolitan "obulatia"...)

Indeed it is -- if you can read it. But don't you see the resemblance to the 
VM key pages with a single letter seperate in front of the lines?

So perhaps the VM key pages don't provide a key to the decipherment, but are 
a similar list of... something. That was my idea; just looking for analogies.

> > And note the bottom line on f44r... half of it written in small caps, 
> > half of
> > it in minor letters... 
> ...
>
> "SI VOLUERIS SCIRE VIRTUREM EIUS, Facies eum...": If you want to know 
> its powers, make it..."

Again, imagine this book was the VM for someone else. The problem _for us_ 
is not to read the latin. But imagine somebody (say, an Arab) couldn't read 
latin letters, but had only some empirical idea of our alphabet, where some 
of the capitel letters look like the minors, while others don't, the 
capitals concentrate on word and sentence beginnings etc. Now you have a 
whole sentence which is composed only of capitals, which seems to break all 
the rules.

Any VM decoder would jump on this "clue", thinking is in any way 
particularly significant... while here, it seemingly only served the whim of 
a scribe.

Tallyho,

	Elmar

> At 12:14 13/02/2004 +0000, Gabriel Landini wrote:
>
> > Word 11 from the left column reads: Spam :-)
>
>
> Do you refer to f. 44v? There, the 11-th word actually "Spani", i.e. 
> "Spanish"...
>
> Maurizio
>
>
>  Maurizio M. Gavioli -  VistaMare  Software
>  via San Bernardo 5, I-16030 Pieve Ligure, ITALY
>  http://www.vistamaresoft.com/
>
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--
Elmar Vogt / Königswarterstr. 18 / 90762 Fürth / GERMANY
elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx / Tel.: (++49/0)911 - 31 52 58
Agilmar von Sevelingen: VIS VISCERIS NON FERRE FERTUR (T.Doom)

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." (Oscar Wilde, attrib.)

"I come from a country where being liberal is a virtue, and patriots are
viewed warily. YMMV."


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