Re: VMs: Some thoughts/observations on some other thoughts/observations....

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Maurizio,

At 02:57 21/02/2004 +0100, Maurizio Gavioli wrote:
> At 10:53 20/02/2004 +0000, Nick Pelling wrote:
> > The question also arises as to why they would use a character set which 
> > is unsuited to fast writing with a quill (this would seem to be a very 
> > poor decision),
>
> Hmmm... why do you say that? Actually it seemed to me quite easy and fast 
> to write with a quill, like most of the derivatives of _littera moderna_ 
> (of which the Vms writing is one). In any case, not slower than any 
> University ms. of the XIII c. Derivatives of the _littera antiqua_, which 
> seem more familiar to us, because it is ultimately our writing (and then 
> probably look 'faster' to us), are actually significantly slower to write.

For some time, my argument is that the alphabet used by the VMs was 
probably based on a single-stroke wax tablet shorthand (tachygraphic) 
alphabet. So, for speed I'm not really comparing it with a biro but with a 
stylus. :-)

If the alphabet's shapes weren't appropriated from a wax tablet shorthand, 
where did they come from? I've looked at hundreds of Quattrocento ciphers, 
and none has the same "shape sensibility" as the VMs' alphabet. Perhaps the 
best match is Filelfo's cipher on f6r of the Tranchedino ledger (but even 
that isn't ~particularly~ close).

I'd also argue that it was probably copied by a formally-trained scribe - 
especially in the starred paragraph section (IIRC), there are many places 
where the writer has added minor flourishes and extended lines down into 
empty spaces on the page (Philip Neal points to numerous examples of this 
kind of penmanship [quillmanship?]).

And here's the question: you place the component strokes of the letters 
within a (transitional gothic) littera moderna tradition - but others argue 
that the overall hand appears (from its uprightness and discrete letters) 
to be within a more (humanist) littera antiqua tradition. What do you make 
of that?

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

PS: A long time ago, I tried writing Voynichese with an italic pen, but 
found it difficult to produce gallows characters matching the kind of 
control I found on the page. Can we say with any certainty from what we see 
whether the scribe was left-handed or right-handed?  


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