Re: VMs: Nick's Strokes [was: thoughts etc]

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Maurizio,

At 00:26 22/02/2004 +0100, Maurizio Gavioli wrote:
> At 12:14 21/02/2004 +0000, Nick Pelling wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Why not simply from 'regular' writing? Leaving aside "weirdos" (which in 
> most cases are either cursive variants or combinations of simpler signs), 
> the 'basic' alphabet is to a great extent made of forms usual in the Latin 
> writing tradition, the exceptions being the 4 gallows plus 'j' and 'x' 
> (neither of which I remember as particularly frequent).

My answer is that the alphabet *when taken as a whole* exhibits the kind of 
conceptual wholeness of a single-stroke (OK, "single tempo"!) wax-tablet 
shorthand system. This kind of conceptual consistency is absent from the 
many cipher alphabets ("cipherbets") I've looked at (AFAICR) - why is it 
that Voynichese has such a non-accidental attribute?

> > I'd also argue that it was probably copied by a formally-trained scribe
>
> This seems to me almost tautological: a person able to write a codex was, 
> by default, assumed to have received a formal writing training: you don't 
> waste the skin of ca. 30 sheep on scribblings.

I agree - but note that many list-members beg to differ with some (or all) 
of the individual parts of this assertion (was it copied? was it a scribe? 
was he/she formally-trained? etc)

> > 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?
>
> I agree that the overall *style* of the writing is probably not unaware 
> (is litote acceptable in English?) of post-humanistic reform styles.

((( "litote" actually means "understatement" - I guess you probably mean 
either "vaguely aware of" ("subconsciously aware of") or [more likely] 
"informed by" (consciously aware of and made use of). )))

> However, the letter forms themselves are definitely in the line of the 
> _littera moderna_. I would quote at least three elements, two refer to the 
> letter forms and are partially overlapping: the great assimilation between 
> strokes and the absence (or very low presence) of turns of pens 'special' 
> for single characters, which are the foundation of the _littera antiqua_; 
> the third element is rather technical: the constant "writing angle" (i.e. 
> the angle between the pen nib and the writing line), which is 
> characteristic of the _moderna_.

Thanks - this is a good technical argument, and seems to form strong 
primary evidence for the VMs' having been written by a formally-trained scribe.

> I don't see why uprightness should be distinctive of either _littera 
> moderna_ and _littera antiqua_. Perhaps, a case should be made for the 
> Vms. writing to be more 'round-looking' than many _modernae_ (it is not of 
> the same flock of, say, black letters), but very rounded _modernae_ 
> existed too, like the _littera bononiensis_ or the _littera sti. Petri" 
> (both were very formal, and earlier, than our codex, but show that the 
> possibility was present in the system).

Note that I'm not suggesting an either-or distinction here: rather, I'm 
trying to get the point across that giving the impression that the writing 
(when taken as a whole) was located entirely within the littera moderna 
tradition would be misleading. There are elements of both at play here, if 
you look beyond the structure of the tempi e tratti. :-)

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

PS: I guess that translating "tempo" as "stroke", & "tratto" as "substroke" 
here should be sufficiently unambiguous (unless anyone has a better 
suggestion?) 


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