Re: Fw: Re: VMs: Medieval Cryptography Info

["jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

    Hello  John,
  
  
=======  You wrote:  
>> I think Rene was already attempting to point out that the resemblance of
>> the two hands in question was perhaps due to both being formed according
>> to the same general regional/temporal standard as much as anything.  

I did not question the  resemblance of those two hands, I am not qualified  to do 
that. Still, it  would be the first real proof  that  Rudolph ever saw the VM :-), not taking 
 in account the third hand information in Marci's  letter. Now how about the 
Voynich's theory about Rudolph's  dedication in the VM - was it also written by 
Rudolph as he claimed? I think it was not -  in history, there is usually too  much  hearsay, but 
very few facts. 

>> assume there was something other than shakiness and separation of letters
>> involved in identifying the hand as a Central European one of a certain
>> range of dates.

No,  hand shakiness  is not Central European  specialty :-), neither is the separation 
of letters. But the shakiness and old age certainly make the estimate of the script dating more 
difficult. For instance,  rather sharp letters may not  necessarily mean different script 
 but rather a  heavy hand.  Also, 80 year old man can still use the script of his school days :-). 

>>
>> Actually, the hand used in a manuscript is usually a fairly valuable
>> technique for dating and placing it, along with choices of abbreviation,
>> layout, folding of the parchment, etc.  

Valuable, yes, certainly, but hardly accurate enough  - as you said, it has to be confirmed from 
other sources. We have to differentiate what we want:
for author's identification, we can provide plenty of  points for comparison, 
while at  the same time discounting those saused by old age and health changes. For dating of
 some manuscript, we have to be even more careful: if we compare two different hands for
 dating,  we have to ignore all personal specifics that are not related to specifics "generally" used
 at that time. It is only some letters and numbers that can be dated with  more accuracy, since not 
all of them change enough with time fashion. With style, the accuracy is sometimes + - 200  or 
even more years.  I would consider the estimated range possible, but with less accuracy, say 
wider by  50 years on each end - mind you it is not given  my experience with scripts  but with 
dating estimates :-).  

 As for Rudolph, I doubt he would ever bother with solving  the VM  himself  or 
 even writing in it  -  he had experts to do it for him. John Dee in his diary claims  
 that as he saw, Rudolph already had   his book "Nomad  Hieroglyphica" when  he 
 first saw him,  but Emperor  himself admitted he could not understand it - it was 
 apparently just handed to  him before the interview by his advisers to  make some 
 impression on Dee.  

 Fashions in writing come and go
>> and some matters can fairly be said to have evolved, too.  This is not
>> something I can do myself, of course, and I have no idea what the
>> credentials of Rene's Strahov library curator were in this respect.

I have no doubts the  Strahov has proper experts - they have plenty of manuscripts 
there and I know a little  bit about the experts there, they are skilled all right. Again, I did not 
question their expertise, I only pointed  out the estimate was rather difficult - unless they spent 
some days  on it. And I am convinced that if you ask ten different experts, maybe 
only half would come with exactly same time  range, most likely even less than half. And 
give them writings of ten contemporaries and they may even find out they never lived         
in the same time! Just look  in several manuscripts from the same time - 
you find their scripts vary  by a mile. Sometimes the variations due to different  authors are 
much wider than the differences due to different time-fashions of the script.   

 It  is only with  the  other facts we are able to establish  the date more accurately - 
 for instance,  if we are be able to date the main text  of the  VM, we may assume 
 that the comment there was written after the VM was finished  - just   from  the  fact 
 that note is written on the last page :-).   Still, it gives us  only the earliest date for the 
 comment,  it could have been of course much later. For the same reason, we cannot 
 accurately date the VM if we know accurate date of the comment -  it could have been  
finished much earlier.  Strangekly enough, the VM looks like it is unfinished - no text follows after the last page picture, which is apparently only the corner ornament inviting some text to follow.

One undisputable fact of course is that the estimate by Strahov not only eliminates  
Horczicky and Baresh, but also Rudolph as well - he was not even born in the early 
16th century! He was born 1552 :-); then  in  1576 he became the Emperor and 
Czech king, and moved to Prague as late as 1583.  

Jan

 



______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list