Re: VMs: MS408 Character Development

[Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>]

Maurizio M. Gavioli wrote:
> > >         Since you are here:  what do you have to say about the 
> > relation of 'humanist hand' to the Voynich script?
>
> That said, I would hesitate to put the Voynich script in relation with 
> the 'humanist hand', which I prefer to call with the name its inventors 
> gave it: _littera antiqua_; at least with the _litterae antiquae_ I know 
> (or *knew*) better, i.e. the Florentine-Roman and the Veronese (for 
> instance, Poggio Bracciolini and Giorgio Valla).
>
> And this because the Voynich script lacks precisely the basic 
> characteristic of the humanist writing reform, i.e. the 
> individualization of each character, which has been explicitly theorized 
> and opposed to the stroke assimilation of the _littera moderna_ by the 
> first 'reformers', like Niccolò Niccoli or Vespasiano da Bisticci.

	Yes, the composition from /i/ and /e/ strokes, so 
characteristic of Voynich script that it gave rise to EVA, 
which we waste so much time arguing about.  ;-)

> Neither the relatively low 'writing angle' or the roundish overall 
> aspect of the Voynich script are unheard of in the _littera moderna_ 
> world, which even sported a style openly called _littera rotunda_.

	Is _littera rotunda_ reminiscent of Voynich script? 
Where might we find examples?

> However, I would not go as far as saying that the Voynich script 
> *derives* from the _littera moderna_, but I believe reasonable to 
> maintain that the creator of the script was highly familiar with it and 
> in particular with the most cursive variants; these were widely used all 
> over Europe for mss not intended (or not *primarily* intended) for 
> circulation, like notarial notes, private notes, accounting, diaries and 
> the like and, once formalized and stylized again, gave ultimately origin 
> to the _litterae bastardae_ (to which 'family' the German Fraktur also 
> belongs).
>
> I am sorry that I can provide little solid evidence for that, beyond the 
> mere assimilation of the strokes, but I am confident a *true* 
> palaeographer could find more.
>
> Lastly, a link with the _littera moderna_ tradition is consistent with 
> the generally accepted time and place frame for its origin: by the XV c. 
> Italy has completely abandoned the _littera moderna_ for the _littera 
> antiqua_ and only in the Northern Europe that tradition was still alive. 
> Of course, Northern Europe is a fairly generic concept...

	So, you're saying that Voynich script was influenced by the 
older script in a cursive variant, and *not* the "humanist 
hand" - yet this is still consistent with 1450-1500, because 
the older style had been abandoned but not quite forgotten?

	Here are the original notes on "humanist hand" and its 
hypothesized relation to Voynich script:

http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/precednt.html

Thanks,
Dennis
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