See also Postscript – added at end of post, 28th. Jan. 2022.
Note 8: … ‘Kabbala’
When Anne Nill wrote to her friend Herbert Garland in 1932 about Panofsky’s viewing the manuscript, she said, “Hethinks there is some influence of the Kabbala in it.!!!!!8
The question has been hanging ever since. I know of no further comment by Panofsky, though something may be buried in the archive of his correspondence.
Elegant Enigma includes a few paragraphs under ‘Cabala’ in the section titled ‘Collateral Research’, where it is placed between Angelic magic and Alchemy.
Notice d’Imperio’s use of the past tense:
” [Cabala] depended heavily on manipulation of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and lists of sacred words and was in general highly ‘verbal’ and abstract in character in contrast to the iconic and ‘visual’ character of other magical [sic!] systems,… the manipulations of Cabala may have inspired at least some cryptographic devices’ (d’Imperio, Elegant Enigma. p.60).
Both her spelling for the word as ‘Cabala’ and her few comments suggest that d’Imperio relied on an article in the 1901-6 edition of EncyclopaediaJudaica. If so, she didn’t take to heart its authors’ admonition:
most modern scholars … have treated the Cabala with a certain bias and from a rationalistic rather than from a psychologico-historical point of view; applying the name of “Cabala” only to the speculative systems which appeared since the thirteenth century, under pretentious titles and with fictitious claims, but not to the mystic lore of the geonic and Talmudic times. Such distinction and partiality, however, prevent a deeper understanding of the nature and progress of the Cabala, which, on closer observation, shows a continuous line of development from the same [religious] roots and elements.
What d’Imperio calls ‘word-manipulation’ and thinks the mark of a magical system owed most to Abraham Abulafia, a conscious rationalist and follower of Moses Maimonides (who is sometimes called the ‘arch-rationalist’). Maimonides’ thought was – and still is – respected across the religious and sectarian divides. Of him, the Catholic Encyclopaedia writes:
“through his “Guide of the Perplexed” and the philosophical introductions to sections of his commentaries on the Mishna … [Maimonides] exerted a very important influence on the Scholastic philosophers, especially on Albert the Great, St. Thomas [Aquinas], and Duns Scotus.”
speaking of perplexity, and though off topic, I’d like to mention a paper I’ve just seen online:
[pdf] Jim Reeds, ‘Solved: The Ciphers in Book iii of Trithemius’s Steganographia’, (DRAFT: 26 March 1998).
‘Voynich’ thoughts and Kabbalah
detail of miniature in a Greek Kabbalist manuscript. Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Ottieni. courtesy Lehigh University.
An online search for ‘Voynich’ plus ‘Kabbalah’ turns up nothing to help us understand Panofsky’s remark. It may seem harsh to say that nothing said so far about the Voynich manuscript and Kabbalah has been other than trivial – but see for yourself:
In 2009, Pelling mentioned (here) that Pater Castell saw the sephiroth in one of the botanical drawings (Pelling’s illustration).
In 2013 Donald Goodell began a thread on the arch.net mailing list managed by Rich Santacoloma. See that thread here.
A conversation was begun some years ago in the online ‘Journal of Voynich Studies‘ but – as so often – the talk soon veered back to its contributors’ chief interest: the nobility and seventeenth-century Prague.
On July 5th., 2015, Marco Ponzi left a comment on Stephen Bax’s site, citing an image from a sixteenth-century Kabbalistic Greek text. (It was Ponzi’s find, but a detail from the same diagram can be seen above). Darren Worley soon provided the picture’s caption, “Influence of the moon on reading the signs of the cabala (kabbalah), miniature from the Cabalistic treatise, Greek manuscript, 16th century…etc. Ponzi doubted the caption’s accuracy, but I’m assured it’s correct.
Jan.26th., 2016, a thread opened on the forum ‘voynich.ninja’. The subject was actually Jules Janick’s published theory (with or without his name mentioned). The exchange followed the usual course.
Otherwise, Arthur O. Tucker‘s co-author, Jules Janick has made most of the general idea, pulling into Tucker’s ‘New World Voynich’ narrative the late and Christianised style of Kabbalah, knowledge of which he attributes to the missionaries. However, in overlaying the tree of Sephiroth on the Voynich map, Janick failed to notice that the quarter he designates ‘North’ is marked clearly with the rising sun which signifies East.
Texts and resources
(detail) Brit.Lib. MS Or 11791 f.8v ‘Perush Sefer Yetzirah’ cf. Brit.Lib. Add MS 26929.
As readers will realise, we are still entirely at a loss to know what about the manuscript or in it, could have led Panofsky to say he thought there was some influence from Kabbalah. Of course, he might not have expressed himself as definitely as Nill reports, but hers is the only account we have. He might simply have been musing…’Spain or somewhere southern’… Jewish… thirteenth to fifteenth century… could well be some influence from Kabbalah..’ We don’t know. The whole question is still, effectively, unexplored.
Any reader inspired with determination to solve the problem, one way or another, might like to begin with Sefer Yetzirah, (‘The Book of Formation’ (or: ‘- Creation’) which is the earliest and perhaps best known of works described as Kabbalistic, though in this case the description is debated.
“Composed in (c.200 BCE – c.200 CE). Sefer Yezirah (Book of Formation) is the title of the earliest extant book on Jewish esotericism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah.”
– from the Sefaria site‘s introduction to the parallel Hebrew/English text.
British Library MS Or.11791 Parchment codex. Commentaries on the Sefer Yetzirah (14th-15thC).
The Library recommends the following article – and so do I.
The catalogue entry for another volume highlights the need to forget parochial thinking. The various hands are described:
Script (summary): Spanish and Italian semi-cursive script; Italian semi-cursive script of the 15th century; Italian/Byzantine semi-cursive of approximately 15th century; Spanish semi-cursive of approximately 15th century; Italian/Byzantine semi-cursive of approximately 15th century.
For the total novice (as I am), a couple of easy first meetings with Kabbalist thought:
George Robinson, ‘Kabbalah in Spain‘, (undated online article). Sub-title reads, “From the 13th through the 15th century, the Iberian Peninsula was the home of most major kabbalists.”
A modern orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser, explains Kabbalah for modern believers – youtube video.
An article by Ephraim Rubin which looks like a very solid introduction to the Zohar. published as a blogpost at Kinkatso & Co.
See also:
edited from the original.
Joseph Dan, ‘Gershom Scholem’s Reconstruction of Early Kabbalah’, Modern Judaism, Vol. 5, No. 1, Gershom Scholem Memorial Issue (Feb., 1985), pp.39-66.
Hartley Lachter, ‘Spreading Secrets: Kabbalah and Esotericism in Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-kadmoni’, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 111-138.
Moshe Idel, ‘Ramon Lull and Ecstatic Kabbalah: Preliminary Observation’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 51 (1988), pp. 170-174.
Moshe Idel, ‘Maimonides’ “Guide of the Perplexed” and the Kabbalah’, Jewish History, Vol. 18, No. 2/3, Commemorating the Eight Hundredth Anniversary of Maimonides’ Death (2004), pp. 197-226
Shaul Magid, ‘From Theosophy to Midrash: Lurianic Exegesis and the Garden of Eden’, AJS Review, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1997), pp. 37-75.
Daniel Jütte, ‘Trading in Secrets: Jews and the Early Modern Quest for Clandestine Knowledge’, Isis , Vol. 103, No. 4 (December 2012), pp. 668-686. (This paper includes the discursus on Abramo Colorni – regarding whom see N.Pelling, ‘Abraham Colorni’s Cryptography…’ ciphermysteries, (Feb.9th., 2019).
The Zohar – first edition published in Mantua 1558-60 is in the Library of Congress, Hebraic Section. (Sefer ha-Zohar, 3 volumes, Mantua, 1558-60 )
_______________________
Postscript – 28th. January 2022.
I should like to acknowledge the courtesy of Koen Gheuens who wrote to let me know that about six months ago, a Voynichero called ‘Carey’ approached him, citing the same manuscript which I used here for my header and invited him to join her in creating a theory about the Voynich map. Koen only much later thought to check – as a scholar does – to see what precedents there might be for associating that same source (Brit.Lib. Or 6465 (1556) to images in the Vms and on noticing this post, maintained the same scholarly approach by writing to ask my thoughts. One appreciates such courtesies all the more for their rarity in the online ‘Voynich’ world.
For readers who might care to know the same, I’ll share two thoughts:
first. Yes, I did see points of comparison between Brit.Lib. Or 6465 and details in the Voynich map – which is why I included a couple of details from it in the post. BUT that scroll was made at least eight generations after the last recension of the Voynich manuscript, and about a century and a half after our present copy was made.
Brit.Lib. Or 6465 is dated to1556.
Secondly, to suppose that any viable ‘Voynich-Kabbalah’ storyline could be developed by any persons without the essential preliminaries – that is, the necessary languages and study under a scholar specialising in medieval Jewish religious thought and writings – is an idea more informed by self-confidence than by reason. Kabbalist studies were not casual reading; it was recommended only for mature adults (over 25) who would by then have had not less than thirteen years’ prior study in religious texts and commentaries- in Hebrew, in Aramaic and related dialects, and in such Jewish dialects as Judeo-Occitan or Judeo-Catalan etc.
That said, if Koen Gheuens and ‘Carey’ (f.) are keen enough to take the topic seriously – and far more seriously than d’Imperio did – I hope they’ll find a suitably qualified Jewish scholar to provide a detailed and well-informed opinion before publication.
Notes 2, 3 & 4: dating and provenancing ‘shapely ladies’
second edition, edited and updated – 15th. Feb. 2019
Anne Nill? detail (reversed) from a photo posted at voynich.nu No source given.
Anne Nill wrote:
[on first seeing the copy, Panofsky] became intensely interested and seemed to think the MS. early, perhaps as early as the 13th century2 … but as he came to the female figures3 in connection with the colours used in the manuscript4 he came to the conclusion that it could not be earlier than the 15th century!
*’colours’ – he was first shown worn black-and-white negative copies.
“13thC? …..15th? ….
Anne Nill conflates a question about dating manufacture (‘range of colours’), with one about dating content ( ‘shapely ladies’) though it’s true that both together had caused Panofsky’s hesitation.
Eight decades on, the revisionist can consider each item separately and Panofsky’s original judgement appears justified on both counts: manufacture, 15thC; matter gained from older sources. Some of those sources may indeed have been thirteenth-century.
‘Colours’ – The manuscript’s Palette:
detail from: Bexur, Driscoll, Lemay, Mysak, Stenger and Zyats, ‘Physical Findings’ in the Yale facsimile edition pp.23-37. original caption slightly edited but not altered.
Panofsky’s first dating manufacture of the manuscript to ‘not earlier than the fifteenth century’ would eventually become the consensus among persons whose work was in evaluating manuscripts. By the early 1960s, as d’Imperio recorded:
“Helmut Lehmann-Haupt..stated in a letter to Tiltman dated 1 November 1963 that “there was near agreement on the date of the cipher manuscript as around, or a little after, the year 1400”.
Elegant Enigma (1978) p.8*
*note – typographic error in the original. Properly – ‘Hellmut…’. [note added 26 April 2019]
These unnamed specialists, and Panofsky before them, were validated finally in 2011 by the vellum’s radiocarbon range : 1404-1438.
I’ll leave the subject of pigments for a later post, where I’ll compare Panofsky’s statement with Dr. Carter’s descriptive list of the palette (recorded by d’Imperio), and by reference to a scientific study which was included in the Yale facsimile edition. Since the 1930s, and indeed since 1954 – we have developed more precise techniques for analysis and identification.
Comment – Shapely figures
Panofsky was quite right to say that ‘shapely’ women (whom we’ll define by their swelled bellies) would not become a Latin fashion until the fifteenth century, but with more medieval manuscripts known today, we can say his original opinion may not have needed second-thoughts on this account, for research into the imagery in Spanish-and-Jewish manuscripts indicates that the form does occur there earlier, though interestingly only to represent metaphorical or allegorical ‘bodies’. The closest comparison found so far – since we must take both stylistics and apparent subject into account – is the ‘Gemini’ in MS Sassoon 823 (now: UPenn MS LJS 057). The remarkably close similarity suggests a need to revise much of what has been generally assumed about the Voynich ‘ladies’.
(detail) f.77r
As our header shows, the ‘swelled belly’ emerged as an effort to imitate drawings in the first (pre-Ulugh Beg) illustrations found in copies of al-Sufi’s Book of the Constellations. Those images in turn had reflected the traditions of pre-Islamic peoples, including but not limited to, those of the Greeks and Romans. The rounded belly was most characteristic of an Indo-Persian style and we must consider that the works of al-Biruni may have had some part to play in first formulation of the drawings illustrating al-Sufi’s tenth-century composition.
That remains to be seen. However, the header for this post illustrates the progression of the style; the left panel shows a detail from the ‘Gemini’ in an eleventh-century Iraqi copy of al-Sufi’s text; the centre shows the Gemini from MS Sassoon 823, whose content is a compilation of astronomical works, out together in 1361 in Catalonia, and the third panel is from another compilation, in a manuscript made (as we know) during the early decades of the fifteenth century.
The fourteenth-century Catalonian-Jewish figure has more in common with the Voynich manuscript’s unclothed figures than just the quirk which sees many of the bellies given a slightly-angular form.
They also have in common their curiously-formed ankles, flat feet and boneless-looking arms – none of which elements appear in extant Islamic copies of al-Sufi’s constellation-illustrations, and none of which mars the later, more literal, fifteenth century ‘shapely women’ of Latin (i.e. western Christian) art.
There are differences evident, too. A majority of the Voynich figures have heads disproportionately large, as the Catalonian figure does not. More importantly (because even rarer ) many are drawn with overly large thighs in combination with bone-thin shanks, something shown most clearly in the Voynich ‘bathy-‘ sub-section, and which again is present neither in the Catalonian figure, nor in any remaining copies of al-Sufi’s work of which I’m aware.
That stylistic habit is not absolutely unknown, though since it speaks more to the route by which the material had reached the west than our present subject, I leave it aside.
On the matter of proportions, which topic I’d brought forward quite early for its significance, the general indifference saw it ignored at that time, but more recently we have had a lucid ‘revisionist’ post on the subject by Koen Gheuens, which I recommend:
the chief point to be taken from this is that Panofsky’s judgement of ‘southern and Jewish’ content again finds support in the style of that drawing in a manuscript predating the Voynich manuscript’s manufacture by at least forty years, and perhaps as much as sixty.
The possibility that its precedents could date from as early as the the reign of Alfonso X (1254-1282) relies on the context in which the Sassoon ‘Gemini’ occurs, for even in Sassoon 823 its style of drawing stands apart. To clarify, I rely on a paper by Fischer, Langermann and Kunitzsch, describing in detail the sections comprising the compilation of Sassoon 823/LJS 057. The optional Preface clarifies another ‘ground hog day’ issue but skipping it will not lose anything from the main topic.
Optional preface:History of Sassoon 823/LJS 057 in Voynich studies.
I came across a notice of sale and acquisition for MS Sassoon 823 in 2011 in the course of my principal (non-Voynich-related) research.
Its description contained a greater-than-usual number of points in common with the Voynich manuscript – though at that time I was still the only person in the second mailing list to hold that Beinecke MS 408 was also a compilation from several earlier sources. (Today, I daresay, most would claim it general knowledge, and some would assert having known it all along. Perhaps, if so, they might have lent a word of support at the time.) Hunting more details of the manuscript, I had only an abstract of the article by Fischer et.al. when I posted a note (in my old blogger blog, Findings) on Nov. 21st., 2011, listing the features I considered it had in common with the Voynich manuscript. (At the time, a couple of the ‘German’ theorists were disputing use of the term ‘vellum’ and claiming the material could just as easily be described as German parchment.. which isn’t so, but they’ve come right on that matter since.)
A codex – probably fourteenth century – from the Iberian peninsula or thereabouts (Ceuta?) contains illustrations with human figures drawn short, and with distended bellies. One of these illustrations (for Gemini) is shown on p.288 of the article cited below. That same article, written in 1988, provides the few details about the ms…
Article: Karl A. F. Fischer, Paul Kunitzsch and Y. Tzvi Langermann, “The Hebrew Astronomical Codex MS. Sassoon 823” The Jewish Quarterly Review , New Series, Vol. 78, No. 3/4 (Jan. – Apr., 1988), pp. 253-292
which says that the ms in question is:
*Inscribed in an ‘early’ Spanish hand.
*A florilegium – i.e. a collection of extracts.
*Vellum (?) rather than parchment.
*Total number of pages is greater than the Vms… but
*quires are also 8 pages each.
adding:
There is also apparently a book [which could be an intro. plus facsimile, at 292 pages]: Karl Adolf Franz Fischer, Paul Kunitzsch, Yitzhak Tzvi Langermann, The Hebrew astronomical codex ms. Sassoon 823, Center for advanced Judaic studies, University of Pennsylvania, (1994) – 292 pages.
As you’ll see, some of those details were mistaken: the provenance is now established as Catalonia and the library presently holding it is clear about the date: 1361.
The next year, still unable to get hold of a copy of the larger study, and with the manuscript not (yet) online, I put out the word again – through my still-fairly-new wordpress blog, voynichimagery (‘Curiosities’, Friday, Nov.2nd., 2012)
Still no response from any of the thousand or so who read that post.
By 2013, I was about to give it up, but because I had not found anywhere a drawing so like in both form and style to the Voynich ‘ladies’ as the Sassoon manuscript’s ‘Gemini’, I followed that manuscript’s progress after its purchase by the University of Pennyslvania (where it would be re-classified Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection, MS 057).
By 2013 I was also frustrated that no other Voynich researcher had yet investigated exactly where and when ‘swelled belly’ figures begin appearing in Europe’s Latin (western Christian) art, so I set out to investigate both topics in parallel and in earnest. I acquired a photocopy of Sassoon 823/LJS 057… which was later digitised by UPenn.
Some of my research and results I shared in the context of posts about Beinecke MS 408, published at voynichimagery through 2013-2014. Two, for example, are:
D.N. O’Donovan, ‘The ‘beastly’ Lombardy Herbal Pt1 – female forms’ (22nd July 2013); and then (e.g.)
__________________, ‘ Talking about art and codicology’, ( 26th October 2014).
I referenced the paper of 1988 which I’d first read in 2011 – and from which I quote again further below.
Karl A. F. Fischer, Paul Kunitzsch, Tzvi Langermann, ‘The Hebrew Astronomical Codex MS Sassoon 823’, The Jewish Quarterly Review, LXXVIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 1988) 253-292.
The most important discovery, in my opinion, was that the Sassoon ‘Gemini’ served as support not only for Panofsky’s location and character for the Voynich manuscript, but also for my own conclusions (published as early as 2011) that it is not only the ‘ladies’ in the calendar’s tiers, but all of them (and associated males) which were intended for celestial/immaterial ‘bodies’/souls. To some extent, Nick Pelling (among others?) had sensed something of this in calling the figures “nymphs” – but it was also understood or intuited as early as 1921, by Professor Romaine Newbold, albeit he had interpreted that idea within the terms of late-classical neoPlatonist philosophy, rather than those of pragmatic astronomies. (Some years later, Koen Gheuens would do something of the same, but in terms of the Latin mainstream and its standard texts: For the record, my own view is that we are seeing an older, more pragmatic tradition whose closest ‘cousins’ in the western Mediterranean are those of the navigator and chart-maker, whose terrestrial and celestial grids are constantly superimposed on one another. However…
Having followed the trail of Sassoon 823 after its sale, corresponded with the new owner, written about it in posts (which were then still online and with the blog’s ranking, highly likely to turn up on any search), I was disappointed to see that Darren Worley failed to refer to the precedent when, in 2017, he left a comment at Stephen Bax’ site announcing the existence of Sassoon 823/LJS 057 in a way suggesting it a newly idea within the study.
At that time I had a manuscript – a set of twelve essays – in the last stages of preparation for publication at that time; and since academic editors do prefer no doubt should exist about the originality of work they have commissioned, I asked Darren to acknowledge the precedent for form’s sake. He did not. No-one wants to be put in the position of being asked, in effect, why if their work is original, the same material is now seen everywhere (including voynich.nu and wikipedia) with not a mention of one’s own name as the first to have contributed the research, conclusions or insight.
Given that this relatively minor incident was only one of the great many similar – and worse instances that I’d had to deal with over almost a decade, I had no option but to stop sharing original material online, and to close voynichimagery from the public – which I did soon after. The issue has nothing to do with money, or copyright; it has to do with transparency and the honest mapping of the subject’s development over time. (see the ‘About’ page)
On a brighter note, Worley’s comment itself had value. I recommend it for his observation about the quire signatures which I have not seen made before.
The TEXTS IN MS SASSOON 823 AND THEIR PICTURES: Bar Hiyya, al-Sufi and anonymous. NON-LATIN LINEAGE.
Sassoon 823/LJS 057 was made almost forty years earlier than the posited ‘1400’, and fully half a century before the Voynich manuscript was made.
Whether Panofsky was right or not in first attributing the content in Beinecke MS 408 to the thirteenth century, its ‘swelled-belly’ figures offer no objection to a ‘southern and Jewish’ character ‘with Arabic influences’ – for that is precisely how the manuscript is described which offers our closest-known comparison for the unclothed Voynich ‘ladies’.
Of the astronomical drawings in Sassoon 823, Fisher et.al. comment:
… the figures found in the Sassoon manuscript cannot have been copied from a manuscript of the Sufi latinus corpus, and equally not from an Islamic celestial globe. The only remaining possibility is that they were selected and copied from an Arabic manuscript of al-Sufi’s treatise.”
The text accompanying the Gemini figure (p.225) comes from an unnamed source, and the ‘Gemini’ image itself is not drawn in a way closely akin to any other, even in that manuscript.
The content in pages 195-228 is described altogether as “Astronomical Tables by Abraham bar Hiyya and others” and In bold letters at the top of page 195 is written: “From here onwards, from the Jerusalem Tables of the Nasi’ R. Hiyya the Spaniard, of blessed memory”
Kunitzsch adding his comment:
‘I know of no medieval astronomer by that name; however, the Nasi’ R. Abraham bar Hiyya is, of course, very well known, and in fact the tables in this entry up to page 214 are indeed his tables. On the other hand, I know of no other reference to Bar Hiyya’s tables as the “Jerusalem Tables.” …
The ‘Gemini’ image (p.225) belongs to the additional, anonymous, material occupying pp. 215-28 which “deals mainly with astrology. Some of these tables are found in at least two other manuscripts which contain Bar Hiyya’s tables: Chicago, Newberry Library Or. 101, and Vatican Heb. 393. Other items are unique to our manuscript…
ibid. p.272.
Chicago, Newberry Library Heb.MS 2 (unfoliated)
The ‘Gemini’ image may then have been brought into the Sassoon compendium with its anonymous(?) tables, not designed by Bar Hiyya but found with his in at least two other manuscripts. What is not known is how early the sources were joined – nor where – though ultimately the ‘Gemini’ (which we accept as deriving from an Arabic manuscript copy of al-Sufi’s ‘Book of the Constellations’ ) has to derive from the versions made before the time of Ulugh Beg, after which Gemini is differently represented.
Bar Hiyya was known to the Latins as Abraham Judeus, and was born three generations after al-Sufi’s death. (Al-Sufi 903-986; Bar Hiyya 1065—1136 AD).
Those manuscripts cited as containing the same tables, together with Bar Hiyya’s are not both presently accessible online, and Vatican Ebr.393 (1497 AD) though digitised contains contains no constellation drawings. (Catalogue entry here.) The Newberry Library informs me that the article by Fischer et.al. is mistaken. They have no ‘MS Or.101’, but they do have Heb.MS 2, whose content appears to be as described in that article. There are no constellation drawings in this copy. At right, a reduced copy of one of the images very kindly sent me by the library.
Sidenote – ‘Jerusalem’. David King demonstrated that in al-Andalus some at least had knowledge of Jerusalem latitudes; an astrolabe dated c.1300 has all its inscriptions save one in Arabic, the exception transliterating into Hebrew script the Arabic ” لعرض بیت المقدس لب li-ʿarḍ Bayti ‘l-Maqdis lām bā’” – “for the latitude of Jerusalem, 32°”.
Abu Zayed & King & Schmidl, “From a heavenly Arabic poem to an enigmatic Judaeo-Arabic astrolabe” (2011), crediting the Khalili Collection, London for the image.
David A. King, ‘Astronomy in medieval Jerusalem’ (Pt.2), revised and shortened 2018, available through academia.edu
On Stephen Bax’ site (now in other hands) you will find various comments referring to Spain and to Spanish manuscripts, the work (chiefly by Darren Worley and Marco Ponzi) reviving and expanding the long-neglected opinion of Panofsky, and later variation in Fr.Theodore Petersen’s work.
Checking the files of Reeds’ mailing list is always worthwhile; and I’d also suggest searching Nick Pelling’s long-running blog, ciphermysteries. Running a search there before pursuing a ‘new line’ too far can often save you much time and effort – because even if Pelling has not looked at the subject himself, he may well mention that another researcher did.
A revisionist will want to revise past ideas and efforts, but it is always as well to begin by knowing what those were.
With regard to the ‘shapely ladies’ in Beinecke MS 408, I should mention that the opinion of Fischer et. al. appears to preclude any close connection between them and the ‘2312 virgins’ which appear in a 9thC Byzantine diagram within Vat.Lat. gr. 1291.[Vatican City, Lateran Palace collection, Greek ms 1291]. The comparison has often – in fact continually – been re-produced since 2001 though without any effort to produce a formal argument, so far as I can discover. It would appear to have been introduced to the study by Dana Scott in a post to Reeds’ mailing list (Mon. 12th. Feb. 2001), because ten days later (Thurs, 22nd. Feb 2001) Adam McLean refers to the diagram as if only recently mentioned. The point remains a little uncertain because link to the image which Dana attached and labelled ‘Ptolemy’ no longer works.
an overlooked typo corrected, with apologies to readers, on Nov.23rd., 2019.
Note: Swelled bellies in fourteenth century Bohemia.
Probably irrelevant to Beinecke MS 408, I include this for the Voynicheros fascinated by Rudolf and his world.
The same essay continues:
To which globe are the (hemisphere) illustrations in the Sassoon manuscript most closely related? The answer is probably the globe of the King of Bohemia, Wenceslaus II (or III ?), which is now kept in Bernkastel-Kues and was first described by Hartmann.
The Spanish origin of the star catalogue in Sassoon 823 has already been established in Part I of this article (i.e. by Fischer, Kunitzsch and Langermann), .
Since the star illustrations in the Sassoon manuscript are similar to both Vienna codex 5318[not digitised] which is considered to belong to the same family as Catania 87 [not found online] and the two hemispheres on pp. 112-13 of Vienna Codex 5415 [see Warburg database], and since both of these Latin manuscripts now located at Vienna originate from Prague, one ought to consider the possibility of Spanish influence on the manuscripts executed at Prague.
In the middle ages there were relations between the royal courts at Prague and Castile. The father of the present writer conducted research in Spanish archives before the civil war in that country which were destroyed in that conflict. He found there that the first known astronomer in Prague was sent as a “gift” by King Alfonso of Castille to Premysl Ottakar II King of Bohemia. … Previous scholars have frequently noted that Prague was the place of origin of many astronomical atlases.
ibid. p.284
(Premysl Ottokar II was King of Bohemia 1253 -1278; – D)
The Bohemian line of development shows an absence of some characteristics shared by the Voynich figures and those in Sassoon 823. Nor does the Voynich calendar show Gemini in this form But for the ‘ladies’ in the Vms’ bathy-section and for some of the surrounding figures in the calendar, we may suggest as one explanation, common emergence from that earlier, non-Latin al-Sufi textual tradition current in Spain, the Bohemian works having been gained by second-hand exposure to them. Of three examples illustrated by Fischer in another paper, it is only that dated c.1350 which distinguishes the female figure by small, high breasts and none shows similar style for the limbs and hair as we see in the Sassoon manuscript.
Another section Sassoon 823 (pp. 25-29) contains extracts from Abraham Ibn Ezra’s astrological works – interesting in view of our earlier reference to the Voynich calendar’s month-names and their orthography.
Ibn Ezra, who also translated Ibn al-Muthanna’s commentary on the tables of al-Khwarizmi, is recorded – in the Parma version – as saying “The tables in the Almagest are useless”
above quoted from p.255 of Fisher et.al., ‘Hebrew Astronomical Codex….’
and just to show that the eastern ‘swelled belly’ was often difficult for Latins to interpret, here’s what was made of it c.1300 by a draughtsman in Paris: the belly becomes a rib-cage, twisted sideways.
Prague 1350 AD
Few heeded the distinction between dates of composition and those of manufacture:
The point is that this distinction between dates for manufacture and for content, when considered in concert with other items of evidence, (some of which have already been mentioned in these posts) obliges us to take seriously the possibility that our manuscript is a fifteenth-century copy of material gained from sources which may date to the thirteenth century – or earlier.
This is something which had been suggested even while the cryptanalysts were involved, half a century ago. In 1969 Tiltman seems to attribute to both Panofsky and the keeper of manuscripts his saying:
… the manuscript as we have it may be a copy of a much earlier document.
Quotation above from [pdf] John Tiltman, ‘The Voynich manuscript: “the most mysterious manuscript in the world”‘(1968).
Afterword:
Other than John Tiltman, the record of d’Imperio’s Elegant Enigma shows that the cryptanalysts around William Friedman evince a lack of regard for opinions of specialists in their own subjects. Friedman is recorded complaining of the ‘naivety’ of university men and his behaviour towards Newbold and towards Panofsky reinforces this impression.
That curious indifference may be due partly to the diversity of those opinions, partly to individual bias, and in the case of Erwin Panofsky partly his uncooperative response in 1954, but more than those – so it appears to me – was the dichotomy presented by those opinions versus the cryptanalysts’ confidence that they had a role, and an important role, to play in the manuscript’s study.
Had they accepted the opinion of early fifteenth century date, they would have had to abandon their fixed belief that the written part of the text was ciphertext – one so resistant to their cryptological attacks that they must presume it the invention of a highly sophisticated Latin, one having access to techniques not attested until the … late fifteenth century… early sixteenth century… late sixteenth century… early seventeenth century…
Marcus Marci’s reporting the Rudolf-rumour had one clear benefit for this study. It set a definite limit on such rovings. Rudolf’s death occured in 1621.
Today, the ‘cipher-or-language… or other’ question remains unresolved, but the date for manufacture is set within narrow limits and obliges us to date the content, therefore, before that period 1404-1438.
And the content, like the ‘shapely ladies’ may derive from sources considerably earlier – as two of those specialists had pointed out.
In sum: Panofsky dated the pigments – and hence manufacture – in the fifteenth century. He was right. By reference to the ‘swelled belly’ figures, Panofsky felt his initial view of the content as “early… perhaps as early as the thirteenth century” could not be correct, and since he had no knowledge of that custom in art of the western Mediterranean before the fifteenth century, so he felt he must shift the date for content to co-incide with than of manufacture: 15thC. Given the resources available today, we are able to say he was right about a pre=fifteenth-century date for composition,* since the ‘Gemini’ in Sassoon 823 is in a manuscript dated 1361, and made as he said by Jews of ‘Spain or somewhere southern’.
*the ‘pre=‘ dropped out during editing. Replaced today (15th Feb. 2019) with apologies to readers.
Moreover, that image occurs in a manuscript whose matter dates to a much earlier period and some of which is, in fact, dated to the thirteenth century and the time of Alfonzo X, a court in which (again as Panofsky said) you find influence from Islamic art in Jewish – and in Christian – art.
Panofsky had been in America since September of 1931, invited as guest lecturer by Professor Cook:
Two years before the enforced exodus of the intellectual élite that followed the advent of Hitler, Panofsky became a regular guest professor in the United States, at the invitation of Professor Cook. He [Panofsky] lectured in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the auspices of what was to become the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University’s graduate department of art history, and immediately made a deep impression on his American colleagues and students.
William S. Heckscher, ‘Erwin Panofsky: A Curriculum Vitae’, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, Vol. 28, No. 1, Erwin Panofsky: In Memoriam (1969), pp. 4-21. (p.13).
[Biography] Dr. Walter S. Cook, in whose honour annual lectures are presented at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts.
The meeting with Mrs. Voynich is most easily explained by positing that both were consulting medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the Pierpont Morgan Library, for it was a worker there (the librarian?) Ms.Greene who offered to introduce Mrs. Voynich to the Professor.
“Mrs. Voynich has been working at the Morgan Library, and Miss Greene continues to be most friendly and helpful. A short time ago she volunteered the opinion that she did not think any scholar in this country would be able to help us with the problem … [but now] a certain Dr. Erwin Panofsky … is at present in New York and Miss Greene suggested that she bring him and Mrs. Voynich together- very decent of her don’t you think.” – Letter from Anne Nill to H.Garland, (Feb 10th., 1932).
Mrs. Voynich first showed Panofsky the worn negative photostats, perhaps late in 1931, but he saw the manuscript itself the next year – on Feb. 5th 1932. (see first post in this series)
Panofsky’s subsequent career in America; the value of his private (1932) assessment of the manuscript.
Panofsky’s appointment to the Institute of Fine Arts in New York in 1933 and to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1935, together with his extraordinary productivity and high profile as public lecturer in the following three decades guaranteed him a stellar career, and an influence within the discipline, and the humanities in general, that was then unrivalled for an art historian. …One of the serious shortcomings of Panofsky’s approach to images was his unwillingness to explore the social matrices in which [pictures] were produced and used.
(review) Irving Lavin (ed.), Meaning in the Visual Arts: Views from the Outside. A Centennial Commemoration of Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) (1995) reviewed by Robert W.Gaston in International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Spring, 1998), pp. 613-623.
Panofsky wrote primarily on late medieval and Renaissance art in northern Europe and Italy, and mostly, but by no means exclusively, on painting.
He was not omniscient, nor dispassionate. He revered humanism and like the majority of his own time, idealised the model of the auteur as creative spirit gifted with superior sensitivity, perception and so forth. It is the more appealing, humanist and individualist, counterpart for that obsession with the dominant white male which infused the whole of medieval Latin art and remained a preoccupation of historians in the European tradition for most of the twentieth century.
Where Panofsky’s opinion differed from the majority.
Non-Latin
Absence of the ‘dominant white male’ theme – and numerous other defining themes of Latin (i.e. western Christian) art – from the imagery in MS Beinecke 408 is a powerful argument for the content’s non-Latin origin – something Panofsky recognised. He attributed it to southern (Sephardi?) Jewish origin saying he recognised influence from Islamic style and from Kabbalah. If he ever elaborated on these things in writing, no record of it has come to light.
There are details in the manuscript which express the Mediterranean and/or Latin (i.e. western European) traditions – but in the present writer’s view these are plainly late-phase additions. They include (of course) post-manufacture items such as marginalia, but some details in the body of the work – principally the central motifs in the calendar’s diagrams.
It never occurred to Wilfrid Voynich to suppose the work other than the individual creation (autograph) of an individual, ‘superior type’ and a white male European. Nor, apparently did others look much further than southern Europe and the figure of Ramon Llull.
This phenomenon,by which the world is effectively defined as Europe – and into which nothing comes except by the authority and choice of a Latin European male – was usual among nineteenth century historians and particularly the Anglo-German school. It affected assumptions then, and is still with us, having deeply impacted on the course, nature and direction of the manuscript’s study for most of the period from 1912-2015.
The present author found, still, in 2014, that the majority of Voynicheros imagine it impossible that anything of non-European origin could be found in Europe except that Latin European had fetched it or commissioned its being brought. This is what we call the ‘White Wall’ phenomenon, and that it should persist to the present day would surely distress Lynn White – a pioneer in the history of cross-cultural exchange upon whose pioneering studies so much more has now been built.
.Lynn White, Jr., ‘Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages’, Speculum, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Apr., 1940), pp. 141-159
________________, ‘Tibet, India, and Malaya as Sources of Western Medieval Technology’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Apr., 1960), pp. 515-526.
________________, ‘Indic Elements in the Iconography of Petrarch’s Trionfo della Morte’, Speculum, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Apr., 1974), pp. 201-221
Panofsky does not suggest the manuscript’s content came from any great distance, but the very fact that he could see the content does not evince the culture of Latin Europe sets his opinion of the manuscript apart from the majority.
Though apparently Panofsky’s 1932 assessment came to be known to the Friedman group, neither it nor his responses of 1954 were given much weight by the cryptanalysts. In 1978 d’Imperio knows so little of Panofsky’s work that she imagines him unaware of the work of Albertus Magnus (!)
Non-authorial
Panofsky differs again from the reflexive assumptions made by those writing about the manuscript from 1912-1954.
He does not imagine any ‘author’ for the whole work in 1933 and even in 1945, speaks of a nameless figure, almost a generic one: the man writing down his life-time’s learning for his son. Even that idea seems to imply that much of what is written is to be seen as inherited from an earlier time.
The majority simply presumed the work the creation of a Latin ‘author’ and the matter contemporaneous with the present manuscript’s inscription.
On the other hand, Panofsky no more than anyone else during the twentieth century imagined that the work could be entirely derivative.
In 1932 he saw it emerging from a community rather than an individual. BY 1954, in answer to Q.10, he speaks of “a doctor or quack trying to impart what he considered secret knowledge to a son or heir”.
Social history did not exist as yet, except as a means to make lessons attractive for children or by way of that idealisation of medieval artisans reflected by the ‘arts and crafts movement‘.
The first English-language History of Technology – its first volume – was published only in 1954, under Charles’ Singer’s editorship.
The interaction between the history of events and the history of economic factors has always been in flux, and though England is given much credit for the study’s development, even in the 1950s it was often dismissed as ‘mere commerce’.
Social history as a scholarly discipline only gained general recognition in the 1960s (initially termed ‘laundry-list history’) and women’s history gained its place still later.
Comparative cultural studies were almost unheard of, and Lynn White struggled against the ‘white wall’ phenomenon for thirty years and more.
In the context of his time, Panofsky’s approach to the manuscript and his forming opinions solely from the primary evidence – though by reference to his own wide range of substantial study – makes his the most important commentary we have on the subject of the imagery, even now.
Because it suited the Friedmans believe that the text was a very clever, unique, cipher, they were obliged to adopt an ‘authorial’ idea of the manuscript, and this has proven a persistent habit in the study, though less emphasised since about 2011.
Composite of earlier matter.
I take as implied by the answer he gave to Friedman’s Q.10 that Panofsky saw the manuscript as deriving from earlier matter; something of the same implication might be taken from his alluding to Kabbalah in 1932.
The ‘authorial’ idea carried an expectation of the homogenous autograph, an idea found in most commentaries on the manuscript to as late as 2010-2011, when the present author was obliged to ‘run the gauntlet’ in the second mailing list for saying the content could be no autograph, nor the work of a single author, because the stylistic variations indicated derivation from at least three earlier sources, each manifesting a distinct history and line of transmission to Europe.
That opinion is now widely accepted – without reference to the present author’s evidence and argument – because after some months, one contributor to that mailing list recalled that the word ‘compilation’ is found somewhere in the ‘Voynich gospel’ – d’Imperio’s booklet of 1978. This official ‘sanction’ permitted the then-radical shift from the traditional ‘authorial’ to ‘non-authorial’ approach. ( My thanks to Don Hoffman for being the first to brave the picket-line and adopt the conclusions of my work, even use of the technical term ‘florilegium’ – which in medieval times meant a collection of textual, not botanical, items).
Setting aside Newbold’s categories.
Panofsky was among the very few to offer any explanation of the manuscript and of its content by reference to the primary document itself, and he never adopted Newbold’s impressionistic categories as others did – including the cryptanalysts’ who merely elaborated them.
He avoided both the ‘authorial’ notion and Newbold’s idea of a specifically ‘biological’ section.
Once again, neither Panofsky’s opinion, (nor the substantial evidence and argument provided by the present writer from 2009) saw the abandonment of Newbold’s and Friedman’s “categories” – with the result that one still sees Voynich narratives produced and adopted which unsupported by the historical evidence.
On efforts to justify the ‘biological’ idea see e.g.
I am told, though have not the details, that a contributor to voynich.nu voynich.ninja is presently (Jan-Feb 2019) reprising Velinksa’s ideas and approach, though whether properly acknowledging the precedents, including Velinska’s work, you must discover for yourself. In either case, it is a nonsense within any theory insisting the manuscript entirely the product of Latin European culture. Da Vinci was a hundred years before his time, and he wasn’t born until 1519: at best eighty years after the manuscript was made, and at worst (for such ideas) almost a century.
But the persistence of such notions relies, ultimately on an impression expressed by William Romaine Newbold.
Opinions as conclusions from evidence.
Unlike the majority of Voynich writers, before him or since, Panofsky derived his opinions from the primary source and solid historical and iconographic evidence.
Every extant study by him displays a consistent rigor and his sense of obligation to the reader: he will explain how he reached each point in his conclusions by reference to direct, specific, and verifiable reference across a wide range of historical, textual and art-historical material – always with a focus on the primary evidence. One may differ, but one is never asked simply ‘to believe’. His aim is not persuasion but elucidation. It constitutes a forensic approach which was to that time, and is largely still, scarcely employed in discussions of Beinecke MS 408.
One must suppose that had he been asked to do so, Panofsky could have produced a study of the manuscript – its form and imagery – which would have substantially altered our understanding of its content.
But all he was asked to do was fill out Friedman’s questionnaire.
A brief outline of Panofsky’s usual practice is offered here.
Thanks to Rich Santacoloma for permission to quote from his transcription of Anne Nill’s letter.
Richard Santacoloma, ‘Anne Nill speaks‘, proto57, (January 16, 2013).
[To Herbert Garland, Feb 10th., 1932] 1.
…. the upshot of it was that a certain Dr. Erwin Panofsky of that institute is at present in New York and Miss Greene suggested that she bring him and Mrs. Voynich together- very decent of her don’t you think. So Mrs. Voynich met him at the Morgan Library where she showed him the photostats (note that they are negatives and now in poor condition, having greatly faded in some parts). He became intensely interested and seemed to think the MS. early, perhaps as early as the 13th century.2 He asked to see the original, which we showed to him last Friday [= Feb.5th., 1932 -D. Rich adds: “they must have taken him to the safe deposit box”].
(detail) fol 70v
[On seeing the original, Panofsky’s] first impression was that it was early, but as he came to the female figures3 (in conjunction with the colors used in the manuscript)4 he came to the conclusion that it could not be earlier than the 15th century! The more I think of it (always making allowance for my slender knowledge of art) the more I think that his contention is sound. I cannot think of a single early MS. or painting which contains such “shapely” female figures as those in the MS. (See 3)
Furthermore he is convinced that the MS. is Spanish (or something southern near Spain)5 and shows strong Arabic 6 and Jewish influences.7 He thinks there is some influence of the Kabbala in it.!!!!!8
Well, all that would make it interesting, anyway. You know both Professor Thompson* and Professor Manly* have been suggesting Spanish for some time (thought there might be something Lullian in it)…
*”Professor Thompson” is James Westfall Thompson (University of Chicago 1895-1933; UCBerkely 1933-1941).
**”Professor Manly is John Matthews Manly, an American Professor of English Literature (chiefly Shakespeare and Chaucer) .
Dr. Panofsky examined the two more-or-less visible sentences (one on the key page and one on page 17 [r]) 9 … which are apparently not in cipher and seemed to think they were Spanish rather than Latin (or rather something that had to do with Spanish).10
details from folio 17r. Comparison of script-sizes. The larger script is standard ‘Voynichese’ while the smaller (inset) is the ‘plain text’ marginal inscription whose regional dialect is still not certainly identified.
I am inclined to think he is right. He also noticed, what I am pleased to say I had noticed before, that the names of the months written in the plates of the signs of the Zodiac, and undoubtedly by a later hand, seem to suggest Spanish. For example April is written “Abril”. October is “Octembre” (or Octember I forget which), which certainly suggest some form of Spanish, rather than Latin or French or Italian.11
The upshot of it is that we have given him a whole set of photostats for his institute, as he wants two men there to work on it. One of them (I think Professor Salomon or Liebeschutz)12 seems identified some remarkable Vatican manuscript (written in a senseless sort of Latin if I remember rightly) which had defied scholars for a long time.13
Perhaps they will not react to it as he seems to think they will, but if they do, we have achieved at least one of the things Mr. Voynich wanted- it was just this method of attack, in an institute, that he always hoped for and didn’t think was possible to secure for it unless the MS. was sold to an Institution. It now looks as if it might be possible to start some work of this sort on it even if we cannot sell the MS. at this time.”
Anticipating material to be part of later posts, here (below) is a map shows the region of which Panofsky was evidently thinking. And so too were Manly, Thompson and Fr. Petersen, because Ramon Llull was born in the shortlived independent kingdom of Majorca. But in this western limit of the Mediterranean we find it all; Occitan and Catalan; Pronounced Jewish and ‘Arab’ influence, early Kabbalah and so on.
erratum for ‘Lull’ read ‘Llull’
Variant forms of Occitan occur, some blending with varieties of Catalan.
Pelling once suggested the calendar’s month-names were in the dialect of Toulouse.
Gerona (mod. Girona) was an early flourishing centre of Kabbalah, and is still noted for that reason. Here Rabbi Jacob ben Sheshet of Gerona composed (between 1230-1240) the book called ‘Responding with Correct Answers (Response of Correct Answers)’. Its Chapter 2 is included, in English translation, in
Joseph Dan et.al., The Early Kabbalah, Classics in Western Spirituality series (1986). pp.133-150
Avignon, Montpellier, Perpingnan were all centres of Jewish learning and relative safety.
Joint Muslim and Byzantine rule over the Balearics had been followed by sole Muslim governance before the islands were taken once more by the Latins. Evidence of Islamic presence and lingering influence continues there to this day.
On this point see e.g. posts published by ‘Hesperides‘ at Poemas Del Río Wang in 2010. An extract from one:
That period, the age of the Arabic caliphates was the golden age of the Balearic islands – al-Yaza‘ir al-Sharqiya, “the Western Islands.” The memories of it are preserved by the stone drainage ditches enmeshing all Mallorca and in use even today, by the gorgeous fountains and painted beams with Arabic inscriptions of the ancient mountain estates, as well as by the names of most settlements – Binissalem, Banyalbufar, Alcúdia – and of several families. And of course by the vineyards. Among them especially by the estate Can Majoral, whose Butibalausí wines still preserve the former Arabic name of the vineyard, and each bottle of them has on its back label the poem ‘Goblets’ by Idris Ibn al-Yamani.
from: ‘Butibalausi‘, Poemas del Rio Wang, Dec. 31st., 2008.
To provide readers with even the minimum by way of preliminary notes, and sources needed to research Panofsky’s assessment of the manuscript will take more than one post and must look beyond Voynich-theory narratives.
Some fairly important matter will have to wait. Later, we’ll come to the issue of strategies adopted by past and present Voynicheros when some widely accepted ‘theory’ comes up against scientific or other evidence opposing it.
Among technical matters which Panofsky raised are the vellum’s finish and the manuscript’s palette. The last is yet to be comprehensively documented but we will consider a certain organic yellow pigment.
The question has been hanging ever since. I know of no further comment by Panofsky, though something may be buried in the archive of his correspondence.
Both her spelling for the word as ‘Cabala’ and her few comments suggest that d’Imperio relied on an article in the 1901-6 edition of Encyclopaedia Judaica. If so, she didn’t take to heart its authors’ admonition:
and just to show that the eastern ‘swelled belly’ was often difficult for Latins to interpret, here’s what was made of it c.1300 by a draughtsman in Paris: the belly becomes a rib-cage, twisted sideways.
Voynich Revisionist 