Tag: Beinecke Library

Expert opinion Myth versus materials science Pt.5a

Two previous:

Codicology  and conservation are technical disciplines and a specialist’s opinion must be regarded as expert opinion.  (See previous post)

As one writer said of codicology:

…. The vast variety of binding techniques, the diversity of the material and the artistic element demand deep understanding of books ….

I’d ask readers to keep that in mind, and the fact that in what follows, I am not criticising the technical matter in the Yale facsimile edition essay ‘Physical Materials’ but objecting to certain editorialising comment inserted into that technical essay.  Nor is my point that this person or that is wrong – but that the revisionist has to be aware that when the old myths meet scientific data at the coal-face, the myths don’t necessarily give way.

The  ‘editorialising hand’ who has inserted comments into the scientific report I will refer to as ‘e.h.’ Whose hand(s) these were is irrelevant; as we’ll see the problem is that in attempting to harmonise the new information with the speculative narratives, that editorialising hand does a disservice to the reader, the researcher and  – one might even argue – to Yale, under whose imprint the essay appears.  ‘

In this post, the issue concerns the text-block’s binding and before going further I want to make clear that I’m not a codicologist, though I’ve had laboratory experience in the analysis of materials  as part of my own field.

A good first introduction to bookbinding, its history and materials is found in a booklet the Beinecke published for its ‘Travelling scriptorium‘ project.

  • [pdf] Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts: Bookbinding terms, materials, methods and models, (issued by) Special Collections Conservation Preservation Department, Yale University Library (February 2015).

To gain an idea of how much complex matter has been condensed to form the booklet, Szirmai’s book still serves as a kind of ‘conservator’s bible’.

  • J.A. Szirmai, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding. 

Other sources:

  • Georgios Boudalis (et.al., eds.), Historical Book Binding Techniques in Conservation (2016).
  • A general guide by The British Library [pdf]. David Pearson, English Bookbinding Styles 1450-1800, chapter 2,
  • PJM Marks, The British Library Guide to Bookbinding: History and Techniques. A comprehensive glossary by Don Etherington and Matt T Roberts
  • [pdf] David Pearson, John Mumford, Alison Walker, Bookbindings (British Library Preservation Guide)

and

The textblock’s binding

It doesn’t take much experience before you get used to the way medieval manuscripts are described in most catalogues.  Some give more, and others less detail but I think few include as much speculative matter and sheer guesswork as the Beinecke’s description of the Voynich manuscript’s content.  The description of its codicology is nearer the norm.

The usual form for a manuscript runs something like this: ‘Origin: southern France or  Spain’;  Date: Fourteenth century.  Binding: sixteenth century Italian’.. ”    The description is normally brief, direct and where precision isn’t possible the parameters are given (e.g. southern France or northern Spain”.)

In the Yale facsimile essay, the text-block’s binding isn’t described in that way, but uses a curiously convoluted expression:

“…quires held together in a binding technique typically in use in the 15thC “.

Why not just  ‘textblock binding – 15thC’?  – because that is obviously the impression which the writer wants readers to take.   When a curious phrasing such as this occurs, implying but not saying the binding is fifteenth century, the revisionist must ask why, and what distinction is implied here between  ‘ binding’ and ‘binding technique in use’…  and why no location is offered.

In general terms, we can say that the manuscript’s binder had been trained in European style, a style also adopted for Armenian manuscripts after the Crusader period.  In terms of bookbinding styles, the period from the 8th-12thC is termed ‘Carolingian’; overlapping with the ‘Romaneque’ which is dated mid-11thC to the end of the 14thC, overlapped again by the ‘Gothic’ which is dated early 14thC – 17thC.

The European (or ‘Latin’) style is distinguished by the use of sewing supports: strips of material which support the threads binding the quires of the textblock together.

But when we look at the sewing supports of the Voynich manuscript, we see that they are not ‘typically 15thC European’ at all.

See also

Sewing supports were normally made of skin, but those in the Voynich manuscript are made of bast-fibre which the scientific crew identified as probably flax.

The technical study is clear that, on this point at least, the binding is not ‘typically fifteenth century’.  It is the editorialising hand which is responsible for blurring that information by using the roundabout phrase we saw above: ‘a binding technique typically in use in the 15thC’ .

How unusual are flax supports for the fifteenth century?

Below is a diagram from the Beinecke’s ‘Travelling Scriptorium’ booklet’s section on Gothic Romanesque bindings, which are dated (from the second half of the 11thC – end of the 14thC).

It mentions vegetable-fibre supports, but adds the slightly cryptic “later”.

In the British Library’s bookbinding guide there is no mention of vegetable-fibre supports other than in connection with books made after about 1650:

The supports in early books are commonly strips of leather or tawed skin, and from the mid-seventeenth century cords made of cotton, linen, hemp or silk were used.

So although the samples of vellum which were radiocarbon dated gave a range of 1404-1438 (within the ‘Gothic’ period in bookbinders’ terms), there must be some question about whether or not the quires were bound at that time.

And now we find another editorialising, soothing, and non-specific comment by ‘e.h.’ which effectively says, ‘Ah, well, no… not typically fifteenth-century, but don’t you worry about that’.  It says:

…  it is not unheard of for a fifteenth-century  manuscript to be sewn onto flax supports, as the Voynich manuscript is, [but] it is less usual than the use of leather supports.

So now having first been guided to think the binding ‘typically 15thC’, we are shepherded towards thinking it merely ‘less usual’ – by way of “not-unheard-of'”, a phase which usually means ‘very rare’.

The message from ‘e.h.’  seems to be – in effect- that we shouldn’t worry our little heads about the fact that the scientific study doesn’t match up with the theoretical narratives.   ‘e.h.’ simply asserts it is just ‘less usual’ without providing a single comparative instance to justify that statement.   What is one to think? That vegetable-fibre supports are just ‘less usual’ or that they are very unusual but ‘not unheard of’ or that they are really ‘typically in use in the fifteenth century?

The Grove Encyclopaedia’s entry under ‘Bookbinding’ describes  tawed leather as the most common form of support from the eleventh to sixteenth century, referring in general to ‘Carolingian bindings’ as using flax supports (not just those found in St.Gall by Szirmai) and in that context adds in passing that “cords were re-introduced in the fifteenth century” though without any details or added comment.

  • Gerald W. R. Ward (ed.), The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art (2008) p.42.

What is being omitted is anything explaining the significance of this disparity.  Might it tell us more about where the manuscript was made, or by whom?

So the revisionist him/herself must ask the questions and hope to find informed answers elsewhere, and from an up-to-date specialist, for preference.  This is not as easy as it might once have been.  Over the past fifteen years or so, the manuscript has become notorious: less for its inherent difficulty than for the fact that a few hard-core theorists aren’t keen on specialists who have no interest in becoming a ‘team players’.  A specialist might comment in private but few for publication.

Finally,  I decided to ask this question about how ‘not unheard of’ flax supports are at  Erik Kwakkel’s codicology blog.  To keep other readers’ attention on it as a technical question about codicology, I phrased it in neutral terms – that is, without  the ‘V’ word.

Professor Kwakkel was kind enough to respond himself (also letting me know that Szirmai’s book might be had through Scribd):

I did not know anything about flax used for this purpose, but your query prompted me to consult Szirmai … and he discusses the materials at various locations. At [p.]117, importantly, while discussing Carolingian bindings, he describes a sample research he undertook based on St Gall manuscripts, 9th-12th. Flax is found in 15 samples. More data at p. 190. I would check that out.

 Carolingian? As said above, in bookbinding terms the Carolingian period is 8thC -12thC .  Not ‘typical 15thC’.

We can also be pretty sure that if Prof. Kwakkel has never encountered flax sewing supports, that ‘e.h.’s    “not-unheard-of”  may be interpreted as “extremely unusual indeed“t least until someone produces fifteenth-century examples. And they should prove interesting and informative,

Meanwhile it seems that the use of  vegetable fibre sewing-supports is normally associated with either  the Carolingian period (8th-12thC) or with books of the early modern period “from the mid-seventeenth century onwards”.

In that case, to argue that they were also used … somewhere or other, by some binders or other… in the fifteenth century, ‘e.h.’ would have done better to cite examples than trying, as s/he did, to slide over this anomaly, another among the many which the manuscript presents.

Why ‘e.h.’ took the other course, one can only guess.  I certainly don’t imagine that the Beinecke staff sit huddled about in cowls  ‘conspiring’ to delude the public.

Perhaps ‘e.h.’ has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility to maintain the old narratives found fossilised in the Beinecke’s sixty-year old catalogue entry and  its current website ‘Introduction’ – labouring to harmonise those ‘canonised myths’ with the new technical information that offers objections to those stories.  But the new information is precisely what we need to know what to discard.

Reading through the ‘Physical Materials’ essay, the editorialising comments evoke both sympathy for that dilemma and a certain quiet outrage.   ‘e.h.’ seems to imagine readers as if members of a family among whom any difference of opinion is on par with a personal quarrel, and ‘e.h.’ in the role of parent, keeping everything nice and calm, creating a ‘middle ground’.

Hence – the radiocarbon dating has the vellum early fifteenth century, so while the binding is far from being ‘typically fifteenth century’  ‘e.h.’ finds a nice middle way:  ‘binding technique typically in use in the fifteenth century’.  It really won’t do.

But should anyone notice the ‘fudge’ and what it implies that the sewing-supports are not skin, but fibre… well, ok. (says ‘e.h.’) but they are still sort of fifteenth century… well, ‘not unheard of’… just ‘less usual’.

But that does not seem to be true, does it?

No mention in Szirmai, or in any other reference that I could find…  but I’m not a codicologist.  If anyone locates some, do let us know.  We may learn a little more about where the manuscript was made.

It seems to me that what was better to  have been said – perhaps ought to have been said  –  if ‘e.h.’ had to editorialise at all – is that  Voynich manuscript’s bookblock is not bound in the way typical of fifteenth-century European manuscripts, but its use of vegetable fibre for the sewing supports finds comparison in Carolingian-period manuscripts and again in the seventeenth-century style for binding books. And – if ‘e.h.’ knew of another instance, what it was, and where that manuscript was bound.

Doubtless there is something about the  binding ‘technique’  found in common with fifteenth-century bindings, but we’re left to guess what that might be.  The number or distance of stations, perhaps?  Type of stitch?

But when ‘e.h.’s efforts to ‘harmonise’ cross the line from just soothing noises to plain misrepresentation of fact, it’s a bit much.

Another interpolation in the scientific report says that the manuscript “was known to have been in Rudolf’s library”.   Now, that’s just not true.  No-one ever claimed to have seen it there and no document has ever been found from Rudolf’s archives (or anywhere else) which substantiates that rumour.   At this point in the ‘Physical Materials’ essay  the revisionist takes their pencil and writes in the margin something along these lines:

“a third-hand rumour, unsubstantiated by the person relating it, or by any evidence since discovered.  The  allegation is that Mnishovsky repeated a rumour to the effect that Rudolf  allegedly had paid the person who brought the manuscript to Prague the sum of 600 ducats, had owned it, and that the text was by Roger Bacon, the Englishman etc.  To date, no documentary or other evidence supports any item of those three. See Marci letter of 1665/6”.

Why did ‘e.h.’ feel it necessary to insert that reference to Rudolf into the scientific report, whose subject is the manuscript’s pigments, inks and binding?  I don’t believe that anyone is trying to argue that the vellum, inks, pigments or binding are sixteenth or seventeenth-century… are they?

No, but as ‘e.h.’ might have realised, this issue with the sewing supports does have the potential to become a can of worms.

If a theorist were to opt for the ‘seventeenth-century’ use of flax sewing supports over the ‘Carolingian’,  it might raise doubt as to whether our present manuscript has just the same form as that owned by  Jakub  Hořčický.   Baresch does suggest that his volume was bound already, calling it a ‘book’ when writing to Athanasius Kircher in  c.1635-6  1639:

“…And so I ordered a certain old book to be transcribed in part, with the writing closely imitated (the bearer of this letter will inform you that he saw it with his own eyes). A year and a half ago I sent that writing to your Reverence….. “

He doesn’t say how much was copied, or whether that bound, or even if the book was disbound to make the copies, but the technical essay says there is no sign of the quires’ having been bound earlier.  It is a surprising finding, given that the map seems to have been rebound, and the disorder observed in the manuscript has often been speculated a result of disbinding and rebinding.  But there you are.

And against any theory of a  ‘seventeenth-century binding’  I should think the fact that Wilfrid attributed the manuscript to the thirteenth century would be a fair argument.  Nor was his opinion denied by many specialists of that time, including  E. P. Goldschmidt, author of a two volume study on the subject:

  • E.Ph. Goldschmidt, Gothic & Renaissance Bookbindings Exemplified and Illustrated from the Author’s Collection.

That work was first published in 1928, but so well thought of that Degraaf reprinted in it a hard-back cased edition forty years later.

I’m content to accept the fifteenth-century dating for the ‘standard quires’, but have long thought the content suggests an effort at very close reproduction of material which pre-dates that period.

Who knows? Perhaps the persons told to ‘copy exactly’ copied the binding as exactly as they could, too.

Who knows?  No-one knows yet, and it won’t help us know more to do what ‘e.h.’ has done and obscure the significance of  newer and better information by ‘smoothing over’ the difference between that information and the old, tired guesses.

To treat fairly with researchers – and with those trusting the ‘Yale’ imprint when buying their copy of the facsimile edition –  accurate information, and accurate explanations of its significance is what the study needs.

Postscript –

re ‘linen or hemp’,  Szirmai notes (n.9  p.91) that while “There are no non-destructive methods available to distinguish between flax and hemp; the drying twist test (Textile institute 1985 p. 225) can be scaled down and carried out under a low-power microscope, but it requires a sample of a number of elementary fibres of 20 to 30 mm length.

  • Brenda Collins and Philip Ollerenshaw (eds.), The European Linen Industry in Historical Perspective. Oxford University Press, (2003).
  • Bert dewilde, Flax in Flanders throughout the centuries, history technical evolution folkore (1999).
  • The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, (2003).

edited and corrections made – 12th May 2019.

The ‘Physical Materials Essay’… to be continued…

Expert Opinion: Myth vs. Materials Science Pt.2

, Two previous:
Header Illustration: composite (far left) detail from Beinecke MS 408 f. 80v;( far right) detail from Brit Lib., MS Add 25724, folio 50a  – an 18thC ms copy of a 13thC text; Background – external and internal views of the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts LIbrary, Yale University.  Portraits (upper) Roger Bacon; (lower) R.S. Brumbaugh.

The Beinecke Library page.

Introduction (website)

Removing the speculative and the ‘canonised myth’ from the Beinecke Library’s description of the manuscript in its online Introduction – as it stands when this post is written – will leave you with the following sentence:

Nearly every page contains drawings drawn in ink with … various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red… and continuous pages of text  with star-like flowers… in the margins.

Written in central Europe during the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries…… a magical or scientific text, nearly every page contains botanical, figurative, and scientific drawings of a provincial but lively character drawn in ink  vibrant washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue, and red. (Note – some pigments are thicker than a wash and one, at least, is said by Carter to resemble wax crayon – D).Based on the subject matter of the drawings, the contents of the manuscript falls into six sections: 1) botanicals containing drawings of 113 unidentified plant species; 2) astronomical and astrological drawings including astral charts with radiating circles, suns and moons, Zodiac symbols such as fish (Pisces), a bull (Taurus), and an archer (Sagittarius), nude females emerging from pipes or chimneys, and courtly figures; 3) a biological section containing a myriad of drawings of miniature female nudes, most with swelled abdomens, immersed or wading in fluids and oddly interacting with interconnecting tubes and capsules; 4) an elaborate array of nine cosmological medallions, many drawn across several folded folios and depicting possible geographical forms; 5) pharmaceutical drawings of over 100 different species of medicinal herbs and roots portrayed with jars or vessels in red, blue, or green, and 6) continuous pages of text, possibly recipes, with star-like flowers marking each entry in the margins.The reason for rejecting so much is explained in brief:

  1.  …  “Written” is a hangover from the  earlier period when the work was believed an autograph, and thus written at the time it was made, more or less.  To conflate composition of the text(s) with manufacture of the object is a basic error, avoidance of which is drummed into the novice in ‘manuscript studies 101’.  ‘Made’ or ‘compiled’ would be appropriate.
  2. … during the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries.  The Beinecke library must have some reason other than credulity, reliance on amateur preferences, or deference to past members of staff to justify its including this apparent error. If so, I haven’t seen that explanation  The radiocarbon dating of 1404-1438,  which agrees with Panofsky’s opinion in 1932, and with the ‘expert consensus’ of which Lehmann-Haupt spoke in 1963,  would all seem to demand that to add a century to that range should not be done arbitrarily but from the basis of concrete information – from codicology or materials science. (Lehmann-Haupt’s comment is reported by d’Imperio, Elegant Enigma (1978) p.8
    *’central Europe‘. The phrase is uselessly vague and there has been no technical or historical study which proved the manuscript to have been “written in central Europe”.  The ‘central Europe’ theory was always an anchronism, and was initially focused on the German-speaking centre of Europe and on Rudolf’s court.  When the radiocarbon dating established the work as early fifteenth century, there was not a man of the ‘central European’ theorists left standing.  (As a matter of interest, those who were left standing were Patrick Lockerby, Nick Pelling, Philip Neal, and the present writer’.
    Some of the most dedicated ‘central European’ theorists  tried at first to ignore the radiocarbon dating; then to say that ‘1404-1438’ could be redefined as 1470 and later. Ideas that ‘the manuscript was made in about 1480’… nearly became another ‘canonised myth’. The latest tactic has been to re-define ‘central Europe’ to include England, northern France and northern Italy… which makes the whole ‘central Europe’ tag meaningless.
  3. … magical or scientific text – experts in those texts and subjects have either denied any link exists between the Voynich manuscript and European works of that kind, or have failed to produce any comparison from the Latin corpus to justify the idea.   It is speculation, and nothing more.
  4. …113 plant species.  ‘113 pictures’ would be accurate.  To assume that each image is a ‘portrait’ of a single species is another canonised myth, unproven and contraindicated by the fact that the Voynich plant pictures are matched neither in  form nor in sequence by the imagery in medieval herbals.  Many spurious ‘pairings’ have been offered over the years, but none can bear analytical examination.
  5. * astronomical and astrological drawings.  The sense in which this phrase is meant presumes, again, that some place exists for these drawings in the Latin European corpus or in ‘acceptable’ introductions to that corpus from the Islamic astronomical works. The basic forms, and elements in Latin astrological works are absent from the Voynich manuscript, or if present are not yet demonstrated present. The angular horoscope drawings, and reference to the planets are among the most obvious discrepancies. If they are astronomical, the specific type of ‘astronomical’ writing in general needs to be identified, especially given that the ‘zodiac’  contained in the Voynich calendar does not depict the 12 constellations or even ten of the twelve.  It includes 2 ‘bulls’ and 2 ‘goats’ but no sheep drawn in the usual Latin manner with over-curled horns.  It is however true that in parts of France (the same where the standing archer first appears as ‘Saggitario’) one finds occasional depiction of Aries as a goat.  More on this later.
  6. … biological section.  This description is no more than the subjective impression expressed by William Romaine Newbold.  Others, just as arbitrarily, describe the same drawings as ‘balneological’.
  7. … nudes.  The term is pre-emptive.   The term ‘nude’ describes a drawing from life, meant to represent a living figure.  At present, there is as great a probability that the figures were intended to be metaphorical or allegorical as literal, and the more neutral term ‘unclothed’ or ‘naked’ is appropriate here.  The figures are shown partly covered (or not) but to say ‘they wade’ is to assume greater literalism than is justified by the evidence.
  8. …. an elaborate array of nine cosmological medallions.  Once again, the description fails to maintain the neutral tone appropriate to description of images whose content is – or is believed – unknown.  Whether or not the Beinecke librarians have time to keep abreast of current writings, there is nothing to explain or to justify use of the word ‘cosmological;’.  Others may speculate and argue over the intention behind the drawing, but the Beinecke’s information is expected to have a solid basis in fact.
  9. … pharmaceutical drawings.  Speculation which has all but achieved the status of ‘canonised myth’ despite its being apparently denied by the form of the more ornate containers and the failure of any researcher to discover a ‘phamaceutical’ text having this form within the Latin (western European) corpus.
  10. …. *medical – another widespread assumption, arrived at by analogy with, and assumption of, European models, and still without proof that the analogy is apt.

 

Catalogue record by Barbara Shailor (1967)

Speculative matter also affects its Catalogue record, particularly the preamble.

The Preamble reads:

Scientific or magical text in an unidentified language, in cipher, apparently based on Roman minuscule characters; the text is believed by some scholars to be the work of Roger Bacon since the themes of the illustrations seem to represent topics known to have interested Bacon …  A history of the numerous attempts to decipher the manuscript can be found in a volume edited by R. S. Brumbaugh, The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich “Roger Bacon” Cipher Manuscript (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978). Although several scholars have claimed decipherments of the manuscript, for the most part the text remains an unsolved puzzle. R. S. Brumbaugh has, however, suggested a decipherment that establishes readings for the star names and plant labels; see his “Botany and the Voynich ‘Roger Bacon’ Manuscript Once More,” Speculum 49 (1974) pp. 546-48; “The Solution of the Voynich ‘Roger Bacon’ Cipher,” [Yale Library] Gazette 49 (1975) pp. 347-55; “The Voynich ‘Roger Bacon’ Cipher Manuscript: Deciphered Maps of Stars,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976) pp. 139-50.

 

The Beinecke’s ‘Recommended reading’.

The Beinecke’s  ‘Bibliography’ – in its Introduction and in the Catalogue record – reflects the state of the study as it was half a century ago.  It accords the writings of Robert S. Brumbaugh a prominence hardly merited by their contribution to this field.  As Professor Bax rightly said  (in 2014) Brumbaugh’s conception of the text “did not find favour with other scholars…and his scheme of decipherment is now largely forgotten”. Brumbaugh had made the tyro’s mistake of supposing that he came to the manuscript already equipped with sufficient knowledge to understand it.

The bibliography refers to only one item published later than 1978 -a book written in 2005 which one reviewer described as ‘a love affair with Roger Bacon’.

The library’s reliance on Brumbaugh’s ideas may explain its description of the manuscript as   “written in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century” though the radiocarbon dating – obtained earlier but announced in print in 2011 – provided a range for the vellum of 1404-1438 AD agreeing with specialist opinions from the earlier period, and with more recent technical analyses. The latter are discussed later in the present series.

Professor Brumbaugh was Professor of Philosophy at Yale from 1952 and became Professor Emeritus in 1988, He died in 1992.  Specialists received his last publication, summarising the rest, with reviews which were polite, but cool.

Guzman’s review was among the more positive, saying (among other things):

Brumbaugh concludes that the manuscript is a sixteenth-century product, probably put together by the Englishman John Dee rather than the thirteenth-century Roger Bacon. He divides the manuscript into five parts and says that possibly two sections go back to the thirteenth century but that the other three and this compilation definitely date from the sixteenth century.

He also identifies the alphabet used in the cipher; with this alphabet he read the planet [sic.] and star labels. Brumbaugh concludes that the cipher originated in some type of numerology and that it is probably some type of artificial language. Thus the reader knows where work on the manuscript and its cipher stands today, the areas and avenues future research will follow, and what the manuscript will probably reveal if and when all parts of it are completely deciphered. Brumbaugh’s compilation places the Voynich Cipher Manuscript in its proper historical context ,,
Gregory S. Guzman (Bradley University),  The Historian, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Nov. 1979), pp. 120-121.

d’Imperio was polite but concluded:

“There is just enough plausibility in [Brumbaugh’s] process to lead one on. but not enough to leave one satisfied.” (D’Imperio 1978 p38)

Vera Filby said the same:

 Brumbaugh’s solution, though presented in a most interesting way, is disappointing, since the evidence he offers is incomplete, and proof -unambiguously readable text- is lacking.

It is unfortunate that he did not have the benefit of recent analyses of the script by Captain Prescott Currier and Mary E. D’Imperio, described in Manuscripts, Winter 1978. For readers unacquainted with the history of the manuscript and its remarkable provenance-from the first known reference to it in 16th-century [read ’17thC] Bohemia, to its rediscovery in 1912 in Italy by the rare-book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich, and finally to the Beinecke this attractive book, with illustrations of representative manuscript pages, provides a thorough, even somewhat repetitious, overview. …

Vera Ruth Filby, (Department of Defence, in Washington).  Her review was published in  American Scientist, Vol. 67, No. 2 (March-April 1979), p. 249.

Filby’s opinion remains the general one, Brumbaugh’s claimed decryption method having been generally rejected.

 

More recent comment on Brumbaugh’s ideas are more strongly negative. As examples, I include Pelling’s comment on Brumbaugh’s claimed decipherments  (2012) and Bax on Brumbaugh’s  “star-names” (2014).

Commenting on Walter Grosse’s efforts, Pelling said:

Brumbaugh similarly converted Voynichese to digits …and tried to salvage text from the resulting digit stream, though ultimately accepting somewhat grudgingly that the digit stream was not meaningful.  Claude Martin travelled much the same path as Brumbaugh, proposing instead that it was constructed from a deliberately nonsensical digit stream. In my opinion, both Brumbaugh’s and Martin’s digit stream theories explained nothing whatsoever about the nature and structure of Voynichese, and so have nothing to commend them: and σαν ετι I don’t see any reason why I should think differently about Grosse’s superverbose digit stream theory. Sorry to have to point it out, but “it’s like that, that’s the way it is”.

Nick Pelling, ‘First Voynich Theory of 2012…’ (Jan. 28th., 2012)

Professor Bax went into detail on Brumbaugh’s claims of decipherment  (October 19th., 2014).

In the 1970’s (in fact before D’Imperio’s monograph) Brumbaugh produced a series of claims that he had ‘cracked the code’, among them an article on the VM star names which he claimed he had deciphered . In that article he boldly states: “In 1972 I finally solved the Voynich cipher” (Brumbaugh 1976:140).

Before addressing his decipherments themselves, it is interesting to reproduce a few of Brumbaugh’s observations concerning what he terms the ‘star names’, to give a flavour of his work:

“The star-map section raises problems. The star maps are a set of twelve, representing ten signs of the zodiac; originally there must have been at least one for each sign of the zodiac, but if so, two have been lost. Each ‘map’ has a central medallion with a picture of the zodiacal constellation, with the month name written beneath in plain text. Around this, in an inner circle, the maps have a ring of female figures, each attached by a line to a star. An outer circle has more such figures. A group of numerals is written next to each star.” (Brumbaugh 1976:141)

On the next page he [Brumbaugh] continues as follows:

“A group of cipher numerals is written next to each star. A first try at decipherment gave the name of Alfred for the star in the Pisces medallion, with Urifydes just above and Alfansus Purus on to the right. The names are therefore those of the great men whose souls are attached to stars, rather than anything else they might be—Arabic star names, or a numerical Messier listing, for example.” (Brumbaugh 1976:142)

Brumbaugh does not give details about his decipherment, and it is even not clear from this which precise words he was deciphering (e.g. in the Pisces ‘medallion’). Unfortunately, partly because of this sort of vagueness, his resulting decipherment did not find favour with other scholars…and his scheme of decipherment is now largely forgotten.

In terms of his analysis of the star names, I would further argue that he made a number of fundamental assumptions which are questionable, even untenable. In the quotations above, for example, he assumes that what we now call the Zodiac pages are in fact ‘star maps’. This involves the assumption that the drawings of star-shaped objects attached to lines or strings are necessarily meant to represent stars, as he says on pages 140 and 141, although by page 142 he has revised this to suggest they represent not stars themselves but ‘great men whose souls are attached to stars‘.

This raises a crucial question which to my mind (and again to my surprise) has not been carefully addressed in Voynich scholarship so far, neither by D’Imperio, nor by Brumbaugh, nor apparently by anyone else, namely which star-like drawings with labels in the manuscript should we take with confidence to represent stars, and which should we exclude from our analysis …

Stephen Bax, ‘Voynich star names: an analysis (1)‘, (October 18th., 2014)

Reviews of the Goldstones’ book, The Friar and the Cipher see it is an interesting history of Roger Bacon’s time, but include comments such that below ..

Ostensibly the book is about the Voynich Manuscript,….[but] this debate begins on page 223 of the edition I have. The book runs just over 300 pages, which presents kind of a problem. The rest of the book is a history of Western thought and the constant struggle between science and religion in the Middle Ages, Which brings me to the ultimate problem with this book and how it was marketed (and even titled). The Friar and the Cipher is a wonderful book on Western philosophy. However, there is nothing really new in the book when it comes to the manuscript. It takes no sides in the controversy, only saying that it seems likely that Bacon did write it. The authors raise questions but do not really provide anything new to readers with any knowledge of the subject. The book seems to be a way to gather a bunch of different sources into one volume, sort of a “this is where we’re at” kind of thing. It also is almost a love letter to Roger Bacon…

from Dave Roy, ‘Curled up’ reviews (2006),

 

Codicological description.

In the Catalogue record, impressionistic matter and ‘canonised myth’ infuse even the  codicological description, and include (again) the statement that the categories by which the manuscript is described are  ‘based on the subject matter of the drawings…’  The correct statement is that the categories “adopt William Romaine Newbold’s  subjective impressions of the imagery….”  The original makers’ intention remains open to debate.

Details:Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, many full-page, of a provincial but lively character, in ink with washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red. Based on the subject matter of the drawings, the contents of the manuscript falls into six sections:
Part I. ff. 1r-66v Botanical sections containing drawings of 113 unidentified plant [drawings] species. Special care is taken in the representation of
the flowers, leaves and the root systems of the individual plants.Part II. ff. 67r-73v.  Astronomical or astrological section containing 25 astral diagrams in the form of circles, concentric or with radiating segments, some with the sun or the moon in the center; the segments filled with stars and inscriptions, some with the signs of the zodiac and concentric circles of nude females, some free-standing, others emerging from objects similar to cans or tubes. Little continuous text.
Part III. ff. 75r-84v “Biological” section containing drawings of small-scale female nudes [figures], most with bulging abdomens and exaggerated hips, immersed or emerging from fluids, or interconnecting tubes and capsules. These drawings are the most enigmatic in the manuscript and it has been suggested that they symbolically represent the process of human reproduction and the procedure by which the soul becomes united with the body (cf. W. Newbold and R. Kent, The Cipher of Roger Bacon [Philadelphia, 1928] p. 46).
Part IV. ff. 85r-86v This sextuple-folio folding leaf contains an elaborate array of nine medallions, filled with stars and cell-like shapes, with fibrous structures linking the circles. Some medallions with petal-like arrangements of rays filled with stars, some with structures resembling bundles of pipes.
Part V. ff. 87r-102v Pharmaceutical section containing drawings of over 100 different species of medicinal herbs [plant parts] and roots, all with identifying inscriptions. On almost every page drawings of pharmaceutical jars, [objects] resembling vases, in red, green and yellow, or blue and green. Accompanied by some continuous text.
Part VI. ff. 103r-117v Continuous text, with stars in inner margin on recto and outer margins of verso. Folio 117v includes a 3-line presumed “key” opening with a reference to Roger Bacon in anagram and cipher.
Binding: s. xviii-xix. Vellum case. Remains of early paper pastedowns.

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Postscript –  Nick Pelling – and I daresay numerous other researchers who have not committed themselves to print – have offered criticisms comparable to those seen in this post. My position is this: that knowing the public will suppose whatever appears under the prestigious ‘Yale’ name must be – if not vox dei at least vox academiae– the Beinecke’s page should assert nothing about the manuscript not demonstrably and objectively true.  If this means  that the manuscript’s description is reduced to a single sentence; that reference to Roger Bacon is acknowledged as  ‘speculative’ and that reference to Rudolf II is consigned to a footnote reporting the third-hand rumour of purchase,  then well and good.