Notes on the Voynich Manuscript - Part 3 [1992 January 2] ---------------------------------------- Well, I read the D'Imperio monograph a couple of times over the holidays, and it has prompted some more thoughts. This note is about the non-Voynich text in the MS, as inferred from the transcriptions in her document. Fig 10 (all figs from D'Imperio) shows eight Zodiacal symbols, pretty clearly Pisces and Gemini on the left, Aries, Leo and Sagittarius down the middle, and Taurus, Libra and Virgo on the right. Scribbled near each figure is a word of text. These words aren't easy to read, but to me they seem (in the same order as above): MARS, JONY, AVRIL, AUGST, , MAY, OCTOBRS, . These are the month names traditionally associated with these signs by Western astrology; it is of course some 2200 years since the real sun really occupied them. The two illegible names should then denote November and September. The script looks more German than Italic, and so does the language, though that's hard to tell. Fig 22: the folio gatherings. It seems the Voynich MS has been numbered twice. The plates in Brumbaugh show that every folio has been numbered at the top right, in modern Roman numerals in a clear, bold italic hand that looks to me 18c or early 19c. In addition, each "signature" of eight leaves has been numbered as shown in this figure; each number combines Arabic numerals and mediaeval Latin script; the list reads (I use two columns) Pmus 11mus 2us 3us 13us 4us 14us 5tus 15us 6tus 7mus 17us 8uus 9nus 19 10mus 20 That's all good Latin. One puzzle, though, is the antique shape of the cyphers. They don't look like late 16c to me; much more like 1400 than 1600. So, is the MS older than we think? Or were the numbers added by somebody at Rudolph's court who'd learned from an old-fashioned tutor? Or did Dee add them as part of a Cunning Plan? At this point, your guess is as good as mine. Fig 23. Three lines of text, all in the same hand, containing two words of Voynich at the start of line three, and otherwise what looks like German gibberish. And that's another puzzle to me. Yes, the script is unclear. But it's a lot clearer than the script in Marci's letter, shown as Fig 2, and I can read that at sight: "Librum hunc ab amico singulari mihi testamento relictum..." And I don't have much trouble with, say, Luther's German hand. And anybody writing at Rudolph's court would surely have used either Latin or German. So in what language, or what cypher, are the lines in Fig 23? To judge by Petersen's and Newbold's transcriptions, also given there, it made no sense to them either. Fig 21. Again, I find none of this makes sense. However, the text on f66r surely can't be 'der Musstheil', in whatever funky dialect, since the dead person has breasts. Sigh. Another dead end.