the voynich manuscript - full circle

7/21/2019 The Voynich Manuscript - Full Circle

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The Voynich Manuscript: Full Circle

One of Nick Pelling’s blogs focused my attention on investigating the finer details of

the VM, particularly on Folio 17v, here ! as fascinated to find the concealed name of

the artist" #he hairs on top of the middle tuber spell $ % Vinci, Plate 1" &as ! surprised tofind that $eonardo had included his name as part of the draing% No' $eonardo as

knon for his love of visual puns and rebuses (a pictorial pu))le*, and for tricks, +okes

and deceptions of all kinds"(!* (!!*

It is said, one swallow does not make a summer , so it ill take more than one set of

hairs on a tuber that looks like the ord $ da Vinci, to convince skeptics that ! may

actually be correct in suggesting that $eonardo da Vinci rote this manuscript"

#he astrological chart, Folio 7v, refers to $eonardo’s date of birth(!!!*, the hatching on

the draings from Folio -.r indicate a left/handed artist(!V* and the letter on the last pageis addressed to someone called Vinci(V*" ! therefore e0amined other folios for the

ord Vinci" #he VM pages from the !nternet are generally either too dark or too light tomake deciphering easy" ! used to techniues in Photoshop to improve their

uality, Auto Levels to lighten the background and if necessaryCurves to darken or

lighten the image" No additional enhancement techniues ere used" 2dditional e0amplesof the ord Vinci ere found incorporated in the roots and stems in the folloing Folios3

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• Folio .4v 5 Plate 6

• Folio 6r 5 Plate

• Folio .1r 5 Plate .

• Folio 6r 5 Plate 8

• Folio 99v 5 Plate 4

•

Folio 84v 5 Plate 7• Folio 44v 5 Plate -

#here are too many Folios to check them all for the Vinci name" More e0amples can probably be found"



A small segment of Folio -4v, Plate 9, shos a castle ith sallotail battlements

and a draing of a ton or village above it" :y lightening the image of this segment ofFolio -4v, ! observed that the ord Vinci as ritten ne0t to the draing of the ton that

included houses, a church steeple (very faint* and the toer of a castle" ! thereforespeculated that this draing represents the ton of Vinci hose curved alls resemblethose in the draing" Vinci lies on the southern slopes of the Montalbano Mountain and is

close to $eonardo’s place of birth" #he medieval ;onti <uidi ;astle, knon as the castle

of the ship because of its curved alls, dominates the ton" #he church of =anta ;roce,here $eonardo as probably bapti)ed, is part of the castle comple0" Plate 1 presents a

comparison of this VM draing and a sketch of the ;onti <uidi ;astle and the =anta

;roce ;hurch based on a photograph from the book, $eonardo da Vinci the >enaissance

Man(V!*" #his comparison is at best superficial, but it does sho that the location of thechurch ith respect to the castle is appro0imately the same in both the draing and the

sketch"






The ?mperor’s ;astle (started 16.* in the ton of Prato, eleven miles from Vinci,

has sallotail battlements like the castle in Folio -4v, Plate 11" !t has a suare plan ith

suare toers at the four corners and the center of each side" #he top of the castle is

croned ith sallotail or <hibelline battlements that are not typically found in#uscany" #his type of battlement is usually found on castles from Milan to Venice in

Northern !taly" #he castle in Folio -4v may or may not represent the ?mperor’s ;astle but

it is reasonable to assume that $eonardo visited Prado during his youth and as thereforeaare that not all castles had rectangular shaped battlements"

Having found e0amples of the ord Vinci in several of the VM’s folios led me to

ondering hether in later life $eonardo incorporated his name in some of his sketches"@ou may onder hy ! bothered to look, considering ho carefully his manuscripts have

been e0amined" #he folloing plates give e0amples that sho that he continued this

practice in some of his later draings3

• Plate 16" Ald Man, part of ater studies, &indsor, 16879r"• Plate 1" #he sheet ith five heads, &indsor, 6.98r"

• Plate 1." 2 study for the #rivul)io euestrian monument 18- / 11" &indsor,

1688r"

• Plate 18" 2 preliminary sketch for the B2doration of the MagiB, $ouvre, Paris"

• Plate 14" 2ngel of the 2nnunciation, &indsor"

• Plate 17" Crapery study for the right sleeve of =aint Peter" &indsor







• Plate 1-" #he baby from Madonna and a fruit plate, $ouvre, Paris"

2rtists in the 18th century ere regarded as artisans and they rarely signed their on

ork" $eonardo had a strong sense of self orth and as probably reluctant to leave hisork ithout some form of identification" De had been accustomed to hiding his name in

his draings during his youth so he appears to have continued this practice in later life,mainly on draings involving people"



I! thought that ! had discovered all there as to kno about Folio 7v, the folio !

consider to represent $eonardo’s personal astrological chart" 2n ama)ing feature of this

folio, Plate 19, is the face of a clock that emerges hen the si)e of the image is decreasedor the draing is vieed from a distance" !n my first document, the Voynich Manuscript

and $eonardo da Vinci, ! postulated that the position of the little lady ith the baby,

sitting in the tub at the 1 o’clock position on the diagram, probably represented the timeof his birth" 2lthough the outer ring of the draing has only ten little ladies, a clock face

has telve, ! have the impression that $eonardo intended to use it to record the e0act time

of his birth, namely 9". pm" $eonardo’s grandfather recorded that he as born at hoursafter sunset, hich on that day as at 4". pm, making his time of birth hours later or

9". pm" ! never e0pected such a graphic representation of the time of his birth, 9". pm,

as shon by Plate 19, particularly not from a young boy" Ane of the first early records of

a minute hand on a clock is in the Fremersdorf collection that dates back to about 184" !tis possible to estimate intervals ithin an hour ith a one handed clock" :y designing a

clock ith to hands $eonardo demonstrated his very practical, creative genius that must

have manifested itself at an early age" Perhaps designing a clock ith to hands should be added to his long list of inventions"





Plate 6 shos a mirror image of an e0ample of $eonardo’s handriting taken from

Forster ;ode0 !! (E late 1.- and 1.9.* and a sample from Folio 6v" =uperficially

$eonardo’s riting and the VM script are similar in appearance, in spite of the VM usingits on set of symbols" Plate 61 also shos that some letters, l, tl, a, m, n, o and , all

taken from the above e0amples, are similar" #his is a comparison beteen a child’s

riting ith that of a mature man" 2s $eonardo matured, his riting became less ornateand lost the suiggles and flourishes of his younger days" ;ompare the Gm’s’ as an

e0ample, the flourish at the end of this letter is absent in his later riting"



I! as surprised to find a symbol similar to a modern ampersand in both the VM and in

$eonardo’s riting" De used this symbol as an abbreviation for the !talian ord Gdi’

(translates as Gof a’*(V!!* and rote the symbol in his mirror image riting beginning onthe right ith the bottom loop of the ’d’ and finishing on the left ith the Gi’" #he VM

symbol also begins ith the bottom loop of the Gd’ on the left and finishes ith the Gi’ onthe right" #he modern ampersand is ritten in the reverse direction, Figure !"

Some people have uestioned hether a left/handed artist like $eonardo could have

ritten the VM" #he manuscript is ritten from left to right by someone using their righthand, hile a left handed individual made the draings" Curing the Middle 2ges left/

handed people ere called southpas and ere often accused of practicing itchcraft"

#he Cevil himself as considered to be a leftie" People riting from left to right, henusing their left hand, tend to smudge the ink as their hand moves across the page"

;hildren, ho ere born left/handed, ere forced to rite ith their right hand, a

practice that continued until the beginning of the 6th century" My father, born in 1--9and educated at the Manchester <rammar =chool and Hniversity, HI, as left/handed

but made to change" For his entire life, he rote ith his right hand in a copper plate

script, even though he could rite eually ell ith his left hand" #his practice changed

in the 6th century, my eldest brother, born in 196., as alloed to rite ith his lefthand" :oth $eonardo and Michelangelo ere lefties, ho as children ere probably

made to rite right/handed" Michelangelo, in later life, ent one step further and trained

himself to dra ith his right hand" 2lessandro Ve))osi states that $eonardo as

generally but not e0clusively left/handed" !t is uite conceivable that, as a child, he rotethe VM ith his right hand"





A nyone ho vies the VM’s botanical draings for the first time may be confused

by their eccentric characteristics" =ome of the plants are e0aggerated ith respect to si)eand many have himsical roots" ! uestioned hether a viola plant, like the one in folio

9v, ith to very different types of leaves, actually e0isted" My doubts ere dispelled

hen by chance ! found a single viola plant in a pot on a flea market table in Northern;alifornia" #his plant is the double of the VM draing, it has forklike leaves in addition

to normal ones, Plate 61" !n the ;ode0 2tlanticus, $eonardo mentions that he dre‘many

flowers from nature’ " 2ntonio :aldacci states that‘these drawings were undoubtedly donein his youth, but are lost today… From his twentieth year on, the most diversified species

of plants and their parts fascinated Leonardo’s mind. … The drawings of complete

specimens made in his youth, from which he obtained his knowledge of the habits of

various species chosen for artistic purposes at that time, were followed by splendideamples in which art is combined with scientific aims, …’ (V!!!*" &ere $eonardo’s

draings actually lost or are they part of the VM%





If the reader of this article still has doubts as to hether $eonardo as the author of

this manuscript they should take a look at Plate 66, a comparison beteen the middledraing from Folio -8v and a draing by $eonardo called ?mbroidery ith the ords

G2ccademia $eonardi Vinci’ in the center" #he latter draing appears to be an adaptationof the draing from the Voynich Manuscript"

The history of the VM from the time it came into the possession of the Doly >oman

?mperor, >udolph !! or Jacobus de #epenec E14, until discovered by &ilfred Voynich

in a monastery outside >ome in 1916, is reasonably ell understood(!K*" #hisunimposing little book must have had some form of provenance that preserved it for the

E18 years prior to the early 17th century hen it as purchased by >udolph !!" =ince

>oger :acon is no longer the presumed author, e may regard the involvement of either

?dard Ielly or John Cee in its sale to >udolph !! as a red herring" Doever as one of$eonardo’s notebooks, the provenance of the VM is established" 2 chain of custody from

$eonardo via >udolph !! to Jacobus de #epenec may be as follos3

1" $eonardo, ho kept his notebooks ith him until the time of his death in Francein 1819, beueathed them to his friend and pupil, Francesco Mel)i"

6" Mel)i kept them at his home in Northern !taly until his death in 187"





" Dis son, ho had no use for the books, sold them off to various people including

the sculptor to the =panish throne, Pompeo $eoni"

." $eoni sorted the papers and arranged them according to his on taste" =ome ofthe intact notebooks he sold to =pain and after his death in 14- the rest ent ;ount

<alea))o 2rconati ho donated them to Milan(K*"

8" :eteen 1899 and 141, >udolph !! through his ambassador in =pain, JohannIhevenhLller, tried to procure to paintings from Pompeo $eoni(K!* and he may have

obtained the VM and perhaps the Forster ;odices at this time"

R udolph !! (1886/1416*, ho spent eight years of his youth at the =panish court of

his maternal uncle Phillip !!, returned to Vienna in 1871 and became Doly >oman

?mperor in 189" De as the patron of some of the best contemporary artists and spared

no e0pense in acuiring great past masterorks of art and an e0tensive library devoted toalchemy and the occult" Dis collection at the time as the most impressive in ?urope"

Three of $eonardo’s small, bron, parchment bound, notebooks, ;ode0 Forster !, !!

and !!!, Plate 6, are currently in the Victoria and 2lbert Museum in $ondon" #hey ere

purchased by $ord $ytton in Vienna around 1-8 and sold to John Forster, ho in turn

beueathed them to the V 2 Museum in 1-74" 2fter >udolph’s death in 1416, most ofhis collection as packed into ooden crates and moved from Prague to Vienna" &as the

history of ;ode0 Forster !, !! and !!! such that after $eonardo’s death they passed through

the hands of Mel)i to Pompeo $eoni to >udolph !! to Vienna here they ere finally purchased over to centuries later by $ord $ytton% Cid the VM have a similar history

e0cept that it passed after the death of >udolph !!, in payment for a debt (%*, to Jacobus

de #epenec, the director of >udolph’s botanical gardens" >en andbergen(K!!* offers a

very comprehensive discussion of the history of the VM, from its possible inclusion inthe library of >udolph !!, until discovered by &ilfred Voynich"in 1916"









If $eonardo rote the VM, he probably began hen he as a child" #he presence of

the Vinci name does not preclude other members of his family, his uncle Francesco fore0ample, from being the author or original oner of the manuscript" $eonardo as born

in 1.86, making it unlikely that he began riting in the VM much before 1.4" #he 1.;analysis of four pages of the VM, gave a mean 1.; date of 1.61 ith a 98O probabilityrange of 1../1.9" 2 ma+ority of laboratories use the average counting error to

determine the standard deviation of the reported age of the sample and do not take into

account other errors that may occur during sample handling and preparation" =everale0perts recommend that a laboratory supply a laboratory error multiplier ith their results

to account for all errors in the reproducibility in their reported radiocarbon dates(K!!!*"

#he Hniversity of A0ford group appears to use a minimum 1=C standard value, Q/ 8

:P years, hen reporting their 1.; results" #his ould make a young $eonardo a viablecandidate as the riter of the VM"

R adiocarbon dating measures the 1.; Q16; ratio and not the age of the sample"

:ecause the atmospheric level of 1.; is not strictly constant ith time, the determinationof sample age reuires the e0trapolation of the sample age range from a 1.; tree ring

calibration curve" Cendrochronology is based on the assumption that a tree produces one

annular ring per year and the 1.; measurement of the ood ithin that ring representsthe level of decay of 1.;, from the time the ood as gron, to the present, defined as

198" #his appears to be a simple comparison to make, hoever the lack of precision in a

sample measurement also applies to the 1.; measurement of the tree ring sample" #hisresults in an age range rather than an absolute value for the tree ring measurement that in

turn reuires a calibration curve to evaluate" 1.; measurement on multiple trees reduces

this problem" 2 to dimensional, decadal, probability curve is used to estimate the rangeithin hich the true age of the sample lies" Hntil science develops a better method for

determining the true age of antiue artifacts of biological origin, 1.; dating provides the

best information for estimating the appro0imate age of an article like the Voynich

Manuscript"

A s far as ! am aare, the Hniversity of 2ri)ona has not yet published their results and

so no details related to the precision or the bias of their measurements ith respect to the

6. decadal terrestrial calibration curve is available" #he range, 1.. 51.9, representsthe 98O probability of including the dates the animals used to make the parchment died,

not the date that the VM as first ritten in" ! do not kno hether the VM as alays

the intact book e kno today, or if it as made from individual pages or uires later bound together into a book"





Ihave come full circle since riting of my first acticle on the VM about 1 years ago" !

suggest that $eonardo da Vinci be considered a likely author of this manuscript" #heinclusion of the Vinci name in some of the draings of botanical plants cannot be a

coincidence, nor the fact that $eonardo continued this practice in some of his laterauthentic draings" #he uestion of the difference in the 1.; data and the time $eonardo began the manuscript needs to be resolved"

Idedicate this article to the memory of my left/handed father, Prof" Denry =tephen

A:?, C"=c" F>!;, a great man and an accomplished organic chemist ith an organicchemical reaction named after him" De received the A:? for identifying mustard gas, the

poisonous gas the <ermans used on the :ritish and 2merican troops during &orld &ar !"

A ddendum3 =ince riting this article ! have come across additional information" My

father as not the only left/handed person of his generation made to rite ith his right

hand" !f you google the &ikipedia article on Iing <eorge V! (1-98/1986* of the HI, you

ill find the he as born left handed but forced to rite ith his right hand" ! also foundan interesting letter ritten by a bi/de0terous individual to a $ondon nespaper, shoing

simultaneous riting ith both hands, Plate 6.(K!V*" #he interesting feature of this letter

is the similarity in the right and left/handed script, possibly indicating that the brainrecords similar movements that it transmits to either hand, so the riting using the right

hand looks very similar to riting ith the left hand #his should dispel any doubts that a

left/handed $eonardo as incapable of riting the VM using his right hand and ould

account for the similarity in the VM riting and $eonardo’s mirror image riting"





!" R back :ramly, =", 19--, $eonardo #he 2rtist and the Man, Penguin :ooks,

$ondon, p"116/11"!!" R back Ve))osi, 2", 1997, $eonardo da Vinci, #he >enaissance Man, Ne

Dori)ons, #hames and Dudson, p"8."

!!!" R back =herood" ?", #he Voynich Maunscript and $eonardo da

Vinci,http3QQ"edithsherood"comQvoynichSauthorSdaSvinciQ"!V" R back =herood, ?" Voynich Manuscript3 as the author left/

handed%,http3QQ"edithsherood"comQvoynichSauthorQ"

V" R back =herood, ?", #he Voynich Manuscript Cecoded Part6,http3QQ"edithsherood"comQvoynichSdecodedSpart6Q"

V!" R back Ve))osi, 2", ibid p"14/17"

V!!" R back >ichter, J",P", 197, #he Notebooks of $eonardo da Vinci, vol !, Cover, Ne @ork, p"687"

V!!!" R back :aldacci, 2", 1984, in3 $eonardo da Vinci, 1984, >eynald ;ompany,

Ne @ork, p".8/1!K" R back andbergen, >", http3QQ"voynich"nuQ"

K" R back :ramly, =", 1996, $eonardo the 2rtist and the Man, Penguin :ooks, p".1-"K!" R back Delmstutler Ci Coi,

I", http3QQ+hc"o0ford+ournals"orgQcontentQ1-Q6Q17"abstract"K!!" R back andbergen, >", http3QQ"voynich"nuQhistory"html "

K!!!" R back =tuiver, M" and Pearson, <"&" 199, >adiocabon 8(1*31/68"

K!V" R back Dart, !":", 1941, #he &orld of $eonardo da Vinci, Viking Press, Ne @ork, p"1.6"

http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_full_circle/index.php#ref_backlink1



http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_author_da_vinci/


http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_author/



http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_decoded_part2/





http://www.voynich.nu/



http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/2/137.abstract


http://www.voynich.nu/history.html







http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_author_da_vinci/




http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_decoded_part2/





http://www.voynich.nu/



http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/2/137.abstract





the voynich manuscript - full circle

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