Re: Codex Mendoza

[Adam McLean <alchemy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The capital 'R' looks like VMS 'H', was there a specific period or region 
>where R was written in this style? Also 's' like '8'.

These are common in 16th and 17th century manuscripts, 
especially in Latin and later in English handwriting. It is very
difficult to date a manuscript of this period purely from the 
handwriting except in a few cases, as there were various 
traditions of handwriting passed down which continued for 
a number of generations and these overlapped. 

In Mary D'Imperio's book 'The Voynich manuscript - an elegant 
enigma', she gives a listing in Figure 17 comparing Voynich 
characters with common Latin abbreviations. 

I cannot see that the existence of a few similar characters in 
a particular manuscript of the 16th or 17th century can throw
much light on the Voynich.
I suspect that people with such enthusiasm just have not looked
at many manuscripts and may not be aware of just how
common these styles of orthography, embellishments or
special contractions are. If anyone visiting a library with good
holdings of  16th or 17th century manuscripts would get
out a dozen or so at random they would find one
or more with similar handwritten characters.  Though a few 
of the Voynich characters are very familiar there are some
characters which do not seem to appear elsewhere.
No one has ever found another example of the whole Voynich 
character set.

All that this shows us is that the Voynich manuscript drew
upon European orthography and that it most likely should be
placed in that context.

It would be nice if one could locate a manuscript which so 
easily  threw light on the Voynich characters, however, people 
have been working on this enigma for many decades and if 
there was a parallel manuscript surely it would have been 
found by now. Such will certainly not be in a well known collection, 
exhibited and published in facsimile like the Codex Mendosa, 
but hidden in a little visited obscure library or private collection.
I suppose some fragment could be found used as palimpsest, 
or recycled as endpapers of a book or manuscript, only revealed 
when conservation  work is carried out. But here we are grasping 
at straws and hoping against hope for enlightenment from 
outside the folios of the Voynich itself. 

Adam McLean
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