Voynich and PhD people...

I recently stumbled upon an active Voynich researcher I'd never heard of: Angela Catalina Ghionea (note that, even though Internet Explorer throws up lots of warnings for her website, it's basically OK), who is a teaching assistant and 3rd year PhD student in the History Department at Purdue University.

She's is "currently focused on the most mysterious manuscript in the world, The 'Voynich Manuscript' ", and is preparing an article called "Understanding the Voynich Manuscript. New Evidence for a Genuine Alphabet, Shamanic Imagery, and Magical Plants". Her recent presentations at various conferences include:-

• "Voynich Manuscript and its Genuine Alphabet" (12 April, HGSA 2008 Conference, Purdue)
• "Understanding the "Voynich", the Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World. American Shamanism and Exotic Plants" (29 March at the OAH 2008 Annual Meeting, New York, Hilton Hotel)
• "Contributions to Voynich Manuscript's Mystery" (24 March 2008, MARS Conference, Purdue)
• "Voynich Manuscript is not a Hoax. Uncovering New Evidence" (Purdue, 29 January 2008)

All of which I hope to see very soon (and to review here). But this set me wondering: how many other people with PhD's have looked at the Voynich? I drew up a quick list (let me know if there are more), but there are plenty of familiar faces...

• William Romaine Newbold
• John Manly (love the cigar story!)
• Leonell Strong (love that facial hair / collar combination)
• Derek de Solla Price
• Jim Reeds
• Jacques Guy
• Gabriel Landini
• Jorge Stolfi
• Gordon Rugg
• Edith Sherwood

Though according to Dr C. S. Lewis Barrie PhD, the Voynich Manuscript is a medieval blog, which is why it makes no sense. Ah, bless.

Mona Lisa overkill...

Why is it that so many people wonder whether Leonardo da Vinci created the Voynich Manuscript? Even well-informed, thoughtful people like Edith Sherwood (whose Adwords ad frequently pops up if you happen to Google for "Voynich") manage to succumb to this notion.

There's only one little problem: the VMs' pen-strokes predominantly go from top-left to bottom-right, clearly indicating that it was written by someone who was right-handed. (Or left-handed, writing from right-to-left with the pages upside-down: but that just seems a bit stupid). In terms of identifying the author, that's about 10% of the population eliminated: but, sadly, this is the tranche containing our Florentine chum Leonardo.

It's probably symptomatic of what I call "join-the-dots history", where you start with a set of evocative pieces and then work out the minimum amount of evidence you need to appropriate / use / abuse to link them together in a way that suggests some kind of correlation. For example, if you started with the (fake) Priory of Sion, Leonardo da Vinci, and Opus Dei... errrrrm... no, that would never work...

Anyway, here's the latest real news on Leonardo: apparently, the Mona Lisa was indeed a picture of Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and was being painted in October 1503. We have a "Heidelberg library expert" called Armin Schlechter to thank for finding this: and thankful I am.