He had apparently realised that geometry matters вЂ“ and вЂgeometriesвЂ™ are the chief subject of this present post. вЂњrepresenting a lune of the celestial sphere formed by circles drawn through the extreme points of the sign and the poles of the zodiacвЂќ.Д¬iting BaconвЂ™s Opus Maius (see BridgesвЂ™ transcription here). In speaking of the month-diagrams, he offered his explanation for more than just the central emblems he considered the tiered figures, and why the tiers ( вЂњbandsвЂќ) should appear as they do. Unlike many who followed him, Newbold did realise that no picture can be defined by only one or two elements in it. That paper was presented by Professor William Romaine Newbold, and its contents вЂ“ or more exactly what is found in pages 461-474 of the printed version- entitles Newbold to be honoured as the founder of Voynich studies. Not only as a landmark study but because it solves many of those вЂњwhere-did- that-idea-come-fromвЂќ problems, including the problem of why the idea took hold that the month folios were meant to serve an astrological purpose and why no-one seems later to have asked whether that was true.

Indeed, so many items from that paper have been taken up as if so many facts that by far the greater proportion of what has been written about the Voynich manuscript since 1921 has been predicated on belief that the authorвЂ™s perceptions and opinions were right about this point and others вЂ“ whether or not those later writers had been told the original source. Many ideas and habits still found in Voynich writings have their origin in that paper вЂ“ as when those вЂtagsвЂ™ are re-used by which its author described his impression of images as вЂpharmaceuticalвЂ™ or вЂherbalвЂ™ or вЂzodiacвЂ™. Voynich studies was established in 1921 with the first research paper attempting both to describe and to explain the manuscriptвЂ™s content. PostscriptвЂ“ The only way I can thank readers for putting up with long posts is to include something original, so thereвЂ™s a bit more unpublished research in this post. The cues needed to understand a difficult image may lie in those very details. This isnвЂ™t such a problem in everyday life вЂ“ a person may say that people from some region of the world вЂall look alikeвЂ™ and so on, but if the task is to understand the origin and intention of difficult images, the hardwired habit has to be consciously balanced out. The narrower the personвЂ™s range of knowledge/experience (or limits which they impose on the search) the greater the risk of mis-reading the image. (inset) portrait of William Romaine Newbold.ДЄs explained in the previous post ( here), when presented with something never encountered before, our brain hunts for вЂnearest matchвЂ™ from what we already know, but in doing that will ignore some or even many points of difference. MS 22413 (right) detail from Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, manuscripts Sp.30.

Skies above вЂ“ not astrological (Feb, 9th., 2020).Skies above: Certain measures Pt.1 ( February 27, 2020).

Voynich manuscript replica