07-03-2026, 12:48 PM
Good morning, forgive me for the delay, but I've only just read the post and believe it's correct and exhaustive in some respects (at least I hope so) to correct some inaccuracies about the parchment I have. The backing is parchment from a book (the original binding stitches are visible), abraded and bleached with calcium, a process typical of using parchment sheets previously used for other texts (printed or written).
The size is identical to the original format of the Voynich manuscript. The sealing wax stamp on the back has a diameter of 1.5 cm (sphragistics experts explained to me that it is typical of "ad personam" seals placed as a pendant on a chain or as a ring) with a trace of a strip of paper underneath between the seal and the sheet and represents two superimposed letters: an A and a G (17th to 19th century style, name of the owner unidentified) and in the underlying part there is the trace of the presence of a second "disposable" seal “to loose on the opening” and the central fold of the parchment typical of the Roman style system letters called "Litterae Clausae" means: closed letters.
The numbering "21" is the numbering given by the creator of the package which is supposed to have originally been composed of 10 other sheets numbered from 1 to 20 on the front and back or of 20 sheets made only on the front (an unlikely hypothesis given the total thickness that would result). The minimal traces of titanium Ti (RX) found only in some points of the green and pink coloration (but only in some) appear to be due to a posthumous overpainting or by contamination, while the presence of ultramarine blue (lapislazuli in Raman spectroscopy) is present on the majority of the green; the black of the text has the curves of Raman spectroscopy (I quote verbatim from the laboratory analysis report of the University of Modena/Reggio Emilia: “The Raman spectra were acquired directly by focusing a point of the work using a Jobin Yvon-Horiba Labram Raman microscope, with a red laser at 632.8 nm, operating at maximum power of 5 mW, Edge filters for the elimination of the exciter and as a detector a CCD with 256 x 1024 pixels cooled by the Peltier effect at -70°C.”), identical to those of the camping ink with the addition of iron oxide to stabilize the black color, but turned dark brown due to oxidation over the centuries which cannot be artificially reproduced without compromising the structure of the parchment (We considered the possibility of the C14 test but we would have ruined the parchment sheet and in any case if the dating had been from the 15th or 16th century, this would not have given certainty about its production which could have taken place in different centuries). It is thought that in the original draft, the sheet was not colored (why should it have been? The request to A. Kircher was for a translation of the text, why waste time coloring the 21 pages of the package?).
G. Baresch was, as far as we know, neither an engraver, nor a painter, nor a draftsman, so it is presumable that he had it done by someone else at the university he presided over (a fellow art professor, or a student?). Personally, I believe that Baresch did not faithfully copy (or had copied) the plan of the original folio (back of folio 14 of the manuscript), but modified the drawing to represent it more realistically and scientifically more professionally, in the eyes of a scientist of A. Kircher's caliber (thus trying to attract his attention to the decryption). Which, apparently from the text of the 1639 letter, was unsuccessful, since he wrote it as a second attempt to request a translation, having received no news of the first submission (- "... Siq[ui]dem etiam illud, quod p[ro]xima vice missum fuit, Romam non pervenit, ut ex eo colligo, q[uod] tanto tractu temporis, nihil de hoc re//scriptum intellexi. ..." -).
I present the translation of some parts of G. Baresch's second letter to A. Kircher, underlining in bold the most important passages relevant to my parchment: “Most Reverend Father, ……
A great religious man is heading to Italy, precisely to Rome, so I took the opportunity to convince him to take this letter with him.
I hope it will awaken your memory of a certain document I sent you through the Reverend Father Moretus, a priest of the Society of Jesus in Prague...
... informed of your unheard-of skill in solving the riddles of some very obscure texts.
Now, since there is a book in my library that takes up unnecessary space, a sort of "riddle of the Sphinx," a book written in unknown characters, I thought it would not be out of place to send the mystery to be solved to Oedipus of Egypt.
So I ordered that this old book be partially transcribed, with the writing imitated as closely as possible with no small amount of difficulty (the bearer of this letter will inform you that he saw it with his own eyes).
A year and a half ago, I sent that document to you, Reverend Father. My hope is that, if Your Excellency should deem it appropriate to devote some time and effort to investigating it and deciphering the unknown letters, the effort might, to the extent that the things hidden in the book have proven worthy of such labor, be of benefit to You, Oedipus, to myself, and to the common good.
It did not seem advisable to commit the book itself to such a long and perilous journey.... From the images of herbs, of which there are many in the codex, and of other images, stars, and other things that bear the appearance of chemical symbolism, it is my hypothesis that everything is medical, the most useful branch of learning for the human race apart from the salvation of souls.
This task is possible only under the dignity of a powerful intellect. After all, this cannot be for the masses, as can be judged by the precautions the author took to keep the education ignorant... Here I add a line or two of the unknown writing to revive your memory, having sent a similar partial booklet at the time.
With this I commend myself to your reverence and wish you a successful conclusion to your labors.
May the greatest and best God preserve you long for the glory of the sciences.
Prague, April 27, 1639 AD, the place where I once entered the Roman University of Wisdom to dedicate my work to medical science.
Best wishes to your reverence.
Georgius Baresch”.
From the letter found by Renè Zandbergen in the Jesuit Library of Rome - Kirkerian archive.
I believe it is the last sheet of the package that Baresch sent a second time, via Father T. Moretus, to Kircher, but I cannot be certain or state it with absolute certainty. Was it made during the manuscript's dark period between 1965 and 1912? It is likely, but we do not know by whom or why; however, the existence of this parchment tells us that the manuscript cannot be a forgery created by W.M. Voynich.
I am adding a brief summary of the parchment's technical description:
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
The sheet of "renewed" parchment, measuring 235 mm x 168 mm, abraded and then bleached with calcium (as revealed by the scientific investigations of the laboratory with "Raman Spectroscopy") was taken from a book; you can see the signs of tying in the left margin/recto.
The front of the parchment is the copy of the sheet 14v of the Voynich manuscript (almost identical in size).
On the scroll are visible 2 and 3 small holes at the corners, presumably of pins, used to stop the parchment during the realization of the copy.
At the top of the recto side, right corner, is written the number 21 (page numeration ?) flanked with a '"wave" or "half infinity symbol". Halfway in the right side, there is a vertical abrasion.
The text presents several differences from the original copy, and the design of the plant has been reinterpreted in the style of the late Renaissance/Baroque iconography herbaria onwards.
The sheet is in good condition, with a central vertical fold more visible in the reverse of the parchment (which is inferred that it was originally folded in half, but no clear view of the fold, could hold within other 10 pages of parchment made recto/verso(?) for a total of 21 facades numbered) that presents in the top 3/4 on the right side, a round seal (80% intact), an inner diameter of 15 mm in red wax with initial AG intertwined and more or less at the same height in the lower half 1/4 to the right, the trace of the presence of a second red wax seal, lost.
The seal AG surmounts a remnant of gray/beige cardboard, glued to the parchment (visible traces of organic glue).
On the reverse of the parchment are also visible remains of horizontal lines and characters of a text not identified even under black light as the layer of calcium heavily covering the surface of the parchment.
Thank you for your attention and best regards to everyone.[attachment=14496][attachment=14497][attachment=14498]
The size is identical to the original format of the Voynich manuscript. The sealing wax stamp on the back has a diameter of 1.5 cm (sphragistics experts explained to me that it is typical of "ad personam" seals placed as a pendant on a chain or as a ring) with a trace of a strip of paper underneath between the seal and the sheet and represents two superimposed letters: an A and a G (17th to 19th century style, name of the owner unidentified) and in the underlying part there is the trace of the presence of a second "disposable" seal “to loose on the opening” and the central fold of the parchment typical of the Roman style system letters called "Litterae Clausae" means: closed letters.
The numbering "21" is the numbering given by the creator of the package which is supposed to have originally been composed of 10 other sheets numbered from 1 to 20 on the front and back or of 20 sheets made only on the front (an unlikely hypothesis given the total thickness that would result). The minimal traces of titanium Ti (RX) found only in some points of the green and pink coloration (but only in some) appear to be due to a posthumous overpainting or by contamination, while the presence of ultramarine blue (lapislazuli in Raman spectroscopy) is present on the majority of the green; the black of the text has the curves of Raman spectroscopy (I quote verbatim from the laboratory analysis report of the University of Modena/Reggio Emilia: “The Raman spectra were acquired directly by focusing a point of the work using a Jobin Yvon-Horiba Labram Raman microscope, with a red laser at 632.8 nm, operating at maximum power of 5 mW, Edge filters for the elimination of the exciter and as a detector a CCD with 256 x 1024 pixels cooled by the Peltier effect at -70°C.”), identical to those of the camping ink with the addition of iron oxide to stabilize the black color, but turned dark brown due to oxidation over the centuries which cannot be artificially reproduced without compromising the structure of the parchment (We considered the possibility of the C14 test but we would have ruined the parchment sheet and in any case if the dating had been from the 15th or 16th century, this would not have given certainty about its production which could have taken place in different centuries). It is thought that in the original draft, the sheet was not colored (why should it have been? The request to A. Kircher was for a translation of the text, why waste time coloring the 21 pages of the package?).
G. Baresch was, as far as we know, neither an engraver, nor a painter, nor a draftsman, so it is presumable that he had it done by someone else at the university he presided over (a fellow art professor, or a student?). Personally, I believe that Baresch did not faithfully copy (or had copied) the plan of the original folio (back of folio 14 of the manuscript), but modified the drawing to represent it more realistically and scientifically more professionally, in the eyes of a scientist of A. Kircher's caliber (thus trying to attract his attention to the decryption). Which, apparently from the text of the 1639 letter, was unsuccessful, since he wrote it as a second attempt to request a translation, having received no news of the first submission (- "... Siq[ui]dem etiam illud, quod p[ro]xima vice missum fuit, Romam non pervenit, ut ex eo colligo, q[uod] tanto tractu temporis, nihil de hoc re//scriptum intellexi. ..." -).
I present the translation of some parts of G. Baresch's second letter to A. Kircher, underlining in bold the most important passages relevant to my parchment: “Most Reverend Father, ……
A great religious man is heading to Italy, precisely to Rome, so I took the opportunity to convince him to take this letter with him.
I hope it will awaken your memory of a certain document I sent you through the Reverend Father Moretus, a priest of the Society of Jesus in Prague...
... informed of your unheard-of skill in solving the riddles of some very obscure texts.
Now, since there is a book in my library that takes up unnecessary space, a sort of "riddle of the Sphinx," a book written in unknown characters, I thought it would not be out of place to send the mystery to be solved to Oedipus of Egypt.
So I ordered that this old book be partially transcribed, with the writing imitated as closely as possible with no small amount of difficulty (the bearer of this letter will inform you that he saw it with his own eyes).
A year and a half ago, I sent that document to you, Reverend Father. My hope is that, if Your Excellency should deem it appropriate to devote some time and effort to investigating it and deciphering the unknown letters, the effort might, to the extent that the things hidden in the book have proven worthy of such labor, be of benefit to You, Oedipus, to myself, and to the common good.
It did not seem advisable to commit the book itself to such a long and perilous journey.... From the images of herbs, of which there are many in the codex, and of other images, stars, and other things that bear the appearance of chemical symbolism, it is my hypothesis that everything is medical, the most useful branch of learning for the human race apart from the salvation of souls.
This task is possible only under the dignity of a powerful intellect. After all, this cannot be for the masses, as can be judged by the precautions the author took to keep the education ignorant... Here I add a line or two of the unknown writing to revive your memory, having sent a similar partial booklet at the time.
With this I commend myself to your reverence and wish you a successful conclusion to your labors.
May the greatest and best God preserve you long for the glory of the sciences.
Prague, April 27, 1639 AD, the place where I once entered the Roman University of Wisdom to dedicate my work to medical science.
Best wishes to your reverence.
Georgius Baresch”.
From the letter found by Renè Zandbergen in the Jesuit Library of Rome - Kirkerian archive.
I believe it is the last sheet of the package that Baresch sent a second time, via Father T. Moretus, to Kircher, but I cannot be certain or state it with absolute certainty. Was it made during the manuscript's dark period between 1965 and 1912? It is likely, but we do not know by whom or why; however, the existence of this parchment tells us that the manuscript cannot be a forgery created by W.M. Voynich.
I am adding a brief summary of the parchment's technical description:
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
The sheet of "renewed" parchment, measuring 235 mm x 168 mm, abraded and then bleached with calcium (as revealed by the scientific investigations of the laboratory with "Raman Spectroscopy") was taken from a book; you can see the signs of tying in the left margin/recto.
The front of the parchment is the copy of the sheet 14v of the Voynich manuscript (almost identical in size).
On the scroll are visible 2 and 3 small holes at the corners, presumably of pins, used to stop the parchment during the realization of the copy.
At the top of the recto side, right corner, is written the number 21 (page numeration ?) flanked with a '"wave" or "half infinity symbol". Halfway in the right side, there is a vertical abrasion.
The text presents several differences from the original copy, and the design of the plant has been reinterpreted in the style of the late Renaissance/Baroque iconography herbaria onwards.
The sheet is in good condition, with a central vertical fold more visible in the reverse of the parchment (which is inferred that it was originally folded in half, but no clear view of the fold, could hold within other 10 pages of parchment made recto/verso(?) for a total of 21 facades numbered) that presents in the top 3/4 on the right side, a round seal (80% intact), an inner diameter of 15 mm in red wax with initial AG intertwined and more or less at the same height in the lower half 1/4 to the right, the trace of the presence of a second red wax seal, lost.
The seal AG surmounts a remnant of gray/beige cardboard, glued to the parchment (visible traces of organic glue).
On the reverse of the parchment are also visible remains of horizontal lines and characters of a text not identified even under black light as the layer of calcium heavily covering the surface of the parchment.
Thank you for your attention and best regards to everyone.[attachment=14496][attachment=14497][attachment=14498]