The Voynich Ninja

Koen wrote elsewhere:

Quote:If it is indeed true that Marci had forgotten almost everything only one and a half year after he wrote that letter, then this is important evidence, and it should concern everyone genuinely interested in the truth.

This part of history has been researched extensively and most of the evidence is freely available and well known. Other items of interest are not so well known, e.g. the reasonably extensive literature on Marci, the text of his last will, ...

That Marci's memory was defective in 1665 is clearly contradicted by evidence. Most of this can be found on my web site. (I have always made a point of avoiding reference to my web site in every second post, but here it is the most appropriate thing to do).

The letter from Kinner that has been mentioned says a bit more than just that Marci lost memory of nearly everything. From Philip Neal's translation:

Quote:Dominus Marcus has lost his memory of nearly everything but still remembers you. He very officially bids me salute you in his name and he wishes to know through me whether you have yet proved an Oedipus in solving that book which he sent via the Father Provincial last year and what mysteries you think it may contain. It will be a great solace to him if you are able to satisfy his curiosity on this point.

Maybe it doesn't look so bad after all.

What also wasn't mentioned is that one year earlier, just a few months after Marci sent the book and the letter, there was already a letter from Kinner to Kircher with basically the same question, but no reference at all to any memory problems of Marci.

Of course this problem had already been considered and analysed in the several publications of this part of history. The very brief summary You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. :

Quote:As concerns Marci, the Voynich MS was something that had deeply interested him (and his close friend as we shall see below) since many decades. All details in the Marci letter that could be verified have turned out to be correct: his inheritance of books from the previous owner of the MS, the fact that this previous owner had written to Kircher, and the fact that Dr.Raphael was a tutor to Ferdinand III You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. We may safely trust that he correctly remembered Mnišovský's words.

Many of the things that Marci writes in his letter to Kircher are corroborated by independent references. His memory is perfectly in order.

I understand what you mean, if the manuscript was so important to him then he was unlikely to mess up his memory about it.

On the other hand, for reasons we discussed before, I think we should be less certain about the emperor's owning the MS than we are now. The evidence relies purely on one witness. If someone says that this witness 'Dominus Marcus has lost his memory of nearly everything but still remembers you' then that is something to take into consideration. 

The problem I'm having with this is that for example the wiki states that the emperor owned the MS with certainty. It is in the interest of the investigation that we know that it's more like a fifty percent chance and that other avenues remain wide open. That's all.

I must add that of course, the Marci letter is the best evidence we have at the moment and there is no other evidence based explanation available to us. But that doesn't mean that we have to hold on to it no matter what. 'We don't know for sure but this is our best shot right now' is also a good answer.

Pure speculation here, but is it at all possible that Kinner was also interested in the VMS, and was only ostensibly asking on Marci's behalf?  Admittedly I can think of no obvious reason for such a pretense if Kinner also regularly corresponded with Kircher.

(31-12-2016, 01:22 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

On the other hand, for reasons we discussed before, I think we should be less certain about the emperor's owning the MS than we are now. The evidence relies purely on one witness. If someone says that this witness 'Dominus Marcus has lost his memory of nearly everything but still remembers you' then that is something to take into consideration. 
...

There's also the name of Jacobi a Tepenecz erased from the first page and it appears to be in his hand. Since "a Tepenecz" is a name granted by the Emperor, it's not one that anyone could have. Jacobi was Rudolph II's herbalist/botanist. This strengthens the possibility that it was at one point in Rudolph's court.

JKP: exactly, I see no reason to doubt that. But it also increases the odds that someone who may or may not have had memory issues already confused who exactly the owner was: Rudolph or someone close to him?

(31-12-2016, 03:15 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP: exactly, I see no reason to doubt that. But it also increases the odds that someone who may or may not have had memory issues already confused who exactly the owner was: Rudolph or someone close to him?

It might be hard to know. Emperors had everything done for them. Most of the kings and emperors were dressed by assistants, the chamber pot was brought and emptied by an assistant, they had messengers, cooks, housekeepers, accountants. If something was in someone's hands, it might belong to them, or it might belong to the Emperor.

Rudolph II was more reclusive than most, he may not have had as much hands-on personal attention as some, but whether the VMS was in his library or that of his herbalist or whether it went through both hands may never be known.

It was common for the names of heirs to be written on certain items in those days and even in recent days (and the name might or might not be honored by the executor or other heirs after the owner's death), but since it appears to be Jacobi's hand, more likely it was an ex libris rather than his name as heir (that doesn't discount the possibility that Rudolph owned it and gave it to Jacobi or that someone else gave it to Jacobi upon Rudolph's death). Regardless of Marci's memory problems in his last days, the signature on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. combined with Marci's testimony suggests the VMS was in or around Prague at that time.

(31-12-2016, 03:46 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Regardless of Marci's memory problems in his last days, the signature on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. combined with Marci's testimony suggests the VMS was in or around Prague at that time.

Yes, I can completely agree with your analysis. It's a lot more balanced than the somewhat sensationalist "emperor had it!" that is sometimes heard. I don't see a reason do deny that it must have been around Prague at the time. What we know about Baresch' ownership also fits in that story.

-KJP-, Koen et.al.

These are the grey areas for me:  let's begin with Rene's summary of his reasons for taking the alleged comment of Mnishovsky at face value.

Rene says:

Quote:As concerns Marci, the Voynich MS was something that had deeply interested him ... since many decades.

Now, I don't know that this is a reasonable assumption at all.  It is certainly true that Georg Baresch had it in his (Baresch's) possession for decades and spent a great deal of time and effort trying to understand it. He not only approached Kircher but, on his own testimony, German botanists who at that time were ranked among the most informed and able in Europe.   But Marci's letters to Kircher - such as we have - don't show a "deep interest" but only a deep interest in his friend, who hopes by study of the ms to benefit medicine.  I don't believe it can reasonably be said that Marci himself had any direct interest in it: if we believe that letter, he never meant to keep it or work on it, but to give it to Kircher.  That is, give the whole manuscript to Kircher - and Kircher (as is well known) was not inclined towards sharing.

But Baresch never suggested that the manuscript had been seen by the emperor Rudolf II, let alone owned by him and being of the previous generation - and actually living in Prague - it seems extraordinary to me that he would not have mentioned any imperial connection because everyone knew that Kircher was a thorough snob and the merest whiff of imperial connection would have intrigued him.

More than this - Jacub (Tepenecz) may have treated the emperor but didn't live at court; he had an independent practice and having been raised by the Jesuits - perhaps an orphan - he continued to regard that community as his family by default and left most of his possessions to branches of that community (unless newer information has recently come to light.

So that's another resounding absence of corroboration.  Why didn't Baresch, or even Marci, say anything remotely like "and the Jesuit community/library/other close friends of Tepenecz/Baresch/Mari" confirm the truth of the imperial connection?

Nor does Kinner... nor do any of those who tried to encourage Kircher to work on the mss between when Baresch wrote and when Kinner wrote (nor even later) EVER refer to Rudolf, or to the 'imperial physician's manuscript' or anything that might be taken as acknowledgement or confirmation of the alleged assertion by Mnishovsky?

Here, I'd also add that despite the years during which members of the JVL including Rene, hunted determinedly through Prague and Vatican archives, no one found the slightest hint of anything which could equate with such a purchase.

Then Rene says

Quote:All details in the Marci letter that could be verified have turned out to be correct: his inheritance of books from the previous owner of the MS,

This is a small point, but the assertion that Baresch "owned" the manuscript is unsupported by any evidence or testimony. Baresch himself never claims to own it, only that it has lain on his shelves for an indefinite period.

Nor does Marci say Baresch owned it - his phrasing could be taken to imply quite the opposite - that it had been left to Marci and only left by *him* with Baresch.  What he actually says is:

Quote:This book was left to me by a close friend in his will and ever since I first owned it I have destined it for you my dearest Athanasius, persuaded as I am that it can be read by none if not by you.

The then possessor of the book once sent you letters seeking your judgment about a part of it which he wrote down and sent to you, being convinced that the rest of it could be read by you.

It's a small point, really, and either way doesn't impact on the central question here: why has the Mnishovsky rumour being given so much greater weight than it deserves?  It can have no bearing on our efforts to discover what the manuscript is about, but only bias expectations that it ought to be about the sort of things that interested Rudolf.  But what we need to know is what sort of things interested a person in early fifteenth century Italy, England or France.

Basically, even IF Marci had correctly recalled the name of the person from whom he'd heard that rumour, decades before, AND even if he had accurately recalled the gist of that rumour (things we are entitled to doubt given Marci's condition and the length of time involved) still it is a distant memory of a distant allegation by someone who (as Neal pointed out) couldn't possibly have witnessed any such transaction.  Nor did Marci (or even, apparently, Mnishovsky) ever actually say that Rudolf bought the manuscript.  The story (as Marci remembered it so much later) was only that Rudolf gave 600 ducats to the (entirely anonymous and faceless) person who brought the  manuscript to Prague.

As I've pointed out, we find in other contexts that 600 ducats is an amount given to travellers passing through Prague.. I won't repeat that here.

But basically, on all counts, the only suggestion of any link  to Rudolf is one late memory, by a man suffering from a condition which affected his memory, of a comment made decades before by someone who was certainly no first hand witness, and whose comment was so little regarded, even then, that not even Marci mentions it in what we have of his correspondence with Kircher between the time Baresch sent the copy and the time Marci sent Kircher the manuscript.

I think the evidence does not support the weight given the 'Mnishovsky rumour" and can see no reasonable explanation for why it should continue to be treated as anything more than a bit of hearsay - a curious and doubtful footnote.

Let me make one thing quite clear - the point here is that Voynich research is replete with confident assertions which do not bear close scrutiny.  The real problem, as I see it, is an over-attachment to unexamined assertions, the construction of dearly-held theories upon them, and then sadly often, a highly personal attack on any historian trying to do what historians do.. that is, re-examine the bases of old ideas, to see whether and how those older notions may have led the study astray.

In this case, we saw years' worth of investigation into Rudolf, his library, his circle of acquaintences, the subjects which interested him etc.etc.  - all matters of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - total waste of time given that (as was already known) the manuscript presents as a late thirteenth-to-fifteenth century MS and was most likely made somewhere between England and northern Italy.

I really don't see how the material quoted above casts any doubt over ownership.
The letter quoted says:
"This book was left to me by a close friend in his will".
That statement makes it obvious that both were the successive owners: if Baresch had not been the owner he could not have "left" it in his will, therefore this clearly establishes that the owner until his death, and the act of being "left" something in a will makes the recipient, Marci, its legitimate new owner.
There is really nothing ambiguous there at all.
Of course there's always the option that the whole thing is a lie concocted to trick Kircher, but if that is the case, it is a well constructed lie, and I see nothing that betrays it in the wording of the letter.