The Voynich Ninja

After all the talk about Marci's memory in the other thread, I decided to revisit Marci's correspondences with Kircher, and as usual, when re-reading something one always finds something new.  

There are three letters from Marci to Kircher:  one from 1640, one from 1641, and one from 1665 (the one found with the VMS).  I am using You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as my resource for the translations here.  

I think I should note right off the bat that, professionally, I have a master's degree in history with an emphasis on American history and interwar European history.  So, medieval / early Renaissance history is not my specialty, but I do think very carefully about how I read a primary source.  And this time when re-reading the Marci to Kircher correspondences, I tried to put all assumptions out the window and figure out how I would describe each letter to a colleague who knew nothing about the context of the VMS controversy, who perhaps was interested in the letters for some other reason.  

The main thing I immediately noticed after reading all three in chronological order was that I felt like I was playing a Sesame Street game of "One Of These Is Not Like The Other One".

My thoughts on the 1640 and 1641 letters:

The first thing I notice is that it is the style of these letters typically to update the addressee on a whole host of topics in a single letter. Contextually, I know that communication was difficult and letters were infrequent.  It makes sense that people corresponding with each other would take the opportunity in each rare letter to revisit nearly every point of ongoing business they had between themselves.  The author never passes up on an opportunity to convey greetings from so-and-so, and to discuss affairs regarding mutual acquaintances and how so-and-so is eagerly awaiting feedback on some previous letter.  That makes sense.  

In this context, there's nothing that particularly jumps out at me about the following passage from the 1640 letter:

Quote:The Sph*nx will understand from the attached sheet what my friend Mr Georg Barschius wanted to have written by me. Though he is undoubtedly a man of the highest quality and greatly skilled in chemical matters, he has not in fact achieved the real goal he longs for. He seeks it for the sake not of money but of medicine.

Marci seems to be referring to Kircher here in third person as "The Sph*nx," possibly as an honorific compliment.  We learn that Marci's friend, Georg Barschius, is seeking some help with something having to do with medicine and possibly chemistry.  The help could be financial help, scholarly advice, a recipe, a letter of recommendation, or something else.  It is really not possible to say what this "real goal" of Barschius's was, just that it had something to do with medicine and that, if achieved, it could have potentially brought monetary rewards if Barschius were to achieve it (of which Barschius was reportedly not interested).  It is not clear what was on the attached sheet.  It could have been a letter from Barschius himself.  Perhaps Barschius didn't know Kircher very well personally and felt a bit abashed at the thought of his lowly self asking for help from someone so much more illustrious and of higher status, so Barschius wanted to have his letter tag along with someone else's letter to introduce Barschius's letter.  Or, the attached sheet could have been a pharmaceutical recipe with which Barschius was having trouble with, or trouble finding ingredients for.  It could have been any number of things.  

Yet, we know that Voynich researchers have always interpreted this sheet as an except from the VMS and Barschius's "real goal" as having to do with deciphering the VMS.  I see nothing to warrant that conclusion, however.  

Moving on to the 1641 letter:

Quote:His Majesty replied that he had charged his confessor that very day to write to your Reverence to come here for Easter Day now that the work on magnetism is finished. And he also commanded me to encourage you to make your way here. If a flood of enthusiasm can achieve anything I shall try, not so much to encourage and persuade, as to attract your spirit with all the force of mine.

Count Bernard has now been away for over three weeks, gone to Silesia by order of the Emperor. Our other mutual friends cordially salute your Reverence, particularly Father Santinus and Dominus Barschius. The magnetism book has doubtless already been dispatched and we eagerly await it.

Here we learn that someone, (possibly Kircher himself, or someone else?), had just finished writing a book on magnetism, and it was generating great interest in Marci's social circle. We also learn that a copy of this magnetism book had been reportedly dispatched TO Marci's social circle, and that they eagerly awaited it.  They also eagerly awaited seeing Kircher, possibly in order to discuss the magnetism book, or perhaps for some other reason.  Marci seems to be trying to make a semantic pun here when he says (alluding to the magnetism book) that Marci himself is going to try to harness his powers of magnetism and "attract [Kircher's] spirit with all the force of mine" to have Kircher come join him and his social circle.  

The only other topic referred to in this letter is...

Quote:On another topic, could you be so kind as to bring with you the description of the journey of the Ethiopian whose country contains the source of the Nile, as I have asked in previous letters, since I love stories of that kind.

...which is obviously not referring to the VMS.  And the "book on magnetism" is also clearly not referring to the VMS, as it is instead referring to a book that was recently finished by someone and which was being sent TO Marci's circle.  So, I can make an even stronger statement about this 1641 letter and boldly state that not only am I unsure if there is anything here having to do with the VMS, but that there is clearly nothing here relating to the VMS.  

Moving on to the 1665 letter:

The first thing that I notice is that it has an entirely different style than the other two.  The other two letters are collections of updates about various affairs of mutual interest.  The 1665 letter is unusual in focusing on only one topic—a book of some sort that Marci and some friend of Marci's (not necessarily Barschius) cannot decipher. 

The 1665 letter would feel less out of place if it had been taking place in the context of a very frequent correspondence, such that Marci felt no need to update Kircher on the goings-on of their various other acquaintances and affairs of mutual interest.  Do we have any evidence of this frequent correspondence around this time?  If not, then the style of this 1665 letter feels really out of place in focusing on only one topic. 

Secondly, based on the types of contextual details offered about this topic, I have to conclude that this is the first time that Marci is addressing this particular topic with Kircher.  Here Marci introduces Kircher to the suspected provenance of the book and other basic information that one would present at the outset.  

Things that remain unclear:

1.  Which book was this 1665 letter referring to?  We all assume it was the VMS because this letter was found inside the VMS, but if they were both part of the Kircher collection, this letter could have been referring to some other book but could have easily gotten shuffled into the VMS, either by Kircher himself (depending on his habits of organization), or by someone else.  


2.  Who is the close friend who left this book to Marci in a will?  (We don't know it is Barschius because we don't know that the earlier letters were referring to this).  

3.  Is the close friend of Marci's the same person as the "then possessor of the book" who "once sent [Kircher] letters seeking [Kircher's] judgment about a part of it" written down by the then possessor and sent to Kircher?  Can we rule out the possibility that the ownership went from:
A.  "then possessor of the book" who sent letters and an except
B.  Marci's close friend
C.  Marci

In other words, could A and B be different people?  I don't see anything to clearly imply that they are the same person.  After introducing the close friend, Marci doesn't say "this close friend of mine once sent you a letter and except."  Marci says, "the then possessor..." as if introducing a new character.  Nor are either A or B plainly referred to by name (why not?)  It's a bit confusingly worded.

4.  Allegedly the "then possessor" [Person A] "put untiring work into [the book's] decipherment. as will be seen from his attempts now sent to you under the same cover."  4a.  What exactly does "untiring work" mean?  How much work would "untiring work" look like?  Would the sparse VMS marginalia be described as "untiring work"?  and 4b.  What exactly does "under the same cover" mean?  Does "under the same cover" mean marginalia or stuff written on a separate sheet?   

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I am left with several conclusions:  

1.  If the 1665 letter is indeed referring to the VMS, then this is the first time that Marci has brought up the VMS with Kircher, and thus the 1640 letter cannot also be referring to the VMS.  It has to be one or the other letter that is referring to the VMS.  
2.  If the 1640 is not referring to the VMS, then there is no reason to suspect that Georg Barschius was either the "then possessor" or "close friend" being referred to by Marci in the 1665 letter.  In this case, we simply don't know who Person A or Person B are, or whether they are the same person.  
3.  In general, the 1665 letter feels...off...from the other two, based on the topical style alone.  

(In addition to #3, one could add to that reports that the Latin in the 1665 letter was "vexing" to translate, but I am not one to judge that, as I have no experience with Latin.  One could also add to this feeling Rich Santacoloma's finding that the page folding on the 1665 letter was atypical, to conclude that the 1665 letter overall feels less surely authentic than the 1640 and 1641 letters).    

It is not clear from your post whether you are aware that here are 30+ more letters from Marci to Kircher.
They are all at Philip Neal's web site.

I do agree with you that we can't be sure that the 'schaedata' mentioned in 1640 are copies of the Voynich MS. It is tempting, but not certain.
Note that neither the web page you quote, nor Philip Neal's translation and comments actually state this.

Thanks for your insights, Psilly. I must admit that I had not looked into these other Marci letters yet in great detail.

One thing strikes me as strange. Kircher called himself the Oedipus of Egypt, because he solved the riddle of the sphinx: he thought he had deciphered the hieroglyphs.


(That's Kircher himself depicted as Oedipus)

Hence, calling Kircher a sphinx would be weird, since the sphinx is his vanquished opponent. It is clear that Kircher's correspondents play along with this metaphor. They refer to challenges for Kircher as Sphinxes. 

So I wonder if Sphi... in this sentence was supposed to have a nominative (subject) ending. My Latin is long gone so I'll have to ask for the opinion of others - more qualified. If we complete "Sphi" with a different case ending, could the sentence get a different translation?

Sphi modo quae Amicus meus M. Georg Barschius per me scribi uoluerit, et schaedata hic adiuncta intelliget.


If that were the case, I would be almost certain that it is about the VM. Baresch made it clear that he thought the MS contained "Egyptian" medical knowledge, of which he may have genuinely believed that it would help mankind.


Edit: just for comparison, the "sphinx" part from the latter Marci letter:
"Verum labor hic frustraneus fuit, siquidem non
nisi suo Kirchero obediunt eiusmodi sphinges"

I do not read the reference to "the Sphinx" as being a reference to Kircher - rather, he is saying that only that master of Riddles would understand at once what Barschius meant.

Neal himself makes the note:

Quote:Until recently I could not make out the first word of that recommendation, but I now see that it is Sphi with a line over it; that is, the word Sphinx in abbreviated form. Marci is not short of space on the page and the abbreviation cannot be intended to deceive. It is surely intended as a minor jibe at Barschius and his Big Secrets. In the last but one paragraph we read sile with a line over it (there is another example in the third from last line of Marci's letter of 9 November 1643). This must be silenda or silentia, 'matters for silence', and could easily be a reference to censorship (you don't keep secrets by talking about them).

Kircher himself liked to be portrayed as Oedipus - probably cherry-picking just the bit about the Sphinx, not the whole incest thing - and indeed commissioned a magnificent engraving of himself as Roman Oedipus confronting the Sphinx for his Oedipus Aegyptiacus. An engraving that would help make him famous throughout Europe, and put him in direct confrontation with his Church.

(10-01-2017, 04:20 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is not clear from your post whether you are aware that here are 30+ more letters from Marci to Kircher.
They are all at Philip Neal's web site.

I do agree with you that we can't be sure that the 'schaedata' mentioned in 1640 are copies of the Voynich MS. It is tempting, but not certain.
Note that neither the web page you quote, nor Philip Neal's translation and comments actually state this.

Yes, I am aware that there are many other letters on Philip Neal's excellent website.  I thought about going through ALL of them with fresh eyes, but I haven't the time right now.  

If I recall, of them, the 1637 letter from Barschius to Kircher seems like the surest bet for a description of the VMS, which makes me wonder...had Barschius not talked to Marci about the book at this point?  (We know, if we assume that the 1640 letter is also about the VMS like many researchers assume, that they had talked about the book as of only a year later at the very least).  Because, why didn't Barschius talk about the rumored provenance of his book at this time of which Marci was aware from Doctor Raphael?  Why did it have to wait until many years later in 1665 for Marci to mention the stuff about Rudolf II and Roger Bacon, etc.?  The provenance is one of the most important things about a mysterious, unreadable document, and I don't think you need to be a professional historian living in the 21st century to appreciate that!  Why didn't Barschius mention all of what should have been relayed to him from Marci about Doctor Raphael's rumors?

Perhaps Barschius didn't want to seem flighty or given to gossip-mongering or latching onto far-fetched ideas.  So then, I wonder why Marci would have ended up deciding differently to tell Kircher about these rumors in 1665.  Was Marci getting desperate to bring this book to Kircher's attention, and decided to bring out all the stops, even if it made Marci look like a bit of a loony in the process?  (Hence his distancing himself from the rumors with the "I suspend judgment on the matter"?)

The 1665 letter just doesn't feel like it fits chronologically.  It would make much more sense if it had been chronologically swapped around to have come before the 1640 and 1641 letters.

It's difficult not to indulge into a lot of speculation....

Especially considerations why people did this, or did NOT do that are risky.

I interpret the 1640 and 1641 letters as an 'aftermath' of the letters between Barschius / Moretus and Kircher.
Marci's 1640 mention is almost certainly a response to a question from Kircher about Barschius.

But what is very clear is that the whole topic of Barschius and his MS disappears from the discussion for 25 years.
The question why this is, is again hard to answer. Was that more Kircher's wish, or did Marci not care?

Kircher was not at all interested in alchemy. He had something against that, so if the book was presented in that light (and Barschius certainly was very interested in it) then that could have made the topic a taboo.
In that sense, the 1665 letter could be almost 'apologetic': sorry to bother you again with this but....
(and avoids mentioning Barschius' name).

More in a general sense, we may be overrating the importance of, or interest in the MS.
Even nowadays, where the MS is a real mystery, it is only in the interest of a few people, and barely in the mainstream medieval history / history of science.

Perhaps Barschius was a bit like Newbold, while Kircher may have been more like Thorndike....

If anything, Barschius should count as the earliest known "Voynichero".

Quote:Kircher was not at all interested in alchemy. He had something against that,

Kircher was a Jesuit priest. His books took him into conflict with the church fathers many times, and you'll remember he had several sticky confrontations with them. He had to ensure that his studies were clean and presentable, especially during his hard working 1640s before his reputation gained sufficient traction and backers to allow him to get away with (almost) ignoring his superiors.

Although interested in medicine, he never went in for alchemy, astrology (or even astronomy), all subjects looked up with askance by the church.

The "black arts" such as geomancy were actually banned by the church in Germany (and probably other areas) in the 15th century (at least in the latter part, I'm not sure about the early 15th century).

Even secular scribes were reluctant to write about them for fear of reprisal and one scribe balked at the notion when asked to do so by a nobleman who (if I remember correctly) commissioned the book.

Quote:The "black arts" such as geomancy were actually banned by the church in Germany (and probably other areas) in the 15th century (at least in the latter part, I'm not sure about the early 15th century).

AFAIK, the repressions began towards the late 15th century. It was then when the Hexenhammer was released. Trithemius was having problems, and many others.

Psillycyber,

I'd be glad to read more of your thoughts about the primary documents. 

Your approach is much more the sort of thing we are used to seeing when dealing with a problematic work: and in this case one which is not only a problematic text, but one in a problematic script (one still waiting analytical investigation), and imagery which (historically speaking) has been most often addressed by persons relying on their imaginations and hoping only to find support for a favoured theory.

The old ideas and methods have not resulted in an accepted translation of any single page of text - so far.

Obviously, despite their being urged a sort of 'official story' the old ideas need to be re-examined from their roots, and this begins by a re-consideration of the basis for those ideas - including the seventeenth-century documents.