The Voynich Ninja

Thanks JKP, excellent findings! How do you manage to find all this stuff?!

I would like to develop a bit of interpretation.

I have seen the Runeberg reference to the Martin Wroblicius's exlibris before. But the Christie's East 1981 catalog is something new. It must refer to another book, because in the Runeberg reference it is said that the exlibris is attached (opklæbet - which I guess is rather "glued" than "clipped"?) to the inner side of the binding (Paa Bindets Inderside), while the Christie's East reference says that the exlibris is in folio 2. Interesting that both are dated to 1626.

About Michael and Laurentius Wroblicius I wrote above in this thread. They are surely brothers, since both of them were born in the same place. Notably, they are both listed as members of SJ. (I also have noted to myself that the story is constantly revolving around Jesuits).

Quote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from the University of Karlova, recorded an incident of bad behaviour by Albertus Wroblicius Silesius, in June 1606.

Very good finding! First of all, it shows that Wroblicius originated from Silesia. I have had a feeling that the real (native) surname behind the Latinised "Wroblicius" is something more of German (smth like ""Wrobbel") or Polish (smth like "Wróbel" - literally, "sparrow") origin. Now that gets a confirmation by this Wroblicius's originating from Silesia.

I would note that the incident of bad behaviour refers not to Wroblicius, but to student number 9, Matthaeus (Mathaeus) Dlugos, also from Silesia.

But what gets more interesting is that we also find Martinus Wroblicius Mstoviensis Polonus under number 120! The town of Mstów is also situated in Silesia. So this guy is Silesian as well.

Since Prague universities seem to have been flooded by students from Silesia, I would be careful as to whether Albertus Wroblicius and Martinus Wroblicius Mstoviensis Polonus were relatives.

I wonder why you call him "Albertus M. Wroblicius", and not simply "Albertus Wroblicius" - any reference for that? Where is the following assumption from:

Quote:Albertus M. Wroblicius (probably born approx. 1580 to 1590 and probably still alive at least until 1642)

?

Quote:Ab Anno 1611 ad Mensem Martium, diem 16 indictione septima. Anno 1624 hunc librum talem qualem vides inveni M. Albertus Wroblicius... Baccal parochus Maioris Bitessi.

This phrase I fail to understand. "Ab Anno 1611 ad Mensem Martium, diem 16 indictione septima" means "in the year 1611, in the month of March, on 16th day of the seventh indiction". However (as I calculated), 1611 belongs to the ninth indiction, not to the seventh one. Next, if the guy found the book in 1624, then it is not clear what is the 1611 dating about. Furthemore, it is not clear whether it was Albertus Wroblicius who found the book, or Albertus Wroblicius was the previous owner of the book found by the author of the inscription. Last, I completely fail to understand "Baccal parochus Maioris Bitessi". What is "baccal" and what is "Maioris Bitessi" (suppose it's in genitive?).

Quote:In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Albertus Vroblicius/Wroblicius is listed on page 374 [as a graduate?].

"Matrikel" means the list of enrolled, not of graduated. I have suspected before that Wroblicius must have had a Graz page in his biography. This is because his 1611 book in co-authorship with Lamormain was printed in Graz, and Lamormain himself is known to have resided in Graz in 1611. So this reference would be a nice add to that, but... the bad side of it is that these are "Matrikeln" of 1630 - 1662, i.e. long past 1611. Unless our guy Wroblicius decided to obtain another degree at the age of no less than 45 - 50 (and "Seite 374" suggests us to shift the year even much further than 1630), or this is some other Albertus Wroblicius. But we don't know what is the context in which "Albertus V/Wroblicius" is mentioned in this book. The full copy of this 1980 edition should be observed, as well as Vol. 25-26 of "Acta Universitatis Carolinae" (ed. 1985) to delve deeper into details.

About priesthood in Kojetin. Albertus Wroblicius is recorded there from 24.4.1614 (see my reference above), and the closing date is not provided. In any case, he stayed there no longer than 1625, since under 1625 another priest is mentioned. So the Rezác's reference may mean one of two things: either Rezác simply confuses 1614 and 1617, or Wroblicius still stayed in Kojetin in 1617.

The current bottomline is that we still are not sure whether Wroblicius died before the death of Sinapius (Sep. 1622) or later? That is important to narrow down the range of circumstances under which Sinapius could acquire the book number 4.

(15-07-2017, 03:13 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thanks JKP, excellent findings! How do you manage to find all this stuff?!

I am interested in the connections between people. Books were valuable in those days. They were laboriously hand-written and weren't just tossed in thrift-store donations bins, they were passed from hand-to-hand. So, for several years, I've been trying to create diagrams of who knew whom.

That's why I keep mentioning that many of the manuscripts that ended up in Lombardy/Northern Italy originated in Salerno/Naples/Bari. It was because students from the colleges and universities of London, Heidelberg, Pisa, Padua, and Paris would often take a degree and then go to the south of Italy, to the Lombardic colonies, to study medicine. When they returned home, or found a patron, they brought their "text books", such as herbal compendiums they created at the medical schools for their own later use.

I had noticed a similar pattern of human connections in the later provenance of the VMS. These guys all knew each other or knew of each other, and corresponded over long distances and "kept things within the family", as the saying goes, so I explored the idea that those connections MIGHT go back prior to Jakobi á Tepenecz, that he might not have gotten the book from Rudolph II, that it might have come from a connection within the Jesuits and maybe he had it when he moved from the Jesuit botanical garden to Rudolph's court (or that a prior connection at the Jesuit school might have been involved in his acquiring the book, or possibly in transmitting it to Rudolph, if Rudolph did, in fact have it).

Some of the information I already had in my files (I had to dig around to collect it all in one place) and some I looked up on the Web last night to fill in some of the holes.

Quote:I have seen the Runeberg reference to the Martin Wroblicius's exlibris before. But the Christie's East 1981 catalog is something new. It must refer to another book, because in the Runeberg reference it is said that the exlibris is attached (opklæbet - which I guess is rather "glued" than "clipped"?) to the inner side of the binding (Paa Bindets Inderside), while the Christie's East reference says that the exlibris is in folio 2. Interesting that both are dated to 1626.

I'm not sure whether they mean clipped or attached with glue because "klaebe" (attached/holding on to/glued) is similar to the word for "clip" (they look different in print but if you say them out loud, they are similar) and may sometimes be used imprecisely. I think the word "attached" is probably the best interpretation in this instance, since we can't be 100% certain whether the writer meant glued or clipped unless we can see an image of it (or ask the owner of the book).

Quote:About Michael and Laurentius Wroblicius I wrote above in this thread. They are surely brothers, since both of them were born in the same place. Notably, they are both listed as members of SJ...

Yes, I thought that likely also.

Quote:I would note that the incident of bad behaviour refers not to Wroblicius, but to student number 9, Matthaeus (Mathaeus) Dlugos, also from Silesia.

Ah, good catch. I hadn't had a chance yet to go over some of this material to confirm my impressions/interpretations.

Quote:But what gets more interesting is that we also find Martinus Wroblicius Mstoviensis Polonus under number 120! The town of Mstów is also situated in Silesia. So this guy is Silesian as well.

Yes, they seem to have have born and worked within a fairly narrow geographical area, at least those parts of their lives that we know of. Being the capital of the HRE, Prague was a magnet for scholars from distant regions, it was the "happening place", so the Wrobliciuses were perhaps fortunate to have been born in that general area at that time in history.

Quote:I wonder why you call him "Albertus M. Wroblicius", and not simply "Albertus Wroblicius" - any reference for that? Where is the following assumption from:


Albertus M. Wroblicius (probably born approx. 1580 to 1590 and probably still alive at least until 1642)

I'll answer this in a separate reply (I have to finish something for a deadline and then I'll check my notes).

Quote:

Quote:Ab Anno 1611 ad Mensem Martium, diem 16 indictione septima. Anno 1624 hunc librum talem qualem vides inveni M. Albertus Wroblicius... Baccal parochus Maioris Bitessi.

This phrase I fail to understand. "Ab Anno 1611 ad Mensem Martium, diem 16 indictione septima" means "in the year 1611, in the month of March, on 16th day of the seventh indiction". However (as I calculated), 1611 belongs to the ninth indiction, not to the seventh one. Next, if the guy found the book in 1624, then it is not clear what is the 1611 dating about. Furthemore, it is not clear whether it was Albertus Wroblicius who found the book, or Albertus Wroblicius was the previous owner of the book found by the author of the inscription. Last, I completely fail to understand "Baccal parochus Maioris Bitessi". What is "baccal" and what is "Maioris Bitessi" (suppose it's in genitive?).

I cannot be certain, I'm as much in the dark as you, but I interpreted the last as meaning Baccal (someone with a Baccalaureate degree) Pastor of the region of greater Bitessi, in other words, his title, his position. But that is just a guess; there's not much to go on.

Quote:

Quote:In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Albertus Vroblicius/Wroblicius is listed on page 374 [as a graduate?].

"Matrikel" means the list of enrolled, not of graduated.

Oh, of course, you are right. We don't use the word matriculated very often around here (we just say enrolled), so I had forgotten this.


[good background information from Anton deleted for brevity]

Quote:The current bottomline is that we still are not sure whether Wroblicius died before the death of Sinapius (Sep. 1622) or later? That is important to narrow down the range of circumstances under which Sinapius could acquire the book number 4.

Some of the historians in that area mention the surname in print once in a while, so they may have access to additional local information that's relevant. I don't know how hard it would be to ask a librarian or historian if there is more information on that name.

Just dropping in to say that "klaebe" is certainly glued. It's cognate with for example Dutch "kleven", to glue.
The specific nature of the "klaebe" root is that it always involves a sticky substance
See the second meaning of cleave here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Also, I can't be of much help with the subject of this thread, but I'm reading it with great interest!

(15-07-2017, 07:54 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just dropping in to say that "klaebe" is certainly glued. It's cognate with for example Dutch "kleven", to glue.
The specific nature of the "klaebe" root is that it always involves a sticky substance
See the second meaning of cleave here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Also, I can't be of much help with the subject of this thread, but I'm reading it with great interest!

Cleave can also mean "to cling" or "adhere" in a different sense, as in two people in a tight hug who are "cleaving" to each other. In the old Biblical sense, "to cleave" is to be in an intimate embrace. I was reluctant to commit to it meaning glue because the farther you go back in time, the less the word klaebe is associated with glue.

In Danish, when they refer to something that's glued, they usually use "lim" (pronounced leem), limet (glued).

I'm still on the fence about it, but kind of prefer "attached" as it reflects the ambiguity.

Quote:I explored the idea that those connections MIGHT go back prior to Jakobi á Tepenecz, that he might not have gotten the book from Rudolph II

I'm planning to open a separate thread about that Mnishovsky reference shortly. Not that I have something strikingly new to say, but I just want to initiate a discussion.

Quote:Also, I can't be of much help with the subject of this thread, but I'm reading it with great interest!

Good to know that. Personally I don't like long posts with plenty of details (my eyesight is poor and I quickly get tired when I read lengthy stuff from screen), but here I somehow engaged myself in the like practice, so I was afraid it looks a bit boring

---

Quote:I'm still on the fence about it, but kind of prefer "attached" as it reflects the ambiguity.

That's really not of much importance, because the main point is that the "oppklaebet" exlibris is on the binding, while the other one is on folio 2. So it must be two different books, that was my main point.

The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has a record of Albert Wroblicius c. 1614. Wroblicius may have taken over as pastor, after Václav Henzlerus. This was reported by Dr. František Rezác (who appears to have a special interest in the history of this parish and was publishing some of the records in the early 2000s).

The church as built in the late 1200s. Nearly four centuries later, it was heavily damaged and plundered by the Swedes, and restored in the late 1600s (the onion domes are probably not original). Some of the books from the Swedish forays are in the Swedish archives.

This correlates with what is written here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

There is a record of a Drucker Henzlerus matriculating at the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in Germany (about 300 miles from Prague). Not a common name, so perhaps related to the pastor of the Assumption church.

I'm not certain that Drucker is his name (maybe printing was his academic major?) because another archive mentions Nicolaus Henzlerus von Schlichter, Buchdrucker, in the diocese of Widan (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) in the early 1600s. Once, again, there's a connection with books.

Another Valent. Henzler is mentioned by Christian Franz Paullini in a 1698 publication as a vicar and benefactor.



The Henzlers may not be directly relevant to Wroblicius, but they were pastors and book publishers, and might have been in his circle of connections.

(15-07-2017, 01:13 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hmm... I am puzzled now. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. state (referring to Prinke) that "In a manuscript owned by ... Pontanus, ... the signature of de Tepenecz appears in the same place as in the Voynich Manuscript and 'has the same form' ".

Does Prinke mean book number 40? If so, then this contradicts the image on your page where the signature does not appear in the same place, neither does it have the same form. Or does Prinke mean any other Pontanus's book which features de Tepenecz's signature? Or do Kennedy and Churchill just make a mess of Prinke's statements?

This is a minor inaccuracy of Kennedy and Churchill. "Same place" probably just means on the first page.
The much more similar version on the Aristotle book was only found several years after their book was written.

Thx Rene, I did not know that. This makes it clear: by "form" they mean the "noble" form of the signature (vs the older "Sinapius"), and not the handwriting.