The Voynich Ninja

I was thinking over the article about Hořčický's books on Rene's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and there's definitely something weird about all this.

Let's begin with the fact that Hořčický numbered his books. We don't know if he numbered all his books, or just a subset thereof. We don't know when he began to number his books. Neither do we know if there was a gap of time between the book being acquired and it being numbered.

But all that is not very important in the view of the self-evident circumstance that the books must have been numbered in the ascending order. In other words, suppose you have a pack of hundred books before you. When you take the first book and number it, you typically won't give it number 78. You will give it number 1. When you take the second book after having numbered the first one, you won't give this second book number 63. You will give it number 2. And so forth.

I presume that this was the practice that Hořčický adopted.

Now, let's build on the fact that some of the books numbered by Hořčický luckily feature not only their numbers, but also the year in which they got their numbers from their possessor, alias Hořčický. Such are books number 7 and number 18. Both of them were numbered in the year 1602. (As a sidenote, this means that books number 8 through 17 (which we know nothing of) must have also been numbered in 1602).

Not only do books 7 and 18 feature date, they also feature the particular form of Hořčický's mentioning himself. Namely, they attest him as "Jacobi Synapij". I won't speculate whether this handwriting (and writings discussed hereinafter) is that of Hořčický or of his scribe/secretary/whosoever. But that's not very important. What is important is that they say "Jacobi Synapij" (and not "de Tepenec"). That's perfectly fine, because he was not a nobleman at that time.

The fine state of things disrupts at this point, and something strange starts.

Consider book number 4. Since 4 is less than 7, let alone 18, this book must have been numbered no later than 1602. However, it says not "Jacobi Synapij", but "Jacobj à Tepenecz". (The handwriting is totally different from that on books 7 and 18, but, as I said, let's abstract from that for now).

So the question is: if Hořčický was not a nobleman yet back in 1602, how could he mention himself as "à Tepenecz"? I could not find what "à" meant back then. Currently, "á" means "and" in Czech language, which makes no sense in the context. Could it have meant "from" back then? In that case the attribute "from Tepenecz" could have been not a reference to the nobility, but just an indicator of the origin. As I understand, the Tepenecz castle was situated not very far away from Hořčický's birthplace.

I can think of no other explanation, can you?

When we move to the book number 40, we find out that it says "Jakuba z Tepenize". I guess that the name Jacob is put in attributive form here (is it?): like: whose is this book? - this is Jacob's book. But what is important is the preposition "z". It literally means "from". In other words, the whole phrase stands for "Jacob from Tepenez". This nicely fits my assumption above that Hořčický used to refer to himself as to Jacob "from Tepenecz". The only strange thing here is: why did he use the strange preposition "à" instead of simple "z" when he numbered book number 4?

Mind that we don't know the date when the book number 40 was numbered. It might have been before or after he gained nobility. If it were after, then this is OK from all respects. If it were before, then, as described in the preceding paragraph, we could resort to my assumption of Jacob as the man "from Tepenecz", but anyway this is no stranger than the pre-1602 book number 4 signed in a similar manner.

It is worth noting that Hořčický's legal signature of the year 1617 reads the same way: "Jakub z Tepenize".

There remains only a single Hořčický book which we know of, as of the present time. And that book is the Voynich Manuscript. It features no date (at least, none has been revealed yet under the UV light). It's number, in the present condition of f1r, is ambiguous. Rene suggests that it is number 19, but to me number 79 looks also quite a good match to the remains of the writing that we are to work with.

But the inscription (and the handwriting!) is quite, quite the same as on the (pre-1602) book number 4! It is "Jacobj <or, possibly, "Jacobi"> á Tepenecz". I would note that the diacritic over the "a" looks the other side, but note, in particular, the way that "cz" is written in the two books. It's 100% the same! (I wander why the inscription in the VMS is often quoted as "á Tepenece". It is surely not "Tepenece" but "Tepenecz".)

Two strange things are observed here.

First, if the VMS is number 19, then it must have been dated not long after number 18. It would be strange for Hořčický to have a timeout of several years in numbering his books (even if we assume that he did not number all books that he acquired, but only a subset of those). In other words, the VMS would have been numbered in 1602 or 1603, something like that.

But that ruins the story that Hořčický acquired the book from Rudolf II, or after him.

If the VMS is not number 19 but, say, 79, it's not that bad.

The second strange thing is the inconsistency of the form that Hořčický mentions himself in. First he says that he is "Jacob from Tepenecz" (book 4). Then, quite quickly, he switches to "Sinapius" (books 7 and 18). Then he returns to "Jacob from Tepenecz" again (book 40 and the Voynich Manuscript).

Only if you assume that the numbers and dates coincide is there a problem, and there would seem to be ample evidence from what you cite that this assumption is incorrect.

Very interesting, Anton.
Is it possible that he had two series of books? Sinapius 1, 2,3.... on the one hand and Tepenecz 1,2,3.... on the other?

(12-07-2017, 10:52 PM)nickpelling Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Only if you assume that the numbers and dates coincide is there a problem, and there would seem to be ample evidence from what you cite that this assumption is incorrect.

Hi Nick, what do you mean when you say "numbers and dates coincide" (or don't coincide)?

There is another strange thing which I missed when I wrote the title post.

Book number 4 features another exlibris, which is crossed out. It is dated. The date is not crossed out, but, as suggested by color adjustment (shown in the Rene's page cited above) it belongs to this other exlibris (and not to that of Hořčický).

Since this other exlibris is crossed out, that suggests that it was put down earlier than the Hořčický's one. Its date is 1604. In other words, Hořčický could not put down his own exlibris for number 4 earlier than 1604. But this is two years later than 1602 for books number 7 and 18!

Possible explanation of all this: the number for # 4 was somehow "reserved", but not put down until after number 18. Perhaps the number was placed elsewhere in the book, but that piece of book got lost, so the possessor had to duplicate the exlibris later (and did it already as "z Tepenecz", not as "Sinapius"). The correct number could have been restored against a separate list of books which he possibly maintained.

Quote:Possible explanation of all this: the number for # 4 was somehow "reserved", but not put down until after number 18. Perhaps the number was placed elsewhere in the book, but that piece of book got lost, so the possessor had to duplicate the exlibris later (and did it already as "z Tepenecz", not as "Sinapius"). The correct number could have been restored against a separate list of books which he possibly maintained.

Upon consideration, not very good idea, this.

The fact that the previous exlibris is dated to 1604 means that in 1604 the book belonged to someone else (btw, can anybody please decifer the name - "Ex libris Wroblicionim"?!)

Thus, Hořčický could not have had it before 1604. But in 1602 he already possessed books assigned higher numbers: 7 and 18. So even if he maintained a list of books, he could not have this book 4 above books 7 and 18 in that list, just because he obtained book 4 later than those.

Even if composition of the list of books was something retrospective (like, first he purchased many books, and only then the list was composed), our book number 4 still could not rest above books 7 and 18 in the list just because of the fact that as early as 1602 the numbers 7 and 18 were already assigned - which means that number four also would have been assigned by that date (belonging to some other book, not the number 4 as we discuss it now).


One can escape with suggestion that Hořčický's exlibris inscriptions were added first in the course of time (to mark his property), and the numbers were added much later - say, for all books in batch. But the reverse colouring on number 4 does not favor this hypothesis. It looks like the number was placed at the same time with the holder's name.



Whom can we get on the case? We need Perry Mason!..

(12-07-2017, 11:00 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Very interesting, Anton.
Is it possible that he had two series of books? Sinapius 1, 2,3.... on the one hand and Tepenecz 1,2,3.... on the other?

I can't imagine any practical use case for that. One case would be to obfuscate the fact that you are the actual owner of the books. Like, if they drag me to the stake due to prohibited books having been found on my shelf, I can argue that those books are not mine, but the person's mentioned on the title folio. But such case requires that the name found on the books is not associated with me. In our case both names clearly and publicly point to Sinapius.

Well, I can imagine one more or less plausible case.

Suppose you are fond of books, or otherwise in need of those, you collect them and employ a numbering system. At the same time, there is a place where valuable books are to be found, but it is somehow far away, or you just are a busy man. So you hire some other guy and direct him to that place to purchase the books for you. Upon purchasing a book, he inscribes an exlibris in your name (to mark your property) but, naturally, in his own handwriting. Additionally, he numbers the book for the purpose of accounting. Since he is not aware of your numbering sequence, he employs another one.

A variation of this use case would be, of course, Hořčický sending somebody to inspect someone's book collection with the purpose of acquiring most valuable (in the monetary sense or otherwise) stuff. For example, Rudolph's book collection, since Rudolph was his debtor. Walking further down the alley of speculation, we can assume that if the VMS is number 19 (and not 79), which is more or less close to number 4, then the book number 4 and the VMS might have descended from the same previous owner - either Rudolph or the enigmatic "Wroblicionis" (or what's his name). However, the book number 4 (Boethius) is a printed book of mid-16th century and does not manifest itself as very rare or valuable.

Anyway, what looks certain to me is that the VMS could not have been acquired by Hořčický prior to 1604.

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Ah, it's "Wroblicius" - mentioned on Rene's page, missed that somehow. This Albert Wroblicius (if him that is) is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to have been a priest in Kojetin, which also looks like de Tepenecz's Moravian roundabouts.

By the way, as a passing thought, I wonder whether books from Rudolph's collection typically  featured his own exlibris. And if not, then why?

I continued to the book number 4, Aristotle's Dialectics, but the website of the Czech National Library where I expected to find the scan is undergoing maintenance at the time of this writing. So I am left with the low quality and partly cropped You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

It's the very exemplar once owned by Wroblicius and then Hořčický. I hoped for some interesting marginalia, and there appears some stuff on the page immediately after the binding, but it is partly hidden by the Czech library stickers, and I can only tentatively decrypt the phrase "Punica bellum (?) in Europa" (don't know what's the relation of Punic wars to Aristotle).

Note that to the bottom of the page, the subtraction operation is performed to find out that the copy is 51 year old by the year 1604 (the timestamp of Wroblicius's exlibris).

As Rene mentions, this Wroblicius may be the one who was the coathor of "Disputatio Theologica De Verbo Incarnato", a 1611 book. The other author of that book is the famous person You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., of Luxembourgian origin, who studied in Prague and entered Jesuits in the Moravian city of Brno. Later he became the advisor and confessor of Ferdinand II. In 1611 (Wikipedia says) he resided in Graz.

In contrast to the well-known Lamormain, unfortunately, I was not able to find out anything about Albertus Wroblicius except that he was a priest in Kojetin since 1614.

Moreover, if you enter "Wroblicius" into Google search, you will find a reference to a book featuring a 1626 exlibris of one Martin Wroblicius.

I guess that "Wroblicius" is just a latinized form of the Czech name, so if we deduct his original name, more can be found.

The numbering is a bit of a mystery indeed.
Much suggests that he added his ex libris as soon as he obtained the book, but the numbering was added some time later.
The handwriting and the inks do not clearly confirm this suggestion, but it is still possible.

I should find the time to put (back) the proper diacritics in the various Czech names and book/article titles in some of my pages......
Many of them were corrupted as they were first added in pre-Unicode (rather: pre-Windows-98) times.
The correct form of his surname is Horčický, even though, if I understand correctly, in his lifetime these diacritics were not used.
The "à" is not the Czech "and" but the noble "from", that should be (or derive from) Latin.