The Voynich Ninja

(17-07-2017, 10:26 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Quote:Retulit mihi D. Doctor Raphael Ferdinandi tertij Regis tum Boemiae in lingua boemica instructor dictum librum fuisse Rudolphi Imperatoris, pro quo ipse latori qui librum attulisset 600 ducatos praesentarit, authorem uero ipsum putabat esse Rogerium Bacconem Anglum.

Quite a lot to digest...  

For now, my preferred scenario is that Raphael never saw the VMS before Marci showed it to him -- either casually, on some occasion when Raphael visited Marci, or deliberately, because Marci respected Raphael as cryptographer.  (If the latter, Marci maybe sent the query by mail, with a couple of pages cut out from the book.)  

Back when he was frequent at the court, Raphael had heard the story of Rudolf buying a Bacon book for 600 ducats.  When Marci showed him the VMS, he just guessed that it could be it.   It may have been just a wild guess.  Or perhaps Raphael had some reason to believe that the book may have been in Rudolf's possession before getting to Baresh.  What reason could that be? Even if they saw Jacobus's signature, that conclusion does not seem to follow, since Jacobus must have owned quite a number of books that he acquired on his own.

But maybe Jacobus's signature was not there at the time...

I know that Rene and others have located other samples of Jacobus's signature and found that it matches whatever one can read on pahe f1r.   But bear with me for a moment.  

First, generally speaking, 100% honest antiquities dealers will die of starvation; because they cannot count on a steady stream of profitable trades.  Even if they won't go as far as selling known forgeries or stolen goods, they will will often be forced to cheat in order to maximize their profit on the few valuable items they manage to get.  Rstoring and retouching the work to fix faded or damaged parts is the least they might do (and 100 years ago it may not even be seen as cheating).  Beyond that, they may add details that may attract the attention of buyers, like changing a name that appears on the item into that of a notable historical figure.  Or add the signature that a famous painter "forgot" to put on one of "his" paintings.  Or they may twist and fake external evidence to make its presumed authorship and origin more exciting...

Now, as we all know, when Voynich found the VMS, he read Raphael's claim on Marci's letter, and though that he had stumbled on Smaug's gold.  Especially with Roger Bacon's nth Centennial coming up.  But when he got back home he found that no one believed that claim. So, for a long while, he spent a lot of effort into confirming it.  For that he needed a good explanation of (1) how the VMS could have gone from Bacon to Rudolf, and (2) how it could have gone from Rudolf to Baresh.  For (1), he found John Dee, and it may have been convincing enough. What about (2)?

Voynich did not know that Baresh himself had spent some time in Rudolf's court.  But he must have come across Jacobus, who was very big in Jesuit histories.IIRC, we have records of Voynich asking someone to find more about Jacobus.  Voynich surely knew that Jacobus had been Rudolf's physician for a while, and had a reputation as an expert in herbal remedies.

And now the speculation.  Like many Voynichologists today, Voynich may have concluded that Jacobus was the most likely (or least unlikely) missing link between Rudolf and Baresh. And he may have found that so likely of that that he did not see much harm in adding Jacobus' signature to f1r, just to convince skeptical buyers.  An then, after photographing it, conveniently erased it with some "enhancing" chemicals, to make sure that this forgery -- pardon, enhancement -- could not be detected.

I myself woudl not bet on this theorey, but would give it at least 5% probability...

All the best, --jorge

Why would he photograph it and then erase it??

Speaking of Voynich's efforts to promote the Roger Bacon hypothesis, little did he know. There actually is a subtle, historical connection to be found in the VMs illustrations. Roger Bacon apparently was connected to Ottobuono Fieschi when the latter was papal legate to England during the barons' revolt.

Ottobuono Fieschi is represented as a nymph in the VMs Zodiac. He can be recognized by a particular combination of armorial and ecclesiastical heraldry - a bendy with blue stripes and a red galero.

The artist knew the history; it's hardly exclusive knowledge. Sinibaldo Fiieschi as pope Innocent IV made his nephew, Ottobuono, a cardinal in 1251. He started the tradition of the cardinal's red galero. He also gave the approval for the formation of the original Poor Clares. That is relevant to the VMs era because of the life of Colette of Corbie and her reformation efforts.

The artist knew that the history was common knowledge and attempted to disguise it by the creation of a radial orientation. And that is certainly sufficient when the capacity for recognition is absent. Even though the structural factors supporting the historical identification are multiple, Voynich didn't see it.

(27-06-2025, 09:18 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why would he photograph it and then erase it??

Because he could show the photograph to prospective buyers, to bolster the "Bacon" claim; but the erasure would avoid expert examination of the original "signature", which (even with the technology available at the time) could have identified it as a forgery.  The erasure left just enough of a trace to "prove" that the photo was legitimate.

But, again, I think this is only a possibility; not very likely.  The most likely theory, in my view, is the "consensus" one: that indeed there was a faint signature on f1r, and he honestly believed that the chemicals he rubbed over it would bring it out.

My guess is that he guessed that the signature was in iron-gall ink, so he blotted it with acid to release the iron and then with ferrocyanide to turn the iron into prussian blue.  But, if that is what he did, it seems it was not iron-gall; maybe India ink (soot + gum arabic), or lead pencil...

The combination of acid and organic materials always gives me a bad feeling.
How does parchment react to acid over decades? It burns chemically.

(27-06-2025, 07:10 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For now, my preferred scenario is that Raphael never saw the VMS before Marci showed it to him -- either casually, on some occasion when Raphael visited Marci, or deliberately, because Marci respected Raphael as cryptographer.

Whether Raphael saw it or not can be argued either way, but I think that he most probably did.

What is certain is that Barschius was still the owner of the MS when Raphael died, so also when he mentioned his information about the sale to Rudolf for 600 ducats. The 'meeting' may have been instigated by Barschius or Marci, but it may also be that it was the event where Raphael gave the MS to Barschius.

I am not sure how much you have been able to follow the various new bits of information around this topic, but you may want to check the biographies page at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This should also contain the answer to your question about Rafal Prinke's new information.
I will say quite a bit about this at the Voynich MS day. I am talking to Koen about changing my 10 minute slot to a long talk, as there is too much to cover.
 
Voynich faking the Tepenec signature is not a realistic option.
 
Tepenec is a complete no-name, Voynich is entirely unlikely to have ever heard of him, let alone have a sample of his signature. He just provides a link to Rudolf's court, which Voynich already had from the Marci letter. It does not provide a link to Bacon.

Perhaps most importantly, there is a photo of the MS made by/on behalf of Voynich, before the application of chemicals. On this, faint traces of parts of Tepenec's name can be seen.
Then there is the 'No 19' written just below it (check the new multi-spectral scans) that Voynich does not appear to have seen, and which is a feature of all of Tepenec's books (that we know of).

(27-06-2025, 07:10 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.First, generally speaking, 100% honest antiquities dealers will die of starvation; because they cannot count on a steady stream of profitable trades.

Not sure if that is generally applicable, but Voynich's methods are well known: he exaggerated everything that he could, e.g. attributing items in his manuscripts to famous artists. Calling the Voynich MS a Bacon MS is a good example of that.

When he got the Voynich MS, he was just making a fortune from some of the sales of the other books, so he was in no hurry to sell it anytime near. He did try hard to confirm the Bacon origin, so he probably honsetly believed it, but again, Tepenec is of no help there.

(28-06-2025, 10:14 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps most importantly, there is a photo of the MS made by/on behalf of Voynich, before the application of chemicals. On this, faint traces of parts of Tepenec's name can be seen.

That sounds cool - is this photo available somewhere? Or do we only know it from a description?

(28-06-2025, 11:20 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That sounds cool - is this photo available somewhere? Or do we only know it from a description?

Maybe it's this one?

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(Edit: ) The blog post that references the image: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(28-06-2025, 11:31 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(28-06-2025, 11:20 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That sounds cool - is this photo available somewhere? Or do we only know it from a description?

Maybe it's this one?

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(Edit: ) The blog post that references the image: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Yes, that's the photo that was taken before the reagent was applied. It's in MS 408 Box E, one of the emphemera boxes that accompanies the manuscript at Yale. I reproduced it here as well: 
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In this case, Voynich's story really does add up - that while processing images, he noticed something in the lower margin of f. 1r and did what anyone at that time would have done: applied a chemical reagent to the parchment to try and discern faded or scraped text. Many manuscripts were similarly damaged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. No one knew that the reagent would eventually lead to permanent staining. 

It is extraordinarily unlikely that Voynich added the faded marginalia on f. 1r - the Tepenec signature and the alphabets in the right-hand margin I've identified as Marci's handwriting. The sequence of events that would have had to have happened for this to be Voynich's own work really strain credulity. How could he possibly have know that technology would exist a hundred years later that would make these erased notes legible? Why wouldn't he have used the handwriting of Marci's secretary, who wrote the Marci letter that accompanies the manuscript, instead of Marci's own hand? He wouldn't have known that the letter wasn't written by Marci but by his secretary. The argument that Voynich wrote these himself a requires several increasingly implausible steps. The most likely scenario is that Tepenec and Marci themselves actually made these additions to the manuscript.

(28-06-2025, 01:50 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is extraordinarily unlikely that Voynich added the faded marginalia on f. 1r - the Tepenec signature and the alphabets in the right-hand margin I've identified as Marci's handwriting.

I know you're being diplomatic, but to me this phrasing is still giving the "Fantastic Forgings of Wilfrid Voynich" too much credit. It's like saying "it's extraordinary unlikely that a trained cat painted the Mona Lisa". Sure, we can't be 100% certain that this did not happen. Maybe Leonardo had a cat which he, in his genius, trained to paint like a master. But the thing is so clearly a fiction that, in common parlance, we can just say that it didn't happen.