The Voynich Ninja

Hello everyone,

I have a major concern in relation to "Jacobj à Tepenecz No 4" inscription in the copy of the 1553 Dialecta Aristotelis held by the Czech National Library, as discussed on Rene's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I haven't seen this issue addressed anywhere, and would be interested in your thoughts.

My concern doesn't relate to the signature itself, but rather to the "No 4" that follows it. There are two strokes through it, in contrast to the "No 7" and "No 18" in two of the other signed items, both of which have a single stroke.

Photos of the Tepenecz signature on the Voynich Manuscript (f1r) certainly give an initial impression that the signature is followed by a "No" with two lines through it. However, examination of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. reveals that the lower line is merely an optical illusion. The eye joins up the lower left portion of the single stroke (to the right of the letter "N"), with two blobs of ink on the letter "N" itself, and finally with "o" to the right, to create the appearance of a second line. But there is, in fact, no continuous line of ink. There is only one through stroke.

In other words, "Jacobj à Tepenecz No 4" reproduces a feature of the Voynich Manuscript signature that isn't really there. I find this disconcerting. Another obvious discrepancy is that "No 7" and "No 18" (both clearly genuine) are followed by a dot, whereas "No 4" is not. Also (although this is subjective opinion) I feel that "No 4," with its laborious double lines, looks very contrived in comparison to "No 7" and "No 18," with their natural, free-flowing single strokes.

Interesting observations.

I glanced at the scans, but can't look at them in depth right now, I have to go, but I'll be interested to see what people think about this.


I keep hoping one or two more signed books will turn up, so we have more data, but I guess there's no guarantee that will happen.

It's really hard to say. The image on Rene's website gives impression that there are two lines, the image on Nick's - that there rather is one.

I would note that if something is not visible in UV does not mean that that is an illusion. That simply means that it is not visible in UV, that's it. Furthermore one needs to compare conditions under which different images were obtained.

This let alone that the Nick's image is of too low quality to judge upon it.

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Quote:I keep hoping one or two more signed books will turn up, so we have more data

That would be of great interest indeed.

On closer examination I'd say that the lower line in Nick's image may be hid by the local curvature of vellum. The folio in this place looks more "plain" in Beinecke scans, both old and new.

(18-05-2019, 05:17 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would note that if something is not visible in UV does not mean that that is an illusion. That simply means that it is not visible in UV, that's it.

First of all, thanks for replying!

As I understand it, the iron component of iron gall ink quenches the background fluorescence induced by the UV, so any trace of such ink ought to show up as black against the blue background.

In fact, I think a close examination even of this non-UV photograph confirms that there really is no second line there, and that the eye is simply "joining the dots":

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I don't think the exlibris ink is iron gall, is it?

This is one of those cases when plain eye examination would produce the best result, I believe.

Mind that this exlibris 1) has been erased - nobody knows by whom - but I suspect that it was Marci 2) suffered from chemicals applied by Voynich.

(18-05-2019, 06:29 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't think the exlibris ink is iron gall, is it?

Iron gall ink would be the standard for a 17th century inscription, so if it isn't iron gall that would raise issues of another sort!

But I agree the presence/absence of a second line is a visual issue that everyone has to decide for themselves.

I would only stress that we have just three other examples of the "No" apart from "Jacobj à Tepenecz No 4." In the two cases where the visual evidence is unambiguously clear, there is a single stroke. In the third case, the Voynich MS, the real existence of a double stroke is for me (at a minimum) not proven. So my concerns over "Jacobj à Tepenecz No 4" remain.

The two "Jacobi a Tepenecz" exlibrises are in a hand different from three others. So they would not be directly comparable.

What would be of enormous interest is to find another "Jacobi a Tepenecz" exemplar.

If I understand correctly:

• The N in Tepenecz's ex-libris sometimes has one stroke, other times two.
  
• Images of the VMS are not clear enough to tell how many strokes there are.
  

Could someone please explain what the concern is?

(18-05-2019, 07:44 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Could someone please explain what the concern is?

The concern is:

(i) that "No 4" in the 1553 Dialecta Aristotelis, to my mind, looks self-conscious and unnatural, which are potential characteristics of forgery;

(ii) that "No 4" in the 1553 Dialecta Aristotelis does not share a characteristic of "No 7" and "No 18," in that it is not terminated by a dot;

(ii) that "No 4" in the 1553 Dialecta Aristotelis does not share a characteristic of "No 7" and "No 18," in that it has a double stroke instead of a single stroke;

(iv) that its double stroke, despite initial appearances, is not in fact supported by the evidence of the Voynich MS, since (in my view) that too has only a single stroke.

These considerations, I think, permit legitimate doubts as to the genuineness of the inscription in the 1553 Dialecta Aristotelis.

If in fact the Voynich MS only has a single stroke - just like "No 7" and "No 18" -  then the question arises as to why "No 4" is the only one to have a double stroke. The fact that the Voynich MS superficially appears to have a double stroke may have something to do with the answer.