The Voynich Ninja

Sometime after Voynich's death Theodore Petersen got a set of photostats of the Voynich MS to work with. In 1935 he wrote to E.L.Voynich (ELV) that there seemed to be some folios missing in his copy, and could he please get copies of folios 59r to 66v.
She answered that this was not entirely possible, because folios 59 to 64 were actually missing in the MS.
Petersen then pointed out that in Newbold's book there was a list of missing folios which did *not* include this range.
This prompted ELV and Anne Nill to search, and they reported that somewhere in Voynich's correspondence there was a collation of the MS that equally did not include these folios.

The same discrepancy was noted again in one of the modern Voynich MS fora, and again the conclusion was that Newbold had probably made a mistake. The correspondence of the 1930's isn't accessible online, so largely unknown.

The case is really settled by a codicological observation made by conservators looking at the MS in November 2014, namely that it would have been impossible to remove such a stack of bifolios from the MS without compromising the stability of the book. The present stitching (which is centuries old) was certainly made with the folios already missing.


So, one point settled, Newbold's table was wrong.

But it still leaves some interesting questions.
Note that the folio numbers have been written on the MS with the foldouts completely folded in, which causes them to appear in several cases on the verso side of the folios. It looks as if this foliation was added to the bound codex. (But this is not necessarily so).

Whoever added the folio numbers must have known that there was a gap of exacly 3 bifolios between 58 and 65. The number 3 is not at all logical, as it makes it the first quire in the MS that does not have 4 but 5 bifolios.
It could not have been a guess. (Most of the other missing folio numbers could have been guesses).
There is really no other option than that the now missing  folios were there for him to see (and probably add his foliation).

All of this means that the folio numbers were added *before* the MS was bound in its present form.

Now onto speculation.....

Were the numbers added to a bound codex, or to a loose pile of leaves? That second option doesn't seem sensible for several reasons, for example the above-mentioned point that the numbers were added on the foldouts when they were folded in.

Now if the MS was already bound before, while the presently missing pages were still there, in this earlier binding the folios were equally in the wrong order, as far as we can tell from all the evidence.
That would mean that the MS could have been (re-)bound even three times....

If we don't like that idea, an alternative is that the foliation was added right at the time of the first binding of the MS, while the correct page order was already unknown, and several of the folios were removed at the last minute.
While that seems a bit contrived, this largely fits the description of one of the books in Rudolf's Kunstkammer catalogue, which says in my tentative translation:

In folio, a philosophical old handwritten book (or written in old style) with illustrations, and a copy [font=Times New Roman]written on parchment  of (by?) Mathes Dörrer, unbound, and not fully collated, and of which Mr. Haydn has removed a few leaves by order of his majesty[/font]

Like I said, this is speculation. What is certain is that the foliator must have known that folios 59-64 (and 109-110) existed, and the foliation was added before the present binding.

That's a fascinating point Rene, an angle I hadn't considered before.

Quote:Were the numbers added to a bound codex, or to a loose pile of leaves? That second option doesn't seem sensible for several reasons, for example the above-mentioned point that the numbers were added on the foldouts when they were folded in.

The page numbers could have been added to a loose pile of leaves ready for second binding in order to keep them ordered?

Also, I can't remember now, did Baesch say he was sending Kircher samples or copies of pages?

Baresch sent copies. See Philip Neal's translation:
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I'm not sure if many people are aware that there is an Italian who claims to have one page of these copies:

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My first reaction was, that this handwriting does not look like that of Baresch at all, but that may not be an issue since Baresch also seems to write that he had the copies made by someone else.
In any case, Fabrizio Salani had the pigments of this page tested forensically, and the official estimate was the first decades of the 20th Century (which is weird in itself).

(24-02-2016, 10:29 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Baresch sent copies. See Philip Neal's translation:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I'm not sure if many people are aware that there is an Italian who claims to have one page of these copies:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

My first reaction was, that this handwriting does not look like that of Baresch at all, but that may not be an issue since Baresch also seems to write that he had the copies made by someone else.
In any case, Fabrizio Salani had the pigments of this page tested forensically, and the official estimate was the first decades of the 20th Century (which is weird in itself).

I looked at the Italian copy and it looks pretty contemporary (by that I mean within the last century or so) not only in the style of drawing but in the ink as well (it looks more like modern inks, like India ink, than gall ink). It's not what I would call a "faithful" copy, as stylized as it is (the leaves especially).

It seems more likely the copy originated through Voynich's communications with people than through Baresch's.

This is obviously a copy of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (both the drawing and the text fit), but why does it have the page number 21 in the top right corner? Also, why did the copyist add a third leaf to the plant and draw a completely different root? Certainly not out of laziness, the original root looks to be much easier to draw than the one in the copy.

Neither the plant nor the text are very close at all.

The fictitious folio number has been written on the bound side of an obverse page.

The darker blue spots on the plant aren't there, veins and a leaf have been added, the roots have been changed entirely, as though the roots were drawn without seeing the original. Crosshatch shading has been added.

The initial gallows has an extra row of dots. The first bench character has been rendered as two "c" shapes. The "oin" has been changed to "ad". Three significant changes/errors in the first word-token. The capped bench has been turned into two "6" shapes (which don't exist in the VMS "alphabet"). The space between the two "9" chars has been omitted and the next bench char turned into "or" the next "o" into a "d". All of that is wrong just on the first line and the rest of it is just as bad.


So, either the person trying to transcribe it had poor observation skills, or didn't spend enough time looking at it and dashed it off, or had something very unclear to work from (a fuzzy pinhole camera photo maybe??). Or perhaps it's a copy of a copy? Or, if it's a fraud, rather than a bad copy, they simply added what they thought was needed with the thought that the original wouldn't be available for comparison?

It's really strange. Parts of the text look like they tried to get the stroke order and slant correct and other parts are way off. Imagine if you had an original that had been exposed to dampness (so that some letters weren't clear), and part of it were missing (the right hand side and the bottom, for example), and you tried to recreate it—you might end up with something like this. The root looks more like a contemporary interpretation of a Juliana Anicia drawing than a VMS drawing.

I should point out that there is no doubt that Fabrizio Salani is completely honest about this.
He bought the sheet at a second hand book market, and must have spent some money to
do the forensic tests. Where it came from remains a mystery, and the different root
makes no sense at all....

(25-02-2016, 08:55 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I should point out that there is no doubt that Fabrizio Salani is completely honest about this.
He bought the sheet at a second hand book market, and must have spent some money to
do the forensic tests. Where it came from remains a mystery, and the different root
makes no sense at all....

I looked at it again when I was taking a break to try to figure out if someone were working from a bad copy or simply misinterpreted the text.

The bench character is drawn wrong every time with only a couple of exceptions, and it seems unlikely that camera fuzziness or water damage would result in one specific glyph being wrong every time.

I can't account for the root at all other than that it might not have been available to view (something hiding it or if the copy were made from a snapshot, perhaps taken clandestinely, maybe the root was out of frame?) but it really looks like the root was taken from another manuscript tradition (Mattioli or Anicia or something along those lines) to sub in for what couldn't be seen.

The added folio number is the one thing that makes it look like a deliberate fraud rather than a bad copy. Somebody copying, even badly, wouldn't make up a number and add it.


It doesn't appear to be a re-interpretation, as with the fairly recent Voynich Dreams series. It looks more like a bad copy with the root and leaf added to fill in gaps.

I wasn't too worried about the page number myself. The drawing could be part of a set of drawings that had been separately numbered.
Another odd thing is that it is not on paper but on parchment. If this were a genuine Barschius submission, I would really only expect paper. But I wouldn't call it more than odd.