The Voynich Ninja

(01-05-2024, 09:10 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-05-2024, 06:45 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That it is genuine is shown by the fact that the handwriting is the same as in a contemporaneous letter from Marci that only became available to non-Jesuits after 1930.

Please point me to that -- it sounds quite relevant.

The one with the "uncannily perfect" alignment (not even close) of signature, date, etc.:

Marci to Kircher 10 September 1665 (PUG 562 f. 114r Fletcher 35)

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(01-05-2024, 11:07 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-05-2024, 09:10 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-05-2024, 06:45 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That it is genuine is shown by the fact that the handwriting is the same as in a contemporaneous letter from Marci that only became available to non-Jesuits after 1930.

Please point me to that -- it sounds quite relevant.

The one with the "uncannily perfect" alignment (not even close) of signature, date, etc.:

Marci to Kircher 10 September 1665 (PUG 562 f. 114r Fletcher 35)

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

I have nothing to gauge the rest of the similarities visually, but the signature (and dates) certainly do look uncannily close. (This seems an obvious candidate for doing some statistical pixel analysis to see if the similarities are 'too close' on those elements compared to his other letters. If it's authentic then it is simply a result of his having a remarkably consistent hand, but then that consistency should show up across multiple letters.  Statistically significant similarity between the key letter and just one other would be a strong indication of forgery. )

(01-05-2024, 09:10 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-05-2024, 06:45 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The evidence presented by Rich, that the letter should be a fake is the observation that it has too many (or unusual?) folds.

It is the same problem again: if this is unusual for an original, it is also unusual for a fake.

Basically, this is a complete non-sequitur.

The fact that it has multiple different folds does not lead to the conclusion that it is a fake.

I agree. I think it only adds evidence that something may be amiss. (One of those little red flags that is too weak to mean anything, but has the potential to become significant in retrospect.)

But Rene, your description bears zero relationship to my observations about why these folds are a problem. I can only assume you have not watched the video, or don't understand what I am describing here.

Here is the text from my blog, describing the problems with the folds:

Rich's Blog post, "The 1666 Marci Letter: A Forgery? Wrote:The Folding: There were two basic ways a letter was prepared for delivery in the times before manufactured envelopes became available: One, the letter itself was folded into an envelope, with the writing to the inside and the address on the outside. Then this was usually secured with a “wax” seal, impressed while hot with the emblem of the sender. Another way was to fold the letter, but then place it in a dedicated envelope made from another sheet of paper or vellum, which was then addressed and sealed. The second way seems to have usually been used when the letter had writing on both sides, or one had multiple sheets. I have seen images of all the letters of the Kircher Carteggio, and the fold lines and seals make sense for one of these two uses. There are small variations in the size of the sections folded, or whether or not a flap is made for the seal, and so on, but they still make sense.

The 1665 Voynich/Marci letter seems different, and odd, in this area. So I printed out the 1666 Marci letter, and tried to fold it on its apparent fold lines. There are ways to fold it, but they do not make sense. It is as though the letter was trimmed down from a larger source, that was previously folded, with new fold lines added. The fact that the Beinecke lists the letter as being blank on the reverse (hence no address) does imply this was meant to be included in another sheet, folded as an envelope… but then, why are there seals on it? It has been suggested that the seals were used to attach this letter inside the cover, or some pages, of the Voynich… but this is also not a usual practice, and then, since the cover is considered newer than the book, and newer than the letter for that matter, why do the seals and their marks line up as though they were part of the letter itself, when folded?

I think these anomalies suggest that the 1666 Marci letter was created from another source sheet, which was possibly trimmed down. This source may have had seals on it for some purpose, perhaps as an unmarked envelope. Perhaps an original address was trimmed off, or erased. This source had some folds, but others may have been added to create what we see today… an odd format with seals and folds that cannot be made sense of. Related to this is the known fact that Voynich had access to a tremendous amount of blank paper from the end-sheets of books, and possibly other sources. In fact it is related both by James McBey, the famous etching artist, and Millicent Sowerby, a Voynich staff member and biographer, that Voynich sold ancient, blank paper to McBey.

EDITED TO ADD: For emphasis... 2,000 letters in the Kircher Carteggio, all the folding lines work; Voynich's supposedly sister letter to that collection, the fold lines cannot work.

And of course, again, anyone can see my demonstration using two sided copies of the Marci letter, in this video: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Hopefully you will actually learn the actual problems with the letter's folds and seal placement, and stop simply contending, essentionally, "its unusual, lots of things are unusual, so what?". Well yes lots of things are, but in what way they are different is the point here. This letter does not fold into an envelope. Therefore there is no way it WAS an envelope, as all other letters are. It must have been made from a larger scrap of paper, in which the lines made sense.

But after several times of trying to compel you to address what is really going on here, I fear that my point will continue to be ignored. But honestly, that is "par for the course", as I have always found those things unanswerable by the Paradigm simply go unanswered. That is an answer in itself, by the way.

Anyway, I've shortenend the points on my blog post, and put them below, as they represent other unanswered questions and anomalies in the 1665/66 Marci letter, in addition to the impossible fold lines. These are shortened, and, again, for anyone interested in what I actually say, rather than the easily dismiss-able Straw Man version of them presented in their stead, they can read for themselves: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Short version of all anomalies I and others see in the Marci letter:

1) Voynich claimed he paid little attention to it- an absurd claim considering how important the ms. was to him. More likely is this claim was to cover for why he had not mentioned it earlier, when he had actually forged it, or had it forged for him.

2) He was allowed to purchase it from the Jesuits- Very unlikely, as any correspondance to or from Kircher would have been treasured by them.

3) Marci held back this information in the earlier letters?- Again, makes no sense, because, "why would Marci wait to mention until his last, dying years, and only in his last request to Kircher, the important clues contained in that letter? Voynich’s 1665 Marci letter first mentions the rumor of Rudolf II buying it from a bearer, or otherwise paying that bearer, 600 ducats. And it mentions the guess that Roger Bacon wrote it! But confoundedly, Baresch, Kinner and a younger Marci fail to mention any of this to Kircher, for decades."

4) The Latin is "vexing" in this letter, in ways it is not in the others. Why is it poorer, more confusing?

5) The folds do not line up in any context. I covered this in my video, and copied the text from my blog, above.

6) "The “Signature” & Date: It has long been known that the “signature” of Marcus Marci is not by him, as it seems to be different on his other, earlier letters. This has been explained by the fact that Marci was very old, and ill at this point, and some scribe wrote and signed the letter for him. But interesting to me is the almost pantographic ability of this scribe… because in the Kircher Carteggio is one, later, Marci letter, dated September 10, 1665, seemingly by this same scribe… but if so, why are the signatures an exact overlay?"



(and yes those ARE perfect overlays you see there: the lighter areas are a reduced opacity layer of copies of the other signature, date, etc.. It is as though they were traced, or a pantograph was used, or perhaps a camera lucida)

7) Adding a new one to me, noted by others: Why didn't Marci refer to Barshius by name?

(02-05-2024, 01:53 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(and yes those ARE perfect overlays you see there: the lighter areas are a reduced opacity layer of copies of the other signature, date, etc.. It is as though they were traced, or a pantograph was used, or perhaps a camera lucida)

Your fake overlays are perfect because they are not overlays. It is impossible to overlay the words so perfectly.

The "r" and "a" of Pragae should be separate in the overlay as in the 19 August letter, not connected as in the 10 September letter, the distance between "a" and "g" shorter, the "g" and "ae" connected. The "1"s are completely different, the loops of the second "6" are not the same width, etc.

[attachment=8490]

The signatures are similar, same handwriting, but many details are clearly different: for example the spikes on the two "M", the "a" and "d" of "a Cronland", these details and many others that are perfectly identical in your fake overlays.

[attachment=8491]

(02-05-2024, 09:11 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(02-05-2024, 01:53 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(and yes those ARE perfect overlays you see there: the lighter areas are a reduced opacity layer of copies of the other signature, date, etc.. It is as though they were traced, or a pantograph was used, or perhaps a camera lucida)

Your fake overlays are perfect because they are not overlays. It is impossible to overlay the images so perfectly.

The "r" and "a" of Pragae should be separate in the overlay as it is in the 19 August letter, not connected as in the 10 September letter, the distance between "a" and "g" shorter, the "g" and "ae" connected. The "1"s are completely different, the loops of the second "6" are not the same width.

The signatures are similar, same handwriting, but many details are clearly different: for example the spikes on the two "M", the "a" and "d" of "a Cronland", those details that you show as perfectly identical in your fake overlays.

Well of course you have added perimeters that I never claim, and do not think are part of my suspected copying here. Maybe you have made some assumptions, which cause you to believe I am making claims about this that I have not? I'm not sure, but the images speak for themselves, and anyone can do what I have done and see that I have accurately demonstrated these sets of letters and numbers are a perfect match, aligning over letters and numbers from a letter in the Carteggio. I thought my graphics were clear about this, but this might help clear up your misunderstandings about them:

1) You've assumed, on your own, that I was claiming to have found the relationship and orientation of the individual words to be the same distance as the originals. It never occurred to me that this would assumed, or that anyone would think it necessary that this be the case to realize these seem to be perfect tracings. No, the individual words are not the original spacing from each other... if these were traced, the words were copied separately, with small differences.

2) Even if backlighting was used, like a window, or a pantograph, or Camera Lucida, they of course cannot control the ink line. There are and will be small differences with thicknesses of lines, perhaps the small "spikes" you note, and so on. EDITED TO ADD: And of course a pantograph only copies the line as traced by the operator, if the operator deviates at all, so does the copy. But another point: considering the presumed difficulties on producing a quill pen line with a pantograph, if one was used here, I would see it for light guide lines, and not the inking. But in order of probability, I would suspect tracing, then Lucida, and a distant last, pantograph.

You are just demanding an almost modern level of graphics art manipulation abilities, like cut and paste and such, that just would not exist in the early twentieth century. Most people who have seen this seem to understand this, I've never seen these complaints before. Perhaps it would help if one had used these techniques themselves? I'm not sure what your experiences with graphics are, but this could explain it.

I've used quills and other pens, and done graphics artwork, such as posters, calendars, cartoons, and textile design. One of my designs was a woven blanket for Sears... a modified replica of a 600 (now closer to 650!) year old Peruvian design inspired by whimsical sea and land animals. Part of the process I used involved tracing the originals, then transferring those tracings to my new version. Was the spacing BETWEEN the animals the same as the original design? Of course not. Then I modified the designs... and even created my own interpretation of what the ancient artist would have done, and created my own version of a real animal in their style, because I wanted a new animal for balance (ironically, to this day I can't remember which animals were original, and which was mine! An effect that happened many times in the history of forgery). Anyway, I've used a light table, and also tracing paper, and elements from the original can be perfectly copied, and rearranged on the new versions... this is one method I suspect has been done here.

As for the way I created my overlays of the two letters was to create a new layer in a graphics program. I then copied the second letter into that program, and moved the words of it over the words of the base layer letter. I lessened the opacity of the upper level, so that it was slightly translucent... not sure how much, maybe it is 30% or so? I do this until both the overlay and the original on the base layer can be seen at the same time. I think most readers of this are familiar with this technique, and of course can duplicate my results.

I also experimented with the Camera Lucida, as I've wondered if it was the unspoken, unreported tool of the forger. They were very popular in the late 19th through early 20th century. One brand alone sold over 5,000 of the devices in the early 20th century! Yet, we practically never hear of them. 

The way they work is to create an optical illusion by seeming to project an image of your subject onto your blank medium. They don't really, the copier only sees the original on the medium, like a mirage done with a special prism. Here is my setup for one image:

[attachment=8492]

Will the pen line be identical? No, of course not. The purpose is to duplicate the orientation of the elements, and not to expect nor achieve a "photo-realistic or copy/paste" level of perfection.

It is not known how the forger of the Vineland Map copied from the engraving of the source map he/she used, which was discovered to be a copy of the Bianco World map in one limited publication. The forger inadvertently copied a lake which was truncated in the 18th century engraving, but not on the original Bianco. Are the line widths and lengths and style of the forged Vineland Map identical copies of the lines on the engraving? Of course not, that would be hard to do, and counter productive. So the same here: If a person wanted to copy a signature well enough to falsely appear as though it was by an original 17th century version, using one of these copy methods would allow this, with all lines and shapes ending up the same, but of course not with the level of exactness you are now insisting as a standard. I believed that would be a "given", but don't really mind explaining this to you.

By the way, your criticisms also reminded me that Thomas Jefferson, a prolific writer and letter writer, used a pantograph to copy his own letters. As he used a quill, I've often wondered how he oriented it on the copy side, and how he inked it. But I would never expect, and would doubt that the lines of the copies were perfect representations of the originals, in their line widths and so on, as ink and paper allow some variations. But the style would certainly be "overlay identical", I would think.

As an additional point of interest, on one of my visits to the New York Public Library Rare Map Room, for a Voynich-related research project, I also requested to see a copy of the book the Vineland Map was copied from. I was curious as to the scale of the book's engraving, which I could not determine online. I did this because the Camera Lucida can reduce and enlarge from the original, and even alter the ratio between length and width by tilting the original either up/down or left/right. I wanted to see if the forger had traced, or possibly used a Lucida. If exactly the same proportions, then tracing would be suggested. If a different scale, then the Lucida might explain it. It is a different scale from the original, so probably not a tracing, anyway.

[attachment=8493]

It is a working theory of mine that the Camera Lucida was a popular tool of the forger in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was small enough in its case to slip into a coat pocket, and usable on sight as a copy tool, and probably would not be objectionable staff, in use. I've brought mine... a 1920's or 1930's model, but identical to those made for decades prior... to libraries, and clamped it to the reading table and went to work.

I hope to publish my article on all this at some point, but maybe as a blog post... not sure. Its been on the back burner for years now, and I really ought to get back to it. I think my findings would be valuable in identifying forgeries, as there are cases in which an item is described as an almost photo-copy of some original, yet in some proportions seems elongated or truncated. This could be an effect of the use of a Lucida, especially in the case of library-field work, where one would have to prop up the source book vertically, which is hard to do. If one tips it at all, the copy is elongated vertically. But also, if a copier wanted to fit an original to differently proportioned medium, that can be done on purpose with the Lucida.

I think there are other "tells" which might point to the use of a Lucida, such as drop out of detail in dark areas. With Voynich's known forgery, the Columbus Miniature (which interestingly has a very Vinelandesque map on the back, also forged), the places the forger invented details happen to be in the darker areas of the original (a De Bry engraving) they copied from. When I copied the same originals with the Lucida, I found the detail in that area very difficult to resolve. So perhaps, I thought, this was the tool used to do it.

Rich

PS: interestingly, I knew nothing of the existence of the Camera Lucida at first... I learned of them "in reverse", after seeing cases of anomalous works, which were being noted for their "almost photorealistic" similarity. I asked myself the question, "What if there were an optical device which a forger or other copyist could bring to a library or collection, like an opaque projector, but without the need for a built in light source?" Using various search terms, I found the existence of the Lucida.

(02-05-2024, 12:44 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.1) You've assumed, on your own, that I was claiming to have found the relationship and orientation of the individual words to be the same distance as the originals. It never occurred to me that this would assumed, or that anyone would think it necessary that this be the case to realize these seem to be perfect tracings. No, the individual words are not the original spacing from each other... if these were traced, the words were copied separately, with small differences.

No, I have detailed some of the differences that should be visible in the overlays, distance between individual letters not words, letters should be different too in these areas, not "perfect tracings" as you claim. Your "overlays" are well visible (lighter areas) and they are not overlays. The light background matches the 19 August letter but the ink does not.

(02-05-2024, 01:02 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(02-05-2024, 12:44 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.1) You've assumed, on your own, that I was claiming to have found the relationship and orientation of the individual words to be the same distance as the originals. It never occurred to me that this would assumed, or that anyone would think it necessary that this be the case to realize these seem to be perfect tracings. No, the individual words are not the original spacing from each other... if these were traced, the words were copied separately, with small differences.

No, I have detailed some of the differences that should be visible in the overlays, distance between individual letters not words, letters should be different too in these areas, not "perfect tracings" as you claim. Your "overlays" are well visible (lighter areas) and they are not overlays. The light background matches the 19 August letter but the ink does not.

This is all nonsense. If one looks at the images it is quite clear that they are not overlays. Yes, there is some degree of similarity, but that is certainly to be expected. I think this is indicative of Rich's whole approach of seeing things that just aren't there.

Rich is a sweet man, but I fear he is out of his depth with this one.

(02-05-2024, 01:44 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(02-05-2024, 01:02 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(02-05-2024, 12:44 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.1) You've assumed, on your own, that I was claiming to have found the relationship and orientation of the individual words to be the same distance as the originals. It never occurred to me that this would assumed, or that anyone would think it necessary that this be the case to realize these seem to be perfect tracings. No, the individual words are not the original spacing from each other... if these were traced, the words were copied separately, with small differences.

No, I have detailed some of the differences that should be visible in the overlays, distance between individual letters not words, letters should be different too in these areas, not "perfect tracings" as you claim. Your "overlays" are well visible (lighter areas) and they are not overlays. The light background matches the 19 August letter but the ink does not.

This is all nonsense. If one looks at the images it is quite clear that they are not overlays. Yes, there is some degree of similarity, but that is certainly to be expected. I think this is indicative of Rich's whole approach of seeing things that just aren't there.

Rich is a sweet man, but I fear he is out of his depth with this one.

Hey! Did you just infantilize me??? Just kidding of course (based on the fact we all do talk this way, and it is harmless)... I can be sweet, but can't vouch for my Straw Man version- he's a "piece of work". I hope I never meet him.

Anyway, of course this issue, like many others, is a matter of subjective interpretation. I don't say you both, and others, could not be correct in thinking the differences are enough to negate my speculation that they are copied in some way. I think they are. Of course it is not necessary, one way or the other, it is just a brick in the wall I see as reasons this letter is probably a forgery.

One point of this I did not mention again, let alone emphasize, it the curious fact that the "5", which does, IMO, seem to be copied, also seems to have been modified with a little line to close the loop and turn it into a "6". Of course one might posit that the writer simply wrote the wrong year, and needed to fix the error. But also, such errors are usually made in early January each year, and mostly disappear by February and certainly March. So I would say it looks as though the author of the letter realized that, due to the content, it ought to appear to come from a year later. This would make sense for various logistical reasons relating to the content.

There You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., apart from possible copying of these elements, which are part of the much larger, whole argument I make. If anything, the overlay or not issue is the low hanging fruit. As often happens, and this is understandable, the more damning problems are not addressed, while the ones one may think most vulnerable, or most open to personal speculation and there for dismissive within reasonable differences in interpretation, are. As a perfect example of this, Rene dismisses the folding problem as not a problem, but ordinary... while I point out that the fold lines are impossible. That is an absolute, not open to speculative variations of interpretation. 2,000 letters in the Carteggio... and believe me, I looked at each and every one of them over many hours, spanning days... the fold lines all make sense in one of the two contexts, that is, as an envelope, or to be included in an envelope. The 1665/66 Marci letter, the one letter which is separately owned by Voynich, just happens to have impossible, unworkable and nonsensical fold lines? That is high hanging fruit, and gets ignored.

Anyway, I appreciate and respect your objections, and also take them under consideration.

Rich.

This whole things is a good example of where you need to roll up your sleeves and actually try things out with your own hands. The visual similarities are only an indication that it is worth diving in deeper; visual inspection alone will only produce differing opinions. 

(And from Rich's description of his experiments and research above, it appears he is the only one here is not "out of his depth".)

One also needs to look at a wider sample of Marci's signatures and dates.

(01-05-2024, 09:10 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Please point me to that -- it sounds quite relevant.

I was not talking about the signatures, but about the body of the letters.

Here is an example of the handwriting of Marci. There are over 30 letters of him in the Kircher correspondence in this hand. Some of them specifically indicate that this is 'manu propria'.



Following is a clip of the letter that accompanied the Voynich MS, now in the Beinecke library:



This is clearly a completely different hand.

However, there is one letter in that collection that was sent one month later than the letter with the Voynich MS, which is also the one that Rich discussed on his blog. It looks like this:



This is the same hand as the letter with the Voynich MS. However, (as one can see from Rich's blog), the signature is in Marci's own hand. He had to use a scribe, because his own eyesight had already deteriorated too much. He could only sign his name.

A year later he composed his testament, and by this time he was blind, and could no longer sign that document himself. (This fact is written on the testament).

- - - -

Edit, just to add a brief summary.

Imagine a 1911 faker who wants to create a fake letter by Johannes Marcus Marci.
What handwriting should he use? If he was really good, and had a lot of time to research, he might be able to find some original Marci handwriting that he could copy.

How could he come up with a handwriting that matches the handwriting of a real letter that only surfaced in 1930, and was not by Marci but by a friend to whom he dictated?