The Voynich Ninja - Speculative fraud hypothesis

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(19-08-2025, 10:45 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(19-08-2025, 10:17 AM)dexdex Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene, you mentioned there are difficulties with this hypothesis. I'm curious, can you think of other ones in addition to the ones I mentioned?

It is all subjective, of course, but the main problem for me is that so much planning and attention has gone into the book, that the 'just a prop' idea isn't entirely satisfactory.
I recently decided to check a feeling I have long had, about the frequency distribution of the labels, in particular the zodiac labels.
I have You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
I still want to add some other things to that, so I had not yet mentioned this, but this is perhaps a good occasion.
Note that this is not proof of anything, but it is one of the things that shapes my opinion.

Yes, the idea that labels have a non-zipfian distribution (as they should) is a thing that makes me think that some information is there. However, the built vocabulary + imitated books of a certain type might also explain some of those aspects. The hardest part is that some label words do happen in other 'books' - though perhaps this is merely accidental and an artifact of the word generation: similar words were regenerated while imitating word structure of typical labels. Or it's an artifact of a self-copy method. I will read that page as I haven't seen it yet.

I agree with Rene that the MS is still too well-planned to have just been a con man's prop. Why would you need 100+ plant pages? Why the additional small plant images, and why the foldouts to accommodate them? Why the rosettes page, what's the added benefit?

IF this was made as a con artist's prop, then he must have had a very specific target and purpose in mind. But in that case, the manuscript's content is well considered and far from random. The specific needs of the high-value target must have influenced the way it is.

Everything considered, I still think this was made for the original makers or their own community (professional, cultural or monastic).

(19-08-2025, 11:36 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I agree with Rene that the MS is still too well-planned to have just been a con man's prop. Why would you need 100+ plant pages? Why the additional small plant images, and why the foldouts to accommodate them? Why the rosettes page, what's the added benefit?

IF this was made as a con artist's prop, then he must have had a very specific target and purpose in mind. But in that case, the manuscript's content is well considered and far from random. The specific needs of the high-value target must have influenced the way it is.

I don't think I agree. The profit motive is not really there, while a travelling quack hypothesis does explain that. It also explains the relative difference in quality between sections (herbal as the starting point made by an expert in herbals vs other sections as additions to make a more impressive and varied tome made with less knowledge of their respective genre of book). Foldouts are something really cool and unique to show off to potential marks after the 'content' of the words eludes them.

If it's a con artist's prop, the only sensible explanation to my mind is one where the process of creation was incremental, rather than pre-planned.

However, I agree with this, I think a non-hoax is overall more likely:

(19-08-2025, 11:36 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Everything considered, I still think this was made for the original makers or their own community (professional, cultural or monastic).

Still, the hypothetical incremental process of fraudulent creation is sensible, while it might imbue the manuscript with unique testable characteristics. I think it is worth speculating what these characteristics may be. As I mentioned, if the process of generation is more elaborate than a simple vocabulary generation + some simple method of mimicry of other documents of types corresponding to various books, that would all but falsify this hypothesis; other such characteristics might be some of the ideas I've mentioned in bulletpoints in previous posts. Considering what those characteristics might be, then, could be a decent way to reject or at least consider less likely the hoax hypothesis.

Edit: also, forgot to mention. Con artists sometimes have a 'favorite' scam they like to pull. It's conceivable that you would continue to put more care into a prop for a scam you really enjoy, especially if it's reusable, as the Voynich would be. It's far less sensible to make an entire book like this for a one-time scam, with no certainty to return on investment.

(19-08-2025, 06:46 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The fact that Rudolf paid 600 ducats for it has been brought up many times in this context, but, of course, it is completely irrelevant.
The fact that he bought it does not say anything about whether it is authentic or fake.

Well, of course, it is indeed irrelevant to whether it is authentic or a fake. But that is not the point.

The point is, we have multiple suggestions that it is implausible for the VMS to have been created in order to sell for money. Lisa Fagin Davis has suggested that it was not beautiful enough. Dexdex finds the proposition stupid because of the amount of time it would take to produce it. (And that's probably true -- but there are plenty of stupid people sitting in prison for white collar crimes who could have made much more money with much less effort.)

Yet, if you accept that the Marci/Kircher letters refer to the VMS, then we also have a demonstrable case that belies those criticisms; there was an actual person with a lot of money who spent a lot of money on something that he believed was worth a lot of money. And that something was no more beautiful and no more easily made than the VMS -- because, apparently, it was the VMS.

It does not matter whether the manuscript was or wasn't authentic. In fact, it doesn't even matter whether Rudolf believed it was authentic. The fact that he spent the money shows -- dare I say "proves' -- that there was indeed sufficient motivation for someone to spend the time to make a manuscript like the VMS and that it was not necessary to make it of any higher quality than it turned out to be. (Also, not only did Rudolf reportedly pay a lot of money, but Marci seems to have brought up the point of the purchase in order to bolster his case that the manuscript was something of value and therefore worthy of Kircher's time to decipher it.)

Koen's point that Rudolf's willingness and ability to pay a lot of money for it in his timeframe is removed from the original motives of the (much earlier) manuscript producers is true, but I'm not sure it is therefore irrelevant. Just how much do we think human behaviours change over time? How little time between the production and the buying is necessary before it IS relevant? If there was demonstrable evidence that the manuscript could convince a wealthy buyer to part with a lot of money 400 years ago, is it that much less evidence that they would part with it 600 years ago?

There are a lot of reasons to believe that the manuscript was produced for very different reasons than to just scam a potential buyer and it has a lot of features (a LOT!) that are inconsistent with that motive. But to say that it isn't plausible because we don't think anyone should have paid for it, or that it wasn't worth the buyer's money, or the seller's efforts, that there was no profit motive available -- that just doesn't hold water.

(19-08-2025, 02:11 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(19-08-2025, 06:46 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The fact that Rudolf paid 600 ducats for it has been brought up many times in this context, but, of course, it is completely irrelevant.
The fact that he bought it does not say anything about whether it is authentic or fake.
It does not matter whether the manuscript was or wasn't authentic. In fact, it doesn't even matter whether Rudolf believed it was authentic. The fact that he spent the money shows -- dare I say "proves' -- that there was indeed sufficient motivation for someone to spend the time to make a manuscript like the VMS and that it was not necessary to make it of any higher quality than it turned out to be. (Also, not only did Rudolf reportedly pay a lot of money, but Marci seems to have brought up the point of the purchase in order to bolster his case that the manuscript was something of value and therefore worthy of Kircher's time to decipher it.)

Koen's point that Rudolf's willingness and ability to pay a lot of money for it in his timeframe is removed from the original motives of the (much earlier) manuscript producers is true, but I'm not sure it is therefore irrelevant. Just how much do we think human behaviours change over time? How little time between the production and the buying is necessary before it IS relevant? If there was demonstrable evidence that the manuscript could convince a wealthy buyer to part with a lot of money 400 years ago, is it that much less evidence that they would part with it 600 years ago?

I believe there's a misunderstanding here: people's motivations haven't changed, and it would be a plausible reason to do this if you stood to gain what the sale to Rudolf did. However, at the time of Rudolf buying the book, it was visibly 200 years old: an esoteric antique (because it was 200 years old by that point). This considerably increases its perceived value to a fan of esoterica. When it was made, any interested buyer would be savvy enough to see it wasn't some old and beautiful tome, but a contemporaneous document. To my knowledge, there are no signs the original manuscript was intentionally made to look older to increase value as a "sell once" scam.

This means you cannot use the Rudolf sale as evidence that it would be potentially worth 600 ducats in the eyes of the creators and/or their potential mark. Because it was new, not an antique. A reasonable assumption is that it would be worth far less, even discounting the likely fact the 600 ducat sale was a bunch of books, not just one.

Also, another thought: that VMS is not that incredibly ornate works to its advantage as a prop - it's not so expensive that you'd want to steal it, and its only 'value' to the mark is through the book's owner claiming they can decipher it. Of course, it doesn't explain why so much effort went into creating the text to have the characteristics it does, but at least from the appearance standpoint the level of care and professionalism (somewhat amateurish, but decently made; some sections of much better quality than others; no religious imagery that might draw any religious leader's ire) fits a quack's prop. It isn't all that impressive for a contemporaneous book being sold as some rare artifact.

You are correct in saying it could have been someone deluding themselves into thinking the book would be worth much more - people's motivations are not always rational. But then we run into the problem of the consensus about multiple scribes, as well as the fact that the creation of the Voynich, amateurish as it is, still involves someone very well educated. These considerably lower the chance of a delusional person making a hoax for sale.

Someone well educated, potentially well-traveled, and not artistically gifted. What does the VMs artist know? All the things from swallowtail merlons to nebuly lines to mythical Melusine and the Agnus Dei.

It's not a hoax. It is a trick. In particular examples, the VMs cosmos and White Aries, trickery is an intentional part of the illustration. The papelonny patterns are in place, but the trick fails if the reader can't do the canting.

The VMs was constructed as a puzzle, a hiding place for something, but it is unclear if the remaining parts are sufficient to recover that information.

(19-08-2025, 10:45 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I recently decided to check a feeling I have long had, about the frequency distribution of the labels, in particular the zodiac labels. I have You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Thanks Rene for that long overdue analysis of the labels!

The uniqueness of most labels was expected; it is the repetition (even with freq only 2) that needs explaining.

Some of them may be spelling errors by the Author, "quillos" (like typos, but with a quill) by the Scribe, or or transcription errors (swapping o and a, r and s, Ch and ee, y that lost its tail with o, etc.) But they seem to be too many for that to be the only explanation.

Here all the occurrences of the first word in your list, otaly (otaly), as a label or part thereof in my version of the transcription (that differs from yours, I don't know how much now):

Page Sec Word(s) Obs
--------- --- ---------------- ----------------------
f68v1.t cos otol.Ches.otaly ---
f88r.6 pha otaly ---
f99v.6 pha otaly ---
f70v2.15 zod otaly Pisces
f70v1.6 zod otaly AriesDark
f72v3.10 zod otaly Leo
f72v3.31 zod otaly Leo
f72v3.32 zod otaly.yty Leo
f73r.1 zod otaly Scorpio
f73r.6 zod otaly Scorpio

Here are all its occurrences of otaly in running text:

Page Sec Word(s) Obs
--------- --- ---------------- ----------------------
f58r.1 str otaly ---
f71v.12 zod otaly TaurusLight,Circular
f72r2.22 zod otaly Gemini,Circular
f82v.31 bio otaly ---
f84r.47 bio otaly ---
f103v.35 str otaly ---
f103v.5 str otaly ---
f105r.36 str otaly ---

Seems that the occurrences of otaly are all but random. What else can we say about them?

More surprising, here are all occurrences of words that contain otaly as a proper substring:

Page Sec Word(s) Obs
--------- --- ---------------- ----------------------
f43r.4 heb qotaly ---
f78r.42 bio kotaly ---
f104r.36 str qotaly ---
f106v.18 str qotaly ---
f113r.4 str qotaly ---

Just for reference, the similar word otoly (otoly) occurs only 8 times, including once as a sub-word of Shotoly, and 3 times as label:

Page Sec Word(s) Obs
--------- --- ---------------- ----------------------
f75v.37 bio otoly ---
f84r.11 bio otoly ---
f101v2.8 pha otoly ---

The similar word okaly (okaly) occurs 8 times as a label and 19 times in running text.

The similar word okoly (okoly) occurs only twice, once as a label (on f70v1, AriesDark)
and once in running text (f22r.1, Herbal A).
All the best, --jorge

(19-08-2025, 10:25 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.it is the repetition (even with freq only 2) that needs explaining.

Indeed, and while I can think of several things, I decided not to include too much speculation and leave it for another place. Note that I do not have any options that explains everything to my satisfaction. Far from it in fact.

If this were (part of) a bona fide star catalogue, the zodiac degrees would give the longitudes and the labels could give the latitudes. Then there would be some overlaps. (This does not work for the pharma labels).

If they are abbreviated star names (the full names are usually long), there are quite a number of stars that start the same. ("Ras ...", "Ras al ...")

If they are just references to points in the text (the stars section) the author may not have been able to (or bothered to) find unique words.

The number is a bit too high to just be explained by mistakes.

Two other curious things (not discussed in the web page) is that quite a few duplicates occur in the same sign, and that the duplicates are not at all equally divided over all signs. The second point may not be statistically significant. This is always tricky when dealing with relatively small samples.

(19-08-2025, 02:39 PM)dexdex Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I believe there's a misunderstanding here: people's motivations haven't changed, and it would be a plausible reason to do this if you stood to gain what the sale to Rudolf did.

Let us distinguish between motivations of buyers, motivations of sellers and motivations of fakers.

All of these will have changed over the centuries.

There are undoubtedly publications about the book market that are relevant for this topic, but I know from 'personal communication' that there was not much of an 'old book market' more than 150 years ago.
Books were dealt (often appropriated) in collections by rulers and by libraries. Think of Napoleon as the most obvious example.

It is only in the presence of such a market that creating and selling fakes for profit may become interesting.

The conditions have changed dramatically, also between the early 15th century and Rudolf's times.

(19-08-2025, 02:39 PM)dexdex Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This means you cannot use the Rudolf sale as evidence that it would be potentially worth 600 ducats in the eyes of the creators and/or their potential mark. Because it was new, not an antique.

That’s a pretty valid point – If the buyer believes it is old, it would likely have greater value.

(19-08-2025, 02:39 PM)dexdex Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To my knowledge, there are no signs the original manuscript was intentionally made to look older to increase value as a "sell once" scam.

Hmm. What would such signs actually be – particularly in the 15th-17th centuries? After all, just about anything a potential buyer would find appealing can be produced by a would-be forger, including age.

I’m trying to imagine what any signs of intentionally making the manuscript look older would possibly be …

Emperor Rudolf II, in his parlor with his Friend (the Duke of Savoy)

Rudolf:
How about them Catholics. They sure pummelled the Huguenots last week, eh?

Friend:
Sure did. Hey, what's this?

Rudolf:
Oh that's an old manuscript. I just bought it for 600 ducats.

Friend:
Really. ... What's it about?

Rudolf:
No idea.

Friend:
Where is it from?

Rudolf:
No clue. But it's old.

Friend:
Well, what does all this writing say?

Rudolf:
Beats me ... It's really old, though.

Friend:
I see... It's kind of ugly, isn't it? I mean these drawings are not very well done -- my
young daughter could have painted them better.

Rudolf:
I know, I know it's kind of amateurish. But that's why it's ... uuuniiique ... yeah, it's really unique . ... And old.

Friend:
Oh -- no, nix that. Look at these drawings of... um.... well, these look more like they were drawn by my teenage son.

Rudolf:
Well there’s lots of other stuff too, Like the plants.

Friend:
Yeah, I see that… Look at this one here… I think my son was smoking THiS when he drew THAT.

Rudolf:
Hehe… True dat. Did I mention it is really old?

Friend:
How old is it?

Rudolf:
Well ... you can't really say. Not until Carbon 14 dating is developed anyway. But it's pretty old.

Friend:
Ok... Ok... I see. So you paid 6 ducats for this? I mean, you could buy a really nice carriage and a full team of. horses for that, you know.

Rudolf:
No, no.... um ... hundred. I paid, ah... 6 hundred ducats... for that ... for that there manuscript.

Friend:
Oh! ... ok ... why?

Rudolf:
Because I told you, it's really old.

Friend:
How do you know that? How do you know it's old?

Rudolf:
Well, look here. The parchment is all worn. And there are all these wormholes. And it smells too! It smells like old barn. Here, take a whiff.

Friend:
Whoa! Wow, you're right. I see now. That's got to be, like, at least what? --30 years old?

Rudolf:
No way Duke! -- it's REALLY old. Like hundreds of years!

Friend:
Hundreds, eh? What, like one year for every ducat?

Rudolf:
Well noooo. I don't know -- maybe... a couple hundred years?

Friend:
Well it can't be quite that old. Look at this. It's a drawing of an armadillo. Those were only discovered in New Spain about a century ago.

Rudolf:
Oh no, no. That's not an armadillo.

Friend:
It's not?

Rudolf:
Nope.

Friend:
What is it?

Rudolf:
It's .. ah.. It's a pangolin.

Friend:
A what?

Rudolf:
A pangolin.

Friend:
WHAT THE F--K IS A PANGOLIN ?

Rudolf:
I DON'T KNOW!! ... ... ... I think it's a critter from the far east.

Friend:
Ok, ok.... Well.... good on you -- You really scored, my friend.

Rudolf:
Oh! oh! AND … the manuscript was previously owned by a botanist named Rauwolf who got it from the far east.

Friend:
Ah, ok.. How do you know that?

Rudolf:
The guy who sold it to me told me.

Friend:
He “told” you. I see. Do you have–

Rudolf:
NO I don’t have a … notarized … certificate of… authenticity! Just drop it, ok!

Friend:
Ok. ok. … Pour me another mead, would ya?

Rudolf:
Sure. (glug... glug ... glug...)

Friend:
You know, Rudy?

Rudolf:
Yeah?

Friend:
I've got some granite rocks in my back field.

Rudolf:
(stops pouring) Yeah.

Friend:
You might be interested.

Rudolf:
... old?

Friend:
Oh, yeah.

—---------

As for ruling out a fraudulent manuscript just because we expect a forger would produce a higher quality product, how can we possibly judge their available talent and resources? Perhaps the reason the manuscript is so ‘ugly’ is because someone happened to hear a wealthy person express a willingness to purchase something like it, and so they urgently and sloppily produced the manuscript with the meager talent they could get together, before the opportunity to make a scam sale waned.

[To be clear, I’m not making any case for the manuscript being a fake – there are a lot of things about it that suggest it was NOT put together by a medieval amateur. But I don’t think there’s any evidence to make the case that there was no market for such a fake, or that it wasn’t made well enough to entice a buyer.]

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