The Voynich Ninja

(05-11-2025, 08:44 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(05-11-2025, 12:22 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can see that only Lehmann-Haupt, a book cataloger, was in the range of the C14 results (yellow band).

Actually, the graph shows 11 experts out of 15 are in the range of the C14 results (it's just needed their estimates overlap the yellow band).

You are misreading the graph.

(05-11-2025, 08:52 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(05-11-2025, 08:44 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(05-11-2025, 12:22 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can see that only Lehmann-Haupt, a book cataloger, was in the range of the C14 results (yellow band).

Actually, the graph shows 11 experts out of 15 are in the range of the C14 results (it's just needed their estimates overlap the yellow band).

You are misreading the graph.

Yes you're right. My bad.

(05-11-2025, 05:34 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(05-11-2025, 05:15 AM)Battler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To be fair, there could easily be a manuscript that was unintelligible to Baresch, Marci, and possibly even Kircher, but that is intelligble to us now because it's in a language and/or writing system that has since been deciphered, or even in something that we now know is quite mudane, but was completely unknown to them. For example, imagine if they owned a Korean manuscript entirely written in hangul (which certainly existed in the 17th century), it would have been illegible and mysterious to any of them but perfectly legible and mudane to a modern audience. Or, for something geographically closer and more likely to have ended up in Europe - some Persian herbal written in the pahlavi script. In fact, from what we see from their corresponse - even something as mundane as glagolitic would have been bafflingto Baresch and Marci and that was still in active use in what is now Croatia at that time. So what Baresch talked about, could be some manuscript that's completely mundane and nondescript to us but would have been mysterious to them.

I agree, Battler, and I tried to make the same point in this post: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The point I was making (in an especially clumsy way... I had trouble articulating my thought) is exactly what occurred to you. As I wrote,

"... the difference between what scholars knew, or would have known, in the 17th century, compared to what they knew by 1912. The two are obviously vastly different, I think everyone would agree. A majority of what was considered “mysterious” and “unknown” in previous ages was, by the turn of the 20th century no longer a mystery."

So the claim that, of all the scripts unknown to the men of the letters, Voynich just happened to find one of the very few that would STILL be unknown in 1912? I know you are not directly saying this, not using it this way, and that you are only pointing out that the Baresch Manuscript, if not the Voynich, could simply be something which has not been unknown for centuries, like your chose of Hangul, or Pahlavi.

But I also see this situation implying that, to fulfill the "need" to match the description of "unknown", a 1910 forgery would have to make one up... because there were none, anymore. And if not, and the Voynich is real, what are the odds that the Ms. he found just happened to be, still unknown?

Rich

Rich

You do actually raise very good points. I read through all of your blog at least from present day down to 2011 two days ago (I intend to read the rest soon) and you raise very valid points. And yes, it's a bit strange that Voynich just so happened to find a manuscript written in a language and writing system that just so happened to still be unknown. And you also raised another valid point in your blog that how come Baresch and Marci, if they were truly talking about the Voynich Manuscript, never pointed out that the unknown alphabet is based on Latin letters and abbreviations. And even more baffling is that Kirecher wouldn't have observed the same thing himself - I believe we have one of his responses with the identification of the unknown alphabet and there's no mention of it looking like abbreviated Latin, albeit with no way to make any sense from the text. That, and your third raised point about how none of them mentions Tepenec's signature, makes the notion of Baresch and Marci talking about the Voynich Manuscript very unlikely IMHO.

(05-11-2025, 11:28 PM)Battler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I believe we have one of his responses with the identification of the unknown alphabet and there's no mention of it looking like abbreviated Latin, albeit with no way to make any sense from the text

Marci's letter implies that Kircher wrote to him and/or Baresch in response to Baresh's letters, expressing the desire to get the whole book.  

However, while Baresch's letters to Kircher are in Kircher's collected correspondence, AFAIK we have not found any copies of the letters that Kircher sent to Marci or Baresch about the book they were referring to.  Nor any mention whatsoever by Kircher of Baresch, of the sample leaves that Baresch sent him, and of the book he received from Marci.  Nor any record of what he did with that book.  

(Unless some new discoveries have been made in the 20 years that I was hibernating...)

The general consensus seems to be that, sometime after Kircher's death, the VMS (or the hypothetical "book A") was in the Collegio Romano, where (most of?) Kircher's library had ended up.   But even this seems to be uncertain, given the questions that remain about how Voynich actually obtained the VMS ("A" and "B").

Do we know whether the VMS (the current one, or the hypothetical "book A") was part of the Kircher book dump at the Collegio?  Did the Collegio keep records of the provenance of their books?

All the best, --stolfi

(06-11-2025, 12:14 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Marci's letter implies that Kircher wrote to him and/or Baresch in response to Baresh's letters, expressing the desire to get the whole book.  

Jorge,
Where do you see that implication? I assume you are inferring it from the word "refused", is that correct?

I can see interpreting it that way.  But I actually took it to mean that Baresch just did not want to send it  -- and that was only because he wanted to keep it in his possession so he could continue his own efforts at deciphering it. (And he had taken the effort to copy out some of it for Kircher, but perhaps did not want to go as far as copying out the entire book.)

It is difficult to judge which of these two was Marci's actual meaning -- we probably would not use the word "refused" in the way I assumed it if we were writing the letter today, but we have to be careful when trying to interpret how a 17th century writer might use particular language.  Also, the word (Latin "recusabat") might be interpreted as just meaning "declined" which has a slightly different nuance as well.

In any case, if that IS all Marci meant  (i.e. that Baresch didn't want to lose his own access to the book so that he could keep working on it) then I don't think there remains any indication that Kircher ever communicated with Baresch, is there?  Or that he ever said anything about the book to anyone --  except to Moretus years earlier where he seems to be answering a previous query about it (and contrary to having a "desire to get the whole book" as you suggested, he seems to be somewhat unimpressed and dismissive about the book -- actually not even the book, but just the few pages of it that he had been sent -- and not caring about the rest of it.)  

Are there any other references to the book made by Kircher other than the Moretus letter that I am missing?

By the way, it's a little curious that Marci never actually says Baresch's name in his letter to Kircher. He is almost coy in his avoidance of saying it. It seems natural in his first sentence when he says the book was left to him by his "close friend". But he then never says Baresh's actual name before later on referring to him as  "the then possessor". That seems a bit odd, but it may have been a kind of formality that was suitable in legal kinds of discourse (and he is, after all, kind of acting in the role of the executor of Baresch's will -- taking care of the matter of the book almost as a legal matter.)
Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Added -- Actually, in regards to Kircher's letter to Mareto, I just looked back at it... Kircher implies that he did not just receive a few pages of it (that Baresch copied out), but that he had looked at the whole book and that Moreto had sent it to him --- not just the few pages. Yet he didn't receive the book till 20+ years later, from Marci.    Of course the reference to "the book" and having looked at it might be an ambiguous translation.]

(06-11-2025, 02:02 AM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Where do you see that implication?

Marci in his letter says 

"This book was left to me by a close friend in his will and ever since I first owned it I have destined it for you my dearest Athanasius, persuaded as I am that it can be read by none if not by you.

The then possessor of the book once sent you letters seeking your judgment about a part of it which he wrote down and sent to you, being convinced that the rest of it could be read by you. He refused to send the actual book and put untiring work into its decipherment. as will be seen from his attempts now sent to you under the same cover. He did not give up this hope until he reached the end of his life. But in fact his work was in vain, as such riddles only obey their very own Kircher. So now please accept what was long owed to you as some small token of my affection for you, and break through its bars with your habitual ease.

I read that as saying that (1) Kircher wrote back to Baresch (or to some intermediary) asking to be sent the whole book, but Baresch refused; and (2) Marci sent the book to Kircher because he knew that Kircher had once asked for it.

[But I did not know about the letter from Kircher found in 2009. Let me see what it says...]

All the best, --stolfi

(05-11-2025, 08:44 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(05-11-2025, 12:22 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can see that only Lehmann-Haupt, a book cataloger, was in the range of the C14 results (yellow band).

Actually, the graph shows 11 experts out of 15 are in the range of the C14 results (it's just needed their estimates overlap the yellow band). I was wrong.

Yes, but I can understand why you may have thought that. My graph skills are somewhat "inexpert", and so it may confuse people when they see the two colored bars extending completely across the x axis, and right through the y axis yellow bar.

But the range of their estimates is in the difference between the far right ends of each expert's blue and orange bar. You see that, now, but I ought to change this graph to be more clear to others in the future.

Rich.

(06-11-2025, 12:14 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Do we know whether the VMS (the current one, or the hypothetical "book A") was part of the Kircher book dump at the Collegio?  Did the Collegio keep records of the provenance of their books?

I've wondered that... what lists we have of Kircher's books. Years ago Rene put me onto the 1709 catalog of the Kircherian Museum, and I went to examine a copy down at the NYPL (I think that is where). But I can't recall if it has books as well as items. Anyway, I think this is it, now online:

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

And at archive.org: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

But it is in Latin (so was the printed copy I examined, making it hard for me to find what I was looking for). Maybe I'll run it through an online translator tomorrow, unless someone knows of a copy in English. Of course it can be searched at archive.org for any term in Latin, too.

There is another reference to books he owned, in the 1678 De Sepi, but it is not a complete bibliography of the books he owned, but rather an overview, with selected interesting books described. I have the 2015 facsimile (it is beautiful!), which was bound with an English translation at the back. Here is a snapshot of a section relating to the books in Kircher's museum:

[attachment=12052]

But if anyone is interested, I can scan the pages which describe books. I do not think the English translation is on line. In fact, before I found and bought this copy I was going through the laborous process of doing "virtual scans" of a digital copy, then running each section through OCR, then running the results through an online translator. The results were really messy, as the print type is hard for OCR to make out... so I bought this one, pre-translated.

This book also has the mention of the Kircher Carteggio, also, but no breakdown of the exact contents... just the general nature of the contents, which begins, "Also contained in Kircher's Museum are 12 folio volumes of Letters written to him over a period of of 40 years, collated in annuals, these have been written and sent to him, not only by Popes, Emperors, Cardinals and Imperial Princes, but also by men of Letters, Philosophers, Mathematicians, Physiologists, from all corners of the world, in many languages, both to honour him, and also as if to an Oracle, to find the solution tot he most difficult problems posed by every branch of knowledge...", etc. 

Of course the existence of this passage, in De Sepi, means that anyone who owned or had access to a copy would have also known of this "Treasure-house" (as De Sepi described it). I think it plausible that Voynich DID know of the Carteggio through this book. And perhaps, then, sniffed out the location of the Carteggio... through Strickland, or by some other path.

I've found... we've probably all found items this way: You see a mention of something in print, then track down its location. A book, a place, an item... Maybe Voynich did it this way, in this case... he was known for being good at finding rare books.

May I point out that all the guessing and second-guessing about what would have been a natural or likely course of action, that is included in the last more than a dozen posts, amounts to zero evidence?

Voynich could have....
Voynich should have...
Yes, also: Kircher would have...

It is all entirely subjective and means nothing.

Most people here are interested in the MS as a historic item.

Voynich was not. For him it was business. All his books were objects that he wanted to sell at as good a price as possible. Bacon's authorship determined this price. Not the book's later history.  
They were also his, i.e. his possessions. He would remove and dismantle bindings, and make annotations on their pages. That is not specific for Voynich, by the way. 

These are recorded facts: he had the MS in 1912 (read Sowerby), and he just knew a few names from the letter as late as 1915-1918 and actually misunderstood the identity of the key people.
Furthermore, he became interested in the history of the MS only as late as 1919-1921.
I will follow my own advice and not start any speculation whether any of this is unusual, why he changed his mind, etc etc.
Not even what this implies about the probability that he created this letter in the first place.
 
One of the most remarkable aspects of the fake theory is a story that has now been posted here twice, if I have seen it correctly, namely Voynich's proposed visit to the Mondragone, where he would have been given the entire Kircher correspondence to take home for a while. Entirely hypothetical, and without any form of evidence.

Yet it tells me that Rich realises that this would have been necessary.

Also, that he was dealing with the Jesuits (which we knew anyway). At this time, he was securing the acquisition of some of their manuscripts, which he would be able to sell at a great profit. 

These 30 or so manuscripts are never mentioned in the frame of the fake theory, perhaps because they basically destroy Voynich's main possible motivation, and drastically reduce the time frame for the creation of such a fake.
The fake theory does not provide a timeline, but he could have only started considering making a fake illegible MS after seeing the Barschius letter (if he did). This timeline would therefore be extremely challenging.

Voynich had made a blanket offer of 100 US dollars for each MS that the Jesuits would sell him (although he may have paid more for the first few - I don't know that).

100 dollars in 1911-1912 is quite a lot of money, but he sold his first two already early 1912 for a combined 60,000 US dollars, and he was offering others for 150,000 US dollars, more than he even asked (later) for the Voynich MS. This was a huge deal and it is not a stretch of the imagination that this must have been the foremost thing on his mind.

Again, and superfluously, all this is only secondary to the question of the authenticity of the MS.

The story of the 'real' fake manuscript known as "Archaic Mark", or University of Chicago MS 2427, is of interest for a better understanding of how fake documents are detected in real life.

There are a few publications related to it, and I am using "Chicago’s “Archaic Mark” (ms 2427) II, Microscopic, Chemical and Codicological Analyses Confirm Modern Production", by Margaret M. Mitchell, Joseph G. Barabe and Abigail B. Quandt. Novum Testamentum 52 (2010) 101-133.

I cannot put this online due to copyright, but I can send out a few copies to interested people (PM me) as fair use. Note that this is the same Joe Barabe of McCrone who studied the Voynich MS, and this was also performed around the same time.

Online one may find further descriptions by Stephen C. Carlson, who did a critical text analysis, not included in this paper.

To summarise:

This MS includes the Gospel of Mark and was listed as 14th century with a question mark. Suspicions that it might not be a genuine old MS had arisen over time, by people studying it.

Earlier analyses in 1989 had indicated the presence of a modern pigment: Prussian Blue, first invented in 1704.
However, it was not certain if this was part of the original painting, or part of a later restoration.

In 2008 the MS was sent to McCrone, and was sampled in order to investigate precisely this question. 

One sheet was also radio-carbon dated with a result of 1461 - 1640 at 95%. That is: a full 180-year range.

Some summaries of phrases from the McCrone analysis, again not to violate copyright:

 - the sampling was performed under a stereomicroscope at 7.5 x magnification, to be sure that we were taking only original paint, not later restorations. Using this method we saw no evidence of retouching of any kind in the manuscript.

- The paint samples were analyzed by several methods, among others PLM, ED, SEM, XRD, and Raman spectroscopy

- Different shades of blue paint were sampled and the dominant blue pigment in the miniatures is Prussian blue. This was invented in 1704 and was commercially available by the 1720s.

- We also found trace amounts of synthetic ultramarine blue, a pigment only available commercially since the late 1820s. This material was only detected with PLM, so the pigment should be considered as most likely present, but unconfirmed.

- Analysis of a sample of the white paint unambiguously confirmed the presence of zinc white, not commonly available until about 1825. 

(Skipping a lot here....)

- In summary, the McCrone Associates’ analyses determined that the codex was created some time after 1874, using materials not available until the late 19th century, on a parchment substrate dating from
about the middle of the 16th century."

Abigail Quandt's analysis:

- The surface of every leaf was intentionally abraded or scraped very heavily on both sides, presumably in an attempt to remove an older text.

- After the sheets were trimmed to size, the next step was to color the edges with a brownish-black liquid. This coloring solution may have been applied, first, to hide the evidence of the reused parchment having been
freshly cut with a knife, and second, to mimic the appearance of many Byzantine manuscripts, whose edges are
often charred from exposure to a fire. 

Again, there is much, much more.
Note, specifically, that fresh cuts can be detected. Such are part of the Voynich-faked-it theory.

The essence of it all is that professionals working with the MS had already suspected that it could be a fake.

The final answer had to come from a detailed forensic analysis, which clearly indicated known aspects of modern fakes. 

These are notoriously absent in the Voynich MS.
Note also that Abigail Quandt, one of the authors, has herself also studied the Voynich MS in some detail.

The text analysis positively identifies the text version in this MS as a copy of an 1860 edition of the Greek New Testament by Philipp Buttmann. This is also a very interesting read. Unfortunately, a similar analysis is not possible for the Voynich MS.