The Voynich Ninja

I'm not sure if this point has been raised already, but persons dictating can and likely do affect the way the scribe spells and accents. I have some limited experience working with an assistant when I wasn't been able to type for a month or so, this was before the modern voice assistant AIs. I definitely tried to make sure my writing style is preserved as closely as possible, including some peculiarities that are textbook incorrect, but part of my writing habits in my native language. I can imagine that if it was in pre-typing era, I would have even insisted that the assistant should try mimicking my general handwriting style. I wouldn't want my letters to look and sound like someone else's.

(09-01-2026, 10:09 AM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I did not even know Latin can use diacritics (but in rare cases)

AFAIK the use of diacritics was an innovation by the Church in medieval times.  And their use was optional, depending on the good will of the writer, or the need to avoid ambiguity.

All the best, -- stolfi

(09-01-2026, 11:52 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.AFAIK the use of diacritics was an innovation by the Church in medieval times.

Not medieval, 16th century, unless you include the abbreviations. Abbreviations are much older, they disappeared progressively during the 16th-18th century and coexisted with the Neo-Latin diacritics a.k.a. accents (acute, grave, circumflex). I don't think that there is any evidence that the use of the accents was started by the Church or by anyone in particular. It is difficult to find explanations about their systematic use. Book publishers had their own rules, they were consistent in any given book but everyone did not follow the same rules AFAIK.

This article lists some of the typical usages (it is far from exhaustive):
Allan H. Gilbert. (1939). Mock Accents in Renaissance and Modern Latin. PMLA, 54(2), 608–610. doi:10.2307/458579

(Use sci-hub if you don't have access through a library/university.)

(09-01-2026, 10:09 AM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The 'scribe' is just a third possibility beyond 1) original and 2) faked by Voynich of the bad Latin found in the letter (*). I have no doubts even more possibilities can be imagined, but the point here is not to find 'the' explanation for the weird Latin. The point is: does Marci's letter being a fake by Voynich explain the bad Latin better than it being an original?

Let me try to be clearer: the Latin in Marci's letter is unexpected, being bad and using diacritics in a weird way. The letter being a (textually bad) fake is a possible explanation and, of course, one can make a case about the letter being a fake starting with the bad Latin as evidence, and if the case succeeds it removes a piece of evidence for the authenticity of the VMS (an already rather weak piece of evidence imho, given we can't be sure it actually refers to the VMS). But what one surely cannot do is to pin that fake on Voynich himself in support of the Modern Forger Theory, because the very same weird Latin is unexpected also from Voynich (who must have been a very accomplished forger for the Modern Fake Theory to be true) as much as it's unexpected from Marci.

I do understand your points here, and yes one can look at all the possible "ways" to explain the bad Latin. And I don't necessarily disagree with all or any particular idea, it is only that I consider my scenario most plausible. That is the nature of the beast: We don't know, so we all must speculate.

A point here, though, meanwhile, in that you wrote, "([the letter is] an already rather weak piece of evidence imho, given we can't be sure it actually refers to the VMS)". You realize that this is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for my rejecting the use of this and all the other letters, by Baresch/Kinner/Marci/Kircher, right? It is weak, and the other letters are far weaker still. I think your appraisal, as an honest aside, is also a very accurate one, and also one which most- if not all- 1420 Genuine adherents vehemently deny. The supposed "strength" of these references is no less than foundational to the whole genuine Voynich argument.

Well, another point to your, "... because the very same weird Latin is unexpected also from Voynich (who must have been a very accomplished forger for the Modern Fake Theory to be true)". I don't agree that it at all follows that a person bad in Latin would necessarily be a bad artist, or forger, or have made up Voynichese. I know little about Latin, for instance, and I am a far better artist than the Voynich artist. I also don't think the Voynich is very well done, and that it is a very poor forgery, and only accepted because of circumstantial events on its timeline. But that is a moot point to yours... so even if one considers it a good work, or a good forgery, I don't think ability in Latin would necessarily have any effect on that at all. I think they are unrelated.

Anyway, back to this issue: 

No one here has yet... and not Rene, especially, who, here, seems to have first suggested it... explained their reasoning for how and why this "scribe" (for those who believe it WAS a scribe, and not Marci, who wrote it) would know and copy bad diacritical marks, and other specific features- supposedly of Marci's- into this supposedly transcribed letter. Was he supposedly copying these features from a letter written by Marci? Did Marci tell him to do it?

And related to that is the study Rene pointed to... I still have not looked it up, but hope to, soon... here is the quote by Rene, from page 28 of this thread:

Quote:In 2002, Margaret Garber successfully defended a PhD thesis about Marci's philospohical writings. In the committee was Joseph Smolka, who has studied Marci's life, and published about him continually since the 1960's. The title of the thesis is:

Garber, M.: Optics and alchemy in the philosophical writings of Marcus Marci in post-Rudolphine Prague 1612-1670, dissertation submitted for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, San Diego, 2002.

In this thesis she literally writes that "Marci did not write in the most efficient of manners".
His Latin was cumbersome.

This is a feature of Marci's writing. The opposite of evidence that this letter is not genuine.

That quote of hers, "Marci did not write in the most efficient of manners" is being used here, by Rene, as a sort of "blanket excuse" for the bad Latin of the 1665/66 Marci letter. But I am curious in exactly what way was it bad, as per Garber? And in reading this dissertation, would any of us agree that the badness is of the same type and form as Neal and Ernst and others have seen in the aforementioned letter? And Rene, is it you who used the word "cumbersome", or is that also a word Garber used?

My point is that if Garber noted and described a set of different reasons to describe Marci's Latin as "not" the "most efficient", other than Thomas Ernst or others, then not only is Garber not supportive evidence, as used here, but actually further evidence that this letter was not by Marci at all... imagined scribe or not. Come to think of it, since I'm on that, I'll see if I can find the paper... 

... OK, not available to me, or behind paywalls... I can and will download it, but need to renew my NYPL card, apparently. Meanwhile, Rene, could you please copy that portion of the paper which describes what Garber meant by "Marci did not write in the most efficient of manners"? So that we can all see how it relates, or does not, to the "bad Latin" as described by Neal, Ernst, et al? Thanks...

Rich

Any argument that roughly states  "poor/ inconsistent use of diacritics in PUG 555-568 texts in the Kircher correspondence means forgery"
would mean that consistent and correct use of diacritics was the norm for the period of time that letters in the Kircher(1601-1664) correspondence were written.
Explore more here
Neo Latin :: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
>Height: 1500–1700
>Latin in school education, 1500–1700
>Orthography >Diacritics

TL;DR Latin from 1500-1700 was a language in flux, allusions, references, styles and pronunciation from regional and national vernaculars
found their way into texts of the time. Standards of Latin education across Europe were not even.

(09-01-2026, 05:11 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Any argument that roughly states  "poor/ inconsistent use of diacritics in PUG 555-568 texts in the Kircher correspondence means forgery"
would mean that consistent and correct use of diacritics was the norm for the period of time that letters in the Kircher(1601-1664) correspondence were written.
Explore more here
Neo Latin :: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
>Height: 1500–1700
>Latin in school education, 1500–1700
>Orthography >Diacritics

TL;DR Latin from 1500-1700 was a language in flux, allusions, references, styles and pronunciation from regional and national vernaculars
found their way into texts of the time. Standards of Latin education across Europe were not even.

Hi Rob: A few points about what you wrote there:

1) No, this is NOT the argument. You have rephrased the actual argument by writing, "poor/ inconsistent use of diacritics in PUG 555-568 texts in the Kircher correspondence means forgery". I would, and have said it like this, "The poor Latin in the 1665/66 Marci letter, noted by several people including Philip Neal, Thomas Ernst, and several others, is evidence of forgery, along with other serious problems with the letter". That is "evidence of forgery", not "means forgery". It is part of the argument, not the whole argument.

2) You have cherry picked that one aspect of the bad Latin, the diacritical mark problems, maybe because I posted that particular argument here. But I made it clear that it was one of several initial issues with the Latin of that letter, and even linked my blog post on which Mr. Ernst's comments appear. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. But I will post his comments below my answers to you, at the bottom of my page, also. All these must be explained as normal, or for whatever reason, not evidence of forgery, not just the one.

3) You wrote, "... allusions, references, styles and pronunciation from regional and national vernaculars". I've no doubt that is correct. But these blanket statements don't suffice to explain the bad Latin in that letter. It is like the use of the woman professor's blanket statement that Marci's Latin was "cumbersome". It is important to know in what ways these examples would form the bad Latin of the Marci letter, and if they would cause it to appear the way it does.

4) You seem to disagree with others here who DO admit the Latin of the Marci letter is a problem, and not normal practice, and so feel a need to explain it by various means... such as Marci's Latin being bad, and copied by the scribe for one. This is different than your explaining that, in essence, "bad Latin is normal", so it does not matter. So it seems that you might be back to "Marci wrote it". Are you? Which is it? It is a tactic in argument, the "shotgun method", to argue multiple, often contrary explanations for the same phenomenon, and the reason for the need to do this is obvious: There is no good explanation, in fact. The type of problems with the Latin are apparently not within some normal range of what people would write, because one would realize that if it were, it would not have elicited particular notice for its level of "badness" over the years.

5) Tackling just the one aspect of the badness of letter's Latin, diacritical marks, is, as I wrote above, "cherry picking", when all aspects must be explained. But worse than that are the many other problems with that letter, which are part of the overall context the bad Latin exists in. The fold lines, different than any other letter I could find, and which do not work as fold lines for any known purpose, imply this is repurposed paper. The seals don't work with themselves, and they don't work with the stains on the inside of the cover... which, BTW, is supposed to be a much later "addition" to the book (I doubt that. More likely to me is that Voynich grabbed an old 17th c. cover and stuck it on his book made of 15th parchment, precisely because he could date neither. The dates could easily have been reversed, and everyone would be arguing the Jesuits stuck a 15th century cover on a 17th century book). And the paper is from a different source, with a different watermark... now that has been explained away in several ways: Marci had different papers; the "scribe" had different papers... now, I suppose, if Marci supposedly did write it in the first place, he just had different paper. And the Elephant in the Room, of course: Voynich unbelievably claiming his "not noticing" a letter, in a book he had bought, and looked through, and a letter written to the great Polymath Kircher... this escaped his attention? Oh but he tore apart covers to find things, and was a book hound dog, sniffing out rarities no one else ever found.

Point being, ALL this must be considered together, not piecemeal, and the picture it describes is obvious to me. There is such thing as a circumstantial case, and in fact most criminals are convicted on only circumstantial evidence. And, a lower percentage of evidence would usually suffice. With virtually every characteristic of this letter being anomalous... every single one! The script, the Latin, the watermark, the folds, the seals, the given provenance... really there is nothing left. Could this or that aspect be explained to some lukewarm "satisfaction"? Maybe, on the surface. But stepping back and looking at the overall picture... no. I could never defend it as real.

Thomas Ernst's entire first analysis of the problems with the Latin of the 1665/66 Marci letter, for those who have not goneYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

Quote:1) “as soon as it […] came into my possession” (both perhaps versio α) → “mox […] cœpi possidere” [3-4], versio β). “as soon as” requires a subordinate clause beginning with “mox ut […]” but Voynich only translated the adverb “soon” (“mox”). Its use here is incorrect, unless you formulate a separate independent main clause. – “coepi possidere”: no one begins to own sth., but someone can begin to take possession of sth., see Deuteronomy 2:31 in the Vulgate. “I began to take possession of my Christmas gift on 24 December.”

      2) “â nullo”, “â se descripta “, “à te” ([5, 7], β). Both the circumflex and the grave accent were used, primarily in printed Latin, to distinguish adverbs and prepositions. In Latin – unlike French – the circumflex was a deictic typographical device to distinguish the ablative case from the nominative: “vitâ functus”, “primâ fronte”, “hâc arte” (letter by Wolfgang Trefler as printed 1754 in the HISTORIA REI LITTERARIÆ ORDINIS S. BENEDICTI, I, 492-496), “nonâ die” (Oliver Legipont, ibid.). The grave was used a) to distinguish adverbs, b) to distinguish prepositions: “citrà”, “adolphvm à glavbvrg” (Tithemius, Polygraphia 1550, ed. Glauburg). In the “Marci-letter”, all three “a” designate the preposition “by” or “from”, and not an ablative. Even if the circumflex in “â nullo” were considered a smudgy grave accent, the one in “â se” is not. Only “à te” is correct. Writers and printers of Latin texts were just as precise about diacritics as writers of modern French are because the diacritics carry as much meaning as the words they are attached to. The Marci-letter has two wrong diacritics and one correct one above the same letter within the space of 29 words.

      3) “persuasum habui â nullo nisi abste legi posse”, “à te legi posse persuasum habuit” ([5, 7-8], β). The repetition of six words occurs within the space of 35 words. The seventy-year old former rector of the University of Praga, with perhaps sixty years of Latin experience, was supposed to have expressed himself in this repetitive gibberish? No one does, even in an acquired second language. Please try yourself to convey the above information in whatever second language you are fluent in. Lexic repetitiveness in close quarters, born out of insecurity, is typical for Voynich’s Latin. It requires more comment than I can deliver in this brief note. Can I comment on this in more than in this brief note?

      4) “deciphering” (versio α) → “discifrando” ([9], versio β): “discifrando” was and is not Latin, it is Voynich’s pseudo-Latin approximation. Alberti wrote “de cyfris” but only used the noun and no verbal derivatives. According to the OED, “to decypher” was used as early as 1528, and it was probably imported from the earlier French “dechiffrer”, Shakespeare uses to “decypher” a few times in its derived meaning, Cotgrave (1632) lists “Dechiffrer. To decypher.”, but there was no such Latin verb in 1665 (or 1666), only circumlocutions. Christian Breithaupt explains this lexic lack in his Ars decifratoria (1737) [You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.], p. 84, my translation: “The term Artis decifratoriæ [sic] traces its origin from the French word Dechifrer; hence it is a foreign loanword. For the lack of a native Latin word – with reference to the Latin of Cicero’s time, that is – there is no reason why this faulty foreign import should not be retained [in Latin].” Breithaupt only uses the adjective “decifratori-“, and always in conjunction with “ars” – about fifty times – but never a derived verb; neither does Feijo in his Teatro critico universal (1728/1740), who already writes in Spanish. How did Voynich concoct “discifrando”? First he latinized the English prefix “de-” into “dis-“. While the etymologies of “dis-” and “de-” interwine – see OED – Breithaupt’s “de-“, English “de-“, French “dé-“, Italian and Portuguese “de-“, Spanish “des-“, all give preference to “e”, whether derived from Latin “dis-” or “de-“. The reason is also phonetic in that shifted emphases weaken preceding vowels [i] → [e:], whether “decipher” or “déchiffrer”, and assimilate similar consonants, here the fricativess “sc” →  “ch”- and “c”-. If phonetically inclined, [You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.] is time well and pleasantly spent to delve into vernacular pronunciations and dialects worldwide. – To the phonetically impossible “dis-” Voynich added the lexically impossible “cifrare”, perhaps derived from Alberti’s or Porta’s noun “zifra”, or, more likely, just made up. Summa summarum: “discifrando” never existed in Latin, it is not a spelling error or a neologism, it was not written by Marci or his amanuensis. The word was invented by Voynich to translate “deciphering” into Latin.

      5) “presented” (versio α) → “presenta[v/]it” ([17], β). The translation is correct. Whether Voynich’s “e” for ligature “æ” – “e” was common in humanist handwriting (consistently in Tithemius, for example) and in later Latin, “æ” more common typographically – was intentional or just a vernacular slip, cannot be decided. The inner-textual comparison makes it likely that Voynich stayed with the later Latin and vernacular spelling “pre-” by oversight. This hypothesis is corroborated by the “v/r”. Anyone reading the word for the first time, will invariably read “presentarit”; Neal even transcribed it so. This form does not exist, unless it is supposed to be a far-fetched abbreviation for the perfect subjunctive “praesentaverit”. The “v” looks like an “r” because Voynich wrote it as a vernacular “v”, which is a spelling inconsistency. In humanist and later Latin, the “u/v” were spelled both positionally to indicate the beginning of a new word, and phonetically to distinguish their sound quality, sometimes by the same writer. The statistical preference went to initial “v”, but just as easily phonetics defeated visuals. Thus Trithemius wrote „inuen-“ but also „inven-“ (Epistolae familiares 1508). These double spellings are more common in handwriting, because a writer is more wont to enunciate what he reads, while a printer will regularize spelling for the reader’s eye. However, these variations usually do not occur in endings of the perfect stem. If a writer of Latin writes “destinaui”, he will also write “pr[æ/e]sentauit”. Voynich did both. He had trouble distinguishing his Latinized “u” and “v”. If he intended to write “v” for “u” at all, the closest similarity I can find is “[u/v]itæ”. The only letter-shape the “v” of “-vit” ressembles is that of his “r”. An approximation of “r” and “v” only occurs in vernacular handwriting, English, French, German, what have you. “presentarit” presents two, if not three writing inconsistencies: inconsistent inconsistent “u/v”, inconsistent “v/r”. It is impossible that any writer in his/her native or acquired language will produce these variations, be they phonetic or grammatic, within the space of 193 words. It is only possible if you fake a “period”-text in an unfamiliar language by approximation.

      6) “ego”, “nobis”, “me” ([18, 19, 20], β). Whence the sudden plural “nobis”, majestatis or otherwise? A letter writer either refers to him-/herself in the singular or in the plural. No stylistically competent writer would switch the numerus, especially at such a short syntactical distance. Voynich manages the stretch from emphatic “ego” (which is questionable in its own right) to “nobis” back to “me” within 17 words. His slip is contextual: the “judgement” is a serious matter, thus pluralis majestatis. When WV remembers that the unknowing Marci is writing to the all-knowing Kircher he reverts to the singular. “Please tell me the truth, and tell us now, before I forget.”

      7) A brief look at Marci’s other, his “chocolate-letter”, f. 114r, September 1665. It was written by the same hand that wrote the earlier letter. Whether there exists another copy of this letter from which this one could have been copied, someone else will know. The following passage is a little to sweet to be true: “[…] Suppleat succulata bona, quæa […] necessaria est […] quam […] expectabo.” If “succulata” (singular) means “chocolate”, vide the comments on “discifrando”. Voynich may have been familiar with the (contested) Nahuatl loanword theory, and added the chocolate-reference because of the “historiam Mexicanam” mentioned earlier in the letter. The word”succulata”, if it existed – I cannot find it in the glossaries of Du Cange, Furetière or Diefenbach –, would have been a late vernacular import into the Latin language; the discussion of its etymology into vernacular languages is extensive and on-going. Perhaps the writer meant “succulenta” (plural), some succulent sweets. “Suppleat”, if I remember my fifth-grade Latin from a very long time ago correctly, requires an accusative (direct) object. If “succulata bona” was intended to be a neuter plural, the sentence ought to have continued: “quae […] sunt […] quae […]”. If “succulata bona” was intended to be a feminine singular, the sentence should read “succulatam bonam” and can continue as is. If the letter is a copy, it is possible but unlikely that the copyist either forgot to copy the abbreviation lines above the “-ā ” which stand for “-am”, or that he forgot to resolve the overlined “-ā” into “-am”. While English declension endings are quickly driven into extinction – it appears only I still cringe at “Who did you talk to?” – no Latin writer would have casually dropped accusative endings. Marc’s chocolate-letter from 1665 appears to be less of a treat and more of a trick.

(04-01-2026, 07:01 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="Bluetoes101" pid='76841' dateline='1767484572']

Quote:The real inconsistences are with the characters of the "forgery story". Wilfrid makes a 17C manuscript, then removes (literally cuts out) all evidence of such.. but thinks armadillos and microscopes are funny to leave in, then facing a 17C manuscript that needs to be 13C.. and everyone needs to ignore the removed signature.. well, then he writes a letter. The letter directly links the manuscript to the 17C and Rudolph (STOP!) who happens to have a botanist who would be interested in herbals.. who's signature we just removed - hopefully to never be discovered! If I was near him at this time I would slap him! How stupid do you need to be?! "You could have written it from anyone in the last 600 years Wilfrid!!!.. You chose this guy?!!"

.. though in the next breathe he is a genius pulling off some 17C writing that fools everyone.

The story does not make sense. It's not believable.

Well you have purposefully complicated my very, very simply hypothesis, I think. But: About the "armadillos and microscopes", you can't argue with success, right? I mean, if they are that, and left them in, they have been fooling thousands for well over a century by now. So if he thought "few will get it", he was right about that. He also left the sunflower and capsicum pepper, a practical tracing of a diatom only found in the 19th century, Rosicrucian symbolism, and so much more. All of which did not rise to the level of convincing many, including you, Rene, Koen, and hundreds of others, that this is a fake. Which is fine, we disagree... but my point is this, again: the claim seems to be that if this was a forgery, he would have done it better; while if a forgery, these things don't reveal it to you. Wouldn't that make it a "Good enough forgery to fool you"?, and therefore these decisions you complain should have been done better, were actually done pretty well?

That is hard to explain, I'll try another way: You claim that, if a forgery, he would not have left an armadillo, because that would have been stupid, as it would give it away; while at the same time, the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. animal does not look like and armadillo, to you, so it could not have been a bad choice to leave it in there, as you contend.

For the rest I sort of guess what you mean by it, but again it over complicates and misstates the contentions of my theory in several ways. My timing is very clear, and very simple: 1908 find unused vellum; 1908 to 1910 create fake botanical manuscript to look like it came from Rudolf's Court; realize it falls short of that in some way(s), and that Bacon was becoming all the rage; edit the work for obvious "non-Baconesque" content, rebind; write letter now pointing to Bacon, and explaining that now problematic signature; make up Dee story; goad that useful tool Newbold into helping, with a $10,000+ carrot.

Rich

Well yes, should we not poke and prod at each others theories?  . I can argue with the "success", he didn't make a dime! It was a complete failure in that regard. I doubt fooling me, Koen, Rene and others after his death is much comfort. 

My point is not that he should have done better, but you say he took steps to do better. He cut out non-conforming pages apparently, so I feel you have to highlight the problems with this idea.

Lets try and just chuck all the bumph to a corner and start over. 
Lets say we make a Netflix movie, Voynich Fakes the VMS.

Our protagonist sets out to fake a manuscript using his knowledge of manuscripts and materials he has saved up for the occasion.
He writes it in 14-15C European style full of 14-15C European styles in drawings, to sell to 17C collectors (huh?).
This was his grand 17C idea for a fake by Jacobus Horcicky, a guy no one cares about at all in the "17C collectors sphere".
Our protagonist pivots realising water is wet and grass is green, its now a 13C Bacon "Cha-ching!".
He cuts out anything linking it to Jacobus Horcicky, other than the massive (fake) signature, then writes some letters confirming Bacon.. using 17C figures close to Jacobus Horcicky.
Oh no, our protagonist made a huge blunder!  Not only that but he forgot to cut out all the other damming stuff!
Its ok though, because the MS he has now looks nothing like a Bacon and is filled with impossible nonsense. 
These idiots won't know anyway as long as my paper is of the correct time, which can't be tested, but I'll do it anyway at great expense.. (huh?).
But just in case I have my letters . Whoops all the velum in the MS was of the wrong time too, haha whoops lmao.

Well, he never sold it and died with his fake.
The End. A great success.
A very great success because in years to come people will think its a real 17C.. I mean 13C.. wait, was it 14-15C? Manuscript. Haha funny! Got em!

I'm not watching episode 2 and I have a headache!

Also,
"Well thank you for the former, that is very kind. As for sounding "rude", no, as I did take it as part of your style, and your passion, and not any sort of personal animosity. And of course, follow your compass... just make certain to check your pockets for magnets! Ha!"

Welcome, I mean it! I don't mean to be rude just prone to what he call here in north England "calling a spade a spade", hopefully on both sides it is just taken as passion for a subject, I never mean to be personal or take it as so the other way. Judging by another thread recently, we never really know what might be in our pocketsies

(08-01-2026, 09:49 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-01-2026, 05:44 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the comments below my blog post of September, 2015, "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.", Thomas Ernst has posted a series of comments carefully explaining why the Latin of that letter (the one Voynich claimed to have found in the Voynich, of course) is problematic in ways that would never appear in a genuine letter of the (supposed) time, by the (supposed) authors.

and now....

(08-01-2026, 07:23 AM)ioannestritemius Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Let me save everyone some time. Each and every last letter contained in PUG 555-568 pertaining to Kircher's supposed Prague correspondents, plus Beinecke 408A, is a modern forgery. Voynich did not just forge the world's favorite mystery book, but also the beloved "carteggio". I prefer plain English: correspondence. And plain truth: forgery. The only interesting question from here on is the following: what else did he forge? If the man forged "Medieval Alice in Wonderland" and a complete 14-volume set of 17th Century correspondence (I can only assume that the remaining letters in those volumes are forgeries too), he fabricated more. 
[...]

 And thank you for our brief time together. – Thomas Ernst.

Ah, that clarifies quite a bit.

The irony is excused. It is physical illness that made me write my previous comment. My presence on this planet is painful and limited. But I will gladly post a few more "points" if possible. No one has replied to my previous question about the diacritics. Diacritics are not the same as "spelling" or "abbreviations" or a good or a bad hair day. I thought I explained that. But all I received were superficial, illlogical, not to say polemic, and not detail-specific responses. That's not worth my limited energy.

(10-01-2026, 01:18 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well yes, should we not poke and prod at each others theories?  . I can argue with the "success", he didn't make a dime! It was a complete failure in that regard. I doubt fooling me, Koen, Rene and others after his death is much comfort.

My point is not that he should have done better, but you say he took steps to do better. He cut out non-conforming pages apparently, so I feel you have to highlight the problems with this idea.

Hi Bluetoes: His failure to sell it was a failure, for certain. The use of his failure there as a standard to judge his forgery abilities, I don't agree with. There are many factors to selling anything. Perhaps it was the fact... actually I've heard others voice this suggestion... because it could not be translated, which in turn meant any origin and age had to be guessed at, and people don't generally want to pay for unidentified items. You want to know what it is that you are buying. And yes, if a forgery, and he missed that important point... allowing it to be identifiable... not realizing how important that factor was, then he failed. Well, actually, come to think of it: He did work pretty hard to assign it a origin and author, Bacon. If he had succeeded, maybe then it would have sold. If THAT were the case, then perhaps his failure was in not being able to steer experts toward a Bacon origin? But yes, in this he failed, and could not sell it.

On the other hand, if a forgery, his success was, yes, fooling many, including all those to whom the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. does not look like an armadillo, for instance. But his goal, true, would not have been to fool you, Koen and Rene. But it is always part of the plan for forgers to fool people, and in that he was and is a resounding success.

Nothing's black and white, and that is one obvious distinction when rating Voynich's level of success and failure.

Quote:Lets try and just chuck all the bumph to a corner and start over. 

Lets say we make a Netflix movie, Voynich Fakes the VMS.

I'll be rich if that happens, so thanks. And as usual, I'll play along:

Quote:Our protagonist sets out to fake a manuscript using his knowledge of manuscripts and materials he has saved up for the occasion.

Well I would not phrase it like that, as I don't think he planned to do this. I might say he first accrued great experience and knowledge, then found an opportunity to put it to a new use.

Quote:He writes it in 14-15C European style full of 14-15C European styles in drawings, to sell to 17C collectors (huh?).

But here we part ways, as I don't agree with any of your premise. None of that is part of my hypothesis, and differs from my beliefs about the content of the Voynich: Me and many other qualified experts actually see it as a range of styles and content from about the 14-17th centuries, and I and a few extend that up to the early 20th. I think he intended the 19th century content to make it look as though the writers of this were "forward thinking" types. You see it was very popular, in the past, for people to get excited about the idea that people of the past invented things and concepts far ahead of their time, or at least tried to. Actually it is common even today. This was part of the appeal to those who enjoyed "Follies...", that there was this colorful time and place where magic mixed with science, and everything was tried, and anything goes. I think that was being reflected in the Voynich, and trying to appeal to that sentiment, a popular one.

As for "... to sell to 17th collectors (huh?).", I think you mean "to collectors of 17th century literature"? If so, no I don't know exactly to whom he thought his potential customers were... but there were wealthy collectors in every single genre. Well, religious texts were not always of the highest value.

But my point is that since I disagree with you what the content is, I will also disagree with you as to whether or not that content was a bad idea. I think it was  great idea, and think he should have stuck with it, and shifting to Bacon was the bad idea.

Quote:This was his grand 17C idea for a fake by Jacobus Horcicky, a guy no one cares about at all in the "17C collectors sphere".

There you are wrong. He was mentioned, along with a fictional brother Christian, in the best seller "Follies of Science in the Court of Rudolf II". So people interested in that book, and that genre, would very much find his "signature" on the book very compelling, as it would attach the book to the Court. Of course this avenue of sales never transpired, he shifted gears.

Quote:Our protagonist pivots realising water is wet and grass is green, its now a 13C Bacon "Cha-ching!".

He cuts out anything linking it to Jacobus Horcicky, other than the massive (fake) signature, then writes some letters confirming Bacon.. using 17C figures close to Jacobus Horcicky.

I'm not sure entirely all the reasons he would have given up on Horcicky and the Court, but I think he surmised (incorrectly) would be a better path, and be a more valuable book?

Quote:Oh no, our protagonist made a huge blunder!  Not only that but he forgot to cut out all the other damming stuff!

Its ok though, because the MS he has now looks nothing like a Bacon and is filled with impossible nonsense.

Yes, well, that was a mistake, if he did it. But remember, whether he purposefully tried to push his forgery as a Bacon; or genuinely thought it was a Bacon, in either case he was trying to convince people it WAS a Bacon. I mean, you mock my hypothesis because it is so little like a Bacon... yeah, we all KNOW that NOW... but he didn't! He thought it would work! I mean, I didn't make that up... that is already a major part of the story: Wilfrid Voynich tried to sell the Voynich manuscript, a very un-Baconesque ms., AS a Bacon.

Don't shoot the messenger. I can't be critized for making a ridicoulous "Bacon claim" because I didn't, he did!

Quote:These idiots won't know anyway as long as my paper is of the correct time, which can't be tested, but I'll do it anyway at great expense.. (huh?).

But just in case I have my letters . Whoops all the velum in the MS was of the wrong time too, haha whoops lmao.

What? You lost me a bit there. But yes, he would not have known the age of the parchment, so it would serve the purpose he had for it. And he was long dead by the time anyone found out that the parchment was hundreds of years too old for the content he applied. Don't think he cared by then.

Quote:Well, he never sold it and died with his fake.

The End. A great success.

A very great success because in years to come people will think its a real 17C.. I mean 13C.. wait, was it 14-15C? Manuscript. Haha funny! Got em!

Well you actually describe my hypothesis pretty well, with that last part. Yes he screwed up and made a Frankenstein, could not fix it with editing and a slab of Bacon (not everything is good with Bacon), and yes putting styles and items spanning hundreds of years, and being too hard to pin down, experts have been all over the map and calendar.

But of course I could assemble a similarly ridiculous sounding scenario, from my perspective:

We are to believe the Voynich is a genuine, early 15th century herbal, but which is written in an undecipherable 15th century invented language or cipher or code that would have to be hundreds of years ahead of its time. It appeared out of nowhere, with no believable provenance, its only known history attested to by a subversive 2x ex-con political dissident who was known to lie and cheat in the book trade, and some scant 17th century references which could be thousands of other books, and even, more like them than this one. The manuscript has no known parallel works, or images, or mentions in any catalog, collection, letter, or other book, even though it fascinates every human who has seen it since 1912. And after desperate searches for 113 years, by thousands of people, in every known corner of every archive on Earth... still, zip, ziltch, nada. Well they invented the internet, allowing the geometrical increase in our ability to find, scan and share many more times the information before then... surely... now... oh. Zip, Ziltch, Nada. And this "genuine" book has 14th through 19th century styles, numbers, imagery, objects, plants and animals, some from the New World (according to at least two dozen experts), but is written on parchment that dates from 1365 through 1497 (but we can help by "adjusting" that inconvenient result through averaging the differing samples, until we have a more believable number). It has marginalia of a different scribe, with different writing and content, but written in the same ink as the text. Oh and the marginalia is also unreadable, like most... oh, no... you mean most marginalia is readable? Scratch that. It is hundreds of years old, but the colors look bright. The cover is too new, so we will say the Jesuits took another old, worn cover of the wrong age, and put that on it. And in that cover there was a "letter" to be used as provenance, but with seals that don't work, folds that don't work, Latin that don't work, but perfect tracings of a desired signature. And that letter will be totally invisible to the greatest book sleuth of the age, known for finding... oh, yes, this same book... for almost a decade. But at least this book is signed by a guy from the early 17th century, and with magic ink, too, it seems... because examiners from the 17th century could not see it, but then it was and was not visible to Voynich in the 20th, when he pored chemicals on it because he could and could not see it, making it easier and harder to see. Oh yes... and the whole thing was written in the ONE script which was BOTH "unknown" to the best scholars of the 17th century, which happens to be virtually the ONLY script still unknown to experts of the 20th. What are the odds of that?

You see two can play that game, although I usually don't, because I don't need to. You just made it look like so much fun!

Rich

(09-01-2026, 08:30 PM)Thomas Ernst Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The word”succulata”, if it existed – I cannot find it in the glossaries of Du Cange, Furetière or Diefenbach –, would have been a late vernacular import into the Latin language.

It's not in dictionaries because it's a commercial product's name.

Quote:Die Verwendung in der Medizin bezeugen auch eine Anzahl deutscher Apotheker-Taxen. so die von Braunschweig 1640 (Scoculata indica), Frankfurt 1656 (Succolata indica). Magdeburg 1666 (Succulata Inde cum saccharo in scatulis = in Schachteln), Leipzig 1669 (Succulata), Dresden 1683 (Grana Cacao. Cacauhatl), Schwäbisch Hall 1700 (Succolada, Schoccolada; 1 Lot 6 Kreuzer), Rothenburg 1710 (Chocolada hispánica), Berlin 1713 (Succoladae), Frankfurt 1718 (Succolata, Chucalata. Chocalate hispánica seu Seviliensis = aus Sevilla; 1 Lot 6 bis 8 Kr.). Münster 1739 (Cacao, Cacaokerne), Bremen und Verden 1765 (Chocolada, Suacolade, Schocolada)). Ausführliches, auch bezüglich der einzelnen Sorten, enthält Schröders „Pharmakopoeia“ von 1685).

Geschichte des Zuckers: seit den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Beginn der Rübenzucker-Fabrikation, Professor Dr. Edmund O. von Lippmann, p. 882.
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Translation (Google):

Quote:Its use [the use of chocolate] in medicine is also attested to by a number of German apothecary tariffs, such as those from Braunschweig 1640 (Scoculata indica), Frankfurt 1656 (Succolata indica), Magdeburg 1666 (Succulata Inde cum saccharo in scatulis = in boxes), Leipzig 1669 (Succulata), Dresden 1683 (Grana Cacao. Cacauhatl), Schwäbisch Hall 1700 (Succolada, Schoccolada; 1 Lot 6 Kreuzer), Rothenburg 1710 (Chocolada hispánica), Berlin 1713 (Succoladae), Frankfurt 1718 (Succolata, Chucalata. Chocalate hispánica seu Seviliensis = from Seville; 1 Lot 6 to 8 Kr.). Münster 1739 (Cacao, Cacaokerne), Bremen and Verden 1765 (Chocolada, Suacolade, Schocolada). Detailed information, including details on individual varieties, can be found in Schröder's "Pharmakopoeia" of 1685.

History of Sugar: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of Beet Sugar Production, Professor Dr. Edmund O. von Lippmann, p. 882.

Each apothecary had their own name for their cacao preparations. The use of this particular word in the 1665 letter, very close to the time when it is attested in Magdeburg (1666) and Leipzig (1669) is... interesting. Was Voynich a chocolate historian?

Poor Marci was addicted to the sweet stuff, no wonder he got dementia.

Quote:Thus, every 10% increase in calories from total sugar may increase dementia risk by almost 40%. This model was controlled for sociodemographic characteristics, genetic factor, physical activity, and MIND diet.

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