The Voynich Ninja

I don't know the historical details, so I have a question.
Anne Nill was Wilfried's secretary. She certainly had direct access to the VM manuscript.
Anne Nill also worked on the VM.
Although she was in close contact with the book and Wilfried.
Why did she work on the book? Wouldn't Wilfried have told her that it was pointless, or shouldn't she have realised that herself? Why her work?

(01-02-2026, 02:26 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We know a possible motive, which was to prevent the Italian government from knowing of the existence of that pile of books, which they might confiscate.  But didn't that motive cease to exist in 1929?  Was that the real motive, or just a convenient excuse for the lies?

Voynich was definitely told that he could not tell anyone where he got these books. This collection was hidden, secret, and there are piles and piles of documents and records from before, during and immediately after, that make this clear beyond all doubt. I realise that nobody has seen any of this, so it is still possible to imagine all sorts of things but reality is very clear.

Now note that the 200+ Latin classics (etc) were not the Jesuits' main concern. If they were, they would not have sold them.

There are letters dated 1912, explaining that the Jesuits could get a lot more money by selling all of these to private book sellers, but that would simply be too much of a risk towards exposure. This is one clear example for the need of secrecy. Voynich had made an offer of 100,000 Lire for the 200 books, but the Vatican paid only 50,000 for a much larger set including these 200. 

The real concern was this:
the Jesuits had about 2000 (or more?) manuscripts related to their origins. Autographs from their own founders, the origins of their philosophies, their important professors. At least one of them was declared a Saint. Everybody here knows about Kircher, but that is just because of the Voynich MS. He was very far down on the list of important historical Jesuits (not to mention that he was a very unusual one).

These books stayed in Villa Torlonia until 1919, when they lost control over the villa, and secretly moved them back into Rome.

All three cases: the sale of 30 books to Voynich, over 300 books to the Vatican, and the move of the thousands of books into Jesuit archives, were coordinated by a Jesuit called Tacchi Venturi.
When he was asked in the 1920's about the Kircher correspondence that is mentioned in the 1678 catalogue of Kircher's museum, he said that he did not know about it, and it was probably lost.

That was a lie in order to still keep the whereabouts of this collection secret. 

I don't know when it stopped being a secret.

Again, some of the books Voynich had sold were recognised as being from the Collegium Romanum, already before Voynich's death. The Vatican published their collection in 1959 but state that they don't know where they had been kept.

In 2012, the day we met before the Mondragone conference, I had spoken with the MS librarian of the National Library in Rome (BNCR). This library should have owned the entire Jesuit library, and she expressed her opinion to me that the Jesuits had been quite dishonest in keeping all these books. But that seems to be it for now.

I’ll admit that over the past few months my attention has been taken up by that smaller part of our lives on Earth that is unrelated to the Voynich Manuscript, so forgive me if I’ve missed something critical in this long-running discussion. That said, I’m genuinely confused about something:

What actual evidence—however weak or strong—has been presented in all of this discussion about the transactions of the Jesuits, the Vatican, Voynich, and other figures, that demonstrates that the Voynich Manuscript (or even it's accompanying Marci letter for that matter) was a part of those collections of manuscripts and letters -- and that, consequently, it existed before Voynich himself owned it?  (And I'm talking specifically about those aforementioned people, events, and documents, -- not the Kircher/Marci/Baresh letters of the 17th century which are a separate matter.)

"Evidence", in this case, would have to be concrete data: words, drawings, descriptions in letters, line items in bills of sale, inventories, or other documents, that specifically refer to Voynich's manuscript in some identifiable way -- something that actually ties the manuscript to all those events and people being discussed. All their secrecy and motives may be historically intriguing in their own right, but the fact remains still, after all this back and forth, that the only thing that puts the Voynich Manuscript into that arena are Wilfrid's own words. (And, as has been pointed out before, his claims and motivations were, at very least, suspect.)

Without documentation from someone, somewhere, that clearly points to this particular manuscript, the debate feels substantively off-track, however deceptively relevant it may appear.

It is possible that the secrecy of the Jesuits, the movement of manuscripts, and the exchange of letters all occurred exactly as some suggest. It’s equally possible that none of it happened as described, as others have argued. But regardless of which version is true, none of this constitutes meaningful evidence that they even physically included the Voynich Manuscript. 

We might just as well argue about whether a pocket watch produced from Wilfrid’s jacket after his return to London in 1912 was a centuries-old artifact or simply a trinket that he bought from a local watchmaker on his way back the train station. Without direct, specific documentation linking the manuscript to the documents being handled by the various players back in Italy, these narratives carry no evidentiary weight.

So what am I missing?

Let's have some evidence that Voynich did anything that is presented as part of him faking it.

(02-02-2026, 05:13 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Let's have some evidence that Voynich did anything that is presented as part of him faking it.

Well, proto57 (Rich) has presented numerous pieces of such evidence in his blog series. And also within this current thread -- convincing enough apparently to warrant a longer than usual debate. One can question how strong or weak the evidence is that he presents -- or whether it is collectively outweighed by other evidence that disfavors his theory, but one can't reasonably claim that there is no evidence at all.  Unlike the whole web of clandestine Jesuit activities, whether his observations are correct or not has a direct bearing on his proposed theory of the manuscript's origin.

I have only seen: 
- "he could have acquired old parchment...."
- "he could have seen the Barschius letter"
- "he could have seen a genuine Tepenec signature"
- "he could have copied the handwriting of Marci's scribe"
This is not what I would call evidence of Voynich actually doing any of these things.

Anyway, the sort of 'evidence' you are looking for simply does not exist for the majority of old manuscripts around the world. There is no need for it to prove that any book is genuinely old.

Finally, this has to be bit of a tongue-in-cheek request.
Any such evidence will simply get the 'Barschius letter treatment', namely:

"That refers to the original book that Barschius owned, and which is now lost. The Voynich MS is a different book, which is a modern fake."

Signing off again till further notice.....

(02-02-2026, 06:44 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have only seen:
- "he could have acquired old parchment...."
- "he could have seen the Barschius letter"
- "he could have seen a genuine Tepenec signature"
- "he could have copied the handwriting of Marci's scribe"
This is not what I would call evidence of Voynich actually doing any of these things.

Anyway, the sort of 'evidence' you are looking for simply does not exist for the majority of old manuscripts around the world...

Well of course what you have listed are not examples of evidence!

They are simply elements of the "story" or narrative that often accompanies an historical (that is, retrodictive) theory. They are speculative but plausible claims that fill in gaps where the theory lacks direct observational data. In other words, they serve to explain aspects of what transpired for which no observable evidence exists.

As I have described elswhere in this forum, the “story” in an historical theory plays a role analogous to the “model” used in a nomological (that is, predictive) theory, such as one in physics. In a nomological theory, the model allows one to predict what will happen if the situation is repeated in a controlled experiment. In an historical theory, by contrast, the story is a narrative that helps explain the sequence of events that occurred in the past—events that cannot be repeated or tested experimentally.

I am not familiar with all the details of the proto57's MFT, so I am sure he could outline all the evidence he has observed much better than I. But off the top of my head, I can say the "evidence" includes:

• anachronisms (e.g. drawings that depict post-15th century objects, flora, and fauna)
  
• unusual features for a 15th century manuscript (e.g. foldouts)
  
• similarities to content in other later documents (e.g microscope images) 
  
• red flags related to handwriting and paleographic analysis (e.g poor use of Latin in colocated letter, and pantographic-like signature)
  
• physical inconsistencies (e.g unexplained presence of titanium, beyond trace levels, in the chemical analysis report of the ink and paint) 
  
• other circumstantial evidence (e.g. Voynich inexplicably ignoring the colocated Marci letter for several years; no one before Voynich --perhaps most expectedly Marci-- commenting on the de Tepenec signature)
  

Again, opinions can, and do, differ widely on whether each of these pieces of evidence is strong or weak, and what the collective weight amounts to, but one cannot say the evidence is non-existent.

By the way, I am not actually "looking for" evidence for any of the origin theories. At least not at this time. My interests are more on the Voynichese, which has features that, in my opinion, present challenges to all of the current origin theories.  And just to be clear, I have also never said that I think the MFT is the most probable theory to be the correct one. I've only been critical of the flaws in most of the arguments put forth to deny it. I have, myself, made no judgement on what the totality of evidence suggests.

(02-02-2026, 06:44 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is no need for it to prove that any book is genuinely old.

No need for evidence to prove something??
That sounds more like religion than science

(02-02-2026, 05:13 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Let's have some evidence that Voynich did anything that is presented as part of him faking it. ... Anyway, the sort of 'evidence' you are looking for simply does not exist for the majority of old manuscripts around the world. There is no need for it to prove that any book is genuinely old.

Today we know that MS 408 is not a Bacon's original.  But Wilfrid tried to sell it as one.  And whatever value it has today derives in part from its "known" history.  Specifically, from having been in the hands of Marci and Kircher, and from having been once owned by Rudolf who would have paid a fortune for it.  

Because of the monetary consequences of those claims, evidence is owed by those who make them, starting with Wilfrid.  Not by those who doubt them.  

For all I know, Wilfrid was quite capable, morally and physically, of doing any or all of the foul play things I listed before.  He definitely would have had a strong motivation to do them, if necessary to uphold the "probably Bacon's Original" claim.  And there are several parts of the Standard Story that are suspicious, to say the least.

I do understand and believe that the Jesuits wanted to keep secret the existence and whereabouts of the collection of books and letters absconded from the PUG (and other Church libraries?) in 1860.   A collection that included Kircher's Carteggio and possibly Marci's cover letter as well as the book mentioned in it (BookA) and/or MS 408.  However:

Why wasn't Marci's letter included in Kircher's Carteggio?  If it was attached to the book, the compiler of the latter may have missed it at the time; but eventually someone must have seen it (at the very last, when and if BookA was sold to Wilfrid) and appended it to the Categgio.

Why did the Jesuits decide to sell those 30 books to Wiflrid? Did they really need that money that badly?  Merely telling him that those books existed would have been a huge risk.  Besides, the sale was obviously a serious violation of Italian law, that regarded those books as property of the Italian government.  The government could have excused them for keeping the collection secret ("sorry, Eccelenza, we were a bit busy for the last 70 years and we forgot to tell you about it").  Not so for selling valuable cultural Government property to a foreign dealer.

(Edit: Clicked some wrong key by mistake and the post was sent while I was still writing it. To be continued in the next post.)

(Continuing)

I cannot tell from the images, but Marci's letter seems to be too well preserved for something that had supposedly been attached to the inner cover of MS 408 for 400 years -- first in the PUG library and then in that secret hiding place.  MS 408 looks as one would expect from a book with that history.  Does the letter, too?  Was the water damage to MS408 all pre-Kircher?

I am satisfied that the Vatican and the Italian government did not know about the secret book collection, and that it was kept locked and off-limits to most people.  But several Jesuits obviously knew about it, and must have had access to it.   Enough access to decide that some of those books could be sold, and to choose which ones.  Strickland must have been one of those people, yes?  

Then there is that mysterious entry ("BookX") in the list of "30 books" sold to Wilfrid by the Jesuits, the only one with no listed title or description.  It is identified with the VMS only because of the assumption that the VMS must have been one of those "30 books".   Actually there are two claims there: that BooX = BookA (the one which was sent to Kircher by Marci) and BookX = MS 408. If that assumption is put into question, then there is no reason to assume that either of these is true.

But let's suppose that indeed BookX = BookA.  Why didn't the description of BookX mention Marci's letter, or use the information therein to better describe the book? Surely, the Jesuit who compiled that list must have opened BookX, and seen the letter if it was attached to it.   And if he saw the letter -- a letter that had been sent by a famous scholar to an important Jesuit -- why didn't he remove the letter and add it to that archive of the so-precious Jesuit documents?

When Wilfrid revealed that he had possession of Marci's letter, and claimed that it had been attached to MS 408, the Satanic Italian government would have at least suspected that the Jesuits had been hiding Kircher's correspondence and the former PUG library.  Would they be satisfied with Wilfrid's vague claims about that "castle in Austria"?

And what about those PUG books that were sent to the Netherlands to escape confiscation.  Were they all returned to Rome and merged with that secret stash?  When was that?  Could BookA have been among them?  If so, could it have been sold or stolen while it was in the Netherlands?

Here is an alternative timeline that does involves neither a modern forgery nor my own "book switch" theory, but may better explain the actions of Wilfrid and others:

1. Several years before 1911, Wilfrid gets wind that the Jesuits are hiding, somewhere in Rome, a huge stash of books from the former PUG, including many books that may be worth five- or six-figure amounts.
   
2. Smelling a big opportunity, Wilfrid tries to get friends with some Jesuit who had access to those books and could help him get them; and succeeds with Father Strickland, possibly others.
   
3. Strickland or others tells his new "friend" Wilfrid about some of the books and documents in that collection.  In particular, about a letter claiming that one of the books from the Kircher library was a Bacon Original bought by an Emperor Rudolf for an absurd amount of gold.
   
4. With the opportunity now being in the seven figures, Wiflrid does what he can and cannot do to convince the Jesuits to sell him that BookA
   
5. The sale would have to include Marci's letter, because Wilfrid would need it to "prove" the Bacon origin to the evential Rich Banker
   
6. The sale is finally arranged. As usual, he would buy a whole lot of books, for a fixed price per book, in order to pretend that none of them was of particular interest or value.  BookA was to be included "by mere chance".  With Marci's cover letter "accidentally" left inside.
   
7. When the Jesuits listed BookA in the sale records, they intentionally omitted any detail that could identify it as such.  Including the cover letter.
   
8. Both the Jesuits and Wilfrid kept the deal secret because they knew that legally the books belonged to the Italian government and therefore the sale was highly illegal.  The secret included the existence and sale of Marci's letter. And the Jesuits also feared the reaction of the Vatican and their adversaries within the Church.
   
9. In 1929 Mussolini's treaty with the Pope presumably removes the risk of confiscation.
   
10. Then Wilfrid finally dares to make the letter public.  But he still pretends that the book was bought from the Mondragone high school or some other place, whose custodians allegedly did not know the book's importance and had not even noticed the attached letter.
    

OK, so what are the holes in this scenario?

All the best, --stolfi

PS.  The 1929 treaty gave the Catholic Church a number of privileges.  For instance, until very recently the Italian government paid a stipend to every Catholic priest in Italy.  I suppose that the tacit counterpart would have been the support of the Fascist regime by the Church, who had (and still has) huge influence among the people.

(31-01-2026, 05:59 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.- The foldouts are hundreds of years too new? Say we just didn't find the "other" old ones yet.
- The Latin of the Marci Letter is poor? Claim a scribe wrote it.
- The paper of the Marci letter is different? Claim he had other paper, we just have not found the same paper yet.
- That letter doesn't fold, the creases don't fold, and the seals don't line up? Crickets.
- The Voynich does not appear anywhere in history? Claim we just have to look for another 100 plus years. We will find it!
- The Voynich has a myriad of anachronistic content? Who are you going to trust, me or your eyes?
- The artist was really good because they drew the old content well.
- The artist was really, really, bad, because other stuff ended up looking new.
- The Voynich has provably anachronistic, newer, content? That was added later.
- The Voynich has a 17th century cover? Added later.
- The "signature" should have been mentioned, if seen? Crickets.
- The ink has unexplained substances? Contamination. 
- Wilfrid lied about that? It is because the Voynich is real, but he wanted to sell it.
- Wilfrid told the truth about this other thing? It is because he wanted the truth known, because the Voynich is real.

Discrepancies from an assumed hypothesis arising, and finding reasonable sources for those discrepancies is normal in science. It doesn't imply foul play or trickery. If these discrepancies disprove their theory or prove yours, the burden of proof is on you to show why, not on them to show why not.  Add "thats why it's a modern forgery" to each of these and it shows the issue here. 

"The Voynich has provably anachronistic, newer, content? That's why it's a modern forgery. "
"The "signature" should have been mentioned, if seen? That's why it's a modern forgery. "

Neither of these logically follow on their own. There are multiple possible answers for both, including your interpretation. 

"The ink has unexplained substances? That's why it's a modern forgery." 
This one is good, as it logically follows that if the ink isn't genuine that it disproves their theory. They say contamination is the reason, so you either have to accept that or argue that contamination is an incorrect reason. Again, the burden of proof is on you to do so. 

There are an infinite amount of questions you could pose, demanding that they are answered. But if the answering of the question does not objectively prove or disprove anything, what is the use?

People who deny things such as the moon landing do much the same (i don't mean this disrespectfully!). They ask questions that imply a conspiracy, and if there is no definitive answer to any of them they assume that the conspiracy must be the case. 

"If we went to the moon 60 years ago, why do we find it difficult now with better tech? That's why we didn't go to the moon"
"Why did we stop going to the moon when we still could? That's why we didn't go to the moon"
"You're telling me they did all the maths by hand without computers? That's why we didn't go to the moon" 
"Why was the flag wavy if there was no air? That's why we didn't go to the moon" 

Hopefully my point is clear.

(31-01-2026, 05:59 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.- The C14 dating has a range of more than 60 years? Average the dates together, to get a smaller range.

I also disagree with the justification for averaging the values. The reasoning seems to be that because they were all in the manuscript, and that the manuscript wouldn't take centuries to bind together, they must all be from around the same time. This logic does not follow, as we have no way of knowing for how long the individual folios were unbound, or over how long a period the author(s) wrote upon them.

The individual pages were clearly not all "the same object", so grouping them together as if they are is unhelpful. Its entirely possible that 1 of the pages had been sitting unused for a century, and entirely possible that 1 scribe wrote a page in the 1300s and a totally different scribe wrote a page in the 1400s. 

However, to include this in a list implying that it was done deliberately to fit into a preferred narrative also doesn't track, in my opinion. Even without the averaging, the truly maximum possible range is something like 1365AD-1497AD. It's not exactly the 1800s. 

I also have an issue with another aspect of the carbon dating, namely the (lack of transparent) statistical error methodology. I'm spoilering it in case its outside the scope of this thread or will derail the conversation.