The Voynich Ninja

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(04-02-2026, 08:27 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(04-02-2026, 08:13 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(04-02-2026, 07:10 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As far as I can tell, it folds nicely into a pocket, similar to the first two examples although the wax would have been completely inside.

Apart from the folding, there is the problem that, AFAIK, the lining of the front cover was removed by Wilfrid and eventually replaced by a new blank sheet.  If so, any stains on the new lining will not be evidence that the letter was originally attached to the book.

(And besides I wonder if 400-year-old seal wax can still stain anything.)

All the best, --stolfi

If the letter was folded this way, theres no reason why it needs to match marks on the inside. It could have just been loose, right?

But the reason I mentioned this is to show that the letter could have been folded in a natural way that makes sense (and could explain the apparent ripping on the left side). The other issues are another matter.

Well our comments crossed, and you probably have seen my opinion on the results of your (excellent) folding experiment: I disagree that the results "make sense" in any real context. Certainly not as a letter or envelope, but even as a "pocket"... which would not for any reasonable explanation have an address on it, then. It was clearly meant to look like a letter or envelope, but is, in reality, not and envelope nor letter in any known sense.

As for this, though, "If the letter was folded this way, theres no reason why it needs to match marks on the inside. It could have just been loose, right?"

The thing is, there are many different reasons something is of importance, the reasons are not always the same, nor always apparent. In this case the importance of your observation about the seals not needing to match is this: To counter the already debunked claim that they do! No, they don't. Yet, we still see that incorrect claim being used in lectures, books, blogs, comments, whatever...

So what you say may be true... in an empirical sense it does not matter that they don't line up... but it matters to show how false narratives are created, disseminated, and then, believed and repeated. Most of the "construction" of the "image" of the Voynich is made of such vaporous claims, which are either wrong, or not known, or even having the opposite implication of the ones promulgated. No, the seals don't line up. No, the construction is not normal for 1420. No, the materials are not right for 1420. No, the content is not (all) right for 1420. No, there is no provenance. No, Wildmann probably has nothing to do with it. No, it didn't appear on a list from 1903. No, the Carteggio was not under lock and seal. No, the experts did not pick 1420. No, the ink is not perfect for Medieval ink. 

But... sense my frustration?... the next time we see a "description" of the Voynich, in voice or in print, we will hear, or read, "Their is nothing about the Voynich manuscript that is at all usual nor suspicious. The construction is perfect, except for what Kraus did. The ink is perfect, the parchment is perfect, there are no corrections, it shows signs of meaning, and the provenance shows, beyond all doubt, that the Voynich is a genuine, 15th century manuscript..." and on and on. Oh, and "The Marci letter is perfectly normal, and was found by Voynich after the purchase of the manuscript attached by two seals, which fit perfectly with the two seal marks found in the inside of the cover, and the letter reflects, through the scribe, the bad Latin of Marci".

OK rant over. But it's true, that is what will happen. And by the way, the rant was not at all directed at you, eggyk, you took honest pictures, which are there for anyone else to see and judge for themselves, and kudos for that. It is directed at a "self healing" world of Voynich scholarship, which erases, in real time, any actual problems, even though they are right there in front of us... many, not even speculative, but factual, actual problems... such as the letter not folding, the seals not lining up, and the million other things I also rant about.

[attachment=13932]

(04-02-2026, 08:44 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The wax on the inside would then be to keep it flat, tidy and manageable.

That would be an extremely unusual use of seal wax.   And besides seal wax is not supposed to be sticky when cold.

All the best, --stolfi

(04-02-2026, 09:15 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(04-02-2026, 08:44 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The wax on the inside would then be to keep it flat, tidy and manageable.

That would be an extremely unusual use of seal wax.   And besides seal wax is not supposed to be sticky when cold.

All the best, --stolfi

So would using warm seal wax and squeezing together two pieces of paper stick the two pages together? Whether its unusual or not, the marks line up nicely as if it was used that way. The fact that the wax "fills in the circle" when overlayed points to it being the case, in my opinion.  

[attachment=13933]

Also, this is a good time for me to ask, what makes wax a seal wax? Is it a special type of wax (and is this wax clearly seal wax?)

(04-02-2026, 10:04 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(04-02-2026, 09:15 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(04-02-2026, 08:44 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The wax on the inside would then be to keep it flat, tidy and manageable.

That would be an extremely unusual use of seal wax.   And besides seal wax is not supposed to be sticky when cold.
All the best, --stolfi

So would using warm seal wax and squeezing together two pieces of paper stick the two pages together? Whether its unusual or not, the marks line up nicely as if it was used that way. The fact that the wax "fills in the circle" when overlayed points to it being the case, in my opinion.  
[attachment=13934]

Also, this is a good time for me to ask, what makes wax a seal wax? Is it a special type of wax (and is this wax clearly seal wax?)

That's very interesting. I mean, your picture showing a possible match or mating of the seal remnants.

Edit to add your pic again, and from Wikipedia:

"Formulas vary, but there was a major shift after European trade with the Indies opened. In the Middle Ages, sealing wax was typically made of beeswax and "Venice turpentine", a greenish-yellow resinous extract of the European larch tree. The earliest wax of this kind was uncoloured. Later the wax was coloured red with vermilion."

(04-02-2026, 09:15 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That would be an extremely unusual use of seal wax.   And besides seal wax is not supposed to be sticky when cold.

I personally know nothing about the use of seal wax, but in the video below using wax on the inside is demonstrated as one of the standard techniques of the XVI century. 

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Edit: I suppose they know what they are doing:

"Produced by MIT Video Production. Directed and demonstrated by Jana Dambrogio. Funded by Dambrogio and MIT Libraries. Special thanks to Ayako Letizia, MIT Video Production staff, Mary Hurley, The British Academy, and Lincoln College, University of Oxford.

Citation information: Authors: Jana Dambrogio, "‘Tuck-and-seal,' Italy (1580s)," Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0011/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 011. Date filmed: June 2014. Duration: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Date posted: June 2014. Video URL: [Insert URL]. Date accessed: [Date].

Copyright 2014–present. Jana Dambrogio, the Unlocking History Research Group, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All rights reserved. The following copyrighted material is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Contact the MIT Technology Licensing Office for any other licensing inquiries."

(04-02-2026, 10:59 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I personally know nothing about the use of seal wax, but in the video below using wax on the inside is demonstrated as one of the standard techniques of the XVI century.

Oops, I stand corrected. Thanks...

(04-02-2026, 10:59 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I personally know nothing about the use of seal wax, but in the video below using wax on the inside is demonstrated as one of the standard techniques of the XVI century. 

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What's interesting is that he way that I folded it actually does this, but the pocket that you fold into is actually where the paper has ripped. When this paper was intact, one side would have nicely slotted into the other. 

[attachment=13937][attachment=13938]

The paper would have also gone nicely alongside the end of the text.

[attachment=13939]

Here is a fun exercise of the Bayes formula.   An old oak trunk with brass trimmings, with "J.S.T" written on the lid, is said to contain N tokens, with distinct numbers 1 to N.  You don't know N, but from the size of the trunk and of the tokens you are sure that it is less than 10'000. Other than that, any value of N seems equally likely.

1. The trunk is well shaken, then someone reaches into it and picks a token at random.  It bears the number 19.  Now what is your probability that N is less than 50?

2. That exercise is repeated four more times, and the numbers that come out are 4, 7, 18, and 40 (in some order).  Now what is your probability that N is less than 50?

I am too lazy to do the computation myself, but I would guess that the answer to (2) is very high, much more than 50%.

The point is that, from the numbers on the front pages, we can safely guess that the set of all the books that ever existed with Jacobus's name on them had only 50 books or so.    

Would that be a plausible value for the number of books owned by someone like Jacobus?

All the best, --stolfi

On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about the five known books owned by Jacobus, I see that the one labeled "No//4", the only one with the same form of the name, is kept in the National Czech Library, housed at the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in Prague.  (By coincidence, the same library that Rene and I got to visit in 2000.)

I suggested before that Wilfrid could have forged Jacobus's ex-libris on f1r in order to make the "Bacon" theory more credible.  For that, he presumably would have made a list of people from Rudolf II's court who could have received the "Bacon's 600 ducats book" from him and passed it to Marci's "good friend".  Then he would have asked his contacts in Europe to look for any book which had an ex-libris from any of those people.  They were to send him a photo of any such ex-libris, or at least a careful tracing of it on vellum paper (which has nothing to do with vellum other than the name).

Jacobus would probably have been on that list; and then anyone in Prague would have immediately found the "No//4" one.  

And maybe he was told that the number "19" could be safely used for some reason (say there was a record that someone sometime had looked hard for it but concluded that it had been lost.)

According to the Forged Signature Theory, Wilfrid would then have copied that "signature" on f1r, trying to make it look like it had been written in ~1600.  But the result still looked very much like a forgery, so he decided to "enhance" it with chemicals until only a trace remained -- just enough to "prove" that MS 408 had been owned by Jacobus, but not nearly enough to tell whether it was a forgery or not.

Or perhaps he later got copies of book "Ho//40" from the Charles University library (also very easy to obtain), and/or of the "N/7." and "N/18." books from Strahov's library (a bit harder to obtain perhaps; but Rene and I came within 50 meters of them in 2000, too, and they may even be in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I took from the library's lobby).  And then he realized that the form of the name that he had used in the forged "signature" was the wrong one for the supposed "No//19" book...

All the best, --stolfi

(05-02-2026, 06:17 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And maybe he was told that the number "19" could be safely used for some reason (say there was a record that someone sometime had looked hard for it but concluded that it had been lost.)

Jorge, what you wrote there piqued my interest... because it is actually a common action of forgers to create items, or use items and references which are known to have been lost. I came across this situation many times... if an items was written about in history, or in letters, or on a list... could be a painting, a manuscript, a sculpture... but it disappeared, it might be used by a forger as an opportunity to falsely tie their creation to the known references and other examples.

The forger then achieves two things by forging their copy of it: 1) Instant provenance for the item, because it was discussed in the past, and 2) safety, because the real item isn't around to compare it to. In this case, no number "19".

Anyone who doubts this can read my list of books on forgery, and you will find many of these: "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.". One famous example of this is a forgery I often cite, and that was the "Oath of a Freeman" by Hoffmann. He learned that the first printed item in the New World... in the Colonies at the time... was this "Oath", but that it was missing. I won't go into the details as to how he chose and made his type, the border decorations, the ink, and so on, this is just about the aspect I'm discussing: Instant provenance, because the paper was already described in history, then lost, and so there was nothing to compare his forgery to. As an aside, he flew to New York and to an antique bookshop, and bought a stack of stuff. He also knew he would find another item known as an "oath", so when he checked out he hoped the clerk would write, "Oath" on the receipt. It worked. 

Well there are many examples, including the famous forger of Shakespeare papers in the 19th century, who used mentions of missing items... plays I think... sonnets?... from history, and he was clever enough to make those. He also visited collections of Shakespeare items and placed fake references in and among real items, and even added lines to manuscripts, so his faux provenance would be found by others.

I could go on and on... there are a great many cases of this. Forgers have historically been quite clever, and done amazing things. And I have my own instances in which I have wondered if this had happened with the Voynich, and several other items Voynich had owned, too. But it would be a similar affect to using the number "19", if he was fairly certain, or knew, that that number was lost. But he was also one of the most knowledgeable book dealers in the world, and had his fingers in many pies. Perhaps he simply felt safe enough picking a number from a hat? In any case, the other numbers gave him cover... he was fulfilling a missing number by using 19, and at the same time, getting automatic provenance because of it. It would... and has... given the "signature" a level of authenticity.

So that is that, and we are just openly musing. But meanwhile, as you reminded me, I'll give a few examples in which I've suspected a similar situation associated with Voynich:

- The "Lost Chart of Magellan": This is a subject I have probably hundreds of hours in over a decade of work, and it really would need an entire book to discuss. But in a nutshell, Voynich claimed to have found a "northern polar projection" chart of the voyage of Magellan, in the cover of a 1536 (I think that is the year, not checking my notes) Italian book. I personally think it is a forgery, but that is another discussion... but here is the interesting thing: The making of the Charts of Magellan are discussed in the book by Pigafetta, one of the 18 or so men who finished the trip in 1522. Then, the chart was lost to history. But also, in Voynich's time there was a written description... not a reproduction... of a southern polar projection which had been found in the Topaki palace by a German cartographic historian. It was believed to be relate to Magellan's voyages. And the thing is, at the time, it was believed that the "polar projection" had not yet been invented in 1522... So here we have a valuable and important chart, in a rare polar projection, known to have existed, but now disappeared... well except for the northern half... and "voila!" Voynich finds that northern half in the binding of a dusty book he happens to have ripped open. He has instant provenance for that map, both due to the claimed date of the book he found it in... so we "know" it is at least earlier than 1536; we have Pigafetta mentioning it in his account; and as icing on the cake, it has a similar drawing to the Straights of Magellan as IN Pigafetta's book! But, you know what I think...

- Voynich sold to Morgan, for a great deal of money ($16,000?) a copy of "The Lives of the Martyrs". This was a known book, but without illustrations. But Voynich's copy had illustrations added, and he mused they were by an artist named Giotti. The great value of the book lay in those illustrations... the book itself is known, and not nearly as valuable, un-illustrated. But here is the thing: It had been discussed (I have the articles) among art historians that Giotti HAD illustrated at least one copy of Lives of the Martyrs. It was a sort of Holy Grail of art literature, in fact. Well, Voynich "found" this missing treasure! (oh did his luck have any bounds?) And I think... again it is late, and I'm not checking my notes, so I may have small errors here... I think that, eventually, those illustrations were no longer attributed to Giotti. But the thing is, a Giotti illustrated Lives... was known, discussed, and lost, and looked for, and Voynich found it. He had instant provenance in those previous references.

I have probably three to five similar or related cases I can point to, in which I think Voynich was playing this game of "fulfilling lost items with pre-existing provenance", as many forgers do, but I'll leave it there for now. And no, I do not think Voynich forged either the Lost Chart of Magellan, nor the illustrations in Lives... I think someone else did. But, I do think this method was used for the Voynich in a couple of cases... maybe 3 or 4 off the top of my head... but the most important example would be, I think, his using the scant mentions of an interesting book that Baresch/Marci/Kinner/Kircher saw, and using those few descriptions as a "seed" (along with Bolton's Follies, several books on microscopy, Grey's Anatomy, and a few others)... I think he used the Carteggio references as a seed to create the Voynich around. This then would give him, he believed, adequate provenance. Well I don't think it is close to adequate, myself, but of course many thousands have believed it, and still do.

I think... speculate, play with the idea, whatever... that what happened was he got a tip about this book by someone familiar with the Letter descriptions, or saw them himself, or read a paper about them, or whatever... and naturally wanted to find the book they were talking about. He either found it, or more likely could not find it... but would then know that if he created something to fulfill the descriptions adequately, he would have automatic provenance.

Why do I not accept that the Voynich is simply that book? Well for all the reasons I and others have given... they are poor descriptions, and also work against it being the Voynich these men actually saw: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Of course Voynich never got around to directly standing on the letters and claiming victory... but before he died, he did seem to be hinting at their existence... almost like, "Hey maybe you guys want to look over there...". Didn't he ask about the letters, after seeing the mentions in DeSepi? Like he asked about Topence... I mean Tepenencz? Like he asked Ravenstien, the map expert about his map (then used his answer in his catalog)? Didn't he ask Newbold about Bacon? 

Anyway, you obviously triggered me with your suggestion, Jorge... yes I know you doubt the Voynich is fake, I get that... but I wanted to outline all the above, because I do think it possible that the scenario you muse on, with the signature... are perfectly plausible, and in keeping with the practice of forgers, and also, the practices of Wilfrid himself. The other, numbered examples of Tepenencz signatures would be pre-existing provenance, especially if it had one of those distinctive numbers on it. And the fact that it does not match any very well, and the wrong ones, best, adds to the stink of the whole issue.

Rich.