The Voynich Ninja

(12-03-2026, 04:29 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At least, knowing this, now, the official claim "he could not and would not have known" will no longer be claimed, right?

When you read the German description, it is very detailed.
If it was already so well known, doesn't adding a number make the whole thing even more dangerous?

(12-03-2026, 04:01 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Seperately, if the signature is a fake signature, what is the motive for chemically treating it? The signature looks to have not been altered during the process, so if it was freely visible beforehand why go through the effort?

First of all, eggyk, I appreciate and respect your disagreement. It is good to hash these things out, IMO. We will just disagree on this, and anyone can read our various points on both possibilities, which is good.

As for a motive for first forging this signature... for this Book Switch Theory, or any other reason... and, after doing so, messing with it, I think anything anyone can do is speculate. And that speculation would be affected by the individual's other thoughts of the Voynich, and of Wilfrid, and motivations, and provenance, and so on... but to speculate anyway:

1) He felt it was too light, and others might not accept it as "Tepenecz" after putting it there. So, he tried to darken it with chemicals to bring it out more.

2) He didn't want it there, any longer, after placing it there for the purpose one provenance or theory, but found he could not erase it. So. he tried to obliterate it or cover it with chemicals, which failed. Then, being forced to live with it, he then would have to create a NEW provenance, which allowed for the "signature"- and so, created the Marci/Dee/Rudolf story line to replace an originally intended story line which also was enhanced by the name being there.

3) He wanted to emphasis his false narrative of seeing a name there, not being able to read it, and so needing to darken it. This one might also be to support the whole Carteggio-based provenance, as he, as I have, may have realized those writers SHOULD have seen and reported on the "signature", if he did. So perhaps he felt it was too dark to excuse that, and I agree, seeing the pre-treatment version it is one of the first and most important points about it. So, that would not do... if he never publicly shared the pre-treatment images, or ceased to, and blotted chemicals all over them, claiming, as he did, he was trying to "bring out" the mysterious lettering he claimed was there... it might, just might, cause people to excuse the Carteggio descriptions from mentioning it.

I suppose that are all my speculative answers to your question. But of course I don't know...

Rich

(12-03-2026, 04:01 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We cannot therefore say with any certainty exactly how visible it was based on these images. 

Here is another observation that may be relevant to the question of whether the signature should have been noticed, but it is just a minor one:

Lisa Fagin-Davis' paleographic analysis of the marginalia on the same page suggested that they are in the hand of Marci himself. The marginalia appear to be scratch notes written out as a mental aid while thinking about possible decipherment of the Voynichese—showing its alphabet and possible substitution with a Latin alphabet. The point is that they were not an attempt to record some cipher key that was even remotely close to “success”—they were made as working notes.

It is very difficult to believe that anyone—let alone someone who obviously valued the manuscript and considered it to be of great interest—would so cavalierly mar the pages of the manuscript itself with trivial scratch notes that were merely an aid to their thinking—not even a proposed final solution that they might have thought worth recording directly on the page.

But the minor observation is this:
Someone—supposedly Marci himself—spent a good deal of time up close and personal on that very page (and probably in good lighting) as he wrote letters and symbols in the same micro-sized writing as the main text. That fact just adds to the overall likelihood that he would notice the faint signature on the same page. (There also happens to be plenty more extra space at the bottom of the page for making such scratch notes than where they were made. But on the other hand, the right-hand margin would have been more attractive for the purpose of the long vertical table.)

(12-03-2026, 10:40 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Kircher

I saw your post about Kinner.  Re-reading your page on the letters about the MS, I have these quibbles:

Quote:The silence of Kircher about the Voynich MS after 1665 has been seen by several authors as an indication that Kircher never received the book You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

This doubt has never been settled, has it?  Except by relying on the assumptions that 

• MS 408 is Barschius's Book (my "BookA")
  
• said book was bought by Wilfrid from the Jesuits, and
  
• the Jesuits got that book from Kircher's library (as opposed from, say, a trunk that belonged to Father Moretus, S.J, and was labeled "books that I forgot to send to Kircher".  Or from a box in the basement of the Collegio Romano labeled "bizarre encrypted alchemical books of unknown origin".)
  

Quote:Letters 37 and 65 ["The" letter from Marci] could or should also have been in the same collection but they are not. ... This is, however, not at all extraordinary. It is known from studies of Kircher's correspondence that many letters are missing from it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

While not extraordinary, the exclusion from the Carteggio it is still a point against the Standard Provenance theory.  For one thing, it makes it less than certain that Kircher ever received it.

Quote:Letter 65 has clearly always been preserved inside the MS.

Whoa, not so fast.  Even if we assume that BookA=MS408, and that Wilfrid obtained both the book and the letter from the Jesuits, we cannot conclude that the two were ever together.  Wilfrid may have said so, but he flat-out lied about the deal, so why should believe this statement?  

Even with the above assumptions, he could have obtained the letter years before 1911, or in 1915, or any time in between.   To me it looks very likely that he at least knew the contents of the letter before 1911, and that is why he decided to get his hands on that "Bacon's Lost Book".  

And I think that his comment about "not thinking that the letter was important" is half true.  I suspect that the Jesuits kept the letter, and Wilfrid did not mind because he expected that the book would be obviously Bacon's. Only after receiving it he realized that there was nothing in the book itself that suggested a connection to Bacon.  Then it became essential for him to get the letter too -- and claim that it had been attached to the book all along.

Quote:We can safely conclude that he also received [Marci's letter and BookA], because the collection in which Voynich found the MS (with the letter) was one hidden by P. Beckx in 1873 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. This collection included other books and manuscripts owned by Kircher. In particular, before they were hidden, both Kircher's correspondence and the Voynich MS were together in the library of the Collegium Romanum You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

 

Again, I don't follow.  I accept that Father Beckx hid a bunch of books from the Collegio Romano, including books by Kircher; that at least some of those books ended up in Villa Torlonia or Castelgandolfo; and that some of them were acquired by Wilfrid in the 1911.  IIUC, the loose Beckx ex-libris in that box at Beinecke and the list of the 1911 sale seem to be proof enough for this;  

But I still do not see any evidence whatsoever that BookA, MS408, or Letter 65 were ever in possession of the Jesuits, in Rome or anywhere.  Or any evidence that they were included in that sale.  We have only the last of Wilfrid's string of claims about his acquisition of both...

Quote:Another concern that has been raised is that the Voynich MS is not listed in the museum catalogue by De Sepi You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. This is not an issue, becuase we know that this catalogue certainly does not list all his books and manuscripts.

Again, this absence may not  be exceptional, but it is definitely "an issue". It definitely weakens the SPT...

[quote]From Letter 39b: "From the pictures of herbs, of which there are a great many in the codex, and of varied images, stars and other things bearing the appearance of chemical symbolism, it is my guess that the whole thing is medical..." ... All other references are clear and plain, and there can be no doubt that all letters refer to the same MS, which we now know as the Voynich MS.[quote]

Yes, that description of BookA by Barschius is definitely compatible with MS 408.  I accept that the pipes and tubs in Bio could have been seen by him as "chemical symbolism".

But the Book Switch theory says that BookA was either accidentally replaced by MS 408 before 1911, or was deliberately replaced by Wilfrid after 1911.  

In the first case, the substitution would have happened because some librarian found letter 65 lying around, not attached to any book.  Intrigued, he would have searched the Carteggio for the other letters mentioned in it, and found Barchius's description above.  Then he remembered that bizarre anonymous manuscript -- MS408 -- that fit that description, and concluded that it must be it. So he attached the letter to it, and the rest went as per the SPT.

In the second case, which I think somewhat more likely, Wilfrid somehow got hold of Letter 65 before 1911, which made his eyes turn into coins.  Then I can think of two variants. In the first variant, the Jesuits could not find BookA, nor any record of them having ever had it.   In the second variant, Wilfrid gets BookA from the Jesuits, as part of that 30-book sale; but finds that it was obviously not a Bacon original.  Say, it was a 50-page Berber manual in Tiffnagh, listing the best plants to feed one's camel, how to use the stars to navigate the Sahara at night, and how to distill brandy and brew superb coffee to warm one's heart during those cold desert nights.

In either variant, Wilfrid would have decided to use use Letter 65 to sell some other book to some dumb rich banker.  He would claim that the letter came attached to the book, then point out Raphael's claim while feigning doubt "I suspend my judgement on the matter"... 

To carry out that plan, he would have had the Jesuits search Kircher's Carteggio for the letters from Barschius, and they found Letter 39b.  Then he hunted around, in his "500'000 item Franceschini stockpile" and elsewhere, until he found a manuscript that fit that description -- MS408.  He removed a few pages that would have spoiled the ruse, and had it re-bound with the cover from one of the Jesuit books.  (In variant One, he would have purchased the 30 books from the Jesuits anyway, partly for re-sale, but mainly to have a plausible provenance story for MS408.)

In either case, the fact that MS408 fits the description of BookA in Letter 39b cannot be used as evidence that they are the same book -- because MS408 would have been selected precisely for that resemblance.

By the way, this Book Switch theory (BST) is independent of the theory that Jacobus's "signature" is forged (FST)  That is as separate question.  I still give only maybe 20% chance to the BST, but I am now almost convinced of the FST...

All the best, --stolfi

(12-03-2026, 05:08 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.By the way, this Book Switch theory (BST) is independent of the theory that Jacobus's "signature" is forged (FST)  That is as separate question.  I still give only maybe 20% chance to the BST, but I am now almost convinced of the FST...

True dat.

[attachment=14589]

Could it be that Wilfried simply wanted to make it visible using chemicals, but the ink did not react properly due to low iron content?
What does that look like?
Example document: Emperor Friedrich.

(12-03-2026, 05:25 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Could it be that Wilfried simply wanted to make it visible using chemicals, but the ink did not react properly due to low iron content?

I think it is definitely possible.

There is no good reason to write an ex-libris (or a quire mark, or a tentative alphabet substitution table) with iron-gall ink, even on a vellum book.  They are not critical info that must survive centuries.  Making iron-gall ink is a non-trivial task.  You may use it you have it already at hand, because you have been writing other stuff on vellum.  Otherwise you would use china (lampblack) ink, or pencil.  And neither would react with the chemicals that one would use to enhance iron-based ink.

By the way, among those Jacobus supposed ex-libris on Rene's page, sample #4 -- the one that is identical to the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "signature" -- looks like it was written with light gray ink, very unlike what I expect of iron-gall.  It may be diluted china ink.

All the best, --stolfi

(12-03-2026, 04:29 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At least, knowing this, now, the official claim "he could not and would not have known" will no longer be claimed, right?

Gosh, Rich, I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and concede as gracefully as possible that if Voynich had access to Google Books in the 1890's or early 'aughts he would have had no problem making the connection between Sinapius and Tepenc.

Issues of how he could have found any of those references aside (I suppose it's plausible that the British Library had a copy of "Konfessy Katholicka", but without there being a good index of the periodicals referenced it's implausible that he would have just started randomly leafing through back issues of "Alterhümer und Denkwürdigkeiten Bömens" on the off chance), the question isn't could he have found the connection -- that's looking at the problem backwards with the benefit of hindsight -- but rather, why in the context of creating the forgery would he have gone looking for it not knowing about it beforehand.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a letter from Voynich to someone saying, "My latest copy of Communications of the Association for the History of Germans in the Sudetenland just showed up, and I can't wait to read it cover-to-cover," color me skeptical.

(12-03-2026, 07:18 PM)kckluge Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(12-03-2026, 04:29 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At least, knowing this, now, the official claim "he could not and would not have known" will no longer be claimed, right?

Gosh, Rich, I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and concede as gracefully as possible that if Voynich had access to Google Books in the 1890's or early 'aughts he would have had no problem making the connection between Sinapius and Tepenc.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a letter from Voynich to someone saying, "My latest copy of Communications of the Association for the History of Germans in the Sudetenland just showed up, and I can't wait to read it cover-to-cover," color me skeptical.

Your sarcasm aside, the counter-point you are attempting make is totally unfounded. While the systems of cataloging that would have been in place in 1910 to 1912 would obviously have far less capable, by magnitudes, than the are today, they were nonetheless quite efficient and extensive to a really remarkable level. You know that, though, or should.

I've done much research spanning the old card catalog days, and bridging to the new. The existence of these books, containing the three versions of Horcicky's name... Horcicky/Sinapius/Tepenenc, would have been easily findable. 

Your sarcasm also ignores the commonly projected image of Voynich as one of the greatest book sleuths of his age. So which is it? He could ferret out the rarest of rare classics from the darkest recesses of the dustiest cellars, books that no one else had ever seen, let alone knew of, or imagined...

... or a clumsy, ignorant fool, when that image is necessary to explain gross lapses on his part, with an abject ignorance of how to locate names of people any one else could find in a library catalog card?

No, the reality is that he was well aware of catalog systems. He even kept full time, expert book catalogers on his staff, such as Milicent Sowerby. And in his world, at his time, recording, filing and yes, finding information was a fine art, and so finding these references would have been no problem for the real Voynich.

But I will add that your point here is yet another example of needing to vary a standard of understanding, like Koen said, "sliders", for, in this case, Voynich's abilities. This needs to be done all the time to protect the Paradigm: Voynich was smart, he was stupid; he was extremely knowledgeable, but he was ignorant; he was a liar, we can't trust him, and then, "Voynich said, so we KNOW..."; Voynich was an honest man; but he was a cheat, and made illegal sales; the 'signature' was JUST visible enough to guess "tspenencz", but not enough to guess "tepenencz"; and so on, up and down, depending on what is needed to protect the paradigm.

So, again, no... there is one set of standards here, which I think are completely supported: Voynich knew his way, better than most, around the book cataloging system. Europe at the time... the world, for that matter... was filled with functioning libraries, with extensive and detailed, easily searchable catalog systems. Not only the catalog systems, but remember, most books have bibliographies, which reference other books... like chasing links today, they led you to the related information. Remember "q.v"? "which see"? I did years of research before the internet, all catalog card based, with additional sleuthing based on q.v.'s, and citations of information in other books. The libraries of the world of the time would serve no purpose if one could not find a specific name. It was all devised just for that purpose, and it worked very well*.

One last thing: He knew of Horcicky, we know, because of his love of the Bolton book. He said he "knew it by heart", and we also know he copied down 19 or 20 names from the book, in order. And if he looked up Horcicky, that is another avenue he would have learned he was Tepenenc, because of the fact some of his references... including Horcicky's OWN 1609 book, explain this.

TLDR: Your support of the contention that Voynich would not have easily discovered who "Tepenenc" was is totally unsupported by the practices of libraries and book cataloguing, catalogs, and book indexes and bibliographies of his time, especially considering the man's known intelligence and knowledge of the book and cataloging trade. No google remotely necessary.

* My first g.v. use was in the 1980's, when I was reading an entry on David Bushnell. It said, "q.v. Abraham Baldwin". This led me to his friend, the founder of the University of Georgia. It linked the two of them, one led to the other. In another book, I wanted to know the source of an illustration... it was referenced. I wrote a letter to the collection, with the given number, and ordered my copy of the image. These threads were easily followed, although it took days or weeks back then, when the internet allows us to repeat these searches in milliseconds.

I used these resources thousands of times, over decades, until the internet came along. I was never unable to find a resource which I needed, using these "crude" methods... because they were not crude, just slow. And these systems were in place in Voynich's day, and well functioning, and complete, as they were to us recent, pre-internet times. It is totally unfounded to claim otherwise.

Just to summarise what we are supposed to believe:

Voynich decided to add the name of Jacobus de Tepenec to his book. (No evidence for this)

He wrote this, then erased it. (No evidence for this)

He then took a photo of that. (This photo, or one of several still exists)

He then applied chemicals to make it visible again. (Clear evidence for this)

He then realised that it would be very suspicious if he knew who was Tepenec, so he decided to write to the Bohemian state archives to aks who he was, pretending that he thought it was a contemporary of Marci. (The correpondence survived).

He was so worried about not getting a response, that he also asked his employee in London: Herbert Garland to try and find information. (the correspondence survived).

Guess what: I don't buy this.

Edit: pointless point removed :-)