The Voynich Ninja

(13-03-2026, 12:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(12-03-2026, 02:26 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.OK, but then that mistake makes no difference to any of the provenance/switch/forgery theories, does it?  

It is fundamental. Just talking about the book switch theory here.

I mean that it makes no difference for the Book Switch Theory (or for the Forged Signature Theory) whether Wilfrid thought that the book had been acquired by Rudolf I or Rudolf II.  

Either way, the only thing in the whole universe that suggested a connection between MS408 and Roger Bacon was that comment by Raphael in Marci's letter.  Thus Wilfrid's claim that he "did not think the letter was important at first" is beyond bizarre.

Either way, to sell MS408 as a possible Bacon Original he needed (1) evidence that MS408 was indeed the book described in the letter, and (2) an explanation for how such a valuable item could have left the Royal Library and ended up on Barschius's shelf.  Jacobus's alleged ex-libris on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was (and still is) the only thing in the whole universe that served either of these purposes.

He could not even provide to a prospective buyer any evidence that he received Letter 67 together with the MS408, much less that the letter ever was attached to it --- even if that was true.   As you explained, he could not ask the Jesuits to confirm that claim (at least not until 1929), and they never did so; and anyway we have no evidence whatsoever that they even saw MS408 or the letter, together or separately, at any time.  As far as we know, no one besides Wilfrid ever saw the letter attached to any book in Wilfrid's possession.  

(And the "stains" on f0v cannot possibly be from the wax seals on the letter.  Because their separation and angle are wrong, they appear to be not stains but holes, and the letter would not have been attached to that sheet of paper anyway.  No?)

Quote:You correctly pointed out that the two references to Rudolf's court, in the letter and the [signature on the?] MS, are probably a bit too much of a coincidence, but Voynich was not making that connection.

This last claim relies entirely on Wilfrid's own words -- and is contradicted by his claims that MS408 was a Bacon Original.

Quote:Anyway, there would be a far greater coincidence that cannot be explained away.  The Marci letter says that the previous owner left him the book in an inheritance, and that owner also wrote to Kircher. Now we don't know from how many people Marci inherited stuff, but one person from whom he did inherit was Barschius, and Barschius indeed wrote to Kircher, and the one surviving letter describes a book that closely fits the Voynich MS.  That is too much of a coincidence.

I don't see the "too much" in that coincidence.  We both agree that Wilfrid though about Bacon only because he read Letter 67, right?  Besides the Bacon connection, that letter says that Marci's "good friend" had written to Kircher about the book.  Wilfrid must then have tried to find out more about that book.  As a minimum, he must have asked his Jesuit friends/partners to scan Kircher's Carteggio for any letter from anyone in Prague about a mysterious book.  They would have easily found Barschius's letter (just as we did 20 years ago, as soon as the index of the Carteggio became available online).   

Then, if he decided to substitute some bogus book for BookA, as the BST claims (because he either did not get BookA, or realized that BookA was obviously not a Bacon Original), he would have looked for one that fit Barschius's description and could be sold to a stupid rich banker as a Bacon Original -- using Letter 67 as "proof".

True, he could have been unable to find such a book.  In which case he would just have given up on that plan.   But there exists at least one book that fits that description, namely MS408; why not more than one? There are many books written in scripts that would have been baffling to Barschius, Marci, and their contacts in Prague (even if they would be recognizable today), and many books with pictures of unknown plants, stars, and "chemical symbolism".  Why can't there exist another book with both features, besides MS408?

All the best, --stolfi

(13-03-2026, 12:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anyway, there would be a far greater coincidence that cannot be explained away.  The Marci letter says that the previous owner left him the book in an inheritance, and that owner also wrote to Kircher. Now we don't know from how many people Marci inherited stuff, but one person from whom he did inherit was Barschius, and Barschius indeed wrote to Kircher, and the one surviving letter describes a book that closely fits the Voynich MS.  That is too much of a coincidence.

(13-03-2026, 10:37 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't see the "too much" in that coincidence.  We both agree that Wilfrid though about Bacon only because he read Letter 67, right?  Besides the Bacon connection, that letter says that Marci's "good friend" had written to Kircher about the book.  Wilfrid must then have tried to find out more about that book.  As a minimum, he must have asked his Jesuit friends/partners to scan Kircher's Carteggio for any letter from anyone in Prague about a mysterious book.  They would have easily found Barschius's letter (just as we did 20 years ago, as soon as the index of the Carteggio became available online).

Then, if he decided to substitute some bogus book for BookA, as the BST claims (because he either did not get BookA, or realized that BookA was obviously not a Bacon Original), he would have looked for one that fit Barschius's description and could be sold to a stupid rich banker as a Bacon Original -- using Letter 67 as "proof".

True, he could have been unable to find such a book.  In which case he would just have given up on that plan. But there exists at least one book that fits that description, namely MS408; why not more than one? There are many books written in scripts that would have been baffling to Barschius, Marci, and their contacts in Prague (even if they would be recognizable today), and many books with pictures of unknown plants, stars, and "chemical symbolism".  Why can't there exist another book with both features, besides MS408?

I agree, Mr. Stolfi: The premise that Book A (my "Baresch Manuscript" of course... maybe we should flip a coin and choose a name? JK) "is" the Voynich relies on not critically examining the actual descriptions, nor the timeline of literary, scholarly knowledge at the time it was being examined and described. It is one of those things which has been stated with authority so often that people don't look at the real nuts and bolts any longer... they just accept it at face value, and don't really question it. This has long been a part of my shtick. There were a great many scripts these men were unfamiliar with, in their time, which they would have described Book A the way they did. There are of course hundreds of books on the history of our knowledge of languages and scripts, but I have long suggested Maurice Pope's, "The Story of Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Maya Script.": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

From that book I compiled a list of all the scripts which I could reasonably ascertain would have been "unknown" to the Men of the Letters, and it quickly added up to over 100.

I think it is only when we look at the descriptions in the letters with modern standards, with our current knowledge of scripts, that we equate Voynichese with what these men were seeing and describing as the only possible script they could have seen, because today Voynichese is one of the few still unknown to us. But no, they had dozens, if not hundreds, of such scripts. We have to look through their 17th century eyes, not ours, which then expands out the possibilities greatly. And accurately. Then "Voynichese" is no longer alone, it gets lost in a storm of unknown scripts.

And also, their list of known scripts would have even spanned, and increased during the range of the letter dates. I mean, the knowledge was increasing greatly during this time. You can see this in the 1678 De Sepi, which shows a great many samples of scripts known, or at least published by Kircher over time, in various other books. The dates of those publications must be kept in mind when trying to determine the known scripts against a background of the letter dates. It gets complicated trying to recreate such a timeline, but I feel it is very important to do. It will help us narrow down just what book Book A really was. I hope that book is still extant, and believe that when we see it, we will know it. Of course, I think there is a very real possibility Book A was destroyed, if it were some poor, low value thing... which most herbals were in Voynich's time... because the modern equivalent of well over a million dollars was at stake (I liken this to the effect of a large budget movie blowing up some classic car, or destroying a fine guitar, and so on, because the value is peanuts compared to the end gain of the movie sales).

The timeline of their "familiarity with scripts" is also affected by one's opinion/judgement on the Marci letter's date of 1665/66. That is, if real, it extends out to that date. If not, then the range is shorter.

And I think I have several candidates, written in several scripts unknown to them, with plants which would have mystified them, and with what might be considered stars and chemical symbolism. I've even looked through some of Voynich's catalogs, wondering if he found and listed the book they saw. For one thing, one clue, it may have been in Kircher's collections, since they may have sent it to him (as reported), so that may be a good cross reference.

I think there is a chance we have all seen Book A, but can't yet say I know what it is/was.

Also, and this relates to this issue directly I think, and applies to the BST: For those unfamiliar, years ago I looked at every page of the Carteggio, and found several loose sheets, seemingly unconnected to nearby letters. I long wondered if any of these contain the script said copied from Book A, and belong with one of their known letters. I compiled just a few of the scripts on a composite:

[attachment=14602]

There are many more. Some of them have notes, by someone or someones jotting down possible identities for them. But I've been yelling a the wall for well over a decade that Book A may be out there somewhere, because to me... as it is to the creators and proponents of the BST... I really don't think the Voynich we see is that book, not by a long shot. It is almost like just saying it is, is the only reason to believe it could be.

Rich.

(13-03-2026, 06:51 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Once he knew Horcicky was Sinapius was Tepenenc, then this would plausibly lead him to finding other references to Tepenenc... perhaps his signature, with that form... with no "Horcicky"?

While Wilfrid himself may have had only limited information about Jacobus, once he saw Raphael's claim in Marci's letter it seems quite possible that he asked contacts in Prague to find people who could have been Marci's "good frend", or (if he had already identified the latter) the owner(s) before Baresch.  They would be people connected to the Bohemian Court between 1300 (when, in Wilfrid's mind, Rudolf I would have bought the book) and 1600 (just before Barschius acquired it) with enough status to have received that highly valued book as a gift.  

Those contacts surely would have found Jacobus, among many others, and learned all his names.  And his profession, and why Rudolf II gave him the title, etc.

And thus Jacobus would have been one of the most likely candidates for the missing link.

And, if and when Wilfrid decided to forge concrete evidence of such a link, he would have asked those contacts to find any book with an ex-libris of one of those candidates, and send him a faithful copy of the latter.  

And book #4 must have been the easiest one to find: at the Czech National Library, housed in the building of the former Clementinum, the Jesuit college that inherited Jacobus's estate.

And, curiously, the VMS #19 "signature" looks identical -- not just similar -- to that #4 "signature".  Which is completely different from the "signatures" on #7 and #18, which were at the Strahov Monastery; and from the signature on #40, rat Charles University -- which is the only one that matches Jacobus's legal "manu propria" signature.

All the best, --stolfi

(13-03-2026, 02:40 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have long suggested Maurice Pope's, "The Story of Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Maya Script.": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

From that book I compiled a list of all the scripts which I could reasonably ascertain would have been "unknown" to the Men of the Letters, and it quickly added up to over 100.

Quote:Of course, I think there is a very real possibility Book A was destroyed, if it were some poor, low value thing... which most herbals were in Voynich's time...

That is quite a possibility, since (AFAIK) in the catalogs of the books made by the Jesuits prior to the 1911 sale there is none that could be MS408 or the Barschius Manuscript (BookA, "BMS"?).

When Kircher received it, the BMS was anonymous and had no legible title.  Apparently Kircher did not add any provenance note or serial number.  Now imagine someone trying to organize his books and documents after his death.  Would he put all the books in his library in the same set of boxes and ship them to the Collegio Romano?  Imagine the librarian at the Collegio unpacking those boxes and finds the BMS.  What would he do with it?  How would he enter it into his catalog?

I think that there must have been hundreds of opportunities for the BMS to get lost or destroyed between the time it left Kircher's library and the time some of Kircher's books still at the Collegio were shipped to the secret hideout in Castelgandolfo or Villa Torlonia. (Or to the Netherlands?) Even if the BMS  got there, it may have became separated from "Kircher's stuff" because of its anonymity.

Quote:And I think I have several candidates, written in several scripts unknown to them, with plants which would have mystified them, and with what might be considered stars and chemical symbolism. I've even looked through some of Voynich's catalogs, wondering if he found and listed the book they saw. For one thing, one clue, it may have been in Kircher's collections, since they may have sent it to him (as reported), so that may be a good cross reference.  I think there is a chance we have all seen Book A, but can't yet say I know what it is/was.

That sounds quite possible...

Quote:Also, and this relates to this issue directly I think, and applies to the BST: For those unfamiliar, years ago I looked at every page of the Carteggio, and found several loose sheets, seemingly unconnected to nearby letters. I long wondered if any of these contain the script said copied from Book A, and belong with one of their known letters. I compiled just a few of the scripts on a composite:

I saw some of those "mysterious scripts" when I browsed the first online scan of the Carteggio.  (Although the ones I saw may have been in the body of letters; I don't recall any loose sheets.)  But besides those copied samples, he must have received also whole "mysterious books" -- originals, not copies.  Not everyone who found a cryptic book would be "hooked" like Baresch and would have wanted to keep it.  So it seems quite possible that MS 408 was one of these, and was substituted for the BMS by accident. Or somehow reached Wilfrid, who chose it as the replacement for the BMS...

By the way, I don't care much if the Book Switch theory is true or not.  The Rudolf/Marci story is not why I became interested in the riddle.  

That theory matters only for those who care about the history of the book before Wilfrid.  Even for them, whatever they learn about that history would still be just as interesting -- only that it would be about some currently lost book (the BMS), not about MS408.

All the best, --stolfi

PS. I can tell that #3, #6, and #7 on your image are just some form of Arabic script.  What about the others?  Do they look like cryptography?  Could some of them be just attempts to prank Kircher?

(13-03-2026, 10:36 AM)kckluge Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene, how did you locate ex libris #3, and how much time did you spend doing it?

It is a while ago...
When I went to the Strahov library I knew it was there, but I am not sure if it was from an internet reference, or from a catalogue that Stolfi and I had seen together in a 1999 2000 visit.
I also bought a CD with some digitised books and other information, and it may have been in there.

In any case, I had to travel to the Strahov library to see it.

There was another book I wanted to see, written by Marci's student Dobrzensky, but this book was lost.

(12-03-2026, 11:53 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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)

Hi, Rene: Well of course you are not "supposed to" believe anything. We are just sharing our differing views, and why, and I doubt either one of us expects to "convert" the other... nor do we want to. But it is always valuable to discuss things.

But I would say that there IS evidence that someone... Wilfrid, a librarian in 1580, a book collector in 1860, the BST hypothesis, and my "you-know-what" idea. Someone added that name there, at some time after 1666... and NOT Horcicky himself, because if, as you theorize, Baresch/Marci/Kinner/Kircher all saw the book before then, yet never mentioned this very important clue, the name staring back at them. They would have known that Tepenenc was Horcicky, but even if they didn't, a name is an obviously important clue, and they didn't record or report it to Kircher? That alone, to me, is what I call a "slam dunk", as it implies either 1) they were not describing the Voynich at all, or 2) that name was added sometime after they saw it, or 3) both. The very fact they didn't mention is, in itself, solid evidence. 

You would, to defend your position that this is a living, Horcicky signature, need to explain why Baresch/Marci/Kinner/Kircher either didn't see it, or didn't mention it. I have not yet heard a reasonable explanation for this, nor actually any explanation for this, good or bad, for that matter.

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

No, no evidence for this. It is one of several speculative lines of reasoning to explore. There are others. 

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

True that. 

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

Well, he did apply chemicals. But you are relying on his word for the reasons this was done. I don't trust the man, as I feel he was simply not to be trusted... when alive, or when R.I.P. He probably did apply chemicals to make the name more visible, but there are other possible reasons he may have done this, which I and others have speculated on, and you can, too, if you like. 

Quote: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).

Sort of similar to why I believe he wrote to these people... not quite because "He then realised that it would be very suspicious if he knew who was Tepenec", but more to create a paper trail, which would insulate him from previous knowledge, while at the same time delivering usable citations for him. I think he often asked for opinions to receive back an "expert citation" that he could use for his own purposes. Writing to Prague did this very thing for him... with his (I think ludicrous) "As nearly as I can read the name it is Jacobij a Tspenecz or Topenecz, and I am enclosing [a] photograph of it.” Really? Like feigning ignorance of George Washington... "As near as I can read the name it is "Wsshington" or "Woshington". "Dear sir, we believe you have found a very famous Washington manuscript!".

In addition, from my simple search yesterday, we found that various, existing reference books would have answered the question for him. But "we are to believe" (to quote you) that he waited 6 or 7 years after seeing the "signature", and only then wrote to Prague and Garland?

Anyway, creating such paper trails, or any such thing, is part and parcel of the human art of deception. There are a great many examples of this, in all sorts of nefarious cases of fraud and other crimes, which I don't think are necessary to relate. We've all seen them, and see them all the time. It is similar to a pre-internet, letter based version of the modern "Cunningham's Law", which states, "The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

I believe I've seen them many times in Voynich's writings and behaviors. As I've written, he did it with Ravenstein and that silly lost chart of Magellan, in his goading poor Newbold to reputational sui**de, in his childlike defense of the Columbus Miniature forgery (actually... I have to check on this... I think he did the same thing when claiming to try and identify it... something about "guessing" Cortes, when it was Columbus, or vice-versa), in his coy request for the identification of works by a couple of artists... like Giotti and that awful one of the standing youth "boy sketch" thing... forget the artist attribution he was seeking, there. And in some cases we can logically "catch" him, such as when he pretended to believe that his Bacon Cipher was the "book of heiroglyphiks" (sp?) that Arthur Dee described his father as having. We know he was lying about this, because one of his own listed sources already identified that book. And so on, it is really endless... he was a very slippery individual, I believe. I think he did this all the time, it was his modus operandi for both extracting desired expert citations from an outside source, while at the same time insulating himself from discovery of his inventing much of his own fairy tales. Harsh? My opinion, based on his own words and actions. 

Quote:Guess what: I don't buy this.

Ok, of course that is fine. But what I don't get is that, if this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. name is not a lifetime autograph by Horcicky, it does not necessarily affect the authenticity verdict on the Voynich one iota. I mean, this Book Switch Theory only hypothesizes a different path of a genuine Voynich into the hands of Wilfrid. Yes, it would practically erase the current corpus of Voynich research, and an entirely new one would need to be constructed. But is that a bad thing? The old one offers no real answers... it has remained static in the same position for decades, with no new supporting evidence being found to support it. I think this is some indication that the answer does not lie in the whole Marci/Kinner/Kircher/Mondragone/Jesuits/Beckx/Strickland research line, because after decades of digging... especially considering the geometric blossoming of the internet... at least some small supporting crumb of a fact should have been found by now. Maybe it is time to look under new lamp posts? I, for one, am all in for that.

So why not look in some other directions for the answers? It can't hurt, it can only help.

Rich

(12-03-2026, 04:29 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.OK... I just did a short search... took just a minute or two. And as often happens. I was stunned that, once I did do it, nobody, including myself, had thought to it this way. First I asked Google AI, "When was the name "tepenencz" first mentioned in any printed, published form in history. Did that version of the Horcicky name appear in print before 1910?" And I got the usual, and somewhat expected answer:

I wasn't going to respond, but this triggered a discussion.

This is misleading on so many levels... not even just the anachronistic use of internet resources.

Certainly there are old sources referring to Jacobus de Tepenec.
My biography of him: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists a whole bunch of them.
Jorge Stolfi spent time transcribing one of these, and he can comment how unlikely it is that Voynich read through that volume (it was only one of six volumes IIRC).

But the main point is: you searched for Tepenec because you knew his name from the entry in the Voynich MS.
You did exactly the same as what Voynich did after he found the name in the MS.

You got a response from AI within a minute.
Voynich got a response in a few days by mail (from Garland) and a few more days also by mail (from Prague).
 
I don't think I ever claimed that Voynich could not possibly have known the name Tepenec.
What I did say is that he could not have obtained it from Bolton's book, as you have long suggested.
This is because in this book he is never called Tepenec. Only Horcicky and Sinapius.

Again, there is evidence that he read Bolton's book after 1920. There is no evidence that he did before he realised which Rudolf was meant in the Marci letter.

(14-03-2026, 12:20 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.When I went to the Strahov library I knew it was there, but I am not sure if it was from an internet reference, or from a catalogue that Stolfi and I had seen together in a 1999 2000 visit.

In this context, here is a quote from Stolfiwritten to the old mailing list, just after our visit. The first three lines are mine.

Quote:> We came away from the meeting with Lubos Antonin with the clear
> message that, in the context of various recent exhibitions, no record
> related with Rudolph or Dee will have been overlooked.
   
Humm... having contemplated the Strahov monastery library, I am not so
sure of that. There must be zillions of books and documents about
Rudolph II scattered all over Europe, the vast majority still
unlisted and unindexed. Witness the two "unknown" letters by Kircher
that Lubos and Rene found in the Strahov index. Even with all the
interest generated by the Rudolph conferences, I doubt whether there
were enough man-hours available to go throug all that material.

On the other hand, the "easy" sources must have been combed quite
thoroughly. Therefore, any new information must be buried in
non-indexed, hard-to-get books, which cannot be reached by following
pointers from the standard ones.

Besides the Clementinum at Prague, the Jesuits had major
residences/schools at Olomouc, Brno, Cesky Krumlov, and two other
places in Bohemia which I could not identify ("Commotoniense" and
"Novodomense" in Latin). Each of these surely had its library and
archives; and any of them coud contain records about our heroes. Then
there were the monasteries of other orders (such as Strahov's), the
Karolinum libraries, state archives, libraries of royal palaces and
vassal castles, the Swedish libraries (where, it seems, most of
Rudolph's state archives are probably kept), the Vatican files, etc.
etc....

I would say that the search has barely begun...

(14-03-2026, 12:34 AM)ReneZ 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.OK... I just did a short search... took just a minute or two. And as often happens. I was stunned that, once I did do it, nobody, including myself, had thought to it this way. First I asked Google AI, "When was the name "tepenencz" first mentioned in any printed, published form in history. Did that version of the Horcicky name appear in print before 1910?" And I got the usual, and somewhat expected answer:

I wasn't going to respond, but this triggered a discussion.

This is misleading on so many levels... not even just the anachronistic use of internet resources.

Certainly there are old sources referring to Jacobus de Tepenec.
My biography of him: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists a whole bunch of them.
Jorge Stolfi spent time transcribing one of these, and he can comment how unlikely it is that Voynich read through that volume (it was only one of six volumes IIRC).

But the main point is: you searched for Tepenec because you knew his name from the entry in the Voynich MS.
You did exactly the same as what Voynich did after he found the name in the MS.

You got a response from AI within a minute.
Voynich got a response in a few days by mail (from Garland) and a few more days also by mail (from Prague).
 
I don't think I ever claimed that Voynich could not possibly have known the name Tepenec.
What I did say is that he could not have obtained it from Bolton's book, as you have long suggested.
This is because in this book he is never called Tepenec. Only Horcicky and Sinapius.

Again, there is evidence that he read Bolton's book after 1920. There is no evidence that he did before he realised which Rudolf was meant in the Marci letter.

But that's the wonderful thing about conspiracy theories -- we can't prove that he didn't read it before 1920. Of course, Rich also can't prove that he isn't being followed around by a pink-and-purple polka-dotted unicorn that becomes invisible any time he turns around. Which is why understanding the concept of burden of proof and who has it and why it's on the person making the positive assertion (Rich is being followed by a unicorn that vanishes when he turns around) is really critical.

Having said that...in the context of clams that Voynich forged the ex libris the letters to Garland and Prague are assumed to be mere window dessing to get someone else to connect the Jacobi a Tepenecz of the ex libris with Sinapius. In that context the question is the plausibiity of Voynich as the supposed forger of the ex libris knowing that Sinapius (in his signature) and whoever wrote his ex libri (which may or may not have been him in all the known cases) didn't use Horcicky as part of his name. Rich has yet to produce a published source referring to him that way, but of course we can't prove that Voynich didn't pop into the Clementium and manually leaf through the card catalog in the hopes of stumbling across a book that had Sinapius' ex libris. Just like Rich can't prove that he's not being tailed by that unicorn. 

On the subject of the difficulties involved in pre-digital research tracking down manuscripts, a useful Voynich-adjacent data point/case study is the Book of Soyga. This was a "lost" manuscript book that had belonged to John Dee that some people had speculated might be the Voynich Mss. (for instance, Robert Turner in his 1986 edition of Dee's The Heptarchia Mystica of John Dee). Some limited information was known about this book -- on 29 April 1583 Dee says in his magical diaries "...E[dward] K[elley] and I wer talking of my boke Soyga, or Aldaraia and I at length sayd that, (as far as I did remember) Zadzaczadlin, was Adam by the Alphab et therof...", and later Elias Ashmole stated "the Duke of Lauderdale hath a folio MS. which was Dr. Dee's with the words on the first page: Aldaraia sive Soyga vo cor". It was also known that it contained square tables of letters that had been copied into Dee's Liber Loagaeth.

Bear in mind, it wasn't just the fairly small (at the time) community interested in the Voynich Mss. who were interested in trying to locate the Book of Soyga -- there were also academics interested in Dee, as well as the community of practitioners of ritual magic interested in Dee & his system of Enochian magic. So there were a non-trivial number of people interested in tracking it down.

Then in 1994 historian Deborah Harkness, who was working on a thesis about Dee, came across a copy in the British Museum. Jim Reeds then started studying the tables of letter and discovered the algorithm that generated them (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). When he announced this to the Voynich mailing list, I idly poked around using one of those new-fangled "search engines"...and found that someone had made an on-line transcription of the existing physical catalog of the Sloane manuscript collection in the British Museum. While that link has long since gone to 404 heaven, the entry can still be seen at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

MS. Sloane 8.
Paper. Folio. 143 folios. 16th Century.
[Anonymous work on the astrological and magical art.]
Title: 'Aldaraia, sive Soyga.'
Begins: 'Qui conjunctioni naturae passus intendunt, et qui.'

Yep. That's right. Under the title "Aldararia, sive Soyga", just like incipit Ashmole gave. Maunscript number eight. So not buried way deep down the list.

In fact, it was also listed in an earlier catalog of the collection printed in 1782, where it was listed (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) as

Aldaraia.
8. Sive foyga, vocor tractatus aftrologico-magicus.

(that's "foyga"-with-a-long-s), listed in the index under "Aldaraia"

So basically, this "lost" book owned by Dee had been sitting out in plain sight for centuries before Harkness found it. And it was "lost" despite the fact that it was listed in indexes of the Sloane collection. The lesson being that just because something was listed in a physical index in the pre-Internet days didn't mean even motivated searchers were necessarily going to find it.

(14-03-2026, 12:34 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Jorge Stolfi spent time transcribing one of these, and he can comment how unlikely it is that Voynich read through that volume (it was only one of six volumes IIRC).

It is indeed very unlikely that Wilfrid would have found that biography of Jacobus by browsing through Schmidl's History of Jesuits in Bohemia -- by himself.  

But if he asked any Jesuits in Prague (directly of through any contact, Jesuit or not) about a "TepenecWhatever"from around 1600, they would have known that he was referring to Sinapius/Horciky, and would have known about that entry in Schmidl, and more.

My impression is that Jacobus was rather notable among the Jesuits -- first for being a great example of "rags to riches thanks to Jesuit education", and second for being a benefactor of their Order in Prague, having left his possessions to them in his will. (I am not sure now, but didn't he himself join the Order on his deathbed? It seems that it was a not uncommon occurrence in those times...)

All the best, --stolfi