The Voynich Ninja

(09-03-2026, 07:03 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is very reminiscent of various claims pushed around in the U.S. these days; whenever a particular dogma must be enforced, the term "scientific consensus" gets pulled out. The only "scientific consensus" regarding the VMS is in the minds of a limited group of people who consider themselves more enlightened about the subject than anyone else.  But, in the end, actual evidence will outweigh zealotry.

But a limited group of people is more enlightened about any given subject, that's what specialization is all about. And others can become enlightened too, if they decide to specialize also.

Anyway, I see now how it is, and I see that continuing this argument will have no effect apart from souring the mood.

(09-03-2026, 06:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Only when you have "forgery" on your mind, you will point out differences and call it fake.

Well, I do have forgery on my mind (not about the book or letter, but about that "signature").  Because I believe that Wilfrid had the necessary ability, opportunity, and moral elasticity -- and especially a strong motivation to forge it, if it was not there already.

Quote:The signature looks fine, and there is nothing wrong with the number.

I strongly disagree.  We can barely read the letters.  The handwriting looks similar to that of one of Jacobus's ex-libris, but what remains after Wilfrid's "enhancement" is not enough to distinguish a legitimate signature from a forgery of the same -- even a crude one.   It does not look like his manu propria signature at all, shown on Rene's page. The spelling "Jacobi" (Latin genitive, with "i") and the shape of the "J" look like the two ex-libris kept at Strahov, but different from the "Jacobj" of the Clementinum sample; while the "Tepenece" looks like the "Tepenecz" of the latter.

As for the number, both books at Strahov have an "N" crossed once and a period after the number (German influence?), while the Clementinum one has "No" (from Latin "Numero"?) crossed  twice and no period after the number.

And the sample from Charles University is in Czech, in a different handwriting still...

And the Clementinum and Strahov would be the first places where one would look for books once owned by Jacobus.  And both are easily accessible to "scholars".  And it does not seem at all impossible that Wilfrid somehow obtained book #19 from the Strahov batch, or somehow knew that #19 would never be found, so it was a safe number to use... 

Quote:Just like the fact that the earth is round is, technically, disputed.

Come on, it is absolutely not the same situation at all.  There are trillions of facts that prove that the Earth is round.  Whereas the theory that Jacobus ever owned the VMS is supported only by the prior assumption that it is unlikely that Wilfrid would have forged that "signature" (because of scruples, inability, whatever).

Quote:As to what people should have said but didn't say: how are we to know the complex network of personal motivations at play?

  

But Marci and Barschius were greatly puzzled by the book's origin, and the fact that Jacobus was the owner before Barschius would have been an important clue for that question.  And the Jesuit librarians who were supposed to identify the book in their catalogs should have noticed the signature (and the letter!) and recorded it in the entry for that otherwise unidentifiable book.

All the best, --stolfi

(09-03-2026, 02:18 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sorry, I was referring to this entry in your table:

• Miscellanea | c.m.s.XV / Census 1846 DR II p.1846 | J31
  
  
• [font=Courier New](The estate of [...] Voynich [...], Ms. 8)[/font]
  
  
• Almost certainly 'the' Voynich MS
  
  

Why was this entry so vague, when all the others were quite explicit?  If the author of that entry was aware of the connection to Marci's letter, why did he list the book as "s.XV" instead of "s.XIII" (as per Raphael's Bacon guess) or "s.XVII" (the only firm date implied by the letter?  

Ughhh. A long and detailed response lost by an unfortunate key press and no 'editor saved draft'.
I'll sit down and write it again :-(

On the signature bit...

Arguing that the evidence for the Tepenec' signature isn't watertight, and then coming up with an alternative for which there is no evidence whatsoever, doesn't cut it for me.

More than enough said about it already.

(10-03-2026, 12:30 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ughhh. A long and detailed response lost by an unfortunate key press and no 'editor saved draft'.
I'll sit down and write it again :-(

Been there. It sucks.

(10-03-2026, 12:30 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(09-03-2026, 02:18 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sorry, I was referring to this entry in your table:

• Miscellanea | c.m.s.XV / Census 1846 DR II p.1846 | J31
  
  
• [font=Courier New](The estate of [...] Voynich [...], Ms. 8)[/font]
  
  
• Almost certainly 'the' Voynich MS
  
  

Why was this entry so vague, when all the others were quite explicit?  If the author of that entry was aware of the connection to Marci's letter, why did he list the book as "s.XV" instead of "s.XIII" (as per Raphael's Bacon guess) or "s.XVII" (the only firm date implied by the letter?  

Ughhh. A long and detailed response lost by an unfortunate key press and no 'editor saved draft'.

I'll sit down and write it again :-(

So here goes again. Perhaps a bit shorter.

The part: 

Quote:Miscellanea | c.m.s.XV

was written by Jesuits in 1911/1912. The entries in this list are all short, essentially autor+titles+material+century.
It can be shown that these are summaries of the paper slips that were attached to the books by a Jesuit bibliographer, working in the Collegium Romanum. His identity is uncertain, but he was definitely highly knowledgeable. This is shown below by looking at just one example.

It means that this information was on a paper slip that is now lost, which is of course very unfortunate.

Since the Voynich MS does not have a known author or a known title, such a summary can only be vague.
The parchment is not a guess, and the 15th century would have been this librarian's guess.
Should he have seen the Marci letter? Who knows. He might have had the same low opinion of the Bacon hypothesis as Panofsky. All guesswork that will not lead anywhere.

The people writing the 1911/1912 list did not add or change anything. They just summarised.
By the way, I am pretty sure that one of the hands in that list is Strickland's.

Quote:Census 1846 

Was written in the right margin by Ruysschaert, sometime before 1959. It appears a bit longer in his 1959 catalogue, and refers to De Ricci's 1937 Census of manuscripts Vol.II page 1846.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for a nearby page.

So, that part is Ruysschaert's personal guess, based on all the information he had available.

On the expertise of the original Collegium Romanum librarian/bibliographer, let's look at the example of one book, of which the paper slip is shown here:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (under 2.4). It says:

Quote:Valerii Maximi, dictorum et factorum memorabilium, libri novem 
Codex membranaceus in fol. Ms.saec.XIV; attamen ? penult. Capitis 1. lib. V ac deinceps est alterius manus, saeculi XV, ut videtur. Constat foliis scriptis 126.

It is described as being in two hands, the first end 14th century, and the second 15th century.
(This again shows how nice it would have been if the paper slip of the 'miscellanea' had survived).

The 1911/1912 list just says:

Quote:Id. [Valerius Max.] / Id. [Factor. et dictor memor. libri IX] cd.membr.saec. XIV

meaning that it copies information from a previous entry, which is the same author and title.

This book is described in detail in: Kelsey, Francis W.: A picture map of Rome in a manuscript of Valerius Maximus, in: Transactions of the American Philological Association (56) 1925. which should be accessible here:
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This confirms in great detail the handwriting analysis. 

The MS is now in the U.Mich. library and mentioned on this page:
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(scroll down and keep scrolling in the separate box).

There are several questions in this thread that I have asked that have been ignored and that remain unanswered. I would sincerely like to see the answers, particularly since the implications have been that the answers support a scientific consensus regarding the VMS.

So here is a repeat of those questions along with some additional related ones.  I'm asking these of anyone who might have the answers.

1) Wilfrid Voynich said in his 1921 lecture to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia that he found the Marci letter "attached" to the front cover of the VMS.  Is there any other documented reference to the Marci Letter being colocated with (even if not actually attached to) the VMS from PRIOR to that 1921 lecture?. 

2) Likewise, in that same lecture, Wilfrid Voynich described the signature of "Jacobus de Tepenecz" found on folio f1r. (There are variations of the spelling - I usually use "Tepenec".) Is there any other documented reference to the presence of this signature PRIOR to the 1921 lecture?


The form of the signature "Jacobus de Tepenecz" does not match the form one might expect where the surname is included. E.g. "Jacobus Hořčický de Tepenec" or "Jacobus Sinapius de Tepenec". But that does not mean it is not actually Hořčický's signature. Sometimes abbreviated signatures like that seen in the VMS were used.   

3. Is there any other example of Hořčický's signature (post 1608 after his enoblement with the de Tepenec title) that actually matches the form found in the VMS? 

4. (alternative to the above question...) Can someone point to multiple examples of his signature that show variants of form such that "Jacobus de Tepenecz" would be one of his natural variants and and not a unique and distinct outlier?

Referring back to my diagram of the Voynich Provenance Timeline, for which there is a most-recent update below:
5. Are there any relevant evidence-based claims of ownership/possession of the VMS that I have missed on the diagram?

6. Is there specific documented evidence that further confirms one of the owners/possessors already on the diagram?  

(Questions 5 and 6 are posed only to help me improve the diagram, as was requested when I posted it. For those, I do NOT mean additional circumstantial evidence that fills in a narrative surrounding the claim, but rather a piece of evidence from which the particular claim of ownership/possession is directly derived.)

I don't think any of these questions are unreasonable to ask. Or to expect answers on.  Particularly from anyone who feel that the standard provenance story should not be questioned.
[attachment=14550]

(10-03-2026, 02:40 AM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.1) Wilfrid Voynich said in his 1921 lecture to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia that he found the Marci letter "attached" to the front cover of the VMS.  Is there any other documented reference to the Marci Letter being colocated with (even if not actually attached to) the VMS from PRIOR to that 1921 lecture?. 

There are some 1915 and 1918 newspaper reports where the letter is called a 'flyleaf' and some of the names in the letter are quoted. I hesitate to associate this to a communications error or just bad journalism. Undoubtedly, there are many more newspaper reports that have not been found (online) yet, but they will tend to copy each other.

(10-03-2026, 02:40 AM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.2) Likewise, in that same lecture, Wilfrid Voynich described the signature of "Jacobus de Tepenecz" found on folio f1r. (There are variations of the spelling - I usually use "Tepenec".) Is there any other documented reference to the presence of this signature PRIOR to the 1921 lecture?

There is a photo in the Beinecke libary that was taken before the chemicals were applied, in which vague traces of parts of the signature can be seen. Rich should have this on his web site. 

(10-03-2026, 02:40 AM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.3. Is there any other example of Hořčický's signature (post 1608 after his enoblement with the de Tepenec title) that actually matches the form found in the VMS? 

Yes, one in a book preserved in the Czech National Library, that was located by Andreas Sulzer in 2007 or 2008, as the scanned index card was found in a Google search. Stolfi will remember that we manually searched through these cards in 1999 (or 2000?) but did not find this one.

[attachment=14551]

(10-03-2026, 02:40 AM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.4. (alternative to the above question...) Can someone point to multiple examples of his signature that show variants of form such that "Jacobus de Tepenecz" would be one of his natural variants and and not a unique and distinct outlier?

This is an ex libris. There are not many, most from before 1608. Most of his known signatures are indeed signatures, on formal documents. One was found before all others, and is shown on this page:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. under "Additional Signature". This one includes the "manu propria" scribble.

On 5 I would personally rank Wideman as quite possible, but Rauwolf and Mnisowsky (between Tepenec and Barschius) as unsupported by evidence.
Ownership after Kircher does not seem to be by any individual, and certainly Beckx should not be misunderstood as having been the owner at any time.

On 6, the link between the Marci and Barschius letters consist of several documents, including the Kircher letter in Moretus' notebook, Kinner's reference to Marci sending the book, and Marci's printed book referring to Barschius and his inheritance.

Personally, I look at the big picture.
And that includes the book number N19.
Especially the crossed-out N.
As we know, 19 comes after 18, and book N18 is well known.
Simply writing a number without knowing whether it exists elsewhere or has been recorded in a list is already Russian roulette.
Imagine finding another N19, “Hansel and Gretel in Czech.”

(10-03-2026, 12:37 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Arguing that the evidence for the Tepenec' signature isn't watertight, and then coming up with an alternative for which there is no evidence whatsoever, doesn't cut it for me.

As I see it, there is no evidence for either of the two theories: "the signature was there when Wilfrid got the book", and "the signature was forged by Wilfrid".  None whatsoever.

Our probabilities for each theory derive entirely from our assumptions about Wilfrid's character and motivations. Yours are obviously very different from mine. Agreed, I don't see how we could go beyond that...

All the best, --stolfi