(17-04-2026, 11:19 AM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It seems very reasonable to me. Proving it definitely may be hard though.
In 1650 VM still had original cover (or maybe not original at all???).
Shame that it was replaced in the 19th century by Jesuits without any documentation what was done and how it looked like.
If the letter was somehow to the manuscript then it was probably attached to that original cover and you may not find traces of attachment on the manuscript in its current state
I've long wondered what the basis was for this "19th c. rebinding by the Jesuits", supposedly producing the current cover, and why the cover is said to be "18th or 19th century in origin". But I have never been able to find a physical, forensic reason for it. I've read every description on the Beinecke, in their Yale book, and on various websites which use those as sources, and do not see anything physical... materials, markings, construction... certainly not radiocarbon dating... which places this cover in the "18th or 19th century", as is often claimed.
Maybe such evidence exists, but if it did, I would think the Beinecke would have it posted.
So I believe this assertion is only speculation, an assumption, seemingly based on the cover's overt, visual similarity to the covers of other books Voynich supposedly bought from the same sources. But the cover on the Voynich... "limp parchment", is of the same type and construction which goes back to the 14th or 15th centuries. And a simple search will show dozens of the same type of cover in Marci's time- the mid to late 17th century. I even have an intact, complete, unmolested book from 1698 on my own shelf, which has a limp parchment cover that is very similar in appearance and construction to the Voynich cover.
[
attachment=15141]
I am also aware of the speculation that the Voynich covers were stiff, and not "limp", at one time, but due to the habits of Voynich of opening covers to look for valuables inside (Zimmern, 1909; Voynich, 1902), that he had removed said stiffening materials. But again, I know of no evidence of this happening in our case other than speculation. Limp parchment covers, with pasted, paper endleaves... and no endleaves... were quite commonly used- before, during and after Marci's lifetime.
I am also not sure it would matter one way or the other, but I am not aware of those "other covers" (on other books sold to Voynich) being tested to see if they are, likewise to the Voynich cover, made of goatskin. Do we even know if it was a habit of these Jesuits to use goatskin covers? If not, who did, and when?
There is also the hypothesis that the Voynich once had a cover of wooden boards, which is based partly on the supposed behavior of certain types of "book worms" that like wood and paper, but stopped eating when soon into the parchment of the VMs, but I don't believe there is any evidence
when those covers were replaced. So as I understand it, from everything I've found, there is nothing actually proving that the current cover could not date from, nor been on the manuscript in Marci's time.
Perhaps someone knows of such physical proof this cover
could not have been the one seen and handled by Marci, and if so, I will stand corrected.
Rich
)