This is something I find very intriguing, but I think we'll never know the answer. So this is a purely speculative thread.
Is there any part of the time line we know for sure?
And if we speculate, what are some likely ways the MS could have ended up in Prague? Which areas has it likely travelled through?
And how come that not even two centuries after its creation people didn't have any idea about its provenance?
Good question. There is a case to be made that the VM was developed on the Franco - Germanic border (the archer and the months of the years) - in which case, how did it get to Prague?
If it was floating around in the Spanish Netherlands in the 16th century, then I suppose it could have been taken to Prague specifically to be handed over to RHE Rudolph... which makes me suspect that it was found somewhere in western Europe and taken over just to be sold to The Boss. Ah, speculation, speculation....
I can give my personal opinion only.
1) I think the history of the ms. is quite clear from about 1600 onwards, I don't think I have to repeat it.
2) What happened before 1600 is quite less clear, but I think the ms. was created somewhere in what is today Northern Italy and Austria, my preference is Padova by in the widest sense a medical man and wandered with medical doctors educated in P. northwards through Hapsburg and Wittelsbach (and neighbouring) territories to Prague
We would have to be really lucky to find out more about this.
This is because many, many old MSs share the same fate. Their whereabouts are simply not known
for large parts of their existence.
That it surfaced in or around the court of Rudolf doesn't make things easier. He was collecting books and
artefacts from all over Europe, and outside. It could have come from anywhere.
On the one hand, I would not at all exclude that the MS was in Bohemia right from its creation.
On the other hand, it may equally well have travelled a lot before ending up in Prague.
I have some ideas, but all of them are long shots.
Even if it is still listed in some catalogue, its description may not give it away. In the catalogue of books
for sale by the Jesuits it seems to be simply listed as "Miscellanea", 15th Century, on parchment (no author or title).
Edit: let me put all my long shots together in one "grand theory". Note: there's not a shred of proof here, but lots
of circumstantial evidence.
Quote:I assume it would have been created in Northern Italy. One of the composers was of German origin. Together with the alchemical herbal that is now MS Florence 106 (15th C, Veneto area) and who knows how many other books, it went to the French physician Jean Ruel, from Soissons, though working in Paris. He added the 'fo' abbreviation on f2v, by accident. It was meant for Fir.106. He also added the month names in the zodiac signs in his own language, using the same ink. He had a habit of reading in the evenings with orange candles, and caused oranges blotches of candle wax on both books.
From him, the Voynich MS 'somehow' ended up with Paracelsus. (Still working on that one).
The nymphs in the biological section inspired him towards his theory of archei. After his death, the MS was found by Paracelsus MS collector Carolus Widemann. When the latter needed money, he sold many of his MSs (mostly paracelsan) to Rudolf for 500 Taler (approx. 600 florins).
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Login to view. Nick Pelling explains his reasons for believing it may have transited via a Franciscan monastery in Switzerland during that obscure period between its creation and its arrival in Prague.
It's just a possibility, but definitely an interesting one.
To me the whole Rudolph thing has unreliable narrator and questionable source written all over it. But anything goes in specilation.
What we shouldn't forget is that the manuscript's original owners or creators were probably dead more than a century before the thing turned up in Prague.
Somewhere along the line, it must have changed from purposeful creation to a sphinx that nobody knew anything about. Not even Kircher, and that guy was like a cross between Champolion, a biblical scholar and Nick Pelling, all in one person.
My personal speculation is that it was created somehere in Northern Italy, but I would stress proximity to the Mediterranean more than to other states. Somehow the original owner or his descendants lost it, got it stolen, died... and from that point on, nobody recognised what it was anymore.
1) How do we know that Kircher could not read it, and supposing he knew just threw it into a corner because the content was of no value or dubious?
2) Why, if nobody could read it let's say between 1500 an 1600, didn't they throw it away or rather sold it as junk?
Helmut - I'm not sure, but I would think that Kircher would have seen it as a matter of honor. He was a scholar, and a proud one at that, interested in deciphering old script. If he could read this one, I think he wouldn't have hidden that fact.
I can't know, of course, but he really seemed to have wanted to get his hands on the MS. If he understood it, I think we would have known.
Your number 2, maybe that's precisely what happened? That it got sold as an oddity after it lost ties to its creators and first owners?
Kircher was hardly known for his intellectual rigour, even by the standards of his time... If he did get it, I can imagine him hiding it away so that nobody would ask him about it, whilst planning to return to the problem in the future.
(27-04-2016, 04:16 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To me the whole Rudolph thing has unreliable narrator and questionable source written all over it. But anything goes in specilation.
Skepticism is a healthy attitude, but the natural next step is to take a closer look.
There are two sources involved. The first is Marci.
All those things that Marci writes in his letter that could be verified until now, turn out to be correct. He is a reliable source.
The second source is Raphael. He was speaking about the MS between 1626 and 1636. 1636 is also the year in which Barschius sent his transcriptions to Kircher. Raphael wrote a book in the style of Trithemius. He was interested in secret writing. He was deeply interested in alchemy. He wrote in a letter of 1630 that he was familiar with the MSs of Rudolf, both in characters and in cipher.
He was a highly intelligent, very knowledgeable person who spoke many languages.
He is a very reliable source.
One cannot just wave this off.
Note that this is described in quite some detail in the book "Alchemy and Rudolf II", edited by I.Purs and V.Karpenko, Artefactum, Praha 2011, pp. 297-314. This is unfortunately available only in Czech, but an English edition is undergoing final proofs as we speak. I have no idea when it will be available for sale. Hopefully this year still. I attach the Czech table of contents, which includes a sufficient number of familiar names to give a good impression of the interest of the book.