The Voynich Ninja

Voynich discovered the VMs supposedly around 1911 and presented it publicly in 1915 during the Art Exhibition in Chicago. The 1915 press reports give impression that the VMs was part of Italian collection that was sent to Austria for safekeeping during the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1913 Voynich starts advertising business address in Vienna, Austria (XIX Peter Jordangasse, 27). In 2003 Dana Scott pointed similarities between this address and the Vienna address of Voynich's family friend Amelia Sarah Levetus - art historian and writer.
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In her 1906 book "Imperial Vienna" Amelia Levetus describes the movement of the Hapsburg art collection during the Napoleonic wars: "  Those work of art, collected by Ferdinand von Tyrol, were placed in Schloss Ambras. Napoleon knew of their whereabouts, and carried them off to Paris, but they were returned after the Congress, when they were brought to Vienna, and placed in the Upper Belvedere for better safety"

The story is from the same historic period as the one in Kansas City Times, November 12, 2015 describing the movement of the VMs collection: "When Napoleon began to send the valuable collections of art works of Northern Italy to Paris, the heads of the other states took fright. Many dukes and princes sent their possessions to Austria in the hope that there they would be safe."

So Amelia Levetus was aware about this particular period. Her book " Imperial Vienna" has a lot of research about the relations of Napoleon and Austria.

Is it possible that Amelia Levetus was the one who found the loose ends in the art collection movements in Austria during the Napoleonic wars while researching her books and articles and alerted the Voyniches? I often wondered how exactly Voynich learned about this abandoned collection.

Voynich advertised his Vienna business address in 1913 and again in 1914. Itally, Austria and Hapsburg collection were mentioned a lot in the 1915 press in relation to the VMs and other manuscripts exhibition. All mentioning of Austria disappeared  in 1916 after FBI started investigating Voynich for suspicion of being German spy (possessing cipher manuscript). This must have spooked him - so he stopped mentioning anything German-related to the manuscript.

Hi Ellie,

the connection between Levetus and Voynich is explicitly stated on the cover of his 31st catalogue:

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Ellie,
I spent quite some time looking at the different versions of the 'find' reported when Wilfrid exhibited his books in England and in America.

The idea that the Voynich manuscript was among those found 'in a castle in Austria' is due to a lie-by-omission.  He was describing another collection certainly obtained from Austria in the previous year and simply by neglecting to point out that the Voynich manuscript had not been part of that collection, allowed the lustre of the more aristocratic and beautifully illuminated works fall upon his 'pet manuscript'.

People weren't entirely stupid, though, and soon noticed the discrepancies in Wilfrid's story.  I don't recall exactly when he first admitted that he found it in southern Europe (though the information is in those posts where I explored the question), and the chronology is also wrong when you look carefully at it.  Fr.Beckx is the only demonstrable link between Austria and the manuscript, and he was there a fairly short time, after which he went to Rome. Beckx'  time spent in Fiesole was rather longer, and from there he returned directly to Rome where, according to Wilfrid, the manuscript was found.  I still have a question-mark about that.  On the one hand it would seem that the manuscript had lain in the trunk for as long as twenty years or so until re-discovered by Wilfrid.  Yet, on the other hand we are told that after its sale, someone enquiring of the librarian at Mondragone found the librarian expected it to be on the shelves and actually went off to where it was supposed to be.  Now, doesn't that imply a librarian with a remarkably long memory, or a catalogue which would have described the volume and its proper position on the shelves?  If so, why have we never seen any mention of those details?

I have a faint suspicion that it may be one of those volumes 'acquired' by Guglielmo Libri while he was the official in charge of libraries acquired by the Napoleonic wars.  He also died in Fiesole - and his books went to a friend who seems to have distributed them while Beckx was there. He was a noble and apparently a man of principle.  If the books were known to have been stolen, and from church institutions, he might well have passed some to Beckx.  That might explain why they were never unpacked.

But speculations of this sort are more fun than demonstrable aren't they? 

I'd have to say that I find, myself, in close accord with the sentiment expressed by Patrick Lockerby:

"... whatever happened in Italy after 1450 is of no relevance in formulating any theory about the Voynich ms."

- but that doesn't mean others can't enjoy the exercise, and I wish you all the best with your hypothesis.

(07-10-2016, 10:02 AM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ellie,

[deleted for brevity...]

I'd have to say that I find, myself, in close accord with the sentiment expressed by Patrick Lockerby:

"... whatever happened in Italy after 1450 is of no relevance in formulating any theory about the Voynich ms."

- but that doesn't mean others can't enjoy the exercise, and I wish you all the best with your hypothesis.

Reverse engineering can sometimes yield some interesting results.

JKP,

Alas histories 'engineered'  are rarely of lasting worth, something which applies here to the "history" offered in 1921 by Wilfrid himself.

His lamentable and unscholarly habit of never honestly acknowledging his sources, means that we have no idea if it is all just constructed of hypothesis upon assumption, or whether it really does represent the result of his enquiries and those of others.   So of course  the whole story has been made  worthless as an historical narrative, and who is going to take the time and effort to provide it with footnotes now, even if it were possible?  Such a waste. I don't think he meant to be dishonest - as we would say now of someone whose apparatus proved deceitful - it just wasn't the custom of the time to keep amateurs to professional standards of practice.

Pity.

Sorry Ellie - I hope philosophising about our methodology in creating histories for the manuscript doesn't seem inappropriate or off-topic.

The most important point to clarify is that Voynich did not discover the MS, or the collection of MSs that included the Voynich MS, but he was "somehow" invited to become part of a deal between the Jesuits and the Vatican.

How he managed to get into this position is still a bit of a mystery. That the deal was secret is also clear from independent evidence, so he needed a good cover story.  

His "discovery of chests of which the owners did not know what they contained" is part of this cover story. I think that Ellie has a good point in that he may have been helped, or inspired, by Amelia Sarah Levetus in setting it up.

(07-10-2016, 10:02 AM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ellie,

The idea that the Voynich manuscript was among those found 'in a castle in Austria' is due to a lie-by-omission.  He was describing another collection certainly obtained from Austria in the previous year and simply by neglecting to point out that the Voynich manuscript had not been part of that collection, allowed the lustre of the more aristocratic and beautifully illuminated works fall upon his 'pet manuscript'.

Diane,

I'm interested in this Austrian collection - what year do you mean (1911 - year before dealing with the Beckx collection, or 1914 - year before presentation in Chicago). Do you have any evidence about this Austrian collection?

Rene,

I agree that the Austrian castle story may have been cover-up. Thanks for the image from the catalog. I haven't seen that one.

Ellie,
I don't think there is sufficient evidence or reason to assume that the Jesuits were liars or given to underhanded dealings.

  It is true that their circumstances meant that they could not even sell their own property to buy text-books without the risk of having a rapacious nationalistic government steal - sorry 'claim' it from them.

Apart from that, I think we should assume that either they didn't know exactly where the books had come from (they had apparently lain in the Villa Mondragone, or perhaps in Fiesole, in the same trunk for 25 years, but their having Fr.Beckx tags on them would lead to an assumption that he had taken the books to Fiesole or from Fiesole back to Rome - the last journey he ever made, so far as we know.  

There's a fairly simple reason for not imagining that the Voynich ms was in the 'castle' which Beckx occasionally visited while in Austria - which is the sort of suggestion you sometimes see made - not sure why.  Anyway:  First, Voynich had obtained the books from whatever "Austrian castle" it was as a whole collection and bought them outright.  That was the "Austrian castle collection" whose source he happily advertised  (without being completely specific) when he toured with "his collection" 

The link below talks about his display in 1915 and he happily talks about the an "Austrian castle collection".

His source for the Voynich, however, he continued to obscure, or to obfuscate and then to say plainly that he couldn't talk about .. and indeed he never did. 

The reason he gave was that he hoped to obtain more of the collection - which might be true, too, but I rather think that either he had promised the Jesuits not to risk having the rapacious national government demand they hand over the money obtained for the books, or that somewhere along the line people began to feel uneasy that some of these books were, in fact, ones 'acquired' by Libri.   The Libri scandal was still very fresh in the minds of bibliophiles in England, and Wilfrid's career (its superficial details, I mean) is closely parallel to Libri's... and what is also interesting is that a number of books which Kraus sold after Wilfrid's death are certainly from the "libri collection".

That could even be the reason no-one would touch the Voynich manuscript, though it was offered for sale from 1912-1931.. and later.

However - the 1915 exhibition is mentioned as part of my investigating all this, so hope you don't mind the link:

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Diane,
I'll ignore your insults.

 I am aware of the press clippings from 1915 (I personally dug up few of them, both for Austrian castle and about Hapsburg collection, and there are people here that can vouch for that). I thought you have information about actual business dealings of Voynich in Austria. I thought you know which Austrian collection he bought and when. Apparently I misunderstood. You were talking about the 1915 press coverage. Sorry.

(07-10-2016, 10:45 AM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP,

Alas histories 'engineered'  are rarely of lasting worth, something which applies here to the "history" offered in 1921 by Wilfrid himself.

...

Reverse engineering does not refer to engineering (re-inventing) the history. It has nothing to do with that.

It refers to the process of uncovering something from the finished end rather than creating something new.


It's a software-industry term for taking something that is already completed (or mostly so) and unraveling how it was made (usually with a mind to re-creating it but that is a separate process and not always necessary).


If you take the phrase reverse engineering and apply it to the provenance of the VMS, it means you are working from most recent to least recent while still incorporating any and all information gathered along the way by other methods.

It is always acknowledged, when reverse engineering something, that some steps in the process are guesses, just as historians acknowledge that some of their results are guesses. It is not about re-inventing history. It is about uncovering it.