The Voynich Ninja

There has been so much interest shown in my so-called "Libri theory" that I thought I might add a thread here.

If you want to skip the introduction and go straight to the details, see the list of posts below.

For those who prefer a summary:

As far as I was able to discover* nobody in Voynich studies had ever heard of Guglielmo  until I began writing up a few posts in 2015, not only because he was in the right place at the right time to give or to return books to the Jesuits, via Fr.Beckx, but because if Beckx had gained the manuscript from Libri, then all bets are off about where it had been kept between the last quarter of the seventeenth century and 1910-12.
_* some people don't think it necessary to acknowledge precedents, and don't like to pass on such information.

 Libri was a member of the minor nobility in Italy, apparently a bit of a social climber, and  his great friend was a certain nobleman named Manzoni, whose own library at his death was counted as 300, 000 volumes (yes, hree hundred thousand).

Both men lived in Florence and both - I think - had smaller villas in Fiesole.

Guglielmo Libri developed a habit of helping himself to other libraries, perhaps as a way to increase his own social standing, and have something to talk about to the man he so admired, Count Manzoni.

When the Napoleonic wars resulted in the contents of many libraries in Italy being stolen or confiscated, or simply claimed as French in areas taken by Napoleon,  our dear Guglielmo wangled his own appointment as "overseer of French libraries".  including also an office as Administrator of the “ecclesiastical patrimony of Prato” [ref: Maria Fubini Leuzzi, ‘Guglielmo Libri amministratore …];

Prato links to a certain Datini - but don't you dare!  I'm still working on that topic and already published a "Statement of Intention'.


Once he had obtained that official position, Libri's  thefts became more numerous and finally more obvious -  ito the point where he had to leave France.  He aarrived in England with trunks and trunks of rare medieval monastic and secular manuscripts, some certainly as old as the seventh and  eighth centuries (i.e. before Charlemagne)

So that is could be why, when Wilfrid arrived in England a couple of decades later - another continental aristocrat with trunks and trunks of medieval manuscripts,  one expects that the English might feel a little wary of any very unusual elements in his collection.


By 1868 Libri sensed his death imminent and returned to Florence with what books he'd not sold in England, soon moving up to the small hilltop village and nobles' place of retreat 10 kilometers away,   in Fiesole.  

According to the Jesuits' offiical history, Fr. Beckx had gone direct from Rome to Fiesole in the 1860s, as  Jesuits were being expelled from Rome.  He apparently  remained  there in a former 'Hieronymite' house that had been built by Cosimo de medici  on the hill behind the Medici villa. 

This old hermitic centre the Jesuits bought. So they inherited anything in it, too. (Interesting..)

Guglielmo passed on most of his remaining collection (not all stolen) to his friend, Count Manzoni, who also had a house in Fiesole. So we can suppose Fiesole held about 350,000 collectable MSS by now.

 Guglielmo then died,  around the middle of 1869.

Fr. Beckx didn't return to Rome until 1873.

In the meantime, the late Guglielmo's manuscript collection seems to have shrunk, or vanished from the house of Manzoni.

I suppose it's possible that Manzoni took some, but the historical record doesn't suggest he did that.

So Perhaps on his deathbed, Guglielmo had wished to see the most important Jesuit in Italy, who was just up the road, and ask him to organise the return of any illegally-acquired books he still had, to leave this life with a clear conscience. Who knows?



And then finaly... as postscript, a thread recently published here led Rene and Ellie V to mention that Fr. Strickland - who served as middleman between the Jesuits in Rome, and Wilfrid Voynich -  once wrote to Wilfrid telling him that for the convenience of the current Provincial, Wilfrid should send the "1,000 books" that Wilfrid had selected to the Jesuit house in florence, where the current Provincial would be able to check them over before they were sent on to Rome.

So what do you think? "The castle" an Italian "palazzo"?  The Jesuit Villa, or Count Manzoni's house in Fiesole?  The Medici villa?

 So the story so far is that we have Fr. Strickland and "1,000 volumes" and Wilfrid Voynich all in the vicinity of Florence - and perhaps ten kilometers from Fiesole, or in Fiesole and ten kilometers from Florence.

(On Wilfrid's own warehouse in Italy - see the original research by Rich Santacoloma, published on his blog.  You don't have to accept his theory of a conspiracy).

But wait!  There's more.
When Kraus donated the Voynich MS to Yale, he  donated *at the same time* works certainly ones earlier "acquired" by Guglielmo Libri.   

 English collections also contain works that were acquired from  a notable English bibliophile, and who in turn had  purchased both from Libri and from Wilfrid.
So.. that's the introduction.
----


More details in the posts I put out while researching this previously untouched topic.  (I expect that the usual suspects have filched the basic material and neglected to mention whose research they were helping themselves to... lots of Guglielmos around. Not so many Manzonis.


'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (March 19th., 2015)
 
 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (March 20th., 2015).

'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.', (March 23rd., 2015)
 
'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.' (April 4th., 2015);

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.'. (April 23, 2015);

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (30th., April 2015)

'... You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.' (April 30th., 2015);

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (October 6th., 2015)


'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.' (March 5th., 2016)

Diane,

I find the subject of this post interesting, and the material you are researching is sure to be very compelling to many Voynich researchers, especially those who are interested in the later history of the manuscript.

But why you feel the need to disparage other researchers and their ethics in the process?  It really adds nothing to the research you have done or to its presentation, on the contrary.
It's like if you were giving a really interesting lecture while simultaneously flipping the bird at everyone in the audience.
It's weird and really very off-putting. 
Surely, you must understand that such aggressiveness cannot lead to a constructive discussion here, and may trigger only the worst kind of reactions, or lead to your post being ignored, which would be a shame.
Also, I don't believe that such disparaging remarks are effective at all as a deterrent against plagiarism.

Please do understand that I mean this as constructive criticism, so that the hard work you have put into this subject gets the best reception possible.

Hi Diane,

I like your theory. The way to make it convincing is to find a specific manuscript that can be found both in Beckx private collection and in Guglielmo Libri's hands.

Which one of the sources you posted is the one that verifies the years in which Beckx was in Fiesole (I, apparently mistakenly, thought he went there in 1873 - you say he left in 1873)

VViews,
You're right; I shouldn't get stuck in the past.  Voynich.ninja has brought a lot of new people to the study and is rapidly changing the tone, and quality of the way work on the manuscript proceeds.

Thank you for the comment.

Ellie,
The source is mentioned in the posts.  I know that there were several secondary sources whose dates conflicted; and in the first instance I also thought that there seemed to be  a 17-yr gap in the record. Not sure where I got that idea, now, but I was speculating about whether he went to visit the various centres to which the Jesuits had been dispersed when dispossessed.

Then I came across the official history of the Order and (I will check) from that found that he had left Rome and gone straight to Fiesole - no wanderings at all.  I think it reasonable to suppose that the author of the official history would have had the most comprehensive access to all files and records.  But as I say, I will check the notes I took at the time.  Thanks for bringing it to notice.

About checking the lists of books gained by Voynich against those recorded as formerly owned by Libri.  I have thought of doing that, but as always when deciding which avenue to work on, my priority is always a better understanding of the primary document (Beinecke MS 408).  There is evidence enough that books sold by Voynich have arrived in collections at the same time as ones that had been Libri-collection ones, and some have a dual provenance: i.e. Libri then Voynich.

But there is no complete list of the volumes which Libri stole, and many in his collection were not stolen. 

To do this sort of investigation, one would have to spend quite an amount of time poring over, and comparing, the catalogues produced when Libri's collection was sold in England.. the auction took more than a week, and those were just the manuscripts he took to England!  Then one would have to compare with every catalogue and record of sale that remain from Voynich's business, and finally cross-reference with the list of works which are said to have come from that one trunk - by then in Mondragone.

There is a remote possibility that we'd learn something about our manuscript from all that - but I don't believe it likely and I personally have never placed much importance on post-1438 theories.  Not even my own.  The main point is that if the manuscript had been given to Beckx, in trust, because it had been church property stolen by Libri, then it could have come from any library, anywhere, on the route of the Napoleonic wars, and subject to the later confiscations.  That's how Libri managed to have access to so many important MSS, including pre-Carolingian ones.  Which means, perhaps, we should widen the range of scripts used for comparison to the Vms.

Postscript: The last point may not be clear.  There was a monastic dictum "every cow its calf" which meant that copies taken of a manuscript had to remain in the same library as the original, unless a commissioned copy or (as was rare) an original sold off.  This rule remained in effect through the fifteenth century in universities and even with regard to private collections.  Thus, when Ficino left the Medici's employ, he was not permitted to take with him the translations he'd made from texts owned by Cosimo.  He was only permitted to take his own 'lecture notes' (he was the family tutor).  This makes it probable that - while there's no dispute the Vms dates are 1405-1438 - if it had come from a library holding ancient or 'exotic' source-works - it  could have remained in the same collection as the source/s from which it was copied.

And this is one more reason why correctly typifying and identifying the source for vellum produced to exactly the same dimensions, and in the same quality (unusual for the time) is itself an important matter.  If vellum of that quality, in those dimensions, was only being made in a few places, then the source-texts may have been there, too.

Ellie is too modest, and she is also right.

Beckx left Rome for Fiesole on 30 October 1873.
He went back to Rome in 1883, where he died in 1887.

One may read in various places that the Society of Jesus was expelled from Italy in 1860, but Rome was only captured by the "royals" on 20 September 1870, and the law for confiscation of Jesuit property was only extended to the province of Rome on 19 June 1873, to take effect on 20 October.

A valuable source for this is the  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
I believe that the original version in Flemish has been translated into German, but I don't believe that either are available online (Google books or other).

I don't think much of the "Libri theory". Libri may have been a book collector, but there were very many book collectors around in those days. No evidence has been presented that he ever had anything to do with Beckx. I can immediately think of two book collectors who did exchange books with the Jesuits in the Casa Professa in Rome.

One is Gian Francesco de Rossi. His collection was donated to the Jesuits by his widow, the duchess of Sachsen, through a contract signed by Beckx. This collection was stored in the Casa Professa, and affected by the confiscation by the state in much the same way as the Jesuits' own libraries.

The other is Prince Camillo IX Massimo. Several of his books were exchanged with the Jesuits. His son Massimiliano, by the way, studied at Villa Mondragone and was of great help to the Jesuits during the confiscations in 1873.

For both, the source is: Christine Maria Grafinger: Eine Bibliothek auf der Reise zwischen Rom und Wien. Eine Darstellung der Geschichte der Bibliotheca Rossiana, in: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Biblioteca Vaticana (Studi e Testi 363) Città del Vaticano 1997, pp. 95-146.
It is in German and again, there is no online version.

However, this is equally speculation. There is no evidence that either of them ever had anything to do with the Voynich MS.
Instead, the trace of the MS after it was sent from Marci to Kircher can be reconstructed with very good confidence. It is shown in this picture:


I would also like to comment on the statement that Jesuits did not have any personal belongings. This is clearly not true. It should already be clear from the fact that stickers with "from the private library of P.Beckx" were used to protect a large number of books from confiscation.

It is, however, explicitly clarified by an important source, namely a Jesuit who was an eye witness to the confiscation of the Casa Professa, and who reported these events in a letter. This is Paul Pierling S.J. whose letter has been published in various sources, among others also the Flemish biography of Beckx mentioned above. It was already presented to the Voynich community by Xavier Ceccaldi, and may be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (see the appendix).
The most important passage is (in English):

Quote:It was as late as 18 October that Father vice-superintendent of the Gesù received the official communication that announced the transfer of ownership [of the Casa Professa] on the 20th of the current month.
[...]
In order to know exactly what was the point, we thought it would be better to ask for some explanations on the way the seize had to be done. The notary answered that each religious person was allowed to keep all his personal properties, but that the community properties were transferred to the state. For lack of instructions, he was unable to resolve the doubt brought up by P. Rubillon about assistants libraries, but, three days later, the positive answer came back and each Assistant was authorized to take away his own books.
[...]
We walked immediately towards the great library. The absence of catalogue caused a surprise, which ended when genuine acts proved that the catalogue never existed. Copies of these acts were taken and the Piemontese seals closed the doors above which we can see St-Ignatius of Manrèse, with the caption: “Liber exercitiorum S.P.I. bibliothecas Societatis aperuit”. The library of the Duchess of Saxony, which must be transferred by will to the Emperor of Austria, was sealed by a secretary of the Austrian legation, some days later.

Rene,
In eight years, I have never seen you make a comment about the research I publish which doesn't reduce to an effort to suggest that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Do stop. it's boorish.

(12-10-2016, 04:44 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Do stop. it's boorish.

My post was factual from beginning to end, and such a remark is totally inappropriate.

ReneZ:
I believe that the original version in Flemish has been translated into German ...

Josef Martin S.J., Leben des hochwürdigen P. Petrus Johannes Beckx, Generals der Gesellschaft Jesu , frei nach der flämischen Lebensbeschreibung von A.M. Verstraeten,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ravensburg : Dorn, 1897.

There are several copies in Bavarian Libraries, but none of them is online

Thanks Helmut.

I have read the book in its original version, and have scans of the relevant parts for anyone who can read Dutch / Flemish,  but I don't think there are many here that can, and are particularly interested in this part of history.

Quote:Rene,
In eight years, I have never seen you make a comment about the research I publish which doesn't reduce to an effort to suggest that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Do stop. it's boorish.

Just looked at this thread, sorry.

Rene's post was a normal comment in the course of discussion, he expresses his view in a neutral manner. If he considers somebody wrong, that's his right, especially if arguments are provided. That's the very nature of discussion.

So please no flaming. Next time warning.