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+--- Thread: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts (/thread-2618.html)
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - ReneZ - 13-01-2019
Anyone who is seriously interested in this topic should also read the historical background page:
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This also has the (almost) complete bibliography. A few items of common interest are on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
I think that most if not all questions of Diane are answered by the two pages cited, and the third one mentioned here. While the two pages ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) are not very short, they are still quite condensed and, again, for someone seriously interested may require more than one reading pass. Links should be followed.
The 1903 catalogue was written down in 1903, as its Italian title clearly says.
The origin of the manuscripts listed in it is definitely the Collegium Romanum library. This is clear from the introduction of Ruysschaert (1959), but also clearly stated in Bignami Odier (1973). The two tables in the page about the manuscripts that WMV acquired, and the descriptions surrounding it, explain in detail which manuscripts are found in which list with references to De Ricci (1937) and the two books of De Marinis, all of which have been consulted.
The suggestion of 'theft' by the Jesuits is a straightforward historical question for which a lot of evidence exists. The answer is not straightforward. It is another interesting topic which I have hardly described.
When Italy was united (by force) by the Piemontese, putting Vittorio Emanuele II at the throne, the new government was desirous to have a 'national library' similar to the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale or the London British Museum. This did not exist, but there were many rich libraries in Rome, that were either private or owned by religious orders. The government made a list of over 10 collections that they could possibly lay their hands on, and added up the estimated number of books contained in them, resulting in over 160,000 volumes. This was going to be the National Library.
A government official was appointed, and a law was in preparation. The Jesuits were not the only ones affected, and while this was happening (1871-1872) many books were simply removed from these libraries. When the law was finally passed, in June 1873, the libraries to be confiscated had become much smaller.
One could say that it was illegal for these religious orders to withhold their possessions, but on the other hand most of the hiding occurred before the law was issued.
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - ReneZ - 15-01-2019
Just for completeness, earlier I wrote:
Quote:(Edit: I just noted that the Section 4.4 I mentioned above is not yet complete. Will be updated soon.)
In fact, the part that seems missing in Section 4.4 is actually included in Section 6.3.
The short summary is that a manuscripts originating from the library of Mathias Corvinus, that was seen in the Jesuit library of the Collegium Romanum, included the most life-like portraits of both the king and the queen. Hungarian historians have been looking for it in vain in Rome after the suppression of the society. They knew it should have been in the state library that included the confiscated material, but it was not. They managed to track down another Corvinus MS that had moved from Rome to the Jesuit library in Wien-Lainz.
It seems inevitable that the Jesuits were aware of the cultural value of this manuscript for the Hungarians. Whether they were also interested in obtaining a higher price than the Vatican could afford remains speculation. In any case, it was sold to a private book dealer, who passed it on to another dealer, who immediately took it to Hungary where it was offered for sale. There, it was immediately recognised as the MS that used to be in the Collegium Romanum and was deemed lost. They really wanted to have it, but an American banker outbid them.
This is for me the first plausible explanation why a private book dealer (Voynich) was allowed to become involved in this deal at all.
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - ReneZ - 21-02-2021
Elsewhere, I wrote:
Quote:that the manuscripts were sold by the Jesuits because the Villa Mondragone needed funds for restoration works, is a myth, and I admit that I also believed this in the past, but there is no basis for it.
And Rich answered:
(04-02-2021, 06:23 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes I've long believed this, and this was the topic for a recent conversation I had with someone. That person had shown several picture postcards and other images of the Villa at the time, and it was clear they were doing quite well.
Indeed, I had also been approached by that person.
The postcards (and many more) can be found by a Google search for "convitto Mondragone" and go to the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
I was curious and tried to find where this idea came from, that the reason for the sale was that the Villa needed money for restorations. However I couldn't find it in the most obvious places: D'Imperio, Tiltman, or Kraus' autobiography.
Kraus was the one who named the Villa Mondragone, and this fact may be found in Tiltman's paper about the MS. It's a bit of a mystery, and right now I wonder if this is just someone's speculation that has become part of the tradition.
Notably, modern Jesuit historians clearly state that this isn't true, and they even argue that these manuscripts were never in Villa Mondragone, but the true place is still not known.
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - davidjackson - 21-02-2021
Apropos of nothing, apparently it was in the Mondragone that Pope Gregorius promulgated his Inter Gravissimas bull that started off his calendar reform.
ReneZ, what do you think the reason for the sale was? There are so many theories...
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - ReneZ - 22-02-2021
It is not yet clear, but what must have played a key role was, that the prospective buyer, the prefect of the Vatican library, was himself a Jesuit: Franz Ehrle S.J.
Already in 1892/3 he warned the Jesuits that their archives, preserved in the German college in Rome, were in danger of confiscation. These were then secretly, and little by little, moved out to a castle in Holland.
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - ReneZ - 30-04-2023
With the publication of a new paper on this topic, much of the story has been clarified.
So, the Voynich MS was NOT at Villa Mondragone.
This was Kraus' guess based on the very limited information he had, and he guessed wrong.
He can be excused for that, because the details of the sale of these Jesuit manuscripts have been kept a well guarded secret by all parties involved. Only a handful of people at the time knew.
Even Ruysschaert most probably never knew these details. His 700-page catalogue is completely silent about this question.
Voynich probably made his purchase around April - May whereas the Vatican bought the remainder in June - July for 50,000 Lire. The books were kept in the Villa Torlonia in Castel Gandolfo, as I long suspected.
The above-mentioned Franz Ehrle visited Villa Torlonia on 24 June 1912, in order to estimate the value of the collection. Of the people working in the Villa, only the rector of the Jesuit seminary knew why he was there.
He sent his estimate to Pope Pius X, who agreed on 8 July.
Boxes from Villa Torlonia arrived in the Vatican on 12 July.
There are not so many details about Voynich's purchase, except that Joseph Strickland visited the same villa on 25 and 29 April 1912.
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - davidjackson - 30-04-2023
(30-04-2023, 01:22 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.With the publication of a new paper on this topic, much of the story has been clarified.Can you cite this paper?
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - Scarecrow - 30-04-2023
Possibly this, cited in ReneZ website;
Potenza, Francesca: Un acquisto da farsi prudenter et sine strepitu: l’arrivo in Vaticana di manoscritti e stampati del Collegio Romano all’inizio del XX secolo. In: Donatell Bucca, Fr. D’Aiuto, M. Re (ed). Nea Rhome, Rivista di ricerche bizantinistiche, 19 (2022), pp. 317-368.
I’m unsure why Rene writes something was published in April 2023 but the references the info above.
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - davidjackson - 01-05-2023
Rene was awaiting a new paper to be published on the topic, I was hoping that it had come out and that I hadn't seen it.
RE: Voynich buys some Jesuit manuscripts - Scarecrow - 01-05-2023
In the website Rene writes that all the relevant information has been updated in the site's history section.
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Notice (29/04/2023)
A recent publication now provides answers to numerous open questions mentioned on the present page. An update of this page is in preparation. The most important aspects are already included in the history page-> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..