A possible source for the "modern italian copy"

[Fabrizio Salani]

I can't find the thread atm which mentions one or two "copied pages" (sometimes assumed to be the one's Kircher received) aquired by an italian copyshop owner, who subsequently got them tested and dated contemporarily.

While watching the "Austrian Documentary" for the nth time (I always find something new that bugs me), I clearly saw a recording of someone doing a copy. Who knows what happened with the film props after production stop?

This is just a thought.. as said I'm out of time to locate the thread, see which folios appeared on that italian market, and compare them to the pages being copied in the video.


Anyways I couln't help a slight chuckle at Rene Zandbergen interviewing Richard Santa Coloma.

That documentary may have moved a lot, but sometimes "good intention" is the opposite of "good".

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Hi Voynichbombe,

just a reply at your question about the old (not modern !) copy of a page of the Voynich I have found here in Italy (precisely in the local antiquarian market in Narni - TR). The research on the leaf of parchment, analized by the physics and chemistry laboratoires of the Modena and Reggio Emilia University (UNIMORE) by the same professors with the same procedures used to analize the Bible of Borso D'Este the most beautifull italian manuscript of XVth century (and probably of the world), have revealed (with Raman spectroscopy) that the ink used for the text and the shape of the plant is camping ink with iron added to stabilize the color and the oxidation of that ink is completly natural and is, at least,100 years old. The colours are water based and all over the parchment is present the blue overseas with lapis lazuli and a very little presence of titanium (probably a repainting not over the 1940 as read by the Raman spectrum of the red and the green) or a simply contamination by other documents. My opinion is that the leaf of parchment is the last page realized (or made to draw) by Georg Baresch in late 1637 in Prague and sent in Italy to Athanasius Kircher, with the story that all we know. Obviously this is mine opinion (and not only mine) based on the storical data we know: partial copy of the manuscript, only the botanical section mailed to a priest as Kircher, the shape of a "libellum" a little book as described in the answer letter by Kircher to Baresch found by Czech historian Josef Smolka and so on. Is without any doubt, the last page of the Baresch's copy ? NO, but is not a modern copy this is indubitably sure. I remain at your disposal for any questions you have about the parchment I have found. All the best. Fabrizio Salani