A possible source for the "modern italian copy"

[Fabrizio Salani]

WOW, how many questions in a brief time ! But believe me all these questions and more have been proposed and discussed with the world specialists of the Voynich as Claudio Foti, Renè Zandbergen, Nick Pelling, Raymond Clemens, Stephen Bax and many others. So is correct to give you more informations and some conclusions regarding the presumed making of the parchment and the red wax seal.
About the seal (only the first remained, cause there are only traces of the second below), Nick (Pelling) told to me about a firm in U.K. (Birmingham) that produce manually personalized wax seals and one of them is very similar to that of the parchment. I contacted the owners of the firm and they told me that the shape of the seal represented in their web site is a wax seal commissioned by one of their customers (as they remeber) many years ago and the customer showed them a photo with an old seal taken from a document dated XVIII th century but since it was an old commission they don't have any other informations. The seals they produce are at least of 2,5 cm diameter, those on the parchment is 1,5 cm diameter, tipical size for a personal ring seal as told me the sphragistics experts of Italian State Archives. I show you the way of a typical roman "litterae clause" made with a 3D reconstruction of the wax seal of the parchment and the enlargment of the seal with a microscope. First thought was that the seal "AG" or "GA" probably was the initials of Gottfried Alois Kinner (one of the correspondents from Prague with Kircher after the dead of J. M. Marci in 1667) but is strange to put in a seal only the initials of the name and not the surname, I exclude the hypothesis.
About the parchment: the leaf was taken from an old book (signs of binding at the front rigth), erased (abrased) and covered with calcium (see the XRF spectre n° 1) typical old treatment used for an erased parchment to allow the writing with a goose pen.
Let's start with the back (verso) of the leaf. The parchment present a central fold well visibile and an impression of a stamp (upper central) visibile with the black light (Wood light) of the typical cross of the Gesuits, a remaining of a document over the parchment. Are well visibile some traces of lines used to write linear over the parchment, these lines in ancient times were made by a silver pen or an iron pen (as in this case) as told my by the professors that analized scientifically the parchment.
With the black lamp are also visibile some traces of numbers and letters hand writes.
The text present some variations compared to the original page. It seems that the writer presents inaccuracies copying (…..-"Traducta itaque aliqua parte, scriptura imitata simili, ex libro quodam vetusto" - "….. with the

writing closely imitated" - as on the letter by Baresch dated 1639), I think this is not an attempt to translate the language of the MS, but who copied it was taken for granted that some letters of the MS were identical to those of the alphabet known.

The watercolor and color is very weak, perhaps an old restoration to the beginning of the XXth century? Difficult to understand.

What made me very curious about this parchment, is the reinterpretation of the plant, very similar to the botanical iconography of the XVII-XVIII th century. In my opinion realized to affect the Kircher about the translation of the partial copy, giving the whole a more scientific style for the period and not a childish style as the original. Athanasius Kircher was a doctor, engineer and the most greatest translator of ancient languages (see his book "Prodomus Coptus") of the XVII th century !

I apologize for the link of the University of Bologna regarding the Logwood ink, it's out of date. But I had download the entire document, so if anyone wants I can send it. In this research about “The colors in the man history” is writed (South America paragraph, page 21, 2nd image) “... In the pictorial work, the Logwood is cited among the Aztecs colorants in the miniature, while in Europe in the 17th century it was used as an economical product for the watercolor technique ... “.
Probably the parchment was not realized in XVII th century, but we are sure that it was not realized in the XX th century. So if it was made in the XVIII or in the XIX th century, this is an enigma, it means that someone have read the manuscript in 1700 or 1800, but who and why to realize only a partial copy ? The only one we know that realized a partial copy of the book (as he write in his letter of 27 April 1639) was G. Baresch. So I think this is "an Elegant Enigma" too, just to take the words of the book by M. E. D'Imperio.

P.S.:
I have aquired another piece of the Voynich puzzle (not with this parchment) in 2015 from an antiquarian bookseller in Florence, the 1908 catalogue of W. M. Voynich of his library in Florence. Thank to this book catalogue there is a connection between father J. Strickland and Voynich, we must think that the priest have contacted the book seller because it owned a famous library in Italy (ex Franceschini library in Florence).
At page 30 there is an enigmatic book to sell dated 1515 that report a speech dated December 13, 1492 (!!!), regarding the true history of discovery of America.
I have contacted Scott Wolter of America Unhearted and it is very interested about this discovery... but this is another history.