The 1665/6 Marci Letter: A fake?

[ReneZ]

Some of the statements in my previous post may appear quite bold. However, they are based on a very significant amount of solid evidence that I have gathered since 1999. The circumstances of the sale of the manuscripts to Voynich have interested me since then, and new evidence has been trickling in little by little, and this is still continuing today.

I am aware that most people interested in the Voynich MS are less interested in this part of its history.

The Marci letter in the Beinecke and the one written one month later were already shown together in another post, here:
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with some relevant accompanying comments.

That Voynich had no access to the Kircher carteggio, and could not have seen this letter (or the Barschius letter, or the Kinner letters) is part of on-going research, some of which is described in what I would like to call the darker corners of my web site, where few people will venture. But not all, because it is on-going work, incomplete, and not all evidence can be shared just yet.

Voynich did not just buy his "Bacon cipher MS" from the Jesuits. It was one of a set of at least 20.
Yes, this sale was done in secrecy, but for a good reason, and taking that as an argument that the Bacon MS is a fake by him is misleading. None of the other manuscripts are fakes.

These manuscripts, just like the historic collection of the Jesuits that includes the Kircher collection, were hidden before 1873. At that time, Wilfrid Voynich was 8 years old. The reason for this hiding is quite interesting, and well recorded, e.g. in: "Carini Dainotti, Virginia: La Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele al Collegio Romano. Olschki, Firenze, 1956.".
When Italy was united (by force), the new government decided that the new capital Rome required a national library that could rival with those in Paris and London. Such did not exist, but there were many large libraries owned by the various religious orders. The minister calculated that by confiscating these, they would immediately achieve such a national library. Thus, a law of confiscation was issued.
While this law was in preparation, several of the religious houses (not just the Jesuits) started moving their most important collections away. The government was aware of this but could not do much about it.

This is how the Jesuit belongings ended up (at least partially) in Castel Gandolfo. They were kept under lock and seal. While this may seem to have been an illegal activity, it was clarified that personal libraries were not to be confiscated. This explains the various notes "from the private library of P.Beckx". This may remain a bit of a grey area, but it has become accepted over time.

The Kircher carteggio was in Castel Gandolfo. Whether the books later sold to Voynich were also there is not yet clear to me, but I still hope to find out. By the time they were sold to Voynich they were, I believe, in Frascati, but not necessarily Villa Mondragone. Again to be found out.

The Kircher correspondence (with over 2000 other books) was moved back to Rome in 1919, seven years after the Voynich MS and the 20+ others had been sold to Voynich.
There, it still remained inaccessible apart from a small circle of Jesuits.

The Kinner letters, which are barely mentioned in Rich's post about the Marci letter, are of great importance.
They prove that, some time before January 1666. Marci had indeed sent an illegible book to Kircher with a request for translation / deciphering. They show that the Marci letter *should*  exist.