René: Thank you for taking the time to respond. However I do note that you still do not address the points on my list. Whether or not you personally consider them red flags to forgery of the Marci letter, I contend that they do, very much. But let's consider that you are correct, and they are not evidence the letter is a forgery: Why not address them?
But as I have often said, and is a major part of my point here, this is the problem with this investigation... for this letter, for the Voynich manuscript itself, and for the actions and statements of Wilfrid. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of anomalies and anachronisms, which are dismissed on no grounds, or ignored. I strongly contend that the reason why they are not addressed to any degree of satisfaction, if at all, as you have not here, is because they cannot be addressed.
So for the above list of points, I will continue to note (except for one) that they are unanswerable, until answered. And as standing unanswered, they stand as evidence that the 1665/66 Marci letter is a fake.
To your picking out and addressing one point on my list, and question, in your first response:
"So, how is "difficult Latin" evidence that the letter is a fake??? And who are these "many who are proficient in Latin?"
Standing alone, it calls into question the authenticity of the letter. Marci and the men of the the time would and did do better. And while you point out the instance, the quote,
"Marci did not write in the most efficient of manners".
You choose to interpret that to "His Latin was cumbersome". However, we may be talking about apples and oranges here. One of the persons who noted this, who is proficient in Latin, is Philip Neal. For the other letters from the Carteggio and elsewhere, the translations are pretty straightforward. But then, for this one letter, he used to have "addtional notes" (paraphrasing, the link is gone), which tried to parse the difficult Latin seen here. Since that time, he seems to have incorportated these concerns into one page of notes:
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He writes, "Unfortunately, here for the first time the Latin is ambiguous. It might also be that the direct speech form of praesentarit is praesentavi (first person not third person). Raphael may be saying that he, Raphael, presented the ducats. Can we resolve the ambiguity?"
And, "The word ipse, which sometimes disambiguates the accusative and infinitive construction, is no help here. The key, it seems to me, is to consider why this piece of reported speech is a relative clause in the first place. The reason, clearly, is to attach it to the words that went before, not the words which come after."
And so on. This letter is clumsily written, and needs careful parsing to make proper grammar, and understandable sense out of it. If it is genuine, and by Marci, then he suddenly wrote one letter in which he wrote crappy, clumsy, grammar-challenged Latin.
But that is just one on the list, of course. The other items, you dismiss with a single disclaimer, "I am sorry to point out that none of the above points tell me that the letter would be a fake. It simply does not follow from any of them."
That does not come close to suffice. We have been doing this for years... almost a decade since I started seriously exploring Modern Forgery. And as I've often pointed out, and do here, again, it is impossible to properly address the many serious problems with the Voynich, and these responses continue that tradition.
But as I have often said, and is a major part of my point here, this is the problem with this investigation... for this letter, for the Voynich manuscript itself, and for the actions and statements of Wilfrid. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of anomalies and anachronisms, which are dismissed on no grounds, or ignored. I strongly contend that the reason why they are not addressed to any degree of satisfaction, if at all, as you have not here, is because they cannot be addressed.
So for the above list of points, I will continue to note (except for one) that they are unanswerable, until answered. And as standing unanswered, they stand as evidence that the 1665/66 Marci letter is a fake.
To your picking out and addressing one point on my list, and question, in your first response:
"So, how is "difficult Latin" evidence that the letter is a fake??? And who are these "many who are proficient in Latin?"
Standing alone, it calls into question the authenticity of the letter. Marci and the men of the the time would and did do better. And while you point out the instance, the quote,
"Marci did not write in the most efficient of manners".
You choose to interpret that to "His Latin was cumbersome". However, we may be talking about apples and oranges here. One of the persons who noted this, who is proficient in Latin, is Philip Neal. For the other letters from the Carteggio and elsewhere, the translations are pretty straightforward. But then, for this one letter, he used to have "addtional notes" (paraphrasing, the link is gone), which tried to parse the difficult Latin seen here. Since that time, he seems to have incorportated these concerns into one page of notes:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
He writes, "Unfortunately, here for the first time the Latin is ambiguous. It might also be that the direct speech form of praesentarit is praesentavi (first person not third person). Raphael may be saying that he, Raphael, presented the ducats. Can we resolve the ambiguity?"
And, "The word ipse, which sometimes disambiguates the accusative and infinitive construction, is no help here. The key, it seems to me, is to consider why this piece of reported speech is a relative clause in the first place. The reason, clearly, is to attach it to the words that went before, not the words which come after."
And so on. This letter is clumsily written, and needs careful parsing to make proper grammar, and understandable sense out of it. If it is genuine, and by Marci, then he suddenly wrote one letter in which he wrote crappy, clumsy, grammar-challenged Latin.
But that is just one on the list, of course. The other items, you dismiss with a single disclaimer, "I am sorry to point out that none of the above points tell me that the letter would be a fake. It simply does not follow from any of them."
That does not come close to suffice. We have been doing this for years... almost a decade since I started seriously exploring Modern Forgery. And as I've often pointed out, and do here, again, it is impossible to properly address the many serious problems with the Voynich, and these responses continue that tradition.