New Post: "I Do Listen to the Experts. Do YOU?"

[ReneZ]

That entire discussion about whether Voynich saw it or used it or faked it is a straw-man with respect to the theory
of the VMS being a modern forgery.  It only ever came into play (by Rich or whoever) in response to the claim that the letters
are evidence of the manuscript existing prior to the time of the letters -- because that evidence depends on a passage representing a clear reference.

It is quite a bit more complicated than that.

The main, perhaps only, truly important indications whether the MS is a modern fake comes from the forensic investigations.
Records providing evidence of its provenance are at best supportive.
The Marci letter already gives us two thirds of the whole story.

When the Barschius letter was found, this was not at all seen as proof that the MS is genuine. Its value was that it finally gave the name of the previous owner, a name Marci failed to provide in his letter.
This name was already suspected by Voynich in 1921, but no evidence existed that it was really him.
It was researched by Brumbaugh in the 70's, but he could not resolve it.
The proof (that it was Barschius) came when the Kircher correspondence finally became accessible to the world.

The Barschius letter not only describes the illustrations in the MS, but also says "a piece of writing in unknown characters". That captures the essence of the Voynich MS, and the one thing that makes it stand out.

Could Voynich have created a fake MS in unreadable text, with lots of herbs and stars and arcane secrets, that a mediocre scientist once sent to a Jesuit, without knowing that such a MS once really existed, and was really sent between these two people? Hardly! (Understatement).

The complete unaccessibility of this information to Voynich is a nail in the coffin of the hypothesis that Voynich faked the Marci letter.

Now, knowing that the Marci letter is real, it also becomes clear that the Barschius letter refers to the Voynich MS, beyond reasonable doubt. (All the links between the various pieces of evidence can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).