Mnišovský's report

[ReneZ]

For now, my preferred scenario is that Raphael never saw the VMS before Marci showed it to him -- either casually, on some occasion when Raphael visited Marci, or deliberately, because Marci respected Raphael as cryptographer.

Whether Raphael saw it or not can be argued either way, but I think that he most probably did.

What is certain is that Barschius was still the owner of the MS when Raphael died, so also when he mentioned his information about the sale to Rudolf for 600 ducats. The 'meeting' may have been instigated by Barschius or Marci, but it may also be that it was the event where Raphael gave the MS to Barschius.

I am not sure how much you have been able to follow the various new bits of information around this topic, but you may want to check the biographies page at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This should also contain the answer to your question about Rafal Prinke's new information.
I will say quite a bit about this at the Voynich MS day. I am talking to Koen about changing my 10 minute slot to a long talk, as there is too much to cover.
 
Voynich faking the Tepenec signature is not a realistic option.
 
Tepenec is a complete no-name, Voynich is entirely unlikely to have ever heard of him, let alone have a sample of his signature. He just provides a link to Rudolf's court, which Voynich already had from the Marci letter. It does not provide a link to Bacon.

Perhaps most importantly, there is a photo of the MS made by/on behalf of Voynich, before the application of chemicals. On this, faint traces of parts of Tepenec's name can be seen.
Then there is the 'No 19' written just below it (check the new multi-spectral scans) that Voynich does not appear to have seen, and which is a feature of all of Tepenec's books (that we know of).

First, generally speaking, 100% honest antiquities dealers will die of starvation; because they cannot count on a steady stream of profitable trades.

Not sure if that is generally applicable, but Voynich's methods are well known: he exaggerated everything that he could, e.g. attributing items in his manuscripts to famous artists. Calling the Voynich MS a Bacon MS is a good example of that.

When he got the Voynich MS, he was just making a fortune from some of the sales of the other books, so he was in no hurry to sell it anytime near. He did try hard to confirm the Bacon origin, so he probably honsetly believed it, but again, Tepenec is of no help there.