Mnišovský's report

[LisaFaginDavis]

It is extraordinarily unlikely that Voynich added the faded marginalia on f. 1r - the Tepenec signature and the alphabets in the right-hand margin I've identified as Marci's handwriting.

I know you're being diplomatic, but to me this phrasing is still giving the "Fantastic Forgings of Wilfrid Voynich" too much credit. It's like saying "it's extraordinary unlikely that a trained cat painted the Mona Lisa". Sure, we can't be 100% certain that this did not happen. Maybe Leonardo had a cat which he, in his genius, trained to paint like a master. But the thing is so clearly a fiction that, in common parlance, we can just say that it didn't happen.

You're right, of course, but it's important to acknowledge that all of this is ultimately conjecture based on evidence that is open to interpretation. But it is also important to acknowledge that while nearly anything is remotely possible, some outcomes are much more likely than others. Is it POSSIBLE that Voynich himself found empty parchment, created a novel writing system and fantastical illustrations using ink and pigments consistent with medieval recipes and sewed it all together using authentic fifteenth-century cords and thread and added convincing evidence of multiple bindings, ownership, repairs, and realistic provenance which he then erased in hopes that someone someday would develop technologies that could recover this evidence? Sure. But the simplest explanation is much more likely: that the manuscript was written and illustrated by an unknown group of writers in the early fifteenth century and, like every other medieval manuscript, accreted signs of use and ownership over the last six centuries.