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

[ReneZ]

The Roger Bacon origin is a perfect example of that.

By the way, in the earlier years that Voynich owned the MS, i.e. well before his talk in 1921, he spread all sorts of beautifying myths about it. This is something I copied from a newspaper: the "San Antonio Light", 18 June 1918, page 10 column 6. The original online link no longer exists. The paper seems to have an online archive, but I cannot get in.

Anyway, here goes:

One or the most mysterious books in the world is now in New York City. Written on thick parchment with numerous illustrations its authorship is attributed to Roger Bacon,

 […]

It was chance that led to the discovery of this mysterious manuscript, now in the possession of a collector, Wilfred De Voynich, on the flyleaf of which there is a statement dating from the Seventeenth Century to the effect that Roger Bacon was the author.

 […]

For the first time since its existence this manuscript is in private hands, after having passed through several royal collections and many years of complete oblivion. The numerous legends around the name of Roger Bacon led Emperor Rudolph, founder of the Hapsburg dynasty, to buy the manuscript in 1291 for the fabulous sum of six hundred ducats. Nothing more is known of its history until the Seventeenth Century, when Ferdinand III, King of Bohemia, appears as its owner. The first known attempt at reading it is then recorded. Atanasius, noted astronomer and philosopher of that period, is said to have translated the beginning of the book, the study of ciphers being one of his achievements. It was Atanasius who established the famous astronomical observatory in Peking, China, and wrote many books on the Chinese.
 
The book has been traced through to the collection of the Duke of Malatesta and the Dulce of Parma, and then its fate again sinks into oblivion. Mr. De Voynich was gathering material for a book, when he came across the mention of this manuscript as forming a part of the royal collection, carefully hidden after the French revolution and forgotten. It took time and patience to locate this collection, but when he found it the books more than compensated for the labor. The manuscript in cipher was but one of the treasures found.