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

[ReneZ]

This quote from the 1918 newspaper article:

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.

is surprising for more than one reason. I read somewhere that Voynich's Latin wasn't very good, but I haven't been able to find that comment again. In any case, he clearly misunderstood the Marci letter, and he thought that the Rudolf that is mentioned in it was not Rudolf II of Bohemia, but Rudolf I, the first king of the Hapsburg dynasty, who died in 1291. The reason is obvious: this was a contemporary of Roger Bacon!

The second surprise is that already by end 1915, 2.5 years earlier than this, a certain dr. Fielding H. Garrison wrote this to Voynich:

November 2, 1915
 
Wilfrid M. De Voynich, Esq.,
The Art Institute of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois.
 
Dear Mr. De Vounich (sic):
Thank you very much for the interesting account of the Rodger Bacon manuscript. I shall want to mention it and its provenance in my book on medical history, in connection with Rudolph II, and I hope you will some day tell me what becomes of it.
We shall be very much interested to see the photograph of the specimen page and I will try to have it submitted to the proper people in the War or State Departments in aid of deciphering it. Meanwhile, hoping we shall see you here some time.
Sincerely yours,
F.H. Garrison

Voynich promptly responded:

Nov. 18,  5
Dear Doctor Garrison :-
Thanks very much for your letter of Nov. 2nd. Excuse me for the delay in answering it, as I was lecturing and exhibiting in different universities and was so busy that all my correspondence was postponed.
You can use as much as you like the details of the book for your medical history; but it belonged to Emperor Rudolph I., not II.

Voynich was so eager to have a contemporary of Bacon mentioned in the letter, that he ignored the comment from Garrison, and continued to ignore it until at least 1918. 

By 1919, he had embarked on his John Dee theory, implying that he understood that the letter referred to Rudolf II.
I do not have a complete copy of all of his early correspondence, but there is a lot more.