(02-11-2025, 01:59 AM)rikforto wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Why this hoax? is to my mind a very live question even if you establish through other means it was a hoax. I was hoping my original interlocutor would take that more seriously when I jumped into this thread.
I realized that, when answering your questions in my last response to you, I was answering (paraphrasing) "Why do I think it was first meant as a ms. from the Court of Rudolf II, and then Voynich switched the attribution to Roger Bacon?". Or something like that... that is what I was attempting to answer (clumbsily, sorry, I was getting tired... )
But then, on rereading your questions, I worry that you may have meant, or also meant, why do I think it was made at all, as a hoax, by Voynich? If so, I would list these reasons:
- Money, as he hoped for between $100,000 to $160,000... the equivalent today of about $1.7 million to over $2 million dollars
- Voynich was a subversive, anti-establishment radical. From all I know, I suspect he would have enjoyed, and did enjoy, fooling the class of people he probably despised. He could rip them off, and prove himself more clever, and superior to them, if he sold this manuscript to them
- His wife was a best selling author, a respected translator, daughter of the famous Boole, an accomplished and successful composer, an important political activist, and also fast becoming a popular and well known "celebrity". I think he loved her, and craved her respect, and her rising so far above him must have made him feel less important. He has made a big sale to the British Library, but while her fame was soaring, his had plateaued. So, perhaps, creating this work which would make him interesting and gain respect, and a fortune... all while possibly appealing directly to Ethel with its content, maybe another motivation would have been to gain her attention, respect, and maybe, love
- ... and it would have, and did, appeal to Ethel (although moreso after his death), as she had a love of colors, and flowers, and used both in her books. And the Gadfly not only used color and flowers to set the tones of scenes, but also included the use of ciphers. Her sequel, "An Interrupted Friendship", describes Native South American culture, art and religion. Ethel spent years working on the Voyinch problem, it became very important to her. She filled two notebooks with flower identifications, and made notes on provenance, the characters, and so on. If faked, Voynich could not have faked a better book for Ethel.
Those would be my main suggestions for motivation, the "why". As to "how" he would have done it, perhaps:
- He bought the Libreria Franceshini in 1908, and it was filled with a mountain of over 500,000 items of all sorts. I think the necessary blank calfskin may have been found there
- Inks would have been little problem for him, as he was a chemist. Also, his friend and associate (and possible paramour of Ethel), the "Ace of Spies" Sidney Reilly, was also a chemist, and even took a book about the composition of Medieval inks out of the Cambridge library.
- He certainly had the knowledge, and also a vast stock of books which could be gleaned from, for inspirations for the illustrations
- He may have had the talent, and much talent was not even necessary: the Voynich illustrations are quite crude
- As for time, the Libreria Franceshini would have been closed by about May, as it was pre-air conditioning, and it was the practice of many shops in Florence to close for the summer. This would have afforded him, and/or others who may have helped him, ample time and privacy
- As for multiple hands of the text, it might be explained by helpers. Voynich used the Libreria as a sort of "safe house", and is known to have housed at least two persons there, one, Phillipovitch, acting as manager when the store was open: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
So those would be my speculative answers to how and why he might have made the Voynich. Edit: Most of this, and maybe more?... is in this overview of my theory... motivations, timeline, and so on: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Rich