The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[asteckley]

Marci's letter implies that Kircher wrote to him and/or Baresch in response to Baresh's letters, expressing the desire to get the whole book.  

Jorge,
Where do you see that implication? I assume you are inferring it from the word "refused", is that correct?

I can see interpreting it that way.  But I actually took it to mean that Baresch just did not want to send it  -- and that was only because he wanted to keep it in his possession so he could continue his own efforts at deciphering it. (And he had taken the effort to copy out some of it for Kircher, but perhaps did not want to go as far as copying out the entire book.)

It is difficult to judge which of these two was Marci's actual meaning -- we probably would not use the word "refused" in the way I assumed it if we were writing the letter today, but we have to be careful when trying to interpret how a 17th century writer might use particular language.  Also, the word (Latin "recusabat") might be interpreted as just meaning "declined" which has a slightly different nuance as well.

In any case, if that IS all Marci meant  (i.e. that Baresch didn't want to lose his own access to the book so that he could keep working on it) then I don't think there remains any indication that Kircher ever communicated with Baresch, is there?  Or that he ever said anything about the book to anyone --  except to Moretus years earlier where he seems to be answering a previous query about it (and contrary to having a "desire to get the whole book" as you suggested, he seems to be somewhat unimpressed and dismissive about the book -- actually not even the book, but just the few pages of it that he had been sent -- and not caring about the rest of it.)  

Are there any other references to the book made by Kircher other than the Moretus letter that I am missing?

By the way, it's a little curious that Marci never actually says Baresch's name in his letter to Kircher. He is almost coy in his avoidance of saying it. It seems natural in his first sentence when he says the book was left to him by his "close friend". But he then never says Baresh's actual name before later on referring to him as  "the then possessor". That seems a bit odd, but it may have been a kind of formality that was suitable in legal kinds of discourse (and he is, after all, kind of acting in the role of the executor of Baresch's will -- taking care of the matter of the book almost as a legal matter.)
Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Added -- Actually, in regards to Kircher's letter to Mareto, I just looked back at it... Kircher implies that he did not just receive a few pages of it (that Baresch copied out), but that he had looked at the whole book and that Moreto had sent it to him --- not just the few pages. Yet he didn't receive the book till 20+ years later, from Marci.    Of course the reference to "the book" and having looked at it might be an ambiguous translation.]