The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[asteckley]

May I point out that all the guessing and second-guessing about what would have been a natural or likely course of action, that is included in the last more than a dozen posts, amounts to zero evidence?

Voynich could have....
Voynich should have...
Yes, also: Kircher would have...

It is all entirely subjective and means nothing.

I think your dedication to the theory that it is an authentic 15th century creation has caused you and many others to lose track of how little hard (i.e. objective) evidence there actually is, and how much of the story depends on subjective suppositions, speculations, and scenarios that just seem "plausible".

The only hard evidence there is amounts to:

1) C-14 dating
The C-14 dating shows that the parchment (some and "probably" all of it) came from animals that died in the early 1400's.  It is a supposition that the manuscript was therefore created shortly after. It is a subjective assessment that no one would store the resulting parchment for any significant period of time.  

Note: The McCrone chemical analysis from 2009 is often referred to as additional hard evidence. But it actual contributes basically nothing.  It could have presented "damning evidence", such as was the case with the Vinland Map showing components that simply weren't available till too late of a date. But it didn't, as you've noted. But it also didn't provide evidence that narrowed the materials back to the 15th century -- what it found was consistent with the time period including that century and several centuries after that (and consistent with what a potential late-era forger could have used for that matter.) Yet, that McCrone chemical analysis is often mentioned, around this forum and elsewhere, as hard evidence of why we "know" that the manuscript is from the 15th century. It isn't. -- Another good example of how people expand their favorite story to include non-facts as if they are indisputable evidence.

2) The Letters (of Marci, Baresch, Kircher, etc.)
The Marci letter and the others definitely exist and they all seem to legitimately cross-reference to some strange manuscript.  That much, and only that much, is definite -- that is the only 'hard evidence' aspect of The Letters. The rest of it -- specifically the critically important relevance of the letters' content to the VMS and whether they therefore tell us anything certain about the VMS at all-- is circumstantial.  (Some questions have been raised about the Marci letter that suggest a possibility that it was forged, and those should be given due consideration, but by and large, there is little doubt about the authenticity of all of those letters.) 

So the claim that the Marci letter was directly connected (physically and conceptually) to the VMS comes only from Wilfred's own words. One must "suppose" that he was telling the truth. (And, as we've discussed, there are reasons to be concerned about that since his story has curious inconsistencies. He was known to be loose with the truth and he had motivation to be so with the VMS.) After 1921 - after he died and the VMS made its way through various hands and into the Beinecke -- the fact that the letter and the VMS were physically together is meaningless -- there is no hard evidence to conclude that they were ever together before Wilfred himself touched them. It is a subjective evaluation whether his claims can be trusted and therefore whether the letter was ever even related to the VMS at all.  It is further a subjective evaluation as to whether the description of a document in those letters is sufficient to single out the VMS.  One can certainly argue that the description is referring to the VMS -- as is commonly done -- but then any inconsistencies with that claim have to be explained by yet further suppositions and guesswork. (e.g. my favorite: Baresch didn't make the obvious mention of the bathing ladies because it would have been indelicate to point out nudity.)
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That's it. There is no other hard evidence -- and #2 becomes hard evidence only after accepting the multiple suppositions that Wilfred was honest, Marci's letter was authentic, AND the Baresch was describing the VMS.  

(Let me say in advance, if I have indeed forgotten -- and I might have-- to mention some other particular piece of evidence that is actually "hard" evidence, the point remains -- the body of circumstantial inferencing, supposition, and guesswork that fills in all the blanks to any of the theories, including the most popular 15th century one, is vastly greater than the very short list of actual hard evidence.) 

Everything else related to the VMS including the swallowtail merlons; the period of the clothing in the drawings (good work Koen, by the way); whether the script is a cipher, meaningful text, or gibberish; and much much more) is all based on soft evidence that requires subjective assessments of available data. 

We could go on to list several pages of all the various observations and claims that are made about the VMS within the scope of 15th century theory, and why they are based on circumstantial evidence and subjective suppositions, but there's no need (or available time today to do so); anyone who is willing to look at it all objectively can surely recognize just how very few facts we actually "know". And thereby hopefully recognize how often (within this forum and elsewhere) people state things about the VMS as if they were established facts, when in reality those declarations are built on a Jenga stack of suppositions and speculations.