On the character of Wilfrid Voynich

[ReneZ]

Responding to various comments at once...

Voynich's bent shoulder(s), supposedly as a result from solitary confinement, are reported in various sources, and probably have one common origin. I will try to check what Sowerby writes. I have never seen that this affected his arms (left or right) in any way.
I also don't know for certain whether he was left- or right-handed and it seems not relevant, really.

The number of transaction details that 'would be nice to have' for his Jesuit deal are unrealistic. This just does not exist for any other deal. Given that the deal was a secret, this would not have been kept either.

The risks from this sale were not primarily with Voynich, but with the Jesuits, and consequently with the Vatican. The Jesuits stood to lose their other books, which were not for sale, and the Vatican, more than just losing 50,000 Lire, had their reputation at stake. An internal letter of the Vatican library says:

I allow myself to note that the most rigorous silence shall be
necessary also after the delivery (which will need to be made with great caution ), as the
provenience of the volumes must remain unknown , even in our library, to avoid possible
protests against the holy see.

 
This was written by the main librarian, who was a Jesuit and was able to visit the Villa that held the hidden Jesuit library.

Voynich's only risk was that he bought the books in Italy and was forbidden by law to export them without specific permission. He was warned about this by Strickland. This is all documented at my web site (letters from Strickland) and in the academia 'paper' I linked.

This neatly explained why he claimed that he got the books in Austria. Only, that later caused him problems with the FBI during WW1, which is most probably why he changed his story from Austria to 'a castle in Southern Europe' - pretty vague.