The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[proto57]

Again, you seem to make my point here. If this work, you feel (as I feel) does not "fit within existing collections", then how does that observation support genuine? You are describing an effect, a result, of making a poor forgery, not a genuine item. Would you or I do it better? Not sure I could, but I would hope it would have been better than this, so people in 2025 didn't say what you just did.

Rich

I should clarify as a work from that period it's very good -  that has content that places it in the 15th century and is C14 dated to the 15th century.

 

So it is good enough to be a genuine work, but it too bad to be a forgery? I think it is is just of poor quality, and you seem to still agree with...

By poor quality, I'm referring to the skill of the illustrator as an artwork.  The shaky hand line work and bad coloring is what makes this a poor document.

OK, well, I agree with you. But the thing is, I see in this a contrary use of differing opinions about the same thing. You used the poor quality of the manuscript as a reason it must not be a forgery, but still seem to suggest it is good enough to be real. And no, it has not been "dated to the 15th century", only the calfskin was, not the inks and paints applied to it. That could not be dated. 

However until we have evidence otherwise, it's reasonable to accept it's what it appears to be - genuine as the default position.

You are welcome to do that, of course. But I would not consider it "reasonable" for me, and never have.

I've read your blog post: The Modern Forgery Hypothesis. Here is a quote.

"As for this “Magellan Map”, Wilfrid had said he found it in the binding of a 1536 book. I contend that map may be a fake, and that Voynich was aware it was a fake, and that this demonstrates that he had some connection to the world of forgery- at least, to the very active industry in manuscript map forgeries which existed at the time."

This speculation about the Map is claimed to demonstrate a connection - another speculation connecting Voynich to a "forgery factory".  If you want to show a connection to other  known forgeries, you could have a list of attributes that these forgeries had which were used to identify them as forgeries forming a kind of "forgery fingerprint" which then would need to be correlated to some features of the VM.  This would add much needed weight to your arguments.

In that you misstate, and misunderstand, I think, the "connection" I intend. It has NOTHING to do with any attributes of the "Lost Chart of Magellan" itself. So there would be no need for me to look for, or "form" a "forgery fingerprint" in the way you mean it. There are different aspects of how forgeries were historical treated at this time, how booksellers treated them, how Voynich treated his and answered for them, the history of map forgeries (very common at that time), where the "forgery factory" may have been (it is not me who first proposed this, it has been suspected about a hundred years), and much more that you would have to learn about the history of forgery for you to understand the points I make in my various posts about that map.

But there is a bigger picture here you do not know about, because it is a long "work in progress", and I only hint at it. So you may think I "need" to do this or that, to convince you... really, though, are you interested in being convinced? And do I want to convince you? I can answer for myself, "no". I only discuss these things for the interest of those truly interested in these things I find interesting, and again, to save them the trouble of believing and disbelieving things that simply are not true.

Anyway, back to the Lost Chart of Magellan... there is a great deal to this story, and much I still have to learn about it. When I do decide to write about this, at length, I hope you, too, will find it interesting. But for now, what I know for now, it relates more to the way Voynich 1) explained things, 2) fished for expert opinions, 3) either related or created provenance, 4) how questionable items have and are accepted by the scholarly community... all I can think of, at the moment.

As for your "fingerprint" suggestion, in a way my "Forgery Red Flags" list, prepared for the NSA Historical Cipher Conference lecture in 2017, is something like that. I compiled it from reading a couple of dozen books on cipher, and much internet research. Here is a copy of my ppt slide from the talk:

   

I argue that the Voynich arguably exhibits, with varying levels of certainty of course, 1 through 12 on that list, only missing #9... as we know where the Voynich is today. The point to listing these forgery features is to make the point that most other forgeries only trigger maybe 3, maybe 5, on that list. And by the way, the Fabulous Impossible One-of-a-Kind Lost Chart of one of the Most Famous Expeditions in the History of Mankind, the Magellan Chart, does fulfill #9, as it is lost. Luckily only a dozen or pages of the Voynich are lost. And it only hits maybe four or five on my list, including #9, so it has fared much better!
But still, I think, another fake.

The speculation on top of speculation makes it hard to accept it to be anything other than a fictional story.  While we're speculating we should definitely implicate Voynichs wife Ethel who continued to try to sell the VM after his death, and their secretary Anne Nill who succeeded in selling it.  Perhaps the encoded text is Polish or Russian since Ethel spoke and translated both of these languages.

You see you can do that, if you want, but you know I don't... so what is the point to those other speculations? Of course, for a false impression that my ideas are foundationless. Rather, you should stick to what I really believe, if you want to argue my actual hypothesis, and not strawmen. 

Ethels claim that Voynich confessed it's true origin to be the Jesuits at Frascati could be used to speculate that she was complicit in the conspiracy to forge and sell the VM.  The claim for the Jesuit origin comes not from Ethel herself but from a letter (presumably written by Ethel) to Anne Nill.  Why would Ethel reveal this only in a letter to Anne? Perhaps Anne Nill forged that letter from Ethel.  After all, she was the one who was successful in selling the VM.  Perhaps there was a love triangle.  The possibilities are endless.

Again, you are creating an implausible set of conditions I in no way believe in, or have ever stated. Why? If my actual hypothesis is weak, you should stick to that, and not grow your own low hanging fruit to pick.

That being said, there are many reasonable explanations, and some really ridiculous ones, as to why Ethel would reveal the Mondragone source in that sealed letter. I don't know which I would consider most plausible, but it does not much matter... the included information, whether true or not, involved people long dead by the time it was opened. Many of the actions of these people will never be known.

Rich