The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[Legit]

Isn't the manuscript itself the cornerstone that supports its authenticity?

Isn't that a paradox ?  

Thank you, I think ... If I understand the logic of the comment "Isn't the manuscript itself the cornerstone that supports its authenticity" correctly, it is the same thing as stating that a fake-Rembrandt, for example, is the cornerstone that supports its authenticity??

To return to Voynich's forged letters in several PUG-volumes, allow me to deconstruct Baresch 16390427. Incidentally, I do not understand why, in a predominantly English speaking forum, the Kircher-correspondence keeps being referred to by the Italian word "carteggio". To over-inflate its importance? In plain English, a "carteggio" is a "correspondence".   
 
Re 16390427, PUG 557, f. 353rv, Jiří Bareš (Georg Baresch) to Kircher. I suggest that the interested reader consult neither the English translation, nor the English summary, and especially not the Latin transcript, but the original text which is available at [You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.]. The same scrupulousness bestowed on the VM itself should also be applied to its supporting documents, i. e. its "certificates of authenticity", meaning the two letters Baresch 16390427 and Marci 16650819.

I have transcribed all of PUG 557, f. 353rv but for the sake of expediency will limit myself to the most obvious proof of forgery, the diacritics over the "u", "ú", and "ù" (yes, there is more than that). Background: in humanist Latin, scribes occasionally used "ü", not as a modern trema, but to visually distinguish lines of neighboring letter-shapes, e. g. "adinüentionis" (Trithemius, letter to Germain de Ganay, 1515, not autograph). The "sharp" accent" (accent aigu) "ú" was used predominantly in print to indicate the ablative case; the "grave" accent (accent grave) "ù" to indicate an adverb, e. g. "lectúque", "minùs" (Historia rei litterariæ Ordinis S. Benedicti, 1754). In Latin, "ú" was not used to distinguish the sounds /u/ and /v/ or to mark diphthongs. The custom to put a little "flourish" above the "u" to distinguish it from "n" was limited to German handwriting. And Latin diacritics did not have the same meaning as those, for instance, in modern French: in "à côté" the grave is semantic (distinction from the verb "a"), the circonflexe is etymological (vestige of Latin and old French "s", "costa", "coste"), while the accent aigu is phonetic in that it indicates the sound of the long vowel [e:]. – To return to Latin: whichever convention a Latin writer or printer followed, he applied or not applied diacritics to the written letter "u" with 97.8543 percent %regularity.
 
...

First thank you for this detailed information.  It's far from my area of knowledge.  I would say however that as I get older my spelling gets worse and worse and if it weren't for spell check my posts would be much more embarrassing than just speaking on topics among others who know the subjects far better than I.

I will say when approaching your claim as a layman the reasoning leaves some room for doubt.  Yes, I can accept that the Latin in Baresch 16390427 is terrible according to your expert opinion.  But this only proves that Baresh wrote in poor latin at that time when compared to your knowledge of Latin.  What would add to your claim would be proof that this letter had uncharacteristically bad Latin for Baresch.  If you were to also compare this with another recent letter from Baresch (or more if that's feasible) and show that his Latin was not bad in his other correspondence. That would be much more undeniable proof.

edit: shortening the long quote