04-02-2026, 08:44 PM
(04-02-2026, 08:27 PM)proto57 wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That is an excellent experiment, Eggyk, but I have to say that the results of your experiment only bear out what I also found: The folds make no sense in any real context. When I say that the letter "doesn't fold", I don't mean, of course, that it cannot be folded into SOME shape or another. Any flexible sheet CAN be folded. Your photographs are a clear demonstration of this, as none of the results are normal for any letters of the time.
So as my demonstration and your experiment both show, the 1665/66 Marci letter does not fold in one of the ways letters of the time folded:
1) When a single letter, ending up so that the address is on one side, and room for the seal to hold it together.
2) When folded as an envelope, in order to contain other sheets, it may not have writing nor markings on the reverse. Then, one side usually folds over the other, and the seal can be affixed to secure that fold.
The Marci letter cannot do any of that. It does not make sense in any context.
You may also come to the conclusions I have... that is, that this letter "doesn't fold into anything reasonable, normal, logical", by repeating your experiment on the other Marci letters from the Kircher Carteggio. You will quickly see the difference.
Thanks
To me, it feels like it would have been shut close in order to make it small and fit within something else. The wax on the inside would then be to keep it flat, tidy and manageable. Either way, folding it in this way feels like how it would have shut, regardless of where and when this letter was made. It's not a random configuration; it makes sense and lines up nicely (the part that bends also naturally gets the creases you see in the letter, such as above the R in "Reverende".
So i don't agree that it doesn't fold into anything reasonable, normal or logical, it clearly does (if you cast aside the notion that it must have been an envelope). In the context of making folded paper stay shut it makes complete sense.
Why does this letter itself need to have been an envelope, anyway? Why not an insert amongst other correspondence, or within another envelope?