The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[proto57]

- Proto57: At some point on this forum, an Italian member posted the screenshot of a copy of a Voynich Manuscript page that he bought from somewhere, and also showed the results of the ink analysis he had done on it, that dated the ink to roughly the 17th to 19th centuries. There's a thread somewhere on this forum with the photo of the page and the ink analysis graph. The page is, I believe, on paper, that has wax seal marks on it. Could that be one of the copied pages Baresch sent to Kircher? If yes, that would work against the manuscript being a forgery by Wilfrid Voynich.

Hi Battler: I am not sure, but I believe that page is the same which I was privately shown, along with a friend of mine on these forums (is it, ___?), back in 2013. It was shown to another mutual friend, Italian, by the man who claimed to have found it somewhere. I don't know if, even after all this time, I have the right to publish it, but I'll put up a small crop of the full page, and you can tell me if this is the one you are talking about:

   

If that is it, then my opinion on it, from the time, still applies... that it was a bad copy of f14v. But now, when looking in my notes and old emails, I do see that the one I am referring to was publicly announced in 2016, and on this forum... and the name of the person who said he found it, "Fabrizio Salani". So again, is that the one you mean?

If so, I also see that he had spent money to have forensic tests on the pigment run, and they came back modern, not 17th century. But I'll stop there, so we are talking about two different cases of found Voynich pages, you can correct me, and show me the one you mean, and the test results and who made them. But from what you tell us, this part, "... that dated the ink to roughly the 17th to 19th centuries.", unless that was through radiocarbon dating, and not chemical analysis, I don't think it would be a problem for the item to have been made EITHER in the 17th century, or this afternoon. But if showed definitively that it was made no later than the 18th century, then yes, it would counter my Modern Forgery theory.

I also recall someone on this forum once saying that Kircher's big book had some illustrations inspired by the Voynich Manuscript's rosettes which, if true, would also work agaisnt the manuscript being a forgery by Wilfrid Voynich.

Again from what you say, I have too little to go on to make a specific comment. And Kircher wrote many books. The problem with any such illustrative comparisons is that a modern forger has all these illustrations to copy from, and that is just about all they do! And even among the works of Kircher I do know of several such good comparisons... but then, whether the one you are referring to, or some one I have seen, that is a problem for genuine/1420, and not modern forgery, because Kircher was not even born when the "1420 Genuine European Cipher Herbal" theory claims the Voynich was created. So no, in this case a good similarity to anything from Kircher's time would support a far later origin of the Voynich than the 1420 Genuine claims.

But yes, I acknowledge that several illustrations associated with Kircher do have similarities to those found in the Voynich manuscript. If you can find the one you are referring to, I'd love to see it. Here is one of Kircher's microscopes, in fact... I believe he was the first person to see a living micro-organism through one, in fact... I think, before Leeuwenhoek? I could look it up but dinners ready! Here is Kircher's microscope. Look familiar?: