The Book Switch Theory

[proto57]

At least, knowing this, now, the official claim "he could not and would not have known" will no longer be claimed, right?

Gosh, Rich, I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and concede as gracefully as possible that if Voynich had access to Google Books in the 1890's or early 'aughts he would have had no problem making the connection between Sinapius and Tepenc.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a letter from Voynich to someone saying, "My latest copy of Communications of the Association for the History of Germans in the Sudetenland just showed up, and I can't wait to read it cover-to-cover," color me skeptical.

Your sarcasm aside, the counter-point you are attempting make is totally unfounded. While the systems of cataloging that would have been in place in 1910 to 1912 would obviously have far less capable, by magnitudes, than the are today, they were nonetheless quite efficient and extensive to a really remarkable level. You know that, though, or should.

I've done much research spanning the old card catalog days, and bridging to the new. The existence of these books, containing the three versions of Horcicky's name... Horcicky/Sinapius/Tepenenc, would have been easily findable. 

Your sarcasm also ignores the commonly projected image of Voynich as one of the greatest book sleuths of his age. So which is it? He could ferret out the rarest of rare classics from the darkest recesses of the dustiest cellars, books that no one else had ever seen, let alone knew of, or imagined...

... or a clumsy, ignorant fool, when that image is necessary to explain gross lapses on his part, with an abject ignorance of how to locate names of people any one else could find in a library catalog card?

No, the reality is that he was well aware of catalog systems. He even kept full time, expert book catalogers on his staff, such as Milicent Sowerby. And in his world, at his time, recording, filing and yes, finding information was a fine art, and so finding these references would have been no problem for the real Voynich.

But I will add that your point here is yet another example of needing to vary a standard of understanding, like Koen said, "sliders", for, in this case, Voynich's abilities. This needs to be done all the time to protect the Paradigm: Voynich was smart, he was stupid; he was extremely knowledgeable, but he was ignorant; he was a liar, we can't trust him, and then, "Voynich said, so we KNOW..."; Voynich was an honest man; but he was a cheat, and made illegal sales; the 'signature' was JUST visible enough to guess "tspenencz", but not enough to guess "tepenencz"; and so on, up and down, depending on what is needed to protect the paradigm.

So, again, no... there is one set of standards here, which I think are completely supported: Voynich knew his way, better than most, around the book cataloging system. Europe at the time... the world, for that matter... was filled with functioning libraries, with extensive and detailed, easily searchable catalog systems. Not only the catalog systems, but remember, most books have bibliographies, which reference other books... like chasing links today, they led you to the related information. Remember "q.v"? "which see"? I did years of research before the internet, all catalog card based, with additional sleuthing based on q.v.'s, and citations of information in other books. The libraries of the world of the time would serve no purpose if one could not find a specific name. It was all devised just for that purpose, and it worked very well*.

One last thing: He knew of Horcicky, we know, because of his love of the Bolton book. He said he "knew it by heart", and we also know he copied down 19 or 20 names from the book, in order. And if he looked up Horcicky, that is another avenue he would have learned he was Tepenenc, because of the fact some of his references... including Horcicky's OWN 1609 book, explain this.

TLDR: Your support of the contention that Voynich would not have easily discovered who "Tepenenc" was is totally unsupported by the practices of libraries and book cataloguing, catalogs, and book indexes and bibliographies of his time, especially considering the man's known intelligence and knowledge of the book and cataloging trade. No google remotely necessary.

* My first g.v. use was in the 1980's, when I was reading an entry on David Bushnell. It said, "q.v. Abraham Baldwin". This led me to his friend, the founder of the University of Georgia. It linked the two of them, one led to the other. In another book, I wanted to know the source of an illustration... it was referenced. I wrote a letter to the collection, with the given number, and ordered my copy of the image. These threads were easily followed, although it took days or weeks back then, when the internet allows us to repeat these searches in milliseconds.

I used these resources thousands of times, over decades, until the internet came along. I was never unable to find a resource which I needed, using these "crude" methods... because they were not crude, just slow. And these systems were in place in Voynich's day, and well functioning, and complete, as they were to us recent, pre-internet times. It is totally unfounded to claim otherwise.