The Book Switch Theory

[kckluge]

Let's focus on _Konfessy Katholicka_. Let's make the following (I'm more than willing to grant) perfectly reasonable assumptions:

* the 1782 edition of _Konffessý katholická_ currently in the British Library was there at the period of the supposed forging, and

* the card catalog listed the author as "Horčický z Tepence, Jakub, 1575-1622", as the current on-line catalog does, and

* Voynich either spoke Czech or could have easily found someone who did.

Granting those assumptions, then yes, Voynich could in principle have found out that Rudolph ennobled Sinapius and granted him the Tepence estate. He also could have found the "Tepenecz" form of the spelling on the page showing the "INSIGNIA NOBILIS D. IACOBI HORCZIcky à Tepenecz".

Well we are getting much closer, you are almost with me now on this... especially having dropped the need for Voynich to have Google to do this! You now agree with me that this would have been possible for him to do, to find the Horcicky/Tepenenc connection. And for those unaware, that is a light year of distance from from the old narrative, used as recently as yesterday, when still it was insisted in all sources that it would have been "impossible" for Voynich to find this out before his 1921 correspondence with Garland. 

But importantly, it was not just the Konffessý katholická, as Voynich would have had other targets, which I listed in my first answer to you... You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., reference works, which also listed Horcicky as Tepenenc. And I also found others, which all would have also been in print and available to Voynich at some library or another.

Yes, I was well aware of the ones listed in post #100, as I made explicit reference to them in a part of my post you cut from your reply. Both refer to him including the Horcicky before Tepence. If any of the others you found didn't feel free to point me to them.

Thing is, every reference to him in that book using "Tepence" is always as "Jakub Horcicky z Tepence" (or, in the above case the Latin form "Iacobi Horczicky a Tepenecz"). So what he could not have gotten from that was the idea of forging Sinapius' ex libris on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. using the form "Jacobi à Tepenecz" without the Horcicky.

Ok? But the signatures use that form. I think now you are splitting hairs with this. Once he knew Horcicky was Sinapius was Tepenenc, then this would plausibly lead him to finding other references to Tepenenc... perhaps his signature, with that form... with no "Horcicky"? Who knows. But once he knew who he was, it would open the door to his learning more about him, and his title. 

Not splitting hairs at all. If the premise is that the ex libris was forged, then the question is necessarily where Voynich picked up that form of the name from. 

"...perhaps his signature..." -- how very coy of you. Who's being sarcastic now? Yes, he appears to have used Jakub z Tepen<squiggle> as a signature per the example found by K. Slajsna and J. Hurych shown at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Which, AFAIK, is the only known published example of his signature. So we have a grand total of one signature and two (non-MS 408/non-"Jacobi Synapij") ex libri (one of which J.B.Hurych claims was also written by Sinapius -- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Not sure how many Stefan Guzy will be adding to the mix. It would be easier to judge how plausible Voynich finding any of them was if I knew exactly how many person-hours went into locating them and what collection catalog information (if any) was used to find them. Rene, can you weigh in on how the ex libri were found?