The Book Switch Theory

[proto57]

Just to summarise what we are supposed to believe:

Voynich decided to add the name of Jacobus de Tepenec to his book. (No evidence for this)

Hi, Rene: Well of course you are not "supposed to" believe anything. We are just sharing our differing views, and why, and I doubt either one of us expects to "convert" the other... nor do we want to. But it is always valuable to discuss things.

But I would say that there IS evidence that someone... Wilfrid, a librarian in 1580, a book collector in 1860, the BST hypothesis, and my "you-know-what" idea. Someone added that name there, at some time after 1666... and NOT Horcicky himself, because if, as you theorize, Baresch/Marci/Kinner/Kircher all saw the book before then, yet never mentioned this very important clue, the name staring back at them. They would have known that Tepenenc was Horcicky, but even if they didn't, a name is an obviously important clue, and they didn't record or report it to Kircher? That alone, to me, is what I call a "slam dunk", as it implies either 1) they were not describing the Voynich at all, or 2) that name was added sometime after they saw it, or 3) both. The very fact they didn't mention is, in itself, solid evidence. 

You would, to defend your position that this is a living, Horcicky signature, need to explain why Baresch/Marci/Kinner/Kircher either didn't see it, or didn't mention it. I have not yet heard a reasonable explanation for this, nor actually any explanation for this, good or bad, for that matter.

He wrote this, then erased it. (No evidence for this)

No, no evidence for this. It is one of several speculative lines of reasoning to explore. There are others. 

He then took a photo of that. (This photo, or one of several still exists)

True that. 

He then applied chemicals to make it visible again. (Clear evidence for this)

Well, he did apply chemicals. But you are relying on his word for the reasons this was done. I don't trust the man, as I feel he was simply not to be trusted... when alive, or when R.I.P. He probably did apply chemicals to make the name more visible, but there are other possible reasons he may have done this, which I and others have speculated on, and you can, too, if you like. 

He then realised that it would be very suspicious if he knew who was Tepenec, so he decided to write to the Bohemian state archives to aks who he was, pretending that he thought it was a contemporary of Marci. (The correpondence survived).

He was so worried about not getting a response, that he also asked his employee in London: Herbert Garland to try and find information. (the correspondence survived).

Sort of similar to why I believe he wrote to these people... not quite because "He then realised that it would be very suspicious if he knew who was Tepenec", but more to create a paper trail, which would insulate him from previous knowledge, while at the same time delivering usable citations for him. I think he often asked for opinions to receive back an "expert citation" that he could use for his own purposes. Writing to Prague did this very thing for him... with his (I think ludicrous) "As nearly as I can read the name it is Jacobij a Tspenecz or Topenecz, and I am enclosing [a] photograph of it.” Really? Like feigning ignorance of George Washington... "As near as I can read the name it is "Wsshington" or "Woshington". "Dear sir, we believe you have found a very famous Washington manuscript!".

In addition, from my simple search yesterday, we found that various, existing reference books would have answered the question for him. But "we are to believe" (to quote you) that he waited 6 or 7 years after seeing the "signature", and only then wrote to Prague and Garland?

Anyway, creating such paper trails, or any such thing, is part and parcel of the human art of deception. There are a great many examples of this, in all sorts of nefarious cases of fraud and other crimes, which I don't think are necessary to relate. We've all seen them, and see them all the time. It is similar to a pre-internet, letter based version of the modern "Cunningham's Law", which states, "The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

I believe I've seen them many times in Voynich's writings and behaviors. As I've written, he did it with Ravenstein and that silly lost chart of Magellan, in his goading poor Newbold to reputational sui**de, in his childlike defense of the Columbus Miniature forgery (actually... I have to check on this... I think he did the same thing when claiming to try and identify it... something about "guessing" Cortes, when it was Columbus, or vice-versa), in his coy request for the identification of works by a couple of artists... like Giotti and that awful one of the standing youth "boy sketch" thing... forget the artist attribution he was seeking, there. And in some cases we can logically "catch" him, such as when he pretended to believe that his Bacon Cipher was the "book of heiroglyphiks" (sp?) that Arthur Dee described his father as having. We know he was lying about this, because one of his own listed sources already identified that book. And so on, it is really endless... he was a very slippery individual, I believe. I think he did this all the time, it was his modus operandi for both extracting desired expert citations from an outside source, while at the same time insulating himself from discovery of his inventing much of his own fairy tales. Harsh? My opinion, based on his own words and actions. 

Guess what: I don't buy this.

Ok, of course that is fine. But what I don't get is that, if this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. name is not a lifetime autograph by Horcicky, it does not necessarily affect the authenticity verdict on the Voynich one iota. I mean, this Book Switch Theory only hypothesizes a different path of a genuine Voynich into the hands of Wilfrid. Yes, it would practically erase the current corpus of Voynich research, and an entirely new one would need to be constructed. But is that a bad thing? The old one offers no real answers... it has remained static in the same position for decades, with no new supporting evidence being found to support it. I think this is some indication that the answer does not lie in the whole Marci/Kinner/Kircher/Mondragone/Jesuits/Beckx/Strickland research line, because after decades of digging... especially considering the geometric blossoming of the internet... at least some small supporting crumb of a fact should have been found by now. Maybe it is time to look under new lamp posts? I, for one, am all in for that.

So why not look in some other directions for the answers? It can't hurt, it can only help.

Rich