The Book Switch Theory

[ReneZ]

OK... I just did a short search... took just a minute or two. And as often happens. I was stunned that, once I did do it, nobody, including myself, had thought to it this way. First I asked Google AI, "When was the name "tepenencz" first mentioned in any printed, published form in history. Did that version of the Horcicky name appear in print before 1910?" And I got the usual, and somewhat expected answer:

I wasn't going to respond, but this triggered a discussion.

This is misleading on so many levels... not even just the anachronistic use of internet resources.

Certainly there are old sources referring to Jacobus de Tepenec.
My biography of him: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists a whole bunch of them.
Jorge Stolfi spent time transcribing one of these, and he can comment how unlikely it is that Voynich read through that volume (it was only one of six volumes IIRC).

But the main point is: you searched for Tepenec because you knew his name from the entry in the Voynich MS.
You did exactly the same as what Voynich did after he found the name in the MS.

You got a response from AI within a minute.
Voynich got a response in a few days by mail (from Garland) and a few more days also by mail (from Prague).
 
I don't think I ever claimed that Voynich could not possibly have known the name Tepenec.
What I did say is that he could not have obtained it from Bolton's book, as you have long suggested.
This is because in this book he is never called Tepenec. Only Horcicky and Sinapius.

Again, there is evidence that he read Bolton's book after 1920. There is no evidence that he did before he realised which Rudolf was meant in the Marci letter.