[Design of Marci Letter]

[Jorge_Stolfi]

GRIN FIENDISH BEAST - INTO BLIGHTED TINGLED TATTER
Why?  Because ...
LETTER HAS LEFT BINDING-TAB DESIGNED RIGHT INTO IT

I think I cracked the first anagram, but I am baffled by the second one.  Waiting for the solution...

Seriously: first, congratulations for seeing things that were quite obvious but somehow were not seen by the hundreds (tens of thousands?) of Voynichologists who scrutinized and analyzed that letter from every possible angle.  Including myself...

I think it says something general about the whole discipline and community.  But let's leave it at that.

IIUC, that tab along the left edge of the letter would have been originally glued on the inside of the original front cover ("page f0v") just next to the binding gutter, in the area that is now covered by the flap of vellum that reinforces the (new) binding.  Correct?

So the letter must have been detached when the book was rebound by the Jesuits (if indeed it was).  And then it must have been re-glued to the new cover -- if we are to take Wilfrid statements and that newspaper article literally, as you propose. 

But if the letter was at some point glued to the new cover, before Wilfrid showed it to the public, we cannot tell whether it was the Jesuits or Wilfrid who glued it, right? 

The letter may also have been detached by Kircher when  he received the book.  (If he indeed received it).  No?

By the way, are the dimensions of the VMS "standard" in some sense?  I mean, was parvelchlumment traded in sheets of standard size, that was then cut in halves, quarters, thirds, whatever was desired?  Which would have resulted in book dimensions being "quantized" to specific values, plus or minus a few mm...

Apologies if the paper answers these questions; I could only do a quick reading.

All the best, --stolfi