Missing folios

[Jorge_Stolfi]

As far as I know, between Marci's 1666 letter to Kircher and Wilfrid announcing it to the world after 1912, there is absolutely no mention anywhere of any book that could be positively identified with the VMS.  

This rough time span of 'no knowledge' is, by the way, also true for all but four (to my best current knowledge) of the other almost 300 books in APUG 3289. And even more so for the 2000+ books in APUG 3225, a catalogue created around the same time, of books that remained in Jesuit possession. We have no catalogue, no disitised copies of these books anywhere. Let's not make a mystery out of something that is a completely normal state of affairs.

It may not be a mystery, but it is a fact.

Let "Barschius Book" be the book which is mentioned in the letters or Baschius and Marci to Kircher.  The sad fact is that there is no compelling evidence for any of these claims:

1) Barschius Book was once owned by Rudolf.
2) Barschius Book was once owned by Jacobus.
3) Beinecke MS 408 is Barschius Book.
4) Betwen ~1680 and ~1860, MS408 was in the Collegio Romano library.
5) Betwen ~1860 and ~1912, MS408 was hidden by the Jesuits in Rome.
6) The parchment cover of MS408 was provided by the Jesuits.
7) Wilfrid bought MS408 from the Jesuits.
8) Marci's letter was attached to MS408 before Wilfrid got the two.

These are all guesses.  They are compatible with the evidence available, but the evidence (like the "miscellanea" listing in the Vatican Library sale) does not make them more likely than alternatives.  It is like "The suspect has a goatee and owns a black jacket, and the Coroner says the murder happened between the 14th and the 17th; and a security camera caught a bearded man in a dark jacket on the 16th, only one block away from the scene of the crime."

As in anything, anyone can and will have their own probabilities for the statements above.  My probability for (1), for example, is near zero; but I see that some still put it at nearly 100% (like Wilfrid did).

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by @asteckley raises serious doubts about (6).  My examination of the UV images of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. made me assign a very low probability to (2), in spite of (or even because of) the "signature". 

I missed the explanation for why the MS408 would have been listed in the lot of books that the Jesuits sold to the Vatican Library in 1912, and how it (with several other books in that list) ended up in Wilfrid hands instead.  I can think of an explanation but it involves the Jesuits consciously committing fraud in order to hide a sale that would have been totally illegal under Italian law at the time.  I suppose some people will not accept that idea. 

About (6), I wonder how the Jesuits and the profs and students of the Collegio Romano would find a book in their libraries?  In any library today the books have a sticker or writing on the spine with a number that lets one identify the book among dozens on the same shelf, and make it possible to re-shelve the book in the proper place.  In small private libraries, books may not have numbers, but instead have the title written on the spine.  Ot at least have some distinctive mark.  But on the spine of MS 408 there is no clear sign of it ever having had any such thing.  There closest thing is some darkish smudges about 2/3 of the way up:
   
These smudges could have once been writing that was thoroughly erased.  The dark color is due to some black residue tucked into the hair pores; the skin around them seems to be of the same color as the rest of the cover.  if there was something written there, would anyone try guessing what it was?

On the other hand, there are many scattered dark stains on the back cover that have the same appearance -- black stuff inside the pores, clean vellum outside them:
   

All the best, --stolfi