I was thinking over the article about Hořčický's books on Rene's You are not allowed to view links.
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Let's begin with the fact that Hořčický numbered his books. We don't know if he numbered all his books, or just a subset thereof. We don't know when he began to number his books. Neither do we know if there was a gap of time between the book being acquired and it being numbered.
But all that is not very important in the view of the self-evident circumstance that the books must have been numbered in the ascending order. In other words, suppose you have a pack of hundred books before you. When you take the first book and number it, you typically won't give it number 78. You will give it number 1. When you take the second book after having numbered the first one, you won't give this second book number 63. You will give it number 2. And so forth.
I presume that this was the practice that Hořčický adopted.
Now, let's build on the fact that some of the books numbered by Hořčický luckily feature not only their numbers, but also the
year in which they got their numbers from their possessor, alias Hořčický. Such are books number 7 and number 18. Both of them were numbered in the year 1602. (As a sidenote, this means that books number 8 through 17 (which we know nothing of) must have also been numbered in 1602).
Not only do books 7 and 18 feature date, they also feature the particular form of Hořčický's mentioning himself. Namely, they attest him as "Jacobi Synapij". I won't speculate whether this handwriting (and writings discussed hereinafter) is that of Hořčický or of his scribe/secretary/whosoever. But that's not very important. What is important is that they say "Jacobi Synapij" (and not "de Tepenec"). That's perfectly fine, because he was not a nobleman at that time.
The fine state of things disrupts at this point, and something strange starts.
Consider book number 4. Since 4 is less than 7, let alone 18, this book must have been numbered no later than 1602. However, it says not "Jacobi Synapij", but "Jacobj à Tepenecz". (The handwriting is totally different from that on books 7 and 18, but, as I said, let's abstract from that for now).
So the question is: if Hořčický was not a nobleman yet back in 1602, how could he mention himself as "à Tepenecz"? I could not find what "à" meant back then. Currently, "á" means "and" in Czech language, which makes no sense in the context. Could it have meant "from" back then? In that case the attribute "from Tepenecz" could have been not a reference to the nobility, but just an indicator of the origin. As I understand, the Tepenecz castle was situated not very far away from Hořčický's birthplace.
I can think of no other explanation, can you?
When we move to the book number 40, we find out that it says "Jakuba z Tepenize". I guess that the name Jacob is put in attributive form here (is it?): like: whose is this book? - this is Jacob
's book. But what is important is the preposition "z". It literally means "from". In other words, the whole phrase stands for "Jacob from Tepenez". This nicely fits my assumption above that Hořčický used to refer to himself as to Jacob "from Tepenecz". The only strange thing here is: why did he use the strange preposition "à" instead of simple "z" when he numbered book number 4?
Mind that we don't know the date when the book number 40 was numbered. It might have been before or after he gained nobility. If it were after, then this is OK from all respects. If it were before, then, as described in the preceding paragraph, we could resort to my assumption of Jacob as the man "from Tepenecz", but anyway this is no stranger than the pre-1602 book number 4 signed in a similar manner.
It is worth noting that Hořčický's legal signature of the year 1617 reads the same way: "Jakub z Tepenize".
There remains only a single Hořčický book which we know of, as of the present time. And that book is the Voynich Manuscript. It features no date (at least, none has been revealed yet under the UV light). It's number, in the present condition of f1r, is ambiguous. Rene suggests that it is number 19, but to me number 79 looks also quite a good match to the remains of the writing that we are to work with.
But the inscription (and the handwriting!) is quite, quite the same as on the (pre-1602) book number 4! It is "Jacobj <or, possibly, "Jacobi"> á Tepenecz". I would note that the diacritic over the "a" looks the other side, but note, in particular, the way that "cz" is written in the two books. It's 100% the same! (I wander why the inscription in the VMS is often quoted as "á Tepenece". It is surely not "Tepene
ce" but "Tepene
cz".)
Two strange things are observed here.
First, if the VMS is number 19, then it must have been dated not long after number 18. It would be strange for Hořčický to have a timeout of several years in numbering his books (even if we assume that he did not number
all books that he acquired, but only a subset of those). In other words, the VMS would have been numbered in 1602 or 1603, something like that.
But that ruins the story that Hořčický acquired the book from Rudolf II, or after him.
If the VMS is not number 19 but, say, 79, it's not that bad.
The second strange thing is the inconsistency of the form that Hořčický mentions himself in. First he says that he is "Jacob from Tepenecz" (book 4). Then, quite quickly, he switches to "Sinapius" (books 7 and 18). Then he returns to "Jacob from Tepenecz" again (book 40 and the Voynich Manuscript).