(19-09-2023, 11:13 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.All of this must have drawn attention if the MS was somehow available to the public. Since it doesn't show up in any catalogs, may it have been kept hidden or at least separate already even before the Jesuits started dispersing their collection to avoid confiscation?
I know what you are saying, and it is indeed a bit frustrating that no reference has been found. I still have an open investigation into this, but it is a long shot, and I need to rely entirely on others to check it.
Now there are subjective and objective parts to the answer. To begin with, the library of the Jesuits in the Collegium Romanum was far from open to the public, and no manuscript catalogues have survived. Common knowledge has it that this never existed, but modern researchers consider it possible that it did exist, but was destroyed prior to the confiscation. There is a surviving letter from the head librarian Patrizi, warning for the upcoming confiscation, and the need to take action. I have not seen it yet so this remains a bit vague.
The main source for the non-existence of such a catalogue is a paper by Diamond, which is referred to at my site.
Now for the subjective part.
I tend to believe that the Voynich MS wasn't really that interesting for the people owning it. Kircher may have been the lone Jesuit who could have been interested in it, and he was quite an 'outsider'. However, also he has not shown any indication of interest apart from the lone response to the letter from Muretus in 1637.
After all, the Jesuits were essentially only interested in: (1) religion, (2) education; and this education was according to very traditional lines. Any religious or classical text would be valued over a weird unreadable MS.
More objectively:
of the 200 or so manuscripts in the list to be sold to the Vatlican, there is basically no information about the vast majority of them, from the time they were in Moretus' library until they were sold to the Vatican and Voynich.
This is not particular for the Voynich MS. Also for Moretus' library, only a catalogue of his printed books has survived. (This catalogue is handwritten and is part of the MSs that was sold to the Vatican).
This is exemplified by a book written by another (earlier) librarian Pietro Lazzari or Lazzeri, which is like a florilegium of the books in his library. This mentions only a handful of the books on this list, as also pointed out by Ruysschaert.