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I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
- I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
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RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
proto57 > 27-09-2026, 08:40 PM
(18-09-2026, 01:10 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If f86v4 is an cross-section of a plant stem, why are there four "angels" and a moon-face in it?
I can suggest a reason for this, which also relates to the (mentioned in this thread) concept of the microcosm and macrocosm. First of all, I do not think those are angels at all: They seem to me to be farmers, as they are holding what looks to me like plants and possibly food items in their hands:
Now look at the lower left "Rosette" design/textures, compared to the f86v4 wheel:
Of course again speculative, but I have long wondered if some of the individual circular shapes found on various foldouts and other pages are meant to relate to the Rosettes pages, in a microcosm/macrocosm relationship. With f86v4, as both the cross section of a wheat stem, and then as an orchard, or farm, with farmers or gatherers in it. And then, pulling further back, that farm shown in the lower left "Rose". I also think that the object to the upper right of that lower left Rose may be a rain cloud. I show it as a floating object in myYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
A long time ago I had begun to make what I think could be possible similar connections between various wheels in the Voynich writ large, with what I think might have been intended as their Macroscopic counterparts in the Rosettes. At the moment I cannot find them... but I think I was up to four such matches.
But in short, I think this idea may explain why one would see both a cross section of a wheat stem under a microscope, and then note various figures in amongst the "cells" holding various plants or fruits or the like. And in my defense, I the concept is not at all unique to me, as there are illustrations attempting to connect the microscopic world with that of larger man, and the Earth, and the sky. And BTW, once again we find, in "Follies of Science in the Court of Rudolf II", several references to the microcosm and the macrocosm. Here is one:
"Hermes calls man the microcosm because the man or the small world contains all that which is included in the macrocosm or great world; thus the macrocosm has small and large animals both terrestrial and aquatic, man on the other hand has fleas and lice, these are the terrestrial animals, also intestinal worms which are the aquatical animals. The macrocosm has rivers, springs and seas ; man has internal organs, intestines, veins and channels. The macrocosm has aerial animals ; man has gnats and other winged insects. The macrocosm has volatile spirits such as winds, thunders and lightnings; man has internal gases and pordas of diseases. The macrocosm has two luminaries, the sun and moon ; man has also two luminaries, the right eye representing the sun, and the left eye the moon. The macrocosm has mountains and hills, man has a head and ears. The macrocosm has twelve signs of the zodiac, man has them also from the lobe of the ear ear to the feet which are fishes", and,
"Paracelsus founded on them a special science, which he called Astronomia, teaching that man is a microcosm in comparison with the Earth and a macrocosm as compared with an atom of matter"."
These are just a couple of examples which I constantly harp on, between all those things hundreds of us have discussed about what the Voynich seems to contain, and what Follies actually does contain. Practically each and every thing all of us has heard suggested is or could be in the Voynich, they will find in that one favorite book of Voynich... and really, not all together in any one other work. Funny, that? It is too much of a coincidence for me to accept, in conjunction with all the other stuffs I've learned about Voynich and his book. -
RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
R. Sale > 29-09-2026, 07:00 PM
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RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
JustAnotherTheory > 30-09-2026, 06:09 AM
Reliquary? -
RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
Jorge_Stolfi > 30-09-2026, 08:35 AM
(27-09-2026, 07:29 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, Kepler was in the Court of Rudolf, and in his 611 "Dioptrice" actually illustrated the function of a two lens microscope!:
I stand corrected; according to Wikipedia, two-lens microscopes were developed only a couple or decades after the invention of the two-lens telescope, in ~1608. So it is theoretically possible that a forger in the mid-1600s created a manuscript that pretended to be the work of some forgotten genius who invented the instrument in the 1400s.
(But in that 1611(?) Kepler book, is he describing a microscope, or a telescope? Unfortunately I cannot read Latin. From the date I would guess that it was still a telescope...)
Quote: we have common ground. On the probable fake nature of the "signature", along with the culprit who put it there. ... So to the "signature", I'll add a possibly supporting, although entirely speculative concept, involving the situation with the "chemical treatment", and the faint nature of the signature to begin with: ...
As a "trailer" for my promised post on that topic: What made me switch from "just possible" to "highly likely" was a comparison of that signature with that on the "#4" book. On one hand, the two are just too similar in overall shape, layout, style, etc. On the other hand, the letters on the VMS are more crooked and uneven, as one would expect in a signature forged by an amateur.
So here is what I now think happened. Wilfrid's problem was that there was nothing in the VMS that indicated that it was Baresch's book, much less that it was the "Bacon Original" that Rudolf had allegedly bought for the 600 pazuzas. No library stamp, no marginal note, no catalog entry. And no explanation for how a Bacon Original could (1) have got from England to Prague and (2) passed from the Royal library to a nobody like Baresch.
For (1), he found a barely plausible solution in John Dee, a known Bacon collector who had visited the Emperor in Prague at what looked like to be about the right time. (However Dee returned to England in 1589, which is 10 years before Rudolf's big book purchase identified by Rene, which is probably what Raphael had heard of.)
For (2), he presumably canvassed the members of Rudolf's court looking for someone who could have taken the book out and whose signature he could forge. My theory is that he picked Sinapius, because of his role in the Court, and/or because he managed to get what he thought was the doctor's signature from the #4 book that was easily available from the Czech National Library. He then copied that "signature", changing only the number to #19, as he extrapolated from the likely dates.
But since then we obtained two other books with Jacobus's name on the front page -- from the Strahov library (which would have been much harder to get to). And one more from the library at Charles University. And the problem is that the two Strahov "signatures" are in a different hand and language, and none of the first three matches Jacobus's actual legal signature, which is on the fourth one. And the numbers in those "signatures" are between 4 and 19.
So maybe Wilfrid, after forging the signature, saw copies of some of the other three, and realized that he had copied the wrong signature, with a number that would be hard to explain. Or maybe he realized that his amateurish forgery would be easily spotted by any handwriting expert, even in 1920. So he erased the signature, with the excuse of trying to enhance it. He left only enough of a trace to be barely legible -- but not enough for forensic analysis.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
proto57 > 30-09-2026, 03:34 PM
(30-09-2026, 08:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(27-09-2026, 07:29 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, Kepler was in the Court of Rudolf, and in his 611 "Dioptrice" actually illustrated the function of a two lens microscope!:
I stand corrected; according to Wikipedia, two-lens microscopes were developed only a couple or decades after the invention of the two-lens telescope, in ~1608. So it is theoretically possible that a forger in the mid-1600s created a manuscript that pretended to be the work of some forgotten genius who invented the instrument in the 1400s.
We are actually much closer than I thought, if believe this theoretically possible... it is exactly the basis for my theory, if you only substitute "mid-1600s" with "early 1900s". I mean, I didn't realize you were open to a post-1420 origin by hundreds of years, and to a possibility of forgery of optical devices.
(30-09-2026, 08:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(But in that 1611(?) Kepler book, is he describing a microscope, or a telescope? Unfortunately I cannot read Latin. From the date I would guess that it was still a telescope...)
Yes, it is a 1611 book (addressing your question mark), and he describes the optical principles of both microscopes and telescopes. He did not name them that, they had other names in his time, and before. But the principles and diagrams of the optical paths and effects are in this book, and were the basis for creating both microscopes and telescopes. And of course, both existed in various forms even before 1611, but not by much. And, again, Kepler was in Rudolf's Court at the time.
Eustice Divini actually based HIS microscope on Proposition 37 of Dioptrice, "Proposition 37: Kepler describes how a single lens or a specific doublet lens configuration can magnify near objects. In 1648, the prominent optical artisan Eustachio Divini built one of the earliest high-power compound microscopes explicitly citing Proposition 37 as his blueprint."
"Propositions 86 and 89: Kepler outlines how combinations of convex lenses can be arranged to show close-up things distinctly, upright, and significantly enlarged."- "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."
Anyone interested in an English translation of the entire Dioptrice, this one is excellent... and recent. Previously... the past couple of decades!... I had relied on partial translations, and even had often transcribed the Latin for portions, then used Google Translate. Wish I had this, back then!:
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Kepler is mentioned in "Follies..." 21 times, and Dioptrice once. Page 86, "While in the service of Rudolf, Kepler wrote some of his most valuable works; in the treatise on "Optrics and Dioptrics" (1604) [sic] he explained the physics of the eye and the action of lenses...".
proto57 Wrote:we have common ground. On the probable fake nature of the "signature", along with the culprit who put it there. ... So to the "signature", I'll add a possibly supporting, although entirely speculative concept, involving the situation with the "chemical treatment", and the faint nature of the signature to begin with: ...
Jorge_Stolfi Wrote:As a "trailer" for my promised post on that topic: What made me switch from "just possible" to "highly likely" was a comparison of that signature with that on the "#4" book. On one hand, the two are just too similar in overall shape, layout, style, etc. On the other hand, the letters on the VMS are more crooked and uneven, as one would expect in a signature forged by an amateur.
So here is what I now think happened. Wilfrid's problem was that there was nothing in the VMS that indicated that it was Baresch's book, much less that it was the "Bacon Original" that Rudolf had allegedly bought for the 600 pazuzas. No library stamp, no marginal note, no catalog entry. And no explanation for how a Bacon Original could (1) have got from England to Prague and (2) passed from the Royal library to a nobody like Baresch.
For (1), he found a barely plausible solution in John Dee, a known Bacon collector who had visited the Emperor in Prague at what looked like to be about the right time. (However Dee returned to England in 1589, which is 10 years before Rudolf's big book purchase identified by Rene, which is probably what Raphael had heard of.)
For (2), he presumably canvassed the members of Rudolf's court looking for someone who could have taken the book out and whose signature he could forge. My theory is that he picked Sinapius, because of his role in the Court, and/or because he managed to get what he thought was the doctor's signature from the #4 book that was easily available from the Czech National Library. He then copied that "signature", changing only the number to #19, as he extrapolated from the likely dates.
But since then we obtained two other books with Jacobus's name on the front page -- from the Strahov library (which would have been much harder to get to). And one more from the library at Charles University. And the problem is that the two Strahov "signatures" are in a different hand and language, and none of the first three matches Jacobus's actual legal signature, which is on the fourth one. And the numbers in those "signatures" are between 4 and 19.
So maybe Wilfrid, after forging the signature, saw copies of some of the other three, and realized that he had copied the wrong signature, with a number that would be hard to explain. Or maybe he realized that his amateurish forgery would be easily spotted by any handwriting expert, even in 1920. So he erased the signature, with the excuse of trying to enhance it. He left only enough of a trace to be barely legible -- but not enough for forensic analysis.
I left all the above intact, and I agree with your reasoning wholeheartedly... we again only disagree on some important details, such the nature of the work which Voynich applied this false signature, and his specific motives: You, on some genuine work he found, to tie it to Horčický and the Court, me, on his forged work, to tie it to Horčický and the Court. I also believe his motivation for choosing Horčický was different than yours, in that I think he was picked because of his role in the Court as described in "Follies...". But we are close on that, too, I think.
Much of your above reasoning is original, but also partially based on the findings of Anton, and you and others, in the excellent discussion on this Ninja thread, started by Anton, and titled "Horčický's books": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I think it would be very hard for anyone to argue that the "signature" is real, as in "by" Horčický, after reading through that thread, and what you wrote above. But if one thinks about it, many who hold that the 1420 Genuine European Cipher Herbal paradigm is the correct one, are nonetheless open to all these: That it is a forgery from some time; that some of the jars may be optical; that some of the content may be microscopic; that the "signature" may be fake, from some time; that it probably has nothing to do with Bacon; that Voynich clearly knew it was not by Bacon; that it may not be the work described and seen by Baresch/Kinner/Marci/Kircher (that the "given" provenance is flawed and/or nonexistent; that it may have been inked hundreds of years past the C14 dating... and more, but the previous is just in this one thread alone.
All the best, Rich -
RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
JustAnotherTheory > 30-09-2026, 04:12 PM
This is also what caught my interest in the beginning, that the surviving early correspondence involving Baresch, Marci, and Kircher does not exploit a (what should be) obvious Tepenecz signature on the manuscript.
These people were experts of their time. Yet nobody mentions Tepenecz as owner or seems to investigate it further.
Maybe because... it wasn't there at that time? -
RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
proto57 > 30-09-2026, 05:19 PM
(30-09-2026, 04:12 PM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is also what caught my interest in the beginning, that the surviving early correspondence involving Baresch, Marci, and Kircher does not exploit a (what should be) obvious Tepenecz signature on the manuscript.
These people were experts of their time. Yet nobody mentions Tepenecz as owner or seems to investigate it further.
Maybe because... it wasn't there at that time?
Yes. And on a related note, the 1665/66 Marci Letter, which Voynich claims he found in his "Bacon Cipher": Like the "signature", all the information which Marci supposedly relates to Kircher in that letter would have been extremely important, and should have been related to Kircher decades before. Why wait until a year before your death, and finally tell Kircher all about the Ferdinand and Bacon and all the other info in that Letter?
Of course all these and related information is, and has long been strongly presented as iron-clad provenance. But very much to the contrary, I believe, when critically examined, it is not only no provenance at all, but even, "anti-provenance", in that it suggests the "men of the Letters" were not looking at the Voynich we know today, at all. They were looking at something else entirely, whether or not the Voynich is genuine, old, fake, new... everything we do know about all of this tells us they were not looking at it in the first place.
Rich
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RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
JustAnotherTheory > 30-09-2026, 07:23 PM
Plus it's kind of weird how the Tepenecz signature would be so quickly "erased", when the manuscript, allegedly, is hundreds of years older than the signature and looks fine.
Anyway, I wonder if we can treat the folio with the Tepenecz signature as some kind of "crime scene" and use some visual forensic tools to investigate foul play. Something like multispectral imaging, ink analysis, chemical residues (for removing a signature quickly), fiber disturbance, etc... ? Although I admit that these tools are not available to us without a physical examination of the folio. -
RE: I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS
Jorge_Stolfi > 01-10-2026, 01:19 PM
(30-09-2026, 03:34 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(30-09-2026, 08:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So it is theoretically possible that a forger in the mid-1600s created a manuscript that pretended to be the work of some forgotten genius who invented the instrument in the 1400s.
I didn't realize you were open to a post-1420 origin by hundreds of years, and to a possibility of forgery of optical devices.
I was speaking generically there, not about the VMS.
As you know, I am now convinced that the VMS is not a forgery but a honest transcription of a Chinese classic. This implies that it was written before the 1600s, because after that the Jesuits would have got translations or pinyin-like transcriptons. And if it is not a forgery, then the C14 dates for the vellum are string evidence for a mid-1400s date.
But, even so, I give significant probability to BL MS 408 not being Baresch's book, and to its history before 1912 having nothing to do with the "consensus" version. I think it is quite possible that MS 408 got associated with Marci's letter either by mistake, or intentionally by Wilfrid -- either because he was unable to get the real Baresch book, or because he got it but found that it would never pass for a Bacon Original.
Quote: ... many who hold that the 1420 Genuine European Cipher Herbal paradigm is the correct one, are nonetheless open to all these: ... that it probably has nothing to do with Bacon
I don't think anyone believes that by now. Not an original in his own hand, not even a later copy of one.
Quote:that Voynich clearly knew it was not by Bacon
I gather that he found some "experts" who supported that view, and choose to go by them. But any real experts on Bacon's works should have told him "no way".
Quote: that it may have been inked hundreds of years past the C14 dating...
I think that the poor quality of the vellum gives a bit of support for this theory, even if the book is not an intentional forgery. If the vellum was fine, we would assume that it was bought for the purpose and came from a trader's stock that was quickly renewed. But the poor quality of the material and the obviously unskilled Scribe say that the Author was financially stressed. Then, instead of buying fresh vellum, he may have fetched the box of rejected sheets that his great-grandpa left in the attic, and begged friends and local monks to do the same; and/or he may have removed blank bifolios from some old "student-quality" books that he happened to have. Or cut out folios from larger books and folded them as bifolios.
All the best, --stolfi