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Visit to Beinecke
Dear All,
I visited the Beinecke library. Please find below a few
notes I took, intertwined with comments from Rene and a
short comment from a librarian that used to be a Beinecke.
My main conclusion is that it is imperative to get a very
good copy of the VMs showing all the possible details. Some
folios (i.e., folio 72) are all curled up and, in a while,
it will be impossible to get a proper look at them. I used
a 2x magnifying glass and allowed to see some details, but
a high definition photography that would allow a 10x
magnification and realistic colors would be ideal. In parts
I used my Victorinox 8x loope and it proved very useful.
Rene said some time ago (Feb-99) that there is not too much
time to see everything one wants, and that's true: I used
about three hours to look at the VMs. and one and a half
hours each for box E and box M, those that I thought were
more likely to contain a letter with a reference to
Georgius Barschius (Baresch). I took notes in my laptop and
I include them below. I think that each one that goes could
contribute a little and a proper catalog of the box
contents would be necessary. Given the limited time, one
could consider what I wrote below not as a proper catalog,
but only as a 'contribution' to such a goal.
I include below some details on the VMs. (including notes
about a 'missing' letter) and a quick catalog of the
contents of boxes E and M.
Enjoy it.
Claudio
============================= VMS
===============================
A few handwritten notes on the manuscript itself:
------------------------------------------------------------
-
At the back of the front cover (the cover that touches f1r
when the Ms. is closed) it is hand-written in pencil:
[Near the top, on the right side of the page]
QUOTE
J 10,22
UNQUOTE
[Near the center, on the right side of the page]
QUOTE
/Bsafe
De Ricci Census of ????
Vol.II, 1846-7
UNQUOTE
The four exclamation marks correspond to something like
a 'DAsc' but I'm not sure. The words 'Census', 'of'
and '????' are underlined.
[From Rene:]
"-- Full quotations for 'Ruysschaert' and 'De Ricci' are on
the references
page of my web site (www.voynich.nu)
[From Lisa Fagin Davis, UMCC. She received her Ph.D. in
Medieval
Studies from Yale in 1993, where for 4 years was also
employed as the
assistant to the curator of pre-1600 books and manuscripts
at the Beinecke
(Robert G. Babcock).]
QUOTE
I am quite familiar with the Voynich manuscript, having
[seen it]
as a graduate student at Yale. The "deRicci" reference is
to the
S. deRicci "Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts
in the United
States and Canada", where the reference to this manuscript
can be found in
Volume II, pp. 1846-1847 (published in 1935). The Census
was written when the
manuscript was still owned by Voynich. The "safe" section
that you quote
refers to where the manuscript is shelved at the Beinecke
Library.
UNQUOTE
============================================================
============
At the back of the back cover (the cover that touches f116v
when the Ms. is closed) it is hand-written in pencil (the
symbol [P] stands for the proof-correcting symbol
for 'paragraph'):
QUOTE
[P] Some signatures at
beginning and end
resewn with Irish linen
Hi??ad
[P] Vellum ? a Hached
with leather thongs
and Vellum guards
added at beginning
and end - ???/2, 1967
HH 7484
UNQUOTE
where
Hi??ad looks like 'Hiread' but it's not very clear
??? looks like three capital I's (Arial, which are
three vertical bars) with an horizontal bar at
the top of the three I's.
7484 is underlined
[From Rene:]
"-- That's linen thread. Kraus apparently had part of the
MS rebound.
I think the second ? could be 'case' but this is very hard
to
read. The next word is 'attached'. HH is probably HK (Hans
Kraus)."
============================================================
============
The following are quick observations that are more to be
discussed drinking a beer than to be published in an
academic journal:
-- Incomplete and, at times, arbitrary coloring. Obvious.
In some cases, the 'rays' of the stars are not fully
colored and only a dot is placed in the center of the star.
It looks it was more important to place a color rather than
to color precisely up to the boundaries of the figures. At
some stage one is tempted to think that the presence or
absence of color would mean something (the colored stars in
folios 103 to 116). In other folios, only some leaves of
the plants are colored. Also look at the blues in f90v and
the greens in f93v.
-- In general, there is an emphasis on symmetry: if one
plant has 'x' leaves painted on the left, the same number
of leaves will be painted on the right side of the plant.
-- Apparently, the figures were drawn first and the text
was added later. AFTER this, the vellum was cut (folios 70
to 80). There are many folios where the drawing proceeds
right to the end of the folio (f89).
-- Folio 86 would look like a summary of something. A
cosmological vision, or a summary of the contents of the
Ms., or both?
[Rene says: "It strikes me that the composite 9-circle
diagram also comes out to you as some kind of overview
or synthesis. This is not too obvious when looking at
the copyflo reproduction, but quite so when looking
at the original. D'Imperio writes the same."]
-- Inks. Some are noticed very well (f84) but others are
fading (f72/f73), particularly in the Astro section. One
more reason to have a good reproduction.
-- Ink patterns. I have used ink before and the standard
pattern in writing is that the writing becomes
progressively lighter, and then one refills. If one writes
from left to right one would see that a few characters
become lighter and then, all of the sudden, a few very dark
characters appear until the writing becomes lighter and the
pattern 'from darker to lighter' repeats itself. Although
this pattern can be seen, in a few places the characters
are lighter at the RIGHT of the dark characters, which
cannot be explained unless one considers retouching (or
partial right-to-left writing which, given the few
occurrences, I don't think is viable to assume). A detailed
study of the light/dark pattern will indicate how the Ms.
was produced: if copied or generated 'on-the-fly'. If it
was copied, the pattern would tend to be repeated fairly
regularly. Otherwise, the scribe would have to think before
writing something, the ink would dry and would have
to 'refill' at irregular intervals. This study would
require a very good reproduction of the Ms. to be able to
distinguish color changes in the ink. I just looked at the
Yale reproductions and some of them show the colors rather
well (http://inky.library.yale.edu/voy/Z3724836.jpg) but
others are way off
(http://inky.library.yale.edu/voy/Z3610590.jpg).
-- One striking fact is that the colors of the folios, in
reality, are always much lighter than those of the same
folios shown on the Web (the Astro section probably being
the lighter of them all).
-- f1. The three rows of symbols at the right of the folio
are almost unnoticeable. It would have passed completely
unnoticed would not have been by the notes that indicated
that something was there. The chemicals that were applied
to the folio didn't do any good to those symbols,
particularly. After one sees the bottom and the right parts
of f1r, one understands why non-destruction testing is a
must. For that reason too, it would be extremely useful to
include various types of lights when photographing
(reproducing) the Ms., not just daylight. And to add a
chart of colors (like one of those sent to the Mars
expeditions to calibrate the colors).
-- There a few holes in some folios. In some cases they
might come from worm-holes. In others, if the hole occurs
only in one folio, if the folio is photographed without
taking proper precautions (putting some vellum of the same
color at the back), the photograph might show characters,
colors or whatever is on the next folio. At one stage I was
looking at a flower on a recto folio, when I saw an
inscription in the center of the flower: It was not an
inscription from the same folio, but characters from the
folio below, also recto.
============================================================
=============
======= THE CASE OF THE MISSING LETTER =========
I followed a lead suggested by Rene, who said:
QUOTE
>> ... the copy of a message
>> from Prague about the inheritance by Marci of Baresch'
>> alchemical library. That could include information about
Baresch,
>> in particular the date of his death.
It is described in Brumbaugh's book [who] wrote:
(start quote)
In looking through cartons of material in the Beinecke
Library,
I came across what seems an unaddressed and undated
carbon of
a translation of a note from Prague to Voynich. (Copies of
translations of other letters from the Bohemian State
Archives
to Voynich, similarly undated and unaddressed, were in
the same
box.) This was apparently in response to an inquiry about
the
identity of the owner who had the manuscript between the
death
of de Tepenecz and its acquisition by Marci. This was the
owner
about whom Marci wrote, that he was determined to solve
it. The
note says that Marci probably inherited the manuscript
from
Georg Barschius, an alchemist, since ''Marci inherited
Barschius'
alchemical library.'' Since the Bohemian Archives proved
right
in every other piece of information supplied - for
example, the
identity of ''Dr Raphael'' - this is worth following up
(end quote)
QUOTE
On the topic of the 'missing' letter that Brumbaugh
mentions in his book: I don't think such a letter ("a
translation of a note from Prague") exists in the boxes. I
think that what Brumbaugh did was reverse the position
of 'Prague' and 'Voynich' in his statement, by mistake. If
one thinks about it, why could Wilfred Voynich have a
carbon of a letter written in Prague? It would be more
natural to have a carbon of a copy that HE (Voynich) wrote
TO somebody in Prague, not the other way around. Nobody is
going to mail carbons. For clarification I put the dates
below, and one can see that the following scenario makes
sense:
March -1921 Mr. Khicman performs searches in Prague
Mar-16-1921 Mr. Khicman writes (or sends?) letter from
Prague
Apr-11-1921 Letter received in NY
May-27-1921 Carbon of letter from Voynich to Prague,
thanking for letter of Apr-11 and mentioning
here about the
inheritance of the "alchemical library of
Georgius Barschius,
some time after 1622". It says, in full, the
following:
"... I have come to the conclusion that Marci
received it about 1644. Now I have no definite
information but it is possible
that Marci got the Ms. at the same time that he
inherited the alchemical
library of Georgius Barschius, some time after
1622. I can find nothing here
about Georgius Barschius. Perhaps Bohemian
archives contain something about
him and his connection with Marcus Marci and
what connection, if any existed
between Horcicky and Barschius."
Voynich asks for more information about this
topic, and no
response to this request is recorded (in boxes E
and M, at least).
What it DOES exist, is the carbon of a letter (not a
translation) from Voynich to Prague (not from Prague to
Voynich), which I transcribe (most of it) below, in folder
4 of box E.
--------- END OF THE CASE OF THE MISSING LETTER ------------
======================= Attempt of a catalog of boxes E and
M =====================
---- [Limited time is the main excuse for any inaccuracy/un-
cataloged material] ---
The first line after the 'Folder' line below is the title
written already in the folder, not my interpretation of
what's inside.
======================= Box E ==========================
Folder 1
Title: Ms Notes by Mr. Voynich in re. Roger Bacon and his
paper on the history of the cipher Ms
-- The court of Rudolph II
-- Lots of handwritten notes (could they shed any light on
Baresch/Barschius?)
-- One carbon on Roger bacon, extract from "Medieval
Medicine" by JJ Walsh,
A&C Black Ltd, 1920
. Rabbi Bezalel Loew in Prague
Folder 2
Title: not recorded
-- Picture where 'Jacobi ?? Tepenece' can be read
-- 6 or 7 Photographs of the 1st folio, chemically treated
Folder 3
Title: Translations of Marci's letter
. "Secreta Manuscrita Kircheriana (unfortunately they are
destroyed)"
Folder 4
Title: not recorded
-- Jacobus Hocziczky de Tepenecz
-- Dr Raphael Sobehrd - Mnisovsky de Sebuzin et de Horstein
(in French)
[Rene says:]
"I have photocopies of the French letters and used their
contents
at my web site. The signature of Voynich's Prague
correspondent
would seem to read Klicman which has a slightly more Czech
ring
to it than Khicman, but I wouldn't bet my life on it."
------------ Carbon of Voynich's letter --------------------
[Presumed to be from Voynich because it says "my MS." and
because it makes reference to a letter addressed to 'him',
and there is letter from the same dates addressed to
Voynich.]
Letter from Voynich to Khicman, "Conseiller Ministeriel et
Directeur des Archives D'Etat, Prague, Czechol Slovakia",
dated May 27, 1921 (and sent on May 28, as evidenced
by "Receipt for Registered Article"). The searches were
done by Mr. Khicman in early March 1921, and the envelope
that contained the documents was received in NY on April
11, 1921. The letter from Mr. Khicman is written in French,
and there are two documents in Latin and two in French,
all five documents inside a brown envelope.
After name and titles of recipient, Mr. Voynich says:
"Please accept my apology for delay in acknowledging your
very kind letter of
March 16th. I feel under great obligation to you for
sending me the information
about Horcicky and Raphael Missowski, and also for the
trouble you took to send
me photographs of these men.
"I am glad to say that all the material which you sent to
me arrived in time for
my paper before the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, in
connection with the
history of a Roger Bacon MS. in cipher which I possess.
"You are quite right in supposing that the MS. is connected
with Bohemian history
for to all practical purposes this remarkable MS. is
preserved to the world
thanks to the keen interest in it manifested by several
seventeenth century
Bohemian scholars.
"I pointed out in my lecture that my MS. came into the
possession of Emperor
Rudolph II somewhere about 1584-1588 from John Dee, the man
about whom Bohemian
historians have written so much. It then passed into the
hands of Horcicky
after 1608, and he, as you will remember, placed his
autograph in the MS. in
the form of Jacobus de Tepenecz. I then face a gap of about
22 years in the
history of the MS. and I have hopes that also on this point
you may be able
to help me. Horcicky died in 1622 and a letter attached to
the MS. by Marcus
Marci, addressed to Athanasius Kircher, shows that Marci
received the MS. from
a friend who had willed it to him. I have come to the
conclusion that Marci
received it about 1644. Now I have no definite information
but it is possible
that Marci got the MS. at the same time that he inherited
the alchemical
library of Georgius Barschius, some time after 1622. I can
find nothing here
about Georgius Barschius. Perhaps Bohemian archives contain
something about
him and his connection with Marcus Marci and what
connection, if any existed
between Horcicky and Barschius.
"In 1665 (or 1666) (the date of the letter attached to my
MS. is a little
obscure) Marcus Marci gave this MS. to Kircher. The letter
of Marci in my MS.
gives this information. So you see for over one hundred
years this MS. was in
Bohemia in the hands of very prominent people.
"... I have seen notices that there exists in the archives
of Bohemia a
catalogue of the collection of Emperor Rudolph's Museum
1601. I wonder if this
is true and if in this catalogue is enumerated a mysterious
MS. in cipher with
illustrations of planets, astrological diagrams, etc. and
perhaps attributed
to Roger Bacon.
"I see in biographies reference to the fact that Horcicky
left his property
to the Jesuits at Prague. I wonder if this property
included his library and if
this library was disbursed or given away by him when he was
expelled from
Bohemia en 1619. Perhaps research in that direction will
reveal to whom he
gave my MS."
[Two more paragraphs referring to the future work and his
conference to be
delivered April 20-21 in PA, and an article that "just
appeared in Hearst's
Magazine for June".]
"Yours sincerely, "
---------------- End of carbon of Voynich's letter ---------
-------
======== Comments from Rene about this letter ============
Voynich made his 'famous' presentation in Philadelphia,
together with Newbold and McClung, on 20 April 1921!!"
"I have a copy of the letter Voynich is responding to (it
matches his
response) and this letter does not mention Baresch."
Where is Baresch' inheritance coming from???
'After 1622' is simply after Tepenec' death. We have a
letter from
Baresch dated 1639, and Marci mentions him being alive also
in 1640...
I can only guess that somewhere in one of the B boxes there
could be a
letter from Prague which names this man (but does not give
the date of his
death).
Around the time of WW II, a complete catalogue [of the
collection
of Emperor Rudolph's Museum 1601] was found in
Liechtenstein,
and this does not mention the Voynich MS.
I'm intrigued by what you found - where would Voynich have
gotten
Baresch's name from? Did he perhaps see the Kircher
correspondence in
Rome after all? Or did he hear it from the Mondragone
Jesuits?
Voynich did not use Baresch' name in his presentation in
Philadelphia,
which is mildly suspicious. I'm not seeing specters.
Voynich was
deliberately inaccurate about various other things because
he
promised the Jesuits not to betray their secret trade. This
could
just be another case.
======== End of Rene's comments ==========================
>From ARCHIV MINSTERSTVA VNITRA
Praha 158 - III. Valdstynska 16.
Nobilitatio
Rudolphus
Sotheby's catalogue 1928
Folder 5
Title: John Dee
-- Mathematical Preface
Folder 6
Title: Thorndike's Notes (90 pages)
(In the cover says: 'can be destroyed')
Folder 7
Title: Plant drawing identifications by E.L.V.
+1 verso: AAtrope Belladonna
6v: Castor Oil Plant
The Greek herbal of Dioscorides (pamphlet)
Folder 8
Title: not recorded (isn't it 'Roger Bacon'?)
Roger Bacon, The Times Literary Supplement, Oct-02-1930
Photos from a Ms. in cipher (?)
Letter to Prof. Petersen Theodore, St. Paul's College from
the Vatican
Invoice from Biblioteca Apostolica Romana, Reparto
Fotografico
Folder 9
Ciphers
-- Tablets antedating Homer Deciphered (Apr-09-1954)
-- A Minoan script ...
Folder 10
Collation - Various notes and versions
======================= Box M ==========================
Contains three pieces: one letter with attachments (partly
summarized or transcribed below), one bunch of notes
(transcription) of part of the VMs (some 300 pages), and a
set of notes on electricity, Osiris, other Egyptian gods
and a conglomerate of theories along the same vein (about
400 pages).
[Beinecke's catalog says: Miscellaneous correspondence
between R. Brumbaugh and J.M. Saul (Paris) and J. Arnold
(Oak Grove, Mo.). Handwritten transcription of ff.89v-116r
by R. Brumbaugh.]
----
This is what Brumbaugh succinctly wrote of the contents of
some of the material in this box:
'This combines lunacy and blasphemy - Another for the file -
B'
----
Letter from Brumbaugh to Yale submitting some material,
including a letter by John M. Saul.
--------------- Letter from John M. Saul begins ------------
------
Extract of Letter by John M. Saul, Ph.D.
Oryx, 3 rue Bourdaloue 75009 Paris, Tel 2805820
dated Oct-22-1981
[Says that Dee knew things and wouldn't repeat over and
over the same thing.]
[Makes some comments about Brumbaugh's interpretations or
writings?]
"...
Things that John Dee might have known:
"Hypothesis I: A Christian Secret, some clearer information
about the events
recounted in the New Testament, perhaps. This is not out of
the question.
Giordano Bruno, gagged with a metal mouthpiece and burned
in 1600, had earlier
claimed to know more than the Apostles (Frances Yates'
Giordano Bruno and the
Hermetic Tradition, 1964, Ch. XIX, p. 340 of the Routledge
and Kegan Paul
paperback edition). Let me mention a "worst cases" (from
the Church's point of
view) about which a well researched book, Holy Blood, Holy
Grail (Jonathan Cape,
London, early 1982; see enclosure C) is about to appear:
that Jesus was married
and had given rise to a family line which to this day
maintains knowledge of the
historical origins of Christianity.
"Hypothesis II: A royal Secret. Dee had made much of the
Hapsburgs. In fact he
seems to have considered them as something akin to deities.
The Hapsburgs by
tradition, and perhaps by blood, traced their origins back
to the M... and
the Salik (sic) Franks whose own origins appear more and
more bizarre, the more you
probe (see enclosure A or A.J. Zuckerman's "A Jewish
Princedom
in Feudal France, 768-900", Columbia University Press,
1972). The tale of the Frog
residing on a lily deep in the forest and who is really a
Prince is originally a
royal Merovingian story informing that the True King or Roi
Perdu was what we
would now call "underground"; Frenchmen are not
called "Frogs" on account of their
diets. So who are the Merovingians? We do not know, but
their law, the Salic
Law, holds some extraordinary surprises. One article
(enclosure B), which I
urge you to puzzle over, begins:
"The mere mention of the possibility that Jewish law
influenced
the development of Frankish legal institutions is likely to
cause
both Germanists and Hebrew scholars alike to raise their
eyebrows.
However the writer will present the evidence and let it
speak for
itself."
"These considerations lead, via the Sangreal, to the Elixir
Vitae, ...
..
"I'm completing a scholarly book about a royal bloodline
which shows us under
diverse code names in tradition, folklore and many other
places too. This is
the Royal Blood(line) Sangreal, Sang Real, the "Grail".
Sometime later this
winter I will be looking for a prestigious publisher. [He
asks then to Dr. Brumbaugh
if he knows if Yale would be interested in publishing his
book.]"
----------- End of Dr. Saul's letter -----------
Comment: Salic law is a rule of succession in some noble
families of Europe forbidding the succession by females or
those descended in the female line to titles or offices
(www.encyclopedia.com/articles/11370.html).
======== End of details concerning boxes ===========
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