VMs: Jacobj a Tepenece - Signature erasure given the Sherlock treatment

["Robert Antony Hicks" <rob_hicks_vms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Apologies if this idea came up in the last thread which dealt with this - 
I'm not sure I read all the contributions.

I applied myself, an idle hour ago, a la Holmes (and with a pipe), to 
figuring out why Jacobus' signature might have been scrubbed off the vellum 
of f1r.  It made no sense, whichever way I thought about it. For some 
reason, the signature had to be removed.  Why else remove it?  The signature 
had to be removed because somebody was not supposed to read it.  Who and 
why?  Why would it be vital that Jacobus was not associated with the MS?

The answer seems very obvious to me now -

A Scandal in Bohemia : Jacobus removed HIS OWN signature to sell the 
manuscript to Rudolph II.

It makes such sense.  Jacobus was the director of Rudolph's botanical 
gardens and alchemical laboratories.  He had all the knowledge and expertise 
required to write the VMS, which indeed he did.  Figuring that a useful 
ducat or 600 could be made, simply by selling his own masterwork, he did so 
(the beautiful part being, of course, that his work would then come back 
into his own care!).  After his name had been scrubbed away, an accomplice 
could very easily sell the work to an easily-duped Bohemian emperor.

I can see no conflict with this singular story and the 'known' history of 
the MS. Unless somebody knows different...

Rob


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