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Re: VMs: Kraus and Beinecke...

Hi everyone,

So, in 1969 Beinecke (the man) bought a 1428 bible from Kraus & donated it to Beinecke (the library) - and Kraus then gave the VMS to Beinecke (the library). Coincidence? 

No. Edwin J Beinecke endowed the library, which is why it is called after
him, and books bought by the library out of its own funds are said to be
the gift of Edwin J Beinecke (much as Oxford might say that some book
had been bought by Bodley).

Noble treasures like the illuminated bible of 1428 don't come up very often
and are handled by a very few established dealers like Kraus.

From the point of view of the Beinecke library, the Voynich manuscript is
a *white elephant*.

What I was trying (somewhat inelegantly) to allude to was the question of whether Kraus' gift of the VMS to the library might possibly have been added as a sweetener to his MS407 book deal with Edwin Beinecke. I don't have any evidence either way - but it seems plausible. :-o

Conclusion: the best hope for obtaining a complete colour scan of the VMS
is to persuade the Beinecke that such a procedure would get would-be
solvers off their backs for good.

I would guess that the best way to do that would be to create a proper organisation with charitable status, a board of trustees, etc and then approach the Beinecke with a solid proposition. The library wouldn't necessarily say yes (nor even reply quickly), but (from all my various dealings with them) I think it would certainly get a proper hearing from them.

Might I suggest that, given the generally good quality of the no-ip scans, formally setting up a charity in this way to instead propose dating tests on the VMS' ink (or on the pollen trapped in its vellum, etc) might be an even better use of this kind of concerted effort.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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