Thomas Ernst's Dissection of the Marci Letter Latin
Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 11:51 am
In the comments below my blog post of September, 2015, "The 1665 Marci Letter: A Forgery?", Thomas Ernst has posted a series of comments carefully explaining why the Latin of that letter (the one Voynich claimed to have found in the Voynich, of course) is problematic in ways that would never appear in a genuine letter of the (supposed) time, by the (supposed) authors.
Of course others have, and for many years prior, considered the Latin of that letter very poor. Even Philip Neal added an addendum to his own translation, calling the Latin "vexing". As I wrote in my post on the subject,
Yes, yes, yes... we are told he could have had many brand papers, and that "scribe", and a hundred other excuses for a hundred other, very serious problems, that other manuscripts, and other letters, simply do not have. But when is "enough is enough", and when will others let this overwhelming torrent of evidence be allowed to speak for itself? I listened, almost 15 years ago... and there has been so much more coming almost every week since then.
"The only way one can argue the Voynich is flawless, is to ignore its many flaws"- proto57
Of course others have, and for many years prior, considered the Latin of that letter very poor. Even Philip Neal added an addendum to his own translation, calling the Latin "vexing". As I wrote in my post on the subject,
Well now Thomas Ernst has taken a far deeper dive. He came across my blog, and this post, because he had independently, and for a long time, considered that letter a forgery. And, for that matter, he shares my strong believe the Voynich Manuscript is, likewise, a fake. I won't copy the entire contents of Thomas's comments here, but will give one example below. For anyone interested, the blog post is linked in the first sentence of this comment. But here is one segment of one comment:"I would suggest the logistical problems with this Latin phrasing are a result of a modern forger who was not proficient enough to create a trouble-free version."
Mr. Ernst's excellent dissection of the Latin wording, phrasing, grammar, and other problems it exhibits, is yet another very damning indication that this letter is not only forged, but badly forged. It adds to my list of problems, and those noted by others... whether or not they are willing to accept that is the most probably conclusion. And added to all these problems, we have the recent finding that the 1665/66 Marci letter is on a different paper than his other letters! It has the "Three Hat" watermark, another letter, in the Carteggio, has a Foolscap mark.2) “â nullo”, “â se descripta “, “à te” ([5, 7], β). Both the circumflex and the grave accent were used, primarily in printed Latin, to distinguish adverbs and prepositions. In Latin – unlike French – the circumflex was a deictic typographical device to distinguish the ablative case from the nominative: “vitâ functus”, “primâ fronte”, “hâc arte” (letter by Wolfgang Trefler as printed 1754 in the HISTORIA REI LITTERARIÆ ORDINIS S. BENEDICTI, I, 492-496), “nonâ die” (Oliver Legipont, ibid.). The grave was used a) to distinguish adverbs, b) to distinguish prepositions: “citrà”, “adolphvm à glavbvrg” (Tithemius, Polygraphia 1550, ed. Glauburg). In the “Marci-letter”, all three “a” designate the preposition “by” or “from”, and not an ablative. Even if the circumflex in “â nullo” were considered a smudgy grave accent, the one in “â se” is not. Only “à te” is correct. Writers and printers of Latin texts were just as precise about diacritics as writers of modern French are because the diacritics carry as much meaning as the words they are attached to. The Marci-letter has two wrong diacritics and one correct one above the same letter within the space of 29 words.
Yes, yes, yes... we are told he could have had many brand papers, and that "scribe", and a hundred other excuses for a hundred other, very serious problems, that other manuscripts, and other letters, simply do not have. But when is "enough is enough", and when will others let this overwhelming torrent of evidence be allowed to speak for itself? I listened, almost 15 years ago... and there has been so much more coming almost every week since then.
"The only way one can argue the Voynich is flawless, is to ignore its many flaws"- proto57