Known history of the manuscript

Introduction

The first history of the Voynich MS was published by its discoverer Wilfrid Voynich in 1921 (1). His research was based on the following leads:

• A letter found between the pages and originally attached to the inside cover, written by Johannes Marcus Marci, presenting it to the famous Roman Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (2)
.
• A faded signature on the first page quoting the name Jacobus de Tepenec.
• The collection in which it was found, where most manuscripts had notes glued to their cover, indicating that they once belonged to the private library of P. Petrus Beckx S.J. Voynich did, however, never mention this last fact to anyone (3).

This first publication was updated in some details by Manly (4). Since then, our knowledge of this history has increased in many areas. Still, there are major gaps in our knowledge about the history of the MS and its owners. In many cases we do not know how or when a particular owner obtained the MS or lost it. Biographical details of many owners of the MS may be relevant and are therefore presented on a separate page (5).

This page also includes historical background information for the times of interest, and references to people who may never have had anything to do with the MS, but who happened to be 'at the right place at the right time' (6). The history also does not stop at the time of the discovery of the MS but continues until the time that it was donated to its final owner: the Beinecke Rare Book and MS Library of Yale University.

The history of the attempts to decipher the MS is presented on a separate page.

The Bohemian period

The court of Rudolph of Bohemia

The origin of the Voynich MS is still unknown (author, date and place of provenance being unknown), but it enters recorded history when it surfaces in Prague during the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg, which lasted from 1576 to 1611. The evidence for Rudolf's ownership is a quoted statement in Marci's letter, but it is not confirmed by any documentary evidence, apart from the appearance on the first page of the name of a trustee at Ruduolf's court (Tepenec). In literature about the Voynich MS it is usually assumed that the MS was sold to Rudolf by John Dee and/or Edward Kelly, but this assumption derives from a personal hypothesis of W.Voynich and does not really fit with what is known about these two men. Its discussion belongs to another page at this site (7). At this time, we have to say that the seller of the MS to Rudolf is unknown.

The first positively identified owner of the MS is Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenec. He was born in a poor family, and raised by the Jesuits to become a successful and wealthy chemist and pharmacist at Rudolf's court, and a personal trustee of the emperor himself (for a detailed description of his life, see the biographies page).

In 1608 he cured Rudolf from a grave disease and in return received the noble title 'de Tepenec'. His name, as it appears on the Voynich MS, must have been written after this time. This signature is important evidence that the Voynich MS was indeed at Rudolf's court. Recently, two other examples of his signature have been found, one on a formal Czech document, which is not similar to that on the Voynich MS, and one in another book from his library, which is very similar (8).

The precise role of Horcicky with respect to the Voynich MS is not entirely clear. Did he obtain the MS from Rudolf since Rudolf perhaps thought that he was the right sort of expert to study it, or was he actually the mysterious seller? Both options are still possible (9). When the emperor abdicated in 1611, and died the year after, most treasures of his museum were looted and Horcicky perhaps became the owner of the Voynich MS 'by default'. Alternatively, the MS may have passed to Jacobus via the book collector Pontanus, since Jacobus owned (and signed) at least one book which came from Pontanus' collection (10). This signature has not yet been retrieved for comparison with the Voynich MS.

Horcicky may have parted with the MS when he fled from the country in 1619, or otherwise it may have become the property of the Jesuits, together with his other belongings, at the time of his death.

After Rudolf's death

The next identified owner of the Voynich MS is the person indicated by Marci in his 1666 letter to Kircher accompanying the Voynich MS. Marci wrote that he wanted to send it as soon as it came into his possession as the result of an inheritance from an intimate friend. This friend, who is not named, is further reported to have sent some transcribed portions of the manuscript to Kircher at an earlier date.

There has been some speculation about the identity of this friend. Manly suggests (11) that it could have been Dionysius Misseroni. He was an accomplished artist from a family with a great tradition as gem-cutters. His grandfather Girolamo was active in Milan and his father Ottavio, who moved his family from Italy to Rudolf's court in 1588, became the most famous exponent of this art at in Prague. Dionysius, born before 1607, even surpassed his father's fame and made a career at Rudolph's court, eventually occupying the position of director of Rudolph's museum (Kunstkammer). Marci was certainly on good terms with Dionysius Misseroni. On his behalf he sent transcriptions of undeciphered texts on certain old vases to Kircher, for decryption (12). (It is worth noting that Manly could not have known this).

Manly points out that Marci mentions in the preface to his "Idearum Operaticium Idea" as his mother-in-law one Laura, daughter of Dionysius Misseroni, and thus he would be a candidate for an inhertance. Dionysius died in 1661, a date not incompatible with the facts from the Marci letter. In any case, Laura was in reality Ottavio's wife, i.e. Dionysius' mother, so Marci married a sister of Dionysius.

The benefactor of Marci was, indeed, not Dionysius Misseroni. His true identity was first guessed by Wilfrid Voynich himself, when he writes in 1921 in a letter to Prague, a copy of which is currently contained in the Beinecke holdings (13), that he would like to find out more about the identity of one Georg Barschius, who, some time after 1622, left his alchemical library as an inheritance to Marci. Voynich apparently did not receive a reply, and strangely enough did not include Baresch' name in his presentation of the history of the Voynich MS.

So, who was Georg Barschius?

Brumbaugh asked Dr. Z. Horský of the Czech academy of Sciences (14), but he could not help him. Modern experts in the history of alchemy have not heard of him (15). The answer has been found in the extant correspondence of Athanasius Kircher.

While Kircher's scientific contributions to posterity are very moderate, he is guaranteed everlasting fame by his correspondence. This contains more than 2000 letters from over 750 different correspondents, which includes emperors, (future) popes and Jesuit missionaries all over the world. Many letters are from scientists reporting on their discoveries. These letters have been bound together with other material (e.g. draft letters from Kircher). This binding (first into 12 volumes) is described in the first published catalogue of Kircher's museum (De Sepi, 1678) but the volume have been lost since then until about 1930. The letters are now (bound into fourteen volumes) kept in the Archives of the Pontificia Università Gregoriana (APUG). Until recenty, this collection has only been available for study by scholars in piecemeal fashion (16). Fortunately, it has recently been made available to the scientific community (17).

One of the volumes (APUG 557) bears a paper attachment saying: 'From the private library of P. Beckx' (18). This is the volume which contains 35 of 36 letters from Marci to Kircher, and many other letters from Prague and Bohemia (although the general organisation of the collection appears to be completely arbitrary). This same volume also contains a letter from one M.Georgius Baresch (19). All letters relevant to the Voynich MS have been transcribed at a dedicated page at this site.

From this important letter it becomes clear that Baresch did indeed own the MS and sent Kircher a partial transcription of it, exactly confirming the details known from the original Marci letter. Baresch was prompted to contact Kircher because of the appearance, more than two years earlier, of Kircher's work about Coptic, which began to establish Kircher's fame as someone who could decipher and read any language.

Apart from this, we still know very little about Baresch. He was born in the Czech town of Zinkovy, completed his studies in the Clementinum in 1603 and was in Rome in 1605, taking up courses at the Sapienza. (20). Furthermore, Marci does mention him in his book 'Philosophia Vetus Restituta (1662), calling him a very good friend, indicating that he knew him since 40 years, and that Baresch left Marci his alchemical collection library in his will. This is clearly the source for Wilfrid Voynich's information. Baresch is also mentioned in two letters from Marci to Kircher (21).

Still unanswered questions are how the Voynich MS passed to Baresch, or if anyone else has owned the Voynich manuscript between Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenec and Baresch.

Marci

Marci was born in 1595, in the Bohemian town of Landskron (German: Kronland) and was initially raised to become a Jesuit. He did not, however, follow that path, but instead, after extensive medical studies, he became professor at the Prague Charles University. In 1638 he undertook a journey to Rome and this is when he met Athanasius Kircher, marking the start of their long friendship. The two men corresponded for some 25 years and the last letter from Marci, written in August 1666, is the one accompanying the Voynich MS. (For more details see his biography.)

Marci inherited the Voynich MS from Baresch before 1662. He also discussed the Voynich MS with Dr. Raphael Missowski before 1644 (22). It is not clear exactly when Baresch died, and in principle it is also possible that this happened before Missowski's death. This is, however, less likely. It is clear that the MS was the topic for discussion between various men. Marci wrote to Kircher that he destined the MS for Kircher as soon as he got it, but he definitely kept it for a number of years before he actually sent it. It is known that Marci's eyesight was never very good and got progressively worse towards the end of his life. Perhaps he decided to send the MS only after he could no longer see and study it himself. It has been suggested that the last two letters from Marci to Kircher are no longer in his own hand but were written by a scribe (23). Furthermore, after Marci sent the Voynich MS to Kircher, another Bohemian friend of him, Godefrid Aloys Kinner (who was also one of Kircher's most prolific correspondents) asked Kircher in 1667 on Marci's behalf whether Kircher had made any progress in deciphering the book that Marci had sent the year before (i.e. in 1666). Marci died in April 1667.

The Roman period

Kircher and the Voynich MS

Athanasius Kircher was a contemporary of Marci, and while he was significantly more famous than Marci in his days, also he has left little impact on modern times.

Kircher was born in 1601 or 1602 (he himself did not know) in Geisa near Fulda in Germany and after some travelling he arrived in Rome in 1635, where he was to stay, until his death, at the Roman College.

From 1638 onwards Kircher was professor in mathematics at the Roman college, but his interest covered 'everything under the sun'. When he was released from teaching duties after 8 years, he started publishing books, concentrating on a different subject every three to four years. He received visits or letters from scientists, royalty and clergy from all over Europe and beyond, together with a multitude of artefacts, curiosities of natural history and mechanical apparatus. This, together with his library, he later donated to a museum, which eventually became the famous 'museum of the Roman College' or the 'Museum Kircherianum'. This museum became one of the top attractions of Rome in the 17th century.

There is no indication what Kircher has done with the Voynich MS and it is not mentioned anywhere in his vast literary output. There is not even any solid evidence that he ever received the manuscript and the letter from Marci! It is however very plausible that he did, because of the fact that both Kircher's correspondence and the book collection bought by Voynich in the Villa Mondragone came from the same collection: the private library of P. Beckx. Also, it is clear that Marci did send out the MS since there is a subsequent letter sent by Godefrid Aloysius Kinner from Prague, and filed by Kircher after Marci's death, inquiring about Kircher's success in deciphering the mysterious book.
Still, at least one author maintains that the very fact that Kircher has not puhlished his solution of the MS is good evidence that he never received it (24).

Following now is a summary timeline of historical facts related to the possible whereabouts of the Voynich MS after the death of Marci, again in order to present as much as possible material to future researchers.

The Roman College and its Museum

The vicissitudes of the Society of Jesus

The whereabouts of the Voynich MS during the following period is still a complete mystery. The Society of Jesus experienced two suppressions and many of their belongings have been confiscated. Still, the Voynich MS (and other Jesuit books such as the Carteggio Kircheriano) did somehow remain in their possession. Therefore, in this and the following sections, especially the movements of libraries, archives and collections receive some attention.

Second suppression of the society, 1870

On September 20, 1870, the troops of Vittorio Emanuele captured the city of Rome, and one by one took over the Jesuit houses in the city: the church 'Il Gesù', the novitiate school of S. Andrea al Quirinale, the S. Eusebio and the 'Casa Professa', which housed the Curia (central administrative entity) of the Jesuits. The Jesuits were eager to salvage their property, and since the government troops had agreed that personal belongings could be kept while belongings of the society needed to be handed over, many items were labelled as belonging to the 'private library of P. Beckx'. This was facilitated by the absence of detailed catalogues of the The main Jesuit library of the Collegio Romano (Bibliotheca Major), so that valuable documents of it could be salvaged by this ruse (27). The new government was aware of this, but let it pass in order not to upset the pro-catholic population of the city.

The remainder of the Bibliotheca Major was confiscated on October 20, 1873, and the new government set up the new national library 'Vittorio Emanuele II' in the very building of the Collegio Romano. It included the holdings of several other confiscated libraries, most notably the Casanatense.

The Collegio Romano was confiscated and turned into the state school Ennio Visconti. The university moved to the Palazzo Borromeo in the same street (via del Seminario 120). This palace is also known as the site of the Collegio Germanico (the German college was there until 1886, see above). From 4 December, the University would be known as the Pontificia Università Gregoriana del Collegio Romano. The early section of the archives of the Society was moved to the same building. P. Beckx moved to Fiesole, where the new Curia was established, including the 'modern' section of the archives of the Society.

A footnote in Beckx' biography explains that a personal friend of Fr. Beckx, Don Alessandro of Torlonia, rescued the above-mentioned novitiate of S. Andrea by moving it to his palace at Castel Gandolfo, and insisted that Fr. Beckx stay in this palace from time to time, which he did. The same footnote explains how similar acts of friendship were due to a member of the Borghese family. It seems reasonable to assume that this is the same Borghese who made the Villa Mondragone available to the Jesuits and that this is how the manuscript collection ended up there.

During the period 1874-1875 some 400,000 volumes from over 60 libraries were transferred to the Vittorio Emanuele II library and it was officially inaugurated on 15 March 1876, still at the site of the former Collegio Romano. Kircher's museum was also confiscated. (Some of the material is now at the Museo Pigorini in the EUR). Only the famous astronomer Angelo Secchi and his observatory ('Vecchia Specola') were allowed to stay in the building of the Collegio Romano.

The American period

The Manuscript found by Wilfrid M. Voynich

In 1911-1912, Wilfrid Voynich was brought into contact with the Jesuits of Villa Mondragone, which then housed a college (boarding school). He was introduced to them by one Fr. Strickland S.J.

The Jesuits needed to sell a fraction of a MS collection of over 1000 volumes in order to be able to afford the restaurations of the villa. The buyer had to agree to absolute secrecy, and in competition with an unnamed Jewish person from Padua, Voynich was accepted by the Jesuits as the buyer (28). Voynich acquired about 30 manuscripts, some of which were extremely valuable. In 1912, about 300 manuscripts of the Collegio Romano were bought by Pope Pius X and donated by him to the Vatican library. This is described in a catalogue by J. Ruysschaert. This catalogue gives some details about the earlier provenance of the manuscripts, including that they belonged to the Collegio Romano, but it does not mention where they were purchased from (29). It does, however, describe Voynich's earlier purchase.

Voynich embarked on a campaign to establish that the Voynich MS was a major document in the history of science. He was convinced that it was written by Roger Bacon. His first public display of several of the MS's he bought in the Mondragone (including the Voynich MS) was in 1915 at the Art Institute of Chicago, which was accompanied by a short publication.

Supported by two scientists who thought that they could read the MS, Voynich presented it in 1921 at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The presentations are published in their proceedings. The paper by Voynich is the presentation which was mentioned at the top of this page, and which shows a very thorough and competent study by Voynich. But Voynich was obliged to keep his promise not to tell where he bought the MS's and invented the ruse that he was keeping this location a secret because he was hoping to return there to buy more MS's (which he may well have hoped in reality!). The only person whom he told what really happened was his wife, Ethel Lilian Voynich Boole.

Voynich claimed that the manuscript was found in some chests which probably came from the houses of Parma, Farrara and Modena, and that they had been stored there since the start of the century. Some of the MS's he found were indeed embellished by the arms of this family, but at the same time Voynich knew that the collection once formed part of the private library of Petrus Beckx S.J.

From the notebooks now kept at the Beinecke library, it is evident that Voynich did all he could to find out the truth about this MS. He investigated P. Beckx but it is not clear if he ever had access to his biography (some 600 pages written in Dutch). He did find out from De Sepi's catalogue that there once was a 10-volume binding of Kircher's correspondence, and immediately realised (correctly as we have seen above) that this must be a valuable source for additional information about his MS. He decided to find out about this collection with one Henri Hyvernat, who was in Rome at the time. For an as yet unknown reason, Voynich did not write to Hyvernat directly, but asked one of his trusted friends named W.W. Bishop to do that for him.

Hyvernat then asked around in Rome about Kircher's correspondence, but even the person he considered to be the most qualified historian didn't know anything about it. The latter was intrigued, but suggested that it was probably lost some time between 1773 and 1824.

After the death of Wilfrid Voynich

Voynich died in 1931, and Ethel Voynich, his widow, inherited the MS. One of the first things she did was to take a copy of it to the Catholic University in Washington, to show it to Prof. Henri Hyvernat. Both he and his assistant Theodore Petersen were immediately intrigued by it, but there is no indication that Hyvernat saw the MS before (e.g. when he was in Rome) or even knew about it. Petersen kept the copy for a while, and made a complete hand transcription of it.

The same year (1931) was a very busy year for the Society of Jesus. The new Gregorian University was opened at its current address in Piazza della Pilotta, and the new Curia, including the archives (ARSJ), was opened in the Borgo, near the Vatican, with all the material being moved there from its various temporary locations. It must be assumed that the remaining MSs of P. Beckx's private library (including Kircher's correspondence) was returned to the Gregorian University at this time.

A close friend of Ethel Voynich was Miss Anne Nill, who was formerly Voynich's secretary. Upon Ethel's death, she inherited the Voynich MS. Since Ethel had realised that she was the only one who knew where the MS came from, she had written a letter, only to be opened after her death, giving the details she remembered. It was Anne Nill who openened that letter, and who could read about the Villa Mondragone, and about the fact that there was at the time some controversy between the government of Italy (the 'Quirinal') and the church (the 'Vatican').

Anne Nill looked for a buyer of the MS. Wilfrid Voynich had stipulated before his death that a buyer would have to be agreed by a committee of 5 persons: his wife, Miss Nill, Manly, Bishop and James Westphal Thompson. Whether this rule was applied or not is not known to me, but when the buyer, Hans P. Kraus, was found, Anne Nill started sending out letters to all those people who had received copies of the MS to please return them, because the potential buyer wanted to buy only on the condition of exclusive rights to the publications about the MS. Evidently, he still thought (or at least hoped) that the MS was of major scientific importance. Some owners of the copies returned these (e.g. Petersen, and the N.Y. Public Library). Most of the others simply responded that they wouldn't make further copies for others, or publish anything about it without first asking the new owner.

Kraus highly valued the MS and tried to sell it for a large amount of money, but did not succeed. He had promised that a large part of the profit he could make would be given to Anne Nill, but she died only one year after Ethel Voynich. The MS spent most of this part of its history in a bank vault in New York.

There is an odd anecdote in Kraus' autobiography, which states that he visited Mgr. Ruysschaert in Rome in 1963. Ruysschaert had published the catalogue of the Latin manuscripts which the Vatican library acquired in 1912 from the Collegio Romano. Kraus asked him about the Voynich MS. Ruysschaert apparently thought that the Vatican library owned it, a surprising mistake (30). Interestingly, however, this quote has triggered the further study of the history of the Voynich MS (31).

Kraus finally donated the Voynich MS to the Beinecke Rare Book and MS library of Yale University, where it is still kept today, together with other material related to the MS, such as Voynich's notebooks and the many letters he sent and received.

Notes

1

See Voynich, 1921

2

Text and English translation of this letter are available here. IMAGE: a photograph of the letter.

3

I am indebted to J. Reeds, who brought this fact to my attention. This essentially triggered the study of the history of the Voynich MS which is described here. Among the material left by W. Voynich one can still find the notes which were attached to the other books and manuscripts he bought in the Villa Mondragone. A similar note should have been attached to the Voynich MS, but this I have not seen.

4

See Manly, 1931.

5

And a portrait gallery is provided as well.

6

One such person is Massimiliano Massimo S.J., who is no longer mentioned in the main text since this page was updated in July 2004. There is no evidence that Fr.Massimo S.J. has had anything to do with the Voynich MS. He is only included here since he was 'at the right place at the right time' more than once: he had just graduated at the Collegio Romano when Beckx saved the important MS library, he owned Jesuit school buildings (Palazzo Perretti) in Rome and he died very shortly before the Beckx collection was partly offered for sale. This may well all be an insignificant coincidence.

7

See also the >> analysis by R.Prinke

8

The Czech signature is presented on the >>web site of Jan Hurych. Jacobus used a very elegant hand and his name is furthermore expressed in Czech. The much more similar Latin signature is IMAGE: shown here.

9

For more details see the biographies page

10

Pontanus died in 1614. This theory was first brought forward by R. Prinke who located the Pontanus MS bearing Jacobus' signature (details to be included). One argument against this option is that Pontanus used to sign all his books.

11

In Manly, 1931

12

See Fletcher, 1972.

13

Brumbaugh (1978) reports this rather inaccurately (inverting the position of sender and receiver). The letter was seen by Claudio Antonini in November 2000 and it has been transcribed here at this site.

14

In Brumbaugh, 1978, p.137

15

Adam McLean, private communication, March 1998. Adam kindly inquired also with two Czech experts: Dr. Vladimir Karpenko and Dr. Lubos Antonin

16

See Fletcher 1969, 1972, 1988

17

Via the aforementioned >>, Kircher correspondence project. (This is the old link, to be replaced by the proper one at Stanford.)

18

See Fletcher, 1988.

19

APUG 557, fol.353, from Fletcher, 1972. This letter is reproduced at this site

20

See the biography of Baresch for details and references.

21

APUG 557, fol.127, from Fletcher, 1972.

22

About Raphael's name in the Marci letter and a link to his biography

23

Link to Philip Neal's transcriptions.

24

In Haakman (1991), the author makes the point that Kircher would not stop publishing solutions to the mysteries brought to his attention, even if he occasionally may have known or suspected that he may have been wrong.

25

X. Ceccaldi, priv. comm.

26

In Lazzari (1754,1757), cited by Ruysschaert (1959)

27

From letters written by Jesuits witnessing these activities, found by Xavier Ceccaldi and shown at his >> web site

28

These details may be read in Voynich's correspondence, which is now kept in the Beinecke library of Yale University.

29

In a subsequent publication, the famous Jesuit historian Miquel Batllori declares that he has not been able to find any detail about the sale of the MS's to the Vatican library, despite searching for it in the Roman Archives of the Society (ARSJ).

30

From Kraus (1963):

In 1963 we were in Rome and I visited Monsignor Jose Ruysschaert at the Vatican library. I knew that he had published the catalogue of the Mondragone library and I hoped to get information about the Cipher manuscript. To my great surprise he thought that the manuscript was still in the library. I asked him: "Can you show it to me?" "Yes," he replied, and headed for the stacks. Soon he returned without it. I had to tell him that I owned the codex, and how it came to me.

Recently, a letter from Kraus to Friedman has surfaced, showing that the above is not completely accurate. It is quoted here.

31

First started by the author of these pages and excellently concluded by X. Ceccaldi, and shown at his >> web site

Acknowledgments

Valuable contributions were gratefully received from the following persons, in alphabetical order:
Claudio Antonini (USA), Ladislav Bares (Charles University, Prague), Monica Blanchard (Catholic Univ. of America), Marcela Budíková (Brno, Chech Republic), Stefano Casotto (Univ. of Padova), Xavier Ceccaldi (USA), Michael John Gorman (Stanford Univ, USA), Jan Bedrich Hurych (Ontario, Canada), Gabriel Landini (Birmingham Univ., UK) Joseph McDonnell S.J. (Fairfield Univ), Philip Neal (USA), Rafal Prinke (Poznan, Poland), Jim Reeds (USA), Jorge Stolfi (University of Campinas, Brazil), Felix Villarreal S.J. (Sogang Univ., S.Korea).

They have been reflected either in this page, the page about the origin of the Voynich MS, or the biographies page.

Copyright René Zandbergen, 2004
Comments, questions, suggestions? Your feedback is welcome.
Latest update: 2004/09/28