[quote='LisaFaginDavis' pid='78744' dateline='1770040081']such as, for example, traces of arsenic in the green pigment[/quote]

To be clear, McCrone identified the composition of only [b]some[/b] of the pigments in the paints, like azurite in the blue paint.  They mis-identified a couple of them, and failed to identify the majority of them -- including the ink of the text and figure outlines, and the green paint.  Their instruments said only that the ink contained iron, and that the green paint contained copper, but could not identify the chemical compounds.  (And the multispectral images show that the ink of the text and drawings is [b]not[/b] iron-gall; McCrone just guessed wrong there.)

McCrone did not detect any pigments that were [b]definitely[/b] modern (like the titanium white in the Vinland Map), true.  But they could not tell when any of the pigments or inks were actually made.  The azurite pigment could have been made in the 1400s, but could equally well have been made and applied in 1910.

[quote]There is no doubt that the evidence of the manuscript's history is largely circumstantial. So is the provenance for just about every single medieval manuscript in North America.The fact that the provenance is uncertain is not suspicious.[/quote]

And that is why forgers have such an easy time.  Especially in North America, it seems... :D) 

[quote]If Voynich were trying to make a convincing fake, the smartest thing to do would have been to create a more convincing provenance[/quote]

Well, maybe he did just that.

I [b]do[/b] believe that BL MS 408 and Marci's letter are genuine -- but only because Wilfrid would hardly have been able to forge them himself; and recruiting a good forger would be too risky, and the consequences would be much more serious than just tampering with the evidence of provenance.

However I think it is quite possible that MS 408 and the letter had nothing to do with each other until Wilfrid put them together.  And I still see some clues that he did just that.

Note that if we doubt his statement that the letter was attached to MS 408 when he bought it, then there is [b]no[/b] reliable evidence that supports any alleged provenance of MS408.  Zero.  Nada.

[quote]The Marci letter's wax stains line up perfectly with the wax stains inside the front cover.[/quote]

From the images that were posted here, they did not seem to line up "perfectly".  The distance between the stains seemed a bit wrong, and the line between them would require the letter to be placed at an angle.  No?

Anyway, the original paper lining of the front cover was removed by Wilfrid, and replaced by a new blank sheet, either by him or by the later Rebinder.  So, if the stains were created by the wax seals, that must have happened after 1911. No?

[quote]There is significant provenance evidence on f1r. The Tepenecz signature is authentic and matches several of the signatures identified by Rene on his website.[/quote]

[b]If[/b] that signature is authentic, it only proves that MS 408 was once owned by Jacobus.  It does not imply that it was the book that Barschius wrote to Kircher about ("BookB") nor the book that Marci sent to Kircher ("BookA").  I can accept that BookB=BookA with 99.9% probability, but there is no evidence that Jacobus ever owned BookA.

On the contrary, that signature can be seen as evidence [i]against[/i] that claim.  If the signature is authentic, it would have been quite legible in the 1600s.  How come neither Barschius nor Marci mentioned it? Why didn't Barschius cross it out and write his name instead?

Note that Wilfrid had a strong motive for falsifying the signature.  Marci's letter only supported the claim that MS 408 was BookA.  He still needed evidence that BookA had indeed been owned by Rudolf.  

Raphael's claim in Marci's letter can be read (as I do) as a mere guess, based only on the tale he [i]heard[/i] of Rudolf paying 600 ducats for a book ("BookR") that Rudolf believed to be a Bacon original.  (Thanks to Rene's research, we now know that it was probably a [i]bunch[/i] of books, and not for 600 ducats [i]exactly[/i].  So now it is even less likely that Raphael had seen BookR himself.)

Now, if the bottom margin of f1r was blank, there would be no evidence that MS 408 was indeed the fabled BookR.  (In fact, there is still no definite evidence that MS 408 was ever in Rudolf's possession.)  In that case, if Wilfrid decided to fabricate such evidence, what would he do?

Forging some stamp or marginal note from Rudolf's library would be too risky, since those must have been well-known, and the mark would have been examined quite closely.   It seems at least plausible that he would instead have scanned the list of people who were connected to Rudolf's court, looking for someone who (1) could have received BookR from him, and (2) had left an ex-libris that he could obtain and forge into f1r, and (3) was not someone very famous (like Kepler) whose true signature was well-known.  Eventually he chose Jacobus...

[quote]The Tepenecz inventory number "19" is not otherwise used in Tepenecz books. How would Voynich have known to use that number?[/quote]

Perhaps because he managed to acquire Jacobus's #19 book?  Or knew where it was, and knew that no one would find it?

[quote]Why would he then erase the signature only to pour "liver of sulfur" all over it to make it visible, only to leave a permanent stain that then made the signature invisible again?[/quote]

The smearing and wiping of that area did not make the signature visible; on the contrary.  Isn't there a photograph that he took before that attempt, that shows the signature?  Now it takes extreme image processing to make it visible again.

If he forged that signature, he would have done that botched "restoration" attempt in order to prevent the forgery from being detected.  The erasure made it barely possible to see that a signature was there; but he could still show his photograph to a Rich Banker to "prove" that it was Jacobus's ex-libris.   Even today, it is impossible to tell whether the signature is legit or forged, either from the faint traces that remain, or from the photo that he took...

[quote]My own research identified the alphabets in the right-hand margin of f1r as having been written by Marci himself. [/quote]

You mean, they [b]could[/b] have been written by Marci.  There must have been hundreds of thousands of people in the 1600s whose alphabets-scribbled-on-the-margin-of-a-book-and-almost-erased-by-chemicals would be indistinguishable from those. 

And if Wilfrid faked Jacobus's signature, he could just as well have faked those letters and glyphs too.  Which were conveniently all-but-erased at the same time...

[quote]Why would Voynich fake a second piece of provenance on f1r[/quote]

Perhaps because people would reasonably doubt (like I do) his statement that the letter was attached to the book when he bought it?  Especially since he mentioned the letter only 10 years after acquiring the book, and his excuse for the delay was an unbelievable "I did not think it was important"?

[quote]Why using Marci's handwriting, when it doesn't match the handwriting in the Marci letter?[/quote]

Marci was a famous scholar, so Wilfrid could surely obtain [photos of] samples of Marci's own handwriting with little effort.

[quote]Also, that ink has a different chemical profile in the McCrone report - recent XRF testing (not public yet) identified a zinc signature in those alphabets that marks it as NOT a medieval iron gall ink.[/quote]

You must be referring to the appendices to the McCrone report, with the XRF spectra. They show weak zinc signals, together with many other spurious elements.  

Again, I am satisfied that the book itself is a genuine 1400s artifact.  So, for me, the issue is only whether "Marci's" alphabet and/or the "Jacobus's" signature are genuine, or could have been forged by Wilfrid to support his claims that (1) MS 408 was BookA, and (2) MS408 was BookR, respectively.

Zinc would not add anything to iron-gall ink.   So if indeed there was some of it in the "Marci" alphabet, it was not added on purpose; it was just accidental contamination in the iron sulfate.  Its presence would not tell whether the ink of that alphabet was made in the 1600s or in 1910.

All the best, --stolfi