Page 82 - EXPOTIME!Sept2017

Fakes and forgeries — Illicit traffic of looted heritage

solemnly believed. Later he became ... a very practical gwup.org/infos/themen/107-sonstige-themen/894-voyn-
antiquarian books dealer and made a considerable for- ich-manuskript): "Since the present owner - the Beinecke
tune, which he was always happy to share with anyone. library of the US University of Yale - does not allow any
And so in that man lived in agreement – incredible phan- investigation with physical or chemical methods, but one
tasy (others call it lies), truly American pragmatism and can not rule out a counterfeit from recent times. The
existence of the manuscript has only been in doubt since
good heart." 1912."
8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
Michal Habdank-Wojnicz was revolutionary at a young 9 Wilfrid M. Voynich: A Preliminary Sketch of the History
age, worked conspiratorially and apparently also with of the Roger Bacon Cipher Manuscript. In: Transactions
fake passports, but changed later to a more civil life- & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
style. He acted like a typical antiquarian, veiled his Series 3, Vol. 43, 1921, p. 416
shopping sources and dreamed of the big coup. He must 10 The English Wikipedia contains strikingly different entries
have been very proficient in languages. On occasion, he in comparison with the German Wikipedia.
was bouncing as a Polish nobleman. But was he a forger? 11 The most important source for the biography of Hab-
Actually, there is no proof, even if he does not earn the dank-Wojnicz is Réne Zandbergen. He writes: "Most of
highest level of credibility. He may be the deceived one Voynich's early life (i.e. prior to his arrival in London) is
largely based on his own, partly inconsistent, accounts
or a detective genius, but we still have doubts with con- to different people, though it is confirmed in important
cern to the book with its strange drawings and indeter- details by Russian police records, and by Russian bio-
minate content. In the moment, we can not answer the graphical sources. The present biography is based on 24
question, who was the author of the manuscript. different sources, many of which on the internet. Im-
portant sources have been collected on a web site by
And we are unable to decide if it is fake or hoax. We may Colin McKinnon. In addition, the following were found
not forget that 1912 was the hightime of the "Spanish most informative: Kennedy (2016), Millicent Sowerby
(1967), Hunt (2006) and Hunt (2016), Blevins, Zimmern
Forger", of whom even totally faked codices are known. (1908), Voynich biography by R. Prinke and Prinke (2012).
My impression is: we are dealing with a hoax of a young- Other references still need to be consulted."
er man who wanted to outdo the nonsense of alchemist 11a As the small well-wooded village/town of Wojnicz incor-
books and Habdank-Wojnicz was his first victim. porates the Sołectwa Grabno, this may have confused
researchers or officials (as a hearing mistake) mixing the
Notes area with the city of Grodno. As Habdank-Wojnicz made
himself an "of Wojnicz"in his later life, it may be true that
the place of birth of Michal Habdank was neither Telsiai
1 Duffy, Eamon: Secret Knowledge-or a Hoax? In: The New nor Grodno, but the Polish Wojnicz. The village/town of
York Review of Books. 64 (7) 2017, p. 44-46 Experience
shows, however, that counterfeiters are always on the Wojnicz was known for the Battle of Wojnicz and was
distroyed by the Swedes. In the political coordinates of a
hunt for old materials and are very often unhappy on flea Polish freedon fighter like Habdank-Woinicz, the Swedes
markets, attics etc., on old material. were seen as the Russians: as invaders and occupants.
2 An overview of these alchemical models is given by Roob, This brings us back to the strange side-letter mentioned
Alexander: The Hermetic Museum. Alchemy & Mysticism. in this article: was this the background to select the Czek
Cologne etc. 1996, p. 1-704 Jan Marek Marci as warrantor?
3 http://www.voynich.nu/extra/sp_descr.html#binding 12 "In 1910 he owed Quaritch more than 1300 pounds and in
4 For further details, see: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 1913 more than 500, some of what is still unpaid 2 years
Johannes_Marcus_Marci . More in detail is Schneider, later."http://www.voynich.nu/curricula.html Bernard
Ivo, "Marci of Kronland, Johann Marcus"in: Neue Deutsche Quaritch Ltd. had German origin and sold rare books in
Biographie 16 (1990), p. 119 f. https://www.deutsche-bi- the UK since 1847.
ographie.de/gnd119023288.html#ndbcontent Cf. my note 13 Roitzsch 2008 (note 5), p. 113
11a next column! 14 For a critical review of the Spanish Forger and an educat-
5 Roitzsch, E.H. Peter: The Voynich manuscript: an un- ed guess who was behind the term see Mueller-Straten,
solved riddle of the past. Münster 2008 Christian: Fälschungserkennung, Bd. 1. München 2011
6 Zandbergen, Réne: http://www.voynich.nu/curricula.
html (as of 2017). However, most of the details on the
life of Raphael Sobiehrd-Mnišovsky de Subuzin and de
Horstein stem from a response from the Czech Nation-
al Archives from 1921 to a Habdank-Woynicz request!
The 7 sources for this can be found in the Zandbergen
text. The antiquarian Habdank-Woynicz had, therefore,
at least since 1921 known very precisely about Raphael
Sobiehrd-Mnišovsky de Subuzin and de Horstein, whom
he mistakenly called Missovsky in 1921. At this time, the
book with the allegedly genuine letter of 1666 has not yet
been published..
7 So the computer scientist and Voynich specialist Klaus
Schmeh in: The Voynich manuscript (https://www.

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