Editing Voynich manuscript (section)

=== Other theories ===
Sometime before 1921, Voynich was able to read a name faintly written at the foot of the manuscript's first page: "Jacobj à Tepenecz". This is taken to be a reference to Jakub Hořčický of Tepenec, also known by his Latin name [[Jacobus Sinapius]]. Rudolf II had ennobled him in 1607, had appointed him his Imperial Distiller, and had made him curator of his botanical gardens as well as one of his personal physicians. Voynich (and many other people after him) concluded that Jacobus owned the Voynich manuscript prior to Baresch, and he drew a link from that to Rudolf's court, in confirmation of Mnishovsky's story.

Jacobus's name has faded further since Voynich saw it, but is still legible under [[ultraviolet]] light. It does not match the copy of his signature in a document located by Jan Hurych in 2003.<ref name="ngvideo" /><ref name="Sinapius">{{cite web |url=http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/b12.htm |title=The New Signature of Horczicky and the Comparison of them all |website=Hurontaria.baf.cz |access-date=8 June 2016 <!-- 21 August 2008 --> |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090126223023/http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/b12.htm |archive-date=26 January 2009}}</ref> As a result, it has been suggested that the signature was added later, possibly even fraudulently by Voynich himself.<ref name=ngvideo /> <!-- the following sentence hidden because, without a source, it represents original research or pure speculation: --- Yet the difference between the two signatures does not necessarily disprove Hořčický's ownership, because the writing on page ''f1r'' might well have been an ownership mark added by a librarian at the time. -->

[[File:Voynich Manuscript (158).jpg|thumb|Some pages of the manuscript fold out to show larger diagrams.]]
Baresch's letter bears some resemblance to a hoax that [[Oriental studies|orientalist]] {{ill|Andreas Müller (orientalist)|lt=Andreas Müller|de|Andreas Müller (Orientalist)}} once played on [[Athanasius Kircher]]. Müller sent some unintelligible text to Kircher with a note explaining that it had come from Egypt, and asking him for a translation. Kircher reportedly solved it.<ref name=Hurych>{{cite web |last=Hurych |first=Jan B. |date=15 May 2009 |title=Athanasius Kircher – the VM in Rome |url=http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/16-4-2009-05-17/ |access-date=11 June 2016|archive-date=23 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130823143143/http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/16-4-2009-05-17/ |url-status=live}}</ref> It has been speculated that these were both cryptographic tricks played on Kircher to make him look foolish.<ref name=Hurych /> <!-- the following has been hidden because, without a source, it represents original research or pure speculation: --- but the Voynich manuscript is on such a vastly different scale to a few signs in a letter that this seems somewhat out of scale for such an endeavour. -->

[[Raphael Sobiehrd-Mnishovsky|Raphael Mnishovsky]], the friend of Marci who was the reputed source of the Bacon story, was himself a cryptographer and apparently invented a cipher which he claimed was uncrackable (c.&nbsp;1618).<ref name=Hurych2>{{cite web |last=Hurych |first=Jan B. |date=20 December 2007 |title=More about Dr. Raphael Mnishowsky |url=http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/10-4-2007-12-20/ |access-date=11 June 2016|archive-date=23 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130823144447/http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/10-4-2007-12-20/ |url-status=live}}</ref> This has led to the speculation that Mnishovsky might have produced the Voynich manuscript as a practical demonstration of his cipher and made Baresch his unwitting test subject. Indeed, the disclaimer in the Voynich manuscript cover letter could mean that Marci suspected some kind of deception.<ref name=Hurych2 />

In his 2006 book, [[Nick Pelling]] proposed that the Voynich manuscript was written by 15th-century North Italian architect [[Antonio Averlino]] (also known as "Filarete"), a theory broadly consistent with the radiocarbon dating.<ref name="Pelling" />

Jules Janick and Arthur O. Tucker, based on plant and animal identification, and the kabbalah map of central Mexico (folio 86v), argued that it was composed in Mexico between 1562 and 1572.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Unraveling the Voynich codex |date=2018 |publisher=Springer Science+Business Media |isbn=978-3-319-77293-6 |location=New York, NY}}</ref>