Notes on the letter of Marco Pometta (1911)

This letter does not explicitly mention the Voynich manuscript but was preserved with it and, in view of its date, can hardly refer to anything else.

It is significant that the Jesuits took the initiative in the sale of the manuscript. Voynich did not wheedle it out of them as some have supposed. Nothing seems to be known about Fr Pometta: the sale would in any case have been decreed by his superiors in the Society of Jesus.

Un ebreo di Padova: Voynich was an ethnic Pole from a Catholic family, which no doubt recommended him.