sketches appear to be clean copies of them, except that missing parts were completed with improbable-looking details. In fact, many of the plant drawings in the herbal section seem to be composite: the roots of one species have been fastened to the leaves of another, with flowers from a third. Astrological considerations frequently played a prominent role in herb gathering, bloodletting, and other medical procedures common during the likeliest dates of the manuscript. However, interpretation remains speculative, apart from the obvious Zodiac symbols and one diagram possibly showing the classical planets. History Much of the early history of the book is unknown, though the text and illustrations are all characteristically European. In 2009, University of Arizona researchers radiocarbon dated the manuscript's vellum to between 1404 and 1438. In addition, McCrone Associates in Westmont, Illinois found that the paints in the manuscript were of materials to be expected from that period of European history. There have been erroneous reports that McCrone Associates indicated that much of the ink was added not long after the creation of the parchment, but their official report contains no statement of this. The first confirmed owner was Georg Baresch, a 17th-century alchemist from Prague. Baresch was apparently puzzled about this "Sphynx" that had been "taking up space uselessly in his library" for many years. He learned that Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher from the Collegio Romano had published a Coptic (Egyptian) dictionary and claimed to have deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs; Baresch twice sent a sample copy of the script to Kircher in Rome, asking for clues. The 1639 letter from Baresch to Kircher is the earliest known mention of the manuscript to have been confirmed. Whether Kircher answered the request or not is not known, but he was apparently interested enough to try to acquire the book, which Baresch refused to yield. Upon Baresch's death, the manuscript passed to his friend Jan Marek Marci (also known as Johannes Marcus Marci), then rector of Charles University in Prague. A few years later, Marci sent the book to Kircher, his longtime friend and correspondent. Marci also sent Kircher a cover letter (in Latin, dated 19 August 1665 or 1666) that was still attached to the book when Voynich acquired it: The "Dr. Raphael" is believed to be Raphael Sobiehrd-Mnishovsky, and the sum would be about 2 kg of gold. The only matching transaction in Rudolph's records is the 1599