The Marci Letter — Beinecke Digital Imagery Session
Beinecke MS 408A · Reading-room session, 24 August 2026
Inspection of the Original Artifact
On August 24, 2026, the original 1665 letter from Johannes Marcus Marci to Athanasius Kircher — the letter found with the Voynich Manuscript — was examined and photographed during a dedicated, single-day research visit to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The visit was undertaken specifically to study the physical artifact firsthand and to create a systematic series of high-resolution photographs under carefully controlled conditions, providing greater detail and consistency than the images previously available. This new photographic record was produced to support an in-depth codicological study of the Marci Letter, allowing its folds, edges, binding traces, surface markings, sealing residues, and other physical features to be examined closely and documented systematically.
How it was shot
A Nikon D3300 with a 40 mm micro lens on a copy stand, at f/8 and ISO 100 throughout, at three working heights: 25 inches for the whole sheet, 7.75 inches for measurement work, and 4 inches for feature detail. Four lighting passes were used, and the package is organised by them.
Reflected light records the sheet as the eye sees it. Transmitted light — a light table shining through the paper — makes the watermark, the laid and chain lines and the wear holes legible, because there the paper itself is the subject. Raking light grazing the surface from four clock positions reveals relief: creases, wax topography, the lift of a fold. Each raking set includes an ambient reference frame with the raking light off, so the room light can be subtracted in post. A ring light was used for the closest work at 4 inches.
What is in this package
| Folder | Contents |
|---|---|
| PHOTOS/ | The 134 usable frames, each as a RAW .NEF and its companion
.JPG. Split first by what the frame targets — WHOLE sheet,
REGION of the sheet, or a single DETAIL — then by lighting pass. |
| CONTACT_SHEETS/ | Thirteen sheets covering every usable frame, captioned with the camera's sequence number, the file root name, and the estimated resolution on the paper surface. |
| _CALIBRATIONS/ | Zipped. Exposure brackets, framing tests and setup frames — kept as a record of how each exposure was arrived at, unlikely to be needed again. |
| _DISCARDED/ | Zipped. Frames with no recoverable content: blown to blank white, or not of the letter at all. |
| marci_ms408a_inventory.csv | Every catalogued frame, usable or not, with its classification, its estimated resolution and its path in this package. |
Reading the file names
A name reads TYPE_LIGHT[_A]_SIDE_SUBJECT_SEQ — so
DETAIL_RING_A_VERSO_WAX_0112 is a detail of the wax mark on the verso, lit by the ring
light, and the _A marks it as the ambient reference for its partner frame rather
than a photograph in its own right. The four-digit sequence number is exactly as the camera wrote it
and has never been altered; it is the thread back to the untouched originals.
Two things to know before using the frames
The images are on their side. The sheet was laid with its long axis along the frame, so the letter reads sideways. Nothing has been rotated — the pixel data is exactly as captured — but every image in this portal is displayed upright when you open it.
Raking directions are recorded in the frame as shot. Where the inventory says a frame was lit from the top, that is relative to the unrotated image. View it upright and the light appears to come from the left.
Contact sheets
Click any frame to open it full size and upright, with a download link.
Arrow keys move between frames; R rotates the view further; Esc closes.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to the staff of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, for their accommodation and support throughout the session — for retrieving and returning the material, for allowing the light table, the copy stand and the raking lamp to be used with the original, and for extending the trust that made a full day of technical photography possible.
Particular thanks to John Monahan, whose assistance on the day made the work go as smoothly as it did.