Tea at Trianon: New Light on Mysterious Rohonc Codex

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, October 25, 2026

New Light on Mysterious Rohonc Codex

From The Greek Reporter:

A 16th-century letter has revealed new clues about the mysterious Rohonc Codex, a centuries-old manuscript whose unusual writing system puzzled scholars for generations. Dated June 28, 1571, the document offers evidence about the manuscript’s origins, its possible author, and its age. The discovery also challenges longstanding theories that the codex was a 19th-century forgery.

The findings come from research led by Benedek Láng, who examined the historical letter and four previously overlooked manuscript pages preserved in the Hungarian National Archives.

The Rohonc Codex contains 224 leaves and more than 80 illustrations, many depicting biblical scenes. Its unfamiliar symbols run from right to left. Like the mysterious Voynich manuscript, the Rohonc Codex attracted attention because of its unusual writing. It entered the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ collection in 1838 through the Batthyány family library. (Read more.)