The Voynich Manuscript

Join Kelli in this shorter history on the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, an early Renaissance-era book written in a made up language (dubbed Voynichese) with strange diagrams that seem... out of this world.

I love a good *history mystery* :)

Sources

• Dave Roos, “Why the Voynich Manuscript May Be the World’s Most Mysterious Book” History.com. https://www.history.com/articles/voynich-manuscript-mystery
• Cipher Manuscript, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002046
• “Emperor Rudolf II: Prague's Patron of Arts and Science.” Czech Center Museum of Houston. https://www.czechcenter.org/blog/2021/7/1/7q9enwx9t33fqnij3qqswfpo8p07a7
• The Voynich Manuscript. Edited by Raymond Clemens. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, in assoc. With Yale University Press. 2016.

Transcript

The Voynich Manuscript
Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a podcast that covers the… unpopular stories from history - tales about disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird.

Today, let’s talk about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript. But before we begin, a quick shoutout to a few of my old students who I know still voluntarily listen to me enthuse about history! Which is wild. You’re no longer socially obligated to do so, so it warms my heart to know you choose to! Hi Matthew C. from period 7 world history in the awfully cramped room 134 with too many desks! I hope you’re still baking delicious cookies. I’m glad you still love history. And hi Tyrese from period 9 in my actual classroom! It’s cool that I still see you around town every so often. And if any of my other students are still out there listening, let me know! I’ll shout you out too!

Back to the show. 

In 1912, a book dealer named Wilfrid Voynich was rooting around in a treasure box owned by monks. They needed money, and Voynich was willing to pay for any valuable items he found. The box itself was covered in cobwebs, unobtrusive. But inside, Voynich found the manuscript. The monks had no problem parting with it; it was a random collection of old documents and they needed the money. So he purchased the manuscript, and it’s from him of course that we get its name. The Voynich Manuscript is a colorfully illustrated book written in an unknown language dating back to the early 15th century, that’s the 1400s. Analysis of the handwriting places it, potentially, in Italy during the Renaissance, though to be perfectly honest… we still, really, don’t know much about it. We don’t know its origins, who wrote it, why they wrote it, what it says, or what the Voynich Manuscript is even about. It’s a complete mystery.
 
The first documented owner, that we know of, was Georg Baresch, a 17th-century Alchemist from Prague, in today’s Czechia. But Baresch wasn’t actually the first. René Zandbergen, in an essay on the Voynich Manuscript’s earliest owners, tells us that multispectral imaging on the first page reveals the signature of a Jacobus Sinapius. That signature faded over time, but it’s there. And there may have been other owners before Jacobus.

Other known owners include a Holy Roman Emperor, physicians, Jesuit scholars, authors, and more. Today, it’s on display in the Yale University Beinecke [BYE-neck-ee] Library, gifted to the university by a book dealer named Hans Peter Kraus in 1969.

Over the years, scholars and code-breakers have tried to figure it out. Is it a code? A cipher? Reference work? A work of fiction? …Is it just a hoax? We know from carbon-dating that it is indeed a document from the early 1400s, so it wasn’t fabricated by Voynich himself. But what is its purpose? And why have we still not figured it out?

I’m certainly not going to crack the code myself, but in today’s episode I want to explore the mystery of the manuscript. For those of you who already know about this topic, you probably won’t learn anything new today. Today’s episode is just a simple history, not a reimagining, no new theses to explore. But perhaps what’s in the Voynich Manuscript isn’t as important as its context - how has this document cemented itself in our history, and what does that mean for us as human beings?

So let’s get started!

The Mysterious Elements
So first, I want to go over the manuscript itself. What about it is so mysterious, and why?

The Voynich Manuscript is, as I’ve mentioned, an old book from the early Renaissance period- the early 1400s. It is about 240 pages bound together into one book, though some pages are missing. And other pages are actually longer vellum sheets that fold out, called folios, some of which expand to four, six, eight, or twelve pages. Vellum is a type of parchment made from animal skins. It’s typically smoother and doesn’t yellow like traditional parchment does over time. The vellum sheets in the Voynich Manuscript are made from calfskin.

The text is written left to right in an unknown script, accompanied by lots of colorful illustrations. I had a flip through each page of it myself – digitally, though. You can find the scanned images in Yale’s Digital Collections online; I put a link in the podcast description so you can check it out for yourself. There are all kinds of flowers and plants depicted, many of them recognizable Mediterranean species. Some are fictional, or perhaps artistic combinations or stylistic versions of real plants. These botanical illustrations carry on for the first half of the book.

Beginning in the second half of the book are illustrations that look like various… charts? They look vaguely astronomical. Lots of circles with figures depicted inside. Some are clearer than others; for example, there are clear depictions of the sun, moon and stars, as well as zodiac figures like my own - pisces! Shout out to my fellow fish out there. 

These astrological and astronomical diagrams go on for roughly 20 pages. Then there are doodles of humans in various positions - and various states of undress - doing random things mixed in and around the text. Some are drawn in a field, some are farming, some are in water, etc. Then it’s back to botanical images for a bit before the manuscript is virtually just text.

Now the text that accompanies all these images is a completely made up language; it’s commonly referred to as “Voynichese.” And it’s not, like, a lost language we can’t identify anymore; it’s never been seen before, and we’ve not found anything else like it in the world. I read one fun description that said, very quick quote, “It is almost as if the Voynich Manuscript had been yanked from some unknown realm and dropped here on Earth.”

But before you start thinking that maybe this was left behind by some visiting aliens, the top corners of each right hand page are numbered in our traditional Arabic numerals that everyone on earth uses today, though the notation is a bit strange; each spread is considered one page instead of two. So if you open up a book, both the left and right side pages would be considered the same page in the manuscript.

And though we have no idea what it says, or what some of these images even depict, one thing is for sure – it is some kind of technical document.

Georg Baresch, the first confirmed owner of the book, was also confused about its purpose. He wrote a letter to a Jesuit scholar named Athanasius Kircher in Rome, asking him to look over some sample copies of the manuscript. Kircher was intrigued and wanted to purchase the book, but Baresch wouldn’t sell it to him. When Baresch passed, the book went to a friend named Jan Marek Marci, who later bequeathed it to Kircher. And alongside this gift was a letter!

When Voynich later bought the manuscript from the monks in 1912, that very same letter was still attached to it. The letter, written in Latin and dated August 19, 1665 or 1666, is a fascinating read. Written by Marci to Kircher, the text of the letter is as follows. Quote!

Reverend and Distinguished Sir, Father in Christ:

This book, bequeathed to me by an intimate friend, I destined for you, my very dear Athanasius, as soon as it came into my possession, for I was convinced that it could be read by no one except yourself.

The former owner of this book asked your opinion by letter, copying and sending you a portion of the book from which he believed you would be able to read the remainder, but he at that time refused to send the book itself. To its deciphering he devoted unflagging toil, as is apparent from attempts of his which I send you herewith, and he relinquished hope only with his life. But his toil was in vain, for such Sphinxes as these obey no one but their master, Kircher. Accept now this token, such as it is and long overdue though it be, of my affection for you, and burst through its bars, if there are any, with your wonted success.

Dr. Raphael, a tutor in the Bohemian language to Ferdinand III, then King of Bohemia, told me the said book belonged to the Emperor Rudolf and that he presented to the bearer who brought him the book 600 ducats. He believed the author was Roger Bacon, the Englishman. On this point I suspend judgement; it is your place to define for us what view we should take thereon, to whose favor and kindness I unreservedly commit myself and remain

At the command of your Reverence,

Joannes Marcus Marci of Prague, 19th August, 1665 [or 1666]

End quote

Fascinating. So what did we learn from this? Well the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, Emperor Rudolf II, once owned the manuscript as well! And we also have a guess at the original author - the Englishman Roger Bacon. Not to be confused with Francis Bacon, known for developing the scientific method. No known relation there, except that they were both men of science and inquiry.

So who is Roger Bacon, and is there any merit to this claim that he was the original author?
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon was a medieval scholar who studied math, philosophy, the sciences (as they were back in the medieval period), and theology. He, like the scientific revolution geniuses who came after him, emphasized empiricism - the idea that knowledge comes from observation and experimentation.

Now Marci believed that Roger Bacon was the author. Or at least he parroted the suspicions of previous owners of the manuscript. So is there any evidence to suggest this is true?

No, not really. At the time, all they had was speculation. And Roger Bacon was as good a guess as any! He had this reputation as a magician and polymath, and he was interested in nature. So perhaps this strange book with horticultural doodles, weird astronomical diagrams and naked bodies was… his work? He must have had the reputation of a man who might produce something like this, if someone believed it was his doing. 

And then in the early 20th century, Wilfrid Voynich - the man who “rediscovered” the manuscript and brought it back into the limelight - also claimed Roger Bacon was the author. Voynich claimed that he himself had deciphered parts of it! Nobody else in history could figure it out, but Voynich did… and what he deciphered apparently proved Roger Bacon had access to a telescope and microscope, which he used to scribble tiny shorthand symbols in the book.

Well, a few problems with his basic argument.

Microscopes were invented in the 16th century, with the earliest and simplest ones dating back to 1590.
Telescopes were invented in the 17th century, the first in the Netherlands in 1608.
Roger Bacon… died in 1292.

So unless Roger Bacon is also a time traveler, there’s no way he could have written the Voynich Manuscript. And later, don’t forget, we used carbon dating to prove that the manuscript came from the early 1400s. Ok, so Roger Bacon is definitely out. Who else have we got?

John Dee
There’s another theory out there that the manuscript was an elaborate hoax perpetuated by John Dee, the court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, in conjunction with his associate, a medium named Edward Kelley.

So who is John Dee, spelled D-E-E?

John Dee was a mathematician, astrologer, and alchemist who, like I said, worked in Elizabeth’s court. He lived between 1527-1608, so knowing what we know now about the manuscript’s age based on carbon dating, he already doesn’t work as the author. But let’s roll with it anyway and see what we can come up with.

It was our friend Wilfrid Voynich who suggested that John Dee might have owned the manuscript, perhaps the one who sold it to Emperor Rudolf. There’s no written evidence proving that, though - no bill of sale, no pattern of frequent contact between the two. But John Dee did own another cipher book called the Book of Soyga, so there’s that. So why do people think John Dee might have written it?

Well, for one, Emperor Rudolf apparently patroned various occultists, and John Dee was something of an occultist himself. According to the Czech Center Museum in Houston, quote,

[Rudolf II] focused on the pursuit of knowledge and used his influence to draw in artists and scientists from across Europe. More specifically, [he] was interested in the study of alchemy, an ancient form of natural philosophy. The ultimate aim of alchemy was to create the philosopher’s stone, which has the ability to turn base metals into gold and is said to grant eternal youth. His reign overlapped with the scientific revolution, and even though alchemy may seem more aligned with the occult, it was practiced by some of the most renowned scientists of the time.

Some of the most notable people who were supported by the emperor include Johannes Kepler who developed the three laws of planetary motion, John Dee, a famous mathematician and astronomer, and Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. With the help of Rudolf’s power and funds, these men were able to pursue their research.

End quote.

But that connection between known Voynich Manuscript owner Emperor Rudolf II and John Dee is not enough evidence to point to John Dee as the author, or even someone who came across the book. So what else is there?

Well, there is also hearsay evidence about John Dee’s son, Arthur Dee, who was also an alchemist who later served as court physician to both Tsar Michael I of Russia and King Charles I of England. Ok, lots of names here. There was a letter written in 1675 from a Sir Thomas Browne to a man named Elias Ashmole. In this letter, Browne says that Arthur told him his father had, quote, “a book... containing nothing but Hieroglyphicks, which book his father bestowed much time upon: but I could not hear that he could make it out.” End quote.

Seriously, every time I do research and write a script that concerns the medieval or early modern period, I am so fortunate at how the English language has become modernized and standardized. Good lord.

But anyways, according to this quoted conversation from a third party, John Dee might have had a book written in mysterious symbols that he couldn’t figure out. But that’s not evidence that would hold up in court, right? That would be like me telling my best friend Emily something I heard about an old coworker, which would then be assumed as fact. Which is nonsensical. And Browne telling his friend Ashmole about a conversation he had with the younger Dee is certainly not enough to convince me that John Dee had much to do with the manuscript. 

Who Knows!
There have been other claims over the years. Some think it was a Raphael Mnishovsky, a friend of Jan Marci who was a cryptographer and claimed to invent an uncrackable cipher. The idea was that perhaps the manuscript was that cipher.

Another guess came from Nick Pelling in his 2006 book The Curse of the Voynich. He theorized it was written by a 15th century Northern Italian architect named Antonio Averlino. Why? Well there were some noted similarities in Averlino’s architectural drawings and castles depicted in the manuscript. The carbon-dating fits, the location works, it’s certainly possible. Is there definitive evidence otherwise? No.

And honestly, this thing has been read cover to cover, back to front, upside down, right side up, sideways, longways, any-kind-of-ways you can think of. We’ve pored over it by eye and by machine, and if there was definitive proof somewhere in or on those pages, we would have found it by now.

The honest, unsatisfying truth is that we just don’t know who wrote it. And anyone who claims they know is just speculating. I personally enjoy reading all the reddit theories about it. But that’s just it - they are just theories. History theories! Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

So the most realistic answers to the riddle of who wrote this manuscript are, in no particular order:
It was made by someone anonymously, or perhaps someone lost to historical record
It was a hoax - not necessarily to harm anyone, just as a fun art project prank, or to poke fun at a cryptographer friend
Aliens?
It’s actually just a daedric artifact filled with forbidden knowledge, maybe one of Hermaeus Mora’s black books. If you got that reference, you are contractually obligated to like and follow my podcast. I don’t make the rules.
And finally, the book comes from an alternate timeline with different written languages, somehow no-clipped into the backrooms of our universe, and then ended up with Jesuits, Emperors, book collectors, and now Yale.

Take your pick. I’m enjoying the ramifications of that last one, myself.
Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things! My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode on the Voynich Manuscript. Thank you for tuning into my podcast, and check out some of the other episodes if you want more!

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Be sure to like and follow my podcast, available wherever you listen, so you know when new episodes are dropped. And stay tuned to get a popular history of unpopular things.