Voynich Manuscript

When, in 1639, the Prague citizen Georg Baresch wrote to the famous Jesuit scientist Athanasius Kircher that he owned a mysterious book which was written in an unknown script and profusely illustrated with pictures of plants, stars and alchemical secrets, he thought that Kircher would be able to decipher this book for him. He could not have guessed that not only was Kircher unable to do this, but that a long row of vastly more expert codebreakers were equally going to fail. The book has come down to us and even now, more than 360 years later, not a single word from its 234 pages can be understood. 

Nor was Baresch the first to attempt in vain to read the MS. Before him, various scientists which the Holy Roman emperor Rudolf II collected at his court may well have tried their hand.

The book is now known as the Voynich manuscript (MS), after its (re)discoverer in 1912. The discovery of the MS by Wilfrid Voynich is best told by himself:

In 1912 [...] I came across a most remarkable collection of preciously illuminated manuscripts. For many decades these volumes had lain buried in the chests in which I found them in an ancient castle in Southern Europe where the collection had apparently been stored in consequence of the disturbed political condition of Europe in the early part of the nineteenth century. 

[...] 

While examining the manuscripts, with a view to the acquisition of at least a part of the collection, my attention was especially drawn by one volume. It was such an ugly duckling compared with the other manuscripts, with their rich decorations in gold and colors, that my interest was aroused at once. I found that it was written entirely in cipher. Even a necessarily brief examination of of the vellum upon which it was written, the calligraphy, the drawings and the pigments suggested to me as the origin the latter part of the thirteenth century. The drawings indicated it to be an encyclopedic work on natural philosophy. 

[...] 

the fact that this was a thirteenth century manuscript in cipher convinced me that it must be a work of exceptional importance, and to my knowledge the existence of a manuscript of such an early date written entirely in cipher was unkown, so I included it among the manuscripts which I purchased from this collection. 

[...] 

two problems presented themselves - the text must be unravelled and the history of the manuscript must be traced. 

[...] 

It was not until some time after the manuscript came into my hands that I read the document bearing the date 1665 (or 1666) (2) , which was attached to the front cover. 

[...] 

This document, which is a letter from Joannes Marcus Marci to Athanasius Kircher making a gift of the manuscript to him, is of great significance

The Prague doctor and scientist Johannes Marcus Marci had been a faithful correspondent to Athanasius Kircher for over 25 years, and shortly before his death he sent the MS to Kircher. In the letter (3) he explains how he had inherited the MS from a close friend, who had tried to decipher this MS till the very end of his life, and had also asked for Kircher's help. He further explains that he learned from one 'Dr. Raphael' how the MS was originally bought by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Bohemia (1552-1612) for 600 ducats, and that it was believed that the MS was written by Roger Bacon, (the Franciscan friar who lived from 1214 to 1294).

Another early owner of the MS was identified by Voynich when, on the lower margin of the first folio, under special illumination, the erased signature of Jacobus de Tepenec was found. Tepenec was one of Emperor Rudolf's courtiers and the director of his botanical gardens and he must have owned the manuscript between 1608, when he received his title "de Tepenec", and 1622, when he died. The MS has changed hands several times, and apart from some minor gaps in our knowledge its path from the court of Rudolf II to its final resting place, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, can now be traced fairly accurately.

Voynich took the MS to the United States and started a campaign to have its text deciphered. He provided photographic copies to a number of experts. The MS became famous when, in the 1920's, William Romaine Newbold proposed a spectacular decipherment with which he meant to prove that it was indeed written by Roger Bacon, and that Bacon had not only dreamt of, but actually built microscopes and telescopes. When this 'solution' of the MS was disproven by John M. Manly in 1931, the MS gradually became a pariah in world of mediaeval studies. In the 1940's and 1960's the eminent cryptanalyst William F. Friedman made several valiant attempts at deciphering the MS, aided by groups of experts, but also he did not find any solution.

In 1961 the book was bought by H. P. Kraus (a New York book antiquarian) for the sum of $24,500. He later valued it at $160,000 but was unable to find a buyer. Finally, in 1969 he donated it to Yale University, where it remains to date at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Though officially registered as MS 408, it is still best known as the Voynich Manuscript. 

In 2009 the parchment of the MS was radio-carbon dated, resulting in a date range of 1404-1438 with 95% confidence.