Beyond the Veil Magazine

The Voynich Manuscript

Issue #11: November 1979

In 1912, antiquarian book dealer Wilfrid Voynich purchased a collection of manuscripts from a Jesuit college in Italy. Among them was a small, vellum-bound volume that would become the most mysterious book in the world.

The Voynich Manuscript is written entirely in an unknown script, in a language that has never been identified. Its illustrations depict plants that do not exist, astronomical diagrams that correspond to no known system, and groups of naked women bathing in elaborate plumbing. Every attempt to decode it has failed.

The Physical Object

The manuscript consists of approximately 240 pages, though the original may have been longer. It measures roughly 23 by 16 centimetres. Based on the style of illustration and calligraphy, scholars estimate its creation in the early fifteenth century, though precise dating remains uncertain.

The text is written in a flowing hand from left to right, using an alphabet of approximately twenty to twenty-five distinct characters. Some letters resemble Latin, others Arabic, others nothing recognisable. Words range from two to ten characters; there are no single-letter words and very few words of more than ten letters.

Statistical analysis suggests the text is not random: it has internal structure consistent with natural language. Yet no pattern of correspondence with any known language has been found.

The Illustrations

The manuscript is divided into sections based on its illustrations:

The Herbal Section: Approximately 130 pages depict plants in coloured drawings. Some loosely resemble known species; others are fantastical, with roots like human faces or leaves in impossible configurations. No botanist has positively identified any plant.

The Astronomical Section: Circular diagrams show celestial bodies, stars, and zodiac symbols, surrounded by dense text. The diagrams do not correspond to any known astronomical system.

The Biological Section: Naked women, often with distended abdomens suggesting pregnancy, bathe in interconnected pools fed by elaborate pipe systems. The purpose of these illustrations is entirely unclear.

The Pharmaceutical Section: Drawings of isolated plant parts (roots, leaves, stems) appear alongside what may be containers or vessels. This section may represent some form of herbal medicine.

The Recipe Section: Dense text with no illustrations fills the final pages, arranged in short paragraphs that may be instructions or formulas.

Provenance

The manuscript’s early history is unknown. The first verifiable owner was Georg Baresch, a Prague alchemist, who possessed it by 1637. Baresch sent a sample to the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, hoping he could decode it; Kircher could not.

After Baresch’s death, the manuscript passed to Johannes Marcus Marci, rector of Prague University, who sent it to Kircher in 1666. From Kircher it passed to the Jesuit college where Voynich found it over two centuries later.

Earlier provenance is speculative. Some have connected it to Roger Bacon, the thirteenth-century English friar and scholar, though the dating evidence places it after his death. Others associate it with John Dee, the Elizabethan occultist, who may have acquired it in Prague. None of these connections is proven.

Decipherment Attempts

The Voynich Manuscript has attracted the attention of the world’s finest codebreakers. William Friedman, who broke the Japanese Purple cipher during World War II, worked on it for decades without success. Professional cryptographers, amateur enthusiasts, and computer scientists have all attempted decipherment.

All have failed.

The text does not respond to substitution cipher techniques. It does not appear to be a simple code. Computer analysis suggests it may be a constructed language (one invented whole, rather than evolved naturally) but this remains hypothesis.

Some researchers now believe the manuscript is a sophisticated hoax: a meaningless text designed to appear meaningful. The statistical properties of the language could theoretically be produced by a complex set of rules that generate gibberish with structure. Yet creating such a hoax would require a degree of sophistication that seems improbable for the fifteenth century.

Others suggest it may be an abbreviated or encrypted form of a known language, perhaps shorthand developed by a single author for personal use. If so, the key died with its creator.

Meaning and Significance

What was the Voynich Manuscript for?

If genuine, it may represent knowledge that has been lost, perhaps a medical or alchemical tradition that left no other trace. The herbal illustrations suggest someone was documenting plants, real or imagined. The astronomical sections suggest cosmological speculation. The bathing women remain inexplicable.

If a hoax, it was a remarkably elaborate one. Creating 240 pages of fake text with consistent structure would require considerable effort and skill. For what purpose? To defraud a buyer? To conceal something behind nonsense? To amuse its creator?

The Voynich Manuscript resists all interpretation. It sits in Yale University’s Beinecke Library, beautiful and inscrutable, as mysterious today as when Wilfrid Voynich first opened its pages sixty-seven years ago.

Readers with expertise in linguistics, cryptography, or medieval manuscripts who may have insights into the Voynich Manuscript are invited to contact our research department.