Megan F.

Cipher Manuscript, Folio 1r, courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Library

A medieval codex with an unknown author and an indecipherable language and script – where did the Voynich Manuscript come from and what does it mean?

Imagine this: you’re rifling through a box of unidentified documents – flipping past loose pages of sermons, financial records, and personal diaries. Suddenly, your hand rests on a thickly-bound codex. You pull it out of the box and run your hands over it, smoothing the centuries-old parchment with your fingertips. Opening it to reveal its pages, you see elegant but unrecognizable writing surrounded by colourful yet rudimentary illuminations. You don’t know it yet, but you’re holding what will soon become known as “The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World” (Hurych).

What is it?

Held at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library since 1969, the Voynich Manuscript (VM) remains one of the world’s most mysterious texts. It is officially named the Cipher Manuscript by Yale, and is classified under the shelf-mark “Beinecke MS 408” (Cipher Manuscript); however its more popular name refers to the rare book trader Wilfrid Voynich who discovered the manuscript in 1912 among miscellaneous texts sold by the Jesuit College of Villa Frascati, just outside of Rome (Hurych). Upon discovering the manuscript, Voynich began seriously studying it and launched what would become more than a century’s worth of public fascination with the enigmatic text (Hurych). Despite decades of research and several compelling discoveries from academics worldwide – including this 2018 study from the University of Alberta – no one has been able to definitively answer the fundamental questions regarding the manuscript:

  • Who wrote it?
  • What does it say?
  • What was its purpose?

Even the Yale University Library’s holding information on the manuscript is frustratingly vague, describing it as a “scientific or magical text in an unidentified language,” possibly created in Central Europe somewhere between the years 1401 and 1599. Its “scientific or magical” characteristics come from its six types of mysterious illustrations: herbal, astronomical, biological, cosmological, pharmaceutical, and “recipes” (Reddy & Knight 2). The nature of the illustrations places it most plausibly within the European tradition, and the vellum has been carbon-dated to the 15th-Century with the ink being added not long after (1). Yet, its past ownership is muddled, with the text circulating around Prague and then Italy before Voynich brought it to America (1). With so much of the manuscript’s origin and meaning still undeciphered after centuries of research, the text is magnetic to academics and conspiracy theorists alike, leading to the development of several “fringe” theories which differ from the conventional and accepted scholarship surrounding the VM; this difference from convention ranges in type and credibility from opposing the accepted view of the VM’s linguistic qualities, to connecting the VM to other mysterious historical figures, to speculating that the manuscript is literally otherworldly. Here are three examples of these fringe theories, listed from most to least credible:

Linguistic Controversy: It’s a hoax text in gibberish language

Table and Grille, from Gordon Rugg, “The Voynich Manuscript: Non-random word sequences as a byproduct of hoaxing,” Hyde and Rugg, June 24, 2013

Dr. Gordon Rugg of Keele University advances the theory that the Voynich Manuscript has no real meaning and is just an elaborate hoax text written in a completely gibberish language. Previously, researchers discredited the hoax hypothesis because of the text’s complex range of character and syllable distribution (Rugg & Taylor 248). However, in 2004, Rugg showed that the linguistic qualities of the text could be easily reproduced using a simple system of overlaying grilles (cards with square holes cut into them) onto a table filled with gibberish syllables; the holes in any given grille reveal a syllable and so by stringing together the each syllable revealed by the grilles, a gibberish text resembling the VM can be produced (249). The “table and grille method,” as it has come to be called, can’t be proven to have any connection to the VM’s text; however, it is persuasive how closely the test’s statistical outcomes with regard to syllables, characters, word length, and word distribution parallel those of the VM. This evidence, paired with the fact that the table and grille method is a low-technology system that could have been around during the Middle Ages when the manuscript was supposedly conceived (248), gives merit to the idea of the Voynich Manuscript being a gibberish-ridden hoax.

Historical Conflation: It’s the secret workbook of Leonardo da Vinci

In her articles “The Handwriting of Leonardo da Vinci and the Voynich Manuscript” and “Voynich Manuscript: was the author left-handed?” Dr. Edith Sherwood uses techniques of graphology – also known as handwriting analysis – to argue that the Voynich Manuscript is really the work of Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Sherwood, among others, noticed a striking similarity between the VM’s script and the style of Da Vinci’s handwriting (“Handwriting”). Sherwood also analyzed the hatch-marks present in the VM’s illustrations, finding that they are characteristic of being penned by a left-handed artist – Da Vinci, conveniently, was also left-handed (“Left-Handed”).

Since the drawings in the VM are so rudimentary, Sherwood hypothesizes that the book was written by a young Da Vinci who was just discovering his artistic inclinations. This would explain the text’s encipherment as well, for young visionaries like Da Vinci were forced to hide their non-religious exploits from the church, and so encoding his writings would have kept his musings secret from his Catholic teachers (Sherwood “Left-Handed”).

Incredible Conspiracy: It was written by aliens

Easily the most outlandish theory of them all, the idea that the Voynich Manuscript was written and then left on Earth by extra-terrestrial visitors is rejected by academics but widely embraced by conspiracy theorists. Supporters of the alien hypothesis base their argument on the facts that the language is indecipherable, the script is unknown, and that the illustrations of flora and fauna cannot be identified with certainty (timewalker). As Daniel Stotle says in his article for PhysOrg.com, “Alien characters, some resembling Latin letters, others unlike anything used in any known language, are arranged into what appear to be words and sentences, except they don’t resemble anything written – or read – by human beings” (emphasis mine).

While there is little plausibility of the alien theory based on the manuscript’s mysterious traits alone, there is one compelling piece of evidence on folio 68v, in the manuscript’s astronomical section. Here lies a large illustration of what appears to be a map of a spiral galaxy. Interestingly enough, when compared to modern maps of the Milky Way Galaxy, the manuscript illustration’s dimensions are apparently within 10% accuracy (“Galaxy”). Since the manuscript has been dated back to the 1400s and the telescope was not invented until 1608, it seems impossible for a human of the time to have created such an accurate star map.

Cipher Manuscript, Folio 68v, courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Library

After over a century of intense research, the case of the Voynich Manuscript has yet to be closed. In fact, it seems as though the longer we study it, the more outlandish our theories surrounding it become. The manuscript’s entirely enigmatic nature, lack of connection to any past or current language, script, or culture, and incomprehensible illustrations have drawn us in time and again only to continually defy satisfactory explanation.

Works Cited

Cipher Manuscript. Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University Library, brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3519597.

“Galaxy in the Voynich Manuscript?” Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forums, 7 Feb. 2014, www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/262021-galaxy-in-the-voynich-manuscript/.

“Holdings Information.” Orbis Holdings Information, Yale University Library, orbis.library.yale.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=11167038.

Hurych, Jan B. VM Complete. Knihy Off-line, 2016, http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/VMcompletea.pdf.

Reddy, S. and K. Knight. “What We Know About the Voynich Manuscript.” Proc. ACL Workshop on Language Technology for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, and Humanities (LaTeCH), 2011, https://www.isi.edu/natural-language/people/voynich-11.pdf.

Rugg, Gordon, and Gavin Taylor. “Hoaxing Statistical Features of the Voynich Manuscript.” Cryptologia, vol. 41, no. 3, 2016, pp. 247–268., doi:10.1080/01611194.2016.1206753.

Sherwood, Edith. “Voynich Manuscript: Was the Author Left-Handed?” Edith Sherwood, Ph.D., 2006, www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_author/index.php.

Sherwood, Edith. “The Handwriting of Leonardo Da Vinci and the Voynich Manuscript.” Edith Sherwood, Ph.D., 2014, www.edithsherwood.com/voynich-handwriting/index.php.

Stotle, Daniel. “Experts Determine Age of Book ‘Nobody Can Read’.” Phys.org – News and Articles on Science and Technology, Phys.org, 10 Feb. 2011, phys.org/news/2011-02-experts-age.html.

timewalker. “Voynich Manuscript – Diary Of An Alien Or A Madman? 100 Years Older Than First Thought., Page 1.” AboveTopSecret.com, 10 Feb. 2011, www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread661599/pg1.