The Most Mysterious Manuscript in The World

or: http://u.nu/4xk83

It was in 1912 that New York book dealer. Wilfrid M. Voynich announced that he had discovered the curious volume in the library of Mondragone College, a Jesuit foundation in Frascati, Italy. Voynich bought it, and after returning to New York City began to unravel its history – a task simplified by an old letter included in the sale.

http://u.nu/9xk83

or; http://u.nu/7xk83

Written in 1666, the letter was from Marcus Marci, rector of the University of Prague and one of the leading scientists of his time, to another prominent scholar, Athanasius Kircher.

http://u.nu/6yk83

Or: http://u.nu/4yk83

Photograph above shows the two pages of the intricate and confusing Voynich Manuscript. Although the number of botanical illustration has led many investigator to suggest that the manuscript some sort of treatise on the medicinal or curative powers of plants, speculation continues.

Marci wrote that he had acquired the manuscript from “an intimate friend” and was sending it to Kircher, his former tutor, “for I was convinced it could be read by no one except yourself.” Marci added that he had been told on good authority that it was once owned by Rudolf II, the Holy Roman emperor, who died in 1612. Rudolf had paid 600 ducats for it, a large sum of money at the time.

http://u.nu/9yk83

or: http://u.nu/7yk83

Marci’s most important revelation, however, was that Rudolf had believed the author of the manuscript to be “Roger Bacon, the Englishman.”

http://u.nu/5zk83

or:  http://u.nu/3zk83

Bacon, who lived in the 13th century, was one of the leading figures in the world of medieval learning. Known as Doctor Mirabilis, he was centuries ahead of his time in predicting many of the features of 20th-century life, such as car and physics was formidable; he was also a renowned philosopher and alchemist.

http://u.nu/32m83

or: http://u.nu/9zk83

Could the Voynich Manuscript be Bacon’s greatest work, a scientific treatise containing theories too revolutionary to be set down in plain language? In an attempt to find out, Voynich gave copies to interested scholars. Most, however, were completely baffled. They had expected to have a fairly simple code to crack, but the manuscript defied their efforts.  

http://u.nu/72m83

http://u.nu/62m83

Brumbaugh’s Breakthrough

Real progress did not come for nearly 60 years until, in the 1970’s, Robert S. Brumbaugh at Yale tackled the problem. Professor Brumbaugh noticed that some of the symbols in the Voynich Manuscript reminded him of a diagram he had come across in another document. In that case the symbols represented numerals.

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A close look at some of the margins of the Voynich Manuscript revealed doodled calculations that suggested that a similar number code might have been used. In one margin Brumbaugh discovered a chart with 26 symbols, the number of letters in the alphabet. The symbols and the order in which they were arranged matched those in the doodled calculation almost exactly.

http://u.nu/23m83

or: http://u.nu/82m83

Was this, then, the key to the code? Did each of the numerals 1 to 9 represent three letters of the alphabet? Brumbaugh wrote out this box:

Since much of the language of the manuscript turns out to be a kind of simplified Latin, the words frequently end in us. In the code, Brumbaugh used the figure 9 as shorthand to denote this.

http://u.nu/88m83

or: http://u.nu/67m83

But was this the code? On one page manuscript was an illustration of a plant that resembled a pepper. Brumbaugh substituted numbers for the symbols written beneath it. He got 757752. Then he referred to the box and found that it could read PEPPER. The name of other plants and stars were also deciphered by the same method.

http://u.nu/39m83

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Yet the mystery of the Voynich Manuscript has by no means been solved. For example, the main text is repetitive and often nonsensical. Professor Brumbaugh has suggested that it may well be the disconnected outpourings of an alchemist, a follower of the ancient art that tried to turn base metals into gold through the action of a secret substance, or elixir. If this is so, could the formula for an elixir be concealed in the manuscript’s puzzling pages? More work remains before the Voynich Manuscript yields up all of its secrets.