Unraveling the Voynich Manuscript: The 15th-Century Codex That Still Stumps Experts

The Voynich Manuscript is a mystery that continues to baffle the most esteemed philologists. Voynich Manuscript is a late-medieval manuscript that features a cramped but punctilious script accompanied by lively line drawings that have been painted over, at times crudely, with washes of color, The New Yorker reported.

At present, the book is at Yale in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, The Atlantic reported. The manuscript has a colorless title on it, "Cipher Manuscript." But, it is more popularly known as Voynich Manuscript, after the rare books dealer Wilfrid Voynich.

The illustrations do not follow a common theme and are of a varied nature. There are legions of heavy-headed flowers that have no similarity to any earthly variety, and at the same time also contains images of naked and possibly pregnant women, frolicking in what look like amusement park waterslides from the fifteenth century. 

The drawings are unique and whimsical, The New Yorker reported. The flowers seem to combine incompatible parts from different species, even different kingdoms. The anatomical drawings had distended bellies, stick-like arms and legs, and earnest expressions. 

Experts all over the world want to understand the content of the book, The New Yorker reported. The script is unknown. Despite continuous efforts from institutions worldwide, the writing remains a mystery. The writing is full of looping and fluid curves.

Philologists have been able to identify distinctive letters, called "gallows" named as such because they look similar to a hangman’s scaffold. Certain letters have been conjoined with each other and some have also been embellished with elaborate curlicues.

Considering the illustrations in the book many researchers believe that the subject matter is related to the natural world, The New Yorker reported. Multiple experts have located a section about herbs, a section detailing biological processes, various zodiac charts, and pages devoted to the movements of celestial bodies.

Researchers believe the book is a work of multiple scribes and was produced after years of labor, The New Yorker reported. 

The book reportedly first landed with the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, who bought it from someone for six hundred ducats. The emperor had a penchant for the unusual, and so the manuscript, which was by then two centuries old was right up his alley. He reportedly gifted it to one of his favorites – Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenec, the imperial pharmacist and keeper of the royal gardens in his court.

According to Voynich expert, René Zandbergen, the manuscript's next owner was Georg Baresch, an alchemist in Prague in the first half of the seventeenth century, The New Yorker reported. Baresch spent twenty years trying to decode the writing.

Baresch on his death passed it to Jesuit Scholar Marci. In a letter accompanying the manuscript Marci detailed Baresch's obsession with the manuscript, "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."

The book then made its way to Rome and was kept in the Jesuit holdings for three centuries. During the Church’s suppression of the Jesuits, the manuscript was moved to the personal library of the head of the order, Peter Beckx. It was from Beckx library, that Wilfrid Voynich bought the manuscript in 1912.

Voynich was a revolutionary who was imprisoned in Siberia for his activities and escaped to London, to avoid prosecution. Thereafter, he became a rare book dealer.

After Voynich took the script to London, multiple luminaries have tried their hands on the manuscript, The New Yorker reported. Some of them include William Newbold, a professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and a cryptography enthusiast, and William Friedman, one of the best cryptologists of his time. Friedman was so exhausted by the pursuit, that he ultimately declared that the script was impossible to solve.

Voynich's heir sold the manuscript to Yale, where it remains to this date, The Atlantic reported.

The latest group trying to solve the manuscript are people on the internet, The New Yorker reported. A passionate group has developed around the manuscript, who are dedicated to bringing new perspectives in the pursuit of solving the manuscript.