It is now Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale classified as Manuscript 408, it is a manuscript of nine by six inches and 235 Folios (though some Folios may have been lost).
Its lettering is unique to the manuscript, and its Folios are illustrated (220 of the 246 Voynich pages are
illustrated) with a wide variety of diagrams: plants (126 illustrations), nude women in baths,
astronomical charts, and other unlikely subjects. Voynich alphabet
The Voynich is an illuminated manuscript , which contains unreadable characters (170,000
approximately ) that has not been deciphered so far, was created around 1450 .
The manuscript bears the name of the one who
discovered it: the book collector Wilfrid M. Voynich , bookseller and merchant of old books.
It seems that in 1912, Voynich found this manuscript in a chest in the Jesuit College at the Villa
Mondragone, in Frascati (Italy).
He bought it from the Jesuits, and gave photographic copies to a number of experts to have it deciphered. None of them succeeded.
Carbon-14 dating of the parchment ,made from cow
*skin , showed it was made around the middle of the
15th century (1450 aprox.)
We truly cannot say when and where the manuscript was written , but the ink tests were consistent with having been written onto fresh vellum.
TIMELINE
The Voynich Manuscript first appeared around 1585- 1600 at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolph II (1552-1612) in Prague .
When Voynich first discovered the manuscript, an autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci of
Cronland (Prague) to Athanasius Kircher (Rome) was enclosed with the book.
Launch letter
The letter (dated 19 August 1665 or 1666) that
accompanied the manuscript (when the manuscript was being sent from Johannes Marcus to Athanasius Kircher), said that the book once belonged to
Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612), who paid 600 gold ducats for it.
For Rudolph, political concerns were much less important than science and alchemy.
His court in Prague became a magnet for learned men including the astronomer Johannes Kepler and
It was in this atmosphere that the Emperor Rudolph purchased* the Voynich Manuscript from an
unknown individual for 600 ducats (an unbelievable sum for a book).
*Dr. John Dee (1527–1608) may have sold the manuscript to Emperor Rudolf around 1585-1600 . The book was then given or lent to Jacobus
Horcicky de Tepenecz *, a botanist and alchemist at
Rudolph’s court,and the head of Rudolf's botanical gardens,(died in 1622).
*Tests revealed the signature of Jacobus de Tepenecz on the Manuscript’s first Folio.
Though some suggest that de Tepenecz had the book first and sold it to the Emperor, but it is believed that the Emperor gave the manuscript to de Tepenecz around 1610 .
The next confirmed owner is Georg Baresch, an obscure alchemist in Prague.
belief that Kircher would be able to decipher it
(Kircher was considered an expert on cryptography). His 1639 letter to Kircher is the earliest confirmed mention of the manuscript that has been found so far. It is not known whether Kircher answered the
request, but apparently, he was interested enough to try to acquire the book, which Baresch refused to yield.
Upon Baresch's death, the manuscript passed to his friend Johannes Marcus Marci (1595–1667) (Jan Marek Marci), then rector of Charles University in Prague, who ,shortly before his death, sent the
manuscript on to his friend Athanasius Kircher , Rome (Italy) .
Marci's 1666 cover letter (written in Latin) was still with the manuscript when Voynich purchased it. Launch letter
The Voynich Manuscript vanished for the next 250 years, but in all likelihood it was stored with the rest of Kircher's correspondence in the library of the
Collegio Romano (now the Pontifical Gregorian
country palace near Rome that had been bought by the Society of Jesus in 1866 and housed the
headquarters of the Jesuits' Ghislieri College. Around 1912, the Collegio Romano was short of money and decided to discreetly sell some of its holdings.
Wilfrid Voynich found the mysterious manuscript
while sifting through a chest of books offered for sale by the Society of Jesus in the Jesuit College at the Villa Mondragone, in Frascati (Italy)..
Voynich acquired 30 manuscripts, among them the manuscript that now bears his name ,as it still bears the ex libris of Petrus Beckx.
In 1930, after his death, the manuscript was inherited by his widow, Ethel Lilian Voynich , daughter of famous mathematician George Boole
Ethel Lilian Boole was born in Ireland on May 11, 1864, to the mathematician, George Boole, and the feminist philosopher Mary Everest.
Autograph letter signed : 1930 July 19, Ethel Lillian Voynich to A. M. Nill
close friend, Miss Anne Nill.
In 1961, Nill sold the manuscript to a rare book
expert in New York named H. P. Kraus for the price of $24,500.
Kraus donated the Voynich manuscript to Yale
University in 1969.
It lies in the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale, with catalogue number MS 408 also referred to as "Beinecke MS 408".
The Yale University, which is the owner, allow hundreds of curious and researchers to access its contents on the Web :
Folio by Folio (Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library,Yale University) VOYNICH ALPHABET
LILLIAN LETTER DEE CONNECTION
Roger Bacon
Marci Letter - Image Marci Letter - Info
Autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland (1666 or 1665?) August 19, Prague to Athanasius
Kircher, Rome
Creator: Johann Marcus Marci von Kronland, 1595-1667 Language: Latin
Date: August 19 , 1665 or 1666
* According to Voynich,the letter was enclosed with the manuscript.
Autograph letter signed in which he presents the
manuscript to Athanasius Kircher in Rome, in the belief that Kircher would be able to decipher it.
Marci's 1666 cover letter to Kircher says that (according to his friend, Raphael Mnishovsky) the book had once been bought by Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia (1552–1612), for 600 ducats. According to the letter, Mnishovsky speculated that the author was the Franciscan friar and polymath Roger Bacon (1214–94). The letter was taken quite seriously by Wilfrid Voynich, who did his best to confirm it.
The assumption that Roger Bacon was the author led Voynich to conclude that the person who sold the manuscript to Rudolf could only have been John Dee
This theory is also conveyed by Voynich manuscript scholar Gordon Rugg. Dee and his scrier (mediumic assistant) Edward Talbot (alias Kelley) lived in Bohemia for several years, where they had hoped to sell their services to the emperor.
Dr. John Dee
John Dee (1527-1608), the Elizabethan doctor and magician. Between 1584 and 1588, Dee visited Prague several times as the guest of Rudolph II.
Dee himself was interested in cryptography, and had a substantial collection of Roger Baconʼs works in his library. In addition, during his time in Prague, Dee
mentions a gift of 630 ducats!!, approximately that
which Rudolph II paid for the book. Some have also said that the Folio numbering on the Manuscript is in Deeʼs handwriting.
It is possible that Dee himself may have written it and spread the rumor that it was originally a work of Bacon's in the hopes of later selling it.
Section related to Dee connection and Enochian
Edward Talbot (alias Kelley)
Dee's companion in Prague, Edward Kelley, was a self- styled alchemist who claimed to be able to turn copper
As Dee's scrier, he claimed to be able to invoke angels through a shewstone and had long conversations with them, which Dee dutifully noted down. The angels'
language was called Enochian, after Enoch, the Biblical father of Methuselah; according to legend, he had been taken on a tour of heaven by angels and had later written a book about what he saw there.
Several people have suggested that Kelley could have fabricated the Voynich manuscript to swindle the
emperor (who was already paying Kelley for his supposed alchemical expertise).
*Enochian is a name often applied to an occult or angelic language recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Talbot (Kelley) in late 16th century England.
They claimed that the language was revealed to them by angels.
Simón Bakalar (Simon Hajeck) Right now, he's my favorite candidate!
Also known like Simon Baccalaureus Pragensis, latinizado name of Simón Bakalar of the Prague (1485- 1551), whose true name was Simón Hajek (or Hájeck) Apparently one graduated in University of the Prague (the Karolinum) in 1509, in 1515 Administrator of the
and of the city of the Prague: it left to writings some books on Czech spelling as Tabula congruitatis
quarundam locutionum Bohemicarum (1549).
One has seted out to him like one of the presumed authors of by its alquímicos, astrological and medical knowledge as well as to have in its house a group of young people you write and apprentices, who could (presumably) have written east "compendium" of magic, astrology and alchemy on which it seems to treat this manuscript.
Simón Bakalar was very famous in by the alquímico
factory that from 1518 (seven years before the birth of its son, the doctor Taddeus Hajeck), it maintained in its
house and that it counted on the aid and collaboration of young apprentices of alchemist.
Dee and Kelley found lodgings in the home of Thaddeus Hajek (at Prague) , Rudolf 's physician.
At Prague in 1583 , Dee and Kelley were made most welcome by Taddeus Hajek, who put them up at his Prague house.
Taddeus Hajeck (Tadeus Hagekc or Hayek, Prague 1525 - 1600 ).
Doctor of the emperor Rodolfo II in his cut of the Prague, astronomer and alchemist (apparently the tradition
established by its father had in its house several
them in his own house (August of 1584 ), of where they would happen later to a house rented in the Street of the Salt (January of 1585 ).
The activities that they developed in the Prague are too much well known, since a part of the personal newspaper of doctor Dee is had lost, but consists the friendship who was born between Kelley and the young son from his host, Simon Hayeck, as well as certain "drunkenness- scandal" carried out by both men.
He was admitted in the imperial court like an expert alchemist.
At the end it obtained not only the confidence of emperor Rodolfo II, but a nobiliary title (Baron, in February of 1590 ), which did not prevent that he died in jail towards 1597 due to his injuries when trying to escape from his cell. Dee and Kelly lived in Simon Hajeck's house while in Prague (hosted by Thaddeus Hajeck).
Thaddeus studied in Italy. His specialties were botany and astronomy. He was also the first astronomy
professor at Charles University.
Thaddeus was a trustee of Rudolph and was present at his coronation.
He was Rudolph's private physician.
That Is likely that the manuscript came to Emperor Rudolph (...through Dee-Kelley and Thaddeus Hajeck
for selling the manuscript to Rudolph II.
His father, Simon Bakalar Hajek, was a collector of old books and belonged to the circle of scholars, academic notables and of the city of the Prague: it left to writings some books on Czech spelling as Tabula congruitatis
quarundam locutionum Bohemicarum (1549).
Links:
The Voynich Manuscript - Beinecke MS 408" The Yale University, which is the owner, allow hundreds of curious and researchers to access its contents on the Web
Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library,Yale University
Voynich.nu René Zandbergen Ciphermysteries Nick Pelling
The European Voynich Alphabet, or EVA
Text translated to European Voynich Alphabet " CURRIER "
Text Voynich " FROGGUY " Text Voynich " FSG "
Text Voynich " TAK "
Simón Bakalar (Simon Hajeck) Author ? , Right now, he's my favorite candidate!
Dr. Taddeus Hajeck
Voynich MS - 17th Century letters related to the MS Introduction
The earliest known reference to the Voynich MS was the 1665 letter from Johannes Marcus Marci to Athanasius Kircher, which was found by W. Voynich together with the MS itself. From 1912 to 2000 this was also the only known
reference to the MS. In this letter, Marci refers to a previous owner of the MS, and already W.Voynich himself considered that a likely
candidate should be one Georg Baresch, as he had left his
to Kircher was listed in Fletcher, 1988, however, it was
impossible to obtain a copy of this letter, until the year 2000, where the entire Kircher
correspondence was digitised and
published. This letter was finally able to confirm Voynich's suspicion.
Originally, the present page provided the
transcribed text and translation of these two most important letters, however, these are now
treated more fully at the excellent >> web site of Philip Neal, together with other letters that have been found in the mean time. I will not repeat information from that web site here, but rather
mentioned in this page may be found in the biographies page.
Georg Baresch (and Theodor Moretus S.J.), 1637-1639
The first owner of the Voynich MS who is known to have written to Kircher was Georg Baresch (or Barschius). He wrote two letters, in 1637 and 1639, of which only the second has come down to us. It is useful to start with a discussion of this second letter.
Baresch to Kircher, April 1639
This letter is stored in the Archives of the Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome, shelfmark APUG 557, fol. 353. It was originally transcribed by M.J.Gorman, and informally presented
Smolka and
Zandbergen, 2010. In the following, as for all subsequent
letters, transcription, translation and
comments are from Philip Neal. >> Transcription. >> Translation. >> Notes.
Baresch writes that he already sent a letter 1.5 years
before (making it end 1637), and got
confirmation from the mathematician
Theodor Moretus S.J. that this letter
actually reached
Rome. His description of the MS makes it clear that he is
indeed talking about the Voynich MS. He presents his view about the MS, and urges Kircher to translate the
unknown writing. For that purpose, he had sent a copy of some
1639
According to the above-mentioned letter, Baresch wrote in 1637, prompted by the appearance of Kircher's 'Prodromus Coptus', hoping that Kircher might be able to decipher the
Voynich MS. This letter has not been found. However, Kircher's response to this letter was
discovered around 2008 by the Czech historian Josef Smolka. It is included in the scientific notebooks of Th. Moretus, preserved as MS VI B 12b of the Czech National Library. It was equally first published, with a detailed discussion, in Smolka and Zandbergen, 2010, and the Latin text is included below.
(Sign. VI B 12b, fol. 70) Reverende Pater in Christo
Reverentia Vestra officiosum quoddam mihi belli genus indixisse, quo mutua beneficiorum collatione non me vincere tantum, sed et prorsus devincere, devincireque sibi ? velle videtur; ego certe in hoc laudabili certamine ultra ipsi herbas porrigo, dum exiguitas mea me superiorem esse non permitit. Porro observationes magneticae, quas literis suis inclusas mihi transmisit, adeo animum meum potenter traxerat, ut in unam eandemque cum illa sententiam pariter coaluerim,
ingeniorumque [Greek:] homoiois satis declaraverit, magneticum quoddam in mundo latere, quod uti omnia heracleotica illa catena, ita et similia ingenia coniungantur cum itaque mecum in orbibus ?
consentiat certe ea vel hoc capite dignissimae visae sunt quae cum honorifica nomine sui mentione publici quoque iuris fierent.
Caeterum libellum nescio quibus steganographici mysteriis repertum, quem literis suis copiendum mihi transmisit, obiter examinatum, non tam ingeniosum, quam laboriosum Oedipum requirere comperi; multas huius scrinae scripturas variis occasionibus me dissolvisse memini, imo et iam circa hanc quoque molientur ingenii; penitus ? aliquid tentaret, nisi nimiae urgentissimorum occupationum ab importuno hujusmodi labore me revocarent, ubi tamen maius otium, oportuniusque tempus nactus fuero aliquid, genio praesertim enthusiasmoque favente in ea dissolvenda me tentaturum confido. Alterum denique folium quem ipsi ignoti characteris genere scriptum videbatur illyrico idiomate,
charactere quem D. Hieronymi vulgo vocant, impressum sciat; utuntur eodem charactere hic Romae in missalibus aliisque sacris libri illyrico sermone imprimendis.
De mensuris diversorum pedum, quas ipse haud dubie avide exspectat cum ex Sicilia aliisque locis responsum necdum receperim, modo sileo; ubi eas recepero, una cum sustentis litteris Reverentiae Vestrae
propediem transmittam. Nihil igitur restat nisi ut me Reverentiae Vestrae, sacrosanctis sacrificiis et omnibus valde commendem. Datum Romae 12 Martii 1639.
Reverentiae Vestrae servus in Christo Salutare humiliter me vero
impertiri ne Athanasius Kircher gravetur Reverendo Patri Rectori, ita et Reverendo Patri Santino aliisque viris.
Moretus. It is of interest that this is the earliest surviving letter from a
Bohemian scientist to Kircher, and the start of a very extensive correspondence between at least 20 Bohemians and Kircher, spanning 4 decades. Moretus sent two more letters to Kircher, before receiving the above response. From the earlier letters, we know that the contact between Moretus and Kircher was established by Martinus Santinus S.J., who will be mentioned again below. From Kircher's response we know that he had seen the transcribed writing, and had given it some thought. He could not read the script, but indicated that he saw a
"from Hieronymus".
This is a reference to Glagolitsa or the Glagolitic alphabet. It is not easy to judge this statement
without knowing the example of Glagolitic writing that Kircher had available to him, but is is significant that a similar conclusion was reached by Bennett, 1976 (see p.193). Johannes Marcus Marci Marci's visit to Kircher from 1639 or 1640 to 1640 was the start of a long
friendship, and the two corresponded regularly in the years to come: 37 letters from Marci to Kircher have come down to us, spanning the time from 1640 to 1665. They are discussed in a publication by John
was sent while still on the way back from Rome to Prague. His second letter was sent from Prague and includes a
recommendation of Baresch (certe vir
optimus), apparently
in response to a query about Baresch from Kircher. The third letter just mentions Baresch and Santini. >> Transcription. >> Translation. >> Notes. >> Transcription. >> Translation. >> Notes. Marci to Kircher, 1665
Finally, after the death of Baresch, which must have occurred before
1662, Marci inherited the Voynich MS, and in 1665 he donated it to Kircher. The
accompanying letter, now preserved in the
discussed already at length in various publications. It is his penultimate letter to Kircher, as far as we know, and both last letters were not written by himself, but only signed by him. They were both written by the same scribe. >> Transcription. >> Translation. >> Notes. >> A further note. Godefrid Aloys Kinner to Kircher, 1666 and 1667
Both early 1666 and early 1667, Godefrid Aloys Kinner, a friend of Marci, inquires on Marci's behalf
whether Kircher has made any progress in translating the
mysterious book which Marci had sent
eyesight prevented him from writing himself. >> Transcription. >> Translation. >> Notes. >> Transcription. >> Translation. >> Notes. Epilogue Acknowledgme nt
I am indebted to M.J. Gorman of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence, for providing the initial Latin
transcription of the letter from Baresch.
• http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/07/08/the-
voynich-manuscript-who-cares