Voynich was able to trace back a rough history of the manuscript’s origin based on a letter that was tucked inside the front cover of the book. However, once he realized he had stumbled upon an incredibly strange book, he dedicated himself to finding out the history and meaning of it. The book was sold along with a number of other humanist and classical texts, so Voynich didn’t necessary seek out the book specifically. Voynich had acquired the book in 1912 through a secret sale from a Catholic priest. Voynich, from whom the manuscript gets its name. The most recent private owner was the aforementioned antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Where was the Voynich Manuscript found?Īlthough the manuscript’s author remains unknown, historians have just begun to figure out the manuscript’s chain of ownership. An ample amount of text accompanies each illustration but since no one can figure out the cryptic alphabet, the exact meaning of the manuscript’s many illustrations remains unknown. Some scholars have surmised that the illustrations represent alchemical processes or perhaps demonstrate different human organ systems. Many of those drawings show mostly-naked people in large public baths that are connected by tubes.

The biology section contains many illustrations of humans in pretty strange surroundings. The most curious aspect of these illustrations is that most of the plants in both the botany and pharmacology section are largely unknown- historians and scientists alike have been unable to identify them. There are six distinct sections split up by topic: botany, astronomy, biology/anatomy, astrology, pharmacology, with one last section that is mostly text. The Voynich Manuscript is a small book bound in goatskin containing about 240 pages filled with (what we think are) scientific illustrations. Still, what we do know about the history of the Voynich Manuscript tells us a lot about the production and transmission of written texts in the medieval and early modern period. The Voynich Manuscript is a 240-page book filled with medieval illustrations and with text written in an unknown language whose glyphs still confound cryptographers today. Voynich acquired it and published a short book on the manuscript’s history. It began attracting modern scholars’ interest after antique bookseller Wilfrid M. (Last Updated On: June 1, 2018) The Voynich Manuscript – what is it and what does it mean?įew artifacts have baffled historians like the Voynich Manuscript.

Voynich manuscript font