The Voynich Manuscript revealed: five things you probably did not know about the Medieval masterpiece

Often described as the “world’s most mysterious manuscript”, the Voynich Manuscript is written in an unknown script and filled with puzzling illustrations—unusual plants, constellations, bathing women and a tiny dragon—arranged in apparently themed sections. Although the book was recently radiocarbon dated to the early 15th century, its place of origin and meaning are still debated. Some scholars argue that the 240 vellum pages bear an enciphered text, others that it was an attempt to create an artificial script and language. Another theory is that it is merely a late-Medieval hoax. While the debates rage on, here are five things you probably did not know about this most mysterious of manuscripts.

Five scribes

A 2020 study of the Voynich Manuscript’s handwriting identified it as the work of five scribes. All contributed to the book’s herbal section, perhaps because of its length, but one scribe was responsible for the entire astronomical and astrological section. Another scribe copied out the bathing section, while two collaborated on the apparent recipes. Since the scribes seemingly made few mistakes when writing out the text, they must have been quite familiar with its unusual script.

Early owners

The Voynich Manuscript’s earliest known probable owner is Carl Widemann, a physician and alchemist based in Augsburg, Germany, who was also a collector and book dealer. He appears to have sold the manuscript to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II for 600 gold coins in 1599. It is possible that Widemann received the manuscript from the heirs of Leonhard Rauwolf, a botanist and explorer who preceded him as the city physician of Augsburg.

Scribbles

The manuscript bears faint markings added by its owners and handlers over the centuries. Johannes Marcus Marci, who owned it during the 17th century, wrote columns of characters and the alphabet on its first page, no doubt attempting to decipher its text. There is some German writing, particularly in the herbal section, where it seemingly annotates the colours of the plant illustrations. Elsewhere, there is probable Arabic and Greek, and a sketch of a shield. The medieval symbol for the inhabited world, also used by alchemists to represent soapstone, appears a few times too.

Italian origins?

Although unique, the Voynich Manuscript’s plant images resemble those found in alchemical herbals—manuscripts produced in northern Italy during the 15th century for physicians and pharmacists. Meanwhile, some of its unusual characters may have been inspired by shorthand, alchemical symbols and Italian ciphers of the time. These clues, along with a tiny sketch of a castle with distinctive swallowtail merlons—an architectural feature most commonly found near Verona—and a drawing of an archer wearing a Florentine hat, indicate a northern Italian origin for the manuscript.

Gibberish

A recent experiment in which volunteers were asked to write pages of gibberish produced texts with similar characteristics to the Voynich Manuscript. The volunteers tended to intersperse a string of long words with a string of short words, chose short words beside illustrations according to the available space, and, in headings, used variations of the title words in the text below. Significantly, the volunteers invented gibberish using a process called self-citation, in which new words largely adapt those written earlier. Scholars have previously proposed this as the method used by Voynich scribes. Is the Voynich Manuscript therefore… meaningless?

• Garry J. Shaw, Cryptic: From Voynich to the Angel Diaries, the Story of the World’s Mysterious Manuscripts, Yale University Press, 352pp, £25/$30 (hb), published 27 May