keeping things whole

Abspannwerk Buchhändlerhof, by Hans Heinrich Müller (1928).

Berlin, Germany.

On this day:

VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT: MOST MYSTERIOUS MANUSCRIPT IN THE WORLD

On August 19, 1666, the rector of Prague University sent a letter and a manuscript to one of his former students, the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. The manuscript had lain forgotten in the monastery library in Frascati, Italy, for 250 years. It was obtained by Wilfred Voynich in 1912 and went on to be dubbed "the Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World."

Christened the Voynich, the six-by-nine-inch parchment codex appears to be a straightforward book. It is, however, over two hundred pages written in a code or unknown language that has never been deciphered. The text is elaborately illustrated with colored drawings of unknown plants and the sun, moon, and stars. Depictions of tiny naked women also frolic over the pages.

First appearing in history in 1586, the book was purchased for a then-outrageous sum of 600 ducats by the Holy Roman emperor, Rudolf II of Bohemia. One of the most eccentric European monarchs of the era, Rudolf collected dwarfs, had a regiment of giants in his army, and entertained all manner of magicians and alchemists. It has been suggested that the Voynich manuscript is the work of Roger Bacon, a famous English monk and scientist, and that it made its way to Prague via John Dee, a famous occultist of the time.

From dating of the vellum, pigments, calligraphy, and drawings, the manuscript is judged to be from the late thirteenth century. It has been labeled as everything from an illustrated herbal, to an alchemical treatise written in code to protect the contents, to an elaborate hoax. Its contents are roughly thought to be divided into sections of astronomy/astrology, biology, cosmology, pharmaceuticals, and recipes. After Voynich's widow died, the manuscript was sold to a book dealer and then donated to Yale University.

Negative Hands in Cosquer cave

Gravettian, 25,000 ybp

A Glint of Possibility, 2022 - Cold Spring in upstate New York

Photograph by Tyler Mitchell