Recipes: Many short paragraphs, each marked with a flower- or star-like "bullet". Pharmaceutical: Many labeled drawings of isolated plant parts (roots, leaves, etc.) objects resembling apothecary jars, ranging in style from the mundane to the fantastical and a few text paragraphs. This section also has foldouts one of them spans six pages and contains a map or diagram, with nine "islands" or "rosettes" connected by "causeways" and containing castles, as well as what may possibly be a volcano. ![]() Some of these diagrams are on fold-out pages.īiological: A dense continuous text interspersed with figures, mostly showing small naked women, some wearing crowns, bathing in pools or tubs connected by an elaborate network of pipes, some of them strongly reminiscent of body organs.Ĭosmological: More circular diagrams, but of an obscure nature. The last two pages of this section (Aquarius and Capricornus, roughly January and February) were lost, while Aries and Taurus are split into four paired diagrams with 15 women and 15 stars each. Most of the females are at least partly naked, and each holds what appears to be a labeled star or is shown with the star attached by what could be a tether or cord of some kind to either arm. Each of these has 30 female figures arranged in two or more concentric bands. One series of 12 diagrams depicts conventional symbols for the zodiacal constellations (two fish for Pisces, a bull for Taurus, a hunter with crossbow for Sagittarius, etc.). None of the plants depicted is unambiguously identifiable.Īstronomical: Contains circular diagrams, some of them with suns, moons, and stars, suggestive of astronomy or astrology. Some parts of these drawings are larger and cleaner copies of sketches seen in the "pharmaceutical" section. Herbal: Each page displays one plant (sometimes two) and a few paragraphs of text-a format typical of European herbals of the time. Following are the sections and their conventional names: Except for the last section, which contains only text, almost every page contains at least one illustration. Illustrations: The illustrations of the manuscript shed little light on the precise nature of its text but imply that the book consists of six "sections", with different styles and subject matter. None of the many speculative solutions proposed over the last hundred years has yet been independently verified. The mystery surrounding it has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript a subject of both fanciful theories and novels. As yet, it has defied all decipherment attempts, becoming a cause célèbre of historical cryptology. Possibly some form of encrypted ciphertext, the Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. However, most of the plants do not match known species, and the manuscript's script and language remain unknown and unreadable. High-resolution scan of a Voynich manuscript. Much of the manuscript resembles herbal manuscripts of the time period, seeming to present illustrations and information about plants and their possible uses for medical purposes. High-resolution scan of a Voynich manuscript page with detailed illustrations of the Pokemon Bulbasaur. It is named after the book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who purchased it in 1912. The Voynich manuscript, also known as "the world's most mysterious manuscript", is a work which dates to the early 15th century, possibly from northern Italy. Bonne chance!” Indeed, godspeed to the armchair researcher who cracks the spine on this enigmatic text, as it’s consumed many a worldly researcher with its mysteries.This ebook is the complete reproduction of the preserved Voynich Manuscript, formatted for high resolution color ebook reader displays. Raymond Clemens, who edited the book, notes that “generous margins have been provided next to teach photograph - perhaps even for you to work out on your own interpretation. Currently, the Spanish publisher Siloe is working on a more faithful (and more expensive) reproduction, so perhaps along with the Yale edition, there will be a swell of new speculation on the manuscript’s meaning. However, it’s the sheer persistence of the visuals that makes the Voynich Manuscript so mesmerizing, as well as its scrawled indecipherable text. It’s true that one page seen on its own might appear odd, whether an astrological diagram or naked women interacting with water features and bizarre botanicals. First it was “oddly anticlimactic: small, worn, and drab outside cramped and confusing inside, and with tiny handwriting and sprawling imagery.” She “could not stop turning the pages.” Historian Deborah Harkness in an introduction describes her own hour with the manuscript in 2012.
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