

What's immediately unusual about the text is its many illustrations, which lurch out from the borders of the page, crowding the text in colourful and surreal renderings of bizarre plants, human figures, and unknown constellations. Rather than being named after its author then, it’s named after Lithuanian antiquarian Wilfrid Voynich, who reportedly purchased it in 1912 from a collection of rare books belonging to the Jesuits in Italy, and was responsible for making it famous. While some have suspected the work to have been penned by a young Leonardo da Vinci, and maybe even aliens, no one’s been able to definitively nail down an author. It was only once carbon dating had become a viable dating technique that this hypothesis was disproved, as the manuscript was found to have originated between 14.
#VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT COPY CRACK#
Maybe, just maybe, with more eyeballs on this thing, someone might actually crack it.įor centuries, it was believed to have been written by a 13th century English Franciscan friar and 'wizard', Roger Bacon, who was so wrapped up in alchemy and magic landed, he ended up in jail. Until now, not a single publishing house in history has been allowed access to the manuscript to make copies, but after 10 years of requesting, Siloe finally got the go-ahead.Įxactly 898 exact replicas of the Voynich will soon be available to the public - at around US$9,000 each - with every stain, hole, and patched-up tear in the original document to be painstakingly reproduced. it fills you with an emotion that is very hard to describe." "It’s a book that has such an aura of mystery that when you see it for the first time. "Touching the Voynich is an experience," Juan Jose Garcia, director of the Spanish publishing house Siloe, told Agence France-Presse. Because of its age and incredible rarity, very few people have ever actually touched it, and for those who have, let’s just say it’s not something you’d easily forget. The manuscript is currently locked up in the vault of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

"I think we need a little disclaimer form you need to sign before you look at the manuscript, that says, 'Do not blame us if you go crazy.'"

"The Voynich Manuscript has led some of the smartest people down rabbit holes for centuries," Bill Sherman from the Folger Shakespeare Library told The Washington Post in 2014, when he was about to open an exhibit on the text. Now, with almost 900 copies about to go into circulation, we might finally get some answers. Some of the world’s best cryptographers have dedicated their lives to solving the puzzle - but no one’s even gotten close. For centuries, scientists have been trying to decipher the text.
