The first section of the book has images of plants. There are about 240 pages, and each page has hand-drawn illustrations. The book is most notable for its pages of script which is not in any known character set or language. It is made out of animal skins, usually from a calf. Vellum was a rather expensive, but durable surface for writing prior to the mass production of paper. The volume is a codex, which is a handbound book of pages made out of vellum. Located in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University is a book that has confounded experts for centuries. If you love to learn, and I’m guessing you do if you listen to this podcast, then start your subscription by visiting /CuriosityStream or click on the link in the show notes. Prices start as low as $2.99 per month or $19.99 per year. They open up the actual book in the Yale Library and provide various theories as to where it came from and what it means. If you are intrigued by the Voynich Manuscript, I’d recommend you watch the CuriosityStream documentary “The Voynich Code”. This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream. Learn more about the Voynich Manuscript on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
That hasn’t stopped people from trying and periodically making claims that they have cracked the code. Since then, the best and brightest minds in cryptography, linguistics, and artificial intelligence have not been able to decipher what is written in the book. In 1912, a Polish rare book dealer purchased an extremely old codex that contained an unknown system of writing. 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.Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | AmazonĬastbox | Stitcher | Podcast Republic | RSS | Patreon 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. Included alongside are essays to explore the manuscript’s context in everything from alchemy to cryptography. The Voynich Manuscript book features photographs that portray the manuscript at about its actual size, with foldout pages mirroring those present in the original. Yale released the Voynich Manuscript online in 2004, and in 2014 added new high-resolution images following conservation that better conveyed its details. Yale University acquired the small book, which now carries Voynich’s name, in 1969, and it resides among the rare texts of their Beinecke Library. Page from the “Voynich Manuscript” (15th-16th century) (courtesy Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University)