the voynich manuscript- a research essay

 Language is a powerful tool, that carries communication, the epitome of self-expression. Language is an art while doubling as a science that diversifies in every corner of the world. The Voynich Manuscript (the World’s most mysterious book) was an illustrated codex hand-written in a unique writing system whose pages have been carbon-dated to 1404-1438. The fifteenth century was the latest of the Middle English literature movement, the next century would be the start of the Renaissance movement. One might ask In what way does Mystery as a genre contribute to Modern literature as a whole? Mystery is subjective to curious people, we all wonder why something is in the condition that it’s in and why or, how and what got it there? Mysteries happen all around us, some more serious than others because humans don’t like the feeling of not knowing and letting something they care about go, so artists and writers indulge in this Human want to solve Mysteries into a literature movement. 

According to The House of Camdus, Historical Magazine. The Voynich Manuscript seems designed to inspire the most mystical and mysterious of conspiracy theories. It’s been described as a magical or scientific text and features pages of strange, otherworldly botanical, astrological, and biological illustrations among others. While the 55 pages of botanical illustrations at the beginning of the manuscript may look like straightforward scientific descriptions, the truth of the drawings is strange and intriguing: most of these plants do not exist, making the Manuscript all the more puzzling There also a handful of bizarre floating castles and some describe it to look like children’s drawings. It could be nothing more but an obscure, abstract, and detailed art project done centuries ago, but could it mean something much more to those inclined enough to decode it?  The Voynich Manuscript coined its name from the man who discovered it, Polish collector Wilfred M. Voynich, credited by historians for establishing one the largest rare book businesses in the world. In 1912, he bought the book for about $30 (literally in Today’s currency) from Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. After that, it was housed in the Yale Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where scholars, linguists, cryptographers, and armchair code breakers never decided on what Language the manuscript was written in and what it meant.  the text is written on vellum in brown ink, and the drawings are colored with vibrant greens and blues, deep red, and dusty gold. Carbon dating, which is a traditional scientific method that allows researchers to determine on accurate century going back to 60,000 years based on the decay of the carbon-14 isotope of the parchment tells us that the manuscript was likely written in the early fifteenth century, but over 500 years later it’s still considered gibberish. One common argument is that the Manuscript is a detailed and elaborate hoax, meant to fool Scientists and researchers as an artistic statement or to amend and validate their philosophies on what Science of the 16th century was supposed to be and teach. According to a Secret Knowledge article published in 2021, "it's hard to imagine a punchline that required so elaborate a build-up." To put such painstaking effort into an over-two-hundred-page document that would have required some fourteen or fifteen entire calfskins to manufacture seems unfathomable. For starters, who would have the money, the time, or the gall to create such a thing? The likeliest suspect is Voynich himself, who in a fit of greed may have fabricated the manuscript to resell it for a pretty penny (he did estimate its value at around $100,000). Scholars have speculated that the underlying language may have been old French, Spanish, Ladino (a dialect of Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews), Berber, Occitan (the medieval version of protoFrench used in what is today’s southwest France), Hebrew, Provençal (spoken in medieval southeast France), West German dialects of Flanders from the 12th century, Basque, “medieval Galician”, Yiddish, and even Nahuatl or Mazatec/Otomanguean, an indigenous language of the Indians of Central Mexico. However, there is always the possibility is the long-lost evidence of a secret society or small organization from over 500 years ago that spoke and communicated with the language of the Voynich Manuscript. Ciphers were not uncommon literary riddles back then, The Native Americans actually believed if they could create a language only they understood it could keep their records only interpretable to their own people, instead of their Rival villages or colonizers. If this is true, Historians failed to collect any other piece of evidence that proves the existence of this language and the people who speak it. Letters and groups of letters are consistent in frequency “gallows characters” and it seems like it was written by two or more hands because the handwriting is slightly different from each other or the writer was writing in a different direction. 

• Roger Bacon: One of the earliest theories attributes the manuscript to the 13th-century English philosopher and Franciscan friar Roger Bacon. Proponents of this theory argue that Bacon's interest in experimental science and alchemy aligns with the content of the manuscript, but the timeline doesn't exactly match up However, According to the International Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Bacon was convinced that mathematics and astronomy are not morally neutral activity, pursued for their own sake, but have a deep connection to the practical business of everyday life, In that it matches Bacon’s beliefs but would be far after Bacon’s era even existed. Bacon was committed to the view that wisdom should contribute to improving life. Nevertheless, The theory summarized goes that the codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon

• John Dee: A 16th-century English mathematician, astronomer, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee is another candidate. However, there is little evidence to support this theory, and Dee's known works do not resemble the Voynich Manuscript. I personally think If any, John Dee is the most likely author of the Voynich Manuscript because the timeline works and the Beinecke rare book and manuscript Library affirms John Dee is the most likely writer of the manuscript Because it aligns with his personal and educational beliefs. 

• Leonardo da Vinci: Some speculations suggest that the famous Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci might have authored the manuscript. Proponents argue that the intricate illustrations and scientific content are consistent with da Vinci's interests and knowledge. However, there is no solid evidence to connect him to the manuscript.

• An Unknown Author: The possibility exists that the manuscript was created by an unknown individual or a group of people. It could be the work of a medieval scholar, alchemist, or herbalist who recorded their knowledge in a coded form

The latest discoveries on the Voynich Manuscript may secure the legit author or original owner of the Voynich Manuscript. Thanks to a 17th-century letter written by the royal doctor Johannes Marcus Marci, scholars can trace its ownership back to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who bought it from an unnamed seller for 600 ducats, or gold coins, sometime between 1576 and 1612. But as the manuscript was created in the early 15th century, this leaves around 150 years of ownership unknown. Now, after scouring imperial account journals kept by Rudolf’s court, Stefan Guzy of the University of the Arts Bremen, Germany, has identified records that could shed further light on the manuscript’s sale to the emperor tracing its ownership back a little further.