“When something goes wrong in your life just yell ‘PLOT TWIST’ and move on”. Molly Weis
Holiday Greetings!
We’ve made it! To the crazy deals, hustle and bustle of the holiday season. So pat yourself on the back and kick up your feet. I’ve got a doozy for you today!
HISTORIES MYSTERIES
Historical mysteries are a passion of mine. To imagine someone's plight stirs the creative juices and spurs images of faraway places, people, and situations that usually end up with me pounding the keyboard for long stretches hashing out yet another mystery book (or two;-)). And today's no different!
I can’t wait to tell you about one. It reaches into history and toys with our imaginations in a way like no other, really. So, without further ado... let's get started!
Today, I’ve got a special mystery dating back to the late 1400s or early 1500s. Written on vellum, this tiny 235-page manuscript reaches a mere seven by ten inches. Its colorful contents boast illustrations of botanicals, anatomical renderings, and geographical and astronomical images. In and of themselves, they raise an eyebrow or two from their fantastical unworldly plants, to unknown constellations, and naked women swimming around in some sort of green fluid. However, that’s not the real mystery.
Nope.
It’s the language, or as some would describe it: the code (codex). The colorful drawings are surround by undecipherable text. And who doesn’t love to crack a code more than scientists, right?
That’s all fine and dandy, but KD… what’s it called?
The Voynitch Manuscript
The what?
Okay, so you may have heard of this, but if you haven’t, be careful what you search for because this may take you down a rabbit hole of questions with little answers. But that’s the beauty of it, right?
The Origins
Where did this come from?
Happy you asked!
According to Yale (yeah, that Yale… the one in New Haven, Connecticut), the manuscript was created during the late 15th century to 16th century (carbon dating dates it to the 1400s) and was written somewhere in Central Europe.
Okay, great, but where was it found? What happened to it?
We can all thank book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynitch for that.
He discovered it in an Italian monastery in 1912. And as you can guess, the manuscript bears his name thanks to the unearthing of this baffling book.
But was it created in Italy?
No one knows, and its origins, its language, and its authenticity have been up for debate over the last hundred years. Many a scholar has taken on the odd drawings, constellations, geographical illustrations, the seemingly antiquated language and failed to decipher it or even agree.
There are 113 unidentified plant species and over 100 medicinal herbs portrayed between its covers. Strange fold outs depict cosmological entities along with bizarre geographical formations. Vibrant blues, reds, yellows and greens fill the pages.
But what does it all mean? Where did it come from?
Scientists and scholars postulated a few scenarios. One: It’s an old Hebrew manuscript. Two: The botanicals point to a Mexican origin. Three: the English astronomer’s, Roger Bacon, work. Four: Leonardo da Vinci’s creation. Five: an alien origin.
So yeah, it’s a hot mess when it comes to the where, but what do we really know about it?
Surprisingly, a few things. While there are gaps in ownership, there are some agreed upon facts.
First, Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (1576-1612) paid 600 gold ducats for it, believing it to be of Roger Bacon’s works. And it’s rumored that he bought it from the English astronomer John Dee (1527-1608). Dee was an avid collector of Roger Bacon’s documents. Supposedly, he’d bought the manuscript in October 1586 for 630 ducats (poor guy lost money in the deal.) We know this from Dee’s son, who recorded that his father had owned a book with hieroglyphics, and that his father had spent untold hours trying to unsuccessfully decipher it.
But who owned it after Emperor Rudolph II of Germany?
Scholars suspect a man by the name of Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenecz.
Why?
Because under ultraviolet light, there’s an inscription of his name (hi-tech for back then). He was suspected of receiving it directly from the emperor.
From there, it’s been linked to Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland, who gave the manuscript to Athanasius Kircher in 1666. And from then, it stayed hidden until that fateful day Voynitch purchased the book in 1912 somewhere near Rome. Voynitch devoured it, thinking he’d solve the mystery someday, but the years passed with no solution. The book refused to divulge any of its secrets. And when Voynitch died, his wife kept ahold of it until her death in 1969 where H.P. Kraus purchased it from the estate and bequeathed it to the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
Okay, that's all great, but why hasn't someone decoded it by now?
And the plot thickens... A man by the name of Dr. Gerard Chesire (yep, like the cat... in Alice in Wonderland...) from the University of Bristol claims to have solved it. What took over a hundred years of brilliant minds fomenting strategies, and working themselves into a frenzy, to solve this manuscript, this research associate claims to have solved in two weeks with "a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity"; thereby, cracking the code if you will.
So what is it? What language?
Well, if you believe Dr. Chesire (again, I can't help picturing this man in a pink striped hat with a handlebar mustache- forgive me!), then the manuscript is written in a long-lost language rarely written down. According to Dr. Chesire, it's an example of the proto-Romance language, which is an ancestor to Portuguese, Spanish, French, Catalan, Romanian, Italian, and Galician. It uses similar letters to the ones we know today, but there are also unfamiliar symbols as well. It supposedly was commonly used during the Medieval period, but at that time Latin was used in the official capacity for documents.
He goes on to say that it was written for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon (and great aunt to Katherine of Aragon... King Henry VIII's first wife.) The Dominican nuns gathered these pieces together as a sort of reference for her.
Scholars disagree with Dr. Chesire, and that's to be expected. I mean, why compile watercolor illustrations of plants, herbs, geographical maps, and constellations unknown to present day people? Surely they would have been noted in some manual, manuscript, or book as to what these things are. And don't even get me started on the odd naked women swimming around in some green goop of tubes.
Strange? Yes. Is it solved? Well, even Dr. Chesire says he needs time to completely translate the manuscript and compile a lexicon, which of course requires funding.
So... what do you think? Has the Voynitch Manuscript, MS 408, been solved? And if so, can you explain the odd drawings and foldouts that have stumped acclaimed scholars over the last hundred years?
I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Send me an e-mail with them at kduptonauthor@gmail.com.
Until next time,
Happy sleuthing!
KD