Liber Incognita

Few artifacts in the world of books have caused greater confusion and theorizing than The Voynich Manuscript. Its origin is unknown as is the Manuscript’s author. Despite the context clues that can be drawn from its illustrations, the function of the text is also unknown. To add to the litany of mysteries it offers, it is written in an unidentifiable language and script.




This unusual tome first appears in known history in 1912 when Wilifred Voynich, a book collector, purchases the manuscript from a Jesuit school in Rome. Voynich made every possible attempt at uncovering the books secrets, sending photographed copies of the 200 page book to interpreters and code-breakers around the world, but all returned answer-less and as perplexed as its owner. There are apocryphal stories of The Voynich Manuscript having been sent to a military code-breaker during World War II with disastrous result; according to legend, the cryptographer slipped into madness due to his inability to translate the text.

What is so compelling about this book? At the heart of it’s strange history is the simplicity of mystery itself. The book has no apparent pedigree. Perhaps it is best to break the Voynich Manuscript to its most obvious component parts. The book is seemingly separated in to multiple sections, covering what appears to be various subject matters. Illustrations of plants lend to the thought that it is a botanical text, abruptly shifting gears with what appears to Astrological or Astronomy. Further crude and unusual illustrations of people bathing in pools fed by what appears to be pipes in the shape and color of human organs.

Two figures are often implicated with The Voynich Manuscript: Roger Bacon and Dr. John Dee.



Roger Bacon was a Franciscan Friar who lived during the 13th Century and is best remembered for his early scientific and alchemical experiments. Bacon often found himself run afoul with the hierarchy of The Vatican given his insistence on studying and teaching Astronomy and the philosophy of Aristotle. Known for his vast amount of knowledge of a variety of subjects during a time period when even those blessed with an education were extremely limited in what they knew, it stands to reason with Voynich theorists that the “Doctor Mirabillis” of Oxford could be the hand that is responsible for this mysterious piece.

Dr. John Dee was an astrologer and mathematician in service of Queen Elizabeth I, often serving as her tutor and personal scholar. Dee is, in many ways, a figure whose presence can be felt in the shadows of British History. It is claimed that he, using Astrology, picked an auspicious date for Elizabeth’s coronation and was responsible for coining the term “The British Empire.” A student of French Neo-Platonism, Dee never seemed to make a distinction between his “serious” areas of study and his more arcane pursuits. While known as a devoutly Christian man, John Dee was well-known for a serious of occult rituals in which claimed to found a way to make contact with the entirety of the Angels in God’s employ.

While both of these men are colorful and deserve their unique place in history, it seems unlikely both of these men have a connection to The Voynich Manuscript. The connection of Roger Bacon to the Manuscript seems solely based on the connection to the book being in England and apparently coming from his time period. The “Dee Connection” to the manuscript is said to lay in that he either fabricated the book or had purchased it at some point (Dee is said to have had the largest collection of books in the country for his time period) and sold it nearing the end of his life. It should be noted, however, that historians who have studied the life of the illustrious Dr. Dee have never come across conclusive proof to indicate that he had ever owned the tome. It is also worth noting that Dr. John Dee was implicated by renowned horror author H.P. Lovecraft as having introduced the terrifying but non-existent grimoire, The Necronomicon, to the Western World.

Without a historical record to authenticate the book, loaded down with a seemingly indecipherable script written by an unknown individual or individuals, it is possible to see The Voynich Manuscript as an elaborate but successful hoax. But to what end? Why would a writer, likely an educated person, go to such length to create a book of such complexity if it served no practical purpose? While it is possible that it is merely a perverse joke that still mocks us from the 13th century, there is still a devoted following of researchers, both professional and amateur who wish to decode the text. It currently resides at Oxford University, a location it will likely remain until someone has the intellectual acumen or blind luck to break the strangle-hold of mystery that a book can hold over us.