Book Description
In 1912, Wilfrid Voynich, an antiquarian book dealer, stumbled upon a strange volume, its vellum pages covered in a beautiful but unrecognisable script accompanied by equally mystifying pictures. The codex has remained undeciphered from that day to this. Voynich believed the codex to be the work of medieval philosopher Roger Bacon, others that of the Elizabethan mathematician and occultist John Dee. Whoever created the book—which now resides at Yale University—it remains to this day a singular enigma which continues to defy the best efforts of linguists, cryptologists, and scholars. With the benefit of the authors' exhaustive research, readers can hazard their own guesses as to the meaning and provenance of this most beguiling of mysteries.
Customer Reviews:
Simply the best source of information on the voynich manuscript!.......2007-06-25
The best and most well-written source about the elusive voynich manuscript. This book covers the alleged owners, possible clues to the cypher, the history of the manuscript itself, and so much more.
Fascinating Riddle Within an Enigma.......2007-06-21
The Voynich manuscript remains one of the most puzzling artifacts handed down to us from antiquity. It is in an unknown language, using an unknown script, and not so much as a word has been successfully translated (though many have tried). It is filled with whimsical illustrations of plants that cannot be identified, stars that do not exist, and astrological diagrams unlike anything seen elsewhere. It is also filled with drawings of naked women cavorting in vessels of green liquid for purposes which cannot be fathomed. The author is unknown, the date is unknown (although figured to be between 1250-1450), and how the manuscript came to be preserved for the past 650 years is also a mystery.
It has been suggested by some researchers, and the authors of this book tentatively agree, that the whole thing might be an elaborate Medieval fake. Yet the sheer magnitude of it -- 272 pages, 211 illustrations, 170,000 characters, all carefully arranged and consistently produced -- would seem to argue against that. Add to that the statistical analysis of the text, which indicates that it probably *is* a legitimate language, and you have a real puzzle on your hands.
Since so little has been gleaned from the manuscript itself, the authors take the reader on a tour through Medieval scholarship, alchemy, astrology, astronomy, religious history and cryptology (since many have speculated it could be in some kind of code). The lives of several of the proposed authors are studied, along with many people who may have had a hand in preserving it. Thus the book is about a lot more than the manuscript itself, and indulges in many fascinating digressions along the way.
In the end, the riddle remains unsolved. The Voynich is probably a minor alchemical text of no particular import, perhaps the last surviving text in this language after the Crusades destroyed nearly 80% of the world's non-Christian libraries. For a fascinating glimpse into the superstitious Medieval world and the learning lost through subsequent winnowing by rampaging zealots, this book offers an excellent read.
Fascinating Riddle Within an Enigma.......2007-06-20
The Voynich manuscript remains one of the most puzzling artifacts handed down to us from antiquity. It is in an unknown language, using an unknown script, and not so much as a word has been successfully translated (though many have tried). It is filled with whimsical illustrations of plants that cannot be identified, stars that do not exist, and astrological diagrams unlike anything seen elsewhere. It is also filled with drawings of naked women cavorting in vessels of green liquid for purposes which cannot be fathomed. The author is unknown, the date is unknown (although figured to be between 1250-1450), and how the manuscript came to be preserved for the past 650 years is also a mystery.
It has been suggested by some researchers, and the authors of this book tentatively agree, that the whole thing might be an elaborate Medieval fake. Yet the sheer magnitude of it -- 272 pages, 211 illustrations, 170,000 characters, all carefully arranged and consistently produced -- would seem to argue against that. Add to that the statistical analysis of the text, which indicates that it probably *is* a legitimate language, and you have a real puzzle on your hands.
Since so little has been gleaned from the manuscript itself, the authors take the reader on a tour through Medieval scholarship, alchemy, astrology, astronomy, religious history and cryptology (since many have speculated it could be in some kind of code). The lives of several of the proposed authors are studied, along with many people who may have had a hand in preserving it. Thus the book is about a lot more than the manuscript itself, and indulges in many fascinating digressions along the way.
In the end, the riddle remains unsolved. The Voynich is probably a minor alchemical text of no particular import, perhaps the last surviving text in this language after the Crusades destroyed nearly 80% of the world's non-Christian libraries. For a fascinating glimpse into the superstitious Medieval world and the learning lost through subsequent winnowing by rampaging zealots, this book offers an excellent read.
Understanding the Obsqure.......2007-05-24
This book is a very interesting read for persons of a certain education. Not easily understood by many readers.
The Elegant Enigma.......2007-05-07
I was very excited to read this book, as I very much enjoy learning the path of mysterious texts. This book presents many possibilities for the origins of the codex. I personally don't have patience to cipher the many options the authors gave in cracking the text, but I appreciated the layers of work they put into presenting them. Also, I was pleased that they did not shy away from esoteric possibilities. The description of it being a written account of glossolalia was particularly interesting. All the same, this book is more about the figures around the manuscript. Whatever you come away believing about the source of the text, it's path has been colorfully impressive.
Book Description
A compulsively readable account of the most mysterious manuscript in the world, one that has stumped the world’s greatest scholars and codebreakers.
The Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious tome discovered in 1912 by the English book dealer Wilfrid Michael Voynich, has puzzled scholars for a century. A small six inches by nine inches, but over two hundred pages long, with odd illustrations of plants, astrological diagrams, and naked women, it is written in so indecipherable a language and contains so complicated a code that mathematicians, book collectors, linguists, and historians alike have yet to solve the mysteries contained within. However, in The Friar and the Cipher, the acclaimed bibliophiles and historians Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone describe, in fascinating detail, the theory that Roger Bacon, the noted thirteenth-century, pre-Copernican astronomer, was its author and that the perplexing alphabet was written in his hand. Along the way, they explain the many proposed solutions that scholars have put forth and the myriad attempts at labeling the manuscript's content, from Latin or Greek shorthand to Arabic numerals to ancient Ukrainian to a recipe for the elixir of life to good old-fashioned gibberish. As we journey across centuries, languages, and countries, we meet a cast of impassioned characters and case-crackers, including, of course, Bacon, whose own personal scientific contributions, Voynich author or not, were literally and figuratively astronomical.
The Friar and the Cipher is a wonderfully entertaining and historically wide-ranging book that is one part The Code Book, one part Possession, and one part The Da Vinci Code—and will appeal to bibliophiles and laypeople alike.
Customer Reviews:
Good read, misleading title.......2007-08-06
As most other reviewers have stated, the book title is misleading.
The buildup to Roger Bacon and the manuscript is the first 200 of the total of 300 pages. Then there is a rush to squeeze in the ending.
It would have been nice to have more details about current attempts to read the manuscript.
Otherwise, it is actually a very easy and enjoyable book to read.
The good, the bad and the misleading.......2007-02-19
Without a doubt, this book is the most difficult to rate of any I have reviewed so far. The book is advertised as a tale of Roger Bacon and the Voynich Manuscript, both fascinating topics. But as previous reviewers have noted, the authors frequently go off on tangents, presumably in an effort to provide added context. Some of these digressions are riveting; some are distracting. I skipped several pages and even a whole chapter without losing any of the storyline. More than once I found myself asking, "How does this relate to Roger Bacon or the Voynich Manuscript?" The authors do eventually tie everything back to one of those subjects, but seldom with an economy of words.
I appreciated the conversational style the authors used in telling the story. Their flippant tone, on the other hand, made me wince. Think Thomas Cahill-type narrative without the pleasant aftertaste.
Ulimately, what soured me on this book was the apparent ax the authors have to grind with the Catholic Church and the degree to which it infected their writing. On page 42, they write that scholasticism "matured into the most powerful tool for maintaining and perpetuating doctrine that the Church had ever seen." The scholastics "remained uninterested in uncovering new knowledge, only in cementing the unlikely but now solid bond between Aristotle's logic and the Bible's revelation." That's pure, unvarnished B.S. Please compare those statements with the following:
"It is difficult to arrive at a satisfactory definition of Scholasticism that would apply to all the thinkers to whom the label has been affixed. ... The Scholastics, by and large, were committed to the use of reason as an indispensable tool in theological and philosophical study, and to dialectic ... as the method of pursuing issues of intellectual interest." (Thomas E. Woods Jr., "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, p. 58)
"What made it possible for Western civilization to develop science and the social sciences in a way that no other civilization had ever done before? The answer, I am convinced, lies in a pervasive and deep-seated inquiry that was a natural consequence of the emphasis on reason that began in the Middle Ages. ... It was quite natural for scholars ... to probe into subject areas that had not been explored before, as well as to discuss possibilities that had not previously been entertained." (Edward Grant, "God and Reason in the Middle Ages" p. 356)
The Goldstones argue passionately that Roger Bacon got hosed and history never gave him his due. That's probably true. But their cri de coeur glosses over the fact that, slight or no slight, Roger Bacon was a monk and therefore a committed adherent to Catholicism. Also noteworthy is that Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II is glorified in this book, which stands in stark contrast to his portrayal by at least one modern biographer. In short, if you'd like an at-times-gripping detective story/biography and an introduction to a plethora of historical luminaries, cherry pick from this book. If you are committed to learning the truth, get both sides and take "The Friar and The Cipher" with a bushel of salt.
Strange Book.......2006-12-31
The book is about a manuscript discovered in 1918. It is a fascinating manuscript written in a complicated cipher with eclectic illustrations in the margins. The most likely author of this manuscript is Roger Bacon. The authors then spend most of the book putting Roger Bacon in his cultural milieu and summarizing intellectual history in Western Europe until the 20th century. Don't get me wrong, they tell the story in a fun way, but they don't even mention the manuscript again until page 200. Then the authors detail a very tentative hypothesis of how the book ended up where it did. The authors can not even state with certainty whether this manuscript is Bacon's or not. They used words like "probably" or " most likely." I became bored. The authors tell an okay story, the story is well paced or even too fast, they obviously know history, but when it becomes apparent this is all conjecture, I lost interest. They simplify the history too much. They strain to make the scholasticism of Aquinas and the scientific method of the Bacons (Roger and and later Francis) the major conflict in the intellectual history of mankind. I didn't buy all their conclusions and commentary.
In other words, they cover far too much: too much history and too much philosophy. They did not spend enough time on the manuscript. I felt cheated. The title is very misleading.
Is this about philosophy or about a book?.......2006-03-29
Don't you hate it when a book description isn't completely accurate? While I wouldn't necessarily say that's true in the case of Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone's The Friar and the Cipher, it does come very close. Ostensibly, the book is about the Voynich Manuscript, a document that has never been deciphered and which many believe was written by the noted thinker Roger Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century. There has been a lot of controversy about this manuscript and its possible authorship, with many people believing that there's no way that Roger Bacon could have written it, or that it must be a hoax. It appears to be in some sort of code with strange illustrations in the margins. And yes, the book does discuss the great debate about this, detailing the many attempts to decode it and the many theories about who might have written it. Was it all a hoax committed by a friend of John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's trusted advisor, back in the late sixteenth century?
Of course, the problem is that this debate begins on page 223 of the edition I have. The book runs just over 300 pages, which presents kind of a problem. The rest of the book is a history of Western thought and the constant struggle between science and religion in the Middle Ages, when the Catholic church was all-powerful. It gives a very detailed history of Roger Bacon, supposedly to give the background to the debate on the manuscript. It also details his philosophical adversaries, as well as demonstrating how Europe came out of the Dark Ages due to the rediscovery of some of Aristotle's works. In fact, the book goes all the way back to Aristotle himself, and his differences with Plato.
All of this is fascinating stuff, and if you're in the mood for a discourse on logical thought and its struggles to get through religious dogma, then this book is definitely for you. I know I enjoyed it immensely. I just wish it had been better advertised as such. It covered a lot of ground that I was slightly familiar with, yet for which I had no real details. The Saracen empire was stretching into Spain at this point, and many of its scholars were well aware of Aristotle and his ideas of Logic. In fact, many of these scholars faced their own persecution from conservative Imams and other Moslem leaders, as the Goldstones show us in this book. As Europeans began to push back against this invasion, parts of Spain were recaptured, and these Moslem studies of Aristotle began to spread over Europe.
The Gladstones do a really effective job in giving this history in a concise, yet detailed format. I never felt like they were glossing over anything and I found these sections extremely valuable. If you've studied Western philosophy or the history of the Dark Ages, than this may not be new to you, but I found it intriguing. The authors then give a short history of the Dominican and the Franciscan orders of the Church, and how opposed to each other they were. They give the story of Francis of Assissi and how the Franciscans were formed, as well as the Dominicans and their noted scholar, Thomas Aquinas, and they discuss the university system as it existed in Europe at the time. Then they begin to delve deeply into Roger Bacon's biography. That's when the focus of the book begins to shift. However, it doesn't move that far at first. They use the differences between Thomas' thought and Bacon's to highlight the differences between those using Aristotle's logic and those using Church dogma, and it's a very enlightening section of the book.
Finally, we get to the manuscript itself, and where it may have gone (as it disappears from history periodically). Unfortunately, this is where the book really begins to drag. We are given fairly detailed passages on cryptology as many twentieth-century cryptologists try to decode the manuscript. I found I was much more interested in the discussions on Western thought than I was in the decoding of the manuscript, especially after remembering that nobody has ever solved the riddle. Some of these stories are interesting, but I found my interest flagging as I read about what happened to these various people.
Which brings me to the ultimate problem with this book and how it was marketed (and even titled). The Friar and the Cipher is a wonderful book on Western philosophy. However, there's nothing really new in the book when it comes to the manuscript. It doesn't take sides in the controversy, only saying that it seems likely that Bacon did write it. They raise questions, but they don't really provide anything new to anybody who has any knowledge of the subject. The book seems to be a way to gather a bunch of different sources into one volume, sort of a "this is where we're at" kind of thing.
It also is almost a love letter to Roger Bacon. They ferociously defend him against any of his critics who claim he wasn't what his fans make him out to be. He has come in for a lot of criticism over the years, and the Goldstones bring it all up and knock it down. Who's right and who's wrong is not for me to judge, as this is my first exposure to Bacon. However, one positive aspect of this defense is that they do acknowledge that the criticism *could* be right, but that it's misplaced. Bacon may not have been the leading light his fans make him out to be, but it was his methods that made him special, regardless of the ideas themselves. And perhaps that could be a defense of the book as well. The Friar and the Cipher may not be as special as it could be regarding the Voynich manuscript, but the method of getting there is extremely well done.
David Roy
Middle Ages' Unsolved Literary Mystery..........2005-10-19
The 13th century was one of the most productive in the history of human knowledge. Instead of relying strictly on the word of the Bible, scholars translated Greek classics, the best minds theorized about the power of natural science by drawing hypothesis and testing them with experiments. We think of that time as composed of "knights in chain-mail hoods and crosses on their chests in tournaments and plodding through dark forests on their way to Jerusaleum or Camelot." It as a time of monks, saints, piety, barbarity and ignorance.
Travel on the European continent 'improved with the widening of roads to accomodate oxcarts after the Dark Ages,' the most significant technological advance in history. Oxford became a town in the 10th century when a wall was built as a defense and for protection of the inhabitants. In 1167, the small walled town in the rolling countryside became a favorite of Henry II. It became a university town when Henry forbade English students from crossing the Channel to attend school.
Roger Bacon went to school in 1228 at the Univesity of Paris in the City of Lights. "The Italians have the Papacy, the Germans had the Empire, and the French have the learning." Bacon's decision to learn all that was 'knowable' so he followed in Thomas la Becket's shoes to seek the source of knowledge available at that time. A difficult problem for Bacon was Aristotle's notion of the "eternity of time" -- he was unable to reconcile Aristotle to Christianity without corrupting the philosopher's words. Albert Mgnus would remain his enemy until the day he died, but it sas Albert's protege, Thomas Acquinas, and his rejection of "experimental science" which would bring about the ruin of Roger Bacon.
The photo section of Bacon's handwritten and illustrated in living color of his OPUS MAJUS shows his most detailed hypothesis of 'optical science.' Along with botany, optics was probably the most advanced science of the Middle Ages. Moral philosophy was the highest of the sciences, that to which the proper exercise of the other sciences led. It "teaches us to lay down the laws and obligations of life and to believe and approve so that man can act and live according to these laws."
He was a lucid and passionate writer, and many of his manuscripts have been translated from the Latin into English, the universal language of the twenty-first century. The ultimate value os his works was in approach and point of view. David Lindberg has recently published ROGER BACON'S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE: A CRITICAL EDITION OF DE MULTIPLICATIONE SPECIERUM AND DE SPECULIS COMBURENTIBUS.
Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone have collaborated on OUT OF THE FLAMES, USED AND RARE, SLIGHTLY CHIPPED, and WARMLY INSCRIBED. Lawrence wrote solo, RIGHTS and OFF-LINE while Nancy has written BAD BUSINESS and TRADING UP (for women).
Book Description
An examination of the many theories surrounding this enigmatic text, apparently written in code
• Reveals the connections between this work and the Cathars, Roger Bacon, and John Dee
• Explains the cryptanalysis methods used in attempts to break the code
• Includes color images from the manuscript juxtaposed with other medieval writings
Since its discovery by Wilfrid Voynich in an Italian monastery in 1912, the Voynich Manuscript has baffled scholars and cryptanalysists with its unidentifiable script and bizarre illustrations. Written in an unknown language or an as yet undecipherable code, this medieval manuscript contains hundreds of illustrations of unknown plants, cosmological charts, and inexplicable scenes of naked “nymphs” bathing in a green liquid that some interpret as a symbolic depiction of human reproduction and the joining of the soul with the body.
Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill explore the mystery surrounding the Voynich Manuscript, examining the many existing theories about the possible authors of this work and the information it may contain. They trace the speculative history of the manuscript and reveal those who may be connected to it, including Roger Bacon, John Dee, and the Cathars. With the possibility that it may be a lost alchemical text or other esoteric work, this manuscript remains one of the most intriguing yet enigmatic documents ever to have come to light.
Gerry Kennedy is a freelance writer and has produced a number of BBC Radio 4 programs, including one on the Voynich Manuscript in 2001. Rob Churchill is a professional writer who has written scripts for many production companies, including the BBC and Thames Television. Both authors were consultants for the BBC/Mentorn Films documentary
The Voynich Mystery. They live in London.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating Riddle Within an Enigma.......2007-06-21
The Voynich manuscript remains one of the most puzzling artifacts handed down to us from antiquity. It is in an unknown language, using an unknown script, and not so much as a word has been successfully translated (though many have tried). It is filled with whimsical illustrations of plants that cannot be identified, stars that do not exist, and astrological diagrams unlike anything seen elsewhere. It is also filled with drawings of naked women cavorting in vessels of green liquid for purposes which cannot be fathomed. The author is unknown, the date is unknown (although figured to be between 1250-1450), and how the manuscript came to be preserved for the past 650 years is also a mystery.
It has been suggested by some researchers, and the authors of this book tentatively agree, that the whole thing might be an elaborate Medieval fake. Yet the sheer magnitude of it -- 272 pages, 211 illustrations, 170,000 characters, all carefully arranged and consistently produced -- would seem to argue against that. Add to that the statistical analysis of the text, which indicates that it probably *is* a legitimate language, and you have a real puzzle on your hands.
Since so little has been gleaned from the manuscript itself, the authors take the reader on a tour through Medieval scholarship, alchemy, astrology, astronomy, religious history and cryptology (since many have speculated it could be in some kind of code). The lives of several of the proposed authors are studied, along with many people who may have had a hand in preserving it. Thus the book is about a lot more than the manuscript itself, and indulges in many fascinating digressions along the way.
In the end, the riddle remains unsolved. The Voynich is probably a minor alchemical text of no particular import, perhaps the last surviving text in this language after the Crusades destroyed nearly 80% of the world's non-Christian libraries. For a fascinating glimpse into the superstitious Medieval world and the learning lost through subsequent winnowing by rampaging zealots, this book offers an excellent read.
Average customer rating:
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El Manuscrito Voynich/ the Voynich Manuscript (Ensayo Historico)
Marcelo Dos Santos
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The Voynich Manuscript: The Mysterious Code That Has Defied Interpretation for Centuries
ASIN: 8466318585 |
Product Description
The Voynich Manuscript represents Western Historys biggest and most disconcerting literary puzzle. Written in an incomprehensible code, it is the only medieval manuscript on earth that hasnt been deciphered to this day. Analyzed during the Renaissance, the manuscript was lost for many centuries until it was rediscovered in the early twentieth century. All known techniques have been used to try and extract its secrets, but the Voynich Manuscript remains immune. The author leads us through a surprising and passionate journey beginning in the Middle Ages, where we are accomplices to the extraordinary figures that have tried to discover the mystery behind this fascinating work. Description in Spanish: El Manuscrito Voynich representa el mayor y más desconcertante acertijo literario de la historia. Se trata del único manuscrito medieval no descifrado que queda en el planeta. Está escrito en un código incomprensible, cuya clave no ha podido ser descubierta ni siquiera por los criptógrafos militares que rompieron los códigos alemanes y japoneses en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Sus páginas están cubiertas de ilustraciones de mujeres desnudas, plantas inexistentes y constelaciones desconocidas para la astronomía. Analizado ya en el Renacimiento, el extraño libro cifrado desapareció durante siglos hasta ser redescubierto a principios del siglo XX. Se han aplicado con él todas las técnicas posibles a fin de arrancarle sus secretos, pero el Manuscrito Voynich aparenta ser inmune a los esfuerzos de los estudiosos. Marcelo Dos Santos nos conduce por un largo, apasionante y sorprendente periplo histórico que se remonta hasta la Edad Media, nos devela los extraordinarios personajes que se vieron involucrados con el libro desde el emperador Rodolfo II, hasta el alquimista de la corte isabelina John Dee, el farsante Edward Kelley o el mismísimo Leonardo Da Vinci-, nos presenta los intentos efectuados para extraer sus misterios y analiza las teorías antiguas y modernas acerca de su posible origen, su desconocido autor y sus asombrosos pero inaccesibles contenidos.
Book Description
This is surely the most comprehensive and scholarly study of the Voynich Manuscript. An essential text for anyone studying this mysterious document.
Customer Reviews:
Just search internet.......2004-01-02
The book has references to the text, but doesn`t have the specific entries next to the words so you`re constantly going back and forth between reading and flipping to back pages. Overall a dry read like that of a student paper. Whatever search engine you use just type in Voynich Manuscript and print what comes up (.......believe me it`ll be a book unto itself.)
The canonical starting point for the Voynich researcher.......1998-10-07
D'Imperio, a cryptographer, collected and summarized all previous research on the Voynich manuscript in 1978. Sometimes dubbed the "most mysterious manuscript in the world," the Voynich Manuscript (VMS) was written at least 300 years ago (no one is sure quite when) in a fantastic unknown script, in an unknown language, by an unknown author. Given the strange illustrations (duplicated in this book) present in the VMS, it could contain secrets of astrology, alchemy, or ancient herbal knowledge. Now, thanks to the internet, a concerted effort to "crack" the message has been born, and D'Imperio's monograph has become the bible of serious researchers and hobbyists alike. Full of references and historical data related to the VMS, this work is a must for anyone intersted in mysterious history and culture, alchemy, or cryptography.
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- Unlikely his solution is correct
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The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich "Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript
Manufacturer: Southern Illinois University
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0809308088 |
Book Description
The Voynich “Roger Bacon” manuscript secrets—presumably magical or scientific and possibly containing a formula for an Elixir of Life—continue to defy deciphering efforts after almost four centuries, as this amazing history shows.
Bought
about the year 1586 by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, who had a keen interest in magic and science, the Voynich manuscript consists of some 200 pages, with many unusual anatomical, botanical, and astronomical illustrations. The work was thought to be that of Roger Bacon, the thirteenth-century English philosopher, who had a reputation for being a magician, and whom legend credited with discovery of an Elixir of Life.
The writing, presumably in cipher, defied decipherment by Rudolph’s scholars, and the manuscript passed in the eighteenth century from Prague to Rome, and in 1912 to America, when it was bought by Wilfrid Voynich, a rare-book dealer. In 1921, William R. Newbold claimed to have solved the cipher, but his claim was disputed by John M. Manly, who gave the manuscript the sobriquet “the most mysterious manuscript in the world.”
In the 1960s the manuscript was acquired by the Beinecke Rare Book Library, and Robert S. Brumbaugh, a philosopher at Yale who had served in military intelligence during World War II, became interested in it, and began what has turned out to be a decade of effort to unlock the secrets of the cipher. In the course of his investigations Brumbaugh brought together a collection of essays tracing the manuscript’s history, which form the basis of the present book.
Brumbaugh himself in 1972 identified the “alphabet” used in the cipher, and read plant and star labels, but the text has resisted application of the alphabet. Efforts to transcribe and decipher the manuscript continue, and this book is a contribution to the efforts to reveal the secrets of medieval science, philosophy, and linguistics still locked in “the world’s most mysterious manuscript.”
Customer Reviews:
Unlikely his solution is correct.......2001-03-30
The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious late mediæval text, written in an unknown script in an unknown language or cypher. It reads as if written fluently, not by someone who was painfully calculating each next character, but by someone who understood what he was writing. It looks like a curious herbal or alchemical treatise, full of diagrams of unknown plants, unknown constellations, and elaborate networks of plumbing inhabited by plump, naked, crowned women. The text seems to contain all the redundancies expected in a natural language and then some. It can be traced back as far as the hands of Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit polymath, who was but the first of many to have tried and failed to read the text.
For a time, this book was the best general overview of the history of the Voynich Manuscript. It still is a good one, though it has been superseded in that regard by Mary d'Imperio's -The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma.-
Brumbaugh proposes in this book a partial "solution" that yields texts like ILEXER ILUS YUS PURUS POURLY ILUY YJSUUS PURUS PLUS URICUS. These decipherments have the merit of seeming to read like the repetitious text of the manuscript itself. He interprets this text, though, as "The Elixir is a game, purely, purely a pure game; and European." Even if he has deciphered the script, no doubt you can probably think of other interpretations on your own.
His method of reading seems to involve first turning the script into Arabic numerals, reading those numerals as any of several possible letters in the Latin alphabet. He got this by forcing letters into the script based on his attempts to identify some of the plants in the diagrams, and then attempting to extract a method of reading the characters. His decypherments are occasionally tantalising, but if this is the actual text behind the symbols, there doesn't seem to be much point in further effort. The readings appear to be flawed by the polyvalence of the script he believes he sees.
Book Description
Described as the most studied and most mysterious manuscript in the world, hundreds of scholars have attacked the Voynich manuscript. Dr. Levitov tells how he broke the text, including his discovery of the word ISIS, a pattern-word. A transliteration of the script symbols is provided.
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- Transformers: The Ultimate Guide: The Ultimate Guide (Transformers)
- Using Microsoft Office 2007, Special Edition (Special Edition Using)
- Volkswagen Official Service Manual Super Beetle, Beetle and Karmann Ghia 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979
- Warman's Pez Field Guide (Warman's Field Guides)
- Warman's Zippo Lighters Field Guide: Values And Identification (Warman's Field Guides)
- When the Heart Cries (Sisters of the Quilt #1)
- Willow Bend
- 7 Books in 1: The Railway Children, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Story of the Amulet, The Story of the Treasure-Seekers, The Would-Be-Goods, and The Enchanted Castle
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
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- Winter's Tale
- The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species
- Prentice Hall Health's Outline Review of Massage Therapy
- Passing the Cpa Examination
- Forbidden Passion
The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World
Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World
The Real Rule of Four
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream
