Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript is a series of papers found in an Italian castle in 1912 and is attributed to Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk who died around 1294. It is written in english and is either in a cypher or short hand, or it's age has left the letters worn, making reading difficult. It covers biological topics and has diagrams of cell structures well ahead of it's time.

[Contents] The book has 116 pages which feature it's odd writing and many biological drawings of roots or plants. It also had sketches of amazingly detailed cell structures and microscopic organisms, despite the manuscripts age.

The lettering of the book appears to be in a cypher, but with closer study this "shorthand" is actually a result of the ancient ink flaking off the page.

[History] The Voynich manuscript was found by Wilfred M. Voynich in Italy in an unnamed castle. It was brought to the United States in 1912. With it was found a letter asserting it's ownership of two 17th century scholars and that it had been penned by Roger Bacon, a monk.

It's cypher piqued the interested of American scholars for nine years until Prof. W. Romaine Newbold announced he had cracked it in 1921. With an intensification of publicity Prof. Newbold announced the contents. Apparent;y Roger Bacon had invented the microscope some four hundred years before Leeuwenhoek, and had made some amazing scientific discoveries with it.

But, after Prof. Newbold's death in 1926, his friend Roland Kent, who continued his work, discovered that the cipher was in fact a result of the flaking of the dried ink. Scholastic interest waned and the Voynich manuscript sunk back into obscurity.

It is housed in the University of Pennsylvania's library.