There, he became part of the intellectual circle that surrounded the Russian agitator Sergei Kravchinsky, known as Stepniak. He got a lot of reading done there, and then he escaped, travelling widely and ultimately bartering his waistcoat and glasses for a spot on a boat from Hamburg to England. He was arrested in Kovno, in 1885, for his membership in the Proletariat Party, a social-revolutionary group, and sentenced, without trial, to exile in Siberia for five years. He supposedly spoke twenty languages fluently. Voynich was born in 1864, in TelР•РЋiai, to a Polish family. YaleРІР‚в„ўs new edition affords Voynich a profile, by Arnold Hunt, which turns out to be warranted by his strong and odd personality. Then we get what appear to be instructions in the practical use of those plants from the beginning of the book, followed by pages that look roughly like recipes. These scenes resemble drawings in the alchemical tradition, which gave rise to a now debunked theory that the thirteenth-century natural philosopher Roger Bacon wrote the book. Next, the so-called РІР‚СљbalneologicalРІР‚Сњ section shows РІР‚Сљnude ladies,РІР‚Сњ in ClemensРІР‚в„ўs words, in pools of liquid, which are connected to one another via a strange system of tubular plumbing that often snakes around whole pages of text. The next section contains circular diagrams of the kind often found in medieval zodiacal texts scholars call this part РІР‚Сљastrological,РІР‚Сњ which is generous. None of the plants appear to be real, although they are made from the usual stuff (green leaves, roots, and so on search a word like РІР‚СљbotanicalРІР‚Сњ in the British LibraryРІР‚в„ўs illuminated-manuscript catalogue and youРІР‚в„ўll find several texts that are similar to this part).

The first half of the book is filled with drawings of plants scholars call this the РІР‚СљherbalРІР‚Сњ section. Some call the language and its script РІР‚СљVoynichese.РІР‚Сњ The letters loop prettily, and the text runs from left to right, top to bottom. The book was made in the ordinary medieval way, but the script-the form of its letters, the language itself-was apparently invented by whoever made it. The writing will not be decipherable to you. Turn the covers-as Umberto Eco once did it was the only book in the BeineckeРІР‚в„ўs famous collection that he cared to see-and you are greeted by writing in brown ink accompanied by strange diagrams and paintings of plants. The manuscriptРІР‚в„ўs Renaissance-era cover (it was rebound) is made of what the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, at Yale, calls a РІР‚Сљlimp vellum.РІР‚Сњ The book has resided at YaleРІР‚в„ўs library since 1969. YaleРІР‚в„ўs new facsimile is somewhat larger, as it includes wide white margins for the amateur cryptographerРІР‚в„ўs own marginalia.

The manuscript is two hundred and twenty-five millimetres tall, a hundred and sixty wide, and five centimetres thick. The Voynich Manuscript has charisma, and charisma has lately held a monopoly on our attentions.

A new facsimile, edited by Raymond Clemens and published by Yale University Press, draws attention to the way that we think about truth now: the book invites guesses, conspiracy theory, spiritualism, cryptography. Nobody can decode the language the book is written in. But no living person has ever, as far as we know, understood it. We know, thanks to carbon dating, that it was put together in the early fifteenth century. The Voynich Manuscript is a special kind of original. Photograph Courtesy Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University / Wikimedia Commons The manuscript was made in the ordinary medieval way, but the script was apparently invented by whoever made it.

Voynich manuscript yale press