In 1915, its intriguing illustrations and unknown script were revealed to the public, and immediately captured the imaginations of scholars the world over. It is currently housed at Yale University, where it is filed as item MS408 in the Beinecke Library of rare books and manuscripts. In that same year, the place of origin of the manuscript, Castello Aragonese on the isle of Ischia, Italy, was bought by a private owner, and it is thought that the document was sold as part of the clearance sale of the grand property.

For several centuries it enjoyed an unassuming existence, until 1912 when it was purchased by a Polish book dealer by the name of Wilfred M. The manuscript has been carbon dated to the mid-fifteenth century (1404-1438 AD) and it is thought to have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious illustrated hand-written vellum codex, produced in what was thought to have been a written and visual code. This time it appears to have strong academic backing. The report seems very confident, but so have claims before. It seems there was no ‘code’ to crack as such, just an extinct and previously unknown language to recognize, plus a lot of abbreviations and some complicated diphthongs. If validated (and it has already been peer reviewed) this means he has succeeded where countless cryptographers, linguistics scholars and computer programs have failed - by cracking the code of the 'world's most mysterious text', the Voynich manuscript. One of their associate researchers has published the paper with the solution to the mystery. The press release from University of Bristol in South West England promotes a paper that reveals the secret language of the Voynich manuscript has finally been understood.

This attempt, described confidently in a research paper and presented in a press release by a UK university seems to have solid backing. Claims of ‘cracking the code’ of the Voynich manuscript have lost their sheen somewhat over the last few years, with weak cases being presented from all and sundry.

Voynich manuscript illustrations