(Continued from home page)

Clues to the origin of the manuscript are a letter dated 1666 tucked inside the front page written by Johannes Marci, and an erased name at the bottom of the first page that can be revealed under ultraviolet light to be Jacobus de Tepenec of Prague, Emperor Rudolph II’s Royal Botanist.  The letter mentions that the author believed the book was written by Rodger Bacon the famous Franciscan Friar in England who was a noted expert in cryptography, and that it was purchased by Emperor Rudolph II. 

A popular conjecture is that the manuscript was acquired by Dr. John Dee, Queen Elizabeth’s Astrologer and Magician, who had the largest known library of the writings of Roger Bacon at the time.  And it was John Dee who took the book to Europe where it eventually fell into the hands of Johannes Marci.  Marci wrote the letter found in the manuscript to Jesuit father Athanasius Kircher who was a collector of puzzles and ciphers in hopes of discovering the meaning of the words and drawings in the book.  This is a plausible but unproven argument.

Many important historical events happened in England in 1666.  Beginning in 1665, the Bubonic Plague spread across England killing approximately one hundred thousand people including twenty percent of the population of London.  During this period Isaac Newton left the city and returned to his home in rural England to escape the plague.  It was during these eighteen months that he developed the laws of motion and gravitation that he is famous for today.  Also, in September of the same year the great London fire enveloped and destroyed most of the city. More about Newton later. 

During and after World War II, top military and civilian code-breakers in America and England attempted to decipher the writing and failed.  Statistical analysis shows that the writing is completely different in character from any European language.  No consistent theory has been put forth to explain the origin and nature of the document, and with each unsuccessful attempt at decryption the manuscript has solidified its position as the holy grail of historical cryptography.

After so many unsuccessful attempts at deciphering the Voynich Manuscript, some have declared it to be a hoax.  What unknown language or medieval code could resist the power of modern decryption and computer technology?  Surely this unpretentious manuscript must be a fraud, either ancient or modern.  Today most attempts to decipher the manuscript have morphed into efforts to refute its validity.  But our ability to decipher the manuscript is not evidence that it is a fraud—absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

What if the Voynich Manuscript is more, not less, that it appears to be?  Perhaps it is a fragmentary copy of a greater work that originated in the mists of the earliest time of humanity and has left its footprints along the path of human history.  Read the novel The Renaissance Manuscript and decide for yourself.

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