Books don’t usually make the news, but they do when they carry one of the world’s most famous unsolvable mysteries. The Voynich manuscript has baffled both scholars and the general public for about a hundred years. Now, it has even hit Reddit, where a mob of conspiracy theorists provide their best guesses as to what the whole thing is about. What is it about? It’s anybody’s guess at this point, but earlier this year, British historian Gerard Cheshire, from the University of Bristol, claims to have cracked it. In Dr. Chesire’s view, the manuscript is a sort of therapeutic reference book composed by nuns for Maria of Castile, queen of Aragon. But not everyone is convinced.
@historyweb.skWhat, exactly, is the manuscript? To the naked eye, it’s a 240-page book with vellum pages. Written on them is a looping handwriting and hand-drawn images that make it look like medieval botanical books. Additionally, the pages are filled with real and imaginary plants, floating castles, bathing women, astrology diagrams, zodiac rings, and suns and moons with faces. The writing on them is perhaps what is most interesting, as scholars and cryptologists agree that it looks like real language, just not a language that anyone speaks anymore, or ever spoke for that matter.
To begin to understand why this would be a huge deal, we must go back to the beginning. Back in 1912, Polish book dealer Wilfrid Voynich came across the book at a Jesuit college in Italy. He bought the book, mesmerized by the questions it posed. What was it? Who wrote it? Where was it made? What does it say? Was this some sort of secret book? Voynich eventually brought to the US, where the book itself became something of a celebrity and Voynich vowed to solve the mystery forever and for good (he didn’t). The manuscript now lies deep in a Yale University library.
Is this a hoax? Did Voynich write it himself? Is it a known language in an unknown script? The first breakthrough came when carbon dating determined the book had been made in the early 15th century, which helped debunk a few theories will reinforcing others. Dr. Cheshire, however, favors his own theory: that the script is in some sort of proto-Romance language, a theoretical Romance language from which all other Romance languages derive.
@uroboros.itHowever, Dr. Cheshire’s hypothesis was met with skepticism almost immediately. He claimed the manuscript is “a compendium of information on herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing and astrological readings” focusing on female physical and mental health, reproduction, and parenting. He argues that the manuscript was made by Maria of Castile (who, by the way, is the great-aunt of Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII). Maria was a queen who ran a court filled with men, so, in Dr. Cheshire’s view, it would have made sense for Dominican nuns to have made the manuscript for her.
@ignotocracia
For some scholars, this just doesn’t hold up. To begin with, proto-Romance is not a real language, at least there’s still no proof there ever was such a thing. It’s only an imagined shared tongue and Dr. Cheshire is basing his entire argument on it.
Every so often, however, somebody seems to have eureka moments with regards to the Voynich manuscript, so it’s likely that we’ll be hearing from someone else who has cracked it.
@ignotocracia
@historyformisanthropes
@historyformisanthropes
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