Based on the illustrations that accompany the text, scholars have divided up the book into parts, including the herbal section, astrological section, biological section, cosmological section, pharmaceutical section, and “recipes,” but really, we have no idea how closely the text corresponds to the images. You see, it is written in an unknown script in a language that does not seem to exist outside of the manuscript. It’s a beautiful book–nearly 250 vellum pages–an example of fine craftsmanship, beautiful and elegant and nobody has the faintest idea what the crap it says. Upon Voynich’s death, it passed into the hands of Hans Kraus and eventually ended up at Yale. He found it in a trunk at Villa Mondragone, in Frascatti. The provenance of the manuscript is only certain, as far as I can tell, once it is in Voynich’s hands. It then dropped out of sight for centuries, until it was acquired by a Polish bookseller named Voynich in 1912 during one of his book buying tours of Europe. Zimansky, writing in Philological Quarterly (before it went all corporate–haha), says that the manuscript was originally found in the library of Rudolph II and that it was in the possession of Father Athanasius Kircher in 1666. Nonetheless, it is there, which has until recently been just about the only thing we’ve known for sure about it.Īccording to Curt A. Currently housed in Yale’s Beineke Library, the Voynich MS totally skipped my mind when I went up there to do research for my dissertation. The Voynich Manuscript is a genuine mystery. Of course the hell not, but by sticking to the evidence, I find myself regrettably unable to run out into the quad and shout: “IT’S A COOKBOOK! THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT IS A COOKBOOK!” Sticking to evidence, however, has never been the strength of the writers at Above Top Secret, which delivered a rather soggy excuse for a story entitled: “ Voynich Manuscript–Diary of an Alien or a Mad Man? 100 Years Older than First Thought.”