On the one hand, “Linus’ Law” asserts that if enough people collaborate to solve a problem, it becomes simple - hence open source software. On the other, even though more people have eyeballed the Voynich Manuscript in the last two years (thanks to the Beinecke Library’s scans posted on the Internet) than in the previous four centuries, the overall level of discourse seems to have gone dramatically downhill over that same period. I used to believe that everyone’s contribution was potentially... Read Full Story

I decided to do a bit of site admin over the last few days, by at least trying to tidy up any outstanding issues lurking in the Cipher Mysteries site, mostly from the changeover from Blogger to WordPress. While doing this, I noticed that the site had suddenly dropped about 300 places in Google’s rating for basic search terms, such as “Voynich” and ”cipher” (though it has since recovered to about 180): at one stage, it wasn’t even #1 for “cipher mysteries” (Bah!) Even though I’m still getting... Read Full Story

According to a nice little 2004 New Scientist article by Kevin Jones (Professor of Music at Kingston University, my most recent alma mater), even though Elgar composed his cipher note to Dora Penny in 1897, he appears to have reused the same 24-token cipher alphabet in an exercise book 30 years later. (Kevin Jones doesn’t mention in which collection the exercise bookis to be found: there’s a nice listing of Elgar’s notes and immense collection of letters here.) As with the majority of self... Read Full Story

A little while back, I asked Augusto Buonafalce about Renaissance cryptographer Giovan Battista Bellaso’s challenge ciphers, completely unaware that he seems to have published more articles on them than anyone else on the planet. (Shame on me for not subscribing to Cryptologia, I really ought to.) In fact, Bellaso published two sets of challenge ciphers in his cryptography manuals: a set of three long ones in 1553 (which I don’t have copies of), and a set of seven short ones in 1564 (which I... Read Full Story

Italian scientists claim to have solved two mysterious deaths from the Quattrocento: those of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Agnolo Ambrogini, two big-brained Florentines at Lorenzo de’ Medici’s court who suddenly passed away within only a few weeks of each other in 1494. Though some historians had conjectured the pair might have died of syphilis, the contemporary rumours of poisoning have apparently now been supported by the high levels of arsenic, mercury and lead found (very, very post... Read Full Story

Readers of my book “The Curse of the Voynich” will doubtless remember (if you made it though to Chapter 12, *sigh*) the parallels I drew between physical architects (such as Antonio Averlino / Filarete, of course) and software/cipher architects: both achieve their design ends using a kind of “intellectual structuring” means. But might there be even closer links? Concealment through architecture is an old story: one might think of priest holes, for example. Famously, Francesco Sforza... Read Full Story

I’ve just heard back from the British Library Manuscript department about BL MS Add. 10035, “The Subtelty of Witches”, which I mentioned here a few days ago: ”unfortunately it does not begin in English. The whole of the manuscript is written in cipher.” So: was Eric Sams mistaken? Might the British Library actually have two unreadable books? Well… after a rather longer trawl through the various BL catalogues, I’ll say that “The Subtelty of Witches” is still the best candidate. There are... Read Full Story

Halfway through Blunt and Raphael’s “The Illustrated Herbal”, a small lightbulb flickered briefly to life in my tired head. And it was to do with the VMs’ Occitan marginalia, something that has bugged me for years… To my codicological eyes, the VMs appears to have had a busy time in the 15th century (with three or four inquisitive owners), a very quiet time for most of the 16th century, before an intense flurry of activity circa 1600 (when I think its folios were numbered and the “heavy... Read Full Story

It’s an oldie, but a goodie: first published in 1979, Wilfrid Blunt and Sandra Raphael’s “The Illustrated Herbal” (particularly the revised 1994 edition) is a must-buy first read for any Voynich Manuscript would-be herbal decipherer - if only to make plain by how much its herbal pages differ from other contemporary herbals. Of course, Blunt has sneaked a few pictures from the VMs in there (pp. 88-91); and though he cites Alfred Werner’s (1963) observation that one page in the water section is... Read Full Story

Peter Marshall’s (2006) “The Mercurial Emperor: The Magic Circle of Rudolf II in Renaissance Prague” takes a sideways look at everyone’s favourite mad Holy Roman Emperor, by using those around him as a kind of slightly wonky mirror. The choice of who makes the cut is a bit arbitrary in places: John Dee (who never came close to gaining Rudolf’s favour) gets rather more coverage than I think justified, however much some Voynicheros happen to like him. By using the Imperial court to cast light... Read Full Story