Voynich research - things that you can do to help!

While the Voynich Manuscript (VMs) is fascinating, it remains possibly the most frustrating object of study ever. This is because - for whatever reason - nothing in it seems able to be firmly connected with any other document... and without knowing where it fits inside the web of human knowledge, historians' analytical tools fail to be of much use.

For example: it's not even certain which century it was produced in (it seems to be a 15th Century cipher, but some researchers argue that it's actually a 16th Century hoax), nor in which country (some think Italy, others England, yet others think China!), nor what kind of person produced it.

On the bright side, it does seem to have been written by a right-handed person, so we can (probably) exclude 10% of everyone who ever lived (including Leonardo da Vinci, sorry!) :-)

About us: we are an Internet-based group of researchers, trying to chip away at this vast edifice of uncertainty by working collaboratively, to make the best use of the resources available to us. Unfortunately, these tend to be both sparse & spread randomly across the world - so this has tended to be a somewhat slow process.

But you can change all that!

Here is a list of things that you can do to increase our collective knowledge and understanding of the VMs. While some are straightforward, others require more initiative, while yet others place more emphasis on thought or reading. However, nearly all of them require physically going somewhere - for you to become the eyes and ears of our group effort. If that particular somewhere happens to be easy for you to reach, why not help? You never know what you might find!

Place Task Need
New York, NY Examine Wilfrid Voynich's personal papers at the Grolier Club Look for the two mislaid bifolios of the VMs, possibly folded and misfiled
New York, NY Ask the Grolier Club if you can scan in Wilfrid Voynich's personal papers There's a wealth of biographical detail there which has never been made available online
Philadelphia, PA Examine Professor William Romaine Newbold's personal notes at UPenn It's possible that Newbold's notes hold a copy of (or descriptions of) the two missing bifolios
Philadelphia, PA Ask UPenn if you can scan Professor William Romaine Newbold's personal notes Prof Newbold was an early academic to study the VMs. Though his conclusions were unsound, his other insights may still be useful
Philadelphia, PA Track down the descendants of Professor Roland Grubb Kent - his address in 1945 It's likely that Prof Kent ended up with at least some of Prof Newbold's notes on the VMs - but if so, where did they go?
Islington, London Who was "C.A.Edgell, M.A.", who lived in London circa 1900? Census details at the Family Record Centre may hold the answer Wilfrid Voynich started out in business with C.A.Edgell - but his name is almost all we know about him.
Berkeley, CA Look at: Lazzari S.J., Pietro: Miscellaneorum ex mss. libris Bibliothecae Collegii Romani Societatis Iesu tomus primus, Romae, 1754; ...tomus secundus, Romae, 1757 Click here for more details on the copies - what did Pietro Lazzari S.J. describe?
SAS Library, London Examine: Lazzari S.J., Pietro: Miscellaneorum ex mss. libris Bibliothecae Collegii Romani Societatis Iesu tomus primus, Romae, 1754 What did Pietro Lazzari S.J. describe?
New Haven, CT Examine the photographs in the boxes in the Beinecke in case there are any of the two missing bifolios Two herbal bifolios seem to have disappeared between 1924 and 1930 - were there any photographs taken of them?
New Haven, CT Examine the photographs in the boxes in the Beinecke to find the earliest (hopefully non-"cleaned-up") image of f1r After the VMS arrived in America, Wilfrid Voynich applied chemicals to f1r (the first page) - possibly damaging it forever

If you're interested in contributing some of your time to any of these, please feel free to email me for more details.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....