A book no one can read
A book with no title, no author, and no translation. Filled with illustrations of unrecognizable plants and written in a language no one understands. It seems like something from a parallel universe — yet it’s real. This book is known as the Voynich Manuscript.
Since its rediscovery in 1912, it has attracted linguists, cryptographers, historians, and even the CIA. No one has managed to translate it. Nor do they know what it’s for. And still, it fascinates like few other works in the world.
But what exactly is this manuscript? An unbreakable code? An alchemical treatise? A brilliant hoax? Or perhaps an invented language that never made sense to begin with?
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Page 77 of the Voynich Manuscript. Illustrations show female figures immersed in tubes or structures resembling hydraulic systems. Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library – Yale University.
A discovery that puzzled even experts
Wilfrid Voynich, Polish bibliophile and collector who rediscovered the mysterious manuscript in 1912. Source: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons.
In 1912, Polish book dealer Wilfrid Voynich found the mysterious book in a Jesuit college in Italy.
Since then, the manuscript has carried his name — but its origin remains unknown.
Modern carbon-14 testing dates the parchment to the early 15th century, between 1404 and 1438. That means it predates the printing press and was written in the heart of the Middle Ages.
However, the content of the book… makes no sense.
The writing is fluid, filled with repetitions and grammatical structures. At first glance, it looks like a real language. But it’s not.
No one has been able to prove it belongs to any known language — or even that it means anything at all.
Impossible plants, bodies, and constellations
Pages with circular diagrams and astrological symbols from the section known as the “cosmological” part of the Voynich Manuscript. Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library – Yale University.
The Voynich Manuscript is divided into visual sections. And that’s exactly what makes it even more baffling.
- Botany: drawings of completely unknown plants. Some look like combinations of real species, others don’t resemble anything on Earth.
- Astronomy: star charts and constellations, accompanied by enigmatic symbols.
- Biology: nude female figures inside tubes and bizarre connections with fluids, seemingly representing the human body — or something close to it.
- Pharmaceuticals and recipes: flasks, roots, instructions… but all written in the so-called “Voynichese,” which no one can decipher.
- Furthermore, there’s no clear visual reference. The illustration styles don’t match other scientific treatises from the time either.
Every effort has failed
Aged cover of the Voynich Manuscript, made of parchment and with no visible title. Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library – Yale University.
The manuscript has been analyzed by top cryptographers — including some who helped break Nazi codes during World War II.
On top of that, the NSA, the CIA, and even AI researchers have tried to decode it.
Countless theories have emerged:
That it’s a cipher created by medieval alchemists.
That it’s an intentionally constructed language meant to conceal knowledge.
That it’s the work of a clever medieval trickster.
That it’s just meaningless art — created for pleasure or provocation.
Despite all these attempts, none of the hypotheses have been proven.
No translation is widely accepted.
A team from the University of Alberta in Canada used artificial intelligence to try to decode the manuscript.
See what they discovered: Artificial Intelligence Tries to Decode the Voynich Manuscript
The most recent hypothesis: structured, yet meaningless
AI analysis reveals linguistic patterns in the text. Source: image generated by artificial intelligence.
One of the latest studies, conducted by the University of Alberta, used artificial intelligence to analyze the manuscript’s text structure.
The result? The Voynich Manuscript exhibits linguistic patterns consistent with natural languages such as Hebrew or Arabic.
However, that doesn’t mean the content is real.
Some researchers believe that someone simply imitated the structure of a language — with no actual meaning. A linguistic simulation.
In other words, the author may have created the manuscript to appear complex. A deliberate enigma with no solution.
A mystery that endures
More than 600 years after its creation, the Voynich Manuscript continues to challenge everything we know about writing, language, and symbolism.
Today, it is housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, where scholars from around the world can study it.
Even so, it remains there: untouched. Mysterious. Silent.
On the other hand, even if it’s deciphered someday, the answer may be far less fascinating than the mystery itself.
Image and illustration sources
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library – Yale University.
Voynich Manuscript – Digital Collection.
Available at: https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/voynich-manuscriptWikimedia Commons.
Portrait of Wilfrid Voynich (circa 1900). Public domain.
Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wilfrid_Voynich.jpgCover image generated by artificial intelligence.
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Frase-chave em inglês: Voynich Manuscript
Meta descrição traduzida:
The Voynich Manuscript is a real-life mystery: an ancient book full of indecipherable symbols that still puzzles scientists today.Slug em inglês: voynich-manuscript-undeciphered-book
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