One of the things that intrigues me most about the Voynich manuscript is the poor quality of its drawings. Whenever I’ve seen manuscripts from the 15th century or even later, the clumsiness of the Voynich illustrator is striking. The drawings are made almost in a single stroke, with no attempt at shading or adding the slightest grace to the figures. From the plants to the nymphs or the zodiac signs, they look like something a child of six or seven could have drawn.

I understand that by that time art had already reached quite a high level of quality; the Renaissance was just emerging in Italy in the 15th century. So whoever produced the illustrations must have been an amateur, and quite a poor one at that.

What is even more surprising is the contrast between the complexity of the text (whether it is an actual cipher or an invented script) and the low quality of the images. One senses the ambition to depict grand ideas, such as the elaborate foldout diagrams or the roses, yet the final result feels clumsy and impoverished when compared with the artistic standards of the time. I understand that the Renaissance was not accessible to everyone, but even the humblest artistic traditions of the period offered a more faithful representation of reality than what we see in the Voynich.

It is also striking that researchers have identified different scribes at work in the text, while the illustrations — at least the thematic ones — seem to share the same hand and style. It is difficult to imagine two people independently drawing the nymphs, for example, in exactly the same (and equally unconvincing) manner with respect to human anatomy. This further reinforces the impression that the text and the images may have followed very different logics of production.

That said (and I hope not to offend, I’m a Voynich enthusiast myself!), I wonder whether any other manuscripts from the period show a similar poverty of representation, with drawings that are unrealistic and poorly proportioned.

Hi everyone ,
This is a general research or strategy question. I love it when someone posts something visual up here that is a new match to a feature of voynich. I’ve  done a lot of searches on the ninja forum  to see what’s been done. I’m assuming a lot of the researchers have been combing over a lot of manuscripts quite a bit, especially when looking for things like marginalia or letters or zodiac signs etc. I’m assuming that anything posted here has been pretty much looked over carefully. So as I venture into the websites of archives, I find it  hard to figure out what manuscripts have been completely picked over and noticed for novelty and which ones haven’t been looked at yet. More importantly, I can’t figure out how to discover when  a manuscript is freshly updated or freshly posted on one of the many different sites that are hosting it or whether it’s been there for a long time. I’m not necessarily asking you to tell me every single manuscript that’s been combed over on this forum. I’m asking “Is there a way to quickly search all the various online sources and quickly identify the range of dates they were updated or uploaded so you can just start with the Newest ones first. “ and “Are there particular websites that anyone here favors as being really great with new update updates. “ “also are there collections online that we just know haven’t been looked at yet because they just dropped?”
And also- this being entirely subjective, do all of you major researchers descend upon new updates within a few months or are there enough manuscripts being added to the web if not at a steady rate then by key large uploads at certain points?”.  

Anyone have an awesome system for doing this? Personal preferences? 
Also- I’m  most interested in herbal texts  specifically - but this applies to all types. 

Ps I really hope this is not extremely obvious I have -tried- to look at many manuscripts already and with the variation of viewers still struggle to see a quick way of finding when it was uploaded. 
 PSs: I have watched all Voynich Talk video, and the conferences and days. I searched and attempted to learn from the Voynich as well. So I have a bit of general background knowledge of what texts have been looked at to compare. 
?? Thank you for any advice or tips given
Anya


Psss- I love em dashes. Love them. I am expressive in real life and those em dashes are there to show that. So please don’t flag
This as Ai. ?

Hi everyone.

I’m Joaquim Quadrada—Quim for short (that-s the reason of my nickname quimqu). I’m 51, from Barcelona, a native Catalan speaker. I formerly was a mechanical engineer and moved into data science two years ago, finishing a master that lasted 3 years. Even if during the master we worked the linguistic part of data science, I’m not a linguist. I open this thread because I think graph methods can serve the Voynich community as a practical, transparent way to poke at structure and test ideas, and Graphs are quite a new area to investigate.

By “graph” we understand a set of points and lines. The points (nodes) can be words or bits of metadata such as “section”, “Currier hand”, “writing hand”, or “position in line”. The lines (edges) connect things that co-occur or belong together. We can also add information to the edges, direction, and a lot of things that creates the relationship between the nodes. Once you cast the transliteration as one or more graphs (and yes, we can join graphs), you can ask graph-native questions: which links are unexpectedly strong once chance is controlled, which words act as bridges between otherwise separate clusters, which small patterns (A→B→C chains or tight triangles) recur at line starts, how closely word communities align with metadata nodes (sections, hands, line-position), and whether any directed paths repeat often enough to count as reusable templates. None of this decides whether the text is language or cipher, but it can highlight stable regularities, quantify them, and rank hypotheses for experts to examine.

I’d like to open a brainstorming thread to push ideas that are worth trying on top of these graphs.

As a concrete example, I started with the first lines of paragraphs (what I call L1) and compared them to all other lines. Building co-occurrence graphs, the L1 network consistently comes out denser and more tightly clustered. When I switch to a small sliding window (a “micro-syntax” view), the L1 graph splits into more distinct communities, which is what you’d expect if opening material uses more fixed combinations. I also looked for actual line-start bigrams that repeat. A couple of pairs do appear at L1 and not elsewhere, but the evidence is thin; they behave more like soft habits than hard formulas. To see broader context, I built a bipartite graph that connects words to their metadata (position, section, hand). Projecting this graph shows a clear cohort of words that lean toward L1, and it also shows which sections and Currier hands share that opening behavior. All of this is descriptive and testable; nothing here presumes a linguistic reading or a cipher.

This, for example, is the graf for the first lines of the paragraphs:

To illustrate what I mean by opening units at L1, here’s a table with the two bigrams that pass the defined thresholds: they have positive ΔPMI versus the rest of the text (ΔPMI > 0 means the bigram is more tightly associated in L1 than in the other lines) and they always occur at the start of a line. I’ve added short KWIC (Key Word in Context) snippets for context.

Egerton MS 845 (F.21 v) 
Probably just a coincidence, but I thought the top left triangle design and top right cross design (scroll) might be note worthy given the general similarities between the two images in general. The overall layout has quite some similarities also. I can't find scans for this MS anymore, though it was linked on here years ago and noted as "first half of 15c" in 2021.

On a side note - The image also shows up as being part of Harley 2407 which was 15c and contained many later notes by readers, the most famous of which were Dee and Ashmole. 

   

The other is from Micheal Scot - Liber introductorius, which is a very interesting work, and person (if you like rabbit holes) 
This is a 14c copy (around 1320) - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The images are regarding eclipses, though I found the general way it was drawn to have some similarities with the VM images, even if the meaning is seemingly different

   

You will be able to find many great images in this MS, if you browse backwards from this page you will find all sorts of great images for planets and zodiac signs, some more relatable to VM than others. 

Bonus merlons and weird sun face for Koen  

   


I don't really have much to claim on these, just thought I'd share and not let it rot in the list of things I'll probably forget about.

[Theory] RITE — Ritual Instrument of Textual Esoterica
Thesis. The Voynich Manuscript is an authentic early-15th-century object whose unreadability was the point. It functioned as a Ritual Instrument of Textual Esoterica (RITE)—a performative prop that looked like language and conferred authority on its owner in consultations/rites—rather than a book intended for general decoding.

That's my TL;DR. If it intrigues you or reminds you of something that has come before of which I am unaware, read on...

Motive. The same motive as many medieval forgeries: money.
How I got here. Statistical work persuaded me the text isn’t straightforward natural language. A recent Voynich Day 2025 talk by Michael (“Magnesium”) showed that historically plausible 15th-century methods can generate Voynich-like strings from meaningful text. That demonstrates feasibility of a ciphered surface. It does not establish an intent to decode. My claim: unreadability was a feature for performance, not a bug to be solved. (Modern analogue: Joseph Smith’s plates—power via exclusive “translation.”)
Function, not content. I use “rites” broadly—any performative act (divination, healing, religious consultation) where the owner interprets an unreadable authority object for a client. Images anchor recognition; unreadable text supplies mystery; performance supplies authority.
Historical timeline (why RITE fits the period)

• Creation (1404–1438 vellum window). Late-medieval Europe supported markets for “books of secrets,” astrological images, and esoteric medicine. A convincing pseudo-language manuscript could be produced relatively cheaply yet serve high-value ritual and consulting roles.
  
• Use phase (15th century). The manuscript shows wear consistent with handling. Unreadable/arcane texts could operate openly: monastic settings, itinerant healers, court astrologers.
  
• Shift and decline (post-1517). The Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation hardened attitudes toward “magical” books and spurious relics. An unreadable prop without sanctioned theology becomes risky for Protestants and Catholics.
  
• Afterlife (16th–17th centuries). As “duping the locals” gets harder—and penalties greater—the manuscript’s functional value collapses. It survives as an exotic curiosity, eventually sold when it’s no longer useful (or safe) as a working prop.
  

• Herbal (plants/roots). Healer points to a strange plant with dense glyphs: “The remedy is written here.” A potion is prescribed. Plant imagery makes it feel concrete; the text signals hidden expertise.
  
• Astrological (zodiac, stars). For divination: gesture to a zodiac wheel—“Your house this year aligns thus; the text confirms it.” Recognizable symbols guide the client’s imagination; unreadable labels make it authoritative.
  
• Balneological (nude figures, pipes, baths). Esoteric therapies: “These are purifications for health/fertility.” The imagery implies procedure; the script implies exact doctrine only the interpreter can unlock.
  
• Pharmaceutical (jars, roots, compound lists). “Codified pharmacy.” Point to a jar vignette, narrate a “translation,” mix a preparation. The book serves as the credential behind the recipe.
  
• Recipes/Stars (short paragraphs, star markers). Performative instruction: “Each star is a step.” Trace lines as though following a protocol, then deliver a chant, cure, or prognosis. Structure without readability.
  

• A coherent, page-level decipherment that preserves known statistics and yields content matching the imagery domains—showing the book was meant to be read beyond its maker.
  
• Provenance tying it to a didactic or bureaucratic purpose inconsistent with staged opacity.
  
• Material/ink sequencing inconsistent with extended practical handling.
  

• Documents describing unreadable “books of secrets” used in healing/divination ca. 1400–1500 (especially Central Europe).
  
• Inventories, bans, or trials referencing pseudo-alphabet manuscripts pre-/post-Reformation.
  
• Close analogues (e.g., Trithemius/Dee) where cipher-like text doubled as a ritual prop.
  

• Pointers to prior art on “prop/ritual use” models of the Voynich.
  
• Counter-arguments/falsifiers I haven’t considered.
  
• Historical breadcrumbs (inventories, bans, trials, testimonies) mentioning unreadable “books of secrets” c. 1400–1500.
  
• Method ideas to test RITE vs. alternatives (e.g., wear patterns, long-range glyph correlations, material sequencing).
  

You can translate all day, and if you aren't a medieval music major you won't accomplish much.
Its the same exact format as many chants and mantras the world over. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 4, and 5 chorus fingerprint (parsons) 8 unit cell is RURUUDR and 
full chorus is RUDRUUDRRUDRUUDRRUDRUUDR
That is as far I have gotten.

(04-09-2025, 09:59 PM)quimqu wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In real languages, the correlation is usually slightly positive: long words tend to follow long words, short after short. But in the Voynich, it’s negative (about –0.07). That means the text tends to alternate — long words are followed by short words, and short by long.
It gives the text a zig-zag rhythm.

(04-09-2025, 09:59 PM)quimqu wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.When I scrambled the text within lines as a test, the alternation got even stronger, which proves the manuscript isn’t random, but it’s still unlike natural language.

Working on a kaggle notebook gathering statistical evidence that the script could be RTL:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

proofreaders welcome!

Hello everyone.

Do you think it is possible that two manuscripts were used to read the text - one known to us as the Voynich Manuscript, and the second lost one, which contained the same illustrations and diagrams, but a different text? For example, the words of manuscript №2 could consist of ordinary, but cleverly mixed Latin letters, and the sequences of symbols in the Voynich Manuscript could be a visual instruction for bringing these words into a readable form. This could explain the strange statistical distribution of words in the Voynich Manuscript - it's just that in the hypothetical manuscript №2, the same normal word of a European language could be encoded by many variants of mixing the original letters - accordingly, the visual instruction for decoding the same word could be different in different places of the manuscript.

I understand that this theory is not the path to solving the mystery, but I believe that this theory also has a right to exist.

For over a century, the greatest minds – from Friedmann to modern artificial intelligence algorithms – have been trying to decipher the text of the Voynich Manuscript. And for over a century, they all have ended the same way: helplessness. Some have seen it as a Romance language, others as an Aztec language, still others as a medical or astrological treatise. No theory has stood the test of time.

I don't want to belittle anyone or diminish the researchers' efforts; on the contrary – I admire their passion and perseverance. However, the problem lies in the premise itself: everyone is stubbornly staring at the letters. Yet the text could be a deliberate veil, a labyrinth intended to entrap those seeking meaning.

In my opinion, the true code is hidden in the illustrations. Semiology suggests: sign, symbol, ideogram. Plants, bodies, diagrams – these are the ones that convey meaning. The text serves more as decoration than as a carrier of information.

A few years ago, I proposed viewing the herbal section as a kind of compendium of history – from the Big Bang, through the evolution of life, the birth of civilization, to the present and the future. Every root, leaf, and flower is a record of events. It's the medieval equivalent of the Pioneer's golden plaque, a testimony left for future generations.

Researchers are therefore battling not a simple cipher, but something I would call a multi-level intelligence from 600 years ago, created by people with access to a source of knowledge that we cannot clearly understand today. Therefore, all traditional methods – whether linguistic, cryptographic, or computer – may prove insufficient.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. The Voynich Manuscript will likely never be cracked using either classical or digital methods. This isn't because the researchers are incompetent – they are exceptional – but because we are dealing with a structure that has transcended classical boundaries from the outset. The text will deceive endlessly, and the solution lies in the images. Deciphering them requires not only intellect but also a different perspective - one that allows us to view signs and symbols as a language in themselves.

My post should therefore be considered a polemic, an invitation to a shift in perspective. This is not to undermine the efforts of others, but to point out that in the game of the Voynich Manuscript, the winner will not be the one who calculates and encodes, but the one who can read the symbols and images. Because this book was not created to be broken by the methods of reason, but to open the way to a different kind of knowledge.