Celestial Tapestry by Mee Nicholas;

Author:Mee, Nicholas; [Mee, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2020-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

The Gadfly

Boole’s other daughters lived even more colourful lives. Ethel Lily was just six months old when her father died. She grew up to become a novelist and musician and, like her mother, was a supporter of various political causes. In 1890 she met a Polish revolutionary, Wilfrid Michal Habdank-Wojnicz, who had escaped penal servitude in Siberia after being exiled by the Russian authorities for his anti-Tsarist activities. On reaching London, he anglicized his name to Wilfrid Michael Voynich and became an antiquarian book dealer. Ethel Lily and Voynich lived together for at least seven years before they married in 1902. Voynich is remembered for his discovery of the remarkable Voynich manuscript which he purchased in 1912.

The Voynich manuscript (Figure 16.4) is one of the most intriguing documents to have survived from the late Middle Ages. It is filled with strange images that are very difficult to interpret. Many are botanical, some seem to be astrological, and others show naked women bathing in what appear to be alchemical vessels. These curious pictures might be explained by the text that accompanies them. Unfortunately, no-one has yet deciphered the text, as it seems to be written in an impenetrable invented language. Many sceptics thought the manuscript was a hoax. Some believed it was written by Roger Bacon, others claimed it was forged by John Dee’s associate, the necromancer Edward Kelly, and some even suggested it was faked by Voynich himself. However, the manuscript was recently radio-carbon dated by the University of Arizona, and the results show the parchment dates to somewhere between 1404 and 1438 with a 95% probability. These dates do not fit any of the candidates proposed as authors of this strange document. So the mystery remains.

Figure 16.4 Some of the botanical illustrations in the Voynich Manuscript.

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