Cipher Mysteries

Art historians have long debated whether or not dissatisfied architect Antonio Averlino made the trip from Italy to Constantinople in 1465: one of the key pieces of evidence supporting the notion is the letter of recommendation written in Greek by Averlino's old friend Filelfo (the humanist writer and Hellenophile) and addressed to George Amirutzes (Mehmed II's personal tutor). This is one of those things ...

In the last few days, several people have independently asked me to summarize my "The Curse of the Voynich" Voynich Manuscript theory (that it is an enciphered copy of Antonio Averlino [Filarete]'s lost books of secrets). Good theories generally improve when you retell them a few times: for example, back when I was first pitching my new type of ...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! Today's brief news is that 100 copies of "The Curse of the Voynich" have just arrived from the printers, so those 20-odd people who ordered one from Amazon this month should be receiving it by the New Year (post willing). Alternatively, if you'd like your own shiny signed copy, order one via PayPal using ...

Just to let you know that a Voynich Manuscript radio interview I gave a few days ago (either download it, or click on the Flash Player play button [half a screen down on the right] to hear it) has just gone live on the Red Ice Creations website. They wanted me to chat about all things ...

His eyes stinging from all the Google Translate hits popping up on his server logs (what did I tell you?), Elias Schwerdtfeger posted up an English translation of his Voynich Bullshit Index post from a couple of days ago, no doubt cursing me through gritted teeth as he typed. :-) By my reckoning, I reckon my Averlino theory in ...

Of course, the minute I post about Voynich talks, several more suddenly pop up. :-) The 'Heaven Astrolabe' blogger (Margherita Fiorello) gave a nicely-meandering (but picture-heavy) description of wandering across Rome to see a talk on the Voynich Manuscript, held on the 23rd June 2009 at the Libreria Aseq esoteric bookshop (a bit like an upmarket Italian version of ...

One of the (frustratingly small) number of art history leads the Voynich Manuscript's author dangles before our eyes is the balneology part of Q13 ("quire 13"). Specifically, there are two bifolios that depict baths and pools, where the pictures helpfully allow us to reconstruct what the page layout originally was:           84r/84v - contains Q13's quire number (which should be at ...

Though (as was apparent from the rapid social media take-up of yesterday's XKCD webcomic) the Voynich Manuscript is now firmly wedged in the cultural mind, sadly the level of debate on it is still stuck circa 1977 - and if anything, Gordon Rugg's foolish "hoax" claims have helped to keep it there. But it is demonstrably written ...

(1) A big hello to Rich SantaColoma as he emerges from the VMs "List Closet" into the bright(-ish) light of the blogosphere. His "New Atlantis Voynich Theory" blog sets out his basic stall - which is that, thanks to his "Nagging Sense of Newness" about the Voynich Manuscript, he harbours strong doubts that it is anywhere near as ...

Right at the start of (1970) "Brunelleschi: Studies of His Technology and Inventions" (pp. xi-xiii), Frank Prager summarizes Gustina Scaglia's research into how Brunelleschi's ideas for machines spread. They posit a key missing manuscript (dubbed "The Machinery Complex"): but their discussion is fairly specialised, and so it is quite tricky to follow. Here's my attempt at representing the argument - green boxes represent manuscripts that still exist, ...