Siloe, which specialises in making facsimiles of old manuscripts, has bought the rights to make 898 exact replicas of the Voynich — so faithful that every stain, hole, sewn-up tear in the parchment will be reproduced.
\nThe company always publishes 898 replicas of each work it clones — a number which is a palindrome, or a figure that reads the same backwards or forwards — after the success of their first facsimile that they made 696 copies of… another palindrome.
\nThe publishing house plans to sell the facsimiles for 7,000 to 8,000 euros ($7,800 to $8,900) apiece once completed — and close to 300 people have already put in pre-orders.
\nRaymond Clemens, curator at the Beinecke Library, said Yale decided to have facsimiles done because of the many people who want to consult the fragile manuscript.
\n“We thought that the facsimile would provide the look and feel of the original for those who were interested,” he said.
\n“It also enables libraries and museums to have a copy for instructional purposes and we will use the facsimile ourselves
\nto show the manuscript outside of the library to students or others who might be interested.” The manuscript is named after antiquarian Wilfrid Voynich who bought it around 1912 from a collection of books belonging to the Jesuits in Italy, and eventually propelled it into the public eye.
\nTheories abound about who wrote it and what it means. For a long time, it was believed to be the work of 13th century English Franciscan friar Roger Bacon whose interest in alchemy and magic landed him in jail.
\nBut that theory was discarded when the manuscript was carbon dated and found to have originated between 1404 and 1438.
\nOthers point to a young Leonardo da Vinci, someone who wrote in code to escape the Inquisition, an elaborate joke or even an alien who left the book behind when leaving Earth.
\nIts content is even more mysterious. The plants drawn have never been identified, the astronomical charts don\u00b4t reveal much and neither do the women. Does the book hold the key to eternal youth? Or is it a mere collection of herbal medicine and recipes?
\nScores have tried to decode the Voynich, including top cryptologists such as William Friedman who helped break Japan\u00b4s “Purple” cipher during World War II.
\nBut the only person to have made any headway is… Indiana Jones, who in a novel featuring the fictitious archeologist manages to crack it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Siloe, which specialises in making facsimiles of old manuscripts, has bought the rights to make 898 exact replicas of the Voynich — so faithful that every stain, hole, sewn-up tear in the parchment will be reproduced. The company always publishes 898 replicas of each work it clones — a number which is a palindrome, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n