Voynich Authorship

[Mark Knowles]

It's an interesting lead, given that the suggested author lived in the right time, in a region of previous interest, and has a family connection to someone who used cyphers.

I knew when the manuscript had been carbon dated when I developed my theory, so it was no great achievement that my suggested author lived in the right time period, it would be a bold suggestion if they didn't. If I had constructed this theory prior to the carbon dating having been carried out it would be a much more impressive achievement. I like to think that if I had not known about the carbon dating I would have come to the same conclusions. However the truth is that I would probably have never researched the Voynich if there was the chance that it is a modern hoax, so the carbon dated result was a prerequisite to my research.

I knew of the associations with Northern Italy when I started my research, so again associating the manuscript with Milan was not a bold leap. However it is an interesting implication of the theory and one on which it was in no way based is that given that I think the Rosettes folio depicts a journey to and from the Papal Council of Basel(this is not a revelation as I have addressed it on Nick Pelling's blog), this suggests that the author spent a significant time not only in Northern Italy, but also a region that other researchers, I later learnt, have associated with certain other illustrations in the Voynich.

The close family connection to people working on the most advanced ciphers of the time is significant in so far as my authorship hypothesis was in no way initially based on this information, but rather it came out later, some of it much later. For example, my assertion that Milanese diplomatic ciphers were the most advanced ciphers of the time was further strengthened just recently by a document I recently saw from an archive.