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• RE: Barbavara Ciphers

  Mark Knowles > 11-07-2026, 07:21 PM

  I would like to see material about Antonio Barbavara in the 1430s as that is the time I think the Voynich was written and if he was an author of it that would be mostly likely to provide insights.

• RE: Barbavara Ciphers

  DG97EEB > 11-07-2026, 07:25 PM

  Is it your contention that he might be?

• RE: Barbavara Ciphers

  Mark Knowles > 11-07-2026, 07:51 PM

  (11-07-2026, 07:25 PM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is it your contention that he might be?

  
  I have a cartographic theory of the rosettes folio which I developed that associates the Abbazia di Santi Nazzaro e Celso by the Sesia river with the authorship of the Voynich manuscript. If that association is correct then the Abbot Antonio Barbavara seems to me the likely author and the Council of Basel having occurred the period during which the rosettes folio was written. Subsequent extensive research that I have done links his family to the most advanced ciphers of the time.
  
  So, my current best guess is that he was the author of the Voynich manuscript, but I don't have conclusive proof and if such proof exists there could be quite a lot of work finding it. I haven't yet even seen any document written in Antonio Barbavara's hand and locating such a document would not be easy. He is someone from 600 years ago that we clearly can find some information about. However, he is also a relatively minor historical figure, so there is not a lot of information that is easily available about him.

• RE: Barbavara Ciphers

  Mark Knowles > 12-07-2026, 12:25 PM

  I ask myself what would I need to find to prove authorship of the Voynich manuscript.
  
  It would be great if I could find an enciphered letter sent to or from Antonio Barbavara for diplomatic purposes or a diplomatic cipher key used by him in correspondence if something of the kind survives in an archive somewhere. However, that wouldn't prove authorship as the cipher key would probably not have the same set of glyphs we see in the Voynich. And the value for handwriting comparison would probably be limited.
  
  If I could find evidence that Antonio had written a herbal manuscript that would be interesting, but it would not prove that he wrote the Voynich.
  
  If I could find evidence that he had written a cipher manuscript I think that would be proof, although I am sure some others would not consider that sufficient proof. And if the manuscript was intended to be private and secret then there may not be obvious references to it.
  
  If one could locate a page associated with Antonio Barbavara in the style of the Voynich manuscript then that would be significant, but no such page may survive.
  
  Similarly proving that he didn't write the Voynich manuscript would be very difficult.
  
  That is why my current line of research has been largely focused on uncovering more examples of early 15th century cryptography in general. It is why I have been keen to located ciphers written by Francesco II Barbavara, Ducal Secretary to Filippo Maria Visconti. As I hope that these might provide more insights into the Voynich cipher. Clearly being able to decipher the Voynich could help provide clues to its authorship.

• RE: Barbavara Ciphers

  Mark Knowles > 13-07-2026, 01:44 PM

  There seem to be various articles about the Abbey written by Giovanni Deambrogio in Bollettino Storico Vercellese.
  
  This is the link to the fund at the Archivio di Stato di Novara->
  
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  However, although I haven't searched this collection my impression is that there is not a lot of material here from the 15th century.
  
  This is the Barbavara family archive at the Archivio di Stato di Novara->
  
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  I have not studied this collection, but preliminary enquiries seem to indicate that there are not many materials from the 15th century.
  
  There are some documents related to the Barbavara family in the Archivio di Stato di Milano. I have looked through these. However, in my experience the most interesting documents concerning the Barbavara family are intermixed with other documents not specially associated with that family. This should be evident from my list of where I have located ciphers associated with the family. Of course, this makes finding interesting and relevant documents very hard as their location in archives is far from obvious. This clearly shows the kind of difficulties one faces with archival research. And if only 10% of Medieval manuscripts survive to this day then I suspect that a significantly lower percentages of letters and other medieval documents survive as I would have thought that manuscripts would be more likely to survive than most other documents given their visual and other appeal.

• RE: Barbavara Ciphers

  Mark Knowles > 13-07-2026, 03:47 PM

  As I live in Oxford in the United Kingdom I could go to the Bodleian Library to see if I can find all the articles referenced by Aina as well as all the other articles I have referred to. Then I will need to study their text for more information about Antonio Barbavara and especially what they list as sources for this information. Then I need to track down these sources and study them accordingly. Ideally with the hope of finding specific references to early 15th century archival documents associated with Antonio Barbavara. If I find a specific precise reference to a document in an archive then I can request a photoreproduction from that archive. However, probably I won't be able to track down all the original archival sources for this information and so the only way to do that would be through time consuming research in archives in Lombardy and Piedmont. Of course, if Antonio Barbavara is not the author of the Voynich this work will be of little general use. Whereas researching early 15th century ciphers is of more general use and arguably of use to the study of the Voynich manuscript. And, the research that I have done into early 15th century ciphers has proved valuable in relation to my authorship hypothesis as it has made it seem much more plausible than when I first formed this hypothesis as I had no idea of the Barbavara family ties to the most advanced known ciphers of the time.
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