# Revealing the Secrets of the Voynich Manuscript via Multispectral Imaging
The Voynich manuscript, regarded as one of the most puzzling documents in history, has intrigued researchers, cryptologists, and conspiracy enthusiasts for more than a hundred years. This medieval manuscript from the 15th century, inscribed in an undeciphered script and adorned with strange illustrations of unfamiliar plants, unclothed figures, and astrological symbols, has resisted all efforts at interpretation. Nevertheless, recent progress in multispectral imaging has shed new light on this enigmatic text, thanks to the research of medievalist Lisa Fagin Davis.
## A Brief Overview of the Voynich Manuscript
The manuscript derives its name from Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish antiquarian and bookseller who acquired it in 1912. Estimated to be created between 1404 and 1438, the Voynich manuscript has been preserved at Yale University’s Beinecke Library since 1969. Its provenance and intention remain obscure, with hypotheses ranging from a compilation of herbal remedies to a sophisticated prank. Possible creators of the manuscript include the English philosopher Roger Bacon, Elizabethan astrologer John Dee, or even Voynich himself.
Despite numerous assertions of having “broken the code,” no one has conclusively deciphered the manuscript. Among the more questionable claims was a 2017 assertion by Nicholas Gibbs, who proposed that the manuscript was a manual for women’s health written in Latin abbreviations. His hypothesis was swiftly dismissed by experts, including Lisa Fagin Davis, who has been a prominent opponent of such excessively simplified interpretations.
## The Impact of Multispectral Imaging
In 2014, the Beinecke Library authorized The Lazarus Project, a team specializing in imaging historical texts, to acquire multispectral images of ten pages from the Voynich manuscript. This technique captures images at various light wavelengths, unveiling details that are not visible to the naked eye. This technology has been employed to investigate other historical relics, such as the Archimedes Palimpsest, and is especially advantageous for scrutinizing faded or overwritten writing.
For several years, these images went unexamined. However, in 2024, Lisa Fagin Davis, who serves as the executive director of the Medieval Academy of America, accessed the scans and commenced her exploration. Her discoveries, which she recently discussed on her blog *Manuscript Road Trip*, have introduced fresh layers of fascination to the already intricate narrative of the manuscript.
## Significant Findings: Concealed Text and Early Attempts at Decoding
One of the most notable findings from the multispectral imaging is the identification of three columns of text on the initial folio of the manuscript. These columns contain a Roman alphabet, a series of Voynich characters, and another Roman alphabet offset by one letter. Fagin Davis posits that these columns signify an initial effort to decipher the manuscript, likely undertaken by a prior owner or scholar.
This raises the question: who made this attempt? To investigate this, Fagin Davis analyzed the handwriting in the Roman alphabet columns against letters penned by Johannes Marcus Marci, a 17th-century physician in Prague who inherited the manuscript from his acquaintance Georg Baresch. Marci eventually forwarded the manuscript to Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher in Rome, anticipating that Kircher could decipher it. Fagin Davis identified several strong indicators connecting Marci’s handwriting to the columns found in the Voynich manuscript, implying that Marci himself may have attempted to decode the text.
## Refuting the Forgery Hypothesis
A longstanding discussion surrounding the Voynich manuscript is whether it constitutes a genuine medieval artifact or an elaborate forgery. Some have suggested that Voynich might have fabricated the manuscript to mislead collectors. However, Fagin Davis’s examination provides robust support for the manuscript’s legitimacy.
She argues that if the manuscript were a forgery, it would be irrational for the forger to include faded notes and then expect that future imaging technologies would uncover them. “That line of reasoning contradicts both logic and practicality,” she observes. Instead, she contends that the manuscript is most likely an authentic early 15th-century work, replete with traces of its historical journey left by former owners and readers.
## The Constraints of Multispectral Imaging
Although the multispectral imaging has yielded invaluable new information, it has not unraveled the enigma of the Voynich manuscript. For instance, the three columns of text do not seem to provide a clear answer to the manuscript’s code. Linguists and cryptographers have determined that the manuscript is improbable to be encrypted using a mere substitution cipher, and the substitutions within these columns result in gibberish.
Regardless, the detection of these columns contributes an essential chapter to the manuscript’s backstory. It demonstrates that early modern scholars, possibly including Johannes Marcus Marci, were actively engaged in efforts to decode the text long before contemporary cryptographers took up the endeavor.
## An Ongoing Enigma
The Voynich manuscript continues to be one of the most baffling
