The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex , hand-written in an unknown script referred to as Voynichese. Stylistic analysis has indicated the manuscript may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. Hypotheses range from a script for a natural language or constructed language , an unread code , cypher , or other form of cryptography , or perhaps a hoax , reference work i. The first confirmed owner was Georg Baresch , a 17th-century alchemist from Prague.
The text is written from left to right, and some pages are foldable sheets of varying sizes. Most of the pages have fantastical illustrations and diagrams, some crudely coloured, with sections of the manuscript showing people, unidentified plants and astrological symbols. The manuscript has never been demonstrably deciphered, and none of the proposed hypotheses have been independently verified. The codicology , or physical characteristics of the manuscript, has been studied by researchers.
The manuscript measures The total number of pages is around , but the exact number depends on how the manuscript's unusual foldouts are counted. From the various numbering gaps in the quires and pages, it seems likely that in the past, the manuscript had at least pages in 20 quires, some of which were already missing when Wilfrid Voynich acquired the manuscript in There is strong evidence that many of the book's bifolios were reordered at various points in the book's history, and that its pages were originally in a different order than the order they are in today.
Samples from various parts of the manuscript were radiocarbon dated at the University of Arizona in The results were consistent for all samples tested and indicated a date for the parchment between and The quality of the parchment is average and has deficiencies, such as holes and tears, common in parchment codices, but was also prepared with so much care that the skin side is largely indistinguishable from the flesh side.
Some folios such as 42 and 47 are thicker than the usual parchment. The goat skin binding and covers [ 32 ] are not original to the book, but date to its possession by the Collegio Romano. Discolouring on the edges points to a tanned leather inside cover. Many pages contain substantial drawings or charts which are coloured with paint. Based on modern analysis using polarized light microscopy PLM , it has been determined that a quill pen and iron gall ink were used for the text and figure outlines.
