As possible authors of the Voynich manuscript, the English polymath Roger Bacon [D’Imperio78, Worrall14], the Renaissance artist giant Leonardo da Vinci [Sherwood02], the English polymath John Dee and his scryer Edward Kelly [D’Imperio78, Rugg04, Worrall14] were considered along with some other candidates. However, the radiocarbon dating of the Voynich parchments [Sherwood15] excluded Roger Bacon as a possible author.
This current book provides convincing evidences of the involvement of the Italian Renaissance polymath Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472); Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516), the abbot of Sponheim, who, together with Alberti are considered the founding fathers of modern Western cryptography; and the English polymath John Dee (1527-1608/9). Based on the revealed multiple evidences, two authorship scenarios are formulated:
A) Leon Battista Alberti constructed a remarkable portion of the manuscript, then Johannes Trithemius contributed some, and John Dee finished it possibly together with his scryer Edward Kelly (most likely scenario); and B) John Dee (possibly together with his scryer Edward Kelly) created the entire Voynich manuscript, or he copied it from a preexisting opus created by someone else, for example, Alberti (less likely scenario).
References
- D’Imperio, M. E. 1978. The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma. National Security Agency Report.
- Rugg, G. 2004. An elegant hoax? A possible solution to the Voynich manuscript. Cryptologia 28(1):31-46.
- Sherwood, E. 2002. Leonardo da Vinci and the Voynich Manuscript.- https://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_author_da_vinci/
- Sherwood, E. 2015. Radiocarbon Dating of the Voynich Manuscript. – https://www.edithsherwood.com/radiocarbon_dating_statistics_part3/index.php
- Worrall, S. 2014. The riddle of the Voynich Manuscript. – https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26881734