# transcribed from 2 page carbon copy in W. F. Friedman collection # Marshall Library, Lexingon VA, file 1614, # by J A Reeds 28 Sept 2000 # (another copy in National Cryptological Museum, VF 10-8) # # lines with # are my commentary # matter in {braces} is my commentary # page 1 # penciled date at top: 10/9/1946 SOME IMPRESSIONS OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT 1. On 10 September 1946 at 1200 I met Miss Nill in the Guaranty Trust Company safety deposit section and spent an hour examining the Voynich Manu- script. The main impression I carried away is that although it is by no means a work of art, so much care, so much time, and so much expense in vellum of excellent quality went into it, it cannot be a hoax. It is conceivably the work of a wealthy and learned, if deranged, person, but not a hoax. 2. The handwriting is incredibly consistent throughout. It varies only slightly in size, in slant, both of lines and of individual strokes, and in the flow of ink throughout the entire manuscript. It is the work of a single scribe. Because the same ink and the same kind of pen strokes appear in the illustrations and because the text forms an integral and unified part of many of the illustra- tions, it appears probable that the same person wrote the text and drew the illus- trations. 3. The illustrations are done with great care, not with attention to providing a pleasing picture but rather with attention to accuracy of detail. They are, as Mill Nill pointed out, the kind of drawings that a scientist would make for himself, not illustrations designed to enhance the beauty of the book. Though they are done with care, they do not always present an unmistakable repre- sentation. Some question still lurks in my mind whether it is really a sunflower on f 28v. But was the maker of the book the author? The repetition of the goats among the zodiacal signs for example, suggests that a copyist was at work. Since the ordinary foliation of such a book is not followed in this section, but a complicated system of double-page spreads with folding pages, it is possible (a) that a copyist got lost in the maze of oversized pages and so repeated, or (b) that several copies of the work were in preparation and this copy got three goats and other copies got, say, three bulls. In behooves us to examine the text of the goats to see if it too repeats and compare it with the text of the other signs and to make up a bibliological dummy of this section of the manuscript ie see if we can account for the repetition and omissions. 4. Whoever wrote the manuscript did not supply the page-numbers--they are in a different hand and a different ink. The resemble the Arabic figures of a seventeenth-century scribe. And there is some doubt in my mind whether the original scribe supplied names of the signs of the Zodiac, for the ink here seems to be thicker and the hand much lest certain than the accompanying text. Did a lat- er scholar try to supply the names? And in an effort, not especially successful, to reproduce the secret writing? One asks a similar question about the writing on the final page -- Newbold's key. It looks as if someone had tried his hand at writing the cipher symbols. {Rest of line= correction on carbon.} To be sure the ink is not unlike that of the manu- script, but unless it is the hurried kind of note, it is probably not written by the scribe of the manuscript. # page 2 5. Except for the colors, the sheet of photostatic print {sic} which I compared to the manuscript is an excellent reproduction. The shadings of the letters, the blots, the places where the scribe dipped his pen-- such details do show up. There may be a few details which we miss but not much. The guide lines for the circular text of the moon illustration, for example, shows up with almost the same brilliance as in the manuscript. 6. The style of the drawings, especially the conventions of the line draw- ing in the women suggest to Miss Nill, quite properly, that the manuscript is far later than the 13th of {sic} 14th centuries. There is nothing "Gothic" or angular about them. They are fat and rotund and suggest in their style the in- fluence of the realism of a later period. 7. The coloring of the illustration may well suggest a later date than the thirteenth century. Some of the colors appear to be a colored ink or water color, some a kind of crayon, and some an opaque kind of paint like poster paint. There are many colors; the ink is a good strong brown; there is an umber- like ink, like British-tan leather goods, a bright, not quite brilliant, blue ink or water color; an opaque aquamarine; a good strong red, carmine rather than scarlet or vermilion; a dirty yellow (the yellow and browns of the sun- flower illustration are like those, only a little faded, of the Van Gogh sun- flower picture; the greens are less brilliant)l a red that looks like a blood- stain about a week old; a dirty green; an opaque green; a kind of green crayon; and several other greens of various hues, intensity, value, and texture; a red that looks like face rouge in color and texture; a thick red that makes dots of color that you could scrape with your finger nail; a red ink just like ordinary red ink today; a blue that sparkles with tiny fragments (not apparently by de- sign.) 8. Some of the colors are flowed on as with a brush; some have left pigment- bordered contours as where a little pool had stood unblotted. Some may have been blotted (with cloth?). Some were applied with strokes of the quill, and some were scrubbed into the vellum with a blunt quill which had become furry on the end as a wooden stylus does after repeated use. 9. The manuscript is in excellent condition; there are few indistinguish- able pen strokes, almost no signs of fading or water stains, only the slightest worm holes, and only the barest amount of rubbing of the vellum and then only on oversize leaves. The binding is early, i. e., pre-18th century, and carefully done. The cover, also vellum, has come loose, and it is possible to examine the binding closely. It was a competent and workman-like job. ALBERT HOWARD CARTER