Wilfrid Michael Voynich , born Michał Habdank-Wojnicz (October 31st 1865 - March 19th 1930) was a bibliophile Polish, emigrated with the the United States. He is famous for the manuscript which bears from now on its name: the Handwritten of Voynich. This work with the contents to date indecipherable was the subject of many research and assumptions as for its origin and its significance. Voynich was even shown to have manufactured it of all parts.

Biography

Voynich was born with Hrodna (at the time in Russia, currently in Bielorussia) in 1865. During its youth, Voynich is member of the proletarian Mouvement Polish, connects Polish International association of the workers, in which it is active under the pseudonym of Wilfrid (étymologiquement “that which wants peace”) under which it is known. In 1886, it is stopped with Warsaw and after 18 months of prison, it is dispatched in Siberia with Irkoutsk. With the assistance of the partisans of the movements of freedom in Russia, he flees in 1890 with London.

In 1893, it Marie with Ethel Lilian Boole (1864-1960), enthusiastic Socialist and girl of the famous English mathematician George Boole, itself auteure of the book The Gadfly ( the Horsefly ), published in 1897 and which was a Best-seller in its time, especially in Russia, and which inspired Dmitri Chostakovitch ( The Gadfly , Opus 97).

The couple emigrates with the the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1897, it opens a shop with London then with New York in 1915.

Discovered manuscript

In 1912, at the time of a visit arranged by a contact remained anonymous, it goes to Frascati close to Rome where the Villa Mondragone is. The Mondragone Villa was the property of the Jésuites which wished to restore it but did not have the sufficient funds, they decided to sell part of their collection of old books. They turned to antique dealers of which Voynich.

It buys 30 manuscripts of which the strange work. A letter of Johannes Marcus Marci for submission to Athanasius Kircher gone back to 1666 was slipped inside the book.

In 1915, it exposes to the institute of the art of Chicago some manuscripts bought in Italy. In 1921, it shows the mysterious manuscript with Philadelphia but does not give its source. His wife, Ethel Lilian Boole, is only with the current of this agreement made with the Jesuits.

Voynich presents its manuscript to various experts but remains convinced that the book was the work of Roger Bacon.

Ethel Lilian Voynich will inherit the manuscript to dead of her husband in 1930 with New York. She dies in 1960 and the book returns to Anne the Nile, one of her close relations friends and former secretary of fire her husband, who sells it to Hans Kraus which in fact gift, in 1969, with the Université of Yale which is the current owner.

See too

Handwritten of Voynich

References

• History of the manuscript {{in}}
• Site with bond towards facsimilés of the book {{Fr}}

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