The Rediscovery: Wilfrid Voynich and the 20th Century
In 1912, Polish-American antiquarian book dealer Wilfrid Voynich purchased a mysterious illustrated manuscript from the Villa Mondragone, a Jesuit college near Frascati, Italy. The book was part of a collection the Society of Jesus was discreetly selling to raise funds, and Voynich claimed it had come from a locked trunk containing rare volumes once owned by the Jesuits. Inside the manuscript, he found a folded letter dated 1665 or 1666, written by Johannes Marcus Marci, a physician and scientist in Prague, addressed to the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher. In the letter, Marci mentions that the enclosed book had been purchased by Emperor Rudolf II for 600 gold ducats, though he admits he cannot confirm the book’s origin or meaning. The manuscript, anonymous and undated, would later take on the name “Voynich Manuscript” in recognition of Wilfrid’s role in bringing it to light. After his death in 1930, his wife, Ethel Voynich — a novelist and composer — retained the book. Before her death in 1960, she stated that Wilfrid had discovered the manuscript in a chest belonging to the Jesuits, but gave no further supporting evidence. Her account echoed Wilfrid’s own description, though neither ever fully explained how the manuscript ended up in Jesuit custody, leaving its earlier trail still partially obscured.

Before Voynich: Jesuit Custody and the Kircher Connection (1912 ← 1666)
When Wilfrid Voynich acquired the manuscript in 1912 at Villa Mondragone, it had already been held by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for over two centuries. Evidence for this includes the ex libris of Petrus Beckx, former Superior General of the Jesuits, found inside the manuscript. The Jesuits had stored the book at the Villa Mondragone — then a Jesuit college — likely as part of a private reserve of materials preserved during the 19th-century restructuring of their holdings. Tracing the manuscript further back, it had previously belonged to the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, who acquired it around 1666. It was sent to him by Johannes Marcus Marci, a physician and academic in Prague. Though no Jesuit catalogue lists the manuscript directly, the internal evidence — including the letter from Marci that Voynich found folded inside the book — supports its continuous retention by the order from Kircher’s time until its sale to Voynich. Kircher is not known to have responded to the letter or publicly referenced the manuscript, but he maintained a large private collection of scientific and mystical materials at the Collegio Romano, where the book likely remained for generations.

Prior to Jesuit Custody: Johannes Marcus Marci and the Prague Legacy (1665 ← 1639)
Before the manuscript entered Jesuit hands, it passed through the care of Johannes Marcus Marci (1595–1667), a Bohemian physician, mathematician, and rector of Charles University in Prague. Marci was a respected scholar and longtime correspondent of Athanasius Kircher. His involvement with the manuscript came through his personal relationship with Georg Baresch, who had owned the book for many years. After Baresch’s death — sometime before 1662 — Marci received the manuscript as a personal legacy, describing it in his 1665 letter to Kircher as left to me by the intimate friendship I had with the late owner. He had kept the book for some years himself, unable to unlock its contents. While he made no claims of progress deciphering it, Marci clearly recognized its potential value. In the same letter, he relayed a piece of secondhand information: that Emperor Rudolf II had once purchased the manuscript for 600 gold ducats. Marci made it clear this story was hearsay, not a claim he could verify — but its inclusion points toward the manuscript’s earlier movement within the imperial scientific circles of Prague. Marci’s own interests spanned optics, astronomy, medicine, and early chemistry. Though not a practicing alchemist in the strict sense, he was immersed in a culture where natural philosophy blurred into alchemical speculation. His transmission of the manuscript to Kircher — a leading figure in esoteric and linguistic study — ensured its preservation, even if not its immediate understanding.

Georg Baresch: The First to Mention the Manuscript (1639 ← Unknown)
Before Marci, the Voynich Manuscript was owned by Georg Baresch, a Prague-based scholar and alchemist active in the early 17th century. He is the first known individual to document the manuscript’s existence. In 1639, Baresch wrote a letter to Athanasius Kircher, asking for help in deciphering what he described as an “unknown script” contained in a perplexing book he had studied for many years. In that letter, Baresch stated that he had inherited the manuscript — though he did not say from whom — and admitted that despite prolonged study, he had made no progress in understanding its content. He suspected it might contain “ancient wisdom” or “lost knowledge of a scientific kind,” possibly relating to alchemy, botany, or natural philosophy. The fact that he reached out to Kircher, already gaining fame for his work on Coptic and Egyptian texts, suggests Baresch believed the manuscript encoded meaningful — perhaps even sacred or ancient — information. Though the original letter is now lost, later references confirm its content and significance. Following Baresch’s death (before 1662), the manuscript passed informally to Johannes Marcus Marci, who would preserve it and eventually send it to Kircher. As far as the historical record shows, Baresch is the first individual to study the Voynich Manuscript in depth and to treat it as a text worthy of serious investigation. His belief in its importance — and his decision to reach out to Rome for help — initiated the documented chain of custody that preserved the manuscript to the present day.

Imperial Prague: Emperor Rudolf II and the Court of Curiosities (Late 1500s–Early 1600s)
While the first confirmed written reference to the Voynich Manuscript appears in 1639, physical evidence places the book at the imperial court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague several decades earlier. The strongest clue is the faint signature of Jacobus Horčický de Tepenec, visible under ultraviolet light on folio 1r. Known as Sinapius, Tepenec served as Rudolf’s personal physician and was ennobled in 1608. His name — added well after the manuscript’s creation — is the earliest surviving sign of ownership, suggesting that the book was in his possession during his tenure at court, between approximately 1600 and 1622. This aligns with a report written decades later by Johannes Marcus Marci, who stated in a 1665 letter that the manuscript had supposedly been purchased by Rudolf II for 600 gold ducats. Marci admitted he could not verify the claim personally, but that it had been passed along with the manuscript itself. No inventory entry from Rudolf’s court confirms the sale, yet the story fits the broader context of his intellectual interests. Rudolf II was one of the greatest patrons of esoteric knowledge in early modern Europe. His Prague court became a gathering place for alchemists, astronomers, astrologers, and natural philosophers — including John Dee, Edward Kelley, and Tycho Brahe. The emperor assembled a massive private collection of rare manuscripts, mechanical devices, astrological instruments, and arcane works. A strange book filled with unreadable text, unidentified plants, and astronomical charts would have matched his curiosity exactly. Although we cannot yet confirm who sold the manuscript to Rudolf, the details in Marci’s letter — and the timing of Tepenec’s signature — support the idea that the manuscript was in imperial hands at the turn of the 17th century. The next step is to examine a likely intermediary: a physician and manuscript dealer known to have sold rare books to Rudolf himself — Carl Widemann.

Carl Widemann: Copyist, Collector, and Possible Courier (Late 1500s)
The final step in the manuscript’s likely entry into Emperor Rudolf II’s collection may trace back to Carl Widemann, a physician, scribe, and collector deeply embedded in the esoteric intellectual world of late 16th-century Europe. Widemann is historically recorded selling a collection of rare manuscripts to Rudolf around 1599 for 600 florins, a detail that closely matches the 600 ducats referenced later by Marci. Though the currencies differ, the figure and timing strongly suggest this sale could have included the Voynich Manuscript. Crucially, Widemann was more than just a trader. He spent years living in the household of Leonhard Rauwolf — the noted physician, botanist, and early scientific explorer. Rauwolf had traveled widely across Europe and the eastern Mediterranean in the 1560s, collecting rare plants and books. After Rauwolf’s death in 1596, Widemann is believed to have inherited his personal library, which likely included rare and unusual manuscripts gathered during his expeditions. This was not a casual association — Widemann had full access to Rauwolf’s materials, both before and after his death. Their professional lives were deeply entwined. Widemann was a dedicated copyist of Paracelsian and alchemical writings, many of which he preserved in manuscript form. His catalog included dense, illustrated volumes filled with arcane symbolism — works often circulating outside official publication channels. If the Voynich Manuscript had entered Rauwolf’s possession during his travels — whether in Europe or farther east — it could easily have passed to Widemann, who may then have sold it to Rudolf II as part of his 1599 consignment. This places Widemann as a key potential link in the manuscript’s undocumented chain: a man with direct access to one of Europe’s great scientific explorers, a personal collector of strange texts, and a confirmed seller of rare manuscripts to the emperor who was obsessed with exactly that kind of material.

Leonhard Rauwolf: Botanist, Physician, and Collector (Mid–Late 1500s)
Before Carl Widemann’s time, the intellectual trail behind the Voynich Manuscript may connect to Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician and botanist known for his wide-ranging travels and scientific collecting in the mid-16th century. Born around 1535, Rauwolf studied medicine and botany in places such as Montpellier and Valence, where he became immersed in the most advanced herbal and medical theories of the day. He returned to Germany in the early 1560s and began assembling an extensive herbarium and manuscript collection. Between 1563 and 1565, he undertook a research journey through northern Italy, passing through cities including Verona, Bologna, Florence, and Parma. These cities were at the heart of botanical and medical scholarship in Europe, and Rauwolf is known to have collected plants, manuscripts, and possibly rare texts along the way. This period coincided with a growing scientific movement in Italy, particularly in Tuscany, where the Medici family had begun sponsoring systematic botanical work. The Giardino dei Semplici in Florence, established in 1545 under Cosimo I de’ Medici, was one of the earliest formal botanical gardens in Europe, created specifically for the study of medicinal plants. It was part of a wider Medici effort to gather, classify, and protect rare specimens from across the world — and a center where unique materials and manuscripts could have circulated. Rauwolf’s interests mirrored this environment: the blending of botany, medicine, and arcane knowledge. He documented and preserved unusual plant forms, studied their properties, and collected both living specimens and written works. His travels also took him beyond Italy — into the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Eastern Mediterranean — making him one of the first Europeans to scientifically document the flora of that region. After returning to Augsburg, Rauwolf continued to practice medicine and maintain his personal library. Upon his death in 1596, and his wife's death shortly after, his possessions — including books and manuscripts — passed to Carl Widemann, who had lived in their household. This inheritance may have included rare, handwritten material acquired during Rauwolf’s travels, possibly even the Voynich Manuscript itself.

What Came Before
Before the manuscript passed into known hands, it was already moving through circles that valued secrecy, science, and rare knowledge. In the early 1560s, Leonhard Rauwolf travelled through Florence, Bologna, Verona, and Parma — key centres of Renaissance medicine and botany. Florence, under Medici control, had become a focal point for botanical research and the exchange of specialist texts. The Giardino dei Semplici, already active for nearly twenty years by the time Rauwolf arrived, housed not just plants but intellectuals working across botany, medicine, and natural philosophy. Rauwolf was trained in medicine and botany, and actively gathered rare manuscripts and specimens during his travels. He was not a casual observer; he was exactly the kind of figure a work like this would have been entrusted to. After returning to Augsburg, he continued his research and collection until his death in 1596. Following the death of his wife soon after, his entire estate — including books and manuscripts — passed to Carl Widemann. This wasn’t a lost manuscript. It was passed hand to hand, held by men who recognised what it was — or at least what it might contain. Now, it speaks again.