Grimoires and ManuscriptsA website by Studio Esoterico CornelioMysterious manuscripts
Some books refuse to be read. This section gathers the manuscripts and written objects that have challenged scholars, cryptographers and collectors for centuries: from the Voynich Manuscript, with its unknown script on fifteenth-century vellum, to the gigantic Codex Gigas in Stockholm; from the rongorongo tablets of Easter Island to the Phaistos Disc, stamped with punches in the Bronze Age; from the Etruscan Liber Linteus, which survived as the wrapping of a mummy, to the alchemical treatises that entrust their knowledge to images, such as the Mutus Liber and the Splendor Solis. Alongside the unsolved riddles are the cases that have been cleared up: ciphers broken, forgeries exposed, attributions revised. Each article separates what is documented from what is legend or hypothesis, giving dates, places of keeping and the people behind the research. Mystery here is not an excuse for fantasy, but the starting point for telling the story of books and of those who have tried to read them.
1.The Voynich Manuscript: the book no one can read
History of the Voynich Manuscript: from Rudolf II to Yale, radiocarbon dating, its illustrated sections and the theories about its undeciphered text.
2.Codex Gigas, Stockholm's 'Devil's Bible'
The Codex Gigas, the largest medieval manuscript: its Bohemian origin, contents, the devil page, the legend of the monk and its journey to Stockholm.
3.Codex Seraphinianus, the encyclopedia of an imaginary world
Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus, published in 1981: an illustrated encyclopedia of an invented world, written in an alphabet with no meaning.
4.The Rohonc Codex, a Hungarian book in an unknown script
The Rohonc Codex, kept in Budapest: 448 pages in an unknown script, 87 illustrations, the proposed decipherments and the hypothesis of a forgery.
5.Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis, the Etruscan book wrapped round a mummy
The Liber Linteus of Zagreb, the longest Etruscan text: a linen book cut into strips to wrap an Egyptian mummy and only recognised in 1892.
6.The Book of Soyga, the puzzle of letters that obsessed John Dee
The Book of Soyga, or Aldaraia: the magical manuscript owned by John Dee, its 36 letter tables, its rediscovery in 1994 and Jim Reeds's solution.
7.The Copiale Cipher and the secret rites of the Oculists
The Copiale Cipher, an eighteenth-century German manuscript broken in 2011: its homophonic cipher and the rituals of the secret society of Oculists.
8.The Phaistos Disc, Europe's oldest 'printed' text
The Phaistos Disc, found by Luigi Pernier in Crete in 1908: 242 signs stamped with punches, its dating, the proposed decipherments and the doubts.
9.Rongorongo, the lost script of Easter Island
Rongorongo of Rapa Nui: the carved wooden tablets, their discovery in 1864, reverse boustrophedon and the debate on the origin of the script.
10.The Dorabella Cipher, Edward Elgar's unsolved note
The Dorabella Cipher sent by Edward Elgar to Dora Penny in 1897: 87 semicircle signs, the link with the Enigma Variations and the readings proposed.
11.Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Aldus Manutius's most enigmatic book
The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili printed by Aldus Manutius in 1499: the Francesco Colonna acrostic, its woodcuts, its invented language and its legacy.
12.The Book of Dimma and the legend of the sun that did not set
The Book of Dimma, an eighth-century Irish pocket gospel book at Trinity College: its portraits, its shrine and the legend of Saint Crónán.
13.Mutus Liber, the alchemy book that speaks only in images
The Mutus Liber, printed at La Rochelle in 1677: fifteen alchemical plates almost without text, the pseudonym Altus, Isaac Baulot and its later fortune.
14.Splendor Solis, the twenty-two miniatures of the alchemical sun
The Splendor Solis, a sixteenth-century German alchemical treatise: the Berlin and London copies, Salomon Trismosin and its cycle of 22 miniatures.
15.The Book of Kells, the mysteries of Ireland's finest gospel book
The Book of Kells, an illuminated masterpiece of around 800 at Trinity College Dublin: Iona or Kells, the Chi-Rho page and the theft of 1007.
16.The Copper Scroll of Qumran and its sixty-four hiding places
The Copper Scroll (3Q15) found at Qumran in 1952: a list of hidden treasure engraved on metal, its cutting in Manchester and theories on its meaning.
17.The Vinland Map, the story of a forgery that fooled the experts
The Vinland Map, unveiled by Yale in 1965 as a fifteenth-century map showing America: the doubts, the ink analyses and the 2021 verdict of forgery.
18.Linear A, the Minoan script no one has deciphered
Linear A of Crete, a Bronze Age script: Arthur Evans's finds, the Hagia Triada archive, the comparison with Linear B and what can be understood.
19.Aurora consurgens, the alchemy attributed to Thomas Aquinas
The Aurora consurgens, a medieval alchemical treatise attributed to Thomas Aquinas: biblical Wisdom, the Zurich illuminated manuscript and Jung's reading.
20.The Beale Ciphers and the treasure buried in Virginia
The Beale Ciphers, published in Lynchburg in 1885: three numerical texts, one solved with the Declaration of Independence, and signs of a literary hoax.