Back in February 2016, I posted about a possible “block paradigm” match for the Voynich zodiac section – using a separate text uncovered by secondary research as a close match to the plaintext, and trying to work forward to the ciphertext, rather than blindly backwards from the ciphertext (as normal).

The match I proposed was with Andalò di Negro’s “introductorium ad iudicia astrologie”, a little-known fourteenth century text mentioned by Thorndike that covered per-degree judicial astrology. I tried hard to find a match between the tables in Andalò’s work and the poses of the nymphs in the Voynich zodiac section: but ultimately wasn’t able to. It might be there, it might not: I don’t know either way.

It was a disappointment: but not the end of the road by a long way…

The Paris 7272 Cipher

One of the two extant manuscripts of Andalò di Negro’s Introductorium is BNF Cod. Fonds Latin 7272: interestingly, as I noted back in 2009 when I saw its zodiac images in the Warburg’s photographic archive, this has some shorthand-like marginalia that had never been decrypted.

When I finally managed to get good images of these marginalia and posted about them, it didn’t take long before Marco Ponzi cleverly managed to crack the core of the cipher.

Once decrypted, these marginalia revealed the – apparently top secret – names of the spirits governing each zodiac sign, e.g.:

Aries: NOMEN ARIETIS SOLICET ANGELUS EIUS (EST) “SORON”

Taurus: NOMEN ANGELUS TAURA (EST) “TOION”

Gemini: NOMEN ANGELUS JEMINORUM (EST) “SAISIACIN” “GADLIO[N]I”

Cancer: NOMEN ANGELUS CANCRI (EST) “BARAM”

Leo: NOMEN ANGELUS LEONIS (EST) “COLIN”

The complete set of spirit names for the twelve signs is then revealed to be:

– IN?TIUS

– SORON TOION

– GADLION SAISIACIN

– BARAM COLIN

– MIMIN SUDRAM

– TEDUO GORO(?)

– UDABUL DOLI?IT

What I didn’t point out at the time is that because “GADLION SAISIACIN” would appears to be a single spirit name (that for Gemini), then “IN?TIUS” would appear to be the spirit name for Pisces. Hence Pisces would seem to be the first in the list.

And – I almost need not say, but I’m contractually obliged to – the Voynich Manuscript’s list of zodiac signs begins (slightly unusually) with Pisces. Which gives a small amount of support to the idea that these two documents may both be drawing in some way from the same well. It’s not a big thing, but I thought I ought to mention it regardless. 🙂

Voynich Pisces

Aside from the looking for a block match with the thirty posed per-degree nymphs corresponding to each sign, there’s another possible block match on the same page: with the text on each circular ring.

This doesn’t amount to a great deal of additional text for each sign: but given that something is definitely there, a similarly-sized piece of text associated with the original per-degree table for that sign might conceivably get us close to the original (unenciphered) plaintext for those rings.

In the case of the Voynich Pisces page (f70v2), the three rings of text (in EVA) are as follows:

(R3) Outer ring, clockwise from 11:30 (as per the interlinear transcription) [~43 words]:

okcheo.dar.otey.ykeey.tchy.otsheo.oteotey.shey.sheckh.opcheoldair.dateey.sal.ody.choteey.chocthedy.oteoteotsho.yteos.alain.sheodaly.ckho.aiin.cholkal.chotear.oteody.cholaiin.oteeey.al.ol.sheeor.okey.choldy.otees.chor.ol.ar.otoaiin.oteeody.sor.todaiin.chokain.otalal.otcham.

(R2) Middle ring, clockwise from 11:15 [~32 words]:

chedaiin.oteey.dair.shchey.daiin.chalaly.oteody.chotol.chedy.oteotey.oteeeor.ar.alody.daiir.oteedar.otchy.teey.dalal.cheoltey.oteedy.sheeteey.*.ykeeol.ykeeor.shey.ykear.araralor.daimamdy.otar.am.aral.otar*

(R1) Inner ring, clockwise from 09:00 [~20 words]:

otaldaly.oteoal.dalaildy.otaiin.ar.oteey.shal.o.qoteeal.ar.al.otaiin.al.teodaiin.oteey.cthey.oteeor.oteor.aiin.daim.

Note that this is my own reading of these lines, which is slightly different to other researchers’ readings. But that’s fairly immaterial here, because we’re looking for word-level matches with a parallel text: and remember that we have no evidence of any encipherer systematically hiding word divisions in a ciphertext until the early sixteenth century, some decades after the Voynich Manuscript was made.

The question now becomes: is there a similar-sized block of text for Pisces in Andalò di Negro’s “introductorium ad iudicia astrologie”? And if so, what happens if we try to make a block paradigm-style “block match” between it and the text in the Voynich Manuscript’s Pisces rings?

Zodiac Texts

It just so happens that there is such a text. In fact, I posted the complete set from the two extant Introductorium manuscripts on the Cipher Foundation website earlier in the year.

In the London manuscript, the Pisces text block looks like this:

In the Paris manuscript, the Pisces text block looks like this (with one extra sentence):

This is roughly half the number of words of the Voynich Pisces ring texts: but once again, there’s a further short piece of useful text attached to the tables that (I expect) would also need to be carried across:

Most of the text in the table is formulaic (i.e. common to all twelve zodiac tables), but some lines (specifically the top three lines of text) seem to be largely specific to Pisces.

I suspect that if you add these two half-blocks together, you would get close to the same number of words that the Pisces rings contain. Might there be a match of some sort in there? Very possibly, I’d say. So perhaps this may yet prove to be a practical start towards a decryption of this page, let’s keep our fingers crossed, eh?

And My Conclusion?

Well… sadly, I don’t have a conclusion yet. I’ve posted this as a set of work-in-progress notes for myself, and as a broad guide to the kind of approach I believe stands a good chance of cracking the Voynich Manuscript (in time) for others, rather than as a decryption as such.

But perhaps any passing Latinists will be so kind as to parse the handwriting and expand out the late medieval abbreviations, I’m sure that would be a very great help for anyone who would like to try to make a forward (block) match for this page. Thanks!