The Drebbel/Voynich Theory
I wrote an article for Renaissance Magazine titled: The Voynich Manuscript: Drebbel's Lost Notebook?  (Issue #53, March 2007). In the article I describe the line of reasoning which led me to believe there is a possibility that Cornelius Drebbel authored the mysterious Voynich Manuscript. Basically, I felt that certain objects in the Voynich bore a striking resemblance to early microscopes. If they are microscopes, then the author of the Voynich would have been very familiar with this technology. This points to Drebbel as an author. He was making and selling microscopes by 1620, and probably earlier, and actually made at least one "with three brass legs" (Peiresc letter, 1632). The Janssens, while still accepted as the earliest microscope makers (from about 1590) do not seem to have a history or background which would coincide or relate with the Voynich... Drebbel does, in several key ways. As it turns out, he was also appointed the Chief Alchemist to Rudolf II's court at about the time the Voynich first appears there. In the court, he rubbed elbows with Kepler, who wrote and published Dioptrice in 1610/11. Kepler described microscopes in this work. In addition, looking through the Voynich, and at Drebbel's style of illustration and artwork, I felt there were compelling similarities.

After looking this page over, check out my New Atlantis page. Francis Bacon's New Atlantis was partly inspired by Cornelis Drebbel and his inventions. Also, there are very interesting parallels between New Atlantis and the illustrations in the VMs... including, but not limited to, my perceived optics. Baths with nudes, grafted plants and animals, both unidentifiable, and more. Could there be a Drebbel/Bacon/New Atlantis/Voynich connection? I do not know, but the similarities are striking... if one were to construct a mock "Bible of New Atlantis", it would not look much different than the VMs, I think.

H. Richard SantaColoma
The Voynich "Microscopes"
The significance of these objects, if microscopes, is great. Our present understanding of the melding of alchemy and science, and the roots of the study of microscopy, would be altered.

On the left is an f88r tube from the Voynich. Next to it is a 3D computer image I made to recreate it as a "real object". For a texture I used moroccan leather from an image of a book, which looked close the the Voynich illustration's pattern. Note the bluish/green color the illustrator chose for the top of this object.


Various Microscopes from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Close-up of the cap to the jar/microscope above. Note the shading/shaping lines, just visible in the blue-green area. These would only have been there to show a "shaping" to the surface... it was not flat, but convex... like a lens would be.
VMs artist uses this shading elsewhere,
as on this "pea", to show shaping.
Two "tubes" from the Voynich. It has continually surprised me that no-one had previously thought they may be microscopes, they look so similar. Note the recessed centers of the tops. They are drawn just as lenses, secured by rings, would be. And they have varying diameters, implying sliding tubes. Below is a representation of the two above tubes, recreated in CAD:
I am hard pressed to see any significant difference to the structure of the above 18th century microscopes, and the Voynich jars to the left. This image is from an 18th century Spanish optical book, which I am in the process of tracking down for better images, and complete descriptions.

So far, I can find no herbal jars which look like these VMs "jars". Most herb and pharmaceutical containers from the 14th through 17th centuries, while elaborate, take on a different form. For one thing, they usually have curved sides, bases and/or top, rather than the straight barrel sides of the "optical" VMS drawings. There are, however, other objects in the VMs which do like like jars, or something else. For instance, Egyptian perfume jars are a close match for many "curvy" VMs drawings. But for the straight sided, recessed top, multiple diameter tube/barrel VMs objects, the optical devices are a much better match.


This tube, from f102r, is shown on an additional page of 14 Voynich tubes which look very optical: click here to see the page.

A 17th century microscope from the Museum of Science, Italy. Compare to the f102r tube shown to the left. Both are made of two diameters, with recessed tops, multiple "rings" at the top and bottom, and decorative elements on the green sections. Not an exact match, but the similarities are undeniable. Each observer must ask: Is the VMs drawing closer to the shown microscope, or closer to a jar, candle or something else? In the engraving above, we see the same form as this device... and both are microscopes. In the actual device, we see how they were often decorated and colored. And both the engraving and the actual item match closely the VMs drawing.
The tops on these jars do not at first seem very microscope-like. But compare the tops to the Magny 'scope to the right. I will now assume the cap on the Magny to be a protective cover, considering the evidence of the cut-a-way in the scope below.

Magny,
1740

This microscope is from an early 1700's book by Joblot. Compare to the "jars", above. the cut-a-way now explains the reason for the caps on these microscopes... they were a protective accessory. Also compare the knurling of this device, and the overall general shape of both "jars" above.

Nuremburg, 18th century. Note the cap, and the green and red vellum covering with decorative gilt tooling. Below, an Italian 17th century model:

    

A close-up of what could be knurling on the f88r tube. Compare this to the knurling on the Joblot 'scope above, and the 18th and 19th century examples to the right. Knurling is used to get a grip on the different sections for adjustment and disassembly.

In microscopes, the more complex ones use knurling, and the simpler (two tube sliding) devices often do not. In the VMs, the more elaborate tubes often have these lines, and the simpler ones do not.

Kepler's Dioptrice, 1611
In 1611, while in the court of Rudolf II, Kepler published his book on optical theory, Dioptrice. In the book he describes convex and concave lenses, and how they work, and how they work in combinations in telescopes and microscopes. There are many diagrams such as the one to the left, from page 44. Here is a quote from the Mccord Museum website, "In 1611, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) suggested the construction of a compound microscope that used convex lenses for both the objective and the eyepiece. The Kepler microscope provided a larger field of view and became the prototype of the modern microscope."

This was the first confirmation I could find that there were microscopes in the court of Rudolf. Not only microscopes, but microscopy experimentation, which reflect the implications of the variety of VMs tubes.

Drebbel was in the court of Rudolf, alongside Kepler, at the same time. Who made these lenses and microscopes for Kepler? Drebbel was an experienced lens grinder and lens glass maker and experimenter at the time he entered the court. It defies logic that Kepler would have ignored that fact while working on Dioptrice, and the included devices. Also, Drebbel is known to be the first to build one with twin convex lenses (the previous Janssen's had one convex and one concave). Kepler is the first person to descibe a microscope with twin convex lenses, in Dioptrice, in 1611, while Drebbel was working in the same place. So Drebbel enters the court, with Kepler in it, making lenses, and leaves claiming to be able to make telescopes, and making microscopes of the type Kepler described. Did he build none while in the court? Furthermore, do you suppose that no one thought to use these microscopes, nor record their results... somewhere?

Interestingly, this is the only optical design I have found which matches the "waist" of the f88r jar. The proportions are different, but not by much, and the lenses of page 44 match the changes in diameter, and the "knurling", of the jar. Click here.

Kepler also owned a telescope about 1610-1611, and it's design was "based on that of Galileo's" device. To the left is a portion of an accurate modern replica of Galileo's telescope. The entire telescope is much longer, this is only one end. You can see the replica, made by Jim & Rhoda Morris, and how it was created, at this excellent site.

We do not know what Kepler's telescope actually looked like. But the point is that in the period, this is how an optical device was envisioned and created. It is not a leap to imagine there was an optical instrument, in the court, which looked much like the Galileo version to the left. Note the coloring, tooling, varying diameters, and compare to the VMs tubes.

The VMs contains what many have believed to be star observations, and possibly even constellations. In fact it has often been suggested that the author of the VMs may have at least had access to a telescope. Drebbel pleaded with James I, in 1612, to let him come back to London. He professed to be able to build a telescope able to "read a letter at a country mile". Where did he learn to do this?

Other optical connections:

Does this microscope have similarities to the Voynich tubes? This is a 1658 Kircher microscope. Kircher made the first report of seeing micro-organisms with the microscope, which he made himself.

Kircher also accumulated a vast collection of scientific and alchemal equipment and literature. He constructed many fountains, clocks, musical instruments and automatia. Many of these devices, including his design for the microscope, seem to be influenced by the inventions of Cornelis Drebbel. Many devices were powered by the same pneumatic and hydraulic princples Drebbel used. It is believed by some that Kircher "borrowed" heavily from the lore of Drebbel. There is even a Drebbel thermoscope pictured in one engraving of Kircher's museum.

Coincidentally, Kircher was an early hope to decypher the Voynich. As early as 1639 he was provided with copies of text from the manuscript. He was later given pages, and by 1665, it seems, he received the whole work. It is not known whether Kircher made any progress in his attempts to break the secrets of the Voynich... but the fact that he had such a strong outpouring of "Drebbelesque" technologies bears note. That, and the fact that some have thought the actual first sightings of microscopic life might be in the Voynich, and the first known sightings of microscopic life, again, was Kircher, in 1658.

And again, does this microscope have similarities to Voynich tubes? To Kircher's microscope, above? This is Hooke's famous instrument, which he used to examine insects, cork cells, and whatnot. He published his findings in Micrographia, in the 1660's.

There is a Drebbel connection here, too, in that Hooke had an ongoing association with Drebbel's daughter for several years. It is not known all that Hooke gleaned from this association, but considering that Drebbel was a microscope pioneer, and that Hooke was another, it is considered likely that micrsocopy was among the topics passed along.

In Tierie's 1932 biography of Drebbel, "If we inspect Hooke's own microscope we find that it shows a strong resemblence to Drebbel's...", and "...this resemblance...is not to be wondered at, when we remember that, Hooke was intimately aquainted with the Kuffler's [Drebbel's son's in law] and also with Drebbel's daughter".

So here we have two Voynich-tube-like microscopes, the makers of which are connected to Drebbel, and one even, to the Voynich itself.

Voynich microscopic images?

One of many unidentified plants in the Voynich. Many have surmised these may be illustrations of microscopic flora. Some look like cells, veins, fungi, mold. This theory would explain two things: If they do not look quite like they should, we might forgive this as the very earliest microscopes may have been incapable of the detail possible decades later. And then the second... the fact that these plants have remained unidentified... for why would someone draw "fake" plants? It is more likely they drew the best, but inaccurate, representations of what they actually saw.      




Cheese mold, low power electron microscope image.


"Wheel", or circle, from the Voynich. These wheels have been compared to many circles from alchemy texts, but some have thought them diatoms. Look at some wheels from other manuscripts, then look at the diatom to the right.

Diatom from Carter's Treatise on the Microsope, 19th Century. Note these features, comparing the two: The alternate thick and thin walls, the rays forming a star-like pattern in the "hub, and the rounded ends to the cells compared to the "lozenges" on the Voynich. Click here for labeled overlay comparison.


To the left is the "root" of the "sunflower" in the VMs. Above is another aquatic organism from Carter's work. I am obviously not a marine biologist (but neither was George, for that matter), but I do find that many marine creatures and plants have this "WWII floating mine" form. Interestingly, they are represented as green with white rods. There are also many pollen which look like this... but I think that pollen would take a very high magnification, and are less likely candidates.


78r "barrels"

Diatoms, approximately 75x


Rosettes
Page

The f86v foldout pages has been compared in the past to cells with cillia, and also diatoms. It does resemble, somewhat, a collection of diatoms as viewed at low power under a light microscope. Would a 17th century discoverer of diatom structure see, or add, cities and fountains? Or whimisically decrorate them, in an imaginative, but un-scientific, inference to compare the micro world to the macro? Or is it simply a map?


General Style & Other:
Voynich Manuscript
 Cornelius Drebbel



These stars are found throughout the Voynich.

These stars are from an engraved frontispiece by Drebbel. Although the Voynich stars are penned, and these have been engraved, there is a close similarity to the syle of both. They are also all six-pointed.


The hands in the Voynich... simply represented by a few strokes.

Cornelius Drebbel treated hands and arms in much the same way.







These women are from the Voynich. I've mirrored the image to align the face in the same direction of Drebbel's woman to the right.

Here is a face of a woman scanned from my copy of Drebbel's 1597 map of Alkmaar. Unfortunately the dotted structure of the printing process shows. But it is clear there is a look and style to the woman's face which appears quite similar to many of the woman's faces in the Voynich.











Here are some additional Voynich woman with various braided hairstyles and "caps".

These Drebbel women have braided hair. the one in the left clearly with a "snood", or hair wrap of some kind, with braids on the shoulder. The woman on the right is from my 1604 engraving, "The Judgement of Solomon". She has the hair up in a braid, which would give a ridged hairline if seen from the front.


Compare the colors in the above images. The two outer selections are from the Voynich, the two inner from Drebbel's 1597 map of Alkmaar. Look at the hues and tones of blue, green, tan, red, orange, brown. The tube has very similar two-tone red/orange, which is found on the rooftops, and the dress of the couple. The blue of the tunic of the man has a similar blue, with similar application, to the Voynich flowers. There is no proof here, only the suggestion that anyone capable and equipped to create one, would certainly have the ability to create the other. Click on the above image for a large version.
"On the Nature of the Elements"


Cornelis Drebbel wrote On the Nature of the Elements and how They Bring About Wind, Rain, Lightening, Thunder and why they are Useful  in 1604. It was reprinted in 1608, 1621 in Latin, German, and reprinted in Dutch. The first part is an overview of the four basic elements, water, air, fire and earth. Whoever wrote the Voynich, I always felt that f86r, from which are clipped the images above, was representing the elements. You have a bird in air, and a bird and plant in earth. The water is decending like rain, and the fire is rising. And if it is fire, then a man is shown "throwing it", which could be interpreted as creating it, or starting it (Drebbel was known for his firework displays in Rudolf's court, too).


When I found the image of the two engraved birds, left, above, I thought how much they looked like the birds from f86r. And look at the placement of them in their original context... they are up on a mound of earth, much like the sitting bird of f86r is on it's mound. But it gets more interesting, beyond these comparisons. First of all, the engraving is by Michael Maier. He was Drebbel's editor and publisher, and spent some of the same time in Prague and London as Drebbel. But combined with that is the fact that Maier is using the flying and sitting birds to illustrate the elements air and earth, in just the way the birds of the Voynich are arguably being used. From Adam McLean's excellent site: http://www.alchemywebsite.com/atl6-10.html


Some of Drebbel's more original observations in The Nature of the Elements (published by Michael Maier, see above) are concerning the relative expansion of air and water, and various results from heating and cooling. He used these principles in many of his devices: The perpetual clock, the drainage pumps, his fountains, and his chicken incubator thermostat, among others. Although many of the VMs tubes look organic to me, look at the above tube from 77r. It clearly shows various "substances", in different forms, issuing from the tubes. Drebbel wrote, " So winds draw together again that were forced out by warmth, as may be clearly seen if we hang an empty glass retort with it's mouth in a vessel of water and the convex side towards a hot fire... winds come bubbling out of the mouth of the retort... this will continue as long as the air continues to grow warmer. But when you withdraw the retort from the fire, and the air begins to cool, then the air comes back into the retort and gets coarse and dense, so that in consequence a great part of the glass becomes filled with water...", and, "For as much as water is coarser and heavier than air, by so much does it expand more and grow larger when heated. Yes, many thousand times more." And, "...if we seal an iron pot and introduce a drop of water into it through the hole, the water will immediately be expanded and will issue forth from the hole with much noise as a rapid current of air". Think of these observations of Drebbel's, and then look at the tubes of 77r, above. They may also represent, again, the elements, as from left to right they look like air, water, fire and earth. The middle one? Empty for some reason.

Handwriting:


Above is the only sample of Drebbel's handwriting I have been able to come across so far. Other samples of his are engravings, which are much more formal and "stiffer". To my lay eye, I see many similarities and many differences to the VMS sample below. For one thing, his proclivity to large loop flourishes is similar, such as his upper case "F", "C" and "L". But he seemed to treat his tails differently, for the most part, than the VMS author. Then again, his "a's" and "o's" are written similarly to the comparable "letters" in the VMS. For another similarity, I've highlighted the "c" in Drebbel's "ich", and the "c" like symbols in the VMS below. They appear to have been formed with the same stroke.

Above is a VMS sample, of course.

The stroke and pen angle of the "a's" are virtual identical.

Drebbel frequently used the unusual "c", which has a straight top bar connecting to the next letter.

The "o's" are also formed with the same strokes in both the Voynich and by Drebbel.


Drebbel's Signature from the letter.



Drebbel's formal engraved writing, and fancy signature, unless an assistant added this writing to his engraving. From "Judgement Of Solomon", circa 1604.

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 Microscope & Telescope sites, collections & museums:

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