Wilfrid M. Voynich

Wilfrid Michael Voynich, whose real name was Michał Wojnicz (Telšiai, Kaunas province, October 31, 1865-New York, New York, March 19, 1930), was a Polish bibliophile, who became a British national. Graduated in chemistry and licensed in pharmacy, he studied at the Universities of Warsaw and Saint Petersburg, receiving a doctorate from the University of Moscow.

Besieged by various political problems (he advocated the independence of Poland from the Russian Empire) he was imprisoned and in 1885 deported to Siberia; He endured this ordeal for five years until he escaped in 1890: he fled to Germany and hid in Hamburg. As he recounted in his biography, he sold his coat and glasses to, with the paltry sum they gave him for them, "buy a third-class ticket on a cargo ship that transported fruit to London, a smoked herring and a piece of bread to quell hunger.

Already settled in London, he met a young Irish woman named Ethel Lilian Boole (1864-1960), the fifth daughter of the mathematician and philosopher George Boole and author of the novel The Gadfly (The Gadfly), under the name Ethel Voynich, whom he married in 1902. They both spent considerable time writing and sending revolutionary literature to Russia and translating the works of Marx, Engels and Plekhanov into English (according to his biographers, he spoke 18 languages, although all equally bad).

He obtained British citizenship in 1904 and anglicized his name, which he transformed into Voynich, although on his trips to the continent he often used the particles "de" and "von" to impress his clients.

At that time he began to be interested in old books, manuscripts and catalogues: he prospered very quickly (the origin of his initial financial resources is still not very clear) and established an important rare book trade in Soho Square where many came. collectors to obtain out-of-print, rare, incunabula or impossible-to-find books.

In 1912 he found in the library of the Jesuit college of Villa Mondragone, Italy, the manuscript that today bears his name and which he bought at a low price along with other manuscripts and old books; He tried to decipher its content by sending copies of it to various experts, although to no avail.

In November 1914, after the First World War began, he embarked on the famous packet ship RMS Lusitania - later sunk by a submarine during the war - and moved to New York with part of his large collection of books, where he continued with his trade as a bookseller specializing in rare texts until his death in 1930. Over time he prospered so much that he opened offices and branches in Paris, Florence and Warsaw.

He is considered one of the alleged authors of the Voynich Manuscript not only because he always hid the place where he intended to "find" the manuscript ("a castle in Southern Europe" according to its official version, "located in Austria" according to his comments to Newbold) but because he had extensive knowledge of chemistry, was an expert in works rare, manuscripts, incunabula and in a short time he became, without any previous experience, a great figure in this difficult field.

It is possible - although today it can no longer be verified - that his fine nose for good purchases (and subsequent better sales) was based on his ability to convince an ignorant owner, always in need of liquidity, of the low value of the "old books" that he intended to sell him... & # 34; old books & # 34; for which some capricious rich man would later pay, in the tranquility of his store, a real fortune.