Why read The Friar and the Cipher?

Book cover of The Friar and the Cipher

Book description

A compulsively readable account of the most mysterious manuscript in the world, one that has stumped the world's greatest scholars and codebreakers.

The Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious tome discovered in 1912 by the English book dealer Wilfrid Michael Voynich, has puzzled scholars for a century. A small six inches by…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Friar and the Cipher as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Dean Snow

Author

I bought this book new in 2005, then misplaced it. I rediscovered it while downsizing and finally read it. I regret having not read it twenty years ago, but I'm also pleased to have done so now, in a time when I can better appreciate it. It's all about Roget Bacon, a scholar who lived 800 years ago. The Dark Ages had been bumbling along for seven centuries by then, but the wonders of the Renaissance were still in the future. Bacon was a naturalist and a scientist by nature, but he was also keenly aware of the dangers attending…

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