Michael Haag is the author of "The Rough Guide to 'The Da Vinci Code'" and "Alexandria: City of Memory." In 1912 Wilfrid Voynich, a London book dealer, discovered a mysterious manuscript in a secluded ...

When Michael Servetus was burned at the stake for heresy in 1553, he had spent much of his life running from the Church. Born into a noble Spanish family, he studied medicine and the humanities ...

EVERY now and then a fresh attempt is made to solve this cipher attributed to Roger Bacon in the “Epistola de secretis operibus artis et natura et de nullitate magis” (see for example, NATURE, Sept. 4 ...

IN 1912, Mr. W. M. Voynich discovered in Italy a manuscript entirely written in cipher—a small quarto of 116 leaves, of which eight are missing and some are folded. It measures on the average about ...