The last page of a mysterious book feels as though it should know something.
Perhaps the author signs their name.
Perhaps a colophon tells us when the work was finished.
Perhaps a reader writes the key in the margin.
Perhaps the final line finally uses an ordinary alphabet.
Then we reach f116v.
For a few seconds, the Voynich Manuscript seems to cooperate.
The page is mostly blank.
Near the top are several short lines written in forms that look much closer to familiar European handwriting than the main Voynich script.
Some shapes look Latin-alphabetic.
Some look Germanic.
Some are difficult to segment.
And among them sit unmistakably Voynich-looking words.
It is almost readable.
Which may be why it has generated so many readings.
f116v is not the page where Voynich becomes easy. It is the page where the boundary between readable and unreadable becomes visible.
Quick Read
- f116v is the last surviving verso of the Voynich Manuscript.
- It does not follow the ordinary visual or textual patterns of the main manuscript.
- The page contains only a few short lines of writing near the top and small marginal drawings.
- The writing mixes forms that look like ordinary Latin-alphabet handwriting with Voynich-script words.
- Some researchers see German-like features; others emphasise Latin, charm formulae or highly abbreviated writing.
- The page has produced many mutually incompatible transcriptions and translations.
- One published interpretation treats it as a medical recipe or memorandum; other researchers have proposed charms, notes, ownership-related writing, decipherment attempts and scribal exercises.
- No reading has become an accepted key to the main Voynich text.
- The page contains physical damage, insect holes and stains associated with an earlier cover, making its material history part of the interpretation.
- Its position at the end of the surviving codex does not automatically make it an original colophon.
- The apparent mixture of writing systems makes f116v especially important for palaeography, ductus and the history of later readers.
- Its greatest value may be as a controlled warning: a clue can look almost readable while remaining too ambiguous to support a unique reading.
What Is Physically on f116v?
René Zandbergen’s folio documentation describes f116v as a page outside the manuscript’s standard patterns.
Most of the parchment is blank.
Near the top are several lines of mixed writing and a few small drawings.
The upper-left region of the leaf is damaged.
A large hole and tear are visible, and the tear was stitched at some point in the manuscript’s history.
Numerous insect holes remain.
Stains on the page have been associated with contact from an earlier tanned leather cover.
That last detail is easy to overlook.
f116v is not merely text floating at the end of a digital scan.
It is a physical end-leaf that spent part of its life in contact with the material architecture of the book.
The Page Looks Later Because It Behaves Differently
The main Voynich script is remarkably consistent as a visual system even when scribal variation and Currier differences are considered.
f116v does not look like ordinary running Voynichese.
Its alphabetic-looking forms are looser.
The writing is irregular.
The short lines feel more like informal marginal writing than the carefully structured paragraphs that fill most of the codex.
This is one reason it is generally treated as a separate textual layer.
But “later” needs caution.
Later than the main text does not tell us:
- how much later;
- whether the writer knew the original makers;
- whether the writer understood Voynichese;
- whether the note is contemporaneous with binding;
- whether more than one hand contributed.
The physical layer distinction is stronger than the precise date.
Why Researchers Call the Script “Michitonese”
Voynich discussion has sometimes used the informal nickname Michitonese for the alphabetic-looking writing on f116v.
The nickname comes from one famous historical transcription of the opening sequence, which has been read in forms resembling “michiton” or related strings.
The term is convenient because it lets us discuss the script without pretending its language is settled.
But the nickname can become a trap if it hardens one uncertain transcription into a fact.
The safe formulation is:
f116v contains partly familiar-looking alphabetic writing whose exact letter segmentation and reading remain disputed.
The Voynich Words Inside the Familiar-Looking Writing
The most intriguing feature is not simply that some writing looks ordinary.
It is that Voynich-script words appear inside the same small textual environment.
A common EVA transcription renders two of them as forms like oror sheey, though exact transcription always inherits the normal Voynich glyph-model uncertainties.
This creates several possible relationships.
- The alphabetic text may gloss the Voynich words.
- The Voynich words may be names or formulae embedded inside another language.
- The writer may be copying visually without understanding.
- The mixed page may be a decipherment attempt.
- The Voynich words may function as magical, mnemonic or technical signs inside a later note.
- The apparent mixture may partly reflect our own mis-segmentation of unfamiliar cursive forms.
The first possibility is why f116v feels so much like a Rosetta Stone.
The page has not yet earned that role.
A Genuine Gloss Would Be Transformative
Suppose the alphabetic text said, unmistakably:
Voynich word X = Latin word Y.
That would be enormous.
One secure bilingual pair could constrain glyph values, token function and historical language.
But a gloss requires more than proximity.
We need a demonstrable grammatical or graphic relation between the readable sequence and the Voynich sequence.
Does the alphabetic part say “called…”?
Does punctuation or layout align the pair?
Does the proposed value work when the same Voynich word appears elsewhere?
Does another mixed-script example repeat the relation?
Without those bridges, mixed writing is not automatically bilingual writing.
See The Crib Problem.
Why German Keeps Appearing in the Discussion
Several palaeographic and linguistic observers have found German-looking features in the f116v writing.
This is not a modern invention.
Researchers have compared individual forms and handwriting habits with late-medieval German scripts and have proposed readings containing German or German-like words.
But “looks German” can mean several things:
- letter shapes resemble German-region handwriting;
- one or more strings resemble German words;
- a proposed sentence can be interpreted as German;
- the writer may have used a German scribal tradition while writing Latin;
- the page may mix languages.
These are not equivalent.
Script style can travel across language.
A German-trained writer can write Latin.
A multilingual note can contain both.
Therefore a German palaeographic signal does not automatically make the main Voynich manuscript German.
Why Latin Keeps Appearing Too
Latin was the dominant learned written language across much of medieval Europe.
Highly abbreviated Latin can look extraordinarily opaque to a modern reader.
A short informal note can omit expected letters, compress formulae and use symbols that make several expansions plausible.
This is one reason Latin readings of f116v remain in the conversation.
But the same flexibility creates danger.
If every ambiguous stroke can be expanded into whichever Latin abbreviation produces a coherent sentence, the page will eventually yield many coherent sentences.
That is not uniqueness.
Abbreviation can explain difficult writing. Unlimited abbreviation can also make difficult writing impossible to falsify.
The Recipe Interpretation
At the 2012 Voynich centenary conference, Johannes Albus presented a detailed reading of f116v as a medical recipe or memorandum written in a mixture of Latin and old German, with the Voynich words embedded in the text.
The proposed reading connected the note with a wound plaster involving a goat liver and other ingredients, and Albus linked the medical idea to older therapeutic traditions.
This interpretation is valuable for two reasons even if we do not promote it to consensus.
- It demonstrates that a coherent medical reading can be constructed from the page under one palaeographic segmentation.
- It gives that reading a historical genre and asks the small drawings to participate in the interpretation.
What it does not do automatically is eliminate competing readings.
The field has not converged on one transcription strongly enough to treat the recipe as established fact.
The correct public status is therefore:
substantial published interpretation, not accepted decipherment.
The Charm Interpretation
Another family of interpretations treats the alphabetic-looking material as charm-like or formulaic writing.
This is historically plausible because medieval charms can mix Latin, vernacular language, sacred formulae, names, voces magicae and material that is difficult to interpret lexically.
A charm can contain strings whose function depends partly on authority, sound, repetition or inherited formula rather than ordinary prose semantics.
This model is attractive when some f116v words look almost meaningful while the sentence remains resistant.
Again, historical plausibility is not page identification.
A charm reading should predict formulaic structure or find convincing parallels stronger than generic “strange medieval words”.
The Decipherer’s Scratchpad Interpretation
Because f116v mixes Voynich-looking words with more familiar-looking script, researchers have long wondered whether a later reader was trying to decipher the manuscript.
That would make the page a historical research note.
A person encounters the strange script.
Copies a few words.
Writes candidate equivalents.
Experiments with letter forms.
The hypothesis gains some plausibility from other marginal character sequences in the manuscript, including the faded tables on f1r and key-like material elsewhere.
But the relation is not established.
A decipherment note should ideally show explicit mapping behaviour.
f116v remains too ambiguous to supply that cleanly.
The Colophon Interpretation
Because the page is at the end, readers naturally ask whether it is a colophon.
A medieval colophon can identify the scribe, date, place, owner, commissioner or circumstances of completion.
If f116v were a clear colophon, the Voynich problem would change dramatically.
But position alone is weak evidence.
End leaves are also where people add:
- pen trials;
- ownership notes;
- recipes;
- charms;
- memoranda;
- calculations;
- later annotations.
The page does not present an unambiguous “I, X, completed this book at Y in year Z” formula.
Therefore “last page” must not silently become “author’s colophon”.
Could the f116v Hand Be Related to the Zodiac Month Names?
Some observers have noted similarities between aspects of the f116v alphabetic hand and the later month-name annotations in the zodiac section.
If the same person wrote both, that would be fascinating.
It could connect two readable-ish annotation layers separated across the codex.
But this remains a palaeographic hypothesis.
To establish one hand, researchers would need a stable set of diagnostic letter forms and ductus habits shared across enough examples.
The month names are short.
f116v is short.
Short samples make hand attribution difficult.
See Marginalia and the Later Hands.
Ductus May Be More Useful Than Translation Here
f116v is an ideal test case for the new Ductus Problem.
Before arguing whether a stroke is an m, n, r, c or abbreviation sign, ask how it was made.
Where does the nib lift?
Which stroke crosses another?
Do repeated forms share motor structure?
Do the Voynich words on the page use the same ductus as the main manuscript or imitate it differently?
Does the alphabetic writing share ductus with zodiac month names or another marginal hand?
These questions can narrow writer identity and chronology without requiring a complete sentence reading.
Why One Ambiguous Stroke Can Change an Entire Reading
f116v is short enough that each character carries enormous weight.
In a 10,000-word corpus, one uncertain letter is noise.
In a few-line marginal note, one uncertain letter can decide whether a string resembles German, Latin or nonsense.
This creates a high-flexibility environment.
If several letters are ambiguous and abbreviations are allowed, the number of possible readings grows rapidly.
That is why disagreement among competent readers matters.
It tells us the page does not yet force one transcription strongly enough.
When the transcription is unstable, translation confidence cannot be higher than the transcription foundation carrying it.
The Last-Page Bias
Humans expect endings to explain beginnings.
Novels resolve.
Scientific papers conclude.
Contracts sign.
Modern books place publication details at their edges.
This creates a cognitive bias when we reach f116v.
The page feels important because it is last.
It may indeed be historically important.
But position does not tell us who wrote it or why.
A later owner could use the end leaf simply because blank parchment was available.
What looks like a designed conclusion may be opportunistic reuse.
The Cover Stains Are a Quiet Chronological Clue
The stains associated with an earlier leather cover are important because they connect f116v to a later physical state of the codex.
If the page was exposed to or pressed against a cover, the leaf served as an end surface during at least one binding phase.
This does not date the writing automatically.
But material sequence may eventually constrain it.
For example:
- does writing lie under or over a stain;
- does a stitch disturb the ink;
- does damage cut through a written stroke;
- is a drawing interrupted by later abrasion?
Every overlap can contribute to relative chronology.
Again, physical history can progress even while words remain uncertain.
Could the Voynich Words Be Copied Rather Than Read?
This is a crucial possibility.
A later reader does not need to understand Voynichese to copy a few Voynich words.
They may reproduce them as visual objects.
If so, the mixed page could reflect:
ordinary note + quoted unknown signs
rather than:
bilingual sentence with decoded equivalence.
This is exactly why a secure crib needs a mapping relation, not mere co-presence.
Could the Writer Have Understood Voynichese?
Possible.
The page is too ambiguous to decide.
A later user who understood the manuscript might add a recipe, reminder or gloss at the end.
A user who did not understand it might copy signs experimentally.
A user who understood only the pictures might add a note based on visual interpretation.
These histories predict different things elsewhere.
- A knowledgeable reader may leave consistent glosses or cross-references.
- A decipherer may leave mapping tables.
- A casual owner may leave unrelated memoranda.
- A practitioner may add a usable recipe without explaining the main script.
The rest of the codex should be searched for the same hand and behaviour.
f116v Is a Small Page With a Large Multiple-Comparisons Problem
The writing is ambiguous.
The number of possible medieval languages and abbreviations is large.
The number of ways to segment a difficult cursive sequence is large.
If a researcher tries enough possibilities, some reading will sound plausible.
Therefore a convincing interpretation needs more than local plausibility.
It needs discrimination.
- Why this transcription rather than the alternatives?
- Why this language rather than neighbouring languages?
- Why this abbreviation expansion?
- Why this genre?
- Why does the drawing fit uniquely?
- What does the interpretation predict elsewhere?
The shortest clue in the manuscript may require some of its strictest controls.
What Would Turn f116v Into a Real Key?
- Establish a high-confidence palaeographic transcription agreed upon across independent specialists.
- Identify the language or language mixture under stable readings.
- Show the grammar of the lines rather than isolated word resemblance.
- Identify the relationship between the alphabetic text and the Voynich words.
- Derive a mapping or semantic relation explicitly.
- Apply that relation to the same Voynich words elsewhere.
- Predict additional readings in the main manuscript.
- Demonstrate that the writer’s hand and chronological layer are relevant to original manuscript knowledge rather than later speculation.
If those steps succeeded, f116v could become a genuine partial crib.
At present, it has not.
What f116v Does Not Prove
- It does not prove the main Voynich language is German.
- It does not prove the main Voynich language is Latin.
- It does not prove the page is a medical recipe.
- It does not prove the page is a charm.
- It does not prove the writer was the original scribe.
- It does not prove the writer was a later decipherer.
- It does not prove the Voynich words are glossed by the nearby alphabetic text.
- It does not prove the page is an original colophon.
- It does not provide an accepted decipherment key.
What It Does Give Us
- A distinct later or secondary writing environment at the physical end of the surviving codex.
- Mixed use of Voynich and familiar-looking alphabetic forms.
- A rare opportunity to compare the main script with adjacent non-Voynich writing on the same folio.
- A palaeographic problem that may help connect later hands across the manuscript.
- A material end-leaf with cover stains, repairs and damage relevant to chronology.
- A perfect demonstration of why near-readability must not be confused with unique readability.
Primary School: The Note at the Back of a Book
Imagine finding an old schoolbook.
The main book is printed in French.
On the last blank page, a later student writes a shopping list in English and copies two French words beside it.
Does the shopping list translate the whole French book?
No.
But it tells us someone later used the book.
That is the core f116v lesson.
Secondary School: Three Transcriptions, One Page
Give students one difficult handwritten line and three plausible transcriptions.
Ask which letter shapes force a choice and which remain ambiguous.
Then show how each transcription leads to a different translation.
The lesson is immediate:
translation uncertainty inherits transcription uncertainty.
JC and Adult Readers: Rank Readings by Constraint
For each f116v reading, record separately:
- palaeographic transcription;
- abbreviation expansions;
- language assignment;
- grammar;
- semantic interpretation;
- drawing correspondence;
- relationship to Voynich words;
- external manuscript parallels.
Then count how many discretionary choices are required.
The strongest reading is not merely the most fluent.
It is the one that survives with the fewest arbitrary freedoms and predicts something outside the lines used to construct it.
Reader Checklist: Before You Use f116v as a Key
- Which strokes are actually secure?
- Which letters are ambiguous?
- How many abbreviation expansions are being supplied?
- Is the language identified from grammar or from a few resembling words?
- Are the Voynich words truly integrated syntactically with the alphabetic text?
- Does the proposed reading explain the drawings without forcing them?
- Could another language produce a comparably plausible reading?
- Is the writer original, contemporary or later?
- Does the same hand appear elsewhere?
- Does the proposed mapping work on Voynich text elsewhere?
- Is “last page” being confused with “original colophon”?
- What evidence would falsify the reading?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is on f116v?
A few short lines of mixed writing near the top of the final surviving verso, including familiar-looking alphabetic forms, Voynich-script words and small drawings. The page also preserves physical damage and staining associated with its end-leaf history.
Is f116v German?
German-like palaeographic and lexical features have been proposed, but the full text has not been read to consensus. Latin and mixed-language interpretations also exist.
Is it a recipe?
A substantial published interpretation by Johannes Albus reads it as a medical recipe or memorandum. That is an important proposal, not established consensus.
Does it translate the Voynich words?
No accepted mapping has been demonstrated. Co-presence of Voynich and alphabetic writing is fascinating, but a bilingual or gloss relation has to be shown rather than assumed.
Why is f116v so important?
Because it places the unfamiliar script beside writing that is closer to familiar medieval alphabets, creating a rare opportunity to study later hands, mixed notation and possible reader interaction on one folio.
Research Foundations
- René Zandbergen — Quire 20 and f116v documentation, including the page’s physical condition and mixed writing.
- Jorge Stolfi archive — f116v descriptive and historical transcription notes.
- Johannes Albus — The Manuscript’s Last Page: A Recipe, presented in the 2012 Voynich centenary programme; treated here as a substantive interpretation rather than consensus.
- Marginalia and the Later Hands for the broader stratigraphic context.
The Final Idea
f116v is almost cruelly well designed to tempt a solver.
It is at the end.
It is short.
It contains familiar-looking letters.
It contains Voynich words.
It contains little drawings.
Everything about it whispers:
the answer is here.
And yet the closer we inspect it, the more the page teaches the same lesson as the rest of the manuscript.
A clue becomes a key only when the relationship it suggests can be read one way more strongly than all the other ways.