Sometimes, the benevolent aspect of a sad occasion like a funeral is the tribal coming together of an immediate family with its more distant kin. This was certainly true of my Aunt Doreen's funeral in November 2000 - I'd never met either of her grandchildren. While chatting, teacup in hand, to one of them, he asked me if I'd heard of a much further-flung relative, Wilfrid Voynich? Definitely not. He suggested I look him up on the Internet.
I did have vague memories, however, of some Victorian antecedents named Boole (my grandmother's maiden-name), who I've never really thought about. I discovered that her grandfather was the brother of the illustrious George Boole (1815-1864), founder of modern algebra. It was one of his brilliant daughters, Ethel, who'd married Wilfrid, providing the connection.
Extraordinary life
All this may seem obscure - but nowhere near as obscure as the famous manuscript that bears his name. Wilfrid Voynich, (1865-1930), led an extraordinary life. Exiled to Siberia by the Tsar for his Polish Nationalism, he escaped and arrived penniless in London in 1890, marrying Ethel, herself a force in the Free Russia movement.
Voynich founded an antiquarian bookshop and rapidly became successful as a result of foraging around Europe looking for rare items. It was on one of his trips to Italy in 1912 that he came across the manuscript, a weird but beautiful, indecipherable and unfathomable volume of herbs, frolicking naked women and cosmology. He decided it was written by the 13th-century monk Roger Bacon, and spent the rest of his life trying to prove it.
I knew none of this, however, at the time of my aunt's funeral. It was months before I finally got round to typing "Voynich" in a search engine. And there surfaced a treasure-trove of images, speculation and wonder that hypnotically pulls in anyone who mouths the magic surname. When you can claim an ancestral 'ownership' as well, the fascination becomes even more magnetic. Next time you attend a funeral, keep alert for the faint clinking of family skeletons in your cupboard!
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