Run · Voynich Manuscript

Naibbe key search, planted-key controls: Pliny NH 16 and Paradiso under an unknown Naibbe key

Held-out decode, Latin: ...osetimxresquiinterillospacymessecoguntacsiquisaethiopasaegyptumarabasindosscythasbactrossarmatarumtotgentesetorientisomn... Italian: ...odelenonparvenriequestapareamesuaquiditatealloraudidirittamentesentisebeneintendiperchelaripuo... An unconstrained homophonic search on the same Latin control reached only 11-39 % of letters.

Control passes: the solver recovers a Naibbe key from ciphertext alone and the key read on the held-out quires gives the plaintextLatin: 98.0 % / -0.018 / 0.543 / 0.997. Italian: 99.1 % / 0.069 / 0.443 / 1.0000

Result

Run	Measured	Result	Against	Decision	Date
Run	Held-out letters decoded correctly / held-out gap (nats/letter) / dict5 / restart agreement	Latin: 98.0 % / -0.018 / 0.543 / 0.997. Italian: 99.1 % / 0.069 / 0.443 / 1.000	Same key with letters permuted within each class: gap 2.93 (Latin), 3.31 (Italian) · dict5 0.003, 0.001	Control passes: the solver recovers a Naibbe key from ciphertext alone and the key read on the held-out quires gives the plaintext

What it used and found

Naibbe-structured key search with held-out check

Method

MTH

Latin genre texts

Dataset

DAT

Naibbe cipher tables and example plaintexts (greshko/naibbe-cipher, commit 719f2f4c)

Dataset

DAT

ZL3b transcription

Dataset

DAT

Latin or Italian under the Naibbe cipher

Answer it tests

ANS

Parameters

lm = 5-gram KN, keys = naibbe.random_key seeds 7 (Latin), 8 (Italian), split = TRAIN_QUIRES A C E G M O T, swaps = 3000000, layout = manuscript paragraph pages, restarts = 4

Cite it

Mysteries Department. (2026). Naibbe key search, planted-key controls: Pliny NH 16 and Paradiso under an unknown Naibbe key [Run RUN0DC7QXZNFBJF]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/RUN0DC7QXZNFBJF

@misc{mysteriesdept_run0dc7qxznfbjf,
  title     = {Naibbe key search, planted-key controls: Pliny NH 16 and Paradiso under an unknown Naibbe key},
  author    = {{Mysteries Department}},
  year      = {2026},
  note      = {Run, catalog key RUN0DC7QXZNFBJF},
  url       = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/RUN0DC7QXZNFBJF}
}