Latin squares and magic squares
Latin squares have a history into medieval Islam (ca.1200), when they were used on amulets:
Abu l’Abbas al Buni (see Christies) wrote about them and constructed, for example, 4 × 4 Latin squares using letters from a name of Allah.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_al-Buni
The 15th century artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) uses in Melancholia, a 4 × 4 magic square, a relative of Latin squares, in the background.
See. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer
It is known that Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) , as well as Leonardo da Vinci, studied perspective and framed possibilities. They were all interested in drawings and paintings and magic squares. Of course there were many others (f.e. found this italian cryptologist )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square#Albrecht_D.C3.BCrer.27s_magic_square
Since Alberti also invented the Cipher disk (see Alberti cipher), why not use a magic square variation on the Voynich?
Latin squares are filled with symbols, a magic square with numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_square