The Voynich Ninja

I think it isn't possible to draw conclusions about the original order of leaves or composition of quires, because so many leaves are missing. We have no idea what kind of leaves ff. 59-64 were, for example, or which scribe wrote them. 

(09-07-2020, 05:46 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The VMS has several fairly well definable sections but there are some pages

especially the text only pages, well, slight misnomer; text pages plus other odd ones,

that are not quite so easy to place:

Code:

f1r:  Q1 ; Intro page

f57v:  Q8 ; (not all text, 4 people, circular text), LFD ascribes tentatively to Scribe1

f58r:  Q8 ; 3 stars,  sequential star points 6,7,8 ,  LFD:Scribe3

f58v:  Q8 ; 1 star at top, 6 pointed,                  LFD:Scribe3

f66r:  Q8 ; column of letters and words {der mus del page},    LFD:Scribe5

f76r:  Q13 ; text only ,  [column of letters] ,      LFD:Scribe2

fRos:  Q14 ; Rosette,  LFD tentatively ascribes to Scribe4

f85r1:  Q14 ; text only,  LFD:Scribe2

f86v6:  Q14 ; text only,  LFD:Scribe2

f86v5:  Q14 ; text only,  LFD:Scribe2

f86v3:  Q14 -(not all text), unfinished T-O map, LFD:Scribe2

I was hoping as a little project to ascribe all pages to definable sections
then look for patterns and links between those sections.

Here is my incomplete and provisional attempt:

.f1r -  pretty certain to be the Introductory page.

.f66r - most likely part of balneo , entire Quire seems to be a single unit.

.fRos, f85r1, f86v6, 86v5, f86v3 - I would call Quire14 a single unit , a section in its own right.

Leaving these as the most problematic to categorize:
f57v,  f58r,  f58v,  f66r.

Any suggestions as to how to classify/categorize these unruly pages would be welcome.

(14-07-2020, 05:09 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The idea is that there are good reasons to assume that "r" and "v" were written consecutively and they often appear to share similar illustrations, dialects and the same scribe. Of course there is no guarantee that this measure is meaningful: I used it just because it seems to make sense to me and it is simple to check.

You know much more about the history of medieval writing than I do, so I could be way off base with this, but for some reason this is not how I imagined bifolios being written. Imagine I was writing on all 4 surfaces of a greeting card. We'll call the front of the card "1r", the inside left surface "1v", the inside right surface "2r", and the back of the card "2v". I'm a right-handed writer, writing in ink that takes time to dry. What makes the most sense to me is to write on 1v, then 2r, then wait for the ink to dry and flip, then 2v, and last 1r. Or vice versa: 2v --> 1r --> pause --> 1v --> 2r. Again, this is just what seems to make sense, with what little I know, if I wanted to minimize the chance of ink smudging, or damage from repeated flipping. If there is a historical factor I'm not considering which meant that 1v would typically be written immediately after finishing 1r, please correct me.

The only reason I bring this up is because in the VMs, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. occupy the left and right halves, respectively, of the same side of a single sheet of vellum. What this means is that the scribe would have been looking at a finished You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. while writing f66r. Or vice versa, depending which was written first. This, to me, greatly increases the chances that these two high-interest folios had something to do with each other thematically. Especially in light of the fact that counts of 17 — a relatively unusual number — are a prominent feature of both.

@Linda, I do think it's important to ask ourselves whether the plant pages on this bifolio were the inside or the outside of the metaphorical greeting card. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. being thematically connected isn't ruled out by either arrangement, since the arrangement doesn't change the fact that one was almost certainly written while looking at the other. But it does change the potential nature of this thematic connection. If this bifolio were the innermost one of a quire, such that f57v and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. faced each other at a center fold, then what immediately comes to mind is that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. could be annotations for points on the wheel(s) in f57v. Your post, on the other hand, tentatively favors the idea that this was in fact the outermost bifolio of the original quire, such that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was the front cover and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the back cover. (Which I agree with you, is equally or more resonable.) With this arrangement, it seems likely to me that both You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r are summaries of the information in the original quire, in different forms: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a table of contents, and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a schematic diagram.

I am imagining the greeting card, however it goes beyond that since you have to have a plan for how multiple greeting cards go together in the end for the opposite r's and v's to work out. If it were an original work i think you would start with an r, then to the other side, then, only if you are ready, the opposing r and then the v to that r. Instead, likely you would work on an r and v of another bifolio, the ones that follow the v of the first bifolio, continuing on like that until the center is reached, then the remaining blank pages are filled in order. Unless different people are working simultaneously, then perhaps they are each assigned a bifolio to copy, in which case the v,r, flip, v,r scenario would be more likely.

I agree the similarity of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. could be due to being side by side when made. It just seems to me that like goes with like, so if there are plants on either side of these, and since there are many plant pages, that they would be all plant pages between these two non plant pages that are nevertheless attached to the plant pages. Being that there are few others if their ilk, i think of them as covers, just as i think of the scratches page on the rosettes as the cover. However there are other quires which go from one apparent segment to another, where the pages are clearly attached, so it could mark a change from one to the other. 

Quire 17 contains a drawing with a vord in it that matches only one in f66v. It makes me wonder whether the 12 missing plants (if indeed it is all plants between) could be a couple of foldouts instead of 3 bifolios.

Sometimes i think maybe some missing pages aren't missing at all, and the page numbering anomalies are clues to the restitution of the original layout. Or maybe just evidence of mistakes? Like, let's say it is foldouts that are missing in quire 8, but they forgot to put them there and number them because they were already thereafter given new places in other quires by mistake, while the placeholder note had yet been left behind to make room for the 12 pages, likely because they were foldouts, and thus needed some extra attention upon binding. So, when the page numbering happened, they were counted twice; where they were supposed to go, and where they ended up.  Maybe it was foldouts they had estimated  page numbers for, and instead they had been looking for 3 bifolios. quires 15 and 17 both have trifolios, the former is clearly mismatched with a pharmaceutical foldout that would seem to me to better go with quire 19. The other is paired with a single bifolio that doesn't appear to be an outside piece. So i see possibilities...

Linda Wrote:Sometimes i think maybe some missing pages aren't missing at all, and the page numbering anomalies are clues to the restitution of the original layout. Or maybe just evidence of mistakes? Like, let's say it is foldouts that are missing in quire 8, but they forgot to put them there and number them because they were already thereafter given new places in other quires by mistake, while the placeholder note had yet been left behind to make room for the 12 pages, likely because they were foldouts, and thus needed some extra attention upon binding. 

FYI, page numbering almost never occurred at the time of manuscript-creation in medieval society.

Bookbinding was done by hand, like picture framing.

If you buy a painting directly from an artist, it is often not framed. Then you pick out a frame that goes with your taste and your decor at a framing shop.

This is how binding worked in the Middle Ages. You received a manuscript like you received a painting, in its "unframed" form. Then you picked out a design or price range to choose the binding (or you left it unbound).

Usually the purchaser or the bookbinder's assistant added the folio numbers.

A very large number of manuscripts lay unbound for decades or sometimes even centuries. The style of the folio numbers is often a century or two later than the style of the manuscript.


In the case of the VMS, the quire numbers are in a style that was common in the first half of the 15th century. The folio numbers are in a style that was common in the 16th century. The transition between these two styles (in the latter 15th century and early 16th century) was gradual.

(15-07-2020, 09:19 PM)RenegadeHealer Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If there is a historical factor I'm not considering which meant that 1v would typically be written immediately after finishing 1r, please correct me.

I am not an expert, but in manuscripts that can be read the text that begins on 1r is typically continued on 1v. See for instance the online transcription of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or of  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I take this as evidence that 1v was written immediately after finishing 1r.

Also, the mostly blank page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the VMS should have been in the "recto" position, according to your system.

(15-07-2020, 09:19 PM)RenegadeHealer Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.counts of 17 — a relatively unusual number — are a prominent feature of both.

Wait, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has 15 vords in the left column - where is the count of 17? Is it the column of glyphs (2x17)?
Just wanting to be clear.

There are several ways medieval manuscripts might be produced. 

The most common, and logical, way is to create the quire by nesting the bifolia, stitching them together in the gutter, and then writing the leaves in sequence: 1r, 1v, 2r, 2v, 3r, 3v....7r, 7v, 8r, 8v (for a quire of four bifolia = eight leaves = sixteen pages). Then you stack your quires in a binding frame and sew them together along vertical cords. 

The mixing of scribal bifolia in the VMS (especially in the first 7 quires) is very, very odd, and suggests, as many have noted, that the bifolia are no longer in their original order. The foliation in the manuscript could have been added anytime from 150-200 years later than the manuscript and reflects the current order. The missing folio numbers almost certainly indicate leaves that went missing after the foliation was added. 

It also seems clear that the signatures were added AFTER the leaves were mis-ordered. (another topic entirely, but i suspect that whatever disaster caused the damp-stains in the upper outer corner of the first few quires was the reason for the first rebinding, which was probably when the bifolia were mis-ordered and the signatures added)

All of this means that it is LIKELY that the text reads from recto of one leaf to its verso, but not necessarily from one verso to the next recto. 

The situation on bifolium 57/66 is particularly odd. The botanicals on the outside of the bifolium (57r/66v) are written by my scribe 5, while the inside (57v/66r) is partly by scribe 1 (57v) and partly by scribe 5 (66r). Similar situation for the Rose, where scribe 2 writes on one side and scribe 4 the other. Usually when there is a change of scribe in a medieval manuscript, it happens in the middle of a page (as on 115r) or at the start of a new quire (as in quire 13). Contrary to the usual practice, then, this suggests a different mode of collaboration, in which a bifolium might be written first, before being stitched into a quire - one scribe writes one side, then (after it dries!) hands it over to someone else to write the other side. For the Rose, this seems sensible. For 57/66, this could suggest that 57r and 66v (both botanicals by scribe 5) are textually related (and that the bifolium may have been inverted - but if so, it would have to have been inverted before the signature on 66v was added), with the bifolium 58/65 (by scribe 3) misbound along with whatever was on the missing three bifolia (ff. 59-64). 

But until we can determine the original sequence of leaves and bifolia and quires, all of this is conjecture!

Firstly to address this point:

(15-07-2020, 01:21 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it isn't possible to draw conclusions about the original order of leaves or composition of quires, because so many leaves are missing. We have no idea what kind of leaves ff. 59-64 were, for example, or which scribe wrote them.

This is a solid point and hard to argue with.

We will therefore proceed conjecturally,
This little project/experiment has some overlap with the composition of quires
but it's mostly about taking what folios there are and trying to see if there are any relationships between topics/categories,
of course to do this one has to define what a category consists of and by changing the defiinition , the relationships also change
but i just wanted to try it and see, does anything obvious pop out?, how strong are the realtionships, if any?
Will it be useful or useless, is it a valid or invalid concept, i have no idea.

Thanks everybody, lots of food for thought.
There were things i had overlooked , missed or hadn't even considered;

the visual,logical  -bi3mw, DONJCH; rosette cloud and the angled 4 people.

the physical, -Linda, LisaFaginDavis; the missing folios f58v-f65r, i hadn't even noticed that.

the statistical, -MarcoP's 'measure of quality' and page similarity measures.

In summary :
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as the intro and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as part of Balneological seem uncontroversial.
Quire14 as a category on its own, some statistical and logical support for this.
f57v, f58r, f58v, f66r,  remain tricky to classify there's 2 options either leave them out or clump them together in their own unit.

Here is a prototype project example image.
Next is to use diffferent metrics and tools

Cosine matched Takahashi ( ZL transcription for Rosette ) folios using LinLogLayout to compute clustering and graph layout.
Manual colour overlay of Scribes (as ascribed by LisaFaginDavis) and Categories.

[attachment=4606]

Note:
The large scale groupings of the folios fairly the represents the data .
However on single folio level , the distance between folios is subject to distortion
and also the exact neighbors of a folio may not be representative of the data.

Credits:
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LinLogLayout.
[1] A. Noack: "Energy Models for Graph Clustering",
Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications, Vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 453-480, 2007.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[2] M. E. J. Newman: "Analysis of weighted networks", Physical Review E 70,
056131, 2004.
[3] A. Noack. "Modularity Clustering is Force-Directed Layout",
Preprint arXiv:0807.4052, 2008. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.