The Voynich Ninja

When consolidating the text items (loci) as part of the standardisation I did for the common transliteration format IVTFF, the page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was by far the most complicated, and has several issues.

I fully agree that on this page, text and illustrations affect each other in both directions.
While it is possible that the page was drafted first, so that the overall shapes were defined before the first ink was applied to the parchment, I am also doubtful that this would fully explain all the things we see, in particular the partly slanted overall orientation.

The complications with identifying the text units on this page are several:

1. The lines at the top, left and right of the drawing, do not line up with each other. This is not the only time this happens, and it is not even the worst case, but it is a serious problem. Should this text be interpreted line by line, or in two columns? There are several indications for each, and they seem to be in favour of the option that the texts should be read as lines interrupted by the drawing. Still, it very strongly suggests that the drawing was there before the text was written.

2. The individual characters to the right of the top six lines (five or six?). These seem to be a separate, not part of the lines, but they have little impact on the present question.

3. Some of the words above and left of the bottom illustration can either be labels or part of very wobbly lines. Extremely hard to decide, but again, there seems to be little doubt that they were added after the drawing.

Overall, I favour the option that the text and drawings may have been added concurrently.
Without being at all sure of course.

The topic of this thread is secondary. What's important for understanding the nature of the script are precisely the individual characters to the right of the top five or six lines.

(Yesterday, 11:29 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Overall, I favour the option that the text and drawings may have been added concurrently.
Without being at all sure of course.

This is possible, in the sense that someone may have done the drawing and then filled up the page with text. But I'm not sure if I understand the arguments in favor of a text-first approach on any page. I'll go over dashstofsk's initial observations:

(14-12-2025, 02:31 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.f79r and f79v. The text margin is straight and does not flow around the contours of the pictures.

I hadn't noticed this before, and it's certainly true. But does this mean that the text came first, or that the scribe decided that the images allowed him to commit to a straight margin? I think the answer lies in the verso: the writer also prefers the straight margin here, but sees himself forced to interrupt it for the prone nymph's feet. So what I see here are images that are designed to go in the margins and text that behaves accordingly, but the fact that the images were drawn first interferes with this plan.

(14-12-2025, 02:31 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.f81r. Space had been left on the right of the page for drawings that were never made. There wasn't enough space at the top to fully draw the bath tub thing that was intended. The bath tub at the bottom has also not been completed. Perhaps the writer just got annoyed with himself and abandoned this page.

I agree that this is a weird space. But to me it seems like the outer margin of the parchment was somehow not very suited for writing. You can see on the verso that the text does a similar avoiding maneuver of this area (but smaller). See: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

That thread also refers to some earlier speculation that the lines are like poetry. Whatever may be the case, the blank space is remarkable and unusual in the MS. But there are several possible explanations and I wouldn't call this a smoking gun for a text-first scenario.

(14-12-2025, 02:31 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.f84v. The text on the right does not align with the bulk of the text. If text came last then it would have aligned. So it looks like that text was added after the drawings were done, and these drawings after the main text was done.

I see what you mean, but not how this would imply that the drawings were made after the main text. The additional text seems to perform a label- or title-like function in several Q13 pages - it was probably not meant to align. This becomes clear when you look at the top-right text on this same page. It appears that some words are written in three similar areas: at the inlet of the top pool and at the inlet and outlet of the bottom pool.

(14-12-2025, 02:31 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.f82v and other pages. The drawings on the right hand sides were done cramped. Had they been done first they would have commanded more space and the writing would have stopped short.

Here I see the same ambitions of attempting to draw marginal images and as straight as possible left text margins. But you can see them struggle with this at the middle-left nymph with the green arch. This whole section is one of text adapting to images (and presumably to parchment trouble in one case).

I think it depends on what is needed.
First a drawing, then text about the drawing next to it.
A text, with a drawing underneath it to explain the text.
I think it was a continuous process, page by page.

(Today, 10:29 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is possible, in the sense that someone may have done the drawing and then filled up the page with text.

What I find telling is (form Bernd's drawing) that the slant of the drawing below the first paragraph follows the slant of the last line of writing (including - it seems - even the small jump in the middle). 

This may have been a single person doing writing and drawing...

Regarding the top bit, to me it looks like they might have initially planned 6 lines. They are pretty straight and evenly spaced guides which may loosely follow what they saw as straight (top pipe) before it went off track and they ended up with 5 lines.

[attachment=13001]

(14-12-2025, 02:31 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.f79r and f79v. The text margin is straight and does not flow around the contours of the pictures.

What about this explanation:

When the Scribe started the Bio section, presumably with folio f75 (or the bifolio f75-f84), he followed the same method (or lack thereof) that he had used in the Herbal: draw the illustration first, spread all overt the page, then write the text around it.  But he found that it did not work well, because here there was a lot of text to be written on each page, and writing across a water slide and a pond was harder than writing across a narrow plant stem or a couple of branches.  

So he was forced to do some planning.  He decided to squeeze the drawings along the margins were possible.   In those cases, he drew the figures first, then wrote the text  in the remaining space. When breaking a line, he would start the new one sometimes flush against the marginal drawing, sometimes aligned with the start of the previous line.

When he had to draw something across the whole page, in the middle of it -- as in f78v, f80r, f82r, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. he probably wrote a few complete paragraphs until he reached the right place, then drew that item, then continued writing the text just below it.  

Alternatively, in those cases he calculated the amount of space he would need for the text above and below (still a whole number of parags), then drew the wide figure, then wrote the text, adjusting the line spacing according to the space available.  But somehow I think that this alternative scheme would be too much planning for that scribe...

All the best, --stolfi