The Voynich Ninja

Hello all,

I've been going through pages and doing some image processing on them to check if there's any unusual bleedthrough of ink/paint anywhere. 
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. / You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are obviously an interesting pair of pages, given the missing pages between them. I decided to check the bleedthrough and compare to f96r (the back of f96v) to see any differences. 

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So far so good, the text, leaves, roots and flower all match as expected. There are, however, marks that do not align with f96r. These marks are visible on f96v, but are not from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and have not bled through to f96r. Here are a couple:

[attachment=14065][attachment=14066]

Due to this, I checked whether the marks lined up with f99r, to see whether the paint has marked the page. I think some of these may match, but i'm not sure. The containers are the best evidence of this I think; the areas with less marking seeming to roughly correspond to the unpainted areas of the containers. Two of the leaves and the small green berries somewhat line up with some other marks as well.

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Firstly, I need people to tell me whether this is pareidolia   

If this does match, does it have any implications for the the timing of the removal of f97-98?

Additionally, could it be possible -through theoretical MSI passes in the future or further work- to seperate which marks are bleedthrough, which are from f99r, which are from water damage or spillage, and potential remainders of marks from the missing page?

This looks very interesting, but I'm not sure I understand what exactly doesn't match with what exactly, could you circle the relevant areas of the images?

Some of MSI sets have TX (see-through) images which appear to be made by placing the folio on a bright light table, this I think can be very useful, because they may allow subtracting the bleedthrough semiautomatically.

(12-02-2026, 11:45 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This looks very interesting, but I'm not sure I understand what exactly doesn't match with what exactly, could you circle the relevant areas of the images?



Some of MSI sets have TX (see-through) images which appear to be made by placing the folio on a bright light table, this I think can be very useful, because they may allow subtracting the bleedthrough semiautomatically.

Sure! The figure "f96r" is the view from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (superimposed upon itself, no overlay). These marks aren't visible from that side. I've added a red line around some of what I mean, and the original scan to show that it is faintly there: 


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EDIT: and in terms of what i'm seeing regarding the containers, its the lighter areas that are most visible at first. (the 3rd image is where the overlay starts!) 

[attachment=14073]

(12-02-2026, 12:43 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.EDIT: and in terms of what i'm seeing regarding the containers, its the lighter areas that are most visible at first.

That may be just illusion -- the darker areas around them make those areas appear lighter.

It has already been noticed that the blue paint has a dark grayish component that apparently does not dry immediately, collects at the edges of the painted area, and then "offsets" (IIUC that is the technical term) onto whatever page it is in contact with it.

So you are saying that, according to your enhanced images, the red paint used in those Pharma containers too can offset onto the facing page.  That seems plausible.

The Painter who applied the colored paints did not seem to be a "professional" like a scribe in a manuscript "factory" would be.  He seems to have used a broad quill instead of a brush, did not clean the instrument properly when switching between colors, and often would overflow or underflow the outline that was supposed to  be painted.  Thus we can expect that his paints were quite a mix of media, and not properly formulated.  

The pigment in the blue paint was the expected one (azurite, a basic copper carbonate mineral), but the microscope images tell me that it was not ground fine enough. And the blue paint may have been water-based but made from leftover oil paint; the dark gray component described above could have been residual oil from that paint.  

According to the lab tests, the more bluish green paint contained copper, but not in the form of a solid mineral powder.  It could have been some organic salt dissolved in water (or turpentine, maybe), rather than a suspension of solid particles.  That would explain why that green color bleeds through the vellum so easily.  The more yellowish green may have been a mixture of that green with a yellow pigment, like ocher or yellow lead oxide.

From its hue, I would guess that the red pigment in the containers is red lead oxide, a solid mineral, finely ground.  (As for the darker brownish red pigment on f67r1 and f67r2, on the other hand, my guess would be hematite, one of the iron oxides.)  

The offsetting you seem to have detected would be caused by defective, insufficient, or decayed binder in that paint.  The binder is the transparent substance that is supposed to hold the solid pigment particles together and to the page.  For water paints, it was (and still is) typically gum arabic, a substance intermediate between sugar and starch.  It will be consumed by molds unless it is kept dry -- which the VMS apparently was not.  High humidity would also soften gum arabic, and a water spill would dissolve it...

If confirmed, that offsetting may tell us that the pages were lost/removed before Wilfrid bought the book.  We expect him to have stored the book properly, in a dry place; whereas the conditions were far from ideal while the book was in the Jesuits' hands.

All the best, --stolfi

Since we're talking about page 99r, I'd like to share a discovery on that page (I haven't seen this information anywhere) and announce a future blog, which I promise to publish on March 1st, titled "Some conclusions drawn from twelve years of studying the Voynich manuscript." There will be a lot of new (possibly controversial) content!

The top container, according to the original plan, was supposed to be three-tiered.

(12-02-2026, 04:04 PM)Wladimir D Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Since we're talking about page 99r, I'd like to share a discovery on that page (I haven't seen this information anywhere) and announce a future blog, which I promise to publish on March 1st, titled "Some conclusions drawn from twelve years of studying the Voynich manuscript." There will be a lot of new (possibly controversial) content!

The top container, according to the original plan, was supposed to be three-tiered.

I don't believe those to be faded markings meant for the container. It just seems to be the form (or deforming) of the parchment. You can see more lines to the right of it, too. 

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(12-02-2026, 03:15 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That may be just illusion -- the darker areas around them make those areas appear lighter.

(12-02-2026, 03:15 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So you are saying that, according to your enhanced images, the red paint used in those Pharma containers too can offset onto the facing page.  That seems plausible.

Yes, if the paint has marked the page, what I am seeing at the top of the page is actually the lack of a mark, instead of the mark itself. At the bottom of the page, I see a clear darker mark (which was the catalyst to check in the first place, actually)

As to exactly how plausible it all is I leave to others here