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+--- Thread: Possible match on f49r Snakes (/thread-4882.html)
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RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - Bernd - 20-08-2025
I'd rather tend to the latter (workshop).
I strongly disagree with the hypothesis of the VM author being a genius who had stomached all knowledge of his time and invented an uncrackable cipher in both text and imagery. There is no evidence for that.
He certainly had access to a decent amount of imagery from different sources, but that does not necessarily mean he fully understood the meaning. I think there is at least some evidence that the author had a baffling lack of common sense and misunderstood several source images, especially things related to perspective and foreground-background.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that originally may have been crossing stems
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that appear to be a misunderstanding of the split bulb tunic in the background
Root tables that originally probably were pools of water or patches of soil
Zodiac animals eating bushes that were originally trees in the background
All the imagery and also the glyphs are a wild mixture borrowed from a multitude of sources (be it manuscripts or stock images). It all looks familiar but yet nobody managed to make sense of any of it. I do believe that the VM was important to the author, for the sheer amount of details he created. But whether any of this makes much sense beyond the author's imagination?
Still MS4986 is interesting, it has a good collection of VM-vibe roots, compound leaves and flowers/seedpods, especially the cup-disc style like 18r and 23 . But there is little that isn't found in other herbals. Curiously they all lack the huge flowers found in the VM. Most flowers in herbals are rather small and inconspicuous.
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - nablator - 20-08-2025
(20-08-2025, 04:06 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But whether any of this makes much sense beyond the author's imagination?
The fantastic illustrations are great because the illustrator(s) were not afraid to let their imagination go wild.
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - Jorge_Stolfi - 21-08-2025
Some of the fantastic features of the Herbal plants are probably the result of interventions by later owners, as they wrongly "restored" some details of the outline and painted some parts with the wrong colors.
For instance, the blue "flowers" of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. may have been originally fruits.
The tiny "petals" around the rim of top may have been added by a later orwner (the Retracer) who tried to restore the faded drawing, and added a few "enhancements" of its own (like he did on the Zodiac and Biological pages, where he added crowns and "showercap" diadems on several nymphs). Check this close-up:
The [A] strokes must be what is left of the faded original outline. The [B] strokes would be the work of the Retracer, going over the original. The [C] petals seem to be additions by the Retracer; I cannot see any hint of original strokes under them.
Here are some images of fruits that I stumbled upon recently and reminded me of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. pods. The first one is from a "soothing video" that my dentist put up on a big monitor above above her torture chair. The flower seems to be some species of Nymphaea. I don't know whether the fruit is from the same plant, or an artistic pairing.
The second one is some ornamental plant growing on my neighbor's sidewalk:
All the best, --jorge
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - oshfdk - 21-08-2025
(21-08-2025, 01:03 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Some of the fantastic features of the Herbal plants are probably the result of interventions by later owners, as they wrongly "restored" some details of the outline and painted some parts with the wrong colors.
I hope it doesn't appear as if I'm stalking your posts about retracing. I'm just genuinely interested in arguments for/against retracing. Since my primary area of interest is deciphering (under assumption that this is a cipher), possible later alterations to the text by someone how wasn't familiar with the encoding scheme are of great concern.
So, looking at these images I see what seems to me like another strong piece of evidence against retracing. If you look at the tiny short straight strokes filling the center of the "flower", denoting seeds or some other feature, they appear to be of all possible levels of darkness from the very faint to darker than the petals with no obvious sharp separation. So to me it looks like these strokes just faded differently or were inked differently, producing a great variation in darkness. Same as what I believe happened to most of other strokes in the MS - something to do with the ink quality.
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - Bernd - 21-08-2025
This is offtopic and should probably be moved elsewhere.
(21-08-2025, 01:03 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Here are some images of fruits that I stumbled upon recently and reminded me of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. pods. The first one is from a "soothing video" that my dentist put up on a big monitor above above her torture chair. The flower seems to be some species of Nymphaea. I don't know whether the fruit is from the same plant, or an artistic pairing.This is obviously an AI generated image or video that does not depict real plants. Look at the woody stem connecting to the lotus flower (which is also inaccurate). The red fruit are likely supposed to be rose hips but again, it's AI.
(21-08-2025, 01:03 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The second one is some ornamental plant growing on my neighbor's sidewalkYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from South Africa. Unknown in Europe until the early 19th century.
I have no idea what this VM plant is supposed to be, whether flower or fruit, but looking at the overall picture and the similarity between VM flower elements and the rosette pages, I guess it's the artist's imagination. Inspired by herbal images for sure, but especially the flowers largely appear to be the artist's invention.
I am unsure about any retracing but currently I cannot see it, at least not in a significant amount that significantly changes the overall picture. But I would not rule out the possibility that the VM was created in several passes with subsequent modifications.
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - Jorge_Stolfi - 22-08-2025
(21-08-2025, 02:08 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is obviously an AI generated image or video that does not depict real plants. Look at the woody stem connecting to the lotus flower (which is also inaccurate). The red fruit are likely supposed to be rose hips but again, it's AI.
The video and the plant may be AI-generated, but the flower is a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., at most shightly beautified.
The fruit indeed seems to be dried rosehip.
Quote:[The second one is] You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from South Africa. Unknown in Europe until the early 19th century.
I did not mean "these may be the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant"! My point was that, if you ignore the blue paint and those pitiful petals, the "flowers" look more like fruits than flowers.
Quote:I am unsure about any retracing but currently I cannot see it
Once I found out what to look for, I now see retracing almost everywhere. I am sure you will see it too some day.
[/quote]Quote:not in a significant amount that significantly changes the overall picture.
Indeed it does not make much difference to us. The Retracer (the first one at least) obviously tried to preserve not only the contents but also the looks, at well as he could. He did occasionally change some glyphs into other glyphs or into new weirdos; but any transcription has errors anyway, so it only made the "errors" problem a bit worse.
On the other hand, retracing could explain many otherwise puzzling things, like why the 4 x 17 sequence does not repeat exactly and why some nymphs have crowns.
All the best, --jorge
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - Jorge_Stolfi - 22-08-2025
(21-08-2025, 11:32 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.looking at these images I see what seems to me like another strong piece of evidence against retracing. If you look at the tiny short straight strokes filling the center of the "flower", denoting seeds or some other feature, they appear to be of all possible levels of darkness from the very faint to darker than the petals with no obvious sharp separation.
Indeed it is often hard to tell whether some stroke is original or retraced, because the latter may come out faint when the pen is running out of ink.
The identification is more certain when the retracing is not perfect and the original can be seen, as in the SW corner of that "flower" (middle (A) and (B) arrows in the annotated pic). Or when the Retracer makes a mistake that the Scribe could not possibly make. Like those two cases in my earlier "quiz", when he turned an s into an o (because he missed the still visible plume) and a Sh into a hapax weirdo (because the start of the plume was lost and he reconnected it at the wrong end). Or on page f73v, where he mistook the leg of the nymph at the NW corner for the edge of a "barrel", and proceeded to "restore" it.
With my superior pareidolia, honed by years or staring at low-res B&W images, I even see two rounds of restoration, probably spaced centuries apart. The first would have retraced a lot of the text and large parts of the drawings, but was very careful to preserve the original look. I believe this restoration even took longer than the original Scribing (which is usually the case in art restoration projects); say two hours per page, against half an hour;. The second Retoucher was sloppier and only retouched parts that the first one had left intact or which were again fading; and added a lot of spurious detail (like the crowns on some nymphs).
In the case of those dots and dashes inside the faces of those "flowers", I would guess (but would not bet) that they were all added by the Retracer. Check the other "flower"; see how those details are quite different there. I guess that the original had only one or two concentric circles, thin and faint, nested inside the outline of the face.
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- Retracing and additions to the NE flower of f3v. (A-D) original traces: (A) outer circle (B) possible second circle, © possible third circle, (D) dash; (E) retracing of outer circle; (F-H) additions by Retracer: (F) petals, (G) radial hatching (H) dashed circles.
I would guess further that, in the original Source book from which the Author copied these "flowers", there was only one "flower" which was in fact a fruit (or maybe even a tuber) cut in half to show the internal structure. Then the nested circles could have indicated a thick rind and pit or distinctive core.
Which, by the way, is my explanation for all those roots with a flat "platforms" from which the plant's stem grows: in the Source book they were cut away to show how the root looked like inside. The Author and/or the Scribe would have mistaken those cuts for the actual shape of the part, and mistook fruits for flowers and vice-versa.
Quote:So to me it looks like these strokes just faded differently or were inked differently, producing a great variation in darkness. Same as what I believe happened to most of other strokes in the MS - something to do with the ink quality.
I don't think those normal processes could explain the patterns of ink density and pen width variations that I see all over the VMS.
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - oshfdk - 22-08-2025
(22-08-2025, 08:36 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the case of those dots and dashes inside the faces of those "flowers", I would guess (but would not bet) that they were all added by the Retracer.
But do you agree that these dots and dashes demonstrate the full range of darkness from barely visible to very deep? If so, how did this happen to the retracing and why the same couldn't have happened to the original writing?
(22-08-2025, 08:36 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't think those normal processes could explain the patterns of ink density and pen width variations that I see all over the VMS.
They are extreme, but I think they are not far from the example of another MS the MarcoP gave in the following post: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
So, to some extent this can happen.
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - Jorge_Stolfi - 22-08-2025
(22-08-2025, 08:52 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But do you agree that these dots and dashes demonstrate the full range of darkness from barely visible to very deep?
Yes, and indeed stroke weight (darkness + width) alone is not enough to tell whether something was retraced or not. The weight can vary due to normal You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (when the Scribe himself goes back to reinforce or correct some glyphs that he wrote earlier). Reliable identification of later retracing requires other clues besides just weight.
All the best, --jorge
RE: Possible match on f49r Snakes - Kendiyas - 22-08-2025
(21-08-2025, 01:03 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The second one is some ornamental plant growing on my neighbor's sidewalk:
All the best, --jorge
Why is your neighbor growing You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Jorge?