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How were the circles drawn? - Printable Version

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RE: How were the circles drawn? - Jorge_Stolfi - 21-09-2025

To be clear, the compass is not the question. The Greek used compasses for calculation as well as drawing, since at least 2500 years ago.  The Egyptians and Babylonians may have been using them many centuries before that.  The question is whether and how people drew in ink with a compass in the 1400s.

(21-09-2025, 08:14 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.No matter which compass you use, the problem is always the ink. Without a reservoir that dispenses ink evenly, you don't stand a chance.

And that is how the "modern" ink point for the compass works.  It has two blades ~5 mm wide separated by a gap of ~1 mm, where a drop of ink is held by surface tension, aka capillary action (as in a quill or metal pen).  The two blades come together at the tip, which is rounded in the direction of travel but sharp in the radial direction.  As the tip is dragged over the paper, the ink is pulled out of it (again by capillary action) and replenished by the reservoir further up.  That is good for several inches of even tracing, before the attachment has to be dipped into the inkwell again.

Quote:I don't think a fine smith/compass smith (specialist in measuring tools) could have made anything else [than a pencil holder].

The hardest part of the modern attachment is the screw that regulates the width of the trace.  Deleting that screw means that the implement can draw lines of a certain fixed width only.  That would have been good enough for diagrams in medieval manuscripts.  Such fixed-width compass pen would have been well within the capabilities of European toolmakers of the time.  (Unlike steel pens for hand writing, whose central slit is much harder to make.)

So the question still is: were such implements actually available to scribes in that time frame?

All the best, --jorge

RE: How were the circles drawn? - RobGea - 21-09-2025

In the image in  Codex Vindobonensis 2554, f.1 verso , you can see it on the wikipedia page Bible moralisée  circa 1220 CE [1]
The main figure is drawing a circle and an attachment can be seen on the  'drawing' arm of the compass ( zirkel ).
This attachment looks like a quill tip with the tines showing and also some kind of tube that joins the compass arm and the quill tip
[1] You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

RE: How were the circles drawn? - Jorge_Stolfi - 21-09-2025

(21-09-2025, 09:02 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the image in  Codex Vindobonensis 2554, f.1 verso , you can it on the wikipedia page Bible moralisée  circa 1220 CE

Wow, fantastic! Thanks!

Actually that point looks more like the modern implement (minus the adjustment screw) than like a metal pen.  The two prongs are clearly separated at the top and come together only at the lower tip. 

By the way, many details of that diagram resemble details in the VMS illustrations, especially in the Cosmo pages:
  • Stars with slender rays and a core with a circle and dot at the center (e. g. f68r2).
  • Stars with long wavy rays (e.g f68v2).
  • The "dendritc" water edge (cf f68v3).
  • A "cloud-shaped" land mass at the center (cf f57v).
The Scribe and/or the Author were obviously aware of the "graphical language" of European scribes at the time.  In particular they seem to have been aware of the "alchemical herbals" (was there more than one?), zodiac depictions, and possibly balneological catalogs.  

Yet the deep source of the VMS, below the surface of those "graphical idioms", does not seem to be "standard fare" at all. Or is it?

All the best, --jorge

RE: How were the circles drawn? - ReneZ - 22-09-2025

(21-09-2025, 04:02 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(21-09-2025, 12:37 PM)N._N. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just as a remark: 'compass' for the drawing tool is somewhat irritating to German speakers because 'Kompass' is only used for the navigational instrument - the tool is a 'Zirkel'. I just realized that apparently most romance languages have the same double meaning for the word as English, so there is nothing lost in translation in that case I guess.

Not Italian, which confusingly has it the other way around... Kompass = bussola, Zirkel = compasso  Confused

And just if anyone would think that Dutch and German are likely to be similar or even the same, the navigational compass is (indeed) 'kompas' in Dutch, while the circle drawing instrument is a 'passer'. The word similar to German 'Zirkel', Dutch: cirkel, means circle, which is 'Kreis' in German.

Even google translate gets confused here (depending on the direction of translation).
German 'Zirkel' becomes English 'circle', and Dutch 'kompas' (both wrong, or at least not the primary meaning).