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+--- Thread: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings (/thread-4740.html)
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - oshfdk - 07-01-2026
What this video demonstrates is the same quality of retracing as at the center of the stain in this post, nothing extraordinary
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RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - nablator - 07-01-2026
(07-01-2026, 12:06 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It required only a firm hand, sharp eyes, and the patience of a monk.
Nice story, but this good fellow somehow always missed, for no reason at all and despite his excellent skills, the start of the strokes (when pressure started to be applied), the flourishes and macrons (fast)...
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Jorge_Stolfi - 07-01-2026
(07-01-2026, 01:34 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Can you draw a character that is half pen half pencil but at the magnification 4x higher than this video you would only be able to tell where the pen ends and the pencil starts by a change in color, not in shape.
You mean, like this?
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Jorge_Stolfi - 07-01-2026
(07-01-2026, 01:58 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(07-01-2026, 12:06 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It required only a firm hand, sharp eyes, and the patience of a monk.
Nice story, but this good fellow somehow always missed, for no reason at all and despite his excellent skills, the start of the strokes (when pressure started to be applied), the flourishes and macrons (fast)...
He missed them on purpose. Retracing those would make the writing uglier, and would make the smaller abbreviations illegible.
Note that the thin gray parts are quite consistent. If the color switch was just an accident of ink flow, shouldn't there be examples of dark brown plumes and light gray main strokes?
Here are some cases where that junior monk missed the aim:
In the last example above, note that the thick stroke is traced downwards, while the light plume is traced up to the right.
Here is a case where the dark ink was pulled along a thin trace, because the latter obviously was more wettable than the paper:
Note that the thin trace belongs to the following line. Which means that all the thin traces on the page were written first, and then overwritten with the dark ones.
The next two examples show the third pass, where mistakes (probably by the junior monk) are corrected with even darker ink:
And here, just for curiosity, is the Proof Reader fixing the Latin of the Red Scribe, in the closure of one of the texts in that book.
The correct text (IIUC) should be
- Explicit dyalog9[=us] Bonavẽ[=en]turæ inter animã[=am] et rationem
- Here ends the dialogue of Bonaventura between soul and reason
On the second line, he fixed the part that looks like "raa", with a distorted second "a", to "rati" (J3,J4). This last error by the Red Scribe is similar to what I see in the VMS: a Retracer, not knowing the language, sometimes replaces a glyph by a similar one that does not make sense, or by a weirdo that is not even in the alphabet.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Jorge_Stolfi - 07-01-2026
To relax, a short but sweet hallucination. Be sure to check items (J) and (K).
From page 115v:
This clip covers the left half of lines 35-41 of page f115v, in the "Recipes" or "Starred Parags" section. As usual, at least three layers of ink traces seem to be present. The original traces (Rt0) are extremely faint, almost invisible in places. Most of them were carefully retraced in a general restoration pass (Rt1), with brown ink. Later another retouching pass (Rt2) retraced several scattered glyphs with darker ink.
Some of these retracings were incorrect, meaning that the new trace did not follow the original precisely, thus leaving some of the latter visible as a "ghost" or "shadow" trace by the side of the new one. Other retracings, especially of tails, were incomplete, meaning that the new trace stops before the end of the original one, leaving part of the latter visible as a continuation of the new trace.
(A) Incorrect retracing of Rt1 t by Rt2.
(B) Incorrect retracing of the Rt1 loop of the d by Rt2.
© Incorrect retracing by Rt2 or an Rt1 plume, that may have been an incorrect restoration of an Rt0 plume.
(D) This glyph was o in Rt0, but turned ambiguous in Rt1/Rt2.
(E) This a may have been malformed in Rt0, was made worse by Rt1/Rt2.
(F) This y has an Rt2 tail only ~0.5 mm long, which is an incomplete retracing of an Rt1 tail ~1 mm long, which is an incomplete retracing of an Rt0 tail at least ~6 mm long.
(G,H) These r glyphs were restored by Rt1, then the body and a short piece of the plume were retraced by Rt2.
(J) The Rt0 version of the right loop of the t is practically invisible. Rt1 "restored" it in the wrong place -- below the horizontal arm rather than above it.
(K) In Rt0, this word was otainos, but with the n almost touching the o. Rt1/Rt2 did not see the lower half of the plume of the n, and "restored" the upper half as a plume on the o.
As usual, assume "I believe that", "my best guess is that" etc before every claim above.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: Pisces (Folio 70v) and the New Year on the 1st of March in the Republic of Venice - Jorge_Stolfi - 11-01-2026
(04-06-2025, 07:33 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A difference can be recognised after just a few days.
That transition on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is almost certainly a change of Scribe. (My guess is that he missed half a line, tried to "fix" that by inserting those words as line 10 before line 11 which he had already written. He was finishing line 13 when the Author happened to drop by to check his work, saw that and possibly other mistakes, got mad, and fired him in the middle of a word (ot). Then a new scribe was hired - with new pen, new batch of ink, new handwriting, and he did not bother to finish that line and started from line 14.
But, sigh, please, it is not "this color of ink is original, this color is retracing". Ink colors vary from page to page, among other things because the color of the vellum changes, exposed pages wear down faster, and the imaging parameters (exposure, lighting, brightness, contrast, color balance) were adjusted separately for each page.
And also it is not "lighter ink is original, darker ink is retraced". I am aware, more than anyone else, that the width of traces changes as the pen nib wears down and is re-sharpened, the darkness changes with pressure and as the pen runs dry and is re-inked, etc.
To say that a group of glyphs has been retraced, first there must be a sudden increase of darkness and width from the previous glyph and a sudden return to "normal" after those glyphs. So that we can exclude that it is just the pen being recharged.
That still leaves open the possibility of what I call "backtracing": that the Scribe himself recharged the pen and then went back and retraced those glyphs, skipping one or more glyphs in between (which would explain the sudden "return to normal" after those darker glyphs).
To exclude that possibility, and conclude that it was true "retracing" -- at a much later time, by someone else, we need more evidence. Which may include, among others:
- The traces that seem to have been retraced are very faint, nearly invisible.
- The retracing makes no sense -- invalid glyphs, nonsensical figure details, etc.
- The same items seem to be retraced over many pages -- breasts, belly buttons, "showercaps", ...
- Some plumes are traced slowly and in the wrong direction (clockwise).
- The retracing accentuated handwriting flaws, like an a that was half-like ei being retraced as ei.
- Some extremely faint items were missed by the Retracer, like the plume of Sh or the tail of y.
I understand that many here just hate this possibility, for various reasons, and would rather believe in magical pens and inks that can suddenly switch between two or three different traces in the middle of a word, or that miraculously become darker when drawing the breasts of a nymph. But this fact will not go away just because one does not like it...
All the best, --stolfi
Reality is that which does not go away when you stop believing in it -- Philip K.Dick.
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Jorge_Stolfi - 11-01-2026
Volcanic hallucinations!
From page f85v2, the nine-rosettes fold-out:
This clip covers a part of the NE rosette on the big fold-out "map" (page f85v2). It includes the volcano and the big castle with "Ghibelline" merlons. The clip is rotated 90 degrees clockwise for convenience.
As usual, there is evidence of at least three levels of tracing/retracing on this page, not counting the color painting. The original traces (Rt0) are very faint, as can be sen on the (1A) tower. The general restoration pass (Rt1) retraced a lot of the original outlines with ink that now looks like light grayish brown, as sen on the square tower (1B). some time later, another Retracer (Rt2) retouched several parts of the Rt0 and Rt1 trace, with a dark brown ink, as can be seen on the roof of the house (1C) and on the building above it.
It seems that Rt2, and possibly also Rt1, significantly altered some details of the Rt0 drawing, and added many others that were not in that version. The most significant case of the latter may be the "Ghibelline" and square merlons on the big castle. The inset drawing is my best (but still rather uncertain) guess at what the castle looked like just after the Rt0 Scribe was done with it.
The Restorer Rt1 also retraced practically all of the Rt0 text included in this clip, leaving only a few bits here and there. The Retracer Rt2 also re-retraced some of the text.
Key to annotationsPasses
(1A) Example of Rt0 (original) traces.
(1B) Example of Rt1 (restoration) retrace.
(1C) Example of Rt2 (scattered retouching) traces.
Mechanical circles
(2A) Mechanical circles, Rt0.
Big castle
(3A) Original (Rt0) traces of base of wall and.
(3B) Rt0 traces of East castle tower.
(3C) There may be an Rt0 line at the base of the merlons. The left slanted line of the first two merlons is Rt1. The rest is Rt2.
(3D) The Rt0 version of the tower's East outline edge was probably where the windows (which are Rt2) are now, and is now practically invisible. Then the roof would be properly centered on the tower. The current East outline edge was apparently retraced further to the East by Rt1/Rt2 in order to make the tower thicker, more like that of a fort.
(3E) Nonsensical retracings/creations of Rt2.
Volcano
(4A) Rt0 outline of volcano, incorrectly retraced by Rt1.
(4B) Rt0 outline of volcano, incorrectly retraced by Rt1 and Rt2.
(4C) Rt1 outline of volcano incorrectly retraced by Rt2.
(4D,4E) Rt0 rim of crater.
(4F) Possible Rt0 circles around rim of crater.
(4G,4H) Rt1 outline of crater.
(4I) Rim or crater and lava lake by Rt2.
(4J) Possible Rt0 bit of the bumps, incompletely retraced by Rt1/Rt2.
(4K) Rt0 rib of the volcano incorrectly retraced by Rt1.
(4L) The lobed lines on the volcano are all Rt1.
(4M) Some circles on the volcano are Rt2, some may be Rt1.
Cliffs outside the NE rosette, west of causeway
(5A) Rt0 lines of cliff.
(5B) Bit of Rt0 trace of cliff, incompletely retraced bt Rt1/Rt2.
(5C) Rt1 traces on cliff.
Walls inside the NE rosette
(6A) Wall edges retraced by Rt1 or Rt2.
(6B) These wall edges and the round bumps under were probably Rt0 (a few bits survive in the bumps), but mostly were retraced by Rt1.
(6C) Edges of wall are Rt0, partly retraced by Rt1.
(6D) Rt1 retraces overran the edge of the wall (presumed Rt0).
(6E) The roof of this tower seems to have been mangled by Rt1. It is not clear what the Rt0 version was. Maybe the tower was square, with a flat roof?
Cliffs inside the NE rosette, below the volcano
(7A) Original (Rt0) edge of a cliff.
(7B) Original Rt0 line, continuation of (7A), ignored by Rt1 and buried under his cliff (7D).
(7C) Continuation of line (7A), retraced by Rt1.
(7D) These hatchings may have been entirely created by Rt1.
Cliffs of causeway inside the NE rosette
(8A) Original (Rt0) traces of edges of cliff steps.
(8B) Rt0 cliff step edge incompletely retraced by Rt1.
(8C) Rt0 hatching traces partly and incompletely retraced by Rt1.
(8D) Rt0 lines, possibly top and bottom edges of a cliff.
(8E) These hatchings seem to be creations of Rt1, with no Rt0 version.
Text
(9A) These words are probably Rt1.
(9B) The text from this point on is Rt2.
(9C) Rt0 plume of y incompletely retraced by Rt1.
(9D) In this Sh, the ligature is Rt0, the first e is Rt1, the seconds e and the plume (traced in the wrong sense, clockwise) are Rt2.
(9E) The Rt0 traces of the left loop and horizontal arm of this t were incompletely retraced bt Rt1 and Rt2. The Rt1 retrace of the right loop was incorrectly retraced by Rt2.
(9F) These parts of the label, that were restored by Rt1, were re-retraced by Rt2.
(9G) This s was retraced (and blotted) by Rt2.
As usually, assume "I think that", "my best guess is that", etc before each claim above.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - JoJo_Jost - 11-01-2026
Well, I find Stolfi's explanations plausible, no question about it.
But I had an idea: Couldn't one also assume that the text was written and painted by scribes on instruction, and then corrected again later by the client, who was dissatisfied with the work?
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Aga Tentakulus - 11-01-2026
(11-01-2026, 06:24 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Then a new scribe was hired - with new pen, new batch of ink, new handwriting, and he did not bother to finish that line and started from line 14.
It's not just the same ink, it's probably also the same nib and the same cut.
What you describe happens when the nib has not been treated properly. Especially degreasing.
Read and learn.
Hardening the quill
The quills are drawn, which gives them their proper hardness and removes the fat, using a very simple technique. Either warm ashes or glowing coals are used for this purpose. However, there must be no coals in the ashes, and they must be neither too hot nor too cold; in the first case, the quill softens too quickly and becomes tough instead of hard, as it then develops teeth when cut; in the second case, the quill either does not soften enough, or in most cases the heat does not penetrate all parts of the quill, and then it develops teeth again.
To write successfully with a goose quill, you need a writing surface with an angle of about 40-60% so that the ink does not drip too quickly from the pen.
If you can no longer see the difference between lead and ink, then it's better to leave it alone.
Your theory is far removed from reality.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Koen G - 11-01-2026
Good point (no pun intended). It does look like the same pen was used.
Never attribute to retracers what can be explained by incompetence?