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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 - DG97EEB - 02-02-2026
I guess Model Books have been discussed extensively? E.g. Göttingen and Macclesfield? They're more concerned with the images than the text, but might be something in there... Göttingen is online as a translation
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RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Jorge_Stolfi - 22-02-2026
(21-02-2026, 08:49 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is plenty of evidence.For example: correcting something that doesn't actually need correcting. Unless people can't tell the difference between a ‘4’ and a ‘q’.All clear?
On the top row with two qo: I suppose that those images were only meant to show what a "normal" qo looks like? Or the difference between a sharp-corner variant and one with a slightly rounded left corner?
On those two qo images, I do see evidence of retracing: specifically, the general restoration pass (Rt1). On the second one, it was what I call "incomplete" retracing, that leaves bits of original (Rt0) traces extending beyond the end of the Rt1 ones. But the glyph shapes did not change. The left corners remained slightly rounded and sharp, respectively.
On the second row, with four qo: all four glyphs were retraced by Rt1. On images 1 and 2 one can see some Rt0 trace in the lower half of the descender. On the other two, that part was cropped out, so I can't tell whether there was Rt0 there. But the sharp (not faded) strokes in the same light yellowish brown ink tell me that most of the tracing is Rt1.
In the first three qo of that second row, I cannot tell what the original head looked like, bit it seems that the Rt1 retracer at first drew a q with small head, and then corrected himself by drawing a bigger head.
Aesthetics would be reason enough for why he decided to fix those small q heads. Do you think that he did so because small-head-q and big-head-q are different symbols? If that was the case, there should be a good number of small-head qs throughout the manuscript. Are there?
The last qo of that row was not corrected by Rt1. Instead, the second retracer (Rt2) retouched with its characteristic brown-black ink the bottom half of the tail of an y on the line above, which touched the top of the q. He also re-retraced part of the stem of the q, without changing its shape.
Or maybe there was an excess of brown-black ink which spread on its own following the Rt1 brown ink -- a "wicking" phenomenon that occurred in many places, wherever ink or liquid paints came into contact with older ink traces.
As for the bottom row of gallows images, the first two seem to be normal handwriting variants of the ideal k shape. The third image shows what appears to be a splotch or black Rt2 ink over an Rt1 k gallows. But it does not "fix" the shape of the Rt1 gallows, it only makes it impossible to tell what it was --- whether like the first image, or like the second one.
And the last image seems to be just a fancy version of a k gallows, that occurs a few times in the manuscript in contexts where one would expect the k/t gallows to be fancified into p/f gallows.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Aga Tentakulus - 22-02-2026
You can see that the corrections to the ‘4’ were made with the same ink each time.
This means that they were made by the same person, and fairly quickly afterwards. And not by a later writer retrospectively.
Same ink = same writer = no retracer.
But why is he doing this?
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Jorge_Stolfi - 23-02-2026
(22-02-2026, 10:04 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can see that the corrections to the ‘4’ were made with the same ink each time.
This means that they were made by the same person, and fairly quickly afterwards. And not by a later writer retrospectively.
And that is what I wrote. There was retracing of the orignal (Rt0) by the Restorer (Rt1), but it does not matter because, as you say,
- "... the sharp (not faded) strokes in the same light yellowish brown ink tell me that most of the tracing is Rt1. In the first three qo of that second row, I cannot tell what the original head looked like, bit it seems that the Rt1 retracer at first drew a q with small head, and then corrected himself by drawing a bigger head."
Quote:But why is he doing this?
Again:
- "Aesthetics would be reason enough for why he decided to fix those small q heads. Do you think that he did so because small-head-q and big-head-q are different symbols? If that was the case, there should be a good number of small-head qs throughout the manuscript. Are there?"
All the best, --stolfi
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Aga Tentakulus - 23-02-2026
patchwork
(23-02-2026, 05:16 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."Aesthetics would be reason enough for why he decided to fix those small q heads.
Actually, it's the other way around. At least in other books. Appearance before correction.
Ink never disappears completely; you would see it under UV light. Then it would look like a patchwork quilt.
According to you, the retracer worked very carefully, but he just can't get a ‘4’ right.
Why didn't he trace or describe the drawings in the folds? Take the rosette leaf, for example. It really needed it.
And yes, it's a similar technique to that used by the Templars, only the characteristic is different. Think of entropy and five scribes. Do five scribes really have the same writing tolerance?
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings - Jorge_Stolfi - 24-02-2026
(23-02-2026, 09:03 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(23-02-2026, 05:16 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."Aesthetics would be reason enough for why he decided to fix those small q heads.Actually, it's the other way around. At least in other books. Appearance before correction.
I don't get the point here. Those examples you showed are palimpsests, where vellum got reused by scraping off the old writing. Obviously for those people, on those occasions, the money saved justified the extra work and the "dirty" look of the result.
Quote:Ink never disappears completely; you would see it under UV light.
Well, that of course was not a worry of whoever wrote those palimpsests...
But what does that have to do with those corrections on those qs?
Quote:According to you, the retracer worked very carefully, but he just can't get a ‘4’ right.
Yes, but his work was far from 100.00% perfect. On every page there are bits of faded old ink that he did not retrace, or that he retraced wrong. Especially on the drawings, where obviously there was no need for high accuracy.
But one cannot see those defects if one starts from the certainty that the restoration would have been impossible...
I still doubt that the size of the head of the q is significant. If that was the case, there should be a clear dichotomy between head sizes, with a substantial number of instances of the two variants. But how many small-head qs are there in the VMS?
Quote:Why didn't he trace or describe the drawings in the folds? Take the rosette leaf, for example. It really needed it.
My current guess is that the Rt1 restoration happened at least a century after the book was written (or maybe less, if the original ink was particularly bad) but before the book was sent to Kircher. And the "Boobs Retracer" Rt2 did his thing after Rt1 and before Kircher too.
Thus, the Rt1 restoration was no later than 1600. And it apparently used an ink formula similar to the original one -- that is, not iron-gall. (Whereas Rt2 seems to have used proper iron-gall ink.)
And therefore the Rt1 restoration itself has faded, especially near folds and edges; and it was washed off by overpainting or by any spills of water (like on f116v) or "ketchup" (like on f103r).
Quote:And yes, it's a similar technique to that used by the Templars, only the characteristic is different.
Steganography is such a simple idea that It must have been invented independently many time before it became a "widely known" technique in the 1500s or so. You say that the Templars used it?
The VMS Author could have invented it too. But that claim needs more evidence to become credible...
Quote:Think of entropy and five scribes. Do five scribes really have the same writing tolerance?
Indeed, it is remarkable that all five scribes are sloppy to the same extent and in the same ways. Not just on character shapes, but sloppy also with curved and unevenly spaced baselines, crooked text margins, drawings that run into folds and page edges, radial lines that don't go through the center...
Seriously, that is one of the reasons why I don't believe in the "five scribes" theory at all.
All the best, --stolfi
Pregnant, or hallucinating? - Jorge_Stolfi - 24-02-2026
f79v: pregnant, or hallucinating?
This clip of page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. covers the second nymph from the top in the West (left) margin, and abut 10 glyphs worth at the start of lines 23-30.
As usual, this clip shows evidence of at least two retracing layers: the general restoration pass (Rt1) that retraced almost all the text and large parts of the drawings with a yellowish brown ink; and a later retouching pass (Rt2) that re-retraced some strokes with a darker ink. The bits of original (Rt0) traces that survive are quite faint, almost invisible in places.
The Rt1 retracer was very careful and skillful, but must have made some errors when trying to restore Rt0 strokes that had been completely lost. The Rt2 retracer was rather careless, and intentionally modified some details of the figures, or even added new ones of his own imagination. The possibility of adulteration casts doubt on the interpretation of the figures on this page, including the cross held by the nymph in the NW corner.
On this page we say that a retracing is imperfect if 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. It is incorrect if it changes a glyph to a different glyph, or changes the nature of a detail on a drawing. We say that a retracing is incomplete if the new trace stops before the end of the original one, leaving part of the latter visible as a continuation of the new trace; which often happens on the tails of glyphs.
Nymph
(1a) Rt0 outline of the typical Rt0 hair style, namely a finger-wide strip of hair above the forehead and a roundish tuft of hair covering the temple, barely reaching down to the top of the neck.
(1b) Partial Rt1 (or Rt2?) retrace of the top of the hair.
(1d) Eyes and nose retraced and modified by Rt2. There is no visible vestige of the Rt0 versions (except perhaps below the very tip of the nose, but on other pages Rt0 eyes are just slits, and the nose is more rounded, with no explicit nostrils.
(1e,1f) Original (Rt0) parts of the nymph's outline.
(1g) Breast outlines retraced and/or extended by Rt2.
(1h) Nipple probably added by Rt2.
(1i) Unlikely parts of the outline, apparently added by Rt2 (or Rt1).
(1j,1k) Spurious outline traces added by Rt2.
(1m) Rt1 trace that is possibly a retrace of the Rt0 outline.
(INSET) A possible reconstruction of the Rt0 drawing of the nymph, based on drawings in the Zodiac section that seem to be relatively free from adulterations.
Tub and tubings
(2a,2b) Original (Rt0) traces.
(2c) Rt1 or Rt2 retrace of the tub's outline.
(2d) Very incomplete Rt1/Rt2 retracing of the outlines.
(2e) Original (Rt0) parts of the tub's rim, whit probably was a single line.
(2f) Extra rim line added by Rt1/Rt2 to give thickness to the tub's wall.
(2g) Original (Rt0) edge of pipe, a single line.
(2h) Original (Rt0) level of water inside the pipe.
(2i) Second edge of tube added by Rt2 to give thickness to the tube wall.
Text
(3a) This r glyph seems to be Rt0, except for a couple of light touch-ups on the plume.
(3b) imperfect Rt2 retracing of the right leg of a k, leaving the Rt1 retracing visible alongside it, on the right side.
(3c) Transition between the incomplete Rt2 retracing of the y (presumably over the Rt1 retracing of the same) leaving the lower part of the tail as Rt0.
(3d) Incomplete retracing of the p leg by Rt1 and Rt2.
(3e) Incorrect retracing by Rt1/Rt2. This glyph was probably a d originally, like the second glyph of this same line, but it was retraced as a midget k by Rt1, and Rt2 doubled down on that mistake.
As always, assume "I believe that", "I think that" etc. before each claim above.
All the best, --stolfi