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+--- Thread: L. Rauwolf (/thread-4849.html)
RE: L. Rauwolf - DG97EEB - 19-01-2026
(Today, 01:11 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(Yesterday, 11:48 PM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It may be that with modern OCR we can extract something of value from ir
Good luck... it's hard to read indeed.
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or
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Wow.. you weren't kidding... That's quite impenetrable... I'm sure I won't be doing anything that others haven't tried, but happy to give it a go on the off chance.
(Today, 01:13 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's 1100 pages, but what I can do is send you a good sample via WeTransfer or similar, to see what goes.
If you want to give it a try, just send me a PM.
Thanks Rene. Nablator kindly provided a link to an eviewer. Is the format/quality you have better, or is that in fact the version you guys commissioned?
RE: L. Rauwolf - ReneZ - 19-01-2026
These aree indeed the same images that I have.
It is undoubtedly a matter of 'getting used to' the hand, and then one can read it (or at least grasp the meaning) pretty quickly,
even just by 'eyeballing'. (I'm not there yet).
Here, I think that the human eye and brain are still superior to OCR, because we can be drawn to significant words without having
to read everything. Still, 1100 pages is a lot, and IIRC a great number of them are very faint.
RE: L. Rauwolf - nablator - 19-01-2026
(Today, 07:19 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.IIRC a great number of them are very faint.
So faint Retracers couldn't figure out everything!
Sorry.
RE: L. Rauwolf - Jorge_Stolfi - 19-01-2026
(11 hours ago)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So faint Retracers couldn't figure out everything!
Keep laughing, keep laughing...
RE: L. Rauwolf - DG97EEB - 19-01-2026
Just looking at folio 35 (top left corner indicated) and what do I see bottom right, 3rd line from the bottom?
Our old friend Box Leber...
"Matt kunft Krebs zue feuw. Rx. Ain Bocks Leber bratte"
"When weakness comes and a cancer tends towards heat, take a Buck's liver, roasted" which can also mean "When a malignant ulcer develops and becomes inflamed or burning take a roasted goat's liver"
OCR from Transkribus, translation from Claude.
I don't know how to post images here, but can do so.. and btw, I'm not suggesting anything, other than that Koen will be amused...
Apparently this kind of cure was common in Paracelsian and iatrochemical texts, and we know from Gully and others that Widemann was in to Paracelsus.
RE: L. Rauwolf - Koen G - 19-01-2026
You can link directly to the page you're looking at, which is probably most convenient for everyone. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I'm having a very hard time with the faded text and the handwriting. Are you sure about the line preceding "Ain Bocks Leber"? I can imagine this section starts at Rx.
"Recipe for a Buck's Liver: roast...."
That's what we'd expect in cook books anyway. But I'm not familiar enough with the Widemann work.
RE: L. Rauwolf - DG97EEB - 19-01-2026
(7 hours ago)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can link directly to the page you're looking at, which is probably most convenient for everyone. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I'm having a very hard time with the faded text and the handwriting. Are you sure about the line preceding "Ain Bocks Leber"? I can imagine this section starts at Rx.
"Recipe for a Buck's Liver: roast...."
That's what we'd expect in cook books anyway. But I'm not familiar enough with the Widemann work.
I can't be sure, but equally, I didn't prompt anything. I have a limited number of credits on Transkribus so picked random pages to see if I could spot any clear dates for example and this was one I picked. Bocks is at least clear, and Leber is plausible.. am sure one of our resident German experts can opine... Was more the fact that we spend a lot of time talking about Pox Leber, and without any prompting, there it appeared, even if it turns out to be an OCR artifact.
It did make me wonder though whether f116 could be a 16th or 17thc later addition.
RE: L. Rauwolf - Jorge_Stolfi - 19-01-2026
(7 hours ago)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm having a very hard time with the faded text and the handwriting.
As I discussed in the innominable thread, the most highly faded parts of that page were probably written in ink of a different color, probably an organic dye like cherry juice. Some of the original color is still visible near the west edge of the page.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: L. Rauwolf - Koen G - 19-01-2026
(7 hours ago)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It did make me wonder though whether f116 could be a 16th or 17thc later addition.
That would be extremely unlikely: there has always been a consensus that the handwriting belongs to the 15th century. Moreover, buck's liver as an ingredient is not that unusual, before and after the VM was written. What we're missing is buck's liver in the context (or company) of a charm with crosses.
RE: L. Rauwolf - N._N. - 19-01-2026
This document might be worth exploring, but particularly for the faded parts, one might have to go to Hannover in person. In my experience, this is one of the situations where digitized files might not do the original justice, as different lighting, turning the pages etc. might improve the readability significantly. Which limits the usefulness of OCR as well... However, reading and possibly transcribing 1100 pages in the library sounds quite tedious for what might be very limited results.