[Competition] Best folio number parallels.

[Bluetoes101]

I have already proven myself utterly hopeless at palaeography several times, you aint pulling me back in!

[RadioFM]

Just to gauge interest - is anyone actually planning to have a go at this?

 I'll keep an eye out for numerals next time

[eggyk]

So.. I had a go. This manuscript has some extremely nice matches. There are 2 different hands(?), although they are very similar. One hand matches really well for some, and the other has some characteristics of others. (hopefully this isn't your entry?)

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ca. 1500AD
Germany E, Torgau / Wittenberg

Pick almost literally any page 

Here are some of the best matches (3 and 5 by a mile). 3 commonly includes the quiff at the top. 
       

Hand 1 has slightly more curved 2s and 3s on average, and more tilted 6s: 
           

The rest are fine. 7 matches pretty well, and 9 is well represented if you source from both hands. 
           
       

Let me know if you want some of these formatted into squares so they can be displayed nicer!

[Linda]

I settled for any old numbers I came across. Lol. Actually there were lots without any page numbers, where I was looking, this was the first I came across that had them at all. So they are not a match, although they still look pretty similar.

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Italy 1450/60 
Newberry Ayers MS map 1

Ok let's see if there is another with page numbers. Yes but terrible low resolution, can't seem to zoom in and stay on the page to see the number.

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This one just says Vatican City ,15th century.

[nablator]

Are some features rare or typical for a certain time/region?

I believe I have seen them in German or Austrian late 15th century manuscripts. I will try to find samples.

The date of the foliation can be difficult to know, but sometimes one of the owners wrote his name and year and his handwriting/ink matches the numbers.

So I'm searching "Sammelhandschrift" + "Besitzvermerk" in particular.

[Koen G]

(hopefully this isn't your entry?)

Well, I assume the odds of someone coming up with the exact same entry are only slightly better than those of winning the lottery
The problem with my entry is that they are folio numbers in a late 15thC MS, and I don't know when exactly they were added. So even if they turn out to be relatively good, they may not be the most useful to us.

You found a very strong parallel already. I wonder if there is even anything in there that must be explained by being in a different stage of evolution rather than just the fact that different scribes are different people. Maaaybe something like the tilt of 7 or 4? I'm just guessing at this stage.

Linda: your example would be great to show later evolutions. It suffers from the same problem as mine though: it's not always clear when a MS was foliated.

[eggyk]

You found a very strong parallel already. I wonder if there is even anything in there that must be explained by being in a different stage of evolution rather than just the fact that different scribes are different people. Maaaybe something like the tilt of 7 or 4? I'm just guessing at this stage.

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This made me look further into the manuscript, and found something really interesting. It may be the same hand using both the old and new forms of 4, 5, and 7. Here are examples of both being used in the same diagrams:

   

v was used for 7 until 40r, and then it switches to 7 on the next page. 
   

I guess this was someone who knew and used both in a kind of transition period? I honestly don't know. 

[Koen G]

I have already proven myself utterly hopeless at palaeography several times, you aint pulling me back in!

But I believe in you!

[Koen G]

The opinions on the dating of the folio numbers are not entirely consistent. I found these using Ed's search tool:

• D'Imperio: "Some students have dated the folio numbers to the sixteenth or seventeenth century; they may well have been added by someone at Rudolph's court. The forms of the numbers do not differ significantly from modern forms."
  
• Voynich.nu: "The folio numbers appear in a style that is less constrained in time. De Ricci (1937) gives the 16th Century and Manly (1931) the 17th (based on the handwriting style). A 15th century date may also not be excluded."
  
• Lisa Fagin Davis maintains that the folio numbers were added in the 17th century, based on their style. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  

Estimates are increasingly restrictive. Rene gives 15th-17th, D'imperio 16th-17th, LFD just 17th. I have not found any source that actually tells us which features they are looking at.

[nablator]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "Medizinische Sammelhandschrift" but it's actually about alchemy:

   
   

I think the first owner (after the author) Nicolaus Pol (1470-1532) wrote his name and the year 1494 on page 6 and wrote the page numbers on pp. 7-109. The handwriting of the numbers after these pages is a bit different.

There is another manuscript, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with similar page numbers: it had the same first owner, so it could be his handwriting again.