15thc perception on swallowtail merlons?

[MarcoP]

Question for Marco:
When you read from the book of Venice, would you say that it is quite close to today's Italian or rather difficult to read?
Are there any major characteristics?

Hi Peter,
I find the text rather hard to read, but this is mostly due to the script. If I spent a couple of hours working on this manuscript, things would get much better. Transcription problems aside, some differences with modern Italian are:
1. word spacing (some spaces appear to be systematically skipped, e.g. after the conjunction "e", or after articles);
2. missing double consonants (in about 50% of cases, these are rendered as a single consonant);
3. the final vowel is sometimes dropped;
4. spelling has other minor differences which are easily handled (e.g. "d" for "t").

2 and 3 are features of the Venetian dialect: many of the differences are due to Italian vs Venetian rather than ancient Italian vs modern Italian.