[split] Color annotations

[Jorge_Stolfi]

So you believe that the “rossa” (red) annotations in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. image 22 are not color annotations, since those parts of the plant were painted green. Those parts are painted red in the related You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Same for the unpainted parts of the drawings from LJS 419 discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
What do you think the annotations in the Vermont and LJS medieval herbals are?

Of course those examples are color keys.  Indications for future painters of how that part is to be painted.  And so was the "rot" on the stem of the plant in the herbal that the VMS Scribe was copying from.   

But the writing on the stem of VMS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is not a color key.  It is the result of the VMS Scribe mis-interpreting a color key as a Voynichese label to be copied, and struggling to identify siddeways "r" and "t" as Vounichese glyphs.  And then the Retracer, much later, doing the opposite.  That is my claim.

I guess they mean that the scribe didn’t have the time to do the painting immediately after tracing the drawings, or that he planned to hire a different painter at some later time.

Agreed.  The keys are needed only if the manuscript is left unpainted by the Scribe and the eventual Painter is not expected to have access to the colored original where the drawings were copied from.

I suppose that "herbal mills" like those that produced the Alchemical Herbals would sell unpainted manuscripts, leaving the painting to the buyers.  

I think that would make economic sense, since drafting the outlines is the part that required expertise, while the painting could be done by anyone, even a child.  Thus the Scribe should invest his time on drawing more copies, rather than on painting those he drew.

Sometimes, when the painting did happen, the annotations were not considered.

Possible explanations for colors that disregard the keys are that the Painter did not understand the language, or that he did not understand the purpose of the keys, or that he did not consider it important to paint with the "correct" colors.

The Udine copy shows why the Vermont copy had a key: because those parts that look like leaves were in fact ... duhhh ... flowers? that should be red.   But maybe the Vermont Painter was not Italian and did not know what "rossa" meant.  ("Red" is "rot" in German, "rouge" in French, "vermeja" in Spanish, "červený" in Czech, ... In Portuguese  "roxa" means "purple" ...)  Or, most probably, he did not care.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and at least some of the isolated letters (LET in the table) could well be color annotations.
All the COL annotations appear to be on Scribe 1 pages.

And all those occurences are all in pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to f32r, namely quires 1-4.  That is when the the Scribe delivered those quires to the Author, and learned, red in face, what "color keys" were and that he was not supposed to copy them...  Or when the Author fired the Scribe and recruited another one...

But let's look at those 13 "color keys" anyway:

• f1v "A single 'g' under the paint of the second leftmost green leaf. The suggestion is that this indicates that it should be painted green."
  
• f1v "A less clear single letter, possibly a 'J', inside the lowest yellow leaf right of the stem. It is not clear that this is ink under the paint. It is hard to identify this as a colour indication."
    I agree that the explanation for the existence of the first glyph in that spot must involve a color key.  But there are several problems with "just a color key".  The letter "g" would make sense only if the Painter spoke English or German; but in German "g" could also mean "yellow" ("gelb"). Moreover that glyph is not really a "g" in any common handwriting; "g" is merely the Latin letter that is the least dissimilar from it.  One could say as well that it is a Voynichese picnic table x with a curly r-plume upside-down...  So I would guess that, like the Ch o se of f4r, that glyph is the result of the Scribe trying to read a color key on the crib herbal (that may have been written sideways) as a Voynichese label.  As for the "J", that is a false reading.  That trace is only part of the faint outline of a leaf shaped like the "spade" card suit. It could be accidental offsetting from some other drawing elsewhere, like the plant in the lower right corner of Pharma f99r, the second plant in the top row of f100r, etc.  Coincidentally, the leaves and root You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are cut-and-pasted from the bottom right plant of Pharma You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (or vice-versa?).  Or it could be a first sketch of the plant, that was later abandoned in favor of the current one.
  
• f2r "Voynich text under green paint of bottom right leaf (middle petal) The suggestion is that this could also be a painting instruction"
    Apart from being too long for a color key, why should this key be in Voynichese, while the others are in Latin script?  Rather, this could be a label tied to the text, or some faint strokes (possibly offsetted from another page) that were "restored" by the Retracer as a Voynichese label.
  
• f4r "A capital F in the rightmost flower" 
    Why should this color key be a block capital, when other keys are in cursive? And what would this "F" color be?  Seems more likely that, in the crib herbal this "F" was not a color key but a letter label of the part, referring to a legend.  Which the VMS scribe duly copied without thnking.
  
• f7r "Characters probably forming the word "rot" (German for red) under the paint in the left half of the root. Could be an additional colour annotation similar to f4r"
    It is hard to figure out what the letters are under the paint.  The "o" actually looks like the "impossible" combination of an i left stroke with a reverse-e right stroke, namely the anti-a or updown-a.  The "t" may be more like a C. And the "r" seems to have a plume, more like an n or r...  So again I would say that this is a case of the VMS Scribe struggling to read a "rot" color key in the crib as a Voynichese label, and copying it as such.
  
• f9v "Several characters in the top left flower under the blue paint: "por" in the top petal, "p" in the lower left petal and "r" in the lower right petal. Readings are tentative. These may also be colour annotations."
  
• f9v "An unclear letter of scribble between the top two petals of the top left flower. Meaning not clear."
  
• f9v "A single "g" to the right of the top right flower Seems to be another colour annotation."
    I see a lot more writing in the petals of the flowers of this page. e. g. a Voynichese word beginning with ro on the lower left petal of the top flower.  But again they don't look like Latin letters. They can be more easily understood as the Retracer partly mangling some faint Voynichese words written on those petals for some reason.  Or even the Retracer mistaking veins on the petals for letters.
  
• f20r "A "p" (or possibly an "r") at the top of the root system Could be another colour annotation." 
    That "r" was retraced in darker ink. If it is not a wholesale creation by the Retracer, it can be explained again as the VMS Scribe copying an "r" color key as a Voynichese r under a stub of a stem, which was re-interpreted by the Retracer as an "r".
  
• f28v "Some apparent symbols in the middle of the flower If this is writing, the script has not yet been identfied."
    Those are just stamens and pistils, no?
  
• f29r "An "r" in the higher part of the root system. Could be another colour annotation."
    That root was majorly botched by the Retracer. Take for example the second chevron from the top, just above the chevron that has the "r", and check its left and right ends.  So Bog knows what that "r" was originally, or if it was there at all.
  
• f32r "A "p" and what looks like a "v" or an "r" in the bottom right flower. There could be another character after the "p". These could be more colour annotations."
    Again, those don't quite look like Latin letters.  But they do look like what the VMS scribe could have tried to make from Latin letters written sideway, namely "duh, maye an r and and an h".  And, again, further mangled by the Retracer...