[split] Jorge's Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

[Jorge_Stolfi]

More NI (Natural Ignorance) hallucinations, on f3v, topmost flower:
   
In what follows, assume "in my opinion", "I believe", etc before every sentence.

This clip covers the distal part of the topmost and largest of the two bulbous structures at the top of the plant of page f3v. They are conventionally called flowers but may have been intended to be fruits.
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The flower is a bent bulbous pod with a flat face, like a gyoza cut in half. The sides are covered with an opaque blue paint that completely hides any inked details that may have been in that area, and even parts of the bulb's outline.

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The drawings have strokes of various thicknesses and weights. Visual analysis suggests that the original traces (Rt0, green labels) have faded almost to invsibility, and then there were two rounds of intervention: the general restoration pass (Rt1, cyan labels) and at least one subsequent retouching pass (Rt2, purple labels). Telling these last two apart is difficult because the inks have similar colors, and a light yellow-pink paint was smeared over the face of the pod, blurring and obscuring the ink traces.

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Specifically, it is proposed that originally the face of the pod had only a circular outline (C0) and four dashed circles (C1-C4) concentric with it. The the ring of stubby petals around the edge may have been present in Rt0, but no trace of it is visible today, so it is quite possible that it was added by Rt1.

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The outer circle C0, a solid trace, measures ~35 mm by ~15 mm and thus seems tilted by ~65° degrees away from the reader. It has rounded ends, but it is still more like a lens than an ellipse. The other circles are drawn as increasignly narrower lenses with pointy ends. Circle C1 seems to have been originaly drawn with tangential dashes, like the others, but today ir consists of radial or diagonal diagonal dashes in the Rt1 ink.

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Legend: (A) Examples of Rt0 traces (parts of outer rim C0), almost invisible now. (B) Dash of C2 also Rt0. (C ) Rounded extremity of C0, also Rt0. (D) Diagonal dashes of C1 attributed to Rt1. (E,F) Petals added by Rt1. (G) Dashes of C2 and C4 attributed to Rt2. (H,I) Parts of C0 and pod outline retraced by Rt2. (J,K) Petals wholly or partly retraced by Rt2.


The following sequence is a rough approximation of how I think that flower could have got to its present state:

• Original drawing (Rt0), as of ~1430:
       
  
• Original drawing  (Rt0), as of ~1500:
       
  
• After general restoration (Rt1), as of ~1500:
       
  
• After general restoration (Rt1), as of ~1600:
       
  
• After second retouching (Rt2), as of ~1600:
       
  

The dates are of course arbitrary except that Rt1 must have occurred when the Author and original Scribe were no longer around, and Rt2 probably (but not certainly) occurred before the book was sent to Kircher. 

I am convinced that the painting occurred after Rt2.

All the best, --stolfi