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

[oshfdk]

Other evidence of retracing includes

• Mis-shaped plumes traced in the wrong direction and/or with broad strokes.
  
• Plumes partly in faint ink, partly in darker ink.
  
• Tails of y,q,l,m,g that are missing or traced in dark ink then continue in faded ink.
  
• Redundant traces on figures.
  

But the best evidence is when a barely visible ordinary glyph got retraced as an invalid glyph ("weirdo").  Or when the Retracer mis-interpreted a figure and retraced or added a nonsensical detail.

All arguments to "mis-shaped", "redundant", "invalid", "nonsensical" presuppose that we somehow know the right correct shapes and designs. I don't think we do, and all these arguments are subjective based on one's own ideas about what the script should look like.

I think I spent quite a while looking at the manuscript, I'm quite familiar with the script. For example, when there was a claim that \) character doesn't exist in the MS, I easily You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. just because I remembered seeing it. Or when you showed one of the few obvious examples of retracing, I immediately knew the folio. So, I see no reason to trust your subjective assessment of what is valid or invalid over mine, and my subjective assessment is that there is a great variety of rare and unusual glyphs what can be executed in all shades of ink and are likely original.

As for the arguments to variation in ink shade, these can be just due to patchy/lumpy ink which may have also exaggerated over time due to different fading rate of different component of the original ink. I think I already posted an example of extremely spotty strokes from MSIs, here's another belowYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. There are irregular dark spots, which to me obviously show that the ink was not some homogenous properly mixed substance. There were some darker blobs in it, and larges ones would be spread by the quill and lead to distinct patchy strokes. No huge mystery here, I think.