(02-12-2025, 10:33 PM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.While the Scribe was able to write neat small letters with a quill, he apparently had little experience scribing books, and zero experience drawing figures. He did not use scored guide lines for margins and baselines, and had no notion of perspective drawing (not even the little that artists and professional scribes grasped at the time). He knew how to use the compass, but could not even divide a circle into four equal parts. I guess that his experience was limited to writing letters and other mundane documents; not even contracts or deeds.
It is pretty clear that the Author was not rich. The vellum is of very poor quality -- "factory rejects" -- and he tried to use every bit of it, even pages that were undersize or missing a corner. Thus he probably could not afford to hire a good professional scribe or "scribing factory".
1) Author was not rich and had no money for good vellum.
2) Scribe could write, but had little experience scribing books, zero experience drawing figures, could not divide a circle, etc.
Why would a person who could barely afford vellum, but who could create a paper draft, hire a very poor inexperienced scribe - basically wasting the money and jeopardizing the whole project - instead of just personally copying the MS on the vellum? As far as I remember, initially you needed this to make the Chinese theory believable: the Scribe introduced European styles and imagery while interpreting an oriental draft. But now with a full team of retracers trying to fix quickly fading details, maybe it's time to let the Scribe go?
BTW, is it possible to find out what scribes would take per hour and compare with the price of the vellum?