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

[Jorge_Stolfi]

You may be interested in my thread about that page, Jorge:
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Thanks!  My main interest in the post above was the retracing, and did not go into interpretation other than that comment.  Which was to reject the only thing we thought we knew about that page...

I really can't make much sense of f83v3.  The four "spouts" could represent the Four Winds, but their ends do not look much like winds.  Especially if my views about retracing are correct.  

The SE spout does not seem to be blowing or spraying at all. I believe that the sprinkles coming out of the SW one are a late addition by someone who interpreted the random scribble as the edge of a trumpet-like cone.   The NE spout seems to be pouring water rather than wind...

Maybe the artist realised that he made a mistake and drawn Asia at the bottom and not the top and gave up with further drawing???

Perhaps...  It may be relevant that this page is the last of the bifolio (the 2x3 foldout) when folded and stacked as it is now in the VMS.

But I believe that the "T" inside the circle is a later addition, because of the color of the ink; and that originally the circle was just empty.

The lines of the "T" are not as crooked as they would be if they were drawn entirely by hand (see for example f67r1), nor as straight as if they were drawn with a straightedge and the same ink attachment used in the compass (as the Scribe presumably did on f67r2).  

One should not use a quill with a straightedge, because the ink could easily be drawn under the latter.  (A common accident that I suffered a few times, with a steel pen.) 

So maybe that "T" was drawn with a normal quill, but with the fingers guided by a straightedge placed nearby but not touching the quill...

Also, whether the "T" is original or a late addition, whoever drew it may have been looking at that page upside-down, because of how the loose 2x3 "bifolio" would look like when unfolded and flipped over.

All the best, --stolfi