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

[Jorge_Stolfi]

[The MRT] would require a true craftsman of high skill willing to dedicate months of work to the restoration of the Voynich MS.

Yes, the restoration would require a scribe (or several scribes) more skilled than the original Scribe.  About as skilled as my hypothetical Junior Scribe who retraced all that St. Galen manuscript.

And it would take about the same time as the original writing and drawing, namely 1-2 man-hour per page. At 8 hours per day, it would be 1-2 man-months. 

But, unlike the original Author, the subsequent owners of the VMS included people like Sinapius, Barschius, and Marci, who could afford to pay for that work.  And Rudolf II, if we are to believe Raphael...

No restoration works are mentioned in the provenance of the MS. When would all of this retracement happen, between 1500 and 1600?

The comprehensive restoration (Rt1) would have occurred after the VMS left the original Author and the text was substantially faded.  Thus probably after 1550.  On the other hand, I don't see Kircher or the Jesuits at Collegio Romano caring enough about the manuscript to commission a restoration.  Thus no later than 1665 or so.   Unless maybe if they too believed that it could be a Roger Bacon original, because of Marci's letter.

The scattered retracings (Rt2 and maybe others, including by the the Boobs Retracer) and the painting would have happened some time after Rt1, probably when the VMS had changed hands again.

There is of course no external evidence that such restoration was or was not done.

All the best, --stolfi