04-01-2026, 01:36 AM
@ Jorge_Stolfi, thanks for providing your possible evidence. I am not inclined to see it as a strong evidence until we know what the writing is about, since the sloppiness does not necessarily mean he could not read the text, just that he was sloppy about spacing things.
Suppose you are correct, so he must have been writing from a draft. If the draft was lined properly, he would have known at least how lines follow each other, even if he did not know what they meant. But he still was sloppy with it. So, this really does not provide evidence that he could not read (understand) the original.
He may have even considered it a two columned set up, hard to tell, and still being sloppy at it. On page f40r, there are 11 lines on the left, and 10 lines on the right, and they seem aligned, though they must not be following page-wide lines. A two-column possibility could work there as well.
So, perhaps he had columns in mind on your proposed page too, and did a sloppy job at it, even though he could likely see in the original how lines follow each other, even if he did know know what they meant. We really don’t know what his draft looked like, do we?
On the bottom of your proposed page (f34r), it would be difficult to consider the first lines of the two sides follow each other, given their distance. So, perhaps even there he had two columns in mind.
Overall, I think the assumption that the manuscript was “mysterious” even during it production in early 1400s is what is leading to the notion that these scribes did not know what they were copying. I think that broader proposition itself is problematic, as I will try to explain in a post later.
Suppose you are correct, so he must have been writing from a draft. If the draft was lined properly, he would have known at least how lines follow each other, even if he did not know what they meant. But he still was sloppy with it. So, this really does not provide evidence that he could not read (understand) the original.
He may have even considered it a two columned set up, hard to tell, and still being sloppy at it. On page f40r, there are 11 lines on the left, and 10 lines on the right, and they seem aligned, though they must not be following page-wide lines. A two-column possibility could work there as well.
So, perhaps he had columns in mind on your proposed page too, and did a sloppy job at it, even though he could likely see in the original how lines follow each other, even if he did know know what they meant. We really don’t know what his draft looked like, do we?
On the bottom of your proposed page (f34r), it would be difficult to consider the first lines of the two sides follow each other, given their distance. So, perhaps even there he had two columns in mind.
Overall, I think the assumption that the manuscript was “mysterious” even during it production in early 1400s is what is leading to the notion that these scribes did not know what they were copying. I think that broader proposition itself is problematic, as I will try to explain in a post later.