04-01-2026, 04:46 PM
@ Jorge_Stolfi, thanks.
That page is actually very helpful and in some ways is taking you in the direction of seeing the draft (from which the scribe was copying) as more than just short instructions, but a more elaborate original.
You write there (I am copying from your post directly), “I used to think that, apart from those Pharma bits, the plants were entirely made up by the Scribe. But now, after think about that misalignment of f34r, I changed my mind. I now believe that Author's draft already had a rough sketch of of the whole plant and of the overall layout of the text relative to it. This in fact seems more plausible than my previous theory. The Scribe surely could flesh out simple details of the illustrations, like nymph hairdos and dresses; but inventing a whole plant on each page would have been asking too much of him.”
I think you are entitled of course to the theory that the author was alive then. I am inclined to think otherwise, whether or not the scribe could understand the text. In my study of Khayyam’s treatises reading them in original Arabic in scribe hands, I could see that even when the scribe knew the language, they were sloppy and made great errors (sometimes because they were themselves copying from other sloppy copies). The scribes are scribes, they may not even think carefully when they were doing a text, even when they could read the text.
The bigger picture of your contribution here is that there must have been a draft from which the vellum was being prepared, whether or not the scribes could understand it. I think they could, but they were sloppy, and unlike your inclination, I think the author was no longer around, so their errors were compounded in the scribing task. That is all I am trying to suggest as the bigger picture, and it is worth considering a whole range of possibilities the original draft may have looked like.
You are in the page you linked inclined to see the author was around and giving more detailed (than you previously thought) instructions. I am inclined to see more the possibility that the scribes were given the task of transferring to vellum a complete draft (it may not have been even called a draft, but just the very original manuscript that had been used also by the author for a long while when alive), and doing so had to be concerned about space (given vellum costs), so the text and plants they had likely seen on separate pages in the draft, now they had to try to put them on the same page to the extent they could. Sloppiness had less to do with the question whether they could read the original. I think they could have, and the complete was not as mysterious as it looks today – to us.
Your contribution, Jorge, is the bigger picture. This VM vellum was not the first thing, it was being done from another manuscript (called draft or not), and this opens many possibilities and in fact is a very important contribution, in my view toward solving the puzzle.
I have not had a chance to work on my next item but will post it when I get around to it.
That page is actually very helpful and in some ways is taking you in the direction of seeing the draft (from which the scribe was copying) as more than just short instructions, but a more elaborate original.
You write there (I am copying from your post directly), “I used to think that, apart from those Pharma bits, the plants were entirely made up by the Scribe. But now, after think about that misalignment of f34r, I changed my mind. I now believe that Author's draft already had a rough sketch of of the whole plant and of the overall layout of the text relative to it. This in fact seems more plausible than my previous theory. The Scribe surely could flesh out simple details of the illustrations, like nymph hairdos and dresses; but inventing a whole plant on each page would have been asking too much of him.”
I think you are entitled of course to the theory that the author was alive then. I am inclined to think otherwise, whether or not the scribe could understand the text. In my study of Khayyam’s treatises reading them in original Arabic in scribe hands, I could see that even when the scribe knew the language, they were sloppy and made great errors (sometimes because they were themselves copying from other sloppy copies). The scribes are scribes, they may not even think carefully when they were doing a text, even when they could read the text.
The bigger picture of your contribution here is that there must have been a draft from which the vellum was being prepared, whether or not the scribes could understand it. I think they could, but they were sloppy, and unlike your inclination, I think the author was no longer around, so their errors were compounded in the scribing task. That is all I am trying to suggest as the bigger picture, and it is worth considering a whole range of possibilities the original draft may have looked like.
You are in the page you linked inclined to see the author was around and giving more detailed (than you previously thought) instructions. I am inclined to see more the possibility that the scribes were given the task of transferring to vellum a complete draft (it may not have been even called a draft, but just the very original manuscript that had been used also by the author for a long while when alive), and doing so had to be concerned about space (given vellum costs), so the text and plants they had likely seen on separate pages in the draft, now they had to try to put them on the same page to the extent they could. Sloppiness had less to do with the question whether they could read the original. I think they could have, and the complete was not as mysterious as it looks today – to us.
Your contribution, Jorge, is the bigger picture. This VM vellum was not the first thing, it was being done from another manuscript (called draft or not), and this opens many possibilities and in fact is a very important contribution, in my view toward solving the puzzle.
I have not had a chance to work on my next item but will post it when I get around to it.