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

[Jorge_Stolfi]

What strikes me right now is that this retrace theory definitely contradicts modern forgery theories.

Indeed, I do not believe that VMS 408 is a modern forgery. Nor a 1600s' forgery.  I believe it was indeed written in the early 1400s, close to the C14 date for the vellum.  (It is possible that it was written many decades later, on vellum that was stored unused for a long time.  But the probability is lower for longer delays, and I think it is very unlikely that an Author in 1530 would use a stack of bad ("reject" grade) vellum that had been stored away for 100 years...)

(I do have an alternative theory that contradicts the Standard Timeline and possibly involves fraud by Wilfrid.  But that is another thread.  Anyway that theory too assumes that the manuscript is a genuine 1400s' article, as per above; and I don't give it more than a 10% chance...)

All the best, --stolfi