The claimed Voynich page

[kckluge]

Thank you for the higher resolution image from the 2004 scan! I know about the 2014 one from Beinecke but mistakenly thought the one on the Voynich Ninja folio browser was the 2004 one. So I skipped dealing with Jason Davies' tiles - which was a huge mistake. I stand by my assessment that the 2004 scan is by far the best match. Look at this. An untouched overlay, merely scaled. I wish I had a larger 2004 VM scan that wouldn't require downscaling Fabrizio's image. There is some slight shift and distortion in the text which is unsurprising considering it is not a very good copy of the original. The image itself - while purposefully improved by the artist - is extremely well aligned with the 2004 - and only the 2004 scan. The image below is a compromise between text and plant. Moving the 2004 scan up a bit, the plant overlay is almost perfect down to the root-tubes aligning with the roots in Fabrizio's copy.

Image morph video:
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The Japanese image is different from the Yale microfilm, the 2004 and 2014 scan and Fabrizio's reproduction. It is not a very good match and closer to the 2014 than the 2004 scan yet has unique distortion. Japan - white, Yale microfilm - black


So I'm not saying the 2004 scan has to be the source of Fabrizio's reproduction - but how parsimonious is the hypothesis that someone makes a freehand copy - or a copy with an optical aid - that matches an existing scan of the source so well? It is not a perfect copy, there is some minor residual distortion. But compared to the other known scans of the VM which have a considerable offset, this is extremely good.

Thank you and kudos for the work you've put into the comparisons. I'm still wondering where the heck the Japanese images came from. One relevant observation -- whatever that black thing on the lower left is, it's on the left in both recto and verso pages so it's not a clip holding the outer edge of the folio down in the actual mss.