Missing folios

[ReneZ]

One observation often mentioned in discussions of the manuscript is that the missing leaves appear to fall near major transitions between different sections of the book. Whether this is significant or merely coincidental is impossible to say, but it raises an interesting question: were these particular folios somehow considered more useful or more interesting than others?

I've only seen that suggestion once, in a recent forum discussion here, but it is not really valid. Folio 12 is in the middle of the herbal section and folios 109 and 110 in the middle of the stars/recipes section. Several others are in a mix of different topics.

Another point that has been noted by researchers is the foliation. As far as I understand it, the missing leaves were already absent by the time the manuscript received its present folio numbering, which suggests that their removal may have taken place before that stage of the manuscript’s history. If that interpretation is correct, then the loss probably predates the seventeenth-century foliation.

It's the opposite: the leaves seem to have disappeared after the folios were numbered.  Possibly also around the same time, but the person writing the numbers must have known about the folios that we no longer have.

The missing folios seem to be a collection: one of each type (to the extent that we can see).