14-09-2026, 04:28 AM
(13-09-2026, 06:58 PM)JustAnotherTheory wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Do we have any examples at all, of regular townsfolk or non-scribes (lawyer etc) penning an entire manuscript with illustrations?
It should be pretty clear by now that the Scribe (the guy who actually wrote the text and drew the outlines of the figures on the vellum) and the Author (the guy who devised the script, composed the text, and decided which figures should be drawn) are two distinct persons, with very different educations.
In my estimate, it took about one hour for the Scribe to do a typical page. Maybe half an hour for text-only pages; maybe 2-3 hours for Pisces or the central rosette. That would be 200-300 hours for the whole book. Therefore, if the Scribe worked two hours per day, 20 days per month, the whole book would be done in less than six months. If he worked 8 hours per day, it would be done in less than two months.
I still don't know how much the Author paid for the vellum (if he did not get it from free). I have seen an estimate of about US $1 per page in today's money; but I don't know what was the epoch, country, and quality. But let's take that as a working hypothesis. If that is all the Author could spend on the vellum, he probably could not afford to pay the Scribe more than that.
Is it plausible that the Scribe would work for US $1 per page? A professional book scribe (like a monk in an abbey with a "book factory") may have passed on that opportunity. But I suppose that there would always be people with writing experience who would take that money rather than nothing. In a small town, maybe even a notary or lawyer may welcome that supplementary income...
All the best, --stolfi