Voynich In Person

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Theoretical question: If you ever had the chance to see the Voynich in person, what's one thing you would look for/prioritize that's harder to see digitally/would only come across in person?

I would compile beforehand a list of pages and spots which we most need to examine with higher resolution.  Then take photos of those spots with a hand-held microscope. Something like a 5x5 mm field with 1000x1000 pixels, or about 200 pixels/mm (~5000 dpi).   Hopefully the Beinecke librarians can agree to that.

That would let us answer many standing questions about handwriting, nature of ink, retracing, date of painting, marginal writing, etc.

Such a microscope could be modified to take also N images of each spot in the same click, with different narrow-band lighting. Just 3-4 images in chosen bands would suffice (like 2 UV and 2 IR).  That would help -- but not as much as the higher resolution.

All the best, --stolfi