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[split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
- [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
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RE: [split] Retracer etc.
Philipp Harland > 20-11-2025, 10:27 AM
(18-11-2025, 05:59 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We have a lot of threads completely going off the rails into retracer territory, to the extent that some pages can no longer be discussed without retracers and restorers and redactors and The Author and The Scribe coming up and taking over the discussion. Please discuss theories about such characters in this thread as much as possible.
Wait, really?! -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 20-11-2025, 11:18 AM
(20-11-2025, 03:27 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.No matter how much I enlarge the font, I cannot see any darker font underneath.
The underlying traces are not darker, they are lighter.
Here is another clip of the same page, with some notable details labeled.
The legend for that image is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. But here is an expanded version of the most important points:
First, consider the glyphs (A). Whether you accept the Retracing Theory (RT) or not, that is what the original traces can be like. That is what a hypothetical brown writing under the red writing could look like.
If RT is true, those glyphs (A) were not retraced because they still looked OK at the time. So imagine what the glyphs that were retraced would have looked like. And what they would look like today.
Evidence that the brown writing was retraced is not just the darkness difference between (A) and, say, (B). It is also plumes like (K) whose upper parts were retraced slowly and in the wrong direction (clockwise) and thus became thicker at the wrong end and fail to connect smoothly to the body and the start of the plume. Or the "weirdo" glyph (J), that must have been originally an y, but whose left half has vanished completely and thus was omitted by the retracer.
Now to the red ink. As I wrote above, I am not sure that there was a brown version under it. But if there was, it probably was original, and hence as faint as the (A) glyphs.
Evidence that the red ink is a late retracing includes the mangled glyphs (U) and (V), and the wrongly traced plumes (N), (O), (Y) and the loop (X). At (X) and (W), there are breaks between the horizontal branch, the loop, and the right leg of the k, indicating that they were traced as three separate strokes, rather than a single stroke as usual.
At (T) there is a dot in brown ink in the middle of the red text ring. What is it doing there? (There is another one outside that clip, at ~11:00. That one seems to be the tip of the plume of an original Sh that was retraced in red as ee, skipping the plume and ligature; and then the tip of the plume was retraced in brown, as an isolated dot.)
Finally, (L) is one of several spots where the red ink flaked off, leaving a light "ghost". Is that ghost light brown, or light pink? If the latter, is it original brown ink, like (A), or a brown stain left by some component of the red ink? I cannot tell; the resolution of the BL 2014 images is too low. I wish the multispectral set had included at least one image of this page. Or that McCrone had taken a microscope image of the red writing...
And this is still only some of the evidence I see, just in that clip. And there is more on the rest of the page. And there are many other pages where the evidence of restoration, retouching, and defacing is much clearer and stronger. Like that Habsburg crown in the Zodiac...
Quote:Give me facts, not hypotheses.
I can say the same...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Aga Tentakulus > 20-11-2025, 11:25 AM
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RE: [split] Retracer etc.
Jorge_Stolfi > 20-11-2025, 12:01 PM
(18-11-2025, 05:59 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We have a lot of threads completely going off the rails into retracer territory, to the extent that some pages can no longer be discussed without retracers and restorers and redactors and The Author and The Scribe coming up and taking over the discussion. Please discuss theories about such characters in this thread as much as possible.
Fine with me. But the Retracing Theory (like the Author Not Scribe Theory) has impact in every attempt at image analysis. Failure to consider it can lead people on a long false path and unnecessary disputes.
For instance, when someone claims that the VMS must have been created in Austria, because of that nymph's crown, I must point out that the crown at least looks damn like a later addition. "It was just the original scribe with a new batch of ink [and a sudden interest in breasts]" is not a fact, but just another alternative theory. If one is going to claim "made in Austria" by assuming this hypothesis, one should provide evidence for it...
Most people here have already accepted that the VMS has suffered various interventions over the centuries: bifolio reordering and losses, the incorrect foliation, Sinapius's signature, the month names, the three-way table on f1r, the marginalia on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f116v, ... No one would claim that it must be a 17th century forgery because the folio numbers and marginalia are in 17th century letter style. No one would claim that it must have been created in France because the month names sound sort of French. Many have also accepted that the color paints are a very late addition, and therefore must be ignored when trying to match plants or interpret diagrams and piping.
Well, I just see plenty of evidence that there were additional interventions, that people should be aware of and ignore...
All the best, --stolfi
(20-11-2025, 11:25 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What you see as K. That is an ending, and the second is a combination.
You mean the (X,W) glyph? What do you mean by "ending" and "combination"? -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Aga Tentakulus > 20-11-2025, 12:31 PM
(20-11-2025, 12:01 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You mean the (X,W) glyph? What do you mean by "ending" and "combination"?
Good question.
I've already prepared something for my trade as a follow-up.
Based on my crypto analysis, there are three similar symbols.
Why this result?
One thing is clear: the glyph only appears at the end. Very rarely on its own.
If you look at it in detail...
So numbers 1 and 5 are single symbols.
But 5 + combination symbol = ?
In addition to ‘at / et’, there is now also ‘ut’.
‘a + ut = aut’
Look up ut and aut in the dictionary. -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 20-11-2025, 12:53 PM
I see. Your theory is that it is steganography -- the glyphs are irrelevant, the "message" is encoded in the small details of stroke shapes and connections.
Now I understand why you feel so strongly about the Retracing Theory. And the Scribe Not Author Theory. They say almost exactly the opposite: those little details are irrelevant, because they are random variations of the Scribe's handwriting further perturbed by ignorant Retracers.
Well, sorry, but I think there are plenty of evidence for both theories...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 20-11-2025, 01:15 PM
Here is what my Superior Pareidolia says about the nymph with the Habsburg crown:
This clip covers the nymphs at ~00:30 and ~01:00 in the outer band of f72v1.
Only a few bits of the original (Rt0) traces survive, like (A,B,C). Most of the text and figure outlines was retraced in the first restoration round (Rt1). There may have been a second partial retracing round Rt2, but it is not clearly distinguished Rt1, since the ink color and weight look about the same. However the double tracings in (K,L) seems to be examples of Rt2 over Rt1. On this clip, the third Retracer (Rt3) retouched or added his favorite elements (R,S,T,U,V) and added the crown (Z).
And here is an approximation of what I think those two nymphs looked like at some point after Rt1 but before Rt3:
I suspect that one of the Retracers -- probably Rt2 or Rt3 -- also messed up the faces of these and other nymphs, by extending the original modest nose down, making the original mouth into the base of the nose, and adding a new mouth, possibly lowering the chin. On the first nymph I tried to undo this hypothetical transformation, but left it on the second nymph.
All the best, --stolfi
PS. Also I am still unsure about the date of the light yellow translucent color. Its distribution and the way it is applied suggest that it was not at the same time as the other color paints. But there are a few places where it seems that the Painter (which I think worked well after the last Retracer) transitioned from yellow to green without properly cleaning his "brush". But perhaps this case was a different yellow paint... -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Aga Tentakulus > 20-11-2025, 01:25 PM
Possible, but it's not quite that simple.
The whole system is based on confusion.
It looks almost the same, but it isn't.
If you don't pay attention, you'll always get it wrong. -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 20-11-2025, 11:21 PM
And here is some of what I hallucinate on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Scorpio):
As I see it, this page has the usual combination of faded original traces, Rt0, and apparently three rounds of retracing, Rt1-Rt3.
As in the other Zodiac pages, Rt1 carefully retraced most of the text and a large fraction of the figure outlines. The other two rounds were limited to isolated glyphs and words, and to limited parts of the figures.
Rounds Rt1 and Rt2 are hard to tell apart because they both used ink that now appears light yellowish ocher, somewhat translucent, with similar broadstroke widths. Round Rt3 used dark grayish-brown ink, and, as usual, was concentrated on specific parts of the nymphs' body, hairdo, and headgear. But he also retraced some labels.
The clip above spans and annotates the four "overflow" nymphs outside the diagram and standing on it. Basically, the labels are green for Rt0, cyan for Rt1 and/or Rt2, and purple for Rt3.
(A1,A3,A4,C3,D4) Original (Rt0) traces. (B1) Eyebrow from Rt0. (F4) Example of Rt1 trace. (G1) Bogus chin line across neck added by Rt1 or Rt2. (H1,H2,H3,H4) Changes to the pubic areas by Rt1 and/or Rt2. (I2) Bonnet added by Rt2.[this line is a desperate but failed attempt to get the editor of this crappy forum software to accept a paragraph break here]
Rt3 additions and modifications: (M1) Showercap. (N3) Showercap with hairline. (P1,P2,P3,P4) Eyes. (Q1,Q3,Q4) Hair. (R1,R2,R3,R4) Right breasts and nipples. (S1,S2,S3,S4) left nipples.(T3,T4) Outlines of left breasts. (U2,U3,U4) Belly buttons. (V4) Crotch line. (W1,W2) Rt1/Rt2 trace showing under Rt3 trace.
This annotated clip only considers the four nymphs. The text in that clip was retraced too, but it will be analyzed in a separate post.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Aga Tentakulus > 21-11-2025, 09:53 AM