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[split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

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• [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

• RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

  Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 06:12 PM

  (15-12-2025, 10:03 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There should be many examples of similar or larger (since this is a harder task) misalignment of strokes on every page of the Voynich MS, if MRT was correct.

  And indeed there are many such examples of imperfect retracing especially on drawings where they could be more tolerable.
  
  Again, note that the original traces that were retraced were faded at the time, and those that were not retraced presumably were "ok".  Now the latter are quite faded. So imagine how the former would look like. 
  
  Here again is that hi-res photo of from the McCrone report:
     
  The visible ramains of original strokes are (A1,A2,A3).  Some of there were simply not retraced (top and bottom of the left leg of k, foot of the k, top of the left stroke of o , ...)  But some bits that survived because of imperfect retracing, namely around the crossing traces of the k, along the bottom of the o, at the base of r's plume...  On the BL 2014 images those examples of imperfect retracing are just invisible.
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

  Jorge_Stolfi > 33 minutes ago

  (15-12-2025, 10:03 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

  
  We seem to be stuck in the same place...
  
  Let's say that a hypothetical instance of retracing is

  • perfect if it completely covers the original, possibly with a wider trace.
    
  • incomplete if only parts of a glyph or stroke are perfectly retraced, leaving the original trace visible as an extension or as a separate stroke.
    
  • imperfect if some of the original trace is not covered and is visible alongside the new trace.
    
  • backtracing if the retracing was done by the original scribe himself, possibly with a recharged pen.
    

  You seem to believe that

  • perfect retracing is impossible for any substantial amount of text or drawings.  
    
  • the cases that I claim are incomplete retracing are due to some pen and/or ink defects that cause the trace weight and/or width to change abruptly during a single stroke, or from one stroke to the next.
    
  • the cases of obvious imperfect retracting in the VMS (like the daiin on f1r) are only half a dozen or so, and are all cases of backtracing.
    

  Is this a proper statement of your position?
  
  For my part, I just can't believe in that "shape-shifting ink/pen" theory.  I can't imagine how that effect could be physically possible, and I can't believe that the Scribe would not have fixed that defect overt the 230+ pages -- which must have been written over a span of several months if not years.  Even if we assume that there was only one Scribe.
  
  On the other hand I believe that perfect retracing is not only quite possible, but was a relatively common practice at the time.  In that Swiss manuscript with thin faint "whiskers" extending from wider and darker strokes, I think that incomplete retracing of a "draft" text is the only explanation that makes sense.  I find the alternative "shape-shifting ink/pen" theory as unlikely there as in the VMS, for the same reason.
  
  And moreover there are instances of imperfect retracing, and other evidences of retracing, in that Swiss manuscript, even though they are rare (no more than 1 every 2 pages or so) and subtle.  Here are some examples: 
                                     
  In (F1) the ink of the dark brown stroke was pulled by surface tension along the thin trace of the next line, showing that that dark brown stroke was traced after the thin faint stroke of the next line.  The cases (B1) and (B2) show that there was a second pass of retouching, correcting textual errors, after the first perfect retracing.  The next clip shows that this second error-correcting pass occurred after the red text and markings were added:
     
  The brown ink corrected "boneventure" to "Bonaventure" and "racionem" to "rationem" with a dot on the "i".  The subscript "c" may be an abbreviation for "cardinalis", as St. Bonaventure is often named.
  
  As for the Book of Hours, you picked two cases in the decoration which you interpreted as cases of imperfect retracing, and assumed that they were due to inability of the scribes to perfectly trace the previous trace.  Ignoring the many other cases where the scribes proved their ability to perfectly join two lines in "T" without gaps or overshoots.  And the possibility that the scribes simply did not care to do a perfect retracing in those two cases.  Sorry, but I don't see those cases as evidence that perfect retracing is hard.
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

  Jorge_Stolfi > 6 minutes ago

  (15-12-2025, 10:03 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[The MRT] would require a true craftsman of high skill willing to dedicate months of work to the restoration of the Voynich MS.

  
  Yes, the restoration would require a scribe (or several scribes) more skilled than the original Scribe.  About as skilled as my hypothetical Junior Scribe who retraced all that St. Galen manuscript.
  
  And it would take about the same time as the original writing and drawing, namely 1-2 man-hour per page. At 8 hours per day, it would be 1-2 man-months. 
  
  But, unlike the original Author, the subsequent owners of the VMS included people like Sinapius, Barschius, and Marci, who could afford to pay for that work.  And Rudolf II, if we are to believe Raphael...
  
  

  Quote:No restoration works are mentioned in the provenance of the MS. When would all of this retracement happen, between 1500 and 1600?

  
  The comprehensive restoration (Rt1) would have occurred after the VMS left the original Author and the text was substantially faded.  Thus probably after 1550.  On the other hand, I don't see Kircher or the Jesuits at Collegio Romano caring enough about the manuscript to commission a restoration.  Thus no later than 1665 or so.   Unless maybe if they too believed that it could be a Roger Bacon original, because of Marci's letter.
  
  The scattered retracings (Rt2 and maybe others, including by the the Boobs Retracer) and the painting would have happened some time after Rt1, probably when the VMS had changed hands again.
  
  There is of course no external evidence that such restoration was or was not done.
  
  All the best, --stolfi
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