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Was VM cut at the bottom?
- Was VM cut at the bottom?
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Was VM cut at the bottom?
Rafal > 02-02-2026, 12:40 PM
It feels like Voynich Manuscript pages were once a bit higher and at some moment were trimmed at the bottom:
It seems to me that it is not a single page case but it rather occured on many (if not all) pages.
There is probably some old discussion about it
but I am curious to hear current views.
- do you agree that it was trimmed at the bottom?
- when could it happen?
- why was it done?
For me it seems that:
- it was cut before binding as quire numbers aren't cut and are aligned to the new bottom
- it was done in a very rough way, the edges are "wavy" and irregular like it was done by some drunken butcher in one swift move of his butcher knife
- I have no idea why it was done
- I also don't know if such things were commonly done to other manuscripts
Any opinions? -
RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
Jorge_Stolfi > 02-02-2026, 02:54 PM
(02-02-2026, 12:40 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It feels like Voynich Manuscript pages were once a bit higher and at some moment were trimmed at the bottom: It seems to me that it is not a single page case but it rather occured on many (if not all) pages.
I recall at least one page whose edge seemed to be (relatively) freshly cut. But not enough to impact the contents. Maybe an entire flap of a fold-out was removed, maybe the page was trimmed because it stuck out after a re-binding.
As for those herbal roots, another explanation may be that the Artist failed to plan, drew the upper parts first, and when he got to the root he had to squeeze it into whatever space was left, up to the very physical edge of the page.
Or maybe the first version of Herbal did not show the roots of those plants, and these had to be added later, when potential buyers complained "what do you mean 'the roots are not important for this plant'? Everybody knows that any decent herbal shows the roots of every plant, important or not! I am not going to buy a herbal that is half-done!"
Curiously there is a plant in Pharma f102r1 whose root is squeezed against the bottom edge of the page, in a place where that edge deviates up by a couple cm. That root was visibly copied on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (or both were copied from the same source), and the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. copy too is confined to the bottom 2/3 of the bottom margin, only a couple of mm above the bottom edge of the page...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
LisaFaginDavis > 02-02-2026, 03:02 PM
My examinations suggest that the parchment edges have not been trimmed, with the exception of f. 102, which was torn after the illustrations were drawn. -
RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
Rafal > 02-02-2026, 03:21 PM
I am not an expert but I can see dozens of cases where roots were cut in a brutal way:
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RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
Koen G > 02-02-2026, 05:37 PM
How do you see the difference between cut and drawn up to the edge? -
RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
LisaFaginDavis > 02-02-2026, 05:59 PM
The edges are wildly uneven. If the manuscript had been trimmed, it would show much more uniformity. My interpretation of all of those edges (except for 102, as I noted above) is that they were drawn running off the page. The lack of uniformity at the edges is one more sign of the manuscript's rough quality. -
RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
Rafal > 02-02-2026, 08:24 PM
It seems more complicated than I thought.
My logic was - if you draw a person, animal or plant then you usually want to draw it complete. You don't for example cut off part of the head like in my fake example below:
So in my theory roots should be drawn to their tips (is it a proper word?). If they aren't then they were cut.
But I checked better quality manuscripts than Voynich and it looks like the roots sometimes aren't drawn to their tips too, yet the page wasn't probably cut. Seems that they simply didn't fit:
It is much rarer than in Voynich Manuscript but it happens.
So maybe after all Voynich artist was just a bad planner. He started drawing roots (maybe copying them from some source) and then didn't have enough space to draw them completely.
Yet somehow I feel the pages were cut
There are too many of these cases. But I am unable to prove it.
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RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
Jorge_Stolfi > 03-02-2026, 08:56 AM
(02-02-2026, 03:02 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My examinations suggest that the parchment edges have not been trimmed, with the exception of f. 102, which was torn after the illustrations were drawn.
I see signs of trimming on f90r2:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Was VM cut at the bottom?
eggyk > 23-05-2026, 06:21 PM
(03-02-2026, 08:56 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I see signs of trimming on f90r2:
(29-12-2025, 07:50 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The S edge of the f90r2 panel too seems to have been cut. There seem to have been one smooth cut from the W edge, ~115 mm wide, that ends abruptly, then a second cut that starts ~0.5 mm lower and continues to the E edge. The cuts are slightly curved, but that may be due to vellum curvature. The part that was cut away may have been another triangular sliver ~150 mm wide and ~4 mm tall at the E end.
I assume this refers to this area on f90r2:
If so, it seems to be mirrored on f90r1:
Both of these are roughly equidistant from the fold (these horizontal arrows are identical), implying that if this is a cut, it happened when while it was folded. Apologies if this was already discussed elsewhere.