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f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
- f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
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f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
Koen G > 08-09-2026, 05:30 PM
I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I noticed something strange about f89 and f102. There may be other foldouts as well, but I found these two the clearest. In both cases, on the recto and the verso (so four "pages"), the scribe takes into account a fold that's somewhat visible on the parchment. Gaps are left in the text block, or the whole block is confined to one side of the fold line. However, in both cases, the actual folding line that came to be used in the codex is shifted inward, i.e. the fold came to be closer to the spine.
What this tells us is that the scribe planned for a fold, more or less on the location where a previous fold is still visible. But this fold did not become the preferential one, with both sheets becoming more folded inward.
I wonder what could be deduced from this, if anything, especially with misbinding and singulions in mind. Is the current preferential fold required to fit the foldout into the codex? Maybe someone misfolded the flap before storing the MS for a long time? Although then it would be a coincidence that both foldouts show a similar shift. -
RE: f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
oshfdk > 08-09-2026, 10:10 PM
This would take the manuscript and a ruler to check, but to me it looks like the original folds were intended roughly at the normal folio width from the gutter. For this to work the odd-sized foldouts had to be neatly and carefully folded after each use. However, at some point someone just folded them carelessly wrong and then left the manuscript shut for years or decades, and the new folds became permanent.
Edit: turns out I somehow skipped over the part where you said essentially the same thing. -
RE: f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
Jorge_Stolfi > 09-09-2026, 12:38 AM
(08-09-2026, 05:30 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I noticed something strange about f89 and f102. There may be other foldouts as well, but I found these two the clearest. In both cases, on the recto and the verso (so four "pages"), the scribe takes into account a fold that's somewhat visible on the parchment. Gaps are left in the text block, or the whole block is confined to one side of the fold line. However, in both cases, the actual folding line that came to be used in the codex is shifted inward, i.e. the fold came to be closer to the spine.
You are referring to the outermost fold of each of those folios, betwen the (full-width) middle full flap and the (half-width) outer flap. The innermost fold (closest to the binding, between the inner and middle flaps) has the proper blank margins, indicating that the Scribe expected the folio to be folded there.
Good eye! Indeed I can see that the outer fold has shifted inwards by about 5-15 mm from its original position. Moreover the two folds are not parallel.
The new fold is a lot dirtier and more damaged than the original one, so presumably the shift occurred not long after the bifolios were scribed. Presumably it was when they were bound together. As long as the bifolios were loose, it was not a problem for some of them to be wider and/or taller than others, or for the edges to be out of square. That would not be acceptable after they were bound.
However, I do not see any sign that the Scribe avoided either fold (original or new). What seem to be gaps in the text are places where one or two glyphs, right over the fold, were rubbed off. (The erasure became less conspicuous, and the gap became more like an intentionally wide word space, when the adjacent glyphs, that were only half-erased, were you-know-what.)
f89r2,f89v2,f102r2,f102v2
Quote:What this tells us is that the scribe planned for a fold, more or less on the location where a previous fold is still visible.
I get the opposite conclusion. namely, when the Scribe penned those bifolios, he did not intend for those folios to have a second fold. He expected that there would be only two flaps, and two pages on each side.
But after he was done with the text and drawings those had to be folded into three panels. They were folded at that original faint fold. Maybe the other folio of the bifolio was ~10 mm wider at that time. We should try experimenting with a paper model of that bifolio...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
Linda > 09-09-2026, 03:07 AM
Perhaps it is the difference between how it was folded before it was bound, and how it needed to be folded to fit into the binding.
There are several different folds that seem to have occurred over time. -
RE: f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
Koen G > 09-09-2026, 12:45 PM
(09-09-2026, 12:38 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I get the opposite conclusion. namely, when the Scribe penned those bifolios, he did not intend for those folios to have a second fold. He expected that there would be only two flaps, and two pages on each side.
There are in fact traces of other folds that do damage glyphs willy-nilly. But what stood out to me is that on these two foldouts, there are indications of fold-avoidance, and in both cases at some distance outward from the current fold. The spacing isn't random, because on both foldouts, a similar behavior is seen on the recto as on the verso. The scribe places their paragraphs or word spaces based on where they expect the flap fold to be.
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RE: f89, f102: folds planned, then shifted towards spine?
Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 09:25 AM
(09-09-2026, 12:45 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are in fact traces of other folds that do damage glyphs willy-nilly. But what stood out to me is that on these two foldouts, there are indications of fold-avoidance, and in both cases at some distance outward from the current fold. The spacing isn't random, because on both foldouts, a similar behavior is seen on the recto as on the verso. The scribe places their paragraphs or word spaces based on where they expect the flap fold to be.
Indeed, I agree, the Scribe definitely avoided the blue fold on the bottom parag of f89r2 and on all but the first and last parag lines of f89v2.
However, on the figures and on some text lines he clearly did not avoid it.
Moreover, planning for a future fold, other than the would be quite uncharacteristic of our Scribe. He did not do so on the Zodiac pages.
So I retract my conjecture and offer a new one. When the Scribe started to work on that bifolio, it already had three vertical folds dividing each side into three full-width pages and a half-width one; the latter one with an irregular edge. The third fold was the blue one of your figure; the pink and green folds did not exist yet.
The Scribe worked on the two full-width pages adjacent to the straight edge as separate pages, but decided to use the remaining one-and-a-half pages as a single page. He did tend to avoid the blue fold when writing the text -- but only because the curvature of the vellum along that line made it difficult to write well-formed glyphs. Not because he thought that there should be a blank margin around that fold. That was not a problem for the figures, however.
Presumably, for a while the completed bifolio was kept folded along the three pre-existing folds, including the blue one. At some point it was folded along the pink line instead; but not for long. Eventually it got folded along the green line, an that is how it remained to this day.
All the best, --stolfi