Don't bother: I've found it now.  It's actually an common abbrev.  Thanks for the help.

(01-12-2016, 05:38 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Don't bother: I've found it now.  It's actually an common abbrev.  Thanks for the help.

I'm about 200 posts behind so I didn't see this request until after you had found it for yourself (yes, it's often used to indicate quarto in Latin texts, even before the pointy-4 came into regular use).

But I have another example, something that's not uncommon in 14th- and 15th-century texts. In this example...

                  

it's easy to read it as a four, especially if it is followed by a letter that attaches to the top of the right-hand stroke (and makes it look more like an "o") but it's the letter "p". Sometimes the loop on the p is rounder and almost completely detached from the descender and looks very much like the VMS 4o.

I sometimes wonder if this shape served as inspiration for the French code and perhaps also for the VMS glyph-shape 4o. Note that in the French code, the 4o shape stands for "p".

Tell me 40 in this example is this number?
 “Santo 40 primus?”
In the abbreviation “primus,” the macron is usually written over “p”.
[font=Arial, sans-serif]     [/font]
Full map - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 

It rather looks like the quaestio-abbr., it is a longstanding misunderstanding that the B. 408 qo is quarto, quarto would rather lok like xo, the abbr. for primus would be p with an overwritten s.

I think it could be "santo 40 ti", with "ti" maybe being a correction: the name, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Giacomo Gastaldi, is Santi Quaranta (40 saints). The site of Troy is a little to the right: qua fu troia grande (here was the great Troy).

PS: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (these are the 40 guys)