VMs: RE: VMS Quires

["John Grove" <4groves@xxxxxxxxx>]

Can't say for sure, but I would think that page numbers serve the same
purpose as they do today. A bookmark for the memory -- I read up to
page 76, or I remember the foldout you're talking about - it's on page
85.

However, I would agree that in this case the numbers were added by someone
much like ourselves who was trying to make sense and order out of the chaos
(but he had more information - more pages!)

I vote for Marci as our foliator... just before he sent some samples to his
friend(s) so he would know where to put them when (if) he ever got them
back.

95v1 is causing my pre-bound numbering theory a little grief> if he was
marking
the top right corner of each page as he flipped through the book - 95v2
should be
the marked page---

John.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-voynich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-voynich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Nick Pelling
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 6:26 AM
To: Voynich Ms. mailing list
Subject: VMs: Re: VMS Quires


Hi John,

I hope this isn't a completely stupid question, but do you know what
function page numbers normally performed in the Renaissance when added to
manuscripts (assuming that the foliation hand is a Renaissance hand)?

I've read in several places that the idea of "locus" in texts wasn't very
well-formed around that time: a few heretical manuscripts, following the
Church's practice for dealing with heretical books, were numbered in order
that the worst of its pages be proscribed (at slightly earlier times, the
entire manuscript would have been burned) - but I don't see any evidence of
this here.

My suggestion is that the foliation would have been specifically added to
help a code-breaker navigate the text - and this is supported by
(apparently) the same hand appearing on f49v. Matching the f49v numbering
ink with the foliation ink would tend to support this.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....