RE: VMs: RE: Yet another page

["John Grove" <John@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree that the first two quires seem to be pretty solid in their
order, and that as per GC's comments - we need to perhaps take a
closer look at which came first - the binding or the writing.

If written first, then bound - was the text meant to be read from
f1r then f8v, then f1v and f8r? then on to page two?

Second option for writing first, then binding - could be the author
new exactly what order the pages would go in when bound and therefore
wrote f1r, flipped over the vellum and wrote f1v, flipped it over
again and wrote the last two pages the same way.

I don't know if we can be certain whether the vellum was bound before
or after writing - or when the quire marks were made. There is no
doubt that some of the binding gave way over time and repairs were made
(incorrectly shuffling some pages I think -- like the misaligned quire 9)
and perhaps the B-tokened pages.

If the pages were written separately and piled up in a specific expected
order before being bound, the author would still have to make sure that
the result would be read by following f1r/f1v/f2r/f2v wouldn't he - rather
than the above. This means that if he wrote a full B-tokened page as
the beginning and end of a quire he would expected the reader to follow
through the various pages in between wouldn't he?

John.



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Nick Pelling
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 7:45 AM
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: VMs: RE: Yet another page


Hi John,

At 05:50 24/07/2003 -0400, John Grove wrote:
>Also, if the content was written on separate sheets of vellum before
>being bound (which I agree it probably was), then the question as to
>whether the author foresaw the quire ordering and made the opening
>page distinct from the closing pages. Page one is the introduction to
>a subject, but page 8 (on the same sheet) would be the conclusion -
>unless the text is supposed to be read on separate sheets - Read page
>one, then page 8, then page 2 - then page 7?

I'm quite sure (from all the subtle bleed-across) that the folios in the
first quire are in the same order that they were in when it was painted up
- from that, I infer that they're probably in the correct order.

Quick aside: could you infer that some (or perhaps all?) of the painting
was done *after* it had been bound into quires? Is there evidence to prove
or disprove this hypothesis?

The only pages in the original quire 1, then, with right-justified titles
are f1r (which has 4) and f8r (which has 3 or 4, depending on how you view
line 2), on the same bifolio. But however you fold that bifolio, one will
be on the inside & one will be on the outside - what explanation could
there be for that?

That this might be a genuine phenomenon would seem to be confirmed by quire
2: the only title-like strings there are on pages f9r (bottom line) and
f16r (fourth line) - which are also on alternate sides of the same
outermost bifolio of the quire.

This pattern doesn't seem to hold elsewhere (though I haven't checked
exhaustively), but it's interesting all the same... :-o

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


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