Re: VMs: Drawing circles

[Barbara Barrett <barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Larry Lipped;
> 
> I am not sure what the mystery is regarding the circular drawings
> (nymphs) and text.
> 
> I thought that the vellum was rotated (no need for a rotating table)
> as the author wrote it.  You can see how the angle of the glyphs
> changes each time the page was rotated.  I can rotate a page without
> the need of something so drastic as a rotating table.

Barbara babbles;
I wonder how many listers realise that the artists tool, the "light
box", was actually invented in the 7th Century AD by an unknown monk on
Holy Island to aid the production of the Lindisfarne Gospels (AKA The
Book of Lindisfarne) and was a standard tool of monastic scriptoria by
the 8thC? Any well equiped private scriptorium in the 16thC would almost
certainly have had at least one.

I've no idea what these "ancient" light boxes used in place of modern
float glass (a 20thC invention) as a work surface, howver the principle
of placing a light source behind a transparent work surface to enable
*very* accurate tracing, and a shadowless work surface, was several
centuries old by the time of the Voynich and I can see no reason why the
Voynich author(s) couldn't have used one if they worked in a monastic or
private scriptorium.

Perhaps this explains the "how" of the drawings folk puzzle over?

Just a thought.

Barbara

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