Re: VMs: dating the VMs

["Manfred Staudinger" <manfrstaudinger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:53:36 +0100, "Maurizio M. Gavioli" wrote:

> At 11:01 22/02/2004 -0800, Manfred Staudinger wrote:
> >Normally you don't write on vellum from scratch but instead you use 
> >a piece of paper and make a copy of it on vellum. When we talk about 
> >dating the VMs then we mean only this process of copying! The paper
> >which was used might be older, how much we cannot know.
> 
> I would extend this is two directions (probably obvious but anyway useful 
> note: I am trying to see things from the perspective of a late-medieval / 
> early modern scribe; so "you" is not "someone among us, 21th c. 
> readers/writers" but an ancient scribe).

Using a scribe? You cannot use him for the secrete writing nor in the
process of encoding. So let him copying meaningless symbols on costly
vellum? I can't imagine this.  

> 2) The source you are copying/assembling from can be older: "you" may
> be a XVI c. scribe copying a Cicero's oration...

That's correct. But the task of copying is by no means a trivial one.
Each sentence has to have a meaning and the sentences have to tell
something for the reader ...

> >The leaves show plenty of space but I cannot remember a single vellum
> >ms. from say before 1500 which was not written tightly (because of the
> >costly material). On those old mss. you can see thin lines for 
> >carefully >planing the space available for the later writing. By the
> >way, I would guess such a format-free writing on vellum does not occur
> >before the second half of the 16th century ie after 1550. Any other 
> >opinions?
> 
> Space around the writing area is difficult to estimate: most codices have 
> been trimmed and re-trimmed. 

I should have given examples: see 3r or 34r. What I wanted to say there
is much space unused beside the margin which varies considerably too.
If you try to measure the writing area on pages with drawings you will
see much variation. This would mean the text is totally dependent on the drawings
and not vice versa. On 14r or 34r you can see two text portions belonging to
different parts of the drawing.
 
> Compared with the relative crudeness of the drawings, this might indicate 
> the Vms is not a *final* product, but an intermediate step of a longer 
> process (not necessarily actually carried to its end).

If we don't understand the concepts behind how can we judge crudeness
of drawings? But for sure, vellum stands for definitely (final if you
want)!

Regards, Manfred

___________________________________________________
The ALL NEW CS2000 from CompuServe
 Better!  Faster! More Powerful!
 250 FREE hours! Sign-on Now!
 http://www.compuserve.com/trycsrv/cs2000/webmail/




______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list