Re: VMs: dating the VMs

["Maurizio M. Gavioli" <mmg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:19 27/02/2004 +0000, Philip Neal wrote:
> Peciae! You clearly know something about manuscripts. I have posted
> some thoughts on questions of this kind on my pages:
>
> http://mysite.freeserve.com/philipneal_vms/construction.html
>
> I think it is important to remember that books about palaeography
> tend to concentrate on the impressive, well constructed manuscripts.
> There are lots of scrappy, amateurish manuscripts which tend to get
> left out of the discussion.

Back at the University, eons ago, part of our study was on commercial 
papiri, compared to which the Marburg examples you quote are luxurious 
dedication copies! You are entirely right: the study history of history of 
writing is usually too much based on top quality mss. which arguably were a 
very small minority of the book production (not to mention that they tend 
to be *outside* of the writing evolution flow, being highly stylized).

I have only glanced at your pages (there is still a whole lot to learn!) 
and it seems very well constructed (I mean, the contents, not the pages). I 
hope to come back to them soon to read them with more attention.

> When you have a copy of the entire Voynich manuscript

Right now, I am arrived to download f78. As I am on analog modem, it takes 
ages...

>  it would be
> good to have your opinion on the marginalia as a whole. I am particularly
> interested in the dating of the quire marks. They were presumably added
> shortly after the MS was written, and it seems to me that the forms of
> the numerals used are perceptibly older than the numerals used in the
> page numbering. Would you agree with me that the quire marks are
> typical of the 15th century and the page numberings have a 16th
> century appearance?

So far, I noticed only one quire mark (as they are at the bottom at the 
page and I save the images without even scrolling them...). I am afraid you 
over-estimate my skills, but they are for sure a detail to look at with 
attention.

Ciao,

        Maurizio


 Maurizio M. Gavioli -  VistaMare  Software
 via San Bernardo 5, I-16030 Pieve Ligure, ITALY
 http://www.vistamaresoft.com/

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