VMs: Counting sheep...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 00:26 22/02/2004 +0100, Maurizio M. Gavioli wrote:
> ...you don't waste the skin of ca. 30 sheep on scribblings.

May I challenge you on this? According to the Beinecke, the VMs' physical 
size is 225mm x 160mm: and, according to the rough size of modern sheepskin 
rugs, I guess you should be able to cut about 14 VMs-sized folios (or 
rather, 7 VMs-sized bifolios) from a single skin.

The VMs is foliated up to 116: even allowing a couple of extra sheep for 
extra fold-outs, surely this would point to only about 10 sheep (rather 
than 30)? Or were sheep much smaller back then? Or was it actually 
goatskin? Or - as it's vellum, not parchment - is it more likely to be 
calfskin?

All improved guesstimates gratefully received! :-)

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


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