RE: VMs: F66r

["John Grove" <John@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm a little disappointed by the quality of this thread - ISTM that we
should be more advanced in our reasoning on this matter.

	> Sorry to disappoint.

(1) We have a document which appears to have been bound out of order.
Evidence: the well-known plumbing mismatch in the balneo section, and from
the Currier A/B bifolio mixups throughout the herbal section - and there
are also indications that the balneo section is misordered in other ways.

	> Um... yeah. The 'plumbing' mismatch and A/B mixups are speculative
assumptions that lead one to believe things are out of order, but hardly
offer proof. Sure, I would love to say the plumbing mismatch is absolute
evidence of mis-order - but it could just be coincidence that they line up
so neatly.

(2) The crude "heavy painting" (ie not fine details, like the nymphs'
mouths and cheeks) was done once the current binding was in place.
Evidence: all the bleed-across between pages, the observation that we see
bleed-across between Currier A bifolios and Currier B bifolios, and the
fact that we only see bleed-across in places where we would expect from the
current binding.

	> Possibly, or they've been stuck in this order for 300 years and
even a little moisture may have caused staining across the facing pages...
sorry, I'm not convinced that's evidence of when the painting took place -
yet.

(3) The VMs' alphabet is strongly influenced by Tironian notae, and not
influenced by Arabic numerals at all. Evidence: the word-initial and
word-final EVA <y> seems a direct steal, and EVA <d>, <q>, <o> and <y> were
plainly not conceived as numbers.

	> Sorry... I really don't see this as evidence or fact; still a good theory
though.

(4) The VMs' writing dates to before 1500 - if it's much later than 1500,
it's someone trying to emulate pre-1500 writing. Evidence: its humanist
hand, and its reliance on Tironian notae (largely forgotten by 1500, if we
take Trithemius' "Armenian psalter" story at face value).

	> Still more speculation that 'might' support one theory.

(5) The foliation is in a mid-Renaissance schooled hand, the Latinised
quiration is in a hasty early Renaissance academic or monastic hand.
Evidence: just look at them.

	> Okay - surely you're more an expert on this than anybody else here. I can
only say that the quiration matches the numerical set shown on some
referenced
website dating to the 12th or 14th century or something like that. The
foliation
is certainly different, I agree.

 From this, we can construct a logical sequence for the construction of
these main layers - but how we interpret that sequence is another matter...

	> We could suppose a logical sequence IF we took all of the above as
factual
statements and not speculation.

(A) Pre-1500, a document is constructed. Only a little colour is used
(though perhaps some colours faded, but might still be detectable by
different scanning techniques?)

	> Not convinced here. I don't see any reason to believe that most of the
colour
wasn't there to begin with. The bleed through theory doesn't convince me -
but hey, I'm
not an expert either so what does it matter.

(B) The document is rebound

	> Actually rebound assumes that it was bound once before this step. Why
would it
not be possible to have kept the bifolios separate until you had too many of
them to manage
and finally got around to do some binding.

(C) The document is over-painted (perhaps beautified for re-sale?)

	> nah...

(D) Post-1500, the document has quire signatures added

	> Now, we can talk about rebinding, but this time the guy who's doing the
rebinding can't read
the text, but does understand a little about quire numbers and what they
represent.

	> Then perhaps quire 9 falls out, and somebody who doesn't know anything
about quire numbers
picks it up and shoves it back in where it fell out, hoping the owner won't
notice it had fallen apart
in his hands.

(E) Post-1550 (say), the document has foliation added

	> Nah... the guy who through the codex back together above decided to
number the pages so that if
the pages fell out again he'd know exactly where they go. Note that both
halves of bifolio 12 were present along
with all the missing pages at this time. They were cut out or lost even
later.

There is no evidence here to suggest (for example) that the quiration or
foliation was done by the original author: there is no evidence to suggest
that it was constructed for any particular purpose. There is, however,
evidence to suggest that the original author(s) left most of it uncoloured
(a *real* ugly duckling!), and that most of the colouring/painting was done
by someone later (and, I'd add, probably quite unconnected except through
ownership).

	> There is no evidence here to suggest that the quiration wasn't done by
the original author (as you suggest the numbering system used is much older
than
those in the foliation), I agree that the foliation certainly wasn't.
Evidence is very
thin for the colour comments in my view... but we'll have to wait and see.

	John.

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