VMs: A few comments about the missing folio numbers... and quire signatures.

["John Grove" <4groves@xxxxxxxxx>]

	Just perusing through Nick's Array of page numbers to sid-files and playing
around with the display of bifolios. While doing so I realized the problem
with using math to calculate where I am is the missing pages like f12r/v -
no wonder I had to do a little contortionist math to make the bifolio show
up correctly - Beinecke just numbered one up with each scan and since there
isn't a page 12 - every page after that is now one out of place for my
math... I guess Arrays should be used, eh?

	Anyway, while playing with that the variation in quire sizes and the
missing foliation paints some interesting questions about the size of the
missing quires. Before I start into that though - I still have to fend off
quire 19 and 20 signatures... I'm not so sure they are of the same age as
the rest of the quire signatures - especially 20 - because it makes no sense
for the number to be written in the bottom left of a facing page. All quire
signatures are consistently located in the bottom right corner of the last
verso page (including quire 9 in my redundant and persistent perspective).
Only quire 20 shows up on the left side of a recto page which doesn't make
sense. Please correct me if I'm wrong - but why would anyone put a quire
number on the last quire? The intent is to let you know which order they go
in - and this is why f116v doesn't have a quire number in my opinion.

	Okay... now back to the missing pages.

	The manuscript was bound by somebody who did the tedious task of numbering
all the facing recto pages without worrying about all the folded inserts
making folded inserts get more than one folio number from time to time. We
know that half of the bifolio 11 is missing - that they were there when the
foliator ran through the manuscript and wrote 11,12,13 etc...

	The next bunch gets to be a little more cause for questioning what the
quire looked like at the time the foliator was running through (and in my
opinion again - already misplaced pages abound)...

There are at least.. 7 recto pages missing between 58 and 66... That's one
large quire.
For the missing zodiac pages...
I've made this supposition before - but it at least seems plausible:
	Quires 10 and 11 follow a similar pattern... so why not quire 12:
	f74r1,f74r2,f74r3,f74v3,f74v2,f74v1

	Quire 16 and Quire 18 both consist of only folio numbers - much like Quire
14: Rosettes.

	I think quires of similar content used similar patterns so 10,11, and 12
are quires of the same length and general
shape. Herbal Quires are all 8 bifolios, etc... Quire signature 20 was added
by somebody else... Argh, got to run (so much fun to be had, too)

	John.


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