Re: VMs: Colored paints, touch-ups, and the michiton text

["DANA SCOTT" <dscott520@xxxxxxx>]

>From "A Preliminary Sketch of the History of the Roger Bacon Cipher 
Manuscript" by Wilfrid M. Voynich (Transactions of the College of Physicians 
of Philadelphia, pp.421-422, read April 20, 1921) we learn the following:

   "When I brought this manuscript to America the margins of the first page 
had the appearance of being blank, but an accident to a photostatic 
reproduction of this page revealed the fact that an underexposure of the 
plate brings out a faded autograph in the lower margin. Chemicals were 
applied to the margins and the autograph, Jacobus de Tepenecz, became 
visible, with some illegible figures below it." (Plate 2.--Voynich., p.421)

Notice that there is no indication that chemicals were applied to the 
original manuscript. The photograph of Plate 2 showing the referenced 
autograph is on the dark side. The signature is visible; however, the 
"illegible figures below it" remain somewhat illegible, primarily evident 
directly under "Tepenecz", though there may be more.

Regards,
Dana Scott


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nick Pelling" <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 3:54 PM
Subject: Re: VMs: Colored paints, touch-ups, and the michiton text


> Hi everyone,
>
> At 15:49 04/07/2004 -0600, GC wrote:
> >I don't know for sure, but there may be some information available on at
> >least part of the VMS travels.  In the upper right corner of f1r, to the
> >left of the foliated "1", there is some very faint writing, looks like it
> >starts with "Dig"  or "Big"  I've seen a few manuscripts that have a 
> >brief
> >monastery signature in this location, and the text below, looks like "Me" 
> >or
> >something like it, looks familiar as a monastery signature.  These 
> >usually
> >were just the name of the monastery to which the book belonged.
>
> Hmmm... to my eyes, it also looks a bit like "Pig" and "Me". Perhaps it 
> was
> written by a short person with a blow-pipe? :-)
>
> >I've done my best on this text, but it's really faint and difficult.  It 
> >may
> >be unreadable, but it also may be an extremely important bit of 
> >information
> >that can help answer some questions.  Just a thought.
>
> Does anyone know what date WMV applied chemicals to the signature, and if
> any of the photographs taken of f1r predated that event?
>
> With modern image enhancement techniques, it's quite possible that we 
> might
> get more joy working from an early photo than from the sid-file.
>
> Alternatively, there's a good case for asking the Beinecke if it retained
> (and can allow us access to a handful of) its (uncompressed) 8-bit TIFF
> scans (FWIW, the file names are embedded in the sidfile meta-data). 
> Perhaps
> other pages with near-readable marginalia (such the "michiton oladabas"
> page, etc) might also be good candidates for this request?
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
>
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