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Re: VMs: The Painter and the Retoucher

My remarks at end of message .... Knox

Nick Pelling wrote:

Hi everyone,

At 05:43 18/07/2004 -0300, Jorge Stolfi wrote:

After looking at a couple dozen pages in close-up, my impression is
that the Retoucher went through most of the manuscript, carefully but
rather mechanically retracing many drawing strokes and letters -- on
some pages, almost all of the text.

In some cases it seems that he was not quite sure of what letter he
was retracing. In some cases he may have misunderstood the drawing.
For instance, check the leftmost nymph at the top of page f73v
(Sagittarius). The Retoucher apparently mistook the bottom edge of the
nymph's leg for the top edge of a "barrel", and provided the rest
of the barrel -- presumably thinking that it had faded out completely.
Ditto for the next nyph. Presumably he then noticed the mistake
and so left the barrels unfinished.


Bravo, Jorge! Yet another silent player is discovered lurking within the mise-en-scene! :-)

IMO, the most important issue would be to order the Retoucher's layer of changes - specifically, did the Retoucher pre-date or post-date the Heavy Painter? What would evidence to validate or falsify either of these positions need to look like?

My impression is that (1) he was someone who valued the book quite a
lot and spent a long time on it; and (2) he did not understand it.
Beresch, perhaps?


Could be, could be... examples of Baresch's handwriting might also prove to be examples of the ink he used, so this idea might ultimately be testable via physical evidence. But it's still a long shot for the moment. :-)

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

o------------o------------o

I would say this is the most significant discovery in the six months I have been on the list -- but ...

What would account for the letters being in need of touch-up? Consider that it has been a while since the touch-up but the original letters are still plain to see. Also, the letters that were touched-up are not necessarily the letters written as the staff was running out of ink (which is how it is determined that they were touched-up). It seems those letters would have been the ones most in need of touch-up. If a would-be decipherer rather than a person knowing the script did the touch up, that is less important than if the toucher-upper valued the manuscript for personal reasons, knowing its general meaning but unable to read it.

KM

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