23-10-2017, 09:45 AM
(This post was last modified: 23-10-2017, 12:33 PM by Diane.
Edit Reason: to reduce
)
Oh dear - another furphy has taken root.
It's one thing to point out that a little bit is apparently lost from a single folio here and there. It doesn't constitute a 're-trimming when the book was bound'.
Where The Atlantic got THIS false impression I have no idea, but the recent article asserts as if the poor journalist had been told so:
"Yes, there is evidence that the Voynich manuscript is missing pages and has been trimmed as it’s been rebound, but there is no evidence of an index. "
IT IS NOT TRUE.
There is NO evidence that the folios were trimmed on re-binding. NONE.
In terms of where folios were being produced in vellum of such rough quality and in these fairly unusual measurements - that there should be odd bits of trimming seen on individual folios is not important.
What WOULD matter in terms of the information which the ms offers about where it was produced would be the loss of original dimensions if, as often happened, the whole stack of quires was uniformly trimmed in a later re-binding. That did not occur... as everyone is obliged to admit, even those who would like a bit of wiggle-room for the sake of a theory.
What we have is the odd leaf from which a little seems to have been shaved.
It's one thing to point out that a little bit is apparently lost from a single folio here and there. It doesn't constitute a 're-trimming when the book was bound'.
Where The Atlantic got THIS false impression I have no idea, but the recent article asserts as if the poor journalist had been told so:
"Yes, there is evidence that the Voynich manuscript is missing pages and has been trimmed as it’s been rebound, but there is no evidence of an index. "
IT IS NOT TRUE.
There is NO evidence that the folios were trimmed on re-binding. NONE.
In terms of where folios were being produced in vellum of such rough quality and in these fairly unusual measurements - that there should be odd bits of trimming seen on individual folios is not important.
What WOULD matter in terms of the information which the ms offers about where it was produced would be the loss of original dimensions if, as often happened, the whole stack of quires was uniformly trimmed in a later re-binding. That did not occur... as everyone is obliged to admit, even those who would like a bit of wiggle-room for the sake of a theory.
What we have is the odd leaf from which a little seems to have been shaved.