Period of Original Use

[nickpelling]

@ nickpelling

Even if the bifolios had been misordered, it does not follow that the quire-number-adding person could not read the ms.

I am quite sure  the quire numbers are Arabic numbers and I don't see what is unusual about them

Hi Helmut,

Back in The Curse of the Voynich (2006), I reconstructed the original gathering nesting for part of what is now Q13. It seems certain that the central bifolio included the double page spread where the water runs across the central fold from one side to the other (f78v-f81r). Moreover, the overwhelming probability (look at the symmetric design and the pair of 'pineapples' at the top of the pair) is that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. originally faced f84v. The central four folios of that quire were therefore originally (what are now) f84 - f78 - f81 - f75. Unfortunately this is inconsistent with the final quire numbering (which is on f84v). If you have a counterargument, I'd be very interested to hear it. Hence the gatherings had been nested in completely the wrong order by the time the Q13 quire number was added: which I believe implies that the person adding the quire numbers was unable to read the content.

The quire numbers use a very specific (and very transitional) (and indeed rather ugly) numbering style: abbreviated longhand Roman ordinals. Very few documents use this in any context.

Cheers, Nick