116v

[Jorge_Stolfi]

What I find missing from these images, however, are the remnants that have been written over. You’d have to be able to make them out, because nobody could paint over something of that size so precisely with a quill without it being noticeable.

The Repairman would have traced over every bit of ink that he could see, usually expanding it into a letter.  

But still some of the ink that we see now may be original. Like the descenders of the "p" in "pal8en pbrey". 

Contrary to some claims made here, it is quite possible to retrace pen strokes without leaving obvious parts sticking out.  Any experienced scribe should be able to do that.  

Just because *I* cannot do that it does not follow that nobody can.  By that argument, we should conclude that it is impossible to play the violin or walk on a tightrope...

The Repairman's pen strokes are ~0.4 mm wide.  If the original trace is as faint as the descenders of the "p"s above, and sticks out along one side of the new trace by 0.1 mm, it will not be distinguishable in the images we have.  One would need much higher resolution (like the McCrone microscope images) to distinguish t.

And there seems to be a faint straight vertical stroke parallel to the vertical stroke of "f" in "gaf".  That may be original too.

The writing you can see there in this picture has bled through from the other side. I’ve tested it.

Yes, I have tested that too.  

Besides, someone who looks at the real vellum would hardly confuse bleedthrough with ink smudges, no matter how faint.  The bleedthrough text would be obviously on the other side, with blurred edges, wrong color, etc.  The confusion is possible only in low-res digital images like those we have.

All the best, --stolfi