The major stains on
quires 19+20

Jorge Stolfi
2025-07-23

There are five conspicuous stains that span multiple folios around the transition from quire 19 to quire 20. This webpage analyzes the stains and their implications.

Some of the stains, here called the "Rusty" group, have a rusty-brown color and apparently were created together in a single spilling accident. The other set of stains, here called the "Green" group has a light green tinge and, was created in a separate accident.

These incidents very likely happened long after the VMS was put to parch. Still, they may give useful insights for interpreting it, including the nature of inks and colors, when the colors were applied, and when the numerous retracings seen throughout the book happened.

All images in this report were either generated by myself or obtained from the Beinecke Library 2014 digital scan of the VMS.

Glossary

• bifolio, folio, quire, recto, verso: as commonly defined, e.g. in Rene's website.
• flap: each portion of a folio that is delimited by folds or physical edges of the parch. Flaps are identified as "folio . num" where num starts at 1 and increases with distance from the biding. For example, folio f103 has only one flap, f103.1, while folio f102 has three flaps, f102.{1,2,3}, where flap f102.3 is only ~1/3 as wide as the other two.
• panel: each of the two sides of a flap, recto and verso. The panels of flap "folio . num" are denoted "folio side num" where side is "r" or "v". Note that this concept is distinct from that of a (logical) page as usually defined, even though the numbering is similar; because a page may span two or more panels. Thus folio f101 has two flaps f101.{1,2} and four panels f101{r,v}{1,2} but only two pages, named f101{r,v}1 or simply f101{r,v}.

Last edited on 2025-08-17 21:59:11 by stolfi