???
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h.section(st, 3, "Stains")
h.parags(st, """
On page f103r there are two big stains. One is light greenish,
triangular, ~30 mm wide and ~20 mm tall, is located along the middle
of the top edge of the page; it affected some glyphs on lines 01 and
02 of the page. Another is brown, round, ~30 mm in diameter, is
located in the upper left corner, ~7 mm from the top edge and ~15 mm
fom the right edge; it affected part of the text on lines 01--03, 05,
06, 08, and 09. (Lines 04 and 07 were short and thus escaped the
stain.) A smaller round brown stain, ~5 mm wide, is located between
the big one and the right margin; it affected the last few glyphs of
lines 5 and 6. Some of the affected glyphs completely erased, others
became very faint but are still legible. These stains seeped through
to the other side (f103v) and affected the text there too, but to a
smaller extent. Some of the affected glyphs appear to have been
retraced in the dark Retracer ink, which flared out slightly in the
areas covered by the stains. The colors suggest that the Dark Painter
dropped paint and then washed it off, with water or whatever thinner
the paint used. Which suggests that (1) the ink is not iron-gall, and
(2) the Retracer acted well after the Dark Painter and hence well
after the Scribe.""")
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Analyzing the stains around f103r
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
We will use the following terms in this report:
- 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 2026-01-20 20:54:03 by stolfi