Quantitative Analysis of Typeface Variations in 16th-Century Editions of Nostradamus — Quantitative Analysis of Typeface Variations in 16th-Century Editions of Nostradamus — A Comparative Study of the Dresden and Krafft Copies
2006/06/13
Hayato Takubo
This study quantitatively verifies the degree of consistency in layout and typeface between the 1940 Krafft facsimile edition and the 1568 Lyon edition (commonly known as the Dresden edition), which has been regarded as the original text. The comparison was conducted on 25 words and 160 instances, using HOG features and PCA dimension reduction for shape comparison and SSIM for visual similarity measurement. The results showed that while there was a high degree of consistency in the structure and layout between the Krafft edition and the Dresden edition, significant differences were observed in typeface shapes and printing variations, suggesting that the two editions may have been produced on non-identical physical media through processes such as phototypesetting.
Furthermore, even between the Chomarat book and the Lyon B book, which were used as comparison targets, the SSIM values did not necessarily show high consistency despite being from the same series, revealing the significant influence of phrase sampling and minor differences in printing practices on visual comparison results. The above findings indicate the necessity of a new methodological approach for bibliographic verification of facsimile editions, which involves systematically detecting and comparing typographic elements at the typeface level rather than relying solely on visual impressions to identify the physical original text.
§1. Research Background and Previous Studies
§2. Image Processing, Contour Extraction, and Quantitative Comparison Methods
§3. Estimation of the Original Text by Comparing Typefaces and Verification of the Method
§4. Reconsideration of the Definition of Facsimile Editions and the Significance of Font Comparison
§5. Reference
Report:re_L0014e, 2025/06/13
Compiled and Published by: Hayato Takubo (Nostradamus Research Lab / OFFICE SURPLACE)
Publication Dates: Jun 13, 2025
Format: PDF (sequential updates) / Non-commercial open access (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Copyright © 2025 Hayato Takubo. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is prohibited.
Contact: hayatos2011-nostradamuslab01[at]yahoo.co.jp (Please replace [at] with @)
