The Voynich Ninja

Even if You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. describes the illustrations in M II 180 as the 12 signs of the zodiac, the presence of Lyra, Cygnus, Draco and Puteus suggests that the cycle is about the constellations. But of course constellation and zodiac icons were largely interchangeable.
From You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I guess that the same is also true for Cancer in ONB You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Prague, Bohemia, 1375?-1400). This one could be interesting both for the time frame and for the presence of the correct number of legs.
The other two examples are rather different from the Voynich Cancer, but I think they could belong to the legs-on-tail type? These two clearly represent the zodiac sign, since they illustrate calendars.

My opinion is that we can say that the feature is rare, not unique.

Ooh nice find on the Vienna especially Marco. It's completely the same type as the VM one.

Cancer section updated You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

JKP: I see what you mean. This is likely a progression based on exemplars like this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Q13 does have a lot in common with this layout-wise (and given the subject matter I shouldn't be surprised), but it still has its own quirks, especially in the text flow.

Equally from the Warburg web site, this one from Paris BNF Lat 11252 is a bit of a border case.
5 or 6 of the 8 legs are attached to the wrong part of the body, which itself is a bit out of proportion.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I did not find the MS in Gallica or the BNF web site, and only know from the Warburg site that it is
German, 15th Century.

[attachment=2365]

In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (the ms with the VMS-like Cancer) Kristen Lippincott makes ample reference to Blume, Haffner, Metzger "Sternbilder des Mittelalters". They point out that the manuscript is closely related to Vienna ONB Vienna ONB 2352, a luxury manuscript commissioned by King Wenzel IV and made in Prague in 1392-1393. The two manuscripts are believed to be copies of a same lost original; ONB 2378 is also believed to have been made in Prague and it could be slightly earlier than ONB 2352 (1375?).
From another author quoted by Lippincott (Ackermann): "interesting to note that this ms and the luxury ms, Vienna ÖNB 2352, dated 1392-93, show two such different levels of quality for the same place and generally same period".

The two manuscripts belong to the Michael Scot iconographic tradition whose earliest surviving exemplar is Munich Bayerisches Staatbiblothek clm 10268 (Padua c. 1320). According to Blume, Haffner, Metzger, ONB 2352 is "iconographically closer to the archetype than to the earliest known ms (Munich 10268)".

[attachment=2368]

From this analysis, one can conclude that the common source of the Prague manuscripts now at ONB likely included a crab-like Cancer, similar to both ONB 2352 and Clm 10268. Comparison of the images of Leo also confirms that ONB 2378 visually deviates from the Scot tradition.
In my opinion, this evidence suggests that the legs-on-tail crayfish-Cancer was introduced in Prague at the end of the XIV century by the copyist of ONB 2378.

In her You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. file, Lippincott groups several manuscripts under the title "Michael Scot - German mss – IVa." This group includes the Alsatian 8-legs crayfish discussed by Koen (Lippincott labels the Salzburg ms "Studienbibl. 2 G 8/13" instead of "Sammelhandschrift M II 180"): that crayfish also belongs to the Michael Scot tradition.

[attachment=2369]

Lippincott doesn't seem to have a description file for the Salzburg ms, but a similar manuscript in the same group (Darmstadt, Hess Hochschulbibl. Ms 266) is said to be "derived from Bohemian group."

Is there sufficient evidence to believe that the legs-on-tail motif was copied (directly or indirectly) from the Bohemian ONB 2378 (1375-1400) to the Alsatian Salzburg M II 180 (1440 ca)?

The fact that both manuscripts illustrate Michael Scot's constellations suggests that the answer could be positive. Moreover, Lippincott explicitly states the derivation of at least a member of the German group from Bohemian sources.

On the other hand, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the crayfish has the correct number of legs in the correct position. The Darmstadt ms and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. suggest that the position and number of legs of the crayfish were independently altered by illustrators. The German ms posted by Rene in the previous post (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) also appears to be independent on the Bohemian Scot tradition, providing another example of independent alteration of the position of the legs. If we accept that the motif was independently introduced by several artists, its possible relevance for the VMS is much diminished.

Thanks, Marco, for yet another very clear overview.

I share your analysis to a large extent, but I feel differently about the last bit, at least if I understand correctly what you mean. Do you suggest that, since crayfish drawings are often hit and miss, we can't draw conclusions if artists make the same mistakes as those in the VM? I.e. if enough people copy a crayfish, you're bound to get some of the same mistakes?

I'd say that this is true, but on the other hand there are enough similarities between Prague-VM-Alsace to consider placing them together in one group compared to the other examples. This can best be shown by putting them all together like so:

[attachment=2370]

Now first of all, of course there is not a single crayfish that shares all properties with those in the VM. The VM artist reduced the legs to sticks and the claws to weird attachments without flex. He also over-emphasizes the separation line between head and body. 

If we're looking into possible relations with the VM drawing though, a very strong case can be made to group it with the Prague and Alsace examples. There is a major difference with the other two images: they reduce the body shape of the lobster to that of a fish, at which point legs are added as they saw fit. This is different in the "VM group", where the distinction with a fish is made for example by the three-sectioned beak.

PS: I just noticed in this picture that the green Alsatian lobster shares some specific details with the green VM lobster: green+red shading (awkwardly handled in the VM, as always); line between head and body (though more so in VM); exactly six horizontal lines on the tail; four lobes (?) on tail.

(19-09-2018, 03:23 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I share your analysis to a large extent, but I feel differently about the last bit, at least if I understand correctly what you mean. Do you suggest that, since crayfish drawings are often hit and miss, we can't draw conclusions if artists make the same mistakes as those in the VM? I.e. if enough people copy a crayfish, you're bound to get some of the same mistakes?

I'd say that this is true, but on the other hand there are enough similarities between Prague-VM-Alsace to consider placing them together in one group compared to the other examples.

I too want the Prague-VM-Alsace connection to be true: obviously this bias can be a problem, so I try to be conservative. The fact that Prague-VM-Alsace Cancer images are closer to each other than to the other legs-on-tail crayfish we have found so far is not sufficient evidence to conclude that they all descend from the Prague manuscript.
Voynich researchers tend to easily jump to strong conclusions on the basis of insufficient evidence. "This root looks like a figure on a Babylonian seal, hence the manuscript clearly incorporates Mesopotamian sources". "These two EVA labels look like Finnish words, hence Voynichese must be Finnish". "These plants look more like exotic plants than European plants, hence the manuscript indisputably represents American (or African) plants".  
But visual similarity (even when it is not totally illusory) can be due to several causes, including coincidence. People make errors like these in good faith, because of wishful thinking and the desire to find answers to the numberless questions we face. But it is better to be patient, trying to separate what can be objectively convincing from what could be coincidence.

My proposal is to split the Prague-VM-Alsace problem into two steps:

1. The easy one is checking if the Alsatian ms You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. derives from the Bohemian You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I believe that this problem has likely been studied by reliable academic scholars (e.g. Lippincott, Blume or Dekker). Since the two manuscripts provide complete series of the illustrations of the constellations, a detailed image-by-image comparison is possible. Also, the text in the two manuscripts can be compared. If we should find that the two manuscripts are not related, our Voynich crayfish (a single highly anomalous image) will not make much difference: lack off evidence of a Prague-Alsace group would make a convincing argument for a Prague-VM-Alsace group nearly impossible.

2. If the Alsatian and Bohemian manuscripts are related, we can see if the Voynich Cancer (and possibly other zodiac signs) can fit in that tradition. Even if the Prague-Alsace connection is confirmed, linking the VMS will be difficult: the Voynich cycle represents the zodiac signs, not the constellations, and (as far as I know) there are no elements suggesting that it belongs to the Michael Scot tradition.

(19-09-2018, 03:23 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.of course there is not a single crayfish that shares all properties with those in the VM. The VM artist reduced the legs to sticks and the claws to weird attachments without flex. He also over-emphasizes the separation line between head and body.

I agree. This is a very unique image, the most striking anomaly being the presence of two animals connected by a Pisces-like cord.

At the current state of our research, I think that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a more promising line of investigation: the motif is rare, but clearly intentional and it is documented in at least one Gemini image of a close date. Moreover, the similarity with the engraving is total, but for mirroring, costume and quality of execution (all differences that, contrary to the Cancer anomalies, are easily explained).

Marco: it's not because there is a lot of wishful thinking in Voynich studies, that every perceived parallel is the result of wishful thinking. In fact, I had to adjust my paradigm significantly to move towards Alsatian copy shops

I don't feel too strongly about the Prague example, it differs in even more ways from the VM lobster so it would only complicate things. But do you think it is so unlikely that there is any form of connection between the green Lauber Lobster and the green VM lobster? Anyway, it doesn't matter much - while I do believe in a Lauber connection, it will only be useful for us by studying Lauber's sources, and that's the amount of work one could fill a career with - with no certainty of any result.

I'm still planning to write up a blog post summarizing the similarities between VM and Alsatian MSS, but mostly to have it all pinned down somewhere. At this point I can't move it further than "a shadow of a missing link" as Saurma put it.

I agree that we should focus now on the track of the crossed arms. I've made a focus thread about your rings image just because I wanted to learn more about its meaning and I knew extensive literature was readily available. The engraving should be next.

Since dress often evolves separately, I guess it might also be worthwhile to create a focus thread about the Gemini clothing. This may give us a better idea of the source we're looking for.