The Voynich Ninja

(06-10-2018, 02:41 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the same region (Trentino) there is Castle Runkelstein (Bolzano) with baggy sleeves in several frescos. Haven't found out a precise date yet, apart from a vague "14th-15th century".
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Hi Koen,
thank you for the interesting thread.

I would like to point out that Castle Runkelstein is in Alto Adige (aka Südtirol).
Trentino-Alto Adige is an administrative region made of two distinct and autonomous provinces: Trentino (main town Trento) is Italian speaking; Alto Adige / Südtirol (main town Bolzano / Bozen) largely is German speaking. Most Italian speakers in Alto Adige are descendants of people who moved there in the XX Century. In the region there also is a Ladin-speaking minority.

I think the German / Italian linguistic split took place in the XIII Century, when the descendants of the Bavarian Eurasburg family (later the Counts of Tirol) took control of Bozen, which was previously ruled by the Prince-Bishops of Trento.

The Aquila tower frescos are in Trento, but they were likely painted by a Bohemian artist. The customer of the cycle was Prince-Bishop Georg von Liechtenstein-Nicolsburg, born in Moravia and descendant of an Austrian family.
The frescoes are said to have been partly inspired by a Tacuinum Sanitatis. If I understand correctly this passage in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., this Tacuinum is the Vienna ms mentioned above (Codex Vindobonensis series nova 2644). The book was painted for the Veronese Speroni family, but it could have been made in Pavia by the Giovannino dei Grassi workshop as a gift from the Visconti family. It later belonged to Prince-Bishop Georg von Liechtenstein.

(05-10-2018, 10:08 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There's also an interesting fresco in Trentino: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I'm not sure if the sleeves are baggy enough (probably they are) but the style is much closer to the VM. If anyone could find a more precise date for these, it would also be useful.

The Palazzo Nero / Black Palace in Coredo (Val di Non) also is in Trentino. It was built and frescoed in 1460 ca for Prince-Bishop Georg Hack von Themeswald aka Giorgio II Hack von Themeswald.

Thank you Marco, I was unaware of the distinction. I must admit I had to look up the location of Bolzano, until a while ago I only knew it as a type of salami

By the way if you think any crucial examples are missing or I included some that shouldn't have, don't hesitate to let me know.

JKP: wow, I think I'll also need a nap first

JKP, I already added part of your list, will continue later.

Some more examples:

Basel Universitätsbibliothek A II 4, Freiburg, 1400, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
Bibliothèque de Genève Ms. fr. 57, France, 1402, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

BL King's 5, Northern Netherlands, 1405, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

A "typological picture book" used by Dutch illuminators. It's mostly biblical scenes where the characters wears typical "Jesus dress", but a handful of figures get the kind of dress we are looking for.

Notice once again that it's someone wielding an axe/sword/scythe or other major hand tool.

(11-10-2018, 11:41 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Notice once again that it's someone wielding an axe/sword/scythe or other major hand tool.

Yeah, this is often the case. I don't remember which manuscript it was, but there was one that gave me an idea about this. It looked like the guys originally had a wide sleeve flaring at the wrist, but when they needed to do some manual task they had the sleeve bound tight at the wrist with some band, as to not hinter too much.

So I wonder if the "elbow bag" was originally a practical adaptation of the "flaring sleeve". And then it became tailored specifically with a tight wrist, to be preferred to still look pompous while using one's hands.

And then after 30 years they realized it looked ridiculous and never wore their sleeves like that again.


Here's another one from the same MS, soldier behind Jesus:
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I wonder if the flowing sleeves (medieval) were for ease of movement, and that's why they're linked to heavy hand implements, as JKP pointed out?

It's definitely used by nobles, but I think it was considered the more practical version of the flared sleeves. If you've got this giant open ring around your hands it's gonna get stuck everywhere. So the sleeves that are tight at the wrist return often in certain situations:
- worn by children (naturally clumsy)
- hunters
- wealthy people using weapons or tools

The following MS is bursting with examples:

BL Royal 20 B XX, Paris, 1400-1425, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

For example here we see "Nectanebus practicising enchantments of Olympias, who lies in bed". He has his sleeves tight at the wrist for the occasion:

It's amazing. Once you know the story, it becomes so easy to recognize it from a few clues:

 


It's just as easy to recognize as the stories about St. Martha and the tarasque.

And... even though they all depict the same Nectanebus, most of them do NOT include the narrow-wide-narrow form of sleeve.

And, it's interesting iconographically, because some illustrators combined Nectanebus and the dragon into one image (my impression is that this is the way things may be done in the VMS):

I keep forgetting to post this one. I've had it for a while, but it's too big to upload as an attachment and I needed to convert it to .png.

Underneath the dude with the heart on his sleeve (well, almost on his sleeve) is a reference to "amore" and "fulgencius" (which I assume is Fulgentius and his interpretation of Virgilian morality):



V. Pal Lat 1726

There are many interesting drawings. Including a pair of double-dorsal, undulating fish covered in scales (similar to Pisces), a nose on another fish (earlier in the manuscript) that resembles the nose on round-nosed Aries, and quite a bit more.