My collection of lyre-shaped horns:
Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg Cod. Pal. Germ. 832 f. 93r (1491 - 1501)
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Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg Cod. Pal. germ. 794 f. 66r (ca. 1415)
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BNF Latin 15125 f. 37v (14th c.)
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Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Ms. germ. fol. 244 f. 14v (ca. 1445)
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Getty Center Ms. Ludwig XII 8, f. 57r (shortly after 1464)
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University of Pennsylvania LJS 449 f. 12v (1446)
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University of Pennsylvania LJS 463 f. 20r (1443)
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I was hoping that the above example dated 1415 would be a stronger candidate. As it is, it's horns are strange. It's flat-footed and pizzleless. Does it have some redeeming qualities? It does have a certain look.
With top scores of 14, is there reason to track examples that are scored at 7 or less?
I'll have a look at the new bulls tomorrow.
R.Sale: let's keep in mind that I just quickly gathered these properties. Some of them may be useless, i.e. those introduced by the Voynich artist themselves. We won't know which ones those are without going through a bunch of samples though.
There is probably a near agreement that the neck and horns are required for the type, so a bull that checks those boxes might still be worth including even if it's different in other ways.
Added Nablator's examples. The 1415 one is not too bad, everything considered. It just adds some weird things of its own, like making the horns very fat and drawing crossed circles on the knees.
Some illustrators kept drawing long upward necks as if they had never seen a bull. Is there a known explanation for this unnatural feature?
I suppose the Zodiac figure was just meant to strike a majestic pose. This Taurus for example has a 90° angle between its neck and back (I haven't traced it to a manuscript yet): You are not allowed to view links.
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Johannes Müller von Königsberg (1436-1476) was an astronomer-astrologer, better known as Regiomontanus. You are not allowed to view links.
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The way a thing looks in pictorial culture is not necessarily the way they saw the thing in real life. That's why we can be 100% certain that the VM bull relates to other sources. And I think we should be able to get closer to these sources.
That perpendicular neck and elevated head [Post #16] are more extreme than on the VMs bulls.
It's something more often seen in the illustrations of deer.
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Here's another bull with a perpendicular neck, and it's also a Taurus.
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Schürstab Codex, Nuremberg · around 1472
(24-12-2024, 12:37 AM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the spreadsheet, BNF Latin 9333 is dated 1400. @Bernd dated the ms 1445-1451. [Other thread Post #11]
Well I can't date the manuscript myself but I checked several sources and they are confusing:
1400-1425
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1445-1451
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1474-1499
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Obviously 2 of those 3 are incorrect. I used the only peer-reviewed publication I found which dates BNF Latin 9333 to 1445-1451 citing the following sources:
Bertiz AA. 2003. Picturing health: the garden and courtiers at play in the late fourteenth-century illuminated Tacuinum Sanitatis. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Southern California (UMI no. 3116666).
Mane P. 2006. Le travail a` la campagne au Moyen Âge. Étude iconographique. Paris: Picard.
I cannot access either but it appears the mid-15th century dating is the most accepted. But I am not 100% satisfied so still take this with a grain of salt until we have an actually primary source for this date.