I must correct what I wrote in You are not allowed to view links.
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(11-01-2025, 09:26 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(B) Berlin, germ. fol. 1191 (Strasbourg 1460 ca). Most illustrations in rectangular frames with titles in banners. "Winter" as old woman with staff and rosary; the other three seasons/ages were not illustrated. Physician with desk and book.
It's not that the other three seasons/ages were not illustrated: the corresponding pages, verses 1829-1974, were lost (as several other pages, see You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. p.51). The most likely scenario is that the three illustrations were there and are now lost.
Making reference to the Stemma from 'Das "Regimen" Heinrich Laufenbergs: textologische Untersuchung und Edition' by Heinz H. Menge (1976), I compared the images pointed out by Koen. Of course, it would be interesting to examine more images between the different copies of Laufenberg's Regimen, but I think this small set already gives some hints. As always, it is possible I misunderstood something or made errors along the way.
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With respect to the images included below (top to bottom):
Z You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.: several pages are missing, but Spring and Summer were preserved at the start of the manuscript. The illustrations are quite different from the others (though compatible with the descriptions in the text). The only common trait I can see with the other manuscripts is that headgear of the left figure in Spring, which is somehow similar to that of Augsburg's Spring. The text for Autumn and Winter is missing and the two images are lost. The text about the elements and the complexions is partly preserved: it is not clear if the physician illustration was lost or was never there.
B You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.: the three images are now consecutive in the manuscript, but a few pages are missing between the first image and the old woman for Winter. Likely, illustrations for Spring, Summer and Autumn were lost. The image in the left column is the initial illustration for chapter 4 (which includes images for the seasons/ages and the physician): "Here begins the fourth part of this book, and it speaks of the four parts of the year, the four elements, and also the four temperaments."
A You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.: between the first (Spring) and second (Autumn) illustration there is another illustration of a woman holding two flowers corresponding to Summer. The three seasons in the image below are Spring, Autumn and Winter.
K You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. (the manuscript that Koen linked in Post #1) has a Winter image between the third and fourth image (an old woman with two staffs). The three seasons in the image below are Spring, Summer and Autumn.
Voynich illustrations are presented counter-clockwise from the top of the diagram.
The first column in the image below is included for reference. In two of the four sources, there's a pointing figure at the start or immediately before the seasons/ages sequence; but that gesture is very common in medieval illustrations. I will focus on the other three columns, corresponding to the images pointed out by Koen in post #1.
We only have two complete sources for the relevant illustrations of Laufenberg's Regimen: Karlsruhe and Augsburg.
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The three main illustrated sources Karlsruhe, Berlin and Augsburg appear not to depend on each other. They are of course related: they all share the old woman with staff and rosary, but there are parallel traits between couples of sources that do not appear in the third copy.
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Karlsruhe shares with Augsburg images of women with flowers to represent the other seasons. The corresponding images are lost from Berlin, so we don't know if this trait was shared or not. But the two sources differ for the physician.
Augsburg and Berlin share the same illustration for the physician: facing left, with the container kept at eye level, sitting in front of an open book. The Karlsruhe figure is standing, faces right, holds the container from its neck, and there is no book. A and B also share using the old woman with rosary for Winter (rather than Autumn, as in Karlsruhe). The Munich ms mentions a fire for the Winter illustration: this suggests a parallel with Augsburg. Berlin has no fire, but a landscape with leafless trees. The posture of the woman with rosary also differs between A and B (see next point).
Karlsruhe shares with Berlin a closer version of the old woman illustration: leaning forward, rosary kept in front of the body, no fireplace. In the Augsburg version the woman is erect and there is a fire.
Overall, the situation appears to be consistent with Menge's stemma, where none of the 7 sources he considers descends from any of the others.
I would
speculate that the features that appear in at least two sources could have appeared in the original "alpha" source. I highlighted those features in yellow in the table above. The presence of a fire for Winter is dubious, since it appears in two sources (Augsburg and the textual description in Munich Cgm 377) and is absent from other two sources (Karlsruhe and Berlin). Anyway, fire being shared between Munich's winter and Augsburg's woman-with-rosary winter could be another hing for the figure originally corresponding to Winter (rather than Autumn, as in Karlsruhe only).
Another exception could be the old woman being hunched or leaning forward that, being shared between Karlsruhe and Berlin, might be a feature of the "beta" version. The physician in "beta" must have been similar to that in Berlin (since it is shared with Augsburg): the Karlsruhe illustrator must have decided to modify that image for some reason. The content of the container, the staff and the rosary are painted yellow in the Berlin and Karlsruhe manuscripts (though for K the container is partially obscured by a stain).
About the Voynich illustrations, they look closer in style to the Karlsruhe manuscript (e.g. huge heads, large flowers and rosary). Also, both manuscripts represent simpler scenes, focusing on the human figures and dropping all details like the dead trees or fireplace for winter, or the physician's desk and book. Of course, the Voynich figures are even simpler, since they must fit in the diagram and in most cases only the upper part of the body was represented.
The staff, the rosary and the content of the container are painted yellow as in the K and B manuscripts. I would say that all other colours are different?
Costumes apart, the East figure in the Voynich diagram is closer to the Berlin and Augsburg physicians (facing left, container kept above eye-level, hand at the bottom of the container). I would say that Berlin has the best match for the old woman (posture and colour of the attributes). The Augsburg version has average/decent matches for all three figures.
![[Image: m87.146ra.jpg]](https://ica.themorgan.org/icaimages/8/m87.146ra.jpg)