The Voynich Ninja

Hello, I'm new here so maybe this has been talked about before but I didn't find a post about it. 

I was wondering if Easter could be the reason why Aries and Taurus are divided in two each and figures seem to be getting dressed with a transition from more than half the figures lightly clothed in Aries 1 to all (but one?) fully clothed in Aries 2 to most figures covered in Taurus 1 to nudity again from Taurus 2 on (apart from 4 figures in Gemini because why not).

I didn't consider the month names added later, but while checking a few books of hours trying to find similitudes I've found some where Aries is Mars and Taurus Auril:
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Also I checked Easter dates for all of the 15th century (Julian Calendar) and the earliest was on the 22nd of March in 1478, and the latest on the 25th of April in 1451 (which it seems is the normal range) so this would only make sense ignoring the month names.



So far I failed with finding similitudes with a book of hours, the only familiar thing I could see was this one maybe making wine in Virgo.
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I'd appreciate opinions or links to earlier posts or related information.

Cheers

I don't think this has been discussed before. The currently dominant hypothesis is that two months were split due to space constraints. Or that in some other way, the available amount of vellum on the foldouts influenced the way the series looks now.

That said, years ago I had an idea that overlaps with yours. I never wrote about it because it felt a bit uncertain, and then forgot about it. Anyway, the thought was something like this:

• Determine the order in which the nymphs have to be "read". For some reason, I thought it works the best when you start counting in the inner circle and then spiral outwards.
  
• Lay them all on an imaginary line.
  
• Overlay the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on this line.
  

Periods in the liturgical year correspond to certain colors. Depending on the period, the priest, altar etc would be dressed in red, green... IIRC, you can get this to correspond to some degree with the way the nymphs look. There are also large periods of "ordinary time" when not much is going on, which can be made to correspond to plain nymphs.

Again, this works to some extent but also has issues. It's certainly worth further exploration.

Nice, I may borrow that idea of lining up the nymphs in different orders and pay more attention to other differences between them (sex, position, accessories, barrels, etc.)
Didn't know about the Liturgical Year and the colours, thanks.

My first thought was Nymphs are days (wonder why no one noticed  ), but there are 30 in each sign except for Pisces so I guess nope. Then maybe the order (and position from the centre) could be related to Kalends, Nones and Ides? Doesn't look like.

The clothes out of respect for the easter season makes sense to me but I guess at the moment its just an impression and difficult to ascertain. 

Anyways, I'm only getting started and its exciting and good fun.

The month names were almost certainly added later, so ignoring them is a valid approach. The nymphs could still be days if for some reason, someone decided to divide them like this. They could also be degrees of the Zodiac, or something else altogether, or a combination of things.

Anyway, the best advice I can give you (or anyone looking at Voynich images) is that when you find something that doesn't quite work, just state that it doesn't. I know from experience that this is much better, both for the researcher and the audience, as compared to trying to force everything by inventing narratives.

For example: 

• "Following this reasoning, we would expect this nymph to be on position x, but instead it is on position x+5"
  

Is better than:

• "Apparently the Voynich Author celebrated Easter on September 1st. According to [bad source], the Cathars celebrated Easter in August. Hence, the Voynich was written by Cathars".
  

That's an extreme example, but it happens. It's much more useful to state deviations as what they are.