(30-08-2026, 10:47 AM)Oscroft Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Firstly, any male who thinks the image at the top-left of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (or the other suggestion in post #91) is a phallus... should maybe consider getting a medical check-up? 
The "phallus" proposals that I have seen are for You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. (the "intestines") page, middle of left margin, rotated 90 degrees. But
- the "tub" could be the bladder instead of the scrotum; and
- some details may have been added by the infamous Boobs Retoucher.
Quote:Is the illustrator deliberately drawing things inaccurately to disguise the meaning? Or is the illustrator perhaps just not very good?
I think it is the latter. We have candidates for the sources of the images on f68v3, f75r, f85r2, and a few others. If any of those identifications is correct, the Artist obviously dd not understand the original figure, and his "copy" is wrong on several significant points.
Quote:Finally, seeing a number of different possibilities for different illustrations counts against, rather than for, any anatomical theory for me.
But if the Artist is as bad at copying as it seems, we expect that it will be difficult to identify the specific organs being depicted.
Consider f68v3. Before we tentatively identified its source as a diagram of the cosmos by Oresme, I used to think that the "nebuly" border of the blue area was either the edge of a pool or the edge of a plate. Now we know that it probably was a very badly copied cloudband.
All the best, --stolfi
(30-08-2026, 12:37 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:Is the illustrator deliberately drawing things inaccurately to disguise the meaning? Or is the illustrator perhaps just not very good?
I think it is the latter. We have candidates for the sources of the images on f68v3, f75r, f85r2, and a few others. If any of those identifications is correct, the Artist obviously dd not understand the original figure, and his "copy" is wrong on several significant points.
Yes, it seems pretty much undeniable to me that we're looking at the work of a poor artist.
(30-08-2026, 12:37 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:Finally, seeing a number of different possibilities for different illustrations counts against, rather than for, any anatomical theory for me.
But if the Artist is as bad at copying as it seems, we expect that it will be difficult to identify the specific organs being depicted.
Good point, yes - but also more difficult to tell whether they're organs at all?
Well, I don’t see any innovation. Judging by the illustrations, the author had somewhat different ideas about how the organs function. For example, he clearly adhered to the concept of the four fluids and may have tried to use tubes to show the interconnections between the organs.
The author had far from modern views, judging by the illustrations...
Let’s talk about f77r.
[
attachment=17670]
In the context of anatomy, these four elements may refer to the humors:
Air - Sanquis
Water - Phlegma
Fire - Flavus
Earth? - Atra
They all stem from small tubes. The main tube is stretched between two people.
What could this mean?
1). If you take a closer look, the person on the right has a rather atypical hairstyle for nymphs, and they also don’t have breasts. This suggests that the image depicts a man. Then you get something like a separation of liquids between the male and female genders.
Then the tube
otork might mean something like boundary.
Good idea! But I don’t know how suitable this is for the 15th century. And as far as I know, Sanquis doesn’t belong to the women’s section.
[
attachment=17671]
2). This entire structure somewhat resembles a scale. Then the essence of the image is the balance of humors in the body.
3). The formation of humors. The left nymph is sitting on top of a multitude of tubes extending to the side. The right person is sitting on a small barrel that is not connected to anything. It can be assumed that the author depicted the circulation of humors in the body. Logically, the barrel on the right is the liver (but there is no resemblance). The blue color of left tubes on the right may refer to blue veins.
Of course, the liver can be shown in the lower illustration, and then it turns out that all these fluids are then washed away somewhere from the liver through some yellow pipes and vessels... I’m sorry, I don’t know much about the humoral theory
Regarding the lower illustration, I still have no words. But I can note that the yellow pipes somehow resemble an armadillo on f80v. That's all.
(30-08-2026, 12:35 PM)Oscroft Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Compare it with the appearance that the VMS illustrator couldn't even draw a penis accurately (when almost everyone knew what they looked like), and the idea that VMS is a pioneering anatomical work seems very remote.
I just saw this post now.
Well, again, I don’t know how important accuracy was to the author. The author, presumably, dissected corpses and saw the organs. The author could at least draw them. He might have looked at the fallopian tubes and thought: “I wonder why this isn’t in other books?”
In other medieval anatomical books, the illustrations are also not very accurate.
And I never said anywhere that this is an innovative work. I said that the author depicted the organs and concealed them in a rather interesting way, and that’s it.
(Yesterday, 05:32 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the context of anatomy, these four elements may refer to the humors:
Air - Sanquis
Water - Phlegma
Fire - Flavus
Earth? - Atra
Sanguis ?
Aren't flavus and atra the adjectives applied to bile?
Why are they of different genders?
(Yesterday, 07:03 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Yesterday, 05:32 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the context of anatomy, these four elements may refer to the humors:
Air - Sanquis
Water - Phlegma
Fire - Flavus
Earth? - Atra
Sanguis ?
Aren't flavus and atra the adjectives applied to bile?
Why are they of different genders?
Problems with Latin. But I hope you understood what I meant.