The Voynich Ninja

I just noticed something pose-related: the male "gemini" has his arms crossed. This makes it look less like embracing, and more like a double handshake.
Has this been noted before? 

Several people here have studied many other zodiacs. Is this something that returns? It seems like a very deliberate and significant cultural pointer to me. You don't "just" let people "embrace" with a double handshake.

I'm focusing my efforts on the balneo section so I'm not going to look into this at the moment. Just wondering if someone has found parallels for this pose - not just in gemini images, but the pose in general. I have a suspicion it may provide a key for the image.

Since it's a man and a woman, I'd start by looking into marriage rituals.

Edit: or is he holding her one hand and giving her something with the other?

Marco, I tried posting this to Bax's site but my post remains hidden for "moderation" for now, so I'll elaborate here.

I haven't found any Gemini mirroring the exact "double handshake", so I started by looking for a single "crossed" handshake, which appears uncommon already in itself. Interestingly, these appear to mirror the Roman marriage pose, only with the left figure holding up a finger instead of an item.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. --> 15th C Italian (Clm 15743, fol. 100r)
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. --> 15th C Florentine, two men but same pose. Copy of Hyginus' De Astronomia.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (see image below), another late 15th C copy of Hyginus.



None of these are double handshakes though, and none of them are unambiguously man and woman (it's hard to tell with those clothes). What does intrigue me is that my very limited survey brought up a late 15thC Italian cluster.

Sidenote: the lion in this last MS is drawn in a totally different style than the VM one, but it does have an equally silly face

Edit:
Another 15th C Italian Hyginus. I'm not sure if the "man" on the right has always been a man.
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And another one with a slight variation on the pose:
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Here one or both figures appear to hold an item in their free hand:
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... it's hard to tell with those clothes ...
The clothes at least are men's clothes, women did not wear  miniskirts and 'beinlinge'   in the 15th.  c. and the haircuts are  men's  haircuts too

The strange part is:
the man on the left (taken by himself) cannot be said to have his arms crossed.
The woman on the right certainly doesn't.

But the hands match up right-to-right and left-to-left.

The whole drawing is awkward. The woman on the right looks at a normal pose, but the man on the left
seems to be squeezed in the circle, and with unnaturally long arms.
Sub-optimal planning maybe.

One gets the impression the woman was drawn first and the man had to fit in afterwards.

You're right, the woman does look a lot more natural. It looks as if the man's arms have been stretched and pulled out of proportion to reach the desired pose.

Also, he looks like a floating dwarf with very short legs.

Interestingly, the four clothed figures in the outer circle (bottom left) display similar properties. Here, the men (or what I assume to be men) are standing on tubes, giving them exactly the same floating short leg look. Was this Gemini man copied from such a man standing on a tube and clumsily added to this woman? I really have no idea what this could mean.



Is this "man" a child maybe?

Throughout the document, he shows a weak sense of anatomy. Whoever drew the illustrations has a general sense of the outward shapes, but doesn't "get" the bone, muscle, and joint structure underneath.

It shows up in the animals in the same way as the people. The back legs are all wrong in the animals, the shoulders and joints are all wrong in the people. The drawings aren't bad, but he's not an artist. He's picturing it in his mind in 2d, not 3d.

ALMOST THERE



Continuity of the imagery:





(Detail of fresco painting of Frederick III's betrothal to Eleonora of Portugal by Pinturicchio - 1505 - Piccolomini - Siena)

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Here's one from early 15thC Italy where the man has a similar short leg syndrome. 
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These are the “lovers Gemini” that were included in the Zodiac comparison on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. No crossed arms. Some of these images were pointed out by Darren Worley and Ellie Velinska. You can see a few more You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. In my opinion, the best match in style, posture and costumes is Rome, BAV, ms Pal lat. 1369, Astrological miscellany, S. Germany, 1444, brought to the attention of Voynich researchers by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in 1996.



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The X that they form probably means the number 10, 
which is unexpected, because in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. order this symbol is the 3rd zodiac

add.: the X comes from the freemasonry where such gestures are defined

The latest You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of course has to be mentioned here too.