This is a follow-up to this thread:
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in which I discovered a possible connection between the VMS nymphs and 15th century Italian illustrated Dante manuscripts.
I will show some concrete examples below. All of the pictures below are from 14th and 15th century Dante manuscripts.
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Could the VMS nymphs section be inspired by Dante manuscript(s)? Could it somehow be a representation of a female version of Dante's hell?
I would not exclude the possibility of influence from some Dante MS. Along with Balneic bathers, souls of the damned (and saved) are probably the best parallels we have for large amounts of nude figures standing in liquids. I'm not sure if there's anything where we can say "this can only have come from Dante" though.
I wonder, are there any examples of medieval MS in which there are obvious signs of inspiration from a vast array of different sources? Like the VMS seems to have bits and pieces of Cadamosto, Taccola, Balneis, Dante MSs, Scot, ...
Weren't (most) MSs in the middle ages simple copies of existing works, instead of a mish-mash of tens of different sources?
Any MS that's a compendium and has different illustrated sections combines illustrations with different lineages. The constellation images have different origins than the diagrams, and scenes of common life, and religious scenes, and animals, and plants, drolleries, narrative scenes... And within each of those categories, one can look for different origins again - for example a manuscript with constellations and a zodiac often takes those from separate sources. Even in manuscripts with several Zodiac sequences, it may happen that those have different origins.
Copying and compiling was the norm.
(11-09-2026, 10:57 AM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I wonder, are there any examples of medieval MS in which there are obvious signs of inspiration from a vast array of different sources? Like the VMS seems to have bits and pieces of Cadamosto, Taccola, Balneis, Dante MSs, Scot, ...
Weren't (most) MSs in the middle ages simple copies of existing works, instead of a mish-mash of tens of different sources?
It depends on how you mean the "different" with the sources. Plenty of manuscripts were a compilation of different works, but most of the time many of those works had some kind of topical overlap with eachother. In many of the manuscripts I look through I often see the same diagrams, the same texts, the same rough depictions of things, and even a similar order of those works sometimes.
For example, many sources have multiple different sections containing zodiacs with different forms in each section, specifically because they were all sourced from seperate works with different designs taken from different places.
If you mean examples of rather different features being directly incorporated together, such as works containing herbs and pipes and nymphs etc that is harder to say. But bear in mind that there are no pipes or nymphs in the herbal sections, nor herbs in the zodiac section. So if they represent different topics or even different works it's relatively "normal" that different sections will contain different imagery/inspiration.
Edit: Koen beat me to the punch and said exactly what I was going to say
Quote:Weren't (most) MSs in the middle ages simple copies of existing works, instead of a mish-mash of tens of different sources?
I would somehow agree.
Medieval books often feel very repetitive. For example each Book of Hours is unique but at the same time they boringly copy the same motifs all the time.
And Voynich Manuscript indeed seems to be a true mish-mash of many, very different sources. A kind of medieval collage. It's quite unique in that aspect.
(11-09-2026, 11:49 AM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:Weren't (most) MSs in the middle ages simple copies of existing works, instead of a mish-mash of tens of different sources?
I would somehow agree.
Medieval books often feel very repetitive. For example each Book of Hours is unique but at the same time they boringly copy the same motifs all the time.
And Voynich Manuscript indeed seems to be a true mish-mash of many, very different sources. A kind of medieval collage. It's quite unique in that aspect.
Books of hours were indeed all basically the same, but they were used for a specific type of purpose so wern't really open to being changed. But go over to germany, and a huge amount of manuscripts contained a compilation of various works and texts, basically depending on which works the person wanted. So much so that a title like "Collection of various astrological works" is normal to see. It's not always imagery being copied, sure, but it was certainly normal to copy and bind together seperate works.
HSCensus is great for showing this as some works are tagged, like "You are not allowed to view links.
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Quote:But go over to germany, and a huge amount of manuscripts contained a compilation of various works and texts, basically depending on which works the person wanted.
Yes, the formal name for it, I believe, is
a composite manuscript.
And VM is probably a composite manuscript too.
But I think what we are discussing here that even in single section we have imagery coming from different sources, all mixed up.
For example Quire 13 (bathing nymphs) seems to take inspiration from:
- Taccola (shape of some streams and ponds, pipes)
- De Balneis or Dante (naked bathing nymphs)
- some religious sources (some scenes resemble giving alms to the poor or Jonah eaten by a fish)
and possibly more.
Mixing imagery from engineering book, bathing book and religious book in one place is certainly uncommon.
In the interest of clarity- or whatever, in the fourth illustration designated as "A bunch of nude women with stars..." there is reason to consider the gender of the characters depicted. The absence of obvious genitalia does not imply that the characters are female. Many medieval artists chose to avoid anatomical accuracy, completely.
The absence of breasts implies that the characters are not female. Naked ladies have breasts quite frequently. The presence of weapons also implies they are male. Hair, beyond shoulder length, is ambiguous.
When manuscripts are copied, it's the text that is copied. The illustrations are somewhat different. They are rarely copied in the sense of being exactly reproduced in detail, but they will still represent the same situation. The Bible is an example of a very "fixed" text, and the illustrations depict specific events.
Here are 87 illustrations that are tagged as Judas' betrayal of Jesus. I haven't found any that might be "copies".
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The VMs artistry is less about what is depicted than it is about what is being represented. That is the lesson of the VMs cosmos: that depiction can be completely altered without representation being changed.
(11-09-2026, 07:04 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the interest of clarity- or whatever, in the fourth illustration designated as "A bunch of nude women with stars..." there is reason to consider the gender of the characters depicted. The absence of obvious genitalia does not imply that the characters are female. Many medieval artists chose to avoid anatomical accuracy, completely.
The absence of breasts implies that the characters are not female. Naked ladies have breasts quite frequently. The presence of weapons also implies they are male. Hair, beyond shoulder length, is ambiguous.
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Indeed Valencia 837 is a MS of Virgil's Aeneid (not Dante). This is from book 6, when Aeneas visits the underworld. These are the souls of Aeneas' descendants, Alban and Roman warriors, who will be born after his death.