Ellie
Thank you for that nice illustration from Romanesque carving. First, I'd like to say that it's nice to see comparisons offered outside the single medium of manuscript art. Secondly that I've also found much of relevance in stone-carving from the Romanesque period - especially from France and Spain. What we see there, by the way, is a lot of non-standard forms, and studies of just who was hired to do that work are interesting in this context. We can trace the work of individuals who moved through Europe just as we do with manuscript art.
But apropos of the nymphs' proportions: the point is not whether they have big heads, but how the bodies are drawn: that is, with enlarged heads and reduced 'boneless' limbs, enlarged thighs and reduced shanks and specific objects (reall or symbolic) in their hands.
It's a bit like the "feline" thing - it's not enough to focus on the curled-through tail; the spotted hide, rounded ears and every other feature, together, give us the characteristic style.
The proportions of the underlying skeleton, and a perception of the body as flesh built upon a skeleton is generally a constant of western imagery, where I do not see the same attitude informing any of the 'nymphs' images, though certainly present in the central emblems of the calendar. It's one of the many reasons that I think the latter series needs to be considered separately from the rest. But that's just my opinion.
Sam,
As I said in those posts, the "holy virgins" in the helios zodiac in Vat.gr.1291 are a relic of pre-Christian practice, and apart from that ninth-century copy of an originally 3rdC work, don't survive long in the Christianised empire.
I think that effort to provide Christian equivalents (as 'holy virgins') for the old idea of the hours may be due to the early popularity of the 'Shepherd of Hermas' - though that's speculatiion on my part.
The style appears to me akin to Syrian style, and Syria also provides some of our earliest 'helios' zodiacs. So while the limbs are nicely rubbery and some of the gestures (as you say) comparable, I cannot think it permits any particular point to be made about the Voynich figures except that they also belong to a pre-Christian custom.
Apart from anything else, the Voynich figures are not 12 in number. On whether or not they are meant to be virgins, I won't speculate.
Koen,
Not to disagree for the sake of it, but just to be clear - I don't see the non-European style of the nymphs as a result of evolution, or decay between, say, the early centuries AD and the 15thC. I think the originally Hellenistic forms had been altered very early, partly as a result of regional customs in art where they were set down, and partly due to a cultural tabu against what we'd call realism in depicting any living thing. Again, apart from the central emblems in the calendar, this is another constant throughout the manuscript.
I think much of the reason that there is such a division in approach to the manuscript's imagery is the same as that affecting discussion of the text. You find some trying to argue that their theory is plausible while others are attempting to explain the particular phenomena observable in the manuscript. This has always been the case, and (for example) Nick Pelling is strongly in favour of the value of forming hypotheses and then trying to test them. I find, in practice, that people develop a strong personal attachment to theories and easily slide away from investigating the artefact, to hunting support for that theory. I much prefer to analyse and then provenance the evidence offered by the artefact itself. Apart from anything else, it saves me having to spend time trying to persuade people to believe.
Like everyone else, I began by expecting it would prove to be some weird amateur notebook by a Latin author. Research has proved every one of those initial expectations (save, perhaps 'notebook') untrue.
![[Image: Galician-Didacus_Gelmiri.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Galician-Didacus_Gelmiri.jpg)