All MS images of swallowtail merlons north of Italy we know of are Weltchronik

[Koen G]

When we started the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of swallowtail merlons, one of the goals was to find out where people depicted forked merlons in manuscript art. 

Looking at the northern reaches, the only manuscript we have so far is the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. This version of Rudolf von Ems' Weltchronik has a lot of swallowtail merlons. This is also the only one so far I did some deeper research on, and apparently there are good reasons to suspect it was made in Northern Italy, possibly Venice. So the manufacture would be Italian, while the text is Bavarian. See this pdf in German by Dr. Helga Lengenfelder: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . We're obviously interested in the place of manufacture, so this moves our only German entry into Venice.

In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., it turned out that this Weltchronik also has swallowtail merlons in a several images. It is of an unclear date, but first half of the 15th century. Location of origin is given as Bavaria, just like the Kassel MS (which turns out to have been Italian).

Having noticed that there's something going on with these Weltchronik MSS, I spot checked a dozen of them for swallowtail merlons. All I found were many, many square merlons. However, the last MS I looked at was You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., which has exactly one row of swallowtail merlons (unless I missed any). This is remarkable since it's a 1350 MS made (if the catalogue is to be trusted) in Zurich.

   

All scenes depicted take place in the lands of the Old Testament, which may be more or less relevant. That's all I've got so far.

[R. Sale]

Here's another UBK illustration, Weltchronik, Bavaria, 1385.

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And there's this, Vienna, 1330-1340. But what is it? Merlons with windows??

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[Koen G]

And there's this, Vienna, 1330-1340. But what is it? Merlons with windows??

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That one's interesting, from about the same time as the Zurich MS and in a similar style. These merlons have a very shallow indentations and curved lines. I wonder if these two are something else altogether, some parallel evolution that doesn't have much to do with the Italian architecture. On the other hand, Ghibelline merlons often are curved like this, so I'd assume they're referring to the same thing.

[Koen G]

For completeness' sake, I also had this MS in my bookmarks, which I think I haven't posted yet (Cary found it months ago). These merlons have extremely curved tops.

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BSB Cgm 7375
"written in the Bavarian language", middle of the 15th century.

A common thread in these German language swallowtail MSS is that their exact origin is unknown (and in one case believed to be Venetian) but the language is Bavarian. Maybe a lead?

[DG97EEB]

Shh, don't tell JOjO... he'll get very excited...

[ReneZ]

The book's title is 'Der Renner'. I am not sure what that name signifies, but there is at least one copy of it in the Heidelberg library (perhaps even more), which is fully digitised. The same buidlings may have different details there.

[DG97EEB]

@Koen Would be interesting if there are any in a Bellifortis you've seen. As noted on that thread there's a wonderful academic work with a lineage tree on it, so you can actually trac back manuscript by manuscript and see what the earliest one is.. and then cross reference that with the Weltchronik and other Lauber manuscripts.

[Koen G]

I remember having seen a manuscript where they had these wooden siege structures (like a wooden wall?), which had swallowtail merlons on it. This was years ago though, and I haven't been able to find it back yet. But I'm sure something along the lines of Bellifortis does have (wooden) swallowtail merlons in it.

[ReneZ]

I remember having seen a manuscript where they had these wooden siege structures (like a wooden wall?), which had swallowtail merlons on it. This was years ago though, and I haven't been able to find it back yet. But I'm sure something along the lines of Bellifortis does have (wooden) swallowtail merlons in it.

I wonder if this would have been one of Voynich's Valturius mss now in Library of Congress.

[Mauro]

For completeness' sake, I also had this MS in my bookmarks, which I think I haven't posted yet (Cary found it months ago). These merlons have extremely curved tops.

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BSB Cgm 7375
"written in the Bavarian language", middle of the 15th century.

A common thread in these German language swallowtail MSS is that their exact origin is unknown (and in one case believed to be Venetian) but the language is Bavarian. Maybe a lead?

Having a transcription file would allow to check the statistics of Bavarian vs. Voynich.