(25-04-2017, 11:03 PM)-JKP- wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, in the medieval mind, body parts were connected to the stars. Hence "zodiac man" came into existence.
I think JKP's comment could suggest a possible (however far-fetched) interpretation that brings together the "tubes as internal organs" and the "nymphs as constellations" ideas.
Illustrations of the "zodiac man" and of the less common You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are both examples of "melothesia", i.e. of the idea that heavenly bodies control specific parts of the human body. If I understand correctly, an ancient theory divided each sign into 12 parts and assigned each of the resulting 144 "zodiac sign fragments" to parts of the human body (from the freely-accessible abstract of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Otto Neugebauer).
The nymphs in the "balneo" section could then be the same nymphs that appear in the "zodiac" section, each representing a single degree of a zodiac sign and its dominion on a specific part of the human body. Of course, this cannot be "dodecatemoria", since the zodiac nymphs appear to be 30 (not 12) for each zodiac sign.