(13-09-2017, 06:40 PM)ReneZ wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now the baths are both meant for external use (bathing in it) and for internal use (drinking it).
So perhaps that's why the women also appear outside and inside (???).
On a more simple note, it could just be that the author/artist liked the idea of drawing women / nymphs there.
The exact role of nymphs in the zodiac section is also not entirely clear and could be figurative / allegorical.
I find it hard to believe that the presence of the nymphs is arbitrary and non-significant, just something the author liked. But as always, who knows?
One reason to support the meaningfulness of these women is that several of them seem to be individually labelled.
The parallel with the zodiac nymph is also relevant: the zodiac nymphs are individually labeled, each of them holds a star and they appear in a layout similar to the 360 angels in the zodiac wheels of Alfonso's Lapidario. I believe these nymphs (and the angels in the Lapidary) are personifications of the power of the stars. Darren Worley has pointed out You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in which the personifications of the planets hold "tailed stars". These nymphs could be something similar, applied to fixed stars along the ecliptic.
Also in the zodiac wheels, as with the "internal organs" nymphs, the women do not seem to be necessary. The angels in Alfonso's Lapidario also seem to add little information content to the diagrams. But in my opinion there are conceptual reasons that make the introduction of these human figures meaningful.
Anyway, this is one the most original sections of the manuscripts and making sense of it is quite difficult. Yet having some partial matches like the De Balneis manuscripts (images and text) opens the possibility for further research. Thank you again for sharing your insightful analysis of f77v!