Quote:What makes you discard an entirely symbolic interpretation?
Good question which i ask myself often.
I read many times about the ms having symbolic meanings, those assumptions are quite often "over the top"
Like the "lungs", or "the eye-balls", or the women that are performing bleeding or some sort of group-suicide.
I think those conclusions are over the top, because when the author has such a story to tell, he would have left us with many other obvious drawings.
You could argue that the fantasy things in the herbals are also in that direction, i think not,
but regarding the balneo section you see no fantasy baths, or f.e. zoomorphic woman (small exception is the fish-woman).
The reasoning is not based on "what do i see" but: "what would a common picture look like"
Do we see that ? Are there such elements and what could it depict if we NOT see the usual thing.
All things that are not common, i put in the box "symbolic". Everything else i see as literal.
To make such observations it is absolutely necessary that you have done enough research and reading.
When i started a couple of years back i saw the VMS as one big symbolic ms.
Nowadays, i do not, because i have more knowledge and see similarities with other ms in the same region and period.