(04-01-2021, 06:58 PM)Searcher wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."The nymph with the "Thing" at the top of this folio represents the Bear constellation [or Callisto] [light?]", it must be the same on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
Ah, but they are different. The object is not the same (missing "spike") and two it is held differently so may invoke different connotations. The one held high would, in my view, be able to communicate both (cosmic) spindle and a torch or candle holder, hence the hybrid form. The one held low is held just like a spindle, with a piece of text in "distaff" position.
To be clear, I'm not saying my approach is better than any other, I rather meant to say it suffers from the same problems as anything else we can do with Q13.
Bottom line is that I think te section is challenging no matter one's approach, and it is good to keep various options open. I am glad that people of various backgrounds an interests are exploring different paths here on the forum and elsewhere, and I won't hesitate to share ideas or insights that might help others along. I don't think of competing theories, but rather different attempts to solve a seemingly impossible problem.
Rene: I agree that if one tries to take the VM images as much as possible at face value, then "medicine" seems to unite the manuscript: medicinal plants, therapeutic bathing, inner workings of the body, recipes. I would not deny this, and maybe I am even more convinced than most that images of the Balneis-or-something-similar have been used for reference, as Marco and others have shown.
However, the fact that we are dealing with one of the world's most enigmatic ciphers perhaps also warrants a less direct approach to the imagery. And even in a literal reading, the addition of nymphs manipulating the organs would probably be unique to this MS. (JKP once shared a parallel for the nymph standing in male genitals, but this was in fact a scene from myth rather than an anatomical illustration).
It is true that finding a specific text about medicinal bathing etc. might explain everything. But this text would have to be different from the ones we know of right now, to explain the particular nature of these images. Granted, there are many texts unknown to us (here on the forum and in general) but this argument can be made for any approach to Q13. For example, I would be interested to find a text that incorporates certain specific stories from Ovid and certain specific religious texts.