On the lack of Christian imagery, I'm not sure if it is that exceptional. Again, bestiaries are Christian works, but they don't show it in their images (I know overtly Christian images can be added to bestiaries, but the series of beasts appears as an encyclopedia). Similarly, if I showed you just the images of an Ovide Moralisé and told you "this is a deeply Christian work", you would probably call me crazy.
There is a difference between such works and the VM, which is that beasts and ancient tales are lifted up by imposing Christian meaning on them, while the field of medicine is already respectable to begin with. So I can imagine that the VM is about how much these two fields are alike. Still, even Baresch still called medicine subordinate to the salvation of souls, so despite my intuition it may still be the case that the VM tries to elevate medicine by linking it to Christian morale, just like the bestiary tries to elevate beasts' imagined behavior to a reflection of God's plan.
The question remains why the VM is so extreme in obscuring Christian symbolism. Not only does it lack any sign of devotion, it hardly seems to acknowledge the existence of medieval Europe's dominant culture. So is this not a question for everyone, not matter what their theory is? There are three categories of answers I can think of:
1) The nymphs are people of flesh and blood doing real, practical things related to a trade. (See Livre de Chasse, books about warfare, or those books of trades). In my opinion, this is impossible to defend given the symbolic appearance of the figures.
2) The manuscript is "foreign" and thus unaware of or indifferent towards the dominant culture in Europe. I used to be convinced of this, but I have found it increasingly hard to defend. On the one hand, there are indications of awareness of the dominant culture (Zodiac figures etc) and on the other hand, perhaps especially, there are no strong indications of another culture. The MS seems to dodge cultural giveaways rather than adopt a certain set.
3) This is what I believe now: the absence of overt Christian symbols is intentional, it's part of the game. We are, after all, dealing with a cipher manuscript, so there may have been some intellectual satisfaction derived from the act of obscuring. If you want to create a visual metaphor of "the cleansing and salvation of the body" for "the cleansing and salvation of the soul", then I can imaging this metaphor is extra successful if it uses only imagery from the field of medicine.
There is a difference between such works and the VM, which is that beasts and ancient tales are lifted up by imposing Christian meaning on them, while the field of medicine is already respectable to begin with. So I can imagine that the VM is about how much these two fields are alike. Still, even Baresch still called medicine subordinate to the salvation of souls, so despite my intuition it may still be the case that the VM tries to elevate medicine by linking it to Christian morale, just like the bestiary tries to elevate beasts' imagined behavior to a reflection of God's plan.
The question remains why the VM is so extreme in obscuring Christian symbolism. Not only does it lack any sign of devotion, it hardly seems to acknowledge the existence of medieval Europe's dominant culture. So is this not a question for everyone, not matter what their theory is? There are three categories of answers I can think of:
1) The nymphs are people of flesh and blood doing real, practical things related to a trade. (See Livre de Chasse, books about warfare, or those books of trades). In my opinion, this is impossible to defend given the symbolic appearance of the figures.
2) The manuscript is "foreign" and thus unaware of or indifferent towards the dominant culture in Europe. I used to be convinced of this, but I have found it increasingly hard to defend. On the one hand, there are indications of awareness of the dominant culture (Zodiac figures etc) and on the other hand, perhaps especially, there are no strong indications of another culture. The MS seems to dodge cultural giveaways rather than adopt a certain set.
3) This is what I believe now: the absence of overt Christian symbols is intentional, it's part of the game. We are, after all, dealing with a cipher manuscript, so there may have been some intellectual satisfaction derived from the act of obscuring. If you want to create a visual metaphor of "the cleansing and salvation of the body" for "the cleansing and salvation of the soul", then I can imaging this metaphor is extra successful if it uses only imagery from the field of medicine.