Three-section orbs

[ReneZ]

I have a question but then I realized I am unclear on what you are saying.  Do you mean that they share a 'single' source, or do you mean they are a 'motif' that can be found in many sources? (e.g. a mother cradling a child, below a star.)
I am assuming you mean the latter simply because the diagrams are clearly 'very' similar --  they share at least three distinct and independent features so it would be remarkable for them to coincide simply by chance unless they were intentionally combined to convey a common motif. (And if it is not a motif, there would have to be an earlier document from which they were both copied, or else one was based on the other. But in either of those cases, one would say there is a 'direct' link.)
So, assuming that is what you meant -- the "common source" is a motif --what does the motif represent? Perhaps more importantly, what is the motif's origins (culturally, geographically, era, etc.)?  I expect, of course, that I am asking something that is common knowledge to medievalists (and just unknown to me). But I'm curious because the motif's origins would surely say something useful about the origins of the VMS as well.

Hi Andrew,

the common features between the two drawings are clear. The significant differences as well.
My main point is that no dating information (of any useful accuracy) can be derived from this.
There is nothing to suggest that one was copied from the other, in either direction.

Not knowing of any other examples that are as similar as this, does not mean that they don't exist, or never existed.
There was a time that the Voynich community was aware of exactly one sagittarius that was a human with a crossbow. I obtained it in 2009 from an Austrian historian. That situation lasted for a number of years, but later at least two dozen more were found.

When I showed the diagram found by Ellie Velinska to a group of medievalists, they were unimpressed and said that this illustration is common. I could not find out more at the time, but to come back to the point - we do not get any dating information from this similarity. A common ancestor could be 5 years old but also 50. The two copies (Voynich and BNF Fr) would have been made independently of each other.

Now finally to your question: beside the suprirising (to me) response I got as just mentioned above, I am not aware of any background information, and I am not qualified to make any more specific statement. I have spent some time browsing whatever illustrated manuscripts were online in past years, but that is not systematic and completely unscientific. Some common origin seems completely likely, from this limited point of view, but how direct/indirect it would be remains beyond me.

I agree it is interesting, but it is not something that I feel up to pursuing. A more general impression I have obtained (and this seems to be more generally agrees) is that most of the astronomical and cosmological illustrations in the MS are quite different from those in other astronomical and cosmological works. These tend to form quite a recognisable set, and again none of these are found in the Voynich MS.