folio 77r - 5 elements detail. For the linguists

[-JKP-]

If these are the five elements, what is coming out of each pipe (from left to right)? This could be a very useful crib if we knew exactly what each element is.

I'm sure there will be differing opinions on this, but to me it looks like the far left one is air, then water, then ether/spirit, then fire, then earth.

That line-up would also fall in line with the way many medieval scholars understood the elements. They believed that air and water were related (water evaporates into air) and fire and earth were related.


But... if they are bodily fluids, then the red one would be blood, the far-right possibly black bile, the far left one phlegm, and the second-from-left possibly yellow bile, the four "elements" that supposedly made up the human body. They believed that disease indicated these were out of balance. They also believed that a person's personality was based on which of these was dominant (sanguine, choleric, etc.).