Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion

[eggyk]

Ty @Dracaena, continuing on from the virgo thread, this manuscript is very interesting and may provide some insights into some aspects of zodiac imagery usage in general. 

Firstly, there are 4-5 depictions of each zodiac, used in the following ways: 

As a sign associated with a personified planet,
In a section discussing the zodiacs specifically, 
In a section about comets, and
On a zodiac wheel. 

With so many depictions within a single manuscript, looking for any differences between the sequences may give us some insight.

Take, for example, the different depictions of sagittarius: 

                   

Note that sagittarius is sometimes depicted as fully human, and other times depicted as half human/half lion. The clothing changes too, in both colour and style. In fact, the first example has some lovely sleeves that would have been great to see on a virgo. But this is within different copied works in a single manuscript.

However, in another manuscript containing the exact same work, you can see that the depiction of sagittarius on the exact same page is different: 

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In other manuscripts, there are a mix of aspects. Some manuscripts contain both winged and non-winged virgo, some have both full man and half horse/half lion sagittarius, as well as many examples in others. Actually, in the Damstadt manuscript above, there is an example of exactly that happening: usage of both a half horse sagittarius and a full man. 
               

So what gives? Are these different traditions, blind copying of the source material, or something else?

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By the way, a preliminary version for every zodiac symbol sheet has been added, so all/most of these images can be found in the various sheets by ctrl+f with the manuscript name. You can access the sheets via the bar at the bottom: 
   

I'm currently filling out all of the entries with images and links, but given the sheer amount of them it will take some time. Any criteria i've added for ratings are just first drafts to get obviously better entries higher up. It's the plan to start making individual threads to discuss those criteria over the coming weeks, probably once i've managed to set everything up. (too many ratings threads at once will be too much to handle right now).