The Seasons of Life on f85r2

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I have to note that a glance at this page does not appear to differentiate the age of anyone there other than the use of a cane for what seems to be a female character

Indeed, in that German printed book that was posted somewhere, the woman does not seem to be very old; at most middle-aged.  And she is not leaning on the "staff", but holding it by the stem.  And she is standing besides a fireplace.  Which (as I mentioned a few posts back) makes me think that the "staff" is actually a light hatchet with long handle, suitable for chopping dead branches from trees for use as firewood, and the "rosary" is a light chain that would be used to tie those branches and drag them home.  

The allegory then would be that in the "autumn of life" one must collect and save resources to sustain oneself during the coming "winter of life".  I think this makes more sense than the interpretation that in the autumn of life one needs a staff and one becomes more religious or whatever.

I never thought of the container to be one of pee. It is not a flask. It seems more like a Pilgrim bottle. If it was supposed to be a flask of pee, why not draw it like all other such flasks are drawn. Instead it has a tiny opening with a stopper.

The theory is that the Scribe copied that figure from a book like those shown by Koen and others, where one of the figures is a doctor in the characteristic pose of examining a urine sample flask (of clear smooth glass, with funnel-shaped neck and open top).  But he understood neither the figure nor the allegory, so in his copy he drew a flask of precious liquid -- elixir, perfume, sacred oil ...

All the best, --stolfi