The nimph with tongs? pincers? (f80r)

[Linda]

I think it's an outside caliper by the look of it.

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It's funny because I just saw a bunch of examples within the context of rainbows that had a similar instruments, dividers or compasses. I know the dates are late on at least a few of these.











Within my own interpretation, its inclusion is to inform of things like scale, distance, and direction.








So, I think it's mathematical and geographical. I think the body of water portrayed is Lake Garda in Italy. It's the largest lake in Italy. It's shaped similarly. There is a yellow barrel under which the river-thing goes into the lake-thing in the MS, and in Lake Garda there is a sulphur spring (water that goes under the ground and comes up again yellow with sulphur) at that same location, in Sirmione. I think the skirt on the nymph in question symbolizes the mountainside and indicates ice and water runoff that goes into Lake Garda. In this case the other nymph would also be on the mountainside, there are two main peaks, but if you look at the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in photos, you'll see the one to the south generally has more clouds, hence more snow and ice, and is fatter than the northern part (as is the nymph) hence why that nymph is wearing the skirt. Here is a view of the area (castle is a bonus) the nymph's skirt would be the rocky part to the right of the turret.





As with a lot of imagery in the MS I often find a second interpretation that builds upon the idea the first one covers, expanding upon the information, while remaining on topic. In this case it also has to do with the mountains, but this time the first nymph is Mount Baldo in its entirety, not just the northern part of the west slope. Can you almost see it above, the mountain just to the right of the upper part of the lake, with what seems like an outstretched arm? Across the valley where the Adige River flows, is another set of mountains, and that would be our skirted nymph, can you almost see that? It's wider at the bottom, and note the prominent waistband of another ridge that runs west/east in the middle of that system. This also drains into the Adige after it turns the corner toward Venice.

Now, I'm not saying that they saw this view per se, but people of the time were climbing mountains and marking elevations, and this could be the anthropomorphized result of the plotting of these elevations by a cartographer. The calipers might bet telling us there is more than one scale being shown, various distances, and more than one direction. The fact that they are outside calipers could also indicate relief, as calipers would be better for measuring mountains than dividers (if large enough versions existed). It also resembles ice tongs, perhaps that is also indicated. In both cases it points to ruts in the mountains carved by ice flow and/or the resulting rivers.

Lake Garda drains mainly into the Adriatic Sea via the Po river (largest river in Italy) near Venice. But the inclusion of the secondary interpretation includes the Adige River too, which is the second largest, flowing in parallel to the north of the Po and also draining into the Adriatic. It just seems like a geography lesson  of all the biggest water bodies, that are all connected to the sea in some way. There are other reasons I see this as a fitting identification, due to the other drawings on the page, and how they work together. I think it's upside down, things drawn above are south, and things drawn below are north, at least everything that's attached, but they are drawn from various perspectives, Lake Garda being east up and bigger than life compared to the drawing above it which is north up but with other odd perspectives involved. The other drawing not attached by river is located geographically in the middle of all of the rest, pretty much where the waters of Lake Garda flow down and meet the Po, which rounds out the story.

It at least provided me a way to remember the geography of Italy in a novel manner, I certainly didn't know all that detail before I encountered the MS. So if that's not it, well, it did double duty and taught me this on the side.

So, for your list, my interpretation of the thing and the nymph in the skirt is: calipers and ice on a mountain peak or two. Specifically, one side of Mount Baldo's ice melt flows into Garda and the Po, the other into the Adige.