RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't
R. Sale > 22-03-2023, 08:20 PM
Having a sort of agricultural calendar, like a medieval hausbuch, is a reasonable hypothesis for placing Pisces at the start of the VMs Zodiac.
However, if you look through the 'Folio Browser' above, you may note that certain folios are missing from the VMs, as a book. One of the apparently excised folios, f74, is right after VMs Sagittarius, exactly where Capricorn and Aquarius might be *expected* to be. So, the general presumption is that they were removed, rather than omitted.
Another aspect of having Pisces first is that it contributes in part to a situation where the first five houses of the VMs Zodiac each possess in their medallions a certain example of pairing. Pisces is an obvious and traditional example. Aries, and likewise Taurus, are unexpected examples of pairing through 'brute force' bifurcation. Since this is done twice, it constitutes a pair. VMs Gemini is a pair joined through apparent marriage, male and female as complementary opposites, rather than the twins, Castor and Pollux. VMs Cancer is not the singular crab normally seen, but a much more unusual pairing of crayfish. Paired Aries and paired Taurus are two pairs of land animals. Paired Pisces and paired Cancer are two pairs of aquatic animals. Taken together there is a pairing of paired pairs and a pair (Gemini). Not something that one might normally expect on superficial examination.
The concept of pairing, thus introduced, can be applied elsewhere, to the patterns on the tubs (Pisces and Aries) on the basis of medieval heraldry.