(Yesterday, 08:46 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A series of several rounded arches that the so-called "ignorant" artist has absent-mindedly painted blue. ... To discover that these arches might be interpreted as blue windows is slightly amusing.
I think we can assume as certain that the text and the outlines of the drawings were creatd at the same time, by the same Scribe, with the same pen and ink. But there are reasons to believe that color paints were applied much later -- decades or centuries -- when the Author and original Scribe were no longer around. AFAIK there is one bit of solid evidence for this claim, and no evidence for the paints being contemporary with the outlines, or directed by the original Author.
Thus, when interpreting the images, one must ignore the colored paints. Which is not easy, I know...
Those openings look totally like they were meant to give access to a compartment under the pool where a fire would be lit to warm up the water.
Quote:the tub is only half patterned, only on the secondary portion, you might say
Maybe they should have been present all arount this and other pools, but the Scribe got tired after those 7 and assumed that the readers would imagine the rest. Or maybe the fire was limited to that part of the pool only, and the rest of the pool and other pools just received hot water from that section.
Quote:the number of women in this tub is nine
Page You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. is notorious for being one half of what should have been a two-page centerfold image; the other half being f81r. It seems to be consensus that bifolio f78-f81 was meant to be at the center of its quire, but the bifolios were scrambled before the folios were numbered and the bifolios (re?)bound in their present order.
In the combined f78v-f81r illustration, water flows out from the bottom of the You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. pool and feeds the two pools on f81r. The outlets of these pools are not shown, so presumably their overflow went to the waste water drainage.
But then maybe we should consider all the nymphs in those three pools as a set. There are seven in the top pool of f81r, and six in the bottom pool. So maybe the number that needs explanation is 9+7+6 = 22, not just 9.
However, the nymphs in this two-page illustration, unlike those in other Bio pages, do not seem to have names. So maybe their number is not significant; maybe the Scribe just kept drawing nymphs until each pool was full...
Quote:Here is another example, like the cosmic comparison, where history provides quite an interesting example. Harley 4431 ...
Nine Muses in an arcaded fountain in an illustration with good historical provenance: Paris, 1410-1414. There are a few other versions of the Muses, but not in an arcaded pool.
Indeed, it seems quite likely that the VMS Scribe was inspired by contemporary illustrations like that one.
Is it certain that that drawing depicts the nine Muses? Or is that just an interpretation by some paleographer?
All the best, --stolfi