Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

[Bluetoes101]

Hey now, don't retaliate! :p


I hadn't noticed the guy looking at the sky sheep yet. Aries or drollery-type surrealism?

 I love a good "chucking darts at the dart board" session! It's not a complaint. 

That was my initial guess also. Though one of them I saw was a snake eating a rat(?), so maybe it is more tales and less Zodiac.
We have "counting sheep" here (not sure how universal that is), which is often shown as sheep in the night sky like clouds, though I'm not sure what a snake would be off the top of my head, or the others.. but also the drawer likes doing animals near the tops of pages in some cases so it's hard to know what is important and what's a doodle. I liked the sheep one because of the interaction with the man looking up.

[Koen G]

Are you sure that's the correct link, Rene? I see some guys feeding a horse (I'm on mobile). 

I understand what you mean, and I don't expect to convince anyone. Suggesting this MS as potentially direct inspiration for the VM goes against everything I believe about the manuscript as well.

But I thought: what do I really know? Where it was made? I have no clue, do you? Many image parallels we consider remarkable are actually from southern Italy. So why should I let some vague preconception of "as far north as possible where they still knew swallowtail merlons" stand in the way of potential advancement?

I agree that the timing is a bit more awkward, but not prohibitively so. Taccola started preparing his work many years before it was finished, basically during peak VM time. And there's the matter of potential source images as well.

For me, the main issue is: what kind of person would have gotten access to Taccola's sketches or finished book and use that as one of the sources for something like the VM? He lived in a major city, where he interacted with people 365 days of the year. He was admired by the emperor (king of the Germans), whom he accompanied to Rome and dedicated this very book to. So there's a lot of potential characters that may have crossed his path.

It's just good to realize how little we actually know for sure. But I really like the parallels, including the sun that others pointed out. Finding a "full head" sun face is very rare, and this one has pipes and and 8-pointed star shape.

[Bernd]

It would be worth asking an expert on Taccola about what we know about the Sun image. Is it likely Taccola invented it from scratch? Or did he copy it and just added the pipes? Most of Taccola's drawings have parallels in Vegetius' De rei militari and Bellifortis by Konrad Kyeser. The problem is that there is no clear timeline. Manuscripts and printed books of both pre-and post-date Taccola. So who influenced whom might be a complicated matter. But so far Taccola is the best match. Also note how many of his drawings are accompanied by a single word, just like many VM labels.

Here some segmented pipes I think we haven't discussed yet.
   
   

Do we actually have a list of all existing Taccola manuscripts and copies? I read the originals were only rediscovered in the 1960s.

[DG97EEB]

It would be worth asking an expert on Taccola about what we know about the Sun image. Is it likely Taccola invented it from scratch? Or did he copy it and just added the pipes? Most of Taccola's drawings have parallels in Vegetius' De rei militari and Bellifortis by Konrad Kyeser. The problem is that there is no clear timeline. Manuscripts and printed books of both pre-and post-date Taccola. So who influenced whom might be a complicated matter. But so far Taccola is the best match. Also note how many of his drawings are accompanied by a single word, just like many VM labels.

Here some segmented pipes I think we haven't discussed yet.



Do we actually have a list of all existing Taccola manuscripts and copies? I read the originals were only rediscovered in the 1960s.

Not sure if you spotted this - I can't promise it's exhaustive and some of it is just plates from de Ingeneis or De Machinis 

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Munich has his notebook which predates De Ingeneis and shows the same illustrations but sometimes subtly different 

Munich. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 197,II | IIIF Collections of Manuscripts and Rare Books
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Also in New York 
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From the NYC collection, this one is new to me
   

Paris has a nice one with colours which someone else put their name to and was apparently found in a sultan's library. It gives the sun a nice prominence and also contain more eastern elements  and a different version of the picture above You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

   
   
       

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I hadn't noticed the guy looking at the sky sheep yet. Aries or drollery-type surrealism?

Both the "sheep in the sky" and the "man with donkey" may have been just "artistic practice" drawings unrelated to the topic of the page.  Doodles, only more serious...

All the best, --stolfi

[MarcoP]

Here some segmented pipes I think we haven't discussed yet.

That text says it's artillery (bombards) made of multiple parts so they can be more easily transported on carts.

[Jorge_Stolfi]

It would be worth asking an expert on Taccola about what we know about the Sun image. Is it likely Taccola invented it from scratch?

I am no expert on that, but I would be surprised if no one had drawn the Sun with such face and rays before. 

Perhaps you mean the four tubes, specifically.  Google AI claims that Taccola's (which I mentioned in the prompt) is the only example, but "one reference notes that the Voynich Manuscript  (early 15th century) also features a potential sun-like image with "lots of pipes," similar to the one in Taccola's [i]Palatino 766[/i] manuscript".  Argh!

( On the plus side, it knows that "several experts agree" that the VMS was BEEEEEP!   )

All the best, --stolfi

[Jorge_Stolfi]

For me, Siena is a bit outside the likely area of influence for the Voynich MS, both geographically (it is quite far south) and timewise, though that is definitely marginal. There would have hardly been any time for the MS to 'spread'.

Any match between VMS images and images of Book X only implies that the Scribe had access to a copy of Book X, or a copy of whatever source the images of Book X were copied from.

Therefore, the geography does not seem to be a problem, since Taccola's work was well-known north of the Alps. 

As for the time, it is quite possible that the VMS was written several decades after the vellum was manufactured.  It may have been sitting in the "rejects" trunk of the vellum maker for that long, until the Author came asking for the cheapest vellum they had...

All the best, --stolfi

[DG97EEB]

Btw, random aside, but if anyone is near Padua, this exhibition looks great You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
Bringing together the 14th Century Paduan bible, which the oldest (and possibly only) version in Italian vernacular 

Koen: feel free to split this

   

[ReneZ]

Are you sure that's the correct link, Rene? I see some guys feeding a horse (I'm on mobile). 

This is part of the image that my link takes me too.
Like I said: I am sure this is coincidental.