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Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
- Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
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RE: Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
Pierre Dumont Himself > 15-08-2026, 10:36 PM
Two more manuscripts from the scriptorium of Alfonso X:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Reg.lat.1283 - Libro de astromagia:
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BH MSS 156 - Libros del saber de astronomía:
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Described here:
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No other zodiacs in this library according to the catalogue, except one with symbols on the wheel instead of images.
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There may be some among the printed books. One example:
BH INC M-10 Compost et kalendrier des bergères.
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RE: Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
Pierre Dumont Himself > 17-08-2026, 01:46 AM
Basilica di San Savino, Piacenza: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quite a few zodiacs here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Zodiac at Amiens: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Zodiac at Notre-Dame de Paris: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Another zodiac in Chartres: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
A few more zodiacs here (not all depicted): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Ganagobie: Sagittarius with Pisces: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
A lot of zodiacs here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Lyon. Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 172
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RE: Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
Pierre Dumont Himself > 27-08-2026, 10:31 PM
An unusual Sagittarius and Pisces, Chiesa di San Pietro, Tuscania (archivolto)
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Palazzo Orsini di PITIGLIANO - two zodiacs (early 16th century)
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Castello ducale Orsini di Fiano Romano, Sala dello Zodiaco. 1493.
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RE: Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
Chagcharan > 02-09-2026, 01:37 PM
(30-07-2026, 10:29 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For our Zodiac efforts, it might be worthwhile if anyone is able to expand the geographical scope a little bit to digitization deserts that may have had many relevant manuscripts. Czechia, Poland... Maybe Spain, though I'm not sure. Maybe more parts of Italy? Currently there is a huge dominance of German and French manuscripts, but for all we know the MS was made in Italy or even Prague. Currently the best Virgo is from a 1400-1410 MS from Prague, so this may be fertile ground if similar MSS can be found.
I'd love to. I'm based in Prague and have been scanning through local manuscripts quite a bit lately, looking at zodiacs and other drawings. Quite a few of them do have a voynich-like quality to them. I'm not great at reading latin, though I can read old czech, of which there is also quite an extensive corpus of texts. My german is semi-decent.
That said, I'm not very well versed in the current state of research here in this thread/forum, so if anyone could direct me to how I could be best of help, that would be great.
I've got bookmarks of all the interesting stuff I've found, mostly from digitised manuscripts on manuscriptorium.com - a portal developed by the Czech National Library and the primary place for digitized manuscripts from around here. The majority of unique medieval manuscripts have already been digitised, though some remain.
For context, I'm a PhD student of history and anthropology, specializing mostly in 18-19. century artisans. This is a side hobby
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RE: Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
Koen G > 02-09-2026, 04:42 PM
Thanks for your interest, this would be great!
The Zodiac project is still a work in progress. Eggyk has been doing a herculean amount of work by rating over 400 sequences so far. But the composition of the sample is guided by availability. France and Germany produced a lot of manuscripts, and their online repositories are very accessible. This is roughly the current composition (skipping over singleton entries like one Poland):
France 186
Germany 126
Italy 33
England 19
Austria 12
Switz 12
Spain 12
Belgium 11
Czechia 6
The values aren't exact, but they indicate well how the corpus is currently divided. So any additional Zodiac sequences from underrepresented areas might do well to round out the geographical balance. I'm thinking specifically of areas like Czechia because the few entries we have are often good.
If you check the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., on the image categorization tab, you can see which manuscripts have been included already and also which ones Eggy checked but turned out to not have any images. -
RE: Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
eggyk > 02-09-2026, 07:47 PM
(02-09-2026, 01:37 PM)Chagcharan Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd love to. I'm based in Prague and have been scanning through local manuscripts quite a bit lately, looking at zodiacs and other drawings. Quite a few of them do have a voynich-like quality to them. I'm not great at reading latin, though I can read old czech, of which there is also quite an extensive corpus of texts. My german is semi-decent.
That said, I'm not very well versed in the current state of research here in this thread/forum, so if anyone could direct me to how I could be best of help, that would be great.
I've got bookmarks of all the interesting stuff I've found, mostly from digitised manuscripts on manuscriptorium.com - a portal developed by the Czech National Library and the primary place for digitized manuscripts from around here. The majority of unique medieval manuscripts have already been digitised, though some remain.
For context, I'm a PhD student of history and anthropology, specializing mostly in 18-19. century artisans. This is a side hobby
Czechia is a huge blind spot where new entries would be really really valuable. I believe there is only 1 direct manuscriptorium link on there (the blue hatted virgo from prague) so basically everything is likely to be new right now.
Currently, the state of research (for this effort specifically) is a collection of ~400 sources so far as mentioned by Koen above. Every zodiac sign within each source is listed into the relevant spreadsheet and then rated based on a certain set of criteria for the primary purpose of comparison to the VMS. Currently, these criteria are mostly set, but they are still being tweaked occasionally based on new or unexpected things that we are still finding. However, most of the current focus is bulking out the overall sample size in order to start making meaningful observations for both individual signs and overall sequences. (like which VMS-like properties were most common, and where/when)
Two threads dedicated to a sign have been made so far: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Any particularly interesting examples of those signs would be great to see there too. More threads for other signs will be coming at some point, with the next likely being based on which set of zodiac signs seems the most interesting to discuss based on the examples found so far. For example, scorpio and gemini have some great entries will be worth discussing eventually. The main reason i've held off making another specific thread is because every contribution in each thread turns into an entire manuscript source and it would simply be too much to handle.
So I want to start that up once the vast bulk of low hanging entries are added and sorted.
For the purposes of analysis -and to remove bias where possible- I take all sources of zodiac imagery, including ones not deemed particularly interesting. But if a particular example or multiple examples are more interesting for any reason, you can definitely mention and discuss them here. If you have bookmarks or links to sources they would be hugely appreciated, and I will add them as soon as I can. The more info you can give for each one the better, but a dump of links is also welcome.
(From memory, I think manuscriptorium can be a little awkward with specific folios and their parent manuscript? If possible, linking to the manuscript itself along with its contents would be extremely helpful!) -
RE: Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion
Pierre Dumont Himself > 02-09-2026, 09:29 PM
Here's one more from Prague: Astronomical Anthology for Wenceslas IV (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm
826, folio 8r)
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A friend of mine sent me this book on Alfonsine astronomy (Prague manuscripts from p. 199):
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Linked manuscripts on the website (one French, one Italian and one Timurid)
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LEÓN. REAL BASÍLICA DE SAN ISIDORO
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Cathedral of Jaca
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Tempio malatestiano, cappella delle Divinità planetarie, Rimini
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Villa Stati-Mattei
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Three manuscripts cited here (two Flemish, one Sicilian):
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More of the same:
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Kunitzsch's tables described here:
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Ancient zodiac fragment from Salona near Split: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.