f3r You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
[
attachment=6508]
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. f103r
[
attachment=6509]
The structure of the plant of the You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. is quite similar to the f103r. The second one is most red, first one is most green, part red, more natural colors for a plant.
The 4 points leaves of the You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. and the strange way how they are united, are like the circles with 4 points that have text inside and the way the are united. Both of them have a similiar structure.
As @Koen wrote in his blogs, there seem to be some similarities between the VMS and works from Diebolt Lauber's workshop. So one could speculate about some influence here. But maybe there are just striking similarities due to temporal (and regional?) proximity.
If you take the two Lauber illustrations with the mermaids, plus the mermaid illustrated in Harley 334, and compare it with the VMs representation of f79v, then it can be better seen what kind of situation the VMs image is intended to represent. It is a *generic* mermaid among generic fish, sea monsters and various generic creatures.
But that's the thing about the VMs. It's tricky. The VMs "mermaid" is not generic. The VMs mermaid has thighs. Mermaids do not have thighs!! This is the mythical Melusine. Here she is seen in the mermaid-like version associated with Luxembourg and the Valois family lines of France, Berry, Burgundy, etc., rather than the flying dragon-like version of Lusignan - also with Berry connections.
So, the VMs 'mermaid' illustration is a composite, a combination of two different things. Melusine has replaced the generic mermaid. The proposed technique of intentional trickery may seem farfetched and difficult to prove, but it is clear again, if the VMs cosmos is carefully examined and compared to the cosmic illustrations of BNF Fr. 565 and Harley 334. [E. Velinska, 2014] Provenance indicates both sources were made in Paris within the VMs C-14 dates. Both Melusine, the cosmos, the nebuly line as a cosmic boundary and Philomela connect to the library of Jean, Duke of Berry (d. 1416, Paris).
The outer wheel and eight curved spokes of the VMs cosmos is a match for Shirakatsi's diagram of Eight Phases of the Moon. [D. Scheers, 2014] This is the second part of the VMs cosmos.
Anyway, the Berry library went to his daughter, or perhaps only 40 of about 100 books. And the others went elsewhere. And somewhere along the line, the VMs artist also knew of the Golden Fleece and the particular Agnus Dei structure, with a nebuly line as a cosmic boundary, as found in BNF Fr. 13096, from the Burgundy library.
The VMs artist may have seen various historical manuscripts over as long as several decades. Or the VMs may contain independent representations of commons ideas and images also seen in the surviving examples above. However, the general factors of a reasonable, common provenance, within the C-14 dates, from multiple investigations seems to indicate something more.