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Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Printable Version

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Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Jorge_Stolfi - 02-01-2026

[Sorry of this has been asked before.  I tried searching the site but came up with nothing]

The central figure on the Rosettes page (f85v2, fRos) shows six towers with "onion" roofs, apparently supporting the starry heavens.

Has anyone found similar imagery in manuscripts from 1400 or earlier?  Or actual buildings with those features?

Towers just like those -- round, with ribbed onion roofs, topped with a tapered trumpet-shaped cone piercing a ball -- seem to be characteristic features of Medieval Russian Orthodox cathedrals, and their more recent "Revival" style.  What was the geographic extent of that style?  Did it reach Central Europe? 

It seems that the Russian towers were usually built into the cathedral.  The towers in the VMS, on the other hand, are free-standing, with characteristic "lobed swelling" at the base.  Is there any parallel to those bases, n imagery or actual buildings?

All the best, --stolfi

RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Rafal - 02-01-2026

I'm not an expert but I believe that it was suggested in the past that the Rosettes city may be Jerusalem. Either real Jerusalem or new, heavenly Jerusalem ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. )

It seems that medieval artists were aware that Jerusalem has a different architecture than European towns.

[Image: heavenly-jerusalem-0a307b-1024.jpg]

[Image: 71lIOf3H5zL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg]

RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Koen G - 02-01-2026

This would be a good line of investigation if we were certain that these represent towers. Here they are with a couple of vessels from the pharma section:

   

As you can see, the same elements used in the "free standing towers" are also found in the vessels. Particularly interesting is the rightmost "tower" of the rosettes: that footed stem with a ring around it is typical for metal or woodworked handheld objects.

So my first question would be: why should we interpret these as bizarrely freestanding towers?

As for the style, if they do reference architecture, then it's likely an eastern Mediterranean city with "Holy Land" vibes, like Constantinople or Jerusalem. You'll find some towers and pillars with globe-shaped tops, for example in the Nuremberg Chronicle's images of Constantinople, which I think has overall Rosettes vibes. But nothing as extreme as those six objects, which would have massively exaggerated proportions if they are interpreted as purely architectural.

RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Jorge_Stolfi - 02-01-2026

(02-01-2026, 11:49 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This would be a good line of investigation if we were certain that these represent towers. Here they are with a couple of vessels from the pharma section:

Indeed it is hard to dismiss the resemblance as coincidence.

Quote:those six objects would have massively exaggerated proportions if they are interpreted as purely architectural.

You mean the other way around: comparing with all the other recognizable elements on that page, if those things are vessels they would have to be of cosmic proportions ...  I find it easier to believe that the center of the Cosmos, according to the VMS Author, had six fantastic towers reaching all the way to the starry sphere, than six impossibly huge drug vessels...

But maybe you mean that those onion domes are too big compared to the tower below them?  That may be the case for some You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., but Russian ones You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  

Indeed the resemblance with Russian domes seems to be more precise than with those Pharma vessels or with the "Jerusalem" towers of medieval manuscripts.   And all six objects in the Rosette look like towers, whereas only some Pharma jars look like them. 

Other features that match Russian towers are the inverted-trumpet-like spire, delimited from the onion itself by a thin band, transfixing a sphere and ending in a sharp point; the round (rather than square) two-story body, the marked ribs on the onions...

All the best, --stolfi.

RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - bi3mw - 02-01-2026

(02-01-2026, 11:21 AM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not an expert but I believe that it was suggested in the past that the Rosettes city may be Jerusalem. Either real Jerusalem or new, heavenly Jerusalem

I like the idea of the “heavenly Jerusalem.”

See: VM408 folio86v ‘The Rosette Map’: Elements of a Mappa mundi and a map of the Elements
Juergen Wastl and Danielle Feger
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RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Rafal - 02-01-2026

Jerusalem was in medieval times and later often considered "centre of the world". It would fit the Rosettes page nicely.

[Image: Bunting-Map-of-the-World-around-Jerusale...o-Jack.jpg]

There seems to be such concept as Umbilicus Mundi - navel of the world. It was used for Rome but also for Jerusalem.

To be honest the real Jerusalem in the 1400s was provincial, small and neglected town. Never ending crusades and other wars substantially
damaged the buildings and reduced the population. But in manuscripts it was always a magnificent, great place.

I also agree that these towers are similar to apothecary jars.
There can be some symbolism behind it. At first glance it looks like a city and I wouldn't throw away that obvious meaning. But there could be
some hidden meaning - buy my powders, oils and tinctures and you will reach health, peace, harmony, perfection and so on, just like in heavenly
Jerusalem.

RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Koen G - 02-01-2026

Stolfi: I'd still say the proportions are way off, comparing the size of tower, dome and finial. I agree that they are not exactly the same as any of the pharma vessels either, but that is to be expected. All of the pharma vessels and all six of these things on the Rosettes page are unique.



Regarding Heavenly Jerusalem:

Wastl and Feger call it "Heavenly Jerusalem", but they actually refer to the earthly city of Jerusalem as the center of the world, a convention among mapmakers. Heavenly Jerusalem is an apocalyptical concept from the book of Revelation, when a city descends from the sky (the New Jerusalem), which becomes the abode of the righteous after the end times. The actual city of Jerusalem as a geographical centre and the apocalyptical Heavenly Jerusalem are distinct concepts.



For much more on the Rosettes as Heavenly Jerusalem, see: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (I wrote this 4 years ago, and as my usual disclaimer goes, I'd probably write it with more caution now, but I still like the idea).


[Image: 01wf.jpg]

RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - bi3mw - 02-01-2026

@Rafal: This is a surprisingly late depiction of a world map with Jerusalem at its center.
Heinrich Bünting: „Die gantze Welt in einem Kleberblat, first edition 1581 (!)
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RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Jorge_Stolfi - 02-01-2026

(02-01-2026, 03:41 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.See: VM408 folio86v ‘The Rosette Map’: Elements of a Mappa mundi and a map of the Elements
Juergen Wastl1 and Danielle Feger
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I am sorry, but I am not impressed at all by that article.

It is entirely based on the premise that the Rosettes' diagram is a version of the medieval mappae mundi.  But they give no arguments for that identification, and ignore tons of evidence that it is false.

For one thing, a Medieval mappa mundus had three unequal continents packed into a circle, whereas f86v2 has four equal and well-separated "continents" M1-M4, at the corners of a square, and four "inter-continents" E1-E4 that had no parallel in the Medieval maps.  

They identify the NE "continent" (M2) with Europe because of the North Italian style merlons (as if the artist would know what African and Asian merlons looked like).  

Then they identify the NW "continent" (M1) with Africa because the tower depicted there must be the lighthouse of Alexandria.  How do they conclude that? Because the roof is yellow, which is the color of fire.  Even if we were to believe that the colors are original, there is the little detail that the drawing shows a round tower, while the Pharos has always been drwan as a massive square building.  Oh, and also the tower on f85v2 is surrounded by a massive wall that reaches all the way to the top floor...

And M3 s then assigned to Asia.  Why? Because there is a building with three towers on the way that leaves Europe towards E3 which is the way to M3, and everybody at the time knew that Constantinople (which an Italian scribe may consider part of Asia?) was shaped like a triangle and thus represented as a castle with three turrets.  Never mind that the three towers of f86v3 are on a straight line, rather than a triangle, and the building looks uncanningly like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in Prague, including the square-top roof with two ball-tipped spikes...

But, even dismissing that paper, we can ask whether the central rosette is meant to be Jerusalem.  The problem is those onion domes.  I have seen some images from the time, in which Jerusalem is shown with many towers of all sizes and shapes (not just six equal round ones) with conical or at most hemispherical domes.  And the Scribe surely must have been familiar with those images.  So, are there any Medieval images of Jerusalem that even remotely resemble the central plaza of f86v2? 

All the best, --stolfi

RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Bluetoes101 - 02-01-2026

Personally I think they are vessels, some would make pretty impossible buildings. The one on the right for example - in the central group. 
Interestingly though, the drawer seems to recycle some aspects between buildings in the ROS and pharma vessels, whatever that might mean.

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