07-03-2017, 10:18 PM
I think that the first question might be; Unusual to whom? I don't disagree with your comments, but I do propose a different perspective. That the informed association of the parts of Oresme's cosmos would not be all that difficult for the educated elite in the time of the VMs manufacture to recognize. Even to the modern VMs investigator, the actual structure of the cloud band in the Oresme illustration has been nothing but an insignificant nit. The fact that the VMs contains the same kind of elaborated scallop pattern as the Oresme illustration seems to add a further confirmation to the suggestion that Oresme's illustration may have been known to the VMs author and in a set of various other persons. The deception used in the VMs is to separate the inner and outer parts.
Optical illusion is the type of deception used in another instance. Surely there are those among the author's peers who would recognize the armorial insignia of the pope who initiated the tradition of the cardinals' use of the red galero. But that has also turned into an insignificant historical nit. And the definition of papelonny is essentially lost. That makes it unusual for us and much harder for us to understand these specific cultural references than it would have been for those contemporary with the VMs creation. We have lost the details, the author and some of those contemporary to that circle know these details.
When separation and illusion confirm deception, how are correct interpretations to be known? By their position, by objective placement that accords with known tradition. Proper hierarchy and the favored heraldic location. The author also made use of heraldic canting. What will modern readers make of a pun unrecognized? They won't laugh. The author's contemporaries would not have had such difficulties.
Optical illusion is the type of deception used in another instance. Surely there are those among the author's peers who would recognize the armorial insignia of the pope who initiated the tradition of the cardinals' use of the red galero. But that has also turned into an insignificant historical nit. And the definition of papelonny is essentially lost. That makes it unusual for us and much harder for us to understand these specific cultural references than it would have been for those contemporary with the VMs creation. We have lost the details, the author and some of those contemporary to that circle know these details.
When separation and illusion confirm deception, how are correct interpretations to be known? By their position, by objective placement that accords with known tradition. Proper hierarchy and the favored heraldic location. The author also made use of heraldic canting. What will modern readers make of a pun unrecognized? They won't laugh. The author's contemporaries would not have had such difficulties.