Second cloud band in VMs rosettes

[Linda]

I agree about the text bands not being visible or material. I also agree with the trickery. I think it is somehow a function of the literal translation of the imagery. An example i can think of is a plant which the literal translation is "the fruit grows directly on the midpoint of the stem" but the drawing is of a fruit growing through the middle of the stem. Another is "the rivers cross each other" meaning "various parallel rivers share water flow between them" but the drawing is of crossing rivers as fingers might cross. 

Here the encircled idea could mean stars can be seen from all quarters of the Earth, and they just aren't being specific about how many. A minimalist analogy that still works. 

I never went for the galaxy idea, too anachronous. I think it is representing the Earth and sky, and indicates that the earth turns within this visible area, the celestial sphere. Notice half the text bands connect to the text band around the earth while the other four come directly out of the cloud band. 

Could this be to bring 3d to a 2d TO map, to show that textual TO maps stand for the Earth, which is a spheroid object that turns about in space. 

Or, perhaps to signify day versus night, sun rays. At night they go to the heavens, the sun is still shining but not on the earth, or to the other side of the earth.

Perhaps with the connection to the heavens it is indicating angles of precession with the ecliptic, or the tilt of the earth re seasons.

Regardless it comes back to turning, or rotating,  whether it is geocentric, or just a local view of a larger system so as not to give away the whole story in the image. The direction of the turn seems better on the vms to indicate the way the earth turns, ie towards the east, the others seem to describe the heavens turning only, ie stationary earth with things moving westward in the sky. That Asia is on the bottom may also indicate turning, since it would normally have been shown on top, with east up, although nowadays we would orient north up. The problem being of course that the world was not yet equivalent to the earth.

Perhaps it shows time zones, dawn, noon, dusk, midnight, and maybe says it would be different off planet, or on the other side, that our concepts of time have to do with the turning of the heavens in our specific locality.

It could be compass directions, wind directions. Hot dry cold wet, earth wind fire water.

It may just be showing the rotation of the Earth, or of the heavens, or better yet both, like an infinity wheel, or may represent the addition of phases of the moon, or both or more. 

Given these ideas it would make more sense for the T part of the map to be curved, but i think it is making the point that all world maps relate somehow to a spheroid body in space. The vords do appear to jive somewhat with those on the rosettes TO map, they appear to be abbreviated there. Could be the difference between Europe and Europa linguistically. Or other words.









So basically i see the vms version as an updating of the Oresme Earth, both linking flat maps to a sphere, and adding the rotation of this sphere to further explain the nature of the Earth, adding explanation of night and day, the seasons, the ages, i.e adding yet another dimension (time) and equating it back to the two dimensional depictions thereof.