Morten St George Theory

[Linda]

Enter the mystery animal of f80v. You see it here on the top left:



Just to the right of the mystery animal, you see an armadillo, which is an animal native to the Americans and never seen in pre-Columbian Europe. Notice that the mystery animal and the armadillo both have scaly skin, similar looking ears, similar looking hind legs, and a short tail. Six hundred years ago, there were many species of armadillo in the Americas, many of which are now extinct, but at least one species of armadillo without bands is still extant.

Below the mystery animal, you see a pangolin, an animal whose native habitat is southern Africa and southeastern Asia. It too has scaly skin, but unlike the mystery animal, it has ears that are hard to detect, thick hind legs, and a very long tail.

So, what is this mystery animal likely to be?

i. an armadillo?

ii. a pangolin?

iii. a "mythical creature" that looks like an armadillo?

iv. A rutting ram, but which is not real, but signifies the western side of the Alps up to about Lake Garda, its horns pointing at Venice from the lower eastern edge of the lake The scales are reminiscent of mountains on maps, and are painted green to signify mineralized runoff. This is consistent with various springs being found along the edges.The tail is forked because the landscape is as such, a river forks in that area. The leg of Switzerland is the front leg, Milan is the foot, the mouth is Lake Como,  the back leg is a valley near the center of the curve, or perhaps indicatesTurin. The back leg may indicate Genoa.





Note how none of the maps show the Austrian Alps. The second portolan rendition shows the fork in the rivers, where the tail is. These are actually  later versions but the 1375 Catalan Atlas shows the same features and has pangolin-like scales for mountains. I just could not find a closeup of the alps at the moment.

Just thought i would show that although it may look like an animal, the story could be quite different, but we can't really know what it is meant to portray until we can read the text and hopefully it will give us context.