68r1 and 2

[-JKP-]

From a conceptual point of view, someone might be thinking, "Here is an image of God creating the heavens and the earth" (with heavens being stars), "so maybe I could use this idea to illustrate the most important ones..."

I find myself frequently thinking of the VMS as a "book of knowledge" and sometimes as a teaching guide (parent to child, for example). Other days, I think of it as a reference book (mainly the plant pics). Maybe the different sections have different intentions.


The problem with the "star labels" is they are very homogenous. There is very little variety in the glyphs or their placement.

Now... most star names are Arabic (and even the English knew the Arabic names in the early medieval period, I made a point of looking for them in manuscripts), so seeing "Al" or "Ar at the beginnings of numerous star names would not be unusual but... the VMS seems to take repetition two steps beyond what one would expect.


PS, off-topic: I really like the drawing of Paradise in this manuscript, Koen. I recognized it without having to read the text even though the four rivers illustration is fairly abstract. It shows how the iconography really does work once you are familiar with the symbols.