Ladies with Rings

[MarcoP]

As we do now, also the ancients used to seal letters with rings worn on the fingers, so that communications were not seen or made public.

"Usavasi ancora dagli Antichi sigillar, come ora, le lettere con anelli, che si portano in dito, acciò che non si vedano, o palesino i negozi"

They're talking about wax seals that used to be made into the shape of a ring. You would fold your letter over, and pour wax to prevent it being opened. Then you would press your ring (or whatever seal you possessed, quite often it would be a stamp) to make an impression in the wax. The received thus knew, from the condition of the wax seal, if the letter had been tampered with.
Another version was to append a wax seal to the end of an official document to certify its veracity - legal notices and the like (letters patent, legal instructions open to all to view with the wax seal serving as an indication that the Authority had issued the instructions).
I doubt very much that this is what we are seeing in the VM.

Hello Davidjackson,
I agree that Ripa's text is about wax seals.
Could you please expand your last sentence? Of course, I agree that everything is doubtful when discussing these mysterious images, but your statement suggests that you have a specific opinion on the subject. Are there other explanations for the ring that you find more convincing?

But i see nobody jumping up and down, because of my discovery about the ms & ring & fleur-de-lis. This could mean one or two things:

1) reading my blog page is skipped by many
2) the discovery is not considered to be important

To me this is important because i spend a lot of time here.

Hello Davidsch,
the connection between mushrooms, deer, globes, rings and fleur-de-lys is not obvious. Maybe you could start a new thread on the subject and try to condense your explanation of the f85r2 diagram, with a short identification of each figure and of the overall meaning of the illustration?