02-12-2020, 09:13 PM
That is an interesting pattern, with several similarities. However, I see the central sphere(?) as having four arms. So nothing crosses inner circle, and there are other differences. It's that same old question: Are these similar images from separate cultures? Or is there something deeper going on? Some pre-cultural connection to a wheel with eight curved spokes, or just a wheel in general?
There is sufficient ambiguity in the VMs illustrations that virtually nothing can stand on its own as an unquestioned example of factual information. That is to say, pretty much any thing can be and has been interpreted in various ways. And this collection of interpretations has grown over time. A new one flares up every now and then. But what it shows to me in the aggregate is a reference to the history and and traditions that were in sync with the Burgundian era of the Golden Fleece of 1430 and subsequent.
The cosmic comparison, cloud bands, Melusine and friends, the critter of f80v, the empty double rainbow, all possess their multiple interpretations. But when brought together in the VMs, they represent their own historical perspective. There is clearly a situation in which all of these pieces fit together. The structure of parts of the illustrated narrative depends on Deuteronomic pairings.
Oresme and Shiratski is one of the problematic situations that needed to fit together. There is evidence that the Shirakatsi diagram still existed in Constantinople in the mid-1400s. There was plenty of contact, including direct contact between Burgundy and Trebizond by the 1460s. Transmission would have had countless opportunities.
The creator of the VMs seems to have used basic structural forms comparable to particular, surviving, historical examples of a coincident provenance, as taken from the information provided by the history and the results of various investigations. Potentially the author took structural mages from certain sources and set them to a new purpose. To know this well one would have lived in this era, and known the history and the traditions, and the scientific theories of the time. Add in a pungent taste of trickery and deception and you've got the VMs.
There is sufficient ambiguity in the VMs illustrations that virtually nothing can stand on its own as an unquestioned example of factual information. That is to say, pretty much any thing can be and has been interpreted in various ways. And this collection of interpretations has grown over time. A new one flares up every now and then. But what it shows to me in the aggregate is a reference to the history and and traditions that were in sync with the Burgundian era of the Golden Fleece of 1430 and subsequent.
The cosmic comparison, cloud bands, Melusine and friends, the critter of f80v, the empty double rainbow, all possess their multiple interpretations. But when brought together in the VMs, they represent their own historical perspective. There is clearly a situation in which all of these pieces fit together. The structure of parts of the illustrated narrative depends on Deuteronomic pairings.
Oresme and Shiratski is one of the problematic situations that needed to fit together. There is evidence that the Shirakatsi diagram still existed in Constantinople in the mid-1400s. There was plenty of contact, including direct contact between Burgundy and Trebizond by the 1460s. Transmission would have had countless opportunities.
The creator of the VMs seems to have used basic structural forms comparable to particular, surviving, historical examples of a coincident provenance, as taken from the information provided by the history and the results of various investigations. Potentially the author took structural mages from certain sources and set them to a new purpose. To know this well one would have lived in this era, and known the history and the traditions, and the scientific theories of the time. Add in a pungent taste of trickery and deception and you've got the VMs.