What is hidden in plain sight? And what is hidden by deception? That depends of the reader's perception. Take any topic that would have been familiar to an educated person living in the mid-European culture of roughly 1400 to 1450, and ask yourself how well your familiarity with events, history, and tradition compares with that of the images produced by the VMs artist. Does the reader know the difference between the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic representations of a geocentric cosmos or about the inverted T-O representation of the Earth? Does the reader know heraldry well enough to find it in the initial VMs Zodiac illustrations?
The greatest unexpected clue, on the basis of the dual interpretations of the heraldry on VMs White Aries, is that the two interpretations were put there intentionally, and it is the disguised and hidden version that is the one with a significant historical interpretation borrowing a specific heraldic situation within the traditions of the Catholic church - the history of Pope Innocent IV and the origins of the cardinal's red galero.
Dual interpretation is one form of disguise. The combination of paired images is another way that things are obfuscated. This deception is a sort of game, like a test of the reader's familiarity with the social media of the artist's lifetime, historical, scientific and traditional knowledge and events. Things have been hidden. And unfortunately as it generally turns out, these are things where many initial VMs investigators lack familiarity. [The Fieschi blazon; the name, definition, and purpose of the nebuly line; the details relevant to the fashion of clothing; the name, definition, placement and purpose of the papelonny tincture; the variations of Melusine;, the Agnus Dei of Liège (1313); the diagrams of Shirakatsi; and many others.] We need to know the "social media" of the era in order to understand what is presented in the illustrations. We need to follow the path of pairing that has been provided in the VMs. We need to take the bridge from illustrations to language indicated by Stolfi's 'start here' markers because of the connection with heraldry.
Yeah, I know that sounds a bit loopy. What I'm saying is: we need to realize what the VMs creator is *potentially* doing. We need to use the clues that have been provided. We need to recognize that things are intentionally different in appearance, yet identification is confirmed by the retention of a common structure - after the rediscovery of the best comparable example. We need to follow the trail of clues, particularly those that are validated by shared provenance, but first we need to learn how to find them. The knowledge accumulated in recent years is bringing that picture into clearer focus. The now and then, one-off, potshots at linguistic interpretation continue to provide a distraction.
The greatest unexpected clue, on the basis of the dual interpretations of the heraldry on VMs White Aries, is that the two interpretations were put there intentionally, and it is the disguised and hidden version that is the one with a significant historical interpretation borrowing a specific heraldic situation within the traditions of the Catholic church - the history of Pope Innocent IV and the origins of the cardinal's red galero.
Dual interpretation is one form of disguise. The combination of paired images is another way that things are obfuscated. This deception is a sort of game, like a test of the reader's familiarity with the social media of the artist's lifetime, historical, scientific and traditional knowledge and events. Things have been hidden. And unfortunately as it generally turns out, these are things where many initial VMs investigators lack familiarity. [The Fieschi blazon; the name, definition, and purpose of the nebuly line; the details relevant to the fashion of clothing; the name, definition, placement and purpose of the papelonny tincture; the variations of Melusine;, the Agnus Dei of Liège (1313); the diagrams of Shirakatsi; and many others.] We need to know the "social media" of the era in order to understand what is presented in the illustrations. We need to follow the path of pairing that has been provided in the VMs. We need to take the bridge from illustrations to language indicated by Stolfi's 'start here' markers because of the connection with heraldry.
Yeah, I know that sounds a bit loopy. What I'm saying is: we need to realize what the VMs creator is *potentially* doing. We need to use the clues that have been provided. We need to recognize that things are intentionally different in appearance, yet identification is confirmed by the retention of a common structure - after the rediscovery of the best comparable example. We need to follow the trail of clues, particularly those that are validated by shared provenance, but first we need to learn how to find them. The knowledge accumulated in recent years is bringing that picture into clearer focus. The now and then, one-off, potshots at linguistic interpretation continue to provide a distraction.
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