Quire9-10 pattern

[Hermes777]

No doubt other folks have suggested similar things but i cannot find any information.

Indeed, it is better to search directly on a website or blog, it is faster.

I think the faces-as-planets idea (or something similar) is discussed in Nick's book.

Also on his blog
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On this topic I have to raise an objection to Nick Pelling’s account of this intellectual history, although it is not exclusive to Nick but rather a very common general view. He write’s, regarding Theoria Planetarum:

"In the pre-Copernican time period we’re interested in, the dominant belief (because all the rest was heresy) was that the celestial spheres rotated around the Earth in a perfectly circular manner." (Nick's emphasis in bold.)

And yet Nicholas of Cusa proposed that heavenly movements were not circular and promoted a cosmology that held such positions as:

The universe is infinite and therefore has no centre
The earth is therefore not the centre of the universe
The earth is not perfectly spherical

Among many other supposed astronomical heresies. (He also proposed that there was life on other planets.)

Cusanus, of course, was a cardinal of the Roman Church and while he had his opponents and detractors, political and theological, his orthodoxy was beyond reproach. Not a single work or utterance by Cusanus was ever investigated or marked for heresy by the Church.

His scientific views were grounded in the entirely orthodox (Platonic) theology that says only God is perfect and there are no perfect circles in this world.

So the blanket assertion “In the pre-Copernican time period… the dominant belief (because all the rest was heresy) was that the celestial spheres rotated around the Earth in a perfectly circular manner” is not quite true. No doubt it was the dominant belief, but it is was not unquestioned and to question it wouldn’t necessarily get you burnt at the stake.