Three-section orbs

[asteckley]

And no, the Cosmos illustration of BNF Fr. 565 has no place in this. There is no link between the two manuscripts, and both illustrations might relate to a common source, but they are not so similar that they can be connected.
Much more would need to be found to say more about this.

Hi Rene,

I have a question but then I realized I am unclear on what you are saying.  Do you mean that they share a 'single' source, or do you mean they are a 'motif' that can be found in many sources? (e.g. a mother cradling a child, below a star.)
I am assuming you mean the latter simply because the diagrams are clearly 'very' similar --  they share at least three distinct and independent features so it would be remarkable for them to coincide simply by chance unless they were intentionally combined to convey a common motif. (And if it is not a motif, there would have to be an earlier document from which they were both copied, or else one was based on the other. But in either of those cases, one would say there is a 'direct' link.)
So, assuming that is what you meant -- the "common source" is a motif --what does the motif represent? Perhaps more importantly, what is the motif's origins (culturally, geographically, era, etc.)?  I expect, of course, that I am asking something that is common knowledge to medievalists (and just unknown to me). But I'm curious because the motif's origins would surely say something useful about the origins of the VMS as well.