Water, earth and air

[Linda]

As (the) one who sees the wording of VMS' f68 "earth" as equivalents of Asia, Africa, Europe (which can be found in a overwhelming number of TO signets and thereby have the highest possibility, but of course no certainty), 
I like to emphasize that VMS rosette here shares to same way of viewing the world like "Oresme" ("" because I have in mind that the drawings are not Oresmes own work).

I see similarities in both re the words. I hadn't considered seeing the rosettes TO as being an Oresme version but it could work in either way since the portion that would be Europe in the Isadore version would be the habitable portion in Oresme. However the Asia section would be the water portion, I guess that could sort of work since I am describing connections by water, but the loss of the Asia reference in favour of an ounder the equator ocean would take away a lot of context in my interpretation so I think of it as an Isadore TO that connects it's Don or Volga to the outside ocean which connects it again with the Mediterranean part of the T.

But I have no segemented "T-O" in my memory were "Air, Land, Sea" ever came as written words, and not like drawn terrain, water waves and something air-like (ribbons, stars, pea-soup, whatever). Such versions may exist.
So both roundels may have the inversion of "world" in common, but not surely the intention of segments.

I don't think of Oresme as air land Sea, more of a habitable, unknown, and another unknown based on some weird beliefs about the equator and water and a lack of knowledge regarding undiscovered portions of earth and the true shapes of others.

I do know what you mean though, there is often elemental earth at the center of the planetary diagram

On the other hand, there are many cloudband-using variants of showing the world:

(14th Ct.)


(ca. 1227-1234)


When using "Asia, Africa, Europe" fillings, it was quite usual to write much more into the Asia segment, just 1 example here:



Such texts could have been explanations, as well as simply naming several asian locations, much more than african or european.

I find it interesting that what could be read as 'aral' is in the Asia section of the rosettes TO, can also be seen in the wordy one to some degree, although perhaps more as 'arol' with a character added to it. The others seem to have partial alignments also.

So I cannot carry on the idea of "Oresme" influence into VMS f68, even though Elli Velinska made a great find with that.
It may prove an common european understanding of the world here, at best.

Interesting that you see Oresme in the rosettes and not in the cosmos. I still see it as Oresme in the cosmos and geological, and Isadore in the colourful one and in the Rosettes.

To be clear I see Oresme as being the same understanding as the Isadore, but placed on the globe in a more today's understanding, rather than an island earth ecumene.

Like this from the top version, but turned so the left corner is the top, so there is room for the missing back side.



Or turn this one a bit and look at it so that Spain is to the right of center. 



But Strabo told us of a globe by Crates of Mallus that preceded Strabo's own Mapa mundi so really Oresme is a downgrade on that one by flooding out anything below the equator.



The Terrestrial Sphere of Crates of Mallus (c. 150 BCE), showing the region of the antipodes in the southern half of the western hemisphere and the torrid zone.

I like how the colourful one places the faces as pointing upwards in the south and downward in the north, ie facing toward the heavens in both directions, ie it is partially showing the spherical nature of the world on a flat representation.