Before the elephant eats all the hay, there are other sources as part of the cosmic comparison. The other Oresme source is BNF Fr. 1082, which has some similarities with BNF Fr. 565. The lower half is 'pictorial' water and there is a strong but irregular cloud band / cosmic boundary in 1082, not the highly regular, scallop-shell design of 565. 1082 is seen as an earlier version, drawn by a different artist. It has no field of stars.
Oresme died in 1382, while the 565 ms. is dated c. 1410, Paris, and was owned by Jean, Duke of Berry (d. 1416), then by his daughter, Marie, Duchess of Auvergne (d. 1434).
Several cosmic illustrations are also found in Harley 334. Compared to 565, they have the same sort of pictorial representation of an inverted T-O, elemental Earth, a nearly identical blue field with golden asterisk stars, and a cosmic boundary that is nothing more than a plain, colored line. The scallop-shells are all gone. The ms. is dated second quarter of the 15th century, Paris. The text is by Gautier de Metz, but the illustrations differ from those found in his previous works. The simplified, inverted T-O, planetless, 43 undulations type cosmos is a very limited, historical edition, based on the artist, not on the textual author.
Harley 334 also has the generic mermaid and companions, sort of like the VMs. (Another story)
But there is more to the VMs cosmos. Out beyond the limits of the cosmic boundary, the VMs artist has drawn a circular band connected to and through the nebuly band, like a wheel with eight curved spokes.
The only valid, historical construction similar to this is Shirakatsi's Eight Phases of the Moon diagram. Not my discovery, I simply acknowledge that this is the best available interpretation. And while the original provenance may be distant, history provides many opportunities for this text to come into the VMs C-14 era in Europe.
The VMs artist knew both parts of the f68v3 cosmos and has drawn them on the page. Now, the reader comes along - but what is the result??
What the VMs artist has done was to put a modified "Oresme's" cosmos inside of Shirakatsi's wheel - an imaginative pairing of incongruities - the creation of a cosmic oxymoron. Would that have been accidental or intentional?
Oresme died in 1382, while the 565 ms. is dated c. 1410, Paris, and was owned by Jean, Duke of Berry (d. 1416), then by his daughter, Marie, Duchess of Auvergne (d. 1434).
Several cosmic illustrations are also found in Harley 334. Compared to 565, they have the same sort of pictorial representation of an inverted T-O, elemental Earth, a nearly identical blue field with golden asterisk stars, and a cosmic boundary that is nothing more than a plain, colored line. The scallop-shells are all gone. The ms. is dated second quarter of the 15th century, Paris. The text is by Gautier de Metz, but the illustrations differ from those found in his previous works. The simplified, inverted T-O, planetless, 43 undulations type cosmos is a very limited, historical edition, based on the artist, not on the textual author.
Harley 334 also has the generic mermaid and companions, sort of like the VMs. (Another story)
But there is more to the VMs cosmos. Out beyond the limits of the cosmic boundary, the VMs artist has drawn a circular band connected to and through the nebuly band, like a wheel with eight curved spokes.
The only valid, historical construction similar to this is Shirakatsi's Eight Phases of the Moon diagram. Not my discovery, I simply acknowledge that this is the best available interpretation. And while the original provenance may be distant, history provides many opportunities for this text to come into the VMs C-14 era in Europe.
The VMs artist knew both parts of the f68v3 cosmos and has drawn them on the page. Now, the reader comes along - but what is the result??
What the VMs artist has done was to put a modified "Oresme's" cosmos inside of Shirakatsi's wheel - an imaginative pairing of incongruities - the creation of a cosmic oxymoron. Would that have been accidental or intentional?
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