Zodiac Imagery: Manuscript Collection/Discussion

[eggyk]

I wonder to what extent people who haven't been obsessing over minute Zodiac details for the last month would recognize any relevance in this sequence  
Even though it won't necessarily score very well, I think it contains embryonic beginnings of things that will develop later into the VM Zodiac. But I think it's very unlikely that the VM artist copied directly from an earlier source, since this would assume a lot of creative input on their part, which happens to align with some contemporary traditions. 

Some of the details are spectacular, like Leo's overall body shape, low mane and overall pose. But the tail looping through the legs and sprouting up behind the back is clearly taken from other traditions. So again, you'd need some in-between steps.

Well spotted about the month names! Too bad the sequence starts with Capricorn.

Yes, the VMS is certainly not a direct copy of the 11thC versions of course. But I do wonder if this work was ever copied during the 13th 14th or 15th centuries? I would be curious to see how the sequences would look, which details would remain the same and which would change, and whether the position of zodiac->month would have been kept the same. To search that out would be like finding the "missing link" in human evolution 

But in any case, there is at least precedent of somebody drawing the zodiacs a month later than "normal" in a deliberate fashion, which has implications for whether or not the later month marginalia were definitely "wrong". It's possible works like this could have maintained some relevance in some niche places somewhere, but I don't know.