No text, but a visual code

[Radim Dobeš]

Focusing on the smallest details of The Rosetes foldout is like missing the forest for the trees. What matters is a general understanding of the entire foldout, knowing that there are details that might escape our notice.

    In 2019, MarcoP started a thread compiling the ideas about the Rosettes that Ellie Velinska had written about on her blog years earlier. It was the most significant contribution to date regarding this mysterious foldout. You can view it in the "Under the big tent" thread. Some—myself included—suspected even then that it all must hold some cosmic significance, given that several of the Rosette circles indeed resembled canopies or tents when viewed from above, and their most likely meaning was metaphorical.

  My view is that they represent celestial domes, standing in for each of the spheres of the medieval universe. Indeed, we see nine circles: the one representing Earth, where the castle is located; seven representing the planets (including the Sun and the Moon, as they were considered planets in the Middle Ages); and the central circle of the fixed stars. It is not an astronomical representation featuring concentric circles—as seen in other medieval manuscripts—but rather an astrological one. Consequently, we see the sphere of the fixed stars at the center, with the interaction of all the spheres extending to Earth, illustrating how astral influence is transmitted. This concept of astral influence affecting all terrestrial beings is fundamental to medieval thought.

    The tubes we see serve to channel that influence. They are drawn on the central sphere and the one at the top left, but the implication is that they are present on all of them. Asterisk-shaped stars appear throughout the Rosettes foldout, reinforcing the cosmic theme. And one of the most important details: the luxurious vessels seen on the central sphere—some identical to those in the pharmaceutical section—which symbolize the virtues that the stars bestow upon medicinal herbs.

I agree with you that the folding folio with rosettes is a cosmological model of the universe. Does everyone agree?