The Oresme challenge
R. Sale > 23-02-2017, 09:08 PM
If the first rosette is a cosmos, what cosmos is it? With the plain nebuly line around it, the first choice might be Oresme, if that example is known. And there may be a better match to be discovered. But the details of this cloud band illustration are far more subtle in the Oresme illustration than what is seen in the frilly scallop patterns of de Pizan. The plain nebuly line in the first rosette does not have the level of detail found in Oresme or de Pizan.
Such a pattern, with the full scallop-shell design, is found in the VMs central rosette. Hidden in plain sight, and when you know to ask for scallops, there they are.
So, what's up with that? First off it seems that the combination of the central sphere of the first rosette and the full-on, blue-painted scallop pattern of the central rosette would produce an even stronger resemblance of the Oresme illustration. Second to none, as far as I've seen. But what we have is not combination, but separation. Why is that? And yet with a convenient closeness.
In my view, this is the VMs creator's way of demonstrating a mastery over the artistic elements in the illustration by separating one from the other. This is a simple step to disguise and dissemble the obvious. The VMs is not a puzzle that will open at the first touch. Neither is it phased by a thousand pecks at its surface. The VMs creator has provided the parts, but the challenge is that it is up to the reader to put those parts together properly.
If one accepts that the proposed VMs combination of center and circumference as a potential copy of Oresme, that is an interesting and reasonable possibility where additional information would certainly help. But if this is thought to be the extent of this situation, then something has been missed. The VMs is not a normal text that is read for information and instruction. The VMs is a text that poses questions. Can the reader put Oresme's cosmos back together again? For those of us who had never given Oresme's cosmos thought one, that is clearly a problem. "NOT KNOWING" the basis on which a visual analogy was made presents the researcher with a significant obstacle. Learning is changing one's mind. But it's not just the analogy, it's also the methodology. The VMs is a puzzle because things are separated, things are disguised, things are hidden, things are not entirely identifiable by their appearance, but by the combination of appearance and the proper (traditional) location. And unlike appearance, location is objective according to tradition.
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