RE: What is unique or rare about the VM Zodiac signs?
-JKP- > 20-06-2020, 04:47 PM
Hello, aStobbart,
It was Rene Zandbergen who pointed out to me that Aries and Taurus each have 15 + 15 nymphs around them while the others have 30.
So, it's possible that Aries and Taurus are two halves of a whole.
As for similar zodiacs, I have not seen anything that is exactly like the VMS. Only a few have figures around each of the zodiac signs. Some have spokes with text in them, but what I have seen so far is never exactly 30 (or 15 + 15), they always seem to vary in number.
There is an interesting one from Bologna (Morgan MS M.511) in which the first 5 signs are doubled in the sense of having (within the roundel) two water bearers, two fish, two rams, two bulls, two sets of twins, but then, starting with Cancer, they each have one. It's almost as though someone came along when the illuminator reached Gemini and tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Um, er, you know, you don't have to double all of them, usually only the fish is doubled".
The rams are occasionally doubled (head to head) because the theme is butting rams (this can also be seen in Morgan Ms M.700). It's not surprising that [font=Arial]Morgan Ms M.700 has a pair of rams because the animal (nonzodiac) section has an illustration of butting rams, as well. But it also has a pair of crabs (not crayfish, however).[/font]
[font=Arial]It's not uncommon for constellations to be mirrored in Arabic manuscripts (the idea is to show what constellations look like from the inner and outer viewpoints), but this happens rarely in western manuscripts.[/font]
[font=Arial]Here's an example of the Perseus constellation mirrored in an Arabic manuscript:[/font]
[font=Arial]https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0195558/800wm/C0195558-Constellation_of_Perseus,_mirrored.jpg[/font]
[font=Arial]And here is Leo mirrored:[/font]
[font=Arial]https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0195434/800wm/C0195434-Constellation_of_Leo,_mirrored.jpg[/font]