Cosmic secrets revealed
R. Sale > 05-02-2020, 12:10 AM
The comparison of the VMs cosmos with the current galaxy of medieval images has revealed this. It’s not about appearance. It’s about structure. The artist of the VMs has made it clear that appearance can be easily altered. And those who do not apprehend the underlying structure will be easily deceived by the altered appearance presented.
The investigator’s familiarity with medieval traditions should be such that, while trying to make sense of the strange plants of the opening botanical folios, it is also immediately aware of the untoward presence of the nebuly lines and other unnatural, artistic inclusions to leaves and roots of certain VMs plants.. Nebuly lines, rayonny lines, and asymmetrical cloud-band patterns do not belong to the categories of leaf-margin patterns, let alone to roots. This should be apparent to those familiar with botany. In this part, this is heraldry and, of course, the universe of cloud-band patterns.
The reasons for, or the intentional use of, altered appearance might not be evident on the basis of these botanical examples alone. But then, there is the VMs cosmos. It is about the structure and it is clearly an intentional alteration of appearance and a combination of images: ‘Oresme’ plus ‘Shirakatsi’. Despite differences in appearance, once the nature and the structure of the parts are recognized, the combination becomes apparent. The investigator’s familiarity with medieval traditions will determine the direction, the relevance, the very existence of further inquiry. Both sources are needed to explain the VMs cosmos. The elements of structure are equivalent, but appearance differs significantly. The cosmic secrets are revealed by comparing relevant illustrations.
Visually, the first difference in the Shirakatsi diagram compared with the VMs is that the eight curved spokes are oriented in opposite directions. This could be the result of using a camera obscura. Or, if the illustration were an actual wheel with curved spokes, then viewing it from one side will present one orientation and viewing it from the other side will present the opposite orientation. So, it’s the same wheel seen from the other side; it’s the same thing, but the view is different. In other words, it’s a matter of perspective and interpretation. And that is a useful theme for this investigation.
The second difference in the wheel and spokes part is that there is VMs writing is enclosed between the bands that compose the wheel and spokes, whereas the Shirakatsi example is blank between the lines.. In the world of medieval European art, similar constructions such as text banners are frequently ephemeral bearers of information rather than actual objects.
In the Oresme portion of the VMs cosmic illustration there are three structural elements. The first is a central Earth represented as an inverted T-O. Second is an area around the Earth which contains the stars. Third is a circular cosmic boundary that encloses the area of the stars. This is not the structure found in a typical medieval representation of the cosmos, which consists of a series of concentric planetary circles, and sometimes elemental circles as well, instead of an earthly circle divided internally. And while there are various atypical cosmic structures to be found from medieval sources, few can be shown to match the same three-part structure seen in the VMs. As presented in 2014 (E. Velinska), the two best examples are the early 1400s images found in the Paris editions of books by Oresme and de Metz.
Compare the individual elements in all three of these cosmic structures. In all three, the Earth is an inverted T-O structure. In Oresme and de Metz, the Earth’s representation is pictorial. In the VMs, it is linguistic. The VMs was not copied. The copy of a pictorial illustration is another pictorial representation. The VMs might provide the same information, but it is using a different method. This is a code shift. It has a totally altered visual appearance.
Likewise, the area of stars around the Earth is similar in the two Paris texts and different in the VMs. ‘Oresme’ and ‘de Metz’ both have golden, asterisk-style stars scattered on a blue field. The VMs makes use of polygonal stars in this illustration, though asterisk-style stars are found on many other pages. And in the VMs cosmos, the stars are set out in a series almost like beads of a string going around the Earth. In Latin two words (cingere and circumdare) are used to indicate both ‘to surround’ and ‘to encircled’. Clearly the VMs illustration is able to depict the alternative interpretation. This constitutes a visual play on words.
Only in the third element, the circular cosmic boundary, do the two Paris images diverge. The boundary in the de Metz cosmos consists of simple, plain lines. The cosmic boundary in the Oresme version is an elaborate, scallop-shell patterned ‘Wolkenband’ with much similarity to certain works of Christine de Pisan also produced in Paris in the early 1400s. Meanwhile the VMs has an attempt at a circle consisting of a ‘trying-to-be’ regular, meandering line that is bulbous, and is therefore a nebuly line. And thus, the VMs cosmos is specifically (though perhaps not directly) connected to the Paris version of the Oresme text produced about 1410. There is the structural similarity between the nebuly line and the scallop-shell pattern used for certain cloud-bands. There is the etymological derivation of the traditional terms used in Latin, and in German. And there is the presence of 43 undulations in both the VMs and the Oresme illustrations. Even at this level of detail the VMs matches the structure of Oresme over any other medieval illustration. And still, at the same time, each element presents a strong visual contrast in its appearance as seen in their comparisons. It is the same fundamental structure, with each part intentionally given a distinctively different visually re-presentation in the VMs. That is what the cosmic comparison reveals. It reveals that the VMs cosmos is a pairing of two other cosmic images with numerous alterations that disrupt visual similarity and disguise structural similarity. And it reveals a creative spirit native to the appropriate cultural traditions that modern investigations strive to recover. It reveals that combination and alteration work together to disguise any identification. And this method of presentation occurs on more than one occasion beyond the VMs cosmos. It reveals that some of the secrets of the VMs cosmos are hidden by information that is missing in our modern understanding of the cultural traditions that went into the VMs’ creation. Under what circumstances could the combination of Oresme and Shirakatsi occur?
Note: As a boost to the potential relevance of the de Metz text, there is the illustration of a “woman standing in a fish’s mouth” that is similar to the example in the VMs.