Zodiac series of University of Pennsylvania LJS 449

[Linda]

Depends on what you are relying on? For it to be recognizable as a copy? 

I guess when someone strays a little farther from the tradition, it may not be recognized to belong to it. 

Kind of like the game broken telephone, where you whisper something to a line of people and you end up with

[R. Sale]

That's the problem. It often seems that it is not about appearance but about identity. Take the cosmic boundaries. They can be plain lines, simple nebuly lines, fancy scallop-shell patterns in all sorts of colors, golden rays, or blue pools. Such a great visual variety, but all perform the same function.

[Aga Tentakulus]

   

Here we have different pictures but the same text.
I have marked it in blue. The whole book is like this.

What happened.
Nick has presented four books on his site about the zodiac sign Pisces.
He asked me to translate them for him.
It turned out that all the books contain the same text. Word for word. Different spellings from the dialect, but the same. Even some spelling mistakes were copied.
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Four books from different regions, with different drawings and different authors.
How am I supposed to determine a possible origin when transferred to the VM?
What works, yes, the VM author has seen it somewhere before.

[R. Sale]

It's the artist who has seen what s/he has represented. The written text was formulaic, but the illustrations do have variations in the depictions seem to vary even though they are intended to represent the same events or scenes.

That's the impression I got, looking through the four Lauber Bibles. There is a structural similarity but there are often visual differences based on appearance.

Hypothetically, the VMs artist has gone from casual variation and on to intentional diversity. The examples of the code shift for the Earth in the VMs cosmos and the duality of White Aries reveal that there is trickery afoot. The artist knew certain things and represented them, but in a way that intentionally disguised and obscured them at the same time.

It's an alternate form of representation. It's a disguise. It's duality. It's trickery. The VMs mermaid is Melusine of Luxembourg. Costmary and St Michael's winged roots are a combined visualized interpretation of the Assumption of Mary. 

If all this and more is part of a valid interpretation of the VMs artist's time and place, then the VMs artist has been playing over our heads the whole while.

[Linda]

That's the problem. It often seems that it is not about appearance but about identity. Take the cosmic boundaries. They can be plain lines, simple nebuly lines, fancy scallop-shell patterns in all sorts of colors, golden rays, or blue pools. Such a great visual variety, but all perform the same function.

Yes I was thinking about a post from a few days ago that half had nebuly lines and half had rainbows, but it is all sky stuff.

[Linda]

Here we have different pictures but the same text.
I have marked it in blue. The whole book is like this.

What happened.
Nick has presented four books on his site about the zodiac sign Pisces.
He asked me to translate them for him.
It turned out that all the books contain the same text. Word for word. Different spellings from the dialect, but the same. Even some spelling mistakes were copied.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Four books from different regions, with different drawings and different authors.
How am I supposed to determine a possible origin when transferred to the VM?
What works, yes, the VM author has seen it somewhere before.

Yes it is hard to know which came first or how many in between that no longer exist. I was comparing copies of other things, some are so different you would not think to recognize them as the same thing at all. Then there are copies of things where they leave out the drawings, but leave the empty box, maybe the next one puts some drawings in again, but from their own ideas.

[Koen G]

When I made this thread, I confused both LJS MSS nablator shared (due to a copy-pasting error). Both MSS are quire similar, were made in the same area within a couple of years from each other.

University of Pennsylvania LJS 449 f. 12v (1446)
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University of Pennsylvania LJS 463 f. 20r (1443)
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Their Zodiac sequences are different, almost complementary. But something strange happens when you put their lobsters together (both absurdly having only 4 walking legs). The green one faces right and the red one faces left. My guess is that they are related, since the 4 legs thing is really peculiar. What's going on?

   

[Linda]

Here we have different pictures but the same text.
I have marked it in blue. The whole book is like this.

What happened.
Nick has presented four books on his site about the zodiac sign Pisces.
He asked me to translate them for him.
It turned out that all the books contain the same text. Word for word. Different spellings from the dialect, but the same. Even some spelling mistakes were copied.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Four books from different regions, with different drawings and different authors.
How am I supposed to determine a possible origin when transferred to the VM?
What works, yes, the VM author has seen it somewhere before.

I came across this one today with that same text.