RE: Unexpected languages
R. Sale > 21-03-2016, 10:51 PM
Diane,
Let me take up your closing thought, "to the point where the manuscript is hardly looked at" and suggest enthusiastically that we do take a look at VMs Pisces.
But let me suggest that you are wrong, when you say, "The patterns therefore may be just patterns and that's all." Rather a pattern may just be a pattern and that's all. That is fair enough, a single example taken from the VMs and then wander off wherever one may. But that's not it. Just on the Pisces page, heraldry works again and again to identify specific patterns on the tubs in the outer ring of Pisces. The VMs is examined in detail, repeatedly matching example after example. Some of these patterns do have historical connections. Did you miss my Feb. introduction of gurges, the whirlpool, heraldically canted to the early de Gorges family, ref. Wikipedia? [The early versions of the pattern could be either concentric or spiral.] The VMs pattern is concentric. Heraldry is the common standard by which this whole set of identifications in the VMs has been made all from the tub designs on a single page. [Not the walk about picking daisies on different pages style of investigation.]
And there's the legend of Chotard Chateaubriand and the papelonny pattern. Quite probably it was believed to be true at the time of VMs composition. The thing about the various heraldic identifications is that they either connect to the elder Fieschi through the French King Louis IX, in this case, (This was when the papacy was in Lyon), or they connect the younger Fieschi with his role as papal legate to England. There are only a few of the known patterns that have also been identified historically. How many are needed? A pair of historical individuals identified should be significant in the VMs.
As I see it, number and concentration are potential indicators of intentional construction. If there is a pattern to be found - and there is, then there is a pattern in the ms. There is a pattern in the illustrations. The pattern is pairing, at the start of the VMs Zodiac. Look at the number of paired examples in the first five astrological houses. Look at the pairings in the patterns of the tubs on the Pisces and Aries pages The pairing paradigm is established, then it continues.
And the actual blue-striped heraldry, as history would have it, is also paired in this representation as are certain other clear markers found on the White Aries page and with the papelonny patterns. But the famous, historical, heraldic patterns have not been given any sort of ostentatious display. Quite the contrary, Strong radial influences disguise the secondary interpretation of the actual orientation of the pair of blue-striped patterns as they sit on the page. This is a complex construction that includes a few elements of deceptive ambiguity. But it all works together: the red galero, the proper hierarchical positions, heraldic placement and so on. It's all in the first few pages of the VMs Zodiac and see how each of the elements has been built into the respective image.
The general heraldry is really rather simple, for anyone interested: standard patterns, standard heraldic lines of division, standard tinctures, and don't forget that plumetty and papelonny are furs, like many references do. And then skip over all the rest of it.
As to your reference, "I think it curious that none uses any of the usual marks to indicate metals" . The basic system of heraldic tinctures uses only two metals, silver and gold. In the tincture designation system, where the tinctures are designated by markings, it is standard that silver is left blank, while gold is stippled with small dots. The examples in VMs Pisces, to either side of the pair at the top, may be examples of "VMs stippling'. And all the blanks are silver, if you like. Or perhaps you meant tinctures. In which case, there's a topic for later, because the VMs does what it does. Just take a look. Don't just assume that some favored chronology can be imposed on the data.
It would certainly help to know the language that was the actual basis for the VMs written text. But we don't. Still it would be helpful if the text contained some way in which it could communicate with a potential reader. The Zodiac illustrations are either generic and useless or they contain information which can be interpreted through a standard, consistent and highly relevant method of communication, through a common language of the time, but one that is unexpected, most especially from the modern perspective. And that is heraldry. Heraldry as it was done by the VMs Master.
Regards,
Richard