R. Sale > 8 hours ago
Perhaps you are interested in medieval cosmic diagrams - focusing more on those pre-1450. You may have noted that the illustration in BNF Fr. 565 is rather unusual.
The medieval cosmos, of course, is geocentric, but there are differences in the way that the Earth is represented. Sometimes the depiction is geographic - a T-O map with Asia across the top - etc. However, 565 is an *inverted* T-O representation of elements with water across the bottom half. Alternative elemental depictions use a structure of concentric spheres: terra, aqua, aer, ignis.
In 565, the Earth is surrounded by a field of golden, asterisk stars. That's it - there are no planets or concentric planetary spheres. It's all missing.
The field of stars is enclosed by a cosmic boundary, a wolkenband / cloud band, an elaborated, scallop-shell representation of a nebuly line. With 'nebuly' and 'wolken' etymologically denoting 'cloud'. There are no heavenly spheres or any band of zodiac symbols.
Illustrations in Harley 334 have some similarity with 565 - excluding the cosmic boundary.
Now look at the cosmic illustration of VMS f68v3.
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The Earth is depicted as an *inverted* T-O, but instead of being pictorial, there are written words. Though the words can't be read, there is a clear and critical distinction. The structure is the same as 565. The appearance is totally and completely different.
The stars have also been altered visually. They are not asterisks. They are polygonal; they have interior space, even though asterisk stars are found in other VMs illustrations.
Finally, the cosmic boundary in the VMs is a plain, irregular and rather sloppy version of a nebuly line. It looks like the VMs artist started drawing near 10:00, going clockwise, and then had to finish by compressing some final undulations into the last section in order to make a total of 43. The sloppiness and ambiguity of the VMs and the crossing spokes of the external wheel make the counting of undulations into a game of hide and seek, but the count has been verified several times.
And, as it happens, 565 also has 43 undulations. So, clearly, based on the similarity of structure, there is a connection between 565 and the VMs cosmos that exists despite the maximized differences in appearance.
Of course, the VMs cosmic diagram also has the outer circular wheel with eight curved spokes. There is no comparable historical structure similar to this other than Shirakatsi's "Eight Phases of the Moon" diagram. The combination of these two widely disparate elements is an indicator of the VMs artist's "sophistication".
There certainly appear to be connections to various other sources. This thread is just to keep the Parisian influences included in the investigation.