RE: Gemini crossed arms imagery
R. Sale > 07-04-2020, 06:18 PM
Looking at the provenance of the Colmar text, "oberrheinische Handschrift", means somewhere on the upper Rhine.
Interestingly, there were areas on the upper Rhine that were controlled by The Valois Duke of Burgundy in the 1400s. Just down from Strasbourg on the western side was Lower Alsace. Above Strasbourg a ways were Upper Alsace, Sundgau and Beisgau.
Meager as it is, what the provenance indicates is that it *might include* Burgundy. It does not say that this *must exclude* Burgundy. As such it becomes another example in a concatenation of evidence that *might include* the Duchy of Burgundy most likely during the reign of Philip the Good between 1419 and 1467, or possibly after.
As an American and only a recent investigator, I am reluctant to tell European history to Europeans, but it seems like a Burgundian attribution for the VMs is preferable to other possibilities based upon the provenance of relevant items and the course of historical events. The combination of cultural factors is predominantly French, but Philip the Good's mother was Margaret of Bavaria, so there is German influence, and the early acquisition of Flanders brings in that contribution with its historical connections to the Latin crusader kingdom of Constantinople. Early Valois Burgundy centered on Dijon, but reached to Paris (1420-1435), then expanded to cover an area from Picardy to Brabant,, and tended after the mid-1440s to settle at Coudenberg palace near Brussels.
Philip the Good was a patron of arts, illustrated manuscripts, and tapestries, like "Gideon and the Golden Fleece". He mainly sponsored texts from the mid-1440s on, as I understand from the few I've seen. Those texts, illustrated by Marmion, seem to be of a later, more floral style. Then there are also those manuscripts inherited from his father's library. And clearly we know the Apocalypse of 1313, which was in Philip's library, dates from much earlier than his era.
Before this pandemic disaster, I read something about an upcoming exhibition of the library of Philip the Good scheduled for this May at the Royal Museum in Brussels. If the opportunity should arise, information about/from these earlier texts could be interesting.