RE: Qasr mosaic leopard and VMS Leo/August image
Diane > 19-09-2016, 02:02 PM
Koen.
We have a basic problem in trying to determine - as well as we can - the origin of the emblems now occupying the centre of the month-roundels.
This thread has demonstrated the problem pretty well. Where some see the issue as one of provenancing the imagery we actually see in the manuscript (something I think your examples and Sam G., and Linda's have addressed) another current so firmly believes that the Voynich manuscript *must* belong to the Latin European manuscript tradition that they simply cannot see that a red heraldic lion, or a lion in a Latin bestiary are not remotely similar to the image we actually have.
Others again seem to experience something akin to panic at the idea that we may have non-Latin, non-Christian and non-European heritage at the heart of the matter which was incoporated into our present manuscript.
I find it interesting that this reaction, which one can define simply as "no you're wrong, you must be wrong" should occur, since it takes very little background reading in the history of such medieval texts as the bestiaries or the lapidaries or even the calendars to realise that a great deal of the informing matter came - and was known to have come - from sources that weren't from Latin Europe. We have plainly pre-Christian Greek imagery in early copies of the Aratea. The bestiaries text is well known to have come from North Africa. Much of Iberia and North Africa remained under Byzantine rule for some time after the Arab invasions, and Tunis (where so many of these mosaics had been preserved) continued under Byzantine rule until fairly late.
There's no reason whatever that we should not have the imagery from any of those regions, and I agree with Koen, Linda, and Sam G. that imagery from the former Phoenician territories comes closest - whether in Syria or North Africa. However, for the lion itself, with its crossed eyes, lifted paw, spotted hide and so on, I still prefer the Delian example.
The lion was emblematic of Carthage. What we need to find is the city which had the leopard. In a mosaic from Siena (15thC) we find many of the animals associated with a town, and that with the leopard is Luca. I guess I need to find time to see if we have any pre-Roman coins or images for that city.... or any other which used the same animal. One of these days...