RE: Beyond 43N; 5E. Evidence and discussion
R. Sale > 07-10-2016, 07:21 PM
Diane,
If one takes the different levels of interpretation as suggested in each of your paragraphs, then what I am looking at is a few levels further down - at the level of political cartoons - or more specifically at the level of heraldic canting. It's a level of interpretation more on a par with Don's investigations of mnemonic devices than the researching of cultural provenance.
In the VMs, it depends on the recognition of heraldic patterns, specifically papelonny, which is a traditional fur and established in use well before the VMs parchment dates. However, heraldic interpretations have only received narrow consideration. And papelonny and plumetty, two traditional heraldic furs, have practically been consigned to obscurity as specific named patterns, because the are omitted from many modern, gloss, references.
So, without out the data to inform a definition, how is it possible to find a VMs example? It can't be done.
But if the pattern is known, good examples can be seen in the tub pattern from VMs Pisces outer ring, upper left. And from VMs Dark Aries inner ring, upper left.
Then from the next folio, White Aries, there are two tub patterns with blue stripes. They sit in positions that mimic the positions of the papelonny patterns on the two pages previous. There's a reason for that. A pair to a pair, one might say. And this is where the canting takes place. A hidden pun snaps shut. A little surprise, historical identifications, intentionally built into the illustrations.