VMs: Re: Libro de Astromagia

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > [Gabriel:] Surprisingly I was able to read all the text in the
    > circles (except a few); they are in Spanish (as the title).

My readings, starting 12:00 and moving clockwise:

"figura de psenas de/mosquitas."            ("??? of little flies")
"figura de fisico."                         ("physick")
"figura de uiento"                          ("viento" = "wind")
"figura de õe caual/gaint en un asno."      ("man riding on a donkey")
"figura d· iugo y de/alegria."              ("play and merryment")
"figura d· iuego y/de alegria."             ("play and merryment")
"figura de un õe ca/tando attas."           ("man picking? ???")
"figura de uieia."                          ("vieja" = "old woman")
"figura de un õe neg°"                      ("??? man")
"fig¨ de muier caual/gãt en un camelo."     ("woman riding on a camel")
"figura de una mu/gier luxuriosa."          ("luxurious woman")
"figura de aecti/u~de"                      ("???")
"figura de õe falando/palauras."            ("man speaking words")
"figura de õe/haziendo oi~on."              ("man doing prayer?")
"figura de õe ã/taie mirco."                ("man ???? ????")
"figura de õe desp~/ciado y desnudo."       ("man un??? and naked")
"figura de muier q~/llora su marido."       ("woman who cries [the loss of] her husband")
"figura de õe llorido/sobre si mismo."      ("man absorbed? on himself")
"figura de õe cõ una/??? doro."             ("man with a ??? of gold")
"figura de õe q~ tiene/enla mano un arto?." ("man who hold on the hand a ???")
"figura del aue/dell agua."                 ("the bird of the water")
"figura de õe que ??/??? sobre su uientre." ("man who ??? on his belly")
"figura de õe untado/cõ musa~r"             ("man anointed with ???")
"figura de un õe en/una lança cõ fierro"    ("a man on? a spear with iron?")
"figura de lobo"                            ("wolf")
"figura de una/mugier."                     ("a woman")
"figura de un ortola/no"                    ("a gardener")
"figura de figuera que/plantan"             ("fig tree which is being planted")
"figura de leon/cal??do"                    ("??? lion")
"figura de paon"                            ("peacock")


Many readings were little more than guesses.

The word "y" could be "+".

Diacrtics are only approximate; the tilde in particular 
usually stands for dot-above in the image.

The word "õe" could be an abbreviation for something like "ombre" (as
in modern Spanish "hombre") or simply a standard medieval spelling for
"ome" or "omem" (as in modern Portuguese "homem", which btw does not
pronounce the "h").

The word "luxuriousa" probably may have had a different meaning then,
and could have meant richly dressed, gorgeous, sensual, promiscuous, etc..

Possibly "iugo" and "iuego" mean two different kinds of "play" --
"game" and "child's play", perhaps?

    > [Gabriel:] Uninterestingly they all read "figure of..." and
    > whatever is drawn in that slot.

Now why would the author reserve space for such trivial captions,
with the quite redundant words "figura de"?  

I may be seeing what isn't there... but, to, me, the words "figure of"
suggest that whoever wrote those captions was thinking of those
figures as *drawings* and not as stars or whatever. I mean, in a book
about horses, a figure caption would usually say "an Alsatian horse"
and not "figure of an Alsatian horse". It's more than just a matter of
economy: the author would naturally tend to focus on the object
itself, and not on the drawing as such.

Perhaps the captions were merely instructions for the artist, who
decided to include them by mistake, or just to be safe? Perhaps the
original author of the text could not be contacted, and someone
worried that the pictures may not convey his intended meaning?

--stolfi
(so far successful in avoiding his real work)