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Re: VMs: Has anyone ever noticed this?

Hi everyone,

At 23:23 26/01/03 +0100, Rafal wrote: 
Nick Pelling wrote:
> The Sagittarius crossbowman has been referred to several times on-list as
> perhaps having been copied from a German calender, for example: and it
> would make sense if the Virgo picture was similarly copied from another
> (possibly more close at hand) source, like a tarocchi card.

But why? It does not make sense to me. Zodiac images where
present everywhere at that time, so why use a German woodblock
book for one, and a tarot card for another? And both quite
non-standard? Virgo typically holds a corn shaft and Sagittarius
is a Centaur with a normal bow.

The same questions could be sensibly posed for more or less all the illustrations in the VMS - but that doesn't mean that they're helpful. :-9

ie, Cancer as a pair of lobsters? Libra as a particular type of scales? Scorpio as a basilisk (probably)? Gemini as a mixed-sex pair where the male has very short legs? :-o

...never mind all the light/dark ram/bull/lobster binary division stuff. :-(

Basically, in the reference vacuum we find ourselves in, we need to keep a (collective) open mind as to the original source of any individual image. But IMHO we'll need significantly more data before we are able to comfortably impose the constraint that it should (as a whole) make sense. :-o

> It would be interesting to compare the rest of the VMS with other still
> extant tarocchi cards - are there any tarot historians on-list?

Actually, I wrote a book on it some 15 years ago and also contributed
to Stuart Kaplan's _Encyclopedia of tarot_ - but have not followed
new research since then.

But I don't think any genuine connection with the tarot cards
can be found - the symbols used there were pretty much standard
emblems of the time (with some exceptions). So you will find
castles on some Visconti-Sforza "World" cards which are
vaguely similar to those in the VMS - but the similarity
is not striking at all. Otherwise, I don't see any relevant
point of possible connection.

OK, thanks - and that's probably as good as it'll get for a tarot historian perspective. :-)

> What star was associated with the 8th degree of Virgo? [inner
> circle of nymphs, 8th nymph counting clockwise from 9 o'clock]

In one of the MSS examined by prof. Sniezynska-Stolot
the 8 Virgo image is a man clothed in a fishing net, right
hand on hip, left on breast. The other MSS image is a man
under a fir-tree with both hands forward. There are no
single star correspondences but to constellations: Bootes,
Gemini, Lyra and Pastor (in different MSS).

Great, thanks! I plan to post more about the zodiac volvelles later this week...

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

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