Re: VMs: Re: RE: Regal Eagle

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 21:01 26/05/2003 -0700, Dana Scott wrote:
> Yes, you are of course quite correct, but what impresses me here is that
> striking similarity between this particular set of eagle wings to what is
> seen in the VMS.

This possible/probable link with Novara fascinates me: the code-maker I 
identify as being the probable designer of the VMS (Cicco Simonetta) was 
given the honorary citizenship of Novara in 1456 (no small thing), and so 
would almost certainly have been perfectly entitled to use its shield?

        http://www.storiadimilano.it/Personaggi/Milanesi%20illustri/CiccoSimonetta.htm

If the VMS is Simonetta's, then this link with Novara would give an 
earliest date of 1456 (which I'm comfortable with).

IIRC, Novara was close to the woods where the Sforza court would go 
hunting. In the fragments of Simonetta's diaries that still remain, he 
often marks his location as "Villa Nova" where the Sforza court would stay 
- which I ~think~ is in Novara.

Also: Novara was the place of one of the earliest recorded witchcraft 
trials (in the 1330s). In "Magic in the Middle Ages" (p.180), Kieckhefer 
notes that the court asked the advice of Bartolo of Sassoferrato, "one of 
the most prominent lawyers of the day", whose (somewhat cautious) reply 
still exists [though other sources indicate that this letter may have been 
forged].

        http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/witchtrial/italy.html

Campanus of Novara (1220-1296) was also a well-known astronomer (Bacon 
cites him as being one of the major mathematicians of the day), who wrote 
the Theories of the Planets. It's possible that the VMS' pictures of 
planets are a forgery attributed to him. :-)

Great work, Dana! :-)))

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


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