Re: VMs: What do you think about Eight?

[Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Dividing years into eight does seem one logical step further on from 
dividing years into four seasons - yet (as you say) there is precious 
little astrological practice I've found that views that division as either 
useful or practical.

FWIW, my best guess would be that an eight-part year would most likely be 
an agricultural calendar, and that (as David Juste suggested) the diagram 
helps to convert between the two systems. What is also interesting about 
f67r2 is that (following recent discussions here) it was probably the very 
first folio in Quire 9. So, given that the page seems to be preceded by 
plants and followed by astronomy, I would be unsurprised if it turns out to 
act as a kind of conceptual bridge between these two sections - ie, to 
convert between a 8-period (agricultural) year and a 12-month 
(astronomical/astrological) year.

f67v2 (the next page along) also seems to have a combination of plants and 
8-period seasons - while f67v1 is misbound & should actually be at the end 
of the quire.

f68r1 has 29 stars (all named), while f68r2 has 24 named stars, 12 loose 
stars, and 23 decorative stars (the circular outside row): f68r3 (the 
"Pleiades" page, discussed fairly recently) has an eight-fold division, 
though four may be just decorative), as does f68v3 (the "spiral galaxy" 
page, with the wolkenband around it). f68v2 looks to be in eight sections, 
but (again) four may be decorative.

But here's the clincher as to what's going on (I think): f67r1's "moon" 
page clearly matches f68v1's "sun" page in style, and (from the 
folding/binding discussion and design) we know that these two should 
actually be beside each other. But the moon diagram is divided into *12* 
(or 24), while the sun diagram is divided into *16* (or 32)!

Putting it all together, I think that we have two separate kinds of 
astronomical calendar being referred to: (1) f67r1's lunar-based calendar 
(probably based on the lunar month), and (2) f68v1's solar-based calendar 
(probably based on the four seasons), and where f67r2 shows how to convert 
between the two.

Comments?

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


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