Guided Pathway

If in figure 2 the animals of the Zodiac circle appeared at a distance from the human body, in the representation of the Zodiac man in #5 titled “Introduction of the body following the signs of the animal circle for the purpose of bloodletting,” the animal figures are directly superimposed on specific body parts and there is a greater intimacy between man and animals: “The bull really rests on the man’s neck, the twins are a pretty pair who cling to his arms” (Saxl, 67). Saxl notes that contrary to “unrealistic” twelfth-century representations of the microcosm in which “the figure was a mere sign of the human being,” in late Gothic representations such as this, both men and animals are represented in a naturalistic manner.  As Saxl notes, both the intimacy and the accuracy of representation are due to the medical uses of the image-model: “For before the doctor touched the patient’s body with the iron, that is to say every time he bled him, he had to know the position of the moon. No limb must be touched when the moon was in the sign to which it belonged in the astrological code” (Saxl, ibid.) We see that the intimacy between a bodily limb and a cosmic or animal sign also impelled a detachment or avoidance of human intervention concerning the same body part as long as it was under the influence or possession of a cosmic sign. Saxl notes that such prescriptions became law in France under Charles VII in 1427 and that barbers across the kingdom who performed such operations “had to display a copy of a calendar in their shops.” #6 in panel B from a German Gothic manuscript illustrates precisely the “consequences” of bloodletting “during good and bad periods,” by extending the lines that connect specific body parts and signs of the zodiac with depictions of the exact medical operations and their effects predetermined by the body’s cosmic correspondences.