Guided Pathway

A similar configuration exists in #3, another representation of the Zodiac Man by the Limburg Brothers from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (ca. 1416). This image is exceptional because it superimposes a frontal and a posterior view of the human body as two interconnected figures. Here the animals of the Zodiac circle appear superimposed directly on the human body parts that they influence while the same (or similar) animals are repeated at a distance from the body enclosed inside a pointed elliptical pattern produced by the intersection of two calendar circles. The image is permeated by a sense of duplication, reflecting the twofold side of humanity and its further subdivision into the four temperaments and other classifications described in the four textual margins of the illuminated page. While there are no visible diagonal “rays” traversing the figure as in the microcosmic representation by Hildegard [#1], this “double” figure from the French manuscript suggests a process of fragmentation that has become further canonized and interiorized. An ‘advice (Hinweis)’ inserted in a historical calendar from Hamburg of 1724 in #4 (attached below #3) suggests the survival of similar superstitions concerning the medical uses of the zodiac calendar throughout the early modern era.