Thanks for posting this Graham. What a beautiful manuscript, I had a great time looking through it. It's great to see the illustrations in such close up detail, you can even see the illuminator changed his mind on the correct perspective of the hurdy gurdy's wheel cover, though I think he had it right the first time. Bearing in mind that the figures are no more than an inch tall it is remarkable that the hurdy gurdy is not just a blob with a crank.
I think the brown (tail-less) monkeys are representations of Barbary apes, the grey monkeys could be any tailed variety. The illuminator had a great, if somewhat base, sense of humor, he seems to enjoy buttocks a lot as in the drawing of someone aiming a crossbow at the posterior of another figure that is bending over while a rabbit looks on (fol.3) and the one of a naked man carting off a wheelbarrow load of nuns. Juan On Sep 25, 12:14 pm, Graham Whyte <[email protected]> wrote: > This came up on the UK HG list > > A fascinating drawing of an HG from a Bodleian Library manuscript c > 1338-1344 "Romance of Alexander" > Pic can be seen athttp://www.altongate.co.uk/hg/Gurdy_ill_1344.jpg > > You can view the whole book > at:http://image.ox.ac.uk/show?collection=bodleian&manuscript=msbodl264 > > The HG drawing is at the bottom of Folio 81 recto > You can see strings, crank, wheel cover, keys (no dog) > It looks a surprisingly modern shape > The creature with the apparently strange posterior anatomy may in fact > just have a folded tail > > Graham Whyte --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
