Image: Illustration-zodiac-gemini

Description: An illustration from the Tripartite Mahzor. The most interesting and most enigmatic of all of them is without doubt the sign of Gemini. Generally, the representation of this sign ranges from a transformation of Castor and Pollux as a caressing pair of a male and female to two armed knights embracing in a fight. In our case we can see two dog-headed figures facing each other holding an unidentifiable device with a shaft in their hands (a mirror with a red frame? a shaft or stick with a red plate? a flower?). It also seems as if the figure on the right had a kerchief on its head, suggesting that the figures are male and female. Such a representation of Gemini is unknown elsewhere in Europe, and Gotthard Strohmaier has succeeded in tracing this motif to the Islamic world at the same time recognizing it also in one of the enigmatic ornamentations of a mediaeval German altarcloth dating from the end of the 13th century, the so-called Zehdenicker Altartuch, one of the treasures of the Märkisches Museum in Berlin. The problem requires further investigation. In the accompanying medallion, in Müller's and von Schlosser's view, the female figure can be taken to represent the idealized love of mediaeval German courtly and knightly love, Frau Minne, with crown and sceptre, sitting in the flowering branches of a tree and holding a falcon on her left hand. Narkiss and Sed-Rajna recognize in this figure the labour of hawking or the flower-bearer characteristic of the month of Siwan. In Sed-Rajna’s opinion the man is wearing a crown. Perhaps rather a falconer's cap? In general, both motifs – the falconer/hawking and man/woman with flowers – were common for April-May-June and August. Sed-Rajna stresses that the female figure may hark back to an antique prototype, that of Rosalia, too, representing the awakening of Nature.
Title: Illustration-zodiac-gemini
Credit: The Kaufmann Collections
Author: Unknown
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No