Monday, April 9, 2018
Now _This_ Is an Heraldic Ceiling!
In another of the rooms at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute, there was this very nice (and heraldic!) ceiling, the central portion of which was this:
I am assuming that this is actually someone's birth star chart, showing the locations of many of the stars, the sun, the moon (and its phase), and the planets on his natal day.
And as you can see in this close-up of the central arms, the whole thing is done in exquisite detail.
These are, of course, the arms of Stuart (Or a fess checky azure and argent within a double tressure flory counter-flory gules) surmounted by the coronet of a marquess, the whole surrounded by an extremely well-done oak wreath.
Just the sort of thing you need to say to everyone who sees it, "Yes, this is me on my natal day." and also to add, whether you say it in Mel Brooks's voice from his movie History of the World, Part I or not, "It's good to be the Marquess."
This image is reversed left-right; the zodiac order should be anti-clockwise. The Virgo and Scorpio glyphs are back to front. As the 3rd Marquess, whose room this was, was born a Virgo, this has to be his birth chart. And indeed it is - I have just checked in Solar Fire (astrology software.) Who else would he have over his bed?
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