Besides which, the basics of heraldry are a restricted and fairly simple topic. A quick look through a source like the heraldica.org “Atlas” will give you a running start.

R. Sale, I appreciate your knowledge in this matter, but I have no knowledge of heraldry terms and would probably use them wrongly. Plus, I was trying to make the reference as neutral as possible, which is why I chose “infurled” and “double infurled” to describe the shape, rather than words that tend to imply a certain use or tradition.

We don’t know why this shape was chosen for the map. It MIGHT mean a celestial sphere, it might be a reference to a physical pattern in nature, it might be misdirection, or it might be a shape intended to tie this folio with others. Until I understand it better, I’m reluctant to give it a more specific name.

My question is about your use of the term ‘infurled’. I looked for examples or a definition, but found neither. Why not use terminology that comes from heraldry and can be shown to be prior to the VMs parchment dates? Rather than ‘double-infurled’, I see traditional engrailed and invected lines used in combination.

I could not recover them from a cache (WordPress rebuilds the page), even when I tried with the browser offline. I also couldn’t restore them by restoring an old revision of the blog (the comments are handled by WordPress separately). My apologies. I’m probably more unhappy about it than anyone.