The medieval volvelle used in this animation is from a manuscript titled, ‘Almanack. Galfr. Monemutensis’, dated between the 12th and 15th century. It is held at Lambeth Palace Library and is displayed here by their kind permission.
LPL reference number: MS454f26r
If you would like to find out more about this volvelle, read the article Reconstructing a medieval volvelle by Sarah Griffin, on the Lambeth Palace Library blog site.
This shows each separate part of this Volvelle: the flat page, and the bottom, middle and top rotating disks.
24 Left move
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This series of photographs was shot with the help of the conservator who moved the dials incrementally between shots.
As the stitching that formed the pivot was very tight, the dials could only be moved a short distance without risking damage to the item.
A working model
From this series of photographs we reconstructed the individual parts of the volvelle to make a working model.
The Asymmetrical Heart
As you can see the heart shape on the middle disk is distinctly asymmetrical. This is the shape that shows through the aperture to show the phases of the moon.
We couldn’t take the original Volvelle apart to fully expose the middle disk, therefore we had to extrapolate this shape.
As you can see from these 2 photographs, the left side of the heart is smoothly rounded while the right side is almost a right angle.
We have tried to represent this asymmetrical shape as closely as possible for the animation.
For the set of images below, the conservator carefully lifted the top disk to show the design of the middle disk below.
Figures 1-5 below were shot from the side angle using a macro lens to capture maximum detail.
We also experimented with using an inspection camera however the resulting images were much less sharp (fig 6-8).
Fig 1 - Macro lens 1:1.0 - 45mm f2.8
Fig 2 - Macro lens 1:1.0 - 45mm f2.8
Fig 3 - Macro lens 1:1.0 - 45mm f2.8
Fig 4 - Macro lens 1:1.0 - 45mm f2.8
Fig 5 - Macro lens 1:1.0 - 45mm f2.8
Fig 6 - Inspection lens
Fig 7 - Inspection lens
Fig 8 - Inspection lens
