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Now, that drawing is laterally inverted. It cannot be a case of the engraver's inversion (see previous paragraph), since Villard's drawing was reproduced directly from the original parchment. It is not either an inverted negative, since this drawing is on the back of a folio whose face has text that is not inverted, and where we can see through the parchment the drawing of the labyrinth, which is really inverted.

I think that no draftsman or architect, drawing from direct observation an object of the geometric complexity of the labyrinth, would take the trouble of inverting it. Also, the other drawings of the album all seem to be "right" (that is, not laterally inverted): arms, tools, music instruments are all in the right hand of the figures holding them; likewise, most significative gestures are made by the right hand of the figures. Therefore lateral inversion was not a common practice for Villard.

Furthermore, I think that a technical observer, which Villard was, drawing the Chartres labyrinth, would certainly have included in his drawing at least some of its decorative motifs.

Could Villard have drawn the Chartres labyrinth from memory? Then the lateral inversion would be less surprising, but the absence of the decorative motifs remains improbable. The drawing shows no sign of hesitation or corrections: such a drawing made from memory is not possible without corrections, except if Villard was already familiar with drawing labyrinths, which seems improbable since his album contains no other labyrinth. He may have used other drafting surfaces to make the necessary geometric and rhythmical constructions, but this is also improbable, since all the other drawings of the album seem to have been drawn directly and without preparation. The album seems to be only a travel sketch book.

The other drawings on the page are simple drawings of animals without any architectural interest (a dog, a cat (or two cats), a dragonfly, a fly, a crayfish, a grasshopper). If it had been the Chartres labyrinth drawn on location, I think it would have been placed among other drawings concerning Chartres or architectural details. Villard considered that labyrinth as a simple curiosity, no more.

From all this I conclude that Villard did not draw the Chartres labyrinth on location, but copied that drawing from another source.

What could be that other source? There are very few laterally inverted (left-handed or counterclockwise) medieval labyrinths. No known floor or manuscript labyrinth represents the Chartres model inverted. Did Villard know of a now lost - and still unknown - tradition of drawing the medieval labyrinth laterally inverted?

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Kern (p. 114) considers that drawing as "an incomplete first draft of the Chartres-type labyrinth, a kind of prototype in which what were to become semi-axes are not yet firm barriers but have been drawn mistakenly as slanting obstacles that can be negotiated in the manner of a slalom".

Quite to the contrary, I believe that the Chartres model is already completely present in that drawing, and that the illustrator is trying to do something quite different from simply drawing correctly the walls of the crossings.

Heiric of Auxerre's labyrinth without the "doors" ( to enlarge )

That drawing supposes that the Chartres model had already been fully developed, since the crossings are correctly located. Indeed, it is the location of the crossings that determines the path and therefore the model of the labyrinth: the way of drawing these crossings is but very secondary. The draftsman must have known how to draw them since without them the path does not exist. Therefore this drawing is not an unsuccessful prototype. It is an unfinished drawing of a model already known from the draftsman, where the crossings are not completely drawn, either voluntarily, or through lack of time. The "slanting obstacles" of the crossings may have been drawn in at a later date by a different draftsman. In that drawing, the crossings between the lanes are open through the walls, so that changing lanes is possible; but these crossings are not divided by walls in order to force both a change of lane and a change of direction, which would make compulsory the path of the labyrinth. At each of the open crossings, there are small graphic motifs suggesting half-open doors. One can imagine these doors to be movable (and suppress those along the main axis, which make no sense).

When the doors are in one of their extreme positions, they close the openings in the walls and restore the continuity of the concentric circles (except along the main axis, where the Chartres arrangement is maintained), which results in a path which is practicable but entirely formed of full circles (related to the "Otfrid" labyrinth (Kern No 176) but with two long "phases" instead of three short "phases"). The "Otfrid" labyrinth can be considered as a transitional form between the Cretan labyrinth and the Medieval labyrinth, which renders the Auxerre labyrinth all the more interesting.

Heiric of Auxerre's labyrinth with the crossings closed (full circles - 2 long phases) ( to enlarge )

Chartres labyrinth (in its "script" version) ( to enlarge )	Otfrid of Wissembourg's labyrinth (full circles - 3 short phases) ( to enlarge )

The doors in their other extreme position open the crossings through the walls, but close the crossings from the lanes so that they become inaccessible and divide the path into separate and inaccessible segments.

I think the draftsman was looking for a technical device making possible a reversible transformation between two different models of labyrinths: some technically surprising tentative to surpass that Chartres model towards other suspected but yet unknown models. Maybe that draftsman even was, as I am, looking for the way to find all the possible labyrinth models.

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