Talk:Coat of arms of Valais

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This coat of arms is notable for, as far as I can see, being the first to use stars to enumerate subdivisions, an idea notably revived in 1777 for the Thirteen States. I could find no intermediate example of this idea between 1628 and 1777, but I am still looking for a quotable reference making the connection. --dab (𒁳) 13:01, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I cited Smith (1975) for this now, but this is doubtful: Norden, Germany does not have five-pointed stars in its coa, and the five-pointed stars for Valais in the 1686 map by Duval are idiosyncratic to this publisher (who also has five-pointed stars for the county of Sargans). The 1698 map by Bodenehr still has six-pointed stars. At present, there is no evidence that five-pointed stars were in actual use prior to 1802. --dab (𒁳) 05:34, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I found clear indication of counterchanging in the 2nd edition of the 1693 map by Sanson[1]. Some of the coats of arms were erroneous in the first edition[2], and the Valais coa had no indication of counterchanging. They corrected this by replacing damask patterns by systematic patterns, vertical for gules, horizontal for azure, etc., in the 2nd edition, and now the Valais coa on the margin is clearly gules and argent counterchanged. In the small coa in the map itself, however, the stars are solid black, as they were printed too small to indicate tincture. --dab (𒁳) 10:03, 11 July 2017 (UTC)