15thc perception on swallowtail merlons?

[Jorge_Stolfi]

In that sense, I think the merlons in Italian frescos are there because either the real or archetypal city had merlons in the audience's mind. So when we see swallowtail merlons there, I would assume "this is what the patrons expected a city to look like".

But what is the status of the simple rule "swallowtail = pro-Pope, flat = anti-Pope"?  I saw it being questioned and qualified recently here.  Was it true at some time and place, but then the association was lost, and the shape of merlons became just a free choice of the architects and painters?  Or did it still retain some of that connection, so that the walls of holy places in paintings generally had swallowtails because they felt "holier" that way?

All the best, --stolfi