Another possible influence on the iconography of the Papess is the Annunciation festa performed in the San Felice in Piazza in 1439, as described by the eye-witness, the Russian diplomat Abraham, Bishop of Suzdal, who attended the Council of Florence in 1439; he describes the Virgin Mary in a domest...

Marco, I partially agree with Dummet on whether “the sequence as a sequence has any special symbolic meaning. I am inclined to think that it did not”; but I do not believe the subjects chosen were “random” - there had to be a source that accounts for at least 21 subjects, specifically a 3X7 structur...

Ross, Thanks for the clarificaiton of my misinterpetation of the slipper/"rosette". Any ideas in regard to the "Papelardie (Pope-Holiness or Hypocrisy)"? An early (1500) indication of why the papess would get replaced? I also found it oddd that the figure had the black veil of a Clare while the Sfor...

This is interesting: Harley 4425 f. 11 Papelardie Description: Detail of a miniature of an allegorical figure of Papelardie ( Pope-Holiness or Hypocrisy ). Author Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun Title Roman de la Rose Origin Netherlands, S. (Bruges) Date c. 1490-c. 1500 Language French Script G...

The PMB "Papess" as Faith-as-Franciscan nun; my rationale being that the new Sforzan regime found it expedient to hold up Franciscan Poverty as a virtue to be embraced at the point in time. Consider these images of St. Francis marrying "Lady Poverty" - while not exactly a nun certainly speaks to the...

[this probably needs to be moved to the Sun card] Mike H wrote: That's excellent, about the bead necklace. I never noticed it on the PBM. It was fresh on my mind – I had recently painted that card onto to a wood board for that bag toss game (aka “cornhole”; the other board was of course a lunar imag...

CARAVGGIO 1448. Looks like this book will be available in October, from the same author who wrote a monograph on Anghiari. His specialty is heraldry and his books - at least the Anghiari one - are nicely illustrated. Caravaggio is of course the pivotal battle in the sequence of events that ultimate...

Clares are depicted often enough with a book (again, the PMB "papess" just seems to be a lay Clare with 3-knotted cord - sans the black over-veil - conflated with the theological virtue of Faith by adding the papal crown and ferula : "...during the High Middle Ages, the popes once again began using ...

To tack on to my post above - a fairly contemporary medal with some of the same themes and imagery (a partially nude woman in a related virtue context - chastity [vs. temperance] - with a very phallic image near her lap); but this time with a lunar symbol: Pisanello, Medal of Cecilia Gonzaga (revers...

Marco translated the Dummett Italian version as: a naked girl, reclined upon a deer, with a coral necklace . In her left hand she holds an object which, being painted in gold on a golden background, is difficult to identify; in her left hand, raised above her left hand, she holds another object, al...