The implications are that Marziano’s project has very little to do with the standard trumps of trionfi, which are clearly not derived from Ovid. The cornerstone for my argument will be the linked pdf article by Dieter Blume: '
'Visualizing Metamorphosis. Picturing the Metamorphoses of Ovid in Fourteen-Century Italy', in: Troianalexandrina. Anuario sobre literatura medival de materia clásice, Bd. 14 (2014), S. 183 - 212. http://www.kunstgeschichte.uni-jena.de/ ... +Italy.pdf
What is the Ovide moralisé? It was first produced by a Franciscan friar for Queen Jeanne de Bourgogne (1293-1329):
Marziano’s own preface to his pagan pastime reflects an even more liberal time, but he still rather guiltily introduces the subject of a game by repeatedly insisting that the subjects themselves are in fact virtuous – i.e., Marziano himself is moralizing pagan gods, just as the genre of the Ovide moralisé.The first complete translation into French of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Ovid moralisé is also the most ambitiously glossed and the most influential. Unlike some of the other exegetes of the Metamorphoses, the Ovide moralisé poet does not see his task as being to Christianize Ovid by attributing to him some insight into the Christian revelation. The meanings the moralist claims to find are potentially recoverable from the pagan work itself, provided it is read from the perspective of faith. (Sarah Kay, The Place of Thought: The Complexity of One in Late Medieval French Didactic Poetry, 2007: 43).
The earliest history of the Ovid tradition:Seeing that it is inevitable for virtuous toil to be weakened by fatigue, if the time be excessive, it might be asked whether it be fitting for a man to find recreation from the weariness of virtue in some kind of game….Certainly, the virtuous man, who happens to be ruled by right reason, should be able to remain firm in ethical conduct and in honourable reasoning during these activities. Thus I settled upon that sort of game, which would be accommodated to the place and person, of such character that it somehow shows its powers, and would also be enjoyable, and that it be fitted to the serious man wearied of virtue….Consider therefore this game, most illustrious Duke, following a fourfold order, by which you may give attention to serious and important things, if you play at it. Sometimes it is pleasing to be thus diverted, and you will be delighted therein. And it is more pleasing, since through the keeness of your own acumen you dedicated several to be noted and celebrated Heroes, renowned models of virtue, whom mighty greatness made gods, as well as to ensure their remembrance by posterity. Thus by observation of them, be ready to be aroused to virtue. (Ross Caldwell translation)
1315 and1318: the anonymous Ovide moralisé was written in the vernacular, instead of Latin, at the request of the French, queen Jeanne de Bourgogne
1320: Giovanni del Virgilio lectured on it University of Bologna, where “Virgilio and his students were mainly interested in the erotic sections of the text” (Blume 185)
1334: Florentine notary Arrigo Simintend redacted Metamorphoses into the Florentine volgare. Between 1350 and 1360 later Florentine ‘interactive readers’ added illustrations to the text, including Daphne (Blume, 194).
1340 Pierre Bersuire [Berchorius] wrote the Ovidius moralizatus at the Papal court of Avignon, a sort of biblical commentary in which 80 MS survive, the earliest illustrated version being from Bologna, dated between 1350-1360, most likely for Bruzio Visconti as the erased viper stemmi was rediscovered, among other clues (Blue, 186-87).
Bruzio Visconti was the brother of the signore of Milan, Lucchino Visconti, and ruled Lodi, but was disposed after attempting a coup on his cousin’s domain of Bologna. Republican Florence needs no explanatory note. So two of the first pictorial instances pit a courtly versus a Republican/urban readership, on which Blume elaborates:
I would also point out that the Bologna-produced version for Bruzio has shared interest with the contemporary Trecento Lombard handbooks on activities and foods, the Tacuinum Sanitatis. Even in those works there is a bit of a suggestion of transformation, as in this wheat harvest scene in which a peasant is virtually transformed into what he harvests, almost in the posture of Daphne becoming laurel:Florentine readers focused their drawings on those moments in the fables in which the emotional tension reached its peak, most of the times using one picture to refer to a whole series of events. Only in very scarce occasions the results of these metamorphoses were depicted, although the transformation processes as such were never displayed. By contrast, the Bolognese painters who illustrated the Ovidius moralizatus for Bruzio Visconti preferred to develop comprehensive narrative cycles with multiple scenes to show these episodes step by step and a degree of detail that equated that of the textual source. Besides, these artists were specifically interested in the process of transformation, in the passing from one state into another and the shifting of form from a human being into an animal or a plant. (Blume, 197)
As Blume also points out, Daphne is ‘the poetic centerpiece in the Metamorphoses’ (194), which leads me to copy/paste the relevant points made previously in this thread, ‘The Marziano/Michelino deck - a gift for Agnese del Maino?’ viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1029
While Blume’s focus is on contrasting a Florentine and Visconti exemplar from the Trecento, the Ovid moralisé continued to be made throughout the following century as the most important literary tradition disseminated from France, even crossing over into novelties such as Christine de Pizan’s L'Epistre d'Othea, contemporary to the time of Marziano’s deck of 1418. Apollo and Daphne from that work (Paris ca. 1410-1414, BL, Harley 4431, fol. 134): http://66.media.tumblr.com/21ffa81a25ab ... 1_1280.jpg2. Daphne is a “central” motif of the Marziano deck, as proposed by Huck: http://trionfi.com/daphne-in-tarot, albeit I disagree with Huck’s theory of why Aeolus was included. The 12 standard gods need no explanation and Hercules inclusion to Olympus has a classical pedigree, so that leaves Aeolus, Daphne and Eros as unexplained. In the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, however, these three figures are all mentioned; a summary of Metamorphoses 1. 262 ff: the destruction of wayward mankind involves Zeus calling upon Aeolus to release his winds from his famous cave, releasing storms of blinding rain from heaven. The story of mankind’s rebirth from the flood via the story of Deucalion/Pyrrha is then told, with earth then sending out Python against mankind. Python is slain by Apollo who then mocks Eros’ puny bow, with Venus’ son in turn smiting the sun god with his erotic bow with irrational love for Daphne. Why would any of this appeal to Visconti? Visconti, descended from the 12 gods via Venus and Anchises, had this mythical genealogy also painted by Michelino. Visconti, as Hirsh has shown in her discussion of Visconti manuscripts (discussed here viewtopic.php?f=11&t=983&p=14572&hilit= ... own#p14572 ), identified with the sun and indeed, one of their main stemma is the radiate (turtle)dove. Germane to the Marziano deck, within his suit of Turtledoves in the category of “virginities” we find Daphne. Filippo, descended from the gods like an Apollo, has reached out for his own Daphne – Agnese, who nonetheless retains some semblance of purity in his eyes. This is an illicit love and condemned by the goddess of rightful wedlock, Hera, who in turn controls Aeolus. Turning to perhaps an even more famous text in medieval Italy, we find in Virgil’s Aeneid 1. 50 ff, Juno/Hera calling on Aiolos to send a storm to destroy the fleet of the Trojan hero Aeneas. In fact Marziano specifically singles out Virgil for his description of this card (“...to his authority it was conceded, like Virgil, to soothe the waves, and by the wind to raise them, and in whatever way to agitate in all respects the kingdom of Neptune.”). Aiolos/Aeolus then is an enemy of mankind generally (Ovid) and specifically against the origin of Visconti’s line, the Trojan Aeneas (Virgil). Aiolus is present as “dragon" slayed by Visconti's line, that triumph proving his courtly worth for Agnes/Daphne.
Marziano’s description of the gods and heroes is eclectic and does not closely follow the Ovidian pictorial tradition, even though Ovid clearly determined the subjects (perhaps he wanted to show off his own erudition). Marziano’s description of Cupid - ‘girded with human hearts’ - however, does point to a specific pictorial influence that appeared just before Marziano: Barberino’s Documenti d'Amore (c. 1309-1314) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0epQRWjQb3E/V ... berino.jpg
While the artist of the Barberino manuscript has chosen to gird Cupid’s mount with hearts instead of the boy himself, the influence on Marziano is clear. Moreover, the vertical arrangement of Cupid above his human targets with spear-length arrows being thrust downwards matches the same vertical arrangement of the PMB and CY Love trumps, albeit the latter do not have the string of hearts nor talon feet. By the same token, the Visconti-Sforza cards have no resemblance to the Petrarch pictorial tradition of a Cupid with bow and arrow upon a cart, driving his human targets before him (i.e., horizontally).
To recap:
* Marziano is careful to connect his game of pagan gods/heroes - all in Ovid - to virtue, as dictated by the Ovide moralisé genre.
• There isn’t anything inherently arcane/notable about the number 16 - that is the established number of the Italian court cards (“ranks of kings” per Marziano) over which ‘celestials’ were set, in the related manner of Pizan’s early ‘children of the planets’, also illustrated in her Epître d'Othéa, as in the case of Venus here:
• Daphne is central to Ovid and is not surprisingly selected in Marziano’s abridged series of gods and heroes. The other gods not part of the canonical 12+Hercules - Aeolus, Daphne and Eros – lead up to that myth or are directly connected to the Apollo-Daphne story that is ‘central’ to Ovid’s metamorphoses.
• A Visconti was a patron of an illustrated Ovid that obviously survived him (and one would presume stayed in the family or in Lombard).
In closing, I ask: how is Marziano’s flirtation with the Ovid genre, then, an exemplar of tarot? Indeed, how does Ovid directly inform tarot’s trumps? And what does any of this have to do with Petrarch as a supposed influence on the earliest tarot?
Phaeded