Phaeded wrote:
Still waiting for a single alternative theory for the black shield, for either the "CVI" or "AS".

The artist used an unstable, impermanent pigment on the shields - for example vermilion (if originally red), which has a tendency to darken, even to the point of turning black, over time ?

The devise on the shield (a diamond ring surrounding a flower whose leaves are wrapped around it) were not unique to AS - could the shield not for example also indicate a d'Este (Borso or Ecole) as noted by Emilia Magio? Pacing them in a Ferrarese milieu, as supposed by Dummett*

SteveM

*The Playing Card, vol44 No4 June 2016, p256

edited to add attachment showing Ercole d'Este device of ring with foliage, from the Bust of Beatrice d'Este:

SteveM wrote: The devise on the shield (a diamond ring surrounding a flower whose leaves are wrapped around it) were not unique to AS - could the shield not for example also indicate a d'Este (Borso or Ecole) as noted by Emilia Magio? Pacing them in a Ferrarese milieu, as supposed by Dummett*

SteveM

*The Playing Card, vol44 No4 June 2016, p256

edited to add attachment showing Ercole d'Este device of ring with foliage, from the Bust of Beatrice d'Este:

Yes, I remember, that we had an older discussion to this point, but I don't know, where it is.

Another point:

Marco once presented this picture combination ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=418&start=60#p16409

marco wrote:In case this has not been posted before, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana BAV Manuscript Urb.lat.899 is available online:
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Urb.lat.899

I thought. that the right picture with "black shield" would be in the Festival book (Marco's link). But I couldn't find it ... is this from Sola-Busca?

SteveM wrote:

Phaeded wrote:
Still waiting for a single alternative theory for the black shield, for either the "CVI" or "AS".

The artist used an unstable, impermanent pigment on the shields - for example vermilion (if originally red), which has a tendency to darken, even to the point of turning black, over time ?

The flower in the middle of that very black shield is tinged with vermilion and his giornea is still red, if darkened. Then there's the 'AS' empress - red as Mars. The red discoloring is a red herring.

SteveM wrote:The devise on the shield (a diamond ring surrounding a flower whose leaves are wrapped around it) were not unique to AS - could the shield not for example also indicate a d'Este (Borso or Ecole) as noted by Emilia Magio? Pacing them in a Ferrarese milieu, as supposed by Dummett*

Considering she married L. Sforza, a family also using the device, rather clouds this as a wholly d'Este device, especially given their own 'EE' tarot deck which features their primary coat of arms. Here is a Milanese brocade commissioned by the Sforza to commemorate the death of Beatrice, showing the device in miniature on a black background: "Il Paliotto con gli stemmi Sforza ed Este, una delle opere più importanti conservate in Museo e tra le più significative donate al Santuario di S. Maria del Monte, fu commissionato da Ludovico Sforza detto il Moro. Se suo fratello Galeazzo Maria volle la ristrutturazione architettonica del santuario, nel 1497 Ludovico ne commissionò la decorazione interna, forse in memoria della moglie Beatrice d’Este morta in quell’anno."
http://www.museobaroffio.it/Approfondim ... o2014.html


So we can re-date the 'AS' to the 1490s...or we can recognize a Sforza practice of commemorating their dead with their stemma on a black background.

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote:

SteveM wrote: Considering she married L. Sforza, a family also using the device, rather clouds this as a wholly d'Este device,

No one said it was a 'wholly' d"Este device - the problem is it was the device of members several families over time - the d'Este, Sforza and Medici for example - the fact that it wasn't 'wholly' the device of one family is not a red herring, but a legitimate source of confusion and point of contestion - it was the d'Este who initially awarded the device to the father of AS - and continued to use it themselves in various modified forms - it was not a familiy stemma, and is insufficient of itself to be used to determine family or personal id as if it was - tough shit for those of us who would wish otherwise

If there are any red herrings, it is the constant idea that a deck can be or has to be dated to some special event, we have dates for the production of d'Este decks that had nothing to do with special events as far as I can make out, just an order for decks for the family to play games with --

As Huck pointed out, heraldry bits on cards would be left blank and filled in later - no garantee that whoever filled it in used the same pigment as original - thus a different pigment of a colour (such as red) in one place, and another pigment in another - one that degrades and one more permanent - not saying that is what happened, but is an explanation -- also, not sure black shields were necessarily connected with death, you have a reference for that? The Cararro family had a black shield, had fuck all to do with death, as far as I can make out ---

SteveM wrote:No one said it was a 'wholly' d"Este device - the problem is it was the device of members several families over time - the d'Este, Sforza and Medici for example - the fact that it wasn't 'wholly' the device of one family is not a red herring, but a legitimate source of confusion and point of contention - it was the d'Este who initially awarded the device to the father of AS

I only used "red herring" in regard to the hypothetical darkening of red-to-black, in regard to which I pointed out red on the card in question and yet again in another 'AS' card.

Regarding the device itself, I pointed to its use on a black background (a color otherwise only countenanced on the 'AS' king of swords), in association with the commemoration of a deceased court person. That it was for a d'Este seemingly complicates matters, but the textile in question was Sforzan/Milanese and the deceased by this point was regarded as the Duchess of Milan. The black background on the textile then is a Sforzan alteration; and why not the same practice followed in the cadet branch of the family in Pesaro? That the device was conferred by the d'Este on Alessandro still begs for an example of the d'Este showing it on a black background; at least with the Milanese textile we have a Sforzan example. If a d'Este example on a black background could be found then that provenance would be a perfectly reasonable proposal, say on the occasion of Borso's death in 1471. But if this deck were d'Este surely their main device would be shown, but perhaps that is lost on one of the missing cards.

Regarding the "constant idea that a deck can be or has to be dated to some special event", well, we have an unaccounted for aberration seen in neither the Sforzan or d'Este stemmi - the black background - that a special event would hopefully explain. Chalking the deck up to the normal course of events explains nothing.

I don't have specific evidence that black shields were necessarily connected with death, but wearing black for mourning was standard, as it is today. On the flip side, gifting or accepting a gift with the prince's livery colors botched was unthinkable. The black had to have been intentional.

Phaeded

PS here is the device from Borso's bible - the background is vaguely gray, but not black as found on the flanking goldfinches or the black imperial eagles found on the d'Este primary stemma found throughout the bible: ...and the d'Este primary arms, quartered with the Aragonese, on the Knight of Swords from the Ercole I d'Este deck - theorized as a "special event" for the wedding of Ercole and Eleonora d'Aragona in 1473 well before I fell down the rabbit hole of tarot studies:

I have nothing to add on the topic of current discussion, but rather regarding the 7 palle and whether they are especially associated with Piero rather than Cosimo. Here is a detail from a photo in Dale Kent's book Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance, p. 179:



You will notice the 7 palle. Here is the full photo with his caption:



Here the 7 are not only associated with Cosimo, but also likely before 1459, as the dormitory construction began in 1437 and seems to have been finished in the early 1440s. Kent says the library was completed by 1444, which probably would have been done after the dormitory. On the other hand, this device may have been added in creconstruction after the 1453 earthquake. Kent says "the library and the north side of the dormitory at San Marco suffered particularly severe damage" (all this is from p. 178). If so, it is still associated with Cosimo, or possibly the Medici in general.

Mike,
I pointed out earlier in this thread (on 29 Jan 2017, 07:41) that the same San Marco 7 ball device (6 balls equidistantly placed around a central ball, all within a circle) occurred earlier in the tomb for Cosimo's father Giovanni di Bicci (read a little further in Kent, 190-91). The family patriarch was dead in 1429 with a tomb design surely done in the following year, but the tomb itself not finished until 1433 (Kent, 190). The design occurs four times on the slightly raised marble plinth on which sits the legs of the marble vesting table/tomb-marker in the Old Sacristy. The re-occurrence of the design then speaks of the dynasty, rather than as a personal emblem of either Cosimo or Piero (perhaps the original Trecento Medici imprese was precisely this simpler 7 ball device within a circle - a few other Florentine imprese feature concentric designs, such as the Albizzi or Lanfredini).

I wrote (but the picture was disturbed before, sorry) ...

Marco once presented this picture combination ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=418&start=60#p16409

marco wrote:In case this has not been posted before, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana BAV Manuscript Urb.lat.899 is available online:
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Urb.lat.899

I thought. that the right picture with "black shield" would be in the Festival book (Marco's link). But I couldn't find it ... is this from Sola-Busca?

It is from Sola Busca ...



A black (or disturbed ?) shield guarded by putti with black wings, apparently the Ace of coins

The Aces ...




from viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530

Various dark (or disturbed ?) shields. The color of the wings of participating putti is occasionally red, somehow indicating (possibly) death (black) and hell (red).

***************

I wrote also ...

SteveM wrote: The devise on the shield (a diamond ring surrounding a flower whose leaves are wrapped around it) were not unique to AS - could the shield not for example also indicate a d'Este (Borso or Ecole) as noted by Emilia Magio? Pacing them in a Ferrarese milieu, as supposed by Dummett*

SteveM

*The Playing Card, vol44 No4 June 2016, p256

edited to add attachment showing Ercole d'Este device of ring with foliage, from the Bust of Beatrice d'Este:

Yes, I remember, that we had an older discussion to this point, but I don't know, where it is.

This might be the first opportunity (2009) ...
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=5299&hilit=a ... mond#p5299
... a few posts ...

Then (also 2009) ...
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=5352&hilit=a ... mond#p5352

This is a detail from a Triptychon by Rogier von Weyden ca. 1460, commissioner had been Alessandro Sforza.

To the left are the arms of Alessandro, the helmet is crowned with a dragon with a man's face, which holds a diamond ring.

The same figure appears curiously on the heraldic page of la Sfera, which else is filled with Sforza-Visconti heraldic. The manuscript was given to Anna Sforza for her marriage 1491. I just find not the picture.

I hope, you see the diamond ring. Nowadays I wonder, if this picture for Alessandro Sforza by Rogier van Weyden c. 1460 has possibly something to do with the Milanese artist, which went in 1461 to Brussels, and caused trouble, cause he worked for Louis XI in this year.

Here is an enlargement ...
below we see the Sforza Lion with a "Quitte" (Quince).



A larger part of the picture (a triptychon):





One wonders, who the other persons are: probably it's Costanzo in young years, and possibly the second wife of Alessandro Sforza ... which had left him in 1457 to become a nun in a cloister. More probable looks Battista Sforza, who married at 10th of February 1460 Federico Montefeltro.

Possibly the diamond ring is just a wedding symbol .... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Something goes here very wrong in the analysis ... The diamond ring belongs to the Hymenaios, not to Sforza nor Este.

There is an additional problems in dating via the palle, in that during several periods of anti-medicean sentiment many such outward signs of Medici influence, patronage and power were vandalised or destroyed, and later when Medici returned to favour were repaired or replaced - the Tomb slab in the Medici chapel with the palle for example is thought to be probably a 16th century (post-1527) replacement (as it shows no signs of repair, albeit the various palle in the Chapel are known to have been at various times vandalised or destroyed) ---

SteveM wrote:The Cararro family had a black shield,

Well, normally their colours were red and white,



but the red does appear on a black shield on some of the works commissioned by or dedicated to them, the Carrara Herbal for example --

Because of their name, they were early on associated with Roman triumphs, and concept of il caro triunfi - the triumphal chariot:

Here is their il caro triunfi 'moralized" :