Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

81
mikeh wrote:
You also wrote (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=917&hilit=umiliati&start=120):

Did you retract that, too?
No retraction per se, but yes, I had moved on per the later link I provided on p.6 above (my lengthy Literary Source - Dante, post: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1062&p=16260&hilit ... can#p16260), which represents my "mature thinking" on the PMB. Equally important to Bianca's godfather is Sforza's own Augustinian half-brother made Archbishop of Milan, Gabriele, but it is the Franciscan Tertiary movement in Milan that peaked in the 1440s and 1450s - the period when the PMB was produced. The point is all of the monastic orders of course continued to exist in Milan, but the Franciscan was particularly popular, coupled with the new Pope's own interest in regulating the order (an old friend of Filelfo's that Sforza hoped would help keep the Pope at least neutral or arbitrate a peace [which he did] during his war with Venice).

Along with you I was a fervent believer in Moakley's Umiliati hypothesis, but rereading Evelyn Welch's book on the Sforza made realize the error. To reiterate, these facts all underscore the Milanese and Sforza chancellory's interest in the Franciscans at the time the PMB was created:

* Martino della Gazzada, an influential wealthy banker and merchant, became a Franciscan Tertiary after San Bernardino's (I mis-wrote 'Francis') visit to Milan in 1441, with 19 fellow merchants joining the Tertiaries in 1442; by 1447 (the year of the pope's reform of the order) had doubled in size, thus indicating the crescendo of Franciscan appeal in Milan towards the date of the PMB. Under della Gazzada's fashionable patronage, backed by F. Visconti's own doctor, many wealthy Milanese were being buried in Tertiary habits.

* Sforza's own secretary, Cicco Simonetta, is instead inserted as lead deputy of the charity taken over by della Gazzada (Deputati sopra le Provvisioni dei Poveri); Sforza uses the Franciscan dominated charity to eventually build the Ca’ Grande hospital (donating Bernarbo Visconti’s old palace site in Porta Romana)

* Simonetta’s own ducal courtier representative to run the hospital was Giovanni Caimi whose “family had been closely connected to her Franciscan Tertiaries in the 1440s, and in 1446 Giovanni was charged with the administration of the Ospedale deo Poveri in Bianca Maria’s dower town of Cremona”(Welch, 141). Two Ciami women donations ensured the commencement of the Ca Grande’s construction in 1456.

The alignment of Sforza courtiers with the cause célèbre of the day - hospital reform (particularly after the plague of 1451, in a city already prone to the Franciscan ideal of poverty due to Sforza's own prolonged blockade 1449-1450) - headed by wealthy Milanese of a Franciscan bent, was simply a politically expedient move on Sforza's part. A Tertiary was more universal than a vowed Clare (the latter additionally wore a black wimple over the white veil), as that indicates a member of the general public. Depicting "the Church" in the guise of a Franciscan Tertiary in c. 1451 was only natural, especially in the wake of zealous appeal of San Bernardino. And there simply is no denying the PMB "Papess" is indeed wearing the habit of a Tertiary, thereby inclusively indicating all people of the realm (from the very poor, the proper work of the Franciscans) but also playing on the fashion of the wealthy being buried in this very same garb as part of their guaranteeing of salvation.
Colantonio, c.1445, detail of Clares and Tertiaries receiving the rule from S. Bernardino.jpg Colantonio, c.1445, detail of Clares and Tertiaries receiving the rule from S. Bernardino.jpg Viewed 11588 times 34.11 KiB

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

82
Thanks, Phaeded. Yes, I cannot deny that what we see on the PMB Popess, except for the hat, is the costume of a Franciscan tertiary (as long as that picture just shown is accurate, showing a white hood and wimple; more details about it would be appreciated). So, yes, a logical interpretation of the card as we see it would be the Church or the Faith as an exemplar of the humility exhibited by the Franciscans, with perhaps a suggestion of the Virgin Mary for those in Cremona who knew the Bembo depictions of the Virgin, with a question about whether it might be a joke about Pope Joan. At that time a triple crown on a woman was not, judging from what now exists from that time, a usual thing conventionally representing the Church. It doesn't occur very often, and it also could represent the crowned Mary and Pope Joan. Its use in a deck of cards between an entertainer/trickster, or an Emperor, and an Empress, or a Pope, does not tell us very much.

But I see this as an addition to Moakley, not as a refutation. It is like the Beatles song "Lucy in the sky with diamonds". Those who know such things can see the song as about LSD, even without a document from the Beatles to that effect.. Others can see it as about a girl named Lucy. Such double meanings are necessary when there is strong disapproval among people who matter of a particular reading. That's one reason for writing or painting allegories: multiple interpretations are possible, depending on what is important to and known by a particular audience. It also gives the publisher or distributor an excuse: the alleged interpretation was something they knew nothing about..

There is also the Fournier Museum's version of the card, showing her with the dark brown habit, corresponding closely to the description in the trial record. That was later, when these new cards were under less scrutiny, perhaps for someone not in such a politically sensitive position as the Sforza rulers of Milan (I don't know), or at a time of a more liberal papacy (e.g. Alexander VI). The three knots are also part of the trial record. And actually, we don't know without further examination what shade of brown the robe was originally, because the original color might have been painted over by the "second artist", following the "retouching" hypothesis of art historian Monika Dachs.

The relevance of the Umiliati in Lombardy is not their connection to Sforza, but to Bianca Maria. Malatesta had written to Bianca Maria, not Sforza, asking for a deck. She only declined because she couldn't stand Malatesta. It is Bianca Maria who would have known the story of Manfreda from her father and the trial record, perhaps also from her godfather. I do not deny that Sforza would have had a voice; perhaps the depiction is a compromise, Sforza insisting on the Franciscan habit.

It is admittedly only a hypothesis that Bianca Maria would have known the relevant contents of the trial record. Without that being a reasonable hypothesis, I have no case. The bulls charging the Visconti with being Guglielmites like Manfreda did not mention her appointment as Pope after Guglielma returned. That hypothesis is positively supported by (a) its actual existence in Pavia in the 17th century, but dating back to Manfreda's era; (b) the need of Visconti rulers' descendants to know such details if possible; (c) the Fournier Museum's card, closely corresponding to what is in the trial record; and [d) Bianca Maria's contact not only with her father but probably with the General of the Umiliati, who would have been in a position to know these details of their history in Milan.

Added later in day: That the PMB card does not contra-indicate a relationship to Manfreda is supported by: (a) Dachs' retouching hypothesis; and (b) the need for ambiguity in a repressive atmosphere.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

83
What I want to talk about in Shephard (The Tarot Trumps: Cosmos in Miniature, 1985) is his comments on minchiate. However since he is building upon Moakley, a brief summary of his take on her may be in order. I will have links to the whole chapter 5 ("The Original Story") at the end of this post.

He ignores Moakley's argument about ribaldry and Carnival, and also her argument about the integration of the four suits with the triumphs, to focus on the application of the Petrarchan Triumphs. He identifies the "Charles VI" order, as given by Dummett in Game of Tarot, as another, probably earlier, order which Moakley's analysis also fits, he thinks.

For the "Charles VI", he says Petrarch's poem does not apply to the Fool and Bagat. As support he cites Dummett, who says that both appear to be unnumbered, even if the Bagat does function as the lowest trump. (My comment: since the Bagat is missing from that deck, This is an inference, based on the Emperor's having the number 3 and the Bagat's lack of a number in the very similar Bolognese tarocchi. Another possibility is that the "Charles VI" lacked a Popess.)

What is left, excluding the Fool and Bagat, divides neatly into four groups of five: a triumph of Love, with his captives; a triumph of chastity--or, more broadly, virtue--up to and including Fortune; a Triumph of Death for the next five; and the last three Petrarchan Triumphs in the last five: a Triumph of Fame in the Star card; a Triumph of Time in the Star, Moon, and Sun ; and a Triumph of Eternity in the World and Angel. He says that it is understandable that the last group of five should contain three Petrarchan Triumphs, because these were not, before the 1440s, typical subjects for decorative art. (Actually, I don't think Death, World, or Angel were either, except in religious art.)

For the "Steele" order, he concedes that Moakley's application of Petrarch had difficulties. He thinks his version is better. His solution" is to put the Love card wholly in the "triumph of chastity" section. In that case, for the Triumph of Love, the corresponding cards are only the group of four "captives" (Empress, Emperor, Popess, Pope); in fact, he says, in the Steele order, Love is a captive of Chastity.

To me this "solution" is not very satisfactory, as in the Love card of every early deck it looks very much like Love is triumphing: Cupid is overhead, not tied up, with his bow and arrow ready to shoot. It seems to me clear that the "Charles VI" order works better in in relation to the actual cards than the "Steele" order.

Shephard says that the "Steele" order is probably later than the "Charles VI" order, a later variation on it. In that case, the "Steele" order's less satisfactory fit with Petrarch can be explained as a divergence from the intent of the original designer.

In both orders Shephard finds a place for the triumph of Fame. associating it with the Star card, leaving the Triumph of Time with the Moon and the Sun.

With regard to Minchiate, with certain adjustments, he says, it primitively has the same order as the "Charles VI". Moreover, the designs on the cards fit Petrarch better than those on the "Charles VI". For this reason he hypothesizes that the proto-minchiate-type visually is even older than the "Charles VI" type. Here is what he says (I am putting it in bold because it easier to read that way):
Before leaving the Triumphs a glance at the Minchiate will again be helpful. The Minchiate type of pack was invented in Florence sometime around the early 1500s. It was apparently constructed by adding a further twenty trumps to the already existing 21-trump type, omitting one trump of the latter, so as to bring the total to forty trumps plus The Fool. Michael Dummett has pointed out that since the twenty additional trumps in the Minchiate have been inserted at a certain

[start p. 38]
point in the sequence of standard trump subjects as a consecutive block (numbers 16 to 35) of new cards, we can remove them and study the resulting order in reasonable confidence that it represents an order in use at the time the Minchiate pack was invented. In fact, the resulting order is almost identical with the Charles VI type. What is especially interesting to us here is the precise point at which the twenty new trumps were inserted into the sequence. Their insertion immediately after trump number 15 has been made at exactly the point at which it would best give recognition to and least disturb the structure of the older cards, if those were a pack of the kind we have envisaged, broadly of Charles VI type and representing the Triumphs of Petrarch. The insertion at that point would in effect keep intact the first three sets of five cards (numbers 1 to 15) representing the Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death, and the introduction there of the twenty additional trumps (of theological and cosmological subjects) would place these in the natural position to lead up to the final set of five cards culminating in the Last Things, taken over from the older series.

This underlines the point that the structure of the Charles VI type of pack seems to have been based on four main groups of five cards each, and further strengthens the case for the tarot having been originally founded on the Triumphs.

One more point concerns the actual designs of the Minchiate cards. These remained exceptionally stable over the centuries and so it is likely that the twenty cards in the Minchiate taken over from older types of pack will preserve types of designs already in use in the Florence area at the time when the Minchiate was invented. For this reason it is particularly interesting to see that some of the Minchiate designs seem to fit the story of the Triumphs especially well.

For example, in the Minchiate designs, The Star shows one of the Wise Men from the East, under the Star of Bethlehem, which seems a much more fitting illustration of Fame than the lady in the new Visconti-Sforza card. The Moon includes a clockface, bringing out more clearly the connection of the card with the Triumph of Time. The Sun shows a pair of lovers who might well represent Petrarch united with Laura at the end of Time (Kaplan, p.52).

This strengthens the likelihood that one of the reasons for the new cards in the Visconti-Sforza pack was to replace designs of an older kind (broadly like those preserved in the Minchiate), which had been perfectly appropriate in a pack intended as illustrations of the Triumphs of Petrarch but which were no longer suitable when the Visconti-Sforza pack was reorganized on a different plan and with a different story.
I would add that in minchiate the Old Man never lost his hourglass. Moreover, the minchiate retains the three theological virtues and prudence as part of the numbered cards; most theorists say that they were probably also present in the Cary-Yale, which (excluding the Marziano) remains the earliest deck we know anything about other than it existed at such and such a time and such and such a place. The inclusion of the three theologicals and prudence in minchiate suggests an equally ancient origin.

A problem is that while the minchiate Chariot card has a female charioteer like the Cary-Yale, the minchiate's lady is nude. How can a nude lady represent the Petrarchan triumph of Chastity, which for Petrarch was fundamentally Pudicitia, i.e. the avoidance of shame? There are two possibilities (or a combination of both): one, that the nude lady is a change from the original, suiting late Renaissance taste; or two, that as an ideal rather than an actual woman, locating her in a Platonic heaven rather than on earth, it was appropriate to picture her nude. An example might be Titian's famous painting sometimes called "Sacred and Profane Love", where the goddess is nude and the woman clothed. There is also the change in the Star and World cards in cards associated with Milan, from clothed figures in mid-century to nude or mostly nude ones by the time of the Cary Sheet and the Sforza Castle cards.

Both Moakley and Shephard assume that the "original" tarot had 22 triumphs. That assumption is not shared by several researchers today (although others still maintain it). I should perhaps give a little history before saying how it affects Moakley's thesis.

That the tarot may have had fewer than the usual 22 special cards early on was to my knowledge first advanced by Ronald Decker in 1974 (Journal of the Playing Card Society, Vol. 3 no. 1 (August, 1974), pp. 23ff). He suggested that the CY might have had 14 trumps (adding the 3 missing cardinal virtues, or 2 plus the Popess), bringing the total number of cards (16x4 + 14) to the usual 78. In addition, the PMB might have had either the same number, 14, or perhaps 16, the 14 that have survived plus Strength and World, which were present in the CY. Dummett objected . that with 14 (I think he oversimplifies Decker, but it doesn't matter) the total wouldn't be the requisite 78, but 70 (or 72, I'd add). The only way to have 78, he says, is to suppose that the PMB was first, with its 22 trumps, and then the CY with 14 trumps, removing 8 and replacing them with 5 others. But that is very implausible. If you want to see more, see https://askalexander.org/display/22505/ ... w=survival for Decker and https://askalexander.org/display/22505/ ... d%20decker for Dummett.

In Il Mondo e l'Angelo, Dummett asserted against Decker that it is implausible is that people thought in terms of keeping the total number of cards constant at 78. Instead, "what really matters is that the ratio between trumps and suit cards, and "it is extremely likely" that this ratio was kept constant. If the standard deck had 21 trumps to 14 suit cards, then the CY would have had to have 24 trumps to its 16 court cards per suit. This argument is presented at search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keyw ... 1&start=10. Of course this ignores an even simpler ratio, 1:1, at the beginning, even though obviously it wasn't kept. In that case the CY would have 16 trumps and the PMB 14, now without the requirement of adding up to 78 cards total.

Dummett had in 1974 rejected the 1:1 ratio on the grounds that it was "against almost all the evidence". However that evidence is not from the beginning stages of the game. What would need to be established is that in almost all cases the most stable and popular form of a recently invented game is the same as its earliest workable version, which is surely not true.

Dummett argues, however, for the "conservatism of the players", making it possible to infer unknown previous years from known later years. No doubt players would balk at a change in the order of existing triumphs. Whether the same would be true for the addition or subtraction of triumphs is less clear. Also, there are regime changes,fashion changes, and other considerations. As conservative as I am when it comes to computers, if I had learned how to use an Atari computer first, that would not prevent me from switching to DOS or Apple when they became available and popular--especially when I couldn't buy an Atari system any longer.

Added next day:The next advocacy of a pre-22 special card was by John Berry in 1987, in a review of Robert V. O'Neill's Tarot Symbolism, which can be read at https://askalexander.org/display/22573/ ... k%20review, reproduced on THF at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1073&p=16421&hilit ... ohn#p16427.

I am not sure who was next to advocate tarots of fewer than 22 special cards, Andrea or Huck. Added next day: it seems to have been Huck, first in a 1989 book that publishers proved not to be interested in, followed by contacts to some major researchers and then in 2003 on the Internet (see Huck's two posts below). He, or the group he helped form, contacted Pratesi about the 5x14 theory in 2002, and Andrea in 2004 or 2005.

But Andrea only mentioned "8 allegories, then 14 and 16" in passing, in the exposition catalog Caravan of Tarot: Tarot:History, Art, Magic, http://www.associazioneletarot.it/cgi-b ... arovan.pdf, p. 7 (added next day: my copy of the catalog has the date 2006). Huck has more detailed hypotheses, arguing for fewer than 22 in (a) the CY (16 triumphs), (b) the PMB (14 ), (c) the Charles VI (16), and (d) some Ferrara decks referred to in documents (14). Huck is also noisier, with numerous posts on THF and Aeclectic. For him the CY's 16 triumphs and no Fool became those of the PMB by removing all 7 virtue cards except the one with the Justice lady on it, because it was needed to supply the triumph of Fame, achieved by the knight in the background who fights for justice.Then there is room for 4 other trumps (16-6 + 4 = 14), plus the Fool. This result is something less solemn than a lesson on virtue. People do think that way, especially young people. (Whether it would apply to the Duke and Duchess of Milan in 1452 is less clear to me. Perhaps in Ferrara, plus or minus a dozen or so years.)

Added next day. In 2004 Dummett published an article advocating a pre-22 special cards version with 18 triumphs plus the Fool, minus only the virtues, "about 1420 and perhaps in Milan," at https://askalexander.org/display/22588/ ... %20virtues, on THF at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1073&p=16421&hilit ... ohn#p16422. He hypothesizes that the virtues were added, in "possibly Ferrara...perhaps as early as 1430" (p. 166). There is no mention of his earlier idea of the 3:2 ratio between cards per suit and triumphs.


Patrisi has also joined those willing to entertain the hypothesis of early tarots fewer in number than 22; he is careful to say it is in the realm of hypothesis, and it may well be that the tarot was always 22 subjects.(I would not disagree; nor, I think, would Huck). He has made specific speculations about a 16 triumph proto-minchiate in Florence (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1086#p16686, which also contains my 16 triumph speculation for the CY) and the game of "VIII Emperors" made in that city for Ferrara (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1120

Recently Phaeded has argued for a 14 triumph deck early on (Empress, Emperor, Love, Chariot, Wheel, Death, Judgment, and the 7 virtues [with "World" as Prudence]), expanding to 22 for the PMB and after but with a possible period of overlap (see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1062#p16260)/ and viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1165#p18911). In this regard, it seems to me that the Cary-Yale-type needs 16 cards; having two more would also give one card for every Petrarchan triumph. I would add either the Sun or the Old Man, to represent the triumph of Time, and make Prudence and "World" (for me representing the triumph of Fame) separate cards. Phaeded denies the relevance of Petrarch, as opposed to a schema associating two cards to each of the seven planets based on quotations from Dante's Paradiso.

At this point, it seems to me, all we can say is that there are alternative hypotheses, with more or less plausibility or probability (if such can be estimated) at various times and places and in various decks In relation to Moakley, researchers disagreeing about the relative merits of the various alternatives.

Relative to Moakley, it seems to me that allowing for a smaller number of subjects earlier on makes it easier both to defend the influence of Petrarch's poem on the tarot early on, and to attribute those subjects most readily amenable to ribaldry to a later development--but not as late as the PMB, which might be seen as an effort to tone down the ribaldry introduced in some other city of the early tarot. It is also easier to assign the four suits to the cards in a symmetrical way if, like in the Marziano deck, they are a multiple of four. That eventuality tends to be confirmed by the Cary-Yale triumphs' suit assignments as catalogued, whose fit seems based on information unavailable to the cataloguer and otherwise too unprecedented to have been made up by someone based on some theory or other current at the time.

Here are the scans I promised, from Shephard's book, his chapter 5, "The Original Story"
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lDtLofhXhCE/ ... ge-001.jpg
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-833vb92HEiQ/ ... ge-002.jpg
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_jeMOr0Ebic/ ... ge-003.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h-Yrj8ZIU8A/ ... ge-004.jpg
Last edited by mikeh on 06 Mar 2017, 20:53, edited 2 times in total.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

84
mikeh wrote:Both Moakley and Shephard assume that the "original" tarot had 22 triumphs. That assumption is not shared by several researchers today (although others still maintain it). I should perhaps give a little history before saying how it affects Moakley's thesis.

That the tarot may have had fewer than the usual 22 special cards early on was to my knowledge first advanced by Ronald Decker in 1974 (Journal of the Playing Card Society, Vol. 3 no. 1 (August, 1974), pp. 23ff). He suggested that the CY might have had 14 trumps (adding the 3 missing cardinal virtues, or 2 plus the Popess), bringing the total number of cards (16x4 + 14) to the usual 78. In addition, the PMB might have had either the same number, 14, or perhaps 16, the 14 that have survived plus Strength and World, which were present in the CY. Dummett objected . that with 14 (I think he oversimplifies Decker, but it doesn't matter) the total wouldn't be the requisite 78, but 70 (or 72, I'd add). The only way to have 78, he says, is to suppose that the PMB was first, with its 22 trumps, and then the CY with 14 trumps, removing 8 and replacing them with 5 others. But that is very implausible. If you want to see more, see https://askalexander.org/display/22505/ ... w=survival for Decker and https://askalexander.org/display/22505/ ... d%20decker for Dummett.

In Il Mondo e l'Angelo, Dummett asserted against Decker that it is implausible is that people thought in terms of keeping the total number of cards constant at 78. Instead, "what really matters is that the ratio between trumps and suit cards, and "it is extremely likely" that this ratio was kept constant. If the standard deck had 21 trumps to 14 suit cards, then the CY would have had to have 24 trumps to its 16 court cards per suit. This argument is presented at search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keyw ... 1&start=10. Of course this ignores an even simpler ratio, 1:1, at the beginning, even though obviously it wasn't kept. In that case the CY would have 16 trumps and the PMB 14, now without the requirement of adding up to 78 cards total.

Dummett had in 1974 rejected the 1:1 ratio on the grounds that it was "against almost all the evidence". However that evidence is not from the beginning stages of the game. What would need to be established is that in almost all cases the most stable and popular form of a recently invented game is the same as its earliest workable version, which is surely not true.

Dummett argues, however, for the "conservatism of the players", making it possible to infer unknown previous years from known later years. No doubt players would balk at a change in the order of existing triumphs. Whether the same would be true for the addition or subtraction of triumphs is less clear. Also, there are regime changes,fashion changes, and other considerations. As conservative as I am when it comes to computers, if I had learned how to use an Atari computer first, that would not prevent me from switching to DOS or Apple when they became available and popular--especially when I couldn't buy an Atari system any longer.

I am not sure who was next to advocate tarots of fewer than 22 triumphs, Andrea or Huck. But Andrea only mentioned "8 allegories, then 14 and 16" in passing, in the exposition catalog Caravan of Tarot: Tarot:History, Art, Magic, http://www.associazioneletarot.it/cgi-b ... arovan.pdf, p. 7. Huck has more detailed hypotheses, arguing for fewer than 22 in (a) the CY (16 triumphs), (b) the PMB (14 ), (c) the Charles VI (16), and (d) some Ferrara decks referred to in documents (14). Huck is also noisier, with numerous posts on THF and Aeclectic. For him the CY's 16 triumphs and no Fool became those of the PMB by removing all 7 virtue cards except the one with the Justice lady on it, because it was needed to supply the triumph of Fame, achieved by the knight in the background who fights for justice.Then there is room for 4 other trumps (16-6 + 4 = 14), plus the Fool. This result is something less solemn than a lesson on virtue. People do think that way, especially young people. (Whether it would apply to the Duke and Duchess of Milan in 1452 is less clear to me. Perhaps in Ferrara, plus or minus a dozen or so years.)

Patrisi has also joined those willing to entertain the hypothesis of early tarots fewer in number than 22; he is careful to say it is in the realm of hypothesis, and it may well be that the tarot was always 22 subjects.(I would not disagree; nor, I think, would Huck). He has made specific speculations about a 16 triumph proto-minchiate in Florence (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1086#p16686, which also contains my 16 triumph speculation for the CY) and the game of "VIII Emperors" made in that city for Ferrara (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1120

Recently Phaeded has argued for a 14 triumph deck early on (Empress, Emperor, Love, Chariot, Wheel, Death, Judgment, and the 7 virtues [with "World" as Prudence]), expanding to 22 for the PMB and after but with a possible period of overlap (see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1062#p16260)/ and viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1165#p18911). In this regard, it seems to me that the Cary-Yale-type needs 16 cards; having two more would also give one card for every Petrarchan triumph. I would add either the Sun or the Old Man, to represent the triumph of Time, and make Prudence and "World" (for me representing the triumph of Fame) separate cards. Phaeded denies the relevance of Petrarch, as opposed to a schema associating two cards to each of the seven planets based on quotations from Dante's Paradiso.

At this point, it seems to me, all we can say is that there are alternative hypotheses, with more or less plausibility or probability (if such can be estimated) at various times and places and in various decks In relation to Moakley, researchers disagreeing about the relative merits of the various alternatives.

Relative to Moakley, it seems to me that allowing for a smaller number of subjects earlier on makes it easier both to defend the influence of Petrarch's poem on the tarot early on, and to attribute those subjects most readily amenable to ribaldry to a later development--but not as late as the PMB, which might be seen as an effort to tone down the ribaldry introduced in some other city of the early tarot. It is also easier to assign the four suits to the cards in a symmetrical way if, like in the Marziano deck, they are a multiple of four. That eventuality tends to be confirmed by the Cary-Yale triumphs' suit assignments as catalogued, whose fit seems based on information unavailable to the cataloguer and otherwise too unprecedented to have been made up by someone based on some theory or other current at the time.
The discussion of Dummett and Decker in the IPCS is a problem, cause the representation is confused and the whole matter was longer than 1 or 2 issues of the journal. And it is difficult to recognize, that the talking is really about the "14" or about the "5x14". Decker wants 78 cards and 5x14 = 70. Decker seems to want 14 trumps for the Cary-Yale ... well, this also wasn't the idea of the 5x14-theory.

Closer to the 5x14-theory is John Berry in his book review of Tarot Symbolism by Robert O'Neill (1987).
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1073&p=16421&hilit ... ohn#p16427
.. and again in 2004 short before his death (in the same thread). Other works to the theme by him are not known to me, though Berry wrote in 2004, that many persons had asked him about his theory.
(Thinking about that: It might be, that the Trionfi.com publications 2003 had caused some internal inquiry in the circle of the IPCS.)

The 5x14-theory developed in May 1989 ... the only real work about Tarot in 15th century present was Kaplan, Tarot Encyclopedia I, neither Berry or Decker or Dummett were known. A book was written and offered on the German book market. Publishers were not really interested.
Later in the 1990s there were contacts to Detlev Hoffmann, Stuart Kaplan, Michael Dummett and Bob O'Neill. Only the contact to Bob O'Neill was really intensive for a short time. None of them agreed.
Franco Pratesi was contacted in 2002. Franco didn't agree with the 5x14-theory, but was very friendly and gave a lot of material, which gave the web project Trionfi.com and the emaillist LTarot a good start (which developed in the course of 2003). Franco Pratesi had then retired from playing cards (since 1998) and wanted to write about Go.
Ross Caldwell, Alain Bougearel were present in the beginning, later came Michael J. Hurst and Robert Mealing and Steve Mangan and many others. In the same year started the participation on the Tarot History Forum.
A contact to Andrea Vitali developed in 2005 (as far I remember, possibly already in 2004). There was some technical cooperation. Andrea Vitali hadn't the 5x14-theory then.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

85
Thanks. I had forgotten about Berry. Getting documentation about the history of tarot history in the last 30 years seems about as difficult as getting documents about tarot history in the 15th century. So when is your 5x14 theory first documented, and where? Many internet publications do not have dates, or if they do it is hard to find out when what was said, making original dates difficult to discover. I assume LTarot.is a good source, if you have a link. Your correspondence with publishers and other researchers would make interesting reading. But perhaps their end of the correspondence is assumed confidential. .

I do not think it is a question of whether people agree with the theory or not (added later: unless you mean "agreeing that it is a reasonable hypothesis"). For the PMB, I don't know of anyone who agrees with you precisely. It is a question of whether others think some number lower than 22 for trumps plus Fool is a reasonable hypothesis for some early trionfi decks, including ones now lost. I myself cannot say I "agree" with even that proposition. It seems to me that not enough is known to agree or disagree.
Last edited by mikeh on 06 Mar 2017, 20:54, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

86
mikeh wrote:Thanks. I had forgotten about Berry. Getting documentation about the history of tarot history in the last 30 years seems about as difficult as getting documents about tarot history in the 15th century. So when is your 5x14 theory first documented, and where? Many internet publications do not have dates, or if they do it is hard to find out when what was said, making original dates difficult to discover. I assume LTarot.is a good source, if you have a link. Your correspondence with publishers and other researchers would make interesting reading. But perhaps their end of the correspondence is assumed confidential. .

I do not think it is a question of whether people agree with the theory or not. For the PMB, I don't know of anyone who agrees with you precisely. It is a question of whether others think some number lower than 22 for trumps plus Fool is a reasonable hypothesis for some early trionfi decks, including ones now lost. I myself cannot say I "agree" with even that proposition. It seems to me that not enough is known to agree or disagree.
If you use http://archive.org a few things have a date.
That's a state of June 15, 2004
http://web.archive.org/web/200406151038 ... 14new.html
... but actually it's from 2003

And that's from the German book in 1989, which was written as a raw script and not completely finished.
Welches Genie war t„tig? Ein zun„chst noch unbekannter Karten-Genius.
Welche Idee hatte der Karten-Genius? Er wollte anstelle des alten
4x14-Blattes ein 5x14-Blatt generieren, er wollte statt den normalen 4
Farben Mnzen-Schwerter-St„be-Pokale 5 Reihen generieren, die 4
normalen und eine Sondersequenz, die vermutlich als vorgegebene
Trumpfreihe gedacht war.

....

Die Idee eines 5x14-Blattes w„re sowohl spieltechnisch als auch fr den
historischen Umkreis des 15. Jahrhunderts nicht berraschend; viel
berraschender als diese wohl hypothetische, aber doch logische Idee
ist die bewiesene Existenz des Tarot-Spiels mit 4x14 Normal-Karten und
den 22 Sonderkarten.
... inclusive the mistakes, which it got by the transfer from older computers to more modern computers (which didn't know German special signs).
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

87
Thanks, Huck.

John Berry's 1987 article is at https://askalexander.org/display/22573/ ... k%20review. Huck reproduced it on THF at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1073&p=16421&hilit ... ohn#p16427. This is really good, by the way, especially for the time.

John Berry's 2004 article is somehow missing from "Ask Alexander",at least from the free edition, except for the last page. Pages 225 and 226 of vol. 32 are not there. But Huck reproduced it on THF at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1073&p=16421&hilit ... ohn#p16422.

There is also, as Huck found, Michael Dummett's proposal that an 18 triumphs plus Fool version (i.e., minus the 3 virtue cards) may have existed before the 21 plus Fool standard version, at https://askalexander.org/display/22588/ ... %20virtues
and reproduced on THF by Huck at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1073&p=16421&hilit ... ohn#p16422. So far as I know this proposal has not yet received any support.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

88
I guess, that both articles in 2004 (Berry's and Dummett's) were triggered by the condition, that Trionfi.com had given some focus on the document of 1457. It should have been known since the publication of Ortalli (1996), but with a 30 pages article one naturally doesn't take the care to know and understand all of it. Ortalli reported a lot of new old documents. There was some contact to John McLeod, possibly it did go this way.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

90
mikeh wrote:Well, Dummett does talk about the 1457 document specifically, speculating on what the cards could have been. Berry doesn't, that I see.
It's a question, if Berry's article was finished. In the opening of the same issue of the journal his death is told to the readers ... "... so it was a real shock to hear, that he died at his computer".

And Berry's article starts: "I have been asked for my views on "The Tarot" on so many occasions in private correspondence that I thought it might be useful to make them public."
He had another opinion about Tarot, but it seems he didn't write about it. Dummett was a big man and dominated the scene. Maybe Berry didn't want to go against it. Dummett had success and was very active.
Well, we don't know, what internal debates took place, and at which point Berry stopped to talk about it. In our Forum we also don't know, why participants stop to contribute sometimes.
But Berry's opinion of 2004 is related to that, what he wrote already in 1987. That's a long time, 17 years.
Last edited by Huck on 11 Mar 2022, 19:01, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com
cron