A brief digression on the Minchiate, and Cosmographia
Posted: 14 Feb 2019, 00:45
I've been seeing a few cosmographia in the manuscripts. A cosmograph is a picture of the whole world, showing the sublunar part, our world of chance, decay, and death, and usually also showing the eternal part, the perfect part, starting with the realm of planets, which move in perfect crystal spheres. Then comes the firmament: the starry sky with constellations, which are shown on the parchment by drawing the Zodiac. Beyond the firmament, is the realm of God, which is eternal, with perfect justice. From the planets on up, the cosmos is not even made of the four elements that make up our world below: it is made of a fifth element. The moon is the lowest planet; and from the moon on up, all is perfect and eternal, while our world beneath the moon is a world of imperfection: of change, capricious chance, decay, and death. Our sublunar world can be drawn on parchment in many ways, all of them round: 1) as a map, 2) as a sphere with Hell in the center, or 3) as the four elements, often shown as scenes. Or the world's nature as a world of decay and death, can be shown by 4) the seven ages of man (which is also shown as a wheel). You also sometimes see 5) one man, the microcosm, in the center of the macrocosm. The way that chance rules our world can be shown by 6) the four winds, or 7) Fortuna's wheel. Change can be shown by 8) The cycle of the year as four seasons, or less commonly, 9) as the twelve months. Change can also be shown as 10) the phases of the moon. The moon is visibly blemished, and is a very symbol of constant change; as the lowest planet, it is in part subject to the rules of our sublunar, changeable, imperfect, world.
There are of course many similarities between cosmographia and the tarot, and especially the Minchiate, which adds two standard cosmographia components: the zodiac and the four elements. You could say the Minchiate used the chance provided by having twenty more spaces to fill, to add in just the concepts a cosmographia should have. The Cary sheet artist, with no new spaces to fill, managed to include three Zodiac figures by making Sun, Moon, and Star do double duty, as if there was a felt need for Zodiac constellations in this card game.
I like to think of cards as being laid out, rather than listed; laid out in rows of related cards. I've been thinking for some time that since most of the poems we have start at the highest rather than the lowest trump, there really is no reason at all for trumps to go down the page starting from the weakest. Starting with the strongest instead would put the highest numbered trumps (the strongest for taking tricks) highest on the page. This would also reflect the order of the poems. So I laid out the Minchiate. I put the highest rows at the top, but I absent-mindedly forgot to reverse the cards within each row. I went back and corrected that mistake, but when I started to reverse the row with the twelve zodiac signs, I realized I would be making the year run backwards (I have a bit to say about the non-standard Minchiate Zodiac order in another post). Here is the layout, from Angel at the top to Bagato at the bottom, each row running highest to lowest except the Zodiac row. The deck is an early Minchiate; the backs show a picture of Andromeda, although the label on them is "Etruria." I think these are the same card maker as the "Colomba" decks I was looking at in my "detective story" post.
The Minchiate layout as a cosmograph. This layout has some resemblance to a cosmograph (cosmographium?), not just in what things are there but in where they are. Godly things are up at the top where they should be, above the stars.
Here is a cosmograph, from some sort of etiquette book, by Albrecht von Eyb Albrecht von Eyb's, Versbearbeitung einzelner Prosastellen ..., [title goes on and on], 1400-1499, München BSB Cgm 5185, image 59.
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb ... 8/image_59
The Zodiac signs are not drawn, but the sign names are in the white band just outside the black starred circle, as can be seen in this detail below. We see the words Celum Empirean, (Empyrean Sky), and the white circle is labeled elsewhere, Celum Crystallium (Crystal Sky). Christ and, I think, Mary, sit at the top. In the outermost band the human figures may be saints: I can make out "Apostoli" and in a triple crown, "Pontife??" and well below him "Confessor." The angels are Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, etc. So the Minchiate, as laid out with the highest trumps highest, is somewhat like a cosmograph, in that the Zodiac is a band between the godly things at the highest place, and things below which depict our mundane world.
The colored circles are the orbits of the seven planets, The Moon, Mercury, Venus, The Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The outer sphere of Divine Justice should be part of any cosmograph, as here: Christ in Judgment is at the top of the outermost sphere. A cosmograph should also show how capricious Fortune rules our sublunar world. This is not always shown on the same image, but often on a nearby one. This is not by accident. The goods which Fortune can lend, which you might lust for, are never given but only lent; she takes them back: she is as inconstant as the moon. Your lusts make you like an animal: the passengers on her wheel are often shown as animals. The animal which you will be, if you lust after Fortuna's baubles, does not gain true happiness from that giddy and insecure possession. The meaning of a cosmograph is the contrast of the outer sphere of perfect justice, which is shown by a circle, compared with the central circle of the sublunar world, the realm governed by chance. Both parts are needed, but they don't have to be painted on the same sheep. I expected to find some picture of chance and decay, not too far away from this cosmograph, so I went looking for it: there's a wheel of Fortune in the same book, five pages away.
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb ... 8/image_54
Here is the Earth from the above cosmograph, showing the mouth of Hell with a devil (Hell was at the center of the Earth, and so was the actual center of the Medieval universe). This scene shows earth, and water. The air is helpfully labeled "aer." Fire in this case is the fires of Hell. The four of them are, of course, in a circle, representing the capricious winds.
So that's a cosmograph. Under the sky represented by the Zodiac row, should come our sub-lunar world of capricious chance, decay, and death (all of which the Minchiate has). Earth can be represented by a scene, as here, or symbolically in various was, such as by the four elements. The four elements in the Minchiate are just where they should be, under the Zodiac. Cosmographia do not show the seven virtues, which the Minchiate has, and cosmographia do show all seven planets, which the Minchiate does not. There are a great many one to one alignments in these diagrams, such as the four elements aligning with the four humors, the four directions, the four winds, etc. I've seen the seven planets aligned with the seven notes of the octave. But so far, I haven't seen the seven planets in a one to one alignment with seven virtues, but that may exist.
Our second cosmograph, and second Wheel of Fortune: Here is another cosmograph. Note the two red wheels. Moralisch-didaktische Sammelhandschrift, 1200-1300, SzB, Ms Ham 390, f.2v
http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin ... E900000000
The inner red wheel is a wheel of Fortune, with the traditional four figures, as shown in this detail: The outer wheel also has upright figures going up, and head downward figures going down, but it is not another wheel of Fortune. The rising figures are labeled "Vadi Paradiso" and the ones going down are labeled "Set Ecia Maledictionis." (detail rotated 90 degrees). They are on their way down to "Inferno" where there are "Demoni." So the outer wheel is a Last Judgment; Christ in judgment sits at the top of the outer wheel, above the insecure throned king on the wheel of Fortune. As usual in a cosmograph, our world of chance and decay is in the middle, this time symbolically represented by the wheel of Fortune.
Above the whole rectangle is Heaven, a series of domes, with St. Peter (huge key) at the door. They are above the blue sky. Christ is flanked by the sun and moon (possibly shown as dark). So the sun and moon cards in the Minchiate layout are where they should be, as well.
Cosmographs are from Boethius, as are Fortuna's Wheels. In a cosmograph, our world of chance, death, and decay is in the center, and the spheres of the perfect and eternal are all around it. Of the two cosmographs we've considered so far, both had judging Christ. One showed our mundane world as a scene with some buildings, and the other represented its uncertain nature as a wheel of Fortune. The choice of the wheel of Fortune for the center of the cosmograph has some basis. All Wheels of Fortune stem from Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, even though he barely mentioned the wheel (his whole book is about Fortuna, but not about her wheel). What Boethius did talk about was two spheres, the sphere of Divine Justice, and sphere of Providence, or Destiny, or something like that (I can't decipher NeoPlatonism in any language), surrounding the sphere of the fixed stars from Ptolomy's astronomy. I can't tell you what these wheels are, exactly, but there are definitely two of them. The medieval cosmograph as a picture of the concentric eternal spheres, comes from Boethius.
Our third cosmograph: Here is the first ever cosmograph, a marginal jotting in a copy of Boethius, dated before 1000. The dot is the Earth, and the four rings from the center are 1) some planet's orbit, 2) the firmament of fixed stars, shown darker because it is opaque, and 3&4) the two Heavenly spheres introduced by Boethius. That's what makes this a cosmograph.
Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, 900-1000, St. Gallen, Cod Sang 844, f.144
https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/searc ... e/csg/0844
I learned about these from:
LA SEDES FORTUNAE Logiques figurâtes et dynamiques historiques de la roue de fortune (xie-xive siècles), by JEAN-LUC GAUTHIER
https://corpus.ulaval.ca/jspui/bitstrea ... /28463.pdf
Our fourth cosmograph: Here is the first cosmograph ever, not counting that marginal jotting. The red dot is the Earth, surrounded by the same four spheres. We see "Providentia," a cross, and the letters around the outside spell out Fatum (Gautier couldn't read them; another gift from the great images now available from the BnF). The eight lines connecting the divine outer spheres with the firmament (second sphere) are something or other that goes back and forth between the spheres.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Consolatione philosophiae, cum commentario Remigii Autissiodorensis, 976-1000, Angleterre (Canterbury, Christ Church ?). BnF Latin 17814
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... /f197.item
Our fifth cosmograph: Here is a cosmograph by Hildegarde of Bingen; the sphere surrounding the Earth is now an enormous body. Our mundane word in the center, is here represented by one standing human, which is called (in the manuscripts) the microcosm.
Liber Divinorum Operum, Hildegarde de Bingen, Lucca MS 1942, f.9r
http://www.hildegard-society.org/p/libe ... perum.html
Also http://expositions.bnf.fr/ciel/grand/4-099.htm
Hildegarde is not interested in the Zodiac, but she is in the cycle of the year. The 12 blowing heads in the above picture are not the Zodiac signs, but the four cardinal winds, each of whom has two assistants.
[ I will have to leave this here and come back and finish posting ]
There are of course many similarities between cosmographia and the tarot, and especially the Minchiate, which adds two standard cosmographia components: the zodiac and the four elements. You could say the Minchiate used the chance provided by having twenty more spaces to fill, to add in just the concepts a cosmographia should have. The Cary sheet artist, with no new spaces to fill, managed to include three Zodiac figures by making Sun, Moon, and Star do double duty, as if there was a felt need for Zodiac constellations in this card game.
I like to think of cards as being laid out, rather than listed; laid out in rows of related cards. I've been thinking for some time that since most of the poems we have start at the highest rather than the lowest trump, there really is no reason at all for trumps to go down the page starting from the weakest. Starting with the strongest instead would put the highest numbered trumps (the strongest for taking tricks) highest on the page. This would also reflect the order of the poems. So I laid out the Minchiate. I put the highest rows at the top, but I absent-mindedly forgot to reverse the cards within each row. I went back and corrected that mistake, but when I started to reverse the row with the twelve zodiac signs, I realized I would be making the year run backwards (I have a bit to say about the non-standard Minchiate Zodiac order in another post). Here is the layout, from Angel at the top to Bagato at the bottom, each row running highest to lowest except the Zodiac row. The deck is an early Minchiate; the backs show a picture of Andromeda, although the label on them is "Etruria." I think these are the same card maker as the "Colomba" decks I was looking at in my "detective story" post.
The Minchiate layout as a cosmograph. This layout has some resemblance to a cosmograph (cosmographium?), not just in what things are there but in where they are. Godly things are up at the top where they should be, above the stars.
Here is a cosmograph, from some sort of etiquette book, by Albrecht von Eyb Albrecht von Eyb's, Versbearbeitung einzelner Prosastellen ..., [title goes on and on], 1400-1499, München BSB Cgm 5185, image 59.
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb ... 8/image_59
The Zodiac signs are not drawn, but the sign names are in the white band just outside the black starred circle, as can be seen in this detail below. We see the words Celum Empirean, (Empyrean Sky), and the white circle is labeled elsewhere, Celum Crystallium (Crystal Sky). Christ and, I think, Mary, sit at the top. In the outermost band the human figures may be saints: I can make out "Apostoli" and in a triple crown, "Pontife??" and well below him "Confessor." The angels are Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, etc. So the Minchiate, as laid out with the highest trumps highest, is somewhat like a cosmograph, in that the Zodiac is a band between the godly things at the highest place, and things below which depict our mundane world.
The colored circles are the orbits of the seven planets, The Moon, Mercury, Venus, The Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The outer sphere of Divine Justice should be part of any cosmograph, as here: Christ in Judgment is at the top of the outermost sphere. A cosmograph should also show how capricious Fortune rules our sublunar world. This is not always shown on the same image, but often on a nearby one. This is not by accident. The goods which Fortune can lend, which you might lust for, are never given but only lent; she takes them back: she is as inconstant as the moon. Your lusts make you like an animal: the passengers on her wheel are often shown as animals. The animal which you will be, if you lust after Fortuna's baubles, does not gain true happiness from that giddy and insecure possession. The meaning of a cosmograph is the contrast of the outer sphere of perfect justice, which is shown by a circle, compared with the central circle of the sublunar world, the realm governed by chance. Both parts are needed, but they don't have to be painted on the same sheep. I expected to find some picture of chance and decay, not too far away from this cosmograph, so I went looking for it: there's a wheel of Fortune in the same book, five pages away.
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb ... 8/image_54
Here is the Earth from the above cosmograph, showing the mouth of Hell with a devil (Hell was at the center of the Earth, and so was the actual center of the Medieval universe). This scene shows earth, and water. The air is helpfully labeled "aer." Fire in this case is the fires of Hell. The four of them are, of course, in a circle, representing the capricious winds.
So that's a cosmograph. Under the sky represented by the Zodiac row, should come our sub-lunar world of capricious chance, decay, and death (all of which the Minchiate has). Earth can be represented by a scene, as here, or symbolically in various was, such as by the four elements. The four elements in the Minchiate are just where they should be, under the Zodiac. Cosmographia do not show the seven virtues, which the Minchiate has, and cosmographia do show all seven planets, which the Minchiate does not. There are a great many one to one alignments in these diagrams, such as the four elements aligning with the four humors, the four directions, the four winds, etc. I've seen the seven planets aligned with the seven notes of the octave. But so far, I haven't seen the seven planets in a one to one alignment with seven virtues, but that may exist.
Our second cosmograph, and second Wheel of Fortune: Here is another cosmograph. Note the two red wheels. Moralisch-didaktische Sammelhandschrift, 1200-1300, SzB, Ms Ham 390, f.2v
http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin ... E900000000
The inner red wheel is a wheel of Fortune, with the traditional four figures, as shown in this detail: The outer wheel also has upright figures going up, and head downward figures going down, but it is not another wheel of Fortune. The rising figures are labeled "Vadi Paradiso" and the ones going down are labeled "Set Ecia Maledictionis." (detail rotated 90 degrees). They are on their way down to "Inferno" where there are "Demoni." So the outer wheel is a Last Judgment; Christ in judgment sits at the top of the outer wheel, above the insecure throned king on the wheel of Fortune. As usual in a cosmograph, our world of chance and decay is in the middle, this time symbolically represented by the wheel of Fortune.
Above the whole rectangle is Heaven, a series of domes, with St. Peter (huge key) at the door. They are above the blue sky. Christ is flanked by the sun and moon (possibly shown as dark). So the sun and moon cards in the Minchiate layout are where they should be, as well.
Cosmographs are from Boethius, as are Fortuna's Wheels. In a cosmograph, our world of chance, death, and decay is in the center, and the spheres of the perfect and eternal are all around it. Of the two cosmographs we've considered so far, both had judging Christ. One showed our mundane world as a scene with some buildings, and the other represented its uncertain nature as a wheel of Fortune. The choice of the wheel of Fortune for the center of the cosmograph has some basis. All Wheels of Fortune stem from Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, even though he barely mentioned the wheel (his whole book is about Fortuna, but not about her wheel). What Boethius did talk about was two spheres, the sphere of Divine Justice, and sphere of Providence, or Destiny, or something like that (I can't decipher NeoPlatonism in any language), surrounding the sphere of the fixed stars from Ptolomy's astronomy. I can't tell you what these wheels are, exactly, but there are definitely two of them. The medieval cosmograph as a picture of the concentric eternal spheres, comes from Boethius.
Our third cosmograph: Here is the first ever cosmograph, a marginal jotting in a copy of Boethius, dated before 1000. The dot is the Earth, and the four rings from the center are 1) some planet's orbit, 2) the firmament of fixed stars, shown darker because it is opaque, and 3&4) the two Heavenly spheres introduced by Boethius. That's what makes this a cosmograph.
Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, 900-1000, St. Gallen, Cod Sang 844, f.144
https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/searc ... e/csg/0844
I learned about these from:
LA SEDES FORTUNAE Logiques figurâtes et dynamiques historiques de la roue de fortune (xie-xive siècles), by JEAN-LUC GAUTHIER
https://corpus.ulaval.ca/jspui/bitstrea ... /28463.pdf
Our fourth cosmograph: Here is the first cosmograph ever, not counting that marginal jotting. The red dot is the Earth, surrounded by the same four spheres. We see "Providentia," a cross, and the letters around the outside spell out Fatum (Gautier couldn't read them; another gift from the great images now available from the BnF). The eight lines connecting the divine outer spheres with the firmament (second sphere) are something or other that goes back and forth between the spheres.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Consolatione philosophiae, cum commentario Remigii Autissiodorensis, 976-1000, Angleterre (Canterbury, Christ Church ?). BnF Latin 17814
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... /f197.item
Our fifth cosmograph: Here is a cosmograph by Hildegarde of Bingen; the sphere surrounding the Earth is now an enormous body. Our mundane word in the center, is here represented by one standing human, which is called (in the manuscripts) the microcosm.
Liber Divinorum Operum, Hildegarde de Bingen, Lucca MS 1942, f.9r
http://www.hildegard-society.org/p/libe ... perum.html
Also http://expositions.bnf.fr/ciel/grand/4-099.htm
Hildegarde is not interested in the Zodiac, but she is in the cycle of the year. The 12 blowing heads in the above picture are not the Zodiac signs, but the four cardinal winds, each of whom has two assistants.
[ I will have to leave this here and come back and finish posting ]