"Sibilline Cards" again

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There is a reference to the term "sibilline cards" in Sandrina Bandera's essay on the Visconti and Sforza cards, Brera. I tarocchi: il casa e la fortuna. Bonifacio Bembo e la coltura cortese tardogotica (Milan, 1999). She says
"Galeazzo Maria Sforza possessed 'silbilline cards'" (p. 17), and references this precise statement to Robert Klein's 1967 article "Les tarots enluminés du XVe siècle" (L'Oeil, no. 145 (1967)). However, there is no mention of
Galeazzo Maria Sforza or of "sibilline cards" in Klein's article.

I have written it off as a mistake of Bandera's - I assumed she used a colloquial term like "carte sibilline" like she uses "arcani maggiori" - and that she misremembered her source for whatever she wanted to say about Galeazzo Maria.

I brought this up on TarotL way back in 2002
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/26324
(my ignorance is embarrassing - but I was only weeks into the study of Tarot history - it's actually nice to see how far I've come!)

It was brought up again in the heyday of LTarot, in 2006 -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LTarot/message/4656
- when I still had no answer for it.

Here is the quote from Bandera -
Eseguiti negli ultimi anni del ducato di Filippo Maria Visconti, con il quale si spegne la dinastia, e nel periodo di dominio del successore Francesco Sforza, in quanto consorte di Bianca Maria - unica erede di Filippo Maria - i tarocchi destarono l'interesse dei signori durante tutto il Quattrocento: Alfonso d'Este e Ludovico il Moro, per esempio, alla fine del XV secolo si scambiarono lettere in cui si fa esplicito riferimento alle carte da gioco; Galeazzo Maria Sforza possedeva delle "carte sibilline" (37) e il duca d'Orléans aveva "un jeu de quartes serraisines unes quartes de Lombardie". Doni speciali offerti dai duchi milanesi in occasione di visite ufficiali o di matrimoni, i tarocchi erano comunque molto diffusi a tutti i livelli sociali, come testimoniano le moltissime carte, per lo più di fattura poco raffinata, conservate nei depositi del Castello Sforzesco di Milano.
Footnote 37 says: "37. Klein, 1967". This is the article "Les tarots enluminés du XVe siècle" (L'Oeil, no. 145 (1967), which, as I said, says no such thing.

There was no Google Books in 2002, and barely one in 2006 (or was there one at all?), so I could not check out hunches like we do so now, so easily. Today I remembered the term "carte sibilline" and decided to look it up. Voilà! It really was - or seemed to be - a term used by Galeazzo Maria Sforza.
http://books.google.fr/books?id=BCjoAAA ... ne%22&cd=1

Unfortunately it's only a "fragment" - but with determination and keywords, the whole quote can be reconstructed.

The article appears to be by Lamberto Donati, who appears to have been an art historian, very active in the mid-20th century. MikeH cites him in this post
viewtopic.php?f=12&p=7112#p7107
regarding the E-Series. And it is this series that seems to have interested him and the context in which he places the letter from Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Janunary 23, 1474, where he mentions "sibilline" (but not "carte sibilline").

Here is the continuous text, retrieved from the fragments - Lamberto Donati ( ?) article title unknown, in Bibliofilia: rivista di storia del libro e di bibliografica, vols. 59-60 (1959), p. 120:
Vicino a questo documento mettiamo quello del 23 gennaio 1474 in cui Galeazzo Maria Sforza scrive a Sagramoro da Rimini pregandolo di vedere se sono in vendita "carte sibilline" che teneva il defunto Mons. di S. Sisto e nel caso d'acquistare le più belle: "Ad noi vene referto che la bona memoria del Reverendissimo Monsignore nostro de Santo Sixto havia grande quantitate de sibilline, quale erano molte belle. Il perché volimo che cum destro et bono modo investige se dicte sibilline se vendeno o si o non, et trovando tu che se habiano ad vendere volimo ne faci fare il merchato de piu quantita et de le piu belle che ve ne siano, avisandone poi del precio perche subito te farimo exbursate et respondere li el dinaro. Papie die 23 Januarij 1474." (5) - e continua pregando il Sagramoro di non rivelare il nome del Duca al chiaro scopo di non far aumentare il prezzo dell'acquisto. Evidamente in questa lettera si parla di carte stampate, esse erano in possesso d'uno sconosciuto, potevano essere acquistate, erano molto numerose e nel numero si potevano scegliere; a mio parere non si trattava che della Serie calcografica modello delle Serie E e di quella S, la scelta che se ne poteva fare giustifica il salto del gruppo D a quella S; infine l'essere stata la lettura scritta a Pavia conferma l'opinione che in questa città fossero state eseguite le calcografie.


We can note that Galeazzo Maria doesn't say "carte sibilline" - at least not here - and it is hard to know what kind of objects he is really talking about.

But I am more puzzled by Donati's assertion that it is clear he is talking about printed (stampate) cards - how does he know this? *And then he leaps to them being the (Pseudo-Mantegna) E-Series. I have no idea how he came to this interpretation.

Is there something else "sibilline" might be, besides cards?
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Re: "Sibilline Cards" again

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Take a look at ...

http://www.archive.org/stream/bulletind ... g_djvu.txt
... and search for "peaux de zibelines"
No 48. 23 janvier 1474. — Cette lettre, adressée par le cabinet
du Duc à un certain Sagramoro de Rimini, ligure ici par suite
d'une erreur reconnue postérieurement. L'éditeur, qui est le pre-
mier à rire de sa légère méprise, avait cru à nue demande des
livres Sibyllins. Tandis qu'il est réellement question de peaux
de zibelines (Sibilline), que le fen cardinal de Saint-Sixte possé-
dait et que le Duc voulait acheter,
It's a deja-vu text, perhaps the other format contains more.

But "zibelines" seems the expression for a guy like this:

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Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: "Sibilline Cards" again

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Huck wrote: http://www.archive.org/stream/bulletind ... g_djvu.txt
... and search for "peaux de zibelines"
No 48. 23 janvier 1474. — Cette lettre, adressée par le cabinet
du Duc à un certain Sagramoro de Rimini, ligure ici par suite
d'une erreur reconnue postérieurement. L'éditeur, qui est le pre-
mier à rire de sa légère méprise, avait cru à nue demande des
livres Sibyllins. Tandis qu'il est réellement question de peaux
de zibelines (Sibilline), que le fen cardinal de Saint-Sixte possé-
dait et que le Duc voulait acheter,
It's a deja-vu text, perhaps the other format contains more.
Thanks VERY much, Huck! This really is one of those scholarly myths - like Brockhaus' Mantua theory for the Mantegna - that just builds on itself. But how did Donati not know this book of d'Adda, published over 80 years earlier?

And then Bandera repeats it, citing the wrong source. Is it just a case where both Donati and Bandera just wanted the cards - either E-Series or Tarot - to be "mysterious" (sibylline)?

What you found is a review of Girolamo d'Adda, Indagini storiche, artistiche e bibliographiche sulla Libreria Visconteo-Sforzesca del Castello di Pavia (Milan, 1875/1879). reviewed in Bulletin du bibliophile et du bibliothécaire, 1876, by "J.D.", whose name I haven't been able to track down in the volume yet. In any case, he says that "the editor" - d'Adda - already knew he had mistakenly included this entry because he thought "sibilline" were "sibylline books", and only later realized they were this creature the sable, martes zibellina.

I haven't been able to find a copy Indagini storiche for d'Adda's original discussion, but if anyone does track it down, please post it here.

Fascinating to track down these obscure errors.
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Re: "Sibilline Cards" again

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Actually it would be of interest to see the real source to have really an own opinion about it.

.. .-) ... Even skins of animals were used for painting and writing ... .-)

Well, they had "sibilline" or "sybilline books" (and different forms of writing a word are common) ... lot books were far spread.

Sotzmann in 1850 in his article declares, that earlier libraries in their attempt to collect old writings often ignored lot books, cause they were cheap, there were enough of them and somehow "they were not attractive". How he comes to his opinion? Trying to collect the traces it's not my impression.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: "Sibilline Cards" again

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Huck wrote:Actually it would be of interest to see the real source to have really an own opinion about it.
The real source is just this letter of Galeazzo Maria to Sagramoro da Rimini -

"Ad noi vene referto che la bona memoria del Reverendissimo Monsignore nostro de Santo Sixto havia grande quantitate de sibilline, quale erano molte belle. Il perché volimo che cum destro et bono modo investige se dicte sibilline se vendeno o si o non, et trovando tu che se habiano ad vendere volimo ne faci fare il merchato de piu quantita et de le piu belle che ve ne siano, avisandone poi del precio perche subito te farimo exbursate et respondere li el dinaro. Papie die 23 Januarij 1474."

Apparently d'Adda (according to J.D.) first thought that "sibilline" were sibylline books, and later changed his mind and "was the first to laugh at" himself when he realized his "little mistake". I guess this means the book was already set or even printed before he caught it. I don't have d'Adda, as I said, so he either corrected himself in an errata sheet or somewhere else. But in any case, this is d'Adda, not the original letter, which obviously doesn't say "carte" anywhere.

Donati seems to have missed d'Adda's text, which I find somewhat hard to believe, since his work was standard on the Visconti-Sforza library before Pellegrino's study - but in any case he just introduces the term "carte sibilline" even though it doesn't appear in the letter of 1474 - and he goes on to interpret it as the E-Series!

Sandrina Bandera later - independently? - picks up this term "carte sibilline" from somewhere, and makes it apply to tarot cards.
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