Hi, Huck,
Huck wrote:I start the "collection "How Petrarca became famous" (till 1450)", cause I feel myself incompetent in this question, but I for my myself wish to know precisely, if one could safely assume, that the poem "Trionfi" short before 1440 and short later after 1440 became rather popular and got more attention as before.... I would wish to know also about the general development of the perception of Petrarca ... I think, that the Trionfi work "arrived late" in the public attention.
Let's see... I can offer a few comments on that.
LATIN MORALITIES: CASIBUS AND REMEDIIS
Petrarch and Boccaccio were originally famous in Italy for their Latin moral works, most notably Boccaccio's
De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and Petrarch's
De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae. Other works, such as Petrarch's
De Viris Illustribus and Boccaccio's
De mulieribus claris were of the same sort, Latin moral works. These tedious Latin works were the foundation of the authors' fame in the late 14th and 15th centuries. Over the subsequent two centuries, other works became more prominent in waves, at different times in different countries.
It is worth pointing out that both works were encyclopedic treatments of Fortune. Bocaccio's
Casibus was an encyclopedia of moralized biographies, each narrative showing the rise and fall of a great figure. Petrarch's
Remediis was an encyclopedia of contingencies, both good and bad, and the conflict they generate between Reason and the four Stoic-Christian Passions of the Soul. (It was, in effect, a litany of rationalizations, sour grapes and sweet lemons.) The lesson of all examples was that the gifts/punishments of Fortune are not to be celebrated nor lamented -- with the proper
contemptu mundi spirit all the fickle activities of Fortune were to be treated with indifference.
Tarot is likewise a
contemptu mundi meditation on the triviality of this world in light of the next. For the last 6-8 years I have argued that the trump cycle is an allegorical summary of the sensibilities and themes reflected in these Latin moral works. Moreover, even the specific design of the trump ordering is based on these works. The
Casibus narrative arc -- a rise, reversal, and downfall -- is present in most archetypal decks... in fact, any deck with the standard 22 trumps. The pair of Love and the Chariot precede pair of Time/Hermit and Fortune in most orderings, while the pair of Traitor and Death are always last. In the Milanese (Tarot de Marseille) ordering, the
Remediis motif is neatly depicted. Each turn of Fortune's wheel is met with virtue, specifically the three Moral Virtues answering the three turns of Fortune. This is the design of the middle trumps, while the lowest trumps are clearly a representation of Mankind in all guises, culminating in the Emperor and Pope -- as in many other works. The highest trumps are an eschatological epilogue, also characteristic of moral allegories in art, literature, and drama. An early example of this argument is on TarotL.
The middle section of the trump cycle (Feb 18, 2005)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/44963
PETRARCH'S TRIONFI: POST-TAROT
With regard to whether the
Trionfi were too late to have influenced Tarot, the short answer is no. I'll get to that below, but first there is a sense in which they may
seem to be a late arrival. It is certainly true that their period of greatest popularity was later, and their illustrations were mostly later. But that later tradition is worth talking about because it coincided with the popularity of Tarot. Petrarch's
Trionfi became popular, and then extremely popular, over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries. In the later part of the 15th century the pictorial summary -- six triumphal cars -- became prominent, and many copies of the
Trionfi were illustrated. Many variations on that were created, using one or more of these triumphal cars. Sometimes, as in the
Bentivoglio Chapel, the triumphs were changed and elaborated a great deal, and even had their ordering changed. The popularity waned, but additional examples continued to be made. A more restrained tradition of using only the final four, Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity also arose. This is exemplified in the
Château de Chantilly, the tomb of "Henry II Conde (d. 1646), the
last work of Jacques Sarrazin."
It is also important to understand that Petrarch was not the only source for triumphs, just the earliest and most influential, and that Petrarch was never slavishly copied. The most typical examples of the six-triumph illustrations owed very little to his poem. Tarot was created at a time and place where all manner of triumphs were just beginning to become popular. Among the expressions were decorative arts including works intended for civic purposes, domestic art, and ecclesiastic display including private chapels as well as monumental works for the great cathedrals. The private works took many forms, notably including
cassoni (chests),
deschi da parto (birth trays), maiolica (ceramic bowls, plates, ewers, etc.),
spalliera panels (wainscoting), tapestries,
restelli (mirrors), and so on. Many of these decorated works depicted
trionfi, some historical or legendary and others allegorical. Examples of all these are available online. Triumphs of one sort or another are a natural choice of subject matter, and Petrarch is always in the background as a seminal work.
However, the rule was
non nova, sed nove. No one actually illustrated Petrarch directly. The iconographic tradition made its own rules, and even included types of allegory (such as the symbolic draft animals, e.g., swans, unicorns, buffaloes, etc.) which Petrarch despised as medieval corruptions.
INFLUENCE ON / PARALLELS WITH TAROT
Getting back to the question of pre-1440 influence of Petrarch's
Trionfi, there is more to be considered. First, there is the distinction between general influence and specific influence. The universal influence of Petrarch's
Trionfi came after Tarot's invention, and the popularity of Tarot paralleled the larger popularity of Trionfi as a mode of allegory and a form of homage. However, for anyone who was creating a new work of allegorical art or literature in early 15th-century Italy, based on a triumphal theme, there were only a handful of prominent works available. That is the type of work represented by the Tarot trump cycle, so those would be the influential works for the artist creating Tarot.
The Tarot cycle is a morality lesson in the form of an allegorical hierarchy. This type of work traces back to 14th-century literary sources like Francesco da Barberino’s
Documenta Amoris, Giovanni Boccaccio’s
Amorosa Visione, and Petrarch’s
Trionfi. It is worth noting, in the context of the
Documenta Amoris and
Amorosa Visione, that Petrarch’s initial design was likewise a
Triumph of Love, including a Triumph of Chastity. (It was subsequently expanded after the Black Death took Laura, and again when Petrarch became an old man.) Likewise, the middle trumps of the Tarot cycle begin with the Love card. Moreover, Petrarch’s
Trionfi incorporate both an
Ages of Man structure (which was codified in the long commentaries every printed version included), and a
Triumph of Death design, along with an eschatological conclusion. These are central design elements of Petrarch's
Trionfi and Tarot's trumps, which were created over a half century after Petrarch's poems. The influence is inescapable.
Another aspect of influence is the iconographic tradition of Petrarch's
Trionfi. That tradition began in the 14th century, with a painting by Giotto. Here is a short passage from "Petrarch and the Decoration of the
Sala Virorum Illustrium in Padua",
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jun., 1952), pp. 95-116. It is worth noting, because Giotto's painting may describe the origin of the Petrarchian style of allegorical triumph.
In about 1332 [Giotto] executed for King Robert of Naples a number of paintings which included the decoration of "la sala dei uomini famosi" in Castelnuovo, a work which unfortunately was destroyed in the fifteenth century. 142 These frescoes portrayed nine heroes who, however, were not identical with the traditional Nine Worthies, there being among them no Christians, only two Hebrews (Solomon and Samson), and seven pagans (Alexander, Hector, Aeneas, Achilles, Paris, Hercules, and Caesar); their wives were probably also represented. A few years later, in about 1340, Azzo Visconti commissioned in his newly built palace in Milan "a large hall ... in which Vainglory was depicted and also illustrious pagan princes of the world, such as Aeneas, Attila, Hector, Hercules, and several others; but among them is only one Christian, Charlemagne, and then Azzo Visconti."
[P.S. The iconography of Gloria or Vainglory or Fame derives from Boccaccio's
Amorosa Visione, of 1342. Also, "well before and long after Petrarch wrote his Trionfi, triumphal imagery, in the form of Christian triumphs and non-Petrarchian secular triumphs, were pervasive in medieval and Renaissance art." Barbara Dodge,
Petrarch's Triumphs: Allegory and Spectacle.] Later, in the late 14th century, a similar image of Vainglory (Fame) was used to illustrate Petrarch's
De Viris Illustribus. There are several surviving illustrations of this. I have collected them, along with a large number of examples of the six-image
Trionfi cycle from three centuries, on this Wikimedia Commons page.
Petrarch's triumphs
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petrarch%27s_triumphs
Anyway, those are the things that come immediately to mind. The best book to begin with is probably
Petrarch's Triumphs: Allegory and Spectacle.
Best regards,
Michael