Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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Phaeded wrote,
I continue to see a seven virtues template with 7 exemplars to which another 7 get added in the PMB.
As I said, I don't disagree. I argued the same thing at the beginning of the "Petrarch and Giotto" thread, viewtopic.php?f=12&t=848#p12119.

But it is harder to argue that the seven were in early Florentine decks than that they were in the CY, because the Theologicals aren't extant in any of the surviving Florence-based ones. Also, in Florence there is the additional complication of accounting for the three luminaries (assuming that the d'Este and BAR cards are Florentine-based), which aren't in Giotto or Petrarch. They are in the Book of Revelation, to be sure, but as they appear in the early cards, they don't look much like their depiction there. There should be some means of accounting for them, in terms of writings or art of that time and place. Huck, for example, says that the Florentines wanted to celebrate their science and industry, although I can't see that he gives any evidence for that rationale, other than the existence of the science and industry in question.

Phaeded wrote,
Why place such an emphasis on Petrarch? I hardly think he was ignored in his home town (considered one of the "three crowns" after all) but his Trionfi could have influenced the iconography of only up to six of the cards, so at all events not model for the trump series.
Petrarch supplies 6 cards and the theme of the whole, a progression through virtue to immortality. I don't deny that the titles of the 6 Petrarchan Triumphs were known in pre-1440 Florence. But I can't find the poem itself. I've looked in the inventories of Cosimo de' Medici, and it isn't there (A. C. de la Mare, "Cosimo and His books" , in Cosimo 'Il Vecchio' de' Medici 1389-1464, pp. 115-156; it also isn't mentioned in James Hankins, "Cosimo de' Medici as a Patron of Humanistic Literature", pp. 69-94 of the same volume). This includes the books that Cosimo acquired for various church institutions either. It isn't in the inventory of Salutati's library either (B. L. Ullman, The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati), and Salutati was an early admirer of Petrarch. Carrara had a copy of De Viris Illustribus made for him at his request, for example.

I also looked in the discussions of Petrarch by the humanists of the early Quatrocento. Again I could find no reference to the Trionfi. So I looked for statements that might have prompted by the Trionfi. Here I did find one thing (although it is not mentioned by commentators). Leonardo Bruni, in his Dialogues of 1403, puts into the mouth of Salutati the following (The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, 1987, p. 77):
...But to speak for myself, I could never be led to believe that Caesar was the parricide of his fatherland. It seems to me that I discussed this matter carefully enough in the book I wrote On the Tyrant, where I concludes with good reasons that Caesar did not rule wickedly. And so I shall never think Caesar was a parricide, nor shall I stop exalting him to the skies for the greatness of his deeds. Nevertheless if I had to exhort my sons to virtue, or ask God for it, I should certainly wish them to resemble Marcellus or Camillus rather than Caesar; for they were not inferior in war, and in addition to this military virtue they had moral purity.
Compare this last sentence to what Petrarch says in "The Triumph of Fame":
Those who attended her [Fame] bore on their brows
The signs of worthiness: among them were
Some I had seen aforetime bound by Love.
At her right hand, where first I bent mine eyes,
Were Scipio and Caesar; but which one
Was closer to her I could not discern.
One of the twain served virtue and not love,
The other served them both.
Caesar is the one who "served them both", virtue and love, and as a result was of impure virtue. But since Salutati did not own a copy of the Triumphs, perhaps someone quoted this passage to him--or he read it from another's copy. My best guess for the source would be Vergerio, who edited the Africa "in collaboration with" Salutati (per http://renaissance.academic.ru/566/Vergerio,_Pier_Paolo) and carried on an extensive correspondence with him (Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 1966, pp. 101ff); but Vergerio, when he was in service to the Cararra in Padua (1399-1405), defended one-man rule (Baron,Crisis, p. 108). On the other hand, Petrarch may have expressed the same view in other works.

In any case, Petrarch was not wholly admired in pre-1440 Florence, due to his politics. First let me give some background. Baron observes (p. 29 of From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, 1968)
It has long been common knowledge, of course, that Petrarch started out by celebrating, in the Africa, the elder Scipio as the embodiment of Roman greatness, whereas Caesar, the destroyer of the republic, was at that time the object of his bitter criticism, and at the same Caesar, in all the relevant works of Petrarch's old age--in the De Gestis Caesaris, as well as in the Invectiva Contra Eum Qui Maledixit Italiat and in the Mirror for Princes addressed to Francesco da Carrara of Padua---appeared as the supreme model and the very apex of Roman history. But Martelloti added the striking observation that in the draft of the Trionfo della Fama written shortly after 1350 Caesar obscures Scipio's figure, because he stands resplendent at Fama's right, whereas Scipio, flanked by the younger Scipio, is merely one in a crowd led by Augustus and Drusus.
And even in the Africa, there are criticisms of the Roman Republic. Baron paraphrases Petrarch (pp. 34f)
Had Scipio the Elder not been hampered by the termination of offices given him only for a limited period, and had he not been obliged to share his power with other citizens, he would have gained so overwhelming a victory that no Scipio the Younger and no destruction of rival Carthage would have been needed after him (Foornote: Africa, VIIII 569-611.)
The same was true of other heroes of the Roman Republic. Baron (p. 35) quotes Petrarch:
"What--may we believe--would have those men have achieved, had they been permitted to wage their wars in the way of kings, without fear of successors or colleagues?"
Baron further observes (pp. 35f):
Already in a letter of 1352 we find Petrarch wondering whether one should not talk fo "Caesar's monarchy" rather than of his "tyranny." It is also unmistakable that these changes were related to the changing conditions of Petrarch's life. The year 1352 immediately preceded the period in which he chose the milieu of the north-Italian tyrant courts for his home for the rest of his life, disdaining a return to his ancestral city on the Arno, so importunately urged upon him by his Florentine friends. From 1353 to his death he lived, with few exceptions, as a counselor and associate of north-Italian princes.
When he returned to Italy from France, he declined the earnest invitations of friends to settle in Florence; he "even refused Boccaccio's invitation to teach at its university," Gordon Griffiths tell us in Humanism of Leonardo Bruni p. 16). Instead, Petrarch went to work for Florence's enemy. After Milan, he was in the pay of another of the same ilk, Carrara in Padua. People who valued the republican form of government as a brake on despotism--most of the Florentine humanists--would not have been pleased with his views or his practice. They might have suspected that the emphasis on "men of virtue" was a form of what we today would call the "cult of personality," in which a ruler surrounds himself with noble-sounding rhetoric and secretly does horrible things. Filippo Visconti, the "count of virtue," would be a case in point. To be sure, once the Medici established a de facto despotism of their own and made the alliance with Sforza, it no longer mattered.

in his early years, Salutati seems to have supported Petrarch's early views. At the end of his life, in De Tyranno he supports the later Petrarch. This change is not supported by the younger generation of scholars. Baron writes:
In De Tyranno, the heart of the argument--the exoneration of Dante's judgment on Caesar and his assassins--was obsolete the moment it appeared. In the name of the younger generation Bruni, in his Dialogi gave the answer at once: Dante's monarchism was to be modified in the light of the convictions held in the Florentine Republic, instead of being used as aweapon against them and as a means to depreciate the ideals of civic freedom represented by Cicero. The end of the Renaissance, Bruni's reinterpretaiotion, as we have seen, remained the common Florentine reaction to Dante's verdict on Caesar.
What holds for Dante holds for Petrarch as well.

Actually, it is not clear how firmly late Salutati supported late Petrarch. Thompson, in his preface to Bruni's Dialogues (p. 56 of The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni), 1987, says,
Petrarch's magnum opus, the Africa, had been an enormous disappointment when it finally became available to his humanist admirers such as Salutati; and Petrarch's Latin style was soon found lacking by classical standards.'
Was it only his Latin that was disappointing, or also the content? For the early Salutati, before "De Tyranno", probably it was both. If so, which part of the content, that for the Republic or against it? It is not clear.

Another recent author (McLaughlin, Literary Imitation in the Italian Renaissance, p. 75) paraphrases Salutati in 1406:
His [Salutati's] final verdict is that the supreme writer in Latin prose is Cicero, in poetry Virgil, in a lengthy vernacular poem Dante, in sonnets Petrarch (9IV. 140).
Again it is not clear whether style or content is meant; but probably, from the lack of further qualification, he means both.

But it is fairly clear that Bruni, from the Dialogues to Pier Paolo Vergerio (c. 1403-1405) onward, dissociates himself from Petrarch's politics. In the Dialogues he puts very harsh words into the mouth of Niccolo Niccoli, probably reflecting what Niccoli actually thought about the Africa. When Salutati, in the dialogue Petrarch's supporter, asks for another opinion, he turns to Roberto Rossi rather than Bruni, because Bruni's "every opinion so accords with Niccolo's that I think he would rather be wrong with him than right with me" (quoted by Thompson, p. 57).

In later works Bruni continues as in the Dialogues. He is careful not to criticize Petrarch too much, since after all he is one of the "three crowns" that is spreading admiration of Florence across Italy. (Probably for the same reason, everyone at the end of the Dialogues is conciliatory toward Petrarch, even though the only answer to the criticisms of Africa is that he may be excused because it was left unfinished. I agree with Baron and the editors of The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni that some have made too much of this conciliatory attitude.) In his history of Florence, Bruni revises its founding myth by claiming, based on new evidence, that Florence was founded not by Julius Caesar but by Sulla in the days of the Roman Republic. And in his 1436 Lives of Dante and Petrarch he emphasizes Petrarch's service to Visconti and other northern princes (this during the war against Filippo), which allowed him leisure to write, while praising Dante's civic engagement in in the Florentine republic, which caused him no end of trouble. In this essay Bruni also praises the Roman Republic against the kingship it had had previously and the Empire that Caesar introduced, which discouraged men from civic engagement (see http://books.google.com/books?id=c97DF2 ... ch&f=false, p. 133).

In this whole essay, Bruni fails to quote Petrarch once. He seems more of a cultural phenomenon than someone to be read.

Poggio is also critical of Petrarch. Thompson writes:
Whereas Salutati had refused to believe that Caesar was 'the parricide of his fatherland," Poggio calls him "no less a parricide of the Latin language and the liberal arts than of his fatherland (Thompson p. 61, citing Baron, Crisis, p. 466 n. 42).

This is in 1435, when Poggio engages in a dispute with Guarino on this question.

Others take similar positions on the republican form of government, for example Francesco Macchiavelli (and Niccolo later), one of whose kinsmen, Giralomo, "under Cosimo de' Medici became a martyr for his republican convictions" (Baron, Crisis p. 339; for more on Giralomo, see http://books.google.com/books?id=uKl8iH ... li&f=false). Francesco writes
The enjoyment of freedom makes cities and citizens great; this is well known. But places under tyranny become deserted by their citizens. For tyrants fear the virtus of good citizens and engage in their extermination.
You might want to argue that the attitude toward Petrarch'in Florence was changing (in the sense of criticism becoming muted), once Cosimo returned from his Paduan exile in 1434 and before the Councils of Ferrara and Florence. If so, there should be supporting evidence in document- and artifact-rich Florence of the time.

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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mikeh wrote:Phaeded wrote,
I continue to see a seven virtues template with 7 exemplars to which another 7 get added in the PMB.
As I said, I don't disagree. I argued the same thing at the beginning of the "Petrarch and Giotto" thread, viewtopic.php?f=12&t=848#p12119.

But it is harder to argue that the seven were in early Florentine decks than that they were in the CY, because the Theologicals aren't extant in any of the surviving Florence-based ones. Also, in Florence there is the additional complication of accounting for the three luminaries (assuming that the d'Este and BAR cards are Florentine-based), which aren't in Giotto or Petrarch. They are in the Book of Revelation, to be sure, but as they appear in the early cards, they don't look much like their depiction there. There should be some means of accounting for them, in terms of writings or art of that time and place.
Mikeh,
If all surviving Florentine decks are post-PMB and Florence had a reason to adopt the PMB format (she did, as Cosimo backed Sforza, the latter sending a messenger to Florence as soon as he took Milan setting off celebrations in Florence), then you wouldn't see any theological Florentine cards.

I don't subscribe to the theory that the sun/moon/"star" replaced the theologicals (they are merely part of the seven additions). As I've posted elsewhere in discussions with Huck, I see the three replacements of the theological virtues as follows:
Charity: Pope (the charitable works of the Church – and its benefices – are doled out by the Pope).
Hope: counter-exemplar of the hanged man (Hope is opposite Despair/hanged man in Scrovegni chapel)
Faith: Papess (same attributes of cross on a staff – these two cards cannot be in the same deck as they are too similar; ergo one replaced the other)

Your detailed breakdown of Petrarch in Florence, as much as it is interesting, is irrelevant to my mind since I don’t see his Trionfi as the basis for the trumps.
• There is no Chastity in the trumps (why would the CY chariot-as-chastity hold out a coin? Why would it be a knight in the CVI)
• The “World” is not fama[/] but something else in the trumps (something more along the lines of an arch-civic symbol of victorious Florence (Anghiari), the dowry Cremona (CY), conquered Milan to be rebuilt (PMB), etc. There is not a single attribute in the PMB “World” that says “fama” – it is simply an idealized city). I do think the “World” is a civic version of Prudence, sometimes conflated with attributes of fama…but that leads back to the Virtues being the template of the trumps, not Petrarch’s Trionfi.
• “Time” is a card I count as added in the additional 7 in the PMB, although that is a moot point when there is no evidence of which subjects were in the original Florence deck (there is no getting around the problem of Chastity however).

Phaeded

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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The problem with your replacements is why anyone would do such a thing, replacing the obvious with the obscure. Just to be different? That seems to be the rationale for much art today, but I don't see it then. I don't remember your rationale for the celestials, but again, why? There is the same problem with the theory that the celestials replace the theologicals (which I think iconographically they do). There has to be more to the story, celestials pre-existing somewhere. That's why I brought in the Book of Revelation: it pre-exists the extant cards. But there are problems there, too, as I suggested.

I have already explained why Chastity would hold out a coin: it borrows from the suit of Coins, and on it is a standard Visconti image of power and beneficence.

In calling the card with the lady and the trumpets "Fama" I am speaking only of the CY. The PMB could well have had influence from Florentine cards, I don't dispute that. I just don't see it in the CY. Your attempts to derive it, like the coin and the arch of the Fama/World card as Brunelleschi's dome, are quite contrived and have at least as good explanations within the Lombard tradition.

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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mikeh wrote:The problem with your replacements is why anyone would do such a thing, replacing the obvious with the obscure. Just to be different? That seems to be the rationale for much art today, but I don't see it then. I don't remember your rationale for the celestials, but again, why? There is the same problem with the theory that the celestials replace the theologicals (which I think iconographically they do). There has to be more to the story, celestials pre-existing somewhere. That's why I brought in the Book of Revelation: it pre-exists the extant cards. But there are problems there, too, as I suggested.
I've explained this elsewhere and will try so again here. Every good Florentine was baptized and had their children baptized in the St. John baptistry ...and there one encountered the monumental tomb of Antipope John XXIII (who had been backed by Cosimo and his father), designed by Florence's leading sculptor, Donatello, completed c. 1430. Like many cardinal and papal tombs, it features the three Theological virtues at eye level, making them virtually synonymous with the Pope, especilly with Pope Eugenius living in Florence for years before and after Anghiari:
Image


in 1450 Sforza was allied with Cosimo, not the pope, so there is no reason to have featured the Theological virtues (they made sense in 1440 when the Papal army was allied with the Florentines vs. Milan/Albizzi at Anghiari). The starvation and subsequent (self-)appointment of Sforza over Milan, the latter is what I see the PMB commemorating, was hardly a religious event. I do subscribe to the theory that Faith was replaced by a Visconti ancestor for as you stated elsewhere aligning with the Visconti was of paramount importance to Sforza (and the Visconti relative, the Umiliate nun named Sister Maifreda da Pirovano, apparently a personal cause of Bianca). No need to keep only two of the remaining Theological virtues - Charity replaced by a cognate and Hope by its antitype (a needed message to the traitorous faction in Milan).
mikeh wrote:
I have already explained why Chastity would hold out a coin: it borrows from the suit of Coins, and on it is a standard Visconti image of power and beneficence.
Where is this supposed act of benefice in connection with the coin? To my mind the benefice was Cremona, a Visconti possession, that went directly to Sforza. Disputed quince stemma aside, his family’s fountain device is clearly in the CY so it must involve him. Its clearly his marriage IMO.
In calling the card with the lady and the trumpets "Fama" I am speaking only of the CY. The PMB could well have had influence from Florentine cards, I don't dispute that. I just don't see it in the CY. Your attempts to derive it, like the coin and the arch of the Fama/World card as Brunelleschi's dome, are quite contrived and have at least as good explanations within the Lombard tradition
The dome/arch is admittedly speculative but not central to my argument which is that the CVI, which most consider Florentine, shows the hilly Tuscan, Florentine contado and that the “Anghiari deck’s” World must have shown an equally civic-minded symbol. Perhaps a more appropriate image and possible prototype for what was on the CY world, The Expulsion of the Duke of Athens (substitute Albizzi for the foreign duke, S. Maria for S. Anne since the cathedral had now been rechristened after the former [the expulsion fell on S. Anne’s feast day - why she is in that tondo], and possibly add the recently completed Dome instead of just the Palazzo della Signoria):
Image

Phaeded

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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You misunderstood my question, Phaeded. I was asking about your rationale for the celestials, not your rationale for dropping the theologicals. Your theory, as you present it in this thread, is that the virtue cards were first, and they generated seven more. I meant to be asking what the place of the celestials was in this scenario.

However your story of Cosimo and his exiling of the Theological Virtues (not to return until the time of the Minchiate) makes little historical sense. We have Cosimo exercising his will over the cardmakers of Florence. So far you have not given grounds for his even being interested in the tarot. His sons Piero and Giovanni perhaps; they sponsored Petrarchan birth trays, manuscript illuminations, and perhaps tapestries, which might reflect the tarot as well. But let us assume that Cosimo was indeed involved. On your scenario he pulls strings to get the cardmakers to replace the Theologicals in the tarot. That would have been politically unwise: it would have suggested he was antagonistic to the Pope, at the least, and secretly a pagan, at worst. It would have been ammunition to his enemies. Cosimo was smarter than that.

I have no trouble understanding that the PMB might remove the Theologicals and add the Celestials. Sforza, who does have personal control over the deck, is conforming to pre-existing practice elsewhere, and politically showing that he can think in terms of all Italy and not just Milan. I can even believe that the Medici and/or the Florentine cardmakers might do so for the same reason, in the climate of the Peace of Lodi, configuring them in their unique chauvinistic way (making them emblems of science and philosophy). But why the celestials anywhere?

As far as the coin in the hand of the CY's Chastity, it and she represent the Visconti, since the coin holds a Visconti device, of Visconti power and beneficence. I was quoting a panagyric made by one of Giangaleazzo's courtiers interpreting the device, which tradition said was invented by Petrarch. The Visconti device here is subject to various interpretations, in part depending on the occasion. There are three levels of interpretation: the highest is that of Petrarch, where dove represents the Holy Spirit's love and the sun the Father and Son's power and goodness. On a more secular plane, it represents the Visconti and the power and beneficence of the dynasty. On the most material level, it repersents the function of the particular Visconti lady of the moment: to represent the dynasty in their marriage or inheritance (in the latter case, yes, Bianca's Cremona).

Perhaps you will explain why it is that Filippo would be offering Sforza, in the 1440s, a product invented by Florence, his and his forebears' enemy. Is he (reeling from his defeat at Anghiari) trying to say that Milan can be as culturally advanced as Florence, and therefore worthy of Sforza's allegience, or what?
Last edited by mikeh on 06 Jan 2017, 05:06, edited 1 time in total.

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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Mike wrote:
However your story of Cosimo and his exiling of the Theological Virtues (not to return until the time of the Minchiate) makes little historical sense. We have Cosimo exercising his will over the cardmakers of Florence. So far you have not given grounds for his even being interested in the tarot. His sons Piero and Giovanni perhaps; they sponsored Petrarchan birth trays, manuscript illuminations, and perhaps tapestries, which might reflect the tarot as well. But let us assume that Cosimo was indeed involved. On your scenario he pulls strings to get the cardmakers to replace the Theologicals in the tarot. That would have been politically unwise: it would have suggested he was antagonistic to the Pope, at the least, and secretly a pagan, at worst. It would have been ammunition to his enemies. Cosimo was smarter than that… Perhaps you will explain why it is that Filippo would be offering Sforza, in the 1440s, a product invented by Florence, his and his forebears' enemy. Is he (reeling from his defeat at Angieri) trying to say that Milan can be as culturally advanced as Florence, and therefore worthy of Sforza's allegience, or what?
Mike,
I think we have misunderstood one another here. Will reply with a timeline and touch on your points that way:
1. 1434: Cosimo is exiled by the Albizzi faction in 1433 and returns in 1434. Cosimo spent part of his exile in Padua where he would have viewed Giotto's Virtues in the Scrovegni chapel - far from "exiling the theologicals" they could have been very much on his mind. [I see the theologicals "exiled" in the PMB; more on that below]
2. 1440 Anghiari: Cardplaying exists in Florence and even in the Medici “homeland” of the Mugello where Pratesi notes one of the earliest card playing edicts in the provincial capital of the Mugello, Borgo San Lorenzo, in 1437. Florence at large plays cards and apparently the Medici partisans in the Mugello, so the Medici capitalize on a common past-time and add a trionfi suit as a means of celebrating their victory at Anghiari and the deathknell delivered to the Albizzi faction. There is no need to assume Cosimo or one of his party have a personal interest in cards or pulled strings of cardmakers for anything or than simply commissioning a deck (with Giusti following suit). I propose the standard 7 virtues portrayed throughout Florence were featured in this Anghiari ur-deck with 7 exemplars/antitypes; thus the theological virtues were included from the get-go, primarily to celebrate their joint victors at Anghiari, the Church.
3. 1441, CY deck: Bianca/Sforza wedding deck mimicks the Anghiari deck but now has Visconti motifs, not Florentine/Medici ones. The object of desire here for both Cosimo and Filippo is Sforza. The theological virtues are retained as they are appropriate for a wedding and the appropriation of the cards as a whole by Milan is essentially an act of propaganda aggression; Filippo would have been a sore loser after Anghiari but gets a measure of satisfication in stealing away Sforza - duly celebrated in the CY. I also see the 14 painted images for Bianca as the original appropriation by the Ferrarese court, also hostile in intent (let’s not lose sight of the fact that Borso d’Este was captured by Sforza in the same campaign against the Visconti in 1440). All of this happens within 16 months: June 1440 (Anghiari), January 1441 (14 “paintings” for Bianca in Ferrara), October 1441 (Bianca/Sforza marriage )– not really enough time for any major innovations with these quick succession of events. The 7 virtues themselves were a known commodity that could be easily seized upon and pressed into propaganda service in the ur-deck (the Medici party, and I use that term per Field and Gutkind, needed something at the ready right after the Anghiari victory).
4. 1450, PMB deck: The theological virtues are dropped. Unlike in 1440, the papal army is not allied with Sforza so need to flatter the pope…or offend him by overtly claiming virtues traditionally thought of as an attribute of the Church. The Love card as Sfora’s marriage to Bianca is retained as she was one of the four major claims Sforza made to the duchy of Milan; those four were, per Ianziti: 1) succession to the Visconti via marriage to Bianca; 2) the forged will of Filippo naming Sforza as his successor; 3) the virtues/deeds of Sforza’s father that he continued (his lineage); and 4) the popular acclamation of the people of Milan conferring their commune’s rights and perogatives upon Sforza (the implications of this last one involve imperial rights given to the commune in the trecento). Cosimo, again, had nothing to do with replacing the theologicals. The celestials are added in this PMB deck.
Mike wrote:
I have no trouble understanding that the PMB might remove the Theologicals and add the Celestials. Sforza, who does have personal control over the deck, is conforming to pre-existing practice elsewhere, and politically showing that he can think in terms of all Italy and not just Milan.
Then we agree. ;-)

As for the CY's “Chastity” – we’ll have to agree to disagree. Petrarch has nothing to do with what is portrayed in the CY card and the context, IMO, is simply a bride with a dowry cementing a deal between a prince and his condottiero; under no conditions would her proffering of the coin of the realm be construed as Chastity, a virtue which has a specific set of attributes to connote her and none of those are in the CY card.

Phaeded

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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Well, yes, mutual misunderstanding, Phaeded. So for the moment I will hold off criticizing and merely ask questions in an effort to understand you. Could you say again what the 7 antitypes or examplars are and which virtue each corresponds to, in your Anghiari deck, which I assume has 14 special cards, and is repeated in Ferrara Jan. 1441, carried back to Milan by Bianca Maria, to be repeated with heraldics in a marriage deck? Then say again what Sforza changed in c. 1450--additions as well as subtractions--why the additions, and where he gets them from.
Last edited by mikeh on 06 Jan 2017, 05:05, edited 1 time in total.

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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Well, I take back what I said yesterday, in one respect. I think I can safely criticize one thing you said, without knowing the ins and outs of your theory, namely, what you said at the end of your last post:
Petrarch has nothing to do with what is portrayed in the CY card and the context, IMO, is simply a bride with a dowry cementing a deal between a prince and his condottiero; under no conditions would her proffering of the coin of the realm be construed as Chastity, a virtue which has a specific set of attributes to connote her and none of those are in the CY card.
It is not her proffering a coin of the realm that makes her Chastity. That part is Visconti, not Petrarch. She is a bride, to be sure--and the groom is her husband. But brides are supposed to be the image of Chastity. And the card in fact does have several attributes of Chastity as portrayed in illuminated manuscripts of the time, at least in Milan. If it doesn't fit Florentine attributes, that speaks against a Florentine derivation--although we have no idea what illuminations of Chastity there, if any, looked like in 1440, since the earliest extant ones are 1442. But here is a Milanese Chastity, It is contained in a Milanese manuscript of the Canzoniere and Triumphs, done by an illuminator that some say is "second quarter of the fifteenth century" (Trapp, Studies of Petrarch and his Influence, 2003, p. 28), while others (e.g. Mirella Levi d'Ancona, 1970, following Toesca, 1912) see his first work as 1413 and his last as 1459--a phenomenally long time, of course. Trapp dates another of his illuminations in the same manuscript to "c. 1440" (p. 73). On the Web, for the artist's dates, see http://books.google.com/books?id=KV1H6I ... um&f=false. Carandente (Il Trionfi nel primo Rinascimento), from whom I get this image, says only (p. 52):
L'iconografia generale rispetta fedelmente il testo del poema (Figg. 44, 46), ignorando del tutto la tradizione dei cortei cosi diffusa nelle altre miniature: il che suggerisce di datare il codie Barberini anteriormente agli altri noti.

(The general iconography faithfully respects the text of the poem (Figs. 44, 46), ignoring the tradition of the processions so widespread in other miniatures, which suggests dating the codex Barberini earlier than the others known.)
[/quote]
Image

Caradente reproduces two other illuminations in the series, Death and Fame, which I have posted on the "How Petrarch became famous" thread. Another author, Lutz Malke, 1977, reproduces two more, Love and Time. Hopefully I will post them in due course.

In the above, You will notice the chariot, the canopy over the chariot, the beautiful young lady therein, and the two white horses. That's several clear-cut features in common with the CY Chariot card. The scalloped fringe is something that turns up in the Charles VI Chariot and several of the triumphal chariots of the Schifanoia (Venus, Mercury at least), as well as the Marseille Chariot card later: so probably it's a common feature of triumphal chariots generally. And notice the round object Chastity is steadying with her hand, whatever it is, not dissimilar to the coin of the card. There is no bound Cupid on the card, to be sure. But that is understandable in a deck commemorating a marriage. Chastity and Love are in such cases not incompatible. One of Petrarch's models of chastity was Penelope, for example. What we have is an adaptation of Petrarchan themes to a particular set of circumstances, i.e. a marriage. And also to the physical dimensions of a card, which cannot squeeze too much into its narrow, more vertical than horizontal, space. So there is no room for others in the illumination, which are extraneous to the occasion anyway.

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

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And notice the round object Chastity is steadying with her hand, whatever it is, not dissimilar to the coin of the card. There is no bound Cupid on the card, to be sure. But that is understandable in a deck commemorating a marriage. Chastity and Love are in such cases not incompatible. One of Petrarch's models of chastity was Penelope, for example. What we have is an adaptation of Petrarchan themes to a particular set of circumstances, i.e. a marriage. And also to the physical dimensions of a card, which cannot squeeze too much into its narrow, more vertical than horizontal, space. So there is no room for others in the illumination, which are extraneous to the occasion anyway.
From the Trionfi....
....and held
The shield that brought Medusa to her death.

In the CY it is a bit big for a coin :) but the allusion is there.

In Christian thought the radient Dove appears as both The Spirit of God and a symbol of Purity as in the usual depictions of the Annunciation. Which brings me back to Medusa...Malfeasance- Vice- evil doing etc...and Chastity/Purity is once again alluded to in a Gold Coin-= Value according to how pure is the Gold.
Who pretects this Visconti Virgin? Why the Virtues of course- no need to put them on the card they are all around her in other cards. With the Sheild there is also another symbolic attribution- That of Faith Hope and Charity- The three Gorgon sisters of whom, the only mortal one is Medusa= so you get this feeling of the humanist thought, that the only way to know the Divine Love (Charity) is through human experience of pure and chaste Love of one person to another. 'Chastity' as what was ground into Christian girls, is not just about not having sex.
But where, oh where are the unicorns?
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: What's With the Concentration on Florence and Tarot?

20
No need for unicorns, Lorredan (although probably you are joking); they might be somebody's bright idea later, after the iconography of the CY was set. Possibly the idea of having different animals for different Triumphs came out of the discussion (1441) between Piero de' Medici and Matteo de' Pasti, since de' Pasti mentions elephants for Fame (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=858&p=13334&hilit=Piero#p13334). At the time of writing, he seems to have just started, ("I have already begun to paint the Triumphs in this manner") but doesn't know how to paint the "fantasies" after Love (which would have "maidens" in "foliage"). Unfortunately we don't have Piero's side of the exchange.

Here is an example of a Triumph of Chastity with unicorns but without the usual bound Love:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... astity.jpg

I like particularly the nymphs and satyrs at the bottom; they seem happy to be outside the frame of Chastity's world.

One other thing about Medusa's shield. That was an attribute of Minerva, i.e. Wisdom (I can link to numerous 14th-early 15th century examples in art if needed). Chastity is one aspect of Wisdom; or at least they're friends.