Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

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Phaeded wrote,
From the Marcello copy of Marziano - the description of Jupiter not as the Christian God (although the examples of that equation are too numerous to note) but certainly in a context of a bon droit and rulership:
Four stars appearing above, attend him [Jupiter], while by the right part a splendour of right reason of the conduct of humanity, in which customs he instructed ingnorant men, the first leaders of the state.
http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona- ... -16-heroum

Filippo's dynastic line descends from those first leaders of state (Troy), clearly borne out by Michelino's genealogy miniature.

Phaeded
Yes, but that is all in the context of flattering Filippo and perhaps propaganda for his "bon droit" to rule. It doesn't touch the point of my argument: that these are falsely divinized heroes, even for Marziano and certainly so for Marcello, who serves a man whose principal justification for ruling is in his true "right reason", i.e, practical wisdom, and does not depend on his family tree, even if he does happen to be married to the duke's daughter. None of these "gods", not even Jupiter, are "divine things" in the context of Marcello's letter. But the other game does deal with such "divine things".

Even though I think Marcello is talking about "divine things" in the context of the ordinary game, there is a sense in which Marziano's game, too, deals with "divine things". Here is what Marziano says, in Pratesi's Italian (which is an abridgement) and Ross's English translation of that Italian (http://trionfi.com/marcello-martiano-da-tortona ; the full translation, as you gave, is at http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona- ... -16-heroum ; I do not know where the full Latin is:
1. Giove: Seduto in trono è provvisto di quattro insegne celesti: a destra in alto lo splendore della giusta ragione; a sinistra in alto la luce con cui fondò le leggi; in basso a destra la stella lucente simile a Marte che brilla nei salvatori dello stato; in basso a sinistro il fulmine.
I. Jupiter: Sitting on a throne, surrounded and provided with 4 heavenly signs in the corners. Above right is the splendour of wisdom and above left the light, with which laws are given, at the right bottom is a bright star like Mars, which shines in those who preserve the state; in the left bottom the thunderbolt.
As Ross's commentary says, this "giusta ragione" is an allusion to a quality of the Christian God (although "great architect" seems to me a stretch, given the additional context which Pratesi omitted):
Note: Pratesi has translated Marziano’s latin “rectae rationis” as “giusta ragione”, and has suggested the English translation be Wisdom. I believe it carries the sense of “Just measurement”, of God as the Great Architect. I do not know what a Splendor of it would look like – perhaps a banner with the words. It is interesting to note that the Italian phrase “a giusta ragione” (with good right) is translated by the French “à bon droit”, in a trilingual legal document.
“A BON DROYT” is of course the Visconti family motto recommended to Gian Galeazzo by Petrarch.
But is clear in Marziano's sentence that "recto rationis" means practical wisdom in giving just laws. In what preceded this sentence, Marziano told of how Jupiter did away with barbarous superstitions and replaced them with institutions for the betterment of the citizens, i.e. matrimony. That is not lineal descent in a family tree. Your fuller quote makes that clear: "right reason of the conduct of humanity, in which customs he instructed ignorant men, the first leaders of the state". It is this justification that Francesco Sforza may now claim.

In a sense both games deal with divine things: however since Marziano's game deals with falsely divinized heroes, it is only "celestial" and less explicitly divine than the ordinary game, which has "divine", i.e. Christian, subjects (an argument that even then the game looked more like the CY extant cards than the PMB's). Both games may be used for propagandist purposes, and neither is just a game, in the sense, say, of Poker or Bridge as played today.

Marziano's description of the four corners, with Jupiter in the center, of course brings to mind the "Mantegna" Jupiter card (http://trionfi.com/mantegna/e/e-mantegn ... chi/46.jpg) and the Sforza Castle World card, with its evangelists in the corner and perhaps Jesus in the center (http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/mondo/mnd9marco.jpg). That might be an example of turning a celestial card into a card concerned with divine things.

Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

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mikeh wrote: Marziano's description of the four corners, with Jupiter in the center, of course brings to mind the "Mantegna" Jupiter card (http://trionfi.com/mantegna/e/e-mantegn ... chi/46.jpg) and the Sforza Castle World card, with its evangelists in the corner and perhaps Jesus in the center (http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/mondo/mnd9marco.jpg). That might be an example of turning a celestial card into a card concerned with divine things.
What is the proposed dating of the Sforza Castle World card? Don't mean to sidetrack this conversation, but I've actually been dwelling quite a bit on the hand-painted World cards lately. My question here, however, is this the earliest World card featuring the evangelists' animals?
Sforza Castle World card, with its evangelists in the corner and perhaps Jesus in the center.jpg Sforza Castle World card, with its evangelists in the corner and perhaps Jesus in the center.jpg Viewed 15429 times 107.92 KiB
But that is definitely a female and derived from Mary in a mandorla; e.g.: The evangelists with the "world" derive from certain illuminations of Petrarch's Triumph of Eternity - note the diminutive evangelist animals within the concentric spheres of the cosmos in the example below (one should be behind the tree and the fourth presumably just forgotten by the artist after having not painted the one behind the tree): What is odd is that a Regina Cœli ("Queen of Heaven") theme gets increasingly secularized for Tarot with the evangelist animals now framing this female allegorical figure (the cosmological schema no longer about planetary spheres but referring to Revelations as these same animals are about God's throne – “heaven”). One is tempted to view this woman not just as Anima Mundi (which she seems to become) but originally as the model of Christian apotheosis, the mandorla wreath essentially being that of the “victorious” wreath of martyrs, allowing one admission into heaven (besides Jesus, immaculate Mary also led the way).

Phaeded

Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

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Ross translated:
Four stars appearing above, attend him, while by the right part a splendour of right reason of the conduct of humanity, in which customs he instructed ingnorant men, the first leaders of the state. At the left that light by which he published the inviolable laws and he decreed the society which would be cherished by humankind, being guarded by equality. On the lower right side appears a burning star like Mars, which he lets loose frightfully if scorned, but especially so that the republic may be preserved. How the illustrious example of Jupiter shines for men! Who for the sake of sacred worship happily defeated the blaspheming Giants by war. To the left, a thunderbolt, which at one time he often used to protect his sacred laws against so many lustful and violent men.
Jupiter had likely position 16 (or 15 ?) in the Michelino deck, as "highest trump".

Later Tarocchi produced the sequences ...

16/15 Sagitta - as Thunderbolt
17/16 Star
18/17 Moon
19/18 Sun

... possibly as a presentation of the 4 lights.

Assuming, that ..

Sun = Apollo (5th highest trump in the text)
Moon = Diana (7th highest trump)
Star = Mars, as mentioned in the text (10th highest trump)
Thunderbolt = Bacchus ???? ... against "lustful men" (8th highest trump)
.... or Sagitta ???? = Amor with bow and arrow (lowest trump)

.. the relevant symbols might have appeared before inside the Michelino deck.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

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Huck wrote,
Assuming, that ..

Sun = Apollo (5th highest trump in the text)
Moon = Diana (7th highest trump)
Star = Mars, as mentioned in the text (10th highest trump)
Thunderbolt = Bacchus ???? ... against "lustful men" (8th highest trump)
.... or Sagitta ???? = Amor with bow and arrow (lowest trump)

.. the relevant symbols might have appeared before inside the Michelino deck.
I think you're reading too much into Marziano. The thunderbolt is an attribute of Jupiter. Mars is Mars. The Moon is not the light under which laws are given. We have no idea what the splendor of wisdom would have looked like; Ross imagined it as a banner. Also, we don't know what the Latin word is that Ross translated as "stars". Franco translated it into Italian as "insegne", signs.

Phaeded, yes, the World card derives from a tradition in which Christ had the evangelical animals in the corners. Andrea Vitali has an example from 13th century Siena (http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=133, fig. 13). Another is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureola, scroll down to "mandorla". And another: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... rist_1.JPG. These are all medieval. The mandorla shape is prominent. Another example is the "Mantegna" S-series Empyrean card, probably 1480s or so. The mandola without the animals is in a c.1450 birth tray from Florence, surrounding Venus, Vitali's fig. 14. Another, his fig. 12, is a Pinturicchio Virgin. The card looks a lot like Vieville's, whose figure is masculine (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AN9XltHB3EI/T ... bHeron.jpg). Noblet's looks like a man with breasts. Androgyny, one way or another, was rather typical by the time of the Renaissance. Given that Christ was frequently presented androgynously, and that some medieval poems even gave God the Father breasts for suckling, I can't tell what the gender is on the Sforza Castle card. I know it is unsettling to say that; people want it to be one or the other. Ross says somewhere on this Forum that it is male, almost as emphatically as you say it is female. Generally, if the animals are put there, it's Christ, since that's who the evangelists wrote about. It would be strange to make a point of putting them around a female; even a Virgin in a mandorla didn't have them. There were other ways to portray the anima mundi. Dummett says the Sforza Castle figure is female. Maybe it is.

The Sforza Castle card is the oldest I know of this type. All I know, without some careful research, is probably 16th century.

Added later: Rereading what I wrote at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15223&hilit ... tle#p15223, I see that Dummett 1993 throws out a date of c. 1525. It is part of a group of cards that includes an illustration of a scene from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, that part of which had been published by then, 1st edition 1516, 2nd edition 1521. Also, the card has its number on it, making it after whenever numbers were added in Milan. But I'm not sure what exactly Dummett is saying. Dating it is difficult.
Last edited by mikeh on 17 Sep 2014, 20:45, edited 3 times in total.

Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

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I haven't scanned the first page of Jove yet, but here are pages 2 and 3, with the pertinent parts of this discussion and my diplomatic transcription.





[7r]
DE. IOVE.

I O V E M,
A T H E N I S
R E G N A S S E
T E S T A T V R.
ANTIQVITAS
IBIQVE C V M.
ADHVC. RVDE.
& A G R E S T E
HOMINVM.GENVS.
nullo juris officio, sed serarum ritu degeret :
leges primus condidit. Instituit que matrimo
nia, ac nephandas aepulas humanas car
nes amouit, & stricto rigore prohibuit.
Societatem atque amicitiam primus suasit,
eamque hominibus pernecessariam docuit.
[7v]
Templa et aras dijs inmortalibus aedificari pri
mos iussit, eosque maximo honore uenerari : &
siquid bonorum homines petituri forent
a dijs peterent. Jd que se consecuturos sperarent si di
gne postulassent. hic bellorum inuentor, Gigan
tes deorum insultatores superavit. & one
roso supplicio affecit. quem aetas illa. ita ue
nerandum habuit ob insignem uirtutem, & in
gentia merita, ut deum. & Iovem opti
mum appellarit. eique templa dicata sunt. ad
laudis memoriam sempiternam. Diuinusque
honos habitus , eiusque nomen a posteris sum-
ma ueneratione suscaeptum. Sedet throno si-
dereo, regijs insignibus. eique assistunt quatuor si-
derum aspectus superiori quidem parte a dex
tris splendor rectae racionis agibilium humano-
rum, quo ignaros homines, politicos primius
[8r]
mores instruxit. A sinistris uno lux illa qua
sanctissimas leges aedidit societatem que homini
bus colendam iussit. aequalitate seruata. In
feriori uno parte ad dexterum emicat ardens sidus si-
millimum Marti, quod si contemptis ter-
ribilibus cum expedit pro seruanda re .p.
maxime in uiris elucet, quanto clarius in Io
ue qui deorum blasfemos Gigantes, pro
religiosa ueneratione fortiter, et
feliciter bello deuicit. Ad
sinistrum fulgor quondam
quem & si sacris legi
bus suis plurimum
commendarit in
eum tantum cupido
uiolentus
ob tex it

Here is the relevant passage normalized -

"Sedet throno sidereo, regijs insignibus. eique assistunt quatuor siderum aspectus superiori quidem parte a dextris splendor rectae racionis agibilium humanorum, quo ignaros homines, politicos primius mores instruxit. A sinistris uno lux illa qua sanctissimas leges aedidit societatem que hominibus colendam iussit. aequalitate seruata. Inferiori uno parte ad dexterum emicat ardens sidus simillimum Marti, quod si contemptis terribilibus cum expedit pro seruanda re .p. maxime in uiris elucet,"

You can see that "Sedet throno sidereo, regiis insignibus" - "He is seated in a starry throne, with regal emblems" (insegne)
"eique assistunt quat(t)uor siderum" - "four stars attend"

Franco's rendition of the passage has conflated the two parts.

Here is how I conceived of the card, making a collage of Michelino's art (with the banner from Bembo, of course), based obviously on the E Series Jupiter, adapted for Marziano's description.

Image

Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

186
Thanks.

Sidus/siderum seems to be the difficult word. Neither Mars nor a lightning is in the text - as suggested - really a star or one of "4 stars".
sīdus n (genitive sīderis); third declension

1. constellation, asterism
2. a star
3. (poetic) the night sky
4. (figuratively) a season (of the year)
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sidus#Latin

Other source: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... &l=siderum
sidus: a group of stars, constellation, heavenly body
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

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I'm glad we have the Latin now:
Sedet throno sidereo, regijs insignibus. eique assistunt quatuor siderum aspectus superiori quidem parte a dextris splendor rectae racionis agibilium humanorum, quo ignaros homines, politicos primius mores instruxit. A sinistris uno lux illa qua sanctissimas leges aedidit societatem que hominibus colendam iussit. aequalitate seruata. Inferiori uno parte ad dexterum emicat ardens sidus simillimum Marti, quod si contemptis terribilibus cum expedit pro seruanda re .p. maxime in uiris elucet,
to which we add, not normalized, from the transcripton:
quanto clarius in Io ue qui deorum blasfemos Gigantes, pro religiosa ueneratione fortiter, et feliciter bello deuicit. Ad sinistrum fulgor quondam quem & si sacris legi bus suis plurimum commendarit in eum tantum cupido uiolentus ob tex it
Or in Ross's English (keeping Huck's emphases in bold):
He is seated on a starry throne, with regal emblems. Four stars appearing above, attend him, while by the right part a splendour of right reason of the conduct of humanity, in which customs he instructed ingnorant men, the first leaders of the state. At the left that light by which he published the inviolable laws and he decreed the society which would be cherished by humankind, being guarded by equality. On the lower right side appears a burning star like Mars, which he lets loose frightfully if scorned, but especially so that the republic may be preserved. How the illustrious example of Jupiter shines for men! Who for the sake of sacred worship happily defeated the blaspheming Giants by war. To the left, a thunderbolt, which at one time he often used to protect his sacred laws against so many lustful and violent men.
.
The card would seem to have four stars on top. These are not the four things in the corners, apparently, since the stars are "appearing above". Or can "superiore" be read as something else, like "superior"? It is not totally clear that Marziano means the corners exactly; but I don't know where else all the things he describes would fit. This is where the "regal emblems" are, apparently. The four corners would seem to be lit up, from what he says later, but maybe not all by stars.

At top right is a splendor of right reason, whatever that is. Ross's banner is possible; but it would seem to be something more elevated than the Visconti. What about a feminine personification, as we see for Sapientia in some manuscripts, illuminated by rays from the other side and maybe holding the banner? Or just her on the right, illuminated, with the banner by itself on the left, illuminated by a sun? I am mainly trying to indicate the vagueness of the description.

On the lower right would seem to be a "burning star" of destruction, and so red, like Mars. I would think the "he" of "he lets loose" would be Jupiter. So no actual personification of Mars on the card. On the lower left is the thunderbolt. Marziano has indicating nothing in Jupiter's hands. An artist might find that too odd and put the "burning star" in one hand and the thunderbolt in the other, as Ross has done, and fill up the lower corners with things not mentioned by Marziano.

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"4 stars" are mentioned and the author describes 4 things.

1. right - a splendour of right reason of the conduct of humanity
2. left - light by which he published the inviolable laws
3. lower right - burning star like Mars
4. (lower) left - thunderbolt

As the star like Mars and the thunderbolt are described as belonging to the lower part, they can't be between the "4 stars above". So the author wouldn't describe two of the stars and we would have six objects,if one follows this interpretation, but this seems not plausible.
"Siderum aspectus superiori" might have another meaning (higher aspects of the "stars"), I would think, not indicating the location of the symbols on the picture.

*******

One of the wordbooks had the "4 seasons" as explanation for "sidus".

I think, it's a common pattern in mythological texts to produce opposites with the sense of "Love = yang = sun" and as opposite "Justice = yin = moon". No. 2 above speaks of "laws" (so that's justice and moon), No. 1 "right reason" shows the love aspect.

value 11 = repeated yang in I-Ching = summer, light, day, sun
value 00 = repeated yin in I-Ching = winter, dark, night, moon

value 01 and 10 - the natural states between yang and yin, indicating spring (from yin to yang) and autumn (from yang to yin), from light to dark and from dark to light, morning and evening, morning star and evening star.

Naturally there are also individual aspects in mythology like the attribute "thunderbolt" for Jupiter. Anyway, the change from light to dark and from dark to light are accompanied by fights, and this is expressed by the lower symbols.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Could it not be:

not
...four stars appearing above, attend him,

but
four stars attend him (assist or stand by him), appearing in the upper part on the right side ... right reason, on the left...inviable laws, in the lower part to the right...a star like mars..., etc.,

(i.e, "aspectus superiori quidem parte a dextris" = the appearance of the upper part on the right)

Re: Dummett and methodology [was Re: The Sun]

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I was wondering that myself, Steve. But my Latin doesn't qualify me to have an opinion. That would certainly simplify things. And I suppose "sidereo" then could be translated as "lights", or "celestial entities", to include thunderbolts; it seems to be a rather generic term

Huck: if the emblem on the upper right is a female personification reflecting the light of the sun on the left, a "Sapientia", that puts her in the position of the Moon, which shines by reflected light and is thought of as feminine. If so, then we have, starting at the upper left and going clockwise: sun, moon, star, thunderbolt. As you initially proposed, but with the upper assignments interchanged.
cron