Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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Huck wrote: .... .-) ... but this thread is not about the Anghiari deck, but about 3 Magi, 3 theological virtues and Sun-Moon-Star and about some correlation between them.
If you want to try to make that connection, I think your best luck would be with sermons where the Theological Virtues are correlated to the glory of the Stars, Moon and Sun. It's easy enough to do.

Since "Love is the greatest" of the virtues, the Sun is Love.
Since Hope is always in the middle, Hope is the Moon.
So Faith is the Star(s).

Since we have the gifts of the Magi corresponed already fairly conclusively, Love is Sun is Gold, Hope is Moon is Frankincense, and Faith is Stars is Myrrh.

All you have to do then is establish which Magus offered which gift, and you have the correspondence.

I'm not aware of any such correspondence (between Magi and Sun-Moon-Star, I mean; there are various ones for which Magus offered which gift, Crombach gives some examples), although I looked for it years ago, but some preacher on Epiphany or Christmas might have come up with it. For the theory though, it has to be pretty narrowly relevant, in the right time and place.

Just for the record, I don't think at all that the trumps mean anything of the sort.
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Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: If you want to try to make that connection, I think your best luck would be with sermons where the Theological Virtues are correlated to the glory of the Stars, Moon and Sun. It's easy enough to do.

Since "Love is the greatest" of the virtues, the Sun is Love.
Since Hope is always in the middle, Hope is the Moon.
So Faith is the Star(s).
This is in some contradiction to that, what SteveM had collected ...
SteveM wrote:...

There is a correlation between virtues and the sun, moon and stars in David of Augsburg's Profectus Religiosorum (12th century), a popular text of the middle ages:

"...quia per solem caritatis et lunam fidei et stellas aliarum virtutum corda fidelium illuminantur et vitam et ordinem et meritorum vigorem quasi per lucem et calorem siderum consquuntur."

"...by the sun of charity and the moon of faith and the stars of the other virtues the hearts, vitality, order and merit of the faithfull are illuminated as a consequence, as if it were, of the light and heat of the stars."*

quoted in "Franciscan Virtue: Spiritual Growth and the Virtues in Franciscan Literature" by Krijn Pansters.

It is reasonable I think to associate the Star trump as 'the star of hope'. On the other hand, the Magi, or a Magi, only appears on the star card (Rothschild, Minchiate) - in that respect it may be worth noting that in Dante's 'Paradiso' faith, hope and charity appear together in the 8th sphere of the fixed stars - also medieval mystery plays of the three kings/magi were often designated Stella - so if a conflation of the theological virtues with celestial trumps occured, it is possible they were conflated with the one trump (the Star) alone.

SteveM

* The association of the Sun with Charity/Love and Moon with Faith is fairly common among biblical commentators - Charity being compared to the Sun for example in relation to St. Paul's comment that of the three it is the greatest.

According to Swedenborg: "... now charity begins to appear, which in the Word is compared to day, and is called day; whereas faith which precedes, not being so joined with charity, is compared to night, and is called night, as in chap. i. verse 16, and elsewhere in the Word: faith is also called night in the Word from this, that it receives its light from charity, as the moon from the sun, wherefore also faith is compared to the moon, and is called the moon; and love or charity is compared to the sun, and is called the sun. Arcana Coelestia, Vol.1 p.44
forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=971&start=75

According this Faith has the relation to the moon.

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Hope has often this light in one of the upper corners ... might be a star.

Faith has the cup, which indicates a liquid content ... Moon is related to water.

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Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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In support of what Huck is saying, as far as the relationship between the Theological Virtues in the Cary-Yale and the later Star-Moon-Sun sequence, you have only to compare the Cary-Yale and PMB cards, as I have been saying a lot, most recently 2 weeks ago at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=975&p=14436&hilit= ... ity#p14436). The visual similarities would help make the cards instantly recognizable for people used to playing with the older deck.

So for Hope, a woman gazing at a star in corner:
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which naturally is the hope given by the Star of Bethlehem and the Bright and Morning Star of the New Jerusalem.

Then Faith, woman with one arm up, one arm down, holding things (for CY/ PMB only)
Image

and naturally you need faith when things are dark (which is the relevance of the distressed-looking lady on the Venetian card)

And Charity, round object held aloft, infant:
Image

And naturally the sun is all-giving of its life-renewing energy. The Venetian version of this card simply shows a sun shining down with large rays extende toward some trees.

Also, in Minchiate, the Hope, Faith, and Charity cards are in that order, placed just where Star, Moon, and Sun would be in the tarot, ignoring the Prudence between Hope and Faith.

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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mikeh wrote:
Also, in Minchiate, the Hope, Faith, and Charity cards are in that order, placed just where Star, Moon, and Sun would be in the tarot, ignoring the Prudence between Hope and Faith.
(small mistake) ... Minchiate has curiously ...

16 HOPE
.... 17 Prudentia
18 FAITH
19 CARITAS

... true is, that this series 16-19 seems to be related (by "plus 20") to 36-39, Star-Moon-Son-World, which are 4 of the 6 cards, which were added in PMB-2.

36 Star
37 Moon
38 Sun
39 World
(40 Fame)

And also by "minus 10" to the 3 other cardinal virtues 6-8.

(5 Love)
6 Temperance ... cardinal virtue
7 Strength ... cardinal virtue
8 Justice ... cardinal virtue
(9 Fortune)

Well, in the missing quarter (21-30) we have interestingly ...

(24 Libra ... a "cardinal sign" in astrology)
[25 Virgo ... a sign, which indicates generally "Prudentia"]
26 Cancer ... a cardinal sign in astrology [later recognized as ERROR]
27 Aries ... a cardinal sign in astrology
28 Capricorn ... a cardinal sign in astrology
(29 Sagitarius)

It's by far not clear, what the designing artist, who invented this deck form, had in mind with this ...

Prudentia in two different forms (as Prudentia and as Virgo) mingled twice in the series of other orders, at 39 she ended as "World" and as the highest, only overcome by the Angel of Fame.

The series ...

5 Love
15 (Tower) ... actually a paradise door with Adam+Eve
25 Virgo
35 Gemini ... which gave the name of the game "Germini"

... is also interesting.

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... made by Masaccio, brother of Lo Scheggio, who is under suspicion to have had influence on the Charles VI deck.

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Last edited by Huck on 22 Nov 2013, 12:37, edited 3 times in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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... :-) ...

... ah, my mistake, I took Scorpio as Cancer ...

I repair:
Well, in the missing quarter (21-30) we have interestingly ...

(24 Libra ... a "cardinal sign" in astrology)
[25 Virgo ... a sign, which indicates generally "Prudentia"]
26 Cancer ... a cardinal sign in astrology [later recognized as ERROR]
27 Aries ... a cardinal sign in astrology
28 Cancer ... a cardinal sign in astrology
(29 Sagitarius)
Correct is. that ...

Well, in the missing quarter (21-30) we have interestingly ...

(24 Libra ... a "cardinal sign" in astrology)
[25 Virgo ... a sign, which indicates generally "Prudentia"]
26 Scorpio ... a cardinal sign in astrology
27 Aries ... a cardinal sign in astrology
[28 Cancer ... I took it as Scorpio]
(29 Sagitarius)
30 Cancer ... a color=#FF0000]cardinal sign [/color]in astrology

*********

I feel fooled a little bit ... and I wonder, if this had been intention by the deck designer to guide the "puzzled user" into this trap.
Actually all these "zodiacal twins", which could be easily cause an error, are united there: Capricorn (28) is placed beside Aries (27) - easily one can take one for the other. On the other side Capricorn (mixed animal) is placed beside Sagittarius (29; mixed Human/Animal). And these three are embedded by Cancer (30) and Scorpio (26) - and this was my error.

And I came to this point, when I followed "the virtues idea", which the designer rather obviously embedded in the deck. And coming from the 3 more obvious "6-8", "16-19" and "36-39" to the riddle of the missing quarter and getting then attention of "cardinal signs" (in relation to the already given cardinal virtues), then I'm precisely in the mental position to exchange Scorpio and Cancer .... very, very tricky.
... it worked, I've to confess. This was rather elegant. .... :-')

Are the Italian expressions similar to "cardinal virtues" and "cardinal signs" ?

*********

Likely nobody had really read my analysis to the Decamerone.

Boccaccio (my opinion) also played with the "hidden Prudentia", in a very complex manner. Prudentia played chess in his version, in a rather unusual way.

The normal Tarot series played with the missing Prudentia. And the Minchiate seems to have loved this game, too.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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Well ...

proceeding a little bit with the journey of Prudentia ...

9 ... would have been a logical place for Prudentia as "highest cardinal virtue"
but the "Wheel of Fortune" came and send Prudentia (which wanted to be the highest) on a journey.

19 ... she meets Caritas and the other cardinal virtues ... but that's not high enough

29 ... she meets as "Virgo" the centaur (Sagitarius) and the other zodiac signs ...
... somehow this had consequences ...

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... the knights became half animal / half human.

... but this was not high enough ...

39 ... finally she became the "World".

Image


Interestingly a male figure. The Florentine duke of the time (about 1725) had have a homosexual orientation.
Or it meant just Amor or Eros.

"Love makes the World go 'round" had been a song in "Cabaret" with Liza Minnelli.


***********

If I assume, that the "knights" addressed the sequence 21-30, then one should conclude, that the sequence 31-40 addressed the "Fante".

The Fante in the Minchiate are curiously 2 young men and two girls, the girls are in the female suits cups and coins and the young men in the male suits batons and swords. So these give the gender of the suits.

Image


Following this above logic I've to find 4 kings in 1-10 and 4 Queens in 11-20.

*********

4 King's:

1 Magician
2 crowned person
3 crowned person
4 crowned person
and the king of the kings is ...
5 Love

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The king of the gambling table


********

4 Queen's:

16 Hope
17 Prudentia
18 Faith
19 Caritas

and the Queen of the Queens should be ...
20 ... the dog in the fire or the "4 Elements"

Image


The ironical text of c. 1552 about Germini addressed the 4 figures 16-19 as whorehouse mothers.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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A second view on the journey of Prudentia in Minchiate:


1-10 is reigned by Kings and King are men and men search Love. So the natural victims are the female cardinal virtues.
Only Prudence escapes.

11-20 is full of ugly things, and the whole is reigned by women. Prudentia has better aims.

In 21-30 Prudentia is the Virgo, but has possibly some interest in the Sagittarius.

In 31-40 she becomes the World and somehow gets a male nature (perhaps she discovers, that it's more fun to as man than as woman.

Perhaps her female part becomes "Fame" ... for the Medici and for Florence ...

Image
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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mikeh wrote:In support of what Huck is saying, as far as the relationship between the Theological Virtues in the Cary-Yale and the later Star-Moon-Sun sequence, you have only to compare the Cary-Yale and PMB cards, as I have been saying a lot, most recently 2 weeks ago at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=975&p=14436&hilit= ... ity#p14436). The visual similarities would help make the cards instantly recognizable for people used to playing with the older deck.

So for Hope, a woman gazing at a star in corner:
Image

which naturally is the hope given by the Star of Bethlehem and the Bright and Morning Star of the New Jerusalem.
Mike,
This speculation based on "visual similarities" is just that - and ignores the historical development of the separate iconographies. The PMB "star", to state it again, clearly develops from the Paduan astrological tradition of depicting Venus (and the other planets) with a "star(s)" (usually one on either side, to indicate the planet's constellation "houses"; see image below). The "star"/venus in the PMB has absolutely nothing to do with Hope or the Star of Bethlehem. The PMB has reduced the two constellation stars to just one and changed its meaning to that of the planet Venus itself (so the star is no longer a stand-in for the all of the stars of either constellation that is a house of a planet). The allegorical woman in the PMB "star" has cleavage - the only female in the PMB with that partial nudity:
Venus cleavage Venus cleavage.jpg Venus cleavage Viewed 10270 times 5 KiB
The real meaning of the “star” in ther PMB...

Image


My own photo of the survivng planet frescoes in the their full context in the Augustinian church of the Eremitani in Padua (Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sun - the others on the opposite wall were obliterated by Allied bombs in WWII) The later manuscript version (Lat. 697 = α.W.8.20 Biblioteca Estense, Modena) showing Venus with full nudity:
Image

Finally, what is the relationship of the kings trodden under the Theologicals in the CY in regard to the Magi? That tradition too, kings/vices under virtues, has nothing to do with the magi.

Phaeded

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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Phaeded: haeded: I do not remember seeing that fresco. If you showed it before, I apologize. Interesting. Earlier I had checked out the book you mentioned, Art and the Augustinian Order in Early Renaissance Italy, from the library and then forgot why I got it; we were discussing mostly something else then, Manfreda I think. Thanks for reminding me. Now I've read the relevant part, the essay by Harding on the fresco series. For anyone else who might be reading this, the people on either side of Venus are meant to be lovers. Venus was associated with adolescence. It is a "seven ages of man" correlation between planets and ages, as in Shakespeare's "seven ages of man" speech in As you like it. On this theme, Harding says,
By the late Middle Ages the idea of the influence of the planets on the stages of life was common knowledge, and the seven-age scheme was the preferred pattern. Sears argues that a relatively small stock of pictorial forms and verses on the theme of the seven ages was combined and recombined in a highly creative manner.
So here we have Venus holding a mirror up to her face with her right hand, and the zodiac signs are superimposed on the stars, as in the manuscript. They appear on both sides of all the planets except the Sun and the Moon, which have none. Harding gives black and white pictures of all seven.

Harding observes
Certain elements in the representations of the planets, such as the eight-pointed stars behind some of the planets, appear only at the Palazzo della Ragione and this location.
Looking online at pictures of the series at the Palazzo, however, all I saw was one eight-pointed star, behind one of the figures, maybe Sol, since he had a crown (at http://heavenastrolabe.net/about-the-st ... um-planum/). The one that seemed to be Venus (holding flowers) didn't have any (at http://padovacultura.padovanet.it/homep ... kno_1.html). Perhaps you have pictures. I don't see much of a tradition here. The tradition seems to have been the connection between planets and stages of life. Perhaps you know of other examples. I will try to pursue Harding's footnotes, although it would not seem from what she says to suggest anything else.

As you show us, the Eremitani images were copied into manuscripts. According to Harding there were two, both during the 1430s and 1440s, the one in Modena that you showed and another at the Bodlian Library, Can. Misc. 554. The latter is "a general astronomical text by the Paduan doctor Prosdocimi de'Beldomandi". I have no information on their provenance.

So yes, you have a visual similarity in the requisite historical context, 1430s-40s manuscripts that might have been seen by the PMB artist, or sketched by someone else. If he had worked on the Schifanoia project (as his style indicates), he might have seen and copied sketches brought from Padua to show how the planets had been treated there. Perhaps indeed the PMB Star lady borrows visually from the Padua Venus, subtracting the other star, removing the mirror, putting the remaining star in her hand, removing the zodiac sign superimposed on the star. Perhaps her slight cleavage borrows from Venus, too (although not from there). Or perhaps it is meant to suggest breasts ready to nurse (on my hypothesis that it memorializes Elisabetta Maria Sforza).

Unless you have more information, these things seem to me to mean as little or as much as any other visual similarities in the specific historical situation of the time and place of the card.

I am not saying that the PMB Star card means Hope and nothing else, just that Hope is in its background as a card in a similar deck, probably substituting for it, and that the star there could be seen as a star of hope, that of the Star signifying Christ, just as it does more clearly in the BAR and the d'Este. But I suppose if the Moon lady can be associated with Diana (holding the bridle of temperance), so can the Star lady with Venus, to those who can identify the reference to a fresco series done in the territory of their current enemy. But the card can have more than one association, surely. It can be in more than one iconographic tradition, too, perhaps an icongraphic tradition of cards as opposed to frescoes.

Perhaps you have more to say on this subject, such as the significance of Venus in the sequence, followed by the Moon and the Sun, perhaps preceded by a Tower.

Hope, Faith, and Charity are consistent with an eschatological and/or soteriological meaning to the sequence of the three celestials. And the visual similarities I've pointed to run through all three of the cards. The Padua Sun and Moon aren't a bit like the PMB's. And as you say, the stars on the Venus fresco aren't even unique to her. All five star-like planets had them, and they seem to have represented not only the zodiacal constellations, but the planets themselves, in another guise; if not, the Sun and the Moon would have had at least one. But Venus is the only female among them. So does the card show Venus reaching for herself? (That's not an issue when she's holding a mirror.) In a sense, there is no problem: a goddess can reach for her planet. Or is it just a star, any star? I guess what I am missing is an answer to the question: what's point of her being Venus? Why does it matter whether it's Venus reaching for her namesake, as opposed to someone else reaching for a random star, or Venus reaching for some other star? Of course, if it's just meant as decoration, I suppose it doesn't have to matter. But I like to think that the designer had more of a plan than that, or at least that people would have thought he did; and I think there are grounds for thinking that he did and that at least some people, in a reflective moment, would have seen one there.

The antitypes under the Theologicals have nothing to do with the Magi that I know of. They are part of an independent and well-established tradition of the virtues. Something as important as the Theologicals can have more than one context of representation and more than one iconographic tradition.

Re: Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues"

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In my opinion the painter of PMB had clearly he commission to paint a star, so there's no contradiction ... he could have taken something of a Padovan tradition.

The suspicion is more, that something was changed in Florence (3 theological virtues were correlated to 3 Magi and to the symbols Sun-Moon-Star, at least inside a "game" or perhaps said better in a "mental game") and went from there as a new idea to Milan.

The chapel of the Medici palace (build and decorated from 1444-1464) definitely had been a new Italian height of the cult of the three mages, which actually before (earlier centuries, not decades) had been better known from Northern developments, actually a Cologne development, cause Cologne got the bones, stolen by the troops of Barbarossa in a dark Milanese hour (12th century). It helped Cologne to become a big factor in the trade of relicts of saints and others .
With 1444-1464 we're in the time, when Trionfi card developed.

One detail of the development is, that a Medici banker in Milan in the same time sponsored the decoration of the Milanese church, where the bones once had been.

When Milan or better Gingaleazzo got the duke title (1395), there was also Cologne-Milan relation (I observed, that Peter of Milan became the local saint for the guild of the beermakers around the same time).

Short after this the chapel of the 3 mages in Bologna was done (St. Petronio, first decade of 15th century). In this time the later arch-bishop of Cologne (since 1415 with the council, then arch-bishop a rather long time more than 40 years) lived as a student in Bologna.
With this the step from North back to South seems to have been done by the 3 Mages, naturally a longer development.
The three Mages appeared later on star cards in the Tarocchi, for our eyes only on cards from Bologna.

For the Charles VI cards, which I give to c. 1463, and which I take as being complete in its trump series, we have, that it includes a sun and a moon symbol, and NOT a star, but a Fool picture, which has taken ideas from Pulci's "Morgante" (written in its oldest parts [1-15 from later 28 chapters] in 1461-1463 in close context to the Medici family).
With the death of Cosimo and Pietro's new reign we had "three mages" festivities in Milan (I don't have precise dates, but it might have been for logical reasons 6th of January 1465), relative clearly associated to the condition, that the chapel was ready.
In May/June the same year 1465 young Lorenzo made his journey to Milan, possibly transporting playing card ideas from Florence to Milan. It was the preparation of the wedding of Ippolita, who started her bride journey then, which as the first major station arrived around the Giovanni festivities in Florence (so Florence and Milan met at great scale).

For various reasons it's plausible to date the addition of 6 PMB-2 cards to this date.

In mid 1465 in a Mantovan inventory it is spoken of Florentine Trionfi, in a Pulci letter to Lorenzo 1466 the word "Minchiate" appears for the first time in playing card context).

**************

In contrast to much earlier discussions to this point we have now sure evidence, that the Florentine playing card production had some dominance.
The idea, that Medici were involved in the production of the 6 PMB cards, existed since the birth of the 5x14-theory 1989, just caused by the observation, that the Medici changed their heraldy from "7 palle" to "6 palle" in 1465, and that these palle "somehow" were connected to virtues.
Huck
http://trionfi.com