Re: Bolognese sequence / Holy Cow "22"
Posted: 06 Jan 2010, 10:56
The security tends to the side of lost cards - this should apply as much to trumps as to suit cards. It is not careless - it just observes that in %100 of surviving decks which include some standard trumps, cards are missing. The Charles VI has lost all but one of its suited cards - it is logical to think some of the trumps are missing too. As if to demonstrate the correctness of the assumption, the person who numbered the trumps had the whole set in front of him.Huck wrote:There is no rule of incompleteness. And some statements about incomplete trionfi sets just depend on possible insecure and careless evaluations.It's not "50/50" because the rule of incompleteness makes it much more likely that the PMB is incomplete as well (as it factually is, in the suits).
From the maybe 30 complete or incomplete decks, which we have from 15th century from the German/Flemish background, we have a good portion of 20-25% which might be called complete or nearly complete. Why we should assume by this statistic, that all surviving cards of Italian decks are incomplete?
Because it is an observable fact that all the Italian decks are incomplete. If you want to insist that some trump sets are complete, that is ignoring the fact that none come from a complete pack. That fact tends one to believe that what looks like standard trumps should have once formed a complete set as later known, just as the missing suit cards once formed part of a complete set of standard suited cards.
Your idea, that the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo trumps are originally a 4x14+22 deck and the Charles VI-deck also, is an assumption ... as you might call my different idea about them also an assumption.
That's assumption versus assumption ... where is the problem?
No problem, that's the nature of argument. When facts run out, interpretations based on premises, assumptions, must be made. My effort is to show that my assumption is based on stronger inferences than yours, so the assumptions aren't equal in that sense.
There is a rule of incompleteness in Italian 15th century decks - every deck, except for Sola Busca (if it is 15th century), is incomplete in one way or another. The Trumps should not be privileged, especially when two sets (Charles VI and Catania) in such a way that they imply the existence of the presumed missing cards. So the "assumption" that Charles VI was once a complete set is stronger than assuming it to be complete as 16.The account book of 1457 knew, that it had to pay for 2 times 70 cards. That's also a sort of complete description, which we know of. Though, we don't know the motifs.
You didn't say something about the condition, that we have complete decks in Germany. There is no "rule of incompleteness", that's nonsense. There is just a state, cards are either present or missing.
The documentary sources, Steele Sermon and Boiardo, show either the complete standard set, or a structure like the standard with different subjects. Both have 22 trumps.
It has a "world" below her - land, sea and sky, cities, people doing various things. This is congnate with other 15th century World cards. It may be that the subject is supernal Fame in all of them. I have no problem identifying the subject as that; Minchiate even calls it "Trombe" - the Trumpet. Maybe the players of the Cary Yale called it that. But generally, it is World, and occupies that place in the sequence, before the Angel or Judgement.... this card has a flying trumpet, why call it world?You call her Fama, but she is cognate to the Charles VI and Catania "Fama" too - so why not just "World"?
Could be, it is the same size (141-166mm), and looks the same background. The rest of the cards don't seem to have normal suit signs or be clearly trumps though, and the World is clearly derived from the VS World, so it is a later variation one way or another.One of the Guildhall cards is a "World", which otherwise would be seen as a Trionfi card from the Visconti-Sforza series. But it was found in Sevilla, with the others. So ... why shouldn't this be counted as Trionfi cards?
I don't recall this quote, but I'll bet - they are referring to Mantegna's engravings of the Triumph of Julius Caesar.They were called "Roman triumphs" 1493 in GermanyThe Pseudo-Mantegna are NOT playing cards at all, and are not known to have been called "tarocchi" until the 18th century.
I'm not sure, that Marcello wouldn't have done so.
Actually we discuss, when the standard Tarot did develop (or something strong similar with Trionfi cards). There is no security, that it existed at the begin of the Trionfi cards experiments, indeed we have with Michelino deck and Cary-Yale clear signs, that at the beginning were other forms and with the argumentation to the Bembo cards and the Cary-Yale further indications, that its first existence possibly happened late.
If a hunting deck can be called trionfi, as I note above, then it has effectively no meaning. We are just chasing a word, not a concept.
Since VS and Charles VI are contemporary, it is strong evidence that the whole standard sequence was known, and some trumps are missing from both sets.
This is just a note by Zdekauer, he does not describe it. It is among things imported from Florence. There is no indication that it was for any specific occasion, nor is there a date.It seems rather plausible, that the Siena deck of 1452 was made for the Emperor visit.
I'll look it up.
Ross