Re: A strange belt

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I used to think these were bells or Folly Bells called rumbles- but they were not strung that way.
I saw one in Lucca Italy that they called a Girdle or Cingolo. It was painted gold and was made from Castagne Cavallo- Horse Chestnuts (or Conkers in England). To 'castagno' someone was to wallop them with the belt- and had some sort of joke attached about sex. I could not quite get(understand) it, but was told it had something to do with the Italian word for celibate and the legend of the Virgin's Girdle. I should add apparently Horse chestnuts soaked in rain water whiten or purify cloth- and the nutskins make cloth pale blue.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: A strange belt

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The card is from the Charles VI, and according the expanded 5x14-theory this deck is from the Medici made for Lorenzo de Medici's birthday 1463.
In this time the poet Lorenzo Pulci wrote the work "Morgante". Morgante is a giant, and the hero Orlando becomes acquainted with him in connection to a battle with stones - see stone battle at the card (in the story two giants throw the stones, not the humans). Orlando kills them and detects then the sleeping Morgante. Somehow the friendship develops.
Morgante has trouble to find suitable armor to start their adventure. Somehow they find something, which fits his giant body, but protects only the upper part - see card. As a weapon he takes the inner part of a very big bell ... I don't know the word, "bell-baton" perhaps, German "Glocken-Knöppel". That's not precisely a string of bells, as shown at the card, but somehow bell-connected and that seemed to be good enough to present: "Morgante" ... when this Tarot deck was made with some "freedom of the art". Movies also don't follow always the story of the novel ... .-) ... and this string of bells would make in this dimensions also a suitable weapon against the small humans.

It's interesting to observe, that a second, also comical, giant Margutte was later added to the plot. In 1463 the Morgante had reached chapter 15 or 16, "unfinished", so it's said by the theory about this work (the deck from 1463, called Charles VI, has 16 trumps, according the expanded 5x14 theory).
Around 1470 or little later the Morgante had 23 chapters. Finally in the finishing printing 1482 or 1483 it were 28 chapters (in this context one may observe, that Montefeltro around 1475/76 developed various things around the number 28, possibly inspired by the Tamerlane chess version).

The second giant appeared after the 16 first chapters, in the period towards 1470 or little later. We have to observe, that the known fragmented d'Este Trionfi card version, 1473 or later, has two giants, Fool and Magician. Also one has to observe, that Ercole d'Este very early bought the Morgante of Pulci, and that then the Ferrarese poet Boiardo started to write his Orlando version and that this was then proceeded by Ariost in 1505 (that's the first year of reign of Alfonso d'Este, in which he produced a Tarocchi deck in June) and given to publication (first version) in 1516 (this is the year, when Tarocchi decks in Ferrara appear in greater number, with two productions already in 1515).

Also one has to observe, that there are fragments of "Orlando decks", shown in Kaplan II.

http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/orlando/ ... a little bit corrupted for the moment.

And this was then "world literature", something like "Don Quichotte" or "Ship of the Fools".

Anybody got this ???? ... :-) ... indeed one has to remember, that, when Pulci started the Morgante, in 1461, the boys in the Medici family hadn't likely reached their full height. So there was one big Pulci, a giant, and some younger heroes, in other words a funny giant and some stone throwing boys.
Last edited by Huck on 13 Oct 2010, 17:29, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: A strange belt

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:-? Maybe ...

Anyway, we must consider two things:

a) Morgante is armed with rusty armor, a helmet and a sword old. I dont see these items on the card.

b) I think the stones are related with the Florence's carnival, where it was common fight with stones:

Carnevale e Quaresima: comportamenti sociali e cultura a Firenze nel ...
Giovanni Ciappelli

http://books.google.es/books?id=KO0S0NC ... &q&f=false
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: A strange belt

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I'm back ...

So ... I think the giant dumb and strong, like the tarot of the Medici, or Pulci's story is very old. Comes from Norse mythology.

As you know, this is a good book about the giant:

Les nains et les elfes au Moyen Âge, préface de Régis Boyer, Paris, Imago, 1988. 3e éd. mise à jour, Paris, 2004 .

In Spanish:

http://www.bajoloshielos.cl/17jimenez.htm

The giants were common in popular Italian festivals, like the carnival. Even today, you can see in some cities:

https://il.youtube.com/watch?v=d1653MZ0 ... re=related

Then, I believe the Medici's Fool was one of these giants, a topic that surely like Lorenzo thank Pulci. But dont think it just Morgante.

Morgante is a good giant. He should not throw stones. Dont throw stones at the good giants, only to the bad gants.
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: A strange belt

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mmfilesi wrote::-? Maybe ...

Anyway, we must consider two things:

a) Morgante is armed with rusty armor, a helmet and a sword old. I dont see these items on the card.

b) I think the stones are related with the Florence's carnival, where it was common fight with stones:

Carnevale e Quaresima: comportamenti sociali e cultura a Firenze nel ...
Giovanni Ciappelli

http://books.google.es/books?id=KO0S0NC ... &q&f=false
b. wouldn't be a contradiction. It might well be, that Pulci chose the stone-throwing-scenario, cause there were stone battles at Florentine carnival.

a. there's for instance the simple possibility, that the text, that we have, is nor precisely that, what 1463 was "Morgante". But more likely, that it wasn't cared about too much about the text by the painters. The Fool had already appeared in other decks (at least the Bembo cards existed), so there was already a sort of small tradition at least.

The next post:
I don't know about the book. But giants naturally appear in old folklore. They appear also in festivities (modern), I've seen a movie. Though I don't know, if this happened also in Italy in 15th century. In Burgundy at the feast of the pheasant 1454 there appeared a giant in combination with a dwarf. So, likely, as we often see dwarfs at the courts, possibly there was also the giant element.

I think, that the Medici idea to take a French theme was related to the Medici interest in the young French dauphin Louis. Surely Cosimo, who had his spies everywhere, knew about some sickness of Charles VII. of France. His death was likely exspected, and the Medici wanted to profit from it. So they made a little bit in French culture. That's one point. Another is, that Pulci had French ancestors. And the most practical reason. Pulci lived in the Mugello near the castle, near a castle of the Medici, where Lucrezia Tornabuoni intended to spend some holidays ... with her children. The men of the families were all too sick, likely they were here only very seldom. It was too far, about 40 km distance with mountains.
Lucrezia loved poetry and wrote herself. She engaged for the Giovanni festivities and for small theater plays at these festivities, so she engaged "for poets".
A sick father is not good for boys. They need some male education. Pulci got likely a little bit the replacement function (for the holidays in the castle), as a sort of teacher, but later he was somehow a relative dominant elder "friend", which caused disturbed nerves of other poets, who wanted some attention of the young Lorenzo for themselves.
Huck
http://trionfi.com