Re: Plato and Virtue(s)

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Lorredan wrote: Which brings me to that Mother of Virtue Veritas/Truth. Who or what has locked her up? We know whom she asks to free her..was it lies? Gossip? What do you reckon?
~Lorredan
http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Aletheia.html
... gives some Greek quotes to Alethia. There is nothing about a "wall". Only one quote might be interesting:
Aesop, Fables 531 (from Babrius 126) (trans. Gibbs) (Greek fable C6th B.C.) :
"A man was journeying in the wilderness and he found Veritas [Aletheia, Truth] standing there all alone. He said to her, ‘Ancient lady, why do you dwell here in the wilderness, leaving the city behind?’ From the great depths of her wisdom, Veritas (Truth) replied, ‘Among the people of old, lies were found among only a few, but now they have spread throughout all of human society!’"
[N.B. This fable is preserved only in a Latin text. Aesop's Aletheia (Truth personified) becomes Veritas in the Latin.]
"Aletheia alone in the wilderness" fits with the small background picture, not with the wall.

Here she is hidden in a "holy well".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritas
In Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning truth, was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white.[1] Veritas is also the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. In Greek mythology, Veritas was known as Aletheia.
Well, in older times, cities often were founded on hills or mountains ... for natural protective reasons. Places easy to defend. It naturally was advisable to dig a well ... to have a. water nearby, and b. they have water in the case of a siege. It was natural to build a sort of house or at least a wall around the well, to avoid, that too much dirt could fall into the well.

A well was a natural daughter of a rain god ... Kronos was a rain god. The water of the well could serve as a water reservoir for agriculture ... the roman Satre = Saturn was a god of agriculture.

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

China had the tradition of 9-fields-installations (like a Saturn-quare 3x3). The middle field was the field with the well.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Plato and Virtue(s)

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Sorry, I forgot about this.
mikeh wrote:Huck, I don't understand how you get Doxia = Eternity. Doxa means "opinion", which is fleeting. If anybody is eternal, it's Alithia = Truth.
This is my base for discussing the "Philodoxus" of Alberti:
http://parnaseo.uv.es/celestinesca/Nume ... umento.pdf

Image


The text sometimes says Doxia or Doxa. I just accepted (my personal Latin is of small value), that this means "Glory", and I felt, that this meaning fitted in the situation of the text. Now, when you complain, I read "Doxa" ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxa
.. and see, that Doxa is Greek "public opinion", but the word got a new meaning once (between 1st and 3rd century) and was then connected to glory.

I found it of value to establish my earlier research (or at least the begin of it) about the Philodoxus to this place ... just for easier reference:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=831&p=11853#p11853

In my analysis of Alberti's text I evaluated "3 pairs", and Doxia was clearly better positioned then her sister Phimia = "Fame". Phimia gets the bad hero Fortunius, Gloria gets the good hero Philodoxus.
Alberti clearly refers twice to "triumphal processions", so there is an indirect reference, that he likely associated Petrarca's "Trionfi" as a known background. For Petrarca Fame is ranked high (4th position 0f six), but "Time" and "Eternity" are higher. Time appears as "Chronos" in the play and Doxia shows no relation to Chronos. Doxia could only mean Petrarca's "Eternity".
huck wrote:6. Eternity = Doxia = Glory
5. Time = Alithia = Mnimia = Memory and that, what Alberti prefers
4. Fame = Phimia
3. (Death) Philodoxus
2. (Chastity) Phroneus = Alberti
1. (Love) Fortunius

mikeh wrote: Also, in the painting, Justice is the one in blue holding the scales. And let us be clear, I hope, that Prudence is not the "Mother of the Virtues", the one in need of rescuing. Prudence is the rescuer, Pallas Athena.
Well, the Mantegna Tarocchi has Minerva as "Philosophia", not as Prudentia. Prudentia has as symbols a mirror and/or a viper ... well, a pond could be a mirror. A series of running persons build a row, and this could mean a viper.
We've a clear Diana in the picture, very central. The goddess of the moon, and she is very relaxed in contrast to all others. Shouldn't we assume, that the small figure in the background scene is a lonesome Apollo? The figure doesn't really look female.

In the first picture of the room, "Parnassus", we have Mars + Venus + Cupido, a Vulcanus, a Hermes-Mercury with Pegasos, the 9 Muses and a relative small Apollo (or an Orpheus ? ... or just the momentary poet or singer?). Apollo - if it is Apollo - is smaller than each of the Muses.



We have NO Mars, Venus, Cupido, Vulcanus, a Hermes-Mercury with Pegasos, 9 Muses in the in the new second picture with clear Minerva and clear Diane and a very small Apollo (if we assume, that it is Apollo).
The many putti with their funny wings are not Cupido ... if you've a pond, you know, what they are, naturally: Dragonflies ...

Image


If you've a real pond, then you see many of them in much variations.

Diane is very relaxed and all what we see, is, that she is friendly with all these children of the shadow side of life, which have their refugium in the pond. Well, she's the goddess of the night.
I read Alberti's essay "Virtue" today. It is a fable in which Virtue is having a great time with all the philosophers, who all worship her, when Fortuna and a gang of ruffians come in. Fortuna says, "What, commoner, don't you freely give way when greater gods approach?" Virtue tells Fortuna off, and Fortune replies with worse. Cicero defends Virtue and is beaten up by Mark Antony in return (actually Mark Antony had Cicero killed, if I recall, but I suppose in the Elysian Fields you can't kill people). All the other philosophers flee. Then the ruffians beat up Virtue. She goes to Mercury to try to get Jupiter to do something about Fortune. She's tried to talk to him already, but was told he was too busy working on butterfly wings and such. Virtue says that the butterflies fly about in splendor, but still no one will protect her. Mercury says he's sorry, but the gods owe their positions to Fortune, and they can't risk offending her. Virtue had best hide until Fortune's hatred of her is quenched. "Then I must hide eternally. Naked and despised, I am excluded from heaven" she says and the essay ends.
This sounds very interesting. Is the text online?
Albert had in the time of Lodovico a lot of occupations in Mantova, I think more than in Ferrara and even in Florence. Actually he had opportunity to see a lot of cities.

.........
I suspect that the broken lance device is a bit of sibling rivalry with her brother Alfonso. Alfonso was at that time spending a lot of time on cannon technology. He figured that a small state like Ferrara to survive had to have better cannons than its enemies, so that if Venice or somebody wanted to shell Ferrara again, Ferrara's better cannons would get them first. In the short term, Alfonso was right. His cannon saved the day in many a battle. And you know his famous portrait, with his arm affectionately caressing his cannon. The flaming cannon ball was his device. The broken lance is then Isabella's ironic reply.
Interesting idea. Maybe a sign, that Isabella will win words and arguments and diplomacy, and not with pressure an force.
As it happened, the Gonzaga ruled Mantua longer than the Estensi ruled Ferrara. Some people say that Isabella's statecraft is a major cause.
Yes, she played a major role. And Mantovas role in 15th century was relative small in comparison to that of Milan and Ferrara. Well, it happened, that they married to "Austria" and "German Empire". And they had from begin a German orientation. But one has to see the general trend, that Italy had its height in early ("high") renaissance and lost with the passing centuries.
But there is more to the painting than the glorification of Prudence, Isabella's alter ego. Here I will try to summarize Campbell, but people should really read him, all 13 pages (it was longer than I thought at first). He raises the issue, and says the painting raises the issue: is Minerva going too far? She is not treating the little cupids with the beautiful wings very nicely, nor the female satyr with her children, nor the noble-looking centaur and the touching satyr father. Just because someone likes to do the sort of thing that produces lots of children, is no reason to attack her. Children are beautiful, like butterflies. (Lucrezia, that satyress, ended up having seven and dying in childbirth at 37. By the time she married Isabella's brother, at age 22, she'd had two husbands and one out-of-wedlock child.) Maybe Minerva, i.e. Isabella, should should leave lust alone, as long as it does no harm--just as Virtue in the Durer print should leave Pleasure alone. The vices of concern have labels: "Otium, Inertia, Suspicio (who carries the seeds of Fraud, Hatred, and Malice), Ingratitudo, Ignorantia, and Avaricia" (Campbell p. 148). Lust isn't one of them. I notice that the drunkard being carried on the right is wearing a crown; that might be an issue--I can't make out his label. But the issue is: should Isabella bother herself about her husband's sex life, as long as he fulfills his responsibilities and doesn't get in Isabella's way? (Her husband is said to have complained, in a letter, "My wife does as she pleases.") I understand from reading about her that she warmed to Lucrezia, too.
The comment of the husband was from a late time. His captivity in Venice had changed the roles. Important diplomatic activities took place in Mantova between 1508-1512 and so Isabella could grow up to her great role.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Plato and Virtue(s)

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In a recent thread Rosanne suggested that "...there seems to be some consensus that Tarot is about the newly discovered study of Plato..." I didn't realise we had any sort of consensus on the relationship between Plato and the Tarot at all and was rather surprised to see it! I thought this was still a unicorn hunt in the early stages of exploration and, while it's fun to ponder the connections, as far as I can see we have virtually nothing to directly tie the two together except the presence of three virtues.

I'm even confused as to when Plato was translated, and if he had any effect at all. Mike has suggested that Plato was popular in the 1440s, but are we sure the translations existed then?

There's a really fascinating article called "Giotto in Padua: A New Geography of the Human Soul", by Douglas P. Lackey, in The Journal of Ethics (2005) 9: 551–572. In it, he specifically examines Giotto's virtues and vices in the Arena Chapel. Here are a few highlights:
Lackey, p.556 wrote:Let me begin with the choice of the seven virtues, over which Giotto painted the following labels: Prudentia, Fortitudo, Temperantia, Justitia, Fides, Caritas, Spes.3 This list may look routine: a simple addition of the four virtues of Plato’s Republic IV to the three virtues of St. Paul’s First Corinthians 13. Fides, Caritas, and Spes doubtless derive from St. Paul. But on reflection we must concede that Giotto’s first four virtues cannot derive from Plato’s Republic, since in Giotto’s Italy Plato’s Republic was not known, and would not be known until Ficino translated it into Latin in the 1460’s.
Is this accurate? Mike, do you have an earlier date?

Lackey goes on..
Lackey, p.556-557 wrote:For Giotto and the medievals, the source of the idea that there are four basic virtues was not Plato but Cicero, who lists Prudentia, Iustitia, Fortitudo, and Temperantia as the four basic virtues in his book De Inventione. Cicero was not merely copying from Plato with this list. Plato’s four virtues, readers of Book IV of the Republic will recall, are wisdom (sophı ́a), courage, temperance, and justice, and the difference between Plato’s ‘‘sophı ́ a’’ and Cicero’s ‘‘sophı ́ a’’ is substantial. Plato’s sophı ́a is knowledge of things eternal; in Cicero, sophı ́a is ‘‘memory of things past, perception of things present, and anticipation of things future.’’4 If Cicero had wanted something like Plato’s sophı ́a as his first virtue he would have used the Latin word ‘‘sapientia’’ instead of ‘‘prudentia.’’ (Conversely, if Plato had wanted something like Cicero’s prudentia as his first virtue, he would have used the Greek words ‘‘eubouleis’’ or ‘‘phronésis’’ instead of ‘‘sophıa.’’) The medieval Latins preferred Cicero’s more practical concept of prudentia to Plato’s more intellectual concept of sophı ́a; the Byzantines stayed loyal to Plato and built a temple to Hagia Sophia. Giotto, as we have seen, followed the medievals who followed Cicero.


Cicero is the distant source of Giotto’s first four virtues. But it took a long time for Cicero’s four virtues, as an ensemble, to so establish themselves in the world of Latin Christianity that they could be painted on the walls of a church. Cicero was a pagan; his virtues were therefore pagan virtues, in competition with Christian virtues, and not to be conjoined with them...

...Ambrose in the 4th century was the first to endorse Cicero’s four virtues,6 and the first to call them ‘‘cardinal’’ virtues.
He then discusses the importance of Aquinas.
Lackey, p.558-559 wrote: Aquinas presents Cicero’s four ‘‘cardinal’’ virtues as a group in Question 61 and the three ‘‘theological’’ virtues of St. Paul as a group in Question 62. Each set has its separate Question: equality of status conveyed by division of chapters! (In the more detailed Second Part of the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas devotes 46 Questions to Faith, Hope, and Charity, and 123 Questions to Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance). Nowhere does Aquinas argue that the four cardinal virtues are inferior to the three theological virtues. Both sets of virtues are necessary for the salvation of the Christian soul, though, after salvation, six of the virtues will disappear and only love will remain.

Aquinas’s commitment to the cardinal virtues is not an act of loyalty to Cicero, nor an obeisance to Cicero’s advocates Ambrose and Gregory. His commitment is based on an argument. Salvation is the goal, and all four cardinal virtues are needed to obtain it. To begin, we must keep our eyes on the prize and not prefer inferior short run goods to the long run good of salvation. That requires prudence. Second, we must not be distracted in our pursuit of salvation by the pleasures offered by short run goods. That requires temperance. Third, we must persist on the path to salvation even though the path is difficult and painful. That requires courage. And finally, we must not select means to salvation that block others who are in pursuit of that same goal. That requires a sense of justice. Choosing the end, vetting the means, controlling love of pleasure, overcoming fear of pain, at each point a cardinal virtue plays its part in the achievement of practical rationality.14 Once Aquinas demonstrated the psychological roles of the cardinal virtues, their status in Catholic moral theory was assured.
So, if this is a reliable source and the arguments are sound, it is certainly possible to have tarot without Plato, or, at the very least, I remain uncertain.

Plato--Greek into Latin as of 4th century AD

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Translations of Plato into Latin in 321 AD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcidius
Calcidius (or Chalcidius) was a 4th century philosopher (and possibly a Christian) who translated the first part (to 53c) of Plato's Timaeus from Greek into Latin around the year 321 and provided with it an extensive commentary. This was likely done for Bishop Hosius of Córdoba. Very little is otherwise known of him.

His translation of the Timaeus was the only extensive text of Plato known to scholars in the Latin West for approximately 800 years.[1] His commentary also contained useful accounts of Greek astronomical knowledge.[1]
800 years later. Translations of Plato's Phaedo and Meno into Latin in the 12th century. Phaedo in 1160, according to Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_tran ... th_century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Aristippus
Aristippus himself produced the first Latin translation of Plato's Phaedo (1160) and Meno and the fourth book of Aristotle's Meteorologica.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissanc ... n_movement
Translation movement
Main article: Latin translations of the 12th century

The translation of texts from other cultures, especially ancient Greek works, was an important aspect of both this Twelfth-Century Renaissance and the latter Renaissance (of the 15th century), the relevant difference being that Latin scholars of this earlier period focused almost entirely on translating and studying Greek and Arabic works of natural science, philosophy and mathematics, while the latter Renaissance focus was on literary and historical texts.
Many translations at the same time from Arabic as well.

Re: Plato and Virtue(s)

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If we're going to show a connection between Plato and tarot, I suppose we need to show more than that Plato was known at the time of the creation of tarot (thanks Huck), and that he is connected to the cardinal virtues.

Both Lackey and Ross (and Michael Hurst elsewhere) have mentioned Aquinas as an influential force during the 15th century, so perhaps another thread discussing Aquinas and Virtue(s) is needed? While tarot has virtues, it seems possible that they show up as a result of Aquinas just as much, (if not more?), than of Plato.

And should we limit the discussion to the Virtues anyway? They are an important element of tarot, but so are all of the other 19 trump cards; perhaps I was misguided to start this thread where we take three cards out of the context of the whole group?

Before we are confident in a relationship between Plato and tarot, don't we need to show a relationship between Plato and all 22 cards, or conversely, Aquinas and all 22 cards? I know very little about Aquinas, but the little I do know can imagine an easier task of connecting Judgement, the Devil or the Pope to him than to Plato. I'd like to explore this as well.

I'm not sure how to proceed. A new thread for Aquinas and Virtue(s), or a new thread for Aquinas and tarot, and how shall we discuss Plato's relationship to the other trumps besides the virtues, or is there one?

Re: Plato and Virtue(s)

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robert wrote:If we're going to show a connection between Plato and tarot, I suppose we need to show more than that Plato was known at the time of the creation of tarot (thanks Huck), and that he is connected to the cardinal virtues.

Both Lackey and Ross (and Michael Hurst elsewhere) have mentioned Aquinas as an influential force during the 15th century, so perhaps another thread discussing Aquinas and Virtue(s) is needed? While tarot has virtues, it seems possible that they show up as a result of Aquinas just as much, (if not more?), than of Plato.

And should we limit the discussion to the Virtues anyway? They are an important, but so are cards all of the other 19 trump cards; perhaps I was misguided to start this thread where we take three cards out of the context of the whole group?

Before we are confident in a relationship between Plato and tarot, don't we need to show a relationship between Plato and all 22 cards, or conversely, Aquinas and all 22 cards? I know very little about Aquinas, but the little I do know can imagine an easier task of connecting Judgement, the Devil or the Pope to him than to Plato. I'd like to explore this as well.

I'm not sure how to proceed. A new thread for Aquinas and Virtue(s), or a new thread for Aquinas and tarot, and how shall we discuss Plato's relationship to the other trumps besides the virtues, or is there one?
.... :-) .... We discussed a lot of Plethon last autumn ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=160976
... as far as the origin of Tarot was concerned, it more or less stayed that, hat we call "brotlose Kunst" in Germany. anyway, I for my part learned something about history. Plato and especially the cardinal virtues weren't new in c. 1440, Plethon was it, at least for Western eyes.
What also really was new, was, that the 6 Petrarca Trionfi found iconographic attention and that these were often painted on Cassoni in Florence as single motifs in the 1440s (and they were not known before 1440, as far we know). And really new was, that they had a least three greater triumphal festivities in Florence 1439 during the council (and these were also called Trionfi; and they had many of this Trionfi festivities later ... with som enthusiasm). And naturally also new were these cards, which are called Trionfi cards, (also not known before 1440).

Thomas of Aquin was considered rather conservative in 15th century , from Plethon to Aquin should be a deep, strong contrast, as from from white to black and vice versa.
After Plethon they got a battle called Aristotelianism versus Platonism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelianism
Thomas [of Aquin] was emphatically Aristotelian, he adopted Aristotle's analysis of physical objects, his view of place, time and motion, his proof of the prime mover, his cosmology, his account of sense perception and intellectual knowledge, and even parts of his moral philosophy.
Huck
http://trionfi.com