Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

11
Thanks for your comments, Marco. I will try to find where I read about "pupila augusta" other than Zucker. I am not identifying any of the group of 3 ladies as the prophetess, but rather the person on the left side, who seems to be looking at them, as though having a vision. I am identifying the person on our left at the bottom, next to the lady with her fingers in the basin, as Mars. I couldn't see anything to suggest that it was female. The short hair would suggest a male.

An additional feature supporting that the sketch is mainly about Venus is the condition of the trees. It appears to be springtime, the season of Venus (at the Schifanoia her month is April.

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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Well, I should have gone to the library in the first place, instead of wallowing around in Google Translate! Walter Strauss, in Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, vol. 1, has a full page reproduction of his drawing, and I can now see the bulges suggesting breasts and the wide hips: yes, the person in the bottom middle is a lady, not a guy.

On the facing page (p. 426), Strauss reviews various theories about what the drawing means and then states briefly what his view is, one I find quite convincing:
Betrothed to Paris and endowed with the gift of prophecy, the nymph Oenone gazes into an oracular plate and warns Hera (center) and Athena (left) of the impending "Judgment of Paris." (Footnote: Oenone is identified by the headdress.) Hunting rabbits was a pastime in Aphrodite's domain. (Footnote: Philostratus, Imagines 1.23-25 (Loeb Classical Library Edition).
As for "Pupila Augusta" he says:
But Pupila Augusta is an appelation for the young Aphrodite, who, according to Hesiod, sprang motherless from the foam [aphros] that gathered around the mutilated member of Uranus. (Footnote: Hesiod 4, 427 (Loeb Classical Library Edition).)
He does not dispute that it is Aphrodite coming from the sea in the middle of the drawing, riding on a fish. I have not found the "motherless" or "exalted ward" yet in Hesiod.

He does not explain further why the headdress identifies her as Oenone. Looking on Theoi (http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NympheOinone.html, I see there is quite a bit of classical literature on her, confirming that she had oracular powers, learned from Rhea, and that she was in fact the wife of Paris. She condescended to marry him when he was still passing himself off as a slave, and then he deserted her for Helen. Later he comes to be healed of his wound by her, as she was also a powerul healer. She tells him to go back to Helen, but later regrets it and runs to save him, arriving too late.

I only saw a couple of things that might suggest a winged headdress. One, Ovid calls her "Pegasis", which means "fountain nymph", Theoi's translator says; but perhaps it was taken as meaning "winged" then. And second, the Post-Homerica, Book X, says of her:
No weariness she knew: as upon wings her feet flew faster ever, onward spurred by fell Fate, and the Cyprian Queen.
The Cyprian Queen of course is Venus, the force of love. Again, that quote might have been misread. Otherwise, I am clueless. Perhaps one of the other commentators explains it. The Post-Homerica was one of those texts that Bessarion brought from Greece (see Wikipedia's entry on the work); since it has a long section on her, perhaps that occasioned interest in depicting her.

If she is Oenone, then probably the lady in the SB-master's engraving is also Oenone. The words "Pupila Augusta" still refer to Venus, but as the mistress of Oenone's fate: she causes the nymph to be deserted by her husband, resulting in his death, and also to spurn him later, run to him, and to throw herself on his funeral pyre and die at his side. Some of this she foresees in the basin (not all of it, or she wouldn't have had second thoughts).

I also read what Panofsky had to say, which was fairly unconvincing. He is one of those who consider the three lower ladies to be welcoming Venus to her Cyprian home. He says
The basket bearing the inscription "pupila augusta" [literally "august ward') is a canistrum as employed for classical rites in the oen air
. In this context, the rites are those of the three women "to worship "Venus Marina" and to explore the future by mantic practices," before a marriage. He takes the marriage to be that of "Caterina Carnato, "adopted daughter" of the Republic of Venice and Queen of Cyprus, the mythical realm of Venus." Caterina is being compared to Venus. But as Strauss observes, "this is hardly a welcoming scene."

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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mikeh wrote: An additional feature supporting that the sketch is mainly about Venus is the condition of the trees. It appears to be springtime, the season of Venus (at the Schifanoia her month is April.
An excellent observation, Mike! The same point has been suggested to me offlist by Michael J. Hurst. I had not noticed it myself. I agree on its relevance.
mikeh wrote:Well, I should have gone to the library in the first place, instead of wallowing around in Google Translate! Walter Strauss, in Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, vol. 1, has a full page reproduction of his drawing, and I can now see the bulges suggesting breasts and the wide hips: yes, the person in the bottom middle is a lady, not a guy.
I appreciate that you visited your library and are sharing the results of your study with us! Thank you, Mike!
For very good images of the involved works of art, see also those posted by Michael Hurst on Wikimedia Commons.

I cannot go into the details of Strauss' interpretation right now. But translating "pupila augusta" as "motherless goddess" seems to me to make sense as a connection with Venus. Excellent! :)

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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Hello Mike, thank you for the scans of the two articles.

I read the page about Oinone on Theoi.com, and I found Ovid's quote (Heroides 5. 1) rather close to the scene represented by Duerer.

A prophetic nymph daughter of a river explains why the scene is set on the shores of a river.

This passage seems particularly fitting to me:
"That day spoke doom for wretched me, on that day did the awful storm of changed love begin, when Venus [Aphrodite] and Juno [Hera], and unadorned Minerva [Athena], more comely had she borne her arms, appeared before you to be judged. My bosom leaped with amaze as you told me of it, and a chill tremor rushed through my hard bones. I took counsel--for I was no little terrified--with grandams and long-lived sires. 'Twas clear to us all that evil threatened me."

It explains the sad look of the nymphs who foresees her death by cause of Venus (who granted to Paris the love of Helen). I think the other two women in the foreground might more easily be the old women consulted by Oinone, rather then the two goddesses Hera and Athena.

So, I think this passage could be the source of Duerer's drawing. It does not fit so well with the SB Master's engraving, since in that case all the details that could possibly link to Oinone are missing.

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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I saw ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=QZu2-VM ... ta&f=false
... Pupilla Augusta (Dürer) addressed as "made for Celtes book".
I don't know, how true this attribution is.

Further I saw a dating of 1496-98 ... with insecurities.

"Celtes" is Konrad Celtis, a sort of Goethe at the end of 15th century, and the most important German poet since 1500. He made a lot, that Emperor Maximilian sponsored literature in Vienna and Germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Celtes

Watching the phenomenon "Pupilla Augustus" with German eyes and some historical background knowledge, one gets impressions, which have not so much to do with theories in art history, as far I read about them.

The German word for "eye" is "Auge", Italians call it "occhio". Italian also have the word "Auge", but for them "auge" means peak, height, climax, also "Scheitelpunkt" (angular point, zenith).
Augen (= eyes) are used, to see (German "sehen") something. Germans have the expression "Sehen" and this developed the word "Seher", and this mean something like a divination master, or seer or "augur" (well, this Augur contains the Auge).

"Augustus", seen with German eyes, remembers the word "Auge". "Pupilla" remembers the word "Pupille" and that's the center of the eye, the black part (actually der "Sehpunkt")

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Now I don't know, what this painter meant ...

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... but for Dürer, who was German, one might be sure, that he thought in German associations and German contexts.

Image


... so ...

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... and so ...

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When I look in Grimm's Wörterbuch, the German authority for old words, then the use of Pupille (as part of the eye) in the modern understanding in old times seems not recorded. It was used as pupilla for a "Mündel" (a foster child), or generally for small children. Pupilla as Pupille seems to have developed from the puppet, that you see in the eye of somebody else ... naturally you are yourself the puppet, and the eye of the other just mirrors you.

But if you look at the pictures, then one has naturally the idea, that the word association Pupilla = part of the eye must have existed. Well, the painters had heir optical development during 15th century, attested by Alberti's work about perspective and used by Mantegna far before Dürer ...

Image

http://www.webexhibits.org/arrowintheeye/arrow1.html

... and it's difficult to imagine, that they hadn't a word or the Pupille in the eye.

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Very trivial. Not really mysterious.

Here we have two lovers ...

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... or two women?

A 3rd or 2nd woman here ...

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First Scenario

Some say, that we write 1496, when Dürer painted the picture:

Germany waits for a son from Bianca Maria Sforza, later empress of Germany. Dürer wasn't so successful as later, and the connection between Maximilian and the intellectuals wasn't so intensive as later.

"Augustus" in German is relative synonym to "Emperor", somehow one could address the emperor with it. [Added later: The name "Caesar" developed to the expression "Kaiser"; Augustus had similar importance as Caesar] Maximilian wasn't formally crowned as emperor, but one expected, that it would happen. The emperor was young in his position, and naturally Dürer and others attempted to get his attention and that the Pupila Augusta would choose to see just them, so that the own future might become bright, clear, famous, successful etc. in the light of the sun, and the light of the sun was naturally the Pupila Augusta as typical for such situations with new emperors and the expectations on them, not very mysterious.

As I said, Germany expected, that Bianca Maria would get a son soon. It never happened, as we know. The perhaps male / perhaps female figure is painted in a way, that is open, which gender he/she had.

Maybe the painting was later, perhaps 1498.

I wonder about this ...

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.. (I read 1516 ?) ...

... and I am amused about the disappearing animal ...

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... at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... a-1498.jpg

... and I ask myself, if there is more than one version ?

Pen and ink, 25.4 x 19.4 cm ... not very big, and provisionally made, likely for the preparation of an engraving, which ('possibly) never took place.

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Second Scenario

Alright, let's assume, it's from 1498, just for fun.

Here we have the Habsburg.

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The place of origin of the Habsburger, and Maximilian was a Habsburger.

Rudolf I. von Habsburg was chosen as Roman king 1272, mainly cause he was too weak to be too dangerous to other mighty houses, which weren't interested in a strong emperor. The first Habsburger king. He had some possessions in the region of Strassburg, Baden-Würtemberg and in Northern Switzerland, not very much territory. As King he gained some possessions in Austria and the Habsburger got a greater orientation to this region.

Habsburger Kings were these:

Rudolf I., König 1273–1291
...
Albrecht I., König 1298–1308
...
Friedrich der Schöne, Gegenkönig 1314–1330
...
...
Albrecht II., König 1438–1439
Friedrich III., König 1440–1486, Kaiser 1452–1493
Maximilian I., König 1486, Kaiser 1508–1519

The early Habsburger Kings were weak, and the Luxemburger house was dominant:

Heinrich VII. 1308-1313
Karl IV 1346-1378
Wenzel 1378-1400
Jobst 1410-1411
Sigismund 1411-1437

Till 1437 the Habsburger had about 44 reigning years (and 16 of them only as Gegenkönig) and the Luxemburger house had 86.

In 1415 - a glamorous year for Sigismondo the Luxembourger cause of the council in Constance - the Habsburger lost the Aargau (part of Switzerland since then) and the place of the origin of the Habsburg house (the Burg Habsburg). Distance of the Habsburg to Constance: close 100 km. It seems obvious, that the then mighty house of Luxembourg wasn't interested to protect territory, which belonged to the house of Habsburg.
In 1460 the house of Habsburg lost further territory in Switzerland, which also became Swiss territory. It's sure, that Frederick III didn't found this funny, but most of his life he was a weak king and emperor of Germany, who long 27 years didn't visit the German Empire, just keeping himself at the territory, which belonged to the Habsburgers. But he was lucky enough to live longer than his enemies and opponents. So Maximilian got a good start after 53 years, in which Frederick reigned (often only nominally) in Germany.

Maximilian as his heir had the natural idea to get old territory back (he was not the only heir with such ideas), so - for instance - the Habsburg. But the Swiss had proven, that they could resist even Karl of Burgund, who had a strong army (in 1477). And Maximilian attempted it too, but didn't do better in its result. He was prudent enough to stop this war and so didn't end as Karl of Burgund at the battle field. This happened 1499. Hypothetical this happened one year after Dürer painted Pupilla Augusta, which (likely) never became an engraving.



The red territory belonged to Habsburger, the red-white territory was allied. The big map has more details, see ...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... nkrieg.png

The Imperial View

At ...
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=903&p=13165&hilit= ... ung#p13165
... I spoke about Donauversickerung and some specific regions in Germany., where the rivers Donau and Rhein are very close to each other. The both rivers are the longest rivers in Western Europe. The position of big rivers decided the early development of mankind. The Nile region, Euphrat and Tigris, the Indus and the Yellow river in China became the most populated and dominant regions of the world.

The greatest Empire in Europe with its capitals in Rome (without a long river) and Constantinople (also without a long river) got their position by the luck of a relative calm Mediterranean sea and good climatic conditions, which made it possible to nourish a large population by trade. Constantinople had additionally the ideal position as the bridge between two continents.
Northern regions in Europe were simply too cold to develop in the same manner very early. But the "river-rule" as a natural condition for a big Empire naturally comes to the mind, when we see the geographical point, where the fountains of Rhein and Donau are close to each other. Well, in the mid between both fountains (taking Donaueschingen for the Donau and the Tomasee for the Rhine) is the big "eye" of the Bodensee, one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. The mid of the way is more St. Gallen, but at the lake is also Constance and in miniature it's somehow the Constantinople of the Bodensee as it bridges the lake, which with its long extensions is just a large traffic difficulty ... if one hasn't a ship.
One has to see it: The position of the Bodensee invites "imperial ideas", one can easily feel there as the belly button of Europe. And these idea might have been quite vivid in the year 1415 during the council of Constance.

Not too far from here developed the Habsburger dynasty, which in their long history actually often felt like the personified belly buttons.

In Donaueschingen ...

... once again a Pupilla Augusta. The arrangement is surely later, but a first statement, that this would be the fountain, existed 1538.

Third Scenario

Maximilian made a lot to arrange self-identifications with the help of the new media, which knew book-printing and graphic. Everything, which looked usable to bind the population to the Habsbuger as the reigning dynasty, was used, and what shall one say about his strategy, "it worked". In spite of their weak beginnings the Habsburger formed Europe for a few centuries. Dürer was also used, especially since 1512.
Wasn't there a 1516 at the picture?

Strauss (MikeH's source) writes "The background combines portions of 'Innsbruck Seen from the North" (1495/44) and "Trent Seen from the North". (1495/33)'
Well, both from 1495, and so likely belonging to Dürer's first journey to Italy. Trent (nowadays Italy since WWI) belonged to Habsburg since 1363. Innsbruck was very important to Maximilian, especially in the 1490s, more than Vienna, which, earlier the capital, between 1485-90 had fallen to Hungary and Matthias Corvinus.
Trent became important as the way to Verona, when Verona was taken during the war against Venice 1508-1512. Then it stayed in Austrian hands till 1517.

1517 is not far from 1516, the number, which appears at the document. We have a work, which (likely) didn't become an engraving, so it actually "somehow" was thrown away as not usable by the hand of the master, just second choice. Dürer noted, that he wouldn't get as much money for his drawings as he would get by engravings, and Wikipedia says to Dürer:
Indeed, complaining that painting did not make enough money to justify the time spent when compared to his prints, he produced no paintings from 1513 to 1516. However, in 1513 and 1514 Dürer created his three most famous engravings: Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513, probably based on Erasmus's treatise Enichiridion militis Christiani), St. Jerome in his Study, and the much-debated Melencolia I (both 1514).

What I get from Strauss and Panowsky, more or less all elements of the picture are from dates in the 1490s. So likely it developed the opinion, that it should have been done 1496-98.

But we have this:

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Maximil ... man_Empire
"Having made an alliance with Christian II., king of Denmark, and interfered to protect the Teutonic Order against Sigismund I., king of Poland, Maximilian was again in Italy early in 1516 fighting the French who had overrun Milan. His want of success compelled him on the 4th of December 1516 to sign the treaty of Brussels, which left Milan in the hands of the French king, while Verona was soon afterwards transferred to Venice."


... and this ...
Der Triumphzug Kaiser Maximilians I., 1516-1518 : 147 Holzschnitte. [Albrecht Altdorfer; Hans Burgkmair; Albrecht Dürer; Horst Appuhn;
In the Spring of 1512, the newly elected emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg sojourned in Nuremberg, where he got acquainted with Dürer. To celebrate the emperor and his house, the artist conceived the large Triumphal Arch woodcut, for which he was rewarded with 100 yearly florins.

In 1518, during the Diet of Augsburg, Maximilian called Dürer to portray him. The artist met the emperor in the castle and made a pencil drawing of him, from which he later painted the panel portrait. On the drawing's martig, he noted: "Is the emperor Maximilian that I Albrecht Dürer portrayed in Augsburg, up in the high palace, in his small room, Monday 28 June 1518".
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There seems to have been not much between Dürer and Maximilian before 1512 ... if this is correct. Somehow astonishing, as Dürer had worked for Celtis (at least since 1502) and Celtis was installed by Emperor Maximilian to high positions (since 1497/1502).

Well, may it be, as it is written, Dürer might gotten the idea to focus on Emperor interests in 1512. If "Pupila Augusta" doesn't refer to the "month of August", as Strauss and Panowsky seem to assume, but just to the more real and more profitable Emperor connection, 1516 isn't so impossible. Maximilian worked then at his own glorification (triumphal procession). The way Innsbruck-Trent (Maximilian's way to Italy) might have been presented as a triumphal part in the running project, but actually the factual result of the adventure 1516 was negative (Milan lost, Verona lost), so away with this stuff and that was, what what happened and what we observe. It didn't become an engraving.
If Dürer got a sort of commission to make something about Italy around 1516, and hadn't opportunity to travel himself again to Italy, he naturally would have looked in his older paintings, if there was something, which might be recycled.

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

Well, just for my own fun ... cause it's fun to explore alternative possibilities. I just see, what I see. And in this case I see a Pupille in the picture.

Image


I think, everybody else can see the Pupille

It was thrown away, just as we don't know, what sort of animal disappeared behind the bush.

Image


I fear, it hasn't too much to do with Tarot. Only this Sola Busca artist, somehow in Ferrara ...

Image


... actually I would expect, that the exhibition catalog of Milan 2012 has some more to say to the artist and especially the connection to Lazzarelli would interest me. Is this all hot air or is there something real in it?
Last edited by Huck on 22 Dec 2012, 10:30, edited 2 times in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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Marco: My interpretation of the SB-master's engraving isn't based on Ovid, which to be sure doesn't fit. It's based on three other sources on that Theoi page. Either of the first two would do. The third merely adds a finishing touch. First, pseudo-Appolodorus:
Oinone had learned the art of prophecy from Rhea, and forwarned Alexandros not to sail off to Helene.
Second, Parthanius. Here I highlight the most important parts:
When Alexandros [Paris], Priamos' son, was tending his flocks on Mount Ida, he fell in love with Oinone (Oenone) the daughter of Kebren (Cebren): and the story is that she was possessed by some divinity and foretold the future , and generally obtained great renown for her understanding and wisdom.Alexandros took her away from her father to Ida, where his pasturage was, and lived with her there as his wife, and he was so much in love with her that he would swear to her that he would never desert her, but would rather advance her to the greatest honour. She however said that she could tell that for the moment indeed he was wholly in love with her, but that the time would come when he would cross over to Europe, and would there, by his infatuation for a foreign woman, bring the horrors of war upon his kindred. She also foretold that he must be wounded in the war, and that there would be nobody else, except herself, who would be able to cure him: but he used always to stop her, every time that she made mention of these matters.
Both sources have Oenone herself as the prophetess. Only Ovid has others in that role. In both cases, as we know from the Iliad, it is Venus, goddess of love, who brings misfortune on her, Paris, and Troy, all of which she foresees by looking in the basin. Love is the culprit, and specifically Venus. I don't know what form of divination is being depicted precisely; one form (I read about it in Graves Greek Myths) was casting pebbles and looking at how they landed in a jar of water. I could look up what various ancient authors, e.g. Cicero, said about divination methods, if need be.

As Huck suggests, that there is a basin as the divination tool might be so as to make a pun: "Pupila/Pupilla" "Augusta/Ocula" (the latter rather weak, except in German). But I think it is more likely an established divination method.

I think the theme of Oenone's foreknowledge of Paris's betrayal is also the key to anther of the SB-master's (per Zucker) engravings, the one Zucker calls "Profile busts of two women in fantastic headresses." (For a clear image, you might have to click on it.)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D3uBM_nRbyg/U ... age-01.JPG
It is the same headdress as in the engraving we've been talking about, now worn by one woman drawn twice (sharing the headdress). She (or they: there are only two hands, but three breasts) holds an apple. To me it suggests the "apple of discord" that Paris is to award to the fairest of the goddesses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Paris). Having foretold what Paris will do, Oenone holds the apple in anger. Zucker, about this engraving, says only that
Jointly held by the women, an apple, the fruit of Venus, assimilates itself to the forms of the three visible breasts, virtually simulating a fourth and offering an early example of what later becomes one of the tritest of visual puns.
Zucker thinks it's Venus, just as he thinks the headdressed girl in the other engraving is Venus. (Here's his longer exposition of that engraving, in The Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 24 part 3, published 2000: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-veveYzDFcM0/U ... age-02.JPG.) Zucker misled me before. Strauss (1974) has set me straight: it's Oenone in both.

The third source is Quintus Smyrnaeus, especially the sentence I quoted earlier. It is not, strictly speaking, necessary, but it drives home the point.
No weariness she knew: as upon wings her feet flew faster ever, onward spurred by fell Fate, and the Cyprian Queen.
Here it is stated explicitly that Venus is continuing to inflict herself on Oenone: it was by wounded love that she spurned Paris's please to heal him, and it will be by guilty love that she dies on Paris's funeral pyre.

This text was particularly topical, as it had newly arrived in Venice as part of Bessarion's bequest, and Venice was unusually free in its lending policy to qualified Venetian citizens.

So we have Oenone looking in the water, seeing there that Paris will betray her. But above her, mistress of all that will befall her and Paris, is the awesome "Pupila Augusta," Venus. As long as we ignore Ovid, it seems clear enough who the girl in the headdress is, and what she is doing.

To me one point of interest relative to the tarot is that divination is the subject. I have for a while suspected that the Sola-Busca was a divination deck, that the images on the number cards could be understood in those terms, based on Neopythagorean philosopy, and that it probably started a tradition that somehow lasted even to the days of Etteilla. My argument is in the thread "Deciphering the Sola-Busca Pips." I have since found a passage where Etteilla says his "Egyptian" system, based on the philosophy of numbers, was one practiced in Piedmont for "almost 200 years" prior to him (3rd Cahier Supplement, 1784, p. 118, http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... uote]Quant à ce que j’ai appris par tradition, j'en parle ailleurs; & supposant que j'aie oublié ce qui s'offre à ma mémoire, je dirai ici que cet Art étoit très en vogue chez les Piêmontois il y a près de deux cens ans; ce que peut-être aujourd'hui ils ne savent pas.

(As for what I have learned from tradition, I speak elsewhere; & assuming I have forgotten what is offered to my memory, I will say here that this art has been very popular among the Piedmontese for nearly two hundred years, which perhaps they do not know today.)[/quote]
I assume Etteilla means "assuming I have not forgotten..." He could just as well have said "nearly 200 years at least." Admittedly, one should take everything Etteilla says with several grains of salt, and another explanation, besides taking Etteilla at face value, can be given for why he singles out Piedmont of 200 years prior (which I discuss in the link); all the same, parts of Piedmont are sufficiently remote that the counter-reformation might not have bothered persecuting card-reading there, if it was done discreetly. Besides Etteilla's alleged connection to a Piedmontese card-reader, there is also a possible connection to Etteilla via a French visitor in 1535 Ferrara; Huck and I were exploring it on the Zodiacus Vita thread, viewtopic.php?f=11&t=854): So for me the interpretation of the engraving is quite relevant to understanding the SB tarot.

I come to Duerer. Marco, I don't understand how Ovid's account explains what the headdressed girl is doing. Ovid doesn't say anything about Oenone doing any divination. It's just that when Paris tells Oenone about the three goddesses coming before him to be judged, "My bosom leaped with amaze as you told me of it, and a chill tremor rushed through my hard bones." No divination, in the sense of predicting what will happen, as in the other authors. It does seem that the two older ladies in the foreground are agreeing with Oenone. If they are the oldsters that Ovid refers to, then the three on the fish would seem to the three goddesses. But somehow I can't imagine Hera on a fish. In any case, what Ovid doesn't account for is the divination evident in the sketch; that's in the other accounts, which in themselves are sufficient to explain the engraving.

Also, Marco, you say there is a river in the Duerer, associated with Oenone. The only body of water I see is the one one Venus is on. Her element is the sea, where she was born. The body of water is either the sea or, if a river, close to the sea. It's a big body of water. Panofsky thought the place was Cyprus. (More likely, it's the Gulf of Edremit, close to Mt. Ida. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Ida_(Turkey).) The main thing is that the body of water is associated with Venus rather than Oenone. I have trouble imagining Oenone's father letting Venus come up his river, given her penchant for causing trouble.

In the SB-master's engraving, however, there might be a river: namely, at the bottom of the page, below what looks like the markings of an embankment. That would make sense, if it's Oenone: she's next to her father's river. Duerer left that part out. It may be where she gets her water, unless there's a spring I don't see. Admittedly, similar embankments can be seen in other of the SB master's works, where there is no hint of water. But I think I see wavy horizontal lines suggesting water in this one.

Strauss says that the relationship between the two, the Duerer and the SB-master, is so close that there is "tracing" on the sketch:
Meder notes outline tracings from various sources: for example, Oenone is traced from a Ferrarese engraving entitled "Pupila Augusta".
Duerer traced the image of the girl from the engraving! I am not sure how literal this word "traced" is. But certainly Duerer copied her from the engraving. If so, he would have wanted to discuss with the artist or others what the engraving meant. Being told, Duerer probably would have thought of an idea for expanding on the theme, adding the three goddesses, at least two of whom already know what the outcome of their contest will probably be. At least that is what would have been the most natural course of events.

P. S. Huck: the animal in the Duerer is a rabbit, a symbol of Venus. Strauss says:
Hunting rabbits was a pastime in Aphrodite's domain. (Footnote: Philostratus, Imagines 1.23-25 (Loeb Classical Library Edition).)
For example, in Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love", Venus is in the middle of the painting, and men in a field chase rabbits, while an amorous couple ignores them (http://www.walksofitaly.com/blog/wp-con ... 5sacre.jpg). Perhaps the association derives from Venus as a fertility goddess: "They breed like rabbits," we say, at least we do in English. And the Easter bunny.

About the "1516" on the Duerer: Panofsky notes, in his first sentence, that this is not in Duerer's handwriting. Strauss omitted that point. I don't know if that matters to you. To be sure, it doesn't mean that it wasn't done in 1516. It's just that the date is only as informed as the unknown person, at an unknown time, who wrote it.

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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mikeh wrote: P. S. Huck: the animal in the Duerer is a rabbit, a symbol of Venus. Strauss says:
Hunting rabbits was a pastime in Aphrodite's domain. (Footnote: Philostratus, Imagines 1.23-25 (Loeb Classical Library Edition).)
For example, in Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love", Venus is in the middle of the painting, and men in a field chase rabbits, while an amorous couple ignores them (http://www.walksofitaly.com/blog/wp-con ... 5sacre.jpg). Perhaps the association derives from Venus as a fertility goddess: "They breed like rabbits," we say, at least we do in English. And the Easter bunny.

About the "1516" on the Duerer: Panofsky notes, in his first sentence, that this is not in Duerer's handwriting. Strauss omitted that point. I don't know if that matters to you. To be sure, it doesn't mean that it wasn't done in 1516. It's just that the date is only as informed as the unknown person, at an unknown time, who wrote it.
Well, I think, it looks like a dog (maybe in the hunt for a rabbit, who knows ?).

Image


The back legs of ordinary rabbits look different.



The tail is usually upright, not downwards as in the picture.

There's a basic question in the dating: How far developed was German Humanism in 1496/98, that it could take such an relative exotic mythical figure like Oenone as a theme? The great thing about Celtis is, that he made humanism popular, it wasn't very popular. Naturally he started with mythological figures, which everybody could recognize in an easier way. Apollo, Athene, other gods, Daphne ... we find in in Celtis "Germania" 1501/1502.

A story with "Paris", whom Germans would identify with Paris and France, might well fit with the war situation in 1516, less probable for 1496/98.
Well, 1496/98 is not impossible, as the French had an unlucky war adventure in 1494/95.

Oenone is later an often used motif. How old is the oldest picture of Oenone in renaissance? Well, the Trojan war as a story was likely popular already in 15th century, also in Germany.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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Huck: a rabbit going in its hole would fit the overall symbolism: love getting away from Oenone.

And it is not a question of German humanism being advanced enough in 1495-1498. Duerer was in Italy then, absorbing Italian humanism. Perhaps the reason he didn't turn the sketch into an engraving is that he didn't think German humanism was advanced enough to get it.

As far as the treatment of Oenone at that time, that is a good question. There are of course the two drawings by the SB-master, if Strauss and I are right. Otherwise, she seems to have been associated, a bit later, with a jar rather than a basin. A good article is at http://www.kunstpedia.com/articles/the- ... tml?page=3. The original was a Roman sarcophagus, shown in the c. 1550 Codex Coburgensis, seen clearly in the copy in the Villa Doria, Rome. Raphael apparently used it for a "Judgment of Paris," which may be lost, but which is preserved in an engraving by the Bolognese engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, 1510-1520 (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/19.74.1). It then appears in a painting by Frans Floris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frans ... GA7946.jpg). Another Raimondi engraving after Raphael, with jar, is at http://jahsonic.tumblr.com/post/2475874 ... ondi-after. That site identifies the person with the weird hat and jar as Mercury, but it looks female to me (hint of a breast); I suspect it is Oenone consulting with her father and another river god.

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

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Huck: It may be that it's not the rabbit that's sacred to Venus, but the hare. Strauss may have confused the two. Hares have their tails downward, e.g. http://www.treknature.com/gallery/photo192212.htm. The animals in Titian's painting look more like hares than rabbits: bigger and quicker, for one thing. Yesterday I happened to go to my local museum to see a traveling exhibition of Greco-Roman art from the British Museum. The placard for one of the pieces, prepared by the British Museum, said that hares were a standard love gift between older males and younger males in Athenian society. I would expect that this information comes from classical literary sources that would have been available to the humanists of the later 15th century.