SteveM wrote:
Marco, perhaps you could make a note on the sermon page re: boccaccio / joan reference?

Ah, I see you have done so. Great stuff, thanks.

So Marco/Ross : The translation of:

O miseri quod negat Christiana fides.

Can we agree what is likely a correct interpretation? Are the two options on Tarotpedia needed? Is it someone who denies Christian faith or who is denied by Christian faith? Who is denying? I think it is those denied by Christian faith... does the grammar support that?

Oh wretched people whom Christain faith denies? Oh poor wretch whom Christian faith denies? Oh unhappy one denied by Christian faith? O wretched people, because Christian faith denies her? O wretches! For she is denied by Christian faith?

The Lybian Sybil looks exactly like the Faith card in the Minchiate, which already has an Empress card; actually it has three "Papi" cards---a few of which resemble the Popesse.

SteveM wrote: So Marco/Ross : The translation of:

O miseri quod negat Christiana fides.

Can we agree what is likely a correct interpretation? Are the two options on Tarotpedia needed? Is it someone who denies Christian faith or who is denied by Christian faith? Who is denying? I think it is those denied by Christian faith... does the grammar support that?

Oh wretched people whom Christain faith denies? Oh poor wretch whom Christian faith denies? Oh unhappy one denied by Christian faith? O wretched people, because Christian faith denies her? O wretches! For she is denied by Christian faith?

I favor the second translation on Tarotpedia, since it seems "christiana fides" can only be nominative in the singular - so the Christian Faith is denying "quod" - the Popess, either her existence or just her legitimacy (since it would be very precocious of our author to have doubted her existence by this date).

"Quod" is singluar, so not referring to "O miseri". It also can't be your last, since that is a passive construction and negat is active.

I think it should be "O wretches! That which the Christian Faith denies." So most like your middle translation.

I don't know why quod has to be "because" - why can't it be the object ("that which" in my translation)?

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
I favor the second translation on Tarotpedia, since it seems "christiana fides" can only be nominative in the singular - so the Christian Faith is denying "quod" - the Popess, either her existence or just her legitimacy (since it would be very precocious of our author to have doubted her existence by this date).

...

I think it should be "O wretches! That which the Christian Faith denies." So most like your middle translation.

That makes sense to me. Marco, do you have any qualifications, amendments or doubts about that? If you agree, can we change the tarotpedia entry accordingly?

marco wrote:

mmfilesi wrote:La quale femmina non temendo montare in sulla sedia del Pescatore, e trattare i sacri Misteri tutti, e darli ad altri, non concesso ad alcuna femmina per la Religione de’ Cristiani;

Thank you Marcos,
this passage seems to me to be echoed in the reference to the Popess in the Steele Sermon.

La papessa (O miseri quod negat Christiana fides): "The Popess (O wretches, Christian Faith denies that)".

Latin:
Que tamen non verita ascendere Piscatoris cathedram et sacra ministeria omnia, nulli mulierum a christiana religione concessum, tractare agere et aliis exhibere...

English:
This woman was not afraid to mount the Fisheman's throne, to perform all the sacred offices, and to administer them to others (something that the Christina religion does not permit any woman to do)."

She also serves in the armies of Venus as of literature: perhaps that it is why, in some decks, she looks not at her book, but towards the juggler

Our player of hocus pocus lays down
his wand, takes up
a ball and cup,
prays "come closeup"
and moves them round and round.

Our Lord's lady in her bridal habit
just loves to look
upon the crook,
her open book
mere pretense for the abbot.

SteveM wrote:Marco, do you have any qualifications, amendments or doubts about that? If you agree, can we change the tarotpedia entry accordingly?

I agree.
Of course you can update the Tarotpedia entry.

Our player of hocus pocus lays down
his wand, takes up
a ball and cup,
prays "come closeup"
and moves them round and round.

Our Lord's lady in her bridal habit
just loves to look
upon the crook;
her open book
mere pretense for the abbot.

I thought that the Steele Sermon comment about the Popess ("O wretches! That which the Christian Faith denies.") could refer to a female Pope (as in Boccace) or to the "wife" of a Pope, as in Imperiali's reply:

Poi viene il Papa,con l’Imperatore,
Et ciascun d’essi hà la sua donn’ à canto,
Che senza donne star,lor non da il core.

Then the Pope and the Emperor come,
each with his woman at his side because
their hearts forbid to them to be without women.

marco wrote:I thought that the Steele Sermon comment about the Popess ("O wretches! That which the Christian Faith denies.") could refer to a female Pope (as in Boccace) or to the "wife" of a Pope, as in Imperiali's reply:

Poi viene il Papa,con l’Imperatore,
Et ciascun d’essi hà la sua donn’ à canto,
Che senza donne star,lor non da il core.

Then the Pope and the Emperor come,
each with his woman at his side because
their hearts forbid to them to be without women.

There is a bit of ribaldry in that sentiment, that is also expressed in a text from around 1450 containing the "Mystery of Saint Bernard de Menthon".

At lines 1869-70, the Fool says -

"If I were the pope of Rome,
My Mariocte would be popess".

(Si j'estoy le pape de Romme,
Ma Mariocte seroit papesse)

http://www.archive.org/details/lemystredesber00bernuoft
pp. 82-83

The "Meneur du jeu" (leader of the game) speaks to the spectators and a Fool interrupts, mentioning a Popess. A scenario Ms. Moakley would have loved!

Another consideration I had long ago was that the same sense of gender balance that led to the introduction of Queens in the deck - most thoroughly explored in the Cary Yale Tarocchi which balances every court male with a female (not necessarily a "wife", but an equal rank of the opposite gender), and also adds the "female" Theological Virtues - played a role in producing female equivalents of the Pope and Emperor. The Empress is a real person, of course, but the Popess is what leaves us scratching our heads. Could it be ribald like the Fool of the Mystery of St. Bernard of Menthon? But the rest of the sequence doesn't seem ribald... ribaldry, except for the Fool and Mountebank, seems absent from the trumps.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: There is a bit of ribaldry in that sentiment, that is also expressed in a text from around 1450 containing the "Mystery of Saint Bernard de Menthon".

At lines 1869-70, the Fool says -

"If I were the pope of Rome,
My Mariocte would be popess".

(Si j'estoy le pape de Romme,
Ma Mariocte seroit papesse)

We have a hangman,

Pandu soient tous les larrons
Et estachié a ung gibeth. 1860

(St. Bernard put to flight the thieves and brigands that terrrorised the pilgrims way over the alpine pass)

Demain on perdra le caquet ;
Il en aura de baratel.

What is a baratel – (I recall the bagatelle being called something like a 'baraton', idle chatterer or something like)

We have a pope and popesses:

Se festoi [le] pape de Romme,
Ma Mariocte seroit papesse. 1870

Men and women of high rank:
Seignieur et dames de hault pris, 1875

St. Bernard destroys the idols of Jupiter (a connection with XVI as destruction of idols? and XVI as number of Jupiter)
Fust de servir Nostre Seignieur,
Et comment il destruit Terreurs
Des ydoles de Jupiter

and god's horn / trumpet?
Cornent Dieu traïnna enfert, 1890

l'estolle begnoite liez,
Le dyable plus fort atachiez ;

And a hospice (St. Bernard builds a hospice on the foundations of the temple of Jupiter, whose idols he has destroyed) after a devil (another term for hospice was maisondiev-XVI) and the world:
l'estolle begnoite liez,
Le diable plus fort atachiez ;
Puis fonda le noble hospital
De Mont Jou : au monde n'a tal
Plus neccessaire, ne mieulx faisant
A riche ne a pouvre passant.
Entende bien la saincte vie,
Et faictes pais, je le vous prie.

marco wrote:I thought that the Steele Sermon comment about the Popess ("O wretches! That which the Christian Faith denies.") could refer to a female Pope (as in Boccace) or to the "wife" of a Pope, as in Imperiali's reply:

Poi viene il Papa,con l’Imperatore,
Et ciascun d’essi hà la sua donn’ à canto,
Che senza donne star,lor non da il core.

Then the Pope and the Emperor come,
each with his woman at his side because
their hearts forbid to them to be without women.

I agree, woman as clergy or marriage of clergy are both denied by the faith, and either/both could be referred too.