Temperance

[Pen]

.... well, the quality is better in the original source.

Yes indeed. I've been looking though the emblem books on that last link of yours - interesting how many of the images have been copied from earlier sources. And sometimes an emblem that seems to derive from an earlier source is given a different meaning. I didn't bookmark it, so can't give links, but I'm thinking of the dolphin winding around the anchor which is used to illustrate festina lente -make haste slowly (like the sucker fish and arrow in - is it Alciato?) and something else entirely.

But I'm straying from the thread topic...

Pen

[Huck]

There are lots of epigones, if somebody made something original ... ... it's like Temperance, a piece of content is filled in another cup and modified.

.. ... around 2003 we (Trionfi.com) invented the terminus "Michelino deck" ... meanwhile Google knows 135.000 answers for the search request "Michelino" "deck" and 1430 for "Michelino deck" ...

[mikeh]

Your emblem image, of course, is similar to the Catelin Geoffrey Temperance image, at right below. The verse also suggests the interpretation. And I thought it was just a woman preparing to wash her hands! It is similar to a mosaic in Libya of Dionysus being poured into a cup, which there might be a suggestion to go easy on the sauce--or suggest that wine and Dionysus give the imbiber a connection to the divine, the same function as the water and wine motif.

[mikeh]

Besides Dionysus, another referent could be Hebe, the cupbearer of the gods (before Ganymede), who poured the drink that made the gods immortal. See my posts at

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... stcount=28

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... stcount=29

and

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... stcount=74

[Pen]

I'd quite forgotten the Catelin Geoffrey Temperance with her bowl - she does look human rather than goddess-like, but I don't believe for a moment you thought she was just going to wash her hands! (or, 'Pull the other one, it's got bells on...' )

I'm still surprised at never having seen before the different idea/metaphor of Temperance as the virtue of 'not overfilling and allowing to spill' rather than 'watering the wine'. Tarot history is such a delicious and ongoing exploration.

It's fascinating to try to discover the intentions of designers of individual decks - I'm sure they were (almost) as different as those of modern deck creators.

Thanks for those AT links - I'll read up...

Pen

[mmfilesi]

ripa_templanza.gif (14.01 KiB) Viewed 604 times

"Some people painted the temperance with two glasses, one spilling into the other, by the similarity of the temperament is made mixing two different and opposed temperaments".

Cesare Ripa (vox temperanza).

[mmfilesi]

Greek wine was very strong and mixed it with water. This looks good in Plato's Symposium. In any case, I think the meaning of temperance be found in Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics) and Santo Thomas of Aquin. Its also important De oficiis of Cicero and the fourth book of the Republic of Plato.

I dont know if the temperance is painted with twoo glass in ancient times. I need investigate it.

[Pen]

"Some people painted the temperance with two glasses, one spilling into the other, by the similarity of the temperament is made mixing two different and opposed temperaments".

Cesare Ripa (vox temperanza).

Thanks Marcos, these shifts in meaning and interpretation (by Ripa et al) are extremely interesting, yet they're all true to the definition of the word. The tarot is not a dead butterfly to be pinned to a board in a glass case and examined.

Pen

[mmfilesi]

Yes, it's just a curiosity.

The tarot is not a dead butterfly to be pinned to a board in a glass case and examined.

Sure, I think its important this pattern:

Classical virtues (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero)
+ Christian virtues (St. Augustine and especially St. Thomas)
+ Individual's perception, ie: For Cosimo di Medici, Prudence was govern Florence from the shadows; for Petrarch, the knowledge of God. For Bianca Maria, Charity is the Ospedale degli Innocenti; for the Pope and cardinals, a way to rob the money of people.

Of course, every case is different, but I think there is a general framework.

[Pen]

Yes, it's just a curiosity.

The tarot is not a dead butterfly to be pinned to a board in a glass case and examined.

Sure, I think its important this pattern:


Of course, every case is different, but I think there is a general framework.

Marcos, I hope you didn't think I was being dismissive with the butterfly analogy - not my intention at all...
What I meant was that IMO tarot has never been inert or 'fixed' to a single definition.

Pen