
This is one of the 1442 pictures. A (half) sphere's circle with internal landscape and trumpets above for "Eternity". It looks like a composition of Tarot Angel plus Tarot World.
Nice. A good picture for Christmas ... :-)
the "world" is Prudence as the compass is her attribute (but I think we both agree in tarot Fama/world/prudence are often conflated). I would also argue the circular world attribute can be cognate with her circular mirror; here Prudence in the Visconti Hours (Grassi, c.1390, some 30 years after the Palazzo Minerbi), and note the hexagonal city in the "world"-like circular frame in the middle that suggests the PMB World card also featuring a hexagonal city (I will keep reiterating that until all agree ;-):
Great image. It is certainly Prudentia, not only because she has the compass as Phaeded noted, but because she has two faces.
It is more like Prudence-Ratio - the Measure of Things.
I still don't buy a Prudence in the Charles VI Tarot.
Later he comes back to her (1618 pp. 149-152)....but what woman is that, that stands upon that round stone, seeming as though she were blind, and carrying a semblance of madness in her gesture? That same (quoth he) is Fortune, her blindness is not single, but accompanied with madness and deafness. Why, what doth she there then? She wanders about, quoth he, taking from one, and giving to another, and by and by taketh that away which she gave but even now, and bestoweth it upon a third, without all reason or constancy; and therefore her [1557: that] token there speaketh her nature at full. Which is that, quoth I? Her standing upon that round stone, what is the meaning of that? That her gifts are never secure nor certain. For he that buildeth his trust upon them, shall be sure one day to pay dearly for his credulity. What names bear they? They are called Fools [1557: folk without judgment or consideration]. How chanceth it, that some of them weep, and some laugh? Why are they not all one form? They that laugh and rejoice are Fortune's favorites, and salute her by the title of Prosperous [1557: good Fortune]. But they that wring their hands and wail are such as she hath deprived of that which she had given them before, and they call her Adverse fortune [1557: ill Fortune]. What are her gifts then, that they should make the losers lament, and the receivers rejoice? Her gifts are Reputed goods. And what be those? Riches, Nobility, children, glory, sovereignty, Empire and such like. And I pray, sir, hold you these for good? Of that hereafter, quoth he; let us now make an end of the Table's exposition. With all my heart, sir.
There is of course false instruction, such as "Letters, Languages, and Disciplines, which Plato called the bridles of youth, keeping them out of worse employments" (p. 154). They are convenient--i.e. useful--but not necessary to virtue, which is the province of True Instruction.Then he, reaching forth his staff [1557: hand] again, pointed up saying: see you that blind Woman upon the round stone there, whom men now I told you hight [1557: even now is called] Fortune? Yes. The Genius bids them, never to give credence unto her, never to imagine any solidity in her bounties, never to hold her gifts as your proper goods: for that when she list, she will take them from one, & bestow them on another, mangre all contradiction, it is her ordinary practice. And therefore she warneth them, not to delight in her benevolence, nor to grieve at her forwardness... Thus (saith this Genius) must we stand affected to the benefits of fortune and to remember well, that it is one of her old tricks to give, and take again, and then to give one far more, and presently to take away all every jot, both what she gave last, and what she left before. He bids us therefore take her gifts, & having them, make haste with them to that firm and constant kind of bounty. Which is that? That which Instruction giveth to those that come safe to her Tower to take it...
A drawing of the Charles VI World interrupts Decker's narrative at this point (for the image see fig. 1 at http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=133&lng=eng). Then he continues:In the Renaissance, her perch often becomes a world globe, symbolic of her power over the whole universe.
There are two problems with calling the Charles VI "Fortune". First, there likely is another card by that name in the deck, around the middle; it just hasn't been preserved. Second, the octagonal halo is associated in this deck, and elsewhere (a Lo Scheggio "fortitude", probably by the same workshop), with virtues, not the sacred. If it connotes Fortune at all, it seems to me, it would be the Good Fortune earned by the exercise of the virtue of Prudence.Fortune's different attributes occur in different World trumps. In a fifteenth-century Tarot in the Bibliotheque Nationale, the lady wears a halo, indicating that Fortuna is a divine power (Figure 0.3). An archivist at the Bibliotheque long ago labeled this card as "Fortune." In the Minchiate (Florentine Tarot), Fortuna stands on the terrestrial globe and wears the wings visible in Holbein's print and many others. We find both the world globe and the sail in an Italian style of Tarot that traveled northward. It was familiar in France and Belgium (figure 0.4). In certain Italian versions of the Tarot de Marseille, as in nineteenth-century Turin and Novara, the woman has been given a globe at her feet. Card-makers must have recognized that the lady's pose was that of the balancing Fortuna, and they restored the identifying sphere. They may have erred, however, for this globe is absent from the oldest versions of the Tarot de Marseille.[Fotnote 8: The oldest example known to me is in the Bertarelli Collection in the Sforza Castle in Milan. The card's back design depicts Ruggerio and Angelica from Matteo Boiardo's romance Orlanda Innamorato (1506. But the face of the card is in an older style and must descend from a fifteenth-century pattern. For photographs, see Thierry Depaulis, Tarot:Jeu et Magie (Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale, 1984), 54]
The Wheel assumedly represents Bad Fortune, not in the sense of adverse things happening, but in the sense of fortune that is capricious, undependable, the kind the Tabula Cebetis rails against. But then what would Good Fortune be? What kind of Fortune is not capricious? Even prudent action, seemingly wise, can end up in disaster if one is unlucky.The absence of the globe could indicate that the Marseille Fortuna is not capricious. She would be Good Fortune (Agatha Tyche), an appropriate companion for the Juggler as the Good Demon. During Egypt's Ptolemaic period, Agatha Tyche and Agathos Daimon shared temples. Our talents and personality traits, shaped by our demon, lead us to our accomplishments and circumstances, shaped by our fortune. "Character is destiny," said Heraclitus.
The drink is a purgative, to remove Error, Ignorance, Arrogance, Avarice, Desire, Incontinence, Anger, etc., which they had acquired in the first enclosure. Then the traveler encounters the virtues, all dressed simply without "paint" (p. 136):But why doth Instruction stand upon a square stone? To show that the path which leadeth unto her is fair and firm, and that her gifts to do bless the receiver with fruits of security. What doth she give? She giveth Confidence, Security, & Aquitance from troubles [1557: Boldness and Assuredness without fear]. And what use of those? By these man understandeth that his life is now to continue void of all perturbations. Oh glorious, oh gracious gifts, quoth I! But why doth she stand without the enclosure? To cure the travelers, and give them her drink before they enter, and then to admit them passage in, unto the virtues.
These of course bear considerable resemblance to the virtues in the Tarot. We continue (pp. 137-138)What are their names? The foremost of them right knowledge, the rest are her sisters, called by the names of Fortitude, Justice, Integrity of life, Temperance, Modesty, Liberality, Continency & Clemency [1557: Strength of mind, Justice, Goodness, Liberality, Continence and Meekness].
We have had occasion before to discuss the "mother of the virtues" (in the thread "Plato and Virtue(s), starting at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=826#p11764). This candidate, in Latin Felicitas, is one very close in time and place to Mantegna's 1502 "Pallas and the Vices" (http://wtfarthistory.com/post/813006713 ... -over-vice.But whither do these virtues lead the man that enters? Unto their mother. What is she. Her name is Beatitude [1557: Felicity]. ... She crowneth him (quoth he) with delight adjoined unto all the other virtues, as they are crowned that are Victors in dangerous conflicts...
It illustrates the maxim Festina lente, make haste slowlyPaul Kristeller, Mantegna (1904), ascribes the execution of the badly retouched fresco to Antonio da Pavia (?)m but the invention may surely be regarded as Mantegna's".
"At last, Lucius, after the long days of disaster and the heavy storms of fortune you have reached the haven of peace and the altar of mercy. Neither your high lineage, nor your pride of place, nor your learning, profited you one jot. You give yourself to the slavery of pleasure in the lewdness of hot-blooded youth; and you have reaped the reward of your unprospering curiosity. Neverhtheless, blind Fortune, persecuting you with horrors and snares, has led you in her shortsighted malice to this beatitude of release. Let her go now and rage as madly as she will; but let her seek another object for her hate. For terror and calamity have no power over him whose life the majesty of one Goddess has claimed for her service.
"What benefit has furying Fortune gained from the robbers, from the wild beasts, from the servitude, from the unending hardships of the way, from the daily fears of death? You are now received into the protection of Fortune, but of Fortune who is open-eyed and who lightens even the other gods with the splendours of her light. Let your face be joyous therefore. Let it be such a face as accords with the white gown you wear. Follow in the train of the Goddess your Saviour with steps of triumph. Let the scoffer behold. Let him behold and be shamed, saying in his heart:
"'Lo, here is Lucius who rejoices in the providence of mighty Isis. Lo, he is loosed from the bonds of misery and victorious over his fate.'
"Yet, that you may be the safer and surer, enroll your name in this army of holiness, to which you were but a short time past pledged by oath. Dedicate yourself to the service of true religion, and voluntarily bend you neck to the yoke of this ministry. For when ou have begun to serve the Goddess you will feel the full fruitfulness of your liberty."
I approached the confines of death. I trod the threshold of Proserpine; and borne through the elements I returned...
In einer Oratio aus dem Jahre 1429 (!), in der Zoroaster bereits als Fürst der Mager bei den Persen erwähnt wird, legt sich Filelfo noch nicht auf eine Reihenfolge fest,..
(In an Oration pf the year 1429 (!), in which Zoroaster is already mentioned as a prince of the Persian Magi, Filelfo does not commit himself yet to a sequence...).
Auch bei Johannes Argyropoulos gerät Zoroaster als erster der "Alten Philosophen" in den Blick, als deren Charakteristikum Argyropoulos (wie Ficino) herausstreicht, daß sie ihre Philosophie in Gesängen vortrugen.
(Also with John Argyropoulos, Zoroaster is put as the first of the "old philosophers" in the view when of their characteristics Argyropoulos stresses (like Ficino) that they reported their philosophy in hymns.)
...men who have been instructed by her she raises aloft to heaven (ouranos), for it is a fact that imagination and the power of thought lift men’s thoughts to heavenly heights.
"Behold, Lucius," she said, "moved by your prayer I come to you--I, the natural mother of all life, the mistress of the elements, the first child of time, the supreme divinity, the queen of those in hell, the first among those in heaven, the uniform manifestation of all the gods and goddesses...
Vasari wrote:because in this work there is a God, who is upholding with his arms the heavens and the elements nay, the whole body of the universe Buonamico, in order to explain his story with verses similar to the pictures of that age, wrote this sonnet in capital letters at the foot, with his own hand, as may still be seen; which sonnet, by reason of its antiquity and of the simplicity of the language of those times, it has seemed good to me to include in this place, although in my opinion it is not likely to give much pleasure, save perchance as something that bears witness as to what was the knowledge of the men of that century:
Voi che avisate questa dipintura
Di Dio pietoso, sommo creatore,
Lo qual fe' tutte cose con amore,
Pesate, numerate ed in misura;
In nove gradi angelica natura,
In ello empirio ciel pien di splendore,
Colui che non si muove ed e motore,
Ciascuna cosa fece buona e pura.
Levate gli occhi del vostro intelletto,
Considerate quanto e ordinato
Lo mondo universale; e con affetto
Lodate lui che l' ha si ben creato;
Pensate di passare a tal diletto
Tra gli Angeli, dov' e ciascun beato.
Per questo mondo si vede la gloria,
Lo basso e il mezzo e l' alto in questa storia.
You, who see here depicted the image of God,
the High the Merciful who by His love
created all things, giving to each
due weight, number and order;
The angelic choirs divided in nine grades,
the empyrean heaven full of splendor,
he who moves everything without moving
made all things good and pure.
Lift up the eyes of your intellect,
think how well ordered the universe is,
offer praise, with affection, to Him whose hand
formed all with such perfection.
Think that you too will find joy
among the angels, where all are blessed.
Here, too, is this world's glory full portrayed
in all its ranks midmost, beneath, above.
And to tell the truth, it was very courageous in Buonamico to undertake to make a God the Father five braccia high, with the hierarchies, the heavens, the angels, the zodiac, and all the things above, even to the heavenly body of the moon, and then the element of fire, the air, the earth, and finally the nether regions ; and to fill up the two angles below he made in one, S. Augustine, and in the other, S. Thomas Aquinas.
Thanks very much for translating that poem, which is now invisible on the cosmograph. It's almost as if the Anonymous Discorso author had this in mind when he wrote:marco wrote: (poem translation based on this one):
Vasari wrote:
Levate gli occhi del vostro intelletto,
Considerate quanto e ordinato
Lo mondo universale; e con affetto
Lodate lui che l' ha si ben creato;
Pensate di passare a tal diletto
Tra gli Angeli, dov' e ciascun beato.
Per questo mondo si vede la gloria,
Lo basso e il mezzo e l' alto in questa storia.[/i]
Lift up the eyes of your intellect,
think how well ordered the universe is,
offer praise, with affection, to Him whose hand
formed all with such perfection.
Think that you too will find joy
among the angels, where all are blessed.
Here, too, is this world's glory full portrayed
in all its ranks midmost, beneath, above.
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