Tarotica : 1584

[GirolamoZorli]

re: sleight correction should be 14 not 13!? -14x4=56

2x7x4

[GirolamoZorli]

I did not translate in Italian the last part trascripted by Andrea, because it is complicated over my capacity and there is no hint to cards. It's all numerology, or something. I share my inadequate d'Oncieu's obscure statments understanding.

D'Oncieu states that 76 is the universe. More or less he adds that, after our life, one day everybody will receive an equal number. The number is an "individuum" number added to or subtracted from 76. Few words after, D'Oncieu clerarly states that you can get it multiplying (10+1)x7. That's definitively 77. The "individuum" is 1.
Then d'Oncieu obscurely disserts about the advantages to/of one number and/or another. I can just observe that numbers involved are 1, 7, 11.

After the dissertation, he says that 27 is a number which he previously discussed and stressed about, probably into another section of this work. 27 is obtained by a quaternum and a septenarium, less one. (4x7)-1= 27. Than he says that 27 and one "individual" is 189. The only relation I find between these two numbers is : 27x7 = 189. So I guess that this time the "individual" is 7. Last two rows seem dedicated to articulate that a single seven won't make it possible to get advantages by fraud or luck.

[marco]

Thank you, Girolamo! Your translation is very helpful!

[Huck]

D'Oncieu states that 76 is the universe.

hi Girolamo,
Indeed, this sounds all rather obscure.

"76" is the number of years for a corrected moon-sun-cycle of 19 years (usually called Meton-cycle). In 330 BC (Alexander in Persia) the correction of one added leap day in 76 year was added by Kalippos, an astronomer
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callippo_di_Cizico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callippus
This type of calendar was then actually in use a few hundred years. It was then with some variations adopted by Jews for an inner Jewish religious calendar counting and is as this still running nowadays. So at least "some people in 16th century" should have known about it.
But according Jewish Encyclopedia Jews had to leave Savoy in the 1490s. A small community is said to have existed till 1714 in Chambery.
The author was rather young, when he wrote this: 24 years. Likely he collected wild from various sources just about "numbers". The current ruler of Savoy ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Em ... I_of_Savoy
... had been two years younger, and came to power in 1580 (so perhaps the both were friends in their youth). In 1588 he risked a war with France, likely on side of the Habsburgers (Spain helped him later). The current German emperor was very fond of astronomy, though that seems to have appeared later. But Tycho Brahe (surely not only he) had seen a supernova 1572 and a great comet in 1577, following another great in 1556 ... perhaps the general time was interested in universe questions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great ... f_1577.gif

[SteveM]

D'Oncieu states that 76 is the universe. More or less he adds that, after our life, one day everybody will receive an equal number. The number is an "individuum" number added to or subtracted from 76.

I am not seeing where it mentions 76? Is it stated or deduced from the calculations?

I am translating:

septenari cum uno individuo proportionem huiusmodi,
in this manner one individual (unit) is proportional with seven ? (thus we have the later calculation the 27 * uno individuo (one individual = 7) = 189)?

ut decem septenariis & uno = while ten (containing) seven and one (i.e, 10x7 + 1(x7), or 10+1x7 =77)?

Thus uno individuo = a set of 7 ?

The only other reference to 27 I find in the text is to some mystical signifcance to its being the cube of 3 (the cube of 2 and 3 of course gives us the pythagorean tetractys of 36 - called kosmos - but I can't see that he is referring to that. . . excepting in as much as for kosmos we might read universe?)

SteveM

[marco]

I am still struggling with this translation. Anyway, I propose here my tentative and totally unreliable interpretation of this passage:

“sed enim & illud obiter occurrit observandum,
aequalitatis singulari iudicio eum numerum ut est 78, individuorum, itidem esse in universum aestimatione, ratione habita alterius ad alterum.
ex quo subtilis inventor, faceta sub demonstratione reliquit omnium acta in theatro humano vita, eadem fore urnam omniumque tandem aliquando futurum suum numerum aequalem.”

But indeed also this occurs that must be observed:
that number of seventy eight elements, with a singular choice of equality, corresponds in total to the value [of the stake?] and to the established relation [i.e. balance?] of one [player?] to the other.
With this the subtle inventor, under a clever demonstration, bequeathed the actions of all men in life, the human theatre, and [affirmed] that the urn [i.e. “the grave” or just “the lot”?] of everyone will be the same, when at last his number [of years?] will be equal [to 78?].

I am quite doubtful (in particular about “ratione habita alterius ad alterum”) but I think that the last sentences are about how betting was managed in the game (“lucrum”, “fraudem” possibly “denario”).

[Huck]

I surely can't be of help in the translation, but from what I read it seems, that "76 is the universe" explains from the interpretation, that 56 suit cards plus 20 trump cards 1-20 are "76" and 1 is the "individuum" = "the Fool" and trump 21 is just "everything", so also universe or god, but outside of the 76-universe. So the deck has 78 cards.

Would be a humble philosophical interpretation of the game, not really complicated.

[marco]

About my proposed translation for that sentence, I found that "urna omnium" also appears in a poem by Horace (Odes II,3). Here are the last four lines:

"omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
versatur urna serius ocius
sors exitura et nos in aeternum
exilium impositura cumbae."

We’re all being driven to a single end,
all our lots are tossed in the urn, and, sooner
or later, they’ll emerge, and seat us
in Charon’s boat for eternal exile.

In Petrarch I have found the expression "suum numerum invocare" as "calling one's number" in a lottery. So I think that the metaphor here is that "life is like a lottery", one dies when his number is drawn (as in Horace's ode):

"ex quo subtilis inventor, faceta sub demonstratione reliquit omnium acta in theatro humano vita, eadem fore urnam omniumque tandem aliquando futurum suum numerum aequalem"

With this the subtle inventor, under a clever demonstration, bequeathed the actions of all men in life, the human theatre, and [affirmed] that the lot of everyone will be the same, when at last his number will be equal [to the drawn number].

About Huck's hypothesis: as I think it's clear from my previous post, I share Steve's difficulty in finding number 76 in that passage. Generally speaking, I agree with Girolamo's observation that "Universum is the whole thing": the word occurs quite often in the book, and most of the times it just means "all". But of course it is possible that sometimes it is used to actually mean "universe". Browsing through the book, it is clear that there are many astrological references. For instance, at pg.350, it is said that for 1583 the new advent of Christ had been foretold on the basis of the stars, and some obscure relation of the date with "quaternario numero 27".

Anyway, this text is very troublesome. It is possible that the last sentences of the passage published by Vitali contain some interesting information about the game, but I am afraid I am unable to make sense of them.

[mjhurst]

Hi, Marco,

You mentioned Horace and Petrarch along with the lottery, so I have to bring up an illustration from my favorite emblem book, Q. Horatii Flacci Emblemata (1612) by Otto Vaenius. I reproduced the picture a few years ago, and the post includes a link to one of the many copies of Emblems of Horace that are available online.

A Pair of Emblems
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2008/05 ... blems.html

In 1632 the lottery image was borrowed and combined with a Wheel of Fortune in an illustration for one of the many German versions of Petrarch's De Remediis. It is a great double image.

Trostspiegel in Glück und Unglück
http://www.virtuelles-kupferstichkabine ... natur=8379

Best regards,
Michael

[SteveM]

Nice detective work Marco ! And great illustration with the emblem Michael.