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Is it possible for Petrarch to supply some of the themes but not the overall trump structure?

For instance, the Hermit is clearly saturnine in iconography, but in its current position seems more about the infirmity of old age rather than the cosmic infirmity described in Petrach's triumph of time.

Petrarch portrayed the classical immortality of fame as perishable. This is also the view of the Stoics, who are at the end of fame's procession, and act as reminders that all memory is doomed to die at the conflagration that ends the current cycle of the universe. There is a Stoic resurrection; but it is simply the endlessly repeated cosmic cycle. This was probably just as hard for Petrarch to stomach as it was for the educated classical converts to Christianity.

So if the world card is fame, it is just as far out of the Petrarchan order as would be the hermit card if it is time.

Petrarch's poem has only six triumphs, so it cannot be a source of the trump structure. But barring a tale of converting to atheism, it is hard to conceive of any possible narrative where the classical idea of fame trumps the christian idea of eternity. For instance, the philosophy at the Northern Italian universities of that era was a humanistic reinterpretation of Averroism, which famously denies the immortality of the individual soul (Pomponazzi, the greatest Averroist of that era had "Here lies all of me" inscribed on his tomb). But Averroists stay on the good side of the inquisition by inventing the "separate truths of science and religion" argument, and by arguing that since God can resurrect physical bodies, immortal souls are not required. So even Pomponazzi believes in eternity.

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Well words fail me Huck.
I presume that slang is suggesting that you were giving us something for nothing?
Or were you saying that children were getting a free education through play?
Here is what I take from that other thread that Temperance was called Fama Sol and then I was taken on this huge travel itinerary through France and Belgium and Germany to look for Mr Vieville- whom I might add has been dead for some few years...but there was one tip that interested me on this Cary Yale World card.From Marco.
From the Iconologia by Cesare Ripa:
A woman, with a golden crown on her head, and a trumpet in her right hand. Glory, as Cicero says, is the fame of many exceptional benefits done to people of the same family, to friends, to the homeland, and to any kind of people.
So, we can say that Glory implies Fame, but not vice versa.
Ripa's definition suggests that the World card of the Cary-Yale deck should be interpreted as Glory (since the allegory includes two crowns). But the trumpet also is a typical attribute of Fame.
So I take it that all world cards mean the same thing- were taken from Petrarch rhetoric and Dante's rhetoric
and Aristotle's rhetoric, Cicero, Aquinas, etc etc etc and were all about poetry of Fame lasts after Death ar as Jim put it And into the hope that all that the good lost to death and time is to be restored.So no matter what is been depicted in reality as the final card-it is Fame or perhaps Prudence or perhaps Glory.
Cannot possibly be Pietas...no no no it is Fame.
Then I have it that the Visconti cards are perhaps to be considered 'novelty' as there is this underground stream of 21 +0 cards that are the true Tarot. We only have these 'Novelty' cards to decide (and of course Petrarch ~o) ) what all this meant.
What if these Visconti cards were propaganda- was Sforza looking for fame or a more practical last card (of this world- not the next)?
Pietas was a rulers virtue and stands arms outstretched with offerings in each hand - Pietas allowed a ruler to recognize the divine source of benefits conferred.Sforza appears to be offering 'the common good' for benefit of a Dukedom.
... and Nowhere can I seen this lady with a cupid in one hand and blowing the trumpet on the card.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

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Well, so much posts, I cannot answer all in detail ...
Jim Schulman wrote:If the Petrarchan scheme holds, the world card has to be eternity, regardless of any iconographic foibles in indivudal world card versions.

The Fame portion of the poem lists famous classical personages, the final part being philosophers, and ending with Xeno. Cleanthes and Chrysippus, the founders of the Stoic school, and of the ethics that permeates the poem. Given that these were never celebrities, fame is treated objectively, as belonging to the people to whom humanity owes the greatest debt.
I think, that ...

1. Cary-Yale (provisionally dating to 1441) had 16 trumps (so 5x16 cards) and imitated Chess. In Chess the Rooks are the most powerful cards, which seems to have had an influence on the later used numerology of Tarot (cards connected to the Rook function had a good chance to be very high in the numerology). I see, that FAME and JUDGMENT were used as rooks. FAME (somehow the ANGEL) was later highest TRUMP in Minchiate (with WORLD as the second highest trump), ANGEL=JUDGMENT were later highest TRUMP in Bologna.
The WORLD as an iconographic idea might have been not relevant in the time of Cary-Yale. We observe, that astronomical ideas start to dominate in the 1460s with Regiomontanus in Italy, with new world maps, with a first globe, with the Palazzo-Schifanoia in Ferrara.
For 1441 we have likely a strong influence of Petrarca's Trionfi interpretation.
I think, that PRUDENTIA was an own card in the Cary-Yale Tarocchi. Cary -Yale naturally contained 7 virtues (which is not proven, as the deck only exists in fragments).

Well ... my reconstruction of the Cary-Yale is naturally only a "reconstruction" ... and it might have errors.

But my argumentation for the Cary-Yale Tarocchi is like this:

Cary-Yale Tarocchi
Image

with a larger and readable version at ..
http://a-tarot.eu/pdf/cy-jpg.jpg

Petrarca created 6 symbols (Love etc.) and Chess has six different figures (King, Queen etc.). The natural way to draw an analogy between both system to sort relate 6 elements of one side to six element on the other side.

a. The most important figure (though it is a weak figure at the board) is the King. Cause, if one King is gone, the game is over.
KING = ETERNITY = card Emperor

b. The weakest figure at the chess board is the pawn. The most weak figure in Petrarca's six elements is Love.
PAWN = LOVE = the pawn before the Queen = card Love

c. The Queen is also a very weak figure in medieval Chess. The second lowest figure in Petrarca's system is Chastity and somehow that fits with Queen.
QUEEN = CHASTITY = Empress
In Petrarca's text the virtues accompany Chastity. As Love only takes one card, but the system needs 16 figures, the 7 virtues get a pawn position.
7 OTHER PAWNS = virtues = 7 Virtues cards

d. We find two horses in the Cary.-Yale cards (Death and Chariot). The horses (= Knights) are Chess figures.
KNIGHT = DEATH = Cards Death and Chariot

e. An older Chess figure is the Elephant. The elephant was used in Chess history either as Chess-bishop or as a Chess-rook (I've for Italy the confirmation, that elephants were used as Rooks (maybe not everywhere in Italy and maybe not always). For the Trionfi system of Petrarca we have elephants drawing the chariot of Fame. The trunk of elephants was interpreted as a trumpet. We have trumpets at the Fame card and at the Judgment cards.
ROOK = FAME = cards Fame and Judgment

f. The Bishop is a slow and weak figure, Cessolis used the "advisor", the bishop itself was more common in England. France had a "Fou" and Germany possibly a "messenger". Other more military interpretation saw a "Bow-shooter". Some regions still knew the elephant.
The Bishop position is not clear. I see, that it might have been Pope and Popess, or Time and Hanging Man (Traitor as in the Charles VI) or Old man (Time ?) and Jester or Fool as in the German Courier-game.
BISHOP = TIME = unknown cards

2. that the 5x14 version (PMB-1 with 14 trumps only, provisioally given to 1452) hadn't a WORLD card. The highest card was JUDGMENT. The 5x14-structure suggests, that this deck-version didn't follow in extreme form the Chess interpretation.

3. The Charles VI (provisionally given to 1463) had - my opinion - also 16 trumps and an orientation towards Chess. All 16 trumps are present. For the older Petrarca idea ... I think, that it is partly lost or reinterpreted.

Charles VI Tarot
Image

with a larger and readable version at ..
http://a-tarot.eu/pdf/ch-jpg.jpg

a. Emperor is still Emperor

b. The pawns are Love plus 7 virtues. But the earlier 3 theological virtues are replaced by Florentine virtues (Sun, Moon, Fool).

Card Sun presents a woman with a spindle ... it presents (my opinion) Florentine textile industry, the basic source of Florentine wealth
Card Moon (my opinion) presents two astronomers, and I think, that the astronomers present two real persons, Regiomontanus, who had arrived in Italy from Germany and Toscanelli, a Florentine astronomer and mathematician, who worked for the Medici. Toscanelli worked for the Medic, and I see the Medici as the commissioners of this deck. I think, that the card presents the Florentine pride on their local science.
Card Fool (my opinion) refers to the text "Morgante" by Luigi Pulci and the card presents somehow "Florentine literature". "Morgante" is a giant fool in the text (we see a giant Fool on the card) and he becomes acquainted to
the hero Orlando during a battle with stone-throwing actions (the card shows a stone throwing scene). Th text describes also the difficulties to find an suited armor for Morgante (we see, that the Fool stays half-naked). Morgante's weapon is a clapper of a bell (the card shows a string of bells as Fool's weapon).
Luigi Pulci was directly involved in the education of the young Lorenzo de Medici. During this educative time (1461 - 1463) the first 15 chapters of the Morgante were written. The latest version of the text had 28 chapters. A second giant Margutte appear in later chapters (the version with 23 chapters). In the development of Tarot we see in the later d'Este cards two giants (Fool and Magician). It's known, that the d'Este very early (1474) got the Orlando edition (with 23 chapters) from Pulci, and it (likely) inspired Boiardo to write his own Orlando version.

c. Empress (earlier for Chastity) is replaced the Pope.

d. The Rooks are now - in contrast to Cary-Yale - a "bad" destructed TOWER (new) and JUDGMENT (as already in present Charles VI). "Fame" - if it's inside this deck - became a cardinal virtue (which possibly meant "Prudentia", but was later interpreted as World)

e. The horses are as in Cary-Yale Death and Chariot. As the new "destructed Tower" in the Charles VI has relative clearly a "bad" connotation, which was not recognizable in the same sense recognizable in the Cary-Yale, this might indicate, that the Florentine logic saw a bad side (Emperor's side's? Pope's side ?) and a good side (Emperor's side's? Pope's side ?). Florence (especially the Medici) generally had a good relation to the Pope, maybe they identified the pope with the better side.

f. For the Bishop position we've now the final two cards "Hanged Man" (the traitor) as the "bad" adviser and "Father Time" as the "good" adviser. The "adviser" is usual in the Cessolis tradition.

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

Back to your assumption "If the Petrarchan scheme holds, the world card has to be eternity, regardless of any iconographic foibles in indivudal world card versions. "

Well, if you've read my interpretation, it's clear, that my answer is "NO". "World" is generally is difficult, as we don't know, if this specific "idea" developed in the 1460s and was not part of earlier considerations. We have no early "word-lists" of the Tarot cards, we don't know the card titles before 1460 and even some time later till the 1490s we still don't know.
Fame and Judgment are the cards in the Cary-Yale model for the rooks.

Here we have a much earlier source, from Alfonso's chess book (1284):
The rules for "Chess with dice" are given in the translation of Alfonso the wise text with ...
And these movements should be known by all those who wish to play chess well because
without this they could not know how to do it nor understand the chess problems that men
desire to know because of the annoyance given them from the lengthiness of the regular game
when it is played out completely. Also they established for that reason the use of dice in chess so
that it could be played more quickly.
And they assigned the six, which is the highest roll of the die, to the king, which is the most
honored piece on the board. And the five to the fers. And the four to the rook. And the three to
the knight. And the two, to the fil. And the one, which they call ace, to the pawn.


Download address
http://www.mediafire.com/?nenjj1dimtd
6 = King ... as I had it for the Cary-Yale - Petrarca: Eternity
5 = fers = Queen ... exchanged - Petrarca: Time
4 = Rook ... as I had it for the Cary-Yale - Petrarca: Fame
3 = Knight ... as I had it for the Cary-Yale - Petrarca: Death
2 = fil = Bishop ... exchanged - Petrarca: Chastity
1 = Pawn ... as I had it for the Cary-Yale - Petrarca: Love

The use of dice for the chess game brought up the necessity to connect the dice results (1-6) with the chess figures, likely connected to some ideological ideas of "world interpretation".

For his own ideological or poetical reasons Petrarca (or somebody before or somebody after him) exchanged the position of the Queen with that of the fil (well, the clergy likely hadn't fun to be compared to the number 2; also the female role - an even that of a queen - in 14th or 15th century might have been considered lower as in the 13th, when the nobility and the knight-ideals had a stronger role).

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

I see for the Cary-Yale Tarocchi (I think 1441) a clearer relationship to Petrarca's model, which in the Charles VI seems to have been partly forgotten.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Here is how I would defend Huck on the Cary-Yale. One reason for hypothesizing the priority of the CY-type is that the Petrarch triumphs work for it better than for any other group of cards. It is with that type of deck that the name "triumphs" fits most naturally; after it, the name continues for a while, but the fit is gradually lost.. After it, designs change, and perhaps the order of the cards as well, although I don't think retaining the order is that important, and in any case we don't know what the CY's was, I'm not even convinced there was an order, beyond a 4 card hierarchy in each suit (don't forget that unlike any other set of cards, the trumps all came to Yale with assignments to each of the four suits, and it is unknown when such assignments were given).

So the lady with the trumpets, above some castles, on the CY as Fame (in Petrarch's sense of the best fame, i.e. Glory, the glory of the successful Grail Knight, who wins the crown she holds out), becomes in the PMB two cherubs holding a castle or walled city, and in the Charles VI the lady Wisdom, the spirit of Florence, above castles on hills, and the card slowly metamorphosizes its way to the Marseille World card. Time in the CY is most likely an old man holding an hourglass, to remind us of the oblivion that time will eventually give even the famous (except, for those with glory, in the world beyond time); he will metamorphosize into the non-Petrarchan Hermit. Only in the Milan decks is the chariot-rider a beautiful and chaste lady, right out of Plato's Phaedrus, where the personified virtues are depicted that way. In the PMB, the horses even get the wings ascribed to them by Plato, This image will metamorphosize into something else, first some conqueror, then the Marseille's Human Reason, not quite the same thing as in Petrarch. Love, too, is himself, the great and little god of attraction, the beginning of Plato's spiritual ascent to divine love. I think he retains that dimension in the Marseille, too, although there are other influences.

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mikeh wrote:Here is how I would defend Huck on the Cary-Yale. One reason for hypothesizing the priority of the CY-type is that the Petrarch triumphs work for it better than for any other group of cards. It is with that type of deck that the name "triumphs" fits most naturally; after it, the name continues for a while, but the fit is gradually lost.. After it, designs change, and perhaps the order of the cards as well, although I don't think retaining the order is that important, and in any case we don't know what the CY's was, I'm not even convinced there was an order, beyond a 4 card hierarchy in each suit (don't forget that unlike any other set of cards, the trumps all came to Yale with assignments to each of the four suits, and it is unknown when such assignments were given).
Mike, I think you place far too much stock in these suit attributions in the catalogue. They must be some misguided attempt by a former owner, or someone in the museum, to put the remaining cards in order somehow. Over a century before they came into the Cary collection, Cicognara described them, when the Visconti di Modrone family still owned them, and made no allusion to this system.

For Petrarchan iconography in the luxury trumps, it could just as easily be the converse to what you are arguing. That is, it was sometimes the same artists who illustrated manuscripts of the Trionfi, who made Triumph cards as well, and conflated images or themes (probably because both were "triumphs"). A compelling example is the iconography in the Pesaro Trionfi manuscript (1459), which shows a Time that is extremely close to the iconography of the Old Man in the PMB, Charles VI and Catania packs.

Image


Image


Image


(I have kept the cards in b/w because I only have the manuscript Time in b/w and want to make the comparison more equal)

Thus, it could be that this figure became conflated with a new iconography of Time that was invented to illustrate Petrarch's Trionfi (as Simona Cohen recently showed). The dominant Petrarchan theme of Laura's glorification could also have influenced the luxury commissions. Note that it is not only the Milanese cards that show the young woman on the chariot - the Issy Chariot, ascribed to Ferrara (school of Cosimo Tura), also has this theme.

The Rosenwald, BAR and MB sheets (i.e. popular cards) don't show the girl on the chariot nor a woman over the World, while the figure of Time/Hermit varies considerably among them. Since printed Petrarchan Trionfi, with the conventional iconography, were well known by the time all these cards were printed, it is hard to argue that the original Petrarchan sense of the trumps was somehow obscure to woodcutters and a popular audience, who therefore corrupted the iconography. Rather, because the existence of the game of Triumphs is attested before there are any painted series of Petrarchan triumphs or printed ones, it would seem more reasonable to think that the original trump sequence owed nothing to any Petrarchan iconographic conventions, but later a few trump subjects became conflated iconographically with them (because made by the same painters and woodcutters in the same workshops), Time and Fame (the World) for example. But the fact that Tarot resisted a complete "Petrarchization" argues in favor of its being originally independent.
Image

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We discussed it a few years ago on AT -

http://tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=13 ... ostcount=1

"The three oldest known handpainted cards depicting the Hermit (for the sake of convenience we'll call him that) show him holding an hourglass.

He is not represented as such in any printed cards that I can recall, the three traditions showing an allegorical figure of Time with wings and crutches (A or Southern), or holding a lantern (B (Ferrara) and C (Tarot de Marseille)). Maybe the hourglass is added somewhere in the picture, but he is not holding it.

The allegory of Time with wings and crutches (showing Time flies, as well as the effects of age) is first attested in the early 1440s, with the earliest dated example being 1442, according to a paper by Simona Cohen, "The early Renaissance personfication of Time and changing concepts of Temporality" (Renaissance Studies vol. 14 no. 3 (2000) pp. 301-328). This personification occurs in manuscript illustrations and cassoni (wedding chest) paintings of Petrarch's Trionfi, and of course in the A or Southern kind of tarot cards.

Cohen says about the hourglass motif -
An important attribute of time, the hourglass, seems to have made its first appearance in the Trionfo del Tempo about 1450. It was then introduced in a whole series of cassone. We have seen that images of the initial stage [of depictions of the Triumph, 1440s], such as the globe and elements, were carried over by medieval cosmic imagery, but the hourglass had no cosmic connotations and was comparatively new to art: the earliest known depiction, used as an attribute of Temperance in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, preceded its appearance in the Trionfo del Tempo by about 100 years. Temperance signified moderation, regularity, and restraint, in other words, moral self-discipline or the self-imposition of limits. The hourglass of Temperance showed that proper measurement and utilization of time was a virtue. When in the fifteenth century Time made his debut with an hourglass, Temperance had long ago forsaken hers for a clock. Although there is one example of a mechanical clock on a cassone of the mid-Quattrocento, the fact that illustrators of that period still preferred to represent time by the hourglass, rather than the modern clock that was perfecting time measurement, indicates that these were not interchangeable symbols. The regularity of clockwork had become a simile for the regularity of man's body and spirit when ruled by reason. The hourglass conveyed the idea not of accurate measurement but of the brevity of human life. It was a perfect object to express the sense of value that men attached to the brief time allotted them. Concurrent with the appearance of the hourglass in Italian art, there was new emphasis on a more practical approach to time in religious and secular literature. (pp. 311-313; bold emphasis added)
The two emphases in the quote above would seem to support, first, the idea that we cannot date the Charles VI and Catania packs earlier than 1450; second, it reinforces what we know about Dominican and Franciscan preaching about the sins of playing games, which in the 1440s and 1450s was listing them starting with "Amissio temporis" - wasting time.

Cohen provides many examples of the Triumph of Time, but one she shows is the closest cognate image I have seen to the earliest tarot images -

Image


Cohen simply describes the image as "North Italian illumination, 1459", with its location in the Österriechische Nationalbibliothek, Vind. 2649, fol. 46r.

Comparing it to the set of related tarot cards:

Image


Image


Image


I couldn't find a better image of the manuscript, but another author made an allusion to the work and gave some other details. Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo, "Laura tra Polia e Berenice di Lorenzo Lotto" (Artibus et historiae, 13, no. 25 (1992) pp. 103-127), informs us that ms. 2649 of the ÖNB was "illuminated in Pesaro by Giovanni da Verona in 1459", and JB Trapp ("Illuminations of Petrarch's Trionfi from Manuscript to Print and Print to Manuscript") adds the detail that the manuscript was made for Borso d'Este (p. 242; but calls the artist "Giacomo da Verona").

Assuming that Dal Pozzolo's information is correct that the manuscript was made in Pesaro, an interesting coincidence results - the Catania deck is more commonly known as the "Alessandro Sforza" tarot, because his heraldic emblem is on the shield of the King of Swords -

Image


Image


(compare to another instance of the same device -
Image

in Carpi)

What is coincidental is that Alessandro Sforza was Lord of Pesaro from 1445-1473, containing the time-frame for the composition of this tarot deck.

The Giovanni (or Giacomo) da Verona image is not an exact match to the cards, but it does show a strikingly similar approach to the allegory of time, and the presumed commissioner of the deck in Catania was Lord of the city when the image was made there, so we could be witnessing a particular fashion of a time corroborating Cohen's observation that the hourglass doesn't become a feature of the allegory until the 1450s.

Ross"

To which you responded -
Nice picture.

But likely we cannot take the production of the deck as limited to 1473, as it could have been mater later by Allessandro Sforza's successor (husband of Camilla of Aragon for instance).

The differences between this deck and the other (Charles VI) is remarkable. Two trumps match and the other both not. Perhaps we can think of "two decks" or of replacement cards" or of "special wishes" of the commissioner. The Chariot in the Charles VI had possibly Medici heraldic, so it's perhaps naturally, that this card was modified for a foreign owner. But the strange Temperance ...
Image

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I realized now ...

http://www.ksbm.oeaw.ac.at/wienonb/noe/kattab1.htm#2649
Cod. 2649

FRANCESCO PETRARCA

Perg. II 55 ff. (gez. 54), 212X135. Verona, 1459.

B: Text einspaltig, 24 Z. Auf fol. 52v signiert von Giacomo da Verona (Jacobus Veronensis), Verona 18. Juni 1459. Goldene Überschriften. Acht großen und sieben kleine Zierinitialen; sieben Miniaturen: fol. 3v Petrarca in einer Landschaft träumend; fol. 4r Triumph Amors; fol. 19v Triumph der Keuschheit; fol. 25r Triumph des Todes; fol. 33r Triumph der Tugend; fol. 37v Triumph des Ruhmes; fol. 46r Triumph der Zeit.

S: Humanistica formata.

E: Rotbrauner Maroquinband über Pappdeckel, mit Blind- und Golddruck (Italien, 18. Jahrhundert); Lilienstempel in Rautenmuster; Rückentitel in Golddruck. Auf dem Vorderdeckel Auszug des Begleitbriefes von Kardinal Alessandro Albani vom 7.Juli 1725.

G: 1725 als Geschenk an Prinz Eugen gekommen. Alte Signatur P. E. Mscrpt LXXXIV.

L: ++

FRANCESCO PETRARCA

Trionfi.
Signed by Giacomo da Verona (or Jacobus Veronensis) with date "Verona 18. Juni 1459"

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

A Giacomo da Pesaro appears to have been related to Filelfo and around our "critical time" also to Sigismondo Malatesta.
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gia ... rafico%29/

Last sign of live: 1456

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

No success with the artist name.

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

Added later: Franco recently noted in a private exchange:

"ALL those with time having the hourglass. they could be painted in ferrara, in Milano, anywhere – but the origin of that way of painting this figure was Florence around 1440, as shown by Cohen.

Your picture was also chosen by Cohen, if I get this right. Did you note earlier hermits than "1459" with hour glass ... from Florence?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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As frequently happens, Ross's reply to me sent me scurrying to the library to read something I hadn't known about, in this case Cohen's article. Had I read it--or even re-read Panofsky, who also says (Studies in Iconology p. 80) that the hourglass was introduced in conjunction with the Petrarch illustrations--I certainly wouldn't have mentioned the hourglass without saying more. Having now read the essay, I am ready to reply.

Ross wrote,
The Rosenwald, BAR and MB sheets (i.e. popular cards) don't show the girl on the chariot nor a woman over the World, while the figure of Time/Hermit varies considerably among them. Since printed Petrarchan Trionfi, with the conventional iconography, were well known by the time all these cards were printed, it is hard to argue that the original Petrarchan sense of the trumps was somehow obscure to woodcutters and a popular audience, who therefore corrupted the iconography. Rather, because the existence of the game of Triumphs is attested before there are any painted series of Petrarchan triumphs or printed ones, it would seem more reasonable to think that the original trump sequence owed nothing to any Petrarchan iconographic conventions, but later a few trump subjects became conflated iconographically with them (because made by the same painters and woodcutters in the same workshops), Time and Fame (the World) for example. But the fact that Tarot resisted a complete "Petrarchization" argues in favor of its being originally independent.
The CY-type tarot, on my hypothesis (building on Huck's, whom I will let speak for himself), is probably pre-1440 (added next day: but not necessarily: it could have been 1440s, and at any rate earlier than the Charles VI or BAR types). With 16 trumps, it reflects what I would call a pure, i.e. not degraded, Petrarchan sequence of Love, Chastity (the Chariot card), Death, Fame (the lady with the trumpets), Time (the Old Man card), and Eternity (the Judgment card)--along with the 7 virtue cards, the Emperor, Empress, and the Wheel of Fortune. Although we don't know the original order of the cards for trick-taking purposes, maybe in the deck Time was not in its Petrarchan order, and perhaps not Fame. I postulate a Time card for two reasons. First, it completes the Petrarchan sequence; and second, it forms a pair with another "old man" card, namely the Wheel of Fortune, which we see in the Brera-Brambrilla (as well as the pMB) with an old man at the bottom.

I notice that in this connection that Cohen points out how Time in the middle ages was actually represented turning the Wheel, a feature I have already pointed out in connection with the Durer-school's "Michelfeldt Tapestry", said to have been from an earlier time than Durer. Time and Fortune went together.

Probably Time in my hypothetical ur-CY did not have an hourglass, since, per Cohen, that seems to have been introduced in Florence around 1440, for the explicitly Petrarchan triumph illustrations and subsequently put on the cards. Probably the ur-CY would have had an older, medieval depiction as described by Panofsky, which utilized the ancient equation of Chronos = Kornos. We can see the similarity of the PMB card to near-contemporary depictions of Saturn if we compare it to the "Manegna" depiction of Saturn:

Image


It is merely a matter of exchanging the uroborus serpent for the hourglass. Actually, a uroborus wouldn't have been necessary to indicate Saturn, and so all-devouring Time: the aged, bearded figure leaning on a staff by itself would have been enough. Panofsky says (pp. 76f):
Generally Saturn, coldest, driest, and slowest of planets, was associated with old age, abject poverty and death. ... Astrological imagery--derived in part from Arabic sources--never ceased to emphasize these unfavourable implications. Saturn appears mostly as a morose, sickly old man, more often than not of rustic appearance. His sickle or scythe is frequently replaced by a mattock or spade, even when he is represented as a king enthroned and crowned (fig. 44), and this space tends to become transformed into a staff or a crutch indicative of old age and general decripitude (fig. 48).
Panofsky's fig. 44 is a manuscript illustration (ms. 785, fol. 34, Morgan Library) from c. 1400, while fig. 48 is a mid-15th century woodcut, of the "children of the planets" type with which we are familiar.

Finally, Panofsky points out that among the various "children of Saturn" there was one positive figure: "the only redeeming feature being a monk or hermit, a lowly representative of the vita contemplativa (fig. 48). So he need not have been a "rustic," if a positive figure was intended.

(Added next day: Panofsky's thesis of the connection of the figure of Time with Saturn is actually not essential to what I want to say: Cohen disagrees with it, but still says that the elderly person is associated with Time (see quotation in my next post). What I want to say is that the old man with a cane is recognizable as a symbol of Petrarchan Time, as an example of the decay toward oblivion, physical oblivion in this case, produced by Time.)

Then, in tune with post-1440 fashions in Florence, the PMB for sure, and perhaps even the CY itself, added the hourglass.

In contrast to the CY-type, the Charles VI shows a degraded Petrarchan sequence. That it is Petrarchan is shown by the five cards that more or less do fit Petrarch: Love, Death, Fame (the so-called "World"), Time (the Old Man), and Eternity (Judgment). That it is degraded is shown by the Chariot card, which no longer shows a lady but rather a warrior of some sort.

What would be the reason for this different choice for the Chariot card? It seems to me that it is precisely because the same painters did cassoni and other representations of chariots, triumphal and otherwise, and not only Petrarchan but also of a non-Petrarchan character. Uniquely among the tarot imagery, chariots are associated with triumphs independently of Petrarch, as the traditional Roman victory celebration of was a parade with chariots, a custom said to have originated with Bacchus (who had elephants as well). So we have, on cassoni and otherwise, depictions of triumphs of Bacchus, triumphs of Caesar,triumphs of Alexander, and so on, all with chariots. In addition, the planetary gods, such as Mars, were presented on chariots. All of this becomes popular imagery after 1440. So the card designers decide to draw from this other tradition for the Chariot card and have on it a triumphant warrior instead of the lady Chastity.

It is perfectly true that the converse could have been true, i.e. Filippo Visconti or whoever decided he wanted to have a deck with all 6 Petrarchan triumphs represented, in addition to to whatever was there (but with not enough similarity to have originally been influenced by Petrarch, per Ross). However the sequence of events that I have presented seems to me to make at least as much sense.
Last edited by mikeh on 27 Jul 2012, 21:48, edited 1 time in total.