Hi Mikeh! Yes you wonder!
Huck is right you are talking about 1354/55.
You go open a thread and I have dug out my notebooks from Years ago......what with this and the Olympics and been down at bottom of the world.......
Be excited!
and think of a song, maybe, that only I can remember ....
Oh not I, I will survive, as long as I know how to Love, I know I'll stay alive, I ve got all my life to live, I have all my love to give and I will survive........Ha! Ha! very Franciscan and Canticle of the Sun-ish.
Fancy that ..all because of Huck and his winged or not Temperance!
~Lorredan

Yes, I meant 1354-1355, as I had already said in an earlier post. I'm so used to writing about the 15th century! And yes, Huck, that is indeed the page, in color. on those posters. I didn't link to any of them because I couldn't find one with good enough resolution to read the lettering.

I didn't understand the point of your Nike genealogy, Huck. Maybe I missed something. Does Hesiod or anybody else say anything about Nike being a cup or pitcher bearer? As I said, it's clear enough in classical literature that she is winged--the problem is finding someplace known to the Renaissance that describes her as pouring a liquid.

I will go take some more pictures of pages of the book. I don't know what you see of the Olympics where you live, but I for one am getting tired of interminable rounds of beach volleyball in "prime time" (interspersed with star-packed competitions that are not only thrilling but mostly have the good sense to start and end before the next commercial).

I think your bringing up the Song of Virtues- is really important Mikeh!
I do not want to steal your thunder....so would you mind if I started a thread about my understanding of it?
I first saw a copy of the codex in Tuscany a few years ago and could not afford to buy a copy- and promptly forgot about it- because I was hunting down the trail of Francesco Sforza. Ah well... thems the breaks.
~Lorredan

By all means, go ahead. It's going to take me a little while to read Dorez's Italian anyway, and by then hopefully my image processing software will be fixed, so I can post some good images of the more interesting illuminations--and not just ones in that book, but others Bartolomeo did for Bruzio. My camera's photos aren't that great. I agree that this is really important. I can hardly wait to hear what you have to say. I thought of a thread title that would capture what I would want to cover: "Bartolomeo di Bartoli and Bruzio Visconti." But perhaps you have a different slant.

mikeh wrote:Yes, I meant 1354-1355, as I had already said in an earlier post. I'm so used to writing about the 15th century! And yes, Huck, that is indeed the page, in color. on those posters. I didn't link to any of them because I couldn't find one with good enough resolution to read the lettering.

I didn't understand the point of your Nike genealogy, Huck. Maybe I missed something. Does Hesiod or anybody else say anything about Nike being a cup or pitcher bearer? As I said, it's clear enough in classical literature that she is winged--the problem is finding someplace known to the Renaissance that describes her as pouring a liquid.

... :-) ... I think, a key to understanding Greek mythology is to learn their genealogy. And that's a jungle of many contradictions ... but none the less there's some mathematical logic.
Well, look at that, what astrology has brought to us in matters of virtue-iconography and astrology-iconography:

Fortitudo: A woman or man with a lion ... we have the zodiac-sign Leo
Justice: A woman with a libra ... we have the zodiac-sign Libra
This specific similarity caused Crowley's confusion about a double loop of the zodiac and his "Tzaddi is not the star".

Natural question: where would be the pictures of Prudentia and Temperance in the zodiac? My answer ...

4th zodiac-sign Cancer: a water animal with two very big hands = Temperance with two cups of water
5th zodiac-sign Leo: Fortitudo ... as already described
6th zodiac-sign Virgo: Prudentia ... cause Virgo is generally addressed as being prudent
7th zodiac-sign Libra: Justice, as already explained

... this would make sense.
The Greek, so I've read, weren't fixed at "4 seasons", as we are nowadays. There were also models with 2 or 3 seasons. If they had the summer time connected to something, which was good (as the virtues are considered as "good"), then there would be 8 zodiac places to celebrate other qualities elsewhere.
The Greek had Hercules called the "great astronomer", who sorted the 12 gods and became the 13th at their table. Well, as the wheel, as common in astrology, had 12 sections, the 13th place naturally would be in the middle ... so, no wonder, that Hercules was the astronomer. But Hercules was connected to the Leo-scene (compare PMB), cause he killed the Nemean lion in his first work of 12 works.
Well, after his many works and adventures Hercules ascended to heaven, and there he married Hebe, the cup-bearer. The cup-bearer = Temperantia = Cancer = Hebe would have been positioned in Cancer.
And we have later in Roman astrology the attribution Sun = Leo and Moon = Cancer and the 5 planets got 2 zodiac signs each, so Sun and Moon were the only, who had only one zodiac sign.
So "Herakles marries Hebe" means translated "The sun married the moon" and this likely meant a lunisolar calendar solution, the work of an unknown astronomer, who - for general convenience - simply was called Hercules. As Hercules was somehow "Alexander the Great" in the Greek world later, we have to suspect, that the astronomer was possibly Calippos, who in 330 BC improved the lunisolar calendar. .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callippus

They had a lunisolar calendar.
Hesiod didn't relate Nike to cup-bearing, but the whole scheme of Greek mythology, as I studied it and as I propose it, related the position of "Pallas" (son of Asterios and Eos, father of Nike) to the position of the astrological sign Cancer (= somehow Temperantia).
According my hypothesis the Greek used a way of 1-18 elements, and the astrological Leo had been Nr. 9 and Cancer Nr. 10 (though they didn't use astrology in the modern sense).
As Nr 9 is the end of 1-9 (lower world) and 10 is the begin of 10-18 (higher world) both positions are at the border of the subsystems 1-9 and 10-18. This "middle line" prsents a critical phase, and it needs a great hero to cross the line (which we may decipher as a sort of "Styx" - that's the poetical reason, why just Pallax married Styx). So Nr. 9 is the great hero and a big fight, and Nr. 10 is the celebration of victory, cause the dangerous line was crossed successfully.

... .-) ... did you understand?

Moderator's note -

I have moved the latest two posts on this thread to the Plush Parlour, since they deal with Crowley and the Golden Dawn rather than the iconography of the Temperance card.

See -
viewtopic.php?f=16&p=12551#p12551

Ross

Lorredan wrote: Fancy that ..all because of Huck and his winged or not Temperance!
~Lorredan

Yes, I collect these "winged virtues". For the moment I see ...

1355 ... winged Caritas in Bologna (? influenced by Milan)
1330 - 1450 ... 4x winged Spes in Florence
15th century ... 3x winged Temperance in Venice
1560 ... winged Fortitudo in Breughel picture
1565/75 ... winged Temperance Majolica in Faenza (? possibly influenced by Venice)
1650 ... winged Temperance in Noblet Tarot
1700 etc. ... winged Temperance in Marseille and Besancon Tarot
...
well, occasionally "all virtues are winged" (Beham)
...
NORMALLY virtues are NOT winged. NORMALLY there are 7 seven or 3 theological or 4 cardinal virtues presented ... but often enough it's different.
The painters arranged them according current interests ... a very common behavior.

If we take this as an example ...


with a very large picture here ...
http://www.jura.uni-mainz.de/kube/Datei ... i816kb.JPG
from http://www.jura.uni-mainz.de/kube/167.php

... then we have the interest to present "good government" (Siena 1337-1340 by Ambrogio Lorenzetti)

We have the 7 virtues in the right upper details, 3 theological virtues above and 4 cardinal virtues below, but the virtues are flanked by other figures "Pax" and "Magnanimità", so one easily could imagine, that there are 9 virtues. Then we've an extension at the left side with a Sapientia above, and a larger second Iustitia below, which makes some actions, which present further details of the theme "good government" with a major participation of the allegory Concordia.
The simple conclusion is, that the pictures informs us, that a good Justice would be of great importance for the "good government" and would lead of the Concordia of the people.

So virtue images are made for specific intentions. Likely we would find in a city council more pictures of Justice and in military institutions more presentations of Fortitudo. The local preferences likely had a trivial logic.

On the picture of the "good government" Justice is technically elevated by a double appearance, and the second figure is larger than the others.
The "wings" of the virtues or an indicated relation between a virtue to "Fame" (as observable to Prudence in some Trionfi card versions) likely have to be counted to be made with a similar intention.
We've even an elevation of a specific virtue through "missing presence". In such presentations it is intended to honor a specific person (the host or the owner of the representation place), who is thought to incorporate the virtue as a living example. So it was done with Borso d'Este, who had a favor for Justice.

*********

So I attempt to keep the discussion "low" and do not search for a very "complicated reason".

Well, I searched for a special relevance of Temperantia in Venice in 1513-1525, cause this might have been a time, when a Venetian "Temperance with wings" might have influenced a French "Temperance with wings", cause Venice and France had a surprising alliance in these years, after Venice and France as part of the war of alliance of Cambrai (1508-1512) had heavy war activities against each other short before.

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

Venice had 3 times "Temperance with wings". Two of the objects are rather small ..





..., both are rather similar (flanked by two trees, six-corner halo) and both are from the same Venetian workshop, made from bone or horn. Here's a report to the work-shop with lots of pictures.

http://www.mashpedia.fr/Baldassare_degli_Embriachi

Composition of such small bone objects could get considerable dimensions:



The most famous work, made for Giangaleazzo Visconti (a triptychon for the Certosa di Pavia) and documented for 1400-1409.
It seems, that such objects could serve as models for larger objects. Naturally the founders and sponsors of gigantic church projects (the realization took centuries) desired to see, how the final project might look like. And naturally the finally realized project often looked different than the model. Perhaps pictures like this ...

http://a-tarot.eu/p/goldschmidt/queen-castle.jpg

... were inspired by such really existing models.

But these many-figures-objects naturally made single motifs disappear. Could we assume, that a single figure would get such a big influence?
Not impossible. French soldiers robbed a lot of treasures in Italy, and naturally such objects had a good chance to wander to French collectors.
The two pictures (their context is not clear) might have been taken by such an object:


http://www.beyars.com/de_elfenbein-spae ... alter.html

The German text of the webpage gives the information, that the Embriachi family came from Genova, developed in Florence and finally settled in Venice. They also worked Jean Duc de Berry, who gave it to an abbey in Poissy.

Ein weiteres Hauptwerk der Embriachi ist das von Jean Duc de Berry dem Kloster von Poissy gestiftete große Retabel (H. 267 cm, B. 236 cm), das sich heute im Musée du Louvre in Paris befindet.

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

.... ha, GREAT FINDING
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 722_02.JPG

A detail of the above link:



from the webpage
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Botte ... 722_02.JPG

"Bottega degli embriachi, cofanetto, metà del XIV sec., inv. 722"
Museo civico medievale (Bologna)

That's a 3rd "Winged Temperantia in bone" ... not just another picture of one of the other objects.

Please note, that also Justitia is "winged". I'm not sure about Fortitudo, but it seems, that it is also winged.

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

... and another great finding ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... %29_01.jpg

Detail:




And Prudentia looks, as if it has golden wings.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... %29_01.jpg

Wedding casket Embriachi 15th cent. (MAN 52207)
Wedding casket decorated with scenes of Jason and Medea's story. At the cover, representations of the Seven Virtues, of which only Prudence remains. Made of wood and ivory by the "alla certosina" marquetry technique.
Date: 15th century
Dimensions: Height: 41 cm (16.1 in). Width: 31 cm (12.2 in).
Current location: National Archaeological Museum of Spain

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

Another Bridal Casket with scenes of the Life of Paris



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

It's easy to realize, that we are in a similar object field as in the case of the Florentine Cassoni and "Trionfi cards for the bride" ... things presented at or related to a wedding.

The future noble household of a young pair needed "essentially" some items ... naturally always a good business for the producers, so this was generally an economical factor.
The German article describes, that the used motifs at the Embriachi objects occasionally are not really related. It's assumed, that the bone objects were produced in series and in advance, so that the final composition of such works could quickly be realized according the wishes of a customer.

Similar I see the situation of the earliest generation of the Trionfi decks. The customer decided, what he wanted to have.

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

And it seems, that it was loved, that virtues had wings, if they appeared at weddings.

So somehow the bone and horn and ivory productions of "winged Temperance" fall out of the category, what we search.

The following picture ...
complete at http://codicon.digitale-sammlungen.de/B ... 00009.html
... I once gathered in the chess collection ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=460&start=64

The cardinal virtues are arranged to honor a lady, Herzogin Anna von Bayern. Prudentia, Justice and Fortitudo are easily to recognize, but the 4th figure shows a lady with a book ... (so "Temperance" is missing) ... which possibly might mean, that this presents Anna von Bayern (Bavaria). Above is a WINGED figure and somehow she has her hands similar to the usual Temperance, but in this case she (as Fame?) distributes laurels to the possible Anna and the virtue Fortitudo. The possible Anna has a globe with zodiac signs and a music instrument at her feet, Fortitudo some armor.



The time of the production is 1552. One page later we see Anna with her husband at a chess game and court officials.

And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where sheis nourished for a time, and times and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

Revelation 12:14


The Woman Receives Her Wings and Her Flight. From Apocalypse Picture Book.
English, c. 1255-60. The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
http://www.all-art.org/manuscripts/Apoc ... ff2-2.html

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

I wonder, if this specific scene (the text passage, not the specific picture) might have influenced the "Spes-with-wings" iconography used by Florentine artists.

Full text of revelation 12:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=NIV

The Woman and the Dragon

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”[a] And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens
and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
because he knows that his time is short.”

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring —those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

"15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth."

Well ... there is WATER described in the scene, the serpent spewed it and the earth swallowed it.

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

Well:
Line 14 (Tarot card 14: Temperance) : "The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach."
Tarot card Temperance has wings. Water is flowing from one cup (line 15) to the other (Line 16).

Line 15 (Tarot card 15: Devil): "15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent."

Line 16 (Tarot card 16: occasionally "Mouth of Hell", very clearly addressed in Tarot de Paris): "But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth."

Tarot card 17 ("Star"), Marseille Tarot, also Cary-Yale sheet : Now a woman pours out both cups.
Line 17: "Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring —those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus."

Tarot card 18 (Marseille Tarot, also Cary-Yale sheet): a scene with water, somehow it smells like destruction. A Cancer symbol.
A destructed scene with water has logic, if a woman poured out both waters at card 17. Cancer makes logic, if Temperance was associated with Cancer (as I recently suggested, but it was overlooked without response).

Generally in an older astrology Cancer was associated with "end of the world".

Well, that's REALLY STRANGE, that some line numbers of the relevation 12 relate to some Tarot card numbers (well, only in the Marseille order ... only the Marseille has Temperance with wings).

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

The Vieville Tarot goes totally other iconographic ways in the upper cards. And its Temperance has no wings. The Cary Yale Sheet has also no wings for Temperance.
The Tarot de Paris has a Temperance, which fights against fire with only one cup. It's not totally clear, if there are wings, but it's not likely. Or? At the lower right something looks like feathers. I don't know, it can't be excluded. But the Tarot de Paris has not the same follow-up (though it has the mouth-of-hell motif very clearly).



In the Vieville Tarot it's of interest, that its Temperance has clearly "NO wings", but that its Justice might have "wings":


http://mavoyanceweb.com/article-voyance ... ville.html

Somehow wings without feathers. The wings might be part of the chair or throne. Similar strange wings or chairs have Popess and Empress in the same deck ...





... so it's difficult to state "wings" for Justice in the Vieville without greater doubt. Maybe it was a fashion to create thrones in a manner, that it looks, as if the presented persons had wings.

Bellini's "Temperance" (about which it is not sure, if it is Temperance)...



... has feet like St. Markus lion, and it is a mixed animal (like the St. Marcus lion). The St. Markus lion is naturally a very important symbol for Venice and Bellini worked in Venice.



Further I feel remembered to this figure:


http://fouman.com/Y/Picture_View-Persia ... _Human.htm
An old Persian god and symbol

... and also to this figure:

Chinese Imperial Lion Guard
I perceive it similar cause the lion's claw upon the ping-pong-ball

Thinking about it, I come to the observation, that Marco Polo, a Venetian, lived some time at the court of China, well, 200 years before Bellini. Also I see, that Venice had a political alliance with Persia and some Venetian diplomats had been at the court of Uzun Hassan (alliance 1463-1478). This happened rather near to Bellini. Further I see, that not Giovanni Bellini (assumed to be the painter), but his brother Gentile ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentile_Bellini
... made an influential journey to Constantinople and had visited the Ottoman Mehmed II, who had conquered Constantinople ... in the function of a cultural ambassador.

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

Michael J. Hurst has written about this picture - some time ago - and the assumed author:

http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2009/04/ ... -of-3.html
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2009/05/ ... -of-3.html

http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2009/04/ ... egory.html

Michael comes to the conclusion, that it presents Nemesis, if I understand him right. He - like others - relates it to 4 other pictures, also attributed to Bellini, possibly all 4 or 5 connected to a mirror arrangement:





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For the picture is assumed Giovanni Bellini c. 1490, but occasionally also a pupil of Giovanni Bellini.

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

Michael comes to the conclusion "Nemesis", so I attempted to find some iconography to "Nemesis"

Albrecht Dürer: "Nemesis" (1501/02)


The object, which "Nemesis" has in her hands, seems to be a bridle, though presented with more connected material ... the bridle is a symbol of Temperance:


large picture: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... %BCrer.jpg

A very similar figure (bridle and cup; Lexicon Graecolatinum, 1548) is called Fortuna:


Andrea Vitali: http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=122&lng=eng

Some antique figures :





http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Nemesis.html


http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bion1/narcis01.html

The goddess Nemesis heard the rejected girls prayers for vengeance and arranged for Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection. When later Narcissus, who was as beautiful as Dionysus or Apollo, discovered his image in a pool, he fell in love with himself and, not being able to find consolation, he died of sorrow by the same pool watching his reflection. It is said that Narcissus still keeps gazing on his image in the waters of the river Styx in the Underworld. All nymphs grieved him including Echo, and when they prepared his funeral pile, they could not find his body, and in its place they found the flower, which today bears his name.

Involvement of Nemesis in the Narcissus myth.

The same story:

http://educators.mfa.org/galleries/slideshow/3968


http://members.bib-arch.org/publication ... ticleID=22


http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthr ... 796&page=5

Notes :
Story discrepancy (version) where Leda finds the egg on the alter of Zeus. Greeks version, where actually it was the goddess Nemesis who was seduced/raped by Zeus. Nemesis produced a hyacinth-coloured egg which she laid in a marsh near Sparta. Leda found it and brought it home and kept it safe until it hatched.

Other versions include the egg was craftily secreted between Leda's thighs by Hermes. Or it dropped from the moon. Or a shepherd found it in the woods and brought it to the queen, who kept it in a box until Helen hatched out.

Involvement of Nemesis in the story of Leda and the egg with Helena, Klytemnaestra and Castor and Pollux


http://slavenano.co.uk/blog/goddess-nem ... d-lineage/

The Greek mythographer, Pseudo-Appollodorus in his ‘Biblotheca’ of the 2nd century described the conception of Helen as follows,

But some say that Helen was a daughter of Nemesis and Zeus; for that she, flying from the arms of Zeus, changed herself into a goose, but Zeus in his turn took the likeness of a swan and so enjoyed her; and as the fruit of their loves she laid an egg, and a certain shepherd found it in the groves and brought and gave it to Leda; and she put it in a chest and kept it; and when Helen was hatched in due time, Leda brought her up as her own daughter.

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

I stumble about the view, that Fortuna and Nemesis and Tyche are all considered as one figure

***************
I've to sort this all a little bit