Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

1
In the Arezzo thread ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=901
... Phaeded and me had in snippets this exchange
Huck wrote:
We have, that the first sign of illustrated Petrarca "Trionfi poem" editions happens in January 1441, so "after" the battle of Anghiari, not before. Naturally one doesn't know if this "after" is totally sure ... one doesn't know, what one overlooks. Similar we have the Trionfi deck September 1440 "after" the battle of Anghiari, as the first evidence, that a card deck was named "Trionfi". Similar we can't be sure, that there was nothing before, but considerable research was done without success in both cases.
...
Phaeded wrote:Huck,
For the record, I find the Bruni/Arezzo/Albizzi faction much more interesting than the Petrarch angle (Petrarch's Trionfi series simply did not form the basis of the trump series).
....
Huck wrote:
We have a Cupido at the love card. We have a female charioteer (Chastity). We have a Death card. We have Fame = World in the Cary-Yale (symbol "winged trumpet"). We have a Hermit as Father Time. We have symbols, which might be interpreted as Eternity. So ... why we don't have Petrarca symbols at the base of development?
...
Phaeded wrote:
I don't want to belabor this point too much as it will lead off onto another tangent best dealt with in another thread, but there are way too many problems with seeing Petrarch's trionfi as anything more than a secondary means of informing the meaning of some of the cards. Just a few problems with the Petrarch thesis:
1. 6 subjects has no relationship to a series of 14, 16 or 22 subjects. No one posits trioni started out even as 12 cards (Petarch's themes plus exemplars).
2. Petrarch only describes the Love triumph (gods and heroes driven before Love) and that has almost nothing to do with the iconography of either the marriage themes of CY and PMB or the courting scene of CVI.
3. The winged trumpet is already irrelvant by the time of the PMB (which shows a city, not "the world")- there is nothing in the PMB "world" card that says "fame"; ergo, why would that be the World card's primary meaning?
4. Chasity is a bit hard to explain when the charioteer becames male - so again, like "world/fame", was that really the primary meaning of the card?
5. "We have symbols, which might be interpreted as Eternity." No we don't, not in the the earliest CY and PMB decks. There simply is not a single card in either of those decks that can be objectively labeled as "eternity" as its principal meaning.
To 1. We have other subgroups in the Trionfi or Tarot series (3 or 4 or 7 virtues, Sun-Moon-Star as a Trio, the six persons 0-6 etc.), so it isn't so astonishing, that we have also Petrarca's group.
To 2. Well, it's stated, that the Petrarca's real Trionfi poem and the following 6-Trionfi-as-pictures fashion had their differences, nonetheless a form of standard iconography for the poem was arranged after 1441 ... with some similarity to some of the Trionfi cards.
To 3. I didn't state, that the PMB included a fame card. A specific Cary-Yale-Tarocchi card has the "winged trumpet. You seem to be fixed on the idea, that the PMB is a prolongation of just the Cary-Yale Tarocchi. But there are various differences between the both decks. And when we're interested to study the question of the origin of the Trionfi cards around 1440, we don't know about the PMB, as this is from a later time. The Cary-Yale Tarocchi might have played a role.
To 4. In the earliest decks the charioteer is female, so again, when we're interested to study the earliest Trionfi decks, we cannot "invent" the condition, that the charioteer was male. Naturally it might be, that around 1440 already Trionfi decks existed, which had a male charioteer, but we have no evidence. The female charioteer isn't so surprising, as there were bride journeys and if these brides were expected to present a virtue, then it should have been "Chastity" in any case, this was important.
To 5. We have the Cary-Yale Judgment card. 2 angles above with trumpets, 3 persons below raised from the death. At the right a Tower with a very large door, possibly the way to paradise (including the interest to connect this deck to the Chess game). Is it impossible, that the time of 1440 recognized this as a possible iconographic expression of eternity? What do we know? We cannot trust in the iconographic value of later Trionfi decks. PMB has a godfather on top of judgment. Could we assume, that godfather belongs to time and NOT to eternity?


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... ernity.jpg

Collected by Michael Hurst, and too late to be really of interest, this seems to have been a way to present eternity. The left picture is somehow near to Judgment, though it has elements of the "15 signs of last judgment", which we discussed here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=865
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

2
Huck wrote: To 4. In the earliest decks the charioteer is female, so again, when we're interested to study the earliest Trionfi decks, we cannot "invent" the condition, that the charioteer was male. Naturally it might be, that around 1440 already Trionfi decks existed, which had a male charioteer, but we have no evidence. The female charioteer isn't so surprising, as there were bride journeys and if these brides were expected to present a virtue, then it should have been "Chastity" in any case, this was important.
The Catania deck is among the earliest, and the charioteer seems male. It is a good comparison with the Rosenwald Chariot, which suggests continuity in the Florentine standard.



If the Florentine is held as the earliest pattern, then this is a good argument that the meaning of the Chariot was not a bride representing Chastity or the summation of Virtues.

Morevover, the Bolgnese Charioteer is also male (as in the BAR sheet, which resembles the Charles VI in this card) and so, with the close relationship of the Bolognese and Florentine trump patterns, this reinforces the identity of the original figure, on the presumption of a Florentine (or Bolognese) original design.

More troubling to me is that the figure on the World card in both Florentine and Milanese painted cards is female, even where, as in Charles VI and Catania, the Charioteer is male. In the Rosenwald sheet the figure seems to be Fame (so still "female" by iconographic convention), while in the BAR it seems to be male.
Image

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

3
I don't know, what's so difficult ...

We have:

After Anghiari

1. In September 1440: first sign of the custom to call playing card decks "Trionfi decks"

2. in January 1441: first sign of illustrated Petrarca Trionfi poem editions.

3. In the 1440s: Lots of signs, that a Petrarca Trionfi poem fashion is on its way, especially in Florence (Cassoni and books)

4. In the 1440s: Some documentary signs, that a Trionfi card fashion is on its way

5. In the 1440s: Slow growing interest in triumphal celebrations. Major event: Alfonso 1443. A spectator claims, that people in Florence would have already a lt experience with triumphal celebrations.

6. In the 1450s: Greater popularity of Trionfi cards, greater popularity of triumphal celebrations, more Trionfi poem Cassoni and books.

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

Before Anghiari

7. Jan/Feb 1439: Three triumphal celebrations in Florence for the entry of the guests at the council. Further festivities during the council. Short after the Jan/Feb celebrations in Milan a Petrarca Trionfi poem quote in Milan.
(Some research for earlier Trionfi poem editions more or less runs negative. Two fragments were found - one with two pictures -, other evidence is missing ... )
It looks, as if Petrarca's Trionfi poem was not very popular before the first illustrated text in 1441.

8. It's difficult to find "triumphal celebration" reports before the council in Ferrara 1440. I would classify as such:

A. 1423 - Alfonso of Aragon in Naples
B. 1425 - Filippo Maria Visconti in Milan
C. 1431-33 - Emperor Sigismondo crowned in Italy, naturally with some celebrations
D. 1433/34 - Mascerade in Ferrara, recently discussed viewtopic.php?f=11&t=841
E. 1436 and 1438: Two minor events recently collected viewtopic.php?f=11&t=905

9. In 1438 the council of Ferrara doesn't have reports of great festivities. It was prepared in a haste, the conflict with the council in Basel dominated and the war activities of Filippo Maria Visconti in the near Bologna disturbed. A plague and the phenomenon "missing money" made the stay in Ferrara not healthy. Actually Lorenzo di Medici the elder "bought" the council with not much money and caused it to be transferred to Florence.

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

3 Lines of Development

We have 3 lines of development, all connected to the terminus "Trionfi": cards, celebrations, Petrarca poem. All seem to make a forced development around 1439-1441. This can't be accident, this should be somehow "related". In the later Tarot sequence we can recognize parts of the original Petrarca context, other parts are not so clear. But is this a wonder? There's a longer time between the full adapted Tarot and the years 1439-41. After 1443 two of the three Trionfi lines become sleepy (cards and celebrations), only the favor for the poem seems to be already established (although it likely needs some research to get a clear picture, how strong this really was). In 1449 cards and celebrations return and then we observe a Trionfi cards height 1452-1455. Then, with the death of the book lover pope Nicolaus V., it seems to to be reduced again. The new pope is Spanish and conservative. Likely we have a new increased movement with the "modern" Pope Pius II, possibly a little later than 1458 (when Pius was elected). Pius had a great celebration in Florence 1459, then a congress in Mantova, mostly known for the condition, that not much happened. When he went to Rome, he had still a lot of local problems.
Some evidence for large number production of Trionfi cards we get with 1462/63 (Cambini delivers 96 Trionfi decks, Esch-numbers speak of 309 decks in one import). Surviving evidence for Italian woodcut use is around the same time.
Pius had seen the Gutenberg bible in Frankfurt and understood, what the new medium book printing might mean in the future. Likely thanks to his initiative we see Sweynheim and Pannartz move from Mainz to Italy around this time.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

4
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: The Catania deck is among the earliest, and the charioteer seems male. It is a good comparison with the Rosenwald Chariot, which suggests continuity in the Florentine standard.
I think, that the decks of Charles VI and Alessandro Sforza are not from "before 1460".

We've now the lucky state, that, although we didn't got new pictures, we've (thanks to Pratesi's findings) now much more documents and have a chance to refine our considerations.

The highest numbers of traded Trionfi decks is now documented with a dozen (a few times) or in one case 13 till 1462 (1462 Cambini export - 96 decks). Naturally there may have been trades with more decks, but we've no evidence for them.
The Esch numbers (as far we know them) indicate 309 decks in one import operation for 1463 and some other high numbers for later.
We have the promise, that material about playing cards in the Roman custom archive will appear soon, but for the moment we can only discuss with the hypothesis, that the market changed once (possibly 1462/63) from low-number-of-deck sales to high-number-of-deck-sales. Perhaps we know better, when Esch's more detailed work will appear.

Btw.
Prof. Arnold Esch appears in a youtube movie with another work (German):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSHJy0dCrLY

Another movie (Italian) is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe0qAqJJirc
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

5
Since the ensuing discussion has focused on Chastity/Chariot, let's refocus on the card closest in time to Anghiari - the CY Chariot.

There are three major problems for positing the exact same image as having being used by both Florence and the CY deck, and moreover the surviving CY card cannot be construed as Chasity:
1. Place of creation
Even if Florence invented the trionfi (which I believe we all agree to), the CY deck was likely created in Milan or Cremona; thus even if there was a ready-made Florentine template the different circumstances would have dictated changes in the details of certain cards, which leads us to...
2. Type of "Triumph" being celebrated
Florence celebrated a military triumph at Anghiari; the CY deck a marriage, loosely connected to military victory in the sense that the marriage was locking down Sforza as Filippo Visconti's condottiero. Bianca represents the payoff - she is, plainly speaking, a dowry that includes Cremona along with the promise of the Duchy of Milan itself. This is wholly unrelated to the iconogrpahic needs of Florence that would have used a female on a chariot to possibly represent the Chuch Militant (again, Pope Eugene's military vicar Cardinal Trevisan fought at Anghiari), perhaps something along the lines of the final vision in Dante's Purgatory where a griffin pulls Beatrice on a chariot (although Florence would have surely used a female with the attributes of S. Maria Fiore - Mary with a lily - for their recently domed cathedral of the same name).
3. There isn't a single attribute of Chasity depicted in the CY Chariot!
Where are Chastity's unicorns, book, frond, virgin exemplars walking before her or bound eros before her? There is a young male before her but he is simply a royal (ducal) page. Of course the woman on the chariot is chaste/virtuous but the attributes she holds do not signify chasity. The CY chariot attributes are four (as far as I can discern):
a. Coin: The radiant sun coin - superimposed on by the Visconti stemma of a turledove with banderole (that would likely read "a bon droyt" if legible) - literally suggest the coin of the realm....and lots of it (again, she was a dowry for Sforza). A coin is hardly an appropriate symbol of Chasity, but certainly one for a future duchess and the income of her duchy (in the short term, the tax income of Cremona).
b. The long sceptre is suggestive of rule - again, simply indicative of a prinicpality again (Cremona - Milan)
c. The starry under-painted canopy is very suggestive of Annunication paintings of Mary (e.g. one of Fra Angelico's) and thus her virtues (a natural model for all women) and was likely one of the few attributes retained from the Florentine model. The starry portico/canopy from a Fra Angelico Annunciation (c. 1436) and the CY chariot card:
Image
Image

d. The enigmatic headpiece she wears is not paralleled anywhere by a Chastity figure; so what is it? If you zoom in via Yale’s webpage for this card - http://brbl-zoom.library.yale.edu/viewer/1011941 - you can make out a deep arc of circles upon her head. This is clearly not the similarly shaped hat worn by some of the male court figures nor is it the egg-shaped balzo worn by the bride in the Love card. I believe our answer is that this is yet one more lingering attribute from the Florentine Anghiari model: Dovizia (“abundance”). Just 10 years before (ca. 1430) Donatello carved a large statue of Dovizia placed on a classical column in Florence’s main market place (see “Donatello's Lost Dovizia for the Mercato Vecchio: Wealth and Charity as Florentine Civic Virtues,” David G. Wilkins, the Art Bulletin, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Sep., 1983), pp. 401-423). Linked image of it in the background of a painting when it was still erect: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/243644 ... 150833395/
What Dovizia clutches upon her head is a basket of fruits that complements the cornucopia held in her other hand. She is an allegory of the riches of Florence; perhaps the Florentine deck's chariot merged symbols of two of the most recent and prominent civic works in the years leading up to 1440/Anghiari: Dovizia by her leading sculptor and S. Maria Fiore (recently domed, but the attribute shown would have likely been lilies) by her leading architect. Our CY chariot’s female, wearing a hat similarly garlanded to the basket, operates on the same iconographic logic of abundance, except she holds out the Visconti coin in lieu of the cornucopia and thus represents the bounty of the Visconti realm (or at least that portion given as her dowry).

To put it crassly: the CY female is an extremely rich bride (a stand-in for Bianca), promising even much more (the dukedom); she may have been chaste, but Sforza wasn’t signing up for merely that.

Phaeded
Image

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

6
Phaeded wrote:Since the ensuing discussion has focused on Chastity/Chariot, let's refocus on the card closest in time to Anghiari - the CY Chariot.

There are three major problems for positing the exact same image as having being used by both Florence and the CY deck, and moreover the surviving CY card cannot be construed as Chasity:
1. Place of creation
Even if Florence invented the trionfi (which I believe we all agree to)....
... :-) .... total security is not given in this point, so there's no reason to agree with something. In the past the Visconti Sforza cards became popular, and everybody thought, that the deck might have been invented in Milan. Then Ferrarese documents came to the surface, and the focus went to Ferrara. Now we have lots of Florentine documents, and now we shall agree on an origin in Florence.
Research means, that one doesn't know something for sure

The momentary improvement in the documentary situation depends on the energy, talents and patience of Franco Pratesi, and also on the condition, that Florence has many old documents ... and already had a lot of researchers, who loved Florence and its productions. What would be, if Franco Pratesi would be in Venice, Rome, Milan or Ferrara, and what would be, if other locations had similar good research conditions? We would possibly have other results.

Still we have the condition, that the Michelino deck is much older, so the idea of a longer trump sequence was already there before 1440. Well, the custom to call specific decks "Trionfi cards", that indeed looks, as if it happened 1440 or short before. But actually, in the many new documents we have not so much dates before 1440, so it might be just not enough material to exclude earlier appearances of the word "Trionfi" in playing card context.

... , the CY deck was likely created in Milan or Cremona; thus even if there was a ready-made Florentine template the different circumstances would have dictated changes in the details of certain cards, which leads us to...
2. Type of "Triumph" being celebrated
Florence celebrated a military triumph at Anghiari; the CY deck a marriage, loosely connected to military victory in the sense that the marriage was locking down Sforza as Filippo Visconti's condottiero. Bianca represents the payoff - she is, plainly speaking, a dowry that includes Cremona along with the promise of the Duchy of Milan itself. This is wholly unrelated to the iconogrpahic needs of Florence that would have used a female on a chariot to possibly represent the Chuch Militant (again, Pope Eugene's military vicar Cardinal Trevisan fought at Anghiari), perhaps something along the lines of the final vision in Dante's Purgatory where a griffin pulls Beatrice on a chariot (although Florence would have surely used a female with the attributes of S. Maria Fiore - Mary with a lily - for their recently domed cathedral of the same name).
We have as real "pre-1450" motif content of Trionfi decks Cary-Yale, Michelino, Brera Brambilla and eventually Karnöffel ideas. As structural information we have 16s and 14s. Nothing of this kind is known from Florence. That are the facts. I don't see reason to speculate too much. And generally I think, that chess played a role. And Petrarca.

If I look at curious constructions like Sola-Busca, Boiardo poem deck, Guildhall, Goldschmidt, Hofämterspiel and others, then I think, it's difficult to speculate, what early Trionfi decks might have been.

As I said, I believe in an influence of chess. This was an established iconography, very far spread, and its an interesting idea to compare the 6 different types of chess figures with the 6 Petrarca figures.

This said King Alfonso the Wise about "chess with dice"
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.

... so ...

6 = King ....... Petrarca = Eternity
5 = Queen .... Petrarca = Time
4 = Rook ...... Petrarca = Fame
3 = Knight .... Petrarca = Death
2 = Bishop .... Petrarca = Chastity
1 = Pawn ...... Petrarca = Love

... this fits not totally, but with one exchange, with the row, how Petrarca sorted his 6-figure-ideas.

Amor is a boy, like the pawns.
The Queen fits with the idea Chastity
The Knight is "on horse", as Death is "on horse"
The Rook is the mightiest chess figure. Fame was taken as highest or second highest trump.
The Bishop was interpreted as adviser, a similar figure as the Hermit.
The King naturally is Eternity. Who else?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

7
Huck wrote:
Still we have the condition, that the Michelino deck is much older, so the idea of a longer trump sequence was already there before 1440. Well, the custom to call specific decks "Trionfi cards", that indeed looks, as if it happened 1440 or short before.
In order for that deck to have been meaningful it would had to of been known outside of Filippo's imemdiate circle. Marcello had never seen anything like it - it was "new" (in the sense of novel from what was known). Furthermore there is no connection of the Michelino trump series subjects to the CY or PMB trionfi series, the latter of which simply are not a series of heroes and gods (and even the suits are completely different). In the evolution of cardplaying the Micherlino deck, if not stillborn, was a deadend.
Huck wrote [my emphases via asterisks]:
6 = King ....... Petrarca = Eternity
***5 = Queen .... Petrarca = Time***
4 = Rook ...... Petrarca = Fame
3 = Knight .... Petrarca = Death
***2 = Bishop .... Petrarca = Chastity***
1 = Pawn ...... Petrarca = Love

... this fits not totally, but with one exchange, with the row, how Petrarca sorted his 6-figure-ideas.

Amor is a boy, like the pawns.
***The Queen fits with the idea Chastity***
The Knight is "on horse", as Death is "on horse"
The Rook is the mightiest chess figure. Fame was taken as highest or second highest trump.
***The Bishop was interpreted as adviser, a similar figure as the Hermit. ***
The King naturally is Eternity. Who else?
The chess pieces are like rorschach blotches upon which you continue to map any number and order of themes which is so confused you often have to contradict yourself as you have here, per my asterisks above: in one instance you equate the bishop with chasity and in the next with the hermit/time, and vice versa with the queen (and all of this further ignores Cessolis). There is no equivalency with Petrarch unless you squint your eyes and see apples for oranges.

You still haven't addressed the fundamental problem with the earliest (CY) representation of the chariot/"Chastity": why would "chastity" hold out a coin??? Answer: the Chariot's primary meaning is NOT chastity (and I've outlined what its meaning is in a post above). Baxandall adds crystalline clarity here: "We miss the point of the painting if we mistake the gesture" (Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 1988: 70).
Image


Phaeded

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

8
BTW: I may have found a model for the CY female charioteer's odd headress:
Image
Image


The male figure is a Magi from the Strozzi altarpiece painted by Gentile da Fabriano in 1423. Strozzi, the richest oligarch in Florence, was exiled along with the Albizzi in 1434 upon Cosimo's own triumphant return fom exile. Hence it might have been done with delicious irony that the Florence-Abundance figure on the chariot (in the Anghiari deck perhaps she held out the Florin with fleur-di-lis embossed on it vs. the later Visconti stemma-coin in that deck) referenced the banished wealth of Cosimo's recently defeated enemies while at the same time exolting his victory and control over the city for whom he would be the ultimate benefactor and dispenser of her wealth?

In fact the Stozzi altarpiece was directly "quoted" in Gozzoli's famous painting of the Magi for Cosimo in his new palace in 1459: one of the kneeling Magi's feathered headress is exactly reproduced but with the Medici colors of green/red/white instead of the Strozzi red/gold: http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/201 ... three.html
The reconstructed Florentine/Anghiari Chariot would have then merged Marian and Magi iconography. In fact the procession of St. John, in which the Magi go through the city and end up in Cosimo's re-decorated S. Lorenzo church where a representation of the Christ child was kept, happened just days earlier in June before the battle. Looking at the Strozzi altarpiece one sees Mary beneath a city arch (a common theme but reproduced in the card as the chariot's canopy) merged with the wealth of the gift-giving Magi, proffering its gift via the same outstretched hand (with his headress conceived along the lines of Donatello's recent Dovizia columned statue) to create an allegory of Florence, home to Mary of the Flower (a lily, again perhaps depicted on the Florin held out by the allegorical figure on the Chariot). The theme of "chastity" is not inapprorpirate to this allegory but civic identity and its wealth were the primary meaning (and a meaning to be ensured by the Medici).
Image


Phaeded

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

9
Phaeded wrote:
Huck wrote [my emphases via asterisks]:
6 = King ....... Petrarca = Eternity
***5 = Queen .... Petrarca = Time***
4 = Rook ...... Petrarca = Fame
3 = Knight .... Petrarca = Death
***2 = Bishop .... Petrarca = Chastity***
1 = Pawn ...... Petrarca = Love

... this fits not totally, but with one exchange, with the row, how Petrarca sorted his 6-figure-ideas.

Amor is a boy, like the pawns.
***The Queen fits with the idea Chastity***
The Knight is "on horse", as Death is "on horse"
The Rook is the mightiest chess figure. Fame was taken as highest or second highest trump.
***The Bishop was interpreted as adviser, a similar figure as the Hermit. ***
The King naturally is Eternity. Who else?
The chess pieces are like rorschach blotches upon which you continue to map any number and order of themes which is so confused you often have to contradict yourself as you have here, per my asterisks above: in one instance you equate the bishop with chasity and in the next with the hermit/time, and vice versa with the queen (and all of this further ignores Cessolis). There is no equivalency with Petrarch unless you squint your eyes and see apples for oranges.
Hm ...

I wrote:
6 = King ....... Petrarca = Eternity
5 = Queen .... Petrarca = Time
4 = Rook ...... Petrarca = Fame
3 = Knight .... Petrarca = Death
2 = Bishop .... Petrarca = Chastity
1 = Pawn ...... Petrarca = Love

... this fits not totally, but with one exchange, with the row, how Petrarca sorted his 6-figure-ideas.
... and I marked Time and Chastity with "red" (have you seen this? ... perhaps you belong to those people, who can't see "red" ... (so now they have another color.) and proceeded then with " ... this fits not totally, but with one exchange, with the row, how Petrarca sorted his 6-figure-ideas".

So I said, that both rows (which are not made by me, but by Alfonso the wise and Petrarca) do not fit with each other. ... one has to exchange 2 figures (Time and Chastity).

Then you tell me, I'd an error with ".... which is so confused you often have to contradict yourself as you have here ...".

I hadn't an error, please reconsider your statement.

Petrarca's row and Alfonso's row contradict.
But if you think about the condition, that Alfonso lived long before in Spain and Petrarca later in France/Italy, slight contradictions are not an indication, that the whole idea is wrong, as both rows are near to each other.

"Chess with dice" was likely international and played in Spain and in Italy, but that they had everywhere the same dice-number / chess-figure interpretation, one can't expect with security.
Let's assume, that Spain was dominated by the rule, that Queen = 5 and Italy by the rule, that Queen = 2 ... then you have your contradiction.

************
I don't mind ...
... "The chess pieces are like rorschach blotches upon which you continue to map any number and order of themes ...",
... but I would add, that this is a quality, which they have in common with Tarot symbols.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Petrarca Trionfi poem motifs in early Trionfi decks

10
Huck,
You are avoiding the problem of why "Chastity" is holding out a coin. Neither chess nor Petrarch are going to explain that.

But if the "Chariot" had a name in the original Florentine/"Anghiari" deck...Florentia:
Image


The reverse of the medal issued at Cosimo's death; a very classicizing image to go along with his posthumous Latin title of Pater Patriae but a high gothic cognate would look much more like the CY chariot card. Also note that a gothic 14th century image of Florentia has the same Marian attributes I outlined above as well as the fleur-de-lys that is almost an exact copy from that impressed on the Florin. Discussion of this Cosimo medal and reproduction of of the 14th century Florentia here :
Adrian W. B. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence, p. 92f (but also see Chapter 1 where Dovizia is described as Florentia! In fact the first two chapters sole focus is Florentia).
http://books.google.com/books?id=ArSU39 ... ia&f=false

Phaeded