Huck and Phaeded are discussing the CY world card on the Petrarch thread and I thought I ould like to offer another view- if the card at all shows an actual geographical message in the first place.
In 1438 Francesco Sforza went to great expense, that nearly bankrupted him to have an elborate Marriage to Bianco Visconti in Fermo in the Marche.
It is my view that if this was a marriage deck commissioned by Sforza- then it would show his journey to her.
So I have the Knight on the Tenna river awaiting his bride, who has bypassed the Franciscan stronghold of Corridonia (formally Pausaula)to cross the river. On the right is the Duomo of Santa Maria Assunta. The Arch on the card replicates the Doorway of the Duomo. Toward the sea- the Adriatic, and center is Civitanova Marche, who interestingly has a Coat of arms or Stemma that may well be recognised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Civit ... Stemma.png
To the right of Civitanova Marche is the watchtower on the look out for Saracens- North of Pedaso. They are in ruins now.
To the Left of Civitanova March is Porta Potenza Picena and further left is the start of the Conero Penisular.
When the Marriage was cancelled, the debt was managed by a Jewish Banker in Ancona.
It is the Duomo in Fermo that is particularly interesting.
It has four form/statues of the Cardinal Virtues and a legend/Tourist blurb? of Sforza and his straw Hat and his fury at Visconti reneging on the marriage.
~Lorredan

Grrrrrr......I got you now you Peach! (Oh dear not yet...the cards say you have to go to Cremona in three years, but you will be back at Fermo for the birth of your first born)

Lorredan wrote:

Duomo Fermo.jpg

Grrrrrr......I got you now you Peach! (Oh dear not yet...the cards say you have to go to Cremona in three years, but you will be back at Fermo for the birth of your first born) :ymdaydream:

It doesn't look like a lion from 1441. Perhaps that's a divination for Bianca Maria or Francesco Sforza in 1438.

... :-)

The Lion is a thirteenth century beast.
I call him Sforza because he looks mightly aggrieved!
The thing is the geography of any Italian area is vastly different to what one imagines it might have been in the 15th Century. Fermo was an important place and Ancona was a small port, whose buildings had been burned to the ground several hundred years before Sforza came on the scene. Macerata was the big town of the Marche. The area was controlled in many ways by Bishop- Princes. The Coat of Arms of Fermo is the a white cross on a red field and a black eagle. So if this card showed Ancona it should, given it's age, included Macerata. The important town on the Coast for Sforza was Civitanova Marche and he spent money on extending it's defences. If it was Jesi portayed, that place was built on a ridge not on the river flats. Dante used the site of San Leo as the Landscape for Purgatory. In the scheme of things the card does not seem to show a miltary conquest landscape- but a marriage landscape, because it really does not show things as they were, from a military point of view.
~Lorredan

The important point is a dating for the Cary-Yale Tarocchi. If we gain some perspectives, which possibly lead into the discussion of this point, that's very good.
I think, that the Piccinino-Sforza observation makes a good story, but it isn't naturally true. If other ideas are developed, I don't mind.
Perhaps some analyzes of the city pictures leads to something more solid. Perhaps they are not just phantasy.

Well, don't forget this one, another interesting story, by Marcos

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=6796&hilit=red+castle#p6796

Well, let's gather the different ideas and hypotheses at this place.

Here is another one: The hypothetical construction (Chess Tarot theory) of Cary Yale Tarocchi is 16 trumps, 24 court cards, 40 number cards. 16-24-40. At the time of the marriage (1441) Sforza had been 40 years old, was 24 years older than Bianca Maria and Bianca Maria was 16 years old . 40-24-16.

In the case, that Filippo Maria noted this curiosity, he might have chosen the model of the deck just for this deck. Or might have determined the wedding date according his ideas for a deck. Or one of his many astrologers might have found, that this was a good date and a good idea.
Bianca Maria was Filippo Maria's only daughter and the only way to prolong the Visconti dynasty, in other words, his only way to his genetic survival. That's a mighty motivation in nature.So Filippo Maria with his many astrological believes might have taken the "right date" very important.

If the date as so important (of the marriage) why then was the anticipated 1438 ignored? Sforza would have been 36?
Why did Visconti not have the cards made for the original 1438 date at Fermo?
Are the 2 Monks bringing the knight a contract? A book of Hours?
I will think of this so more given the enlargement and the other Story.
~Lorredan

Lorredan wrote:If the date as so important (of the marriage) why then was the anticipated 1438 ignored? Sforza would have been 36?
Why did Visconti not have the cards made for the original 1438 date at Fermo?
Are the 2 Monks bringing the knight a contract? A book of Hours?
I will think of this so more given the enlargement and the other Story.
~Lorredan

Why didn't he send Bianca Maria ... ? It's said, that Filippo Maria made his military decisions according the advice of astrologers. If it was really so, then the decision, when he married his daughter, was probably done also this way.

Btw. Martiano da Tortona was also called an astrologer. Pietro Lapini, who wrote a Canzonieri commentary, was also called an astrologer.
It's plausible, that Filippo Maria valued astrologers as wise and intellectually clever men. Or formulated in another way: If one had some intellectual quality, one naturally also had some insight in astrology. A least in Milan at the court of Filippo Maria.
Naturally parents likely had also a feeling, when their daughters were "ready" for marriage - independent from their age. With 13 years Bianca Maria possibly wasn't "ready" - in the opinion of the father. That's not an unusual case usually, that fathers keep their daughters at home longer, are very critical against possible son-in-laws etc.. And Bianca Maria - after wedding - needed some time to become pregnant. Perhaps she indeed was not "ready" in her development.
As the private life of Filippo Maria was kept very secret, we just don't know. We just get some gossip from the records, if true or false, we don't know.
Bianca Maria became a talented woman. The education can't have been totally wrong.

Here I come out of left field.
What if the geography is not Italy at all?
What if that water is the Danube and that center town is Nicopolis?
What if those ships are Genoaese and Venetian?
What if those men in the fishing boat are Sigismund and his Marshall?
What if this is celebrating 1396 and Visconti Fame even if The Ottomans (The Lightening Rod) won?
What if this deck supports the antipope (Armadeus V111- the Savoy- the Peacemaker)
That Knight is the Knight -Monk order of Saint Maurice???

Gulp....whatcha think?

~Lorredan