Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

21
Two other attributes on the MATTO card - one of which seemingly confirms the Marsyas aspect:
* The raven, at which the Matto stares at while playing, is Apollo's bird. Marsyas challenges Apollo to a musical duel and then is flayed after losing. But per my earlier post, Marsyas could have a virtuous side, perhaps latent but developed after undergoing what Ficno would a call a "purgation" (Marsyas' flaying) of earthly interests (the mess of feathers on his head point to his animal nature).

* The mountains: this is the only trump that does not have a flat landscape in the background. The Matto thus seems to be a pied piper-like figure leading us through a geographical border to another place, perhaps mythical or, more precisely, a somnium, inhabited by the Roman Republican and Biblical era figures of the other trumps (see not only the Dream of Scipio but Lucan's adaptation of that theme in his Pharsalia). The mountains (and feathers) are both the earth (e.g., the mountians on the Ercole Este World trump) from which the soul leaves in a dream/otherworldy journey but could also indicate a massa confusa or the quality of materia/body before being purgated for divine insights. So again, Marsyas as a silenus/satyr figure who has the potential to conceive and be graced by the Apollonian truth - thus a symbol of the self.

To me the Sola Busca is much more philosophical/cosmological, with a focus on the place of the soul within that framework, than strictly alchemical.

The precedent here for the Sola Busca Matto-Marsyas identification is none other than Dante, who draws from Ovid’s Metamorphoses' telling of the Marsyas myth (6.382-400) at the opening of the Paradiso (1.19-27) to describe the soul’s departure from the body in his invocation to Apollo:
Enter into my breast and breathe in me just as when you drew Marsyas, out from the sheath of limbs. O divine strength, if you lend me of yourself enough that I may show the shadow of the blessed realm sealed on my head, you will see me come to the foot of your beloved tree, and crown myself with the very leaves which the subject and you will make me deserve.
The only question this raises is if the Sola Busca Matto figure wears the traditional feathers or if they have been transformed into a mess of laurel leaves here…
”Here in the proem to the paradise, the leaves (folgie) of the crown are complicated subtely by their metapoetic connection not only to pages (Latin folia), but also to the wood (legno) of the symbolic tree which reactivates the ancient sense of materia (subject matter) as ‘timber.’" (“The Classical Languages and Italian: Some Questions of Grammar and Rhetoric”, Guilio Leschy, in Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language, Thought and Poetry 1300-1600, ed. C. Caruso and A. Laird, 2009: 12.)

Finally, the only reasonable identification of the next card, Panfilo [‘lover/friend of all’], is Boccaccio’s character in his Decameron, but we also find in his Genealogy of the Pagan Gods this passage regarding Marsyas right after his allegorical explanation of the significance of Bacchic vomiting (“purgings”):
I think they wanted Marsyas to be under his [Bacchus’] guardianship because he was daring, in fact, rash, toward Apollo and in this rashness of the intoxicated I understand loquaciousness toward everyone [Panfilo?]. Because of this, wise men often seem to be confused by the ignornant in the eyes of the uneducated, who do not notice that the speech of the wise does not proced in any order but moves in the manner of a satyr like Marsyas, proceeding by leaping here and there. (Book V.25.22, p. 717 of J. Solomon trans. for I Tatti)
A few lines further down Boccacio even leads us back to not only Apollo but also to a possible reason as to why insects appear in the Sola Busca:
Some again also add to the fiction that even though he [Bacchus] was dismembered and then buried, he rose again whole. I think that this must be understood in that after many imbibings, the heat of the wine produces small insects, and the combined result is drunkenness; from this it is quite clear that Bacchus lives and does something. About this Albericus said:
Bacchus should be understood as the spriti of the world which, although it is divided into members throughtout the bodies of the world, nevertheless seems to reintegrate itself when emerging from bodies, reforming itself, always remaining unique and the same, not suffering its single nature to be subdivided.
He says this. But I think this Bacchus of Albericus must be understood as Macroius’ sun, to whom Macrobius transfers the divinities of all the gods.
(ibid, V.25.24, p. 719)
And Macrobius leads us back to the Dream of Scipio....

Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

22
Phaeded wrote:Two other attributes on the MATTO card - one of which seemingly confirms the Marsyas aspect:
* The raven, at which the Matto stares at while playing, is Apollo's bird. Marsyas challenges Apollo to a musical duel and then is flayed after losing. But per my earlier post, Marsyas could have a virtuous side, perhaps latent but developed after undergoing what Ficno would a call a "purgation" (Marsyas' flaying) of earthly interests (the mess of feathers on his head point to his animal nature).
Interesting observation. Beside the Musician Fools in the Hofämterspiel, this Marsyas Fool might be the first Musician Fool in all the Trionfi deck Fools ... and perhaps in all other decks, too ? The Charles VI Fool has a string of bells, but is this music?

...
Finally, the only reasonable identification of the next card, Panfilo [‘lover/friend of all’], is Boccaccio’s character in his Decameron, but we also find in his Genealogy of the Pagan Gods this passage regarding Marsyas right after his allegorical explanation of the significance of Bacchic vomiting (“purgings”):
I think they wanted Marsyas to be under his [Bacchus’] guardianship because he was daring, in fact, rash, toward Apollo and in this rashness of the intoxicated I understand loquaciousness toward everyone [Panfilo?]. Because of this, wise men often seem to be confused by the ignornant in the eyes of the uneducated, who do not notice that the speech of the wise does not proced in any order but moves in the manner of a satyr like Marsyas, proceeding by leaping here and there. (Book V.25.22, p. 717 of J. Solomon trans. for I Tatti)
The theme of the figure "Panfilo" is rather complex.

There were theater plays at the wedding of Alfonso d'Este in January 1491 in Ferrara (the year to which the Sola Busca is given). From some older work of mine ...
...
It was given

1. "Menaechmi" from Plautus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menaechmi
(already given at 25th of January 1486, at Ferrara's first great theatre event, again given in Milan 1493 by Ercole's ensemble)
2. "Andria" from Terence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andria_(comedy)
3. "Amphitrione" from Plautus (in the version of Pandolfo Collenuccio)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitryon_(play)
(this work was already given at 26th of January 1487 - marriage of Lucrezia d'Este)

The second work, "Andria" knows a hero named "Pamphilus" ... the name is interpreted as from 'pan' and 'philos', a "friend to all".
In the story Pamphilus is "Simo's son publicly betrothed to Philumena but privately promised to Glycerium".


Further the name Panfilo appeared (later) as a name for a special card (? Jack of hearts perhaps ?, I've forgotten the context). One source was a German source 17th century.

And the name appeared before the Decamerone, I remember. I researched this once.

About the Decamerone I wrote here:
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=163397
I think, Boccacio has some parts in all 3 male figures.

There are different writing forms of the names, which makes research a little bit complicated.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

23
Huck,
What does the Ferrara marriage have to do with the ensuing all-male trumps of the Sola Busca? I’ve already made a case for Marsyas/Matto entering an Apollonian dream vision, a'la the Dream of Scipio, populated with Roman Republican and imperial/biblical figures - some of which are trustworthy exemplars, others ambiguous or negative in character. Boccacio’s figure of Panfilo is precisely tied to such a dreamscape, per his moralizing introduction
in which he warns against interpreting dreams too literally, but also against dismissing them completely as nonsense (Valerio C. Ferme, “Torrelo and the Saladin (X,9): Notes on Panfilo, Day X, and the Ending Tale of the Decameron”, in Medievalia et Humanistica, No. 35: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Culture
Scales of Connectivity, edited by Paul Maurice Clogan, 2009: 37)
At all events the only city we can connect to the Sola Busca without reservation is Venice, per the coat of arms of Venier on the aces and four of the trumps, as well as the foundation date of Venice, which allows us to date the deck to 1491 (there are no d'Este stemmi).

Anything of note happen in Venice in 1491? Nothing I could find except for the preceding year: The legal cession of Cyprus to Venice signed in Cairo on 9 March 1490 and the birth of Francesco Venier (1490-1556) who would become doge. Of course no one would know the infant would attain that exalted status, but the Venier were one of the four wealthiest and largest families in Venice who could expect their fortunes to encompass Cyprus (they already had a substantial business claim on Crete) and had previous doges in the family…so a gift, such as the Sola Busca, on the occasion of the first birthday of a scion from this family would not be unexpected.

Finally, the subject of Boccaccio’s Torrelo/Saladin tale, put in the mouth of Panfilo, involves both Cairo and Cyprus: Saladin travels through Europe undercover as a Cypriot merchant to get intel on a forthcoming crusade, is treated well by an unsuspecting Italian merchant name Torello; later Torello is captured on said crusade, eventually recognized by Saladin who wants to return the hospitality and ends up magically transporting Torello from Cairo back to Italy via his magicians. Moreover, the Sola Busca features a Babylonian, Nembrotto/Nimrud, and Saladin is described as “Soldan [Sultan] of Babylonia.”

As an aside, I’d like to mention that I pasted all of the SB trumps in a row and noticed that they form pairs, looking at one another (and the Matto and World/Nebuch. face one another as well – and besides this fool/world pairing, I do think we have to look at the SB as “eccentric”). I searched through this forum and saw you already made that discovery about the pairings – was that your own or did you take that observation from elsewhere (just want to credit the right person as I find that to be a fundamental fact about the SB trumps)? I should also point out that the identification of the Venier coat of arms was all Marco’s doing via an Italian heraldry research site (he has a neglected post somewhere on this forum regarding that; direct link to the heraldry thread[in Italian]: http://www.iagiforum.info/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13700).

Phaeded

Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

24
Phaeded wrote:Huck,
What does the Ferrara marriage have to do with the ensuing all-male trumps of the Sola Busca?
It was an older general suggestion, that Ferrara played a role in the production of the Sola-Busca. Things likely have changed with the Sola-Busca exhibition.
Part of the suggestion was some similarity of one of 2 persons at the 2 of coins (the typical producer place) with Savonarola, who had a Ferrarese origin. Ercole d'Este had hope, that Savonarola would become a saint.
I myself observed, that the second person might be Alfonso d'Este (a relative young person with a beard). Alfonso loved to have beards.
I also observed, that the poet "Panfilo" Sassi (a man with homosexual tendencies) had some presence in Ferrara. The Sola-Busa has some erotical elements, more than any other deck.
I also observed, that Ercole d'Este and Alfonso visited Venice short after the wedding. Which might have been the way, how the Venetian note appeared on one of the cards. The inscription wasn't engraved, but added by painting.

Generally one can observe, that after the Venice-Ferrara war some Venetian cities took Trionfi game allowances in their statutes (which possibly states, that before Trionfi cards weren't allowed for some time).

So there were some arguments. Recently it looked as a big surprise, as if the Sola-Busca had some curious relation to the later Lucca deck. Possibly you remember.
As an aside, I’d like to mention that I pasted all of the SB trumps in a row and noticed that they form pairs, looking at one another (and the Matto and World/Nebuch. face one another as well – and besides this fool/world pairing, I do think we have to look at the SB as “eccentric”). I searched through this forum and saw you already made that discovery about the pairings – was that your own or did you take that observation from elsewhere (just want to credit the right person as I find that to be a fundamental fact about the SB trumps)?
It happened in a communication at tarotforum.net (maybe 2003-2006). An outsider, who never reappeared in the discussions with "fool" in his name (that's what I remember) made a note about his exploration and asked a question. I recognized as you the importance of his detection and congratulated him for it. I compared it with the similar feature in the Boiardo Tarocchi poem, where stupid male misbehavior is followed by complementary female virtues (pairing 1/2, 3/4 ... etc.). Also I had the idea, that the feature would do well, if we assume, that the cards would have been presented in a book (1 figure for each page), where - as a result - one then can see one figure observing the other in the opened book.
I attempted to find the old discussion, but weren't lucky.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

25
Huck wrote: Part of the suggestion was some similarity of one of 2 persons at the 2 of coins (the typical producer place) with Savonarola, who had a Ferrarese origin. Ercole d'Este had hope, that Savonarola would become a saint.
I myself observed, that the second person might be Alfonso d'Este (a relative young person with a beard). Alfonso loved to have beards.
Way too much has been made of this card - it is an "ancient" and a "modern"/contemporary - the ancient, crowned with laurel, is on top as an exemplar for the contemporary Italian to emulate (see the trumps, which is somewhat of a field of landmines as there are negative exempli there as well).

The suggestion that the red hat on the contemporary Italian is symbolic of a merchant or merchant class is ludicrous - it was common to all classes/occupations. To wit...
Image


Finally, I hope to be posting more on the Venier and this deck in the near future.
Phaeded

"Pairing principle"

26
Sola-Busca (1491) and Boiardo Tarocchi poem (I suggest 1487) use both this "pairing principle" and are close to each other in time. Lorenzo Spirito in his popular lot book (1482) also used a sort of "pairing principle".

Recently Franco Pratesi wrote ...
1477: Bologna – Aritmetica per carte e trionfi
http://naibi.net/A/323-BONOZZI-Z.pdf

It's about the Trionfi card production in 1477, the second Trionfi card note in Bologna.
... reported here:
http://trionfi.com/0/e/35/

Franco comes to the conclusion, that in this document of 1477 the price relation between trionfi decks and normal decks is 5:4, which possibly means, that the number of cards used in the trionfi decks also had the relation 5:4 to the normal cards. If the standard deck had 56 cards, then the Trionfi deck should have had 70 (in the case, that the consideration hasn't an expected error). Then it would have been 5x14 decks, which were produced in Bologna, as late as 1477.

Image

(from the article)

There was a social change in Northern Italy around this time, the attacks on reigning heads (Galeazzo Maria Sforza, edici brothers) caused wandering war activities. First around Milan, then the matter of Florence 1478, and finally the attack on Ferrara (till 1484). From Florence I've read, that the Giovanni the Baptist festivities were stopped for a period (since 1478 till 1488). Perhaps a sign, that generally the number of triumphal festivities decreased in a dramatic manner. With the fall of these activities, also the fashion of the Trionfi cards might have lost its popularity (our document collections are too poor to confirm this tendency, generally we've now much more documents between 1440-1465 than between 1465 and 1500, but this might be not significant enough as the early time was much more researched).

Ferrara suffered the most in the following war activities, and actually there were bad social conditions and famine years after 1484. Ercole d'Este recovered the Ferrarese glamour with cheap theater festivities, which became a great success, and with great wedding parties.

This was (possibly) also a good time to recover the Trionfi card fashion. New types of decks, new structures in the decks, more trumps.
That's possibly the background for these unusual Trionfi cards, Boiardo Tarocchi poem and Sola-Busca Tarocchi with their "pairing principle".
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

27
Q: The vertical object to the right of the central putto - a barren tree (in which case are there two, a second faint one closer to the putto's leg) or Hercules club, as the putto assume's Atlas' position?

I ask because if the latter then do the putti companions relate to "Hercules at the crossroads"?
Ace of Coins.jpg Ace of Coins.jpg Viewed 18052 times 116.02 KiB

Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

29
I don't know the answer to your question, Phaeded; I don't even know if the tree is barren, as opposed to a cypress, symbolic of death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupressus_sempervirens ; scroll down to the Mediterranean Cypress). Whatever it is, it is not something to build an argument on.

The central figure, if alchemically understood, would be the rubedo, corresponding to the sanguine temperament, as I think Tarotpedia made the assignment (unfortunately not available at the moment; I am drawing on my post relying on it at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530#p7340). The motto is "Servir. Chi persevera infin otiene"--"To serve. If you persist you obtain [your goal] in the end." The putto at the right, would be the albedo, phlegmatic. And the one on the left, with "Trahor Fatis", submit to fate, would be the nigredo, melancholic. The coin is golden, a symbol of the end of the work. The motto suggests that the alchemist should be optimistic--as should all of us, if we persist in virtue and so prompt God's mercy. There is a way to triumph over death.

As far as the coats of arms, I wrote (with one correction I made today, in brackets), in my second post in this thread (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=988#p14771):
In Gnaccolini's essay, the identification of the owner of the actual colored deck, as opposed to engravings of odd cards now in various museums, as the well known Venetian diarist Marino Sanudo il Giovane (1466-1536), the "M.S." on the Aces of Batons and Swords, was attractive. The stemma of the Sanudo family (silver with blue stripe), is apparently on the Aces of Coins and Cups, and that of the Lezier [note added Feb. 3, 2015: the correct name is Vanier] family, his mother's, on the Aces of Swords and Batons and trumps I, IIII, XIIII, and XV (banded silver and red). Zucker had noticed these stemmi but didn't know what to make of them. Sanudo is documented as commissioning work by Marco Zoppo, whose style is similar to that of the cards, and had hermetic interests as well as in fostering the printing trade. (Another possibility she mentions is Marco Sanudo, his cousin.) Also, the identification of the two persons on the 2 of Coins as Ercole d'Este and Michele Savonarola fits that family. His father represented Venice in Ferrara at the right time, 1457-59, to have known this physician and pioneer in the use of metallic salts to treat illness (and so an "alchemist" broadly defined). Ercole, born 1431, would have known Savonarola (grandfather of the more famous one) both before his training in Naples (1145-1460) and at the end of Savonarola's life, d. 1468. But the portrait appears modeled on a Roman coin of Caligula.
Michele Savonarola, to be sure, was not a merchant; he was a physician. In the above, I somehow made up the word "Lezier", perhaps out of the lady's first and last names, Letizia Venier, Sanudo's mother. I was trying to summarize a passage in Gnaccolini's essay and let a confusion slip by. Since it might be of some relevance, here is the passage, one long paragraph (Gnaccolini p. 50f, including the footnotes, p. 58f; I didn't take the time to put titles in Italics):
Iscrizioni e stemmi degli antichi possessori. Grazie all'identificazione dei due stemmi nobiliari presenti in varie carte, effettuata per la prima volta in occasione di questo studio, con quelli relativi alle importanti famiglie veneziane dei Venier (fasciato d'argento e di rosso)215 e dei Sanudo (d'argento alla banda azzurra) 216 e alla presenza delle iniziali "M.S." ai lati dello stemma. Sanudo 217 ritengo che il possessore del mazzo Sola Busca possa essere con buona probabilità identificato in Marin Sanudo il Giovane (Venezia, 1466-1536) 218. Storico e politico veneziano, egli attese fin dalla giovinezza a studi classici ed eruditi, che si concretizzarono nella stesura dei famosi Diari, vivace cronaca degli avvenimenti veneziani redatta tra il 1° gennaio 1496 e il settembre 1533. Egli nacque nel 1466 da Leonardo Sanudo, senatore della Serenissima morto precocemente nel 1474 219, e Letizia Venier di Pellegrino, che una volta vedova lo allevò con l'aiuto degli zìi nel castello della famiglia materna di Sanguinetto (presso Verona) 220. Questo fatto, e un legame particolare con la famiglia della madre 221, potrebbero forse spiegare l'insistenza sullo stemma Venier, riproposto nelle carte anche in abbinamento con le iniziali "M.S." (che però non lo affiancano mai: asso di spade [fig. 1.129] e asso di bastoni [fig. 1.104, 1.132]), e il perché nelle carte nessuna iniziale alluda direttamente alla famiglia Venier 222. Al suo personale interesse di storico potrebbe rimandare anche la data riportata dal trionfo XIIII, calcolata a partire dall'anno mitico di fondazione di Venezia, così come risulta riportata proprio nell'introduzione al suo studio De origine, sita et magistratibus. Se si indaga nella storia della famiglia, già la figura del padre Leonardo appare con dei tratti che risultano particolarmente significativi se dobbiamo pensare a un legame dei Sanudo con le nostre carte. Egli infatti, nato nel terzo decennio del XV secolo da una delle più antiche famiglie della Serenissima 223, pur non essendo laureato aveva ricevuto una buona educazione umanistica (secondo Ludovico Carbone era addirittura allievo di Guarino Veronese)224 e faceva parte della ristretta cerchia di patrizi veneziani umanisti, così ben ricostruita dal Lowry 225 e dalla King 226, della seconda generazione: un ristretto gruppo di personaggi molto influenti, che ricoprivano spesso incarichi pubblici di rilievo e mantenevano tra loro stretti rapporti sia di tipo professionale sia di studio, e sostanzialmente utilizzavano l'umanesimo come strumentò per giustificare le azioni di governo, che decise in prima persona. Erano fortemente coinvolti nel recupero dei testi classici e nell'impresa tipografica veneziana impiantata da Nicolas Jenson. In particolare dalle annotazioni contenute nel Libro dei conti del Sanudo il Lowry ha ricostruito una trama di rapporti 227, tra i quali spiccano i nomi di diversi scrittori e collezionisti veneziani e, tra i familiari, il nipote Marco, figlio del fratello Francesco 228. Nel 1457 Leonardo Sanudo incaricò Leonardo Bellini, che "era senz'altro il più moderno miniatore a Venezia" 229, di miniare il suo codice con le opere di Lattanzio. Venne quindi inviato come visdomino a Ferrara, per difendere gli interessi dei cittadini veneziani, tra il dicembre 1457 e la primavera del 1459, anni in cui a Ferrara insegnava Guarino Veronese ed era medico di corte Michele Savonarola. Il patrizio veneto in quel torno di tempo ebbe modo di incaricare due tra i più importanti miniatori che lavoravano per il duca Borso, Guglielmo Giraldi e Giorgio d'Alemagna, di miniare una copia di Virgilio da lui stesso trascritta (oggi Parigi, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat. 7939A) 230. Tornato a Venezia Leonardo si fece esemplare un altro codice di Virgilio dall'atelier di Bartolomeo Sanvito (Parigi, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat. 11309), che venne miniato da Marco Zoppo, "a sua volta di ritorno da un soggiorno emiliano" poco oltre la metà degli anni sessanta 231. Per completare il quadro bisogna ricordare ancora come gli interessi ermetici di Marin Sanudo siano stati recente- [page 51 starts here] mente sostanziati dal Kristeller 232, che ne ha riconosciuto una nota di possesso su un codice cabalistico ed ermetico proveniente da un monastero veneziano oggi alla biblioteca del Trinity College di Dublino (Q.3.12, ff. 138v-l74v). Direttamente dalle pagine dei Diarii possiamo poi avere testimonianza del suo personale interesse per la figura di Giovanni "Mercurio" da Correggio, sul cui arrivo a Lione lo informa nel 1501 con due lettere Pietro Aleandro 233.
___________________
215 Crollalanza 1890, p. 76; Libro d'Oro 1965-1968, pp. 1603-1604; Spreti 1981, pp. 848-51; Sturdza 1999, p. 445.
Lo stemma Venier ricorre negli scudi miniati nei "trionfi" I, IIII, XIIII, XV, nell'asso di spade (fig. 1.129) e nell'asso
di bastoni (figg. 1.104,1.132); in queste ultime due carte ricorrono anche le iniziali in capitale romana "M.S". La presenza sopra lo stemma di una banda d'oro tra due teste di leone, se l'identificazione della famiglia è corretta,
potrebbe forse alludere al ramo dei Venier di san Marco, che allo stemma fasciato comune a tutta la famiglia
associarono il leone di san Marco al naturale (cfr. Sturdza 1999, p. 445).
216 Lo stemma Sanudo, con ai lati le iniziali "M.S.", molto più abraso e di difficile lettura (è uno stemma interzato
d'argento alla banda azzurra, di cui si conservano solo poche tracce) ricorre negli scudi miniati nell'asso di denari
(fig. 1.130) e nell'asso di coppe (fig. 1.131). Nell'asso di denari lo stemma S circondato da un cartiglio con l'iscrizione in capitale romana "SERVIR CHI PERSEVERA INFIN OTIENE"; in basso a sinistra è una stella accompagnata dal cartiglio "TRAHOR FATIS", che si trova anche nei trionfi II e XIII. Purtroppo non ho trovato riscontri a questo motto.
217 E in parte quando c'è lo stemma Venier.
218 Le due famiglie Venier e Sanudo si incrociano solo ancora, per quanto ho potuto appurare, con Elena Sanudo
(sorella di Marino, nata nel 1451), che sposa nel 1469 Francesco Venier, podestà di Padova: sono loro i genitori
dell'amato nipote Marcantonio Venier, ambasciatore, 1483-1566. Un'altra ipotesi potrebbe portare a sciogliere le iniziali "M.S." in Marco Sanudo, cugino di Marino, figlio di Francesco (fratello di Leonardo), noto astronomo e matematico allievo di Luca Pacioli, morto nel 1505, cfr. Bettinelli 1786, p. 231 n.b.; Quadri 1826, p. 398; Veratti 1860, p. 90 n. 167; I Diarii 1879-1902, nota d. Sui libri in possesso di Marco, nipote di Leonardo Sanudo,
Lowry 2002, pp. 61-62, 306. In questo caso tuttavia non mi spiegherei la presenza dello stemma Venier.
Sulla figura di Marino Sanudo, uomo di ampia cultura, con una biblioteca di 6500 volumi, "stimato come figura di non comune rilievo" nel panorama della Venezia umanistico-rinascimentale si rimanda a A. Caracciolo Aricò,Introduzione, in Sanudo 1980, pp. X-XVII.
219 A. Caracciolo Aricò, Introduzione, in Sanudo 1980, pp. XLIII, 310 nota 91.
220 I Diarii 1879-1902, pp. 12-13 n. 14, parte 6, nota j.
221 Per cui nel testamento del 1533 viene citato Marco Antonio Venier "signor di Sanguenè, mio nepote, qual sempre ho computa per fiol, et li ho infinite obligation", sito web Wikisource.
222 Purtroppo non trovo a conforto alcun fatto significativo nella biografia di Marino Sanudo relativo all'anno 1491 se non che compie i venticinque anni e viene quindi presentato al Gran Consigno, Lowry 2002,p. 59.
223 King 1989, II, pp. 635-637; Sanudo 1989, p. 6 nota 10.
224 Mariani Canova 1995, p. 57.
225 Lowry 2002, pp. 14-15
226 King 1989, passim (e in particolare pp. 61, 309-316); King 1989, II, pp. 390-396, 635-637.
227 Lowry 2002, p. 364.
228 Sanudo 1989, p. 296 n. 360, con bibliografia e supra nota 213.
229 Mariani Canova 1995, p. 60.
230 G. Mariani Canova, in The Painted Page 1994, p. 109 cat. 42; Toniolo 1994, p. 236; Mariani Canova 1995, pp. 40-45 tavv. 8-13, 57-71; F. Tonìolo, in Mariani Canova 1995, pp. 160-164, cat. 4; Mariani Canova 1998, pp. 27,137-141 cat. 17; F. Toniolo, ad voces Giorgio d'Alemagna e Giraldi, Guglielmo, in DBMI 2004 pp 268- 270, 307.
231 L. Armstrong, in The Painted Page 1994, cat. 72 pp. 154-155 (1466-1468 circa); Mariani Canova 1993, pp. 121-135 (1463-1464 o poco più tardi); Mariani Canova 1995, pp. 63-64; A. De Nicolò Salmazo, in La miniatura a Padova 1999, pp. 247-249 cat. 95 (settimo decennio); S. Marcon, ad vocem Ruggieri, Marco dì Antonio, in DBMI 2004, pp. 922-924 (1466-1467). Zoppo dovette essere a Bologna forse anche prima del giugno 1461 e trattenersi almeno fino al 1467, Benati Maino 1993, pp. 65-67.
232 Kristeller 1983, p. 196.
233 Vecce 1988, pp.16-17; Sacri 1999, p. 71; Saci 2000, pp. 47-48.
The complete bibliographical references are in the book's bibliography. If any are needed, just ask. If you like, I can try translating some of this, but Google Translate isn't bad with modern Italian.

Re: How eccentric is the Sola-Busca?

30
mikeh wrote:I don't know the answer to your question, Phaeded; I don't even know if the tree is barren, as opposed to a cypress, symbolic of death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupressus_sempervirens ; scroll down to the Mediterranean Cypress). Whatever it is, it is not something to build an argumenton. .
Indulge me. I don’t think it is just a coincidence that the only other card with the exact same framing of triumphal swags of garland as the Ace of Cups is the Ace of Clubs/staves, featuring Hercules’ club:
SB Ace of Coins and Clubs-staves.jpg SB Ace of Coins and Clubs-staves.jpg Viewed 18032 times 30.41 KiB
The two disinterested putti from the Ace of Coins now hold the club where the head should be on the suit of armour. The rest of the club pips are tooled into staves, noticeably piercing the head in the three of staves (which bespeaks of mental activities are already alluded to). So we have the materia of the tree, cypress or otherwise, transformed into a useful tool in the next suit, staves - a notion of positive progression through the pips. The motto on the ace of coins is to “persevere”, which in the pips is through the four elements/humors, and then classical and biblical exempli in the trumps, the latter demonstrating positive and negative outcomes of the admixtures of the material of elements/humors.

I do not doubt that there are some alchemical associations, but imagining red, white and black colors onto the three putti is but an alchemical interpretation run amok – there are no differences between the three putti besides their physical dispositions. The dispositions are thus:
• Left putto: melancholic pose with head on hand
• Central Putto: Atlas/Hercules
• Right putto: arms crossed to indicate inaction (not even reading) = acedia/sloth.

I see the entire deck as heavily influenced by Ficino’s brand of Neoplatonism (via the conduit of Benardo Bembo and other Venetians with whom he frequently corresponded), and of course Ficino was obsessed with Saturn as the humanist/intellectual type par excellence and its associated maladies. The ascent of the mind/soul towards celestial understanding and harmony was beset by the vices germane to scholarship – withdrawl from the world into inactivity or melancholic depression. The Atlas-Hercules putto embraces the challenge of understanding the world while staring at the astral fatalism symbolized by the downward radiating star bearing down on the melancholic putto (iterated in the highest trump as well, the trump traditionally called the “World” but here features the gloomy, Saturnine “Nabuchodenasor”, so this melancholic theme is in the first and last card of the deck)

And of course Neoplatonism would not be focused on Hercules as a warrior (hence the empty suit of armour) but as a heroic overcoming of the self towards a cosmological understanding:
In conjunction with his allegorical interpretation of Hercules’ “two choices,” Palmieri [ Libro della vita civile, where Hercules at the crossroads is reconstructed as between operational prudence and speculative wisdom] ….“established the kind of contemplative wisdom over active prudence, Palimieri establshied the kind of critical foothold within civic humanism which would allow Ficino and his followers to find a solitary way, with the help of ‘heroic melancholy,’ out of its finite constraints. (Noel Brann, The Debate Over the Origin of Genius During the Italian Renaissance: The theories of supernatural frenzy and natural melancholy in accord and in conflict on the threshold of the scientific , 2001: 70)

Most importantly, there is no more precise description of the putti on the Ace of Coins than this:
The philosopherr, pleaded Ficino, must find a middle way, like Odysseus, between two monsters threatening his sanity. The first monster, the Scylla of phlegmatic sloth, ‘often blunts and suffocates the genius,’ where as the second monster, the Charybdis of melancholy, while displaying certain enervative features in common with cold and moist phlegm, displays others as prone to overstimulating as oppressing a scholar’s mind. (ibid, 100).


On to the Sanudo issue...
Aces of cups and coin, stemma detail.jpg Aces of cups and coin, stemma detail.jpg Viewed 18032 times 29.71 KiB
mikeh wrote:
In Gnaccolini's essay, the identification of the owner of the actual colored deck, as opposed to engravings of odd cards now in various museums, as the well known Venetian diarist Marino Sanudo il Giovane (1466-1536), the "M.S." on the Aces of Batons and Swords, was attractive. The stemma of the Sanudo family (silver with blue stripe), is apparently on the Aces of Coins and Cups….Sanudo is documented as commissioning work by Marco Zoppo, whose style is similar to that of the cards.
Now that we know the artist was likely to have been Nicola di Maestro Antonio d'Ancona this last point is irrelevant. As for Gnaccolini’s comments about Cups/Coins as Sanudo’s stemma of a silver field crossed with a blue stripe (d'argento alla banda azzurra), I see the remnants of a gold band, such as we find on the other 6 cards that are clearly Venier’s, not a blue one. And the background field color simply looks rubbed off like in the Panfilo trump’s shield. The few fragments of a gold design on the field of the ace of cups matches the gold on the band that should have been blue. The cups/coin ace stemma must remain unidentified , but one could argue the Venier red/white could have been rubbed off (its in a bad condition on most of the cards its on) and the gold designs on cups as non-stemma details such as we find in black on the Metelo trump. But what bothers me the most about this Sanudo proposal is that of the 8 cards showing a stemma why place his initials on two of the cards (sword and baton aces) that clearly show the Venier’s coat of arms? Sanudo as a humanist and a Venier marriage makes sense, but what is on the cards does not represent a blue diagonal.
MS on Aces of Staves and Swords.jpg MS on Aces of Staves and Swords.jpg Viewed 18032 times 39.43 KiB
Phaeded