Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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http://wopc.co.uk/downloads/BodetTarot.jpg


What do you all think of this deck? It's a lot like the Flemish, except for those titles at the top... Strange titles.

The World card stands out, what is that curtain rod in his/her hand? Is that a man or a woman being depicted? I ask because to my eyes it looks like he/she is a bit hairy.

The border, black and white pattern reminds me of the Paris and the Vandenborre, only slightly different.

Anyone feel like discussing this one? Comparing it to others, like the Flemish or Paris...? It is a pretty little thing, I'd love to have one, but am certain that's an impossibility. =((
"...he wanted to illustrate with his figures many Moral teachings, and under some difficulty, to bite into bad and dangerous customs, & show how today many Actions are done without goodness and honesty, and are accomplished in ways that are contrary to duty and rightfulness."

Re: Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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prudence wrote:http://wopc.co.uk/downloads/BodetTarot.jpg


What do you all think of this deck? It's a lot like the Flemish, except for those titles at the top... Strange titles.

The World card stands out, what is that curtain rod in his/her hand? Is that a man or a woman being depicted? I ask because to my eyes it looks like he/she is a bit hairy.

The border, black and white pattern reminds me of the Paris and the Vandenborre, only slightly different.

Anyone feel like discussing this one? Comparing it to others, like the Flemish or Paris...? It is a pretty little thing, I'd love to have one, but am certain that's an impossibility. =((
I'm going to add some to this thread, but I want to point out a very good thread that many of the members here (Steve, Ross, Jean-Michel and myself) contributed to the subject of this style of deck, anyone interested in a good background on this should certainly look through this thread on AT:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=69458

Re: Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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I've split up the cards from the one large image into separate files, and have placed them online so that we can use them when discussing in this thread.
http://www.tarothistory.com/bodet.html

Underneath each image is the exact code you'd need to display the card in this thread, so if you want to talk about one of the images, grab the code underneath, paste it in here, and have at it.

Here is an example, one of the cards I find most interesting in the deck, The World:

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Re: Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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So, what of the World card?
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I'd guess that this is most likely Fortune on top. Fortune was known for being fickle, "inconstant", changeable, and subject to whatever way the winds blow.

Here's a wonderful old version by Giotto from 1306:
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She was not only shown with her wheel as in the Tarot de Marseille, but was often shown on a globe, holding a sail to suggest her susceptibility to changing winds.

Here are a few examples:
This one from the Siena Duomo, Allegory of the Hill of Knowledge (1505-06):
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And compare that to the World from the Tarot de Paris:
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And here, also from Sienna (hmmm):
Fortune with sail on a dolphin, watched by ermine (reverse) c.1498
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The Vieville is usually very similar to the Belgian, but this is one of the cards (like the Chariot) where he takes a Tarot de Marseille version rather than a Belgian version:
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Yet, this version really reminds me of the World card from the Minchiate:
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Not that I think in this case that it is Fortune being shown, but I do wonder if there is a connection?

Now, a couple of years ago I picked up a wonderful book while visiting Oxford that explained the medieval views of the universe.
http://www.bodleianbookshop.co.uk/displ ... 1851241842

... and that was the first time that I realised that when I see the orb held in the hand of the Emperor, or as seen on this card, where the circle is divided into three sections, that was how the "world" was represented, the "three" contents shown being Europe, Asia and Africa below, known as a T & O map of the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map

What do you think?

Re: Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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Hi, Robert,
robert wrote:So, what of the World card?
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I'd guess that this is most likely Fortune on top. Fortune was known for being fickle, "inconstant", changeable, and subject to whatever way the winds blow.
That's one well-known aspect of Fortune, but there are others. In the middle of the trump cycle she is the turning point of the allegorical narrative, the point of reversal between the successes of Love and the Triumphal Chariot, over which she triumphs, and Betrayal and Death, toward which she leads.

As the highest card in the cycle, however, she is explicitly shown standing on the World, as Imperatrix Mundi. This title is known most famously from the Carmina Burana lyrics, but in general terms her sovereignty over the world is perhaps as fundamental as her fickleness. She rules the changeable, sub-lunar parts of the Cosmos.

Both aspects were emphasized in Boethius.

She is also related to Divine Providence, but that's another story... Ross?

Best regards,
Michael
We are either dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, or we are just dwarfs.

Re: Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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mjhurst wrote:Hi, Robert,
robert wrote:So, what of the World card?
Image

I'd guess that this is most likely Fortune on top. Fortune was known for being fickle, "inconstant", changeable, and subject to whatever way the winds blow.
That's one well-known aspect of Fortune, but there are others. In the middle of the trump cycle she is the turning point of the allegorical narrative, the point of reversal between the successes of Love and the Triumphal Chariot, over which she triumphs, and Betrayal and Death, toward which she leads.

As the highest card in the cycle, however, she is explicitly shown standing on the World, as Imperatrix Mundi. This title is known most famously from the Carmina Burana lyrics, but in general terms her sovereignty over the world is perhaps as fundamental as her fickleness. She rules the changeable, sub-lunar parts of the Cosmos.

Both aspects were emphasized in Boethius.

She is also related to Divine Providence, but that's another story... Ross?

Best regards,
Michael
Hi Michael,

It's very nice to see you, thanks for joining in.

Personally, I'm not convinced with your suggested interpretation for the sequence, (or that Tarot de Marseille sequence should be considered as standard, for that matter), but I agree with you that Boethius and Carminia Burana capture what I imagine to have been the typical reading of Fortune.. a warning of her fickleness, and to put your trust and surer sources (like God) .

I'll look forward to Ross joining in and discussing Divine Providence, if he does.

I think one of the most interesting things on this card is the animals at the top which pretty much match the Tarot of Paris. In fact, this is the only card in the deck that has those animals, while the rest of the cards don't have them (unlike the Paris, where it is standard). Isn't that odd? Why would this one card have the animals? what is the connection?

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Re: Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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It seems to me that this representation of Fortune stems not so much from Boethius, but rather from the likes of Plutarch (who views Fortune as a God - not a goddess, by the way) or Lactantius, the latter of which refers to still earlier works in, for example, this quote:
Juvenal declares in these verses:
No divine power is absent if there is prudence; but we make you a goddess, O Fortune, and place you in heaven.
It's quite an interesting evolution of the overall image if we take into account that here we have from this representation of the Divine Winds directing the engagement of Fortune with the world and the blessings coming from her cornucopia, to the depiction of the card as Christ (Tarot de Marseille-I), to the feminine depiction with, again, a cloth though draped over her (Tarot de Marseille-II).
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&
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association.tarotstudies.org

Re: Bodet Deck, compare/contrast/discuss/have a look

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mjhurst wrote: She is also related to Divine Providence, but that's another story... Ross?
This was more of a suggestion for the Cary Yale "World", a few steps removed from my preferred interpretation of her, as Fama.

Michael and I had a discussion about this a couple of months ago, and it produced a few interesting images and reflections.

"What do you think of the CY World (and by extension some others) as Providence? I forgot what got me onto that idea, but it seems like an appealing idea. God rules the universe, including Fortune, through his providence.

Trouble is, I can't find any medieval illuminations of personifications of Providence. The Roman one is pretty standard, on coins - usually it is a woman standing, holding either a cornucopia or a staff, and a globe (or pointing to one).

But Medieval, nada as yet.

Some later ones are by Federico Zuccari (1542-1609) and Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669).

Zuccari's is in the Sala dei Mesi (Hall of the Months) of the Palazzo Costaguti in Rome.

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Cortona's "Triumph of Providence" is interesting in the center of the allegory, which shows Providence triumphing over Time and the Fates (and perhaps other assorted things I can't make out).

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It seems there was no fixed model for the allegory of Providence, but it does make sense for such a figure to be in a tarot in that place (I would argue underneath the Resurrection, but why not above it?)."

I had found a quote by Hannah Pitkin -
Hanna Pitkin in "Fortune is a Woman" summarizes it nicely -

"For the early Middle Ages, the imagery [of Fortune] was set by Boethius' enormously influential Consolations of Philosophy, which presents a much more somber picture. Much of the metaphor and imagery surrounding fortune disappears; there remains only the wheel, "which fortune grimly turns." The wheel's movement, and fortune's character, shift from capriciousness to inexorability. And far from being propitiated or influenced by supplication, fortune - though still personified and female - has become an agent of the Christian God, part of the universal order and hierarchy, working out divine providence. In the medieval understanding, from Boethius to Aquinas, God governs the world through his providence, which is the reason of the universe, and through fate, which is the active order of the universe exercised from above in the great hierarchy of being. This latter, fate, in turn, governs fortune, who becomes ultimately "the duly appointed Intelligence in charge of the distribution of external goods", as distinct from "the goods of the soul."
Michael responded in part with observations on the Cortona image and a quote from Boethius -

"Very cool. Time, Death, and Fortune (in her most exalted form).

In the case of Cortona, he is taking an aspect of Fortune that is was present since Boethius, her role as God's agent, and focusing on that ...
My object has been to bring you to know that the power of evil men, which seems to you so unworthy, is in truth nothing; and that you may see that those wicked men, of whose impunity you complained, do never miss the reward of their ill-doing; and that you may learn that their passion, which you prayed might soon be cut short, is not long enduring,and that the longer it lasts, the more unhappiness it brings, and that it would be most unhappy if it endured for ever.

For Providence is the very divine reason which arranges all things, and rests with the supreme disposer of all; while FATE is that ordering which is apart of all changeable things, and by means of which Providence binds all things together in their own order. Providence embraces all things equally, however different they may be,even however infinite: when they are assigned to their own places, forms, and times, FATE sets them in an orderly motion; so that this development of the temporal order, unified in the intelligence of the mind of God, is Providence.

The working of this unified development in time is called FATE. These are different, but the one hangs upon the other.For this order, which is ruled by FATE,emanates from the directness of Providence.Just as when a craftsman perceives in his mind the form of the object he would make, he sets his working power in motion, and brings through the order of time that which he had seen directly and ready present to his mind. So by Providence does God dispose all that is to be done, each thing by itself and unchangeably;while these same things which Providence has arranged are worked out by FATE in many ways and in time. Whether, therefore, FATE works by the aid of the divine spirits which serve Providence, or whether it works by the aid of the soul, or of all nature, or the motions of the stars in heaven, or the powers of angels, or the manifold skill of other spirits, whether the course of FATE is bound together by any or all of these, one thing is certain, namely that Providence is the one unchangeable direct power which gives form to all things which are to come to pass, while FATE is the changing bond,the temporal order of those things which are arranged to come to pass by the direct disposition of God. Wherefore everything which is subject to FATE is also subject to Providence, to which FATE is itself subject. But there are things which, though beneath Providence, are above the course of FATE.

Those things ate they which are immovably set nearest the primary divinity, and are there beyond the course of the movement of FATE. As in the case of spheres moving round the same axis, that which is nearest the centre approaches most nearly the simple motion of the centre,and is itself, as it were, an axis around which turn those which are set outside it. That sphere which is outside all turns through a greater circuit, and fulfills a longer course in proportion as it is farther from the central axis;and if it be joined or connect itself with that centre, it is drawn into the direct motion thereof, and no longer strays or strives to turn away. In like manner, that which goes farther from the primary intelligence, is bound the more by the ties of FATE, and the nearer it approaches the axis of all, the more free it is from FATE. But that which clings without movement to the firm intellect above, surpasses altogether the bond of FATE. As, therefore,reasoning is to understanding; as that which becomes is to that which is; as time is to eternity; as the circumference is to the centre:so is the changing course of FATE to the immovable directness of Providence. That course of FATE moves the heavens and the stars, moderates the first principles in their turns, and alters their forms by balanced interchangings. The same course renews all things that are born and wither away by like advances of of spring and seed. It constrains, too, the actions and FORTUNES of men by an unbreakable chain of causes:and these causes must be unchangeable, as they proceed from the beginnings of an unchanging Providence. Thus is the world governed for the best if a directness, which rests in the intelligence of God, puts forth an order of causes which may not swerve. This order restrains by its own unchangeableness changeable things, which might otherwise run hither and thither at random.
The discussion turned to images of "Bridled Fortune" (Fortune as the servant of God - another way of interpreting or personifying Providence).

Ross
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