Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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It was 3 September, here ...

Inside the Anghiari debate ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=950&p=15422&hilit=ginevra#p15419

Later it was reflected here ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=782&p=15751&hilit=ginevra#p15751

Image
Image
Basini Parmensis poetae opera praestantiora: 2. Della vita e de'fatti di Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta ... commentario del conte Francesco Gaetano Battaglini
by Basinio Basini, Laurentius Drudius, Ireneo Affò, conte Angelo Battaglini, conte Francesco Gaetano Battaglini
ex typographia Albertiniana, 1794

https://books.google.de/books?id=WYEcAQ ... pi&f=false
page 340/341
Last edited by Huck on 23 Nov 2019, 08:49, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

92
This is a reply to Phaeded on the previous page, viewtopic.php?p=21346#p21346, Nov. 20. Phaeded wrote
Not if the Lombard order didn't exist...because the 14 trump ur-tarot wasn't expanded into the 22 trump deck until the PMB of c. 1451.
Sorry. I was assuming you knew my assumption that a deck of less than 22 trumps would likely have had more or less the same order in those specific trumps as they do in the 22 trump order that followed in that center, other things being equal, because players in that center would resist having to remember changes in the order. I have explained these points in the thread starting at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1382, or better (because more recent) my blog at https://marzianotoludus.blogspot.com/.

Yes, I assume a relative conservatism of the players. This is based on the relative similarity of the various lists within a region later. It also is supported by imagery in the cards: the clearest example is the contractual handshake on the CY Love card suggests Justice as the associated virtue, which is also the lowest virtue in the C, in the Italian orders just above Love, while Florence's picture of instinctual love in the ChVI suggests Temperance as the associated virtue, the lowest virtue in the A order, in Florence put just above Love. Additionally, the differences and similarities of each region with the others are consonant with a matrix of the sort that seems implied by Marziano's game, thus going back quite early, as opposed to later when the consonance is not there. Finally, the basic similarity of all three orders, within a 3x4 matrix plus 2, reflects that of the sources: Church doctrine (for the order of the "papi" and the virtues), and Petrarch's poem, supplemented by Plato's Republic (for the virtues), a pre-existing tradition of games about virtues, and perhaps "8 Emperors" (for multiple "papi" in an ordered sequence).

Phaeded wrote,
But you know that's my theory and I don't care to rehash that here.
At least a link to it would be appropriate, because perhaps you and I are not the only people now reading or will be reading this exchange. I have trouble remembering the details, too, or where you presented or summarized it. Here is the link you provided most recently: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1062

Phaeded wrote
We thus have a time period from when Sforza approached Lombardy at the Adige in July and the wedding events of 24-28 October. So the maximum amount of time for the CY to be created would have been four months; likely less than three if the details of the treaty were only agreed to in August. I don't see enough time for innovation and moreover I don't see what Visconti's objections would be to any of the trumps, especially when the key ones indicating rulership - the chariot and "world" - could be easily modified to suit his interests at that time.
I agree that Visconti, for the CY, would not have any objections to the trump subjects you postulate for the Malatesta deck. The only problem is that Visconti added 8 court cards to the deck you postulate for Malatesta, making 16 cards per suit rather than 14. If so, it seems to me that he would likely have had 16 instead of 14 trumps. Given that five of the subjects of Petrarch's Trionfi were in the CY (not precisely as Petrarch presented them, to be sure), it seems to me that the sixth would be there as well: Time, a subject seen all the orders and several surviving early hand-painted cards. It seems to me that this reasoning applies to the deck for Malatesta as well, so that Time instead of the Wheel of Fortune would have been present there, too, both using a minor theme in Petrarch, where Time is before Death, as opposed to his major one, that of Time's destruction of Fame. The Wheel, on the other hand, is a subject especially dear to the Visconti, as shown in the castle you visited on Lake Maggiore. Also, given that six out of seven virtues are in the CY in quite traditional depictions, it seems to me that Prudence would be there in a traditional depiction, too. The "World" card is Fame, defined as Fame in the eyes of heaven as well as earth, a Fame requiring the practice of many virtues, not only Prudence. There may be an intimation from Visconti to Sforza to be prudent, I don't know. But the trumpet makes it Fame, just as the figure on a globe holding out a small golden orb denotes Fame in Florence.

As far as your detailed historical account of Giusti and Sforza, you have presented nothing to indicate that the game was not invented earlier than 1440.

You raise the issue about there not being enough time between July and October of 1441 to invent enough new cards. Since we don't know when the game was invented, we don't know how much time he had. In any event, there is insignificant added difficulty about a wedding deck with 80 instead of 78 cards, when the two additional do not bear any special messages to Sforza and may already have existed between Lombard and Florentine decks. We also don't know that the CY was made for the wedding: it may simply commemorate it. 3 months for even 78 high-quality cards, some of them with innovative designs and incorporating Sforza and Visconti devices, is pretty quick. We cannot assume that Sforza and Visconti had to be on good terms for Visconti to send the deck: the enhanced feminine aspects suggest a present to all intents and purposes to Bianca, even if it also contained messages for Sforza; their quarrels were mainly about money, and the deck, on your account, is an enticement to forego present gain for the sake of the future.

Phaeded wrote,
Finally, pointing vaguely at the CVI or Minchiate while leveling objections against my theory as somehow discounting evidence in c.1440 Florence, when in fact I have provided granular detail, is beyond the pale, especially in light of your farcical dating of the CVI.
I advanced Minchiate as Florentine evidence, however slim, in favor of your contention that the deck for Malatesta had the three theologicals. There is no other specifically Florentine evidence. As you say, Dante was common property. I agree that the CY is evidence, but it is Lombard and contains the innovation of 8 more court cards, so that the theologicals could be an innovation, too. Also, I did not date the ChVI, but merely indicated that the dating is controversial, giving a range. I cannot see how more precise dating can be assumed. If you wish to dismiss 1445 as a "farcical" lower limit for the ChVI, you will have to address the issues that Maggio raised in her 2016 Playing Card article, at least regarding whether it could reasonably be that early (as opposed to whether it probably was, as she maintains). Here the dating of the Catania would be relevant, and especially the hourglass and cane on the Time/Old Man card, compared to their lack in the 1440s illustrations of Petrarch's Trionfi, which have crutches and an armillary sphere. How the dating of the Catania affects that of the ChVI I do not know.

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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On the other issue I raised, about Rene possibly having learned tarot in Florence, there is evidence of his interest in card games, albeit not tarot specifically. Dummett, Game of Tarot, p. 47 n. 52, mentions that he refers to the card game of "Glic" in a work written in 1473. Of course 1473 is a long way from 1443; but it seems to me that one's preferences in games is settled earlier in life, when one's mind is quicker, rather than later. (I have checked all the other references to Duke/King Rene I and Duke Rene II in Dummett's index and find nothing new.)

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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"Glic" is found in the context of Charles d'Orleans (descendent from Valentina Visconti) in 1457. Earlier I believed, that I had "glic" also in the context of Valentina Visconti, but I've problems to verify it in the moment, I don't remember, where I got it from.
I found glic in the context of French king Charles VII in 1458 ("martres and glic", martres is addressed as another game; I don' know this game)
https://books.google.de/books?id=6qwRJs ... ic&f=false
Glic is seen as a forerunner of Poker.
https://books.google.de/books?id=f17sAw ... 20&f=false
This idea is associated by the name. "Glic" seems to come from the German "gleich", which means "the same", understandable, if we think of a game, in which "4 of a kind" has an important function.

"Gleek" is a later game, which might go back to the game Glic in 15th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleek_(card_game)
"Gleek (sometimes spelled Gleeke or Gleke) is mentioned in several publications during the first half of the 16th century. The earliest known reference to Gleek has been traced by Micahel Dummett to Henry Watson's The chirche of the euyll men and women (1511).[1] However, the game called Gleek in that era more closely resembled the French game of Glic, known from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[2] The best contemporary descriptions of Gleek in popular English form come from three sources: John Cotgrave (1662),[3][4] Francis Willughby (about 1670),[5] and Charles Cotton (1674)."
The article gives for Glic the 14th century. I also remember, that there was something, likely at the playing card table of Louis d'Orleans, husband of Valentina.

Finally, I found Dummett himself, Game of Tarot, p. 47
"Gleek was an importation from France, where it was known as Glic, there it was referred to as early as 1397 ..." I remember, that this was used at the playing card table of Louis d'Orleans.

I note, that you also quoted from page 47 (Rene in 1473)

Finally ...
http://trionfi.com/0/p/03/
1408 Orleans
in an inventory of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, listing "ung jeu de quartes sarrasines and unes quartes de Lombardie (‘one pack of Saracen cards; one cards of Lombardy’)". (GT 42.)(S p. 70)
Schreiber adds in a footnote (refering to V. Gay, p. 286), that Louis d'Orleans, brother of the French king Charles VI., must have been a "Spielratte allerersten Ranges" ("first class gambling rat"): In the possession of baron de Joursanvault (Catalogue des Archives de M. le bn. de J., Paris 1838, vol. I, p. 103 - 105) were various bills about gambling losses of the duke. 1394 he lost in the "jeu de la paume" 200 livres de tournois; 1396 in the "jeu de echaiz" "une aulmure de gris a chanoine, further 1200 fr. in the "jeue de la bille" and other sums; 1397 he paid back various sums, which were lend to play "aux tables" and "au glic", also he had to cover various sums and losses to various persons.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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mikeh wrote: 23 Nov 2019, 00:02 Yes, I assume a relative conservatism of the players. This is based on the relative similarity of the various lists within a region later. It also is supported by imagery in the cards: the clearest example is the contractual handshake on the CY Love card suggests Justice as the associated virtue, which is also the lowest virtue in the C, in the Italian orders just above Love, while Florence's picture of instinctual love in the ChVI suggests Temperance as the associated virtue, the lowest virtue in the A order, in Florence put just above Love.
There is no evidence of a sequence list anywhere near the time of the ur-tarot. And I have no idea upon what basis you are making these false equivalences between virtues and other trumps. Justice is its own trump and has zero to do with the Love trump. The lovers are under Amor, not Justice....and if you think Amor has anything to do with Justice you should at least go back and read Marziano's account of "impious" Cupid.
mikeh wrote: 23 Nov 2019, 00:02I agree that Visconti, for the CY, would not have any objections to the trump subjects you postulate for the Malatesta deck. The only problem is that Visconti added 8 court cards to the deck you postulate for Malatesta, making 16 cards per suit rather than 14. If so, it seems to me that he would likely have had 16 instead of 14 trumps.
My view is the Florentine ur-tarot came to Visconti who naturally viewed this new game through the lens of the card game he already knew - Marziano's. But Florence had no reason to have 16 trumps, but every reason to use the matrix of the 7 virtues with exempli, for a 2X7 format. Visconti didn't just add two random trumps to the 14 without there being another canonical virtue (which would have had to be humility, which is absent); ergo, I think he left the 14 trumps alone. But his "16 heroes" in Marziano, torn between chastity/virtue and the wiles of Love, naturally placed an emphasis on gender. The occasion of the CY, in my interpretation, was the betrothal of Bianca to Sforza, thus 3 males for 3 females; 1 female and 3 males of the standard card deck was insufficient for the occasion and 16 card suits at least paid homage to his original deck designed by Marziano. I don't think he cared about the inconsistency of 16 court cards and 14 trumps for this one off occasion (and certainly no one cared about 14 card suits not matching 22 trumps of what became the canonical deck after the PMB).

I've laid out my explanation of this before, especially in these posts (although not about the CY they both touch on this specific problem):
The Marziano/Michelino deck - a gift for Agnese del Main, 10 Jul 2014.
Marziano deck in the context of the moralizing Ovid genre, 15 Dec 2016

Most germane to my argument is the assumption that the CVI is Florentine, and as such, some of the trumps retained the original characteristics; to wit, Love shows 3 dancing couples below the arrows being fired off by cupids, which perfectly matches the 3 males and 3 females of the CY's court cards. Visconti simply had that feature moved from the Love card (the Love card now depicting Bianca and Sforza under the auspices of love) and to the court cards.

In addition to the CVI Love trump, I would also point out the 1457 Ferrara reference to a 70 card deck, implying 14 trumps. Of related interest is the triumph-like floats prepared for Galeazzo Sforza's state visit to Ferrara in that same year. Ross has provided this translation of the description of them, including one that looks like a closely related variation of the CVI Love trump:
(2) a triumph of Love, with Cupid in a flaming chariot and couples in stately dance below
Image

Clearly the CY did not feature this, and again, would have represented something else appropriate to the occasion: the marriage of Bianca to Sforza. The court cards, more akin to the courtly culture of the Valois to whom the Visconti had intermarried, instead reflecting the courting games of 3 males for 3 females.

mikeh wrote: 23 Nov 2019, 00:02As far as your detailed historical account of Giusti and Sforza, you have presented nothing to indicate that the game was not invented earlier than 1440.
That's because there is nothing to explain away - ZERO pre-1440 evidence. And if you would take the time to actually read all of Giusti's giornali, you would see that Giusti was in frequent contact with Malatesta (and the Florentine war commission, the Dieci) before Anghiari, so it begs the question: if Florence was previously making tarot, why did Giusti wait until 1440, after Anghiari, to gift tarot to Malatesta...in the presence of the allied army, fresh from its triumph at Anghiari, that arrived from Florence into Malatesta's domains? Neither Giusti nor anyone else mention trionfi as existing pre-1440.

mikeh wrote: 23 Nov 2019, 00:02Also, I did not date the ChVI, but merely indicated that the dating is controversial, giving a range. I cannot see how more precise dating can be assumed. If you wish to dismiss 1445 as a "farcical" lower limit for the ChVI, you will have to address the issues that Maggio raised in her 2016 Playing Card article, at least regarding whether it could reasonably be that early (as opposed to whether it probably was, as she maintains).
The "World" trumps of the Alessandro Sforza Pesaro deck, Ercole d'Este's Ferrara deck and Florentine CVI deck are all strikingly similar enough to propose they shared a time period in which that particular tondo depiction was fashionable. Interestingly Alessandro died in 1473, and his son Costanzo inherited Pesaro, the same year that Ercole married Eleonora d'Aragon in 1473 (I assume Costanzo was at that wedding). Two years later Costanzo himself marries an Aragonese bride, Camilla d'Aragona, in 1475. Thus I propose the dates for those 3 decks as such:
* Ercole d'Este, which also shows the arms of Aragon, be dated to c. 1473
* Costanzo Sforza, ruler of Pesaro, c. 1475 (for his own wedding to Camilla)
* Florentine CVI deck - which shows no coats of arms (just a black shield in the sword suits), and I propose it to be the last of three, so c. late 1470s.

I'll reiterate here that I link the CVI to the Pazzi conspiracy, which lasted from 1478-1482, specifically in regard to that deck's chariot trump . Effigies of Lorenzo de Medici were placed in three different churches after the assassination attack and that's what the armored man appears to be on the chariot, awkwardly standing with no support on a moving wagon-like parade edifici. The Medici palle have been noted on the pennants adorning this parade wagon. Although not a condottiero, Lorenzo was nonetheless the leader of the state and at this time of formally declared war with the papacy, depicting him in armor would have only been natural (even his grandfather Cosimo owned a suit of armor and appeared in it on the odd diplomatic mission). But why is he holding a halberd? That weapon is never utilized as a Medici symbol of power, except in this proposed instance. The very year before the Pazzi Conspiracy, 1477, the most powerful army in Europe, that of the Duke of Burgundy, was destroyed by the Swiss - allied to Rene of Anjou's son - the Duke of Burgundy himself being gruesomely halberded to death with wounds to the head. This was infamous news, and naturally well-known to Lorenzo as he was one of the dead duke's bankers, via his branch in Bruges. In 1477 and thereafter, the halberd then accordingly had symbolic currency as victory in war. There is one major piece of Medici art that does feature the halberd and it dates to the conclusion of hostilities of the Pazzi War in 1482 - Minerva and the Centaur, the halberd now guaranteeing the peace, the unruly centaur gripped by "wisdom". I've not seen any alternative meaning for the idiosyncratic halberd on the CVI chariot. My theory of the CVI then, is we have a tarot deck featuring a halberd commissioned near the beginning of the Pazzi War in 1478 and then a major piece of work by Botticelli at the conclusion of the war, also featuring a halberd now held steadfastly by Minerva, in 1482. And it goes without saying that the CVI "World" card more or less matches the Pesaro and Ferrara examples from earlier in the decade
CVI Chariot and Botticelli Minerva-Centaur.JPG CVI Chariot and Botticelli Minerva-Centaur.JPG Viewed 8866 times 63.29 KiB

Phaeded

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

96
Thanks for your reply, Phaeded. You make me look at old pictures in new ways. I have only a few issues.

Phaeded wrote,
And I have no idea upon what basis you are making these false equivalences between virtues and other trumps. Justice is its own trump and has zero to do with the Love trump. The lovers are under Amor, not Justice....and if you think Amor has anything to do with Justice you should at least go back and read Marziano's account of "impious" Cupid.
I am not talking about equivalences, but relationships and associations. The CY Love card seems to me to be at least partly about the marriage contract, as indicated by the handshake, and hence associated with Justice, which is the next card in the Italian C orders. The handshake is evidence that the association to justice indicated by Love's being "trumped" by Justice, in the sense of being ruled by it in marriage, goes back that far.

Phaeded wrote,
Visconti didn't just add two random trumps to the 14 without there being another canonical virtue (which would have had to be humility, which is absent); ergo, I think he left the 14 trumps alone.
I am not suggesting anything random. For one thing, I am protesting is your amalgamation of Prudence with Fame. These each had different attributes. I can find no example (aside from your interpretation of World cards) where they are mixed. Prudence's attributes aren't there, in the CY World card. For another thing, the only addition the CY makes, besides the theologicals, is the Wheel, which is not random: it is an extension of the Petrarchan triumphs to include the one that triumphed over the others in Boccaccio's Amorosa Visione, so as to make 16. 16 is perfectly logical if there are 16 cards per suit. It is certainly permissible to have 14 cards and 16 cards per suit; it is just that if so they couldn't have included the theological virtues as well as an Emperor and an Empress. With Prudence and Fame ("World") as separate cards, there are just too many cards. The only way it would work is if Time were not there. But Petrarach's Trionfi seems to me fundamental to the game of trionfi: not only the name, but that it is right around 1440 when it became fashionable to have Petrarchan triumphs on cassoni and in manuscripts. I cannot believe that is a coincidence. (I am not saying that the tarot began then, just that it became fashionable then, perhaps due to new rules of play.) Florentines saw the tarot sequence, then without many of its later cards, as expressing Petrarch and vice versa. If you look at the Bolognese version of the Old Man , for example (yes, I know he isn't 1440, but I can't see why he would change), he is quite similar, including the wings, to the figure of Time in the earliest Petrarchan illustrations, missing only the sphere (in the earliest, Apollonio, c. 1442, it has the names of the continents on it), which would have been added along with the chariot and the deer.

Phaeded wrote,
In addition to the CVI Love trump, I would also point out the 1457 Ferrara reference to a 70 card deck, implying 14 trumps.
I see no reason why Ferrara would not have continued with a 14 trump deck. Even the Brera-Brambilla, by my reckoning, had 14 trumps, matching 14 cards per suit (but without the theological virtues). Once Visconti had introduced a deck with 16 trumps, there may have been decks of various compositions in the same town. After all, Florence managed to have a 97 card deck and a 78 card deck at the same time

My hypothesis is that the tarot originated in Florence or Bologna, and that it had 14 trumps (4 virtues, 6 Petrarchans, and 4 "papi") and 14 cards per suit. I cannot see how the three theological virtues would have been among them, unless the "papi" were reduced to one.

Phaeded wrote,
The "World" trumps of the Alessandro Sforza Pesaro deck, Ercole d'Este's Ferrara deck and Florentine CVI deck are all strikingly similar enough to propose they shared a time period in which that particular tondo depiction was fashionable.
You then go on to date these three to the 1470s. I missed seeing examples, besides the ones at issue, of how that "tondo" appears only then and not before, expressing something similar to what is on the card. I assume you are taking "tondo" as "circle with a scene inside", referring to that on which Fama is standing . The birthtray for Lorenzo in 1449 (a tondo), by an artist (69 years old in 1475) who produced a cassone lid with a figure on it very similar to the "stag rider", shows "fame" standing on a globe, out of which trumpets blare. It is more characteristic of Fame to be herself surrounded by a circle;. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petr ... s_triumphs. But the motif is similar. Figures standing above semi-circular rings surrounding an earthly looking globe are characteristic of the Triumph of Eternity. That and the clouds indicate that the Fame on these World cards is in a heavenly place.

As far as the date of the Alessandro Sforza cards, the number of recyclable documents with "1428" in them must have been fairly rare by the 1470s. Even assuming the common first name "Bernadin..." meant the saint, interest would not have been as great in Florence then compared with the time of his most active preaching and the years immediately after his 1444 death..

Phaeded wrote
In 1477 and thereafter, the halberd then accordingly had symbolic currency as victory in war. There is one major piece of Medici art that does feature the halberd and it dates to the conclusion of hostilities of the Pazzi War in 1482 - Minerva and the Centaur, the halberd now guaranteeing the peace, the unruly centaur gripped by "wisdom".
People with halberds were sometimes included in illustrations of Petrarch's "triumph of fame". I see one on the right side of
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petr ... detail.jpg, dated c 1380 and quite similar to the card's. The decorative motifs on the left side of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petr ... a-1400.jpg might be halberds. There is definitely one on Pesellino's, c. 1450, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ernity.JPG. For another, see an illumination of St. Wiborada, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiborada, This is from a c. 1430 manuscript at St. Gallen, but from the proportions and frame I would guess there was a votive card version. There were plenty of Swiss around, especially when the pope was in town.

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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mikeh wrote: 26 Nov 2019, 08:40 For one thing, I am protesting is your amalgamation of Prudence with Fame. These each had different attributes. I can find no example (aside from your interpretation of World cards) where they are mixed. Prudence's attributes aren't there, in the CY World card.
In the period we are talking about, one is not merely famous for being famous (e.g., Kim Kardashian in our own damned times), one was famous for something...and that something was always Virtue in general, or the canonical virtues named specifically, especially prudence when it came to rulers (and almost op[posed to them having overcome Fortuna through the virtues). The CY allegorical Fama holds attributes of rulership in her other hand - the orb.; ergo the knight riding to meet the kneeling maiden across the stream (the River Po to my mind, with the city nearest her being Cremona) speaks to rulership: the inheritance of the dowry city of Cremona, that Sforza will now be lord of. Bianca is not just married off to any freebooting mercenary kniight, but a man of Virtu...and togther they will rule prudently. The allegorical Fama above proclaims the forthcoming prudent rule of Bianca and Sforza, both their stemma split equally amongst the court cards, and the Love card with matrimonial bed in the tent showing their union.

I'm working on a rather long separate post regarding the Valois courts' influence on the Visconti, but Chrsitine de Pizan (invited to live in Milan by Giangaleazzo) has her main character of her mirrors for princes, L'Epistre Othéa, explicitly described as Prudence, who hands down wisdom to her model examplar (and dynastic founder via a made-up son, "Francia"), Hector. All of the other exempli - positive and negative - are thus shown to Hector-as-Valois-prince-exemplar by Othea-Prudence. Look again at the side by side comparison of the Pizan illumninations of deities and their followers (inclusive the "children of the planets" theme) and the CY world I posted in my Ancona arch thread - the similarity is striking; but it Prudence who is hsowing all of these vignettes and it is she who bestows wisdom on the mortal ruler below, so each of these vignettes is ultimately one of her gifts. Again, the CY allegorical fama holds the winged trumpet in the right hand and a crown in the left = the fame of a specific prince. Naturally, the Florentine ur-tarot would have looked drastcially different (perhaps Fama-as-Florentia holding a bunch of lilies instead of a crown, above the skyline of Florence = the fame of Florence, a visual companion piece to such literary works as Bruni's Laudatio)
But Petrarach's Trionfi seems to me fundamental to the game of trionfi: not only the name, but that it is right around 1440 when it became fashionable to have Petrarchan triumphs on cassoni and in manuscripts. I cannot believe that is a coincidence.


And yet the theologicals, much more prominent alongside the cardinal virtues in Florentine public spaces than the Petrarchan motifs, are dismissed as coincidental in the CY? Petrarch was merely a man of his times, and those themes echoed in comparable works unrelated to his triumphs (e.g., Barberino's Documenti d'Amor, whose image of cupid - at least the "girded with hearts" and throwing versus shooting of arrows details - was utilized by Michelino for Marziano's deck). And your glossing of Petrarchan Eternity for tarot's Judgement is not born by the examples we have of either. I don;t see any genre featuring 6 subjects as providing the matrix for the ur-tarot - and this cobbling together of "Papi"to get to 10 + 4 cardinal virtues is simply a stretching of the evidence for reasons I've criticized in the Papi threads. Petrarch is familiar to tarot because he's part of the same culture that produced Dante.
Phaeded wrote,
The "World" trumps of the Alessandro Sforza Pesaro deck, Ercole d'Este's Ferrara deck and Florentine CVI deck are all strikingly similar enough to propose they shared a time period in which that particular tondo depiction was fashionable.
You then go on to date these three to the 1470s. I missed seeing examples, besides the ones at issue, of how that "tondo" appears only then and not before, expressing something similar to what is on the card. I assume you are taking "tondo" as "circle with a scene inside", referring to that on which Fama is standing . ...Figures standing above semi-circular rings surrounding an earthly looking globe are characteristic of the Triumph of Eternity. That and the clouds indicate that the Fame on these World cards is in a heavenly place.
Petrarch's Eternity show God, not an abstract allegory, and usually with the four evangels. In terms of the specific genre of 15th century tarot cards, the closest parallel to the three decks I propose from the 1470s, is the c.a 1451 PMB showing two spiritelli, arguably the two Sforza children who then existed when he took control of MIlan in 1450, pointing towards succession. Sforza had to essentially take back Lombardy but in 1450 besieged Milan itself was the goal (idealized in the tondo as a New Jerusalem). The motif then gets modified later on with the content within the tondo made to more expansively depict the contado of a given domain (Ferrara, Pesaro and Florence/Tuscany), but the two spiritelli are dropped and a single genius/virtue representing the fame of the prudent ruler associated with each domain (d'Este, Pesaro branch of the Sforza, and Medici). All three examplkes are sufficiently simnilar in style to group togther. The bastardization of the tarot deck trumps continues at full throttle in the 16th century when, for the "World" trump, do find the four evangelists of "Eternity" making their way into this trump, but to retrodate that development as meaningful for any pre-1480 "World" date is beg anachronistic data.
Phaeded wrote
In 1477 and thereafter, the halberd then accordingly had symbolic currency as victory in war. There is one major piece of Medici art that does feature the halberd and it dates to the conclusion of hostilities of the Pazzi War in 1482 - Minerva and the Centaur, the halberd now guaranteeing the peace, the unruly centaur gripped by "wisdom".
People with halberds were sometimes included in illustrations of Petrarch's "triumph of fame". I see one on the right side of
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petr ... detail.jpg, dated c 1380 and quite similar to the card's. The decorative motifs on the left side of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petr ... a-1400.jpg might be halberds. There is definitely one on Pesellino's, c. 1450, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ernity.JPG. For another, see an illumination of St. Wiborada, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiborada, This is from a c. 1430 manuscript at St. Gallen, but from the proportions and frame I would guess there was a votive card version. There were plenty of Swiss around, especially when the pope was in town.
All incidental depictions of men of arms (I never suggested the halberd was a 1478 invention), not a featured symbol of rulership in Florence. If the CVI is Florentine, which we all now agree to, and the female Chastity allegory formerly on the Chariot has been transformed into a male ruler (first in the d'Este and Sforza-Pesaro decks), then the CVI Chariot is necessarily a symbol of Medici rulership, critically, in my opinion, in the period of 1478-82 when Medici rulership was spiritually and militarily challenged by the Pope. So you've ignored my limiting caveat - Medici art (explicitly commissioned by them, and at least implicit of their power in Florence) - and none of the examples you gave above are from the corpus of commissioned Medicean art. Where else, to reiterate, did they ever deign to associate themselves with a halberd? Botticelli's 1482 example is unquestioned - Minerva is draped in Medici symbols; I've suggested the CVI chariot does the same, and related to the same time period as the Botticelli.

A graduate art student could rip off my interpretation of the Botticelli into a fine DSS: what is allegorically happening in that Botticelli painting is a commemoration of Lorenzo's most audacious act of his life: sailing down to Naples in 1479 to convince King Ferrante to back out of his alliance with the Pope's war against Florence. How so? Look at the little ship nestled on the Centaur's back sailing back into the harbor - the successful completion of Lorenzo's mission. Why is the ship visually atop a Centaur? Lorenzo left Florence - with no advanced notice to the Dieci - in early December and reached Naples on 18 December 1479; the Centaur is the constellation symbol for the time period in which this happened: Sagittarius (look at the poetry of Poliziano and Ficino to see how common astral themes were). Why is Minerva grabbing the Centaur by the forelock? This is an early but unmistakable symbol of occasio (to my knowledge, no one else has caught that detail) - Lorenzo, or rather his "genius/Wisdom," has seized the occasion and bested Fortune, Minerva now cradling the halberd against her side as hostilities have ceased in 1482 when the painting was made and peace declared (typically the allegory of of occasio has the back of the head shaved, but the Centaur is providing a dual function as Sagittarius as well, so artistic liberties were made in light of the polyvalence of this symbol). There is more I could offer on this painting, but that should suffice for this topic.

Phaeded

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Phaeded (or Huck?) I seem to recall that you posited a scenario for how Isabelle's copy of the Tractatus de deificatione sexdecim heroum ended up in the royal library. In my 2004 article I offered some speculation, but I'd like to compare it to yours.

Here's what I wrote then. Note that the book is securely in the library at Blois in 1518, and can be traced continually from then.

"The history of the Tractatus along with Marcello’s letter, and the fate of the two decks of cards between 1449 and 1518, is unknown. In his study of King René d’Anjou’s library (Le Roi René (Paris, 1875) t. II pp. 182-197), A. Lecoy de la Marche notes that when René’s library was moved from the Château of Angers to Aix in 1471, some chests of notebooks remained locked and were not catalogued (ibid. p. 184). In addition the Tractatus, which by itself is a mere 32 small 4° pages (20.4 X 13.8 cm) in four quaternions, is a negligible 0.5 cm in thickness when flattened; it is easy to see how it might have escaped the notice of cataloguers. Of course, any number of other things might have happened to the book and the cards between 1449, Isabelle’s death in 1453, and the library’s relocation in 1471. We might propose a scenario in which the book went from Isabelle to René (1453), then to René’s named heir, his nephew Charles of Maine (1480), who, dying in 1481, left the claims of Anjou, Provence and Maine to King Louis XI of France. Thus most of Rene’s books ended up in the collection of King of France. Louis’ collection was held at the Castle of Amboise, through the reign of Louis’ son Charles VIII. The crown of France passed to the Orléans branch, and when Louis XII of Orléans married King Charles’ widow in 1499, he inherited Charles’ library, which was moved to Blois around 1501, where it was catalogued by Guillaume Petit in 1518. "

Of course it may not have gone to René I at all, I seem to remember you, Huck, Mike? suggested a different line from Isabelle.
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Not me, Ross. Your scenario seems to me eminently reasonable, and I would think Rene I would be part of it. On this point there is Depaulis, in my translation (from http://tarotinfrancebefore1500.blogspot.com/, where I also have scans of the original):
These two decks and the booklet associated with them were therefore handed to Isabelle in early 1450. René seems to have inherited the property of Isabella, who died in 1453, and René in turn decided, in 1480, that his collections would mostly go to enriching those of King Louis XI of France, his cousin.
I did have a different scenario for a 1480 French reference to "triumphs" than that favored by Depaulis, but that is another story, in a different part of northern France.

Phaeded wrote (in yesterday's posts)
In the period we are talking about, one is not merely famous for being famous (e.g., Kim Kardashian in our own damned times), one was famous for something...and that something was always Virtue in general, or the canonical virtues named specifically, especially prudence when it came to rulers (and almost op[posed to them having overcome Fortuna through the virtues).
Well, Fame is still different from Prudence, with different attributes. Prudence did not have a crown as an attribute. The crown does imply Fame worthy of a Prince, literally or metaphorically. And yes, Fame is for something, and in a prince probably many of the virtues, and in the CY including all seven. That is why the card is at or near the end of the sequence. But Prudence is a virtue for everyone, not especially rulers. That's why it would have its own card.

Phaeded wrote,
And yet the theologicals, much more prominent alongside the cardinal virtues in Florentine public spaces than the Petrarchan motifs, are dismissed as coincidental in the CY?
I took some pains to say that they weren't coincidental: they are logical extensions of the four virtues present previously. There is the lack of anti0types on the Fortitude card, in contrast to their presence on the theologicals, to suggest that the designs were not conceived in one fell swoop.

Phaeded wrote
And your glossing of Petrarchan Eternity for tarot's Judgement is not born by the examples we have of either.
Well, that is true, except for a "God the Father" at the top of the CY and PMB cards. These are all independent works (I mean the poems, the cards, the Petrarch illuminations), and the Petrarch illustrations don't match the poems in all respects either, as many have pointed out, even when the poems are on the same pages. Petrarch's idea is that Eternity triumphs over Time. It is this idea of one thing triumphing over another that is of interest in devising and playing a card game. The Last Judgment Judgment is the cards' version of the triumph of Eternity over Time. That hasn't happened yet in the CY and Florentine World cards, which is why it is second to last. The PMB "second artist" World card shows the New Jerusalem, which is somehow beyond Time. In that case the World card is last.

Phaeded wrote,
Petrarch is familiar to tarot because he's part of the same culture that produced Dante.
The difference is that in the 1440s there did not suddenly start appearing in Florence numerous similar cassone paintings and illustrations in manuscripts of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Phaeded wrote
So you've ignored my limiting caveat - Medici art (explicitly commissioned by them, and at least implicit of their power in Florence) - and none of the examples you gave above are from the corpus of commissioned Medicean art.
I have perhaps misunderstood you. I will have to think about this one. Added a little later: First, the halberd has a meaning independently of "Medici art", and was used as such in art of the time. Military prowess brings fame. My examples are relevant to that extent. I do not think "Medici art" is a valid name for a specific tradition in art, in which alone the halberd has meaning, defined by two examples. I would think both examples are defined by the object's natural meaning and the general tradition in art. What might make the ChVI Chariot card an expression of Medicean power is the "palle" on the chariot (unless that is simply a device to indicate who the deck is for). Is it only in relation to the Pazzi conspiracy that a condottiero holding a halberd would be appropriate? I don't think so. Cosimo had been exiled in the early 1430s, and after that took control. So any reasonable time after that would seem appropriate.

There is one thing from your previous post, of Nov. 25, that I should have addressed (again). It is pretty fundamental, so I will try again.
Phaeded wrote: mikeh wrote: ↑
23 Nov 2019, 01:02
As far as your detailed historical account of Giusti and Sforza, you have presented nothing to indicate that the game was not invented earlier than 1440.

That's because there is nothing to explain away - ZERO pre-1440 evidence. And if you would take the time to actually read all of Giusti's giornali, you would see that Giusti was in frequent contact with Malatesta (and the Florentine war commission, the Dieci) before Anghiari, so it begs the question: if Florence was previously making tarot, why did Giusti wait until 1440, after Anghiari, to gift tarot to Malatesta...in the presence of the allied army, fresh from its triumph at Anghiari, that arrived from Florence into Malatesta's domains? Neither Giusti nor anyone else mention trionfi as existing pre-1440.
Of course there is evidence to explain away, namely the evidence that Maggio presents for the Alessandro Sforza being pre-1440 (similar in nature to what you give for 1475, namely, historical events), and that Fiorini, and Belossi before her, present for the Rothschild cards being pre-1440 (in this case stylistic; I have reproduced and translated their writings at http://rothschildcards.blogspot.com/). To be sure, Giuisti probably sent the deck to Malatesta because it was a high-prestige item and served to express Florentine gratitude. That says nothing about tarot before that deck.

More basically, I don't follow why "there is nothing to explain away" or "Neither Giusti nor anyone else mention trionfi as existing pre-1440" is in any way decisive. Let me repeat: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. For example, there is no evidence that I ate breakfast every day last week. I didn't record it, nor do I even remember. I can only go by present habits, and my past habits if someone happened to record them, to make an educated guess. The past, of course, is not the sum total of evidence, or even evidence and memories. But what is it? Among other things, it is an a priori framework in which evidence and memories available in the present are placed, with more or less probability, sometimes even with certainty, filling in the gaps with inferences, again with more or less probability, and leaving the gaps empty when nothing can be inferred. (I don't mean a priori in a strict Kantian sense: it is not prior to all experience of everyone.) We can argue from present evidence, and past evidence we do have, to a past that goes beyond direct evidence. Thus Ross says that the tarot might be as early as 1438: it is a matter of later evidence (summarized in a chart) being used to make an inference. And why Dummett (with Depaulis and Decker, 1996, p. 27) gave 1410 as "the earliest date with any claim to plausibility" , but "probably around 1425; and "perhaps 1428-30" (in Il Mondo e l'Angelo, 1993), and "about1420" (in "Where do the virtues?", 2004) . This was at a time when 1442 was the earliest documented reference to "trionfi"; now it is 1440, but that is not much of a difference, as far as projecting into an unknown past.

Dummett after his retirement in 1992 wrote a couple of books of philosophy, not hard to understand, that addressed the question of truth in relation to the past, in which he distanced himself from his earlier views. This new stance, I think, helped him to comment better on tarot beyond direct evidence. Perhaps tarot researchers should read them (as well as, of course, taking more seriously his post-retirement works on tarot). I discussed these philosophical works at viewtopic.php?p=15094#p15094 (although with zero interest on the part of others, even though it was a thread on methodology). Especially relevant in the present context is the section of that post called "truth and the past".

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 27 Nov 2019, 08:36 ...
Of course it may not have gone to René I at all, I seem to remember you, Huck, Mike? suggested a different line from Isabelle.
If I was it, I don't remember. Perhaps I once speculated as a vague possibility, that Rene brought the deck back to Milan and Sforza in 1453. Perhaps I had the idea, cause the Daphne motif reappeared as a Milanese bookpainting.
Huck
http://trionfi.com
cron