mikeh wrote:Well, yes, but I wanted to see if you had any comments about the Beinecke first.
To whom exactly are you referring with "Beinecke"? An anonymous person of the 19th or 20th century? How could that possibly matter?
mikeh wrote:In the Santa Maria Novella fresco it might not be a triumphal arch, as opposed to the formal entrance into heaven.
It's both - St. Peter is standing under the arch with his keys, as the be-laureled saved pass through. Again, Ciriaco met with everyone of note in Florence, when Filelfo was also resident there, to discuss his Arch of Trajan findings, etc., and there is no way that arch is not identified in the Quattrocento as also triumphal (however it was understood in the Trecento and religious the context). At all events, the triumphal arch perfectly matches the goal of the fresco: the
Church Triumphant.
mikeh wrote:But what I don't see is why it follows that the card conflates fama with prudentia.
Again, THERE IS NO CONFLATION. A prudent hero (Sforza), who is to rule a Visconti dominion, is having his fame declared; as such he is worthy of the duke's daughter across the stream. Bianca traveled down the Po to Cremona from Abbiategrasso via Pavia, so one could argue she was kneeling in front of her home in Abbiategrasso or the ducal home in Pavia [both south of Milan], and that the city further away in the middle is Cremona, but it still makes more sense that the city she kneels besides is her dowry city, especially given it’s tall tower, for which Cremona was renown. What the Brambilla would have shown is anyone's guess - if a "red castle", fine.
The hero disappears in all subsequent 'Worlds', along with fama and prudenza. What are the implications of that? Assuming the ur-tarot indicated the fame of some prudent one/thing (e.g., the Fame of Florence), as did the CY, then a lasting convention was set for what the last card might indicate - a "domain" (without the qualifying attributes of fame or prudence being necesssary) Even the CY is arguably about the domain of Cremona, if not the larger issue of dynastic succession for the Duchy of Milan, as indicated by the flag of Pavia on the Love card (as Filippo was firstly Count of Pavia; the first thing Sforza did in 1447 was make himself Count of Pavia, despite the Ambrosian Republic, who simply caved in to this, post-facto: see Ady, A History of Milan Under the Sforza, 1907: 41). Fame and prudence would be closely associated with the rulership of a domain, but there simply is no sign of either in all subsequent "worlds" (just indications of a city or
contado, presumably ruled by a ruler famed for his prudence, the virtue par excellence of rulership...even into Cosimo I's time). The Virtue or
putti holding the scepter over a
contado is simply an allegory of the domain ( or a 'genius of the place/domain', if you will), not unlike the “papess” is an allegory of the Church. Finally, in regard to prudence, this means she is oddly not explicitly shown in the trumps while the other 3 cardinal trumps are, but this focus on what is ruled (the domain), versus the ruler, in the highest trump means the normally person-associated virtue of prudence makes less sense as a symbol. This is simply one of history's vagaries - but a development we can pin down to as occurring in Milan (where the city is the focus in the PMB). And note that the mounted figure of Sforza is transferred from the World, as found in the CY, to the background of the Justice card in the PMB, so the ruler is still given his due, while the ruled domain (Milan) is high-lighted in the highest card as that which must be transformed.
Similarly, the changes to other key trumps from the CY to the PMB showing Sforza and Bianca are significant and explain their changed circumstances from 1441 to 1450. Refer to the referenced images I've already posted above in this thread:
LOVE trump:
- CY: a matrimonial bed awaits the couple - the marriage needs to be made legitimate/consumated.
- PMB:
the matrimonial bed is missing (Cupid simply stands on a column, like an idol), because the marriage has been consummated already; she had two kids by 1450, and was pregnant with a third when Sforza entered Milan.
CHARIOT:
- CY: A chaste maiden offers Chastity's symbol of a jousting shield, while the page on the calm horse holds the orb of rulership (that comes with a domain - the dowry of Cremona); she is offering that to
someone.
- PMB - a woman
no longer associated with Chasity, instead holds symbols of rulership (
not offered), pulled by two winged horses. In his contemporary
Odes, Filelfo refers to the Ambrosian Republic's mob as a gorgon - the mythical creature from whose slain blood Pegasus was born. Pegasus, in turn, creates the Helicon spring by scratching its hoof on a mountain top from which proceed the Muses (any number of illuminations or paintings depict this; e.g.:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/56 ... 02ac16.jpg. By way of Pegasus, Bianca is thus associated with the Muses - the Muses return to Milan with the Sforzas, per Filelfo (his
Odes are themselves organized into books named after each Muse). No one even has alternate theory as to why two pegasuses draw this chariot (the mythical Pegasus was of course singular, but I will concede the pictorial Petrarchan triumph genre was enough to influence this depiction as two winged horses [versus, say, two elephants]; at all events, the card is about Bianca's virtue, not Pegasus per se). The PMB Chariot has nothing to do with the CY Chariot's symbols, other than the rider in both cases was Bianca, but she has been transformed from chaste virgin to a virtuous ruler to whom even the Muses will rally (in restoring Milan). [the armored Queen of Swords is also arguably a reference to Bianca's military defense of Cremona against Venice - when she donned armor - a success that helped secure Milan].
STAR/VENUS:
- CY: No evidence it existed (nor the son or moon - which also presents a numerical issue for 14 or 16 trumps).
- PMB: Clearly patterned after the Paduan prototype of planetary Venus, the PMB figure also holds her hand across her pregnant belly like so many
Madonna del Parto paintings we have previously discussed, but equally importantly she also does the same in the Venus of Besozzo's Visconti genealogy (where she is not in a planetary aspect, just mythical:
http://www.wga.hu/html_m/m/michelin/elogium1.html). Venus is making these pregnant gestures because the subject is births and dynastic succession, something wholly appropriate to a new ruler of Milan who needed to show he had heirs. Venus thus combines the planetary aspect along with that of the mythical Venus Genetrix (which ultimately goes back to Caesar as his divine ancestor, which a Marziano or Filelfo would have been well aware).
WORLD
- CY: A knight coming to a maiden beside a city, a river between, with a coastline on the horizon: arguably Bianca next to her dowry city on the Po River, which flows to the Adriatic. The coastline is prominent and needs to be explained - given the fact that Sforza was given Cremona because intervened between Milan and arch-enemy Venice, the Adriatic is the obvious answer.
- PMB: Two
putti before a hexagonally walled city (such as we find in the Visconti Hours with Prudence placed over it, but again, no prudence indicated explicitly in the trump). The Venus-del-parto, which indicates dynastic succession, receives its concrete confirmation here in the two children already born to Bianca at the time of the taking of Milan in 1450 in the form of the two
putti. Milan itself is idealized, like the two children as
putti (the dynastic lineage goes back to Venus, after all), as if a heavenly city (surrounded by stars), like a New Jerusalem. Sforza will restore Milan accordingly. The message is simple, but it is his domain to restore.
An idealized domain is retained as the meaning of this card until the Anima Mundi/four apostles motif gets introduced.
The CY and PMB are impossible to understand by simply referring to the homogenized subjects of later decks of tarot - whether you believe in the 14->21/22 expansion from the CY to PMB, there is no denying the significant changes made to the Milanese trumps just discussed, from one deck to the next. But the bottom line is the theme of the World was already altered from the CY to the PMB - subsequent 15th century packs favored showing a
contado, but then again, few cities were as large as Milan (not Ferrara, whose
contado was contested by Venice, and certainly not Pesaro). And no other city had her former "domain" symbols of power, the Visconti, savagely dismantled and the city itself utterly ruined by internecine fighting, famine and plague...only to be restored by one claiming to be "Visconti" by way of his marriage. Sforza as a "healing Apollo" (Fiellfo's words) was required.
I am still waiting to see your account for how the literary reference explains the order of the sequence.
I was quite clear in my original "Literary Source of the Trumps: Dante's
Paradiso" that there is no explicit or implicit order for any subset of the 7 virtues, 7 planets nor 7
exempli; none of the subsets of 7 take priority in the literary source. Each of the 7 "steps" of ascension simply contain three aspects: planetary/virtue/
exempli (after the seventh step the Church Militant ceases as we enter the highest heavens and the Church Triumphant). A sequence must have been derived, however ad hoc, and used by card-players (and here I give a nod towards Ross - the game-playing milieu was all important for sequence; but I don't think Filelfo gave a shit, per his derogatory comments about the Cremonese "scholars of the gaming table"). This lack of explicit/implicit sequence in the source material in fact explains the lack of consistent sequence we witness in the regional variations, something that no one has been able to provide a rationale for, only that the problem of inconsistency exists.
Phaeded