Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

11
My response to mikeh:

Thank you very much, mikeh, for your interest in what I wrote. I am really grateful for your interest and support. This is exactly the kind of dialogue I was looking for and which I cherish a lot.
I want to answer your remarks point by point. You wrote:
mikeh wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 21:15 On the relevance of Platonism to the tarocchi, I have this, of more limited scope than your vision:
http://platonismandtarot.blogspot.com/
Thanks for pointing out your contribution on Platonism and the tarocchi to me.
I will read it profoundly and enter a detailed dialogue with you in the future, when I will come back to the “neoplatonic turn” (i.e. the 14 -> 21 transition) forming the tarocchi as I tried to express in the --far too dense -- post above:
vh0610 wrote: 17 Sep 2021, 21:12 Next evolutionary step:

Trionfi II or tarocch’(i) = 21 trumps (plus 1, “nisi velint”) = Trionfi + TrPr1 + TrPr3

Trionfi II will be called Tarocchi in the following. This is the neoplatonic turn, prepared by Petrarca in TrPetr placing Plato in front of Aristoteles in the respective triumphal procession, and fulfilled by the Neoplatonism of Ficino […]
[I will not discuss it now because I am still fully involved in the JvR-thread in this very forum and my mind does not allow at the moment to be in deep details in two different threads. Why I am still mentally in the JvR thread, I will explain below.]

You wrote:
mikeh wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 21:15 On minchiate and Dante, it may be relevant that Dante's birth-sign, clearly indicated in the Paradiso, was Gemini, and so the point of departure for going higher, just as it was the point of his soul's entry into the cosmos in life.
Thanks for the support! This is exactly what I tried to express in the post above:
vh0610 wrote: 17 Sep 2021, 21:12
There is another triumphal procession (called in the following TrPr2) --which is really hard to find-- just before TrPr3 in the celestial sphere of the fixed stars (Par. XXII) on the way to the aforementioned empyreum, which is composed of many stars being led be the zodiacs – and ending with the zodiac sign of Dante himself, in which he finds himself with Beatrice looking at it and his destiny. This zodiac sign is -- Ge(r)mini.
[…]
Next evolutionary step:

Trionfi III or Minchiate or [in its early form:] Ge(r)mini = Trionfi II + Rest of the cardinal virtues of TrPr1 + the four elements of Purg. XXXIII + TrPr2.

Trionfi III will be called Minchiate in the following. Note that Minchiate contains the TrPr1, TrPr2 and TrPr3 in the right order of the commedia. Note that the tower [of Babel, see below the mentioning in DPar] of the lightning card is reinterpreted after the Devil card as the “House of the Devil” (Casa del Dio), since the rest of the cardinal virtues follow in Earthly Paradise of DPurg, then elements etc., hence the card does not lead directly to the “House of God”. It simply marks the escape from hell to a “clear world” as in the commedia (“a ritornar nel chiaro mondo”, End of Inf. XXXIIII)

Note furthermore that the four final zodiac cards of Minchiate form the tetramorph (the four figures of Ezechiel or the four figures for the evangelists) with Dante being the human figure in the Gemini-sign. Note that the tetramorph is leading the TrPr1 in DPurg, reason for being depicted on the world card of Tarocchi (see also Babylonian mythology below). […]
In my eyes, Dante’s commedia is very very plausibly the underlying structure for the minchiate-extension [as well as the commedia is decisive for Trionfi and Tarocchi, see my respective post above]. I do not see any other reasoning which has the same high plausibility -- especially, as I tried to express, if you consider first the old name of the game Ge(r)mini [Dante’s zodiac sign] then the reinterpretation of the Devil card as the “House of the Devil” and then the order of the zodiacs ending with the Gemini-Sign as in Dante’s paradiso. And all that happens in Florence, Dante’s city, which had at the time of the invention of minchiate a big problem with his fame and how they chased him away.

You wrote:
mikeh wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 21:15 The nice thing about the sequence from Devil to Sun, and then to the last two, is that it is compatible with several narratives: Dante's Divine Comedy, the darkness-to-light analogy of Plato's Republic, the series of spheres around the earth of the medieval cosmos through which the soul journeys to and from the Empyrean, and the Last Days scenario in which devils terrorize the earth, who are also agents of God's wrath, and the forces of light defeat those of darkness.
That the sequence from Devil to Sun is compatible with Dante’s commedia and with Plato’s Republic [resp. the cave allegory in the Republic] is exactly what I tried to express with the title of this very thread.

With respect to Dante’s commedia, one has to consider in my eyes that the tarocchi order Star – Moon – Sun does not work when simply following Dante’s ascent in his paradiso. Reason is that the first celestial sphere he crosses is the Moon sphere in Par. II to Par. IV, then the sphere of Mercury in Par. V to Par. VII, then the sphere of Venus in Par. VIII and Par. IX, then the Sun sphere in Par. X ff. [Thereafter follow the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the fix stars, which contain the Zodiac with the respective triumphal procession mentioned above being led by the Gemini sign. For this celestial journey, Dante follows the Aristotelian description of the order of the series of spheres around the earth, as in the then famous book “De sphaera mundi” by Johannes de Sacrobosco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_sphaera_mundi]. So the order does not match, since there are even two stars/planets between moon and sun. It only works out when considering the triumphal procession [trionfi!] in Par. XXIII in which Dante mentions explicitely only moon – sun – star [and being struck by lightning, the preceding card]. The order then comes from Plato’s cave allegory since the game is a philosopher’s game, a ludus philosophorum after the neoplatonic turn [at least I propose to see it this way]. This is what I tried to express with
vh0610 wrote: 17 Sep 2021, 21:12 There is one further triumphal procession (called in the following TrPr3) in the non-earthly paradise just before the empyreum (Par. XXIII), the extracted-from-time city/world/rose/house of god (“maison de dieu”). The TrPr3 is composed of the Moon (named “Trivia” there), the Star (which is Maria) and the Sun (which is the Christ) - and Dante is struck by lightning in a passive-receptive mode when seeing these celestial entities “to be in wisdom and power” (Par. XXIII). […]

Next evolutionary step:

Trionfi II or tarocch’(i) = 21 trumps (plus 1, “nisi velint”) = Trionfi + TrPr1 + TrPr3

Trionfi II will be called Tarocchi in the following. This is the neoplatonic turn […]

With respect to the Last Days Scenario, I have to admit that I do not understand your comment. Do you refer to the biblical Book of Revelation? Could you please provide more details? Thanks.


You wrote
mikeh wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 21:15 Of your assumptions, the only one I would question is that games go from simpler to complex. I do not see why that should be true. It depends on what is involved in "complex": complex rules at first, owing to the needs of adaptation from a previous model, can be reduced to a simpler set later, with the complexities of good play unchanged or even enhanced. There is also the example from Dummett in 1989 (“A Comment on Marziano,” The Playing-Card 18:2,p. 74), commenting on the rules of Marziano's game, to which he had proposed a complexity not stated by Marziano:
If this seems complicated, we should remember that evolution sometimes goes in the direction of simplicity; we should recall also the complicated rules about the trump suit in Karnöffel.
In this case, Dummett's assumption seems to have been that Karnöffel could reasonably be considered a predecessor game to games with permanent trumps.
After a time of reflection, I think you are fully right. Thank you very much for this point!

I was too fast with this complexity development assumption, I was wrongly based that the idea of “variatio delectat” (Euripides / Aristoteles) in times of leisure is valid for all situations. I forgot that evidently complexity can be reduced when a system undergoes a phase change (as synergetics and complexity science would call it), then a new more simpler behavior might “emerge” on a different level. Or if we consider the case of modelling, since models mostly reduce complexity of the original. And w.r.t. the evolution of cards, there is a lot of modelling (see e.g. JvR) and phase changes (see e.g. the arguments of this very thread). Hence I was wrong.

However, after rereading what I wrote, I realize that I do not need this assumption anymore. For every step where I used it, I have a better explanation now. [Which I will give when coming to the respective point again.]

Perhaps at this moment I should state that after rereading what I wrote, I have to say that I am sorry for having written far too densely [this is why I write in this very post so often: “what I tried to express is”]. As a general rule, I try not to flood this forum with non-reflected arguments -- and I overdid it in the other direction: what I wrote is far too dense and I have to unfold it. I will do it.

However, with the distance I have now to what I wrote, I realize in which direction I am driven: it seems to me that for pre-esoteric tarots (that is before 1783; a notion I owe to Ross Caldwell), we can make it very plausible that the early tarots are one of the finest products of Renaissance based on –and more or less only on-- Dante, Petrarca, Aristoteles, Plato [in its neoplatonic form of Ficino and friends] plus evidently: the bible and the respective Jewish tradition.

In other words: The tarot is not unscientific, it is even more scientific than most people of the general public think of. I do believe that this argument can plausibly hold considering the highly cultured situation at Renaissance courts and the respective material I’ve seen in the last months.

You wrote:
mikeh wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 21:15 In support of your "drumstick" idea, there is the Tarocchino Fool, a drummer-boy; not the same trump, but close enough.
Thanks for this hint. I do think it is very valuable. If one considers Wikipedia for Tarocchini (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarocchini), one finds
The Fool is not a trump, it can't beat any cards and is played as an excuse from following suit. The Magician is the lowest trump.

For me, the most important point is that the drummer boy/fool is not a trump, which is very unusual. The first trump in Tarocchini is the so-called “Magician” [I prefer bagatella.]. Hence, this could possibly support the Rosenwald- theory I proposed:
vh0610 wrote: 17 Sep 2021, 21:12 I propose to see the respective Rosenwald-sheet containing the trumps as the model deck for the transition Trionfi to Tarocchi. […] Moreover, the bagatella of the deck is really a bagatella with simply having the balls on the table (remember assumption A6, evolution from simplicity to complexity) – moreover it is the only bagatella card to my knowledge which makes the sticks in the hand plausible: he has a pair of drumsticks in his hands, calling for his audience. In other words: the sticks –mostly a single stick-- in all other decks, TdMs included, are originally no magic wands, but are derived from the Rosenwald drumstick model.
If we remember that the Rosenwald deck has no fool, but only a real bagatella which is depicted as an imposter (some people say that the Rosenwald bagatella looks like an amalgamation of the fool and the bagatella), and if the proposed theory holds that the 14 -> 21 transition took place in Florence, then it has some plausibility that the Bologna-based Tarocchini learned initially from Florence, then re-added a fool in view of other decks containing a fool (which after the theory I proposed is a kind of outsorted stultitia from the 14 trumps trionfi deck). However, they kept from Florence in a de-amalgamation process the drumming aspect and kept also the no trump value for the drummer boy/Fool in the sense that the bagatella is still the lowest trump as in Rosenwald.

[In view of the Rosenwald theory: news from Leinfelden museum is that the state Baden-Württemberg allows us to examine the respective sheet “without destroying it”. We will start by trying to find a water mark. I already identified the right expert to do so. Hopefully he joins in the research…]

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

12
[continued from above as a response to mikeh]

You wrote:
mikeh wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 21:15 I look forward to reading more of the development of your ideas, vh0610.
Thanks for your interest and your support, mikeh!

I certainly will develop the respective ideas, in the pace my spare time and spare energy permits. As a Platonist, I feel somehow responsible for the ideas – and I anyhow follow the beauty…

However, it will not take days or weeks, it will take months regarding the material I found.

And first, I will finish the studies on JvR in the other thread. There is something in his text I oversee all the time. It will deserve close reading of all material we have on JvR.

You might ask why am I doing this first. Reason is that we need to understand Imperatori before we understand trionfi. Note that in Roman times, only an imperator had the right to triumph, in republic times he had to be acclaimed as “imperator” by his soldiers, in imperial times, this right was part of the rights of the emperor in his role as a military imperator, see German Wikipedia https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6mischer_Triumph
(which in this case is more detailed than the English version https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_triumph):
Die Ehrung wurde in der Regel vom Senat gewährt, wenn ein Feldherr, der unter eigenen Auspizien kämpfte, einen (in seiner Darstellung) großen Sieg errungen hatte und von seinen Soldaten auf dem Schlachtfeld zum Imperator ausgerufen (akklamiert) worden war.
[…]
Mit Claudius triumphierte dann 44 n. Chr. erstmals ein amtierender Kaiser, und seit Titus triumphierten nur mehr ausschließlich Herrscher. Die Kaiser waren nicht bereit, das enorme Prestige, das sich mit einem Triumph verband, einem anderen als sich selbst zuzugestehen.

[
The honor was usually granted by the Senate when a general, fighting under his own auspices, had won a great victory (in his account) and had been proclaimed (acclaimed) imperator by his soldiers on the battlefield.
[...]
With Claudius then in 44 AD for the first time an acting emperor triumphed as imperator, and since Titus only rulers triumphed. The emperors were not willing to concede the enormous prestige associated with a triumph to anyone other than themselves.
]

Hence, for cards, there is a logic by seing a process from Imperatori to trionfi. Furthermore Dante lays for trionfi the foundation for the transition from imperatori to trionfi by saying in Par. I, 28f:
Sì rade volte, padre, se ne coglie
per trïunfare o cesare o poet

[So seldom, Father, are there any picked [garlands of the laurel; vh0610]
to grace a Ceasar's [Emperor's; vh0610] or a Poet’s triumph ]
And for understanding Imperatori, we need to understand Kaiserspiel/Karnöffel first. In the last months, I tried to heighten the percentage of plausibility that Karnöffel has to do a lot with Carneval (as I already stated in this very forum in the Karnöffel-thread). I do think that I have found now four or five different ways to make this plausible. The historical one is to consider the historical event of the so-called “Evil Carneval” in Basel 1376 as what it was: it was the dam breach of chaos into --better: out of from below, from the underclass-- the medieval order of society. I see high plausibility that Johannes of Rheinfelden writes in 1377 implicitely about this event in his famous tractatus (which I consider to be written in two stages: one in 1377, and one later after the battle of Sempach 1386 or even after 1392 in which the paper mill of Ravensburg was erected). In my eyes, the Karnöffel is Carneval in the sense of Chaos – what else should beat the third imperator (the other two being the Kaiser and the Pope), the Devil, who reigns a very well-ordered Empire (Dante calls Lucifer an Imperator and he describes his hell as very well ordered using the contrapasso-argument in his commedia)?

So my plan for the year is: first JvR, then Karnöffel, then Imperatori, then trionfi, then tarocchi, then minchiate, then Tarot de Marseille as a special evolution of tarocchi. I see this all connected, it could be a plausible history showing the best of Renaissance ideas depicted in cards, understood as a ludus philosophorum for all.

[So I will come back to this very thread after the discussion on Karnöffel.]

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

13
vh0610
Note furthermore that the four final zodiac cards of Minchiate form the tetramorph (the four figures of Ezechiel or the four figures for the evangelists) with Dante being the human figure in the Gemini-sign. Note that the tetramorph is leading the TrPr1 in DPurg, reason for being depicted on the world card of Tarocchi (see also Babylonian mythology below). […]
Franco Pratesi engaged once for the idea, that the Germini name didn't relate to Gemini-twins (as occasionally suggested by others), but to the word "Germini", which means sprouts (German: Sprossen). As Gemini looked as if having the advantage, I was myself sceptical about it, but remembered, that Andrea Vitali used occasionally the Italian word semi (seed in English, Samen in German) for playing card suits (I wrote Aces first, but I'd to correct this) . If suits could mean semi, then the card game name Germini naturally could mean sprouts, that was my conclusion. The word Germini is written Germini, not Gemini, that's the deciding difference.

http://naibi.net/A/332-GERMINI-Z.pdf
It looks, as if it is not translated to English.
For the meaning of "semi" in the context of playing cards see ...
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_da_gioco

*****************

vh0610
With respect to Dante’s commedia, one has to consider in my eyes that the tarocchi order Star – Moon – Sun does not work when simply following Dante’s ascent in his paradiso. Reason is that the first celestial sphere he crosses is the Moon sphere in Par. II to Par. IV, then the sphere of Mercury in Par. V to Par. VII, then the sphere of Venus in Par. VIII and Par. IX, then the Sun sphere in Par. X ff. [Thereafter follow the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the fix stars, which contain the Zodiac with the respective triumphal procession mentioned above being led by the Gemini sign. For this celestial journey, Dante follows the Aristotelian description of the order of the series of spheres around the earth, as in the then famous book “De sphaera mundi” by Johannes de Sacrobosco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_sphaera_mundi]. So the order does not match, since there are even two stars/planets between moon and sun. It only works out when considering the triumphal procession [trionfi!] in Par. XXIII in which Dante mentions explicitely only moon – sun – star [and being struck by lightning, the preceding card]. The order then comes from Plato’s cave allegory since the game is a philosopher’s game, a ludus philosophorum after the neoplatonic turn [at least I propose to see it this way].
The first is known as Chaldean row ...
https://www.astro.com/astrowiki/de/Chaldäische_Reihe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planets_in_astrology
The planet row is then sorted according the time used to move around earth
Moon-Mercury-Venus-Sun-Mars-Jupiter-Saturn
It was used by the old Chaldean astronomers, Ptolemy and Mantegna Tarocchi and for the arrangement of the days of the week.
4-Sunday-Sun 1-Monday-Moon 5-Tuesday-Mars 2-Wednesday-Mercury 6-Thursday-Jupiter 3-Friday-Venus 7-Saturday-Saturn
The numbers relate to the position of the planets in the Chaldean row. The week day row is generated by a jump-over-2 operation, which is a natural condition on the problem, that 24 hours of the day divided by 7 hour planets have a rest of 3. The first hour of daylight, determined the name of the day.
Image


You mention "only moon – sun – star [and being struck by lightning, the preceding card]"
Here is a Dante Paradiso version, show me, what you mean.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/langd ... 3_head_026


4 lights appear in the description of Martiano for the card of the highest trump Jupiter (/Michelino deck).
JOVE

Jove, who was the King of Athens while antiquity was still rough and wild. For the race of man, there was yet no justice, and man followed savage rites; Jupiter established the first laws. And he instituted matrimony, and banished the abominable feasts on human flesh, and forbade them by strict rigour. He induced the first society and friendship, and taught to men what is most necessary.
He commanded the first temples and altars to the immortal gods to be built, and to venerate them with the highest dignity. And the men asked the gods anything of the good that they desired. And if he deemed it worthy he would himself fulfil what they had prayed for. The inventor of wars, he overcame the Giants, mockers of the gods, and afflicted them with onerous punishment. Therefore on account of his outstanding virtue, the former age venerated him, and he was esteemed by the people as a god. And he was called Good Jove, and temples were dedicated to him, to the perpetual memory of his glory. Thus holding the divine honour, his name was received by posterity in the highest veneration. He is seated on a starry throne, with regal emblems. Four stars appearing above, attend him, while by the right part a splendour of right reason of the conduct of humanity (SUN ?), in which customs he instructed ignorant men, the first leaders of the state. At the left that light by which he published the inviolable laws (MOON ?) and he decreed the society which would be cherished by humankind, being guarded by equality. On the lower right side appears a burning star like Mars (STAR ?), which he lets loose frightfully if scorned, but especially so that the republic may be preserved. How the illustrious example of Jupiter shines for men! Who for the sake of sacred worship happily defeated the blaspheming Giants by war. To the left, a thunderbolt, (LiGHTNING ?) which at one time he often used to protect his sacred laws against so many lustful and violent men.
http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona- ... -16-heroum
Last edited by Huck on 06 Jan 2022, 22:17, edited 2 times in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

14
vh0610 wrote
So my plan for the year is: first JvR, then Karnöffel, then Imperatori, then trionfi, then tarocchi, then minchiate, then Tarot de Marseille as a special evolution of tarocchi. I see this all connected, it could be a plausible history showing the best of Renaissance ideas depicted in cards, understood as a ludus philosophorum for all.
Yes, absolutely! I have already written much defending most of this idea, if "trionfi" is defined as 14+16 triumphs and "tarocchi" as 21 (which may or may not accord with actual usage). You have only left out Marziano's game, and one (or more) Johannes writes about (I will get to one in a moment). And I am not convinced that minchiate came after tarocchi. It depends on how it is defined. If a game with 40 trumps, yes. If one with Prudence and the theological virtues, I am not so sure, since the Cary-Yale fits that definition, and I see no reason why it should be the only example at that time. The word, of course, was used of a card game as early as 1466, then 1477 as germini, and so on. There is also a poem that uses the verb on "minchiatar" with "trionfi" shortly after, not overtly referring to card games, but perhaps punning. It is said to date from around 1440.

Karnoffel, on my hypothesis, had the Kingbeaters (four?) and other lower-order trumps (8 in all), but my guess is it was not allowed in the Italian principalities because they are low cards made high, disturbing the natural order, which Filippo prohibited in 1420, and other places would have agreed. The way of getting around that prohibition would have been to make the Kingbeaters, etc., into permanent trumps, Imperatori, four or eight of them. Exactly how they were defined is not clear. It might have been good vs. bad, or upper and lower, or male and female. The uppers/Emperors might have been able to take kings and below, the unders/Empresses, queens and below, etc.

In one version, I hypothesize, each has his own kingdom but also can take the kings and below of other kingdoms, and if two fight, the one played last wins. The "equal papi" rule would have descended from that version. In another version they might have been like the heads of the four ancient empires, each able to capture the ones below them, as well as the suit cards, therefore forming a hierarchy. Johannes writes of a game on the theme of those empires. (Arne Jönsson, “Card-playing as a Mirror of Society. On Johannes of Rheinfelden's Ludus cartularum moralisatus,” In O. Ferm & V. Honemann (Eds.), Chess and Allegory in the Middle Ages,, p. 370: "As regards the four suits, they represent, in Johannes’ opinion, four kingdoms, namely the four successive world monarchies, Babylonia, Persia, Macedon (or Greece), and the Roman Empire.") There was also a version of Karnoffel that used that hierarchy, Huck has pointed out.

The "trionfi" hierarchy would have descended from such a hierarchy of imperatori (here your observation about imperators being the only triumphators is quite relevant). Marziano probably combined hierarchy with a connection to suits, as Pratesi and then Dummett suggested (for my most recent version of that thesis, see section 2 of my post at viewtopic.php?p=24463#p24463). Imperatori may have, too, as Pratesi has speculated (http://www.naibi.net/A/501-COMTRIO-Z.pdf, English translation at http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com ... about.html. Whether trionfi at first also combined the two is a point I am investigating, in hopes of more clarity (in the "from the Marziano to Ludus Triumphorum" thread).

Trionfi, from my perspective, uses 4 imperatori and adds the 4 virtues and 6 Petrarchans (plus the Wheel as another triumphator). Then "tarocchi" fills in the gap between the first 4 Petrarchans and the last 2, by means of the Platonic journey out of the cave. In Plato's version, the ruler of the cave is the Devil, lit by the Fire, and then increasing light (star, moon, sun), also an expansion into the cosmos (world), and beyond time (angel).

It is possible that the Devil and Tower cards are descended from "bad" imperatori in the game of that name, which was still being played in Ferrara of the 1450s, or else from Karnoffel (the Devil and the Karnoffel, as opposed to the Pope and the Emperor). Any connection you can make would be of interest, especially as to when.

Dante's version of the journey goes first through Hell (Devil card) and then Purgatory, a tower-like mountain with a fire on top (Tower card). In the earthly paradise, once he has passed through the fire, he gets doused by two streams, one for remembering (his sins) and one for forgetting them again (incidentally causing him to forget who Beatrice is), and then he looks up. In the fresco in Florence's cathedral, there is a star, one of the planets, above the mountain. For the streams, think of the Cary Sheet card (which of course is later than the original), which seems related to the left side of the banquet fresco in Mantua's "room of psyche". Your reference to the non-earthly paradise of Par. XXIII is of particular interest for minchiate, since he has just gone through gemini (true whether or not there is a germini-gemini connection, which the "sprout" meaning does not exclude).

In Piscina's cosmograph interpretation, the devils are in the sphere of air and the fire in the sphere of air, the two higher spheres below the moon (I hope you have this; this part is unfortunately no longer online, unless you can find it via Wayback on Tarotpedia).

There are various ways of justifying the star-moon-sun progression in terms of the journey through the spheres. One is that it is a compromise with the players, because increasing light is easy to remember. A second, for the humanists, is by means of the "Neoplatonist" Porphyry and "Middle Platonist" Plutarch, whose works had recently become available since the 1430s: that is, what is on the card is not only a star, but a space beneath a star, where nymphs pour water (see Andrea at http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=197), a kind of Neoplatonic earthly paradise, or recently deceased souls rest on their way to the moon, in Plutarch's allegory (see me at http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=454&lng=ENG). The evidence for those sources is what is depicted on the Cary Sheet and the Marseille imagery that took those images further.

Huck in his last post has suggested the progression of the days of the week Sunday - Monday - Tuesday (if I read him correctly), and the precedent of Marziano's imagery of the four lights on his Jupiter card. Unfortunately we don't know how well known that treatise was. Plutarch and Porphyry were eagerly read, albeit only in Greek until around 1500. But the relevant selections are short.

The "end-times" scenario is by reference to medieval imagery of the Apocalypse, which showed devils raining down fire and hailstones, toppling towers, etc. Its precursors are the various foreshadowings of these events in the Bible: the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gommorah, the calamities of Job's sons (the Cary Sheet card has a cow, Vieville has sheep), etc., also popular themes in medieval art. The salvation from the devils will be the child born of the woman clothed with the Sun, the moon at her feet, crowned with stars, after which comes the Judgment and the city that "does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light." (Rev. 21:23). Two more references to the sun, moon, and stars, in that order, in an End Times scenario are Matthew 24:29
But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
and Rev 8:12
The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way.
On the topics of your current interest -Johannes, imperatori, trionfi, the Rosenwald, etc. - Pratesi's short articles are well worth studying, at naibi.net. Many of the most relevant ones are in French or Italian, unfortunately. Several are on the Rosenwald, including one with only Perugia in the title. I have translated a couple of these from Italian at http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/. The Rosenwald is a strange bird, Florentine imagery with Bolognese trump order, and from Perugia, most likely, 1500-1530, in Pratesi's estimation. The Fool's cap isn't unique on a Bagatello/Bagattino. Some old minchiates gave him one, too. I wonder if even in Mitelli's time the Bolognese Fool might have looked like that of minchiate. Mitelli's certainly does. But the drummer boy/Rosenwald bagatello similarity is striking.

Well, I await further developments from you. I appreciate your methodical, step by step approach. Me, I jump from one period to another, wherever I think of something to say.

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

17
My response to Huck [response to his comments prior of January 5th ; I need to time to reflect and I cannot answer so rapidly as you can.]:

Thanks, Huck, for your contribution regarding the assumption A2 on “tarocch’-ombra”, which led me to see the Dante-foundation in the game.

After some days of reflection, I am sure now that I do not need this assumption anymore for the proposed evolution of the game: The “tarocch’-ombra” was an entry point for me to see Dante [it is very often the small little details which lead to a different view!], but I don’t need this dictionary-entry anymore, since the game is so full of Dante in every respect [--I can and I will make this plausible in further discussions--] that I becomes very plausible as soon as one sees it.

To name only some aspects: as already discussed, the minchiate-extension is in my eyes unthinkable without Dante, because there is no other basis for the Gemini-sign in this prominent position forming the tetramorph as a triumph lead in the minchiate game in this time (as far as I know) [And even if the name is Germini, which is not Gemini, then within the game of minchiate you have the Gemini-sign in a very special position which fits exactly to Dante].

Then in Tarot de Marseille, it is quite obvious –as I already pointed out in the post above- that the iconographic depiction of the Devil follows Dante’s description in his commedia. This description was quite new in is time. Meanwhile I found a literature reference which has seen this already:
Christophe Poncet, Un diavolo nella caverna di Platone, Bruniana & Campanelliana, 16, pp. 1000-1018, 2010
Since this article not only underpins the iconographic similiarity but gives even more important information w.r.t. the present discussion, I cite the English summary:
Although Marsilio Ficino’s Latin translation of the famous allegory of the cave in Plato’s Republic is faithful to the original text, another version found in one of his letters has strange discrepancies with the myth. The resulting image reveals Ficino’s interpretation of the cave as a representation of the physical world, in which those who allow themselves to be lured by material values are punished during their lifetime, as if they were prisoners in hell. Drawing on striking correspondences between this vision and two contemporary expressions of the underworld – a drawing by Botticelli illustrating Dante’s Inferno and the card of the Devil in the tarot of Marseilles – this article suggests that Ficino might have used visual devices to convey his most profound and somewhat unorthodox teachings.
Christophe Poncet has several scientific articles on Ficino and on the connection between Ficino and Tarot de Marseille [which I mostly still have to read and I will discuss them when coming back to the neoplatonic turn in this very thread], see https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=d ... icin&btnG=

He also has a website of which the name underpins the 3 times 7 structure also advocated in this very thread: https://www.3x7.org/en/ .

[There might be very interesting material on this site, I still have to check].



Back to our present discussion: That Dante plays a crucial role for the game is in my eyes linked to the Devil card, which comes from Karnöffel to Imperatori to trionfi (at least I propose to see it like that): you cannot get around Dante in that time if you want to create a ludus morale or ludus philosophorum, if you have to deal with the Devil somehow. Dante’s commedia is the main narrative in times of Renaissance –even co-founding Renaissance-- in which the Devil is surpassed by an individual to a higher moral or wisdom level. [--I will discuss other elements of Dante when coming back to this thread--].

While reflecting in the last days, it might be that there is an idea which might be interesting to be discussed (which is perhaps senseless with the knowledge of you and the other scholars):

You wrote:
Huck wrote: 16 Dec 2021, 22:02 […]
David Parlett mentions this earlier Hombre, which isn't for him as old as of 1565.
https://www.parlettgames.uk/histocs/ombre.html

[…]

Added:
This German source from the year 1820 has the year 1430 as the starting point of Hombre (without a source)
https://books.google.lu/books?hl=de&id= ... 30&f=false

The same source dates the start of Tarot to "after 1450", which isn't a bad estimation as far we know it.
I followed your link to David Parlett’s website
https://www.parlettgames.uk/histocs/ombre.html
and found:
The origins and evolution of the game better known generically as "Hombre" has been extensively researched by Thierry Depaulis [5], and the following is very largely based on his exposition.

The ancestor of Hombre can be traced back to sixteenth-century Spain as a four-player game. Under the title Triumphus Hispanicus - that is, the Spanish version of the widespread card game Triumph - it is mentioned and partly described by the philosopher Juan-Luis Vives (1493-1540) in one of his Latin Dialogues first published in 1539.
[…]
[5] Thierry Depaulis, "Un peu de lumiére sur l'Hombre", in Journal of the International Playing-Card Society, xv. 4 and xvi. i and 2 (May, Aug., Nov. 1987).
Hence, we know that “Hombre” is linked to a “Triumphus”-game in the family of the trionfi-games – for the latter I propose to see Dante’s commedia as a founding structure in this very thread.

Now considering what you found
Huck wrote: 16 Dec 2021, 22:02 This German source from the year 1820 has the year 1430 as the starting point of Hombre (without a source)
https://books.google.lu/books?hl=de&id= ... 30&f=false
The same source dates the start of Tarot to "after 1450", which isn't a bad estimation as far we know it.
would fit in the sense that we know that ludus triumphorum (or trionfi) was developed around 1430 (in Italy) and taroch’-date of 1450 is also not so bad, as you say it.

Realising that Dante’s commedia is the founding structure for trionfi –as proposed in this very thread—of which the main notion is “ombra”, which is also the entry in the Lombard dictionary: “tarocch’-ombra”
https://books.google.de/books?id=0wErAA ... ch&f=false

and not “Tarocc 'Ombre” [ombra not ombre! This is why the dictionary asks “alle ombre?” at the respective entry] as Wiki wants it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taroc_l%27Hombre
Taroc l'Hombre appears to be an Austrian development of Tarocc 'Ombre, a card game originating in Lombardy, Italy, which, however, was played with a 54-card shortened, Italian-suited pack
we might perhaps conclude that Hombre was originally named “Hombre” by late players of Triumphus Hispanicus, because the “ombra”- notion of Dante was still carried in the game coming from Italy.

This can still hold true when considering that the Lombardian game –see again the dictionary—holds some similarity with the Spanish game: it can simply be the other way round that the exported game of triumph to Spain contained already the similarity.

What do you think?

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

18
Addendum to my last response to mikeh:

Your reference to the drummer boy of Tarocchini still prevailed a while in my mind - and I looked at the card again, for instance in this very forum in viewtopic.php?t=383&start=90.

What I consider to be important after I while is, that the drummer boy as a fool carries as well a feathered hat/crown as stultitia in the Visconti-Sforza deck -- and as well in Giotto's Scrovegni chapel or in the Casa Minerbi in Ferrara. There is some iconographic knowlegde carried over?

[Whenever I have spare time in the next weeks, I will answer the new posts before returning to JvR.]

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

19
Twins in the Medici family ...

Cosimo the elder * 27th September 1389
Cosimo de' Medici was born in Florence to Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici and his wife Piccarda Bueri on 27 September 1389.[5] At the time, it was customary to indicate the name of one's father in one's name for the purpose of distinguishing the identities of two like-named individuals; thus, Giovanni was the son of Bicci, and Cosimo's name was properly rendered Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici. He was born along with a twin brother Damiano, who survived only a short time. The twins were named after Saints Cosmas and Damian, whose feast day was then celebrated on 27 September; Cosimo would later celebrate his own birthday on that day, his "name day", rather than on the actual date of his birth.[6] Cosimo also had a brother Lorenzo, known as was "Lorenzo the Elder", who was some six years his junior and participated in the family's banking enterprise.
Lorenzo the Elder was of importance in the development of the Medici. He died in 1440, 23 years before Cosimo. He became ancestor of the grand dukes of the Toscana, Cosimo became the ancestor of 2 Medici popes.
The saints Cosmas and Damiano (which are considered to have been physicians ... or medici) stood for the antique twins of Sparta, sons of Leda. Leda, who had intercourse with Zeus as a swan, got 4 children, the 2 Dioscurians Castor and Pollux and Helena and Klytemnaestra.

I persecuted once the question a longer time ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=661&hilit=pollux+helena

From my point of view the "Gemini dominance" in Minchiate/Germini has good chances to be dependent from a "Medici twins" phenomenon and not by a cheap birthday of Dante. One has to see, that especially the brothers Lorenzo de Medici/Giuliano de Medici and the follower cousins Pope Leo X / Pope Clemens VII were very populare just in the time, when Minchiate and Germini developed.

Well, for your amusement the opinion of Damion Searls, born at a 26th of May
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/201 ... centenary/
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

20
I transfer the discussion from the other thread to here, since at least the title of this thread contains Dante.

After having written this
vh0610 wrote: 27 May 2022, 08:36
We fully agree Phaeded, that the famous triumphal procession at the end of the Purgatory is decisive for the ur-tarocch' (I prefer to name it like this since the name signifies exactly the 14 (18) -> 21 + 0 transition).

[...]

Note that there are several elements which later show up in Tarot de Marseille (which I understand as an elaboration of the Dante structure already present in the ur-tarocch'): the bride on the Lovers-card, the candles flames lighting the sky colourfully as in the aria cards, the carro, the seven virtues (outside of the chariot), the lone old man as on the Time card.
and rereading "the famous triumphal procession at the end of the Purgatory", I do realize that for ur-tarocch' and other tarots as Tarot de Marseille, one does not need to consider the triumphal processions in Dante's Paradiso. The famous triumphal procession at the end of the Purgatory is fully sufficient.

In the following, I do give the respective verses which speak for themselves when compared to a tarocch'-deck, take the Rosenwald as perhaps a very early one, or take a Tarot de Marseille-deck:



https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante ... atorio-29/

Purg 29, 58ff


Then I looked at the extraordinary
things that were moving toward us—but so slowly
that even brides just wed would move more quickly.
[...]
and I could see the candle flames move forward,
leaving the air behind them colored like
the strokes a painter’s brush might have described
,
[...]
then—as in heaven, star will follow star
the elders gone, four animals came on;
and each of them had green leaves as his crown;

each had six wings as plumage, and those plumes
were full of eyes; they would be very like
the eyes of Argus, were his eyes alive.

Reader, I am not squandering more rhymes
in order to describe their forms; since I
must spend elsewhere, I can’t be lavish here;

but read Ezekiel, for he has drawn
those animals approaching from the north;
with wings and cloud and fire, he painted them.
[...]
The space between the four of them contained
a chariot—triumphal—on two wheels,
tied to a griffin’s neck and drawn by him.
[...]
Three circling women, then advancing, danced:
at the right wheel; the first of them, so red
that even in a flame she’d not be noted;

the second seemed as if her flesh and bone
were fashioned out of emerald; the third
seemed to be newly fallen snow
. And now

the white one seemed to lead them, now the red;
and from the way in which the leader chanted,
the others took their pace, now slow, now rapid.

Upon the left, four other women, dressed
in crimson, danced,
depending on the cadence
of one of them, with three eyes in her head.
[...]
Then I saw four of humble aspect; and,
when all the rest had passed, a lone old man,
his features keen, advanced, as if in sleep.
cron