Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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The temptation to regard the PMB, with replacement cards, as the "ur-PMB," is not so baseless, though. The copies of Temperance - Von Bartsch (Kaplan I, p. 102), and Guildhall's World (ibid. p. 104) are copies of the De' Russi replacements, not any presumed originals. Are they forgeries? That would be strange, since PMB wasn't known to the public until Parravicino in 1903, if I remember correctly. So they would have to be 20th century forgeries, a suspicion that should be able to be disproved if the records of when these institutions got their cards go back beyond that.

So Malatesta's Bembo cards, if they were ever made, were not the models for the copies that survive. The two-artist PMB was.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Phaeded wrote: 28 May 2022, 15:16 then why are all of the smaller shields on the court cards a goldish hue, right next to dull gray oxidized silver, showing they are not silver?
Sorry Phaeded, there is no gold on the blazons. Hereunder the pictures of the two knights I took myself in Bergamo. Maybe you should go there to have a look. I definitely can recommend this.
Image
Remark also the use the green gloves on the knight of Batons (who is still a child), probably as a symbol for fertility linked to the suit of Batons. You can find these green gloves on all court cards of Batons (the queen has green sleeves instead of green gloves, but the symbolism seems the same), on the Empress (who symbolizes the mother figure and thus fertility), on the queen of Cups (the queen closest associated with love and thus with having children), and on the left hand of the female figure on the lovers card (because of the marriage she is now allowed to have children, but she has only one green glove, she's not a mother yet).
Last edited by Iolon on 29 May 2022, 10:51, edited 5 times in total.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 28 May 2022, 18:13 Are they forgeries? That would be strange, since PMB wasn't known to the public until Parravicino in 1903
Hi Ross, here you don't have a point. Maybe the cards have been hidden for years, in the 15th Century they were most probably on display for the upperclass (at least for noble people and famous artists), so many artists should have seen them. For the moment I stick with my point of view, the original PMB deck has been made in 1454 at the occasion of the peace of Lodi and the six additional cards (and maybe also the pip cards) have been created after the Este deck was created at the occasion of the marriage of Duke Ercole I of Este in 1473, let's say not earlier than around 1475. The 22 trump structure has, as far as I believe (at least until the Tarocchi virtual study day), been developped in Ferrara somewhere between 1460 and 1470 and not in Milan.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Iolon wrote: 29 May 2022, 10:08
Ross Caldwell wrote: 28 May 2022, 18:13 Are they forgeries? That would be strange, since PMB wasn't known to the public until Parravicino in 1903
Sorry Ross, here you don't have a point. Maybe the cards have been hidden for years, in the 15th Century they were most probably on display for the upperclass (at least for noble people and famous artists), so many artists should have seen them. For the moment I stick with my point of view, the original PMB deck has been made in 1454 at the occasion of the peace of Lodi and the six additional cards (and maybe also the pip cards) have been created after the Este deck was created at the occasion of the marriage of Duke Ercole I of Este in 1473, let's say not earlier than around 1475. The 22 trump structure has, as far as I believe (at least until the Tarocchi virtual study day), been developped in Ferrare somewhere between 1460 and 1470 and not in Milan.
PMB copies from the 15th century wouldn't be considered forgeries, of course. My point is that where copies can be tested against the replacement cards, the model was the deck with the replacement cards, not the presumed original one with Bembo's Temperance, Fortitude, Star, Moon, Sun, and World.

I know you don't believe that Bembo painted 22 trumps. I can only point out that I firmy disagree with your theory of 1460-1470 in Ferrara for 22 trumps, or any trump-evolution scenario.

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 29 May 2022, 10:50 I know you don't believe that Bembo painted 22 trumps. I can only point out that I firmy disagree with your theory of 1460-1470 in Ferrara for 22 trumps, or any trump-evolution scenario.
Let's agree by both being fascinated by the history of Tarot, and hopefully the future will show who is right and who is wrong.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Iolon wrote: 29 May 2022, 11:01 Let's agree by both being fascinated by the history of Tarot, and hopefully the future will show who is right and who is wrong.
Absolutely! Nothing personal. All I want is to know as much possible, I don't care what the answer is, even less that I am proven right. I have very little hope that definitive proof of the creators' intention will emerge in the future, though. We are stuck with arguments and theories.

The last 20 years have moved the dial quite a bit, though, and what started out as mere theory and argument, the move to Florence, resulted in real discoveries thanks to Franco Pratesi, who is on the ground in Florence and is able to read the old documents.

Whether such a revolution can be repeated in the next couple of decades seems too much to hope for. In the meantime, I'm content that the game with 22 trumps was created in Florence in the late 1430s, and that it had no conceptual precedent except for Marziano.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Iolon wrote: 29 May 2022, 09:51
Phaeded wrote: 28 May 2022, 15:16 then why are all of the smaller shields on the court cards a goldish hue, right next to dull gray oxidized silver, showing they are not silver?
Sorry Phaeded, there is no gold on the blazons. Hereunder the pictures of the two knights I took myself in Bergamo. Maybe you should go there to have a look. I definitely can recommend this.
[img]https://tarotwheel.net/____impro/1/onew ... Batons.jpg?
Seriously, that's what you consider conclusive proof - worse photos than what is available on-line? First of all, unlike your quality shot of the Ace of Cups these shaky photos - and the distracting light reflection (flash?) on all of the tooled elements - compare that to Wiki's hi-res after yours below. But to the point, the quatrefoil on the batons still looks like oxidized silver with a golden-hued shield, but the Knight of Swords (images below), the quatrefoil has a gold-greenish hue, but the right half of the shield a goldish hue, both set off from the surrounding silver; that is crystal clear on your own photo - not enhanced in any way, just enlarged:

detail Iolon pic.jpg detail Iolon pic.jpg Viewed 3440 times 70.21 KiB
Wiki knight of swords stemma.jpg Wiki knight of swords stemma.jpg Viewed 3440 times 18.52 KiB

To the right above is Wiki's hi-res photo without the shakiness nor flash reflection, shows a more greenish hue of the quatrefoil, but the right half of the shield if different than the rest of the horse's oxidized silver caparison.

https://images.saymedia-content.com/.im ... ad-it.webp


At all events, while either Colleoni of Foscari are still plausible, no way the PMB was created for the Bon, but I've given a plausible reason as to why a deck ended up in their hands: they produced the famous monumental statue of Foscari and as sculptors they were a likely candidate for the Peace of Lodi plaque placed on the monastery walls on S. Cristoforo della Pace which held the triumphal spoils of the peace (banners from both sides, etc.). Foscari's son was exiled and predeceased him by a year (hastening the father's own death in 1457) and its possible an art production was either willed to the artists family of the Bon (who then over-painted the Ace) or they acquired it from the estate, since the cards and monument were both tied to the Peace.

If Sforza gave a deck to the Bon, and that's a big if, it might have been gifted to them for that same memorial marker linking the arms of St. Mark and Sforza. Unlikely, IMO - the sparse records we have point to these luxury decks going from ruler to ruler.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 28 May 2022, 18:13 So Malatesta's Bembo cards, if they were ever made, were not the models for the copies that survive. The two-artist PMB was.

I think you're splitting hairs here - the replacement cards have stylistic changes from the original cards in general (and probably each of the replacement had slightly more significant changes individually) but there is no basis to assume outline of the subject in question differed drastically, certainly not the subjects - they were replacements.

For instance, Sforza was a condottiere in the mode of Bernabo Visconti (not the corpulent Filippo) whose monumental equestrian statue was flanked by the allegories of Strength and Justice, and since Sforza was desperate to be considered "Visconti" those virtues would likely be assimilated to his person in the cards....
Image

...and indeed in both the Justice (based on the Giotto prototype's gothic frame background in the Scrovegni) and Strength cards we have an armored condottiere figure, thus ideally suitable for comparing the armored figure, since Justice is original.

PMB Justice and Strength.jpg PMB Justice and Strength.jpg Viewed 3433 times 109.17 KiB

The Strength card which you have brilliantly dissected elsewhere ( http://www.trionfi.com/0/i/r/11.html ), still would have its original tied to the same astrological underpinnings based on a Hercules model. What has changed in the replacement card? Justice's mounted knight in the background (Sforza remained mounted when he was swept into the duomo upon his initial triumphal entry into Milam, and I believe that's why a mounted knighted is oddly shown here) is armored like the court cards in the suit of swords - in late medieval fashion. The Strength replacement card, while tinting the armor to be dark like the Justice and Sword suit armor, has been updated to match the classicizing tendencies of manuscript illumination and thus looks more like a Roman triumphator now. But the Hercules-esque pose with club, the attitude of the lion, etc., all would be the same. Perhaps the original looked more like this illumination in Pizan (Harley MS 4431 exemplar, c. 1410-1414), where Hercules is shown retrieving Cerberus (oddly wearing the headband-banderole of Death in the CY and PMB), but would have been shown in dark armor in the PMB of course:

Image

So when you say the PMB was based on the two-artist deck and not Malatesta's Bembo cards, I would just like to clarify the essentials must have been the same, but the window-dressing (literally the figure's dressing) is likely all that changed.

Phaeded
Last edited by Phaeded on 29 May 2022, 18:56, edited 2 times in total.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Phaeded wrote: 29 May 2022, 16:58
I think you're splitting hairs here - the replacement cards have stylistic changes from the original cards in general (and probably each of the replacement had slightly more significant changes individually) but there is no basis to assume outline of the subject in question differed drastically, certainly not the subjects - they were replacements.

So when you say the PMB was based on the two-artist deck and not Malatesta's Bembo cards, I would just like to clarify the essentials must have been the same, but the window-dressing (literally the figure's dressing) is likely all that changed.

Phaeded
It just looks to me like the Von Bartsch Temperance and Guildhall World are really copies of De' Russi's (for argument's sake) versions, not the underlying originals from Bembo. If they had been lost, what was De' Russi's model anyway?

I suppose the question is whether the PMB is the first or "Ur-" Bonifacio Bembo deck, and I definitely agree with you there that there is no reason to think so. We don't know which artists worked on Malatesta's cards, but if it was Bonifacio, that was earlier than PMB.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 29 May 2022, 17:22
Phaeded wrote: 29 May 2022, 16:58
...So when you say the PMB was based on the two-artist deck and not Malatesta's Bembo cards, I would just like to clarify the essentials must have been the same, but the window-dressing (literally the figure's dressing) is likely all that changed.

Phaeded
It just looks to me like the Von Bartsch Temperance and Guildhall World are really copies of De' Russi's (for argument's sake) versions, not the underlying originals from Bembo. If they had been lost, what was De' Russi's model anyway?
I focused on Strength because I believe the classicizing of the subject afforded the most possibilities for a changed look; the CY Strength, BTW, is quite close to the Bernabo statue's Strength - lion on same side and lion-female size ratio, albeit in the CY the lion's mouth is being pulled open: Bernabo statue Strength detail: https://equestrianstatue.org/wp-content ... 5x349.jpeg
CY Strength: https://i.pinimg.com/474x/bc/23/68/bc23 ... -decks.jpg

Temperance isn't worth quibbling over since its missing in the CY, albeit the older sheathed sword attribute is used on what I'm showing next....

As for the "World" - you're probably tired of my referring to this Visconti Hours leaf, especially my Prudence/World argument, but we have these fairly exact parallels:
1. Hexagonal city with central dome and towers
2. Set in a tondo
3. Same pink, blue and green colors used within the tondo
4. Jagged rocks/rough landscape edge (arguably used almost as an island in the PMB "World" to place the city in its celestial 'New Jerusalem' setting (IMO = Sforza's promise to restore Milan to its grandeur, reflected in the later ideal city Sforzinda proposals by Filarete, also radial/polygonal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sforzinda ).

Image

Perhaps the banderole-esque swags get added to the putti and the wings made smaller (versus Eros's larger wings on the CY and PMB Lovers card) to look more like those in later 15th century manuscripts, but Donatello had already set that standard by the 1430s. I really don't think there was much variation going on from the Bembo prototype - maybe the pointless orthogonal vs. diagonal background. And if I'm not mistaken, the Visconti Hours were retrieved for Bianca during the siege, thus readily available.

And of course I can't finish this without reiterating Prudence is on top for a reason in the VH leaf - the "World" is prudence. Her convex mirror was an attribute initiated by Giotto with a compass, but only a thin line like unopened chopsticks is visible, going to a rounded end with a tension screw on the topside - her compass is not open. Her convex mirror is being pointing at with the compass in the Scrovegni - but here in the leaf the compass is pointing downwards as if to inscribe the circle of the encompassing tondo about the city. Even her elongated mirror matches the elongated tondo here (actually its the letter "O" in this instance, but still a veduta). Look again at the VH prudence with her convex mirror and compass atop a veduta in a tondo, and the clear equivalence of convex mirror and "world"/veduta-tondo here with the Ferrara variant:

Image

In the difference between the two one can almost see the transition unfold from an Aristolelian/Aquinas advocacy for contemplative life to the active life spurred on by the post-Petrarch early humanists such as Salutati.

At all events, the active life is guided by prudence and the "World" is Prudence.

That it accrues additional layers of meaning and eventually does become some version of the "World" in later decks (e.g., a woman floating in space surrounded the tetramorphs) doesn't change its 15th century meaning when it was first conceived. And yet Prudence always had a cosmic reach, as in this illumination by F. Barberino in his Documenti d'Amore (c. 1313); its just that princes wished to have the world reflect some semblance of their dominion, a'la "mirror for princes", which of course could not be more appropriate with the Giotto prudence-with-mirror prototype:

Image
Phaeded

PS Its not on JSTOR, but well worth hunting down as fundamental for the above: Lackey, Douglas P. “'Giotto's Mirror.'” Studi danteschi 66 (2001), 243-253.

But an equally valuable study (from which the Barberino image was taken) is available:
Frojmovič, Eva. “Giotto’s Circumspection.” The Art Bulletin 89, no. 2 (2007): 195–210. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067314.
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