Huck wrote:

Phaeded wrote: Phaethon rode his father's chariot solo - that was in fact the problem (he could not control the horses by himself).

I wouldn't see this as troubleome, why shouldn't the father Helios take his son Phaethon on a ride, at least in the phantasy of a painter with some commission.
If you're right, that one pope took the attempt to style himself as Sol, and this situation belonged to the period of Fredrick II, the papal idea might have been, that the young emperor [ =Phaethon = Fredrick] was educated to have the reign in the hands of the elder and more experienced pope, which would avoid a later fall.

The essence of the Phaethon myth is his inability to control his father's chariot (with the subsequnet wild ride transfoming the earth itself) - it would be pointless to show them together in the chariot unless something other than his pagan myth was intended. In fact there are examples of Phaethon re-purposed by Christians:

Most striking of all, perhaps, is Paolo Cortesi’s [1465 – 1510] systematic transformation of the language of Lombard’s Sentences, the medieval theological textbook. In Cortesi’s work, Ciceronian vocabulary supplants scholastic terminology, so that Adam becomes the Phaethon humani generis …” (Charles Stringer, The Renaissance in Rome, 1998: 290).

The Adam reference is telling - the chariot back to the stars in a Christian worldview (however couched in pagan allegories) is about redemption from Original Sin. Again, Phaethon is a stand in for the Christin soul (with or without the additional Adam reference) and Sol is the Church, since through its sacraments is the only means for salvation. There is a fallacious tendency to take the humanists literally, as if they were pagan, but almost all of them were true Christians emboldened with pagan metaphors from their newly revived classical culture.

Finally it was not simply Innocent III (well before Dante was alive) who used Sol as the Church - he created the metaphor, but it persisted well into Dante's time and later; again, see the Padua fresco I posted earlier (that has nothing to do with Phaethon - simply Pope/Church as Sol).

Phaeded

"not only are God, the angels, planets, and the cardinal virtues disparagingly placed and named, but the true lights of the world, that is the Pope and Emperor..."
(The Steele Sermon)

The medieval theory of the 'two lights' of temporal and spiritual authority is common to at least the 16th century.

Ladder of the Sun, with ecclesiastes on the rung of the ladder leading up to the Sun, with the Pope on top:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=388&p=5722#p5720

Ladder of the Moon, with Holy Roman Emperor on top:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=387&p=5719#p5719

Phaeded wrote: The essence of the Phaethon myth is his inability to control his father's chariot (with the subsequnet wild ride transfoming the earth itself)

Perhaps Phaeton not knowing how to drive would explain the random order of the zodiac in the Minchiate!

Wherefore he to me : " If Castor and Pollux had been in
company of that mirror, which leads of its light both
upward and down, thou wouldst have seen the fiery Zodiac
rotate yet closer to the Bears, unless it had issued forth
from its old road. How that is, if thou wouldst be able to
conceive, with inward recollection picture to thyself that
Sion stands with this mountain in suchwise on the earth,
that both have a single horizon and diverse hemispheres ;
whence, if thy intellect considers clearly, thou wilt see
how it behoves that the road, whereon to his own mishap
Phaethon knew not how to drive, should pass on the one
side of this mount, when it is on the other side of that."

Dante Purgatorio IV,61.

marco wrote:I am not sure, but maybe this handwritten German page could tell us something more about the image at 198r.
http://www.bbaw.de/forschung/dtm/HSA/700413980017.html
Huck, could you please transcribe / translate it for us all?

Maybe also 197v could be of interest?
http://www.bbaw.de/forschung/dtm/HSA/700413980016.html
Here the complete set of notes about Ms allem 106:
http://www.bbaw.de/forschung/dtm/HSA/Pa ... 80000.html

Help with the translation of the whole content of this note (by Paul Wüst, 1905) would be welcome. I have managed to transcribe and translate the most relevant part of the page, what appears to be the text accompanying the image on f198r we have been discussing.

"Wan die “7” planeten alle zu samen kument in ein
h[a]us / So louffent die kinder zu Sant Michel~~
Der helff uns mit allen engelen / unser arme[n] selen [sein?]."

When the seven planets come all together in a
[single] house / Then the children run to Saint Michael~~
Grant us that our poor souls / may be with all the angels.

This is an astrological prophecy of the end of times: when all the planets will be in the same house, all the souls (the children) will go to the Archangel Michael, in order to face the final judgment. The angel in the illustration is Michael, likely holding the Book of Life. The child at the center represents one of the souls going to judgment. He has the attributes of the resurrected Christ, likely to underline that, through death and resurrection, the soul is made like Christ. The child also alludes to the second coming of Christ at the end of times.

I think the source for this representation of the soul as a child similar to Christ might be the First Epistle of John 3:2:

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.

In relation with the Cary-Sheet and Vieville Sun cards, this manuscript page seems to me to confirm Michael J. Hurst's ideas about the End Times and signa coeli.

marco wrote:In relation with the Cary-Sheet and Vieville Sun cards, this manuscript page seems to me to confirm Michael J. Hurst's ideas about the End Times and signa coeli.

Thank you for the translation and good to see that "generic Christian soul" is essentially correct (but fairly self-evident), however would you apply Hurst's ideas to the PMB? I would modify his statement "that the trump cycle is a moral allegory rather than an occult manifesto, political propaganda, rites of initiation to a secret society, etc." by noting that 'moral allegory' is not mutually exclusive of 'political propaganda'; in fact the association of a family's stemma with the Christian worldview/'moral allegory' is political propaganda (it associates the ruler/family in question with the virtues and salvation scheme as if they were integral or essentially blessed by it, thus fit to rule a Christian polity). To point out the obvious again, the stemma on the ace of coins and knights of batons and swords in the PMB deck is not a Sforza device - so it seems to me that the deck was clearly sent out of court to whomever's stemma is shown in that deck...as propaganda, to associate the receiver of the gift deck with the self-proclaimed virtuous giver (Sforza).

Phaeded

marco wrote:I am not sure, but maybe this handwritten German page could tell us something more about the image at 198r.
http://www.bbaw.de/forschung/dtm/HSA/700413980017.html
Huck, could you please transcribe / translate it for us all?

Maybe also 197v could be of interest?
http://www.bbaw.de/forschung/dtm/HSA/700413980016.html
Here the complete set of notes about Ms allem 106:
http://www.bbaw.de/forschung/dtm/HSA/Pa ... 80000.html

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

I cannot read all (partly that's Sueterlin-writing, which I didn't learn in school; the generation before mine had it as a writing fashion).

197v offers a finishing text, from which I conclude, that the picture at 198r is not related to the text of the Moon houses. On the other hand there are following empty pages noted in the text for 198r, from which one might conclude, that 198r should belong to the Moon houses.
The crucial text you already translated, the Angel should be St. Michael. This text notes a "house", possibly a house of the moon cycle.
I think, that the idea, when all planets are all together at one point, that this would mean the end of the world, is old
in the astrological ideas. I think Ive read something like this; one of my astrology books speaks of "Thema Mundi" in this context (the horoscope at the begin of the world). And there is mentioned, that, if all planets are in Capricorn, the world dies by water. If all are in Cancer, then world dies by fire. Possibly Origines wrote about this, if I understand the book correctly ."Moon houses" are not mentioned in this astrology dictionary.

For 198r one author states, that at top are 4 lines Latin text (he seems to have problems to read it, and gives one "L.(?), II, III ... ?"). Some other technical details , and a description, what one sees anyway. Then the German sentence, that you translated ... perhaps just a later commentary, not belonging to the original arrangement of the page (appearance of German text and Latin text together is suspicious) ? The planets don't look, as if they are all in one zodiac sign. The general mood of the picture looks more funny than in high need at judgment day. And we don't know from which source this page comes, it seems a collection of different sources, just united by book binding.

Fo 198r is noted a size of 17 cm and 16cm. For 197v is noted a size 16x14,5 cm. One size is different, either the paper or the Lay-out. So I conclude, that the picture does not belong to the Moon houses text. Page 196 isn't given with size, possibly cause it's clear, that all pages of the moon houses texts have the same size.

SteveM wrote: Ladder of the Sun, with ecclesiastes on the rung of the ladder leading up to the Sun, with the Pope on top:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=388&p=5722#p5720

Ladder of the Moon, with Holy Roman Emperor on top:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=387&p=5719#p5719

Good, that you note this. ..
It remembers me to the pope-with-donkey lot book, where the emperor is connected to the hare and the hare is often connected to the moon.
If this sun=pope and moon=emperor fashion came up with pope Innocenz III (as Dante indicated according Phaeded), it has some logic.

Innocenz III (1198-2016) ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_III
... was a young man (37 in 1198) and soon a strong pope, after Barbarossa ( - 1190) had been a strong emperor. Barbarossa drowned on the crusade, and the Empire dropped in a crisis, with internal fights about the question, who should be the next emperor. Innocenz expanded the power of the church, invited by the weakness of the other forces. Innocenz participated in the attack on Constantinople 1204, where the crusaders had a fine quadriga robbed, good for triumphal gestures.



The quadriga came to Venice and decorated the place of St. Marcus place, but who claimed the fame ...?



Do we know, how old this picture is?

Innocenz became then also responsible for the attack on the Cathars.
... :-) ... I don't know, to which degree one should call his activities "typically Christian activities", but they are history.

Steve wrote:

Perhaps Phaeton not knowing how to drive would explain the random order of the zodiac in the Minchiate! :)

... a nice joke ... perhaps with some truth. It's an observation, that these "chaotic zodiacs" (it's a group, the Minchiate isn't alone, there is for instance the pope-with-donkey lot book) start with "Libra", the sign for marriage.

I remember a chaotic zodiac in the lotbook of Lorenzo Spirito (1482), which possibly was initiated by editions of the Fränkische Losbuch.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=442&hilit=lorenzo+spirito

It uses a 20-20-20-20 structure, which "somehow" also appears in Minchiate. Lorenz has 20 Kings at the begin and 20 prophet at the end, but in the middle part is much chaos:

First "chaos with 20" (I noted):

Luna - Sole (moon - sun) GREAT PAIR
Scorpione - Stella (scorpio - star) ??? death-star ??? mixed zodiac ???
Alicorno - Diamante (unicorn - diamond ring) WEDDING PAIR
Grifone - Core (grifon - heart shot by Eros) EROTIC ??? I don't understand the Grifon
Pesscie - Buve (fish - bull) ... zodiac ???
Cancer - Serene (cancer - sirene) ... both belong to water, mixed zodiac
Cervio - Dragone (stag - dragon) I don't understand
Lione - Cavallo (lion - horse) I don't understand, mixed zodiac
Cane - Porcho (dog -swine) I don't understand
Gallo - Vergene (cock - virgin with unicorn from the right; virgin looks "ordered")

Second "chaos with 20" (my notes)

1. Sole - these are planets
2. Saturno - ...
3. Venus - ...
4. Marte - ...
5. Luna - ...
6. Mercurio - ...
....
one expects now Jupiter, but now in pairs follows

7./8.Taurus - Gemini ... that are zodiac signs
9./10. Montone (that's a joke of the author ...looks like Aries, but what is it?) - Sagitario is zodiac sign
11./12. Aquario - Aries (Zodiak)
13./14. Capricorno - Cancer (Zodiak)
15./16. Scorpione - Apollo (on a triumphal chariot) ... well, Scorpio is zodiac, but Apollo is on triumphal march
17./18. Cristallina ???? ... that's the heaven of the stars and then follows Iove (= Jove) (as emperor - or helmed man - with eagle shield)
19./ 20. Virgo (again with unicorn, but now from other side) - Libra

There "Libra" appears not first, but as last of 40, and Virgo with unicon appears twice, first in order, and a little bit deranged - short before Libra.

My older analysis got then an AHA-effect ...

Now focus at the central part, and there is an Aha-perspective ... SEX ... the whole is about SEX. FEAR - HOPE - GELOSIA and Amore, that was Boiardo's analysis ... here the author has more sense for the details of the fears. What is SEX ... in the eyes in the not-disturbed virgin? And what are her fears? Is SEX like dog with swine, lion with horse, stag with dragon, cancer with Sirene, fish with bull?

Here is the virgin and she appears still not disturbed at the end of the row as Nr. 20 in the first group after the 20 kings:

and here appears another, rather relaxed version of virgin (a little deranged, cause she isn't virgin anymore) with the unicorn at the left side (before it was at the right) at position Nr. 19 of the second group, which I still haven't shown ...

... and this number 19 is followed by a nice looking young man with a libra in his hand at position Nr. 20 of the second group (who had been in the first group an approaching Gallo = cock with specific intentions) .

Well, another strange zodiac chaos with Libra not at begin, but at the end.

Gemini was then presented as a united male-female pair:


The Fränkische Losbuch used Adam+Eve for Gemini:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=663


The recently detected Heidelberg lotbook with "32 animals with zodiac" (with similarity to the Fränkische lot book) knows in one of his two orders Libra as the first sign:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=663&start=49
It starts with ..

01 Wag (zodiac Waage/Libra, FL 1)
02 Gauch oder Guguck (cuckoo, new)
03 Esel (donkey, FL 22)
04 Falck (falcon, new)
05 Nachtigal (nightingale, FL 16)
etc.

Hello Huck,
thank you very much for trying to understand more of Wüst's notes!

Huck wrote: I think, that the idea, when all planets are all together at one point, that this would mean the end of the world, is old
in the astrological ideas

Yes the idea is ancient and it is thought to be of Babylonian origin.
See this paper by Sepp Rothwangl.

Seneca (Naturales Questiones 3.29.1) wrote:“Berossos, who interpreted the prophecies of Bel, attributed… the end of the world and its
aftermath to the movements of the planets. He maintains that the Earth will burn whenever all the
planets, which have different orbits, converge... and are so arranged in the same path that a
straight line can pass through all their orbs and there will be a further great flood, when the
planets so converge in Capricorn"

From Nemesius, a Christian writer of about 400 CE, we have a witness that the alignment of the
Planets was imagined at the Resurrection of Christ at the end of the world:

“According to the Stoics the conflagration and the destruction of all beings is generated, after
stated periods of time, by the planets, when they come back, (...) Then, from the start the world is
restored anew. (...)There will be again Socrates and Plato and every man, with their friend and
fellow-citizen. (...) Christians imagine the Resurrection by way of this restoration, (...) Christ's
words instruct that the Resurrection will take place once and not periodically.”

Michael J. Hurst has found an excellent image of the Cary-Sheet at the Beinecke library.
http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3835917

I attach my reconstruction of the Cary-Sheet Sun card based on f198r of Ms BNF allem. 106. It is meant as an attempt to improve the reconstruction proposed years ago by Andy Pollett.

Interesting suggestion.

I don't know about Pollett's suggestions. Do you have a link?

Huck wrote:Interesting suggestion.

I don't know about Pollett's suggestions. Do you have a link?

Hello Huck,
I only have the link in the previous post.
http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards69.htm