The Minerva, especially in the close up, reminds me of the Vieville charioteer.

There is a kind of resemblance, in the face and especially the hair. But I have a hard time seeing the Vieville auriga as a woman.

From the detail of Pallas you got from the page, I noticed that the spear seems to be broken at the end - it looks frayed, and there is, clearly, no point. It's not noted in any of the descriptions of the painting I've read (although I admit it isn't many).

Looking at the best reproduction I have of it, in a book about Mantegna, where it is still pretty small -


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/art/mantegnavirtuevice.jpg

I saw this detail -


I would interpret this to mean that Pallas/Minerva/Athena is not winning this battle alone, and for this reason the Daphne-tree is calling to the three Cardinal Virtues on the cloud to come to her assistance.

So - is "the Mother of Virtues" in the stone prison at the right supposed to be Prudence, and the broken spear means that Pallas - Wisdom - is not enough to defeat the vices that enchain her? Prudence needs the Appetites to be controlled too - in other words, it is not enough to be book-wise, philosophical, there also has to be an active engagement in a battle with the world, the flesh, and its temptations?

Pallas looks pretty formidable, and in other contexts she can appear as the sum of virtue, but the broken spear shows that she has lost a skirmish, and the plea for help shows that she will not free the Mater Virtutum alone.

Or... is Pallas the Mater Virtutum, and the broken spear is the reason for the plea, given by Daphne at the far left of the composition and a hidden figure at the far right?

I find this composition interesting as well for presenting the three tarot virtues together, and also missing any explicit Prudence.

The writer of the webpage also says that the tree with the banner is "an olive tree with human features, possibly a reference to the mythical Daphne, the nymph who turns into such a tree after being chased and embraced by Apollo." But if it is Daphne, it must be laurel, not olive.

I can't make out the leaves enough to be sure, since both trees have long, pointy oval leaves. But the Bay Laurel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurus_nobilis
appears to be lighter than the olive -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive

- and there are no olives visible as far as I can see on the tree, so I'd go with laurel for the identification of the tree, and with the female figure inside it, the identification with Daphne, and thus unsullied virtue, is secure.

Hi Robert- the nearest image I have that brings to mind the Chariot driver(Plato's Chariot allegory )on the card is a type of armed Venus.
Knight of Love- Manesse Codex (c. 1300)
I do not think Minerva is the Driver. I think it is Caritas.
~Lorredan

Rosanne, is your Knight on a horse? That's what I'm seeing, thank you very much google.


http://wtfarthistory.com/post/813006713 ... -over-vice (unidentified author)

The heroine in the painting is Pallas, a.k.a. Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom (a.k.a. Athena, the Greek name for the same figure). She charges forward with a broken spear ...

Right, the author of the page did notice it, thanks.

But - the commentator still doesn't hazard an interpretation of this important detail.

If you look at where the spear is pointing, and where Pallas is looking, it is pointing right at the wee fella's willy -



With the broken spear restored (thanks Aline!) -


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/art/mantegn ... stored.jpg

So my interpretation would be that the spear was broken in the first thrust against lust, and so reinforcements are being called in.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. Working on this essay has made it blatently and embarassingly clear to me how little I know about Plato and philosophy in general. I didn't even realise that 'premise', 'valid' and 'sound' were technical terms used in formulating an argument. I guess I'm very much a product of the California school system in the 1970s, we had classes on 'ecology', for instance, but never on philosopy; so I know the importance of saving the planet, but couldn't argue my way out of a fisherman's net. Sigh.

I need to learn about Neoplatonism. I thought that I had a basic, basic grasp, but now realise how terribly ignorant I really am.

Fundamentally, my question is how much can we ascribe the virtues in the tarot to platonic or neoplatonic thought?Would they be differentiated? And are they in some way any different from the viewpoint of the Catholic church? Are they the same, or do they differ somehow? Did the Catholic church build it's understanding of the virtues on Plato? Neoplatoism? When I look at the virtues in the tarot, should I be thinking Plato, Neoplatoism, or Catholic Church, and is there any difference between them?

It's more Aristotle and Aquinas than Plato directly, as far as Catholic understanding of the Virtues goes. It's a big subject, obviously, I'm not sure there's an "Introduction to the Cardinal Virtues in Late Medieval Society" anywhere online (but there must be), but there are hundreds of ways into the topic.

They are the backbone of so much Roman philosophy, especially the Stoics (Seneca to Marcus Aurelius), and thence into Christianity, that you really can't speak about Christian morality without knowing about how the Greek and Roman philosophers understood the classification and practice of "the Virtues".

Wonderful thread - thanks all (not forgetting Aline). I've been reading through Who's in the Chariot? again - it seems relevant, but what a long way we've come since it was begun. I'm seeing the Vieville charioteer as female now.

Here's a better image. http://mini-site.louvre.fr/mantegna/ima ... /08_06.jpg

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:...
If you look at where the spear is pointing, and where Pallas is looking, it is pointing right at the wee fella's willy -

...

So my interpretation would be that the spear was broken in the first thrust against lust, and so reinforcements are being called in.

They're not in the same plane. The arches in the hedge are wide enough to walk through comfortably, about a meter/three feet. The flying babes are to her side, parallel to her left shoulder, above and slightly behind the cloven-footed mama. The mama and the babe closest to Pallas are in the same plane, parallel to Pallas's shield, and probably two meters away.

She's looking at the people in the clouds.