Tarot History Forum

I read Boiardo's poem and see that no specific court ranks are mentioned in the triplets that would correspond to court figures. As an exception, I see two suits in which Boiardo uses the word "re" (king), but it is number 11, which I assume should be a horse or rider.

*******

I think Viti isn't talking about passion of hope, but rather joy. Or Viti use the same words for passions than Boiardo? I'm reading that in trionfi.com and I am looking for the original words that Viti used for passions.

*********

As we said, there are no clear correspondences between Boiardo's trump cards and the common tarot. Some scholars believe that Boiardo imitated the structure of the common tarot, but perhaps it didn't exist yet.

Boiardo's first triumph or tercet (Chapter V) begins with the word "World" and then mentions fools or fools. Viti then took the first word of each tercet as a thematic concept for each triumph and assigned a character. Boiardo mentioned a character in some tercets, but in other tercets, he didn't mention a character. For example, I believe the character Charite, associated with the concept of Grace, is a contribution by Viti that didn't exist in Boiardo's text. Ultimately, I'm not clear whether Boiardo paid attention to a theme or a character for each triumph in his poem. So, the first tercet could be about the World or the Fool. This mystery is important. If the first tercet is the Fool, then the order of Boiardo's triumphs is ascending, up to Lucretia, which would be the most powerful triumph, as Huck says. However, if Boiardo's first triplet is the World, then the sequence is descending, reaching Lucretia, which would be the lowest trump, just as Daphne was a low card in the Visconti Besozzo deck (circa 1425). In this case, Lucretia can be considered important and a protagonist, as the beginning of the upward journey. I can't think of an argument to determine whether the first triplet is the World or the Fool. I'm thinking about the issue of characters and concepts, as I have said. That doesn't allow me to see the solution. Perhaps the order of trumps was ascending (from the Fool to Lucretia), as in the pip cards. But this is confusing because the first card is the World, which indicates the theme according to Viti. Boiardo thought that the first word of each triplet was the theme of the trump because there are indeed successive pairs, as Viti later observed when studying Boiardo's text. Viti interpreted the first triplet as the Fool on a donkey with a globe in his hand. However, I don't know if Boiardo thought the first triplet was the Fool or the World.

Magic Moon wrote: 30 Jun 2025, 21:15 I read Boiardo's poem and see that no specific court ranks are mentioned in the triplets that would correspond to court figures. As an exception, I see two suits in which Boiardo uses the word "re" (king), but it is number 11, which I assume should be a horse or rider.

That's right, but at the least the four figures of each suit, 11-14, are male male female male

I think Viti isn't talking about passion of hope, but rather joy. Or Viti use the same words for passions than Boiardo? I'm reading that in trionfi.com and I am looking for the original words that Viti used for passions.

Both Viti and PRINT use Amor, Speranza, Gelosia, Timore

As we said, there are no clear correspondences between Boiardo's trump cards and the common tarot. Some scholars believe that Boiardo imitated the structure of the common tarot, but perhaps it didn't exist yet.

Boiardo's first triumph or tercet (Chapter V) begins with the word "World" and then mentions fools or fools. Viti then took the first word of each tercet as a thematic concept for each triumph and assigned a character. Boiardo mentioned a character in some tercets, but in other tercets, he didn't mention a character. For example, I believe the character Charite, associated with the concept of Grace, is a contribution by Viti that didn't exist in Boiardo's text. Ultimately, I'm not clear whether Boiardo paid attention to a theme or a character for each triumph in his poem. So, the first tercet could be about the World or the Fool.

The structure is clear from Viti's manuscript and the first explanatory sonnet:

"There are in total eighty cards; the first contains a sonnet that briefly teaches the nature of all of them, and the last likewise, with another sonnet, explains to the readers what the author's intention was to invent this game, so that with it, time—which quickly flees—might pass with some amusement for those who live in idleness.

"The rest, truly, are all divided into two parts: one contains twenty-one Triumphs and the Fool; the other contains forty cards of four suits, and among these, are also sixteen figures on sixteen painted cards: and in this, it matches the common game of cards.

"The suits are four: one is Love, the other Hope, the third Jealousy, the fourth Fear. And in each of these suits are fourteen cards, and among these four are figures, which are marked as in the common deck. And so that nothing be left out, I also wish to write the sonnet that, being found on the first card, clearly explains the structure of this whole game, and which proceeds as follows:

"Four passions that mistress the soul,
Have forty cards in this game;
To the more worthy, the lesser gives place,
And their meaning gives them color.

"Each color (suit) also has four figures,
Which all hold their proper roles;
With twenty-one Triumphs, and in the lowest place
There is a Fool, since the Fool adores the world.

"Love, Hope, Jealousy, Fear
Are the passions, and the cards have a threefold structure,
So that whoever will play may not fall into error.

"The number is shared out in the verses:
One, two, and three, up to the highest degree;
Now it remains for you to discover the art of the game."

The print version of the sonnet has some orthographic differences, but the only significant difference, in as much as it alters the meaning, is in line 8:

Viti has

È un Folle, poi che 'l folle el mondo adora.
There is a Fool, since the fool adores the world (or, more ambiguous - There is a Fool, since the fool the world adores - however, the more straightforward reading I think is support by the first line of the first tercet of the Triumph chapter, in which it is the world that is vainly loved).

PRINT versions have:

È un folle piú che 'l folle el mondo adora.
There is a fool greater (more) than the fool the world adores.

But in both versions, it is still clear that in the lowest place there is a fool.

Thanks lot !!

The PRINT version, "There is a fool greater than that the world adores," seems to imply two fools. Might the "greater" fool be Christ, or perhaps St. Francis, the "fool for Christ," maybe even the believer in Christ - not in disparagement, but in respect? In that case, the fool, while lowest, could also be highest, in another sense, that of "without number" or "beyond number" - which also, but not necessarily (in the context of the poem), corresponds to the Hebrew en sof, which very much figures in Pico's 1487 work.

That would also give another meaning to the first sonnet, about the fool on a donkey (Christ entering Jerusalem), also God, who "so loved the world...".

And to the preacher's mentioning the Fool after Mondo rather than before el Bagatella.

It is also noteworthy that all of the people mentioned in the poem are non-Christian, with the possible exception of Laura. Laura, while referring to Petrarch's beloved, presumably Christian, is also the feminine of "Laurus", meaning laurel, and so can refer to Daphne.

One more comment: In the sonnet just translated, in both versions, it seems to me that "figure" in Italian (feminine plural) has the sense of "court cards". They would be one part of the "threefold structure" of the cards, that of numbers, figures, and triumphs.

mikeh wrote: 01 Jul 2025, 03:08 The PRINT version, "There is a fool greater than that the world adores," seems to imply two fools. Might the "greater" fool be Christ, or perhaps St. Francis, the "fool for Christ,"

That would also give another meaning to the first sonnet, about the fool on a donkey (Christ entering Jerusalem), also God, who "so loved the world...".

And to the preacher's mentioning the Fool after Mondo rather than before el Bagatella.

Possibly. In that case, it’s worth remembering that this version comes down to us in the 1523 printed edition, which places Boiardo’s tarot poem alongside works by Girolamo Benivieni, a close associate of Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino, and a devout follower of Savonarola (and is dedicated to Corregio, a friend and associate of Boiardo at the Court of Ferrara).

Benivieni is especially significant in this context because he helped revive and popularize the idea that madness for Christ's sake is the highest wisdom, a spiritual inversion of worldly folly. His writings, including the Bonfire songs sung during the processions of Savonarola's followers, express this idea vividly. One refrain declares:

"Ognum gridi com’ io grido, / Sempre pazzo, pazzo, pazzo!"
"Let everyone cry out as I do, / Always mad, mad, mad!"

And in another, quasi-alchemical poem (in my previous post I titled The Remedy) Benivieni offers a spiritual prescription for the soul, with “madness” (pazzia) as the cure:

“Io co darti anima mia / un rimedio sol che vale... / che si chiama la pazzia.”
“I shall give you, my soul, a single remedy that truly works... which is called madness.”

From this angle, the inclusion of Boiardo’s poem, on the subject of a card game, in a Benivieni edited (?) volume seems less out of place. Though Savonarola railed against gaming and vanity, Benivieni might have seen in Boiardo’s structured allegory of the four passions (Love, Hope, Jealousy, Fear), and in the Fool’s placement, a moral or mystical diagram rather than a frivolous amusement. The game could be understood not as diversion, but as a contemplative tool for reflecting on the soul’s movements, its vices, and its possible transcendence.

This would also support the idea that the Viti manuscript, which reads “poi che 'l folle el mondo adora” (“since the fool adores the world”), is more faithful to Boiardo’s original, where the Fool clearly represents delusional worldliness, folly as vice. The print version’s seeming inversion where the Fool is more than the fool the world loves might reflect Benivieni’s editorial hand, layering in his own theology of redemptive madness, possibly aligning the Fool with divine foolishness, as seen in Christ’s entry into Jerusalem or Paul’s “foolishness of the Cross.”

One more comment: In the sonnet just translated, in both versions, it seems to me that "figure" in Italian (feminine plural) has the sense of "court cards". They would be one part of the "threefold structure" of the cards, that of numbers, figures, and triumphs.

Yep, four 'figures' of each colour (suit) = court cards, as Viti writes:

As of the cards; of the figures truly of Love there are the Knave, the Knight, the Queen and the King.

Questo de le carte; de le figure veramente de Amore c'è il fante, il cavallo, la regina e lo re.

SteveM wrote: 01 Jul 2025, 07:35
Yep, four 'figures' of each colour (suit) = court cards, as Viti writes:

As of the cards; of the figures truly of Love there are the Knave, the Knight, the Queen and the King.

Questo de le carte; de le figure veramente de Amore c'è il fante, il cavallo, la regina e lo re.

While on the structure, it seems to me we need to clarify that Viti includes the Fool as among the 22 Triumphs, when Viti writes:

Questi sono li Trionfi minutamente a Vostra Signoría descripti; ne i quali uno Capitulo si legge de vintidoi terzetti, in vintidue carte de Trionfi, con el Matto, partiti: dal quale principando, el Capitulo comenza in questo modo, adaptando el secondo terzetto al secondo Trionfo, lo terzo a lo terzo, e cusí de li altri; ponendo in questo numero il Matto. Dal quale incomenzando li versi cusí dicano:

There is confusion I think with the word 'partiti', which some have interpreted as 'separate' so read the fool as being separate from the others, but it is clear from surrounding context, that the fool is numbered among the trumps, and as the first:

In which a Chapter is read, of twenty-two tercets, over twenty-two Triumph cards, with the Fool (included), divided/distributed (thus): from which (i.e., starting from the Fool), the Chapter begins in this way—assigning the second tercet to the second Triumph, the third to the third, and so on with the others; placing the Fool among this number. Beginning from him, the verses go as follows:

* partiti or, among them, or among the party, or counted among them, not divided (or separated) from them.

These are the Triumphs described in detail for Your Ladyship; the accompanying Capitolo consists of twenty-two tercets, one for each of the twenty-two Triumph cards, including the Fool. The verses begin with the Fool, assigning the second tercet to the second Triumph, the third to the third, and so on.*

* Edited to add - However, in his actual description of each of the Triumphs, the numbering begins with the second Stanza, Ozzio, numbered as first.

Secondly, of the rules we may note, that among the suits:

In the game of Love, the card with more darts wins.

In the game of Hope, the card with more vases wins.

In the games of Jealousy and Fear, the card with fewer symbols wins, because more Love and more Hope are good, but less Jealousy and less Fear is better.

E de le carte, el piú nel gioco d'Amore, de' dardi, e il piú de vasi, nel gioco di Speranza, vince; et il meno ne li altri doi giochi è superiore. Percioché piú amore e piú speranza sono megliori che meno; e meno gelosia e timore valgono meglio che 'l piú de loro.

A similar rule we find in Marziano, with respect to the suits of the birds:

"However, the order of these Birds is, although none of their type has right over another, yet this arrangement they have alternately – Eagles and Turtledoves lead from many to few: that is to say it goes better for us when many cultivate virtue and continence; but for Phoenices and Doves, the few rule over the many, which is to say that, the more the followers of riches and pleasure are visible, the more they lead to the deterioration of our station."
Marziano da Tortona (translation by Ross Caldwell)

This is a rule too, that outside of France-with its simplified modern rules-persisted in the game of Tarot: As it was written on the Two of Cups of the Flemish Pattern:

POUR CONOISTRE QUE A PLUS BASSE DE DENIEZ Et DE COUPES ENPORTE LES PLUS HAUTES QUAND AU FAIT DU JEU

TO KNOW THAT THE LOWER OF COINS AND OF CUPS BEAT THE HIGHER WHEN IT COMES TO THIS GAME

Steve M wrote,

Possibly—In that case, it’s worth remembering that this version comes down to us in the 1523 printed edition, which places Boiardo’s tarot poem alongside works by Girolamo Benivieni—a close associate of Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino, and a devout follower of Savonarola (and is dedicated to Corregio, a friend and associate of Boiardo at the Court of Ferrara).

I am not convinced that it is all Beniveni's editing. The first tercet's first line - Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato, - is too close to "God who so loved the world...": only the word "vanamente" is different, which points to the "vain fool", while the rest intimates the God who is beyond concepts.

In that way, the Viti version of the other mention of the fool "(“since the fool adores the world") - also has the same two senses, "adore" being similar to the "love" in "God so loved the world".

That the fool carries the world on a donkey then intimates Christ, the only-begotten son, in his entry into Jerusalem; he carries the world so as to redeem it.

Trump 20 then suggests eternity: "in your ruins are fame and time" so of course oblivion to the vain world, but also eternity, the Petrarchan triumph following the other two.

In the same tercet, "You are the end and boundary" suggests, to a Neoplatonist or Kabbalist, also something beyond this "end and boundary" - namely that which has no end or boundary the En Sof or that which is beyond concepts to describe it.

These are in Viti as well as the print version.

mikeh wrote: 01 Jul 2025, 14:20
Trump 20 then suggests eternity: "in your ruins are fame and time" so of course oblivion to the vain world, but also eternity, the Petrarchan triumph following the other two.

In the same tercet, "You are the end and boundary" suggests, to a Neoplatonist or Kabbalist, also something beyond this "end and boundary" - namely that which has no end or boundary the En Sof or that which is beyond concepts to describe it.

Possibly, but as you note , there is no need for kabbalistic notions of En Sof, it is perfectly understandable in the Christian concept of Eternity. Oblivion marks the final limit (fine, terminata via) of all worldly values. But it is not absolute, it is penultimate. Beyond oblivion lies Eternity, a timeless realm where what was once lost is restored, transfigured, and made incorruptible.

19. TIME
TIME, who drives all men toward death,
You spared old Nestor, and though he met his end,
No tongue could well recount so long a life.

20. OBLIVION
OBLIVION, end and boundary of all,
You led Elice, Lethe, and Dido away,
And fame and time lie buried in your ruins.

It is more plausible and more consistent with the author's known influences to turn to his established sources of inspiration rather than invoke speculative Kabbalistic interpretations. Oblivion is the end and boundary of all temporal reality, of Death, Fame &Time. But is a penultimate state out of which, as Petrarch has it:

E quei che Fama meritaron chiara, 127
che 'l Tempo spense, e i be' visi leggiadri
che 'mpallidir fe' 'l Tempo e Morte amara,

l'obblivïon, gli aspetti oscuri et adri, 130
più che mai bei tornando, lasceranno
a Morte impetuosa, a' giorni ladri;

Those who deserve bright and shining fame,
whom Time has extinguished, and those lovely, graceful faces
made pale by Time and bitter Death,

will abandon the dark and gloom of Oblivion,
to return more beautiful than ever,
leaving Oblivion behind, along with Death and life-stealing days.

(Petrarch Trionfo dell'Eternità lines 127-132)

For Petrarch, above all those restored to immortal beauty and eternal Fame- immortal bellezza eterna fama- will be his beloved Laura: Blessed is the stone that now holds her fair face / for when she regains her radiant body, if it was bliss to see her in this life, then what unspeakable joy must it be to see her again in Heaven?

In Boiardo, Oblivion, the end and boundary of all, is the penultimate Triumph, trumped by the Joyful Lucretia, Strong of Soul, whose suicide was not an act of despair but of honour. A deliberate moral stand to cleanse & preserve her name (per purgar sua fama) and condemn her attacker. Her death becomes a model of virtue, especially for those who value honour and reputation above life itself.

Do you think the Hanged Man card was perhaps inspired by Lucrezia? A voluntary death that begins a journey toward the highest heaven.

Magic Moon: The Hanged Man was inspired by the conventional image in Italy of the time of a traitor as a person hanging from one foot. One early name for the card was "traditor". Read Andrea Vitali's essay on the Hanged Man, which is online.

Nice quote and translation from Petrarch, Steve. Well, I don't say that Kabbalah might have been an influence on Boiardo, just a possible allusion, for a particular audience. By milieu and family relationships, it would include Pico and his associates who engaged in a more extended syncretism than Boiardo's own - starting when, I don't know. It is just that there is room for that interpretation in Boiardo's poem, not foreign to the milieu.

Here is Pico (900 Theses, Farmer translation):

11>4. Ein-Sof should not be counted with the other numerations, because it is the abstract and uncommunicated unity of those numerations, not their coordinated unity.

About which Farmer, the translator, says:

Ein-Sof= God's transcendent nature, the source of his manifest nature in the kabbalistic sefirot or "numerations." Cf 10>15, ll>35-36 and note. Roughly speaking, Ein-Sof is equivalent to the abstract essence of God in Latin scholasticism. Cf in the historical theses 3.1-2, 6.1, etc., which Pico apparently meant to correlate with this one.

It is not a big leap to thinking of the triumphs of tarocchi as "numerations," Pico's word for the sefirot - well, actually, they are numerations, in that they are numbered. He even counts the En Sof as one of the "numerations," an inclusion that seems to me a stretch. But it fits Viti (although not Boiardo, who counts twenty-one), and it makes for eleven of them, half of 22. I am not insisting on any detailed parallels between the tarocchi enumerations and the Kabbalistic ones - just the first tercet and the penultimate one, which perhaps corresponds to the "Justice" of the B order. And if there are not two Fools in Viti's version of the sonnet, perhaps at least the World and the Fool can have double meanings, in a tarocchi order where the World comes after the End.