Tarot History Forum

The reverse of the famous Lorenzo de Medici birth tray of 1449 features the armorial device of his father, Piero de’ Medici: a diamond ring with three ostrich feathers and a banderole with the motto SEMPER (forever). The device is much worn and the silver is oxidized but its original colors of green, white and red signified the Theological virtues (which also are repeated on the border of the obverse featuring the allegory of Fama). I'd love to hear why Giusti's trionfi deck made in Florence has nothing to do with the Medici, even though he was a loyal partisan...

Phaeded wrote:

Lorredan wrote:
Why not Mother of Mercy, Mary and Christ child, Annunciation, Maji, True Cross, Stations of the Cross......?
For the same reason- they are not appropriate for a game."

And yet there the theological virtues are in the only significantly surving pre-PMB deck with trumps in existence, the CY (and Malatesta did not combine his coat of arms in his CHURCH in Rimini with the Mother of Mercy, Mary and Christ, Stations of the Cross, etc...he combined them in a chapel with the 7 virtues).

I agree that the theological virtues do not exist in true trionfi post-PMB...but how can you make the same claim for pre-PMB, especially if the earliest decks were all grouped together fairly close in time? A tenable timeline:

1. Giusti's "Anghiari victory deck," Sept 1440
2. Ferrara/Sagramoro "Bianca wooing deck", January 1441 ("14 painted subjects")
3. Cremona "F. Sforza/Bianca wedding deck" (aka CY), October 1441 - 7 virtues attested (Prudence conflated w/Fama)

In the span of 13 months three decks are produced in rapid sucession and you want to propose three entirely different series of trump subjects and/or number of them??? The Ferrara deck gives the overall number, the CY deck gives all but three of the cards (easily deduced by completing the virtues series and the Wheel from Brambilla), and the Giusti deck the place of origin: FLORENCE. Neither of you are addressing the place of origin and context for the first trionfi. The Giusti discovery has changed the parameters of the game (Florence) yet you are still casting your net far and wide.

Florence was preoccupied with the Virtues from the beginning of the Quattrocento (I will eventually start a new thread about that) and was allied with the Pope living in Florence. The Theological virtues were closely associated with the Pope; e.g., the Cossa tomb in the Florence Baptistry featuring the theological virtues, commissioned/completed under the auspices of Cosimo de Medici. The victory at Anghiari was a combined Papal/Florentine victory - the papal forces were lead by Cardinal Trevisano who isssued this commemorative medal after Anghiari (yes it features a secular triumph, just as lay people could appreciate the theological virtues as they were all going to get married and die via the sacraments of the Church):

"Cristoforo di Geremia is credited with the portrait medal of Cardinal Trevisan that is conspicuously based on Roman coinage. Cardinal Trevisan was a rich, powerful, and cultured figure who proved his military prowess in the Battle of Anghiari on June 29, 1440, between Milan and the Italian League, where he lead the papal troupes. He became cardinal in the same year. In the obverse of the medal, the cardinal, shown in profile, is described as patriarch of Aquileia rather than cardinal. On the reverse, which includes a Roman temple, a military triumph is depicted. It is therefore possible that the medal commemorates the victory at the Battle of Anghiari."

Is this equation starting to make any sense to you: Pope = theological virtues + allied with Medici-controlled Florence thus all seven virtues (which we have inthe CY deck!)? Theological virtues would have been appropriate for both wooing and wedding decks, but not for the PMB deck in 1450 when Sforza starved Milan into submission, hence their replacements at that time (which then became canonical).

Still waiting for a single piece of evidence showing the cultural import of chess in Florence, ca. 1440.

Phaeded

Exited temperament usually captures errors ... old experience in research,

The Cary-Yale Tarocchi wasn't made in Florence, but in Milan, likely by Filippo Maria Visconti, who loved chess. Why should I assume, that the Florence Trionfi was a Chess Trionfi deck? We've the simple condition, that we have evidence of the use of "Trionfi" for special card decks in Florence in 1440 and later. We have not enough clues to define the character of this Trionfi deck in 1440. It might have had some similarity to the Cary-Yale Tarocchi, it might have had 14 special cards as the assumed deck in Ferrara at 1.1.1441, but it also might have been totally different.
If you make one precise suggestion, how these (only assumed) 14 cards should have looked like, you're full in the kingdom of speculation. I could easily generate 200 other suggestions, and I wouldn't have with that all other "somehow plausible" suggestions.

The Giusti discovery has changed the parameters of the game (Florence) yet you are still casting your net far and wide.

Yes, agreed, it has changed something, but it was not alone, also the whole Franco Pratesi research changed a lot. There are indeed a lot of new questions. Unluckily all the new information didn't add something to the few things, that we know about Trionfi cards structure and content of the used decks.
I think, this is a realistic view.

Phaeded wrote:
Is this equation starting to make any sense to you: Pope = theological virtues + allied with Medici-controlled Florence thus all seven virtues (which we have inthe CY deck!)? Theological virtues would have been appropriate for both wooing and wedding decks, but not for the PMB deck in 1450 when Sforza starved Milan into submission, hence their replacements at that time (which then became canonical).

Still waiting for a single piece of evidence showing the cultural import of chess in Florence, ca. 1440.

Phaeded

Huck wrote:
Exited temperament usually captures errors ... old experience in research,
The Cary-Yale Tarocchi wasn't made in Florence, but in Milan, likely by Filippo Maria Visconti, who loved chess.

Huck,
Of course CY is Milanese (my point was the "Anghiari" deck provides the oldest and thus probable origin - Florence - with Ferrara the number of trumps and Milan the subject: the Virtues). Filippo also loved his "celestial gods" card game - so if you are going to jump from chess to the CY shouldn't you first explain how Filippo's 16 gods/heroes deck wiuth odd bird suits fits your chess theory?

I also get the 16 card suits vs 14 trump subjects disjunction in the CY deck, but I've proposed an explanation for that in regard to the CVI Lovers card in the thread above (3 couples in CVI Love card, which I posit as original to the Anghiari deck, both being Florentine, which is replaced in the CY and PMB by a single couple - was compensated for in the CY deck by 3 "couples" in terms of 3 female royals for 3 male royals in the court cards). Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote: Huck,
Of course CY is Milanese (my point was the "Anghiari" deck provides the oldest and thus probable origin - Florence - with Ferrara the number of trumps and Milan the subject: the Virtues). Filippo also loved his "celestial gods" card game - so if you are going to jump from chess to the CY shouldn't you first explain how Filippo's 16 gods/heroes deck wiuth odd bird suits fits your chess theory?

I also get the 16 card suits vs 14 trump subjects disjunction in the CY deck, but I've proposed an explanation for that in regard to the CVI Lovers card in the thread above (3 couples in CVI Love card, which I posit as original to the Anghiari deck, both being Florentine, which is replaced in the CY and PMB by a single couple - was compensated for in the CY deck by 3 "couples" in terms of 3 female royals for 3 male royals in the court cards). Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Phaeded

The Michelino deck likely took up some influences, things which are similar and clearly belong to an earlier time.

1. The Michelino used the concept of the "12 Olympian gods", which it posits at No. 1-12 or 16-5 in the used hierarchical row of the trumps. Poggio discovered the Manilius text during the council of Constance, which used the 12 Olympian gods for its internal scheme for his astrological concept. The papal delegation around Martin, to which Poggio belonged, visited Milan in 1418. One may assume, that new detections during the council were discussed then. The Manilius concept later took strong influence on the iconography of Palazzo Schifanoia.
The Michelino deck used another composition of the 12 gods as the Manilius, but its detection surely raised the attention of the many astrologers around Filippo. Martiano da Tortona was also called an astrologer

2. Evrart de Conty wrote a very large work "eschecs amoureux" (Chess of lovers) with about 1000 pages, which likely was ready in 1398. In this he presented 32 allegories (mainly taken from the "Roman de la Rose"), from which each was related to a specific chess figure of 32 figures (the "female" chess figures differed from the "male" chess figures). In this context he presents also "16 gods" ... partly other gods as those in the Michelino deck. In later editions of this work the 16 gods found an iconographic representation (usually they used 24 pictures, 16 of them the gods).
The text has 1000 pages written in old French. We didn't found a clear list, which would tell us, which god would present which figure. W hadn't the energy and time to clear the question, if there is some relation indicated "somewhere". Actually it would be logical, that it is "somewhere" indicated.
The text was disputed at the French court of Valentia Visconti (sister of Filippo Maria Visconti) in 1402. It played a part in the writings of Christine de Pizan, who attacked it.
It isn't known to us, if Filippo Maria had such a work, but it seems not likely, that he totally overlooked its existence.

3. Before Michelino left Milan (around 1403), he decorated a genealogy of the Visconti. In this genealogy concept Jupiter and Venus were ancestors of the Visconti. When Michelino da Besozza returned to Milan (1418) he got between 1418-25 the commission for the playing card deck, in which Jupiter and Venus got their roles.

4. It seems, that the Michelino deck used 60 cards in the game (from the courts only kings are mentioned). A comparable 60 cards deck was presented by Johannes of Rheinfelden, who had 10 numbers with professions for each suit (comparable to the Hofämterspiel) and 5 courts: Kings, Queens, Ober (Marshall), Unter (Marshal) and a Maid as assistance for the Queen. The most of the longer Johannes text (1377) is about this deck, which seems o have been a court deck, and the very probable court to which it belonged, likely had been the Bohemian court of Emperor Charles IV. (reigned 1346 - 1378). The Hofämterspiel is also given to the Bohemian, though much later (this deck is shortened to 48 cards, and it has "somehow" 6 courts: Kings, Queens, Ober (Hofmeister), Unter (Marshal). a Maid (Junckfrawe) and a Fool (either male or female). 4 of the courts were also used as number cards 10 Hofmeister, 9 Marshal, 6 Junckfrawe and 1 Fool.
The Bohemian court and the Visconti traded the duke title for Giangaleazzo in 1395, with a Visconti delegation in Prague. This was a greater event of some importance, actually the case presented a major argument, why King Wencelas was was abdicated in 1400. For the delegation in Prague it seems plausible, that also a major cultural exchange took place, and that the court of Milan got some Bohemian playing cards. Decembrio noted, that Filippo Maria Visconti had playing cards already in his youth. In 1395 Filippo Maria was 3 years old.
It seems plausible, that Filippo Maria took the 60 cards model from this earlier deck.
Johannes of Rheinfelden also saw a relationship between chess and playin cards.

5. We recently heard about a book project already before 1350, which later was realized for one of the Visconti. It had a 16-elements composition, 7 virtues + theology, 7 artes liberalis + philosophy.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=862
This also had a hidden "chess-character".
This 7 + 1 problem was also repeated in eschecs amoureux, who used the 7 gods of the planets + Minerva.

Well, you seem to wish to see a possible Chess analogy to the Michelino deck. This is given:



and this is also given (Cessolis)

Farmer - Rook pawn King's side
Smith - Knight's pawn King's side
Barber - Bishop's pawn Kings side
Lawyer - King's pawn
Physician - Queen's pawn
Innkeeper - Bishop's pawn Queen's side
Doorkeeper - Knight's pawn Queen's side
Messenger - Rook pawn King's side

Cessolis text had very much influence. Naturally Filippo Maria knew about it.

The first 4 (Michelino) are Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Venus.

It's not avoidable to claim, that Jupiter should be the king.

Jupiter = King

It's not avoidable to claim, that Juno should be the queen.

Juno = Queen.

In the Michelino row follow now Minerva and Venus. As trumps they have a high position. So somehow they MUST be "chess officers".
The most plausible suggestion seems to be, that these are bishops. This would form a Jupiter court: Jupiter and three women (which appear as team in the Paris myth).

For the next 4 ... Apollo, Neptun, Diana, Bacchus (5-8) ... we have the condition, that all 4 are Chariot (= horse) related. Apollo drives with a chariot at heaven as Sun god. Diana drives with a chariot at heaven as Moon goddess. Bacchus has a Trionfo, which leads him from India to Greek. Horses are attributed to Neptun.

From Cessolis iconography we know, that Knight and Rook were presented as horse related.
If I assume, that these are Rooks and Knights, I would get the most attractive solution, the the group (1-8) at the Michelino deck would be all Chess officers. If I follow the suggestion, that Minerva and Venus were bishops, the whole looks like a system. So would be the row of the chess officers at a chess board.

(5-8) - (5-8) - (3-4) - 1 - 2 - (3-4) - (5-8) (5-8)

I don't care for the moment, which should be the correct positions (Queen's side or King's side) of Venus-Minerva-Apollo-Neptun-Diana-Bacchus. I just look first at the pawns.

The Farmer, who shall be this ... clear answer, that's Ceres, goddess of agriculture.
The Messenger ... who else than Mercury could be this.

So let's look at the overview: Ceres has position 12 and Mercury position 9 (in the Michelino deck). In the Cessolis model they are the outside Rook pawns.

(5-8) - (5-8) - (3-4) - 1 - 2 - (3-4) - (5-8) - (5-8)
(9-12)-----------------------------------------(9-12)

Just following the scheme the other both of group (9-12, Mars and Vesta) MUST be arranged this way:

(5-8) - (5-8) - (3-4) - 1 - 2 - (3-4) - (5-8) - (5-8)
(9-12)-(9-12)-------------------------- (9-12-(9-12)

Otherwise there would be missing harmony. And as consequence the last 4 in group (13-16; Hercules, Aiolus, Daphne, Amor) MUST be here:

(5-8) - (5-8) - (3-4) - 1 - 2 - (3-4) - (5-8) - (5-8)
(9-12)-(9-12)-------------------------- (9-12-(9-12)
------------(13-16)(13-16)(13-16)(13-16)----------

Well, that looks nice, somehow with the charm of a Jupiter-square.

Cessolis offers the Smith and the Doorkeeper for Mars and Vesta. Mars can be only compared to the Smith, as he needs weapons for his fights. Vesta is the goddess of fire. Fire was needed to alarm from castle to castle, to announce the approach of enemies. One might call this alarming system "doorkeeping".

Stay the other four: Hercules, Aiolus, Daphne and Amor and at the Cessolis side the barber, the "lawyer" as the king's pawn, the innkeeper and physician as the Queen's pawn.
Close to these four on the officer line are Athena, Jupiter, Juno, Venus. It's not easy to decide, if Athena or Venus are the king's side bishop, but generally Athena is more male than Venus. So I give heer to the side of Jupiter, cause she jumped out of his head. Then Venus is the bishop beside of Queen Juno. Amor belongs usually to Venus. So he is in front of Venus, and there's usually the innkeeper. I don't know, if Amor loved this, but that's life.

Daphne belongs before the Queen, cause ...



... they earlier played short assize versions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_assize

There was a close connection between the Queen and the Queen's pawn in the ideological explanation of the game. The Queen and the Queen's pawn opened the battle, that had a sort of tritualistic meaning. So Daphne is the Qeen's pawn. The barber cares for the hair and the hair is a part of the body, which reacts most on the wind. So ... Aiolus plays the barber. Stays Hercules as the last son of Zeus in front of Zeus.

Stay Bacchus, Neptun, Apollo and Diana as Rooks and Knights as undefined as their position. Apollo and Diane are are a natural pair and so I think, that both would be either rooks of knights. And I decide for the knights, and as Diane is female, I claim her for the position of the knight at the Queen's side. Apollo becomes so the person behind the Smith (Mars), and Apollo gets angry, cause Mars stimulates such things.
Neptun (ships) fits well with Mercury, cause Mercury is the messenger. So Neptun becomes the Queen's side rook, and Bacchus gets the position at the King's side rook, behind Ceres and there he's lucky, cause he can do well with her.
But Apollo is angry and makes a nasty mockery comment to Amor, who is unlucky as innkeeper, and he thinks, that this would be a good position for Hebe, but she makes holidays. So Amor gets angry, too, and shoots Apollo with one of his famous arrows and promptly Apollo falls in love with Daphne. But Amor is really angry and shoots Daphne with an arrow with an antidot, so that Daphne would love perhaps everybody, but in any case not Apollo. That was a tragical event ... and finally Daphne turned in a piece of would, in other words a chess figure.



Bacchus had so much fun about it, that he finally declared, "okay, okay, I make the innkeeper today, and Hercules gets Hebe, to have some peace around here" (cause Hercules, always ready or a good fight, looked dangerous) and finally we see, that a trumpet blowing Amor sits on a Tower playing "Last Judgment" and the rook in the game of chess.

.... :-) ... well, I don't think, that this is the only way to tell the story, and maybe there a good other interpretations. But in no way it's impossible to correlate the Michelino deck and chess.

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

I think, that the 3 pairs at the lover card of Charles VI come from Alberti's Philodoxus (1424).

Huck wrote:
The Michelino deck used another composition of the 12 gods as the Manilius, but its detection surely raised the attention of the many astrologers around Filippo. Martiano da Tortona was also called an astrologer.

And nowhere does Martiano group his 16 gods/heroes on a paired basis as you have done for the chess format with a pawn for each court figure. From your own webpage and the Pratesi abstract/Caldwell translation: “There are four order of gods, related to birds and qualities (suits), each of the suits has its own king.” The two sets of 16 Chess pieces do not further subdivide into 4 groups (does the king go with one group of 8 and the queen another – why?).

As for your wistful identifications of the 16 gods with chess pieces, the humanist Martiano himself would have dismissed these out of hand as utterly unclassical. Mars as the smith? That’s Vulcan’s role – and even if that god is not listed you can’t just reassign his role to another god. And Lord knows how you can turn a castle turret into a horse (“Knight and Rook were presented as horse related”) but you make this following statement in complete contradiction to Martiano’s text: “For the next 4 ... Apollo, Neptun, Diana, Bacchus (5-8) ... we have the condition, that all 4 are Chariot (= horse) related. Apollo drives with a chariot at heaven as Sun god. Diana drives with a chariot at heaven as Moon goddess. Bacchus has a Trionfo, which leads him from India to Greek. Horses are attributed to Neptune”. Actually Martiano clearly states Neptune is drawn by dolphins, Diana by deer and Bacchus by tigers! http://trionfi.com/marcello-martiano-da-tortona

Huck wrote:
I think, that the 3 pairs at the lover card of Charles VI come from Alberti's Philodoxus (1424).

To attribute a single card to a literary work is an inherently flawed method if you’re not going to relate said literary work to the entire trump series.

Actually the three couples are performing a chain dance and this relates to Florentine ritual. Before turning to Trexler’s Public Life in Renaissance Florence (1980), on which I will principally rely for the remainder of my comments, I will first note the CVI lovers card theme is closely related to the image of couples stepping lively in Scheggia’s Admiari cassone painting:
http://www.kimbellart.org/artandlove/im ... l_crop.jpg
The museum in which it is housed thusly describes it: “Their slow steps may be those of a wedding dance known as the chiarenzana to music played by the pifferi, a Florentine civic ensemble.”

Baxandall’s fundamental work, Painting and Experience in 15th century Italy (1972), notes the link between the groupings of people in paintings and dance but also comments on the Bassa danza, “the slow pacing dance that became popular in Italy during the first half of the century” (77). A specific dance cannot be securely identified in either the cassone or card, but rather it is some version of the Bassa danza. The earliest known dances in treatises that appeared in the 1440s had names like ‘Cupido’ and ‘Jealousy’, the latter featuring three men and three women (78), just as in our CVI card. Just as suggestively as ‘Cupido’, Lorenzo Magnifico even wrote a Basssa danza called ‘Venus.’ There is little doubt what the Florentine CVI lovers card represents: “love” drawn to and resulting from the ritual of the dance.

What interest us in Trexler’s work on Florentine ritual is his focus on the interrelated public expressions of the joust, armeggeria (horse-mounted mock battles) and the dance and the way the post-Ciompi oligarchic regime transformed these civic occurrences into state-sanctioned and controlled events. “The dances of the May Day had been the catalyst for the civil war in early fourteenth-century Florence. War and dance were still associated in the fifteenth century for, as we have seen, dances often immediately preceded the jousts or armeggerie. In the motions of the dance, men suggested to women an athletic eros that they proceeded to demonstrate in the war games.” Dance was therefore not something frivolous but could be highly symbolic of the tensions within Florentine society. To segue back to your mention of Leon Battista Alberti, the flash-point for his family’s banishment (before he was born) were that family’s bold armeggeria perceived as a threat the ruling interest (229).

One diarist, Del Corazza, noted that 4 of 5 balls staged from 1415 to 1435 by “brigrades” of 14 men, all during Carnival, took place in a fenced off an area of the marketplace controlled by the brigade (235). The livery of the men - red, white and green, strung with pearls (not unlike the sole surviving court card of the CVI) – was the most noteworthy item that caught Del Corazza’s attention. Trexler notes, “They saw in such liveried uniformity the imaginative nonindividuality of the coming political generation. Here were sons dressed by a signore performing honorable games in unison and without rancour. Though in touch with females in the dance, they preserved decorum; it could be hoped that the same decorum would be preserved in the more virile politics of the armeggeria, and in their future adult lives” (236).

Besides the ruling signoria’s use of dance to moderate internal factions, dance was even used for foreign relations. In the 1431 imperial visit, as recorded by Bisticci, Emperor Sigismund was entertained via a dance lead by the noblewoman Alessandra Bardi in the Piazza dei Signori where she also served him food and drink (237). Her performance was the delight of the prince and his courtly train - the highlight of their visit. When young Sforza visited in 1459 he even joined in the dance and all bowed to him when he came near to their particular side of the piazza. Again, Trexler: “The dance as a crystalline demonstration of correct personal relations both affirmed existing codes of body gestures and taught how citizens could live together like nobles at table. Around the dance whirled the joust and especially the armeggeria, which, though formalized, represented the violence that made the dance possible.”

In 1440 the violence was not ritual but very real. The triumphal celebration of Anghiari – a celebration of the ritual life of independent Florence whose peaceful prosperity was signified by the dance – most certainly featured the citizens united in song and dance. Dance signified the well-governed state, just as it did a hundred years earlier in the Siennese fresco of “the Effects of Good Government on City Life” http://www.wga.hu/art/l/lorenzet/ambrog ... ffect3.jpg

If the Lovers card were in the original trionfi deck in Florence it is unlikely they represented a wedding as Florence was not run by a “despot” dynasty (to use Burkhardt’s term). The Lovers card would have been some variation of the CVI Love card. That this was easily adapted by a despot regime to serve dynastic wedding purposes (such as in the presumed d’Este “wooing” deck and the Sforza/Visconti marriage deck, both from the subsequent year of 1441) is all too easy to comprehend.

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote: From your own webpage and the Pratesi abstract/Caldwell translation: “There are four order of gods, related to birds and qualities (suits), each of the suits has its own king.” The two sets of 16 Chess pieces do not further subdivide into 4 groups (does the king go with one group of 8 and the queen another – why?).

... :-) ... why not? In medieval chess - in contrast to modern chess - the Queen and the bishops were much weaker figures than later. The chess officers are naturally subdivided in four 4 weak (slow) figures in the middle (king, queen, bishops) and four strong figures at the left and right (knights and rooks). Do you know about the rules of old medieval chess and the difference to modern chess?

“For the next 4 ... Apollo, Neptun, Diana, Bacchus (5-8) ... we have the condition, that all 4 are Chariot (= horse) related. Apollo drives with a chariot at heaven as Sun god. Diana drives with a chariot at heaven as Moon goddess. Bacchus has a Trionfo, which leads him from India to Greek. Horses are attributed to Neptune”. Actually Martiano clearly states Neptune is drawn by dolphins, Diana by deer and Bacchus by tigers! http://trionfi.com/marcello-martiano-da-tortona

Naturally Martiano could write, what he wanted to write, but Cessolis' ideas were already far spread, and it seems plausible, that Filippo Maria and also Martiano knew about them - which naturally didn't hinder them to have also own ideas.

The general difference between rook and knight was, that a knight could move in a circle in 8 turns, and the rook could move in a square in 4 moves. ... this comes from the rules and there is no doubt about this. So the basic idea was, that the knight could move more individually and not dependent on streets, but the chariot-rook was depending on fixed streets, but the rook was quicker, and the more powerful figure.
But these ideas about their iconography were not totally fixed. Some painted the rook on horse, some on chariot, some as elephant, some as fortress. The figures hadn't always the same interpretation. The bishop could be an archer, an adviser, a fou, but also the bishop (likely more popular in England). Germany developed the "Läufer", likely cause they had also the Courier game. "Fou" seems to have been more a French idea, though such a figure appears also in the Courier game ... but there is no evidence, that Courier was outside of Germany and Netherlands. Cessolis' interpretations seems to have had often 4 horseman.


http://classes.bnf.fr/echecs/grand/5_11.htm
That a Rook pictures. A horseman with a castles in the background.


http://classes.bnf.fr/echecs/grand/5_10.htm
The knights in the same edition are also horsemen and one can see cities in the background.
If a painter took Bacchus as riding on a tiger, it really didn't change the world:


http://podosokorskiy.livejournal.com/2026079.html

People weren't so sure, how a tiger looked like.

And occasionally chess was connected to old gods. Evrart de Conty is such a case, Filippo Maria another. And there were others.

Huck wrote:
I think, that the 3 pairs at the lover card of Charles VI come from Alberti's Philodoxus (1424).

To attribute a single card to a literary work is an inherently flawed method if you’re not going to relate said literary work to the entire trump series. [/quote]

Hm .... how do you define "flawed method"? If you recognize at a sun card a Diogenes in his jar, would you accuse yourself as using a flawed method, cause you don't know a writer about Diogenes, who completely embedded this motif in a complex series of triumph symbols in the manner of the Tarot de Marseille, best with a signature of Court de Gebelin?
You're using a polemic method here in a very stupid manner, I would say. Perhaps you should reconsider your formulation.

Actually the three couples are performing a chain dance and this relates to Florentine ritual. Before turning to Trexler’s Public Life in Renaissance Florence (1980), on which I will principally rely for the remainder of my comments, I will first note the CVI lovers card theme is closely related to the image of couples stepping lively in Scheggia’s Admiari cassone painting:
http://www.kimbellart.org/artandlove/im ... l_crop.jpg
The museum in which it is housed thusly describes it: “Their slow steps may be those of a wedding dance known as the chiarenzana to music played by the pifferi, a Florentine civic ensemble.”

Baxandall’s fundamental work, Painting and Experience in 15th century Italy (1972), notes the link between the groupings of people in paintings and dance but also comments on the Bassa danza, “the slow pacing dance that became popular in Italy during the first half of the century” (77). A specific dance cannot be securely identified in either the cassone or card, but rather it is some version of the Bassa danza. The earliest known dances in treatises that appeared in the 1440s had names like ‘Cupido’ and ‘Jealousy’, the latter featuring three men and three women (78), just as in our CVI card. Just as suggestively as ‘Cupido’, Lorenzo Magnifico even wrote a Basssa danza called ‘Venus.’ There is little doubt what the Florentine CVI lovers card represents: “love” drawn to and resulting from the ritual of the dance.

What interest us in Trexler’s work on Florentine ritual is his focus on the interrelated public expressions of the joust, armeggeria (horse-mounted mock battles) and the dance and the way the post-Ciompi oligarchic regime transformed these civic occurrences into state-sanctioned and controlled events. “The dances of the May Day had been the catalyst for the civil war in early fourteenth-century Florence. War and dance were still associated in the fifteenth century for, as we have seen, dances often immediately preceded the jousts or armeggerie. In the motions of the dance, men suggested to women an athletic eros that they proceeded to demonstrate in the war games.” Dance was therefore not something frivolous but could be highly symbolic of the tensions within Florentine society. To segue back to your mention of Leon Battista Alberti, the flash-point for his family’s banishment (before he was born) were that family’s bold armeggeria perceived as a threat the ruling interest (229).

One diarist, Del Corazza, noted that 4 of 5 balls staged from 1415 to 1435 by “brigrades” of 14 men, all during Carnival, took place in a fenced off an area of the marketplace controlled by the brigade (235). The livery of the men - red, white and green, strung with pearls (not unlike the sole surviving court card of the CVI) – was the most noteworthy item that caught Del Corazza’s attention. Trexler notes, “They saw in such liveried uniformity the imaginative nonindividuality of the coming political generation. Here were sons dressed by a signore performing honorable games in unison and without rancour. Though in touch with females in the dance, they preserved decorum; it could be hoped that the same decorum would be preserved in the more virile politics of the armeggeria, and in their future adult lives” (236).

Besides the ruling signoria’s use of dance to moderate internal factions, dance was even used for foreign relations. In the 1431 imperial visit, as recorded by Bisticci, Emperor Sigismund was entertained via a dance lead by the noblewoman Alessandra Bardi in the Piazza dei Signori where she also served him food and drink (237). Her performance was the delight of the prince and his courtly train - the highlight of their visit. When young Sforza visited in 1459 he even joined in the dance and all bowed to him when he came near to their particular side of the piazza. Again, Trexler: “The dance as a crystalline demonstration of correct personal relations both affirmed existing codes of body gestures and taught how citizens could live together like nobles at table. Around the dance whirled the joust and especially the armeggeria, which, though formalized, represented the violence that made the dance possible.”

In 1440 the violence was not ritual but very real. The triumphal celebration of Anghiari – a celebration of the ritual life of independent Florence whose peaceful prosperity was signified by the dance – most certainly featured the citizens united in song and dance. Dance signified the well-governed state, just as it did a hundred years earlier in the Siennese fresco of “the Effects of Good Government on City Life” http://www.wga.hu/art/l/lorenzet/ambrog ... ffect3.jpg

If the Lovers card were in the original trionfi deck in Florence it is unlikely they represented a wedding as Florence was not run by a “despot” dynasty (to use Burkhardt’s term). The Lovers card would have been some variation of the CVI Love card. That this was easily adapted by a despot regime to serve dynastic wedding purposes (such as in the presumed d’Este “wooing” deck and the Sforza/Visconti marriage deck, both from the subsequent year of 1441) is all too easy to comprehend.

Phaeded

Thanks for this interesting contribution. In the case of the Charles VI deck Lovers we have only this example of 3 pairs, usually there is only one pair. The general agreement is, that this card means in the Tarot tradition "Love" and NOT "three dancing pairs".
I personally think, that this motif jumped from Alberti's Philodoxus into the specific Charles VI deck. If you prefer the interpretation "three dancers" of a specific dance commonly known in Florence, I can live with this and respect this as your opinion. I don't think, that you or me can prove anything in this point, we can both make only suggestions.