Tarot History Forum

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Look at this heraldry from the Sforza De Sphaera, from the Children of Saturn picture, nearly contemporary with the cards. One of the shields closely allied with Sforza (one of the two on the entrance wall flanking Sforza, for instance) has the yellow-red division just like Bergamo. Of course there are three black lines crossing it, which makes it NOT Bergamo (one editor of the text, Sergio Samek-Ludovici, thinks the scene is set in a place "vaguely reminiscent of Pavia", but he doesn't identify the heraldry).


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/visc ... detail.jpg

Belated response: Can't identify the yellow/red, but you also asked about the blue/white/red stemma which appears repeatedly in de Sphaera - I believe the blue/white alternating nebuly lines (which look checkered in minature) quartered with red go back to a device used by Sforza's original name of Attendolo per the reconstruction paintings at http://stemmieimprese.wordpress.com/. Apparently, per de Sphaera, Sforza continued to use it in addition to his cousin(?) Micheletto Attendolo. I seem to recall a posthumous, late 15th century painting of an armored Sforza (with the charterhouse of Pavia in the background?) in this same livery. Finally, in regard to my not-a-club jihad, note the trumpeter holding a trumpet very similarly to the PMB Fool to which it is contemporary (a clearer detail than the original image you posted above). And note the drummer before the trumpeter - the Bolognese Fool combining a version of both instruments onto one person. Clearly the Fool had militaristic connotations... Phaeded

PS "I seem to recall a posthumous, late 15th century painting of an armored Sforza (with the charterhouse of Pavia in the background?) in this same livery. " - found it: