Tarot History Forum

I was in NYC a few weeks ago and stayed near the Morgan Library - so popped back in to see their portion of the PMB in the reading rooms (FYI you need an appointment). Didn't expect to see anything new but because of the way the light bounces off the gilt in person certain features are more noticeable; to wit: I'm not sure if this been discussed before, and likely a trivial issue, but has the one PMB's horse's overly exposed gold teeth been pointed out previously? Not only is this odd but its anatomically incorrect - the teeth are up by the nostrils on the muzzle, instead of below where the upper mouth line is (compare the other horse to see how ridiculous this is). My hypothesis is that a later artist added the teeth in, perhaps to connote desire/appetite as an attribute of Plato's bad horse in his Phaedrus chariot allegory, perhaps when the cards were obtained by an owner with such interests. Its hard to imagine the original artist correctly drawing the horse and then botching where the teeth should go (it looks like a damn beaver's teeth).

The relevant detail:
Both horses appear to be rearing, so neither could be regarded as Plato's "bad horse" and thus Plato could not have been part of the original intent.

Finally, that teeth could be shown to identify the bad horse is not that unusual, as it occurred to a contemporary of ours trying to explain the Phaedrus:



Thoughts?

Phaeded

I'd interpret those "teeth" as a survival of the gold foil, part of which still outlines the horse's head as well.

The foil just happens to be retained between the horse's neck and between the outer vertical lines in the border decoration, creating the funny illusion of beaver teeth.

As for the Chariot of the Soul interpretation for this card, there is not much that confirms it. The pegasi-horses are not starkly contrasted, as the allegory continually insists on, and the charioteer is not holding any reins at all, let alone struggling to direct the chariot. They are rearing, but it could be thought of as joyful and playful, rather than struggle or fright.

If this is a Chariot of the Soul, then it represents a state of perfect mastery in the charioteer's case, not one where she is in any way struggling to master desire.

I think such an interpretation here is very fanciful, and unlikely.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 10:49 I'd interpret those "teeth" as a survival of the gold foil, part of which still outlines the horse's head as well.

The foil just happens to be retained between the horse's neck and between the outer vertical lines in the border decoration, creating the funny illusion of beaver teeth.

As for the Chariot of the Soul interpretation for this card, there is not much that confirms it. The pegasi-horses are not starkly contrasted, as the allegory continually insists on, and the charioteer is not holding any reins at all, let alone struggling to direct the chariot. They are rearing, but it could be thought of as joyful and playful, rather than struggle or fright.

If this is a Chariot of the Soul, then it represents a state of perfect mastery in the charioteer's case, not one where she is in any way struggling to master desire.

I think such an interpretation here is very fanciful, and unlikely.

Ross,
We're in agreement on the irrelevance of Plato for the original of this PMB chariot exemplar, but there is zero white paint flaking loss anywhere else on either pegasi. It just happened to flake only on one horse's muzzle in the shape of two teeth, outlined in dark paint? The dark line bifurcating the teeth does seem to follow the line of the oxidized silver forming that straight border (the background seems to be some odd combination of silver and gold). But the outside dark line of the left "tooth", from our perspective, is missing from the other horse - there is no reason for a line to be there in the middle of the muzzle. While the right tooth might be explained away as the vertical lines of the border, the left line cannot and it is clearly a brush stroke (you can see the stroke's ending bottom horizontal line - the width of the brush - within the crossing mouth's dark line).

You'd think costly gilt would have been the last thing applied, but clearly the white went over it. However, the only other place where there might be white paint loss showing gold is actually underneath a rearing leg of the rear horse and above the rearing leg of the fore horse, but not part of either horse or its harness...unless it was an inelegant attempt to show where the rear/outside gold wing attached to the horse. But whatever reason, the flat white paint simply didn't flake from this card (arguably some wear and tear abrasion of the white through which one can glean a hint of gold in the background, but no flaking of entire areas besides the "teeth" area - actually the gold showing through looks like the result of crackelature - the gilt and white paint drying/aging at different rates).

I just don't think flaked paint explains this anomaly and, again, I doubt it goes back to the original artist (but perhaps when the six replacement cards were added this alteration was made).

Some of the white paint did flake off, like the top of the raised knee of the lower horse, revealing the gray base underneath (maybe the whole front of the leg went into the margin and flaked off). I don't think flaking is what explains the upper horse's mouth and nose area, perhaps that is the complete drawing, no big lower lip/jaw. Whatever it is, the circular area, and the way the gold surrounds the horse's head, suggests that there was retouching here, and that part of it is now missing, I suppose.

Also on these "teeth", the gold leaf goes into the round punch below. The gold is clearly part of the marginal decoration, not the horse's teeth. In your second picture the lines are even more evidently a continuation of those above and below.

You can see what you want to see, I guess.

On another subject, you might be more interested to know that I have Marziano and Bruni working together in the same curial office in 1407-1408. Their signatures are side by side in some documents.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 16:14 Also on these "teeth", the gold leaf goes into the round punch below. The gold is clearly part of the marginal decoration, not the horse's teeth. In your second picture the lines are even more evidently a continuation of those above and below.

Fair enough, but the black line forming the outer demarcation of the left "tooth" that is clearly a brush stroke? There is no reason for it to be there and is missing on the other horse:

On another subject, you might be more interested to know that I have Marziano and Bruni working together in the same curial office in 1407-1408. Their signatures are side by side in some documents.

Wow. Would you mind snipping one, if the manuscripts in question are imaged on-line?

Marziano knowing any number of artists, most prominently Brunelleschi, and fellow humanists means it is possible the Michelino deck was known to Florentines and formed the impetus for the ur-tarot (Bruni clearly would not have seen those cards himself in Milan). It still doesn't get us to the emphasis on the virtues in the ur-tarot, which despite that series ubiquity in Florentine art, required someone obsessed with the virtues as a civic program IMO - which certainly qualifies Bruni.

I've always found it supremely odd that Mazriano has his player as a sort of Hercules at the Crossroads (to go back to an earlier mentor, Salutati), but names not a single virtue but merely a suit of virtues (in which we find Hercules), presumably allied with the suit of Virginities against the vice suits of Riches and Pleasures (I always think of the CY king of coins rejecting the offered coin when I think of Riches in this context). Not that this observation correlates with exactly how the game was played, but rather its mythic landscape. All of this harkens back to an earlier conception of the virtues, Prudentius's Psychomachia and especially Barberino's Documenta amore; the latter's arena or fortress of love:

Marziano's description of Cupid is practically an ekphrasis of the above: throwing out golden arrows, with a slight and soft wound at first, he afflicts lovers ..makes sport of them, by infinite languors [weariness] of the soul.... He is distinguished by a very youthful face, since he mostly pursues that age. In flight, thereby marking the instability of lovers; girded with human hearts... [the "girded with hearts" is more visible in a different illumination in Barberino].

To paraphrase Marziano: one wearies of virtue but the game rouses one to virtuous toil via mytho-historic exempli, not meditation on the virtues themselves.

Your old translation:

Seeing that it is inevitable for virtuous toil to be weakened by fatigue, if the time be excessive, it might be asked whether it would be fitting for a man to find recreation from the weariness of virtue in some kind of game.... Certainly, since the virtue and reason of the honest man would consist in these moral actions, it follows that they are governed by right reason.... And it is even more pleasing where your keen intelligence would notice several most famous Heroes, renowned models of virtue, whose mighty greatness made gods, and ensured their remembrance by posterity. Thus by observation of them, be ready to be roused to virtue. The first order is indeed of virtues; it consists of: Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Hercules. The second of riches...the third of virginity or continence: ...The fourth however is of pleasure....

One is not being taught the individual virtues per se, Bruni's emphasis, but rather how one virtuously thrives in the arena of courtly love by emulating the renowned models. What Bruni took from Marziano, in my opinion, was the exempli - the virtues needed to be paired with human cognates (whether as positive examples or antitypes) in order to give concrete instruction, and not in a courtly setting but a republican one.

Phaeded wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 17:13 Wow. Would you mind snipping one, if the manuscripts in question are imaged on-line?

This is from a Vatican register, I don't have permission to post whole pages, but this is "fair use" by my estimation.

L. de Aretio wrote the letter (of safe passage for some men in this case)
M. de Terdon(a) collated it, i.e. checked that the copy, here, and the letter going out were the same and accounted for.
Henricus (de Ratingen) is the final one to check that everything is in order.

Marziano wasn't long in Gregory XII's service, only from September 1407 to late August, 1408. Given his absence from Bruni's or Poggio's letters, among others, it seems he didn't make much of an impression. Once he got back to Tortona and Pavia, he was caught up in the mess of the duchy there.

We can say they knew each other, but I don't see any reason for them to have kept in touch. Bruni's own relationship with Gregory XII was ambivalent and diplomatic, I don't know when the formal break took place offhand, although I could look it up.

Phaeded wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 17:13
To paraphrase Marziano: one wearies of virtue but the game rouses one to virtuous toil via mytho-historic exempli, not meditation on the virtues themselves.

Yes, very much. This is why I began posting here the various "famous men" painted cycles, with their tituli. Marziano surely knew that in Padua, and, who knows what he did before the late 14th century? - maybe he had a trip down to Naples and saw the earliest one, that of King Robert in the Castelnuovo. And those in Florence, in the Sala dei Priori the Palazzo Vecchio. These were explicitly for the kind of moral emulation you and Marziano express. So, my hypothesis is that these kinds of cycles are the general background that inspired Marziano and Filippo Maria.

But, instead of fresco cycle of such men, Filippo Maria had a card game, and not of men, but of gods. Or rather, deified men.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 17:24 Marziano wasn't long in Gregory XII's service, only from September 1407 to late August, 1408. Given his absence from Bruni's or Poggio's letters, among others, it seems he didn't make much of an impression. Once he got back to Tortona and Pavia, he was caught up in the mess of the duchy there.

Thank you, especially for the background of the document! You are undoubtedly right - this just looks like matter of fact notarial business (nothing could be more mundane than a safe conduct). Nonetheless to know Bruni and Marziano belonged not only to the same milieu but actually "crossed quills", as it were, is fascinating and breathes a little more life into the period we're studying.

Phaeded wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 17:41 Thank you, especially for the background of the document! You are undoubtedly right - this just looks like matter of fact notarial business (nothing could be more mundane than a safe conduct). Nonetheless to know Bruni and Marziano belonged not only to the same milieu but actually "crossed quills", as it were, is fascinating and breathes a little more life into the period we're studying.

Yes it does breathe a little color into things, doesn't it?

Marziano's signature looks like a different hand than the others. I'm going to believe it is his autograph signature.

There are five letters - all composed by Bruni for the pope - concerning Marziano. The first is a safe passage from wherever he was (it doesn't say) to join the curia, in September 1407. Then, on 28 August 1408, another four, also written by Bruni, where the pope commissions Marziano to go back to Lombardy and Piedmont to get people to pay up what they owe the church. He also had power to absolve debts.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 17:34

Phaeded wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 17:13
To paraphrase Marziano: one wearies of virtue but the game rouses one to virtuous toil via mytho-historic exempli, not meditation on the virtues themselves.

Yes, very much. This is why I began posting here the various "famous men" painted cycles, with their tituli. Marziano surely knew that in Padua, and, who knows what he did before the late 14th century? - maybe he had a trip down to Naples and saw the earliest one, that of King Robert in the Castelnuovo. And those in Florence, in the Sala dei Priori the Palazzo Vecchio. These were explicitly for the kind of moral emulation you and Marziano express. So, my hypothesis is that these kinds of cycles are the general background that inspired Marziano and Filippo Maria.

But, instead of fresco cycle of such men, Filippo Maria had a card game, and not of men, but of gods. Or rather, deified men.

Yep. The number of lost such cycles must be a staggering number, so even more common than you are indicating. The Este castle in Ferrara is perhaps the most disappointing of all - almost all of the art replaced by a bunch of later Raphael-esque decoration (practically all that is left from the quattrocento are the cartoons for some Arthurian frescoes in one hall).

Here's a question: Although the artistic representation of the canonical virtues is fairly common, is their pairing with exempli a fairly Tuscan innovation, even specifically Florentine? I'm not recalling the likes of dal Ponte, Pesellino, Scheggia, etc. virtues/liberal arts cassoni in any kind of medium elsewhere in the early/mid quattrocento. Petrarchan trionfi are related, but those aren't the virtues nor one-to-one pairings of theme and exempli.

My point is Bruni or whomever in Florence, would have been driven by the already existing virtue genre for tarot, while Marziano - serving one man (not priors nor a Dieci di Balia, etc.) - was necessarily focused on courtly customs (virtue for him is almost necessarily Roman virtu, since the Duke was a military figurehead as well, and of course Jupiter heads up his suit of virtues; of relevance see the Montefeltro medal reverse below featuring Jupiter's eagle and a wrathful cannonball). That courtly humanists also extoled the virtues for their ruler-clients meant tarot could have been quickly assimilated to the courtly sphere (as indeed the CY demonstrates), but the impetus for a virtue-based series would have been most likely Florentine.