Let's Visconti!

[Bernice]

(The Viconti trumps).....if there is a narrative for Bianca

Rosanne Rosanne (chuckle chuckle), let's explore this!


And now for the Empress?


Bee

[Moonbow]

Great posts Rosanne, this thread has been really enjoyable to read this morning.

[Rosanne]

Lets look at Death
I have no idea about the Empress really, and as it looks like people who read this thread do not usually post- you will have to come up with stuff about the Empress. I do not think she is an Empress anyway So lets honour Mum and Dad, pass on the Pope,.........Oh here is Death.

This Death is different- I cannot see child bearing hips- so lets call him Him.
He has not lost his skin yet. He has been disemboweled. He holds an arrow and Bow- no Horse and a bandage around his head. He has dismounted from the Cary-Yale Horse and there are no Kings and Popes, children or common folk underfoot.

Now I know that the Visconti were particularly careful about Hygiene, and had worked out fairly careful if not brutal methods for keeping themselves and the Population of Milan Plague free. The fact that Death visited to only 10% of Milan in comparison to 40-50% elsewhere, is something to wonder at.
How Brutal? Well better to survive I guess. In Milan, the Italian Archbishop of Milan, Givanni Visconti, ordered the first three families with members infected with the plague to be walled up within their own homes, even those who showed no symptoms. City officials immediately walled up houses found to have the plague, isolating the healthy in them along with the sick. Families killed their own and isolation became very popular and it seemed to work.
In the Visconti Library- the lists of Medical and health type manuscripts were prolific. It was about this time that it was thought the spine carried the illness as well as the Church saying it was God bringing punishment on the wicked. They stopped saying that when the clergy died too. It was in Milan apparently that blocks of soap were given out. Washing was a lot more acceptable than we are lead to believe. The Visconti built hospitals also- Nuns cared for the sick.

So what about this Death card? Does it show 'live now- because soon you will die'? Or something else? He is not Danse Macabre- he stands as if waiting, vigilant. Is this vigilance because you always have to be on guard in a physical sense rather than a spiritual sense? To the City States the City was the whole package- here you stood your ground sometimes Catholic- sometimes excommunicated- depending on your standing with the Pope. So the Plague threatened your dynasty. Strangely enough the Visconti card seems to be holding something between his teeth. Cannot quite work it out.
All I do know is that Saints were the protectors of medieval people, their helpers in childbirth, their guardians during travel, their nurse in toothache, their doctor in plague. If the Virgin was the person to whom one addressed the all-important petition for eternal salvation, it was from the saints that one sought more basic, or temporal, kinds of help. (Help from Lives of Saints- my edition)

Anyone got anymore ideas about this Death card?

~Rosanne

[Rosanne]

With great trepidation I will say this card is not what it seems.
The skull of the Death has a tie of rag around his right side teeth. It forms a bow. The poor man died before his tooth could be extracted.

http://www.collectmedicalantiques.com/dentistry.html

Skills achieved by the Etruscans, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were largely lost during the Middle Ages Middle Ages, period when barbers and roving bands of charlatans practiced unskilled dentistry at marketplaces and fairs.

Dentistry Manual.

Lordy Lordy Bianca don't you forget to pray to Saint Apollonia!

Saint Apollonia is the Patron Saint of Dentistry and she appears in the Golden Legend.
Who do you call on when you have a toothache? St. Apollonia, the patron saint of dentistry. After refusing to renounce her Christian faith in 249 A.D., Apollonia endured extraction of her teeth by her Roman prosecutors, then threw herself into the flames, a defiant act of faith that thwarted her executioners. She is depicted holding a gold tooth with pincers and is represented in a several works of art.

Dominican accuser of Hereitic (Cathar)

They said that the Body of Christ was in the Bread of the altar only in the same way as it was in all bread and in everything; and that God had spoken through Ovid in the same way as through Augustine. They denied the resurrection of the body, saying that there was was no Paradise nor hell, but that he had Paradise within himself who possessed the knowledge of God, as they did, while he who was in mortal sin had hell within himself just as a man has a rotten tooth in his mouth.

Deny your Faith Bianca and you will dead to God.

Well maybe At least get your teeth seen to, or you might catch the plague. Do not go to those Charlatans at the fairground- they take your money, pull your teeth (or not) and you die Godless Young Lady.

Ok over to you.
~Rosanne

[Rosanne]

In all seriousness, it would seem to me that this deck may have been a pictorial manual for teaching children. It seems such a strange gift for a wedding- somewhat left field.
By the time Bianca was married in 1441- she would have known these things- but as a gift to her by her husband for the education of their children it seems more appropriate. For on the the WOF we see a young child at the top with Ass ears- reminding that as I said earlier "an unlettered Prince is an Ass".

In the Visconti Library and indeed at Pavia have been found multiple copies of two particular manuscripts- The Golden Legend (about the Saints) and Libellus de Ludo Scacorum

On the second half of the XIII century, Jacobus de Cessolis, a Dominican monk in Cessole (Asti district, Piemonte, Northern Italy) used chess as the basis for a series of sermons on morality. They later became Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludo scacchorum ('Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess'). The popular work was translated into many other languages (first printed edition at Utrecht in 1473) and was the basis for William Caxton's The Game and Playe of the Chesse (1474), one of the first books printed in English.

It is said the book is about the seven liberal arts -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts
As you can see Tarot via Visconti PMB looks like this.
So if you combine The Golden Legend with the Game of Chess as a Game of Education about how to Rule Milan and the Virtues and examples given in the two manuscripts, you come to the 15th Centuries Humanistic view that you can, attain salvation by your own Virtue, rather than it be decided upon by what the Church says. So you could say that this Tarot was a Compendium of all these things.
Galeazzo Maria Sforza Bianca's firstborn (1444) was six when she became Duchess of Milan, her daughter Ippolitta was 4 years old. By their 10th anniversary in 1451 they had 4 children and by the Peace of Lodi had 6 children. So maybe this was a gift for Bianca on the birth of their first child- or even when Sforza became Duke of Milan, for me it is even later from 1450-1454.
~Rosanne

[Rosanne]

In defense of The Visconti Papesse (indeed the Tdm Popess as well) as Abbess or Nun and the ordination and election of an Abbess as was Saint Clare here is a engraving by Durer.
It shows the Nun Hroswitha giving a book to Emperor Otto 1- his niece the Abbess of Gandershiem is standing by his side. Note the Mitre on her head.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CAe4xqG2hC...ha_Duerer2.jpg

Every newly appointed Abbess was likewise entitled to receive the public "homage" of her clergy — the ceremony of which was sufficiently elaborate. On the appointed day, the clergy, in a body repaired to the abbey; at the great gate of her monastery, the Abbess, with mitre and and staff, sat enthroned under a canopy, and as each member of the clergy passed before her, he made his obeisance, and kissed her hand. The clergy, however, wished to do away with the distasteful practice, and, in 1709, appealed to Rome; the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars thereupon modified some of ceremonial details, but recognized the right of the Abbess to the homage.

The commonplace Abbess or Prioress appointment took this form in Northern Italy, and it was one that Saint Clare did not want- but agreed because Saint Francis asked her to. How public it was, I have not been able to find out. The history of Abbesses elections and Power is very interesting and is now given more research because articles written about women in Medieval times.
Here are two interesting articles.
http://catholicforum.fisheaters.com/...topic=927538.0
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Electi......-a077205089

~Rosanne

[Rosanne]

The Latin for Abbess is abbatissa from the male Latin word Abbas.
In Italian a Abbess and a Prioress are the same thing- a leader of a Female congregation. The Italian word for Abbess is Badessa or Priora
It is quite possible to see how in woodcuts the 'b' and 'd' got turned around, and you end up with a word Papessa = badessa

~Rosanne

[Bernice]

Rosanne: On the appointed day, the clergy, in a body repaired to the abbey; at the great gate of her monastery, the Abbess, with mitre and and staff, sat enthroned under a canopy, and as each member of the clergy passed before her, he made his obeisance, and kissed her hand.

Did this Papessa/Badessa carry a book?

Bee

[Freddie]

According to Giordano Berti, the gown of le Papess has identified her as belong to the order of the Humiliati (Catholic order). The wives of the first Humiliati belonged to some of the principal families of Milan. The nuns recited the canonical Hours, fasted rigorously and engaged in other severe penitential practices, such as the "discipline" or self-inflicted whipping. Some retained the ancient Breviary of the order, while other houses adopted the Roman Breviary. The habit consisted of a robe and scapular of white over a tunic of ashen grey, the veils being usually white, though in some houses black. The lay sisters, who retained the name of Barettine, wore grey. In the early 20th century there were still in Italy five independent houses of Humiliati nuns.

Yes G. Berti (one of my idols)... her robe apears grey...maybe a lay sister????


Freddie

[Rosanne]

Hi Freddie- I might agree with you except the Humilati did not make four vows- which is shown by four knots on the waist cord. A Nun would normally have three knots- the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. A Cloistered Nun had four knots- the extra vow to 'observe enclosure'. Now the Humilati were often excommunicated, and were finally suppressed in the 16th century after their orthodoxy had long been questioned, and are now considered at their beginning a mendicant order- and could preach. So you see I disagree with two Tarot greats Berti and Moakley . I seriously think this is a follower of Saint Claire and does not mean Faith although you could take that meaning.
~Rosanne