The Canonical Hours Tarot =Visconti?

[Rosanne]

In looking at another thread, and trying as we all do to figure out where these 22 Trumps could have come from- I had a thought- well several really ; regarding the Visconti PMB.
If you take it that the Devil and The Tower were not there in the first place; you make connections between the fact that Bianca's father Fillipo was an ardent astronomy follower, and that that the town of Cremona had a vertical sundial plus Gherard of Cremona plus a Carthusian monastery with a cliff plus the Visconti Church (Certosa of Pavia) plus the wonderful Visconti book of hours- you might conclude...
That these 20 images could form a clock of Canonical hours. I am using Italian equal hours to illustrate.
Prime (pre work Prayers) 6 am Le Bateleur/7 am La Papesse/ 8am L'Imperatrice
all the Hours had fitting Psalms, Prayers and hymns- Prime was about starting the working day well and praising The Virgin Mother.

Terce (Mid Morning prayers)9am L'Empereur/10am Le pape/11am Lovers.
Terce was about following Gods directions on Earth through his appointed.They were called the Holy hours or the Golden Hours

Sext (Noon Prayers) 12pm Chariot/1pm Justice/2 pm L'Ermite.

None (Mid afternnon Prayers) The fasting prayers
3pm WOF/4pm Strength/5pm Hanged Man. None by the death of Christ it was known as and 3pm was the day ending and Christ died which brings us to ...

Vespers (evening Prayers) 6pm La Mort/7pm Temperance/8pm Star
An interesting fact is that the end of Vespers the hymn that was sung was Phos Hilaron -O Gladsome Light.

Compline was next at 9pm The Moon/ 10pm The Sun/ 11pm Judgement

The vigils or the Night Hours included Matins and Lauds (6 Hours) Known as the Office of Aurora including the Lauds Hours called the Cock Crows Hours.
Matins= La Monde Lauds= Le Fou

All the Psalms that were used for the hours seem appropriate for the cards as do the hymns and Prayers. For example Psalm 127 For La Monde. The psalms were sung in groups of three and although through the year they changed, they did not change their emphasis. All psalms for Prime were about doing Gods work well throughout the day as Psalm 127 for Evening Compline indicates; (...For the Lord provides for those he loves, whilst they sleep)=The Moon.
I find this an interesting idea.I am perfectly happy to be poo-pooed, but what do you think?
~Rosanne

[Rosanne]

The Connections.

Some have come from Kaplan and some from several History books, some from the history forum here.
Gerard of Cremona http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06468a.htm
His books were at The University of Pavia which Fillipo Visconti re established.

There are 15 groups of Visconti tarocchi cards existing as far as known- none of the groups have a Tower or Devil cards, which may statistically indicate they were never there in the pack.


The Cremona Tower has the largest medieval clock in Europe- but the mechanism was not made until well after Fillippo's Death, but the Zodiac was painted on the face in his time and a Canonical clock was there. Here is what a canonical clock was from a sundial web site.

In antiquity, the daily arc of the sun, that is, the time from sunrise until sunset, as well as the night arc, was divided into twelve equally long parts. In the summer, the hours of the day were longer, in winter shorter. Therefore, they were called temporary hours. This hour measurement was used until the end of the Middle Ages.
In Europe between the 8th and the 15th century, sundials were built on church walls pointing towards the South, deriving from antique sundials. Their main purpose was to show times of prayer. They are called canonical sundials. Varying numbers of time lines were chiseled in stone in a primitive way. Canonical sundials are not time measurement systems as we would think of them today, but had the task to divide the light of day into certain time periods.
A rod, called gnomon (Greek = indicator), positioned vertically to the clock face, was used to cast a shadow. In Austria, only a few canonical sundials were preserved. The day (light day) is divided into eight parts. The fife timelines with a cross-line indicate the hours of prayer.

This was an important device, especially if there was a monastery there, because the bells had to be rung to call to prayer- 24 bells at Midnight was a bit much for the locals. Our word 'clock' comes from the Celtic word clocca/clagan meaning 'bell'.

The Visconti Book Of Hours http://www.finns-books.com/visconti.htm
Italian Hours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour

It must be stressed that The PMB Visconti did not have numbers on the cards- so you could fit them to the hours if you know the points of the game as well.

~Rosanne

[Rosanne]

Now it says the following in Kaplan Vol 2 the following

It seems apparent that Duke Filippo Maria Visconti did not commission during his reign the PMB Tarocchi pack which contains the Sforza devices....
(but may have the Cary Yale Viscontiand The Brera Brambilla deck)

The reason given is the antagonism between Fillipo and the Sforzas. Well it was expedient to have them as in-laws in 1432 when Bianca was given Cremona as her Dowry and an alliance set with Francesco Sforza (note that Bianca had not turned 10 years old). There is no certainty of when the deck was made.
If one was to take the production of the cards as a Visconti tribute to the the 1432 alliance/engagement- it would be prudent and diplomatic under the circumstances to have the Sforza devices present in someway on the deck. The Sforza fountain on the Ace of Cups seems perfectly reasonable way to show tribute. It seems that one of the main reasons Kaplan thinks it is a Sforza commissioned deck is the missing Visconti Viper indicating rule of Milan. Well maybe it was not politic to put a heraldic device of a Viper swallowing a man on cards that celebrate an alliance bought by the sale of your daughter to a man so he would fight on your side. Would not endear you to Sforza- thats for sure. Nor was it sure he would win against Venice.
What we do know is that Visconti ordered some cards between 1423-1425- so he was a card player and might have wanted to gift them to his mistress maybe on the birth of Bianca in 1423? So the association of Bianca and cards might have started then.Certainly she grew up with playing cards.
The holes in the cards indicate to me that possibly they were used like an instruction as well- and the figures bear some resemblance to the figures in the Book Of Hours he re commissioned in 1412. As to the Artist Bonifacio Bembo- it is not at all certain the cards are his work.
All in all- it is possible that the cards were painted c.1432 and commissioned by Visconti not Sforza.
Any more questions I can answer? ~Rosanne