anton woensam

[Huck]

http://www.zeno.org/Kunstwerke.images/I/HL31514a.jpg

card playing picture (Statements of the nobility) by Anton Woensam

http://www.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/A/Woensam,+Anton

other pictures of Woensam, with some cards as additions to the Schaeufelein deck

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Woensam

article to Woensam (German)

The figure of Agrippina appears at the great Woensam picture of Cologne in 1531 (Agrippina caused the declaration of Cologne as a Roman city in the year 50 AD, so she has her reason to serve as decoration) ... it rather obviously seems related to the presentation of the Geometria of the Mantegna Tarocchi.

A few years later than 1531 the Cologne engraver Ladenspelder copied in slightly variated form the Mantegna Tarocchi (E-series) ...

see also:

http://trionfi.com/mantegna/
http://koeln-tarot.trionfi.com/02/

(German article to Ladenspelder)

 

[DoctorArcanus]

The first image is very interesting.

I also liked the "ars memorandi" weisen Frau.

I am not sure that the Agrippina image is related to the Mantegna Tarot Geometria.

Marco

 

[Huck]

The 90-degree-tool is common for Geometria (at least to Hans Sebald Beham, a contemporary engraver to Woensam) ... Agrippina is honored as a city founder at the Woensam engraving, likely Geometria is associated to general city design, which realises on city maps geometrical elements like right angles, circles etc. as streets, places and buildings.
The wooden hammer (of Agrippina, I don't, if it appears at Geometria-motifs) might be interpreted as a tool to mark the architectural plan on the ground, before the process of building starts.

So it's not Geometria, but Agrippina as a city founder with some attributes from Geometria ... The interesting part is her presentation as woman without legs in the clouds, which we know from the Mantegna-Tarocchi-Geometria and also of the Fama/World card in the Cary-Yale-Tarocchi.

***
The "weise Frau" means translated "wise woman", it's Prudentia connected usually to a mirror and a viper (as on this picture). However, this German "weise Frau" has expanded the common symbols and some of the associations (especially the horse-feet) are surprizing.

***
The picture with the cards attempts to unify the militarical forces of European kings and cities against the Ottoman Empire (which short before 1531 - in the year 1529 - had attacked Vienna).