Visconti-Sforza Love Card

Huck: It's interpreted, that it was a suggestion for a marriage deck (cause marriages were often ..


Ross: ..."often"?

Huck: ... connected to decks and Bianca was on her way to marry.)

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Come on, we discussed it often enough and I earlier already gave a list. But if you wish:

Direct evidence:
1494: marriage Emperor Maximilian to Bianca Maria Sforza. Bride brought playing cards to wedding.
1496: Breitkopf gives a German copperplate deck as produced for the marriage of Maximilian's son and a Spanish princess.

Indirect or suggested evidence:
1487: (?) Lucretia marriage in Ferrara - Boiardo Tarocchi poem
1473 + 1474: Naples Trionfi card productions in the time, when the girls of the family marry (marriages 1473-1475-1476)
1473: in context of the marriage of Eleanor of Aragon to Ercole d'Este in Ferrara
1468: Bona of Savoyen - Galeazzo Maria Sforza
1465: ? Ferrarese production for Ippolito Sforza ?
1454: Intensive card production in Ferrara for marriage Tristano Sforza - Beatrice d'Este
1452: Production in Siena; marriage Emperor Fredrick to Eleanor of Portugal
1441: marriage Bianca Maria Visconti

Also of interest:
1430: Savoyen law, that man are only allowed to play cards with women (likely in the "courting situation)
ca. 1423: Van Eyck picture, that was used as copperplate-printing, showing 6 stages of Love in a love garden (courting ritual): 1 Drinking together, 2 Eating together, 3 Dancing together, 4 Playing cards together, 5 Making Music together, 6 man lies before the sitting woman

Is that enough to call it "often"? We don't have so much Trionfi card notes, so this is much.

Also we have such things:



This is from the wedding book Constanzo Sforza /Camilla Aragon. Naturally we don't know, if these pictures were made to playing cards ... but is this really interesting or SO IMPORTANT?

In the eyes of the living persons in 15th century the GREAT EVENT was the marriage, not the card deck, which possibly was produced to memorate the event. This was just a detail

So I don't understand your argumentation, when you say to "frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia":

Those frescoes are not triumph cards! What are you talking about here? The word "triumph" had and has a wide semantic range. The term "triumph" in terms of the card pack no doubt derives from one or some of the possible meanings of the term, but you can't just throw around references to everything under the sun that had some relationship with "triumphs" in the widest sense and think it proves something about triumph cards.

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We research Trionfi cards.

But when we try to understand them, we've to place them in the context, where they once have been.
The same mind, who commissioned Trionfi cards and paid for them (and we listed these occurences), also commissioned the pictures of Palazzo Schifanoia. Both objects groups have the name "Trionfi" and now you wish to tell, that these things are not related?

Sorry, but relevant advances in research of these Trionfi card objects will probably only occur, when we research the surrounding of these productions.

In the case of Borso d'Este, who ordered the Palazzo Schifanoia and a lot of Trionfi cards (the most noted person in all early Trionfi documents) we have the feature, that he especially had a favour for the virtue "Iustitia" ...

... and then we've the feature for the Ferrarese order of the Trionfi cards, that in this deck type Iustitia had the number 20 in the row, so it is a "high Iustitia").

Taking here the right conclusion, we learn something about the cards, when we study Borso. But that's only one example.

Great thread- great information- thank you.
In regards to the Lovers card of the PMB Visconti. Three things strike me as odd as in a wedding. The Green glove-(it was not common at all to wear a wedding ring on the left hand until about Henry the 4th of France I believe) seems prominent and of special note
Gloves, beside their original design for a covering of the hand, have been employed on several great and solemn occasions: as in the ceremony of investitures, in bestowing lands, or in conferring dignities. Giving possession by the delivery of a glove prevailed in several parts of Europe in the middle ages. So from the glove point of view- not a wedding but a contract- not an engagement either. In Italy especially an engagement was the holding of both hands crossed over(figure 8 for love) It seems to show- Signed sealed and delivered- after the wedding in other words.
The Garter on The male figure! It is on the right leg not the left- very unusual.
Thirdly for a medieval Italian marriage- the wearing of gold in Jewelery or clothing was considered bad luck- just as the wearing of green was worn before the marriage and later on was indicating that the couple was lucky and the match successful.
So this card seems to be showing a couple later on in the marriage.
Quite an aside to the thread- but interesting visually for clues of timing. ~Rosanne

I am curious as the male in the Lovers card appears to be looking up at Cupid or Eros. Did this Visconti business marriage become a love match? Is he thanking his lucky stars that that is how it turned out? ~Rosanne

Rosanne said:

I am curious as the male in the Lovers card appears to be looking up at Cupid or Eros. Did this Visconti business marriage become a love match? Is he thanking his lucky stars that that is how it turned out? ~Rosanne

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... well, I don't know, how it is married at other places, but I know NOWADAYS weddings with small sketches, a little cabaret and theatre (made by the firends), with private music, with poems, a wedding newspaper (I myself wrote once one, and it was a lot of work) ... so there is really nothing unusual about wedding card playing decks.

And it is not very unusual, that just such stuff is kept with some honour and has the better chances to survive for some unknown future.

Also it wouldn't have been too bad an idea to make a small edition of such cards as a present for the guests, who often brought big presents (in the case of Lucrezia / Bentivoglio 1487 presents of a worth between 200 - 300 ducats were not seldom, so a counter-present of 4-5 Lira wouldn't really disturb the world).

Till 1470 courtly men prefered chess. Although Galeazzo Maria Sforza (married 1468) also played cards occasionally, chess and betting on tennis game were prefered between the men. Though he was interested in the game, when 13 years old - playing cards were accepted for kids and young men.

Things seem to change in the 70's of 15th century, perhaps mainly cause the many nephews of Pope Sixtus accepted card playing (they had a quick ascendance from lower social state to very high state, so they were near to the customs of the population and they had no noble education).

Around ca. 1475 the papal librarian Platina, close to Sixtus' nephews, wrote, that card playing is good for recreation.

Playing Cards in noble cycles were a long time for women and kids. But society changes with the time.

Hi Rosanne,

Rosanne said:

Great thread- great information- thank you.
In regards to the Lovers card of the PMB Visconti. Three things strike me as odd as in a wedding. The Green glove-(it was not common at all to wear a wedding ring on the left hand until about Henry the 4th of France I believe) seems prominent and of special note
Gloves, beside their original design for a covering of the hand, have been employed on several great and solemn occasions: as in the ceremony of investitures, in bestowing lands, or in conferring dignities. Giving possession by the delivery of a glove prevailed in several parts of Europe in the middle ages. So from the glove point of view- not a wedding but a contract- not an engagement either. In Italy especially an engagement was the holding of both hands crossed over(figure 8 for love) It seems to show- Signed sealed and delivered- after the wedding in other words.
The Garter on The male figure! It is on the right leg not the left- very unusual.
Thirdly for a medieval Italian marriage- the wearing of gold in Jewelery or clothing was considered bad luck- just as the wearing of green was worn before the marriage and later on was indicating that the couple was lucky and the match successful.
So this card seems to be showing a couple later on in the marriage.
Quite an aside to the thread- but interesting visually for clues of timing. ~Rosanne

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I like your observations. The lady's green glove does stand out. Also notice that the young man is shorter than she is, and is looking up to her, as if supplicating her. I think that's a good indication that the image is inspired by ideas of courtly love (i.e. pure love, not marriage).

Your observation of the ring issue rung a bell for me. Michelino da Besozzo (who painted Filippo's "Deification of 16 Heroes" deck) painted a very famous version of the "Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine" (of Siena). She is famous for having had a vision of Jesus espousing her -



Notice that the ring is being placed on the *right* ring finger... so, very astute observation on your part.

(an interesting tangent on this story is that Catherine herself used imagery of Christ's foreskin as the ring by which our souls are wedded to him (see Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, pp. 174-175 and endnote 135)), imagery never used in depictions of her that I have been able to find).

For me, the card depicts a man being struck by the bolt of love, in devotion to his lady.

The Cary-Yale card seems a little more marriage-like, and there is a dog to symbolize fidelity ("here Fido, here boy!).

Ross

Thought I'd post a copy of the card, and a link to the whole deck:

the Visconti-Sforza http://www.tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=35&cardID=6

the Cary-Yale Visconti http://www.tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=2&cardID=6

I should have said that the green glove could also allude to fidelity as green was the 'faithful' colour. It is interesting the mystical marriage because in the TdM I see The Lovers as Baptism and unconditional love. I had always thought the Visconti was a more pragmatic deck- as Huck had said- for a Betrothal Celebration- but the more I think on it it is like the sequence has been hijacked from something else. I have a book of Catherine of Sienna (She is my patron Saint for Holy Communion) and now I will look for the image of her and Christ's foreskin- which is told in the book. Some years ago it was Saint Catherine that made me think Tarot had gone from the Avignon Papacy toward Italy and the impact of the oft mistaken other Catherine of Alexandria(who also believed in the mystic marriage) who spoke to Joan of Arc. Even my precious book has the two Saints mixed up in images sometimes.
I had forgotten about the mystic marriage.
I love these cards. Thanks Debra for the links!
~Rosanne

Hi, Huck,

Huck said:

1496: Breitkopf gives a German copperplate deck as produced for the marriage of Maximilian's son and a Spanish princess.

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This appears to be your only actual example of a deck commissioned as a wedding gift. As such, and given the long tradition of assuming that Tarot decks were wedding gifts, it is an interesting item. Could you give us some additional details, preferably a quoted passage, or a link to a thread here or a page at trionfi.com or elsewhere that describes it? I searched around some and didn't find it.

Thanks.

Best regards,
Michael

Singer perhaps?

mjhurst said:

This appears to be your only actual example of a deck commissioned as a wedding gift. As such, and given the long tradition of assuming that Tarot decks were wedding gifts, it is an interesting item. Could you give us some additional details, preferably a quoted passage, or a link to a thread here or a page at trionfi.com or elsewhere that describes it? I searched around some and didn't find it.

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Michael, you dolt -- look in your own Fragments pages for 1496.

“During the second half of the fifteenth century, with printing technology commercially established and playing cards already a mass-produced commodity, a succession of masterly German engravers practised their art and decorative playing cards reached a zenith. The South German Engraver was one such craftsman who produced an elaborate, Gothic Spanish-suited pack of playing cards which appears to commemorate the marriage, in 1496, of Felipe I of Spain and Doña Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.”

It's a quote from Simon Wintle's page.

The South German Engraver, c.1496
http://www.wopc.co.uk/germany/sge.html

Spanish suited playing cards made in Germany
http://www.wopc.co.uk/germany/engraved.html

This is the report from trionfi.com:
http://trionfi.com/0/p/25/

Copperplate Engraver of the Schongauer school
Location/Time: Schreiber estimates 1480 - 1500, other seem to have suggested, that it is a deck produced at the opportunity of the marriage of the son of Emperor Maximilian with a Spanish princess in the year 1496 ("The South German Engraver was one such craftsman who produced an elaborate, Gothic Spanish-suited pack of playing cards which appears to commemorate the marriage, in 1496, of Felipe I of Spain and Doña Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Sometimes referred to as "Schongauer's follower", the engraver worked the same way as most of his colleagues of the time: he copied other engravers, among them Schongauer, as well as other playing cards and popular images. Some of the court figures have been adapted from other sources where they might have held a falcon rather than the present suit symbol." - cited from Simon Wintle's page