The 5x14 Theory: An Investigation.

MikeH

Michelino to Cary-Yale II

GOING DOWN TH 4X4 GRID, LEFT TO RIGHT

In my discussion of the Michelino, I went horizontally. This time I will go vertically. For best results in following this post, unless you are very famliar with the Michelino, it would be a good idea to draw a 4x4 grid large enough to fill much of a standard sheet of computer paper, and then write at the top of each square the name of the corresponding god in the Michelino, as listed at the top of my previous post. That way there will be room in each square to write below the god's name the name of one or two corresponding card titles in the Cary-Yale. Use a pencil with an eraser.

1ST COLUMN OF THE GRID: EMPRESS, EMPEROR, LOVE, PLUS ONE

In Martiano's description, Jupiter "is seated on a starry throne, with regal emblems." These emblems are four, one in each corner: on the upper right, "right reason"; upper left, "the laws"; lower right "a burning star like Mars," to enforce the laws; and in the lower left "a thunderbolt," Jove's former means of chastisement.

Of the first four Michelino gods, three correspond to the group in Cary-Yale Swords. Jupiter and Juno are the Empress and Emperor of the gods, and Venus is the goddess of Love. (My images are scanned from US Games' version of the deck.)

In the Emperor card, all that has been reduced to four attendants, a wholly pleasant version of the four "stars" that surrounded Jupiter. Card-makers will have to find another place to put the thunderbolt! (So write "Emperor" below "Jupiter" on your grid.)

03CaryEmsEmrLoveScan.jpg


As for Juno, she is described as veiled like a bride, for she is goddess of marriage. Our Empress has no veil, it is true. That is rather hard to represent on a card. Martiano tells us she also has a crown of several levels, for her various realms. Well, there are no tiaras on the Empress. Juno has her bird, with the many-eyed tail, representing the many eyes the potentate needs to protect his riches. Juno also has a rainbow, a phenomenon that quickly appears and disappears, again like riches. Well, none of this is on the card. The card-maker instead decided to give the Empress four attendants, like the Emperor.

Venus's description fits the Love card well enough, remembering that the card has to be cleaned up for children. Furthermore, Juno's representative, the Empress, is close by: the lovers must be modest, without lust, and seeing only each other..

The only one of Martiano's chief gods that is missing from our first set is Pallas Athena, virgin goddess of wisdom. Well, you say, she is the Popess! And that's where Juno's multi-tiered tiara went, too. The Trionfi piece on the CY has this same result, the Popess. They get it from looking at chess as a way to organize the cards. After all, Filippo was an avid player. In chess, the piece next to the Queen, corresponding to our Empress, is a bishop, which becomes the Popess in the cards. The other bishop, next to the King, is then the Pope.

But I don't think Popess is right. We have to bear in mind that this new game, at this time, is primarily for children, adolescent girls, and their mothers. The card-designers may play chess, and may use such considerations, perhaps, in designing the cards, but the game has to make sense in other terms. The point is to provide a pleasurable instructional game, suitable for children and their parents to play, to impart the lessons of Renaissance Christian Humanist life (as Hurst shows for these decks in general in his web-article "Riddle of Tarot" (http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/--but I don't know where he has moved it).

From a child or young adolescent's perspective, the Popess is too complicated. I can imagine 15 year old Bianca thinking: "A Popess? There is no such thing, unless of course you count that crazy ancestor of ours who got herself burned at the stake. But I can't tell my friends about her, it's too embarrassing." Or perhaps: "Hey, it could happen; maybe I could do the same thing. But I wouldn't get pregnant. How stupid!" Whatever one's mother said (that it was the Church, or the Virgin, or whatever), these two associations--poor Sister Manfreda, elected Pope by her order of nuns, and the luckless if fictional Pope Joan--would be inevitable. Parents don't like being undermined: the Popess is out.

Instead, why don't we have her male equivalent, the virginal and most pure Pope, the male Athena of Christianity, fountain of God's own wisdom? (Pardon my irony, which would not have been lost on 15th century Milanese rulers. However we mustn’t stir up trouble from the Church unnecessarily. ) Moreover, he completes the sequence of the three others. These are Mama, Papa, and their Love: all that is missing is the Priest, to solemnize the union that will bring about its happy outcome, our young card player.

Actually, life was not quite like that, even for children. The insignia above the lovers are Visconti and Savoy, corresponding to Bianca's father and stepmother (http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards32.htm). I do not know the rules of heraldry: If one’s father marries a Savoy, do he and his heirs have the right to Savoy devices, even heirs not biologically related to a Savoy? (Bianca's own begetting was without benefit of clergy.) I do not know. But there is nothing like de facto use of a device to make it a right. The scene is close enough, and it is the model that Bianca herself and her cohorts must follow, and all their heirs. All the more reason for an anxious parent to put in the Pope.

What about the other possibilities, at this end of later decks: Matto and Bagatto? After all, there is no reason to insist dogmatically on following Martiano. Having both might balance out the Emperor and the Empress. But we can only have one. We must remember that we are seeking an equivalent for the virgin goddess Athena. Fools and Magicians are not the best prospects.

So instead of the Michelino’s Jupiter, Juno, Athena, and Venus, we have Emperor, Empress, Pope, and Love.

2nd COLUMN: FORTITUDE, HOPE, AND FAITH, PLUS ONE

CYFortHopeFaithScan2.jpg


Let us move on to the next set. Given Fortitude, Hope, and Faith, what is missing? I would guess one of the other virtues. Temperance usually gets in around here somewhere. If you're going to be Temperate, you'll need Fortitude! Just the thing for a young person to remember, by putting them together here.

As for Prudence, there is no record anywhere of that as the name of a card, except in the later 40 trump game called Minchiate. There Prudence is conforms to her standard Renaissance representation, holding a mirror. The same basic image is used in Faith and Charity, minus the snake and plus some splashes of red paint There is nothing in the image suggesting a unique and long history. The only Cary-Yale card with a mirror is Charity. And anyway, Prudence is in a different class of virtues.

MinchPrudFaiChar2.jpg


We now have something very close to Petrarch's Chastity. It is Temperance, which is not exactly the same thing, but a more practical alternative, less threatening to the right of little card-players to be born (it just means self-control and moderation, not abstention or the confinement of sex to marriage. Bianca is not, under this virtue, her father's moral flaw.) And it is one of the three moral virtues of St. Aquinas.

Another possibility is that the three virtues together are the substitute for Petrarch's Chastity. Instead of Chastity, the triumph over Love is Virtue, in each of the three parts of the Platonic soul. It is that which keeps Love and Victory within proper bounds. Such a lesson Philippo would want to instill in his daughter, and Francesco and Bianca in their own children.

We do not have a close correspondence between the four cards as I see them and the corresponding gods Apollo, Neptune, Diana, and Bacchus. But perhaps there is a loose one: Apollo (the Light of the World) with Hope, Neptune (the Tempest) with Fortitude, Diana (the Virgin) with Faith, and Bacchus (the wine) with Temperance. But it is not important for everything to work out neatly.

I am being rather indifferent about the order within each set. I imagine that various orders were tried out, to see which told an allegorical story best. The Cary-Yale triumphs have no numbers themselves. The various later lists and numberings on cards show a wide variety when it comes to the virtues.

3RD COLUMN: CHARITY, CHARIOT, DEATH, PLUS ONE

CYCharitChariotDeath.jpg


On to the next: Charity, Chariot, Death. What is missing? Well, several things. The Hunchback (later the Hermit), the Wheel of Fortune, and the Hanged Man. Not Justice--it goes near the end in all the early lists. The usual representation of Petrarch's triumph of Time is a man on crutches. But Duke Filippo walks on crutches and wouldn't like to be reminded of it, as Trionfi's "reconstruction" article helpfully tells us (http://trionfi.com/0/c/2209/). Skip the Hunchback.

The Hanged Man? Well, that was the execution they gave traitors in Renaissance Italy, a horrible death that took days (Michael J. Hurst at http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=93338). In Germany Jews got the same. I can't imagine mothers tolerating the stories their little boys would tell their younger sisters, about what would happen to them when they got the Hanged Man card. Another complication is Gertrude Moakley's story about how Father-in-law/Grandfather Muzio Sforza once had his name plastered on all the bridges of Rome with that image next to it, by no less than the Pope, or maybe an anti-Pope. This card too complicated.

BrerazPMBWheePMBHanged.jpg


Our final alternative, the Wheel of Fortune, is easy. You can even see the Hunchback in it--well at least an old man, without the despised crutches--ready for death. Plus, it is one of the two surviving triumphs of the Brera-Brambilla deck. If you look at its Emperor card, you will see that its design is halfway between that of the Cary-Yale and the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo. Below, the Brera-Brambilla is on the left, CY in the middle, PMB on the right.

04BreraCaryPMB.JPG


So the Wheel of Fortune is in one Visconti deck very close in time to the Cary-Yale. Likely it was in the Cary-Yale as well. (The image of the Brera-Brambilla is from http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards33.htm.)

Petrarch's third, fourth, and fifth triumphs are all now in this third set, now that the Wheel has been added. Death is itself; Fame is the Chariot; and Time is the Wheel, which turns all to dust, even the memory of glory. All that remains is Eternity, the final triumph, which is the theme of the whole final set.

The Wheel as Time, in Petrarch's schema, goes after Death, and the Chariot as Worldly Fame. But that is probably too subtle for a child. It is easier to put it between the Chariot and Death, to symbolize the decline that follows triumph, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, until Death finally wins.

Let us go back to the third column of gods in Michelino: Mercury, Mars, Vesta, and Ceres. Again, we have to be loose in our associations. Martiano mentions Mars' war chariot at the beginning of his description of that god. But Mars is also an agent of death. One association seems clear-cut: The Wheel of Fortune was the turning of the seasons, i.e. Ceres. As for Charity, i.e. Grace, perhaps that is Vesta, just because of the feminine ending. I know no other connection.

As for Mercury, well, he went back and forth between our world and the ones above and below. He was known for guiding people one way or the other, usually upwards, such as Psyche, Eurydice, and Proserpine. So he could represent Death. On the other hand, Martiano mentions Mercury's eloquence as saving people from death. That is what he did with Psyche, Eurydice, and Persephone,. And although he did not have his own chariot, he guided that of others, for example that of Ariadne and Dionysus on an Orphic medallion. (This medallion is 200-300 b.c.e.; I do not know when it turned up in modern Italy; and perhaps a reference to the imagery survived somewhere.)

OrphtMedall.jpg


Mercury could be "right reason" guiding Plato's chariot of the soul (Phaedrus 246a-254e). The associations are loose but flexible.

4th COLUMN, COINS: “JUDGMENT” AND “WORLD,” PLUS TWO

Now let us move on to the last set, the triumphs of Coins.

CYJUDGWorld.jpg


Judgment (also called "the Angel") obviously has to do with the eternal. I would argue that the card often called “World” in the CY is also “Eternal fame.”

The World is God the Father, says the preacher of the “Steele Sermon” (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones_de_Ludo_Cum_Aliis), probably many years after the CY was designed. We can’t rely on that. The scene on the card looks to me like Parsifal's visit to the Fisher King, whom he finds sitting in a boat in the middle of a lake. The brightly colored castle would be the Grail Castle. This interpretation fits Duke Filippo's tastes, which reportedly ran from poetry in Italian to French romances (Rabil, "Humanism in Milan," in Renaissance Humanism Vol 1, p. 243). It also fits the artistic tastes of the artist. He, or someone with exactly the same style, did a series of illustrations for a “Lancelot of the Lake” manuscript of 1446 (Kaplan Vol. 2 pp. 123-128. That is a little later than the accepted date of the CY. I will have to return to this issue in another post. A full discussion would be too much here. For now let us postulate that he may have been working on the project already in 1441.

21abworldDET.jpg


Will our Knight be found worthy of the Grail? Similarly, will our little card player be worthy of God? Will he or she earn fame in God’s eyes, no matter what the outcome on the physical plane? These are good questions for the card player to ponder. (Again, I know from Huck that there are references to Fame, even to a specific incident. I will deal with the issue in another post.)

As I have said earlier, the virtue of Justice, the result of the Judgment, must be added to the pair we have, Judgment (also known as Angel) and World. So now we have three out of four.

What else might there be, to bring the number of triumphs in the suit to 4? That is more difficult. The preacher of the “Steele Sermon” put the Fool at the end. He's the one who didn't live the Christian life and lives in poverty hereafter.

Yet the Fool is the one who doesn't need material things, the Fool for God (I Corinthians 1:17-31, 3:18-19). I think it was Gertrude Moakley who drew the comparison to Giotto's "Folly," and remarked that the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Fool is wearing the 7 feathers of the 7 weeks of Lent. His dress is also Lenten, and the feathers form a kind of halo over his head. Perhaps the CY had a similar Fool.

FoolGiottoPMB.jpg


What are the equivalents for this set in the Michelino? Martiano has Hercules, Eolis, and Daphne, with the absurd Cupido at the end. I see a couple of options.

(1) Hercules is a good prototype for the questing knight-errant. Cupid is a kind of angel, carrying out the Divine Edict against Apollo with his gold and lead arrows (http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_ovid_daphne.htm). Daphne is the recipient of Justice, for her chastity is secure. And Odysseus's men are fools, opening up the bag of winds just as they are within sight of home (http://www.lycos.com/info/odysseus--king-aeolus.html).

(2) We might want to switch Cupid and Eolis. Perhaps Cupid, i.e. the love-pangs that make fools of us all, is the Fool. Huck a while back suggested Cupid as the Fool at http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=92153)In the 4th column, Aolus would then become the agent of Judgment, as the king who sends Odysseus on his way with a little bag to keep closed, and his men go to their destruction, after they have failed the test.

To summarize: I see the Cary-Yale as dividing into four groups. The order within groups is not determined, just the specific cards.

Column 1: Empress, Emperor, Pope, Love.
Column 2: Temperance, Fortitude, Hope, Faith.
Column 3: Charity, Chariot, Wheel, Death.
Column 4: Justice, World, Judgment, Fool.

Now there is room for more development. The Bagatto is a popular card in other cities, such as Ferrara. Our little card players want a place for him, in a suitably pious way. So the parents have an idea. We will have a wild card, a mere place-holder but also a valuable card because of his connection to Eternity. And what better candidate than the Fool?

To me this stepping out of the hierarchy is one way of explaining how the Fool got his unnumbered status. All the other special cards are in some order, still attached to suits. But as a wile card the Fool has no suit and no number.

Then there is room for the Bagatto there in the suit of Coins. What I imagine is that the great mythic intermediary between worlds, Mercury, the one with the broad-brimmed hat, is drafted. He didn't really fit the image of Death; he is better as a representative of Christ and Eternity. As a red-hatted priest or cardinal, he is the perfect person to administer last rites and prepare one for the Last Judgment. In the game, moreover, it is winning him in the last trick that can get one many points; to play him earlier is far less valuable (http://www.tarothermit.com/magician.htm).

Thus the Bagatto is connected to Eternity, as the agent of the Last Supper, repeated endlessly as the Eucharist. But then we get another idea. We will make him a low-life, just as Jesus was a penniless wonder-worker, conceived out of wedlock (like some of our players). It will also be a warning not to be taken in by tricksters who depart from God—all of Jesus’s miracles were from that source. And just as Jesus was the Word, by whom all things were made, so the Bagatto will be there at the beginning of our deck, now freed from the 4x4 grid.

Now we are transitioning to a new deck. With the grid gone, the Hunchback or Old Man, so popular in other cities, can be added, now that Filippo has passed away.. As our young players mature—and as friction with the Pope increases--they can also appreciate the Popess ancestor and the Hanged Man ancestor, their illustrious relatives, and see the importance of these two cards for their own children. (I will leave it vague for now whose idea it is to put in these cards, parents or older children, as I have some issues with the conventional dating of the decks, to be discussed later.) The old Hope, Faith, and Charity, never popular in other cities, can be put aside for the moment. A new set of special cards, 17 in all, is born.

Alternatively, the new deck, the "original PMB," could have been 20 at the start, the three Theological Virtues replaced by Star, Moon, and Sun cards much like the PMB cards we know, and then later redrawn by another artist, perhaps so that the deck's new owner, Galeazzo Sforza, could flatter his favorite woman (or maybe women, telling each one it was her).

That is the scenario I see developing out of the Michelino’s 4x4 grid. It probably was not exactly as I have described, as the details cannot be determined with precision. But I don’t see why it wasn’t something like that.
 

Huck

Actually, life was not quite like that, even for children. The insignia above the lovers are Visconti and Savoy, corresponding to Bianca's father and stepmother (http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards32.htm). I do not know the rules of heraldry: If one’s father marries a Savoy, do he and his heirs have the right to Savoy devices, even heirs not biologically related to a Savoy?

fermo.jpg


and a variant

Fermo-Stemma.png


Stemma of Fermo, the place, from which Francesco Sforza reigned in 1441 ...
although it's not sure, if it was the Stemma of the city already in 1441. The white cross on red (in Tarot literature given to Savoy) is also in the Stemma of Fermo (and also in other shields of other cities). It seems from our research, that this is more a general or specific crusader sign (also not complete sure).

So there are a lot of insecurities in this observation about the baldachin ...

The situation of October 1441 is full of activities in the exspectation of a longer peace between Milan and Venice, manifested by this "great marriage" between Sforza and Bianca Maria (the peace conditions still were negotiated).

One part of the plans was it, that a crusade had to be done (fulfilling the wishes of the council in 1438/39) and one idea was it, that the great Sforza should guide it as a major general.
The crusade really took place (1443-44), but Sforza was not the general. The Italian participation stayed (probably very) small, but Cardinal Cesarini died at this occasion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_of_Varna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Cesarini

Sforza lived after the marriage some time in Venice (against the exspectation and hopes of his new father-in-law, who became angry about it), was then send to help Renee d'Anjou in Naples, but never reached Naples. Naples was taken quickly by Alfonso in surprise (June 1442) with the help of an open door.
Sforza's star was going down in this period, Sforza's foe, Pope Eugen, got successful times then.
 

Huck

What I am going to extrapolate from is how the Beinecke Library titles the triumph cards. They are not just triumphs; they are all triumphs attached to regular suits. I phoned the Beinecke and asked them where this system of classificatino came from. They said it was there when they got the collection. It is not used with other cards. I suspect that if I was able to contact Cary's librarian, he or she would say the same thing. It is not the sort of thing librarians would introduce on their own. Somebody a long time ago thought it was the right way to classify these cards.

Here is the classification. In double quotations are the titles on the page that comes up when you search "Visconti" on http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/:

SWORDS: "Empress of Swords"; "Emperor of Swords"; "Love (Swords)".
BATONS: "Fortitude (Batons)"; "Faith (Batons)"; "Hope (Batons)".
CUPS: "Charity (Cups)"; "Chariot (Cups)"; "Death (Cups)".
COINS: "World (Coins)"; "Judgment (Coins)".

Your engagement to get to the bottom of this information should be praised.

How secure was your informant? Had it been a 5 minute talk or could you reach, that the librarian took some time to request somebody else? Or hadn't you be the first, who asked it, and the library already reseached before your call the circumstances and hat it ready, when you asked for it?
 

Huck

Well,

Following your idea I took another look at the cards from Cary-Yale and I found nothing - REALLY NOTHING - which contributes to the suggested order. Naturally it might, that the suggestion - or the error or the related accident - is old, but it seems, that it is not reporting the original context.

Instead I found a coin with a bird at the chariot picture (which should belong to cups according the order) and was interested. But this I do offer in another thread.
 

Huck

birds and coins in Cary-Yale

Interested by the birds in the Michelino deck and the phoenix/dove debate and Mike's suggestion to the Cary-Yale I took a further look at Cary Yale in the Beinicke library and detected this coin at the Chariot card in the hand of the female chariot rider.

coin-at-chariot.jpg


It shows a bird. So I looked for other coins, and naturally I found them in the coins suit. Bird coins are mainly at the court cards.

The King has the bird only once at his clothing, his two coins (one at the feet, another held by the servant) don't have the bird.
coin-at-king-of-coins.jpg


The figure with the most birds is the Queen of coins (I counted 8 at the clothes and 1 on the coin)
lot-of-birds-queen.jpg

queen.jpg


The male knight has a bird at his clothes and two at the horse clothing - but the coin has no bird. The female knight has 3 birds at her clothers - but the coin has no bird. The female page the same (the male pagedoesn't exist)
coin-at-knight.jpg

bird-at-knight-2.jpg

female knight


So only the female charioteer and the Queen of coins have the bird on the coin ( .. :) ... seems to be a wonder coin).

The ace of coins shows the Visconti serpent (most important symbol of Visconti family)
ace-of-coins.jpg


The ace of cups shows also the Visconti serpent in the center
ace-of-cups.jpg


The ace of arrows (or batons) shows an empty bandarole with similarity to Visconti serpent (the ace of swords has the same bandarole). The 2's of both suits have a shorter banderole, the later cards have not.
ace-of-arrows.jpg


The 2 of coins shows a Visconti serpent and this symbol (possibly a knot connected to the family and a special identity sign)
two-of-coins.jpg


In the other cards of the coin siuits it becomes difficult to decipher, what the coins show. It's clear, that a horseman occasionally appears. It seems, that the bird motif appears only with the courts.
4-of-coins-horseman.jpg


This is from the judgment card, it's not clear what it means.
judgment.jpg


I took a look at the PMB chariot to compare it to the chariot card of Cary-Yale - and relate it to the concrete suspicions about both decks, that Cary-Yale was made in 1441 and the 14 Bembo cards ca. 1452.

d0204607.jpg


The picture is not very good, it's hardly seen, that the woman sits on a throne and has a globe with cross in her hand, in the other a baton (it's better seen, when one knows, that it's there).

cary-yale-chariot.jpg



In contrast to the PBM the female Cary Yale charioteer sits NOT on a throne (Bianca Maria is 1441 NOT Duchessa of Milan) and hasn't the globe with cross on it (which might present the Milanese reignment). Also in contrast she has a male person at her side, probably meant as Sforza courting Bianca Maria.
The natural Trionfo, which should have accompanied the wedding ceremonies in Cremona 1441 would have taken the bride to the church before the wedding ceremony. The bride would have been probably alone on the chariot.
Her baldachin shows in the inner part a blue baldachin with stars (we discussed this recently: the Star symbol is connected to the theological virtue hope) and Bianca Maria has the coin with a bird (we discussed this recently: The bird on a female hand was given to Hope and the young unmarried girl).
... :) ... A bird at a coin in the hand of a bride probably meant, that she was a rich girl.

Bianca Maria is also alone at the PBM.

Sforza didn't take the triumphal chariot in March 1450 in Milan, which was offered by the citizens. Also he was wise and prudent enough to stay in his approach to the duke title in the background, behind Bianca Maria. When the emperor (who gave the duke titles usually) was 1452 in Ferrara and Mantova Sforza send a delegation with Galeazzo Maria as future duke, but the Emperor showed the cold shoulder. Sforza was not accepted from this side.


*****
btw. the bird doesn't always make the impression, that it is a dove.

If somebody wishes to make the same or similar researches

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/

type "Visconti" in the search mask
 

MikeH

comment on Huck's posts.

Thanks for the info on the "Savoy" device. That helps.

The librarian I talked with--actually, now that I think about it, it may have been email--did some checking first. I will see if I still have an email stared away.

I'm not sure what you were looking for in the cards. Relative to the suits, (Swords, Batons, Cups, Coins) I don't see anything in the cards suggesting the suit-signs.. I don't think that was the point. The cards were arranged in sequential order, starting with Swords and ending with Coins, and the correspondences are purely symbolic, nothing in the actual cards.


To put in particular birds or gods is totally unnecessary. The Michelino is just a symbolic structure to build on, like chess. You wouldn't insist that the corresponding chess piece have to be drawn on the card, would you, if the chess-theory were to be believable?

Actually there are two or three rooks/castles on one of the early World cards: I forget which card the rook is supposed to correspond to. But I think the ones on this World card are just shorthand for a picture of a real castle,

But wait--after skimming your other thread, I think I see what you might be driving at. If my theory about the connection between the Michelino and the CY is right, we might look for bird-signs of either the relevant suit or the relevant god, and in particular the first four primary gods, whom the Michelino associates with particular birds. That is, we might look for an eagle in the Empeor, a phoenix in the Empress, a dove in the Love card. The turtledove would probably be on the missing card. Well, there s certainly an eagle on the Emperor, but the Empress just has another eagle. And the gold bird of riches seems to be held by the Chariot lady. I don't see any dove in the Love card; but the Love lady is likely the same as the Chariot lady, so the Chariot bird might be the dove of the Love card. But things aren't fitting together very well. Yes, another thread is the place to go at the moment..
 

MikeH

correction

I inadvertently left out two paragraphs from my earlier long post on my hypothesized evolution of the PMB from the Michelino to the CY to the original PMB. I edited the post to put the two paragraphs in, near the end between the original paragraphs on the Fool and and the Bagatto.
 

Huck

I've read meanwhile, that a red cross on white, when it reaches till the border, is called the St. Georgs-cross (Wikipedia). Sforza, so I've been told, was very fond of St. Georg, as were other militarists out of understanable reasons but the cross is not red on white, but white on red.
Then I've read, that red-white crosses in both variants were used by mercenaries in Czechia, one version was prefered, but when at two sides mercenaries were fighting, the alternative was used.

Sforza was a mercenary, but not in Czechia. The cross at the Baldachin in white on red and reaches till the border.

This mercenary-variant is a logical solution for a practical problem - the mercenaries hadn't money to pay each time a new design, when they changed the commissioner. This was probably not only practical in Czechia. My information is from the observator of a conflict in Polonia. Perhaps it was so, that in Polonia the custom was unknown, so it is ascribed to the Czechian who used it in Polonia, but in reality it was possibly general use in southern countries.
 

MikeH

Beinecke titles

I found the emails, Huck.

First here is my email to the email contact address on the Beinecke website:

."..I also have a few questions. First, the Cary "Visconti" tarot trump cards on-line are given both a name and a suit, one of the 4 regular suits, e.g. "Empress of Swords." I haven't seen other trump cards classified this way, with suits. Where [does] this suit-classification of these cards come from? Was it part of what you were given when you took possession of the collection? When was it added and why?

Also, why is [it]it categorized as "Visconti" as opposed to some other name, such as "Sforza"? I have read reasons in some books on the subject, but they don't seem that conclusive. So I'd like to know your reasons.

Then I have a couple of questions regarding the Cary Sheet, the one with the tarot trumps on it. Is what we are seeing simply a sheet off the press before it is cut, or something different, like a mirror image of what the card player would see? And would the card itself look just like the sheet, or would details or colors be added?"

Timothy Young replied, from

timothy.young@yale.edu

"Cataloging information about the cards was received with the collection when it was given by the Cary family to Yale. The author of the printed catalogue to the Cary Collection used their descriptions when he created fuller catalog records. The names "Visconti" and "Sforza" refer to the families who owned specific decks of cards. Because there are quite a few items filed under "Cary Sheet," I am unsure which item you are referring to. If you can cite a specific item, perhaps I can respond with some more information."

Then on 8/28/08 I emailed back:

"Thanks for your prompt and helpful reply. The Cary Sheet that I was asking about is your negative number 3613378. I access it by searching for "Cary Sheet 3S," but I don't remember where I got the "3S" designation. Are we looking at the cards the way a card player would see them, or the way the woodblock artist would see it (which would be a mirror image of the other)? And would the actual cards have color or other embellishments on them, beyond what we see.

If I came as a researcher, I would be (a) looking for small numbers or other writing added after the d'Este and Visconti cards were made, and (b) wanting to see the Cary cataloging material you referred to, to see if there is anything else of interest there..."

Mr Young replied:

"Mr. Howard:

The sheet you mention "ITAsheet3S" appears to be a print that shows images as they would appearas finished playing cards. The catalog information for this sheet is very brief. It probably did not come with much information, as did a great number of items in the Cary Collection. I checked and found that the cataloger's notes about the Visconti and the Este cards are the exact information that appears in the printed catalog.

Keep in mind that the entire Cary catalog is searchable through our digital images database as a separate section:
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/carycards/default.asp

Links to the essays about the collection are also found on that page."

Let me add that the Beinecke staff has been really helpful whenever I have made requests. I've been there before, on non-tarot related missions. Perhaps they are more possessive when it comes to playing cards.

I was hoping to inspect the actual cards, as I was going to be in New York. But the Beinecke was in the middle of remodeling and I decided not to press them.

I was also interested in seeing the PMB, but I did not email the Pierpont Morgan Library, as I assumed that I could just pop in when I was in New York. I had done that with the Beinecke once, and it was no problem. In the case of hte Morgan, that was an incorrect assumption. Next time I will know.
 

MikeH

"Fame" and "World in the CY and PMB, Part I

Now I'm ready to talk about "Fame."

Huck, that was indeed a great collection of posts and links you provided on the "Fame" (or "World') card in the Cary-Yale. For the top of the card, you gave us a winged goddess blowing a trumpet (Wikipedia), a winged trumpet without goddess (link), and an unwinged lady holding a winged trumpet (card). For the lower half we were treated to the New Jerusalem, the "sic transit gloria mundi," Plato's Republic, the Duchy of Milan, a slapstick escape worthy of the Comedia del'Arte (or a cliffhanger melodrama worthy of Hollywood), and two or three weddings. It's taken me a while to digest it all. Well, here are my thoughts (or perhaps flatus).

(1). THE TRUMPET.

The French version of the verse at the top of one of Huck’s links reads:

La main qui tient ceste trompe volante
Veut figurer la bonne renommee
Qui vole ainsi qu'vne trompe sonante,
D'où la personne est bien ou mal nommee.
Celle qui est sur toutes estimee,
Doit bien garder à orgueil donner lieu.
Car d'elle n'est ce qu'elle n'est blasmee.
Le bon renom n'est d'ailleurs que de Dieu.
(Georgette de Montenay/Anna Roemer Visscher, Cent emblemes chrestiens (c. 1615); http://emblems.let.uu.nl/av1615033.html#orig_av1615033_body1_div5)

And my translation (after the translation machine produced gibberish):

"The hand that holds this winged trumpet
Wants to spread the good renown
That flies the way a trumpet sounds,
From where the person is well or badly named.
One who is esteemed above all
Indeed must be on guard against giving place to pride.
For it is from her that it is blasphemed.
Good renown is moreover only from God."

The moral, as I read the ending, is that it is okay to be rich and famous, as long as you credit God with your success. This is pure Calvinism (as in Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism). Yet the way in which Fame is contingent upon God seems to me reflected in the Cary-Yale card. First, the lady on the Cary-Yale is holding the trumpet at her side, not blowing it. The time of winning worldly fame passed by with the triumphal Chariot. The time of "sic transit gloria mundi" is past, as the Wheel of Fortune has turned. Eternity awaits. Is there fame there? Apparently there is, according to the trumpeter. It is the fame beyond fame, fame in heaven’s eyes, beyond all the fame of this world. And it is the fame that anyone, of whatever station in life, can hope to attain, of winning fame in Heaven for one's life on earth.

There is another trumpet close by in the cards, either just sounded or about to sound. The Angel has that trumpet, to sound the Last Judgment. It is not a winged trumpet, but in Greece the goddess, not the trumpet, was the one with the wings (Wikipedia). But the Angel is not Fame. So which trumpet is on our card? Less educated people would know about the trumpet of Judgment, since it is a Christian rather than Greek image. Perhaps there is something of both, depending on the eye of the beholder; but neither trumpet is in use at the moment. Both relate to the theme of Eternity. And for a prideful fool like Piccinnino, who goes "Seeking the bubble reputation/Even in the cannon's mouth" (http://www.maximumedge.com/shakespe...bo’s workshop reopened. (Continued next post)