The Boiardo Tarocchi poem on its way out of some Italian dust

[Huck]

Also very interesting. Which 12 Caesars?

Seem to be this:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/home.html

A Suetonius text

These are not figures, which appear in the poem generally.


Generally we've a pairing principle in the poem. One man - one woman; only broken at the 3rd poem-pair (no woman) and the 10th (two women)

The Fool-position (opening) has its partner in the Lucretia-terzet (end).

The pairing-principle was common. It entered already with Plutarch's Lifes and with Guarino, who translated Plutarch very early, before Ferrara

Creating an entry (in this case: fool - who adores the world) which faces the end (in this case: Lucretia - who prefers fame and a good name) should have been common literarary use.

We've a struggle inside the early Tarot development about the correct order of the trumps and about the "true" highest card - almost unobserved by most Tarot students with a fixation on the "standard theory", which assume a 22-version from beginning on. But in this case one should know about it, otherwise the interpretation of the first and last trump-terzet becomes difficult.

So the "postulated" background for the first and last terzet is this fight between "world" and "fame":

###
World

Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato,
Portarti un fol su l'asino presume,
Ché i stolti sol confidano in tuo stato.

("World, you are vainly loved by the mad,
And a fool thinks he can bring you on his donkey,
Because the stupid only trust your state ... " was translated)

###
Strength (? or "Fame" ?)

Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua FAMA
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,

Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.

("Inner strength made happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net,

Giving an example to those who love their own name and honour." ... was translated)

####


First a comment to the last line: "Giving an example to those who love their own name and honour" ... it seems to finish the terzet of Lucretia (well, let call this "the common deception", which we will meet soon), but actually it's ALSO (at least in the poet's mind) the last line of the complete chapter of the trumps, so it ends each terzet in this chapter (just working like a "headline", although it's a "finishing line") and as this this line is in a row with other very special lines in the poem. Which are:

(BEGIN - sonnet, first and last line)

Quattro passion de l'anima signora
...
resta mo' a te trovar del gioco l'arte.

(Four passions of the soul, milady,
...
Now it remains for you to find the art of the game)


TIMORE - Ché mal se fugge quel che 'l ciel dispone
Because it is difficult to avoid what has been decided by heaven.

GELOSIA - Con gli ecclipsi soi, segni e comete.
With its eclipses, signs and comets.

SPERANZA - Che domitor del mondo un tempo forno.
Who once were the rulers of the world.

AMORE - E fe' Pasiphe innamorar de un Toro
And it made Pasiphe fall in love with a Bull.

TRUMPS (Triompho Del Vano Mondo) - Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
Giving an example to those who love their own name and honour.

(END - sonnet, first and last line)
Veggio il mio error, pur il commun inganno (? segui)
...
Scusomi anch'io si da natura imparo.

I see my error, but I follow (? The common deception)
...
I excuse myself for learning from nature.

###

I hope, you understand, what I want to say: There is a key sentence in the poem, actually two key sentences. Using the English translation, these both "meditations" are formed:

Outside sonnets:

Four passions of the soul, milady,
... Now it remains for you to find the art of the game
I see my error, but I follow (? The common deception)
... I excuse myself for learning from nature.

(Interpretation: The author tells the title "4 passions of soul", tells, that the poem is a riddle ("it remains for you to find the art of the game"), tells something about "common deception" (how poet's cheat the readers, who don't know about the tricks of poetical authors) and says his excuse for tricking the reader.)

Inside message:

Because it is difficult to avoid what has been decided by heaven.
With its eclipses, signs and comets.
Who ("which" is better) once were the rulers of the world.
And it ("they" is better) made Pasiphe fall in love with a Bull.
Giving an example to those who love their own name and honour.

Interpretation: "it is difficult to avoid what has been decided by heaven with its eclipses, signs and comets, which once were the rulers of the world, and they made Pasiphe fall in love with a Bull, giving an example to those who love their own name and honour." - the author comments, that below the heavens a lot of curious pairing could take place by the might of love - illustrating it by Pasiphae, who even had love with a bull.

###

So it's justified for the fame-or-world question, to cut the last sentence from the Lucretia-terzet.

###
World

Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato,
Portarti un fol su l'asino presume,
Ché i stolti sol confidano in tuo stato.

("World, you are vainly loved by the mad,
And a fool thinks he can bring you on his donkey,
Because the stupid only trust your state ... " was translated)

###
Strength (? or "Fame" ?)

Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua FAMA
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,

("Inner strength made happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net, ... was translated)
###

Now we have the rule of Boiardo in the trumps series, that always the first word is the title of the terzet.
So MONDO and FORTEZZA should be the titles, and FOL and FAMA should be only assisting words. Or?

Now we trivially know, that the series of the usual Trionfi could be read in two ways , either from beginning (Fool) or from the end (World) ... so we've really have difficulties to decide, which way the poet counted. Is Sardanapollo a sort of Magician or a sort of Angel?
Now, we know, that Boiardo had fun to trick the reader, guiding him complicated ways, letting him detect "hidden messages", poet's tricks and other stuff.

He confronts the reader (we've to assume, thatt the common 15th-century-reader had usual expectations about the general Trionfi decks) with the fact, that his Tarocchi poem is something different than the usual decks. He packs "World" and "Folly" in one tercet right at the begin of the series and the reader is confused ... and starts to grumble. Before he had exchanged the suits ... these are suits of love (timore, gelosia, hope, love), not the "normal suits", first there was confusion, then the reader understood. "Alright, love suits". Then text and content replaced the number cards (which usually at Italian decks had "no content" beside suit signs. The usual free court cards become real persons and do some actions. All this changes for the reader, before he arrives at the trumps ... and then Mondo and Fool at one card .. again the reader is fooled and tries to understand, does it run from top (21) or from below (0) .. when he proceeds and tries to solve the riddle, he meets Sardanapollo and thinks "ah, that's the magician", and then next to Hippolita "the papessa" .... and it doesn't work. The exspectations are frustrated .. the reader thinks, it's right to follow his key idea, but ... he's inside a riddle and doesn't know, what Boiardo wanted to tell.

Well, Boiardo's riddle, and a very special one for us more than 500 years later, cause we don't know, to which general background Boiardo could refer and was understood by contemporary readers.

So, as already promised, one of the general background was the discussion about the highest trump, "World" or "Fama".

One simple sign: The Tarot had "World" as highest trump, but the Minchiate "Fama", sometimes judgment. And more complex: in Ferrara was Justice high, however, not as high as "World". And in Bologno it seems, that the "Angel" was higher than "World". And in the 5x14-deck of Bembo was no World, and judgment was high.

Well, contemporary readers knew about these details, but we don't.

Boiardo offers us for the first terzet a "Mondo" and a "Fol" and for the last terzet a "Fortezza" and a "Fama". And between them a Lukretia, which by context (last figure) seems to reign all the other figures.

Well, and one can't be sure, that Boiardo doesn't joke. So, what does the poet say?

Is Lucretia the hero of the evening, just cause she is the "marrying girl" of the moment? Not impossible ...
One place (gratia)is free (not filled with a person) in the series of 10 men and 10 women - perhaps with the intention to point to Lucretia in the high position?

But then we still have the game between MONDO and FOL and FORTEZZA and FAMA in the first and last terzet.

The MONDO-FOL version is clearly criticised by Boiardo (in the poem). The FORTEZZA-FAMA-version is honoured.

But the Ferrarese Tarocchi version had MONDO at the top, not Fama - at least as far we can see that. At second place they had Iustitia, cause Borso loved Iustitia - he was fond of this figure. Borso was dead, when Eleanor married ... or when Lucretia married - .... so Boiardo was free to suggest new ideas.

FAMA was a high figure in Naples (we've no decks, but we can see this from the Trionfi they celebrated). Naples was Fama-region as Florence was Fama-Region (perhaps Florence was less stable in this as Naples).

Eleanore was from Naples and Ercole - with all his knightly doings - was oriented towards FAMA. Likely that's true for 1473 and 1487 (Eleanor still living, Naples still powerful).

1487 - Lucretia to Bologna
1490 - Isabelle to Mantova
1490 - Beatrice to Milan
1491 - Alfonso gets a 8 year old bride from Milan

In 1487 Ferrara saw a series of marriages coming. Weibermacht, women power, that was the language of the time, especially as the recent militarical engagement wasn't too successful.
The poem is a somehow a Weibermacht-poem, the women are wise, the men a little stupid and die to often.

Fortezza shows a female taming a lion. Weibermacht. Lucretia is stronger than Tarquinus Superbus.

Beatrice and Isabella became with this spirit rather successful and impressive in Milan and Mantova, we don't know too much about Lucretia in Bologna.

 

[Huck]

Hi, Huck,
Great! (I'm usually the slow kid in class -- that's why I asked, "what has been learned?" I'll try to catch up.)

.. nice

What was said about her? What prooftexts were identified and quoted? What relationship with the design of the deck was suggested?

You know, we don't have much pictures, only six (and no trumps). And each tercet has three lines, not more. Boiardo himself was not very informative.

Was that done with all the other trumps as well? Such a comprehensive investigation should be more widely known. Please give us a URL to where all that hard work can be seen -- that URL would be an excellent answer to my question, "what has been learned?"

That's a nice idea .. we had them all in the discussion pages of the poem in Tarotpedia.

Two years ago, when Ross and Marco's translation went up, I spent some time looking for those explanations, and some were easy, others were obscure and it was difficult to track down a relevant prooftext or source passage in any period works. And the overall design itself remains obscure.

However, I'm still missing the point. These things are not to be mentioned and then disregarded. These things are the substance of the poems. What I don't understand is 1) why those things are being ignored rather than followed up on, and 2) what you are currently looking for in place of the intended meaning of the trumps? If you know about the Lucretia Boiardo was referring to, (which you admitted, in passing, in January of last year), what are you now looking for?

Nobody hinders you to look for them, if you think, that we ignored them. It's difficult to get them in an interesting insightful context as a group. As single entries about specific stories they are recognizable. .. but the total context is "Boiardo's riddle" and a riddle is a riddle and not the answer to the riddle.

For Lucretia .. naturally we recognized Lucretia from the Tarquinus Superbus story. But we didn't know then about Ercole's daughter Lucretia and that throws a new aspect on the other Boiardo riddle: when he wrote the poem?

In any case, if someone has done all that work identifying the passages to which Boiardo was actually referring, as you claim, I would LOVE to see it!

PLEASE SHARE IT WITH US!

What we had, was in Tarotpedia (on the discussion pages) or perhaps it's partly in one of our Boiardo-articles here. Anyway, it's reconstructable ... there is Google.
Marco contributed the most difficult figures, as far I remember.

 

[Huck]

It's not that difficult to capture the basic data of the used persons by google. Here are the most difficult Trumps-character, captured in a few minutes


http://www.livius.org/man-md/massinissa/massinissa.html
Massinissa - Sophonisbe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertia_Aemilia
Emilia - Scipio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermnestra
Hypermnestra

http://collection.aucklandartgaller...93E09FE299984A6?view=detail&db=object&id=3024
Antiochus - Stratonica

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardanapalus
http://engphil.astate.edu/gallery/sardan.html
Sardanapalus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido
Dido / Elice

 

[mjhurst]

Hi, Huck,

That's a nice idea .. we had them all in the discussion pages of the poem in Tarotpedia.

That's it?

http://tarotpedia.com/wiki/Talk:Boiardo_Tarocchi_Poem:_Chapter_5_-_Triompho_Del_Vano_Mondo

Nobody hinders you to look for them, if you think, that we ignored them. It's difficult to get them in an interesting insightful context as a group. As single entries about specific stories they are recognizable. .. but the total context is "Boiardo's riddle" and a riddle is a riddle and not the answer to the riddle.

Given the way you dismissed my earlier comments as old news, I assumed that someone had given the poem, it's content and design some consideration, that is, made some progress toward solving what you call the "riddle". Apparently the answer to my question, "what have you learned" in terms of analyzing the poems, is "not much".

In January of 2006, when you started this thread, you were very outspoken in denigrating all the playing-card historians, "everyone" who, according to you, had overlooked Boiardo. You were also quite outspoken about the great insights that awaited us. Now, nearly two years later, and when asked "what have we learned", all you can say is "Nobody hinders you to look"?

If, as you suggest, no one has offered any meaningful analysis beyond the trivial aspect of identifying the figures, (i.e., reading the translated poem and Googling the names), then I think that my earlier post might offer precisely such an "interesting insightful context as a group" in which the individual figures and their stories can be approached. That is, if anyone is interested in the actual subject matter of the poems.

Regarding the place of the poems in Tarot history, that too has yielded nothing new? So Moakley, Hoffmann, Kaplan, Mann, Dummett, et al. didn't overlook anything significant to playing-card history after all?

 

[Huck]

Hi, Huck,
That's it?
http://tarotpedia.com/wiki/Talk:Boiardo_Tarocchi_Poem:_Chapter_5_-_Triompho_Del_Vano_Mondo

Yes, and there should be others in the others chapters

Given the way you dismissed my earlier comments as old news, I assumed that someone had given the poem, it's content and design some consideration, that is, made some progress toward solving what you call the "riddle". Apparently the answer to my question, "what have you learned" in terms of analyzing the poems, is "not much".

Michael quoting Cerulean:
Originally Posted by Cerulean
Trump 21 - Fortezza (Strength)
I am thinking that Lucretia Borgia who married Alfonso in 1502 might have been too late for the tarocchi poem?
...

Here's the poetic reference I'm considering in terms of Lucrezia:

Inner strength make happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net.
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour. "


Actually Cerulean wrote:
Trump 21 - Fortezza (Strength)
I am thinking that Lucretia Borgia who married Alfonso in 1502 might have been too late for the tarocchi poem? It is true in 1519 she wrote a sadly beautiful letter that is historically cited that shows clearly she knew she was mortally ill...this was after giving birth to the last of her eight children by Alfonso and it was sadly wasting and long infection. Let me suggest someone else closer to the time and D'Estensi clan:

Ercole had a natural daughter named Lucretia born before 1473, whom his kindly Elenora helped raise. Tuohy says "..arriving in Ferarrra at the young age of twenty-three, she accepeted Lucrezia, an illegitimate daughter of Ercole, as her own..." Later, Ercole visited Lucrezia after her marriage to Anibale II (1469-1540), a ruler in Bologna in 1487 and also 1492 on the way to Florence and Rome.

"A son of Giovanni II, Annibale II married Lucrezia d'Este in 1487. He served as a condottiero. In rebellion against Julius II, he reentered Bologna in 1511 with the help of the French and ruled for only a year. He was hated by other rival families, such as the Ghisilieri and the Canetoli, and was subsequently assassinated."

In exile, the Bentivoglio family established themselves in Ferrara and produced several important prelates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentivoglio

Such a "noble" widow would be much admired by courtly standards, even if she had to live with her maternal relatives in exile.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the poetic reference I'm considering in terms of Lucrezia:

Italian text
Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua fama
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,
---
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
....


Michael wrote as answer to Cerulean:

I'm not sure what you are looking for. Boiardo's reference here, like most of the others, is pretty clear and, like the others, describes a classical figure, not a contemporaneous one. The subject of the verse is the Roman noblewoman Lucretia, who famously killed herself and thereby indirectly created the Roman Republic. She was a hugely popular figure in art and literature, and a moral exemplar from ancient times.

Huck wrote also to Cerulean (long before Michael), quoting her really new information about Lucretia, Ercole's daughter:

Great information, I didn't know that.

But Lucretia had the top position in the deck ... we have to calculate the possibility, that the poem was made for this till now not reflected "unknown" Lucretia. ... and in this case the whole was done in 1487 and made for the marriage of Lucretia. The fifth possibility now.
...

Michael wrote (in the same post, in which he quoted Cerulean):

I'm not sure what you are looking for. Boiardo's reference here, like most of the others, is pretty clear and, like the others, describes a classical figure, not a contemporaneous one. The subject of the verse is the Roman noblewoman Lucretia, who famously killed herself and thereby indirectly created the Roman Republic. She was a hugely popular figure in art and literature, and a moral exemplar from ancient times.

(and more about the general poem, more or less repeating the poem, mentioning the pairing principle, which I'd explained ... already repeating earlier variants of the explanation, just to keep the recent reader informed ... some posts ago, actually in post 40 after Michael jumped in post 26)


Huck wrote to Michael:
Hi Michael,

... ... you're not at the head of the argument; we had already mentioned the general pairing of the trumps and also mentioned already who is who of the classical figures ... long ago ... so Lucretia with her sharp instrument was naturally identified, too.
...
Thanks to Mari's suggestion now a fifth possibility enterred, which refers to the marriage of Lucretia, Ercole's illegitimate daughter (a person which might be easily overlooked), who married 1487 the son of Giovanni Bentivoglio, tyrant in Bologna - which actually seems to have good chances to be the right one.

In January of 2006, when you started this thread, you were very outspoken in denigrating all the playing-card historians, "everyone" who, according to you, had overlooked Boiardo.

I surely also pointed to the work of the Boiardo group since 2003 and suggested to translate this stuff. Actually the point was, that we still hadn't a translation or only a partly translation, although the poem was more than 500 years old. The translation was then done as a result of this activity, so be happy.
And the post was surely to Marco, who was new to the theme and as Italian had far better possibilities than all not-Italians in the earlier Boiardo-group to make the translation.

You were also quite outspoken about the great insights that awaited us. Now, nearly two years later, and when asked "what have we learned", all you can say is "Nobody hinders you to look"?

Oh, Michael,
... you jumped just in an interesting discussion about a totally different point, just another Lucretia, and wished to tell us, that Lucretia is Lucretia. And my correct quotation "Nobody hinders you to look, if you think, that we ignored them" was my reply to:

Michael: However, I'm still missing the point. These things are not to be mentioned and then disregarded. These things are the substance of the poems. What I don't understand is 1) why those things are being ignored rather than followed up on, and 2) what you are currently looking for in place of the intended meaning of the trumps? If you know about the Lucretia Boiardo was referring to, (which you admitted, in passing, in January of last year), what are you now looking for?

{b]... where you gave me the understanding, that you still hadn't gotten the point of a second Lucretia. [/b]

If, as you suggest, no one has offered any meaningful analysis beyond the trivial aspect of identifying the figures, (i.e., reading the translated poem and Googling the names), then I think that my earlier post might offer precisely such an "interesting insightful context as a group" in which the individual figures and their stories can be approached. That is, if anyone is interested in the actual subject matter of the poems.

As far I know, the pairing principle, that you offered in your post ...

1. Idleness 2. Labor
3. Desire 4. Reason
5. Secrecy 6. Grace
7. Disdain 8. Patience
9. Error 10. Perseverance
11. Doubt 12. Faith
13. Deception 14. Wisdom
15. Chance 16. Modesty
17. Peril 18. Experience
19. Time 20. Oblivion

..., was published by autorbis in the year 2003 here:

http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/boiardo.html

.. and I'm not aware, that it was mentioned somewhere else before (perhaps you know of somebody, and it wouldn't matter, because it's just the right idea, and right ideas are occasinally in the head of various persons)

... and the existence of the Italian text of the Boiardo text in the web, presented by Hans-Joachim Alscher, was announced by autorbis short before he suggested to translate the poem in the TarotL-group ... and it seemed then, that the Alscher-page was completely unknown then to the other members, at least nobody stated, that the info was not new.

Regarding the place of the poems in Tarot history, that too has yielded nothing new? So Moakley, Hoffmann, Kaplan, Mann, Dummett, et al. didn't overlook anything significant to playing-card history after all?

Correct, Michael. The poem is just in the old state, as it was. And Boiardo is now 513 years dead. And the Tarot started as a standard deck ...

And when you quote me on that, don't suppress the ".... "

 

[Huck]

Hi Mari,

Just going back to the 18-figures-theme:

I made some research about 18 figures (see the other thread "18 figures ...") and from that it's obvious, the Tommaso di Saluzzo was not the first with it ... though, there is nothing mentioned in Italy about it. He might have been the first in Italy. Considering, that the paintings were commissioned by his illegitimate son Valderano between 1418 - 1430, a time, when Riccarda (Ercole's mother) was probably there and lived in her childhood with these pictures on their way to find an existence, one should assume, that the pictures were of importance to her.

1430/31 she married Niccolo, just, when the work was finished. Perhaps she filled the childhood of Ercole with the stories she'd heard at home.

Ercole was strucked with the knight ideals much more than his elder brothers, likely it's true, that he was attracted by it. Ercole and his brother Sigismondo were made knights by the Emperor, when they were very young (1433) ... likely they were told this story often enough, when they grew up.

His education as condottieri of the family likely added a few things. He was in Burgund and surely he saw there tapestries with the neuf preux and neuf preuse.

Boiardo must have been engaged by the circumstance, that Tommaso was a noble man AND poet (like himself). Boiardo took the Orlando-theme (so he took Charlemain in the neuf prex, but .. also he took something of Pulci likely) ... and he made the Tarocchi poem and used the 18 figures - concept somehow in it.

But the really relevant thing is the dating. I must say, that the discovery of the Lucretia-solution (1487) looks more promising than the 1473 date.

Although we don't know much about this Lucretia, we know much about her husband, Annibale Bentivoglio by condottieridiventura.it. It's described, that he was in his youth already often in Ferrara (already in 1478 the marriage was suggested) and it's described, that the marriage was a great feast and also that Annibale went from feast to feast in the early 90's ... one should likely assume, with his wife Lucretia.

It seems, that a late son of her (I wished I find a genealogy of the Bentivoglio) became one of the better Italian poets ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=ta...entivoglio&as_brr=1&ei=SkNfR5OBFZHIsQOumv2WBA

... Hercules Bentivoglio, likely called after his grandfather. Her lived most time in Ferrara, as the Bentivoglio's were driven out of Bologna. A poet as son might indicate, that the mother had something to do with poetry ... which might strengthen the assumption, that there was a Tarocchi poem at her wedding.

It's curious, that the Bentivoglio family one year after Lucretia entered the family (1487), in 1488 a sister of Annibale caused a "Lucretia-like" adventure in the Bentivoglio-family: she killed not herself, but her husband, which had some dramatic consequences with Annibale's father captured in Faenza and nearly a war, but was finally relatively peaceful solved by the negotiations of Lorenzo di Medici.

Bentivoglio with his influence in Bologna shouldn't have had a problem to produce a woodcut deck in 1487, of which one might fallen into the gands of Viti, who brought it to Urbino. Viti not naturally must have known, that it was
made for Lucretia, perhaps such things were forgotten soon. And for the Este a lot of other festivities were going on, so that the rememberance culd have stayed short.

So I would think, that there are good chances, that 1487 could be the right moment for the poem.

Boiardo was in Ferrara mainly 1475 - 1480 ... Lucretia was the oldest child ( when we think only of Hercule's children, and perhaps 5-10 years old then. So she could capture a little bit the poetical spirit, which she later gave to her son. And Boiardo, whose children were likely young, too, had to do with the children, so perhaps he had a real relation to Lucretia, so that he took her marriage serious.

 

[mjhurst]

Hi, Huck,

Actually Cerulean wrote:...

Many interesting things not directly relevant to my question. Every quote is more or less out of context. Problems only arise when things are misleadingly taken out of context, distorted, or falsified. For example, you quoted a lot of material here, but still managed to make it amazingly misleading.

Conversely, I quoted a small piece of one example, simply as background for a general question. No more was needed. None of the additional details you re-posted were relevant to my question, which you still failed to address. Boiardo wrote about the ancient Roman Lucretia, so my question was, why are you so interested in other Lucretias? My question was NOT about Lucretia Borgia in particular, so the details of that are wholly beside the point... as are the details of any other Lucretia that Boiardo did not write about.

That question (along with others I've asked recently) has not yet been answered, so I'll repeat some of them in this post. I'm just curious 1) why you are spending so much time discussing things that Boiardo was NOT referring to, and 2) so little time talking about his poems. What is there about these apparently unrelated subjects that is so much more interesting than the poems themselves?

Thanks to Mari's suggestion now a fifth possibility enterred, which refers to the marriage of Lucretia, Ercole's illegitimate daughter (a person which might be easily overlooked), who married 1487 the son of Giovanni Bentivoglio, tyrant in Bologna - which actually seems to have good chances to be the right one.

The "right one" for what? That was my initial question, which you still have not understood, much less answered. How do you decide "rightness" when you are talking about every Lucretia except the right one? Isn't any other Lucretia an arbitrary selection? Or does this game of 21st century appropriati have rules that make some impositions better than others?

If you want to look for other Lucretias, or impose fortune-telling and Cabalistic themes on Boiardo, that's all fine. He's dead and doesn't care what new meanings you impose. I happen to find the original content interesting, especially a figure like Lucretia, with such a prominent place legend and history and art and literature, but each to their own.

I surely also pointed to ...

Many things that were not asked about nor relevant to the questions asked.

As far I know, the pairing principle, that you offered in your post ...
..., was published by autorbis in the year 2003 here:

http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/boiardo.html

Indeed. Unlike the Cabalistic imposition that overshadows it on that page, the pairing is a valid insight into the design of the Boiardo trumps. (That page is sadly typical of the entire trionfi.com project, which hides much of its most valuable content beneath layers of unsubstantiated and biased speculation.) That page does acknowledge 1) the pairings, 2) that they are contrasting pairs, 3) that they are positive-negative pairs, 4) he gets them correct, and 5) he also notes that the Fool/World and Fortitude/Lucretia are a "greater" pair. This is all to the good. Lothar posted about it much more clearly, with less of the Cabalistic occultist bias (replaced by Pythagorean neo-occultist bias) on TarotL, in January of 2005.

Boiardo deck and Pythagoras
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/43639

In that post he wrote that Boiardo put negative subjects first and positive ones after, triumphing (although he didn't use that term) over the failings, and even pointed out that Strength triumphs over Folly (although again, not using that key term). That is a key design element of the Boiardo trumps, confirmed by the use of male versus female figures as exemplars.

Unfortunately, as with the current thread, that factual analysis was apparently not followed up on in a meaningful manner. The next step, after recognizing the general pattern, is to analyze each individual subject in terms of that design. I provided a couple examples of that, naturally using easy ones like Desire (Actaeon) and Reason (Laura), showing how it can be done. That, however, quickly becomes hard work and is extremely unlikely to yield really sexy results.

Instead of investigating the poem in more depth, Lothar began to day-dream, resurrecting the usual occult staples. "The kabbalistical Sephiroth-tree also knew beside the good 10 Sephiroth the 10 bad kelipot, so Boiardo reflects a scheme, that was also used in Kabbala." That's great, IF there is some historical basis for the reading those tens pairs of subjects in that fashion, or if one simply making a modern revisioning of Boiardo. However, Lothar failed to offer evidence supporting that reading, either then nor since then, AFAIK.

.. and I'm not aware, that it was mentioned somewhere else before (perhaps you know of somebody, and it wouldn't matter, because it's just the right idea, and right ideas are occasinally in the head of various persons)

Yes, many good ideas -- especially simple ones -- tend to be obvious. Boiardo was considerate of his audience by making the first pairing dead easy: Idleness and Labor. The good/bad aspect is equally obvious, as is the fact that the odd-numbered figures are male and the even-numbered ones female. (Some others are very obscure.) However, just because they are obvious does not mean that they are unimportant, nor that the first writer to point that out should not be cited. Who else might have referred to it more explicitly? Someone who has read Renier, Dummett's 1973 article, and other relevant works, would be in a better position to comment. However, although Lothar is probably where I got the idea, Viti appears to have alluded to it in his commentary, where one of the even-numbered comments refers to the previous odd-numbered subject.

In addition to sometimes coming up with the same ideas as earlier researchers, researchers also review the literature in their field and acknowledge those earlier researchers. That's what I did a couple paragraphs ago -- it's not that hard. On the one hand, I don't know if that pairing idea was original with Lothar, because I haven't reviewed the literature and my memory sucks. On the other hand, I'm reasonably confident that I got the idea from him. (If someone remembers or can look it up, please do so.) So when you ask, I'm happy to acknowledge that. (If it weren't for his practice of ignoring his own intellectual debts, just as you claim they don't matter, I would assume that it originated with him. However, because he routinely fails to mention those who went before him, that cannot be assumed.)

In the world of popular books, it has always been common to simply repeat ideas, sometimes (like Diane and the geographical game or ars memoria) even claiming to be the originator of those ideas, rather than looking up and citing earlier sources. That practice should always be condemned by anyone claiming to be doing serious research, as you claim to be doing. Instead, you rationalize it, "it wouldn't matter". It does matter. That's an important aspect of how researchers build upon what has gone before.

... and the existence of the Italian text of the Boiardo text in the web, presented by Hans-Joachim Alscher, was announced by autorbis short before he suggested to translate the poem in the TarotL-group ... and it seemed then, that the Alscher-page was completely unknown then to the other members, at least nobody stated, that the info was not new.

Yes, Alscher has put a number of original-language transcriptions online. These are a great standing resource for the literate, as Ross posted to TarotL back in August of 2002. Ross stated how pleased he was to find Renier's article on Alscher's site, and Ross also described Foa's book with the poems and Viti's commentary.

Early Card Divination
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/31789

Correct, Michael. The poem is just in the old state, as it was....

Ah, irony... how cute. However, if you have to lie about someone to make the joke work, it isn't really that amusing.

Did I suggest that "The poem is just in the old state, as it was", or are you confused, or... what? You keep suggesting that I don't know anything about this four year project, that I've just stumbled across it this week. Is that your only response to a simple question -- suggest that I'm too ignorant to deserve an answer?

For the record, I have been paying attention for four years. I have recently reviewed the relevant threads on TarotL, all of the Boiardo list posts, and the main Boiardo threads on Aeclectic, as well as some of the hidden discussions on Tarotpedia (discussions that unfortunately never produced any results being written up for a Tarotpedia article). So although I asked you the question, I've also been spending more than a couple hours looking for an answer as well. And although I had no language skills to contribute to the real work of translating Boiardo, Viti, Renier, etc., I have been a cheerleader and posted repeatedly on the translations, attempting to draw attention to them, to encourage others to take an interest, and to discuss what their design was.

I didn't say anything like "the poem is just in the old state", and in fact, when I asked "what has been learned", the question was explicitly about things you mentioned or alluded to "in addition to the translations" themselves. Naturally the translations of Boiardo and Viti are a great boon to hobbyists like myself, and naturally we can read them and "look for ourselves", as you snidely pointed out. But ignoring my question and telling us to look for ourselves is an implicit answer to my question: it suggests that you have found nothing worth reporting. I am still not making that assumption, but instead asking you, again, what findings have been made? Here was my original question:

You mention things in addition to the translation, and a lot of background research has been done regarding historical persons, events, other decks, and so on. Rather than further scattering ideas randomly here and there, it might be profitable at this point to collect the information together, sort it out a bit, do some critical thinking and see what conclusions, if any, might be supported. The brainstorming and background reading has been been going on for four years, and now -- with the public unveiling of a completed translation -- it seems like a good time to reflect on what has been learned, if anything.

We, meaning a small group of hobbyists on the Web, have access to the poems in an English translation, and also a translation, of sorts, for Viti's commentary. That's great, for us illiterate amateurs.

In January of 2003 Lothar suggested on TarotL that Boiardo's poems be translated, and others, most notably those on the Boiardo Group, kept rekindling the notion. Along the way, things like Jane Cocker's partial translation also arrived on the scene. Being illiterate myself, I appreciated these efforts greatly, and when they came to my attention I promoted them on TarotL and attempted to show them in the context of Tarot history and the larger context of the Stoic-Christian tradition. For example, this post was nearly three years ago, in January of 2005, borrowing from Cocker's translation.

The Four Passions (Boethius, Aquinas, Petrarch, Boiardo, etc.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/43570

In late January of 2006, Ross and Marco started putting their translations online. When this result was brought to my attention in August of 2006, (a passing mention in a TarotL post by Kwaw) I spent some time summarizing, analyzing, and promoting it on the TarotL mailing list. I thought the translation was VERY valuable, that the poems were FAR from "just in the old state", and I made a big deal about it, attempting to explain the pips, the court cards, the trumps, and to make the translation seem more meaningful.

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: the wiki approach and Tarot history (1 of 7)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50637

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: The Boiardo-Viti deck in Tarot history (2 of 7)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50650

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: Boiardo's poems (3 of 7)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50646

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: The Boiardo-Viti trumps (4 of 7)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50648

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: The Boiardo-Viti Suits (5 of 7)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50645

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: Viti's game (6 of 7)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50638

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: The Four Passions (7 of 7)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50651

Boiardo-Viti Tarot: additional reference on Tarotpedia
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/50649

So, as is so often the case, you are making claims about what I've written that are not merely false in some minor way, but the exact opposite of the truth. I'm not completely new to the project, and I never made the statement you seem to be claiming.

What I did was ask you a question. Because you are the one who complained about the supposed ignorance of playing-card historians, because you are the one who claimed that great insights were going to be presented, and because you were more actively involved in the project for these four years, I asked you what had been learned. As an example, I would again point to the earlier post where I offered a context for interpreting the individual trumps. That appears to be a significant step forward, at least when stripped of the occult trappings in which it was previously disguised.

What else?

 

[Huck]

Hi, Huck,
(... here was a quote of Huck, see post 55 ... )

Many interesting things not directly relevant to my question. Every quote is more or less out of context. Problems only arise when things are misleadingly taken out of context, distorted, or falsified.

Yes, and the deleted quotations showed, how such an effect was caused by your posts.

For example, you quoted a lot of material here, but still managed to make it amazingly misleading.

Conversely, I quoted a small piece of one example, simply as background for a general question. No more was needed. None of the additional details you re-posted were relevant to my question, which you still failed to address. Boiardo wrote about the ancient Roman Lucretia, so my question was, why are you so interested in other Lucretias? My question was NOT about Lucretia Borgia in particular, so the details of that are wholly beside the point... as are the details of any other Lucretia that Boiardo did not write about.

That question (along with others I've asked recently) has not yet been answered, so I'll repeat some of them in this post. I'm just curious 1) why you are spending so much time discussing things that Boiardo was NOT referring to, and 2) so little time talking about his poems.

Just to answer your question 1.

In post 29 you personally showed interest in the theme of Boiardo.

In post 30 I answered your posts directly, including 4 theories to the dating-problem of the Boiardo-poem

... you missed to answer this post till 16 posts later ...

in post 47 you asked in a manner about Lucretia, which indicated, that you totally misunderstood the context of the meanwhile developed discussion about a 5th possibility to solve the dating-problem

.. so you got in my post 48 the initial statement

"Hi Michael,
... ... you're not at the head of the argument"

So, if you're really interested to get an answer to your question 1, you've to go back and read post 29 and post 30.

And to your question Nr. 2:

We found it for the moment just interesting enough to follow the idea, which had developed in our discussion. The marriage of Lucretia in 1487 seems to offer an interesting answer to the dating-problem.

For your later note to the life-tree-structure in
http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/boiardo.html

We, Mari and me, inside the posts 31-46 also discussed a possible context between the Castle-Manta-paintings, the 9 preux/9 preuse and the 10 pairs-structuring in the Boiardo-poem. As you may observe, at least the 9 preux have a similar 3x3 structure: 3 pagans, 3 Jews, 3 Christians.

And as the dating possibilities meanwhile has reached the year 1487 ... Boiardo was the elder cousin to Pico de Mirandola, who had much trouble with kabbalism in 1486 ... the evaluation, if some sort of kabbalistic experimentation took place with the poem, isn't so stupid.

One of the first Christian kabbalistic texts of Reuchlin considered the discussion of Christian, a Jew, and a Muslim. The idea is not too far of the neuf preux concept.

...

Instead of investigating the poem in more depth, Lothar began to day-dream, resurrecting the usual occult staples. "The kabbalistical Sephiroth-tree also knew beside the good 10 Sephiroth the 10 bad kelipot, so Boiardo reflects a scheme, that was also used in Kabbala." That's great, IF there is some historical basis for the reading those tens pairs of subjects in that fashion, or if one simply making a modern revisioning of Boiardo. However, Lothar failed to offer evidence supporting that reading, either then nor since then, AFAIK.

What sort of evidence you're asking for, evidence for the kelipot or similar? Here it is described, likely somehow simplified:

http://www.meta-religion.com/Esoterism/Kabbalah/qelippot.htm

The interpretation of the kelipot seems to vary from school to school (also the writing of the word). It seems, that some speak only of 4 kelipot, but then there are 7 negative palaces. What they do think in detail ... ask them.

Most people talking about Kabbala forget to mention the kelipot, perhaps as the kelipot are not part of their concept or they even don't know them.

The basic concept seems to say, that the 10 "good" sephirot are negatively mirrored in the world of those, who lost connection to the divine context ...
so likely "the normal men as you and me", which believe in free will, democracy and other phantasies.

Lurianic interpretation - special part of Kabbala after Isaak Luria (died 1572) - can become rather complex, so any talking about it becomes necessarily a simplification in the eyes of somebody else.

Basically the thing starts with Adam Kadmon and the zimzum (a sort of cosmic contraction, which opened the possibility, how the "one" could contain "something") and the problem, how god generated a world "independent from him" (or not really independent from him, which somehow is not possible). There are the 10 sephiroth and energies flows through them (and the whole is Adam Kadmon). Then there is the break of the vessels (288 sparks of light explode, 6 of the vessels=Sephiroth break) and the order of the things is turned by a cosmic catastrophe, which gives an effect through various stages of the tree (4-world-tree in Kabbala). Finally ... the situation has stranded in "real life" (as we know it), anything is wrong and the whole has to be restored, that is God should be recognized again in his full splendour and all this bad weather and people, who don't understand each other in emaillists, is over then.

So the matter is about an observed problem (the world) and the solution to the problem (overcome world). Finally everything is back in the "one" and we (or the one) can discuss the nature of the "next universe".

 

[Huck]

The Fool on his donkey ...

Boiardo in his poem has the "asino", it's not only part of the picture description.

"... Portarti un fol su l'asino presume ..."

Andrea Vitali, following the Italian ways of the Fool iconography, has No Fool with donkey.

http://www.trionfi.com/0/i/v/
click left navigation on Fool

The Ship of Fools, Basel 1494, and with this in time not too far away from 1487, the marriage Lucretia d'Este - Annibale Bentivoglio, has a lots fools, naturally and a lot of donkeys:

see also:

http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/germanica/Chronologie/15Jh/Brant/bra_n000.html

Likely it's possible to assume that "Fool with donkey" is more "German iconography" than Italian, perhaps just cause the donkey had been a more common animal in southern countries and in Germany cause its rarity possibly was "just funny" as an unusual view.

Nonetheless, Boiardo, Italian author, was an Italian and used the fol with asino ... but with a view on the court of Charlemain (Orlando), that is with an eye and interest on northern customs.

Bologna, not too far away, 25-30 km, was full of German printers, also those who engaged in playing card design. In Bologna reigned the Bentivoglio family, which Lucretia d'Este, oldest daughter of duke Ercole of Ferrara had joined.

Lucretia was not a small member of this family.

When it came to the great marriage of Lucretia, one of the most eminent marriages of the time, then it was Annibale Bentivoglio (Lucretia d'Este's husband), who on horse accompanied Alfonso d'Este, the husband in spe on the triumphal entry to Ferrara of the other Lucretia, daughter of pope Borgia.

And Lucretia d'Este herself also twice got important functions during this festivity. She had the right to welcome her for the night, which according the customs of the time Lucretia Borgia had to spend outside of the city (just for practical reasons, she had to look "very good" and not exhausted from the journey, when she arrived) ...

"To the strains of music and the thunder of cannon the cavalcade proceeded to the Borgo S. Luca, where they all descended. Lucretia took up her residence in the palace of Alberto d'Este, Ercole's illegitimate brother. Here she was received by Lucretia Bentivigolio, natural daughter of Ercole, and numerous ladies of her court."

and she was the first to welcome her, when she arrived after the triumphal entry.

"She was greeted at the stairway by Lucretia, Ercole's natural daughter, wife of Annibale Bentivoglio ..."

Although in both scenes it was observed by the etiquette, that Lucretia was welcomed before by Isabella d'Este, the legitimate "great" daughter of the house, it seems that the elder Lucretia d'Este was honoured with the more central positions, somehow as if it was she, that replaced the passed Eleanor d'Aragon, the mother of Isabella as "First Lady" in Ferrara (although she lived in Bologna, as Isabella lived in Mantova, both with their husbans).


In the question, if Boiardo made the poem for Lucretia d'Este's marriage it was a question, if this more or unless unknown and unobserved person was important enough (everybody knows Isabella d'Este, the "great dame" of Italy, but Lucretia s'Este .. who is that?). Analyses of the details of the pompous festivity in February 1502 give the answer: yes, she was important enough.

Likely she was a silent major craft behind the organization of the festivity, and Isabella spend a lot of her time about the question, who was the greater beuty, herself or the bride, and writing nasty reporting letters to her husband, what went wrong in the festivity, that the music was not good enough, and a lot of these fine details about Lucretia, which appear in the mind, when women have a strong competive ideal, so she appears in this context just as a somewhat egocentric though clever idiot and a complicated person.

But she's not the theme, actually also not Lucretia Borgia in all her splendour.

Lucretia d'Este was important (enough), also her husband Annibale Bentivoglio.

The Fool on his donkey .. were there Italian representations of the Fool with donkey ... before Boiardo?

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Hi Huck,

Bernardino already knew of the ironic use of the Donkey (Ass) imagery. Ass' ears are present on the earliest surviving cards of the Wheel of Fortune. I don't know much about it, but surely Apuleius' "Golden Ass" (aka Metamorphosis) had something to do with it. I think the Ass as a symbol for the human condition - not just folly, but everything about it - goes back quite a way.

Here's what Bernardino said about the wheel of Fortune he saw. It obviously wasn't the card.

From Lina Bolzoni, "The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from its Origins to Saint Bernardino da Siena" (Ashgate, 2004 (translation of original Italian edition, 2001).

[From Lina BOLZONI, "The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from its Origins to Saint Bernardino da Siena" (Ashgate, 2004), pp. 161-163, endnotes with bibliography inserted]

[[p. 161]]

On 27 August 1427 in the Campo di Siena, Bernardino dedicated his sermon to the different moments in which God judges us for our sins.

"And when He passes [His judgements], he turns the world upside down: 'Vox tonitrui tui in rota' [Ps. 77:19 (Vulgate Ps. 76)]; the voice of God is in the wheel. Have you ever seen the wheel of fortune, and its various figures? I have seen it, and with six figures. First, at the bottom, the figures all man, but in ascending higher his head turns into a donkey's head. And then, rising even higher he becomes half man, half donkey, and at the summit he has turned completely into a donkey, and plays the bagpipes. Then the wheel sends him, head first, down the other side and he has the head of a man and the rest of him is a donkey. And further down he becomes half man and half donkey, and then at the bottom he is all man again." (n. 140: Siena, 1427, I, pp. 401-402)

Bernardino is describing here a variant of the Wheel of Fortune, an extremely popular motif in the visual arts and religious playes ever since the eleventh century (n. 141: Doren, Alfred, "Fortuna im Mittelalter und der Renaissance", in Vorlage der Bibliothek Warburg, 1, (Leipzig, 1924), pp. 85-86); Mâle, Emile, "Religious Art in France, The Late Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval Iconography and its Sources (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986), vols. II, IV; Novati, Francesco, "Fresci e minii del Dugento, con l'aggiunta d'un capitolo medito su: origini e sviluppo dei themi iconografici nell'alto Medioevo" (Milan, Cogliati, 1925), pp. 307-308 and 369-370; Kurose, Tamostu and Chirodo-Ku (eds.), "Miniatures of Goddess Fortune in Mediaeval Manuscripts" (Tokyo, 1977); Pomarici, Francesco, "Fortuna" in _Enciclopedia dell'arte medievale" (Roma, 1995), vol. I, pp. 321-5. On the various uses of the wheel of fortune, see Nelson, Alan H., "Mechanical Wheels of Fortune, 1100-1547", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XLIII (1980), 227-33.). He underlines that he has seen it with his very own eyes and describes in detail the six figures that could be found on it. He uses this device to translate into a visual image the concordance which he has just created between two verses from the Psalms; the first verse speaks of the ruins which God will send (Psalm 110:6) 'implebit ruinas, et conquassabit capita in terra multorum. Iudicabit in nationibus' (He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries); while the second (Psalm 77:9) declares that the voice of divine thunder is in the wheel.

This impressive but obscure biblical image is interpreted literally by Bernardino, who uses the opportunity to link the divine wheel to a well-known image, declaring that the terrible voice of divine judgement will express itself, and express itself many times over, in various forms, by means of the Wheel of Fortune. The 'ruins' prophesied by the Bible, are many, and six are the figures, so carefully described by the preacher, on the wheel.

In the version of the Wheel of Fortune cited by Bernardino, the image of the donkey takes the place of the more usual image of the King; in both cases however the purpose is to suggest in visual form the two extremes of the human condition. The triumphant figure which sits at the top of the wheel - 'at the summit he has turned completely into a donkey, and plays bagpipes' - expresses in radical form the complete inversion in man's state that could occur at any time by a whim of fate; man's human side has been completely taken over by his animal component. At the same time, as Bronzini noted, Bernardino is here reviving a very ancient motif - that of the donkey playing a musical instrument - as a burlesque symbol of the world turned upsidedown (n. 142: Giovanni Battista Bronzini, "Le prediche di Bernardino e le tradizioni popolari del suo tempo", in AA.VV. "Bernardino predicatore nella società del suo tempo", Atti del XVI convegno del Centro di Studi sulla Spiritualità Medievale (Todi, Accademica Tudentina, 1976) pp. 111-152 (see p. 133). On the motif of the donkey playing the musical instrument, see Cocchiara, Giuseppe, "Il mondo alla rovescia" (Turin, Boringhieri, 1963), chapter II, pp. 38-48; Vogel, M. "Onas Lyras" (Dusseldorf, 1973); Garnier, François, "L'ane à la lyre: sottiser d'iconographie médiévale" (Paris, Le Léopard d'Or, 1988). In a sermon delivered in Florence in 1425, the preacher gives a very precise description of a wheel of fortune (affirming once again that he had seen it with his own eyes) in which the donkey is present although it is not playing an instrument:
'And man becomes a donkey as he becomes important; and above all when a poor man becomes rich. Is he rich? Then he is a very great donkey! As a sign of this, I once saw a wheel of fortune in which there was one who was beginning to mount up, and he had a donkey's head; when he was halfway up, he became half-donkey; and when when was at the summit he became all donkey. The the wheel began to turn downwards, and his head became a man's; when he was halfway down he became half a man, and when he reached the bottom he became all man (Florence, 1425, III, p. 128).

A wheel of fortune similar to the one described by Bernardino (n. 143: Delcorno (n. 107 on p. 401 in Siena 1427, I) points out that the description by Bernardino corresponds point for point with a woodblock illustration contained in a German translation of Petrarch's _De remediis utriusque fortunae_ (Augsburg, 1532) and with the miniature paintings and illustrations to _De casibus_ by Boccaccio, the _Trionfi_ by Petrarch, and the _Acerba_ by Cecco d'Ascoli; he refers the reader to Doren (1924 (n. 141 above)), pl. IV, 11C and to Kurose adn Chirodu-Ku (1977 (n. 141 above) pls. 128, 129, 130 and 132. In addition, see Burdach, Konrad, "Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation", _Forschung zur Geschichte der Deutschen Bildung_ (Berlin, Weidmann, 1917), III-I, 247, 271ff.) (with only three figures, but at the top of the wheel is a donkey playing a musical instrument) appears in one of the illustrations to the 1498 edition (published in Paris by Marnef; the artist responsible for the engravings is

[[p. 162; most of page is taken up by an illustration of Brandt's Wheel of Fortune]]

unknown) of the _Ship of Fools_, a highly popular work by the humanist and expert in law of Strasbourg, Sebastian Brandt (1457-1521)(fig. 4.8). This was a poem of more than two thousand verses written in Alsatian dialect and first published in 1494. It was then translated into Latin - with the title _Stultifera Navis_ - in 1497 by one of Brandt's students, Jakob Locher.

Travelling aboard Brandt's ship are a variety of fools; described and mercilessly pilloried by the author, at the end of the book they furnish us with a complete cross-section of humanity. Each fool is illustrated in a n engraving and one of these depicts the 'donkey version' of the Wheel of Fortune (n. 144 - illustration above).

[[p. 163]]

Bernardino must have seen and adapted an earlier form of this image, part of a long tradition that continues in the text and illustrations to the _Ship of Fools_.

It is difficult to determine exactly when and where Bernardino might have seen the image of the wheel to which he refers. We do know that in 1428; just a short time after his sermon, a Wheel of Fortune very like the one described by him was used in the decoration of a door within the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena. It appears, as Maria Monica Donato notes, in 'one of the marqueteries of the door between the Cappella dei Signori and the Sala di Balia, paid for by Domenico di Niccolò in 1428.' (n. 145: Donato, M.-M., "Un ciclo pittorico ad Ascanio (Siena) Palazzo Pubblico e l'iconografia 'politica' alla fine del medioevo", _Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa_, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, s. III, XVIII, pp. 1105-1271). In this work four figures corresponding to the four spokes of the wheel can be seen accompanied by traditional mottoes: the figure designated 'regnarò' (I will reign) has the head of a donkey; while the one labelled 'regno' (I reign) and placed at the summit of the wheel is a donkey from head to toe.

Regarding the enduring popularity of the image of the wheel, we cannot fail to mention the _Seventh Satire_ of Ludovico Ariosto, written in 1523. "I shall not allow myself ot be misled by the will-o'-the-wisp of hope any longer", wrote the poet to explain why he had decided not to accept the Duke of Ferrara's invitation to become ambassador at the court of the newly-elected pope, Clement VII:

"I am dismayed by that painted wheel, which every master of playing cards designs in the same way: I do not see how such unanimity can lie. The top man on the wheel is portrayed as a donkey: every one understands the riddle without having to call on the Sphinx to resolve it. There one also sees all who ascend begin to grow donkey-like in their forward parts, while what hangs behind remains human."

(Quella ruota dipinta mi sgomenta,
Ch'ogni maestro di carte a un modo finge;
Tanta concordia non credo io che menta.
Quel che le siede in cima si dipinge
Uno asinello: ognum lo enigma intende,
Senza che chiami a interpretarlo Sfinge.
Vi si vede anco che ciascun che ascende,
Comincia a inasinir le prime membre
E resta umano quel che drieto pende.)

Here the concordance in the iconographic tradition - testified by the tarot - transforms the wheel with its donkeys into a mocking and exemplary warning that, Ariosto notes, we would do well to heed when making crucial decisions that could influence our lives.

(Despite Bolzoni's attempt to explain Bernardino's intention in bringing the image up (except for being inspired by the word "rota" in the Psalm), I'm still not clear on it. Something like "If you try to rise above your station, you'll make an ass out of yourself"? And that this is the judgment or "voice" of God?)

Besides its intrinsic interest, showing how the image was interpreted by Bernardino, it is interesting that he doesn't seem to know it from a card (unlike Ariosto in 1523), but the A or Southern type of decks has four figures that go from human to ass (the earliest ones anyway) and back (the earliest known B type does too I think). I was initially looking for how Bernardino might have spoken about the Virtues, since he apparently used the Lorenzetti "Allegory of Good and Bad Goverment" in his sermons, which includes depictions of virtues (I wanted to know if he explicitly cited Prudence as the "Charioteer of the Virtues" (Auriga Virtutum) which was a common motif in theological texts (invented, I think, by St. Bernard)).

Ross