Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

41
These first two items below have been talked about in depth here, so surprised they are missing from the current discussion:
1. The fool has goiter, which was read as a mark of the insane
2. Giotto's Foolishness holds a club and looks upwards like the manuscript depictions of the God-denying fool of Psalms 14 and 53; the most obvious influence on the PMB Fool is Giotto, ergo Psalms. Or as Giotto quite clearly conveyed - Foolishness or imprudence - this vice is directly opposite the virtue of Prudence.
3. The significance of the feathers for Giotto is most likely explained in Ruth Mellinkoff, “Demonic Winged Headgear,” Viator 16 (1985): 367–81.

What is depicted in the PMB Fool trump is not just a peasant, but the lowest of the low: an insane atheist, if not possessed. The PMB Fool is also auto-erotically charged (apparently in public, another reason to be wary of him) as he reaches for his genitals (at least indicates them). Why he would have had anything to do with a religious event - other than as the negation of religion - remains unsatisfactorily explained.

The PMB Fool is a cautionary tale, representative of the lowest order of the popolo: beware the easily mislead rabble, such as their anarchic manifestation in the Ciompi uprising (seen as such by the established guildsmen and magnates...or a Duke that had to "clean up the mess" of the Ambrosian Republic lead by a baker and a butcher at the end).

Take away knowledge of the past and thoughts of the future (i.e., 2 of the faces of 3-faced Prudence), and you have an imprudent man mindlessly living hand-to-mouth like a beast, only in the present.
Image
Image

One could even call the PMB Fool's hair "leonine", which leads us to Titian's allegory of prudence: EX PRAETERITO/PRAESENS PRUDENTER AGIT/NE FUTURA ACTIONẼ DETURPET (“From the experience of the past, the present acts prudently, lest it spoil future actions”).
Image

(the 3 animal heads of course do not originate with Titian but with Macrobius, Saturnalia, I, 20, 13-14, where he allegorically describes the cerberus associated with Sarapis as a symbol of time)
Last edited by Phaeded on 01 Mar 2017, 11:30, edited 3 times in total.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

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Hi there,
Just a few points for this interesting discussion(on the first day of lent)

I think you missed the (discarded) cards on the ground just below the pork-pie-hat carnival guy.
5 of spades? They don`t appear to be tarot cards, unfortunately!
Surely the queen of lent is a parody of Mother Church, beautifully satirised by Bruegel,as Mike has alluded to ,by ,on closer inspection looking like a man in drag!

Re, "Jugglers". The French word "Jongleurs" from which it is derived is the one that covers the magician of tarot. Look up Jongleurs. You will see they did a bit of everything. Juggling,acrobatics as well as sleight of hand and ,notably,recite bawdy verses. Their borderline anti-church/authority stance perfect for carnival
They were on the fringe of society and frequently in trouble with the authorities,as indeed all actors and performers throughout the period. (No Oscar ceremonies in those days!)

This brings in a point which Phaeded is making- the fool is definitely a bad guy in this scheme of things. He is literally beyond the pale(which meant beyond the fence of the town`s limit,where madmen and dogs roam).

Breugel,I believe has cast himself and his wife in the central figures. As Mike wrote,they are attempting to find their way through the battle without taking sides with either class of fool.
Don`t forget this battle is in 1559 and also alludes to the battle between the Catholics and the Protestants which raged during the painter`s life. In finding the middle path through this conflict, I think he is is showing that he walks perilously close to the fool,who,as Phaeded points out is an atheist or heretic.

The connection with the tarot fool is that as one who finds both sides of the battle, whether it be carnival/lent or catholic/protestant the painter finds himself as an outsider. His heavily loaded back is not his sinful ego,but if you look carefully,it looks like a hidden sword. He also has a dagger at his side. To pursue his path he has to be very much on his guard.
Last edited by thetarotist78 on 01 Mar 2017, 11:36, edited 6 times in total.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

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For what follows, it is important to see the sequence Moakley is working with and how she divides it by means of the suits, imagining them as companies of marchers. I have to say it took me some getting used to.
Image

Between Cups and Batons are 8 triumphs, which divide into two subgroups of 4: one subgroup for the "captives", another for the chariot and its occupants. Then, after only one triumph, comes another long stretch, and one more division. It is not a procession where one card triumphs over another in a clear pecking order. The general order is that of Petrarch, modified to fit the new context.

Of course there is no basis for calling this list “the original order”, or even that of the PMB, since it is based on sources considerably later than the invention of the tarot and from a different region of Northern Italy than the PMB. She did not know it mattered, apparently.

As for what this list is based on, here is what she says (p. 62):
[start of p. 62]
The original names and order of the trumps are known to us from two fifteenth-century sermons and from a set of versified tarocchi of the same period, written in honor of the ladies of Ferrara. One of the sermons is cited and quoted by Steele ("Notice"). The preacher speaks of three kinds of gambling games: dice, cards ("denarii, cuppe, bastoni, enses"), and triumphs; so in his time they must still have been a separate game. His list of the trumps is essentially the same as that in the versified tarocchi, except that he calls Il Traditore "Lo impichato" and the Casa del Diavolo "La sagitta," and his name for Bagatino is "El bagatella." His list is in a queer mixture of Latin, Italian, and Spanish. The other sermon is cited and quoted in Hargrave (History) p 227 and 387. It has the same list as in the other sermon except that the spelling is slightly different. The versified tarocchi ("Trionphi de tarocchi appropriate") are from Bertoni (Poesie) p 220. As the names in this list are more like modem Italian, I have preferred to use them. Anther source for the order of the trumps, but not for their names, is a set of two uncut sheets of fifteenth- or sixteenth-century tarocchi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (26.101.5 and 31.54.159 in the print collection). It is not complete, the cards have numbers but no names, and in it the top of the Popess' head appears with the numeral III, so in this set she has already begun her descent. Otherwise there are no differences from the other three sources.
She has noticed, correctly, the difference between Bertoni and the Metropolitan Sheet in the placement of the Popess, dropping from IV to III. She thinks that as time went on, the Popess dropped lower in the order, ending at II, of course without any basis. She also notices the difference in the names between Bertoni and the “Steele Sermon”. (I do not know what the other sermon is that she is referring to, in Hargrave. Can anyone help me? If not I will go to the library and see what is on the pages indicated.)

What she does not notice is that the order of triumphs in the “Steele Sermon” is different from that in both Bertoni and the Metropolitan cards in one very important way, namely, in the “Steele Sermon” Temperance is VI, Love VII, Chariot VIII, and Fortitude IX (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones ... _Cum_Aliis). Had she adopted this order—which is surely the earliest of the four—her argument for trumps II-V as “captives of love” would have been stronger, since Love is closer to them (although Temperance still has to be dealt with), and also her argument for the influence of Petrarch, since Petrarch has Love before Chastity (=Chariot). However it is still the best of a bad deal, since even this list is 50 years after the PMB and from a different part of Northern Italy. She seemingly wasn’t aware that different regions had even greater differences in the order of their triumphs.

Next in her book comes her account of trump I, “Bagatino”, which I have already covered. Then comes Cups, the marchers behind him and in front of the "captives of Love", trumps II-V, who precede the Chariot, on which is Love, with (somehow) wombish Temperance not in front but on one side, and phallic Fortitude on the other.
[start of p. 64]
LE COPPE (Cups)
The company of the suit of Cups marches next, heralding the Triumph of Cupid, and seemingly referring to the Carnival King as an exponent of Love and drunkenness. The King-of-Arms of this suit wears the ducal crown of Milan,: and his garments are embroidered with the Visconti sun, as are those of the Knight and Page. The caparison of the Knight's horse bears the heraldic device of the crown of Milan encircling the palm and laurel branches. The Two of Cups bears the motto "Amor myo," proclaiming that this suit's members are the special attendants of the Triumph of Cupid, while the Four of Cups has the proud Visconti motto "A bon droyt."

NOTE LE COPPE
Cups is a feminine suit the Ace is highest of the common cards.
Here are the pip cards she is talking about, plus the Page.

Image


The Ace has a fountain (a Sforza device), which brings to mind the Fountains of Youth that were popular subjects then; they usually showed old people climbing in and young naked people amorously involved in the water. These two cards are quite suitable to introduce cards about Love and his captives.

However I want to call attention to the cups themselves (not the cards, the objects), as they are depicted on the court cards. If you look carefully, their tops are reminiscent of church steeples. Other early Italian-suited court cards have tops, but not that elongated. It is easiest to see with the Page.

Image


Whether you see the "steeples" or not, there is a double meaning to love and cups: earthly love, but also heavenly love; cups of beer, but also communion cups. For the latter, the group of ten marchers following the four courts could just as well be clerics, as I seem to see in the “Battle of Carnival and Lent”. (Behind them, we may suppose, are their captains, the King-at-arms, etc. They at least seem sober and are all dressed the same)

Image


I doubt if these men, if indeed they are clerics, would be introducing “captives of love”, followed by a cart with Cupid as the all-powerful god. But if it were a cart carrying Temperance, they might, in the right circumstances. Preachers were fond of Temperance. But with the wrong crowd, people might interpret her pitchers in the wrong way.

Moakley appears unaware of the earlier deck we have from Milan, namely the Cary-Yale. In that deck, at least as it is catalogued, triumphs are assigned to suits in a particular order, and Cups appears as the third of the four, with Charity, the Chariot (Chastity), and Death all assigned to that suit. Probably one or more cards are missing that are assigned to this group. I would hypothesize exactly one, namely Temperance, put at somewhere between 9th and 12th place out of 16. Temperance--self-control--makes the other triumphs possible, and is naturally associated with Cups as religion. Her vessels remind us of communion. Chastity is the virtue of nuns and priests. Religion is the antidote to Death, but requires God’s charity as well as our own charitable acts (as seen in the Breugel). Temperance, as self-control, makes Chastity possible, delays Death and allows us to have money left over for Charity. This is my non-spoof, cleric-friendly version of one part of the procession, not at the beginning but just past the middle.

My hypothesis is strengthened if we look at the King of Cups in the CY. It is not exactly the delicate prince of the PMB, but more reminiscent of the sad-faced Bagatella and the Bembo portraits associated with Christ. In this case the closest match is with a King David identified by Tanzi as by Bonifacio Bembo of the early 1440s.

Image


Had she adopted the "Steele Sermon" order—which is surely the earliest of the four—her argument for trumps II-V as “captives of love” would have been a little stronger, since Love is a little closer (although Temperance still would have to be dealt with), and also her argument for the influence of Petrarch, since Petrarch has love before Chastity (=Chariot). However it would still be the best of a bad deal, since even this list is 50 years after the PMB and from a different part of Northern Italy. In other parts of Northern Italy (Lombard, Florence), in fact Love is right next to the "captives", with much less contrivance required.

But are trumps II-V really "captives of Love"? She has one more chance to make a good argument, which I will present next.

Scan of p. 62 (sources for "The Procession"): https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lCPFfXJwFVs/ ... ge-029.jpg
Last edited by mikeh on 06 Mar 2017, 08:57, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

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So now to the “captives of love”.

[start p. 70]
II L’IMPERATRICE (The Empress)
In modern tarocchi packs the second trump is known as the Popess, but in the fifteenth-century lists it is the Empress.

She is pictured as a German lady holding her husband's jousting shield, as was the custom for German ladies, and carrying the same kind of rod as the Carnival King.

Francesco Sforza's device of three interlaced diamond rings and the ducal crown of Milan with its palm and laurel are embroidered on her robe. The ring device was also used by Francesco's good friend and adviser, Cosimo de' Medici, and later appears as a Medici device in Botticelli's painting, "Pallas and the Centaur." This painting may have been in honor of Lorenzo de' Medici's daring and successful visit to Naples to make peace, in 1480. In it the setting of each diamond is a flower. In Sforza's form of the device the settings are plainer.

As previously stated, the diamond ring and a dragon are part of the Sforza family crest. The ring symbolizes eternity, and the diamond invincibility. The Trivulzio family, who ousted the Sforza from Milan, commented on this in their own crest, where a siren holds a diamond and a diamond-cutter.

NOTES L'IMPERATRICE
For the jousting shield and the German lady as its guardian see Joan Evans, Pattern (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1931) 191-92; also Diirer's etching "The Coat of Arms of Death," which I find in Wild Men in the Middle Ages, by Richard Bemheimer (Cambridge, Harvard Univ Press 1952) pl 50, facing p 49. For the custom of having clothes embroidered with the wearer's armorial bearings see Evans p 85.

For the Visconti heraldry see Litta (Famiglie) vol II pt 2 for the Sforza, vol I pt 1. The most lively and charming source for various forms of the Visconti devices is the Ufiziolo illuminated for Filippo Maria Visconti, much of which has been published in black-and-white facsimile. In Malaguzzi-Valeri (Corte) there are several illustrations showing Sforza devices, esp p 125 and 254; IV 107

[start p. 71]
III L'IMPERADORE (The Emperor)
The Emperor, at the time these cards were painted, was Frederick III, who reigned from 1440 to 1493. He was a cousin by marriage of Francesco Sforza, being the grandson of Virida Visconti, a great-aunt of Francesco's wife, Bianca Maria. In 1431, when the Iron Crown of Lombardy had been placed on the head of an earlier Emperor, Sigismund, Francesco Sforza had been his sword-bearer at the command of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti.

In this card, Frederick is shown wearing a robe with the same devices as on the robe of the Empress. In his left hand is the imperial orb. The imperial eagle, in its single-headed form, is on the front of the large hat which he wears under his crown. The hat is a protection against the chilly weather of northern Italy where the procession is held.

The Visconti quartered this imperial eagle with the serpent in their coat of arms, as a sign that they ruled Milan as vicars of the Emperor. The serpent itself is a symbolic reference to the serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness to heal his stricken people. This brazen serpent of Moses was believed to have been brought back from Constantinople in 1002 by Arnolfo, Archbishop of Milan, and placed in the Basilica of St Ambrose. It was greatly venerated by the Milanese, and when they joined the Crusade which liberated the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, they took with them a blessed standard on which the serpent was emblazoned in blue. After their victory a Saracen was added to the device. He was shown protruding from the mouth of the serpent, which is about to swallow him. The serpent remained in the ducal coat of arms until Filippo Maria Visconti died. The Golden Ambrosian Republic dropped it during its brief existence, but Francesco Sforza adopted it again when he became Duke of Milan. It was not until 1535, when the duchy lost its independence, that it became merely the private device of the Visconti-Sforza family.

[start p. 72]
NOTES L'IMPERADORE
For historical material throughout I have relied on William L. Langer. An Encyclopedia of World History (Boston, Houghton 1948) except where otherwise noted. Here the geneal. table, p 300.

For Sforza as sword-bearer in 1431, see Assum (Francesco) p 122. The sources for the Visconti arms are noted under L'Imperatrice.

For the serpent as Moses' serpent and its cult in Milan see Assum p 579, which I have followed for this whole paragraph. The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by John McClintock and James Strong IX (New York, Harper 1894) p 585, says: "The Church of St. Ambrose at Milan has boasted for centuries of possessing the brazen serpent which Moses set up in the wilderness." This source sets the date of its acquisition earlier (AD 971). An envoy was sent in that year to the court of the emperor John Zimisces at Constantinople. He was invited to make his choice from among the relics on hand there, and he chose this, "which, the Greeks assured him, was made of the same metal as the original serpent (Sigonius, Hist. Regna. Ital. bk. vii). . . On his return it was placed in the Church of St. Ambrose, and popularly identified with that which it professed to represent."

IV LA PAPESSA (The Popess)
It is only in the tarocchi that we have a Pope with a wife, here called the Popess. Both accompany the Emperor and Empress as captives of Cupid. Other forms of the game of triumphs decorously avoided this Ghibelline gibe at the corruption of the Papacy. At first sight the Popess seems to be the legendary Pope Joan, the woman who was said to have masqueraded as a priest until she finally succeeded in being elected Pope. This legend was a mock at feminine ambition, like the tale of the Flounder in the Sea, who granted all but one of the ambitious wishes of a fisherman's wife, even her wish to be Pope: When she wished to be God, she found herself returned to the poor cottage whence she had come. The Popess in the Visconti-Sforza tarocchi is not one of these legendary women. Her religious habit shows that she is of the Umiliata order, probably Sister Manfreda, a relative of the Visconti family who was actually elected Pope by the small Lombard sect of the Guglielmites. Their leader, Gug-

[start p. 73]
lielma of Bohemia, had died in Milan in 1281. The most enthusiastic of her followers believed that she was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, sent to inaugurate the new age of the Spirit prophesied by Joachim of Flora. They believed that Guglielma would return to earth on the Feast of Pentecost in the year 1300, and that the male dominated Papacy would then pass away, yielding to a line of female Popes. In preparation for this event they elected Sister Manfreda the first of the Popesses, and several wealthy families of Lombardy provided at great cost the sacred vessels they expected her to use when she said Mass in Rome at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Naturally, the Inquisition exterminated this new sect, and the "Popess" was burned at the stake in the autumn of 1300. Later the Inquisition proceeded against Matteo Visconti, the first Duke of Milan, for his very slight connections with the sect. .

V IL PAPA (The Pope)
In the modern tarot of southern France the Pope is replaced by Jupiter, and the Popess by Juno. The seventeenth-century Swiss tarots which had the Spanish Captain instead of the Popess also had Bacchus instead of the Pope. Bacchus was shown astride a barrel, holding a bottle in his hand. This is the beginning of the development which made the trumps of the Austrian Tarock so different from those of the tarot and tarocchi. There were a Jupiter and a Juno in the fourteenth-century set painted for Filippo Maria Visconti. This set is now lost, and we know only which figures were represented; nothing about the details. Jupiter and Juno may have been dressed in ecclesiastical costume, in accordance with the old rules of planetary magic. In this later set, where they appear as Cupid's captives, their resemblance to the Pope and Popess may have been accentuated just for the fun of it. Then too, the Pope and Popess would be thought of as natural enemies of the Emperor since there was constant conflict between Popes and Emperors. Occasionally political cartoons of the time show this in caricature. One cartoon shows a snake marked "Duke of Milan" on the back of the Pope's head, while the Pope is wrestling with the Emperor.

[start p. 74]
NOTES LA PAPESSA
No references are needed for the notorious Ghibelline tendencies of the Dukes of Milan, at least until 1450. Legend of Pope Joan and the Flounder story arc easily found, Flounder in many collections of children's fairy tales.

For Sister Manfreda (spelled Maifreda by Lea and Tocco) see: Henry Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New York, Harbor Press 1955; reprint of an edition first published in 19th century) III 90-102; F. Tocco (in Memorie R Accademia Lincei, sc. mor., VIII (1900) 3-32); Enciclopedia italiana, art. "Guglielmiti" (spells name Manfreda) Storia di Milano (Milano, Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri; 1953 — ) 1V 384 (for Umiliati), 637; v 149 et circa (little mention of the sect except passing reference to "l'eretica Manfreda"). The reference given by Enciclopedia italiana to C. Molinier in Revue historique is of no use for our purposes; it is simply a review of Tocco's article.

NOTES IL PAPA
For the Swiss tarots see British Museum (Descriptive) p 107, 179-181.

For Filippo Maria's early sixteen-card set for the ludus triumphorum see Durrieu ("Michelino"). For Jupiter as a planetary god in ecclesiastical costume see illustrations in Seznec (Survival), p 110 (fig 33), 157, 161, and 165. In one of these Jupiter wears the triple crown and carries a sort of crozier. He appears as one of Cupid's captives in several illustrations of Petrarch's Trionfi, often wearing a sort of miter. For these see Massena (Petrarque) p 159, and the illustration for the triumph of Cupid in a ms of Petrarch's Trionfi owned by The New York Public Library, reproduced in its Bulletin, LX (Feb 1956) frontispiece. A wall painting by Niccolo Miretto, dated by Marie (Development) viz 398, as after 1420, shows Jupiter with a kind of combination crown-and-miter, in alb and cope, with a rod in his right hand and a globe in his left. Toesca's facsimile of Filippo Maria's Ufiziolo, fol 37v, shows the personifications of the planets, with Jupiter in quasi-ecclesiastical dress and holding crozier, and fleur-de-lis sceptre. The political cartoon is reproduced in Hind (Early) IV p1 399 (a Venetian cartoon of about 1470). Pope and Emperor are naked wrestlers, standing on the mast of a ship marked "Duces Austrie."

[Scan of pp. 70-71 (Imperatrice, Imperatrice notes, Emperador): https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EUtLA343JCY/ ... ge-003.jpg

Scan of pp. 774-75 (Papessa and Papa notes, Temperanza notes: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UE9uEvqTEB8/ ... ge-004.jpg

Note: I omitted scanning the page with the note on Cups, because it was so brief. In later posts I will omit scanning the notes for the other suits, which are also brief, unless they happen to be on a page I am already scanning for some reason. ]
Last edited by mikeh on 27 Mar 2017, 09:20, edited 4 times in total.

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

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thetarotist78 wrote: I think you missed the (discarded) cards on the ground just below the pork-pie-hat carnival guy.
5 of spades? They don`t appear to be tarot cards, unfortunately!
... :-) ... I didn't overlook it ... but I don't know, if the 5 of clubs meant something special

Image


I think, it's part of the central theme ... FAT TUESDAY meets ASH WEDNESDAY in fight. Ash Wednesday starts 40 days of fasting.

Image


The Nubbel burning (last act of the carnival time, night between fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday) isn't forgotten at the picture (right upper corner). Other names for Nubbel are Zacheias, Lazarus and Hoppeditz (all in the region of Cologne), in each case it's not identical to the Prince of Carnival. Brueghel lived not too far from Cologne (Brussels).

Image


Brueghel gave his name at the dice player scene. The 2 dice show a 6 and 1.
Actually the fasting time (Ash Wednesday till Eastern) is 46 days since 12th century, but includes 6 Sundays till Eastern, and Sundays weren't used (and not counted) for fasting. So there is the rhythm 6 days fasting + 1 Sunday (not fasting) in the weeks.

Image
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

46
Thanks for the additions, Phaeded, tarotist, and Huck. I got caught up in "updating" Moakley by defending her, which I do think needs doing, but updating includes negative information as well. There is the ordinary fool as well as the holy fool. I will track down Mellinkoff's article. What is important is the significance of 7 feathers. Goiter does seem to have the symptoms of dullness, Stultia, rather than the mania associated with the holy fool. However there is dullness to the world, but attunement to things sensed inwardly, as the martyr-saints are depicted and in ps.-Dionysius.

Looking up in a gesture of blessing can indicate acknowledgement of God, asking that God's blessing be upon the crowd. One thing I just noticed, in a high resolution image of Giotto's Stultia, is that his "blessing" isn't with the first two fingers, as the popes are traditionally shown, but with the middle two fingers, the first and fourth bent. Did that have any significance in Giotto's time?

I have one question about Breugel's bonfire. Moakley alludes often to the "bonfire of the vanities". I somehow had the impression that such bonfires were not annual things at the end of Carnival, but special occasions whipped up by preachers. But maybe Moakley is right, I don't know. Could that be a "bonfire of the vanities"?

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

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FAT TUESDAY meets ASH WEDNESDAY
In the German wiki interpretation it's reported, that the opinion exist, that Herr Fastnacht (or Prinz Karneval) and Frau Fasten fight on the picture.
"Prinz Karneval" possibly has the problem, that he didn't exist in 1559. For Cologne I see notes, that the Cologne "Bauer" existed in carnival in 1425 (colon means "Bauer"), the "Jungfrau" ("virgin", associated to Agrippina as city founder) arrived in 1570 and "Hero Carnevale" (not Prinz Karneval) appeared in 1823. Nowadays we've a Bauer and a Jungfrau and a Prinz Karneval as a Dreigestirn and all have their own chariot.

***********

Another fight between Fasten and Fastnacht ...


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ch_005.jpg

a picture called "Fight between carnival and fasting time"
by follower of Hieronymus Bosch (1600 - 1620)
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

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mikeh wrote:I have one question about Breugel's bonfire. Moakley alludes often to the "bonfire of the vanities". I somehow had the impression that such bonfires were not annual things at the end of Carnival, but special occasions whipped up by preachers. But maybe Moakley is right, I don't know. Could that be a "bonfire of the vanities"?
The name "Nubbel" for the burned straw puppet is said to have turned up in 1950s, further it is said, that the name Zacheies earlier was used ... as this was a Jewish name, Zachäus, the customer in the bible, one might put 1+1 together, that recent past (WWII and Holocaust) have changed this custom.
The burning of Jews and playing cards etc. is recorded rather early.
In the Feast of Fools playing cards were used in churches as a blasphemy, and possibly burned later to save the souls.

The burning of the straw puppets might be easily old and annual custom.

*****************

http://www.badische-zeitung.de/grenzach ... 01795.html
... reports a documented Fastnachts-Feuer for the year 1090.

... confirmed by
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheibenschlagen

see also ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1-z9tI-rqE

Fasnacht took place in a cold time of the year. It's trivial logic, that also some fire-spectacle was used.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Moakley's book: text and discussion

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Moakley wrote that there were two early sermons listing the 22 cards, the "Steele Sermon" and one other:
The other sermon is cited and quoted in Hargrave (History) p 227 and 387. It has the same list as in the other sermon except that the spelling is slightly different.
I checked Hargrave (1930) out from the library. I think there's only one sermon, but the spelling in the manuscript read/interpreted differently. Hargrave only mentions one, preserved, she says, in "our library", and that means the U.S. Games Library in Cincinatti. That is where the "Steele Sermon" is preserved as well (http://www.tretre.it/index.php?id=75#). On p 227 the list reads (I give only the ones that differ in spelling from the list on current websites):
1. El Bagatella
2. Imperatrice
3. Imperator
4. La papessa (note referring to those who deny the Christian faith)
5. El papa
6. La Tempentia
8. La Caro Triumphale
9. La Fortez
10. La Rotta
21. El Mondo ave dio padre
22. El mato
Whereas http://www.tarock.info/steele.htm, and also http://trionfi.com/0/p/17/t1.php) have:
Primus dicitur El bagatella (et est omnium inferior):
2 Imperatrix
4 La papessa (O miseri quod negat Christiana fides):
5 El papa (O pontifex cur, &c. qui debet omni sanctitate polere, et isti ribaldi faciunt ipsorum capitaneum)
6 La temperantia
8 Lo caro triumphale (vel mundus parvus)
9 La forteza
10 La rotta (id est regno, regnavi, sum sine regno)
21 El mondo (cioe Dio Padre)
0 El Matto sie nulla (nisi velint)
Oddly, tarotpedia's list spells number 9 "fortezza" and leaves out the "id est regno", etc. for 10. The ink is blotted in these places, and one other.

On p. 384 Hargrave gives the same list as on p. 227 (although spelling card 6 "tempetia" and with different capitalizations or non-capitalizations of titles), and saying that it is the "Sermones de Ludo cum Aliis" and "from the Library of Robert Steele."

Looking on Hargrave's page 387 (given by Moakley as a second reference), all I find in Italian is a "Tratto de' Giochi e de' Divertimenti, permessi or prohibiti ai Cristiani. In Roma .... 1768. Slightly wormed." I do not see it listed in WorldCat.

I would guess that the discrepancies that Moakley notices are simply variations in reading the difficult text, together with some lack of concern by Hargrave for absolute accuracy except for the title itself. Written in 1930, it is not a very reliable book, at least on the early history of the tarot, filled with numerous alleged facts, most without without references, in actuality a confused mix of fact and fancy. Immediately after the above, she tells us:
The earliest printed account of the game of tarots is given in a small volume, "Dialogo de Givochi che nelle Vegghie Sanesi si usano di fare. Del materiale intronato. All' illustrima et eccelentissima Signora Donna Isabella de' Medici Orsina Duchessa di Bracciano. Appresso Bertano. In Venetia, 1575.
She even has a picture of the title page. I would have preferred a page of the discussion of tarot. Looking in WorldCat, I found one earlier edition, in 1572 Siena, which makes sense. The author given is Girolamo Bargagli. Dummett wrote about this book briefly in Il Mondo e l'Angelo, which I gave with translation at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15374&hilit ... gli#p15374:
I poemetti di ‘tarocchi appropriati’ non si rapportano al gioco dei Tarocchi; impiegano direttamente solo i significati dei trionfi. Questi significati erano impiegati in modo simile in un semplice gioco di società descritto da Girolamo Bargagli nel suo Dialogo de’ giuochi del 1572, nel quale dice:
... ho veduto fare il giuoco de’ Tarocchi, ponendo a tutti li circostanti un nome di tarocco, e qualcun di poi a dichiarar chiamando, che à questo et à quello il nome d’un tal tarocco fosse stato posto 57.
(The poems of 'tarot appropriati ' do not relate to the game of Tarot; they directly employ only the meanings of the triumphs. These meanings were used in a similar way in a simple board game described by Girolamo Bargagli in his Dialogue on games of 1572, in which he says:
I saw the game... of Tarot used, so as to put to each one concerned a name in the tarot, and then someone calling to say that this and that name of such a tarot was put [possibly “drawn”] 57.
Hargrave goes on to say
All forms of the game, the original Venetian tarots with seventy-eight cards, Florentine minchiate with its ninty-seven, and the Bolognese with its sixty-two, are still used in Italy, and there are many variations of designs and colors.
Well, the Venetian tarots must be quite old, because earlier she told us:
The painter, Marziano da Tartona, lived at the court of Filippo Maria Visconti, and he painted for his young patron a set of cards containing the figures of the gods and with them emblematic animals and likewise figures of birds. It is further written that the young duke played a game with these painted figures, and later, that he sometimes played a game of hazard on particular occasions, which seems to show that there was more than one way of playing at tarots in those days. Marziano was rewarded with 1500 pieces of gold for these playing cards. This was in 1415. In 1454, fifteen francs is paid for a pack by the Dauphin of France, which seems to show that by that time an easy and satisfactory process for making them had been found.

These beautiful cards which were painted for the Duke of Milan in 1415 are still in possession of the family. They are said to be a minchiate set. If so, it puts to rest the old tradition which says that the game of minchiate was invented by Michelangelo to teach the children of Florence to think and to count. There were ninety-seven cards in a minchiate set, the usual atouts of the tarot pack being increased by the virtues, the elements, and the signs of the zodiac. These atouts are not named. The coin suits usually have heads upon them, and the cavaliers, or mounted knaves, are monsters.
She didn't bother to distinguish the cards of one paragraph from the cards of the next. And nary a reference in sight. Above this text is a picture of the "Visconti Tarots", ten of the Cary-Yale cards, the titles of the triumphs given in French, the others in English. On the right of the text are four cards with the following:
Cards from a game of Florentine minchiate, 1650.
The upper cards are the two of batons and the twentieth atout, a sacrificial lamb in a burning bush; and the lower ones are the cavalier of swords and the valet of coins.
The one is a centaur, the other has the body of a lion." So both "monsters" (and both cavaliers, albeit the latter with only four limbs instead of six). I always thought the "Fire" card animal was a wolf, but then I am influenced by a famous similar image in alchemical texts. It doesn't look much like a lamb.

Still, there are many pictures in the book I don't recognize, as well as titles in the bibliography. I will peruse it.

Well, at least we know that Moakley did see reproductions of some of the CY cards, at least in black and white. No wonder she didn't say much about them.