Now for Time. Besides the differences already pointed out, The Robertet-following quatrains have "Temporibus" instead of "Tempore". Also, 1717 has "inclita" as "inclyta", a variant spelling, I think, and leaves out "evo", a copyist's error. Molinet has just enough enough of the others' quatrain to show that it is not independent of them.
For Fame, I notice is that in 12424 instead of "cetera" we see "Ceptra," a scribal error, which in 1717 is "Caetera," an alternative spelling, as is "praemit" there. 1717 also has "facmus" instead of "facimus," a scribal error, and "inclyta," a spelling seen also in the quatrain for time.

For Chastity and Love, we have a manuscript version of Molinet's quatrain, copied 1523-25 according to a catalog clipping reproduced on Gallica attached to their reproductions, as well as Dupire's printed transcriptions of the 1930s. For both, I will put the Modena by itself first, then the two Molinet versions, then the rest, as indicated in the file names below the images.

For Chastity, I notice that Molinet, 5065, and 12423 have chosen the usual Latin spelling, uniformly used in the Italian manuscripts, of "pudicitie" or "pudicitae" instead of the "pudicicia" and "pudicicie" of the others, including that in the Modena ms. Perhaps the two later ones with "pudicitie" were following Molinet's example, or else that of the Italian mss. that had come to France in greater numbers. Another thing is the first word of the second line, Hic or Hunc in Molinet, 12423, and the Modena, but "Et" everywhere else. There are also the variants "Cipro" and "Cypro", and "Ida" vs. "Yda" which seems to me of no significance, nor "Theti" vs. "Thety." "Ththy" is strange, probably a scribal error. Perhaps there is some significance in "mollis" vs. "molli/moli," I don't know. This is another one where Molinet seems to have kept only one word of the original, this time confined to the last two lines and with different word-endings (for "cipr-" and "amor-"). Finally, Love. Besides "sceptra," we see "septra," "ceptra," and "scaeptra". I doubt if there's any significance. It may be scribal preferences. I don't see anything else to add. Maybe someone else will, here and elsewhere.

mikeh wrote: 13 Nov 2023, 12:59 I still don't understand how someone can miscopy or "correct" "Et/et" as "Nec/nec". Were copyists that confused?

The confusion arose from the meter of the verses, as I explained before. With "Et/et", the line would have looked like it violated the meter, but in fact it does not, if it is read with a (perfectly natural) hiatus before the second "et". (If you don't understand what a hiatus is, have another look at that webpage that explains elegiac couplets.)

If the "Et/et" is replaced with "Nec/nec", the meter becomes conventional, but at the cost of destroying the sense. It is understandable that a copyist might do this, because those two verses would have been somewhat hard to understand, relying as they do on an unconventional metonymic meaning of Ceres, and an equally unconventional and rather contrived symbolic interpretation of the objects Chastity is holding in her hands. In other words, I think that the copyist didn't properly understand what the author was trying to say, and made this "correction" thinking that then at least the meter would be correct, and maybe the verses would make more sense that way. But of course they do not.

Correcting apparent violations of the meter was normal practice for copyists. As you know, we have another example in the last line of the Death quatrain, where one of the French writers appears to have inserted sed between Ecce/Esse and heu. In that case, there unquestionably was a genuine mistake in the text, no doubt caused by an earlier copyist accidentally leaving out a small word in that position. Sed could well have been the small word that was left out, as it works perfectly, both metrically and semantically. So in that instance, the correction was entirely justified.

I have been looking at Italian mss. taken to France during the Italian wars, to make sure our quatrains haven't been missed in any of them.

It was not a bad idea to look for the quatrains in those other manuscripts, but it would have been very surprising if you had found them. As I said before, there is nothing in the various French copies to suggest that the French writers ever saw any more than one Italian manuscript containing these verses: a comparison of the Modena text with the French variations strongly suggests that all the French variations are derived from just one Italian copy that was extremely similar to the Modena copy—so similar that I initially thought the latter could have been copied from the former, until I found the tenet/tenent difference. Such closeness in wording can really only be explained by both the Modena copy and Robertet's Italian manuscript being copied from exactly the same predecessor.

Another reason why it is unlikely that the French had more than one Italian copy of these verses is because there probably weren't ever all that many Italian copies of them. A study of illustrated manuscripts from the Low Countries (mainly the Burgundian Netherlands) from 1400 to 1550 found that 20% appear to have survived (see Hanno Wijsman, Luxury Bound: Illustrated Manuscript Production and Noble and Princely Book Ownership in the Burgundian Netherlands (1400-1550), Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). The figure for Italy in that period is probably roughly comparable, as the Italian market for manuscripts was similar to the Dutch/Flemish market at that time; both regions were relatively highly urbanized, literate, and prosperous in that era. Italy was relatively less literate and less prosperous in the centuries that followed, so maybe the loss rates in Italy were somewhat higher, but not greatly so, I would think. So if one copy of an illustrated manuscript survives, there are, on average, about four copies that have been lost. In this instance, we have no surviving Italian copies of the illustrated text at all, so it is quite possible that less than five were ever made. Even if this particular text was a statistical fluke, it is still very unlikely that the number produced ever reached double figures.

As I have said earlier in this discussion, we can be reasonably certain that at least three illustrated copies of the text were made in Italy: the manuscript that Robertet saw, the predecessor of it (which was almost certainly also the immediate predecessor of the Modena manuscript), and an earlier predecessor that did not contain the Esse heu error or the Nec-nec problem. But it is entirely possible that there were never any more than those three.

There probably were several more unillustrated copies (like the Modena manuscript) that have since been lost. The average survival rate for unillustrated Italian manuscripts in the 15th century must be well below 10%. The best estimate I have seen for 15th century is a survival rate of about 6% for manuscripts in total, including both illustrated and unillustrated (see Eltjo Buringh, Medieval Manuscript Production in the Latin West: Explorations with a Global Database, Leiden: Brill, 2011, p. 251). So in all likelihood, there would have been a few more unillustrated Italian copies of the quatrains, but still a relatively small number, given that only one is known to survive. The chance of one of them making its way to France still seems fairly low.

So statistical probability gives us no reason to doubt the impression that we get from comparing the various French texts, namely that there was never more than one Italian copy seen by anyone in France.

Nathaniel wrote,

Correcting apparent violations of the meter was normal practice for copyists. As you know, we have another example in the last line of the Death quatrain, where one of the French writers appears to have inserted sed between Ecce/Esse and heu. In that case, there unquestionably was a genuine mistake in the text, no doubt caused by an earlier copyist accidentally leaving out a small word in that position. Sed could well have been the small word that was left out, as it works perfectly, both metrically and semantically. So in that instance, the correction was entirely justified.

Assuming that Robertet's ms. said the same thing as the Modena, the "sed" wouldn't have been added simply by a copyist, but by the educated French poet, Robertet, very attuned to matters of meter and sense. The "but" (as "mais") is also in his French translation. Here are Robertet's verses for Death, followed by my attempt at a translation of his French version:

Celibis abscindunt nervos et fila sorores
Nec durât fragilli vita pudica solo
Sanior hac longa poterit valitudine celebs
Ecce, sed heu tandem singula morte cadunt

Les seurs fatalles par leur loy auctentique
Tranchent les nerfz et filletz de la vie;^
A ce la Mort tous les vivans convie.
Le chaste au fort plus sainement peult vivre,
Qui ce treuve de grans vices délivré,
Mais en la fin il n'y a roy ne pape,
Grant ne petit qui de ses las eschappe.

The fatal sisters by their authentic law
Cut the nerves and fibers of life;
To this Death invites all the living.
The chaste to [and?] the strong can live more healthily,
Who this proves [finds?: "proof" per Google] of great vices delivered,
But in the end there is neither king nor pope,
Great nor small, who from them escapes.

On the other hand, we don't see anything corresponding to "Ecce" in the translation. So that might be a copyist's error, like writing "sit" instead of "scit," although it is a harder error to make. It might just be that Robertet couldn't fit the "behold" into his huitaine. Instead, we have "il n'y a ... ne" (there is neither) with "eschappe" (escape), which looks to me like a paraphrase of "poterit . . . esse" (will be able to be") with "cadunt" (fall, i.e. not escape). That uses the "esse" and not the "ecce", so the "ecce" could be Robertet's copyist's error. Or else Robertet thought that "ecce" was an error.

It is also possible that both "sed" and "Ecce" were in his copy, and the error - at least for "sed" - was with the Modena copyist. I can believe leaving out a word: I see it in the Barcelona tapestry. Also misreading a word or misspelling something more complicated or ambiguous than "nec," or which was similar to a word used previously, like "Ecce".

In any case, it seems to me that you are justifying the obscure by means of the equally obscure. Perhaps it is only obscure to me; I have no training in Latin. But I think I can understand when something is explained sufficiently. So I need more examples, where we can actually trace a mistake of the type you propose (adding a word for the sake of the meter) entering in from one manuscript to a later one, and where the copyist isn't a poet himself or herself.

Returning to the Chastity quatrain, I don't see that "Nec/nec" destroys the sense: it just makes it something you have to work on to get the sense. A lot of poetry is like that. No one later, except possibly Molinet, had a problem with "nec/nec."

I think Robertet preserves the "Nec" in his translation, rendering it as "Ne" and "ne . . . pas".

Car es delices de Cypre l’opulente,
Ne es fleurs souefves d'Yde Amour n'est pas lente;
Mais par Seres et Tethis refrenee
Est folle Amour et challeur forcenee.

Literally:

For the delights of opulent Cyprus,
Nor the flowers of Ida, Love is not slow,
But by Ceres and Thetis restrained
Is crazy Love and frenzied heat.

In other words:

for neither the delights of opulent Cyprus nor the flowers of Ida is Love slow.

On the other hand, it is clearly a copyist's error when in the next line "Thetis" is spelled "Tethis", because it was "Thetis" in the Latin just above. (And unlike "Nec . . . nec", both this error and the one with "sic" were caught by a reader of 5066 and not repeated by others.)

Whatever "ne" means (I think it is like the modern French "ni"), I don't think it means "and." But I am not an expert on French, whether modern or medieval. I will yield to those who are.

To summarize: based on later versions of the quatrains and two translations (Robertet and Molinet), "sic" and "Tethis" are scribal errors. For "nec . . . nec" only Molinet speaks against it, and that ambiguously, since he replaces the whole line and the one following. "Ecce" and the omission of"sed" remain quite unclear, as the responses are rather evenly spread on both sides.

While I am asking for things, I need to ask why you think that Robertet's copy must have had the images, at least with their important details. (I mean, he might have seen the images in Italy and drawn rough sketches of the main elements. But even that is not necessary.) Why couldn't the similarities to the tarot versions that you highlight have been based on the artist's having such cards? Of course, the chances of that go up after 1494 and again starting in 1502, which is why it makes a difference whether 24461 was done before or after then.

mikeh wrote: 20 Nov 2023, 23:04 While I am asking for things, I need to ask why you think that Robertet's copy must have had the images, at least with their important details.

Unfortunately, we're now at the stage where I can't reply without simply repeating things I've already said. I've already addressed this point and all your other points in what I've already written in this thread. I do not have the inclination to repeat myself. Eventually I will present the entire matter again in full detail, but that (as I have said before) is going to take quite a long time. I am increasingly thinking that it will have to be in the form of a book, because there is simply too much involved for anything shorter than that.

In the meantime, if you want to ignore what I've tried to point out to you, that is a choice you are free to make. I have tried to stop you and others from wasting your time on what I am now certain are vain speculations that will lead nowhere, but at this point I cannot do more than I already have. The rest is up to you.

Munich, from Bologna 1414 MikeH found this ... at viewtopic.php?p=26287#p26287 at 17 Oct 2023

12. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Barb. lat. 3943, fol. 170v; Samek Ludovici, I, pp. 118-9; II, PI. XIII; A. C. de la Mare, 'Script and Manuscripts in Milan under the Sforza', in Milano nell'età di Ludovico il Moro. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Milan, 1983, p. 399.
13. Trionfo della Morte, I, ll. 73-81.
14. Trionfo delta Morte, I, ll.113-4.

Here is the image: I uploaded all the images of this ms. (Death at the end) at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=906&p=25903&hilit=3943#p25903. It is perhaps worth noting that for Trapp this ms. is not just ca. 1445 or 1445-1450, but perhaps even 1430s. Cohen, as pointed out already in this thread has it later, 1460s.

It was nice that Trapp shows how the illustration relates to the poem. I had not noticed the hair plucked from Laura's head (https://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_t ... e=III-I.en):

And then from her blond head the hand of Death
Plucked forth a single sacred golden strand; ...

Petrarch mentions the pope and emperor, but for him they stand naked around Death, as opposed to being in full regalia but supine, as we see in the tarot cards and most Triumphs of Death.

Here now were they who were called fortunate,
Popes, emperors, and others who had ruled;
Now are they naked, poor, of all bereft.

[/quote]

At the same place MikeH showed also this picture ...

There are also ideas for Tarot cards, Clotho at the sun card motif.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3u8Ar5i1Sf8/T ... eville.jpg


.... which somehow suggests the idea, that also Lachesis and Atropos might be related to the Moon and Star cards.

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

I had done some researches about Boccaccio ....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorosa_visione

Amorosa visione (1342, revised c. 1365) is a narrative poem by Boccaccio, full of echoes of the Divine Comedy and consisting of 50 canti in terza rima. It tells of a dream in which the poet sees, in sequence, the triumphs of Wisdom, Earthly Glory, Wealth, Love, all-destroying Fortune (and her servant Death), and thereby becomes worthy of the now heavenly love of Fiammetta. The triumphs include mythological, classical and contemporary medieval figures. Their moral, cultural and historical architecture was without precedent, and led Petrarch to create his own Trionfi on the same model.

Petrarca clearly has differences in his Trionfi. Naturally there is some relationship, if Boccaccio speaks about 5 Trionfi and Petrarca later from 6. But the Liber 1 of the Genealogy of Boccaccio offers 6 Trionfi, which are more or less identical to those of Petrarca ... in the case, that one understands them. At least, this is my opinion.
I've done a limited study of Boccaccio's mythological work, I researched only parts of Liber 1. There are 15 books about mythology totally. I can only judge a little bit of this book 1.

We have this part of the index of Liber 1 of the Genealogy of Boccaccio. This part is my object for the moment, not Tarot or something else, what happened later.

2 CHAPTER I. On Eternity
3 CHAPTER II. Of Chaos.
4 CHAPTER III. On the dispute with the first son of Demogorgon.
5 CHAPTER IV. Of Pane, the second son of Demogorgon.
6 CHAPTER V. Of Clotho, Lachesi, and Atropus, daughters of Demogorgon.
7 CHAPTER 6. Of Polo, the sixth son of Demogorgon.
8 CHAPTER VII. Of Phyton, the seventh son of Demogorgon.
9 CHAPTER VIII. Of Terra, the eighth of the sons of Demogorgon
10 CHAPTER 9 On the night of the first daughter of Earth.
11 CHAPTER X. De Fama, the second of the sons of Terre.
12 CHAPTER XI. Of Tartarus III, son of Terre.
13 CHAPTER XII. Of Tagetes III, the son of Terre.
14 CHAPTER XIII Of Antheus Vo Terre son.
15 CHAPTER XIV. Of Herebus VIII, the son of Demogorgon, who had twenty-one sons.

I simplify this list

0 Eternity
0 Chaos
1 Demogorgon
2 Litigius (= dispute)
3 Pan
4-5-6 Clotho, Lachesi, Atropos
7 Polo or Polus
8 Phyton or Phanes (= Eros)
9 Terra
children 1 Nox .................... or 0-0 Nox
............. 2-3 Fama .............. or 1 Fama
............. 0-0 Tartarus .......... or 2-3 Tartarus
............. 4-5-6 Tagetes, a child or man found in Earth
............. 7-8-9 Antheus, a giant, which dies in Air


I found this picture ....

.... called "Demogorgon in the cave of Eternity"
This picture gave the impression, that both belonged to a representation of the six Trionfi of Petrarca

6. Eternity
5. Demogorgon as old man (Time)
.....


It was easy to identify Clotho, Lachesis and Atropas as Death ...

6 Eternity
5 Demorgorgon
4. .... ? .... it wasn't easy, but it was possible to realize, that Litigius and Pan presented Fame. Litigius means Strife, Eris means Strife. Eris has wings, Litigius can fly.
3. Death
2. Chastity has no children, cause Chastity means Chatisty .... that is simple logic
1. Love has children, cause Love means also copulation .... also simple logic
************************************************************

I've communicated the following with a German speaker, it partly is the same as above, but it expands the conclusions.

(Ruhm)https://la-wikisource-org.translate.goo ... r_pto=wapp

Das ist Buch 1 (Liber 1) automatisch auf deutsch übersetzt. Da entstehen schon mal Übersetzungsschwächen und Fehler.
Das Rätsel, wie das mit Petrarcas "Trionfi" übereinstimmt, kann mit Kapitel 21- Kapitel 15 gelöst werden.

2 KAPITEL I. Über die Ewigkeit
3 KAPITEL II. Vom Chaos.
4 KAPITEL III. Zum Streit mit dem ersten Sohn Demogorgons.
5 KAPITEL IV. Von Pane, dem zweiten Sohn von Demogorgon.
6 KAPITEL V. Von Klotho, Lachesi und Atropus, Töchtern von Demogorgon.
7 KAPITEL 6. Von Polo, dem sechsten Sohn Demogorgons.
8 KAPITEL VII. Von Phyton, dem siebten Sohn Demogorgons.
9 KAPITEL VIII. Von Terra, der achte der Söhne Demogorgons
10 KAPITEL 9 In der Nacht der ersten Tochter der Erde.
11 KAPITEL X. De Fama, der zweite der Söhne von Terre.
12 KAPITEL XI. Von Tartarus III., Sohn von Terre.
13 KAPITEL XII. Von Tagetes III., dem Sohn von Terre.
14 KAPITEL XIII Von Antheus Vo Terre Sohn.
15 KAPITEL XIV. Von Herebus VIII., dem Sohn Demogorgons, der einundzwanzig Söhne hatte.

Boccaccio Genealogie .... die Zahlen entsprechen der Reihenfolge siehe oben
Petrarca's Trionfi sind (von oben nach unten) 1 Ewigkeit - 2 Zeit - 3 Fama (Ruhm) - 4 Tod - 5 Keuschheit - 6 Liebe
Boccaccio, 5 Kinder von Terra .... Reihenfolge von Kapitel 9-XIII (es kann sein, dass auch diese Reihe absichtlich an die andere Boccaccio/Petrarca-Reihe angepasst ist)


Boccaccio, Genealogie .................................. Petrarca, Trionfi.................................................. Boccacio, 5 Kinder von Terra
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0 Ewigkeit - 0 Chaos ................................... = 1 Ewigkeit (Kapitel I+II) ....................................... 1. Kind, Nox (= Nacht)
1 Demogorgon .............................................= 2 Zeit als alter Mann (erscheint im Prohemium) - 2. Kind, Fama (= Ruhm)
2 Litigius (= Streit) - 3 Pan .......................... = 3 Fama, Ruhm (Kapitel III+IV) ............................. 3. Kind, Tartarus (eine Art Unterwelt)
4-5-6 Clotho-Lachesis-Atropus .................. = 4 Tod (Kapitel V) .................................................. 4. Kind, Tagetes (ein Kind, das in der Erde gefunden wird)
7 Polus, Polo - 8 Python, Phanes .............. = 5 Keuschheit (= keine Kinder) (Kapitel VI+VII) .... 5. Kind, Antheus (ein Gigant, der in der Luft stirbt)
9 Terra (5 Kinder) - 10 Heberos (21 Kinder) = 6 Liebe (= ... haben Kinder) (Kapitel VIII+XV)

Boccaccio spricht von 4 Elementen, ohne dies genau auszuführen. Vermutlich meint er:

Feuer, Licht, Sonne = Ewigkeit
Wasser, Dunkelhet, Mond = Chaos
Luft = Litigius (kann fliegen, Eris, Göttin des Streits, hat Flügel)
Erde = Pan (Pan hat Ziegen- oder Schafsgestalt, er ist quasi ein Tier der Erde)

Allgemeine Elemente-Theorie: Feuer und Wasser bekämpfen einander, die Luft vermittelt im Streit. Alle 3 Elemente zusammen ist das Element Erde. Vermutlich kann man folgern: Luft = Krieg (oder Vermittlung im Krieg) und Erde = Frieden.

Das 5. Element Äther wird bei Boccaccio dem 21. und letztem Kind des Herebus zugeordnet. Dieses wird am Anfang von Liber 2 abgehandelt.

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

Added:

An interesting photostream with a large picture with Fame in the middle and the 3 Fates at bottom

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28433765@ ... otostream/

The Triumph of Fame, in the foreground the three Fates, trampled by Fame
The Triumph of Fame, in the foreground the three Fates (Clotho, Lachesis & Atropos), trampled by Fame [ca. 1502–4] Netherlandish

Metmuseum AN 1998.205
Latin inscription above the allegorical figure of "FAME":
VETER[UM]*SIC*ACTA*PER*FAMA[M]*FU[ER]UNT*REDACTA
[Thus the deeds of the ancients were immortalized by Fame]

Based in part on Petrarch’s poem I Trionfi (The Triumphs), this tapestry belonged to a set of six representing the consecutive triumphs of Love, of Chastity over Love, of Death over Chastity, of Fame over Death, of Time over Fame, and of Religion (or Eternity) over Time. Here Fame reads at a lectern, surrounded by writers whose works immortalized the deeds of the ancients. Triumphant over Death, she tramples the Fates and holds an orb crowned with a cross, locating the subject in a distinctly Christian context. This tapestry, or one identical to it, was purchased by Isabella, Queen of Castile and Aragon in 1504. It remains extraordinary for its condition, color and harmonious composition.

Also at ...
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/230011

Above the figure of the winged Fame is a man with wings in company with 2 horrible fishes (?). Any idea, who this shall be?

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

Another Flemish Petrarca Trionfi series ... 1500-1523, Great Watching Chamber, Hampton Court Palace
https://www.rct.uk/collection/1270/the- ... f-petrarch
****************************

1500-1530 Netherlandish
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/467829

A team of white elephants pulls a chariot in which the winged figure of Fame rides. Dressed in brocade and ostrich feathers, she sounds a trumpet, heralding the appearance of four famous men: two philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, and two rulers, Alexander the Great, on the far side, and Charlemagne. Alexander bears the golden scepter topped with a hand and other emblems of the kings of France; Charlemagne wears the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor but also the fleur-de-lys of France. Female figures symbolizing Death are trampled underfoot.
The theme derives from The Triumphs (I Trionfi), by the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch. By about 1500, it had been translated into French for King Louis XII and illustrated on royal tapestries.
This example is one of a series from the château de Septmonts, the residence of the bishops of Soissons. Bishop Symphorien de Bullioud, who was familiar with Italian culture from his diplomatic missions to Rome and Milan for Louis XII, probably commissioned the series.
The tapestry has been cut at the top, and the single remaining line of the inscription "By her power as a lady of consequence" relates to the complicated Triumph metaphor.

Thanks for the links, Huck. It's nice to know where to find the Genealogies on the Web - in Latin or your language of choice. Also, the 1502-3 tapestry done for Queen Isabella is much appreciated. I hadn't seen that one.

Nathaniel wrote (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=906&p=26289&hilit=Ziegler#p26289),

It seems fairly clear (from various bits of evidence discussed by Ziegler in Recueil Robertet: Handzeichnung in Frankreich um 1500, among others) that the Triumphs section of 24461—the first section—was completed sometime around 1500, well before 1509.

To my surprise, Interlibrary Loan was able to get me the Ziegler book, even if I can't take it out of the library (but they have a free scanner) - very interesting, thanks for mentioning it, Nathaniel. I had no idea how much BnF fr. 22461 had been discussed by art historians: his arguments are by way of summing up previous literature, mostly in French publications. The problem is that for most of the evidence he just refers us to other sources rather than showing it to us himself. He does have illustrations, but they are almost all of things readily available on the internet. The main exception is yet another ms. containing the Latin quatrains, another copy of 24461, done around 1528-1535, Ziegler says - he has many images from it (Brukenthal ms. 38). Only an informed eye would recognize any differences between them and the same ones in 22461; they look the same as those in BnF fr. 5066 (which I would have thought looked the same as those in 24461, before I read Ziegler).

He divides Ms. BnF fr. 24461 (also known as the "Recueil Robertet") into numerous parts, each of which gets assigned an artist (Zeichner) and a date range for when it was done. For the first artist, he says (pp. 62-63) that the style is similar to that of a Parisian artist known as the Master of the Chronique Scandaleuse, active ca. 1493-1510 and responsible for a large body of work. The work in particular most like the Robertet project is the Petit Livre d'Amour from 1500-1505. It is not the same artist, but one with similar training. Below, if you click on the link is a scan (I hope) to his precise words, with his references. I'd provide a translation, but one needs to actually see the work he is talking about to be persuaded, and he only gives references, not images. Ziegler does not say, as far as I can determine, why he shortened the 1490-1510 range that he initially proposed to 1490-1500. One reason might be the tapestry at the V&A that some (although not the V&A) date to around 1490, whose figures, except for the floral background, are arranged precisely as in the drawing (https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O727 ... y-unknown/, compared to https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426260f/f9.item). But we don't know which came first, the tapestry or the Robertet ms. The Latin quatrains by themselves are enough to prompt the tapestries, and they were known to Molinet, who was in Brussels. Then, if the artists had sketches of the tapestries, in some "model book" or otherwise, they could use them for their own inspiration. Ziegler only mentions the "ca. 1490" tapestry in passing and doesn't use it to date the triumphs in the ms. Isabella's tapestry would also have had the verses for inspiration, reason enough to put the three Fates under Fame's feet. Ziegler does not think that ms 122461 was meant as a source for tapestry designs, but rather as a book of instruction for adolescents and adults in or aspiring to be in the French courts. It is true that it is Robertet's versions of the quatrains and not Molinet's that appear in the four other London tapestries, but these were later, at least according to Campbell's reasoning, after 1515, when they appear in other manuscripts.

Another reason for the "1500" cutoff might be the "1494-5" dating for artist 3. He gives his justification on pp. 38-39, having to do with the "belles dames" section. About these ladies (all accessible in Gallica's website for 24461, at the folio Ziegler gives), he says, as I (with Google's considerable help) translate him (I put a link to the actual pages in German after the first quote):

Previous research took the symbolic motifs on the clothing materials of several figures as an opportunity to suspect identification portraits in them. Already Le Roux de Lincy claimed to have recognized a costume of Anne de Bretagne (1477-1514), wife of King Charles VIII and later King Louis XII, in the clothes of the françoise (fol. 106r). This representation and secure portraits of the queen are captivating in terms of the clothing, rose wreath and jewelry. In view of the fact that François Robertet (before 1451 - after 1516), who - as will be shown - inventor and compiler of the anthology, worked as a designer for Anne de Bretagne, a flattering representation of her in the manuscript would certainly not be an occasion for surprise.
Marie Holban went a step further with her considerations: In her opinion, at least six identifying portraits of members of the royal family are missing from the series of dames vertueuses. However, Holban's attributions are based to a large extent on physiognomic comparisons with other - partly alleged - portraits, so that they are hardly secure.
The only depiction of a lady in the Recueil Robertet that can be identified as a genuine portrait is that of Philippa von Geldern (1467-1547) riding on a mule, even if physiognomic similarity cannot be proven (fol. 107r). It is the epigraph that praises Philippa as an example of virtue and beauty who is an example to women of other countries. Philippa was the daughter of Adolf von Egmond, Duke of Guelders, and Catherine de Bourbon, sister of Pierre II de Bourbon. She spent her youth at the court of her aunt Anne de Beaujeu in Orleans. In order to strengthen the ties between the Kingdom of France and the Duchy of Lorraine, on September 1, 1485, in Orleans, she married René II (1451-1508), Duke of Lorraine; with him she had twelve children.97 The verse strophe accompanying Philippa's equestrian portrait (fol. 107r) gives space to the rumor of a love affair 98 with King Charles VIII.
The sequence to which the portrait of Philippa von Gueldern belongs, to be dated to the period between 1485, the time of Philippa and Rene's marriage, and 1496, the year of Charles VIII's death, therefore seems most plausible.

I do not understand how the identification of Philippa von Gueldern suggests that the drawing of her was done before 1496. Maybe something was lost in translation. More to the point, in my opinion, is what Ziegler says about the verses for the belle dame of Lombardy (p. 39):

The quatrain for the lombarde (fol. 101r) allows further limitation. In the verses, the millannoise, the Milanese woman, complains about the piquant situation in which she finds herself: she is being claimed by her jealous "friend", but the advances of "the Frenchman" have become more urgent. Charles VIII's Italian campaign in 1494-1495 may have provided the historical starting point for the connection between Milan and the "French". The years of this campaign would be the most likely time when the inventions emerged of the belle donne. If the drawings are a little more recent, they are based on older models.

In later comments, he says that the identity of the "friend" is unclear; he suggests Gian Galeazzo or Ludovico Sforza as possibilities. The problem here is that historically Charles VIII's campaign was directed at Naples, not Milan. It was Louis XII who targeted Milan, which was after Charles VIII's death in 1498 (I do not know why Ziegler says 1496). Although even before he became king, Louis was pressing his claim, the verses would have been most appropriate in 1498, with the page in the book done after that - how long after is unclear to me, since France's interest in Milan continued for decades.

It is not that I have any problem with 1500 as a suitable cut-off date for the drawing of the Triumphs. They would have been first, and by the time of the "belles dames" a lot of work would have had to have already been done. Moreover, Jean Robertet was getting old, and it would have been nice for him to see these pages in something like their final form. And if the tapestry was really done around 1490, it is so suitable for a simple drawing that the same design could readily be put into service, no matter which was first.

I was bothered by the cliff face in the 24461 Triumph of Death (see link above), which seemed to me dependent on models from the first decade of the 16th century. But I have found a suitable model for that cliff elsewhere, namely the Mantegna Saint Sebastian that Chiara/Clara Gonzaga lugged from Mantua to her new home in Auvergne as wife of Gilbert, Count de Montpensier, Dauphin d'Auvergne, Archduke of Sessa, Viceroy of Naples, etc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert,_ ... ontpensier), in 1482 (see far left below, 3rd from left, next to the Triumph of Death cliff). That same painting's Sebastian seems also related to the way the artist of ms. 5066 (the first copy of 14461) changed the depiction of Cupid, as Ziegler points out, giving him some muscle.

That brings up again the question of to what extent the Triumph drawings, and others in the book, depend on Italian models. I need to revisit that. Ziegler says that the proposal put forward by Nicole Reynaud in 1993 that tarot cards were among them is "without evidence" (p. 87, n. 252). At the same time, he makes it clear that the Bourbon courts had abundant connections with northern Italy considerably before the French military incursions into Italy. Most of these connections, at least by the 1480s, are summarized in another thread on THF, the "nec spe nec metu " one: see Huck at viewtopic.php?p=17813#p17813, then viewtopic.php?p=17825#p17825 and Alain's right after that. If they can cart over a large Mantegna, and their officials' artists can visibly use the "Tarot of Mantegna" images in other sections of the ms., I can't see why they wouldn't collect as many sets of allegorical pictures as they could get: allegorical series combining words and pictures was their thing. I've already said some things on that topic, but perhaps I should look again, reading Ziegler. At the same time, the V&A and Goldschmidt cards might provide some evidence of the cards' presence in that milieu. Perhaps the quirks in those cards correspond to symbols embedded in the "Recueil Robertet." I will see what I can come up with.

Added next day: Since originally posting I added to the last set of images the cliff from the Robertet Triumph of Death, for easy comparison to the Mantegna. This painting is dated by Wikipedia and the Web Gallery of Art at ca. 1480, so right before it went to France. An earlier St. Sebastian by him, ca. 1459-1560, has a differently shaped cliff, although his limbs are more like those of the earlier Robertet drawing (24461) than the later (5066). Compare at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Sebastian_(Mantegna).

So now I am revisiting the Robertet (of Moulins, France) images in the light of Ziegler and others, in this post focusing on the Triumph of Love. I'm going to review what Ziegler has to say and add a few things. My topic is the hypothesis that the Robertet Triumphs (accepting Ziegler's 1490-1500 dating) are based on a pre-1447 tradition of Petrarch Trionfi illustrations now lost, perhaps relating in turn to a similar tradition in certain tarot images.

Here are my screenshots of Ziegler's commentary (in German) on the Robertet Triumph of Love, which are my starting point. I give the German first so people will have it, and in what follows I can just paraphrase and occasionally give quotes in English translation: He begins by observing that In their "mis-en-page" - how the figures are put on the page - the figures are similar to a famous series of Sybils (p. 178):

A close parallel to the mis-en-page of the Triumphs are the copper engravings with depictions of the Sibyls, which were attributed to Baccio Baldini and Francesco Rosselli.

These were done in Florence of the 1470s, according to Wikipedia. An example might be Rosselli's Phrygian Sybil, which I put to the right of the Robertet below for comparison. Whether Rosselli actually influenced Robertet depends on how common such a layout was already in France and whether Robertet's design was original with him, or something he copied. I don't know of anything Italian like this, combining verses and pictures, before the 1470s, but perhaps there is.

Ziegler adds that Robertet is emphasizing the psychomachia (soul-strife) aspect of Petrarch poems, each physically fighting and overcoming the one before, a tradition that of course has a long history, back to Prudentius in the fifth century. Ziegler cites Matthias Greuter in 1596 as another illustrator of Petrarchan Triumphs who emphasizes that aspect (at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petr ... s_triumphs#, Greuter is second from the bottom; it seems to me that there are several others on this webpage, all 16th century French or Flemish/Dutch, that share this emphasis). This is a tradition that also existed independently of Petrarch, for example in Francesco Barbarino's Documenti d'amore, a work done by a Tuscan in exile in Provence (and so perhaps of influence in France) before 1348 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_da_Barberino, or the Vatican Library's website). Here Cupid does battle against a group of twelve virtues. There are also illustrations of the triumphs of love and fame, as Wikipedia identifies them.

Another possible source is tarot cards. Zeigler mentions Nicole Reynaud's proposal that the lack of chariots is due to the influence of tarot cards (p. 180, n. 573).

Nicole Reynaud hypothesized that the figure compositions could be inspired by tarot cards: EXHIBIT.-CAT.PARIS 1993, p. 354. The scheme represents a rare alternative to the main strand of the chariot procession representational tradition.

Of course, he also said earlier that this suggestion was "without evidence." But it seems to me that it would be surprising if a Gonzaga bride, granddaughter of Bianca Maria Visconti's friend Barbara of Brandenburg, did not take tarot cards with her to Moulins, and that the local writers would not have been interested (for the reference, see the second link to Huck in my previous post). They clearly did have the "Tarot of Mantegna" set of 50 hierarchically arranged images, which also doesn't use chariots (with the possible exception of Mars) - just compare 24461's pictures of Saturn (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... f/f21.item), Jupiter (next image), Mercury (a few further), and Mars, with their "Mantegna" equivalents, or any of the Muses (folio 28r-36r of 24461 for them; the "Mantegna" at http://www.levity.com/alchemy/mantegna.html). But what the tarot has that the "Mantegna" doesn't is, along with other subjects, cards similar to Petrarchan triumphs - Love, Time (the Old Man), and Death for sure, the rest probably: Eternity in the Judgment card, then called the Angel, and Fame in the Chariot; Chastity is found for sure only in the Visconti di Modrone Chariot card (because of the shield she holds), where (I think) Fame is represented by the World card (Nathaniel thinks it was another card with a chariot). Some of the other subjects correspond, too: the Wheel of Fortune, dukes and duchesses replacing the papals and imperials, proverbs and sayings instead of the virtues, and the Sybils for a Christian eschatological ending.

Ziegler also notes that around the same time a different representation schema was being used to illustrate the Triumphs in France.

Marie Jacob identifies with the miniature in the Codex Cod. Gall. 14 (Fol.1r) of the Bavarian State Library another French special solution from around 1450: JACOB 2005, esp. p. I96-I97.

He does not elaborate, and I cannot find that image on the Web, but Simona Cohen describes it (Transformations of Time and Temporality, Appendix, p. 319):

The Triumph of Love seems to be a direct interpretation of the text by a French miniaturist who was unfamiliar with Italian illustrations of the Trionfi. Cupid and Venus are seated on a cart led by four horses, while the victims of Cupid’s arrows stand conversing in the foreground and the poet sits with a book on his knees. this is probably the oldest known illuminated copy of the Trionfi produced in France.

It is with a French translation of Petrarch's poems, although likely not the oldest copy of that translation (there is also, I discover elsewhere, the unillustrated BnF Fr. 1119, at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... checontact).

For the rest, Ziegler is content to cite works that seem to have been influenced by the Robertet book. Such comparisons are worth exploring, to see what it was that later artists identified as important features. He mentions the stained glass window at Ervy-le-Chatel of 1502 (I discussed it at viewtopic.php?p=26287#p26287, in connection with its Triumph of Death), for its consistently frontal presentation of the main figures, despite having the chariots that were missing from Robertet. I would add that in most of the scenes, figures representing the previous Triumph can be seen lying down beneath the chariot, the same motif as in Robertet. Below are the first three (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _76754.jpg). In the image of Love, the figures aren't prostate, but a crowned figure seems about to be run over by the front wheel and an ecclesiastic plus others by the back. In the case of Death, as Trapp observed, the words Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos are even there, as in Robertet's illustration of that Triumph (they are just called "the sisters" in the verses). The verses under each image do not seem to be related specifically to those of Robertet, nor the precise ways in which Cupid, Chastity, and Death are portrayed. The naming of the three Fates could be following certain Italian manuscripts that did so (see my earlier post), but putting people under the wheels of any chariot but Death is first seen, at least as known, in Robertet. Likewise, the bit in Chastity's mouth was a conventional if rare attribute of Temperance (like the vessel pouring liquid; the bit is seen in Giotto's Temperance fresco, ca. 1305 Padua). However, Robertet's verses for Love also mention reins and a bit (I will quote them a little later).

Ziegler also mentions a fragment of a tapestry now in the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts. Google Books and archive.org have it in an exhibition catalog they scanned, Masterpieces of Tapestry from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century: An Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Issue 13, 1974, p. 150.
The verses are different from Robertet's, but still in the psychomachia tradition.

Ziegler also relates the Robertet to BnF ms. fr. 594 (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... 6/f22.item, generally dated to 1502-3), making an observation I hadn't noticed: in small gold letters it identifies three of the people (far left) following the chariot as Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto.
The first two have obvious crowns. In the Robertet, all three have them, but Pluto's has fallen off. Similarly, in the tapestry fragment two crowned heads are visible below Cupid, on the far left and far right.

The identification of these three gods, each a "king" in his own realm, corresponds to Robertet, in both the verses and the image. I will repeat here, first the Latin, then the French, and finally my translation of both. (Ziegler pp. 177-178, followed by my machine-assisted translations):

Ecce Coronati telo stern nu(n)tur amoris.
Cum Iove nectunnus cu(m) Iove pluto subit.
Lora voluptati reges imponite . . .

His telis supero reges, mare, sidera, terras,
Plusque arcus noster quam lovis arma potest.

Cupido a de son dart prosternez
Jovis, neptunne et pluton couronnez,
Roys ensuivans folle amour et plaisance,
D’eulx triumphant nonobstant leur puissance . . .

Behold, the Crowned ones are laid low with the weapon of love.
With Jupiter, Neptune, with Jupiter Pluto submits.
Reins of pleasure are put on kings: . . .

These darts above kings, sea, stars [or sky], lands,
More our bow can do than Jove's weapons.

Cupid has with his dart prostrated
Crowned Jove, Neptune and Pluto,
Kings following mad love and pleasure,
On them triumphant despite their power. . . .

Ziegler says that Jupiter probably represents air, Neptune Water, and Pluto Earth, three of the elements. To me Jupiter's realm is a bit more inclusive, including the stars. In any case, the three together represent the World (of "Amor Vincit Mundum" - Love Conquers the World).

Ziegler appears unaware that the Latin quatrains (minus the "vincit" and the couplet) are also found in a manuscript in Modena, which is also its historical location as early as is known; Nathaniel brought it to our attention, noting that it has the year 1447 written on f. 105r (the quatrain is at https://edl.cultura.gov.it/item/vmr9oevrwd, at f. 296r). But is the quatrain really so early, reflecting, by its "Behold," a now-lost visual presentation even earlier, singling out the three gods? Where in the Italian Petrarch illustrations at any time are these three singled out as particular victims of Cupid's arrows?

Jupiter was, yes. We can see that in a ca. 1480 ms. associated with the scribe Sanvito (now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore). That it is Jupiter is clear from the end of the first section of Petrarch's poem, where his guide tells him (https://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_t ... age=I-I.en):

"What shall I say? To put it briefly, then,
All Varro' s gods are here as prisoners,
And, burdened with innumerable bonds,
Before the chariot goes Jupiter."

Sanvito shows the chains.

Petrarch does mention Pluto and Persephone, as a couple and just in passing. He doesn't mention Neptune at all. It strikes me as odd that such a specific tradition, if it existed in pre-1447 Italy, would so uniformly die out. I don't even know of depictions of Cupid assailing Pluto and Neptune in other contexts, unlike, say, Apollo (with Daphne). It seems at least as likely that depicting the three gods was Robertet's initiative, expanding on Petrarch and an Italian tradition that showed Jupiter tied to the front of the chariot. It justifies the motto "Amor Vincit Mundum" that follows Robertet's quatrain. In that case, the same verses (which omitt the "Vincits") in the Modena ms. would be a later addition to what was there before (there are numerous blank pages at the end, interspersed with a few that use only a small part of the page and seem clearly to be addition. After being invented by Robertet in the 1470s, they would, on this hypothesis, been passed on by some Bourbon visitor to Ferrara, or in a letter, then recorded in a convenient Trionfi manuscript. Gilbert, Count de Montpensier, was there in 1485, according to the information Huck found back in 2010, viewtopic.php?p=9118#p9118). But the couplet, which Robertet did not translate into French, was left out, along with the "vincit". Both help make the meaning clear, and with the couplet mentioning only Jupiter, but all three realms, he becomes a kind of three-in-one.

Ziegler discusses one more manuscript with Robertet-like images. From about 1540 and now in the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin, Handschriftensammlung, [SMPK], it is their cod. phil. 1926. I cannot find this ms. online, but Ziegler offers the following description (p. 89, n. 266):

In the miniature of Cupid's triumph (fol. 2V) of the Codex SMPK cod. phil. 19266, only one of the defeated parties is identified as king, although the associated distich speaks of “roys” in the plural; Lecoq interpreted him as the wise King Solomon: LECOQ I988A, p. I40. The other two kings are replaced by Hercules and Samson - recognizable by their attributes. The powers defeated by Cupid are no longer the elements of the cosmos, but rather strength, virtue and wisdom.

I cannot find this ms. on the Web, but his descriptions of its Triumph illustrations correspond very much to those of the "Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur" at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petr ... 1-love.jpg), including a deviation from Robertet in the Triumph of Divinity (which Robertet and Petrarch called "Eternity": the Berlin ms. and Bildindex image have the Christian-imaged version). Interestingly, the ms. also has French paraphrases of the Latin quatrains. Ziegler (p. 90) suspects that someone at one time owned both this manuscript and BnF fr. 24461, because both were at times part of the library of Duke of La Valliere in the mid-18th century, and the two may have been passed down together.

Ziegler ends his commentary on this page of 22461 by saying (p. 180):

In France at the end of the 15th century, Marsilio Ficino's concept of Platonic love was intensively received and related to Christian-religiously inspired ideals of virtuous love, as was also the case in Symphonies Champier's Livre de vraye amour, part of the Nef des dames vertueuses (Lyon 1503).

What does Ficino's concept of Platonic love have to do with the concept of love illustrated by Robertet? Petrarch did not know about Platonic love as presented by Ficino, of course: he couldn't read Greek, and there is no evidence that anyone else translated the Phaedrus for him (he apparently did have a copy of Plato's works). But he did have the chivalric tradition, which was at least as big in France as in Italy in the later Middle Ages. In that tradition, love is ennobling as well as enslaving. For example, in part 2 of his Triumph of Love (https://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_t ... ge=I-II.en) he mentions a man who out of love gives his beloved the poison she desires, so as not to live as another's slave. Another man, out of paternal love, gives his young wife to his son, since both desire it. It is a feature of Love's bonds that they not only enflame but also constrain. Likewise in the chivalric tradition, love not only enflames the knight for his lady, but constrains him to live or die in her service without hope of consummation. It is much like the love that causes the charioteer in Plato's Phaedrus to bow down in awe and worship at the sight of the beloved, as an image of divine beauty seen in the heavens before birth.

Such a conception of love applied both in Robertet's France and in the courts of northern Italy. An Italian example that Ziegler cites elsewhere in his book is a medal made for Leonello d'Este in 1444, showing Cupid teaching a lion how to sing from what is written on a scroll. 1444 was the year of his second marriage. The lion is Leonello ("little lion"), and the medal expresses his submission to love. Here I would add that it also says that such submission is noble even if its expression appears awkward and foolish, as would be the case of a lion trying to sing. In France we see this tradition even in the time of Charles VIII and Louis XiI, i.e. the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the next. A 1488 Venice print edition of Petrarch's Trionfi, Banco Rari 103 of the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence, had a series of illustrations done afterwards (to be inserted into the book), commissioned by the uncle of the Venetian ambassador to France 1485-88 and again in 1498, according to a study by Alessandro Turbil, from which I get the illustration (https://journals.openedition.org/studif ... 73?lang=en). That series' Triumph of Love had Jupiter tied to the front of Love's chariot (at left below). There is a similar French illustration, in Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve ms. 0965, p. 28, itself of 1681-1687 but said there by the author, the librarian at Ste.-Genevieve, to be a copy of an illustration from two centuries earlier (https://portail.biblissima.fr/ark:/4309 ... 0fadbff2bc; to see the page, go to the link there for p. 28 and find the second image). Instead of Jupiter it shows King David at the front of the chariot playing his harp. According to Turbil, this is an allusion to Charles VIII, who fancied himself a latter-day David, or conceivably to Louis XII (machine translation of Turbil's French):

Charles VIII was successively David conqueror of the giant Goliath, for his first royal entry into Paris in 1484; the young shepherd anointed by God, upon entering Rouen in 1485; and again in Troyes in 1486, in order to prove that a child can, by divine will, become a triumphant king (29). This association at the level of the collective imagination will still work for King Louis XII, but to a lesser extent. From this perspective, it seems likely that this account of the historia salutis concerning David suggests to readers of this period a parallel with the biography of the child king; thus the illuminator's choice to substitute David in chains for Jupiter could not be random.

Associating French kings with David, as prisoner of Love, can hardly be meant pejoratively. David is merely a more accomplished version of Leonello's lion.

Devotion to ideals is less clear in the typical Florentine Petrarch illustration, in which Samson is shown submitting to Delilah's underhanded haircut, Aristotle to Phyllis's domineering use of him as she would a horse, and Cupid as a mischievous little boy shooting his arrows at people willy-nilly. But it is in the former spirit, of Love's arrows as ennobling, that Robertet in his verses says, after the part I quoted, that the ruler who practices moderation endures and the one who does not falls: moderation is constraint. Here is the remainder of the quatrain (plus the one line vincit) and huitaine (Ziegler 177-8):

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . septra
Immoderata ru(un)t et moderata durant
Amor vincit mu(n)du(m).

Princes, mettez frai(n) a voz voluptez
Car les ceptres qui sont immoderez
Tumbent tantost et ne sont point estables
Les moderez sont fermes et durables.
Amour vainc le mo(n)d.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .scepters
Uncontrolled rush and stay controlled.

Princes, apply the bit to [i.e. rein in] your voluptuousness,
For the scepters which are immoderate
Sometimes collapse and are not stable;
The moderate ones are firm and durable.
Love vanquishes the world.

Notice here the bit, which in the stained glass window is in the mouth of Chastity. However, it is not only love leading to abstinence that is ennobling, but any love in accord with virtue, love in moderation, as temperance was characterized, including here love of possessions. It is not that Cupid merely lays people low; he also ennobles, by creating the need for such restraint. On the other end of the spectrum, St. Sebastian's, too, can be seen as love-darts, enflaming the saint's passion and longing for God.

Such a love is also implied in the Tarot Love cards of this time. In the Modrone and Colleoni versions, the restraint is expressed in the handshake that seals the marriage contract, one of mutual obligations one to the other. It is also in the Modrone's Chariot card (https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002878,i image 50) where she holds her shield triumphantly and her horses are under control, even though one, as in Plato's allegory, is unruly and in need of restraint. In Italy, Plato's Phaedrus was topical in the 1430s and earlier, long before Ficino. That Plato presented all his ideals, gods, and even human souls as charioteers may be one reason why the Trionfi illustrations (as well as those of the "children of the planets" series) presented them similarly, an allusion to Plato for the humanistically inclined, even if to the masses they only suggested a procession. In ca. 1500 card of Ferrara or Venice (fourth from left) and another from around the same time, probably reflecting a style of Florence or Bologna, even if the card itself might be from Perugia (see http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com ... rugia.html), it is the knight submitting to his lady and the lady accepting it, perhaps even keeping it on a lofty, chivalric plane - or, on another level, a marriage proposal.

In none of these except the Colleoni is Cupid presented in a way similar to how Robertet has him, upright posture, arrows held in the hand, pointing down, as if to throw them rather than shoot them from a bow. There also differences. On the card, Cupid seems to have two long shafts and no bow. Also, he is more the mischievous little boy than Robertet's proud youth. And of course nobody is being held down against their will. Nonetheless, Nathaniel has proposed that it could well reflect a ms. tradition that would have produced Robertet's images, back as far as pre-1447, because of the manuscript with the verses in Modena.

Except for that manuscript, there would be no reason to back anywhere near that far, it seems to me, at least based on the Robertet Triumph of Love. For one thing, it is known that copies of at least some of the Colleoni cards were made, because several such duplicates, more or less, have survived in various collections. They seem to have been done before 1500. If some were gifts, a copy of the card might have ended up in France. For another thing, there are known Petrarch Trionfi manuscripts that have precisely the same pose as in the Robertet drawing. There is the one for Banco Rari 103 that I showed earlier, but it is not clear whether it would have gotten to France in time to influence Robertet. But there are two Ferrarese manuscripts that Nathaniel has drawn our attention to, made for Borso d'Este in 1459 and 1460: Dresden Mscr. Dresd. Ob. 26, image 5 (https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/12986/5) and Vienna Cod. 2649, 4r (https://onb.digital/search/635045). These dates are just before Jean Robertet is said, based on a letter that is part of a collection to which Jean Robertet contributed, to have been in Italy, the context suggesting to modern eyes 1462-3. It would have been easy enough to make mental notes and brief sketches, if he could get access to them. Or if not, then get them later, through family and diplomatic connections to Mantua and Ferrara. Here are their Triumphs of Love: Here, oddly, we see a man in a papal tiara in front of the chariot. Is this a dig at the pope? Quite possibly. The reigning pope then was Pius II, who studiously avoided taking any position that required a vow of celibacy before he became pope, according to Wikipedia. Wikipedia quotes a book from the 1930s:

"The new Pope, Pius II, was expected to inaugurate an even more liberal and paganised era in the Vatican. He had led the dissipated life of a gentleman of the day and complained of the difficulty of practicing continency, a difficulty he did not surmount."

Well, perhaps it ennobled him anyway, if it was only a mistress.

What the person in the illustration is wearing is and was called a "triregnum," meaning reigning over three. Exactly what three the pope reigned over was not said. One suggestion on Wikipedia is that since the Emperor had three crowns - silver for Germany, iron for Italy, and gold for Emperor - the pope needed three as well. However, the man is bearded, at a time when popes were always clean-shaven. Jupiter, however, was presented as bearded (in the Sanvito and then for Banco Rari 103), and as king of the gods he would have ruled over Neptune and Pluto as well as his own domain of the air (if that is right) or Olympus. Hence the triregnum. If so, perhaps Robertet got the idea of three gods from the triregnum. I suppose the illustrations could have been reducing to one god an earlier tradition with all three gods. It seems to me more likely that the triregnum is there to indicate the pope, and the beard, implying Jupiter, is for purposes of deniability. I know of no tradition in which all three gods are subjected to Cupid.

Another discrepancy is that at least one of these two Ferrarese illustrations makes Cupid a little chubbier, younger, and less proud than the Robertet In the Sanvito that I showed earlier, we have both a bearded Jupiter and a proud youth. It is just a matter of mixing and matching. Moreover, it seems to me that the Sanvito was probably done in Mantua, where it or a copy could easily have reached Robertet. Sanvito had been born in Padua 1433 and trained there, perhaps, like Mantegna, with Squarcione. There is a nice piece on the internet by a person named Paul Shaw, summarizing a book on his life (https://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/20 ... ce-scribe/). The critical part is this:

Sanvito was part of Cardinal Gonzaga’s household from 1463 until the Cardinal’s death in 1483. He moved to Rome in October 1464 and remained there, with frequent trips back to Padua, until 1501. During these decades he was the leading scribe of Humanist texts. Among his clients during these years were Sixtus IV, King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, Giovanni d’Aragona, Ludovico Agnelli of Mantova, and Bernardo Bembo (whose friendship dated to 1458). On many of these manuscripts he worked with the best miniaturists of the day, especially with Gaspare da Padova, another member of Cardinal Gonzaga’s household who he had met as early as 1462. The two began their collaboration in 1469 with a stunning copy of Julius Caesar and continued until the early 1490s when it is believed Gaspare died.

Although Gonzaga was from Mantua, he was based primarily in Rome. But it happens that he was not there at the time in question, ca. 1480. According to Wikipedia

From 1479 to 1480 Francesco hosted Angelo Poliziano at his court in Mantua, where the scholar poet wrote the Fabula of Orpheus (Italian: Fabula di Orfeo).

In these years, until December of 1480, the Cardinal was also in Bologna and Ferrara, Wikipedia adds, then in 1482 being assigned to Bologna. If his "court" was in Mantua, then probably Sanvito was, too, not only as part of that court but also because Mantegna was there, with all his connections. The ms. might even have made it to France in those years, as its history, before 1905 when it appeared on the London antiquities market, is quite unknown. It was in 1482, let us recall, that Chiara/Clara Gonzaga journeyed to the Robertets' vicinity.

In any case, it makes sense that between the later 1450s and the late 1480s there would have been numerous models for Cupid in Italy, easily accessible from Robertet's France. As to before then, the question remains open. On the one hand, there is the Modena ms. and the Colleoni card. On the other, the Modena manuscript specifies Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, never seen in either Triumph illustrations or tarot cards of Love, and there are extant but later models for Robertet's image. Or a version of the Colleoni card itself could have influenced Robertet. Or he was drawing on some version of Cupid that had nothing to do with Petrarch, such as that represented by the Barbarino illustration I showed near the beginning of this post and his Triumph of Love later in the book (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... berino.jpg).

mikeh wrote: 13 Dec 2023, 12:36
Ziegler also notes that around the same time a different representation schema was being used to illustrate the Triumphs in France.

Marie Jacob identifies with the miniature in the Codex Cod. Gall. 14 (Fol.1r) of the Bavarian State Library another French special solution from around 1450: JACOB 2005, esp. p. I96-I97.

He does not elaborate, and I cannot find that image on the Web, but Simona Cohen describes it (Transformations of Time and Temporality, Appendix, p. 319):

The Triumph of Love seems to be a direct interpretation of the text by a French miniaturist who was unfamiliar with Italian illustrations of the Trionfi. Cupid and Venus are seated on a cart led by four horses, while the victims of Cupid’s arrows stand conversing in the foreground and the poet sits with a book on his knees. this is probably the oldest known illuminated copy of the Trionfi produced in France.

It is with a French translation of Petrarch's poems, although likely not the oldest copy of that translation (there is also, I discover elsewhere, the unillustrated BnF Fr. 1119, at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... checontact).

Here is Codex Gallensis 14
https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/v ... 4?page=4,5

Only in black and white, though.

mikeh wrote: 13 Dec 2023, 12:36 But what the tarot has that the "Mantegna" doesn't is, along with other subjects, cards similar to Petrarchan triumphs - Love, Time (the Old Man), and Death for sure, the rest probably: Eternity in the Judgment card, then called the Angel, and Fame in the Chariot; Chastity is found for sure only in the Visconti di Modrone Chariot card (because of the shield she holds), where (I think) Fame is represented by the World card

Sigh.
Mike, if you're going to keep on resolutely refusing to acknowledge the similarity between Robertet's Eternity image and the Visconti di Modrone World card, then your entire investigation of ms. 24461 seems quite pointless, at least as far as tarot history is concerned. The only other links between Robertet's images and tarot cards are the Love, Time, and Wheel of Fortune images, and none of those provide compelling evidence that the tarot deck was based on Petrarch's Trionfi. It could simply be that those three subjects were depicted on some tarot cards in the 1440s in a similar way to how they were depicted in some Petrarchan illustrations around that same time, without the former necessarily being an instance of the latter. All three were established allegorical subjects, which were depicted in many different contexts, not just the context of Petrarch's poem cycle (even if Time was a relatively rare one).

But the Eternity image is a very different matter, because that was not a commonly depicted allegory—it didn't really exist as an allegorical subject in Italian art at all until people started creating illustrations of Petrarch's Trionfi poems. So if the VdM World card depicts Eternity, this is compelling evidence indeed that the tarot deck—in its earliest incarnation at least—must have been based around Petrarch's cycle. Unlike Love, Death, and the Wheel of Fortune, there is simply no other reasonable explanation for why that allegorical subject would have been in the deck. The Last Judgment is not so compelling, because that subject was also one that appeared in many different contexts. But Eternity per se (whether depicted as a simple anthropomorphic personification, as in the Robertet image, or in the more common Florentine configuration with Jesus/God) was uniquely associated with the Trionfi cycle and nothing else.

Thus, the link between the VdM World image and the Robertet Eternity image is essential here. If you reject it, then you reject any real significance of ms. 24461 for the history of tarot.