Re: Proveri Vergognosi or The Ashamed Poor

11
First of all- thanks for correcting me on the dates- I have a brain block on the year Bianca got married :-s
Well something I do not know is when cards first got their name or title on them.
The VS must have been perfectly understood as an image- it did not have a name.
Moakley indentified Giotto's Stultitia as female, but when I looked at it(down on my knees as it is low down) it appeared to me as male. I counted the feathers because of Lent and I could only count six- should be seven and VS appears as six as well- so maybe that is stupid- can't count or truely Folly. Can't count is surely a good 0 for a card card. The 'are you stupid?' card.
I hope I am not trying to draw sweeping conclusions- but the VS is different-markedly so, from other hand painted cards. What local experience made this so? No carnival before Lent? Different humanist views? Or different subject matter using the same format? They say about Florence that the psyche was about Magnificence and Milan about Peace. I do not think Sforza was as concerned about his soul as was Cosimo in Florence.
There has to be a connection between Confraternity and Tarot- even if it is oblique- because craftsmith belonged to them- each district was one-each church was part of one. Every Confraternity had a patron saint and a banner and a role in every event- some singing, some making floats, some putting on plays, some making speeches and practising sermons and all highly protective of their trade and identity and district. They fought over the right of order in processions, whose production was the best, who was the best preacher,what confraternity had the best singer........In 1433 there was apparently 94 Confraternity in Florence- all active.
I just get caught with the images, because that is what I think Tarot is- images that tell what they are if only we have eyes to see. The half Fool on the Cary Yale sheet seems to be not pre- Lenten -but a worker with a hat on his back. It all makes me ponder.....

~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: Proveri Vergognosi or The Ashamed Poor

12
Well that was a Eureka moment!
I went back and looked at the Giotto Fool and he has seven feathers.
The VS Fool has six. The card says what it is.. I am a no count card. I don't count... I am Zero or nothing lol.
Now to somehow show that other types of Fools like D'este show they don't/can't count either in a visual way. :)
Before anyone starts counting feathers and I have grumpy bird players flying my way.....
Page 158 Vol 11 Kaplan says in discussing the Fool (which is at variance with Vol 1)
..Only six feathers are clearly visible on on the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Fool, although there is possibily another one where the club passes behind the Head.
But counting the Lombardy -it has clearly six only.
Maybe Mikeh is right in a way- it does not really matter what subject matter is involved as long as you can see the card visually is a non- counting card.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: Proveri Vergognosi or The Ashamed Poor

13
I appreciate how you look at situations--and the cards--afresh in each post and don't carry around a load of baggage, Lorredan.

As for me, I seem to find myself disagreeing with whatever you say, even when you start to agree with me!

I do not believe the cards were ever just a game. From the time that there was a zero card, there was an allegory to be had with it, however the meaning might vary. "Shamed poor" is not a bad way of characterizing the VS card, whatever it was called, the one that didn't count for anything. Perhaps it can be seen as someone who overspent at Carnival and now, harried by creditors, is at his wit's end. Without grace, divine or otherwise, he is lost. Maybe something like that happened to a friend or relative of the artist, there in Cremona, while the artist himself was trying to keep above water. In Milan, too, there were the heady days of the Ambrosian Republic, followed by the shame of bowing to the Force of the inevitable and then dying of the plague. There were many refugees, those years in Cremona (such as my hero Filelfo). What better than to take Giotto's image, within the limits of this new genre called trionfi, and make of it something new, something that would also express what the artist's Lord and Mistress most desired: peace and new prosperity through submission.

Re: Proveri Vergognosi or The Ashamed Poor

14
mikeh wrote:I appreciate how you look at situations--and the cards--afresh in each post and don't carry around a load of baggage, Lorredan.

As for me, I seem to find myself disagreeing with whatever you say, even when you start to agree with me!
:D I will take that lightly as I am here to share and learn.
I do not believe the cards were ever just a game.

Well! Well!
Nor do I- but that view is held to be controversial and I have had my fingers burnt from outardly espousing that same view. The same reasons Tarot is used for readings today is easily transferred to earlier times. I once applied the cards to the enigmatic Horoscope on the ceiling of the Hallway to Medici Chapel. It worked- but I would be very chary of writing about it in Historical research. It is the same reasons that mystics in the 18th Century saw in the cards a presage element or in the common overused term Fortune telling. I think you see a strong Humanist quality to the cards as education though- I am not so sure.
It is all interesting though and I am about to talk about sermons......
and pssst.....I won't tell anyone that I think it was more than just a game also. :p
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: Proveri Vergognosi or The Ashamed Poor

16
I can't tell Steve. I counted 6 commentaries that say 6 and 6 1/2 say 7 (1/2 is Kaplan 7 in one Book and 6 in the other)
As I said the Lombardy Fool has definitely 6.
So someone is wrong.
The only thing I can think is that the 6 Sundays of Lent were not counted.
I would like to think if it is a nod to Lent- then the symbols of penance feathers would be clear.
Nothing is ever clear- cut with these images. Example- I would have thought someone called the Hermit would be like all depictions of the Austin or otherwise Hermits and would have a full length habit or a striped one as in the paintings of the time. Hermits did not wear Jewels on their ankles or crazy hats. Is Tarot serious or Humorous?
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts
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