Thanks for the clarification. In my post preceding yours, I had also looked at Laurent de Premierfait and found where he did mention lightning - just not in the same place as Lydgate had put it, but in the moralization addressed to princes that followed (in Premierfait), still referring to the Tower...

The reason why adding a dragon would have to do with the apocalypse is that it would have been part of an accepted and pervasive method of interpretation: seeing Old Testament events as precursors of New Testament events, either typologically or anagogically (see here Wikipedia at https://en.wikiped...

In the comments you got from Benedetti, this part was of some interest: Quello che posso dire osservando le immagini è che entrambi i mazzi contengono dei residui di Imperatore e Imperatrice, con gli scettri con Sole e Luna di Al Mondo e i globi di Al Soldato. (What I can say by looking at the image...

Yes, I saw that, at least in Lydgate. (Thanks for the link to Laurent.) But what is the significance of serpents and a dragon? They surely don't inspire the building of the tower. They don't have the same function as devils or giants. And why are they added to the story? The only thing I can think o...

Magic Moon wrote In any case, the dates are too close to accept that Giovanni Bentivoglio was the father of Francesca, Fibbia's wife, because we know that Giovanni was born in 1458, so Francesca would have been born after 1475. The painting says that Fibbia was born in 1460, which is close to the bi...

Thanks for the clarifications, Nathaniel. I agree with Ross, except that I would give the smug devil at the bottom around a 25% probability. I am far from reaching a conclusion, however. I am so far just investigating possible sources for the imagery - including of the lightning itself, in combinati...

My impression is that Andrea thinks that Fibbia's tarocchi might have had 14 trumps; the only basis he offers is the weak one of the 5x14 theory: in Bologna and The Tarot , p. 2, he says "at the beginning there may have been only fourteen allegories," with a long footnote summarizing Huck'...

I can't see any of Huck's old images, nor many others, so it is difficult for me to know what you are talking about. If you can see the images on one phone but not another, then I guess it is a matter of settings. I will have to experiment. By the "c. 1650" deck, I thought you meant the &q...

The book's name is not mentioned that I can see. But an "Al Leone" tarocchini deck is pictured on pp. 49-59 of Andrea Vitali and Terry Zanetti, Il Tarocchini di Bologna (Bologna: edizioni Martini, 2005). It is not online that I know of. The book is well worth having; it is listed as availa...

Magic Moon: I made mistakes both in my translation (as it appeared in my critique of yours) and then my explanation that translation, for "E creato Cavagliere fu de’ Signori". You were right to question it. I wrote: The next document cited is Discendenza di Guarniero I. Progenitore della N...