Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Iolon wrote: 21 May 2022, 16:37
1. Why do you say the cardinat virtues don't have a fixed order. Since Plato this order did not change: Temperance, Force, Prudence and Justice. Justice was only the combined virtue of all other three virtues, so if you had achieved the virtues Temperance, Force and Prudence, then automatically you had achieved the virtue Justice. This is probably the reason why Prudence disappeared in the Tarot sequence, its presence did not really add something to the virtues.
Order of Cardinal Virtues

The Cardinal Virtues appear in many different orders in medieval and Renaissance artwork. Often only one or two are used. The creator of the Tarot order chose a specific order for three, but whether it had a particular moral meaning is something we can only speculate about. The basis for my speculation is comparison with contemporary series of the Cardinal Virtues, noting that every composition which uses them, often with others, uses them for a specific purpose. For instance, when a Virtue is singled out from the rest for special emphasis, such as Justice in Alfonso's Neapolitan triumph of 1443, or even when one is conspicuously omitted, which Charles Rosenberg famously argued for the lack of Justice in Borso's Sala degli Stucchi in the Schifanoia palace in Ferrara, where Borso's chair or throne takes the place of Justice, therefore identifying Borso with the Virtue when he was present.

If the composition is centrifugal, the Virtues will be ranked by proximity to the central subject, to emphasize those qualities. For instance in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government, 1339, in the Palazzo Pubblico in Florence, the personification of Good Government is flanked by six virtues, left to right Pax, FORTITUDE, PRUDENCE – Good Government – Magnanimity, TEMPERANCE, JUSTICE.
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Or on the Fonte Gaia in the Piazza del Campo in Siena, designed by Jacopo della Quercia in 1419, shows the Virgin with baby Jesus flanked by the Cardinal and Theological Virtues. The two closest to her are Prudence to her right and Justice to her left. The full order, left to right, Humility (?), Hope, FORTITUDE, PRUDENCE – Virgin – JUSTICE, Charity, TEMPERANCE (?), Faith.
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Or in Michelino da Besozzo's illustration for Giangaleazzo's funeral oration, showing the central Virgin with Child crowning Giangaleazzo in Heaven, twleve virtues are ranged in four ranks around the center. The three “Tarot” Cardinal Virtues (known collectively as the Appetitive Virtues) are in the back row to the Virgin's right, in the order Temperance, Fortitude, Justice (or in the reverse order if we count from proximity to her). Prudence is in the row to her left and front, grouped with Piety and Mercy.
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In the arch depicting Alfonso's triumph in Naples, the order is Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence.
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In the depiction of Borso's triumph in 1453, the order is Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, Prudence.
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On a mid-15th century cassone panel, the order left to right is Justice, Charity, Fortitude, Prudence. In this instance, the iconography is pure Temperance, but she is explicitly labelled “Caritas.”
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These examples are enough to demonstrate that nobody followed a canonical order or ranking of these virutes. They were ordered ad hoc, for the symbolic purpose of the composition.

Personally, I take the original order in the Tarot to have been, in ascending order, Temperance, Justice, Fortitude (I call it TIF). This is that of the Tarocco Bolognese and the Rosenwald sheet. A second option switches the positions of Justice and Fortitude, which is the order of the Charles VI and Minchiate series: Temperance, Fortitude, Justice (TFI).

I don't really have any good symbolic interpretations to offer. Maybe it depends on where the Chariot goes. If the Chariot is immediately below the Wheel of Fortune, with the order Love-Temperance-Justice-Fortitude-Chariot, then it could be that Temperance tempers passion, Justice is a balanced life, and Fortitude represents the virtue most needed for the upcoming trials of bad fortune, with the Chariot representing the man who has mastered them and is ready.

I also like that TIF spelled backwards is FIT, which is Latin for “He/She does/is doing/making” etc., which brings to mind the “active life” of that side of the Wheel. It is appropriate to spell it backwards because often the early lists of trumps and rules list them from highest to lowest, and I believe that is how they were learned at the table.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Missing Prudence

When looking at the three Cardinal Virtues of the Tarot, it is natural to ask “Where is Prudence?” After all, the Cardinal Virtues are a group of four, which we learn from the beginning are “the four Cardinal Virtues.” (iconographic anacoluthon, anapodoton, aposiopesis?)

Who was the first to ask this question? As an explicit question, it turns out to be quite late. Antoine Court de Gébelin (“Du jeu des tarots,” Le Monde Primitif, [volume 8], 1781, p. 372) identifies Prudence as the original intention of the current image of the Pendu. We must quote the entire passage to appreciate his argument:
No. XII. La Prudence est du nombre des quatre Vertus Cardinales: les Egyptiens purent-ils l’oublier dans cette peinture de la Vie Humaine ? Cependant, on ne la trouve pas dans ce Jeu. On voit à sa place sous le No. XII. entre la Force & la Tempérance, un homme pendu par les pieds: mais que fait-là ce pendu ? C’est l’ouvrage d’un malheureux Cartier présomptueux qui ne comprenant pas la beauté de l’allégorie renfermée sous ce tableau, a pris sur lui de la corriger, & par-là même de le défigurer entièrement.
La Prudence ne pouvoit être représentée d’une manière sensible aux yeux que par un homme debout, qui ayant un pied posé, avance l’autre, & le tient suspendu examinant le lieu où il pourra le placer surement. Le titre de cette carte étoit donc l’homme au pied suspendu, pede suspenso: le Cartier ne sachant ce que cela vouloit dire, en a fait un homme pendu par les pieds.
Puis on a demandé, pourquoi un pendu dans ce Jeu ? & on n’a pas manqué de dire, c’est la juste punition de l’Inventeur du Jeu, pour y avoir représenté une Papesse.
Mais placé entre la Force, la Tempérance & la Justice, qui ne voit que c’est la Prudence qu’on voulut & qu’on dut représenter primitivement ?
No. XII. Prudence is one of the four Cardinal Virtues: could the Egyptians have forgotten it in this painting of Human Life? However, it is not found in this Game. In its place under No. XII, between Strength and Temperance, we see a man hanging by his feet: but what is this hanging man doing? It is the work of an unfortunate and presumptuous Cardmaker who, not understanding the beauty of the allegory contained in this picture, took it upon himself to correct it, and thereby to disfigure it entirely.

Prudence could only be represented in a way that was appreciable to the eyes by a man standing, who, having one foot on the ground, moves the other forward and holds it suspended, examining the place where he could place it safely. The title of this card was therefore the man with a suspended foot, pede suspenso: the Cardmaker, not knowing what this meant, made it a man hanging by his feet.

Then it was asked, why a hanged man in this game? and we did not fail to respond, it is the just punishment of the Inventor of the Game, to have represented there a Popess.

But placed between Strength, Temperance, and Justice, who does not see that it is Prudence that was meant and must have been represented originally?
Gébelin was the first to explicitly ask the question, but earlier cardmakers and commentators implicitly asked it. The Florentine creators of the extra 20 cards of the Germini or Minchiate game around 1500 added Prudence to the new group, together with the three Theological Virtues. They clearly thought Prudence was missing and should be included for the complete series. The Anonymous Discorso of circa 1565 simply names “Prudence” the card we would expect to be Temperance in the B order that he follows (Caldwell, Ponzi, Depaulis 2018 p. 55). Temperance seems particularly susceptible to re-interpretation. In a 15th century cassone panel iconographically depicting the four Cardinal Virtues, that of Temperance is labelled “Caritas.” (Claudio Paolini, Daniela Parenti, Ludovica Sebregondi, eds., Virtù d'amore: pittura nuziale nel quattrocento fiorentino, Firenze and Milano, 2010, p. 14 fig. 1, and page 17 for a detail). Andrea Alciato names the Virtue we expect to be Temperance as “Fama” in 1547, and Temperance bears the banner “Fama Sol” in the Tarots of Jacques Viéville and others of the so-called Belgian type. Thus, in the position immediately following Death, some cardmakers interpreted Temperance as virtuous Fame outliving death (perhaps in opposition to the infamy immediately preceding Death).

Following Gébelin, some cardmakers turned the Hanged Man around and labelled him “La Prudence” (e.g. Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. 1, p. 146). Etteilla also took over the identification.

In Alfonso's Triumph, Justice was set apart from the other virtues, in order to emphasize that this was the one he needed to exercise the most (see remarks of e.g. Amadeo Quondam “La fondazione di una tipologia;” also, Justice and Caesar are the only allegorical cars shown on the cassone).
In the Sala degli Stucchi of the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Justice is absent from the six virtues surrounding the room. In 1979, Charles M. Rosenberg persuasively argued that Borso d'Este, when present, took the place of and embodied Justice (“The Iconography of the Sala degli Stucchi in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara,” The Art Bulletin, pp. 377-384; Rosenberg also notes that “This omission (of Justice) is extraordinary for two reasons: it is, as far as I know, unique within the tradition of trecento and quattrocento secular Virtue cycles, that is, of cycles that do not appear on tombs or in ecclesiastical settings... Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century secular cycles of Virtues are generally found in two contexts. First, they appear in conjunction with audience halls, courtrooms, tribunals, or other administrative spaces... Virtues also appear in scenes of triumph. For example, Virtues accompany the triumphal carri on the back of Piero della Francesca's portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his wife Battista Sforza.... (also in depiction of Borso's triumph by Guasparre Trimbocchi).” Rosenberg seems to have overlooked Mantegna's 1502 painting, although it was perhaps outside of his purview. In this case, though, the principle is the same; the invisible figure at the far right, indicated only by a banner, identifies herself as “the mother of virtues,” which is an alternative title for Prudence. The Mother of Virtues is imprisoned, until the vices have been expelled from the garden by Minerva (Wisdom) and Diana (the Chase or Hunt)).

In Michelino's painting for Giangaleazzo's funeral eulogy, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (from the Virgin outward) are grouped together as the second row behind Faith, Hope, Charity, all to the right of the Virgin. Prudence, Piety, Mercy are grouped to the left of the Virgin, first row.

In this schema, Pietro Caselletto imagines the twelve stars surrounding the Virgin as twelve virtues of Giangaleazzo. Since this is a funeral text, it is not a lesson for the living Giangaleazzo, to emphasize Justice for example, and therefore the choice to separate Prudence from the other cardinal virtues was the most natural choice when he had to decide which three cardinal virtues to keep together out of the four.

Applied to Tarot, it is arguable that the absence of Prudence was deliberate. By analogy with the above examples it may be that the player takes the place of Prudence (like Borso with Justice), or that the player must be Prudent, lest he be trumped by Fortune (like Fortune's message to Alfonso). In the groupings of the sequence, the Chariot should be lower than Fortune, perhaps immediately below in rank.

In all cases it seems that the omission of one of the cardinal virtues from any pictorial cycle should be taken as deliberate and meaningful.

By its absence, Prudence is remembered.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

43
Ross Caldwell wrote: 22 May 2022, 14:12 Missing Prudence

When looking at the three Cardinal Virtues of the Tarot, it is natural to ask “Where is Prudence?”
Yet another instance of having to agree to disagree here. Prudence was never missing, she was simply elevated to the highest virtue by certain humanists, over Charity who all events falls out (and of course our only evidence for Charity is the CY, which seemingly had all 7 virtues).

Per your examples, there was already a tendency to put Prudence last in a series of virtues, thus her placement as the last card somewhat unsurprising:
* the arch depicting Alfonso's triumph in Naples, the order is Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence.
* In the depiction of Borso's triumph in 1453, the order is Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, Prudence.
* On a mid-15th century cassone panel, the order left to right is Justice, Charity, Fortitude, Prudence.

The allegorization of Prudence as the prudently administered dominion (whether run by a republic or tyrant), a conceit of the humanists, is why she is misread. To quote from Bruni's Memoir (117) that caps his Florentine Histories, bragging about the biggest accomplishment under his chancellorship, following the victory at Anghiari: "We eventually brought under our dominion the whole of the Casentino, which was had never previously been under Florentine control" (Hankins tr., 397). Actually Bruni uses "imperio florentini populi" which more clearly gets at the acquisitive nature of that mindset.

Iconographically we've already gone over this ground about why Prudence would get associated with a tondo veduta of a dominion:

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Prudence's association with the tondo was a natural development from her 14th century connection with the armillary sphere, found throughout Florence - the armillary sphere becoming the ruler's orb and her pointing stick the sceptre (both held by the allegorical figure atop the tondo - Prudence); the tondo a window on the ruler's dominion:
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Phaeded

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

44
Phaeded wrote: 23 May 2022, 14:56
Yet another instance of having to agree to disagree here. Prudence was never missing, she was simply elevated to the highest virtue by certain humanists, over Charity who all events falls out (and of course our only evidence for Charity is the CY, which seemingly had all 7 virtues).
I've never bought this "World-Prudence" story.

The card does not resemble any depiction of Prudence, while the other Virtues are conventionally portrayed. The card has never been called "Prudence," even though Temperance can be "Fame" (Alciato) and "Prudence" (Anonymous Discourse). The Minchiate creators didn't recognize any Prudence in the standard sequence, they had to add her.

Basically you're saying that the creators cleverly put Prudence as the strongest card in the deck, but absolutely everybody, everywhere, for nearly 600 years, MISSED IT, until you guys came along.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 23 May 2022, 17:02 I've never bought this "World-Prudence" story.

The card does not resemble any depiction of Prudence
There is an uncanny resemblance of the Ferrarese Palazzo Minerbi Prudence's tondo with the three examples I showed (even the PMB is round, showing an idealized city in keeping with Sforz'as immediate task of rebuilding a besieged and plague-ruined Milan).

Moreover the Church Council moved from Ferrara to Florence in 1438, and obviously some of that Council were hosted in that elite's palazzo while in Ferrara, the family obliged to entertain (high ranking courtiers of the d'Este). Many of the virtues and vices in the Minerbi fresco cycle are Giotto-esque (Scrovegni), but the Prudence is so radically different it would have drawn attention, precisely because of the fame of the Giotto cycle and how it differed. That a "world" is present is clearly the reason it gets called that. The bottom line is that Prudence does look like the three examples, albeit the allegorical version of the virtue now holds a sceptre and orb, and those attributes speak to the rule over a dominion (the earlier Prudences' stick and armillary sphere providing precedents - the d'Este example still merely holds a stick). And why else is the "CVI" example wearing the multi-pointed virtue halo...unless she is a virtue, as worn by the other cardinal virtues in that deck?

But the main point here is that the likely model for tondo-Prudence was viewed within a year or two of trionfi's first production by numerous people relocated to Florence. There is no need for special pleading for any of this in terms of geography or time.

And do you really want to go over how the original trumps get renamed over time, almost immediately? The "Star" is clearly Venus in the PMB speaking to the Visconti's genealogical descent (see our Marziano's discussions), with her holding her belly in a del parto gesture to underscore the family line goes back to Venus (Sforza was desperate to emphasize his wife in light of his defective title to Milan). Since other "dominions" didn't hold that same Venus genealogy for their ruling houses that would have been pointless to retain; the "Star" is quickly turned into such things as astronomers or the Three Wise men observing the star of Bethlehem, which has nothing to do with the oldest example in the PMB, and now simply called "star". The "Tower" goes under numerous names; the triumph of chastity connotations of the "Carro" gets lost almost immediately as a male ruler replaces the female that held Chastity's jousting shield, etc.

The depiction of Prudence simply became standard with its attribute of a tondo right after the CY (which nonetheless is also a veduta with little cities marked out) - an unambiguous attribute that could be called the "World" and it stuck without debate (unlike in the case of the "Tower"/arrow/fire/house of God, etc.). And that tondo had a precedent tied to Prudence - that simply can't be debated. It was not a well traveled version of Prudence (I'm not even sure of another example besides the less explicit round mirror attribute held by Prudence) so the connection was easily lost. But that's what that tondo ultimately is - an iconographic Mirror of Princes, mirroring their well-ordered dominion, prudently ruled by them.

Phaeded

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Phaeded wrote: 23 May 2022, 18:27 the "Star" is quickly turned into such things as astronomers or the Three Wise men observing the star of Bethlehem, which has nothing to do with the oldest example in the PMB, and now simply called "star".
Sorry, but the PMB star is not the oldest star card we have. This honour goes at my best knowledge to the Star card in the 1473 Este deck (certainly created before the "missing" cards were added to the PMB deck) where we see two astologers (the science of astronomy did not exist yet, so they were called astrologers instead of astronomers) calulating the movement of the pictured Star. So here the reference is to the Star of Bethlehem and thus to Jesus. But also Venus, who is clearly referenced in the PMB deck, is an direct reference to Jesus. In the Bible is written the following:
Revelation 22:16 “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star."
And as you certainly know, the heavenly body referenced as the bright morning star is the planet Venus.
So Venus and the Star of Bethlehem symbolize in the context of historical Tarot decks exactly the same.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Iolon wrote: 26 May 2022, 21:10 Sorry, but the PMB star is not the oldest star card we have. This honour goes at my best knowledge to the Star card in the 1473 Este deck ...

And as you certainly know, the heavenly body referenced as the bright morning star is the planet Venus. So Venus and the Star of Bethlehem symbolize in the context of historical Tarot decks exactly the same.
No one dates the PMB after 1473 - the scholarly consensus is c. 1451-1454.

There is no consensus on Venus = star of Bethlehem. Apparently you're not familiar with the Visconti's use of Venus, which has nothing to do with the star of Bethlehem and everything to do with their fabricated Trojan genealogy (discussed ad nauseum here).
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1422&start=400

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The reason the "Star" has her hand resting on her belly is to underscore chilbirth/geneaology - she's pregnant (the elongated ray pointing to the belly - an astral/divine connection to the human - that is, the Visconti, who rule with "good right"). Below is a Madonna del Parto making the standard pregnant gesture; the image to the right shows a Sforza manuscript (who adopted all things Visconti as their own), and that they retained that Venus/del parto notion as in this manuscript commissioned for Sforza's daughter Ippolita in 1465 (even though her first child, Ferdinand of Naples, wasn't born until 1469 - pregnancy/successors was of course the point of the marriage and forecasted as such in this miniature).
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So becoming pregnant by divine means (via descent from Venus or the Annunciation) is in no way the same thing as the Star of Bethlehem. That the trump gets reinterpreted that way doesn't change the meaning of the archetype.

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Phaeded wrote: 26 May 2022, 23:04 No one dates the PMB after 1473 - the scholarly consensus is c. 1451-1454
If you want to react on a post you have to read it. The PMB has been made in the range 1451-1454, but there are 6 cards that have been made later, the virtues Temperance and Strength, the Star, the Moon, the Sun and the World. There is a scholarly consencus that these six cards were not realized before earliest 1475. So the Star card of the PMB deck dates from 1475 or maybe some years later and is in consequence younger than the Star card of the Este deck. I remarked in another post on this Forum that you commented my page about the dating of the pip-cards https://tarotwheel.net/history/tarot%20 ... -deck.html where I show a photo that I made of the Star card, as an exemple of a PMB card that has been realized later, so you should be aware of this fact.
I highly recommend you to participate in the Tarocchi virtual study day that the Morgan Library organizes on the 21ste of June: https://www.themorgan.org/thaw-conserva ... -study-day
This day deals with the results of a research project about the Milanese Trionfi decks (Visconti di Modrone, Brera Brambilla and Visconti-Sforza decks), not from an iconographic point of view, but after a technical analysis of the cards. Some surprises can be expected (also for me I suppose)

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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The consensus dating for these six cards going forward will be "1465-1470," and attributed to Franco de' Russi in Venice. Most famously, Franco de' Russi worked with Taddeo Crivelli in the Borso d'Este bible.

See page 64 in the catalogue for the recent exhibition "Tarots enluminés," held at the Musée français de la carte à jouer in Issy-les-Moulineaux, December 2021 to March 2022.
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http://www.rosscaldwell.com/catalogue2021p64.jpg


For the argument that these cards were a commission made for the Bon family of Venice, see page 77.
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http://www.rosscaldwell.com/catalogue2021p77.jpg

Re: The 14 + 8 theory

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Hello Ross,
It is only recently that I heard about this possible attribution to Franco dei Russi and the possibility that the blazon is from the Bon family. Personnally I think it would be very improbable that Francesco Sforza would dedicate this extremeny precious deck to a Venetian family. However, I'm just a Tarot enthusiast and not at all an art historian. So let us wait what will be revealed during the Tarocchi virtual study day.