First of all- thanks for correcting me on the dates- I have a brain block on the year Bianca got married
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
Re: Proveri Vergognosi or The Ashamed Poor
11The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts
Eden Phillpotts