PREFACE: THIS BLOG IS AN ESSAY IN THREE POSTS, OF WHICH THIS IS THE FIRST. THE SECOND AND HIRD FOLLOW BELOW THE FIRST, AS IN IN A BOOK. DESPITE THE EARLIER DATE ON THE POST, IT SHOULD BE READ AFTER THIS ONE.
ALTHOUGH ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2008, THE ESSAY WAS EXTENSIVELY REVISED IN JUNE OF 2012.
INTRODUCTION
I
am writing this essay to contribute to the debate about two 15th
century tarot decks. One is that known as "Cary-Yale" (also
"Cary-Visconti" and "Visconti di Madrone"), usually abbreviated "CY."
The other is called the "Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo," "Visconti-Sforza,"
or "Carrara," and usually abbreviated "PMB."
The website Trionfi proposes that although only 11 trumps currently survive of the Cary-Yale, there were actually 16, and 5 are lost. There is a proposed reconstruction of the 16 at: http://trionfi.com/0/c/2209/. It is based on an analogy with chess, in which each side has 16 pieces.
The other side of this debate thinks that Cary-Yale probably had 25 triumphs in all, as a variation on a standard 22 trump deck adding Faith, Hope, and Charity. A short version of this position, by Michael J. Hurst, is at: http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1440-1479.html#1441. Look at the short essays "Archetypal tarot" and "The 5x14 Theory."
There is a lengthier discussion in which the two sides debate each other: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=98232&page=1. For the clearest expression of the "5x16" on the above "thread," see the correspondence by "Huck." M. J. Hurst takes the other side. More recently, an updated (to April 2012) discussion by the two sides is at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=788.
Another part of Trionfi's theory says that the next deck from Milan with a substantial number of cards, the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo (PMB), with 20 surviving triumph cards, in fact only had 14 trumps originally, because six were added later, in a different style by a different artist. I will deal with that theory in Section Two of this blog.
Briefly, I am for an original Cary-Yale structure of 4 groups of 4 triumphs, attached to each of the 4 suits, for 4x20 in all. That makes for 16 trumps; in that number I agree with Trionfi..Chess may have been a contributing factor in the choice of cards; again I agree with Trionfi. I also largely agree with Trionfi as to what the missing cards are..
But I do not find it credible that the next deck, the PMB, had as few as 14 trumps.Originally it probably had at least 16, the same as the Cary-Yale, and more likely more than that, even 22. I think that the six cards done by another artist are in fact replacements, not additions, to that deck. That they were added at the instigation of Lorenzo de' Medici, as Trionfi and Huck suggest, I also find problematic. There is no good reason for thinking that, other than it is possible. There are good enough reasons to suppose that the changes were made on behalf of the ruling family of Milan.
THE MICHELINO
Part of Trionfi's justification for the Cary-Yale's 5x16 structure is reference to an earlier triumph deck called the "Michelino," done around 1424, in which 4 suits of 11 cards each, four types of birds plus associated kings, is supplemented by another 16 cards, which are the 12 gods of Mt. Olympus plus 4 heroes. So there are 16 of what would later be called "triumphs" in the deck. (A 1449 account of the game, by a condotiere named Jacopo Antonio Marcello, actually did refer to the deck as a triumph deck, which is the 15th century term for tarot.) The Cary-Yale merely continues that structure, but changes the regular suits so that there are 16 per suit, adding female knights and female pages in each suit, in that way accommodating to the taste of the ladies who would be playing the game. Men, on the other hand, principally played chess, and cards mainly with ladies. Trionfi hypothesizes that the Cary-Yale deck was made for the wedding of Bianca Maria Visconti with Francesco Sforza in Oct. 1441 Then, according to Trionfi, the deck that followed in Milan, represented by the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo, had 14 trumps. It had 14 cards per suit, removing the female knights and pages, and the trumps were reduced correspondingly
My hypothesis is slightly different.. I speculate that the Cary-Yale as a type of deck originally had a 4x20 structure, four suits with 4 additional cards. In that the new cards do not constitute a fifth deck, and that there are four of them per suit, it is like the Michelino..However this assignment of trumps to suits is not necessary for the rest of my argument; it is just a hypothesis, suggested by such organization of the cards as they were were given to the Beinecke Library.
In my hypothesis the Cary-Yale style of deck was most likely developed to commemorate the 1428 marriage of Filippo Visconti with Maria of Savoy; although the actual physical deck that has been preservd is probably after 1432, because of what appear to be numerous Sforza as well as Visconti heraldics there; Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti were betrothed in 1432 and married in 1441. Owing to the presence of Filippo Maria Visconti's name on the simulated coins in the suit of Coins, the deck must have been done before his death in 1447. Some say that the deck must have been done by 1442 or a little earlier, because the coins on the cards are copies of a design that didn't exist before then. However my evidence, as we will see, is to the contrary.
The Michelino is so named for the supposed artist, a celebrated Lombard painter. The attribution is based on a letter written in 1449 by Iacopo Marcello to Queen Isabella of Lorraine about the deck (http://trionfi.com/jacopo-marcello-letter-1449). He says of Filippo Visconti, the commissioner, that after thinking out the game:
The description of the deck comes from its designer, Marziano or Martiano (not Filippo himself, as Marcello supposed). The following table comes from Ross G. Caldwell's excellent analysis of his manuscript:
Here
we have four qualities, four birds, four main gods, eight subsidiary
gods, and four demi-gods, all of the 4 last ones except Cupid humans
who were elevated to immortality. Martiano calls them all humans who
were elevated to godhood by other humans, but that is because he wants
to avoid all suggestion of idolatry. There were 12 Olympian gods. Vesta
is there because she was in the original group; then she stepped aside
for Bacchus. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians.
The last 4 were by most accounts not in the 12. In Martiano's
conception, both Vesta and Bacchus are in his 12; the Olympian not
there is Vulcan. Here is my analysis of the table.The website Trionfi proposes that although only 11 trumps currently survive of the Cary-Yale, there were actually 16, and 5 are lost. There is a proposed reconstruction of the 16 at: http://trionfi.com/0/c/2209/. It is based on an analogy with chess, in which each side has 16 pieces.
The other side of this debate thinks that Cary-Yale probably had 25 triumphs in all, as a variation on a standard 22 trump deck adding Faith, Hope, and Charity. A short version of this position, by Michael J. Hurst, is at: http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1440-1479.html#1441. Look at the short essays "Archetypal tarot" and "The 5x14 Theory."
There is a lengthier discussion in which the two sides debate each other: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=98232&page=1. For the clearest expression of the "5x16" on the above "thread," see the correspondence by "Huck." M. J. Hurst takes the other side. More recently, an updated (to April 2012) discussion by the two sides is at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=788.
Another part of Trionfi's theory says that the next deck from Milan with a substantial number of cards, the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo (PMB), with 20 surviving triumph cards, in fact only had 14 trumps originally, because six were added later, in a different style by a different artist. I will deal with that theory in Section Two of this blog.
Briefly, I am for an original Cary-Yale structure of 4 groups of 4 triumphs, attached to each of the 4 suits, for 4x20 in all. That makes for 16 trumps; in that number I agree with Trionfi..Chess may have been a contributing factor in the choice of cards; again I agree with Trionfi. I also largely agree with Trionfi as to what the missing cards are..
But I do not find it credible that the next deck, the PMB, had as few as 14 trumps.Originally it probably had at least 16, the same as the Cary-Yale, and more likely more than that, even 22. I think that the six cards done by another artist are in fact replacements, not additions, to that deck. That they were added at the instigation of Lorenzo de' Medici, as Trionfi and Huck suggest, I also find problematic. There is no good reason for thinking that, other than it is possible. There are good enough reasons to suppose that the changes were made on behalf of the ruling family of Milan.
THE MICHELINO
Part of Trionfi's justification for the Cary-Yale's 5x16 structure is reference to an earlier triumph deck called the "Michelino," done around 1424, in which 4 suits of 11 cards each, four types of birds plus associated kings, is supplemented by another 16 cards, which are the 12 gods of Mt. Olympus plus 4 heroes. So there are 16 of what would later be called "triumphs" in the deck. (A 1449 account of the game, by a condotiere named Jacopo Antonio Marcello, actually did refer to the deck as a triumph deck, which is the 15th century term for tarot.) The Cary-Yale merely continues that structure, but changes the regular suits so that there are 16 per suit, adding female knights and female pages in each suit, in that way accommodating to the taste of the ladies who would be playing the game. Men, on the other hand, principally played chess, and cards mainly with ladies. Trionfi hypothesizes that the Cary-Yale deck was made for the wedding of Bianca Maria Visconti with Francesco Sforza in Oct. 1441 Then, according to Trionfi, the deck that followed in Milan, represented by the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo, had 14 trumps. It had 14 cards per suit, removing the female knights and pages, and the trumps were reduced correspondingly
My hypothesis is slightly different.. I speculate that the Cary-Yale as a type of deck originally had a 4x20 structure, four suits with 4 additional cards. In that the new cards do not constitute a fifth deck, and that there are four of them per suit, it is like the Michelino..However this assignment of trumps to suits is not necessary for the rest of my argument; it is just a hypothesis, suggested by such organization of the cards as they were were given to the Beinecke Library.
In my hypothesis the Cary-Yale style of deck was most likely developed to commemorate the 1428 marriage of Filippo Visconti with Maria of Savoy; although the actual physical deck that has been preservd is probably after 1432, because of what appear to be numerous Sforza as well as Visconti heraldics there; Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti were betrothed in 1432 and married in 1441. Owing to the presence of Filippo Maria Visconti's name on the simulated coins in the suit of Coins, the deck must have been done before his death in 1447. Some say that the deck must have been done by 1442 or a little earlier, because the coins on the cards are copies of a design that didn't exist before then. However my evidence, as we will see, is to the contrary.
The Michelino is so named for the supposed artist, a celebrated Lombard painter. The attribution is based on a letter written in 1449 by Iacopo Marcello to Queen Isabella of Lorraine about the deck (http://trionfi.com/jacopo-marcello-letter-1449). He says of Filippo Visconti, the commissioner, that after thinking out the game:
... Nor with this was that prince content, being provided with a great spirit and highest ingenuity: he summoned Michelino, the finest painter, another Polycletus of our time, that he should paint this entire game with greatest artifice and ornament.Marcello's attribution is reasonable, because in 1403 the illustrations for a Funeral Eulogy and Genealogy of Giangaleazzo Visconti (Paris, Bib. N., MS. lat. 5888). are attributed to the same painter, in which the Visconti are described as descending from Jupiter and Juno, conceived as people rather than as gods (http://trionfi.com/first-tarot-cards-old-version, http://trionfi.com/michelino-da-besozzo-painter-michelino-deck).
The description of the deck comes from its designer, Marziano or Martiano (not Filippo himself, as Marcello supposed). The following table comes from Ross G. Caldwell's excellent analysis of his manuscript:
Suit, Suit-sign Gods, in increasing order
Virtues, eagle: 1 Jupiter; 5, Apollo; 9, Mercury; 13. Hercules
Riches, phoenix: 2. Juno 6. Neptun; 10, Mars; 14, Eolus
Virginities, turtledove: 3. Pallas; 7, Diana; 11;Vesta; 15, Daphne
Pleasures, dove: 4. Venus; 8, Bacchus; 12, Ceres; 16, Cupido
"Virtue" is Latin for "excellence," in Greek arete. Less philosophically, it also meant "manliness," from vir, man. (See Wikipedia, or Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Origins.). The gods and heroes in this category represent different types of virtue: ethical, artistic, verbal, and the overcoming of obstacles. Jupiter is the giver of ethics and law. His bird in mythology is the eagle, the king of birds.
Martiano says that Mercury wears a galero--a broad-brimmed cardinal's hat, translator Ross G. Caldwell tells us (http://trionfi.com/0/b/07, click on "A Manuscript of Martiano"). Normally he would wear a cap with wings. I mention this detail because it might account for how the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Bagatto, dressed in cardinal's red, got his funny hat. It isn't exactly the same shape, to be sure, but could be an exaggerated version. The Parisians Vieville and Noblet did a better job with it 200 years later. (The Brown in Noblet was originally red, according to Flornoy's research, http://www.tarot-history.com/Jean-Noblet/pages/ll-bateleur.html.)
I am not aware of any direct connection between the phoenix and Juno, whose bird was the peacock. The phoenix is the solar bird. Martiano associates Juno with the rainbow. That is indirectly related to the sun, in that when Juno depicted with a rainbow, the sun would be in front of it and therefore highlighting Juno. Here is an example, by Giulio Romano, at the Palazzo Te in Mantua, c. 1527:
Juno was also shown in a golden robe, as in the following detail in Peruzzi's "sala delle prospettive" at the Villa Farnesina, Rome c. 1516. (from http://www,art.com/: search Peruzzi Juno).
These illustrations are a century later than I would prefer. However until I can find any better, they will have to do for making an indirect connection between Juno and the phoenix.
Another possibility is via alchemy, as the existence of several books on the subject in the Visconti Library (Pellegrin, La bibliothèque des Visconti et des Sforza, ducs de Milan, au XVe siècle).
suggests a Visconti interest in that subject. In alchemy, the Phoenix represents alchemical gold, dying in the fire and then emerging out of the ashes; it is the final stage of the process (see Adam McLean, "Birds in Alchemy," http://www.levity.com/alchemy/alcbirds.html). Riches are like that, too, gone one minute and back the next, as Martiano says. Four sources of riches are indicated: marriage, the sea, war, and the winds.
Also, in alchemy the "peacock's tail," the tail with eyes that Martiano takes pain to describe, is an earlier phase of the alchemical process than the phoenix, as McLean explains. If the phoenix is the end product, the peacock is perhaps the phoenix in an earlier state, in the process of purification.
The next two deities, Athena and Diana, are of course virgin goddesses; so are Vesta and her virgins; and Daphne protected her virginity against Apollo. Turtledoves, as distinct from mere doves, in the Renaissance were symbolic of the highest and purest kind of love (as in Shakespeare's poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle explained well enough by Wikipedia).
Venus is the goddess of love and beauty, and her bird is the dove. Other pleasures are wine, (Bacchus), bread (Ceres), and the pangs of love (Cupido). All of this is from Martiano.
So we have a deck with 16 interesting and no doubt beautiful cards, sure to attract attention as a unit, as in Marcello's letter (accessible in sidebar of http://trionfi.com/0/b/07/index.php). But in Martiano's description they seem to be add-ons to the four suits: they exemplify the four qualities.
Martiano mentions Kings as heading the birds, and the 16 above them. Marcello in 1449 reiterates the same, making it clear in his wording that there are no other court cards. Assuming there are 10 bird-cards per suit, there would seem to be 4 suits of 16 cards each.
Martiano does not say how the game was to be played. I assume it it was an ordinary trick-taking game, with the added detail that a god-card trumps ordinary suit cards, and among trumps the lowest number wins the trick. An interesting question is what "following suit" would mean in this game. Normally one is required to put into contention a card of the same suit as the one led, and otherwise any card. I would assume that the trump cards were of the same suit as the ordinary suit cards of that type, and so would have to be played if one no longer had ordinary suit cards of the suit. The result could mean wasting a good card. Whether cards played that were not of the same suit could win a trick is unclear to me
The presence of the unnumbered Fool in the tarot is often accounted for as a way of avoiding playing a more valuable card. A true wild card, it can be played at any time but can never take the trick. This feature is even more important in a game with four suits than with five, in that it can substitute not only for regular suit cards but for an important trump if one were otherwise be forced to play it in "following suit". I hypothesize that the Fool was added during the time when the trumps were still attached to particular suits, as I think was true for the Cary-Yale.
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