Petrarch 4.1
Shannon
Canto 1 of 3
When Death had triumphed in the countenance
That had so often triumphed over me,
And when the sun was taken from our world,
That pitiless and evil one had gone,
Pallid in aspect, horrible, and proud,
By whom the light of beauty had been quenched.
Then, as I gazed across the grassy vale
I saw appearing on the other side
Her who saves man from the tomb, and gives him life.
As at the break of day an amorous star
Comes from the east before the rising sun,
Who gladly enters her companionsip,
Thus came she. From what rhetoricians' school
Shall come the master who could fully tell
What I shall only tell in simple words?
The sky all round about was now so bright
My eyes were vanquished by its brilliancy,
In spite of the desire that filled my heart.
Those who attended her bore on their brows
The signs of worthiness: among them were
Some I had seen aforetime bound by Love.
At her right hand, where first I bent mine eyes,
Were Scipio and Caesar; but which one
Was closer to her I could not discern.
One of the twain served virtue and not love,
The other served them both. Then there appeared,
Following those who were so glorious,
Folk armed alike with valor and with steel,
As in the triumphs that in olden times
Proceeded through the sacred ways of Rome.
They came in the order I shall now set forth,
And every one in aspect seemed to bear
The name that is most glorious of all.
I was intent upon their noble talk,
Their faces, and their actions. The first two
Were followed by a grandson, and a son
Who was unique and peerless in the world;
And those who willed to block the enemy
With their own bodies, fathers two, were there,
Companioned by three sons. One went before,
And two came afterward: the last being first
In honor for the praise that he had wone.
Then, flashing like a ruby bright, came one
Who with his counsel and his bravery
Rescued all Italy in the time of need:
I speak of Claudius, who in the silent night,
When he saw the Metaurus, came to purge
The fields of Rome of all their evil growth,
For he had eyes for sight, and wings for speed.
And after him there came a great old man
Who with his art held Hannibal at bay.
With him, two Catos and two Fabii,
Two Pauli, Bruti two, and two Marcelli,
Regulus, who loved others more than self;
Curio and Fabricus, nobler far
In poverty than Midas with his gold,
Or Crassus, rebels against honesty;
Serranus following ever in their steps,
With Cincinnatus; great Camillus then,
Weary of life, but not of serving Rome;
For he so highly won the honor of heaven
That his clear virtue led him to return
Thither whence a blind rage had driven him.
Then came Torquatus, he who smote his son,
Preferring to be reft of him than that
His troops be reft of spirit and of strength;
Then the two Decii who with their breasts
Opened the hostile ranks. Oh fearsome vow,
That offered father and son to one same death!
With them came Curtius, like to them avowed,
Who plunged in armor into the great cave
That horribly within the Forum yawned;
Laevinus, Mummius, and Attilius;
Flaminius, who conquered Greece by force,
But even more by generosity.
He too was there who drew a noble ring
Around the Syrian king, and with his brow
And with his tongue compelled him to consent;
And he who, arm'd, alone, defended once
A hill whence later her was hurled; and he
Who held a bridge against all Tuscany;
He also who had raised his hand in vain
Amid the enemy's host, and burned it then,
So wrathful that he felt no pain therefrom;
And he who first was victor on the sea
Against the Carthaginians; and he
Who by the islands scattered all their fleet;
Appius, blinded, and his kindred all,
Ever oppressive to the humble plebs.
Then saw I a great man of gentle mien,
Who had been first had not his light grown dim:
He surely was for us as were for Thebes
Epaminondas, Bacchus, and Hercules.
But it is ill to live too long! And next
Him I beheld, the flower of his time,
Who from his skill and swiftness had his name.
He in command was cruel and severe;
But he who followed was of kindly heart,
Worthy as captain and as man-at-arms.
Noble Volumnius, meriting high praise,
Came then, who by his conduct had removed
A bleeding tumor, livid, and malign;
Cossus and Philo and Rutilius;
Then, at one side, three by themselves I saw,
Their bodies wounded, and their armor cleft,
Three thunderbolts and mighty cliffs of war,
Dentatus, Scaeva, Marcus Sergius,
Who through a younger kinsman lost his fame.
Marius then, who crushed the German rage,
Jugurtha, and the Cimbri; Fulvius,
Who against orders put ingrates to death;
The nobler Fulvius; of the Gracchi one
From all that garrulous and restless brood
That tried the patience of the men of Rome;
Metellus, who to all seemed glad and blest--
I do not say he was, for one sees not
Into a heart shut close in secrecy;
His father and his heirs were there as well:
From Macedon and from Numidia
They brought their booty, and from Crete and Spain.
And then I saw Vespasian and the son
Who was fair and good (the other, fair and vile),
Nerva and Trajan, trusty princes both,
Hadrian, Antonine his foster son,
Marcus Aurelius too--a goodly set,
For good men want good men to follow them.
While in my eagerness I looked ahead
I saw the founder of Rome and its next five kings:
The last was buried under his burden of shame,
AS doth befall scorners of righteousness.
Shannon
>"The Triumph of Fame"
>
>Canto 1 of 3
>Then, as I gazed across the grassy vale
>I saw appearing on the other side
>Her who saves man from the tomb, and gives him life.
>As at the break of day an amorous star
>Comes from the east before the rising sun,
>Who gladly enters her companionsip,
>Thus came she.
Fame = the Star?
Of course, at least in this first canto, the examples we get of
Fame's darlings are all Roman war heroes, which significantly
colors the concept of fame--tying it much more closely to honor
and valor, and other attributes that I associate more naturally
with the Chariot.
Though almost all of the figures listed are admirable, we do get
a few citations such as:
>Appius, blinded, and his kindred all,
>Ever oppressive to the humble plebs.
>He in command was cruel and severe;
and
>The last was buried under his burden of shame,
>As doth befall scorners of righteousness
which seem to harmonize with some of the Chariot's darker
aspects.
--Shannon
Bob/Gerry O'Neill
>
> >"The Triumph of Fame"
> Fame = the Star?
I am afraid that Fame is the second (Chastity was the other) of
Petrarch's Triumphs that doesn't appear in the Tarot - making it, once
again, hard to argue tht the Trumps are simply a representations of
Petrarch's Poems. So far we have:
Petrarch----Moakley's analysis of Tarot Triumph
Love----------Love
Chastity--------(Missing)
Fame------------(Missing)
(Missing)-----Fortune
Bob/Gerry O'Neill
Shannon
Bob/Gerry O'Neill wrote in message <376312FF...@ibm.net>...
>I am afraid that Fame is the second (Chastity was the other) of
>Petrarch's Triumphs that doesn't appear in the Tarot - making
it, once
>again, hard to argue tht the Trumps are simply a representations
of
>Petrarch's Poems.
On the other hand I think it's pretty obvious that Petrarch WAS a
jumping-off point for the concepts of the Trumps. What I'm
really interested in, though, is the ways in which the ideas
articulated by Petrarch are or are not similar to what we see
encoded in the Tarot cards. Like--how does the Lovers card
remain true to, or differ from, the philosophy of Love presented
by Petrarch? What about Death and Time and the others? And how
do they work as a sequence--how does Petrarch's path to Eternity
compare to the routes mapped out by Waite or Crowley? That's
what I'm trying to get at.
I don't think Petrarch fully explains the iconography, but I
think the form and some of the content originated with him, and
for that reason the stuff that ISN'T there in the cards becomes
just as interesting as the stuff that still is. Because it
implies that conscious choices were made along the line--choices
about what to keep and what to leave out--and what's left out
tells us as much about the designers' interests as what's left
in.
When I'm done with the Triumphs I'm going to read up on Carnival
stuff. There's some famous critic (whose name, of course, I'm
blanking on) who did a whole lot of work on the psychology of
Carnival.
>Petrarch----Moakley's analysis of Tarot Triumph
>Love----------Love
>Chastity--------(Missing)
>Fame------------(Missing)
>(Missing)-----Fortune
There is a Triumph of Fortune. I'm just not there yet.
--Shannon
J. Karlin
> Shannon wrote:
> > >"The Triumph of Fame"
> > Fame = the Star?
> I am afraid that Fame is the second (Chastity was the other) of
> Petrarch's Triumphs that doesn't appear in the Tarot - making it, once
> again, hard to argue tht the Trumps are simply a representations of
> Petrarch's Poems.
Bob, you have consistently misrepresented what Moakley actually
wrote in an effort to bolster your strawman attempts at deconstruction,
but you are wrong, both in the effort and in your own conclusions
about 'what it all means'.
Moakley is absolutely correct when she writes:
"At first I barked up all the wrong trees [where Bob hangs out]:
were they [the Visconti-Sforza trionfi cards] connected with
magic? alchemy? witchcraft? Were they some kind of secret code?
It gradually became clear to me that they were more related
to the literary works of their time than they were to any
of these other things..."
And noting that she nevertheless at first had trouble finding
any specific narrative that might explain the images, she then
found her initial clues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
wherein she discovered two tapestries, "depicting the Triumph
of Fame and the Triumph of Time, as Petrarch had described them
in his poem I Trionfi."
Now, did she conclude from these clues, that the cards must
have been MERELY illustrations of the poem?
No.
She says, contradicting your suggestion that she believed the poem
was the source of all the images---
"But there was MORE that I wanted to know about the Visconti-Sforza
tarocchi. What did the first of the tarocchi trumps represent?
IT DID NOT SEEM TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH PETRARCH'S POEM."
She readily admits the poem had to have been merely the symbolic
basis or motif upon which a specific---FAMILIAL interpretation---
of the trumps was designed.
As she says:
"I wanted to know as much as I could possibly discover of the
meaning the cards had for the FAMILY which originally owned
them."
What would that possibly matter to her if she were only interested
in making the cards match up to Petrarch's poem?
But, more than anything else, she becomes convinced, and quite
rightly, that it is the motif of the triumph itself, not
necessarily as specifically imagined in Petrarch's poem
in every case (indeed, she points out the cards DON'T
follow the poem in an exact or 'reverent' way), that
guides the design of the images in the TRIONFI cards.
Did these bits of text simply fail to impress you? Were you so
excitedly building a rebuttal to the silly woman's 'absurd'
position that you forgot to bother to determine exactly
what her position was? Or was it the case that you needed
Moakley to make room for 'other opinions', most specifically
your own, and thus decided to give the poor thing a fine
straw army for you to bravely hew down?
> So far we have:
Who is 'we'?
What YOU have is an agenda---a desire to protect words
you should reasonably consider taking back and reconsidering.
That is what YOU have.
What other people have is an opportunity to learn the
symbolic roots of tarot. I hope they take that opportunity
and act upon it intelligently.
(jk)
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Bob/Gerry O'Neill
> >of Petrarch's Poems.
>
> jumping-off point for the concepts of the Trumps.
Lets come back to tht idea at the end - there is certainly a sense in
which that is true.
>... What I'm
> really interested in, though, is the ways in which the ideas
> articulated by Petrarch are or are not similar to what we see
> encoded in the Tarot cards. Like--how does the Lovers card
> remain true to, or differ from, the philosophy of Love presented
> by Petrarch? What about Death and Time and the others? And how
> do they work as a sequence--how does Petrarch's path to Eternity
> compare to the routes mapped out by Waite or Crowley? That's
> what I'm trying to get at.
Well, how are you doing so far? I'd like to hear!
I'm afraid I found Petrarch's attempt to convince me that his fantasies
about a married woman somehow elevated his testasterone to the
equivalent of the great classics - well, a bit thin! But I'm always
willing to be educated.
> I don't think Petrarch fully explains the iconography, but I
> think the form and some of the content originated with him, and
> for that reason the stuff that ISN'T there in the cards becomes
> just as interesting as the stuff that still is. Because it
> implies that conscious choices were made along the line--choices
> about what to keep and what to leave out--and what's left out
> tells us as much about the designers' interests as what's left
> in.
I think that is the key point! Were the designer(s) using the
popularity of Petrarch's glorification of a powerful human emotion
(love) as a device to place all of human experience into an ultimate
context?
.......................
Lets go through the 3 levels of hypotheses and see if that clarifies
things:
1) The Tarot trumps are nothing but a representation of Petrarch Poems.
Not many take this seriously - it just doesn't hold up to close
scrutiny:
Petrarch ----- Tarot Trumps
Love............(6) Lovers
Chastity........Missing
Death...........(13) Death
Fame............Missing OR Possibly Judgment (Fame often shown as Angel
+ Trumpet)
Time............(9) Hermit with Hourglass - OUT OF ORDER
Eternity........(21) World
The sequencing just doesn't fit tightly enough to be convincing. So
lets just reject the hypothesis that the Trumps are simply a
representation of Petrarch's work.
2) Moakley, as jk pointed out, rejected Hypothesis (1). But she then
tried to put together a more believable scenario - founded on the
premise that the Tarot trumps were a ribald take-off.
I) Magician = Bagatino is the Carnival King. He is the first one out,
and will be rejected at the end. The Fool accompanies him and dances in
and out of all the floats and is still there at the end.
This is a nice idea, but there is absolutely no historical basis for it
whatsoever. Moakley admits: "For the theory that Bagatino is the
Carnival King I have no direct authority"
II) Cupid, Love - the first Triumphal float:
a) First comes the suit of Cups marching past - the suit of Cups is
assigned the lowest rank as the "livery" that preceeds and is
subservient to the "Love" car. Does that fit your concepts? Does it
bother you that the four suits very likely existed (1370-1377) before
the Tarot trumps were invented (1420-1440)? I have problems with seeing
the four suits as deriving their meaning from "trumps" that didn't
exist.
b) Next come the captives of love. Petrarch displays Love as
conquering all states of life, so the captives are Empress, Emperor,
Papess, Pope. This makes a certain sense, since the iconographic
representations of Petrarch often show "crowned" figures as "defeated"
by Love. What I personally have problems with - is the idea that the
major signficance of these cards is their defeat!
c) On the float itself are the "attendents" of Love: Temperance and
Fortitude. They are a ribald reference to lingam and yoni. You buy
that? The significance of Temperance is the two cups?? The signifiance
of Fortitude is the club weilded by Hercules on the Visconti-Sfoza
card?? These two virtues are included in the Trumps to serve as symbols
of female and male genitalia? They don't have any other meaning in
their own right - like maybe VIRTUES? I personally see this as
manipulating the "ribald" part of Moakley's hypothesis in order to
explain away the inconvenient presence of the Cardinal Virtues.
d) Next comes the float itself: the Chariot. (In the Visconti-Sforza
deck, the chariot is ridden by a regal woman)
e) Next comes the Triumph itself - The Lovers. Doesn't it bug you that
the symbol of love isn't actually riding on the float? When I first
read Moakley (maybe 20 years ago??) this just stopped me cold - no way
in bloody hell was I going to accept that the symbol wasn't actually on
the float but on the triumph that followed the float!!!!! That makes
the "triumph" of the car (=Chariot) totally meaningless!!
III) Triumph of Fortune:
a) Next comes the Suit of Staves as the "livery" of the next triumph.
There is another ribald reference here - first the suit of cups
(obviously female genitalia) followed by the suit of rods (obviously
male genitalia). You feel that adolescent reference adequately explains
the Rods? You relate to that?
b) next comes the Triumph of Fortune (Wheel). This float doesn't have
any captives or any attendents - little imbalance there? Does that
bother you?
IV) Triumph of Death:
a) Next comes the Suit of Coins as the "livery" of Death. The
reference here is something about the "root of all evil". But Moakley
is basically trying to convince you that the Tarot designer(s) didn't
even think about the four suits as representing the four "elements".
b) Next comes the first captive of Death: the Hermit. Moakley says:
"Time, in Petrarch's poem, had a whole triumph of his own. In the
Visconti-Sforza tarocchi, Time becomes merely an attendent of Death."
Its because the image shows an old man. You buy that as the
significance of the Hermit card? You buy that the Hermit symbol doesn't
reference "Time" because the sequencing is 'inconvenient'?????
c) The other captive of Death is the Hangedman. You having any problem
with the sequencing here?
d) next comes the Triumph of Death.
e) The first attendent of Death is the Devil Moakley says "The Devil
is an inbdespensable character in the triumph of Death. He is there to
take the soul of the wicked Hanged Man off to Hell..." You buy that as
the significance of the Devil card?
f) The other attendent of Death is the Tower - Moakley says: " The
Tower is the Hellmouth to which the Devil is carrying Judas." You buy
that? Does your intuitive understanding of the Tower card reduce it to
being the punishment of the Hangedman? You realize, don't you, that the
Devil and Tower cards don't actually exist among any of the 270 or so
cards of the 15th century?
V) Triumph of Eternity:
a) Next comes the suit of Swords as the "livery" of the Triumph of
Eternity. Does that strike you as a bit forced? Maybe that was the
only suit left so it had to be assigned here, even if it didn't fit?
b) Next comes the captives of Eternity : Star, Moon, Sun.
c) Next comes the attendents of Eternity: The Judgment and Justice.
Judgment day!!!
d) Finally, there comes World, the new Jerusalem = Heaven for those
judged just.
There is the basic hypothesis that Moakley lays out.
You judge for yourself -
The tarot is an adolescent joke about what is between the legs of the
forbidden opposite sex, or its a profound symbolic system that this
hypothesis makes fun of!!!!
I hope I have made my personal biases sufficiently clear!!!!!
3) Now lets try backing off from these childish efforts to force the
Tarot into a preconceived mold!!! Lets try to construct a reasonable
hypothesis:
Petrarch's poems were extremely popular. In our age and our language,
to say: "Methinks he protesteth overmuch!" has an instant demand on
attention because of the respect in which we hold Shakespeare and his
insight into human nature. The Renaissance had a similar instant
recognition of Petrarch. The procession of floats in Petrarch and the
adaptations of Petrarch, were an instant reference to joy and revelry.
If you were going to design a popular game, entitling it 'trionfi' would
be a stroke of genius!!!!
But more! If you associated these paper images with the "triumphs" of
Petrarch and the festivals, you alerted me to the idea that you were
going to present me with a series of symbols - I was prepared for the
fact that the ideas you were going to present to me were more than jokes
- I had read Petrarch and cried, I had sat through Carnival and vowed
repentence - i was prepared for more something more than catching a peek
of a shapely butt!!!!!!
But more! I knew that the sequence of Petrarch's poems and the sequence
of symbols/floats that developed from his inspiration - were a kind of
hierarchy - a series of "trionfi" a sequence of symbols representing
higher and higher and higher states of thinking and being - a sequential
approach to truth and Eternity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So if you wanted to
present a sequence of symbols that represented states of consciousness
that would bring you closer and closer and closer to eternity, wouldn't
YOU have taken advantages of the times and called them
"TRIONFI"???????????????????????????
J. Karlin
> "J. Karlin" wrote:
> > Bob/Gerry O'Neill wrote:
> >
> > > I am afraid that Fame is the second (Chastity was the other) of
> > > Petrarch's Triumphs that doesn't appear in the Tarot - making it, once
> > > Petrarch's Poems.
> >
> > Bob, you have consistently misrepresented what Moakley actually wrote in
> > an effort to bolster your strawman attempts at deconstruction, but you are
> > wrong, both in the effort and in your own conclusions about 'what it all
> > means'.
>
> but...
>
> It appears to me that Bob was not only NOT misrepresenting Moakley, but in
> fact paraphrasing her,
'paraphrase' is a useful tool to one who would not accurately
represent an opposing argument.
Bob writes:
"...the evidence is not strong enough to support the contention
that the Tarot are ONLY a representation of the Triumph..."
Of course, to say that Tarot might only be a representation of
the Triumph is a more complicated, and sophisticated thing
than Bob would have us believe.
Bob continues:
"...and that Petrarch represents the one and only (or even
the primary) inspiration for the cards."
If not the primary inspiration, what? More of Bob's misreadings
of 'Hermetic' illustrations?
"...The real point is that correspondences do not prove cause-effect
relationships."
In other words, according to Bob, just because Petrarch's poem
was very influential upon the art and celebrations of the
Renaissance, and just because the name of the game is the
same as that of the poem, DON'T waste your time looking
too deeply into that avenue of investigation. If you
do that, you might miss out on all those 'other opinions'
of Bob's he thinks are just as pertinent, and you might
conclude that Moakley, the bitch, was seeking to constrain
Bob from...what?
What exactly IS Bob's problem here?
For that matter, what is YOUR problem?
> and in a most revealing way. She did argue that a
> version of Petrarch's story is the story told by V-S,
'a version'? What does that mean? All Renaissance triumphs
can be said to be 'a version' of the story told by Petrarch
since they reflect the ancient form of the triumph which
he evoked to tell his story. She claims the cards are the
result of the influence of the triumph, the most famous
(at the time) and influential narrative of which was that
of Petrarch.
She does not claim, as Bob has said, that 'that Petrarch
represents the one and only inspiration for the cards.'
He needs to make her say that in order for his own complaint
about her 'constraining' effects to have merit. Even he knows
he is being stupid---he qualifies his comment, in a tortured
bit of hedging---'that Petrarch represents the one and only
(or even the primary) inspiration'.
Well, it's easy to knock down what she did not say, but it's
obviously much more difficult to dismiss what she DID say
and that's why Bob spends so much time trying to help her
provide him with the arguments with which he can effectively
neutralize her importance.
Otherwise, if his interest is merely to point out that there
might be more to the influences than merely Petrarch's poem,
he would say that and be done with it. Indeed, Moakley
says this as well, so what conflict would arise there?
No, Bob's agenda is to stuff a field of his own dreams with
little strawmen named 'Constraints', and then to chop them
down and say 'what a good boy am I' to no one in particular.
> and her presentation makes it clear that the argument is hard to maintain.
One thing that has become abundantly clear in your postings on
tarot is that what is clear is not so clear to you.
You have displayed no more grasp of her actual argument than has
Bob, you have not pointed out what precisely about it is
'hard to maintain'---is this a 'performance' issue with you?
> Bob and Gertie appear to agree that the only way to match tarot
> to Petrarch is complex and twisted (a "ribald take-off", as Moakley put it.)
Her point here is that there were many variations on the
triumphal theme, and that the V-S trionfi, to the degree
they seem to vary from any obvious or direct reliance upon
the poem, is doing what came naturally to people during a
time of Carnival---to invert and to make fun of what is
ordinarily held to be 'regular' or sacred.
Again, what is particularly 'hard to maintain' about this?
Be specific.
> They disagree only as to whether she is persuasive in making the case.
Actually, she does not disagree, since as far as I know she
never publicly answered Bob's 'critiques'. She simply put
forward a speculation, Bob followed with a complaint about
her 'constraining' ways, and here we are today.
Again, in order to claim she is not persuasive in 'making the case',
you need to demonstrate you understand the case she is making.
Bob apparently has personal reasons for misrepresenting her
arguments, what are yours?
> She delved into the Visconti and Sforza families as source for some of the
> details on particular cards;
On the contrary, she points out that La Papessa may represent a
Visconti family member, and l'Amore (The Lovers) Francesco Sforza and
Bianca Maria Visconti. These are not merely 'details', but an
indication that the motif of the triumph was being used to
celebrate the lives of a particular family, or families (if
the cards are meant, as is said, to depict the literal
joining of Visconti-Sforza).
> she mixed Carnival themes with Petrarch's story
She didn't do this---the Renaissance Italians did it. She is
merely noting this in reference to a possible explanation
for why some of the cards may not reverentially mimic
the poem.
> to explain two of the cards; and ultimately she resorted to "the merry mood
> of Carnival" to explain away far more than she explained about the rest.
What the hell does that mean? She didn't resort to anything. She
correctly pointed out how the motif of the triumph blended with
other kinds of celebrations to provide a rich source for all
kinds of symbolic elements.
You don't know what you're talking about.
> But
> to what purpose? To tidy up the endless loose ends left by her primary
> thesis,
You don't know what her 'primary thesis' is.
> > she then found her initial clues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
> > wherein she discovered two tapestries, "depicting the triumph of Fame and
> > the Triumph of Time, as Petrarch had described them in his poem I
> > Trionfi."
>
> Which, by implication, DID tell the same story as the tarot cards.
No, she's pointing out that the similarity of these images
to trionfi caught her eye, and obviously the NAME ('triumph') was
interesting as well.
'the same story' merely means she was looking for a literary
basis for the images, NOT that she imagined that basis would
therefore be precisely reproduced in the cards.
> > Now, did she conclude from these clues, that the cards must have been
> > MERELY illustrations of the poem?
> >
> > No.
> >
> > She says, contradicting your suggestion that she believed the poem was the
> > source of all the images---
>
> > "But there was MORE that I wanted to know about the Visconti-Sforza
> > tarocchi. What did the first of the tarocchi trumps represent? IT DID NOT
> > SEEM TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH PETRARCH'S POEM."
>
> Right -- that's one card (Magician) that she felt was not explained by her
> central thesis.
She's not talking about 'one card' here, but about her initial reaction
to thinking the poem might have been the inspiration for the cards. In
other words, her first reaction was to question the notion that the cards
obviously were borne out of a symbolic attempt to illustrate the poem.
She was willing to entertain MORE than the idea the cards were ONLY
illustrations of the poem. That is not the impression Bob leaves us
with in his comments about her. He claims she's trying to constrain
'other opinions'---his.
> Or, as you might put it, ONE CARD that "did not seem to have
> anything to do with Petrarch's poem." She later adds the Fool, for a grand
> total of two cards that she put outside the poem.
She puts a number of cards 'outside' the poem, for the simple fact that
the poem was only a motif, an inspiration for the creation of the deck,
not a text which the cards were designed to illustrate.
> (Oddly enough, she was
> more persuasive regarding the meaning of those two V-S cards than she was
> about the rest of the deck.)
If you found those explanations persuasive you would necessarily
need to buy into the notion those figures were representations
of the Carnival, and were, as she claimed, part of the triumphal
procession which had come to be merged with the comic and
theatrical elements of other Italian celebrations.
> > What would that possibly matter to her if she were only interested in
> > making the cards match up to Petrarch's poem?
>
> It wouldn't. But the trick word is, "only". "Only" means without exception.
Read what Bob says---"...the evidence is not strong enough to support
the contention that the Tarot are ONLY a representation of the Triumph..."
> "Simply" means (among other things) without difficulty or complexity.
It also means 'wholly, absolutely'---'only'.
> The real question is, what was Moakley saying?
Then why have you not addressed that question with pertinent
remarks?
> Did she argue that the V-S deck was a (somewhat twisted) retelling
> of Petrarch's poem?
No, she did not. She argued that the poem was itself a basis of
a triumphal genre of Renaissance art and celebrations which were
followed, with varying degrees of reverence to the poem, in all
kinds of ways.
> And if so, was she persuasive?
Yes, but only if a person has sufficient skills in reading to
determine what she says.
You 'simply' do not possess those skills.
> First, as noted in the preface to her book, "the essay out of which the
> present book grew" was titled, "The Tarot Trumps and Petrarch's Trionfi".
> Her original thesis clearly tied to two together.
Yes, that part comes in her note of appreciation to an individual who
helped her develop her essay. That person's name was Erwin Panofsky.
Anyone know who that is?
Of course the poem is tied together to the deck. But how it is and
why it is is the pertinent question.
As I pointed out in my earlier posting (last month) on this question,
her point is not to 'constrain' argument, as Bob so unfairly and
stupidly claims, but to open the door to a fruitful area of
investigation.
> Ten years later, in her book, she also covered various other topics related
> to the V-S deck.
Yes, that would be because 'various other topics' were pertinent to
the discussion---but to hear Bob tell it, Moakley sought to
'constrain' him and his 'various other topics'.
> Chapters 4 and 5, we get to her main thesis
> She concludes Chapter 4 by noting,
>
> "We have seen that the trumps of our cards are visual representations of the
> popular triumphs of the fifteenth century,
Did you miss this part?
What does it mean?
'triumphs of the fifteenth century' is one thing. The poem which inspired
these is another thing. They are connected, they are not necessarily
identical.
> Those three triumphs were what she could salvage from Petrarch's poem,
Again, you don't know what you are talking about. She's commenting
here only about how those triumphs may have influenced early forms
of trionfi (the cards). She is not trying to 'salvage' anything.
She's opening her eyes to something obvious---and I suspect
quite obvious to more and more readers here as they have
a chance to explore the influence of Petrarch upon the
art of the Renaissance.
> In Chapter 5, she describes the Fool and Magician cards in V-S as
> representations of King Lent and the Carnival King, respectively.
>
> (Part II of her book presents the cards themselves, with her commentaries.)
>
> Obviously, she was not "ONLY interested in making the cards match up to
> Petrarch's poem". Equally obvious, however, is that making the cards match
> up with his poem was her primary explanatory thesis.
And again, you have misread.
She is interested in pointing out the importance of the poem
in influencing the development of all manner of Renaissance
triumphs---as she says: "We have seen that the trumps of our
cards are visual representations of the popular triumphs of
the fifteenth century."
'popular triumphs'.
What does that mean?
You don't know, do you?
Just as you don't know anything about this subject, but
are dumb enough to blather on about it nevertheless.
> > But, more than anything else, she becomes convinced, and quite rightly,
> > that it is the motif of the triumph itself, not necessarily as
> > specifically imagined in Petrarch's poem in every case (indeed, she points
> > out the cards DON'T follow the poem in an exact or 'reverent' way), that
> > guides the design of the images in the TRIONFI cards.
>
> She does write about triumphs in general.
And why would that be? Because, as she points out, and as you quoted
her saying:
"We have seen that the trumps of our cards are visual representations
of the popular triumphs of the fifteenth century."
It's very simple to read English. You just have to bother.
> In describing literary and
> artistic examples of triumphs, she includes Mantegna, a 16-card set of images
> (that sounds somewhat like a mini-Mantegna),
Look, I seriously encourage you to just go and knit. This is
ridiculous. You are not even capable of getting through the
simplest and most obvious point of the complexities attendant
to these questions.
On page 46 she writes:
"The earliest game of triumphs may have been the sixteen-card
set which is thought to have been painted for the third Duke of
Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, by Michelino da Besozzo. In
this set there were four groups of triumphs, with four cards
in each group...The plot of this grouping of triumphs [note:
here she indicates that triumphs could have more than one
narrative inspiration] may have been suggested by an ironic
passage in the 'Divinae Institutiones' of Lactantius, one of
the ante-Nicene Church Fathers."
Right after this, she writes (apparently confusingly to a
half-witted skimmer):
"Sometimes it is difficult to conclude whether a series of
triumphs is simply a set of pictures, or whether it is
a set of playing cards. The so-called "Tarot of Mantegna",
for example, is a set of five triumphs with ten cards in
each [50 cards] but so large and thin that one wonders
if they should be called 'cards' at all."
Please, just shut up. Leave tarot to people who at least bother
to actually read the books written about it.
> Most of her examples correspond neither to Petrarch's poem...
Other narratives, other triumphs. Precisely. But all influenced
by the poem.
Is this too subtle for all of you, or is it just Bob and this idiot
who find it difficult?
> nor to tarot. This demonstrates the fact that...
You're an idiot.
Yes, you've established that brilliantly.
You may stop now. We are convinced.
> Actual processions are also described, and they also vary wildly in their
> content.
Wildly?---But yes. That's the point.
> In general terms,
No, in very specific terms.
> she considers three ancestral forms of triumphal
> processions: Roman military victory processions, Medieval religious
> processions, and "processions of knights traditionally held in connection
> with jousts and tourneys." And again, looking at the general concept gives
> us no direct connection to either Petrarch's poem nor to tarot.
You left out this important bit---perhaps you skimmed over it:
"The Renaissance interest in the Greek and Roman classics
revived interest in the Roman triumph. History tells us that
the Roman triumph originated in Etruria, which became the
modern Tuscany in which Florence lies. It seems natural,
therefore, that the Renaissance triumph was a special feature
of festivals at Florence."
AND---
"In Milan, the religious processions very early took on
the dramatic quality of the triumph. At Epiphany, for example,
the story of the Magi was acted out in a procession which used
whole city for a stage."
AND---
"It was the knights' processions which contributed to the
triumph the exciting feature of rows of mounted men and
footmen, all dressed alike, who marched before each triumphal
car."
Finally---
"The Visconti and Sforza families, like the Medici of Florence,
loved these elaborate processions...When Costanzo Sforza married
Camilla D'Aragona in 1475, the occasion was celebrated by the
performance of a Triumph of Fame, with Fame sitting in a car
upon a great globe, surrounded by heroes: Scipio, Alexander,
and Caesar. When the bride made her solemn entrance into
the city of Pesarao, she was greeted by a Triumph of Chastity...
another car carrying six ladies who represented great heroines of
purity followed the triumphal car."
She goes on to talk about the triumphal celebration and symbols
which met Catherine Sforza and Girolama Riario in 1481 when
they entered Forli, but here there were no triumphal cars
or allegorical figures---thus the motif of the triumph could
be borrowed, in altered form, for many purposes.
Knowing all this, it seems only reasonable to then, as she
does, talk about the specific narrative which inspired all
these variations upon a theme---Petrarch's 'I Trionfi'.
> If her only point was that triumphs were a popular form of expressing ideas,
It does not need to be her ONLY point, just her main point,
which it is.
> and that tarot was an example of that, then okay-fine.
You mean you might give your approval if only you could
read. I'm sure she can rest easy now.
> But such a general
> thesis tells us nearly nothing about what the story of tarot was or might
> have been --
You are so deeply, stupidly, wrong.
> Can you imagine, Jess, what you would do to someone who posted tortured
> interpretations as far-fetched as Moakley's to alt.tarot?
Can you imagine if you could read?
No, I suppose not.
Moakley's contributions to tarot seem to instill great fear
and loathing in the hearts and minds of dimwits.
I can certainly appreciate that effect.
Bob/Gerry O'Neill
> Yes, that part comes in her note of appreciation to an individual who
> helped her develop her essay. That person's name was Erwin Panofsky.
>
> Anyone know who that is?
(1892-1968) Professor of Art History. He moved from Hamburg to the
Institute of Fine Arts at NYU in 1931. Moved to the Institute for
Advanced Studies at Princeton in 1935 but continued to teach at NYU.
After he retired from Princeton, he continued to work with students at
NYU. He wrote a number of texts in Iconography - including an important
work on the Renaissance.
Michele Jackson
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/fad/fi/icon/panofsky.htm
Michele
--
Michele's Tarot Page
http://www.erols.com/jacksn
Bob/Gerry O'Neill <eon...@ibm.net> wrote in message
news:3765E515...@ibm.net...
> J. Karlin wrote:
> > Yes, that part comes in her note of appreciation to an individual who
> > helped her develop her essay. That person's name was Erwin Panofsky.
> >
> > Anyone know who that is?
>
J. Karlin
> Shannon wrote:
> > Bob/Gerry O'Neill wrote in message <376312FF...@ibm.net>...
> > >...hard to argue tht the Trumps are simply a representations
> > >of Petrarch's Poems.
> > On the other hand I think it's pretty obvious that Petrarch WAS a
> > jumping-off point for the concepts of the Trumps.
> Lets come back to tht idea at the end - there is certainly a sense in
> which that is true.
Yes, that would be the sense in which it is obviously true.
> >... What I'm
> > really interested in, though, is the ways in which the ideas
> > articulated by Petrarch are or are not similar to what we see
> > encoded in the Tarot cards. Like--how does the Lovers card
> > remain true to, or differ from, the philosophy of Love presented
> > by Petrarch?
And when someone referenced the motif, did he even think about
'philosophy'? Or did the motif take on a life (or lives) of
its own as it was incorporated into very real, dynamic,
celebrations of Italian life---not (only) text, not subtext,
not icons, but flesh and blood manifestations of popular
sentiments.
> > What about Death and Time and the others? And how
> > do they work as a sequence--how does Petrarch's path to Eternity
> > compare to the routes mapped out by Waite or Crowley?
Suggestion, one step at a time. It's hard enough, as you see,
to get a clear picture of what the proper roots of early
tarot may have been, it's another thing to jump ahead and
see what if any remnants of these roots are left in occult
tarot. But the interest is correct---to see if there is
a continuum.
> Well, how are you doing so far? I'd like to hear!
> I'm afraid I found Petrarch's attempt to convince me that his fantasies
> about a married woman somehow elevated his testasterone to the
> equivalent of the great classics -
You're always blathering on about people trying to convince you
of things.
Have you ever actually just read something for its own sake without
trying to see if you could best the writer in whatever silly
strawman debate you'd set up between yourself and the indifferent
victim?
> well, a bit thin! But I'm always
> willing to be educated.
I don't think so.
> > I don't think Petrarch fully explains the iconography, but I
> > think the form and some of the content originated with him, and
> > for that reason the stuff that ISN'T there in the cards becomes
> > just as interesting as the stuff that still is.
But you first need to try to learn what is and what isn't
really there.
> I think that is the key point! Were the designer(s) using the
> popularity of Petrarch's glorification of a powerful human emotion
> (love) as a device to place all of human experience into an ultimate
> context?
Bob, once again you're complicating the simple---the 'key point'
need not be anything so 'ultimate' as that. That you wish it
to be otherwise is neither evidence nor argument.
The designers of Visconti-Sforza likely had a number of
reasons they depicted what they did. But when we are trying
to figure out what those may have been, and lacking designer
notes to guide us in any direct fashion, we have really
only one way to approach the problem---look at what is on
the cards and work from there. If we see images in the
trionfi which we ALSO find in literature and art from
the period, we should reasonably want to ask why that
is. One of the reasonable questions one would ask is
whether that literature and that art were influential
upon the designs of tarot, and how so.
That is ALL that Gertrude Moakley has suggested that we
do, and she has done a great deal of basic research to
guide us in the effort. Yet, for some strange reason, you
would have it that this suggestion is meant to constrain
others from having any ideas, and that Moakley wishes to
obstruct the search for the truth about the origins of
tarot.
Why? What about her ideas so bothers you that you have
seen fit to continually misrepresent what she has written
in an effort to marginalize the importance of what she
is saying?
> Lets go through the 3 levels of hypotheses and see if that clarifies
> things:
I've got a better idea, why don't you actually deal with what
the woman wrote instead of making up strawman nonsense to
overcome?
> 1) The Tarot trumps are nothing but a representation of Petrarch Poems.
Moakley did not say this. You however tried to claim that she
did.
> The sequencing just doesn't fit tightly enough to be convincing.
How 'tightly' is it supposed to fit?
It's perfectly plausible that the images could be based upon
the poem but not 'fit tightly'. Your need to constrain the
possibilities is understandable but hardly pertinent.
> So lets just reject the hypothesis that the Trumps are simply a
> representation of Petrarch's work.
Because they may not 'simply' be that.
> 2) Moakley, as jk pointed out, rejected Hypothesis (1).
But why didn't you point out that she did this?
You're the one who wrote the book where you claimed to
analyze the problems of her theory. Yet, you failed to
point out she was talking generally in terms of the
influence of Petrarch, and instead claimed she was
attempting to argue that the poem was the ONLY
inspiration for the cards. Either you're not a very good
researcher or you were being intentionally misleading.
> But she then tried to put together a more believable scenario---
> founded on the premise that the Tarot trumps were a ribald
> take-off.
> I) Magician = Bagatino is the Carnival King. He is the first one out,
> and will be rejected at the end. The Fool accompanies him and dances in
> and out of all the floats and is still there at the end.
> This is a nice idea, but there is absolutely no historical basis for it
> whatsoever. Moakley admits: "For the theory that Bagatino is the
> Carnival King I have no direct authority"
Is that all that she says about it, Bob? No.
For, while admitting that she has no 'direct authority', she certainly
has a number of pertinent reasons for thinking it a worthwhile
speculation.
1. Bagatino must be a proper name, since Bagatto, the modern
form of it, means 'the first of the tarocchi trumps'.
2. The clowns of the 'commedia dell'arte' were thought of
as Carnival figures, and one of them was named Bagatino. The
whole triumphal procession may have transformed into a
comedy troupe, she says she has no direct authority on this
but believes Brueghel's 'The Battle of Carnival and Lent'
strongly suggests it.
3. Playing cards were associated with Carnival, and often
forbidden by law at other times.
4. As Il Matto is Lent accompanying the procession, it seems
likely this is Carnival's farewell procession. She writes,
"I was convinced of this long before I had any idea as to the
character of Bagatino. When I found that his rod was a sign
of royal office it struck me that he was, of course, the
King of the Carnival."
Finally, she writes, "In the Milanese dialect...the word 'bagatt'
has come to mean 'chatterbox' [Shannon, here you get a clue
about possible connections to the occult version of things],
'the first to make a long speech', and also 'to speak one's
whole mind.' This throws a good deal of light on Bagatino's
character; he was evidently a juggler with a good line of
patter."
> II) Cupid, Love - the first Triumphal float:
> a) First comes the suit of Cups marching past - the suit of Cups is
> assigned the lowest rank as the "livery" that preceeds and is
> subservient to the "Love" car.
She calls them heralds of the Triumph of Cupid, 'referring to
the Carnival King as an exponent of Love and drunkeness'.
Whether or not her speculations hold up with respect to
the suit signs, the association of Love to this suit, for
example, is hardly a mystery, given that on the Two of Cups
is written the phrase, 'amor mio'---'my love'. Again, the
occult title of this card is also---"Love".
> Does that fit your concepts? Does it
> bother you that the four suits very likely existed (1370-1377) before
> the Tarot trumps were invented (1420-1440)?
The suits likely were derived from Islamic suits, which they
closely resemble, but that does not mean they were not given
Euro- and Italo-centric meanings. As we see above, it is
not unreasonable to match the suits to the Triumphs in
the way Moakley has done. Whether that's how the Italians
may have understood the suit cards, as some kind of retinue
to Petrarchan triumphs, we don't know.
> I have problems with seeing the four suits as deriving their
> meaning from "trumps" that didn't exist.
A lot of your 'problems' are caused by your lack of imagination
and your tendency to think narrowly. It is not always the
fault of others that you have 'constraint' issues.
> b) Next come the captives of love. Petrarch displays Love as
> conquering all states of life, so the captives are Empress, Emperor,
> Papess, Pope. This makes a certain sense,
Why don't you just say, 'this makes sense'. The fact it makes
sense does not make it true, but it's certainly more helpful
to approach things from a sensible point of view than to
be constantly complaining about the 'constraints' of thinking.
> since the iconographic
> representations of Petrarch often show "crowned" figures as "defeated"
> by Love. What I personally have problems with...
...could not be comprehensively documented here on account of time
and bandwidth 'constraints'.
> is the idea that the
> major signficance of these cards is their defeat!
Apart from the Petrarchan theme, try to remind yourself of how
very close these people were to the Black Death. The notion
that all people, great and small, were ultimately to be
defeated, by human passions, and by human frailties, was
certainly something they would have found compelling and
intimately familiar. And this fits with the Christian view
of things. The sequence of the cards leads from symbols of
apparent worldly power to death and destruction and finally to
resurrection and rebirth into eternity. That sequence, while not
exclusively Petrarchan, just happened to have recently been
popularly ingrained into the Italian consciousness BY Petrarch.
> c) On the float itself are the "attendents" of Love: Temperance and
> Fortitude. They are a ribald reference to lingam and yoni. You buy
> that?
Why not, a balancing of masculine and feminine 'virtues' associated
with Love. Is there something wrong with that?
It doesn't even need to be thought of as 'ribald'.
> The significance of Temperance is the two cups??
Are you asking? Yes, the two cups is the metaphor by which this
Virtue is generally identified. Of course one needs to appreciate
the meaning of the two cups---if you do, and if you understand
the meaning of Temperance, then why not play with that idea
if one is of a mind to do so?
Recall again, we're talking about playing-card illustrations,
not the Sistine fucking Chapel.
> The signifiance of Fortitude is the club weilded by Hercules on the
> Visconti-Sfoza card??
Yes, the metaphor contains and transmits the significance.
But, the significance need not be anything---significant.
You have always tended to try to make much more than was
necessary out of a deck of playing cards, while getting
entirely indignant at others for doing precisely the same
thing.
Sounds kind of hypocritical.
> These two virtues are included in the Trumps to serve as symbols
> of female and male genitalia?
Do you suppose Italians had any of those?
Would the Virtues EVER have been allowed to represent
something unVirtuous? Even for a lark, or a game?
> They don't have any other meaning in their own right -
> like maybe VIRTUES?
She doesn't say they are NOT Virtues, but that their meaning
might have been inverted or altered to expose them to the
low bearing of being associated with lustful Cupid.
> I personally see this as manipulating the "ribald" part of
> Moakley's hypothesis in order to explain away the inconvenient
> presence of the Cardinal Virtues.
Why do you imagine for a moment the Virtues would be 'inconvenient'
to one promoting the idea of trionfi as depictions of triumphal
processions? Did you know that the Virtues had their very own
triumph? It is not inconvenient at all. Indeed, she might
have simply missed another possibility, one which I think
is pretty likely, that these images could also just be
an amalgam of different triumphal theme images---like a
sampler. But, still, her idea is not unreasonable merely
because you are so bothered by the fact the triumphal
motif is all TOO convenient and helpful for explaining
trionfi cards.
> d) Next comes the float itself: the Chariot. (In the Visconti-Sforza
> deck, the chariot is ridden by a regal woman)
I'm sorry, is that a criticism of some sort, or what?
> e) Next comes the Triumph itself - The Lovers. Doesn't it bug you that
> the symbol of love isn't actually riding on the float?
Moakley writes:
"In another set of tarocchi owned by either the Visconti
or the Sforza family...it is said that the woman pictured
(in VIII, L'Amore) is the same lady who drives the car
(Chariot) of the seventh trump in that set."
A lot of things bug you, Bob, but that's mostly to do with
your own bugs.
> When I first
> read Moakley (maybe 20 years ago??) this just stopped me cold - no way
> in bloody hell was I going to accept that the symbol wasn't actually on
> the float but on the triumph that followed the float!!!!! That makes
> the "triumph" of the car (=Chariot) totally meaningless!!
So, what you're saying is that you upset yourself and then went
on some kind of stupid crusade to correct Moakley's 'delusions'
simply because you had not bothered to carefully read what
she said?
Interesting.
Maybe tarot is not your game.
> III) Triumph of Fortune:
> a) Next comes the Suit of Staves as the "livery" of the next triumph.
> There is another ribald reference here - first the suit of cups
> (obviously female genitalia) followed by the suit of rods (obviously
> male genitalia). You feel that adolescent reference adequately explains
> the Rods? You relate to that?
So, you're saying that if anyone should agree with Moakley
about this, they would necessarily be displaying adolescent
understandings of gender and sexuality? Kind of an insulting
old fuck, aren't you.
What Moakley actually speculates here is that Staves, or
Bastoni (Wands) are serving a dual purpose, heralding the
coming of the next triumph, 'Fortune', but also 'following'
after (phallic-wise) Love. Why is that a particularly
'adolescent' view of things? You figure only teenagers
should have a strong interest in penises and vaginas?
Or what exactly?
> b) next comes the Triumph of Fortune (Wheel). This float doesn't have
> any captives or any attendents - little imbalance there? Does that
> bother you?
I doubt most anyone on the face of the planet is as bothered,
and by so much which is so impertinent, as are you.
> IV) Triumph of Death:
> a) Next comes the Suit of Coins as the "livery" of Death. The
> reference here is something about the "root of all evil".
Or maybe it is rather, as she says, to do with pointing
to the previous triumph, Fortune, and with reminding us
that what Fortune brings will also be taken away, and
just as the Hanged Man (who reminds us of Judas, the
traitor, paid with blood money) is punished for his
greed and disloyalty, so does a devotion to worldly
things, impel us toward a worldly end---dust to dust.
This is precisely what Crowley eventually says as well
in Disks, and particularly as things wind up or down
in Ten of Disks.
> But Moakley
> is basically trying to convince you that the Tarot designer(s) didn't
> even think about the four suits as representing the four "elements".
Where do you get that idea from?
See, you've manufactured all kinds of ridiculous motives for her
because your own motive is so banal---to attempt to inform
us that (gasp) tarot might have have had some esoteric roots.
You're a little late on that realization.
And, assuming you are correct, it is not inconsistent with the
possibilities that the trionfi may have masked something
esoteric AND still have been, on the surface, portraits
of a popular activity.
But, again, we are limited by what we know, and what evidence
we actually have to examine.
If you want tarot to be hermetically sealed from the get-go
you need to show us compelling evidence that this is so, and
you need to do so without asking us to reject, merely because
it helps your cause, the more obvious answers.
> b) Next comes the first captive of Death: the Hermit. Moakley says:
> "Time, in Petrarch's poem, had a whole triumph of his own. In the
> Visconti-Sforza tarocchi, Time becomes merely an attendent of Death."
> Its because the image shows an old man. You buy that as the
> significance of the Hermit card? You buy that the Hermit symbol doesn't
> reference "Time" because the sequencing is 'inconvenient'?????
"What time bestows and claims (the fleeting breath
Of Fame) is but, at best, a second death---
A death that none of mortal race can shun.
That wastes the brood of time, and triumphs o'er the sun."
---last line of the Triumph of Time
Moakley does not suggest that the 'significance' of the
card has been compromised or changed---it is Time. She
merely speculates that in the trionfi cards, Time has
become a mere captive (and servant) of all-conquering
Death.
How is this unreasonable, in your view?
By the way, you missed an opportunity here to piss and moan
about the ribald nature of her speculations---she says the
hourglass may have actually been a container of urine.
> c) The other captive of Death is the Hangedman. You having any problem
> with the sequencing here?
No.
Why should we be?
> d) next comes the Triumph of Death.
Bitch, making Death be Death.
> e) The first attendent of Death is the Devil Moakley says "The Devil
> is an inbdespensable character in the triumph of Death. He is there to
> take the soul of the wicked Hanged Man off to Hell..." You buy that as
> the significance of the Devil card?
Well, the card is early on thought of as Judas Iscariot---the great
traitor to humanity---so wouldn't it be reasonable to think
the Devil would likely escort his ass down to Hell?
> f) The other attendent of Death is the Tower - Moakley says: " The
> Tower is the Hellmouth to which the Devil is carrying Judas." You buy
> that?
Yes, I do buy that, because it makes perfect sense.
What is the hellmouth? Do you even know?
> Does your intuitive understanding of the Tower card
At long last, the truth revealed---Bobby is a member of the I-party.
But are we, in the least, surprised to learn this? Not I---yuck, yuck.
> reduce it to
> being the punishment of the Hangedman? You realize, don't you, that the
> Devil and Tower cards don't actually exist among any of the 270 or so
> cards of the 15th century?
Not necessarily true. Kaplan does display, in volume II, some
uncut sheets of cards, possibly from the 15th century, that
show both Devil and Tower. Furthermore, we know that these
cards were known in the 15th century because they are listed
by name in the prohibition 'sermon' (dated late 15th century).
Finally, depending upon when one accepts the dating of the
deck (Dummett for example quotes 'third quarter of the
15th century'), the Gringonneur pack DOES include the
Tower card. This certainly would suggest both cards
were common in the 78-card pack and may have been
removed from Visconti-Sforza for aesthetic or other
reasons we may never know.
> V) Triumph of Eternity:
> a) Next comes the suit of Swords as the "livery" of the Triumph of
> Eternity. Does that strike you as a bit forced? Maybe that was the
> only suit left so it had to be assigned here, even if it didn't fit?
If pressed, would you really be able to offer any pertinent
arguments for how it might fit or not fit?
Again, Moakley sees the suit as linking two triumphs, that
of Death, of which it is obviously an instrument, and in
herald of Eternity, where it is the symbol of divine Justice,
and this Virtue also clearly pertains here.
> b) Next comes the captives of Eternity : Star, Moon, Sun.
Here Moakley quotes Dante, among others, in support of her
interpretation (she is not solely devoted to Petrarchan
influences), and notes the astrological significance of
these symbols---they are captive to Eternity because, she
says, their utility as time-markers is eliminated by
the timelessness of eternity.
> c) Next comes the attendents of Eternity: The Judgment and Justice.
> Judgment day!!!
Does work, doesn't it?
> d) Finally, there comes World, the new Jerusalem = Heaven for those
> judged just.
And again, it makes sense.
> There is the basic hypothesis that Moakley lays out.
> You judge for yourself -
Isn't that what people always do?
> The tarot is an adolescent joke
> about what is between the legs of the
> forbidden opposite sex, or its a profound symbolic system that this
> hypothesis makes fun of!!!!
> I hope I have made my personal biases sufficiently clear!!!!!
Very. You might have thought more about not doing so.
> 3) Now lets try backing off from these childish efforts to force the
> Tarot into a preconceived mold!!! Lets try to construct a reasonable
> hypothesis:
Which would of course eliminate the need, in your view, for
actually paying attention to what Moakley writes.
You know, there is a joke here---although it's not quite the one
you are imagining.
> Petrarch's poems were extremely popular.
Oh good, they've moved up to 'extremely popular'. Perhaps
they'll be #1 on Billboard's list of musty-dusties next
week.
> In our age and our language,
> to say: "Methinks he protesteth overmuch!" has an instant demand on
> attention because...
...most people will wonder why you don't just speak English.
> of the respect in which we hold Shakespeare---
If it were not for recent movies, I doubt most people could
tell you who Shakespeare was.
> and his
> insight into human nature. The Renaissance had a similar instant
> recognition of Petrarch. The procession of floats in Petrarch and the
> adaptations of Petrarch, were an instant reference to joy and revelry.
Not always, there were different kinds of triumphs (which was
a motif that suggested just what the name said---celebration
of victory). If one were to depict the triumph of Jesus over
the Devil, for example, while there might be great rejoicing
at the end, there would also be moments of sadness and terror.
It's theater, and not necessarily all of one flavor.
> If you were going to design a popular game, entitling it 'trionfi' would
> be a stroke of genius!!!!
Maybe it was just a stroke of satire. You should not try to make
too many fine comparisons between our world of mass-marketing
gimmicks and that of 15th-century Italy.
> But more! If you associated these paper images with the "triumphs" of
> Petrarch and the festivals, you alerted me to the idea that you were
> going to present me with a series of symbols -
Yes, but those symbols may not have entirely literary meanings,
which is Moakley's whole point. You have consistently confused
the issue, failing to focus on the real concern: the development
of Petrarchan symbolism (itself a resurrection of older ideas and
thus a link back to the roots of Italian culture) into dynamic
cultural icons, tools of the trade of popular culture.
It seems to me we can witness this same phenomenon today,
although hardly in the same league as the effect of
Petrarch in 15th-century Italy, in pomo tarot.
> I was prepared for the
> fact that the ideas you were going to present to me were more than jokes
So, in your view, humor is not a serious business?
You would have made a lousy Renaissance Italian, but a very
typical turn-of-the-millennium American.
> - I had read Petrarch and cried,
So? That's you. There are other reactions in the world. Life
goes on. You may have cried about many things in the 14th
century---all the more reason to laugh in the 15th.
> I had sat through Carnival and vowed
> repentence - i was prepared for more something more than catching a peek
> of a shapely butt!!!!!!
Have you ever been to Mardi Gras? Just curious.
> But more! I knew that the sequence of Petrarch's poems and the sequence
> of symbols/floats that developed from his inspiration - were a kind of
> hierarchy - a series of "trionfi" a sequence of symbols representing
> higher and higher and higher states of thinking and being -
Get a grip, Bob. It's a fucking card game.
> a sequential
> approach to truth and Eternity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So if you wanted to
> present a sequence of symbols that represented states of consciousness---
---you'd probably want to travel to the 20th century where you
could do a big trade in newage art.
But, we are talking about the 15th century, and an amusing
game for the nobility (and later the commoners) to---AMUSE
themselves with.
I know states of consciousness are interesting to you.
The question is whether THAT'S really what concerned the people
who made or used the first tarot cards.
> that would bring you closer and closer and closer to eternity, wouldn't
> YOU have taken advantages of the times and called them
> "TRIONFI"???????????????????????????
'???????????????????????????' is not an argument.
J. Karlin
> J. Karlin wrote:
> > Yes, that part comes in her note of appreciation to an individual who
> > helped her develop her essay. That person's name was Erwin Panofsky.
> >
> > Anyone know who that is?
>
> Institute of Fine Arts at NYU in 1931. Moved to the Institute for
> Advanced Studies at Princeton in 1935 but continued to teach at NYU.
> After he retired from Princeton, he continued to work with students at
> NYU. He wrote a number of texts in Iconography - including an important
> work on the Renaissance.
Not just an important work, a seminal work (one of a number he wrote
on art and art history), wherein he explored the significance of
Renaissance 'humanistic themes', such as the influence of Petrarch's
works (particularly 'I Trionfi') upon the art of the period. Indeed,
'Studies in Iconology' is not merely thought of as an important work
of art history, but was recently judged one of the most important
works of nonfiction published in this century, coming in at #80 on
the ML list.
The fact that Moakley was able to rely upon Panofsky's personal
assistance in preparation of her essay on this very subject of
the relationship of Italian literature to art and cultural motifs
(such as we find in early tarot cards) suggests she was not guided
by the kind of constrained and unreasonable assumptions you would
have us believe.
Of course, perhaps you think Panofsky is constraining you as well.