Minchiate - Fool

full deck

Though we partially covered the fool in the "Magician", I thought that this excerpt provided an good commentary on this particular image of the fool from the Minchiate:

By the end of the fifteenth century, a fairly complex set of ideas and associations had gathered around the figure of the fool. At worst, he was considered a sinful instrument of vice, who was blind to the truth and had no hope of salvation. It has been suggested that this attitude goes back to Saint Jerome, who translated the opening of Psalm 53/52 with Dixit insipiens in corde suo, rendering the Hebrew word “nabal” as “fool” rather than as “vile or morally deficient person.”
At best, the fool was a simple innocent, devoid of the pretentions of learning and the corruptions of worldly wisdom, into whom the spirit of God could most easily enter. The most universal characteristics of the fool, however, lay somewhere in between the two opposite poles represented by the fool of Saint Jerome and the fool of Saint Paul; for these are his social rather than his religious characteristics. On the one hand, he could be found in any rank of society; on the other, he was the shameless critic of all ranks. He saw through the hypocrisy of social status and noble sentiments; he exposed the vanity of beauty and learning. He did not believe in honor, order, measure, prudence, justice, chastity, or any of the stoical restraints society imposes upon itself. If Hercules at the crossroads between virtue and pleasure had traditionally opted for virtue, the fool resolutely took the other fork and sought gratification for the body rather than the spirit, arguing that there will still be cakes and ale though some are virtuous.
It had long since been recognized, however, that he was a formidable adversary, not just because he refused to abide by the accepted rules, but because his jocose antics, like all play, could easily turn into high seriousness and his unbridled tongue was capable of truth as well as foolishness.

(see "Wisdom of the Fool")

MercyMe

All one has to do is read the book of Proverbs in the Bible to see what the popular notion of a "fool" was for centuries. The Fool in the Bible is one who has what is considered "sense" but does not choose to use it. This is not someone who is mentally deficient, as some Tarot decks depict the Fool, but someone who, quite consciously, chooses to live outside the norms of society.

In the Minchiate, I like the way the Fool is playing with children...or at least it seems that way, I'm not quite sure. Are the children taunting him? Is he mentally challenged and they are teasing him? Or maybe he's known as the town drunk and they're having a bit of fun. I think they are playing, myself, it doesn't look serious, and I think it highlights the Fool's childlike view of life.

Mercy

full deck

Also, not only is the minchiate fool playing with children but is the happiest character in the minchiate, unless one thinks the women in the chariot is having fun. The Constantini Minchiate treats the woman in the chariot more like fresh meat than anything else.

firecatpickles

What is up with the chick on the Chariot?

What I walked away with -from the article you provide a link to, full deck- was that the fool and prudence are essentially opposites. And, as is the case with tarot (though the article is not speciifically about tarot), nothing is as is seems:

"The fool is wise and the wise are foolish."

That has an excellent ring to it, doesn't it? I love it when pretentions are removed.

Since the Fool and Prudence are opposites, their respective positions in the Minichiate deck are significant, as well. Perhaps it is one of the reasons that this fourth "pagan" virtue is removed from the Strength, Justice and Temperance line-up and placed within the series of the "holy" virtues Faith, Hope and Charity?

These are medieval constructs and, since I do not believe in prooftexting, a better understanding of these virtues (of which the Fool may be seen as an "anti-virtue") is in order. Ain't it grand?

A little tongue-in-cheek: The Seven Deadly Sins, A Convenient Guide to Eternal Damnation

firecatpickles

I notice there isn't a thread on Prudence yet. I think the natural progression from Fool is to Prudence. Since the Hope thread is already started, am going to start a new Prudence thread.

Sophie

To me, there is no better literary illustration of the Renaissance Fool than Shakespeare's Fool in King Lear. The juxtaposition is particularly inventive, because Shakespeare was playing with accepted social archetypes by placing a wise fool next to a foolish old man...There is a game in the answer the Fool gives Kent, when he asks in the storm during which Lear is raving - "who's there" - "a wise man and a fool". In the first act, the relationship between the two is illustrated by this exchange:

KING LEAR:
Dost thou call me fool, boy?

FOOL:
All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.

The Fool is the only person who opposes Lear, when the King divides his kindgom between his daughters Goneril and Regan and their husbands, and rejects the honest Cordelia:

FOOL
I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They'll have me whipped for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o'thing than a fool. And yet I would not be thee, nuncle. Thou has pared thy wit o'both sides and left nothing in the middle.

Jan Kott wrote of Fools in general, and Shakespeare's Fool in Lear: The Fool does not follow any ideology. He rejects all appearances, of law, justice, moral order. He sees brute force, cruelty and lust. He has no illusions and does not seek consolation in the existence of natural or supernatural order, which provides for the punishment of evil and the reward of good. Lear, insisting on his fictitious majesty, seems ridiculous to him. All the more ridiculous because he does not see how ridiculous he is. But the Fool does not desert his ridiculous, degraded king, and accompanies him on his way to madness. The Fool knows that the only true madness is to recognize this world as rational.

That is where his power lies.

It helps to remember all that when looking at the Fool card on ancient cards. By the 18th Century, when the Minchiate Etruria came out, this vision of the Fool - as a wise innocent, contrasted with the folly of those who should know better because they were supposedly authoritative and experienced - was well established. The "adults" were truly foolish, while fools and children were truly wise.

Here, what we see is a large giant of a Fool in a natural landscape - surrounded by children that are playing with him. He is at ease in nature and with naturals like children. He is both innocent - and guide.

firecatpickles

Could what the Fool is holding be a (persussion) musical instrument? There may be a Pied Piper association.

KK

Sophie

kilts_knave said:
Could what the Fool is holding be a (persussion) musical instrument?

I think it's a rattle

kilts_knave said:
There may be a Pied Piper association.

Not sure that story was known in Florence in 1725. We'd have to check that out.

Rattles have associations with Commedia dell'arte and with theatrical fools in general, as well as with lepers.

firecatpickles

Ok, it's a rattle, then. Just throwing that out there for arguments sake. (But I bet the thought will cross your mind the next time he shows up in a reading hehehe!) I doubt that the legend of the Pied Piper found it's way into the Minchiate, on second thought.

But he is playing with children's toys, and he is handling that child awkwardly. There is something that just doesn't look right about that card.

But I have to remind myself that this is a card of innocence. And he is the Fool, afterall, and either he is not aware that his actions can be misconstrued, or he doesn't care.

KK

fluffy

I think that the fool is holding the childs rattle, teasing him with it - just out of reach. With his arm he is preventing the child from jumping up trying to get his rattle back. I think that is why it looks somewhat awkward. I do not think he is teasing maliciously, just having fun being childlike.

Fluffy
x

Minchiate - Fool

full deck

MercyMe

full deck

firecatpickles

firecatpickles

Sophie

firecatpickles

Sophie

firecatpickles

fluffy