Visconti Reproductions (merged threads)

For a brief description of the Minchaite and it's relation to Tarot see e.g. http://www.tarothermit.com/florence.htm. Obviously quite a bargain!

Macavity

P.S. I think (last time) we concluded that the only documentation available for this deck is with the (few) modern re-creations...

Many thanks for the link, Macavity. Strangely enough I'd recently downloaded most of the tarothermit site, other than this.

I don't exactly think I got a bargain - I paid £30 for the two, although I could probably have walked away with the Etruria for a tenner! But I'm thrilled to bits with both acquisitions.

Eve

I have found an online reference to the idea I stated earlier, that six of the Visconti-Sforza trumps are by a different artist. This is from Andy's Playing Cards, specifically the second page of an excellent four-page account of the Visconti decks.

http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards32.htm

"Six trumps of the Pierpont-Morgan deck, namely Fortitude, Temperance, the Star, the Moon, the Sun and the World, appear slightly different from the rest of the cards: probably needed as a replacement for the original ones (lost or damamged), they were repainted in a similar style, yet the hand of a different author can be easily told. "

Not knowing the circumstances of this deck's discovery, I can't help but wonder what led scholars to believe these six cards are indeed from the same deck, and not part a different deck altogether?

Felicity

jmd said:

When, however, we consider seriously the possibility that the deck just didn't have them at all, a coherent whole also results.

Click to expand...

You have really a mystic approach to older tarot.
Sometimes it's very difficult for me following your perception, but at the same time very stimulating.

Riccardo

...errr... thankyou (I think ) RiccardoLS...

and also thank you to felicityk for that additional wonderful resource (one I had not seen before).

Of course, we do need to carefully consider what the implications are for both the Visconti-Sforza and the Marseilles pattern in general, without necessarily assuming that one possible interpretation of the evidence is the correct one...

Without Fortitude, Temperance, the Star, the Moon, the Sun and the World (in addition to the omission of the Tower and the Devil), the deck becomes something quite other than we may presume - yet, also presuming that these did not form part of the original sequence may also be hasty ...

Maybe the 'mystic approach' yields insights which are otherwise oversights through 'mere' historical documentary approaches

jmd said:

...errr... thankyou (I think ) RiccardoLS...

Click to expand...

You think right

Riccardo

I think Stuart Kaplan talks about multiple versions of card decks from the Boniface Bembo school or style of minature painting in the Milanese region. Kaplan's lists of different major sets of cards suggests a standard order of 22, even with variations. Some of Kaplan's material on historical tarocchi is actually also quoted in a rather nifty book---my humble opinion---the Visconti Gold kit by Lo Scarabeo with a bigger book with Giordano Berti and Tiberio Gonard.
I like my Pierpont Morgan Visconti, the Cary-Yale (nonstandard) and Visconti Gold references for different reasons. As a reading deck, the Visconti Gold, based on the Pierpont Morgan images, is starting to serve me well for analytical questions that work well with allegorical analogies.
Every few months or so I visit a Stanford Museum permanent collection piece, a private alterpiece from the Boniface Bembo school of Milan, circa 1450. The bright colors and gilding do remind me very much of the Visconti Gold and Medieval to Renaissance Italian studies...which I enjoy very much. I actually have a catalogue that lists the Brambilla Brera cards and they look similar to the Milanese examples...Christina Oleson's book is also a very nice way to see old examples. I picked up the little gift book for $5 used.
Just my humble take,
Mari H.

Certainly, Mari_Hoshizaki, Stuart Kaplan does indeed assume, or at least suggest, that the Visconti (in its variants) 'must have had' twenty-two Major Arcana cards.

We have, however, moved a little since the wonderful services he has provided in those earlier volumes. The question needs to still be asked, however - even if we cannot properly answer it: did the Visconti decks have a smaller number of Major Arcana, which were later increased in number?

There are, of course, a number of possibilities, the most 'obvious' of which is that it did in fact contain a full supplement of cards as we know them - some of which were lost or destroyed, and others replaced for whatever reason. The other important possibility is that the deck wasn't a Tarot as we know it, but a deck with a vastly smaller number of Major Arcana - and certainly closely related to its Tarot cousin (or descendent).

...and thanks for mentioning the book which comes with the LoScarabeo kit, Mari_H. - adds to my wish... errr, need-list

Aargghhh - to have regular access to the Stanford collection - or any which so many of you have!

jmd said:

Certainly, Mari_Hoshizaki, Stuart Kaplan does indeed assume, or at least suggest, that the Visconti (in its variants) 'must have had' twenty-two Major Arcana cards.

Click to expand...

The fact that the Devil and the Tower are missing from all the variations of the Visconti deck that have been found makes it rather suspect that these cards were ever included in this style of deck. I believe Kaplan admits as much; I recently obtained Vols. I and II of his Encyclopedia and am still working through them.

Felicity

Sneaky seeds to plant in your heads...

By 1300 the allegorical parade in Dante's Divine Comedy harkened on astrological classical symbols and and times of day or weeks as well as the cardinal and other virtues. Even the ordering of the planets in the cosmic medieval universe included attributes and ideas built on Greco-Roman mythology and astrology...it was common enough, that the Mantegna ordering of 50 cards in Ferrara also echoed in places the Divine Comedy ordering of the heavenly spheres. I believe the Cardinal Virtues also make their appearance.
No devil or tower are in this allegorical game (Mantegna) and it may be this was one of the older card set patterns that was centered on more positive attributes for learning purposes. If one looks at art depictions of the Vices and Virtues in early example, the early depictions around Giotto (and Dante's) time showed both Vices and Virtues in sets that balanced one another. I can well believe that showing examples of the just the Virtues might eventually have become common; the virtue and it's attribute was enough for people to know this is the symbol to use to heal or strengthen them against the negative.
I'm still learning more, but I heard that by the 1450's, the travelling troupes that led to what we know as Italian Commedia D'Arte was in the popular culture. Usually, an allegorical figure or archetype such as the 'miser' or 'hero' or 'fair maiden' would make up the cast of characters...so the culture was sophisticated enough to recognize such archetypes.
Between 1350 and 1450 Milan had bouts that included plague (they walled up the victims homes, whether the occupants were alive or not), changes in political leadership that echoed brutal times. Milan almost succeeded in invading Florence. However, the alliances of Ferrara and Milan seemed to be quite strong, to the point of pledging toddlers in marriage to one another.
On the Milan side of the house, the Visconti stories make great reading...the highlight for me was Bianca Maria and the popular coronation of Sforza to be the next Duke of Milan. Quite a contrast to my Ferrera histories of how ancient Borso became nominated as a Duke by the aging Pope.
The older Milan-based patterns Visconti Madrone and Cary Yale have faith, hope and charity, the old fashioned cardinal virtues. I believe this came from influences related to the Mantegna and courtly influences between Milan and Ferrara.
Kaplan makes a few suggestions in regards to the above, but my agreement (and assumptions*) comes from lectures in Renaissance studies and books related to Ferarra court figures.

*And you are free to ask me for references or to correct me---there are many excellent readers and students in this group that have better information than myself.

Mari the hopefully not too mistaken...