Straw hat debate

Debra

I'm getting confused.

Games with axes and hatchets (small axes) are common. Huck, when I lived in Baden-Württemberg, people played a game of trying to drive a nail into a tree stump with a small axe. (Difficult to do.) Supposedly, when he was a little boy, the first American president George Washington cut down a cherry tree with his little axe. When his father confronted him, little George said, "Father, I cannot tell a lie, I cut down the tree." This story was probably invented to demonstrate that Washington was always honest. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I don't see an axe stuck in the pine tree in this image, and I'm not sure why the axe is relevant to the hat.

What I do see, though, is that the greyhound and the tree look like they are on a little island, separated from the landscape around them.

What would be the message carried by a pure and loving animal under a tree, with a lead or rope, separated from the rest of the landscape?

As for the Magician card--it does look like a straw hat. Hats are used in magic tricks. I wonder if they were back then, too.
 

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Huck

OnePotato said:
Hello Huck.

Well, my "interesting opinion" is based on looking at what the artist has painted.
I do not see a pickaxe anywhere stuck into or around the conical pine tree in your image.
The end of the leash, however, is quite clearly shown.
Can you please point out the pickaxe stuck in the tree?

I don't see a pickaxe, I see an unknown tool, I think, I've said so indirectly, when I reflected your observation with "Well, I don't know, what sort of "official explanation" the motif has. You're right, there is a collar and it seems as if the collar is connected to the rope. And the tree doesn't look like an oak tree."

Well, another example ...

more-goals.jpg


... it's a Tarocchi card, but it's variated. But it's enough left to recognize the Tarocchi card.

Similar the dog with a collar and a rope around a tree with a tool on it reminds (at least to me) the family story of the Sforza about the ancestor, who had thrown an axe in an oak tree, especially if I know, that the same family took the story from their ancestor as "of greater importance" and used the new picture also in an important signifying manner.
As these Renaissance families always played with their heraldic symbols, why should I ignore this information?
The commissioners of art were fond of hunting in this time and so a lot of dogs appeared in their pictures ... a simple truth. This hobby likely hadn't too much chance to develop in Italy in the time which was dominated by war (1425-1454), but became very strong in the second half of 15th century.

Louis XI hadn't much function to fulfill in exile in 1456-1461, so he became crazy about hunting in the forests of Burgundy. Burgundy was specialized on hawks and exported these birds. When he became King 1461, his behavior likely inspired also the Italian nobility. Galeazzo Maria send a delegation to Burgundy in 1469 to buy hawks. When he visited Lorenzo de Medici in 1471, he was accompanied by 200 falconers. A lot of his time he spend in the distributed hunting castles in the Milanese region.

As I have said before, I think the Wolfegg Hausbuch explains a lot about where the tarot came from. And the hat on the Wolfegg Bateleur's table is clear.

I don't understand. What explains the Wolfegg Hausbuch about where the Tarot came from? And what is clear about the hat on the Wolfegg Bateleur's table?
 

Moonbow

Huck said:
I don't understand. What explains the Wolfegg Hausbuch about where the Tarot came from? And what is clear about the hat on the Wolfegg Bateleur's table?

Yes, someone please explain the Wolfegg Hausbuch, I feel like I've stepped in to a private conversation.
 

Rosanne

I think One Potato is alluding to the astrological basis for Tarot.
The Medieval Castle House book of 1480 is about astrology and has Children of the planets illustrations as well as devotional studies with astrological signs etc. The page that Huck originally posted with the Straw hats is by Wolfegg Hausbuch from the Medieval House Book.

I had always thought the Visconti cards as personal to the Milan families- so personal in fact that the straw hat was telling of an incident in the Marche area of Italy. In fact it may just be coincidence,sad, because the Romance is a far better read :D.
I have an unfailing optimistic heart and it has been sorely tested over the Hermit card, now it is likely to be bruised over the Magician. The straw harvest is over and the Hat has been made, the master will do a tally for wages- what month and planet is that? (insert crying icon here)
I like the Lancelot version that I concocted much better.......

~Rosanne
 

Moonbow

???... Me and you too Debra, and thanks for the clarification, without which the reader wouldn't think to revert to a thread 4 years old. And thanks to Rosanne too for a further explanation. I hope your optimistic heart isn't too disheartened that you don't continue to stretch our imagination with your theories.
 

Bernice

Rosanne:The straw harvest is over and the Hat has been made, the master will do a tally for wages.....
This appears to be the most likely reason for the presence of a straw hat, and yes, I'm fully persuaded that it is a straw hat.

Regarding the Straw Hat - and it's presence in the Visconti.
The following is a good link re. Le Bateleur. It shows, what might be called 'variations', on the card from 1455 to the early 17th century. The second image is 'The Conjurer' from Children of the Moon: Cristoforo de Predis, c.1460 - 1470, De Sphaera of Iohannes Sacrobosco, made for Francesco or Galeazzo Maria Sforza. It is five years after the untitled trump by Bonifacio Bembo, so clearly not a template/role model for Bembos' card (Le Bateleur).

http://www.angelfire.com/space/tarot/bagatella.html


Bee :)
 

Rosanne

Excellent link Bee thank you!

Interesting aside about straw hats. When they are first made they are pearly white and as they are polished and out in the weather they turn golden wheat coloured. The best straw when stripped was the whitest. Not only that, but the Wheat for hat straw made grain harvesting impossible and was thought one of the reasons that the Milanese were starving and needed bread when Francesco Sforza took the City. They had planted and harvested Hat wheat- it was not only the siege and the politics.

~Rosanne