Huck
First analyzes
Wonderful, that this poem had some "English form", thanks to Ross and Marco again.
Again: I repeat some basic assumptions for the moment: Boiardo had fallen in love in April 1469, our biographical attempt (not totally completd)
http://trionfi.com/0/h/02/
reports:
"January 1469 - Boiardo spends a week in Ferrara as the guest of Duke Borso during an entertainment for the Emperor Frederick III, who is at a visit in Italia. Frederick III sells many titles at Ferrara. The 19-year-old Ludovico Lazzarelli got the title "poetus laureatus" from the Emperor, likely a little later in Venice and likely for a poem to a knight tournament, that took place in Padova in the year 1466; Lazzarelli is the poet of a poem that uses motives of the Mantegna-Tarocchi as illustrations. The fame building moment for the young Lazzarelli might have given some impressions for the some years older Boiardo, whose poetical experiments were in this moment likely not similar succesful. Lazzarelli is suspected by us to have had influence on the construction of the Mantegna Tarocchi, by us estimated for the year 1475; the coventional theories to the Mantegna Tarocchi suggest a date around 1465.
April 1469 - Boiardo meets Antonia di Bartolomeo Caprara (b. 1451), a girl of Reggio, at Sigismondo's court and later dedicates to her his sequence of 180 lyrics in three books titled Amorum Libri, first published as Sonnetti e Canzone (Songs and Sonnets) in 1499. He also addresses a mysterious Rosa and also two other ladies, as they are confidants in his love for Antonia---they are said to be Marietta and Ginvra Strozzi, the former being the wife of Teofilo Calgnino. The lyrics are sonnets, various canzoni, different madrigals and other lyrics of perculiar metrical structure. The third book of the Canzoniere has at it's close a mention of the summons to Rome in 1471 to attend to Borso in his coronation as Duke.
The Boiardo Tarocchi poem has 21 trumps and a Fool - when the marriage of Galeazzo Maria invented the feature of the "21 trumps + Fool" (in June 1468), Boiardo was able to imitate it since then. The Boiardo Tarocchi is unusual and has its focus on matters of love (for instance is jealousy a suit), so the poem is suitable to somebody just fallen in love, which seems to be a fact in the case of Boiardo just in this month. The choice of the Milanese system (with 21 trumps + Fool) would be logically a polite gesture against Milan, which is just likely in this moment, but not 3 monthes later, cause ... "
Alright, the girl is 18, Boiardo is at least 28 (the precise date of his birth is not known, only suspected). We've the approach of an older man to the younger girl - as very often in this time. We've to remind the other "older man, younger woman"-stories in the Trionfi fabrication processes:
Leonello d'Este - Bianca Maria Visconti: Leonello is 18 years older
1.1. 1441 - cards play a role
Francesco Sforza - Bianca Maria Visconti : Francesco is 24 years older.
October 1441 - Cary-Yale (perhaps) produced
Filippo Maria Visconti - Maria of Savoyen: Filippo is 36, the bride quite young.
cards play possibly a role
Niccolo d'Este - Parisina: Paisina is 13 or 14, Niccolo quite grown-up
cards play a role
and some others
So it's a common model and one should assume, that some courting rules had been developed for such cases.
A didactical process: The loving man has to explain the world and give a good impression with all his acquired knowledge.
... and the Tarocchi poem plays a role: Boiardo notes about 45 or 50 classical persons in his short tercets, a lot of stuff to talk about and to explain, who's who and who did what. A complex pogram with poetical background ideas of course. Part of the approach is the "intellectual education of the younger girl by the older man".
Boiardo uses a basic trick - as already explained - with the 22 special cards (21 trumps + 1 foolish cards):
One tercet for begin (Fool, but it starts with World):
* Italian text
"Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato,
Portarti un fol su l'asino presume,
Ché i stolti sol confidano in tuo stato."
* English translation
"World, you are vainly loved by the fools,
And a fool thinks he can bring you on his donkey,
Because fools only trust your state. "
The translation is rough, but good enough for a first overview (for instance: there is only one "fol" in the Italian version, but Fool is 3x translated - "stolto" means "stupid", "pazzo" means "crazy", so the translation is not wrong, but somehow this 3-fold foolness must be expressed.
We've "Mondo" and we've "fol" - so we meet 2 Tarot card names. And one (Matto, Fool) is usually at begin of the row and the other (World) is usually at the end of the row. This can't happened accidently, this was intention (says the poetical analyzer's instinct), that's part of the poet's trick.
Naturally one should not necessarily read the poem in line and row, but jump to the end and there is:
Trump 21 - Fortezza (Strength)
Italian text
Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua fama
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,
---
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
English translation
Inner strength make happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net.
---
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
The first one should note, that the last word of the poem (not considering the final sonnett) is "ama" - which has something to do with "love" ... one shouldn't overlook such details, that's poetical intention.
Perhaps it's puzzling, why there are 4 lines instead of 3 - This repeats in all 5 chapters, each has an additional final line.
... and with some experience in these matters, what poets do and what they love, one can now add the 5 final lines and receives that:
Ché mal se fugge quel che 'l ciel dispone
Con gli ecclipsi soi, segni e comete
Che domitor del mondo un tempo forno
E fe' Pasiphe innamorar de un Toro
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
Because it is difficult to avoid what has been decided by heaven.
With its eclipses, signs and comets.
Who once were the rulers of the world.
And it made Pasiphe fall in love with a Bull.
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
---
well, it's not in rhyme, but I think, this was intention, too. Now - I'm not an Italian - but is this a correct formulated follow-up of Italian sentences, Marco? At least it can be imagined from the English translation - it makes sense. The idea to involve Pasiphae inclusive her toro is surprizing, but not impossible. Lines 1-2-3 seem to be connectable, 4-5 also.
...
Isn't it nice? Isn't that a really European formula? Pasiphae falling in love with her bull ... just repeating that, what her mother-in-law Europe also did once somewhere at the Phoenician coast? Our lovely Tarocchi poem in European dimensions. And all this in the small head of young poet Boiardo?
... I've to drink something on our all European Boiardo translation .. .-) made by Italian, French, German forces ... and on internet, which made it possible ...
.... okay, Golden Sun Kentucky Bourbon .. nice name, let's invite America to the joy. Now:
TIMOR un'alma tien tanto dubiosa
GELOSIA un vero amor non po smarrire,
SPERANZA unita tien co `l corpo un'alma
AMORE, un che cum te cerchi bon stato,
Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato.
FEAR keeps a soul is such doubts
JEALOUSY cannot spoil a true love.
HOPE sometimes keeps a body joint with
LOVE, if someone wants to be in good relations with you,
World, you are vainly loved by the fools.
Ahem, .. that are the beginning lines. Possible in Italian, Marco?
And together, does it work? Marco?
TIMOR un'alma tien tanto dubiosa
GELOSIA un vero amor non po smarrire,
SPERANZA unita tien co `l corpo un'alma
AMORE, un che cum te cerchi bon stato,
Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato
Ché mal se fugge quel che 'l ciel dispone
Con gli ecclipsi soi, segni e comete
Che domitor del mondo un tempo forno
E fe' Pasiphe innamorar de un Toro
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
----
FEAR keeps a soul is such doubts
JEALOUSY cannot spoil a true love.
HOPE sometimes keeps a body joint with
LOVE, if someone wants to be in good relations with you,
World, you are vainly loved by the fools.
Because it is difficult to avoid what has been decided by heaven.
With its eclipses, signs and comets.
Who once were the rulers of the world.
And it made Pasiphe fall in love with a Bull.
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
... well, we've to consider a little bit the actual state of Ferrara and this means, that there is an astrologer currently around, who develops actively the picture program at the Palazzo Schifanoia. "Eclipses, signs and comets, which rule the world" are momentary in full fashion there.
Actually one might assume, that they started with April, and that would mean, they started with Taurus - see toro and Pasiphae. And the whole is filled with Venus and her features, and that are lots of young people in very good mood and Boiardo is in the mid between them.
http://www.wga.hu/cgi-bin/search.cgi?author=&title=&comment=schifanoia&time=any&school
Pasiphae I can't detect.
Good, okay, this was my suspicion about the first and last lines. Now back to the content of trump 21:
Italian text
Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua fama
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,
---
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
English translation
Inner strength make happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net.
---
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
And there we've another name of a well known Tarot card (in card 0, we had Fool and World):
Fortezza (Strength)
and another name, I hope you see it:
FAMA
Well, Fama is not part of the Tarot as you know it usually, but it is part of the Minchiate. And in 1469 Minchiate exists as an experiment of unknown content, as documented by a letter from Luigi Pulci to Lorenzo de Medici. And - as we know - in the later Minchiate is the highest trump: Fama, so it could exist in Boiardo's time as a highest trump "somewhere" - likely in Florence. And Boiardo likely would know that.
So we meet in the first and last of Boiardo's 22 special cards poems 4 Tarot card motifs and now we've the question to answer, what the poet is talking about.
Fool = Matto - usually card 0
World = usually card 21 or highest trump, but not in Minchiate
Fama = highest card in Minchiate
Fortezza doesn't hit the mark, it isn't either at begin or end of the row and so it looks deplaced. What's in the mind of Boiardo?
Fortezza, after Milan got 22 cards (which happened short before the poem, according the basic assumptions), got itself once the number 11, which it still has today.
The natural situation in Ferrara should have been,that they didn't know what to do with their cards, when Milan changed the deck. Perhaps the whole intention of Boiardo with his occupation with this deck goes in the direction to decide, what the next Ferrarese deck should look like. Should they also raise the numbers of cards? Which row the figure should have? Should they merely imitate the Milanese version?
Perhaps not very deciding questions, but things which poets, whose highest enjoyment it was to see their duke happy, might take serious, when the duke took it serious.
Well: Fortezza has the number 11 later and the Fool had the number 11, earlier - see 5x14-theory. The original version of the 14 Bembo cards counted from 1-14, not 0, 1, 2, 3 etc. And in the row of 1-14 the fool had position 11 - as part of the 3 bad things: Stupidity (Fool), treason (Hanging Man) and death.
That must have been the intellectual connection, which made Boiardo place this quartett of 4 figure on the starting and ending card of the sequence.
Enough for today. Boiardo the European ... rather unexspected ... .-) Boubon makes sleepy.
Wonderful, that this poem had some "English form", thanks to Ross and Marco again.
Again: I repeat some basic assumptions for the moment: Boiardo had fallen in love in April 1469, our biographical attempt (not totally completd)
http://trionfi.com/0/h/02/
reports:
"January 1469 - Boiardo spends a week in Ferrara as the guest of Duke Borso during an entertainment for the Emperor Frederick III, who is at a visit in Italia. Frederick III sells many titles at Ferrara. The 19-year-old Ludovico Lazzarelli got the title "poetus laureatus" from the Emperor, likely a little later in Venice and likely for a poem to a knight tournament, that took place in Padova in the year 1466; Lazzarelli is the poet of a poem that uses motives of the Mantegna-Tarocchi as illustrations. The fame building moment for the young Lazzarelli might have given some impressions for the some years older Boiardo, whose poetical experiments were in this moment likely not similar succesful. Lazzarelli is suspected by us to have had influence on the construction of the Mantegna Tarocchi, by us estimated for the year 1475; the coventional theories to the Mantegna Tarocchi suggest a date around 1465.
April 1469 - Boiardo meets Antonia di Bartolomeo Caprara (b. 1451), a girl of Reggio, at Sigismondo's court and later dedicates to her his sequence of 180 lyrics in three books titled Amorum Libri, first published as Sonnetti e Canzone (Songs and Sonnets) in 1499. He also addresses a mysterious Rosa and also two other ladies, as they are confidants in his love for Antonia---they are said to be Marietta and Ginvra Strozzi, the former being the wife of Teofilo Calgnino. The lyrics are sonnets, various canzoni, different madrigals and other lyrics of perculiar metrical structure. The third book of the Canzoniere has at it's close a mention of the summons to Rome in 1471 to attend to Borso in his coronation as Duke.
The Boiardo Tarocchi poem has 21 trumps and a Fool - when the marriage of Galeazzo Maria invented the feature of the "21 trumps + Fool" (in June 1468), Boiardo was able to imitate it since then. The Boiardo Tarocchi is unusual and has its focus on matters of love (for instance is jealousy a suit), so the poem is suitable to somebody just fallen in love, which seems to be a fact in the case of Boiardo just in this month. The choice of the Milanese system (with 21 trumps + Fool) would be logically a polite gesture against Milan, which is just likely in this moment, but not 3 monthes later, cause ... "
Alright, the girl is 18, Boiardo is at least 28 (the precise date of his birth is not known, only suspected). We've the approach of an older man to the younger girl - as very often in this time. We've to remind the other "older man, younger woman"-stories in the Trionfi fabrication processes:
Leonello d'Este - Bianca Maria Visconti: Leonello is 18 years older
1.1. 1441 - cards play a role
Francesco Sforza - Bianca Maria Visconti : Francesco is 24 years older.
October 1441 - Cary-Yale (perhaps) produced
Filippo Maria Visconti - Maria of Savoyen: Filippo is 36, the bride quite young.
cards play possibly a role
Niccolo d'Este - Parisina: Paisina is 13 or 14, Niccolo quite grown-up
cards play a role
and some others
So it's a common model and one should assume, that some courting rules had been developed for such cases.
A didactical process: The loving man has to explain the world and give a good impression with all his acquired knowledge.
... and the Tarocchi poem plays a role: Boiardo notes about 45 or 50 classical persons in his short tercets, a lot of stuff to talk about and to explain, who's who and who did what. A complex pogram with poetical background ideas of course. Part of the approach is the "intellectual education of the younger girl by the older man".
Boiardo uses a basic trick - as already explained - with the 22 special cards (21 trumps + 1 foolish cards):
One tercet for begin (Fool, but it starts with World):
* Italian text
"Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato,
Portarti un fol su l'asino presume,
Ché i stolti sol confidano in tuo stato."
* English translation
"World, you are vainly loved by the fools,
And a fool thinks he can bring you on his donkey,
Because fools only trust your state. "
The translation is rough, but good enough for a first overview (for instance: there is only one "fol" in the Italian version, but Fool is 3x translated - "stolto" means "stupid", "pazzo" means "crazy", so the translation is not wrong, but somehow this 3-fold foolness must be expressed.
We've "Mondo" and we've "fol" - so we meet 2 Tarot card names. And one (Matto, Fool) is usually at begin of the row and the other (World) is usually at the end of the row. This can't happened accidently, this was intention (says the poetical analyzer's instinct), that's part of the poet's trick.
Naturally one should not necessarily read the poem in line and row, but jump to the end and there is:
Trump 21 - Fortezza (Strength)
Italian text
Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua fama
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,
---
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
English translation
Inner strength make happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net.
---
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
The first one should note, that the last word of the poem (not considering the final sonnett) is "ama" - which has something to do with "love" ... one shouldn't overlook such details, that's poetical intention.
Perhaps it's puzzling, why there are 4 lines instead of 3 - This repeats in all 5 chapters, each has an additional final line.
... and with some experience in these matters, what poets do and what they love, one can now add the 5 final lines and receives that:
Ché mal se fugge quel che 'l ciel dispone
Con gli ecclipsi soi, segni e comete
Che domitor del mondo un tempo forno
E fe' Pasiphe innamorar de un Toro
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
Because it is difficult to avoid what has been decided by heaven.
With its eclipses, signs and comets.
Who once were the rulers of the world.
And it made Pasiphe fall in love with a Bull.
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
---
well, it's not in rhyme, but I think, this was intention, too. Now - I'm not an Italian - but is this a correct formulated follow-up of Italian sentences, Marco? At least it can be imagined from the English translation - it makes sense. The idea to involve Pasiphae inclusive her toro is surprizing, but not impossible. Lines 1-2-3 seem to be connectable, 4-5 also.
...
Isn't it nice? Isn't that a really European formula? Pasiphae falling in love with her bull ... just repeating that, what her mother-in-law Europe also did once somewhere at the Phoenician coast? Our lovely Tarocchi poem in European dimensions. And all this in the small head of young poet Boiardo?... I've to drink something on our all European Boiardo translation .. .-) made by Italian, French, German forces ... and on internet, which made it possible ...
.... okay, Golden Sun Kentucky Bourbon .. nice name, let's invite America to the joy. Now:
TIMOR un'alma tien tanto dubiosa
GELOSIA un vero amor non po smarrire,
SPERANZA unita tien co `l corpo un'alma
AMORE, un che cum te cerchi bon stato,
Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato.
FEAR keeps a soul is such doubts
JEALOUSY cannot spoil a true love.
HOPE sometimes keeps a body joint with
LOVE, if someone wants to be in good relations with you,
World, you are vainly loved by the fools.
Ahem, .. that are the beginning lines. Possible in Italian, Marco?
And together, does it work? Marco?
TIMOR un'alma tien tanto dubiosa
GELOSIA un vero amor non po smarrire,
SPERANZA unita tien co `l corpo un'alma
AMORE, un che cum te cerchi bon stato,
Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato
Ché mal se fugge quel che 'l ciel dispone
Con gli ecclipsi soi, segni e comete
Che domitor del mondo un tempo forno
E fe' Pasiphe innamorar de un Toro
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
----
FEAR keeps a soul is such doubts
JEALOUSY cannot spoil a true love.
HOPE sometimes keeps a body joint with
LOVE, if someone wants to be in good relations with you,
World, you are vainly loved by the fools.
Because it is difficult to avoid what has been decided by heaven.
With its eclipses, signs and comets.
Who once were the rulers of the world.
And it made Pasiphe fall in love with a Bull.
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
... well, we've to consider a little bit the actual state of Ferrara and this means, that there is an astrologer currently around, who develops actively the picture program at the Palazzo Schifanoia. "Eclipses, signs and comets, which rule the world" are momentary in full fashion there.
Actually one might assume, that they started with April, and that would mean, they started with Taurus - see toro and Pasiphae. And the whole is filled with Venus and her features, and that are lots of young people in very good mood and Boiardo is in the mid between them.
http://www.wga.hu/cgi-bin/search.cgi?author=&title=&comment=schifanoia&time=any&school
Pasiphae I can't detect.
Good, okay, this was my suspicion about the first and last lines. Now back to the content of trump 21:
Italian text
Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua fama
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,
---
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.
English translation
Inner strength make happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net.
---
She gave an example to those who love their own name and honour.
And there we've another name of a well known Tarot card (in card 0, we had Fool and World):
Fortezza (Strength)
and another name, I hope you see it:
FAMA
Well, Fama is not part of the Tarot as you know it usually, but it is part of the Minchiate. And in 1469 Minchiate exists as an experiment of unknown content, as documented by a letter from Luigi Pulci to Lorenzo de Medici. And - as we know - in the later Minchiate is the highest trump: Fama, so it could exist in Boiardo's time as a highest trump "somewhere" - likely in Florence. And Boiardo likely would know that.
So we meet in the first and last of Boiardo's 22 special cards poems 4 Tarot card motifs and now we've the question to answer, what the poet is talking about.
Fool = Matto - usually card 0
World = usually card 21 or highest trump, but not in Minchiate
Fama = highest card in Minchiate
Fortezza doesn't hit the mark, it isn't either at begin or end of the row and so it looks deplaced. What's in the mind of Boiardo?
Fortezza, after Milan got 22 cards (which happened short before the poem, according the basic assumptions), got itself once the number 11, which it still has today.
The natural situation in Ferrara should have been,that they didn't know what to do with their cards, when Milan changed the deck. Perhaps the whole intention of Boiardo with his occupation with this deck goes in the direction to decide, what the next Ferrarese deck should look like. Should they also raise the numbers of cards? Which row the figure should have? Should they merely imitate the Milanese version?
Perhaps not very deciding questions, but things which poets, whose highest enjoyment it was to see their duke happy, might take serious, when the duke took it serious.
Well: Fortezza has the number 11 later and the Fool had the number 11, earlier - see 5x14-theory. The original version of the 14 Bembo cards counted from 1-14, not 0, 1, 2, 3 etc. And in the row of 1-14 the fool had position 11 - as part of the 3 bad things: Stupidity (Fool), treason (Hanging Man) and death.
That must have been the intellectual connection, which made Boiardo place this quartett of 4 figure on the starting and ending card of the sequence.
Enough for today. Boiardo the European ... rather unexspected ... .-) Boubon makes sleepy.
