Author's note: This essay, in eight sections, originally appeared in Andrea Vitali and Michael S. Howard, Tarot in Bologna: An Italian Legacy from the Renaissance: History Art Symbology Literature (Riola, Italy: Mutus Liber, 2022), pp. 151-184. Images from the book and links to internet pages have been added, along with a few changes here and there. After the first section, in order to make clicking on the footnote numbers send you to the right footnote, you have to have clicked on the section title, which puts it at the top of the page. Then to go to the next section, click on "older post," toward the bottom of the page, after the section entitled "Comments."
This blog has eight sections. To go directly to a particular section, click on the link that follows the title (and ignore what is said in that link, which often does not correspond to the actual content; I have no control over them).
1. Two literary examples (current page).
2. Fool and Bagattino, at https://bologneseorder.blogspot.com/2023/09/7-from-demoniodiavolo-to-sole.html.
3. The Four Papi, at https://bologneseorder.blogspot.com/2023/09/5-from-ruota-to-morte.html.
4. From Amore to Carro, at https://bologneseorder.blogspot.com/2023/09/4-from-amore-to-carro.html.
5. From Ruota to Morte, at https://bologneseorder.blogspot.com/2023/09/3-four-papi.html.
6. Mondo and Angelo, with apologies to Diavolo to Sole, at https://bologneseorder.blogspot.com/2023/09/2-matto-fool-and-bagattino-magician.html.
7. Diavolo to Sole, https://bologneseorder.blogspot.com/2023/09/16.html.
8. Summary, at https://bologneseorder.blogspot.com/2023/09/1-two-literary-examples.html.
THE BOLOGNESE ORDER OF TRIUMPHS
From at least 1440 in Florence and 1459 in Bologna, Tarocchi decks (early name Trionfi, French and English Tarot) were used to play a trick-taking game immensely popular with all ages. One of the earliest records, in fact, is of packs made for two nine- and eleven-year-olds in 1442 Ferrara.[1] One reason for the game’s attractiveness to children is easy to see: it is more fun to win a trick with an “old man” on crutches or someone on a chariot than it is with a card that just has more cups or swords on it. Every trick becomes an episode in a story and every game a series of episodes, including an afterlife when the hand is done, counting up the points.
In Bologna and elsewhere, Italians took advantage of this story-telling function in various ways. One was by interweaving the Tarot subjects into a longer narrative, so that the sequence became life itself. An early example is a pro-Austrian, pro-Papal diatribe against Imre Tekely (1657-1705, in Italian Michel Tekeli), who joined with the Turks in vain warfare on behalf of Hungarian autonomy and the protection of Protestants (words in bold here underlined in original). It is in the form of a sonnet incorporating the Bolognese names for the Tarot subjects in order from the top:
You are an Angel [Angelo] of Hell, Michael, since to the World [Mondo]
You tried to darken the Sun [Sol] of Austria;
Against the Empire, you traitor, you aroused
That filthy celestial body, the Ottoman Moon [Luna].
A Star [Stella] of Honor was the Lightning Bolt [Saetta] for you,
You actually struck like an infernal Demon [Demonio];
Under the influence of Death [Morte] your sword circled,
You turned Traitor [Traditor], stern Old Man [Vecchio].
The Wheel of Fortune [Ruota alla Fortuna], proud harpy,
With Force [Forza] you hoped in vain to block;
God will keep for you his Just [Giusta] revenge.
Temper [Tempra] your ardor, slow your Chariot [Carro], and quickly.
Leave off the immature desire of Love [Amore] of Rule,
Do not take the Pope [Papa] for a Bagattino [Bagattin] or a Fool [Matto].[2]
Angel [Judgment] (Angelo) Wheel (Ruota)
World (Mondo) Chariot (Carro)
Sun (Sole) Fortitude [Strength] (Fortezza)
Luna (Moon) Justice (Giustizia)
Star (Stella) Temperance (Temperanza)
Arrow, Lightning-Bolt (Saetta) [Tower] Love (Amore)
Devil (Diavolo) Emperor (Imperatore)
Death (Morte) Empress (Imperatrice)
Traitor [Hanged Man] (Traditore) Magician (Bagattino)
Old Man [Hermit] (Vecchio) Fool (Matto)[6]
That such a placement might also have existed from the beginning is suggested by two sheets now in Paris dated to around 1500 (online at https://tarotmeditations.wordpress.com/decks/beaux-arts-rothschild-3/, or search "Beaux Arts and Rothschild sheets"): eleven of the subjects depicted are from the last twelve cards of the sequence. If so, it is likely that the twelfth, the Chariot (bottom middle of one of the two sheets) was so as well, as was true in some A-order sequences outside of Bologna.[7]
In Croce’s composition, the Emperor and Empress are named as such, rather than just being Papi. Since every Bolognese deck has four Papi (or Mori), two with imperial and two with papal crowns (below, from the Tarocchini alla Torre, on Gallica), it might be that he omitted the papal subjects to avoid trouble, in a city controlled by the papacy. So we don’t know if they were ever called anything besides Papi. If, for symmetry or in imitation of nearby Ferrara, people spoke of a Popess as well as a Pope, they might have seen her as the Church, which no less than St. Thomas Aquinas had certified as the Pope’s wife.[8]
Another feature of Croce’s list is that he gives the three virtue cards the titles they had elsewhere, Temperanza, Giustizia, and Fortezza. The Tekely poem gives them the names they are generally known by in Bologna, Tempra, Giustia, and Forza. Moreover, Forza in that poem is not presented as a virtue in the moral sense, but merely as brute force:
With Force [Forza] you hoped in vain to block;
God will keep for you his Just [Giusta] revenge.
Temper [Tempra] your ardor, slow your
Chariot [Carro], and quickly.
The same is true in
the other compositions from Bologna. In a composition assigning cards to various noble ladies of Bologna, the lady for Forza was described as “woman of tall
and robust build”; in another composition a male cleric is given the card
because he is a “Mountain man, . . . a vigorous and strong individual.”[9]
But the title elsewhere,[10] and in Croce’s Lotto Festivole, was Fortezza, a word, like the English “Strength” and “Fortitude,” that could be applied both physically and morally. What is depicted on the Bolognese card, a woman grasping a column (at right, Della Torre Tarocchini, late 1600s), is an image traditionally associated with the cardinal virtue. Coupled with Giustizia and Temperanza, both shown in traditional depictions of these cardinal virtues, the moral virtue would seem to be primary, as opposed to brute force. But there is also an association with Samson, who grasped the columns of a pagan temple to bring it down. Some versions of the card even had a broken column.
There are other titles the reader may find unfamiliar. The spelling Bagattin, for the card called in English the Magician, is fairly unique; Bagattino or Bagatino was more usual, named for a coin of little value. A similar shortening occurs for the Sun, in the Tekely poem Sol, but in Bologna elsewhere it is the normal Sole, and likewise Traditor for Traditore, the Hanged Man, so called because hanging by one foot was the punishment threatened and sometimes carried out for traitors.[11] Instead of the Hermit, the title adopted in France, we see “Old Man” (Vecchio). For the Devil, there is the variant Demonio, although Diavolo was more common. For the Tower, we see the word for arrow, Saetta, also meaning lightning-bolts: typically lightning was shown striking a stone tower. Finally, the card we call the Judgment was in all early Italian sources the Angel (Angelo), one or more of which are shown blowing a horn to raise the dead from their graves for the final judgment.
Besides the Tarocchi of twenty-two triumphs there was an expanded version called Minchiate, with forty triumphs plus the Fool and no Popess. Its order of triumphs, apart from the extra ones, was Florentine as opposed to Bolognese, with Justice rather than Fortitude the highest of the three. Yet it was also produced in Bologna, as the Bolognese skyline can be seen on some versions of its Angel card, in contrast to the Florentine skyline on other versions of the same card (Bologna near right, from Peter Endebrock at http://www.endebrock.de/coll/pages/i31.html, 17th-18th c.; Florentine far right, c. 1850, as reproduced by Meneghello). That the deck is never referred to in Bolognese writings suggests that the game was not popular there.
Now I will go through the order card by card. For discussion purposes, I will divide the order into subgroups, from the lowest in trick-taking power upwards. In these groups what I am going to be exploring is not the symbolism on the card in general, but such symbolism in so far as it contributes to meaning of the card in relation to its place in the order; conversely, I will also be looking at how the place in the order, other rules of play, and the development of each affect the meaning of the card. And since these cards did not develop in isolation from other places playing similar games with different images on their cards, even if the same subjects, it will be an investigation that also brings in cards in other places in so far as they have a bearing on the Bolognese situation.
To go to the next section, click on "older post," as I have set this up with the beginning on top and the end on the bottom.
[1] Adriano Franceschini, Artisti a Ferrara in età umanistica e rinascimentale. Testimonianze archivistiche. Parte I dal 1341 al 1471 (Ferrara: Corbo, 1993), p.170. Cited at http://trionfi.com/0/p/12.
[2] Author unknown, “Li Trionfi de’ Tarochini sopra il Techeli Ribelle dell’Imperatore,” in Franco Pratesi, “Tarot in Bologna: Documents from the University Library,” The Playing-Card 17:4 (May 1989), p. 138, online at http://www.naibi.net: “Angel d’Inferno sei Michel,che al Mondo / Tentasti d’Austria il Sol rendere nero, / Tu la Luna Ottomana, astro che immondo / suscitasti fellon contro l’Impero. / Stella d’onor della Saetta il pondo, / Qual Demonio infernal scoccasti invero, / Con influsso di Morte il brando a tondo / Girasti Traditor, Vecchio severo. / La Ruota alla Fortuna arpia superba / con la Forza inchiodar speravi affatto, / Di te Giusta vendetta il Dio ti serba. / Tempra l’ardir, trattien il Carro, e ratto / Lascia d’Amor d’Imper la voglia acerba, / Ne il Papa tien qual Bagattin, o Matto.”
[3]
On the events of
1725, see Andrea Vitali, "Bologna and the invention of the Triumphs," at http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=179&lng=ENG (search term "Montieri").
[4] Michael Dummett, Il Mondo e L’Angelo (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993), p. 176.
[5] Ibid., p. 231.
[6] Giulio Cesare Croce, Lotto Festevole, fatto in Villa, Fra una nobil schiera di Cavalieri & di Dame, con i Trionfi de’ Tarrochi, esplicati in lode delle dette Dame, & altri bei trattenimenti da spasso (Bologna: Vittorio Benacci, 1602), online in BUB Digitale, https://bub.unibo.it/it/bub-digitale/giulio-cesare-croce#lotto.
[7]
Tarot historian Michael Dummett proposed three basic orders of the early tarot, A, B, and C. See in The Game
of Tarot: from Ferrara to Salt Lake City (London: Duckworth, 1980), pp. 398-401, this chapter online at
https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1175. The A order applies to Florence,
Bologna and places south. In it, unlike the other two orders, the three cardinal virtues
appear one after the other, and the Angel is the highest triumph. The B order is Ferrara, Venice, and places east; there the World is high, Justice is second highest, and Temperance comes just before Love. The C order is Lombardy and points north and west; World is high, Temperance comes just after Death, and Justice comes one or two cards after Love. For A order examples where the Chariot is among the last twelve, see Thierry Depaulis at https://www.academia.edu/30193559/Early_Italian_Lists_of_Tarot_Trumps_The_Playing_Card_vol_36_n_1_July_Sept_2007_p_39_50, pp. 42-44.
[8] Thomas Aquinas, Contra impugnantes, pars 2 cap. 3 ad 22: “Et ideo Papa, qui obtinet vicem sponsi in tota Ecclesia, universalis Ecclesiae sponsus dicitur” (The Pope, who is the viceregent of Christ throughout the entire Church, is called the spouse of the universal Church), cited and trans. by Marco Ponzi, Oct. 1, 2013, http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=14232#p14232.
[9] In italian these texts are given in Andrea Vitali, "Tarocchi e Tarocchini a Bologna, http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=869. Translations are in Andrea Vitali and Michael S. Howard, Tarot in Bologna: An Italian Legacy from the Renaissance: History Art Symbology Literature (Riola, Italy: Mutus Liber, 2022), pp. 128 and 134: “Donna di alta, e robusta corporatura” and “Uomo di Montagna, . . . vigoroso, e forzuto individuo”).
[10] For the various Italian titles of all the triumphs, see in Vitali and Howard of n. 9, the essay “Tarocchi Appropriati.”
[11] See Andrea Vitali, "A Gang of Traitors," http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=352&lng=ENG (and in Vitali and Howard of n. 9, “Notes on Iconology,” first two sections).