27-34, Ch. 2: The Cicognara Mix-Up (Moakley)

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2
THE CICOGNARA MIX-UP

AS WE HAVE SAID, it is now certain that most of the cards in the Visconti-Sforza set were the work of Bonifacio Bembo. However, at the time the trumps of the set were acquired by the Accademia Carrara and the Morgan Library the best available authority for their history and meaning was thought to be Memorie spettante la storia della Calcografia, written by Count Leopoldo Cicognara and published in 1831. Count Cicognara was a connoisseur of the arts, a follower of Napoleon, and for some time, Prime Minister of the Cisalpine Republic. (1)

The section of his book pertinent to our study reads as follows:

The Chronicles of Cremona written by Domenico Bordigallo, reported in the notes of the jurisconsult Giacomo Torresino ... report as follows: "1484. In this year our own Antonio de Cicognara, excellent painter of pictures and fine illuminator, illuminated and painted a magnificent set of cards called Tarocchi, seen by me, which he presented to the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Monsignore Ascanio Maria Sforza, Cardinal of Holy Church, Bishop of Pavia and Novara, formerly Dean of our Cathedral and at present Commendatory of the Canonry of St Gregory in the same, and son of the Most Illustrious and Excellent Francesco Sforza and Madonna Bianca Visconti, who was born here in Cremona. The same illuminated other games for the two sisters of the Cardinal who were Augustinian nuns in the convents founded by the said Madonna Bianca in this city." (2)

For lack of any better information, this story was generally accepted as true, although as early as 1880 Francesco Novati, the well known philologist and teacher, had cast doubt on it. Novati wrote that he had not been able to find the passage quoted above in the Latin original of Bordigallo's chronicle. He also showed that the sources used by Count Cicognara had been falsified by Antonio Dragoni, a notorious literary forger. Fifty years later, in 1931, U. Gualazzini proved that the sup-
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[notes 1 and 2 on p. 32 in original]
1. It is evident that Count Cicognara was followed in cataloguing the cards owned by the Morgan Library, for the titlesgiven to thei.cards follow his list and repeat his statement that they were painted by Antonio Cicoinara for Ascanio Sforza. in 1484. The same authority must have been used at the Accademia Carrara, for there too we have a Castello di Pluto which can have come only from Cicognara. The biographical information about Count Cicognara is taken from a sales catalogue pasted in The New York Public Library's copy of Count Cicognara's Catalogo ragionato dei libri d'arte e d'antichita posseduti dal Conte Cicognara (Pisa, presso N. Capurro 1821, 2 vols). I did not think this point important enough to follow any further, and offer the information on this flimsy authority for its entertainment value.
2. The supposed passage from the Chronicles of Cremona is in Cicognara (Memorie, p 158ff). The translation is mine.

[start p. 28]
posed notes of Giacomo Torresino reported in Count Cicognara's book had no foundation in fact. Earlier, Robert Steele had cast serious doubt on another story about playing cards in this book. Although erroneous, it is interesting to relate this story here, since it has all the marks of Dragoni's vivid imagination:

In the Fibbia house (in Bologna) there is a large painting which shows the full-length portrait of an ancestor of that family, with the inscription: "Francescri Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia, Principe di Pisa, Montegiori, e Pietra Santa) e Signore di Fusecchio, son of Giovanni, a native of Castrucci, Duke of Lucca, Pistoja, Pisa, having fled to Bologna and presented himself to Bentivogli, was made Generalissimo of the Bolognese armies, and was the first of this family, which was called in Bologna 'dalle Fibbie.' He had to wife Francesca, daughter of Giovanni Bentivogli, Inventor of the game of Tarocchino in Bologna, he had from the XIV Reformatories of the city the privilege of placing the Fibbia arms on the Queen of Staves and those of his wife on the Queen of Coins. Born in the year 1360, died in the year 1419." Francesco stands next to a small table, and holds in his right hand a pack of cards from which some are falling. On the floor may be seen—the two aforesaid Queens with their respective heraldic devices. (3)

Steele could find no evidence that such a painting had ever existed, or that cards with these two devices had been made. It was true, he said, that in 1700 Giuseppe Maria Mitelli had engraved a set of cards with .the heraldic device of the Bentivoglio, a saw, on the Queen of Coins. But this was the nearest thing to truth in the whole story. With Count Cicognara and his sources so seriously in question, art historians began to look else:where for the painter of the cards. For a while it was believed that they were the work of the. Zavattari brothers, who had painted the legend of. Queen Teodolinda in what appeared to be somewhat the same style. As early as 1928, Longhi expressed the belief that the cards were the work of Bonifacio Bembo, but it is only in the last decade that Bembo has been generally accepted as their painter. Even more confusing than the question of the artist's identity has been the correct identification of the cards by their original fifteenth century titles, which have been known to those who cared to look into the matter for the last sixty years. (5) The titles giVen to the cards in many works on art history are so fantastic that one might think gremlins had
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[notes 3-5 on p. 32 in original]
3. Full bibliographical references for Novati, Cualazzini, and Steele will be found in the bibliography. See also Arte lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza, p 84f. The Fibbia story is in Cicognara (Memorie, p 137f).
4. For the ascription of the cards to the Zavattari see Arte lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza, p 84, which cites as sources Venturi (Storia XII [i. e. VII] 278) and Toesca (Pittura, p 526-527). Arte lombarda... dates the cards in the time of Duke Filippo Maria because of the motto "A bon droyt" which appears on the suit cards, on the ground that Sforza did not use the motto. However, it may be seen in Paris, Bib Nat, ins lit 8128 reproduced in Malaguzzi-Valeri (Corte) II 125 fig 123; and also in Storia di Milano. VII 41), which is headed: "Divis principibus Francisco Sphortie et Blancae Mariae Vicecomitibus," and has all the devices used in our cards, including the three diamond rings. The ms is an address by Filelfo. We also have the statement in Assum (Francesco, p 367f) that the dove with this motto in its beak was one of the devices adopted by Sforza in 1450. For the dates when Bembo's name began to be widely accepted as the maker of the cards cf Arte lombarda . . . p 84f. It was only in the 1950s that Salmi (Italian and "Nota") began to name Bembo confidently as their maker. As late as 1953 Berenson (Italian) listed Cicognara as maker of the later cards of the set, but was completely silent as to the maker of the earlier cards, listing neither Bembo nor the Zavattari.
5. The fifteenth-century list of the trumps is in Steele ("Notice," p 191), and Hargrave (History, p 227 and 387), Bertoni (Poesie, p 220) and two sheets of uncut cards (with numbers but no names) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, no 31.54.159 and 26.101.5 in its collection of prints, under the heading "Ornament. Playing cards. Italian (?) XV or XVI cent." In this set the World is an unnumbered card like the Fool.

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been at work, if one did not know that Italian art historians (and Italian scholars generally) seem to think that an interest in playing cards is beneath their dignity. Italian dictionaries often omit playing-card terms, in much the same way as our English dictionaries omit the worst four-letter words. Or one might assume perhaps, that the terms are so taken for granted that it is expected that no one will ever need to look them up: Even the Enciclopedia italiana, which has valuable articles on games and cards, including a long explanation of the ritual to be observed in playing the different tarocco games, does not tell one how the games are played.

Two other factors are involved in the mix-up concerning the correct identification of the cards. First, the cards were catalogued after they had been separated, and here too Count Cicognara's book was too closely followed.(6) Second, the cataloguing was done at a time when iconography was in complete eclipse, and art fanciers would cry "Shame!" at you if you wanted to know what a picture meant. You were supposed to be interested only in style, and not care whether you were looking at a picture of God or the Devil. Titles were tacked onto pictures simply as a convenience, rather like numbers on prisoners. It was felt that it did not really matter what you called a picture so long as it had some identifying title. This attitude has tended to obscure the remarkable completeness of the Visconti-Sforza set, and its equally remarkable similarity to the modern tarocco pack.

Here are the errors in identification made in the original cataloguing of the trumps: The Juggler was called Castle of Plutus and the Empress, Queen of Staves; despite the fact that the set has another card which really is the Queen of Staves, with the long spindle-tipped staff of her suit. Time was a little more reasonably called the Hermit, for that is what he has become in the modern pack, but what seems so obviously his hourglass was described as a lantern. Justice was identified as the Queen of Swords, even though this showed a duplication of the actual Queen of Swords which is still part of the set The World was called Castle of Pluto. Thus, according to this account, the set included only fifteen trumps corresponding to those of the modern pack, and two Castles of Plutus or Pluto. It had two Queens of Staves and two of Swords. To add to the confusion, somebody seems to have thought that the tarocchi, like our bridge cards, should have only three court cards to a suit. In accordance with this idea, we were told that the set had two
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[note 6 on p. 33 in original]
6. I conclude that the cards were catalogued after they had been separated because otherwise we could hardly have had two Castles of Pluto, two Queens of Staves, and two Queens of Swords, and because I was told at the Morgan Library that they still had a list of the sources which were used in cataloguing the cards there, although I did not see this list. Panofsky (Meaning, p 324ff) shows how recent the whole profession of art history is.

[start p. 30]
Knights of Cups, although one is on foot and therefore most certainly a Page. (7)

Our old friend Count Cicognara was responsible for some of this confusion too, and his source was one of the most fantastic pieces of iconotropy ever dreamed up by the human imagination. The authority he relied on was Antoine Court de Gebelin, a renowned scholar who was an acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin and greatly esteemed by the King of France. (8) The gist of Court de Gebelin's story is that some time in the last quarter of the eighteenth century he happened to see some ladies playing a card game with tarot cards. In his part of France these cards were unusual, and he had not seen them since he was a boy. He was interested in ancient Egypt, and it suddenly struck him that he was seeing a sacred Egyptian book, brought into Europe by the Gypsies, to whom it had been entrusted by ancient Egyptian priests thousands of years ago. Their idea, he said, had been that the safest way to preserve their ancient wisdom would be to disguise it as a game, and to trust that some day a wise man of the future would able to decipher it. And now the time had come!

Intuitively, Court de Gebelin knew what wisdom had been hidden in what seemed a simple pack of cards! He spread the cards out on the table, and explained their hidden meaning to the astonished ladies. The trumps, he explained; should be read backwards, beginning from the highest. The first seven trumps represent the Golden Age: XXI Isis (the Universe), XX The Creation (not the last Judgment, as one might ignorantly think), XIX Creation of the Sun, XVIII Creation of the Moon and terrestrial animals, XVII Creation of the stars and fish, XVI The House of God overturned, with man and woman precipitated from the earthly Paradise, XV The. Devil, bringing to an end the Golden Age. The next seven cards are for the Silver Age: XIV Temperance, XIII Death, XII Prudence (the cards Court de Gebelin had before him depicted a dancing Prudence instead of the Hanged Man), XI Force coming to the aid of Prudence, X The Wheel, IX Hermit seeking Justice, VIII Justice. The last group is for the Brazen Age: VII War (in the modem tarocco pack the triumphal car of Love has given way to a military chariot bearing an armed warrior), VI Man fluctuating between vice and virtue, V Jupiter (the tarot cards of Southern France usually show Jupiter and Juno instead of Pope. and Popess), IV King, III Queen, II Pride (Juno and her peacock), I Juggler.
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[notes 7 and 8 on p. 33 in original]
7. The Juggler was described as "16. The Castle of Plutus; or, The Tower. A wealthy miser sits upon a treasure chest; one hand rests upon a heap of money (?) (sometimes represented as a city in Heaven, the New Jerusalem)." — entry in card catalog of the Morgan Library, under "Tarot, Game of." In the same entry (as of 1959 — no doubt these cards will be recatalogued as soon as the facts about them become absolutely certain, but no library wants to incur the expense of recataloguing until that happens) Time is described as "9. The Hermit; or, Philosopher (with Lantern in hand he seeks in vain for truth or justice)," and the Hanged Man as "12. Prudence — A man hanged (sometimes represented by Mercury poised on one foot" (here we see the influence of Court de Cebelin). The entry goes on: "14. Temperance — A woman mixing water and wine, in two vessels (opening the age of silver )" (Court de Cebelin again). The entry does not attempt to describe the actual Car of the set, but says simply "7. The Car (generally represented as Osiris in his triumphal car, the symbol of war in the age of bronze" (so much for the Queen of Love and Beauty!). This all seems very queer, yet as we have seen in Panofsky's Meaning, the science of art history is so young that it was advanced of the Morgan Library to make any attempt at all at an iconography of the cards, and indeed Panofsky tells us that Mr Morgan was one of the collectors who fostered the young science.
8. For Court de Gebelin and Benjamin Franklin see Frank E. Manuel, The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods (Cambridge, Harvard Univ Press, 1959) p 250. I have stretched the truth just a little bit in saying the King esteemed him highly; all I know is that the King was one of the subscribers to his Monde primitif. cf Burdette C. Poland, French Protestantism and the French Revolution (Princeton /957) 7o, 229-230. Court de Gebelin tells the story of his "discovery" in his Monde primitif (VIII 367). At the end of the same volume are plates showing the tarot trumps as he knew them.

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Court de Gebelin wrote an article about his findings, which he included in one of the many volumes of his Monde primitif. At once the mills of the flashier fortune-tellers and occultists began to grind, the story was further embroidered, and still remains with us today. It is fondly believed in by occultist and magical circles, although no modern Egyptologist has ever come forward to support it. (9)

This then is the source from which Cicognara took his titles for the cards. He did moderate the wildest of Court de Gebelin's flights of fancy, but enough remained to throw the cataloguing of the cards into confusion. Here is Cicognara's list: Mondo, Giudizio, Sole, Luna, Li sette pianeti, Il castello di Pluto, Tifone, Temperanza, Morte, Prudenza, Forza, Ruota della Fortuna, Saggio o Filosofo, Giustitia, Osiride, Matrimonio, Jerofante (Papa), Re, Regina, Sacerdotessa o Papessa, Giocolatore, Matto. (10)

On casual examination and properly translated, this list is almost recognizable as a list of the trumps in the Visconti-Sforza set. Our Car has turned into Osiris, the missing Tower has become the Castle of Pluto, the Emperor and Empress have been demoted to King and Queen, and the Hanged Man rejoices in the name of Prudence. Still, there is a shadowy resemblance. You might do almost the same as the original cataloguers, given these names to fit to the cards on the authority of a respected scholar.

And let us say right here a word in defense of cataloguers. A cataloguer would be neglecting his primary work if he investigated any one item as if he were going to write a doctoral dissertation about it. The cataloguers who have described tarot cards in the past were cataloguing whole libraries, or at least whole collections of playing cards, and cards have yet to find a scholar who will do for them what Murray has done for chess. This has meant that cataloguers of playing cards have had no real authorities to depend on; they have had to use the second best. It was not their business to listen to and evaluate the faint voices of dissent, hidden away in the archives of local historical societies. Such voices have only lately mounted into the roar which has disposed of Cicognara as an authority on tarocchi.

And it is no tragedy that through Count Cicognara the impression has spread, even beyond occultist circles, that there is something very ancient and mysterious about tarot cards. Even though they are not a sacred Egyptian book, there is a meaning in them as ancient as the mind of man and as mysteriously ambivalent as the figures of Carnival.
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[note 9 on p. 33, note 10 on pp. 33-34 in original]
9. The best and most amusing account of the growth of occult Tarotisrn is in Arthur E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, pt 1, section 4: "The Tarot in History." A plagiarized edition of this book has long been current in the U.S. as "The Illustrated Key to the Tarot, by L. W. de Laurence," but a reprint of the original edition, illustrated for the first time in four colors from Pamela Colman Smith's designs, has recently been published by University Books.
10. Cicognara's list of the trumps is in his Memorie, p 131-134. It is evident that he accepts them more out of indifference than gullibility. A strange sidelight on the Cicognara mix-up is a set of thirteen cards all at one time owned by Mr Piero Tozzi of New York, who still has some of them. He believes they are part of an extra set made at the same time, and by the same artist, as our set. Unfortunately, one of these cards, in the style now recognized as Bembo's, bears the conspicuous initials "A. C." (for Antonio Cicognara?). These thirteen cards were described in Connoisseur (March 1954, p 54-60) and reproduced there in color. I am grateful to Mr Tozzi [start p. 34] for allowing me to see these cards, one of which shows the Visconti serpent and, Mr Tozzi tells me, may have been meant as an extra joker, or substitute card. It would be interesting to know whether the "A. C." was added some time after 1831 to clinch the ascription to Cicognara, or whether the cards themselves were painted after that time. In any case they are very interesting and valuable, as mementos of this whole affair.

[start p. 32]
Our study, however, is more concerned with the surface meaning of this particular set of cards, made for Bianca or Francesco Sforza in the middle of the fifteenth century. What did they think the cards signified, and what ideas must they have associated with these pictures?

[Scan of pp. 32-33 (notes): https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--xCcN-NIO44/ ... 014det.jpg

Scan of p. 34 (end of notes): https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O5uyMCnlNMM/ ... 015det.jpg]