Magician, Tarot card iconography Andrea Vitali

<h1>Magician - Tarot card iconography Andrea Vitali</h1> The anonymous monk, author of <em>Sermones de Ludo</em>, calls this triumph <em>El Bagatella</em> (the Trifle), defining it with the writing “est omnium inferior” (it is the most inferior among all), to mean its lowest importance in the game, a judgement that coincided with the represented personage, a “bagattegliere”, considered of very small state, a vile person (see the below Addenda).<br /><br /> Bagatella (trifle) is an ancient Italian word, which is still used nowadays, it means “a thing of little importance”.<br /><br /> It also has two meanings: conjuring trick - sleight of hand and deceit - and fraud. This word was used in these senses by many Italian authors, such as Aretino, Ariosto, and Vasari.<br /><br /> Aretino writes in his <em>Astolfeida </em>“a delightful work to read, containing life and facts about all the French paladins, and about the birth of the Maganza House, about who Gano was and about the noble condition of his genealogy, wonderful fact of love, and great battles of Orlando and Rinaldo”: “Vivian vivachiava a scrocco in corte, / con tutti alzando il fianco a corpo sciolto; / Guicciardo, Alardo mai uscir le porte / di Montalban, che no li fussi tolto; mastro di spirti e bagatelle a sorte fu Malagigi, e cangiò forma e volto,/ come fean mastro Iaco e mastro Muccio / in Roma trarre ' ognun fino al cappuccio” (Vivian lived scrounging off the court guzzling with everybody without measure; as Guicciardino and Alardo left the ancestral castle of Montalbano it was immediately conquered by enemies;  Malagigi was a magician and conjurer and changed features and face like Iaco and Muccio in Rome who through  deception  stripped anyone from head to feet). (First Canto, 24).<br /><br /> <em>La Cassaria</em> was first written by Ariosto in prose, then in verses between 1528 and 1529. Its title comes from a box which is at the centre of the plot. The action develops in the Greek town of Metellino, and is nourished by the gags of two cunning servants, Volpino and Fulcio. These are the verses spoken by Volpino concerning this word: “Anzi l’ora è senza dubbio / Più presta che ’l bisogno e il desiderio / Nostro non era: anzi non potea giungere / Più a tempo. Venga, venga pur, che acconciomi / Son con la tasca, et un giuoco apparecchioli / Di bagatelle, il più bello e mirabile / Che si vedesse mai” (It is the right time with no doubt / Earlier than need and desire / It was not ours:  rather it could not come / Later. Come, come,  I’m ready / I’ve got a pocket, and a ready game / Of trifles, the most beautiful and admirable / that were ever seen). (Act IV – Scene II)<br /><br /> Vasari, referring to the painter Giovannantonio known as “Il Soddoma da Verzelli”: “He loved jokes and what he cared about most was to dress in a pompous way, wearing brocade jackets, golden cloaks, rich bonnets, necklaces and other similar trifles, things good for buffoons and charlatans” (Giorgio Vasari, <em>Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects</em>, 1550).<br /><br /> In Milanese dialect the word bàgát means chatterbox and the expression scart bàgát means  to make a long speech, as those who undertake the prestigious medieval (and also those of today) to enchant the audience.<br /><br /> The figure of the Magician, an illusionist or clever talker, is represented in the Visconti Sforza Tarots as a richly dressed character, sitting near a table, on which there are many objects, in his hand he is holding a wand, a typical instrument for this profession (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-01.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-01.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 1</a>).<br /><br /> I don’t think that statements about this figure, and about the one of Este Tarots (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-02.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-02.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 2</a>), that refer to a table for dinner, are exact, because of the objects on the table, because of what the Magician is holding in his hands in Este Tarots, and also because the word Bagattella means thing of little importance, and refers to those engaged in such an activity. <br /><br /> I would say  that the food,  glass and  knife on the table of the Visconti Sforza Tarots deck are the objects on which the illusionist will act, or will use to surprise. It would not be easy to understand why there is a wand in the illusionist hand who, certainly would not be sitting to eat with such a cumbersome thing, unless it was to be use for something else.  <br /><br /> People in the Middle-Ages seemed to have an ambivalent attitude towards jugglers (the term conjurer is modern). Their shows were generally well accepted, but their methods were often condemned by people of the Church and lawyers who decided to forbid them from doing their shows in some towns. In 1250, Luigi XI for example, forbade the entrance of acrobats and conjurers into different French cities. It was a very confused period, full of superstitions and fears of the occult, of witches and of demons and a man able to cut and restore a cloth handkerchief could easily be accused of being in league with the devil.<br /><br /> The amazement that, for example, the conjuring trick, the most known and practiced in Europe, could arouse, can be deduced by the picture of amazement painted on the face of a bystander (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-03.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-03.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 3</a>) in Bosch’s work which today is called “The conjurer” (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-04.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-04.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 4</a>).<br /><br /> There is a juggler with a typical minstrel’s beret in the card in the Rosenwald deck (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-05.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-05.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 5</a>).  I think it is possible to find a connection between the professional values of the ability of the juggler and those of the Artixan, in the third card of the Mantegna Tarots (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-06.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-06.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 6</a>), identified by Hind as a jeweller, without having to resort to implications of a philosophical nature.<br /><br /> Finally, we have to remember that the activity of the jugglers was considered amongst those protected by the Moon, as we find in a miniature of the <em>Codex De Sphaera</em> (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-07.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-07.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figura 7</a> - <em>The Children of the Moon</em>, cod. east, lat. 209, XV century) present in the Estense Library in Modena and in an incision of the series of the Planets of the <em>Mittelalterliches Hausbuch</em> (The Book of the House) from the same century (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/01-08.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/01-08.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 8</a>) - <em>The Children of the Moon</em>).<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <span class="titoletto"><span style="color: #000000;">APPENDIX</span></span><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> Even if it doesn't expressly concern this Triumph from the iconographic point of view, I think it could be interesting to know the following writings that I report from the work <em>Il Serraglio de gli stupori del mondo</em> (The Managerie of the amazaments of the world) by Thomaso Garzoni da Bagnacavallo, a 1585 work and this for three motives:  the first one is to understand the attitude that Renaissance men assumed before games and the conjurers;  the second because appears the word bagatteglieri in reference to those people who developed such activity and the third one for two examples that the author refers about  the Renaissance tricks effected with cards.<br /><br /> The complete title of the work is “The menagerie of the amazements of the world, by Tomaso Garzoni from Bagnacavallo. Divided in the ten orders, according to the various, & admirable objects. That is of monsters, prodigies, tricks, destinies, oracles, sibyls, dreams, astrological curiosity, miracles in general, and wonders in particular, narrated by the most famous writers, and described by the most historians and poets, which sometime happen, considering their probability, or improbability, according to nature. A not less erudite work, and curious, so it is for theologians... as for philosophers... enriched of various notes by the Bartolomeo Garzoni his brother... With three plentiful plates”.<br /><br /> The passages reported below belong to the edition printed in Venice by “Ambrosio, et Bartolomeo Dei, brothers. At the St. Mark library, 1613”<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </p> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/">Tarot cards</a> <br><br> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/00/">Tarot card Fool</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/01/">Tarot card Magician</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/02/">Tarot card Popess</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/03/">Tarot card Empress</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/04/">Tarot card Emperor</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/05/">Tarot card Pope</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/06/">Tarot card Love</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/07/">Tarot card Chariot</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/08/">Tarot card Justice</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/09/">Tarot card Hermit</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/10/">Tarot card Wheel of Fortune</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/11/">Tarot card Strength</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/12/">Tarot card Hanging Man</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/13/">Tarot card Death</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/14/">Tarot card Temperance</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/15/">Tarot card Devil</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/16/">Tarot card Tower</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/17/">Tarot card Star</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/18/">Tarot card Moon</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/19/">Tarot card Sun</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/20/">Tarot card Judgment</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/21/">Tarot card World</a> <br><br> <li><a href="http://autorbis.net">Author's site</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com">Tarot history</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/">Tarot and Playing Cards Museum</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/">Tarot Iconography</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/f/">Fortune Telling</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/mantegna-tarocchi/">Iconography of Mantegna Tarocchi</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/tarot-andrea-vitali/">Tarot card iconography of Andrea Vitali</a>