This essay last modified June 4, 2017.
In this essay I want to revisit a much discussed theme, that of the history behind the first known "Popess" card of the tarot, sometimes known today as the "High Priestess". The basic ideas are in a series of posts, mostly but not entirely mine, on the thread "Visconti marriage and betrothal commemorations" on Tarot History forum, http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=917. I have benefited from research and challenges there by "Phaeded", Ross G. R. Caldwell and Marco Ponzi. The issue is a complex one, from my perspective at least; I apologize for the sometimes labyrinthine structure of this presentation; hopefully it is easier to understand than the starts, stops, regressions, and dead-ends of the THF thread.
THE MOAKLEY THESIS
The Popess card is first known in the deck done for Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti, Duke and Duchess of Milan, probably in the 1450s. Gertrude Moakley, in The tarot cards painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza family; an iconographic and historical study, 1966, proposed that the card commemorated a 14th century relative (by marriage) of the Visconti named Manfreda. She begins by noting that "Other forms of the game of triumphs decorously avoided Ghibelline gibe at the corruption of the papacy" (Moakley 1966 p. 72). I think by "other forms" she means the Minchiate, which had three male cards, all called "Papa" plus their number, and the Tarocchi of Bologna, which had four. These games were associated with Florence, Bologna, and Rome, all, unlike Milan, places loyal to the Pope, i.e. "Guelph", as opposed to those loyal to the Emperor, i.e. "Ghibelline".
Moakley then discusses two other legendary female popes:
At first sight the Popess seems to be the legendary Pope Joan, the woman who was said to have masqueraded as a priest until she finally succeeded in being elected Pope. This legend was a mock at feminine ambition, like the tale of the flounder in the Sea, who granted all but one of the ambitious wishes of a fisherman's wife, even her wish to be Pope. When she wished to be God, she found herself restored to the poor cottage whence she had come.She is referring to Boccaccio's version of Pope Joan, in which God permits the disguised lady to become a doctor and teacher at the university, but decides that becoming Pope was going too far. Then Moakley advances her own theory:
A problem with this interpretation is that it is not clear what kind of habit Umiliati "tertiaries", as their lay associates were called, wore or were thought to have worn, either then or at the time the tarot card was painted (for discussion of a 14th painting that may or may not show them in brown habits with white wimples, see, on Tarot History, Forum, Phaeded at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1168&start=70#p19143 and me at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1168&start=90#p19171). Yet that does not rule out an additional meaning for the Visconti-Sforza family whose heraldry is all over the cards. The tertiaries of another order, the Franciscans, seem to have worn something very like what is on the card. "Phaeded" found a depiction of both the regular nuns, called "Poor Clares", and the tertiaries (http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1168&start=80#p19148, a detail from a c. 1445 painting by the Neapolitan painter Niccolo AntonioThe Popess in the Visconti-Sforza tarocchi is not not one of these legendary women. Her religious habit shows she is of the Umiliati order, probably Sister Manfreda, a relative of the Visconti family who was actually elected Pope by the small Lombard sect of the Guglielmites. Their leader, Guglielma, of Bohemia, had died in Milan in 1281. The most enthusiastic of her followers believed that she was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, sent to inaugurate the new age of the Spirit prophesied by Joachim of Flora. They believed that Guglielma would return to earth on the Feast of Pentecost in the year 1300, and that the male-dominated Papacy would then pass away, yielding to a line of female Popes. In preparation for this event they elected Sister Manfreda the first of the Popesses, and several wealthy families of Lombardy provided at great cost the sacred vessels they expected her to use when she said Mass in Rome at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.
Naturally, the Inquisition extinguished this new sect, and the "Popess" was burned at the stake in the autumn of 1300. Later the Inquisition proceeded against Matteo Visconti, the first Duke of Milan, for his very slight connections with the sect.
No one would have concluded that the Franciscans had a woman declaring herself pope. The only well-known representation of a woman in a papal tiara was "Pope Joan", the legendary woman who had disguised herself as a man and was elected pope;. But there were a few such representations of the Virgin Mary as such, and also the Church. Moreover, papal-like crowns, large cones as in the former papal crown, or with two tiers, were seen on not only those but also the Faith, by Giotto, and on personifactions of Wisdom. For the Virgin, there is the "Coronation of the Virgin" by Sienese painter Martino di Bartolomeo. c. 1400 (near left below). Another is in 1446
England, in the charter for the founding of
King’s College, Cambridge, for which the Virgin was one of the
College’s patron saints (far left). (This last image was brought to the
attention of the tarot history community by Jean-Michel David.)
Another, with merely a crown but with both book and cross-staff, is of
Wisdom, in a 13th century manuscript in Florence's Laurentian Library,
Bibbia Mugellana 2, f. 189. She is labeled Sapientia and has a crown (at right). The illumination is of the first letter of "Omnis Sapientia a Domino Deo est et cum illo fuit", all wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with him. (This information from Bibbie Miniate della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenzi, by Laura Alidori Bartaglia et al, 2006, p. 97; the Bible verse is Ecclesiasticus 1:1, Douay-Rheims translation.). The "Poor Clares", for their part, had a reputation for great simplicity and humility. So the combination would be taken by most people as either the Virgin of Humility, crowned, or the Church as the humble bride of the Pope (as it legally was considered then), or the humility of true Wisdom..
But does this rule out an additional meaning for those in the family that commissioned the cards, that of Bianca Maria Visconti and Francesco Sforza, the heraldry of whose families is seen on the cards?
There is another detail, this one on the habit of both the PMB and Fournier versions, that is uncharacteristic of the Umiliati. The Popess has a cord with three knots on it: actually, it is thee knots in three different places (it looks like four in one place, but the fourth knot has a scratch through it, perhaps to correct an error. A cord with three knots was characteristic of the Franciscans: they signified the three vows of the Franciscans: obedience, poverty, chastity.
Yes, but there is the coincidence that the three knots figure in a particular incident recorded in the minutes of the Inquisition's trial of the Guglielmites (quoted in Italian by Marcos Mendez Filesi, "The Popess Maifredi"; my translation is at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=272&lng=ENG):
In this room in the presence of all the summoned people Sister Maifreda said that the lady St. Guglielma had ordained the sister Maifreda to say to all those present that she was the Holy Spirit, true God and true man, and that hence all the aforesaid there present would not have appeared in her presence [otherwise]. Added the aforementioned Sister Maifreda: "Let be for me what can be”. Allegranza also said to remember that the above mentioned lady Carabella in that house then sat on her own habit, and when she got up, she found that the belt or cord of her habit had made three knots that had not been there: and there grew around them then marveling and whispering among them, and many from this same testimony believed it to be a great miracle.
There is also somehing else in these minutes. They specify that the followers of Guglielma, which would have included Manfreda as a leader, wore habits of a color called "morello". Marco Filesi, in the essay already cited, says:
According to the minutes of the Inquisition, the robe of the Guglielmites was "morello,” that is, dark, and that the aforementioned Guglielma wore habits of the color “marrone moreto." For the nuances of the sentence, we can assume that on this occasion the term "morello" refers to a very dark brown, almost black.
The color on the Popess card is light brown, thus excluding that the color was chosen to conform with the Inquisition document. But again the situation is not so clear.
First, the color may have been changed during a touching-up by another artist later. Monika Dachs has proposed (1992) that this card and others in the deck were touched up, probably by the same artist who did six other of the surviving cards, which are clearly of a different and probably later style than the rest. Perhaps under the light brown we see is something darker, covered up to avoid the association with Manfreda.
Second, there is another copy of the card, now in the Fourier Museum (at left, which I take from Filesi's online essay), that fits the description in the minutes quite precisely. This version is not that of a Franciscan tertiary.Third, even if the card was originally painted in the light brown we see, that does not exclude an additional meaning besides the harmless one of the Franciscan tertiary. A papal tiara on a woman in a religious habit was not a familiar conventional symbol, judging by how hard it is to find examples that are even close. It is like the Beatles song "Lucy in the sky with diamonds". To those who knew, it was about LSD. No document stating as such by the Beatles was needed to demonstrate this point. It was understood as a clever allusion. To those who didn't know about LSD, it was merely about a girl named Lucy. Given the illegal nature of the drug, there was necessarily a subculture to whom this association would be natural, and a dominant culture who would not think to make the association. Everybody is happy.
This hypothesis of a double (or more) meaning for the card depends, of course, on another, the hypothesis that the commissioners of the card knew about the color worn by the Guglielmites and the incident about the knots, perhaps from reading these very minutes, and for some reason thought it appropriate that the family to remember her, if only, in Moakley's words (p. 15), "a family joke".
No record of the trial is found in either Rome or Avignon, and the records of the Lombard Inquisition were destroyed in 1788, Newman says. But somehow an abridged version, of unquestioned authenticity, was found in a shop in Pavia in the 17th century. This document is the source of our knowledge of the incident with the knots and most other details about the cult. On the discovery of this document, Barbara Newman says, in her essay "The Heretic Saint: Guglielma of Bohemia, Milan, and Brunate" (Church History, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), pp. 1-38, on p. 21):
According to Michele Caffi, the historian of Chiaravalle, the Guglielmites' trial record was discovered by Matteo Valerio, the Carthusian prior of Pavia (d. 1645), "in a grocer's shop." After studying the manuscript Valerio gave it to the historian Giovanni Puricelli, whose heirs bequeathed it with his other manuscripts in 1676 to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, where it remains to this day. (75) It seems that it had already gone missing by the time the Milanese humanist Bernardino Corio (d. 1519) wrote his Storia di Milano, for his account of the Guglielmites is based entirely on stock antiheretical cliches and shows no awareness of the movement's true nature.Since Pavia was the second capital of Duchy and the seat of the Visconti Library, the argument goes, the document would likely have been acquired by the Visconti. Newman's suggestion is that the unabridged minutes might have been confiscated by Matteo Visconti when he chased the Inquisitors out of town in 1317. Since the Visconti themselves are not mentioned in it, other than Manfreda, the copy that survives is itself an edited one, probably to avoid incriminating them.
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75. Benedetti, Io non sono Dio, 11-13, citing Michele Caffi, Dell'abbazia di Chiaravalle in Lombardia, Aggiuntavi la storia dell'eretica Guglielmina Boema (Milan: Gnocchi, 1843), 91.
Newman (p. 23) raises the question, why wouldn't Matteo have destroyed the document once he got it?
The answer, I suggest, is that in spite of the inquisition, the Visconti continued to cherish the memory of St. Guglielma and Sister Maifreda, and were determined to preserve a record of their religious movement in private hands where the knowledge could do no further harm.In other words, they were keeping the memory alive because they did not repent of their involvement. That is a rather strong thesis, of course, far stronger than Moakley's. I will say more about this later.
The Moakley hypothesis, now supplemented by Newman, is not, it seems to me, incompatible with the reference to a specific historical person. The Cary-Yale tarot (done c. 1442 for Filippo Maria Visconti), has cards resembling the reigning Emperor and Empress. even though the same cards represent Holy Roman Emperors and Empresses in general. What Moakley did was to give an excellent reason why such a figure would be in the deck at all, given the negative associations of Pope Joan etc., which would be bound to raise the opposition of the Church. As an allegorical figure representing the Church, the Pope card is quite sufficient on its own. A Popess could be there to acknowledge the humility of the Faith; but on the other hand, the late medieval and renaissance Church was in practice not so humble. It is gratuitous, even satirical, not only because of the Church's lack of humility, while still being hoodwinked by a woman (Pope Joan), but because so many Popes had mistresses.
If there was an historical personage there to be commemorated, however, the commissioner of the deck might have thought it was worth the risk. The Church still did think of itself as humble, and wanted to present itself as such, so perhaps it would have not disapproved. The card would also be there, in an expensive heirloom deck, so that future generations of Visconti would know of her, and even some Milanese, in rumors associated with cheaper versions of the decks. The official story would be that she is the Church. Faith. or Wisdom The unofficial story--aside from Pope Joan or the Pope's mistress== would be something else, a different Church and a different Faith. And yes, while there is something noble and romantic about her stance, it is also rather pathetic, the typical airs of a noblewoman from a ruling family when she gets a religious fixation. Yes, an object lesson in two senses: on the one hand, why shouldn't a woman be pope? And on the other, it is not by following grandiose ideas of one's appointment by a dream-figure, one who will be resurrected at the turn of the century, that such honors are to be won.
There is no evidence that Bianca Maria actually read these minutes or otherwise knew the relevant contents. It is simply one explanation for the brown habit (even if light brown in the earlier version), the knots, and the papal tiara. Whatever the story behind the card, however, there is other evidence that supplies ample reason for the minutes being kept, namely, the history of charges of heresy periodically thrown at the Visconti by popes for political advantage. This information, unlike the minutes, was public record. Given their content, a Visconti would need to know as much as possible.
PAPAL CONDEMNATIONS AGAINST THE VISCONTI
These later events started in January of 1322, instituted by Pope John XXII, reiterated in March of that year. The bull concludes, about Matteo (Henry Charles Lea, A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume III, 1901, p. 200, in Google Books)
...his enormous crimes show that he is an offshoot of heresy, his ancestors having been suspect and some of them burned, and he has for officials and confidants heretics, such as Francesco Garbagnate, on whom crosses had been imposed; he has expelled the Inquisition from Florence [this should be "Milan," I think]; he interposed in favor of Maifreda who was burned; he is an invoker of demons, seeking from them advice and responses; he denies the resurrection of the flesh; he has endured papal excommunication for more than three years, and when cited for examination into his faith he refused to appear.In addition here are excerpts from their condemnations, the Latin with my attempt to translate (from "Le procès de Matteo et de Galeazzo Visconti," in: Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire Vol. 29, 1909. pp. 269-327, an essay to which Ross Caldwell graciously called my attention; where indicated, I use Newman's quotations.) Of Matteo (p. 318f):
Deponit quod si non fuisset dimissum quando procedebatur contra Manfredam et heresim suam propter timorem Mathei qui dominabatur tunc Mediolani, multa fuissent tunc dicta et inventa contra fidem que non fuerunt revelata quia illi qui scierant timore
ipsius Mathei non fuerunt ausi revelare.
. . . Deponit quod audivit quod Matheus rogavit pro quibusdam infamatis de heresi tempore processuum contra Manfredain hereticam combustam . . .
. . . Deponit quod Matheus tunc dominus Mediolani rogavit pro quodam Guidone Stanpherio, qui erat acusatus et suspectus de heresi Manfrede vel Guillelme, et suis precibus liberavit eum.
[f. 19] De resurrectione et providencia divina, videlicet quod non credit carnis resurrexionem, nec divinani providenciam circa actus humanos.
Deponit quod audivit ab ipso Matheo quod quando homo moritur anima ejus vadit quo ire débet et nunquam resurgit corpus ejus ad judicium. Et de fama super hoc. (319)
(Deposes that during the trial against Maifreda and her heresy, many things would have been said and discovered against the faith if they had not been dismissed for fear of Matteo, who then ruled Milan; they were not disclosed because those who knew of them did not dare reveal them for fear of Matteo. [translation of foregoing from Newman]
. . . Deposes that it was heard that Matteo requested on behalf of certain disgraced members of the sect of the time of the trial against Manfreda burnt for heresy. . .
. . . Deposes that Matteo, then ruler of Milan, requested for Guido Stanpherio, who was accused and suspected of the heresy of Manfreda or Guillelma, that he be liberated at his request.
[f. 19] Of the resurrection and divine providence, that he does not believe in the resurrection, nor divine providence concerning human activity.
Deposes that from Matteo was heard that when a man dies, his soul goes where it goes and never resurrects with its body at judgment. And of glory above this.. . .Then on p. 322:
Item, quod mater dicti Mathei fuit de cognatione Magfrede heretice combuste...
[f. 22 v] Item, quod Matheus rogavit pro liberatione Magfrede heretice, jam deprehense et tradende judicio seculari.
Item, quod, habuit sororem patris vel avi [nomine Garafola] nuptam corniti de Curtenova (1), receptatori et credenti hereticorum, cuius castrum fuit per Inquisitores funditus dissipatum . . .
[f° 23] Item, quod in suo dominio astrinxit sibi et conciliarios secretarios habuit et habet et promovit suspectos et notatos de heresi, scilicet comitem Otolinum de Curtenova, consobrinum suum, qui negabat purgatorium dicens quod clerici finxerant hoc pro lucro; item, Franciscum de Garbanhate qui fuit de secta dicte Magfrede et propter hoc crucesignatus; item, Scotum de Sancto Geminiano, de favore hereticorum notatum; item, Franciscum de Parma qui in officiis suis inquisitores multipliciter gravavit et nuper Papie fuit per inquisitorem omni officio publico privatus et condempnatus quia (se) manifeste officio inquisitionis se opposuerat: item, Otonem et Goffredum de Castana, hereticorum filios vel nepotes; item, Andream, hereticum combustum, Albertonum de Novate, Otolinum de Garbanhate, Felesinum Tarentanum, Francisquinum de Malcasata (?), omnes crucesignatos . . .
[f 23 v°] Item, dicit se credere et audivisse. quod magister Antonius Parmensis qui est conciliarius et medicus dicti Mathei est magnus hereticus . . .
[fu24] Item, quod pluries et in pluribus locis impedivit officium inquisitionis heretice pravitatis per se vel per ministros seu officiales . . .
[1. Cortenova, Lombardie, prov. de Come] (322)
(Item, that Matteo's mother was of the family of Magfreda, [female] heretic burnt ...
[f. V 22] Item, that Matteo asked for the liberation of the [female] heretic Magfreda, now arrested and handed over to the secular court.
Item, that he had a sister of his father or grandfather [named Garafola] married to the Count of Curtenova (1), who received and believed heretics, whose castle was completely destroyed by inquisitors. . .
[23° f] Item, that in his domain he had counselors and secretaries and successfully promoted those suspected and noted of heresy, namely: Count Otolinum Curtenova, his cousin, who denied purgatory, that the clergy have imagined, saying it for gain. and again, Francesco Garbanhate who was of the said sect of Manfreda and because of this marked with crosses, and again, Scotum of St. Geminianus noted to favor heretics, again Francesco of Parma, who in office multiply aggrieved the inquisitors and recently the Papie [the Papacy?] was by the inquisitors condemned from holding any public office, which it is clearly the duty of inquisitors to oppose; again Otho and Goffredo de Castana, children or grandchildren of heretics; and again, Andrea, heretic who was burned, Albertono de Novate, Otolin Garbanhate, Felesino Tarentano, Francisquino Malconzatp, all marked with crosses. . .
[f ° v 23] Item, it is believed and heard that Master Antonio Parmensis, who is a councilor and doctor, said that Matteo is a great heretic. . .
[fu24] Item, that in many times, and in many places, he has impeded with heretical wickedness the duty of the inquisitors, by himself or through his officers or officials. . .In the above, it is is alleged specifically that Manfreda is related to the Visconti via Matteo's mother. Regarding Cortenova: Lea (p. 219) relates, in the context of the Cathars, how Egidio, Count of Cortenova, turned over his castle over to the heretics,with the result that the inquisitors razed it; then he seized the castle of Monego and installed his heretics there. But then count was in alliance with "that enemy of God and the Church" Umberto Pallavicino, so nothing was done. This all happened before 1254. "Andrea" is Andrea Saramita, leader with Manfreda of the Guglielmites. "Marked with crosses" means: required to wear a large gold cross sewn into one's upper garment, front and back. However according to Lea they could get out of this requirement by paying a fine.
[1. Cortenova, Lombardy, Prov. Come])
Then of Galeazzo, Matteo's son (p. 322), the 1322 condemnation reads:
[f° 11 v°] XX. — Quod fuit de secta Manfrede, heretice, et sjeìus condemnatorum per inquisitores... Deponit quod audivit a quodam fratre Pezolo, converso ordinis Heremitarum, qui fuerat hostiarius dicte heretice, quod Galeazeus frequenter ibat cum aliis ad domum dicte Manfrede, qui damnati fuerunt propter illum errorem, ipso fratre Pezolo, hostiario. vidente. Quidam alius deponit se audivisse quando detectus fuit error predictus dicte Manfrede quod Galeazeus fuisset cruce signatus nisi quia Matheus pater ejus fecit cum ire ad pedes inquisitoris cum corrigia ad collum, ut parceretur ei.When Matteo and his sons did not show up in Avignon to answer the charges, the Visconti were duly declared a heretic and the interdict that was in effect continued (meaning no administration of sacraments, even those of marriage or last rites). Matteo resigned as ruler of Milan in favor of his son Galeazzo. He died less than a year later and was buried in unconsecrated ground. The Pope launched a military attack, which Matteo's sons defeated. The interdict was removed in the 1330s by a new pope (Lea p. 202). In 1337 Matteo's son Luchino petitioned to have his remains reinterred. In 1341 Benedict XII canceled all the previous condemnations (p. 203). But in 1361Bernabo Visconti was summoned for trial as a heretic; he was condemned by Urban V on March 3, and had a crusade preached against him. Peace was made in 1364, but he was charged again in 1373.
([f° 11 v°] XXThat he was of the sect Manfreda, the [female] heretic, and was condemned by the inquisitors.. . . Deposes that was heard from a brother Pezolo, converted to the order of the Hermits, who had been a doorkeeper of the said heretics, that Galeazzo frequently went with others to the house of the so-called Manfrede, who have been condemned because of their error, the brother Pezolo himself, doorkeeper, witness. Another deposes that it was heard when the error was detected of the so-called Manfrede, that Galeazzo would have been marked with a cross except that Matteo, his father, went to the feet of an inquisitor with a strap at his neck, to spare him.)
Lea considered that all these charges were merely on political grounds, and no actual heresy should be presumed. Nonetheless they provide ample reason why Visconti heirs should be informed of their history, for the sake of their own survival and independence Even the original charges against Matteo, according to Lea, were politically motivated, because charges were also drawn against the lords of Verona and Mantua at the same time. He wanted their submission to his authority, to establish his own claims to their allegience over their existing ties to the Emperor, who was often at odds with the Pope.
Besides her father and the trial record, there is another way Bianca Maria Visconti, presumed co-commisioner of the deck, might have learned about Manfredi as well as the Umiliati customs of the time. Italian Wikipedia's biography of Bianca Maria says (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bianca_Maria_Visconti):
Francesco Sforza accettò la proposta matrimoniale, probabilmente attratto dall'anticipo della dote che consisteva nelle terre di Cremona, Castellazzo e Bosco, Frugarolo. Il contratto di fidanzamento venne ratificato il 23 febbraio 1432 presso il castello di Porta Giovia, residenza milanese dei Visconti; come padrino d'anello di Bianca Maria fu indicato Andrea Visconti, generale dell'ordine degli Umiliati. La presenza di Bianca Maria e della madre Agnese alla cerimonia non è accertata; alcune testimonianze riferiscono anzi che la prima visita di Bianca a Milano abbia avuto luogo quand'era ormai in età da marito.I owe the information about the godfather to "Phaeded" on Tarot History Forum (http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=917&hilit=umiliati&start=120). He, however, later discounted it on the grounds that her husband's connections with the Franciscans would have been more decisive (http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1168&p=19148&hilit=godfather#p19148). I do not deny that Francesco would have influenced the portrayal of the Popess on the card: what we see (assuming the robe has not been painted over) would have been a compromise between the two, a Franciscan habit on a Guglielmite "Popess".
(Francesco Sforza accepted the matrimonial proposal, probably attracted by the advance of the dowry which consisted of the Cremonese lands of Castellazzo and Bosco Frugarolo. The betrothal contract was ratified February 23, 1432 at the castle of Porta Giovia, the Milanese residence of the Visconti; as a ring of Bianca Maria was shown by Godfather Andrea Visconti, general of the Umiliati order. The presence of Bianca Maria and her mother Agnese at the ceremony is not ascertained; some testimonies report that indeed the first visit of Bianca to Milan took place when she was now of marriageable age.)
THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CULTS
When Moakley refers to the sect as "the most enthusiastic of her followers", that is to distinguish the small group around Manfreda from a larger body of Guglielma's devotees who were not privy to the revelations that she was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit and that Manfreda was her appointed vicar on earth. Both publicly and privately, the minutes reveal, Guglielma denied such a status: "Io no sono Dio", she was quoted as telling her devotees, "I am not God". She chased away people who came to her for healings and angrily denied to Saramita that she was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, according to his testimony. That she was the Holy Spirit seems to have been the brainchild of Manfreda and Andrea Saramita, perhaps adduced from dreams or visions that they had.
Newman reports other data about the history of the public cult, especially after her death. Guglielma had been affiliated with the Cistercian abbey, which had an arrangement with lay people to bury them there and say masses for them periodically in return for willing them their possessions. So after her death her body was translated from Milan to the abbey, which lay at some distance from Milan. And then (p. 13f):
Chiaravalle quickly became the center of Guglielma's public veneration. Pilgrims visited her tomb and lighted candles before her image, while the abbot appointed Marchisio Secco to tend the lamps there and keep a record of miracles. Twice a year on the anniversaries of her death (August 24) and translation (around All Saints' Day), the monks celebrated her office publicly and preached to a lay audience in her honor. The record mentions one such sermon by Marchisio da Veddano that attracted an audience of "over 129 persons, both men and women." (46). After the service the abbot would invite the devotees to an evangelical feast of bread, wine, and chickpeas. (47) Yet, oddly enough, not a single monk was called to testify in the inquisition of 1300, at least not in the portion of the transcript that comes down to us. What is more, Marchisio da Veddano, the monk whose name appears most frequently as an avid proponent of Guglielma's cult, became abbot in 1303, only three years after the trial. (48) So either the abbot of Chiaravalle, who managed to disrupt the proceedings for a time with a challenge to the inquisitors' legal authority, (49) was able to pull strings behind the scenes to protect his community; or else the monks were genuinely unaware of the heretical devotions in their midst. Or perhaps both, for the two possibilities are not mutually exclusiveAnd even the private cult was not entirely private (p. 21):
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46. Bonadeo Carentano, Milano 1300 [Marina Benedetti, ed., Milano 1300: I processi inquisitoriali contro le devote e i devoti di santa Guglielma (Milan: Libri Scheiwiller, 1999)], 184.
47. Andrea Saramita, Milano 1300, 144.
48. Marina Benedetti, Io non sono Dio, 37.
Unlike the monks of Chiaravalle, the nuns of Biassono were fully aware of St. Guglielma's esoteric role, for an altarpiece at the convent showed the Trinity with Guglielma as the third person, delivering captives from prison--an allusion to the Harrowing of Hell, with Jews and Saracens to be saved by the Holy Spirit as Christians were by Christ. (52)It is not clear that they knew that Manfreda expected to be, perhaps even considered herself to be, Popess, or that she conducted masses. Whether the wealthy donors of vessels and vestments knew that they were for her to conduct mass with as Popess in Rome is more problematic. Newman (p. 13) observes that in the trial record it appears that some thought they were for Guglielma's canonization or the translation of her body to Prague, while others thought they were for her resurrection from the dead or, as Moakley reported, for the mass that Manfreda would be celebrating as papessa in Rome.
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52. Sister Maifreda, Milano 1300, 80.
The nuns at Biassano did know that Manfrda preached about Guglielma, under the guise of St. Catherine, on St. Catherine's feast days. In 1297 she was asked to leave the convent, "for its security", Newman says, without elaboration. In 1296 the Inquisition had resumed investigating the Gugliemites (which they had done once before, finding Saramita, Manfreda and another Sister guilty, but imposing no punishment for a first offense). This new initiative was perhaps due to a new Pope (p. 17):
..the newly elected Boniface VIII issued the antiheretical bull Saepe sanctam Ecclesiam, authorizing action against laypersons, "even of the female sex," who usurped priestly authority by hearing confessions, forming conventicles, preaching, and bestowing the Holy Spirit through the imposition of hands. (63) It was was at this perilous moment that the inquisitor Tommaso da Como initiated new proceedings against Guglielma's devotees. The first and only person to be questioned this time was Fra Gerardo da Novazzano, a tertiary heavily involved in the sect, who would try (successfully) to escape the death penalty for relapsi in 1300 by turning informer.I will discuss the painting mentioned in the footnote a little later. Four years later came the trial, which ended with the burning of the three relapsi and perhaps others, and the wearing of crosses for many others. Guglielma's body was dug up and burned, even though the only testimony against her was that she had appeared in her followers' dreams and visions after her death promoting heresy, contradicting what she had said and done in life.
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63. "Accepimus namque, quod nonnullae personae se contra sanctam catholicam Ecclesiam erigentes, etiam sexus feminei, dogmatizant se ligandi et solvendi claves habere, paenitentias audiunt et a peccatis absolvunt, conventicula non solum diurna faciunt, sed nocturna, ... et praedicare praesumunt; tonsura clericali contra ritum Ecclesiae abutentes, Spiritum Sanctum se dare per impositionem manuum mentiuntur" (emphasis added). Boniface VIII, Saepe sanctam Ecclesiam, in Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, 33rd ed., eds. Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schonmetzer (Freiburg: Herder, 1965), 278. The italicized clauses could describe the iconography of the painting at Brunate.
Suddenly, as Newman tells it (unaware of earlier versions reported after her essay), in 1425 there was a full-length saintly biography by a Franciscan monk named Antonio Bonfadini, about someone named Guglielma. Daughter of the king of England, she married the newly converted king of Hungary. The King then went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, leaving her in charge. The King's brother's advances were repulsed, so in revenge the brother met the King before he reached home and told him the Queen had been unfaithful to him with a squire. The King gave her to the executioners, but she convinced them of her innocence and they burned an animal instead. Keeping off the roads, she was discovered by hunting dogs. The hunters assumed she was sexually available, but she convinced them to let her see the lord of the hunt. He happened to be the King of France, who hired her as his wife's lady in waiting. His senechal wanted to marry her, but she said she was already married. He got his revenge by murdering the prince she was in charge of and framing her. For what happens next, here is Newman (p. 25):
The Virgin Mary appears to her in a dream, giving her the power to heal all sufferers who are truly repentant and willing to confess their sins. Then, on the night she is to be burned, two angels cause the executioners to fall asleep while Guglielma prays. As they slumber, the angels escort her to a castle by the sea, where they pay her passage aboard a mysterious ship. On the voyage Guglielma has occasion to display her gift of healing when all the sailors are suddenly afflicted with terrible headaches. After this they hold her in the greatest reverence. When the ship arrives at an unnamed shore, the captain escorts Guglielma to a nunnery where his aunt is abbess.This Guglielma gets a reputation as a healer, eventually attracting her former persecutors and causing them to confess. She returned home to her husband. Since the King was "newly converted", this all would have happened several centuries earlier.
Although this story survives in only one manuscript, still in Ferrara, it was converted into a play, "Saint Gugliema", by the Florentine humanist Antonia Pulci (1452-1501). Newman says it went through thirteen editions in Florence between 1490 and 1597, in addition to three Sienese editions (1579, 1617, and one undated), as well as seventeenth-century editions in Venice, Viterbo, Macerata, Perugia, and Pistoia, though--strangely enough--never Milan. It omits the part in France but otherwise is faithful to the Ferrarese version.
There is no indication in either story about where the nunnery was. But in 1842, Pietro Monti, then parish priest at Brunate, wrote in response to an inquiry from the historian Michele Caffi (Newman p. 32):
In this parish church there is a fresco of Santa Guglielma that seems to me to date from around 1450. In 1826 workmen demolished the wall adjoining the one where this image is, and there I saw many other figures previously covered with paint, only partly destroyed, that formed a series with the picture that still exists and recorded the story of Guglielma, i.e. how she left the house of her husband, came to Brunate, and lived a solitary life here, wearing a hairshirt and ordinary dress, with only a single serving woman, in the company of a crucifix and an image of Our Lady. There were also some lines in Latin with Gothic characters, of which a few words could be strung together and read. It was a sin that twenty years ago the workers had those old fifteenth-century pictures covered with paint. (103)
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103. Caffi, Dell'abbazia di Chiaravalle, cited in Antonio Giussani, La Chiesa parrocchiale, 24.
In fact, the report of Carlo Cardinal Ciceri, who paid a pastoral visit to Brunate in 1685 (thirty years after it obtained parish status), noted that the church then had three altars: a high altar, one dedicated to the Virgin, and a third to St. Guglielma. Both of the latter were adorned with paintings. (105)So it probably was there even in 1685, as was the cult of this English-Hungarian Giuglielma.
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105. Giussani, La Chiesa parrocchiale, 33.
It does indeed look like it was painted around 1450. That, perhaps coincidentally, is when Bianca Maria Visconti started being involved with the convent. Before that, in 1443, her father Filippo Visconti had provided the money for the building stones for a house to be built for the nuns when they visited Como. Bianca Maria also secured from the papacy the transfer of the convent from the jurisdiction of the Bish of Cono to the Augustinian Hermits that the abbess, Magdalena Albrizzi, had requested. It is true that Bianca Maria supported many churches and convents.. But it is a nice coincidence that this same out of the way place would also be associated around that time with the English-Hungarian Guglielma.
The painting shows Guglielma putting her hand on a kneeling nun in black habit, with a red-haired man behind her (photo above from M. M. Filesi's essay, http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=272; he credits Ross Caldwell) . We might assume that one is the abbess (in the black Augustinian habit) and the other a donor. However it might also be a 15th century version of a 13th century painting of the heretical Guglielma with Manfreda and Saramita, putting the Abbess, in her black habit, in place of Manfreda, who would have worn brown. Both of the other figures do wear brown. Guglielma, if that is who it is, even has the white veil and wimple of the Umiliati.
According
to the Inquisition minutes, Guglielma was not a member of the Umiliati
but remained a lay person apart from any order, even a lay order. That
she would have worn brown, even though not affiliated with the Umiliati,
is attested by the Inquisition minutes. which said that she and the
sect members wore clothing of the color "morello" or “marrone moretto", i.e. dark brown to black, as in the Fournier Museum card. In the painting, the brown is neither light nor dark. But it is still brown; and if the painting is a version of an earlier painting of the 13th century, perhaps it is true to what was there. Guglielima's brown may not have been precisely the same as that of her followers.Newman's hypothesis is that Bianca Maria herself might have inherited a 13th century painting much like the one that was done around 1450, perhaps by the same painter who in Manfreda's day had painted Guglielma as St. Catherine in local churches and served as secretary to Manfreda and Saramita. So the 1450 painting, like the 1425 story and perhaps the 1450s card, would be part of the "cover" by which people could still honor the memory of the heretical Giuglielma. Or not, of course. It is also possible that the two women liked the story told by the monk in Ferrara and decided to honor the legendary princess in a place that would fit the kind of isolation from the world that her character seemed to imply.
The earliest document found by Newman testifying to the cult is in 1493 (p. 34):
A manuscript in Como, written by the priest Giovanni Antonio da Fino, advertises the vitae of B. Maddalena Albrici e S. Guglielma del Monastero di Brunate, although only Guglielma's life (based on Bonfadini) is actually found there. (107)Then there is the question of how to interpret Guglielma's act of laying her hand on the kneeling woman's head. In 1642 a Franciscan curate of Brunate notes that people appealed to her for the curing of headaches.That fits in with the legend: she miraculously cured the headaches that the sailors all suddenly had come down with. However the gesture could also be a "laying on of hands", so as to pass on the Holy Spirit. You will recall that Pope Benedict's bull of 1496 was directed in part at women who preached and did laying on of hands. If the fresco were of a man in the vestments of a bishop, that is just what we would think. It was done by bishops ordaining clergy, for example. It was also a procedure described by the 14th century inquisitor Bernard Gui (Inquisitors' Guide, trans. Shirley, p. 41) as being done by the Cathar perfecti, both male and female. Whether she is consecrating someone as Popess, as Newman suggests, is another issue; I do not see a tiara. But such headgear would have marked the scene as heretical.
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107. Pandakovic, Memoria. The manuscript is the subject of a thesis by Sergio Gabaglio, II volgare a Como nel '400-11 notaio, il principe, il prete (University of Pavia, 1997).
Another issue is the three rings on her hands, two on her right and one on her left. Newman (p. 5) suggests that the one on her left hand represents the Holy Spirit, and the other two the Father and the Son. It is possible. Or else, as a Hungarian Queen, it was thought appropriate to show her with several rings, as has also has been suggested (in discussion on Tarot History Forum).
OTHER EVIDENCE
There was one more fresco, not mentioned by Newman. but sketched by the historian Chiaffi and published in his book Dell'Abbazia di Chiaravalle in Lombardia. (My source is Ida Li Vigni, "La Papessa del Tarocchi Visconti: storia di un'eresia femminile", pp. 63-78 of Il Ludus Triimphorum o Tarot: carte da gioco o alfabeta da destino,
edited by P. A. Rossi and I. Li Vigni, Genova 2011, on p. 69). It was
still visible in 1842 at the monastery at Chiaravalle. It showed
Guglielma being presented by St. Bernard to the Madonna and Child,
according to the writing below the sketch. It also says "depinto a
fresco del sieclo XIII". Who the small figure on the bottom left is, the
inscription does not say. Here is what Vigni says about this fresco (my
translation follows):Dell'affresco che decorava la cappella di Guglielma a Chiaravalle sono rimaste labilissime tracce - le aureole sbiadite della vergine Maria, di Gesù bambino e di San Bernardo - e l'unica testimonianza certa ci è offerta dalle parole e dal disegno dello storico milanese Michele Caffi che nel 1842 (anno di pubblicazione del suo libro Dell'Abbazia di Chiaravalle in Lombardia) ebbe la possibilità di vederlo e di denunciare le condizioni di assoluto degrado della cappella.
Iconograficamente l'affresco non presenta elementi di eterodossia, rappresentando Guglielma presentata da San Bernardo alla Vergine Maria inginocchio e di proporzioni più piccole, così come minori sono quelle della suora in ginocchiata accanto a lei, verosimilmente Maifreda. Nel disegno appena abbozzato del Caffi l'unica figura ben tratteggiata, soprattutto nel volto, è proprio quella di Guglielma, ed è un volto tinto di rosso, al pari di quello di Maifreda. Il Caffi motiva questa caratteristica citando la sua fonte, Giovanni Pietro Puricelli, studioso del XVII secolo che si era occupato della vicenda in una dissertazione intitolata De Guillelma Boheme vulgo Gulielmina (manoscritto, segnatura C. 1 inf., Biblioteca Ambrosiana). Ecco le sue parole:
...La Vergine seduta sostiene il bambino nel suo grembo, stringe nella destra un giglio: alla sua sinistra è san Bernardo che le addita Guglielmina genuflessa, e più abbasso è pure genuflessa la di lei socia Mainfreda vestita dell' abito delle Umiliate. Gio. Pietro Furicela, che scrìsse di Guglìelmina, come dirò più innanzi, nel 1646, dice che la figura di Guglielmina era quella d'una donna rossa in viso, dell' età intorno a' cinquant' anni. Ora i colori e le traccie del volto sono troppo deperite per darne un giudizio. Assai preziosa è, a mio avviso, questa pittura, sia pel soggetto ch'essa ricorda, sìa per la sua antichità che si prova colla seguente considerazione: Guglielmina morì in odore di santità nel'anno 1281, ma nel 1300 fu dichiarata eretica, diseppellita, le sue cenerei vennero bruciate, fu arsa viva la seguace Mainfreda. Chi dopo il 1300 avrebbe osato dipingere Guglielmina e Mainfreda in atto di divozione, presentate da un santo alla Vergine? Quella pittura deve adunque essere stata eseguita quando ancora le ossa della Boema ivi riposavano, quando ancora la di lei memoria era in venerazione, e quindi prima del 1300.L'appariscente colore rosso dei due volti doveva essere un neppure troppo segreto riferimento simbolico alla fede guglielminita, ovvero all'incarnazione in Guglielma dello Spirito Santo, essendo il rosso, nella liturgia cristiana, il colore dello Spirito Santo in quanto vita è rinnovamento e rossi sono i paramenti della Pentecoste, uno dei giorni in cui si celebrava la festa della santa Boema. La conservazione di queste immagini, ben leggibili ancora nel 1646, è una prova del perdurare nel tempo del culto a Guglielma e della memoria di Maifreda e può supportare l'ipotesi che proprio Maifreda, o meglio ancora Guglielma-Maifreda, sia la fonte d'ispirazione dell'Arcano 2. Lo stesso Puricelli, nella sua sintesi in 14 punti della dottrina guglielminita, al punto X afferma.
...Suor Maifreda deve essere vera "Papessa" e avere autorità di un vero papa, perché, essendo Guglielma lo Spirito santo informa di donna, Maifreda deve essere la sua vicaria informa di donna ...
(Of the fresco that decorated the chapel of Guglielma in Chiaravalle the feeblest traces remain - the faint halo of the Virgin Mary, baby Jesus and St. Bernard - and the only sure witness is offered to us by the words and the design of the Milanese historiian Michele Caffi in 1842 (the year of the publication of his book (On the Abbey of Clairvaux in Lombardy) who had a chance to see it and denounce the conditions of absolute degradation of the chapel.
Iconographically the fresco has no elements of heterodoxy, depicting Guglielma presented by St. Bernard to the Virgin Mary, kneeling and of smaller proportions, as well as the smaller one of the nun at her knee beside her, probably Maifreda. In the design just sketched by Caffi the only figure treated well, especially in the face, is precisely that of Guglielma, and it is a face stained red, like that of Maifreda. Caffi explaiins this feature, citing his source, John Peter Puricelli, a scholar of the seventeenth century who had dealt with the matter in a dissertation entitled De Boheme Guillelma vulgar Gulielmina (manuscript, segnatura C 1 inf., Biblioteca Ambrosiana). Here are his words:
...The seated Virgin supports the child in her lap and holds a lily in her right hand: to the left is St. Bernard who points to Wilhelmina kneeling, and lower down is also her associate Mainfreda dressed in the habit of the Umiliate. Pietro Furicela, who wrote of Wilhelmina, as I will explain further on, in 1646, says that the figure of Wilhelmina was that of a woman red in the face, around 'fifty' years of age. Now the colors and the traces of the face are too wasted to make a judgment. That this painting is very valuable, in my opinion, both for the subject that it records, and for its antiquity, is proved by the following consideration: Wilhelmina died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1281, but in 1300 she was declared a heretic, her exhumed remains were burnt, and her follower Mainfreda was burnt alive. Who would have dared to paint after 1300 Wilhelmina and Mainfreda in the act of devotion to the Virgin presented by a saint? That painting must therefore have been executed even when the bones of the Bohemian therein reposed, even when still her memory was venerated, and thus before 1300 ...The striking red color of the two faces had to be a not too secret symbolic reference to the Guglielmite faith, or the incarnation in Guglielma of the Holy Spirit, red, in the Christian liturgy, being the color of the Holy Spirit, as life is renewal and red are the vestments of Pentecost, one of the days when there was the celebration of the holy Bohemian. The conservation of these images, still legible in 1646, is proof of the persistence over time of the cult of Guglielma and of the memory of Maifreda, and can support the hypothesis that Maifreda herself, or better yet Guglielma-Maifreda, is the source of inspiration for Arcanum 2. The same Puricelli, in his summary in 14 points of Guglielmite doctrine, at point X says:
...Suor Maifreda deve essere vera "Papessa" e avere autorità di un vero papa, perché, essendo Guglielma lo Spirito santo informa di donna, Maifreda deve essere la sua vicaria informa di donna ...
I might have translated the words of Puricelli at the end improperly; the manner of speaking is strange to me....Sister Maifreda must be true "Papessa" and have the authority of a true pope, because, being Guglielma the Holy Spirit enforms [or inspires] the woman, Maifreda must be her vicar enformed by the woman ...)
Another
possibility, suggested by Ross Caldwell, is that the small figure is
meant to be male, presumably because of the lack of headgear, and thus
Guglielma's son, who was said to have accompanied her to Milan from
Bohemia. One problem is that the son is never mentioned in connection
with her later years. So it would be surprising to have him included in a
fresco, because he played no role in the cult. There is also the the
red color to account for. Still, that would account for the lack of
headgear.We might wonder, if this fresco was done before 1300, why the Inquisition allowed it to stay, since it would have been one honoring a heretic.
On Tarot History Forum Caldwell posted an unattributed 2008 photo of the place where the fresco was, in an alcove in the wall surrounding the monastery. He observes that the halos of St. Bernard and Jesus are still visible in the photo, plus one with Mary as well (which Ciaffi did not draw. For comparison, here is an enlargement of these details, with some increase in contrast, below which is Caldwell's photoshopped superimposition of the Ciaffi sketch.
In the original photo what can be seen most clearly is the halo around Mary's head.
More evidence, this time directed against Newman, appears in the article, "La leggenda di Santa Guglielma figlia del Re d'Inghilterra e donna del Re d'Ungheria" by Zsuzsa Kovács, in the Revista di Studi Ungheresi, IX, 2010, pp. 28-45,
http://epa.oszk.hu/02000/02025/00026/pdf/RSU_2010_09_027-045.pdf (I thank Marco Ponzi for bringing this article to our attention on the Tarot History Forum). She says (for this part, Ponzi's translation, from p. 37 of the article):
I think the rest of footnote 39 is also of interest (my translation).In 1842, Michele Caffi mentioned the cult of Guglielma in Brunate when discussing another Guglielma, who was thought to be a princess and lived in Milan, her followers were condemned as heretics by the inquistion in 1300. Later, people studying the guglielmite heresy, posed the question of a possible link between the two cults. In the last decade, in various publications appeared the hypothesis that the legend we are discussing was actually based on Guglielma from Milan, and that it was created as a coverage [cover story] to continue her cult prohibited by the inquisition. The authors of these works have formulated their hypotheses without knowledge of the history of the legend (39) that was copied in collections of legends, was documented since the XIV century in Lombardy, Veneto and Tuscany, was diffused among the most various religious orders and was linked to the devotion to Mary, to an ecclesiastic cult that, as we will see below, already existed when the inquisition processed [tried] the Guglielmites. This excludes that our legend (and the cult in Brunate) could be a derivation from the heretic tradition of Guglielma from Milan.
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39. Newman, erroneously thinking that the legend was created by Bonfadini in Ferrara in the XV century, made efforts to build an hypothesis explaining how the heretical cult spread to Ferrara, in order to link it to the origin of the legend.
It seems to me that what Karl said is quite plausible, as I will try to justify, being sure to consider the earlier versions of the legend cited by Kovacs. First she gives one original 14th century manuscript, another "14th (?)", and two 15th century ones that seem to be copies of documents done at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Her one certain 14th century document (not known when in that century), BNF Fond Italien 665 Paris, which Kovacs calls P (for Paris), has a miniature of a woman with a crucifix praying to Mary, and an accompanying text about "sancte Giulgelma figlia del lo Re de enghelterra" ("saint Giulgelma daughter of the King of England", illustration p. 28). Kovacs sees it as related to another (p. 38f):Falvay, sviluppando le idee di Karl, riteneva che sotto l'influenza di un topos della "regina/principessa ungherese", fosse modificata nella leggenda la memoria di Guglielma di Milano, e nel suo studio del 2008, ha ribadito la tesi di Newman. Sebbene in una nota (p. 66) abbia elencato diverse fonti della leggenda, non le ha considerate (il manoscritto parigino p.es., che lui stesso ha citato, essendo copiato nel Trecento in Toscana, confuta la tesi di Newman).
(Falvay, developing the ideas of Karl [Lejos Karl. Árpádházi Szent Erzsébet és az üldözött ártatlan nõ mondája, “Ethnographia” (Budapest), XIX (1908), 129-148, 202-214], believed that under the influence of a topos of the "queen/Hungarian princess," Guglielma of Milan was changed into the memory of the legend, and in his 2008 study repeated the arguments of Newman. Although in a footnote (p. 66) he has listed several sources of the legend, he has not considered them (e.g. the Paris manuscript, which although mentioned, being copied in the fourteenth century in Tuscany, refutes the thesis of Newman.)
The other 15th century ms. is a "lives of the saints" by Andrea Bon, in which, after recounting the legend of Guglielma, we find a sentence in Italian followed by a Latin "Antiphona/Oratio", which I assume is a prayer in the form of a responsive reading. Here is the part in Northern Italian, which I probably have not translated exactly right (p. 39).Il testo tramandato da questa copia è in strettissima parentela con quello di P, e pare addirittura più arcaico. Potrebbe essere stato copiato da un modello molto più antico della sua età. Sul f. 23 Ov del codice si legge: "Iste lìber est domine Mansuete domine sancte Grate ordinis sancti Benedicti. Egofrater Stephanus de tirabuschis scripsi". Se la soscrizione fu copiata dal modello, il possessore potrebbe essere identificato con Mansueta de Carpionibus badessa tra il 1297 e il 1310, del monastero benedettino Santa Grata di Bergamo.
(The text passed on by this copy is in very close relationship with that of P, and it seems even more archaic. It could have been copied from a model much more ancient than it. On f. 23Ov the codex reads: "Iste liber est domine Mansuete domine sancte Grate ordinis sancti Benedicti. Ego frater Stephanus de tirabuschis scripsi ". If this signature was copied from the model, the owner could be identified with Gentile de Carpionibus, abbess from 1297 to 1310, of the Benedictine monastery Santa Grata in Bergamo.)
The Latin Antiphona/Oratio mentions Guiglielma often. At the end it has (p. 39):"Questa è una devotissima sancta ala quale puole recorere futi lì infermi et maxime quelli che patìsseno clolia de testa e lei sovviene a chi devotamente se lì recomanda."
("This is a most devout prayer to enable recovery from sickness and especially for those who suffer headache, and she assists those to whom devoutly it is recommended.")
Kovacs says that the numbers mean that the original was from the year 1301. In Budapest there is a 19th century copy of Bon with the same date: "1301 a di 20 marzo". She notes that other manuscripts have copied this same Italian sentence,Amen. Amen. Deo gratias semper. 1300 1. adi 20 Marzo. Finis.
BonVE1 is another 15th century manuscript of Bon; VAT1 is the "14th (?)"; C is 1491, and M is 15th century. She concludes, on p. 40 (Marco's translation):La frase relativa alla preghiera in italiano e l'antifona con l'orazione in latino, furono copiate (senza la data) anche in BonVEl. È conservata la stessa frase italiana (senza l'antifona, l'orazione e la data) pure in alcuni manoscritti della leggenda anonima - sia in veneto (VAT1), sia in lombardo (C), sia in toscano (M) - il che fa supporre che la leggenda originalmente fosse tramandata insieme con questo testo.
(The sentence on the prayer in Italian and the antiphon with the prayer in Latin were copied (without the date) in BonVEl. And the same Italian phrase is preserved (without the Antiphon, Oratio and date) also in some anonymous manuscripts of the legend - and in the Veneto (VAT1), Lombardy (C) and Tuscany (M) - which suggests that the legend was originally passed along with this text.
Now for my comments. 1301 is Kovacs' earliest date, given in a manuscript done later in the century. This is the same year that Newman gave for the beginning of the "English princess" legend for Guglielma (although in that case a descriptor of the one burned in Milan), so to that extent there is no contradiction with Newman. The first "English princess" story was in the Annales of Colmar, Alsace, in 1301. It said (Italian and Latin from Marina Benedetti, No Sono Dio, p. 20; Newman's translates all but last part, about "frate Giovanni", which she omits):La data alla fine del manoscritto londinese non solo prova che la nostra leggenda era già conosciuta nel 1301, ma il testo liturgico in latino fa supporre che il culto della santa fosse nato ben prima.
(The date at the end of the manuscript in London not only proves that our legend was already known in 1301, but the liturgical text in Latin suggests that the cult of the saint was born well before.)
Nell'anno precedente venne dall'Inghilterra una donna molto bella e parimenti faconda che diceva di essere lo Spirito santo per la redenzione delle donne; e battezzò donne nel nome del Padre e del Figlio e suo. Morta, fu condotta a Milano e ivi cremata: frate Giovanni di Wissenburg, dell'ordine dei frati Predicatori, diceva a molti di aver visto le sue ceneri.24.Wissenburg, today's Wissembourg, is also in Alsace, about 37 miles north of Strasbourg; Colmar is close to the same distance south of Strasbourg.
In the preceding year there came from England a very beautiful virgin, as eloquent as she was fair, saying that she was the Holy Spirit incarnate for the redemption of women; and she baptized women in the name of the Father and of the Son and of herself. After death she was brought to Milan and burned there: brother Giovanni di Wissenburg, of the order of Preaching friars, said many saw her ashes. (24)
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24. Annales Colmarienses maiores, MGH, Scriptores, XVII, Hannover 1963, p. 226: «In precedenti anno venit de Anglia virgo decora valdè pariterque facunda dicens se Spiritum Sanctum in redemptionem mulierum; et baptizavit mulieres in nomine Patris et Filii ac sui. Que mortua ducta fuit in Mediolanum, et ibi cremata; cuius cineres frater Iohannes de Wissenburc, ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum, se vidisse pluribus referebat».
Unlike the Inquisition minutes, this report has the heretic Guglielma as coming from England--and not 40 years before, but just in 1299, Since the report comes from a Dominican, and the Lombard Inquisition was Dominican, we may assume that either Fra. Iohannes was there or knew someone who was. Benedetti's opinion is this (p. 29):
Frate Iohannes di Wissenburg era stato a Milano ed era stato colpito da recenti avvenimenti già proiettati in dimensione mitica, che egli trasforma in notizia e trasporta a Colmar: una notizia/mito che valeva la pena di diffondere, di raccontare a più persone. Questa donna che diceva di essere lo Spirito santo - nonostante le numerose imprecisioni del breve racconto - può essere identificata con Guglielma.I wonder about the "inaccuracies". The story of the English princess, greatly at variance with the trial testimony, seems not to have reached final form at this point, or Fra Johannes only got parts of it. In any case, here the "legendary" and the historical Guglielma come together in one person. Since Johannes was Dominican and the Inquisitors were Dominican, his source must have been the Inquisition, It is thus likely that the Inquisition itself is implicated in the "cover story" that Newman supposed was done by Guglielma's devotees, to give a sanitized focus for the devotion to Guglielma..
(Brother Johannes of Wissenburg had been in Milan and been struck by recent events already projected into mythical size, which he turns into news and transports to Colmar: a news-story/myth that was worth spreading, to tell more people. This woman who claimed to be the Holy Spirit- despite the many inaccuracies in the brief account - can be identified with Guglielma.)
Kovacs says that the devotion to the legendary saint must have preceded the real one, because there was a Latin liturgy to invoke her healing. Here we must remember that the devotees of the Bohemian Guglielma in the years immediately following her death introduced litergies for their Guglielma. It would have been easy enough for someone to use or adapt one of them to the "English-Hungarian" setting, perhaps the monks at Chiaravalle, if such litanies had become part of the public cult, or the Inquisitors, as part of an effort to construct a legend about an English-Hungarian Guglielma who predated the Bohemian one.
What is also interesting, of course, is the specific mention of her ability to heal headaches. That would seem to explain why, in the Brunate fresco, she has her hand on the kneeling woman's head, long before the 1425 Ferrara ms. recounted her power to do so.
However Kovacs doesn't consider whether the laying on of hands might have been the familiar gesture of priests when passing on the Holy Spirit. She doesn't consider that Manfreda, in feminizing the priesthood in the new age of the Holy Spirit, would logically have appropriated that gesture for Gugliema. Also, it was the means by which the Holy Spirit was passed from Cathar priests, both male and female, I am not saying that Manfreda was a Cathar; it's just that she might have seen women doing it. Kovacs doesn't know that Manfreda's monastery was five miles from what had been one of the main centers of Catharism, still to a degree protected--until 1268--at the time of Guglielma's alleged arrival in Milan, 1262, and so within Manfreda's lifetime.
So for us, knowing all these things, there remains a fundamental ambiguity.
Kovacs does know the main earlier version of the legend, called the "Empress of Rome". Here she cites Nancy Black, Medieval Narratives of Accused Queens. So I will try to summarize the relevant points, some of which Kovacs omits.
Although the "Empress of Rome" legend existed in obscure 12th century Latin manuscripts (p. 20), it only became popular after a Benedictine monk named Gautier de Coinci (d. 1236) translated one of them into Old French toward the end of his life (p. 22); the manuscripts have numerous illuminations illustrating key parts of the story. A Latin version, for the learned, was included in Vincent de Beauvais' 1244 Speculum historiale; its popularity may be gauged by the 242 extant manuscript copies in European and American libraries (p. 33).
The story concerns a Roman Empress devoted to the Virgin Mary, who suffers false accusations and consequent sufferings paralleling those of the legendary Gulguilma, After the first accusation, she suffers in the woods dressed in rags, is rescued by a lord, and is given the job of caring for the rescuer's young son. The rescuer's brother makes sexual advances to her, which are repulsed, and in revenge kills the young son. The murder is blamed on her. (Kovacs omits a part in which the murderer places the knife in her hand while she is sleeping.) Then, Kovacs says (her summary, p. 31f, will be as good for our purposes as Black's much lengthier account):
This is very close to the Guglielma story as related in 1425 Ferrara. What is significantly different, for us, is of course the disease she specializes in curing: leprosy rather than headaches.l'imperatrice viene condannata; i marinai che devono portarla via dal paese, vogliono violentarla, ma poi la lasciano su uno scoglio; le appare la Vergine che le da un'erba per guarire la lebbra; una nave che porta pellegrini, la salva; guarisce lebbrosi; vien da lei il fratello del grande signore malato di lebbra, confessa il suo peccato e vien guarito; l'imperatrice va a Roma, e guarisce anche il fratello dell'imperatore; il marito la riabbraccia e tutta la città festeggia; in certe varianti l'imperatrice rinuncia al suo rango e in povertà continua a guarire malati.
(The Empress is condemned; sailors who must take her out of the country want to violate her, but then leave her on a rock; the Virgin shows her an herb for healing leprosy; she saves a ship carrying pilgrims, heals lepers; to her, suffering from leprosy, comes the brother of the great lord, who confesses his sins and is healed; the Empress goes to Rome, and also heals the emperor's brother; her husband embraces her and the whole city celebrates; in some versions the Empress renounces her rank and continues in poverty to heal the sick.)
For comparison, here is Kovacs' paraphrase of the 1425 episode aboard ship (p. 28).
E, di nuovo, aiutata dalla Vergine Maria, miracolosamente riuscì a fuggire. Condotta da due angeli a un porto, salì su una nave. Mentre navigava, i marinai, tutti, si ammalavano di mal di testa, e non c'era chi governasse la nave. Allora a Guglielma nel sonno apparse la Vergine, annunciandole che, come premio per le sue virtù e le sue sofferenze, Gesù Cristo le donava poteri taumaturgici. Guglielma infatti riuscì a guarire i marinai, per questo cominciava ad essere rispettata come santa.
(And again, helped by the Virgin Mary, she miraculously succeeded in running away. Conducted by two angels to a port, she climbed on a ship. While sailing, the sailors, all of them, got sick with headache, and there were none who governed the ship. Then to Guglielma asleep the Virgin appeared, announcing that, as a reward for her virtues and sufferings, Jesus Christ gave her miraculous powers. Guglielma in fact succeeded in curing the sailors; for this she began to be respected as holy.)
This paraphrase is not
quite the same as Newman's (p. 25). For Newman, the dream comes before
she boards ship. Kovacs' version is closer to the Empress legend.
After
this episode, for both Newman and Kovacs, Guglielma is taken to the convent, where she continues to heal
people, including her two old accusers, whom God has afflicted with
leprosy. This part curiously, is left in the Guglielma legend.
But in the Empress legend, she is left abandoned on the island after
the ship breaks up in a storm (for Kovacs, the sailors have a change of
heart and leave her on a rock rather than violating her--but in the late
13th and 14th centuries there were various versions of the legend), and
then after receiving the dream begins healing people. For neither Black
or Kovacs does the Empress get to a convent or disguise herself as a
nun before hearing her accusers' confessions.
What is strikingly
missing in the account of Empress's ordeal with the sailors, compared
to Guglielma's, is the bit about the headaches
In
either Kovacs'
or Newman's paraphrase of the Guglielma legend, this bit strikes me as a
clumsy
addition, all those sailors suddenly getting headaches. There seems to
me a natural, common-sense explanation: the Church, at the time of the
burning of Manfreda, adds that part, so as to account for the gesture of
the laying on of the hand--by then already well-known, perhaps even
from a portrait. This version spreads, and the sanitized version of
Guglielma is born. The other changes
from the Empress legend and Guglielma's can be explained as a desire to
make the story fit the particular situation in Italy, including locating
her at a convent.
What I am
hypothesizing is that the Guglielma legend was not adapted from a
pre-existing legend (or legends) so as to be useful as a cover for
devotees of the real Guglielma, but that a pre-existing legend (or
legends) was adapted by the Church as that of Guglielma so as to serve
as a substitute for the real Guglielma and thereby both allow her
veneration by those unfamiliar with the private cult or who refused to
believe she had endorsed it, and also gradually eliminate her
from the collective memory.
This was a standard
operating procedure for the Church. For example, in the 4th century,
faced with the highly popular cult of Mithra among Roman soldiers, whom
the Church needed on their side, they simply called Mithra's birthday,
December 25, Christ's birthday, and suppressed public mention of Mithra.
So the soldiers could still celebrate Mithra's birthday, they just
couldn't be open about it and had to endure the outward trappings of
Christ. Sooner or later Mithra was forgotten. The same was done
everywhere. A church in Milan was erected on the site of a temple of
Cybele; it was still possible to worship Cybele there, but quietly. In
Mexico, churches were placed on sites sacred to goddesses of the
indigenous people, celebrating miracles there by the Virgin Mary.
Similarly in 1301 Lombardy, I hypothesize, a legend about a
princess-devotee of the Virgin, adapted from legends about an Empress
and other pious royals, replaces the real Guglielma and her followers.
Such
a strategy would be preferable to having to confront all those--such as
the monks at Chiaravalle-- who still thought Guglielma had been an
upholder of Roman Catholic orthodoxy and forbid them from fulfilling
their part of the contract with her. It was also safer
in terms of dealing with the local nobility. Perhaps, as in the case of
Mithra, there was even an agreement, implicit or explicit, with the
secular authority about the process. (In the case of Matteo Visconti, it would be to get the inquisitors to leave.)
This may also have been the strategy used to induce producers to make tarot packs that lacked a Popess: for example, when tarot decks were introduced into areas of Alcase-Lorraine, Germany, and Switzerland controlled by Catholics but with a mixed Protestant and Catholic population, the card makers often substituted Jupiter and Juno for the Pope and Popess. Likewise, decks in Flemish-speaking Southern Netherlands had a "Captain Fracasse" and "Bacchus". Although there is no record of why this was done, my guess is that it was probably to avoid fights breaking out over sarcastic remarks about the Pope and Popess. It is how to avoid trouble through control of images. The deck is preserved for playing, but the symbolism is innocuous.
Reading
Black, I can see where the "English/Hungarian" nationality of the
princess comes from. In 1234, only four years after her death,
Elizabeth, daughter of the king of Hungary, had been canonized. Her
story, Black says, has similarities to that of the Empress. Also, in
England c. 1250. the monk Matthew Paris inserted the story of a falsely
accused queen into his Latin history of the founders of the Benedictine
abbey of St. Albans (p. 6f).
My hypothesis is that the
Inquisitors calculated that the refurbished legend would be welcomed by
Gulgielma's surviving followers, because it makes Gulgielma both the
victim of false accusations and an agent of healing (as surely the real
Gulgielma would be thought to have been, as well as Manfreda).
In the
Empress's devotion to the Virgin, the Empress becomes like her model.
Black observes (p. 26):
The Inquisitors might have hoped that making Guglielma such a latter-day likeness of the Virgin would be attractive to the remnants of her followers. The Virgin, too, was an agent of healing and salvation. And the fresco at Chiaravalle, if it was done before 1300, through the presentation to the Virgin fits in with the refurbished Guglielma as well as the real one with a son....the Empress of Rome is a virtuous woman who is empowered to heal and save others. She takes on an aspect of sainthood--the ability to perform miracles--and like the Virgin Mary, becomes an instrument for the salvation of sinners.
The danger in such a strategy of co-optation, of course, is that it will not succeed in eradicating devotion to the heretical Guglielma. For their part, the Visconti will not likely forget the real Manfreda, among themselves; they are obsessed with family history. To help them, there is also, later, the trial record, assuming that Matteo grabbed it. There is also the continued condemnations of the Visconti, for political reasons, by the papacy, through three generations. Then therre is Filippo and Bianca's relationship with the abbess at Brunate, Maddelena Abrizzi, whatever it was.
We also have to bear in mind that the Inquisition was in Como again in the 1450s, grilling old healers in the area, mainly women, about the Trinity and burning them as heretics, incessantly for at least the next 70 years (although the records are mostly destroyed, there remain extant memoirs written by Inquisitors of how they dealt with "witchcraft"). So there was a real need for secrecy.
In favor of the legendary Guglielma's invention in 1300, I would observe that there were already, before the Inquisitors arrived, two cults of Guglielma, both centered on the historical one whose body was later exhumed and burned. One was by the monks of Chiaravalle and a great many others, who participated in the procession that accompanied the removal of her body from Milan to the monastery at Chiaravalle and in her commemorations there. The other was that of a few followers who believed her the incarnation of the Holy Spirit. To the many--and to the few, in life--Guglielma had said "I am not God". To the few, she had appeared in dreams or visions to say just the opposite, and to invest the dreamers with a holy mission.
The Inquistors' problem was how to deal with the public cult once the private cult had been extinguished. The public one would continue even after her body had been burned. The logical solution, by the monks of Chiaravalle, or the Archbishop, or the Inquisition itself, would be to create a legendary Guglielma different from the heretical one, from England rather than from Bohemia, and omitting Manfreda and her friends. Then the new one can continue to be remembered while the old one is forgotten.
This procedure is one the Church used with other cults (e.g., a site sacred to an Aztec goddess in Mesico became, when the Spanish arrived, the site of the appearance of the Virgin; natives visiting the one were now informed of the other.) The invention of the legendary Guglielma was already happening in 1301, as indicated by the report in Colmar; however the observer from that city apparently did not realize that the two--the one from England and the one burned at the stake--were supposed to be different people. The materials for the legend were already at hand. There was the very popular legend of the "empress of Rome". Her adventures closely parallel those of the legendary Guglielma. The only thing added is the big about curing headaches.
The only difficulty with such a plan was that the heretical Guglielma, thanks in part to the papal bulls against the Visconti, likely was not forgotten. In addition, lurid stories were told about the Guglielmites, now adding a sexual orgy of the type then associated with witches (Bernardino Corio, L'Historia di Milano, 1503, Donati Bossi Cronica, 1492, as elaborated by Ross Caldwell and Marco Ponzi on THF, e.g. http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=917&start=110#p13705), This Guglielma (without the orgies, of course, and perhaps also some of what was in the "confessions" as well) was the one whose followers Matteo defended, whose rites his son Galeazzo participated in, that even Barnabo a century later was tarred with, and who appointed Manfreda as Popess. So now, to the Visconti and their heirs, there would be also two Popesses: the Popess as the Manfreda defended by Matteo Visconti, and the Popess whose image is in the tarot done for Matteo's descendants.
THE VISCONTI AND THE HOLY SPIRIT
There is another aspect to the heretical Guglielma worthy of interest: her incarnation specifically as the Holy Spirit, and her role as the precursor of the Age of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is something that the Visconti particulrly associated themselves with. One of its emblems was the radiant dove, another was the knot. The dove of course represents the Holy Spirit in numerous religious paintings, such as those of Jesus's baptism or Coronations of the Virgin, But it also represented a good many other things, mostly having to do with love or purity. The Visconti's personal mythology was that they were descended from Venus via a son of Anaeus, so they would hav had a special affinity for that bird. But certain Visconti uses of the dove as a personal emblem are specific to the Holy Spirit. Edith Kirsch writes, in Five Manuscripts of Giangaleazzo Visconti, p. 19:
A bust-length representation of God the Father holding the orb of the universe, with the dove of the Holy Spirit and an enormous radiating sun beneath him, dominates the central window of the apse of the Cathedral of Milan. For the identification of this window motif with Giangaleazzo, see Annali, I, 249.As for knots, besides marriage, they, too, were associated with the Holy Spirit (p. 24):
…a knot was one of the emblems of the Order of the Holy Spirit founded by Louis of Taranto in 1353…In Lat.757 and Smith-Lesouef 22, the knot may likewise have served as a multivalent signifier, appropriate in this instance to a specific occasion – Giangaleazzo’s marriage to Caterina – and expressing as well his lifelong devotion to both the Holy Ghost and the Trinity.Kirsch writes (p. 23):
Kirsch notes the remarkable similarity of a device of the Order of the Knot to the personal device of Giangaleazzo:The first such device was the knot of Hercules (or love-knot) of the Company of the Holy Spirit of Right Desire, informally known as the Company or Order of the Knot, established in 1353 by Louis of Taranto, King of Naples.
For more, here is Kirsch, p. 23 :
As also noted above, Giangaleazzo’s personal emblem was conflated with the Dove of the Holy Spirit in the Florence Psalter-Hours.With all this emphasis on the dove and the Holy Spirit, one might expect that an altarpiece done for Visconti descendant on the theme of the Coronation of the Virgin, where a dove was usually shown in the upper center of the scene, would feature that dove prominently. That would be especially true in one done by the Bembo workshop in Cremona, which did the tarot cards for the Visconti and Sforza. Yet is conspicuousy absent in all of the three done by the Bembo, which art historian and Bembo specialist Marco Tanzi date to 1440-1445, 1445-1450, and 1445-1450 (Bander and Tanzi, I Tarocchi dei Bembo, pp. 64-69). Discussing the omission of the dove, Tanzi says only, "l’assenza dello Spirito Santo è legata a una precisa questione dottrinale": the absence of the Holy Spirit is linked to a precise doctrinal question" (Arcigotissimo Bembo. 2011. p. 27). But what doctrine? Could it be that the Virgin herself was being thought of as an incarnation of the Holy Spirit? If so, it is another case in which a woman born of woman is being proposed as the incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
The absence of the dove is most likely related to another unique feature of Bembo Coronations of the Virgin: namely, the Father is crowning both the Virgin and Christ at the same time. Normally it is Christ who crowns the Virgin, with the Father and the dove above them. One, attributed by Bandera and Tanzi to Ambrogio Bembo, 1445-1450, is below, bottom left (I Tarocchi dei Bembo, 2013, p. 69). Another, attributed to Bonifacio Bembo in the same time period (p. 64), is at http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/68/6821/TCGY100Z/posters/bonifacio-bembo-coronation-of-christ-and-the-virgin-mary.jpg.
According to Tanzi the Virgin was seen at that time as the embodiment of Wisdom, personified in the Hebrew Bible as God's creation "in the beginning of his ways", as Proverbs 8:22 has her say (Bandera and Tanzi, I Tarocchi Bembo, 2013, p. 66; Tanzi 2011, p. 26). This idea would explain the unique way in which the Bembo workshop did their Coronations. If the Father crowns both together, Tanzi thinks that this act is not after the Assumption, when Christ would already be crowned, but rather at the beginning of the world.
This might be related to the doctrine of the immaculate conception. If Mary is crowned at the beginning of the world, then as pre-existing Adam she does not fall under St. Paul's dictum that "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive " (I Cor. 15:22). Tanzi says that Mary's immaculate conception had been part of the "turbolenze" at the Council of Basel, which closed in 1439. A resolution supporting the immaculate conception but not making it dogma was part of its proceedings. Whether her existence before Adam was part of its reasoning I do not know. But if Mary, as Wisdom, existed with God "at the beginning". as His Wisdom, she could easily have been assimilated with the Holy Spirit, who also, as part of God's essence, would have existed from the beginning.
The main issue of the Council of Ferrara and Florence, the continuation of the one in Basel, was to unify the Greek and Latin Churches. For that to happen, there had to be a reconciliation between the Greek Church's view that the Holy Spirit proceeded "from the Father" and the Latin view that the Holy Spirit proceeded "from the Son". The Council's resolution of the issue was that it proceeded from both; that is, it proceeded from the Father, but in a way in which it also depended on the Son as a cause.
If Mary's coronation is substituted for the Holy Spirit, the Bembo altarpieces follow the Greek wording, since she is crowned by the Father rather than the Son. But the Bembos' depiction of Mary
can also be interpreted as following the
Council's final resolution, if
"proceeding from the Son" is interpreted as "in ragione dei meriti di
redenzione del Figlio", i.e. "by reason of the redemptive merits of the
Son", which is what Tanzi (2011, p. 26) says is why the Virgin was
deemed exempt from original sin. Whether the Council actually reasoned
this way in the case of the Holy Spirit requires further
investigation.According to Tanzi, special devotion to Mary was characteristic of the Bembos' Augustinian patrons. Identifying her with the Holy Spirit would certainly count as a form of special devotion! As for the Visconti, there is, if nothing else, the fact of their middle names, "Maria", adopted by Gian Galeazzo for his two sons and continued by Bianca and Francesco after him. For his part, Galeazzo Maria Sforza is known to have had "a special devotion"; in fact he commissioned one mass in which 7 of its 8 motets were devoted to the Virgin Mary, in flagrant violation of long standing practice (Lubkin, A Renaissance Court: Milan under Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 1994m p. 103; in Google Books). If she was also the Holy Spirit, perhaps he was honoring Guglielma as well. Another nice coincidence is that these paintings were done for the Augustinians just before the abbess at Brunate, Magdalena Albrizzi, requested that jurisdiction of her convent be transferred to the Augustinian order, and also just before the painting of Guglielma with the two kneeling figures.
In these Bembo Virgins, there is some facial resemblance to the Popess of the Sforza tarot. In one Virgin, attributed to Ambrogio Bembo and done c. 1445-1450 (at left above), she conforms to the standard late Gothic Lombard image of the Virgin, but also has some similarity to the Popess. In the "Ascension", done c.1440-1445, by his brother Bonifacio (at right above), the resemblance seems to me rather striking (datings from Bendera and Tanzi, 2013).
Another odd thing is the tapestry behind Guglielma. It resembles the odd curtain behind the Popess in the later "Marseille" style cards of France, for example Jean Noblet, c. 1560 Paris, at left. This may have been introduced in some Milan version of the card. But although many of the designs on the Cary Sheet, thought of c. 1500 Milan, do resemble the later "Marseille" designs, the Popess is not one of them; so I don't want to make much of this resemblance.
The book in the "Marseille" style cards is found in almost all Popess cards; with the Virgin it is also a characteristic attribute, but typically of the young Virgin, at the Annunciation, where she is reading the passage in Isaiah about the Messiah that was thought to predict the coming of Christ.
In the PMB and Fournier Popesses, there is also a cross-staff, an attribute that we have also seen in relation to an illumination of Wisdom in a 13th century manuscript now in Florence. In other illuminations, these, minus the crown, are attributes of
Prudence, the "cardinal" virtue that the Church, following Cicero and other Roman authors, substituted for Plato's virtue, one of four, Wisdom. In the late Middle Ages and Renaissance Wisdom and Prudence were often interchangeable. and the cross-staff and book identified both.. An early example of Prudence with
these attributes is in an illumination of the 8th century, (at left:
Autun, Bibliothèque
Municipale, MS 19 bis, fol. 173v, described in Adolph
Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Medieval Art,
1939; Lothar Teikemeier located the image online). We end up with something very much like an hypothesis about the Popess made by the late great tarot historian Michael Dummett, articulated both in a 1986 essay published in the journal FMR and in his 1993 book Il Mondo e L'Angelo. In the latter, we find on p. 418 (my translation follows):
Gertrude Moakley ha messo in evidenza che la figura sulla carta Visconti-Sforza sembra rappresentare Sorella Manfreda, una parente dei Visconti, che era stata effettivamente eletta papa dalla setta eretica dei Gugliel-miti a cui apparteneva e che fu arsa sul rogo nel 1300. E pertanto possibile che sia stato nel mazzo Visconti-Sforza che la Papessa fece la sua prima apparizione, sostituendo presumibilmente un qualche altro soggetto (forse la virtù mancante della Prudenza).These ideas--that the card made its first appearance in the Sforza deck as a memorial to Manfreda, and that it may have substituted for some other subject, in particular the virtue Prudence--continue to make sense as a realistic possibility. Then when the card appeared, with no pre-xisting standard meaning, it could be given a variety of meanings, depending on the audience: Prudence, Wisdom, the Virgin Mary, Pope Joan, Manfreda, the Faith (from Giotto), the Church, and even, from the absence of a dove in the Bembo altarpieces, the Holy Spirit.
(Gertrude Moakley pointed out that the figure on the Visconti-Sforza card seems to represent Sister Manfreda, a relative of the Visconti, who was actually elected Pope by the heretical sect of Guglielmites to which she belonged and who was burned at the stake in 1300. It is therefore possible that it was in the Visconti-Sforza deck that the Popess made her first appearance, presumably by substituting for some other subject (perhaps the missing virtue of Prudence).)
CONCLUSION
The "Moakley Thesis" remains neither confirmed nor disconfirmed. Like any interpretation that needed to be kept secret, it can only be detected through its effects, effects that themselves can be interpreted in different ways. But perhaps accumulation of such date counts for something. Among these effects are (1) the Popess's brown habit, like the Guglielmites, with white top, a combination favored by the Umiliati; (2) the knots in her cord, corresponding to the "miracle" reported in the trial minutes and their common use to symbolize the Trinity; (3) the existence before the trial of a significant public devotion to a non-heretical but recently deceased Guglielma, which its devotees would have wanted to continue; (4) the 1301Colmar identification of the heretic Guglielma as an English princess, coinciding in time with the apparent first report in Italy of the saintly one in in the same year; (5) the continued persecution of the Visconti rulers of Milan as Gugliemites or their protectors; (6) the continued emphasis on the Holy Spirit by the Visconti and their descendants; (7) the coincidence of a painting of Guglielma in brown with one female and one female follower being done just when Bianca Maria Visconti arrives in Milan; (8) the oddness of the "headaches" inserted into a story previously of the "Empress of Rome", explaining what in a painting would otherwise be the laying on of hands; (9) the oddness of the Bembo coronations of the Virgin; and (10) the oddness of there being such a card in the deck at all. In the case before us, admittedly, each of these facts can be explained individually in other ways. But their accumulation must give us pause. It remains plausible that the Inquisition itself developed the story of the legendary 9th century or so English-Hungarian princess, perhaps in conjunction with Church officials in Milan and/or Chiaravalle, in hopes of slowly channeling the veneration for Guglielma away from the one whose bones had just been burned, and that despite all this, her memory continued to be cherished by the Visconti.
