UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Renaissance Futures: Chance, Prediction, and Play in Northern European Visual Culture, c. 1480-1550 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6r20h5s3 Author Kelly, Jessen Lee Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Renaissance Futures: Chance, Prediction, and Play in Northern European Visual Culture, c. 1480-1550 By Jessen Lee Kelly A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Elizabeth Honig, Chair Professor Whitney Davis Professor Niklaus Largier Fall 2011 © 2011, by Jessen Lee Kelly All rights reserved. Abstract Renaissance Futures: Chance, Prediction, and Play in Northern European Visual Culture, c. 1480-1550 By Jessen Lee Kelly Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art University of California, Berkeley Professor Elizabeth Honig, Chair This dissertation examines the relationships between chance and visual culture during the Northern Renaissance, focusing on the use of images in the deliberate, ritualized application of chance in games and divination. I argue that, prior to the development of probability theory in the seventeenth century, images served a critical function in encountering and negotiating uncertainties about the future. The casting of lots for prognostication and play was nothing new in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Yet, aided in part by the growing print industry, the period witnessed the development of new and varied forms for these practices, forms that were increasingly pictorial in character. A series of case studies examines the popular media of chance, such as playing cards, game boards, and divinatory devices. In addition, I connect these objects to works by major artists of the period in order to assert the importance of chance for the development of early modern artistic production. Just as images helped stage a confrontation with future contingency in play and divination, artists also began to experiment with the construction of time and narrative in pictorial representation. In Northern Europe in particular, the rise of visual media for chance coincides with the emergence of artistic subjects that were not bound to pre-established or predictable narratives and, significantly, often incorporated references to games of chance and fortune’s mutability. Taken together, these phenomena not only point to the importance of chance and futurity in the development of early modern art and visuality, they also suggest crucial but neglected epistemological, social, and aesthetic aspects of image-making and use. These aspects have remained largely unexamined due to the traditional view of the Renaissance as a period defined by its relationship to the past of classical antiquity. This project thus seeks to recast our understanding of Renaissance temporality by pointing to the future as a key impetus within the visual culture of the period. 1 Table of Contents Abstract . 1 Table of Contents . i Acknowledgements . ii List of Illustrations . iii Introduction . 1 Chapter One: Imago Fortunae . 9 Chapter Two: The Illustrated Lottery Book as Prospective Form . 42 Chapter Three: The Futures of Hieronymus Bosch . 72 Chapter Four: Playing Cards, Genre Painting, and the Framing of Future Time . 102 Conclusion . .143 Bibliography . 144 i Acknowledgements I am very glad to have the opportunity to thank those whose support has aided and enriched this endeavor, and helped to make its completion possible. Research for this dissertation was conducted through grants from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Deutscher-Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the Belgian American Exchange Foundation, and the University of California at Berkeley. I am grateful for the assistance and opportunities that these fellowships provided. My dissertation committee has contributed to this project in important and various ways. I am greatly indebted to my advisor, Elizabeth Honig. Her discerning comments and encouragement have been vital to this undertaking, and to my time at Berkeley in general. I have been fortunate to have had such a thoughtful interlocutor and exacting reader as a dissertation supervisor. Whitney Davis has offered useful observations and directed me to conceptual frameworks that have helped shape my inquiry. Similarly, my conversations with Niklaus Largier have illuminated new sources and areas of investigation that continue to provide food for thought. At Berkeley and beyond, I have consistently benefitted from interactions with an inspiring and supportive faculty and graduate students. Discussions with Mark Meadow, Jacqueline Jung, Beate Fricke, Walter Prevenir, Rebecca Zorach, and Reindert Falkenberg have aided my thinking on this dissertation. For sharing their insights, humor, and friendship throughout this venture, I am grateful to Nicole Archer, Britta Bode, Jessica Buskirk, Joanna Krawczyk-Coltekin, Kathryn Rudy, and Jennifer Stager. Namiko Kunimoto’s generosity as both a friend and colleague deserves special mention. It is difficult to imagine what graduate school would have been like without her camaraderie. I am also grateful to Jules Bogdanski, Heather Cummins, Rob Froemke, Wendel Zwaal, Max Woodworth, Anna Garner, Peggy Tran-Le and Tom Hauenstein for their encouragement and general conviviality. Carolyn Hawkshaw and Ela Harrison helped me with translations of important primary sources. While all of these individuals have had a hand in any redeeming qualities this dissertation may possess, any errors it contains are my own. I can hardly begin to express my thanks to my family, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. My parents in particular have been a steadfast source of support in so many big and small ways, as exemplified by my mother’s willingness to lend a keen editing eye to drafts of the material. Finally, for his singular kindness and wit, I am grateful to Martijn van Exel, whose acquaintance has been without doubt the most auspicious effect of this experience. ii ∗ List of Figures ∗∗ Chapter One 1.1 Albrecht Dürer. The Little Fortune . Engraving, c. 1496. 1.2. Fortuna and Virtue, c. 1523. Woodcut from Francesco Petrarch, Messire Francois Petracque des remedes de lune et lautre fortune prospere et aduerse . Translated by Jean Daudin and Nicholas Oresme. Paris: Gaillot du Pré, 1523, sig. a1r. 1.3. Fortuna Mi-Partie, from Guillaume de Mauchaut, Remède de Fortune , Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Français 1584 fol.301v, France, c. 1377. 1.4. Fortuna at her wheel, in Augustine, De Civitate Dei . Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale. MS Français 27 fol. 154, France, third quarter of the fifteenth century. 1.5. The Wheel of Fortune, in Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta Memorabilia . Paris, Biblothèque Nationale, MS Français 43 fol. 37r, France, fifteenth century. 1.6. Villard d’Honnecourt, geometric schema of the wheel of Fortune.Paris, Biblothèque Nationale, MS 19093 fol. 21v, France, c. 1230. 1.7. The Wheel of Fortune, in Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung, La Roman de la Rose . Oxford, Bodlian Library, University of Oxford, MS Douce 332, fol. 58r, France, c. 1380- 1400. 1.8. The Wheel of Fortune, from a collection of astronomical texts from the library of King Wenceslas. Vienna, Österreichesche Nationalbibliothek, MS 2352, Prague, c. 1391-2. 1.9. Wheel of Fortune with the five estates, in John Lydgate, miscellany of poems. London, British Library, MS Royal 18D.II, fol. 30v, text and borders later fifteenth century, miniatures c. 1520. 1.10. The Wheel of Fortune, in Gregor Reisch, Magarita Philosphica (Basel, 1517), sig. 3iv. Woodcut. 1.11. Konrad Bollstadter, Lebensrad . Munich, Bayerische Statsbibliothek, MS Germ. 312 fol. 98r, 1461. 1.12. Astrological diagram with movable vellum figure for calculating illness, in Guild Book of the Barber Surgeons. London, British Library MS Egerton 2572, fol. 51. Last quarter of the fifteenth century. ∗ Please note that, due to copyright restrictions, no images are included in this copy of the dissertation. iii 1.13. King and nobles, in Les Status de l’Ordre St. Michel . Oxford, Bodelian Library MS Rawl C.888, fol. 1r, France, first quarter of the sixteenth century. 1.14. The Last Judgment, 1476. Woodcut published in Spiegel Menschlicher Behaltnis. 1.15. Master of the Banderolles, The Wheel of Fortune and the Tree of Life. London, British Museum. Woodcut, second half of the fifteenth century. 1.16. Tarocchi Master, Angel of the Primum Mobile . Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art. Engraving, Ferrara, c. 1465. 1.17. Albrecht Dürer, copy after Tarocchi Master, Angel of the Primum Mobile . London, British Museum. Drawing with light green ink wash, c. 1494. 1.18. Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait . Paris, Louvre. Oil on vellum, transferred to linen, 1493. 1.19. Albrecht Dürer, Nemesis (or The Great Fortune ). Engraving, c. 1501-2. 1.20. Master of 1515, Fortuna . Engraving, c. 1515. 1.21. Heinrich Aldegever, Fortuna . Engraving, c. 1555. 1.22. Albrecht Altdorfer, Fortuna on a Globe . Engraving, 1511. 1.23. Urs Graf, Fortuna with a Phial . Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum. Pen and wash drawing, c. 1520. Chapter Two 2.1. Sphere of Cancer, from Lorenzo Spirito, Il Libro delle Sorti , 1551. 2.2. Dice and fortunes, from an anonymous Würfelbuch , 1529. 2.3. Sea-monster volvelle, from an anonymous Losbuch , 1485. 2.4. Unicorn volvelle, frontispiece from a Kartenlosbuch , 1523. 2.5. Matthew of Paris, sphere of birds, mid-thirteenth century. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Ashmole 304, fol. 35r. 2.6. Wheel of fortune, frontispiece to Spirito, Libro delle Sorti , 1551. 2.7. Kings, from Spirito, Libro delle Sorti , 1551. 2.8. Sign of the virgin, from Spirito, Libro delle Sorti , 1551. iv 2.9. Simon the prophet, from Spirito, Libro delle Sorti , 1551. 2.10. Prophet Malacias, from Paul Pambst Loo βbuch , 1546. 2.11. Konrad Bollstatter, Wheel of Fortune ( Lebensrad ), from Cgm 312. 2.13. Konrad Bollstatter, fortunes from “the four bishops” and “the four apostles,” Munich, BSB Cgm 312 (fol. 136v-137r). 2.14.