Moakley brings together some interesting ideas concerning the Matto and Bagatto (Fool and Magician) cards. In the commedia dell'arte, there are often two clowns, one dressed in white, the other in red. The white clown is called Mattacino, Mattello, or Matterello. The red clown is called Bagatino (the same name applied to the Magician in some early Italian decks). The commedia dell'arte apparently evolved from the carnival processions, and Moakley assumes the two clowns were present in the early processionals, and depicted in the corresponding tarot cards.
In the Visconti-Sforza tarot, the Matto is dressed in white rags and has feathers in his hair, both suggesting that he is a personification of Lent. The Visconti-Sforza Bagatto is a rather enigmatic image. He is dressed in fancy red clothing, including an elaborate hat. He is seated (not standing) behind a table. He has a thin plain stick in his left hand, with its tip on the table almost as though it were a writing pen. On the table is a knife, a cup, two small circular objects, and an odd-looking object that may be a covered dish. The figure's right hand hovers over the "dish". His expression is quite serious. For Moakley, his appearance suggests the figure of the Carnival King. The stick is his rod of office, and we see him preparing to have his last meal before his mock execution ends the carnival season and ushers in Lent.
As Carnival King, the Bagatto would have been a very entertaining figure, pleasing the crowd with clever banter and improvised juggling acts and other forms of physical comedy. This would account for the changes seen in later tarot cards, where the Bagatto assumes a standing position and is clearly performing sleight-of-hand tricks as a form of public entertainment.
Moakley uses the idea of the Fool or Matto as personification of Lent to explain the fact that the card is unnumbered in the sequence of trumps. The other figures are all part of the carnival parade itself. Lent, however, is not part of carnival, but rather its successor and adversary. Moakley imagines him with no fixed place in the parade, but rather appearing here and there through the procession as a kind of heckler. She relates this to the role of the Matto card in the game of tarot. (The card is not one of the "triumphs"--it does not capture any card, but may be played at any time as a wild card or "excuse".)
Moakley also contends that over time, the Matto became more and more clownish, eventually acquiring the familiar jester's costume and effectively supplanting the Bagatto as a personification of carnival. The development is reflected in the later tarot cards.
I think Moakley's evidence pertaining to these cards is quite strong, but it must be remembered that we have no direct evidence of the Matto and Bagatto appearing in 15th-century carnival processions. At the very least, we can say that these two figures were (or became) stock figures of public entertainment, and that there is some connection between the tarot subjects and the commedia dell'arte clowns.
I have some misgivings about taking Moakley's conclusion in a simplistic way, however. In the Visconti-Sforza cards, neither figure seems particularly clownish, ribald, or even very active. It would be a poor artist indeed who would try to capture the most ridiculous and carefree of the carnival figures with such somber paintings. It seems at least as likely to me that these two were stock figures that had some independent existence beyond the carnival context, and were incorporated into both the parades and into the tarot cards, perhaps with somewhat different intention in the two cases.
In the Tarocchi del Mantegna, the figure resembling the Visconti-Sforza Matto is a tattered old man leaning on a stick, with no feathers but accompanied by dogs. He is labeled Misero, meaning a person in poverty. Poverty, penitence, and Lent are of course related themes. Such a figure probably was used in carnival processions for comical effect, evolving into the white clown of the commedia dell'arte. But that need not oblige us to assume that the figure was introduced in the tarot pack simply to depict the carnival clown. The matto might have been introduced as a more general symbol of poverty, folly, or penitence.
Similarly, the origins of the Bagatto remain somewhat obscure. The corresponding figure in the Tarocchi del Mantegna is a artisan standing behind his tool bench. Moakley was unable to find an etymology for the words Bagatto or Bagatino, although she notes that in modern Milanese dialect the word has come to mean both a chatterbox and a cobbler. (This explains something I've been curious about for some time, namely the depiction of the Bagatto as a cobbler in 19th-century Milanese decks.) It would be interesting to know how far back each of these meanings might go. The word Bagatella, also an early name for this card, which Moakley does not mention, is the source of the French and English word "bagatelle", meaning a trifle, and--interestingly--a game of billiards (I can't keep from seeing that Visconti-Sforza Bagatto with his narrow stick with its tip protruding from his fingers on the table right next to those two round objects!) My dictionary suggests that the word derives ultimately from the Latin word for berry, presumably meaning a miniscule morsel, much as we use the word "peanuts". In his forthcoming book on for the New Minchiate Tarot, Brian Williams clarifies the etymological connection. The direct root of the word bagatella is apparently bacchetta, meaning a rod, stick, or wand. Bacchetta is in turn derived from bacca, meaning berry. In any case, the Bagatto/Bagatella/Bagatino is in all likelihood a person who uses a stick or wand--hence a conjurer.
Again, however, such a figure would not be found exclusively in carnival processions. There is no direct evidence that the Bagatto and Carnival King were ever one and the same, and one might presume that if the card were meant to depict the Carnival King per se, it might sometimes be referred to explicitly as such, which it never was.
Once again, I find myself facing the same persistent difficulty in interpreting Moakley's work. She has assembled an impressive set of tarot parallels, but parallels are not necessarily sources, and the distinction between the two possibilities is inadequately explored.
To be continued . . .