Pantheism and Trump XXI

Mabuse

Has anyone wondered if there was a pantheistic intent in the choice of subjects to be depicted on such early decks as the TdM?

In the Tarocchi game, the "World" is unbeatable and is one of the highest cards in terms of scoring. It is in effect a "God card"

on another note;
The Bagatto (Trump I) perhaps represents humankind; highly valued at least from our point of view, yet highly vulnerable. Homo Sapian is a tool using creature and we can see the "Magician's" tools on the table in front of him.

jmd

It would be quite stimulating to follow such train of thought and discussion.

In many ways, XXI may be viewed as Christ in Ascencion, as is also commonly depicted on numerous Romanesque and Lumiere ('Gothic') cathedrals, so do not see the necessary pantheism necessarily in the card.

The title, perhaps, suggests such in conjunction with the image: here is a God within the whole World.

kwaw

jmd said:
It would be quite stimulating to follow such train of thought and discussion.

In many ways, XXI may be viewed as Christ in Ascencion, as is also commonly depicted on numerous Romanesque and Lumiere ('Gothic') cathedrals, so do not see the necessary pantheism necessarily in the card.

The title, perhaps, suggests such in conjunction with the image: here is a God within the whole World.

Well the popesse show popesse, the emperor an emperor, pope a pope, hanged man a hanged man, devil a devil, etc, etc. So a card called 'mundi' that depicted 'god' would suggest an element of pantheism or monism, identifying 'god' with 'mundi'. So in which decks does the 'mundi' card show god?

Kwaw

Tarotphelia

kwaw said:
Well the popesse show popesse, the emperor an emperor, pope a pope, hanged man a hanged man, devil a devil, etc, etc. So a card called 'mundi' that depicted 'god' would suggest an element of pantheism or monism, identifying 'god' with 'mundi'. So in which decks does the 'mundi' card show god?

Kwaw

Does the Hanged Man show just a hanged man, or is it Odin? Is the Devil really a devil, or Cernunnos or Robin Goodfellow? Does the Magician represent one of the trickster gods? Is the sun Sol? Is the Moon Luna ? Is the Tower Thor ? Is the World Phanes?:

http://www.phanes.com/phanes.html

Just some things worth thinking about when discussing god and the tarot .

Parzival

kwaw said:
Well the popesse show popesse, the emperor an emperor, pope a pope, hanged man a hanged man, devil a devil, etc, etc. So a card called 'mundi' that depicted 'god' would suggest an element of pantheism or monism, identifying 'god' with 'mundi'. So in which decks does the 'mundi' card show god?

Excellent observation. And World may include the Harmony of all levels of being, rather than only the transcendent Divine. Neoplatonists thought of the World as a Unity of sense, soul, intelligence, and the One. Possibly there is Neoplatonic influence here.

DoctorArcanus

Mabuse said:
Has anyone wondered if there was a pantheistic intent in the choice of subjects to be depicted on such early decks as the TdM?

In the Tarocchi game, the "World" is unbeatable and is one of the highest cards in terms of scoring. It is in effect a "God card"

My interpretaion of this subject is:
the Visconti-Sforza world card represents the new Jerusalem, the World after this World.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. - Revelation 21,1-2

The Visconti-Sforza kind of iconography gave this card its name, but later representations are very different. Still I think they are derived from the Bible.

This passage suggests the kind of organization that can be seen in TDM:
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. - Revelation 7,1

I think it is possible to think of a continuous graphical tradition linking the Modena Phanes scuplture (II-III Century AD)

to a Greek Byzantin mosaic (V-VI Century)

to a French enamel Christ in Majesty (XII Century)

to le tarot de Jacques Vieville (XVII Century)

to later TDM decks and Waite Smith.

This is the interpretation suggested by Robert M. Place in his "Tarot History, Symbolism and Divination".

What I still can't figure out is the meaning of the Cary-Visconti world card.
Does it represent Fame (like the higher card in Minchiate)?
Or the Church?
Or is it one more quote from the Revelation 21? And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband

Marco

Yatima

Panentheism, Bruno, and New Jerusalem

You might be interested to connect these thoughts on Pantheism and New Jesrusalem with the threads "Tarot and Cosmology between Cusa, Ficino and Bruno" in this section and "XXI-Le Monde" in the Marseille-section.

Following Giordano Bruno, we would understand the World-card as cosmological identification of God and the World; following the apocalyptic image of the New Jerusalem, we would seek an eschatological identification (df. also I Kor 15:21).

There is, however another, a more process-oriented, position in philosophy, called Pan-en-theism, for which the identification of God and the World is always "on its way," so to say, but never does it mean a static category so that the World is "in" God "one" rather than to "be" God.

Given the neo-platonic, Plotinean, dynamics of the spheres of existence between God, the One, and the elements, this seems to me the more open and more congenial position to interpret the "hierarchical" dynamics of the trumps.

Yatima

venicebard

DoctorArcanus said:
My interpretaion of this subject is:
the Visconti-Sforza world card represents the new Jerusalem, the World after this World...

Yet this is not really 'after', but rather the 'here and now' once it has been transmuted.

I think it is possible to think of a continuous graphical tradition linking the Modena Phanes scuplture (II-III Century AD)

to a Greek Byzantin mosaic (V-VI Century)

to a French enamel Christ in Majesty (XII Century)

to le tarot de Jacques Vieville (XVII Century) ...

to later TDM decks and Waite Smith.

This is the interpretation suggested by Robert M. Place in his "Tarot History, Symbolism and Divination".

The 12th-century Christ appearing in the vulva (or whatever one calls that oval pointed above and below) has taurus and leo turned around—as if designed by someone unlearned—as does the Vieville, which is one of the reasons I can’t stand Vieville images for the most part and do not, myself, consider it Marseille (but then I reject Noblet as well, so I’m just incorrigible).

What I still can't figure out is the meaning of the Cary-Visconti world card.
Does it represent Fame (like the higher card in Minchiate)?
Or the Church?
Or is it one more quote from the Revelation 21? And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband

My suggestion: anima mundi? and what’s enclosed in the bubble represents what all these early ‘world through a porthole’ versions signify, namely physical location in the sense of the ‘here and now’, though it represents this in a transmuted state: to show what it can be. This is why, even though the images in the porthole never seem to look like a city (but rather a hamlet, or as here a couple of castles), I do credit the New Jerusalem interpretation, especially as there seem to be other aspects in which Revelations has influenced tarot imagery (e.g. Vieville LeSoleil, from the rider of the white horse in 19:11 of whom 19:19 says, “...gathered together to make war upon him that sat on the horse.”)

I like the Phanes connexion too: I associate LeMonde with Hebrew teyt (crossed circle, alchemical sign for the earth), whose later form apparently represents a serpent coiled and rearing.

DoctorArcanus

venicebard said:
My suggestion: anima mundi? and what’s enclosed in the bubble represents what all these early ‘world through a porthole’ versions signify, namely physical location in the sense of the ‘here and now’, though it represents this in a transmuted state: to show what it can be.

Anima Mundi is also the interpretation of Cary-Yale Visconti World card given by Robert M. Place in "Tarot History, Symbolism and Divination". Unfortunately, Place does not care about the lower part of the card: the landscape below the lady is not ever reproduced in his image of the card (Fig.40 pg. 163).

venicebard said:
This is why, even though the images in the porthole never seem to look like a city (but rather a hamlet, or as here a couple of castles), I do credit the New Jerusalem interpretation, especially as there seem to be other aspects in which Revelations has influenced tarot imagery (e.g. Vieville LeSoleil, from the rider of the white horse in 19:11 of whom 19:19 says, “...gathered together to make war upon him that sat on the horse.”)

Thank you for this quote from the Book of Revelation! In the next few days I plan to read it again. I still don't know it as well as I'd like to!

About the Visconti-Sforza card, I think that image is a convincing XV Century miniature of a city. Of course, it is not realistic by any modern standard, but:
- the image was painted by hand on a small piece of cardboard: it cannot be realistic;
- cities in the XV Century were completely enclosed by walls; Monte Riggioni still has its walls, see attachment; compared to that photograph, the Visconti Sforza card is not that different, I think;
- the style of the Visconti Sforza is still in part medieval; I compare the World card to an illustration of the New Jerusalem from the Cloister Apocalypse (Revelation).

Marco

Huck

... the far overlooked role of women in the genesis of Tarot ..

... Perhaps you know this joke about modern art:
"Some visitors discuss intensively the composition of some objects in the gallery, and develop various interpretations ... then suddenly the cleaning woman appears and takes her cleaning tools with her, leaving the puzzled visitors with the problem, where the considered art objects have disappeared to ..."

So all these deep interpretations about Tarot iconography do not really consider, who were the users of this cards ... and there is a humble observation. These cards were for high educated women, not for high educated men. High educated men played chess.

"Jerusalem" was likely attractive for male crusaders .... women are not male and women are not crusaders.

The Visconti-Sforza card shows two putti, which look like kids. Women love kids.
They point to or carry a city. The Livre de la cite des dames (1404-05)
was written by Christine de Pizan, fighting against various male dominances of her time.
http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/christin.html#anchor95654

The Iustitia of the 14 Bembo cards is not a common cardinal virtue Iustitia - there is a courting knight in the background. This seems to present a special female idea of justice, not identical to the usual male idea of it.

The triumphal chariot of the 14 Bembo cards - as that of the Cary-Yale and that of other Visconti-cards - is not led by a male, but by a female.

The negative cards - Fool and Traitor - are men, not women. Leaving them aside together with death (neutral, no gender) and judgment, then we've

MALE:
Magician
Emperor
Pope
Time

MIXED:
Love

FEMALE
Popess
Empress
Chariot
Justice
Fortuna - with male figures dancing around her

... then we've a female dominance in the deck (with thanks to the female charioteer).

It was a deck for women, not for men. Commissioned with a female eye, not a male. By Bianca Maria Visconti, not Francesco Sforza.

1.1.1441 - a situation dominated by young women, in modern eyes "girls" or "teenagers". Highstanding teenagers ... but teenagers. Female teenagers -not old crusaders. With marriage-dreams. With Garden-of-love-stories in their head. Waiting for the prince to come.

http://trionfi.com/0/d/

Pantheism and Trump XXI

Mabuse

jmd

kwaw

Tarotphelia

Parzival

DoctorArcanus

Yatima

venicebard

DoctorArcanus

Attachments

Huck