The Hanged Man... death of a Jew in Christian lands?

Hi Frank

Frank Hall said:

Let me express appreciation for the directness and courage in this statement. It's a question to me of how historically speculative we want to go, or how much we keep face-to-face with the Image that calls for present communion/interpretation.

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We've been friends now for some time (I'm "Peter" from... ),
and so your generous compliment is truly appreciated by me,
as I have come to know you as a fine gentleman and scholar.

Frank Hall said:

My limited understanding tells me that "Le Pendu" originates in 15th century Italian Tarocchi, as a "Traitor."

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I found the deck that has the murder by hammer card
often called "The Traitor" (with a good image and text):

by Andrea Vitali of Rome
Mitelli's Tarocchino c.1660-65
Giuseppe Maria Mitelli

In (Mitelli's) tarot, the thirteenth trump features the Traitor (which corresponds to the Hanged Man of northern tarots). Mitelli chose to depict the subject as a man with a large hammer, on the point of slaying from the back a second sleeping figure. This proves a connection to the 15th century tarots used in Ferrara and Venice, in which the same trump was also known as the Traitor.

Whether the Hanged Man derived or not from the original Traitor - in some cultures, traitors and debtors were hung head down as a form of punishment - has been often debated. However, no evident trace of the latter subject is found in any of the tarot patterns known as of the 17th century: even in modern editions of (Mitelli's) tarot this personage is now featured as a man hung by one leg.

http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards38.htm

Frank Hall said:

In fact, in the Minchiate, its very title is "Traitor."

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Card XII of the Anitche Minchiate Etruria (1725) features
and untitled Le Pendu, which some consider to be female.

click on image here
click on for Google 'translation' here
regular link here

Frank Hall said:

Ultimately, though, a Tarot Image has a historic background like a poem, such as a haiku or sonnet...

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I'd like to add my agreement to the supportive
comments of the others above, and also say:

When will we see more of your poetry here?
Your prose approaches flight at times ~ and
some verses would be a wonderful treat too!

Warm regards, Fulgour

Thief

I understand from a book that I have that another earlier name for the Hanged Man was "The Thief". In medieval Italy it was traditional for crooks and embezzlers to be hanged by one foot. Other depictions of this card show money falling out of bags that he is holding. Perhaps instead of this meaning that he has given up wordly goods, it represents the thief losing his ill-gotten gains.

In about 1410 the lover of Queen Giovanna II was hanged by his feet for having an affair with her on the orders of her husband Giacomo. This happened in Italy. In 1419 Giacomo fell out of favour with the italian court and returned to his home country of France! See where i am going with this?? I understand that some of the earlier tarots came from Italy and France and it appears that hanging by the feet or one foot (for thieves and embezzlers) was quite common.

In my new conver tarot I have had a good look at his face and it looks a bit miserable to me. He doesn't have a pious look or serence look on his face. It looks like a strained look. Not sure what this means, but these are my first thoughts on this card.

Love Fluffy
xx

Part of the 'problem' I have for a long time faced is of the ongoing consistency of the representation of this card.

Certainly it was known in northern Italian regions, but until this broader reference in the hanging of certain individuals, each reference seemed to suggest that it was limited to Northern Italy - and mentioned the same in a post in 2002 on XII - Le Pendu.

Robert O'Neill also shows a number of similar images in his wonderful exploration on the iconology of this card (which is worth re-visiting from time to time), located at Tarot.com.

The 'problem' was, for myself at any rate, not in any symbolic interpretation that may be made of the image, nor of its numerous wonderful impact, but how it could have been retained in the Marseille pattern if such hangings were constrained to northern Italian areas (even if some of these were under French rule at times, or even if some of these were visited by French individuals in either pilgrimage or business).

Having the image suddenly presented as an event that was generally more broadly known, and therefore also considered, opens the otherwise strange retention of the image. To further have it as perhaps a far more regular occurance than expected, and further of the suffering having to be endured within a community that may also have been instrumental in the stabilisation of the Marseille pattern, makes of the find something which, for me at any rate, explains the need to have the card within the sequence - more so than 'simply' its relation to the northern Italian depiction of 'Traitor' or its iconographic similarity to Lamed, each of which of course also play into the construct.

The question, for myself at any rate, is not solely historical, but consider the historical as informing also the internal and intrinsic structure of the whole.

Frank Hall said:

My limited understanding tells me that "Le Pendu" originates in 15th century Italian Tarocchi, as a "Traitor." In fact, in the Minchiate, its very title is "Traitor." Thus, the original intention is that of someone who significantly breaks the civil law/s and receives maximum punishment.

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Hi Frank

In which 15th century decks, tarocchi or minchiate, Italian or otherwise, is it specifically called 'traitor'?

Thanks
Kwaw

As most cards of the 15th and 16th century did not have names on them the names are derived from listings in textual sources:

1] Lo impichato The Hanged Man Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis, late 15th century [c.1480-1500]

2] Traditore Traitor Pomeran 'Triomphi' poem. 1534

3] Crux Cross Alciato 1543*

4] Il Traditore The Traitor G. Bertoni 'Poesie' 1550.

5] Il Traditore The TraitorG. Susio poem, 1570.

6] L'impiccato The hanged man Garzoni, 'La Piazza Universale' 1587

7] Le Pendu The Hanged Man La Maison Academique contenant les jeux, 1659.

Then we have the titles on a card:

8] Jacques Vievil c.1650 IIX PENDU [card titles on ace of coins and two of cups]

9] Parisian tarot cards 17th centtury XII LE PANDVT

10] Pierre Madenie 1709 IIX LE PENDV

11] Francois Heri 1718 IIX LE PENDV


I am not sure but I don't think the name 'traitor' actually appears on a card until late 18th, early 19th century in the Tarocchini of Bologna and Minchiate of Venice? Anyone know where the title 'thief' is used? Any other titles beside, hanged man, traitor, cross, thief?


sources:

Kaplan Vol. II
*post from Ross G. Caldwell in a post to TarotL

Kwaw

The Hanged Man ...

kwaw said:

Hi Frank

In which 15th century decks, tarocchi or minchiate, Italian or otherwise, is it specifically called 'traitor'?

Thanks
Kwaw

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Robert Place makes mention of this in his new book, The Tarot, History, Symbolism, and Divination , under his consideration of "The Hanged Man", pp 148-149. He states:"...in the Minchiate and some early lists of the trumps this card is labeled the Traitor." Perhaps I am mistaken as to his accuracy here. ( Berti's and Gonardi's Visconti Tarots guidebook refers to the Hanged Man as called " the Traitor " during Renaissance time.) Incidentally, John Opsopaus, in his Pythagorean Tarot, p.136, traces the root of "Pendu" to "Pendens", participle of "pendeo", meaning "to hang", but also meaning "to be posted (e.g.,as a criminal), to hang over a void, to be in a suspended state, to be impending [as with "impending doom"], and to be uncertain...". He adds :"These are the senses in which our Traitor is hanged." Professor Opsopaus considers the "punishment of the traitor" as "the stripping of the ego of its dignity." The traitor is "the daring agent who creates opposition to the status quo " (pp.138,143.) In the broad historic and human context , this makes sense, doesn't it ? So, to me, Hanged Man is Traitor. Additional historic roots will deepen our limited insight, as will symbolic analogies.

Frank Hall said:

The traitor is "the daring agent who creates opposition to the status quo " (pp.138,143.) In the broad historic and human context , this makes sense, doesn't it ? So, to me, Hanged Man is Traitor. Additional historic roots will deepen our limited insight, as will symbolic analogies.

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I am with the humanist group, not traitor but martyr. But both I think link to the 'daring agent who creates opposition to the status quo'. And to me, it is as you say 'the broad and human context' that makes sense. We share a 'present', as much as our interpretation of the past may differ.

Historically I feel that the 'broad and human context' is founded upon a religious reformist tendency rooted in the renaissance hellenistic revival reflected in the rise of spiritual alchemy, hermetic hieroglyphics, the reactivation of the feminine divine, the zodiacal man and all those things as a modern day occultist the modern day 'card game' historian ridicules and mocks.

Card game historians laugh at such, but question their paradigm and it is on pretty shaky ground; they demand a limited interpretation of multivalent symbolism [a limitation not to be found within the place and time of the accepted origins of tarot], expect we accept the limited context of their model of interpretation to blind us to the actual imagery; and deny any obvious platonic. hermetic, alchemical or astrological associations in fear that allowing such would rest them from the comfort of an 'orthodox' [unmeaningful non-symbolic] model that has no historical reality.

Kwaw

So what do people think of Alciato's description of the card as 'Crux' cross, personally I find this description quite intriguing; what do you think?

Kwaw

Frank Hall said:

It's a question to me of how historically speculative we want to go, or how much we keep face-to-face with the Image that calls for present communion/interpretation.

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No present communion or interpretation is free from historical association; we are not to that extent indulging in historical speculation as much as reflection upon the 'present' interpretation that the image calls to mind and the root of our associations. In the practice of such reflection we may discover more associations that will deepen our ability to call forth 'present' meaning in the future.

Kwaw

The Hanged Man...

Card game historians laugh at such, but question their paradigm and it is on pretty shaky ground; they demand a limited interpretation of multivalent symbolism [a limitation not to be found within the place and time of the accepted origins of tarot], expect we accept the limited context of their model of interpretation to blind us to the actual imagery; and deny any obvious platonic. hermetic, alchemical or astrological associations in fear that allowing such would rest them from the comfort of an 'orthodox' [unmeaningful non-symbolic] model that has no historical reality.

Kwaw[/QUOTE]

This is profoundly correct and parallels those literary experts who only see -isms and biographical facts instead of what writers' works directly communicate in "multivalent symbolism," for instance, Goethe and Hugo, to name but two greats with hermetic/kabbalistic profundities often summarily dismissed. To be non-symbolic is to be non-psychic. Of course, some historic grounding is necessarily human, too. The "Hanged Man" has manifold symbolic and historic dimensions, limitless it seems.