Andrea del Sarto's "Hanged Man" sketches

Good point Ross.

To hang by neck meant pretty quick death... a couple of minutes, no? To hang by the foot, I'm not sure "how" you would die. Do you're lungs collapse? It's so gruesome to consider.

I'm also struck to remember the TdM images with the tongue sticking out. I wonder if that is an actual symptom?

An iconographic difference is with the TdM with what is *possibly* the hands hanging down behind the back. Physically this would be impossible wouldn't it unless the arms are broken? As Rosanne points out earlier, there are also early images with the Hanged Man holding bags. What of that?

Hi, Ross,

Ross G Caldwell said:

Sorry to answer for Debra...

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Ah, thanks.

There are a number of places on their travels where I get rather confused about the layout, and forget where we are or have been, or that information from one passage needs to be considered in reading another.

mjh

Hi, Ross,

Ross G Caldwell said:

And how long until death? Crucifixion could last a week, dying more from dehydration than anything else, and then collapsing and suffocating. I can't imagine one-legged hanging lasting that long, but I have no idea.

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I don't either, but the reference, "as long as he lives let him be given food and drink", suggests that it would be more than a few hours. Theories and speculation about the importance of symbolism are fun, but we can be certain that prolonging the ordeal was a crucial element of the punishment.

Best regards,
Michael

Thanks Ross and Kwaw(I wish I had your googling skills and your library) and Robert you just made me realize why the 'one foot'. With Ross's answer about the trumping it falls into place now- and I have read all those upchucking books on Crime and Punishment for naught. Today we say "You're as good as dead". Ross is right when slaughtering animals both feet are strung up- but when they are dead you hang them by one hock so you can turn them for trimming- so the one foot is saying "you are already dead mate- you are dead meat already"- the shaming or the actual hanging is just a formality. By the way the consensus is that hanging by the neck without drop is slow throttling (and has been known to be survived) and can take over 24 hours- because the neck is not broken. The upside down is longer, but brain dead quicker. The gross details are is that the artery in the groin gives way with the broken pelvis from writhing- I find it very hard not to make judgements when reading history and leave events be as described- but the Romans were a cruel race in the main.

Sorry I deflected the original intention of the thread- but I see little point in putting up an item (shame paintings in this case) and going oh and ahh and not saying anything- when they do not make sense to me in the context of Tarot. I also think 'symbolism' is not just a case of speculating fun- as it seems to be at the heart of Tarot. We all speculate about the veracity of written history, or the bias- and speculation does not detract away from the History forum in my opinion. Otherwise one could just spend time writing up from a book and turn this place into dry rot.~Rosanne

Rosanne said:

Thanks Ross and Kwaw(I wish I had your googling skills and your library) and Robert you just made me realize why the 'one foot'. With Ross's answer about the trumping it falls into place now- and I have read all those upchucking books on Crime and Punishment for naught. Today we say "You're as good as dead". Ross is right when slaughtering animals both feet are strung up- but when they are dead you hang them by one hock so you can turn them for trimming- so the one foot is saying "you are already dead mate- you are dead meat already"- the shaming or the actual hanging is just a formality.

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Very interesting Rosanne, thanks. I didn't think of that last part, never having slaughtered or even strung up an animal, dead or alive (although I've seen it), but I have a good imagination and I cook, so I can see how the one leg would allow, after death, for the trimming. Your analogy makes sense. The practice is ancient, and the "symbolism" in it, the psychological meaning behind it, is probably what you are saying - "you're dead meat".

Sorry I deflected the original intention of the thread- but I see little point in putting up an item (shame paintings in this case) and going oh and ahh and not saying anything- when they do not make sense to me in the context of Tarot. I also think 'symbolism' is not just a case of speculating fun- as it seems to be at the heart of Tarot. We all speculate about the veracity of written history, or the bias- and speculation does not detract away from the History forum in my opinion. ~Rosanne

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Nothing wrong with speculation, since you have to speculate to begin imagining possible avenues of research, but when speculation has a clear purpose or a focus it gets quicker to the bottom of things. We all have an imagination, and love to branch out, but the main purpose of the History forum is to focus on a single object at a specific place and time - in this case, an image in game of cards in a specific place in a sequence, and how it might be explained by reference to information from the middle of the 15th century in Italy (or whichever deck from whatever place or time we're talking about). This is the focus. When we focus on that, we often come away thinking we've actually learned something about the history of the tarot, and maybe even understood why the inventor put the image in that place in the sequence - and why it would have been clear to the inventor's contemporaries.

At least, in the case of the Hanged Man, we know *exactly* where he goes, and there's no room at all for doubt - unlike many other images and positions.

Nice insight, thanks.

Ross

Sometimes the intuition of an artist can remind us of the most obvious of things. I found this quote in an essay about Salman Rusdie's book _Shame_:

"In Salman Rushdie's Shame, Omar Khayyam Shakil, the most important character in the book, . . . considered himself a "peripheral man . . . born and raised in the condition of being out of things" (p.10). Not only did he feel that he was living at the edge of the world, he also perceived that he had grown up between "twin eternities" (p.17) existing in a kind of limbo between Heaven and Hell. He had an inverted sense of things from the moment of his birth, when, hanging upside down, his first vision was of the "inverted summits" that he later named the "Impossible Mountains" (p.14)."
http://www.writebetweenthelines.com/ws_home/theory/w2_judgement_day.htm

It seems he plays with images of inversion throughout this novel.

The shame in the title is the result of getting a girl pregnant which reminds me that, in Spanish the word for embarassed and pregnant is the same. I'm not sure about Italian dialects, but the helpless state at birth (descending headfirst) is implied in the quotes from Rushdie above.

I know this is not historical but I can't help thinking that there is a certain poetic quality to the Italian shame symbolism.

Mary

I believe Michael & Ross have mentioned Evelyn S. Welch's _Art in Renaissance Italy_ but I don't see their quoting this:

"In 1396 Milan's city statues banned depictions on the town hall: 'Since certain images are painted on the walls of the Palazzo Nuovo of the commune of Milan, representing false witnesses and corrupt notaries, merchants and money changers, and although they seem to be made for the purpose of confounding and defaming frauds, yet they disgrace and defame not only the authors of the deceits themselves, but also the whole city in the eyes of visitors and foreigners; for when the latter see these images, they imagine and are almost convinced that the majority of citizens can barely be trusted, and are involved in great falsehoods; and so it is decreed that all these pictures be removed, and that no one should be painted in future.' p. 218.

Welch further notes that by the mid-fifteenth century Milan was still using the immagini infamanti, although they 'had shifted from illustrating financial shame to illustrating political shame.'

Fame and Infamy : A sting to Virtue

kwaw said:

Acts 26:14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
King James Version 1611

"Yet it is right to respect also the country where I was born, since this is the divine law, and to obey all her commands and not oppose them, or as the proverb says kick against the pricks. For inexorable, as the saying goes, is the yoke of necessity."
Emperor Julian Orations 246B

The word translated 'prick' is a greek word meaning sting, prick, (ox) goad:

Dionysus: I would sacrifice to the god rather than kick against his spurs in anger, a mortal against a god.

(Bacchae 792-796)

Pindar:

[81] A crafty citizen is unable to speak a compelling word among noble men; and yet he fawns on everyone, weaving complete destruction.3 I do not share his boldness. Let me be a friend to my friend; but I will be an enemy to my enemy, and pounce on him like a wolf, [85] treading every crooked path. Under every type of law the man who speaks straightforwardly prospers: in a tyranny, and where the raucous masses oversee the state, and where men of skill do. One must not fight against a god, [89] who raises up some men's fortunes at one time, and at another gives great glory to others. But even this [90] does not comfort the minds of the envious; they pull the line too tight and plant a painful wound in their own heart before they get what they are scheming for. It is best to take the yoke on one's neck and bear it lightly; kicking against the goad [95] makes the path treacherous. I hope that I may associate with noble men and please them.
(Pythian 2, translated by T. K. Hubbard)

Emperor Julian c.350 ad:
"Yet it is right to respect also the country where I was born, since this is the divine law, and to obey all her commands and not oppose them, or as the proverb says kick against the pricks. For inexorable, as the saying goes, is the yoke of necessity."
(Orations 246B)

Kwaw

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AIGISTHOS.
Thou such things soundest -- seated at the lower
Oarage to those who rule at the ship's mid-bench?
Thou shalt know, being old, how heavy is teaching
To one of the like age -- bidden be modest!
But chains and old age and the pangs of fasting
Stand out before all else in teaching, -- prophets
At souls'-cure! Dost not, seeing aught, see this too?
Against goads kick not, lest tript-up thou suffer!
Aeschylus, Agamemnon

GETA.
I came to experience it, I know that. I'm quite sure that I was forsaken by my good Genius, who must have been angry with me.(74)
2 I began to oppose them at first; but what need of talking? As long as I was trusty to the old men, I was paid for it in my shoulder-blades. This, then, occurred to my mind: why, this is folly to kick against the spur.(78)
3 I began to do every thing for them that they wished to be humored in.

Ge.
Mihi usus venit, hoc scio:
Memini relinqui me Deo irato meo.
Coepi adversari primo. Quid verbis opus est?
Seni fidelis dum sum, scapulas perdidi.
Da. Venere in mentem mili istaec; "Namque inscitia est,
Adversum stimulum calces?"
P. Terentius Afer, Phormio, or The Scheming Parasite (ed. Henry Thomas Riley)

In later decks at least, such as the Belgian and Vieville, perhaps there is a relationship between infamy and fama as a spur to virtue.

In the Belgian pattern
XIIII · LA TEMPERENCE
Temperance

Temperance holds a jug in one hand pouring liquid into a jug on the ground, in the other she holds a [butterfly headed?] sceptre [the Bodet looks like it is topped by a winged dildo Or possibly a palm branch]. She has a banner that reads Fama Sol, as Ross has previously noted Alciato 1543 calls the 14th card Fama:

Mundus habet primas, croceis dein Angelus alis:
Tum Phoebus, luna, & stella, cum fulmine daemon:
Fama necem, Crux antesenem, fortuna quadrigas:
Cedit amor forti & justo, regemque sacerdos:
Flaminicam regina praeit queis caupo propinat
Omnibus, extremò stultus discernitur actu."

The World has first place, then the Angel with golden wings:
Next Phoebus, the Moon, and the Star, with lightning, the demon:
Fame (before) death, the Cross before the old man, fortune (before)
the chariot:
Love cedes to the strong and the just; the priest precedes the king,
And the queen the Flaminica, and the innkeeper passes the cup
To All; the fool is set apart, outside of the sequence.

The Vieville too shows the inscription SOL FAMA on this card.

So we have infamy (in the form of the hanged man) and fame (identified with the figure of temperance) on either side of death. Fama here triumphing over death, and against the idea of the hanged man kicking againts the prick/goad/sting, we have also Fama as the sting/prick/goad to virtue:

From The Iconologia of Cesare Ripa

"Hesiodus proves, in the beginning of his book of the works and days, that a strife to honor and a good name is very honorable; because by this strife, the virtuous seem to strive with those who run with them, and seems to have a little advantage of him; hence comes the proverb: "Figulus figulum adit", "It is the one beggar's woe, that he sees the other give." And this we see amongst all artists of one Trade, how virtuous soever they be, that the one envies the other. This we see also among the Learned, that the one lessens and dispises another's work, for they envy the good name of their virtuous Countrymen; and it happens often, that they praise those, after they are dead, whom in their lifetime they have dispised. The student being moved through a certain envy of honor, which is occasioned in him by the sting of an honorable name, desiring to excell above all others and to be held the supreme above all others, and this makes him moil and toil to arrive at all the signs of perfection.
The hieroglyphic figure of the good fame is the Trumpet, signifying renown and a good name, saith Pierius. For the same animates the soldiers, and awakens them out of their sleep. The same does the Trumpet of a good fame, for she awakens a virtuous mind of the sleep of laziness, and causes them to stand always upon sentry, being willing to make a good progress in their exercises to get an [eternal] name of honor. The same does also the Trumpet among the soldiers, inflames their minds and makes them long for the Battle. The Trumpet of a good fame and honor, inflames also the mind with a sting of virtue; wherefore Plutarch speaks thus of moral virtue: "The lawgivers occasion in the cities love of honor and envy, but against the enemies they use Trumpets and flutes, to kindle the flame of wrath and desire of fighting." And certainly there is nothing that kindles the mind more to virtue than the Trumpet of fame and honor, and that especially in young men.
The crown, or garland, and palm adorned with Tassels, is a figure of the reward of virtue, by which the virtuous stand in a continual war and envy."

In _Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religion_ by Jonathan Smith, he talks about the upside down crucifixion of Peter, quoting H Rahner in _Greek Myths and Christian Mystery_ -- it 'is a symbol of the fall of the first man before the creation of the world, for he falls into sin headlong.' Smith suggests this points to the Gnostic "primal inversion" - the fall of primordial man into the realm of Nature, (through his fall the First Man reversed the good order of the good creator deity and is responsible for the world's present evil condition).

It seems to me that the phrase "he falls into sin headlong" might be part of the medieval symbolism - if we can find a source in medieval writings for this theme. Dante, of course, used the symbolism of upside downness as symbolic punishment in Inferno.

Teheuti said:

...I can't help thinking that there is a certain poetic quality to the Italian shame symbolism.

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There is, very much. The immagini infamanti were always accompanied by inscriptions, and could be considered a poetic form in themselves (much as reputed artists were commissioned, presumably because they could make life-like depictions, as was insisted on by Pius II in Michael's quote about his burning Malatesta in effigy).

Ortalli gives a few samples on pp. 47-48 (and passim) - nothing profound about them, particularly - "just desserts".

For the shame painting of the Duke of Athens expelled from Florence, 1344 -

"Avaricious as well as cruel and a traitor,
Lustful, injust and perjurer,
My State was never at peace".

All of his allies were represented on the Palace of the Podestà with their own verses, Ortalli notes.

In 1391 in Siena, there were no less than 140 verses for the images of 27 rebels painted on the Public Palace.

In 1440 in Florence, for the shame paintings after the battle of Anghiari, eleven quatrains were written by Antonio Buffone, aka Antonio di Mattia del Meglio (Ortalli doesn't provide examples).

For Bonaccorso di Lapo di Giovanni (presumably in Florence) in 1388:

"Haughty, greedy, traitor, liar,
Lustful, ingrate and superb cheater,
I am Bonaccorso di Lapo Giovanni."

Then some random ones -

"You, who gaze on these paintings,
Admire me, who, because of avarice,
Have betrayed with great injustice".

"You who read, look on these verses,
Read mine and that it should be clear
That, to better wrong
And to betray my community,
I took the opposite path to that it was expecting."

"I am, of mister Rinaldo, the good Ormanno
Who hangs beside my traitor of a father."

"You, your brain has taken off"

"To better fill your throat"

"When the father chews the gum, it's the son
Whose teeth stick together."

"Even if Siena was only made of macaroni,
And the mountain of grated cheese,
I would not get a single bit
With my profession
Which has brought me so much shame."

"I am the son of a baker and I had the gall
To rise up to destroy this city."

"Villains aren't in the habit
Of dancing with citizens."

Interesting study, this would be, to collect as many as possible.

Ross