II La Papesse

Marseilles Decks -- II La Papesse

A couple of historical analogues have been suggested as models for the Lady Pope. The (probably apocryphal) Pope Joan and a Guglielma of Bohemia, supposedly a Visconti relative of the late 13th century, are both discussed by Rachel Pollack on page 29 of her "Complete Illustrated Guide."

But the Lady Pope has, since her first appearance, become a high priestess, and I wonder whether she was a high priestess before she was a pope. What I mean is that the archetype of the wise, powerful woman, possessed of immense and mysterious power, is embedded deeply in both the human psyche and the human past. The first known religions were goddess religions, and the first real rulers of organized societies were priestesses. The image predates the tarot.

Consider this from Robert Graves, the great British historian, cultural anthropologist, and anti-Jungian:

"The whole of neolithic Europe, to judge from surviving artifacts and myths, had a remarkably homogeneous system of religous ideas, based on worship of the many-titled mother goddess, who was also known in Syria and Libya.
"Ancient Europe had no gods. The great goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to provide her children with a father. Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch.
"Not only the moon, but (to judge from Hemera of Greece and Grainne of Ireland) the sun, were the goddess's celestial symbols. In earlier Greek myth, however, the sun yields precedence to the moon -- which inspires the greater superstitious fear, does not grow dimmer as the year wanes, and is credited with the power to grant or deny water to the fields."

(note: Farmers in many parts of the world still plant according to the phases of the moon.)

"The tribal Nymph, it seems, chose an annual lover from her entourage of young men, a king to be sacrificed when the year ended; making him a symbol of fertility, rather than the object of her erotic pleasure. His sprinkled blood served to fructify trees, crops, and flocks, and his flesh was torn and eaten raw by the Queen's fellow-nymphs -- priestesses wearing the masks of bitches, mares, or sows."

When I look at this card I see a representation of immense but inscrutable power. The Lady Pope knows the unspeakable secrets of the subconscious; and since they're unspeakable, she never speaks. She is the terrifying power of the moon, and intuition personified.

Dave B
(Catboxer)

I suspect that the Visconti Gugliemite is more truly applicable to the Visconti-Sforza decks than the Marseilles... and there is, I would suspect, sufficient historical evidence to suggest two things: firstly that some female leaders within Catholic orders may truly have been elected 'popesses' (without thereby implying that their worldly 'power' was equal to the male... irrespective of whether it should have been), and secondly, that a Visconti person was so elected.

With respect to the Pope Joan, I personally doubt that early Marseilles depictions of the card makes either direct or indirect connections to this. That there were documents which came out (such as the anti-papal Life and Death of Pope Joan, London, 1675) has undoubtedly made such connection inevitable. There are other images, however, which may possibly connect this card with depictions of the Virgin Mary.

It is also interesting that at least one other deck (the Dodal deck, of the Marseilles variety) does not name this card 'Popess', but La Pances (I had mentioned this before... here, on page 3). For those interested, it is viewable here.

I would like to see what catboxer and others (Ophiel and Diana, amongst others), have to say about some of the card's internal iconography... what about the open book, for example?

edited

Diana:

In the Visconti-Sforza deck it's a closed book. Also, the female pope doesn't avert her eyes in the Visconti-Sforza as she does in the Marseilles decks, but looks at the viewer.

Of the four "authority figure" cards in the early decks, she was the only "mover;" her position varied, and she ranked immediately below any of the other three.

I love Bembo's gorgeous Visconti-Sforza Popess. It's one of my favorite cards in my very favorite deck. I especially like
the Franciscan-style habit she wears.

I've enjoyed taking part in these discussions, because they help me clarify my thinking, and hopefully do the same for everybody. I'm beginning to think that possibly one person, or at the most two, were originally responsible for the content of the trumps. It may have been Bonifacio Bembo himself, or the member of the Visconti family most interested in the production of this new-style gaming deck, or both of them working together.

Dave

I tried to post twice yesterday, but Netscape crashed on me each time... quite uncharacteristic of the software!

Maybe part of this exactly illustrates what catboxer had said above about the nature of this card: 'When I look at this card I see a representation of immense but inscrutable power. The Lady Pope knows the unspeakable secrets of the subconscious; and since they're unspeakable, she never speaks. She is the terrifying power of the moon, and intuition personified'.

With regards to La Pances, I have usually taken it to be a mispelling characteristic enough of the period with homophones, in this case, 'La Pansee' (the thought(s)/the thinking),ie, reflection. For the purposes of historical correctness, however, Pance(s) is used in some mediaeval French texts in reference to the belly (I can only think of the correctness of this coloquial term).

What is interesting, to me at any rate, is that it is used specifically with reference to the Whale's belly in which Jonas spent time... clearly, in my view, as expression of initiation. In fact, one can see initiation chambers as time spent in the belly awaiting re-birth. In that sense, Pope Joan does become significant... but only, I would venture, as symbolic of the initiator into the spiritual world.

I'll want to add some comments about Silence and the book... and I really like what Diana has also said regarding the Tiara's position on the card... but I'll have to come back later.

I've been digging further into the possibility that this card is a very specific historical reference. It's entirely possible that the earliest versions of the Female Pope memorialized a real person, and that producers of later tarots could have simply carried forward the traditional sequence of the deck without knowledge of her original identity. It's situations like this that are responsible for the often cited "mystery" of the cards, but mystery only prevails so long as questions remain unanswered, and persistent research sometimes leads to the conclusion attributed to Jesus, that "There is nothing hidden which will not be revealed." There are three possibilites.

Pope Joan has already been discussed and pretty much rejected as the historical model for trump II. She was apocryphal for one thing, and secondly, depictions of her are often gruesome, emphasizing her martyrdom. Furthermore, there is nothing in any depiction of the Female Pope I've seen that is suggestive of motherhood.

Another possibility is Saint Brigid of Sweden. She was tremendously influential all over Europe and died not long before the appearance of the first tarots (1373). A great deal of her energies were devoted to ending the "Babylonian captivity" of the church in Avignon, and she apparently had enough clout to be admitted to the papal chamber there, where she harangued and browbeat a couple of popes, demanding that the See be returned to Rome. She was widely viewed as a Mother Teresa-type figure during her lifetime, canonized quickly after her death, and long remembered. But while she might have influenced the decision to include a female pope in the deck, I don't think Brigid was the model for this card, for reasons listed below.

The best candidate as a model for the Papesse, already alluded to by jmd, is Manfreda Visconti, who was elected Papesse of a heretical Milanese sect, the Guglielmites, late in the 13th century. She called herself Guglielma, after the sect's founder. The inquisition quickly descended on these people and she was burned in 1300. She is likely the historical model for the Female Pope because:

1. She was a Visconti, and I will argue (at length, some time) that tarot originated with the Visconti family. She was martyred about 150 years before tarot appeared, but Italian dynastic families have long memories.

2. The Visconti were Ghibellines, leaders of the anti-papal faction in Northern Italy, who favored the power of the Holy Roman Emperor over that of the Pope. The Female Pope can be interpreted as, in part, an anti-papal icon.

3. The Death card from a nearly extinct Visconti deck, the Lombard II (only four cards have survived) shows death dressed in a cardinal's robes and hat, with a speech balloon saying "Son Fine" emanating from his mouth. I believe that's "This is the end."
The card is openly critical of and hostile to the Holy See.

In addition, the Guglielmites appear to have been gnostically oriented, but I don't want to get into either the possible influences of gnosticism here, or the possible relationship among the Guglielmites, gnosticism, and influence of the Catharist heresy, often cited as a tarot influence.

These are more or less the same conclusions reached by Gertrude Moakley in her famous book, and by Tom Tadfor Little. Please see his excellent article on this card at his site, www.tarothermit.

(Catboxer)

I agree that the TarotHermit site includes much useful information... I hadn't visited it for a while. For those who couldn't connect using the above link, try this one.

In my mind, there is no doubt that the Visconti-Sforza deck has their own family inllustrated therein. The question remains open, however, as to whether she is the root of the depiction in other decks. If one assumes (...or concludes from extant card evidence) that the Visconti-Sforza is the earliest or proto-type, then certainly it would seem that the Guglielmite Visconti also is... I personally doubt, however, that this is the case.

As Diana as significantly pointed out, it is the only card in the series to have a book. Yet the book was a reasonably common depiction in early iconography.

Also, and as mentioned, she does not appear to represent motherhood. Could she not, therefore, represent the Virgin state. Here, of course, the Cathar parfait becomes connected easily in our minds. I tend to agree with some of catboxer's implications, however: one does not need to turn to the Cathars for gnostic influences... it was prevalent enough outside the LangueD'Oc region of the Pyrenees. The Guglielmites, as well as the Bogomils, were common enough.

Catboxer's mention of St Brigid is, of course, also highly interesting, and I also concur with him that she is not the card's progenetrix.

...and here is where I tumble my king if this thread were a historical chess game! I am, after all, limited by the same published sources as many of us have access to.

But could the figure incorporated be so included not because there was an earlier Visconti to be illustrated, but because the deck's impulse demanded such representation? Here, the Visconti-Sforza artists would have included a figure properly suited to the task.

When we come to the Pope, I'll mention again an early depiction which shows a very similar figure which properly depicts God the father with a Jew and a Christian at his feet. Could not the Popess here also 'properly' represent, then, the Virgin? There is at least one Missal (though of much more recent origin) which depicts the Virgin Mary is near similar iconography...

Though the book is open, it 'speaks' only to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear (as Diana has pointed out indirectly). It therefore remains silent, and yet reveals. The book, then, like nature, remains a theophany. As a theophany, what better way is there to depict such, then through the figure of a female initiate or theophany herself, named in at least the Dodal deck Pances, and depicting the internal learning which has to occur for revelation of the spiritual order to be made clear.

Her right foot on what appears to be the wheel from a spindle only adds to the overall impressive aspect of this card. The weaving of the world goes on... and the way to unveil (the veil is open behind her shoulders) the mysterious weaving is through the open book, for which one must develop an open eye and ear.

The book

edited

Diana and jmd:

Thank you both for opening my mind. For one who tends to get bogged down in historical minutiae, this kind of conversation is absolutely essential if learning, reflecting, and expansion are to continue.

Jmd, your point about continuity is extremely well taken. Even if the author(s) of the Visconti decks had a historical figure in mind as the model of the Pappesse, subsequent authors of subsequent decks may not have made -- probably did not make the same association, or even know of it. Your suggestion that the Virgin Mary is the analogue for the Marseilles Pappesse or Pances is more than just possible, it's likely. It makes more sense than any other suggestion I've heard.

I think we agree that the trumps represent cultural and philosophical ideas and assertions. Whether they're a systematic exposition of a body of teaching or simply a loose collection -- cultural soup if you will -- might be debatable. In either case, considering the significance and universality of the cult of the Virgin in the medieval and Renaissance eras, it's hard to conceive of any philosophical vehicle of the time, systematic or otherwise, that would lack a reference to her.

The Virgin is more than just a Christian symbol; she contains echoes of the triple moon goddess and is a link to paganism. In Mexico, the link is open and blatant, and the Virgin of Guadalupe is a hybrid figure incorporating aspects of Tonantzin, a female Aztec lunar deity. The name "Guadalupe" is a corruption of the Nahuatl "Coatlaxupe," the crusher of serpents, and Tonantzin was a snake-killer. It upsets Christians to hear it, but I believe the link between the European Mary and the old Innana-Ishtar-Isis-Attart is just as strong. And if that's a spindle under the Pappesse's foot, the link is reinforced by association with the three fates of ancient Greece who measured, spun, and cut the thread of each individual life.

Most certainly, the Pappesse is a virgin, not a mother. That role is reserved for trump III. In addition, I see her as the subconscious, not the conscious mind; the ocean, not the sky or land; the wisdom of silence, not the chatter of philosophy. I think her book has all our names in it.

A la prochaine,

With regards to the colour of the book, Diana is correct that in the Grimaud/Marteau edition, the book is the same colour as the Popesse's face, hence flesh colour. However, in the Conver, Dodal and Noblet versions, the book is clearly a different colour, usually more reminiscent of gold/yellow.

Camoin, on his site discussing their 1998 Marseilles deck, mentions that the number of colours used in the early decks was ten, but that this was reduced with later printing techniques, and so the gold/yellow and the flesh, which were clearly distinguished, became similar.

With regards to the Virgin, some of the small old churches in the Pyrenees region have absolutely wonderful depictions of her within the knave (possibly remnant of Cathar influences... and undoubtedly Isis type 'echoes'). To my mind, this Isian-Virgin influence is quite there in the card... even though in a transformed state.

With regards to carnal knowledge, I do not find this in any way contradictory. Assuming that the book is a revelation of carnal knowledge, then reflection on what this implies is quite revealing, for in the sexual act, it is not the procreative future aspect which is at hand, but the blessed union of the couple, in an ecstatic transformed state (hence part of the reason why sexual imagery can so easily be used in Kabbalistic explications).

Union with the Divine can therefore both have this carnal metaphor, but one must maintain innocence-purity-virginity, thereby allowing the state to reveal that which was hidden, and render the veil asunder.

With regards to the Spinning wheel, I find this 'clear' only in the Dodal deck, where the Popesse's foot rests upon it (it is also reminiscent of a spider's web). I suppose that here one could also make further allusions to both positive and not-so-positive symbolic interpretations. One must remember that it is at her foot, and that, except for the reference in Revelation in which the Moon is at the foot of the Woman in the pangs of childbirth (clearly not a reference relevant here), what is underfoot is usually more what one wants to quell (eg, the Dragon under St Michael's foot).

Another aspect which I find quite astounding with various depictions of this card is that the skin is white in a number of Marseilles decks (not the Grimaud/Marteau)... and that this is not repeated for any other card, not even the dimembered body parts in XIII. Though this could be explained by the depiction of beauty in the middle ages, I also wonder if it isn't indicating again purity.

I've attached the1650 Noblet Popess, as the Dodal has already been attached above (it is worth-while also noting that in this early deck, the whole figure is within its frame).