XVI - La Maison Diev

catboxer:
thats good to know, i myself didnt know what tower is it
but i like it, and i have several images of it, which i've also used in the moon and maybe in future cards as well.

diana:
im glad you liked the card
the deck is only in quite initial phases, but i've uploaded the cards i've finished so far to this page.

Supletion, I was going to suggest that you may be interested in participating in the Tarot Deck Creation Study Group, but see that you have already done so!

By all means, complete the project... you have a good eye for essential details! I'm sure catboxer will agree that there is a certain sense of both ownership and deeper appreciation when one completes one's own deck - even if, as in my case, one never uses them, or would radically alter them later.

catboxer, I tend to agree with you that, since the New York events of the 11th September, an aspect of the Tower card has certainly been pictorially manifested in the worst possible form. For me, this is also clearly a depiction of an aspect of the Tower of Babel, with many obvious differences. In both cases, however, the events are an aspect of what happens when humans take into their own hands that which properly belongs to higher spiritual powers: one gets over-shadowed by forces which one does not understand. In the case of the Babel event, in the very construction of the Tower, presuming that spiritual heights can be reached materially; and in the New York event, presuming that one has the Will of God!

I'll also take this opportunity to mention that the Babel Tower depiction in Cavendish's The Tarot is not the attachment previously made, but a wonderful square-looking Tower from the Bedford Book of Hours.

Attached is the (restored) 1701 Dodal version.

The House of God

The title of this card in many French decks, Le Maison-Dieu, the House of God, seems to generate a lot of heat. Some people think that it was originally a truncated Le Maison Diev(le), the house of the Devil, but devil is usually diable in French. In the Paris Tarot, the card is Le Fouldre, the Lightning. But no lightning seems to be depicted on the image; it rather shows a demon drummer drumming the damned into the gaping jaws of Hell. This is a familiar mediæval illustration.

I think that the name may have been changed by someone who re-interpreted the card to depict the Temple of Jerusalem: the original House of God. In Matthew 27:51-54 it talks about how when Jesus died, the curtains of the Temple were split, with earthquakes, and apparitions of the dead wandering. I suspect that someone in France saw the image and related to this Bible, and that's how it got changed from "Tower" to "House of God" in Marseilles.

The 1JJ tarot might preserve an alternative tradition in this regard too. It shows the Tower as a much less vertical building; it looks more like the Alamo than a part of a castle. The 1JJ tower makes a much more suitable Temple than the Marseilles tower. Of course, it's notorious that church steeples were the buildings most likely to attract lightning in the pre-skyscraper world. This too would make a lightning-struck House of God seem appropriate.

Hebrews 10:19-20 et. seq. speaks of how the act of rending the veil gives us direct access to the divine, and how the old law of sacrificial rituals is superseded. This might make for a more positive spin on perhaps the most disturbing image in the deck.

I forgot this until recently.
In Florence, 1494, gates and guard towers fell.
France invaded Italy, coming from Milan with the latest innovation: about 200 lightweight cannons. Sometime around then or just before, great families had a height restriction put on their fortress-like towers in their newly-built palaces within the city walls. The uproar was about King Charles, who was related through his mother's family to the royal house of Naples: he was coming through Italy to claim the crown from the family within Naples.
It was said that from then on, practically every French ruler, including Napolean, invaded and had wars with Italian territories. Italian dukes and princes never felt safe again and their alliances with each other and other countries tore the erstwhile 'balance of power' in Italy into civil conflict and wars.
In haste, but hopefully contributing a good note,
Mari H.

edited

The Tower as The Pit at Troya Palace.

At Troja Palace here in Prague there is an amazing curved entrance staircase that is lined with statues. It's Baroque, so a lot later than the earliest tarot.
As you walk up the steps, you realise that below the staircase is a large deep pit. The walls of this are made to look like rough stone, and are covered with carvings of snakes, demons and (interestingly) lightning flashes. At the bottom of the pit there are two large stone figures who look as though they have just fallen and are in the act of hitting the ground screaming - quite disturbing.
It's very reminiscent of The Tower, though kind of inverse - instead of falling out of a Tower they are falling down the inside of a pit. I can send some pictures if it's interesting.
None of the guidebooks to Troya refer to this particular aspect of the staircase so I haven't read any interpretation of its meaning.

Karen

jmd said:

The attachment shows a depiction of Saturn falling from his high position, following his demise (I left the book from which the scan comes on my office desk, and will therefore have to provide bibliographic details later).

Click to expand...

jmd, Diana, is Saturn represented in some decks as the hanged man? Please see Michel Tournier's tarot reading for Robinson Crusoe

Re: The Tower as The Pit at Troya Palace.

baba-prague said:

At Troja Palace here in Prague there is an amazing curved entrance staircase that is lined with statues. It's Baroque, so a lot later than the earliest tarot.

Click to expand...

One of these days I am going to have to go back to Prague and hit all the neat stuff I missed first time --- like this, and the Sedlec ossuary. . . .

This works well with the Tarot de Paris take on Le Fovldre, "the Lightning." There, you have the traditional image of Satan as a drummer marching damned souls into the Hell-mouth.

I wonder, is Troja Palace named after Troy / Troia? It may also relate to the fall of the walls of Troy.

edited

I seem to remember reading something, somewhere, about Saturn being the Hanged Man.

This is why his legs are supposed to be crossed: so that he makes the Saturn/Blue Öyster Cult/sickle symbol with his legs and body.