The Sola Busca trumps
Hi, Marco,
DoctorArcanus said:
It is true that a few of the trumps have a relevance from the Christian / Biblical point of view, but the majority of the trumps and all of the figures do not seem to have an obvious link to the Christian religion. The deck can be said to be "pagan" as the ancient Romans and Greek were pagans.
Pagan refers to non-Christian religion, and that is largely absent from the Sola Busca trumps. They are Classical subjects, but not the Classical/Pagan
gods. Also, it seems to be a heavily freighted and pointlessly general term to use, and biased toward modern folklore typical of... well, of Tarot forums.
The figures represented on most of the Sola Busca trump cards are prominent men of the Roman Late Republic period. In itself, this is neither Pagan nor Christian, nor religious at all. The Roman Republic is one of many possible examples of Renaissance interest in Greco-Roman subjects, and as such it is a "classicized" Tarot deck. "Classical" is thus the best vague, hand-waving description, and like the Florentine variations of the standard trumps, the deck in Rouen, and the Boiardo Tarot, the Sola Busca deck is classicized.
But is it Pagan? I argue that it is a Christian view of the Late Republic, which is to say, to the extent that Pagan religion is referred to at all, the deck is
anti-Pagan. You have written that the trumps are at least partially derived from Paulus Orosius'
Historiarum adversus paganos libri septem, which is an
anti-Pagan book.
Paulus Orosius: Historiarum Adversum Paganos
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=690223&postcount=22
Orosius was the author of the
Historiarum adversus paganos libri septem (
Seven Books of History Against the Pagans), the first world history by a Christian, which was influenced by his friend Augustine. Orosius was writing his history shortly after Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410. The work, completed in 418, shows signs of some haste. He attempted, like Augustine later did in his
Civitas Dei, to counter the view that Rome had fallen because of the adoption of the Christian faith by the Emperor and the people. Using material taken from Livy, Caesar, Tacitus, Justin, and Eutropius (all of them pagans), besides Suetonius, Florus, Justin, the Holy Scripture and the chronicle of Eusebius revised by St. Jerome. Orosius shows that this anti-Christian opinion was groundless, by giving examples of disasters that happened long before the rejection of paganism. In pursuance of the apologetic aim, all the calamities suffered by the various peoples are described.
Paulus Orosius -
Historiarum adversus paganos libri septem
http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/orosius.htm
If, for example, the form of the names used in the Sola Busca deck was consistent with the forms used in some version of Orosius' book, that would tend to confirm his book as an actual source consulted by the author of the deck. (Otherwise, of course, historians like Livy may seem more likely.) In any case, the parallel subject matter of the book would tend to confirm my interpretation of the trumps.
DoctorArcanus said:
No Christian judgment and resurrection here, and no personification of Christian Virtues.
As always, in any work of art, the potential list of what is missing is infinite. Are Judgment and the three Pauline Virtues the only Christian subjects ever represented?
The question is, what is present in the deck? My reply yesterday was just snippets from the Sola Busca essay I wrote in 2002, and focused on the three Antichrists as a response to your comment. I've now edited this post to better organize it and to expand on a couple points, making this a more complete overview of my interpretation of the Sola Busca trumps. Specifically, I added some comments about the Fool, Panfilio, and the 17 trumps from the Late Republican period. (I'm still ignoring the suit cards completely, but this doesn't mean that they were purely decorative nor intended for fortune-telling, as Tarot enthusiasts would have it.) I've also changed some things, having finally read the 2006 Aeclectic thread where you introduced Orosius, and having finally re-read my own essay. (It's been a while since I gave any thought to this deck, and I've forgotten most of whatever I once thought I knew. LOL -- I forgot about Panfilio entirely!)
MATTO, BAGATTO, AND THE STANDARD TRUMPS
The first thing to notice about the Fool and trump cards is that they are numbered, rather like a modern deck. This means that any subject matter can be used, even purely decorative images. But the subject matter of Sola Busca is not purely decorative.
THE FOOL is numbered as zero, but it would be identifiable in any case from the iconography. The cloak, fastened at the shoulder, and the bagpipes suggest a Celt. Celts were considered embodiments of Folly or Madness, and bagpipes (a peculiar wind instrument) became a recurrent attribute of Folly. Tea Prentice quotes the historian Livy as saying of the Celts, "they are wont to be moved by chance remarks to wordy disputes and to fight in single combat, regarding their lives as naught. In conversations they use very few words and speak in riddles, for the most part hinting at things and leaving a great deal to be understood. To believe that we can penetrate the Celtic mind, and share the Celt's psychological condition and feelings, is a pure waste of time." They were, in short, irrational. The bird on MATO's shoulder, whispering into his ear, also reflects Folly, being flighty, as if taking counsel from a bird or relying on augury. This is the only figure of the series not shown as a Roman soldier, appropriately distinguished because Tarot's Fool is a distinct element of the game.
PANFILIO is the subject on card I. The best identification I could come up with was a singular character from Boccaccio named Panfilo. His name means lover of all, and the figure is shown with phallic symbols protruding front, back, and dangling behind. Brown University's Decameron Web site includes this description:
Panfilo repeatedly emphasizes the need to look deeper into the stories of the brigata by presenting characters and situations which hide their true nature. Indeed, Panfilo acts as an almost direct voice of Boccaccio, in that he reminds us that the Decameron is not simply a collection of entertaining stories. It is Boccaccio's intention that we look deeper into the stories of the Decameron, so that it becomes a vehicle from which "useful advice" can be gleaned.
Panfilo begins the Decameron with a story about Cepparello, a scoundrel and usurer who, through a skillful confession on his death bed, becomes glorified as a saint. We can see from this story that, unless we want to look as silly as the townsfolk who considered Cepparello a saint, it is important to look deeper into things before judging their meaning. This translates easily into looking deeper into the stories of the Decameron. When Panfilo ends his first story by saying how wonderful God is because God can transmit His message through even the worst sinner, it appears that Panfilo is going to end all of his tales with a gay and positive moral. Instead, the theme that Panfilo comes back to time and time again is the "Don't judge a book by its cover" theme - a particularly apt proverb considering the medium in which he exists.
There is here a connection between Panfilio and the Bagatto, for whom nothing is quite what it seems. Panfilo's significance is a warning to look deeper and, as such, it can be taken to apply to the rest of the trumps. This is consistent with the thesis I'm presenting, that the triumph of Babylonian kings in trumps 20 and 21 is not to be taken at face value. Tyrants do often triumph, even over republics, but such victory is in the context of those tyrants' status as symbols of God's triumph over any sort of worldly lordship.
If this interpretation of Panfilio is correct, it means that cards 0, 1, 8, 20, and 21 are distinct from the other 17, who can all be identified with notable figures from the Roman Republic. But is there an identification with the standard trump subjects throughout the series? The Fool and Panfilio do appear to reflect the standard Tarot subjects and are in the correct sequence, but elsewhere there is little correspondence with the standard sequence of trumps.
* VII shows a chariot, which seems appropriate with the standard sequence.
* XII shows the moon, in a clearly inappropriate part of the sequence.
* XIII shows a single 8-pointed star, in a clearly inappropriate part of the sequence.
* In the Albertina series, IIII shows a disk of stars, but none on XIII.
* XVI shows the sun, in a clearly inappropriate part of the sequence.
* XX shows a shattered tower and fire from the sky, in a clearly inappropriate part of the sequence.
* XXI shows a symbol of world sovereignty, appropriately placed in the sequence.
There are other examples of possible conflation with standard Tarot trumps.
* II – Postumio might be conflated with Death.
* V – Catulo might be conflated with Justice.
* VIII – Nerone might be conflated with the Hanged Man.
* XIII – Cato might be conflated with Death, and is appropriately numbered.
* XV – Metelo might be conflated with the Emperor.
* XVII – Ipeo might be conflated with the Angel/Judgement.
* XVIII – Lentulo might be conflated with the Hermit.
So, while it appears that there was some conflation of the new (Classical) subjects with standard Tarot subjects, nothing like a traditional order of the standard subjects was attempted. An odd and seemingly haphazard assortment of notable figures who have in common only their association with the Late Republic period of antiquity.
THE MYTH OF VENICE (CIVIC HUMANISM)
Why the Roman Republic? This is a question that any historian can answer without scratching her head. The deck comes from a time and place that idealized the Republic as both a glorious past and as an example for the present. Sola Busca has been called a "warriors" deck. However, it needs to be kept in mind that in ancient Rome the military leaders were also civic leaders. Although the figures are shown in armor, their significance was greater than their battles.
The Renaissance represented a major shift in Italian and European history. This period witnessed a dramatic change of political scene in the politically fragmented Italian territory. In a largely peasant medieval landscape, urban centres evolved into self-governing mercantile communes ruled by despots. These entities needed new forms of political self-definition and new ways of expressing power that would symbolically separate rulers from the religious medieval discourses. The chosen tool for political discourse was Antiquity. The first ruler who appealed to the past appears to have been the Roman dictator Cola di Rienzo (c.1313-1354). In 1347 he argued in favor of creating a Roman Republic. As a justification for his ideas, Rienzo used the recently discovered Vespasian's Lex de Imperio from the first century CE to attempt to show the superiority of the people over the emperors, by which he meant the superiority of his republic over the papacy.
We may also recall that Cola di Rienzo was one of the first rulers of the period to revive the Roman triumph as a way of self-promotion. The point here, however, is that starting in the 14th century the central and northern cities of Italy were reviving Classical ideas, art, and institutions on a rather broad scale. This is in part described as humanism, but not just in the Tarot-cultists' preferred areas of Neoplatonic religion, magic, and mysticism. Here we are talking about what is commonly termed
Civic Humanism, focused largely on republicanism and justified by the ancient model of the Roman Republic. In their specifics, these humanist ideals varied from one city to the next.
In an otherwise largely feudalized Europe, northern and central Italy was unusual for its concentration of towns that aspired to rule themselves. As early as the twelfth century they were described by Otto of Freising as "so desirous of liberty" that they chose "consuls" as their rulers in order to maintain "the freedom of the people." A century later the Florentine Brunetto Latini, a scholar active in the affairs of the city, remarked in commenting on Aristotle's Politics that governments are of three kinds: one is of kings, the second of the aristocracy, and the third of the people, which is the best of the three."
Republicanism was also allied with the scholarly side of humanism, which investigated and idealized republicanism in antiquity. It was well known that Roman law had, at least in theory, seen the community as the only source of political authority. There were already hints of the idealization of republicanism in Francesco Petrarch (1304-74), the "father" of Renaissance humanism, whose admiration for the Roman republic was central to his epic poem Africa, and who was excited by the prospect of its reconstitution in his own time, a possibility suggested to him by a revolt in Rome in 1347 led by Cola di Rienzo.
Florence is famous as the most adamant proponent of republican sentiment, and other cities can be compared with her attitudes. Famously, Pier Candido Decembrio debated Leonardo Bruni regarding liberty and the growth of artistic culture, in terms of autocratic Milan versus Republican Florence. "In this dialogue Ferrara, in the person of Leonello, is presented as the intermediary between the republic of Florence and the absolutism of Milan, the idea being that the form of government need not be crucial, provided that
civilitas reigns." Another tidbit is that in his
Panegyric of the City of Florence, Bruni contrasts the noble republican families of Florence with the hateful Roman emperors who destroyed the Roman Republic, even including the (usually honored) Caesar. Some of the major historical currents of Renaissance Italy are directly related to this republican enthusiasm.
What about Venice, home to the Sola Busca Tarot deck? As proud as Florence, Venice promoted its own greatness by cultivating historical legends. Some aspects of this "history" are known as The Myth of Venice, in which its republican traditions traced back directly to the Roman Republic. Petrarch described "the most august city of Venice" as "today the home of liberty, peace, and justice, the one refuge of honorable men, haven for those who, battered on all sides by the storms of tyranny and war, seek to live in tranquility. Rich in gold but richer in fame, built on solid marble but standing more solid on a foundation of civic concord, surround by salt waters but more secure with the salt of good council..., Venice rejoices at the outcome, which is as it should be: the victory not of arms but of justice." (David Rosand,
Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State, 2005.) Talk about myth-making!
As I have argued for some years now, each area of Italy revised Tarot a bit, with minor changes in iconography and the order of the trumps, to create what I have called a "civic pride" variant. This is why there were a dozen variations in ordering within Italy, and essentially none outside. Each city wanted its "own" Tarot. In addition to such minor changes, there were of course literary borrowings, like Boiardo's Stoic appropriati. But two of the most interesting, substantive, and intelligible variations were those of Florence and the Sola Busca deck of Venice. Florence revised the standard trumps to replace the medieval Christian allegory with a Renaissance humanist triumph of Fame over Death, and specifically it was the
Fama of Florence which triumphed over a Eurocentric world card. In Sola Busca, a far more drastic revisioning was undertaken. But although it was profoundly humanist, it was not Pagan -- it was
anti-Pagan. It celebrated the Roman Republic, but it also showed that even a republic was not enough.
THREE CHRISTIAN FIGURES (ANTICHRISTS)
In addition to 17 figures from the Late Republic, the Fool, and Panfilio, trump #8 shows the emperor Nero, and the two highest trumps show Babylonian kings, Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar. This suggests a meaningful context for understanding the series. The three exceptions to the general subject matter contrast with the Republican figures in dramatic ways. They come from different periods of history. They are not only enemies of Republican values and institutions, but are in fact known primarily as key villains in Christian myth and history, and central figures in Judeo-Christian apocalyptic prophecy.
All three are known as Antichrists. Nimrod, as founder and "King of Babylon", itself a title of the Antichrist. (Babylon and Rome are essentially interchangeable in being contrasted with Jerusalem, the former being the Old Testament symbol which was often used by Christians as a synonym for Rome.) One list of Antichrists (rulers of Babylon) begins with Nimrod and ends with Nero:
1. Nimrod: founder of ancient Babylonian empire; built the Tower of Babel.
2. Shalmaneser V: king of Assyria and Babylonia 727-722; Shalmaneser was followed by the usurper Sargon II, (722-705), the Assyrian emperor who in 720 removed the ten tribes of Israel to various locations.
3. Nebuchadnezzar: the greatest ruler of the neo-Babylonian empire; d.555; conquered Judah and took many Jews into the 70-year "Babylonian captivity"; destroyed the First Temple of Jerusalem.
4. Cyrus the Great: founded the Persian empire in 550; conquered Babylon in 539; d.530; return of Jewish captives; support for rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, completed in 515.
5. Alexander the Great: ruler of Greece; conquered Persian empire 334-323;
6. Nero: emperor of Rome; d.68; initiated Christian persecutions; Peter and Paul martyred; destruction of the Second Temple in 70 during the tribulations he began.
Thus, Antichrists of ancient Babylon, neo-Babylon, and Rome are represented in the Sola-Busca trumps. Note that these three are the particular Antichrists associated with the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temple, with the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, and with the first Christian persecutions. Note also that this tends to suggest an apocalyptic Christian significance for the overall design.
Three Roman/Babylonian Antichrists
NERO is the only direct reference to Imperial Rome in the trumps. As Rome was identified with Babylon, Nero was directly associated with the Antichrist as the Beast of Revelation. "666" is the sum of the numerical value of the Hebrew letters for Nero Caesar: NRWN QSR = 50, 200, 6, 50, 100, 60, 200 = 666. There are many apocalyptic references to Nero and Rome in the New Testament.
Of particular significance for Nero in the Sola Busca Tarot is the numbering of the card. "And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come", which suggests that Revelation was written shortly after Nero's death. Nero was the fifth Roman emperor, and his death in 68 A.D. coincided with the Jewish revolt (66-70). There were rumors of his imminent return, and these are reflected in the next verse: "And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition." (Rev 17:11.) In other words, one of the seven who is already gone will return as the last, the eighth. Nero is numbered VIII in the Sola Busca trumps. This sequence dumps him oddly in the middle of the Republican figures, but the numbering itself gives him an apocalyptic connotation.
Tea Prentice notes, "The figure on the card appears to be either dangling or throwing a baby into a fire, perhaps a reference to the fire in 64 A.D." Nero famously blamed the fire on Christians, and tortured them to death as entertainment, being the first ruler to initiate persecution of Christians. (Tacitus wrote: "Their death was made a matter of sport; they were covered in wild beasts' skins and torn to pieces by dogs; or were fastened to crosses and set on fire in order to serve as torches in the night.") Both St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred under Nero. Thus, the image could be interpreted as threatening the infant Church with the fire.
NIMROD is the second-highest ranking trump, card XX. He was the founder of Babylon and the most famous example of man's pride and sin. The ruined tower in the image refers to his Tower, aspiration unbridled by humility in the face of God. If we consider the effort to build the Roman Republic as a grand but arrogant, ultimately futile, and doomed project, seeking perfection on earth after the manner of the Tower of Babel, this card suggests an overall meaning of the Sola Busca deck. Nimrod triumphs over all the famous republicans, but is himself overthrown by God.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR is the highest ranking trump, card XXI. He was the King of Babylon at the time the Jews were taken into the 70-year “Babylonian captivity”. This is the highest card in the sequence and yet it shows this nemesis of the Old Testament prophets. The dragon recalls Jeremiah 51:34, where Nebuchadnezzar devours the Jews like a dragon. Just as with the triumph of Nimrod over the republicans, there must be a secondary message here. Nebuchadnezzar was a great military man and a great builder, but in looking at the image we see that he’s shown on the card taking a nap. In the Book of Daniel Nebuchadnezzar has a dream about a great statue with feet of clay, one that is brought down because of this faulty foundation. Nebuchadnezzar's triumph is thus shown to be temporary, if not illusory. Like Nimrod's tower, Nebuchadnezzar's statue is a hopelessly vain project.
Sola Busca's figures from the glorious Roman Republic are thus triumphed over by Babylonian Kings, i.e., worldly emperors, but they themselves are both iconic images of the inevitable failure of man to achieve lasting greatness on his own, (or with Pagan gods). These exceptional figures, primarily the two highest trumps, give direction to the overall design. The trumps are obviously Classical figures, and they point out the glory of republican institutions, but they also remind the viewer that even the best republic must give way to the Kingdom of God.
Best regards,
Michael
Tea Prentice's Sola Busca site
http://www.whichcrafte.com/mystery/tarot/sola/sola_info.asp
Tarotpedia: Sola Busca
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sola_Busca_Tarot
Tarotpedia: The End Of The Roman Republic
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/The_End_Of_The_Roman_Republic
Tarotpedia: Sola Busca scans
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sola-Busca_gallery
