II La Papesse

jmd

Just to pick up on earlier comments and then some other reflections which I do not recall on the thread.

When I mention the iconographic resemblance to the annunciation, I do not in any way wish to imply that this is an image (and homage) only to Mary mother of Jesus in her virginal state - rather, that there is an element which fits quite well here. The Magdelene, especially as she is increasingly understood in revisionist history (rather than as she may likely have been understood during late mediaeval and renaissance times) also, it seems to me, fits into aspects of this card.

I have mentioned, if not here, than in the Qabalah Forum, that I too personally connect this card to an aspect of the Moon (through Yesod). The card itself, however, only does this quite indirectly.

Deepening one's sensing into this card may or may not lead to aspects of the Moon (though, as a seated Woman, I cannot see how one can avoid lunar qualities).

Ihcoyc mentions (and links) that wonderfully similar image by Vermeer of what is later (?) referred to as the Allegory of Faith (one I had not, incidentally, noted before, and am very grateful for). Certainly, again, it would seem difficult to avoid encountering the sense of Faith as one reflects upon this card. Is it, however, an essential quality, or one which has numerous manifestations, one of which is as the Book held by the Papess?

Of the egg on this card, it seems to me that Camoin & Jodorowsky just plain made a 'mistake'. Whereas the egg below the shielded 'eagle' upon IIII the Emperor seems so apt and actually there in muted ambiguities on earlier decks, the Papess's just doesn't either seem to belong, nor to really have been present auparavant.

Of course, any additional detail may be added, and one may, with reflection, discover meaningfulness therein. However, again, it seems that with this card, they are superimposed upon something quite self-contained in the classical representation.

The white face, however, does seem meaningful in late mediaeval/early renaissance iconography, in depicting, semingly, virginal beauty.

What is perhaps, again, more significant and not normally commented upon is the structure in the bottom left-hand corner of the card (even reproduced, albeit not well, in the Camoin) - a structure I mentioned earlier, and especially noticeable in the Dodal - which I do not seem to have previously attached, and thus here finally add!!!

Of iconographic significance, and mentioned in a number of books (and not just those focussing on the Marseilles) is the sequence of standing Bateleur and seated Papess.

As the carnal aspect has been mentioned a number of times (including by myself more indirectly with reference to Yesod), one can also ask of what consists the spiritual ecstasy which may be aided by 'redirecting' those energies. The curtain that separates the sexual and the spiritual has oft been said to be thin indeed.
 

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Diana

jmd said:
The Magdelene, especially as she is increasingly understood in revisionist history (rather than as she may likely have been understood during late mediaeval and renaissance times) also, it seems to me, fits into aspects of this card.

jmd: I am confused here. I thought that in mediaeval times, the Magdalene had exactly this role that the Papess card would seem play in the Tarot.

According to the sources I have found, she was:

- In consequence she is extolled as a saint, especially in France - where, according to medieval legends, she is said to have brought the Holy Grail." ( Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail)

- Through her redemption from sin and her unique knowledge of the Risen Christ, she was regarded by the occult initiates of the Middle Ages as a medium of secret revelation. (Henry Lincoln, The Holy Place)

etc. etc. etc.

Now, was Mary Magdalene the Black Madonna or not? This is something that I find very confusing. So many Marys.....
 

Ross G Caldwell

There *is* another 15th century hand-painted Papessa, often overlooked - bought by the Fournier museum in Milan in the early 1970s, she is now in Vittoria, Spain.

This Papessa is usually taken to be a copy of Bembo's, but there are notable differences, I've talked about one of them at -
http://www.angelfire.com/space/tarot/slipper.html

My own, inconclusive, analysis of the Bembo Papessa, is at
http://www.angelfire.com/space/tarot/papessa.html

I do take it that she is a potentially subversive figure, but I don't see the Bembo Papessa that way, although I do find the Fournier to be suggestive of Papessa Giovanna.

I believe the Papessa in general migrated through all of the three possible positions below Papa and above Bagatino, because a) she is a woman, and b) she is spiritual. Spiritual is above material, but woman is below man - so she is ambiguous, and has occupied all positions between the Conjurer and the highest male authority (in the various orders). In the end, I think the TdM order reflects a symmetrical view, which has material and spiritual male and female paired, mirror-like 01-10.

Her relationship to Manfreda is unproven, but attractive. But Bianca Maria Visconti-Sforza, for whom or by whose direction the deck was probably made, was a sincerely pious woman. I don't think we can read much heresy into this Papessa. She may represent an affirmation of a spiritual, pneumatic Church *within* the orthodox Church, represented by the Pope.

She could also be suggestive of St. Sophia, but her daughters Faith, Hope and Charity are missing. But in the Visconti di Modrone (Cary-Yale), those virtues are there, but the Papessa is missing - so maybe they were all part of the deck at some point, while the Bembo and later decks only took Sophia, who came to be an obvious pair with the Pope, hence Papessa.

I don't think Bembo's Papessa can be said to reflect Pope Joan, but for various reasons I think some artists (and players) must have seen the tarocchi Papessa as Papessa Giovanna. I think the Fournier slipper might be an allusion to her baby, and Fournier's changes to Bembo reflect a higher dignity for this Papessa, perhaps to recall Pope Joan. The woodcuts later in the century seem to reflect a "new" Pope Joan, not one who shamed the Roman Church, but one who is an alternative to it. In Rosenwald she holds the keys of Peter - I find this stunning. Perhaps it reflects the bust of Pope John VIII - whom the medieval chroniclers took to be Pope Joan - said to have been in Sienna Cathedral. On good authority, I must add.

Ross
 

full deck

Pape/Papesse relationship

Supletion said:

also, putting La papesse and La pape next to each other creates an interesting picture: on one hand, they are sitting back to back, looking in the opposite direction of eachother, and not only that, the curtains on the high priestess head and behind it make the disconnecton alot more clear. on the other hand, that image which is created makes them look as if they're working as a team - there are many similarities between the cards (other than the obviously related names), such as their clothing, their crowns, and a diagonal line appearing in the two cards at the same place - in La Papesse, its the middle line of the book and the blue strip with the crosses continuing it, and in La Pape, its the position of his left hand and the two fingers. it makes them look like they're on the same team, the same mission, to pass on the knowlegde they have . . .

This is closer to what I've been able to determine, that the implication is knowledge but one might say Le Pape is the "revealed word" whereas La Papesse" is the "hidden word" or "teaching." The book is open but nothing is said or no gesture is made. The knowledge is there to be read, if one is able.
 

full deck

Another line of thought

This is from another thread dealing with the interpretation of the Empress but I thought it had much to do with a discussion of the Papesse and it's relationship to it's surrounding cards in the Marseilles-style deck:

Diana said:

Actually, the Mother figure for me is far more the Papesse (High Priestess). The manifestation of spirit in matter. Two is a feminine number, according to the numerology that I follow. She is the Mother archetype to me.

The Empress is number III. She expresses more tangibly what the Papesse (High Priestess) has conceived. Conscience awakening. She "speaks".

Another perspective that is closer to this point is to consider the series of cards:

II - III - IV - V

Papesse - Empress - Emperor - pope

female - female -- male - male
1x - 1y -- 2y - 2x

Which forms a kind of inter-locking relationship: The Empress/Emperor pair flanked by the Papesse/Pope pair.

I had mentioned before that perhaps the relationship between the Papesse and the Pope could be expressed as "the hidden vs. revealed spiritual teaching. The Empress and Emperor, then, are perhaps a physical shadow of the Papesse and Pope. The fecund nature of the Empress lies in the physical plane, (the transfiguration [death] of the formless potentia which is the fool, born into the physical world [world of form]). All physical realization comes from the womb of the Empress. The Papesse, then, is perhaps the spiritual, intangible counterpart of the Empress that must precede the creation of any tangible thing.

Likewise the same relationship could be said to exist between the Emperor and the Pope -- both avatars of an active ordering or consolidation -- one physical, the other spiritual.

One could say that there can be no tangible kingdom without an Empress and Emperor to rule or measure out form. As for the intrinsic qualities of the kingdom, there must be a Papesse and Pope to define this as well.

I had found the following from the "Tarot Hermit" website (http://www.tarothermit.com/index.htm), regarding the ordering of the four cards:
There was clearly persistent hesitation over the proper placement of the Papesse. It was taken for granted that the Pope must outrank the Emperor, Empress, and the Papesse. It was also clear that the Emperor must outrank the Empress. The two most "logical" possibilities are to pair off the four figures, either with both women coming first (and Papesse outranking Empress), or with both imperial cards coming first. What is noteworthy is the presence of a third, less obvious arrangement:_Papesse - Empress - Emperor - Pope, as in the Marseilles ordering. It is instructive to tabulate the use of these three different arrangements:

Papesse - Empress - Emperor - Pope:_Rosenwald (A), Geoffroy (C), Marseilles (C)

Empress - Emperor - Papesse - Pope:_Steele sermon (B), Bertoni (B), Garzoni (B)

Empress - Papesse - Emperor - Pope: Metropolitan Museum (B), Susio (C)

The Gringonneur and Rouen cards have the Emperor directly below the Pope, but the relative order of Papesse and Empress is not known. The Minchiate and Bologna orderings are ambiguous. Notice that none of the broad ordering categories is associated unambiguously with a particular Papesse position, although Empress - Emperor - Papesse - Pope is very common in the eastern (B) tradition, and Papesse - Empress - Emperor - Pope is common in the western tradition.

If the variations in the placement of the Papesse are ignored, the Metropolitan Museum order then agrees exactly with the Bertoni and Garzoni order, and with the Rouen order. The Steele sermon order differs from them only in exchanging Love and the Chariot.

It leads me to wonder if this had anything at all to do with the final ordering of these cards in the Marseilles-style decks, due to their inter-locking relationship to one another.

Comments?
 

Ross G Caldwell

Re: Another line of thought

full deck said:



Another perspective that is closer to this point is to consider the series of cards:

II - III - IV - V

Papesse - Empress - Emperor - pope

female - female -- male - male
1x - 1y -- 2y - 2x

Which forms a kind of inter-locking relationship: The Empress/Emperor pair flanked by the Papesse/Pope pair.


My solution to the issue of the Popess' different placements is similar to yours, and involves quantifying your "x" and "y".

It can be considered that all the arrangements of the 5 lowest cards between the Conjurer and the Pope involve, if you wish, only a change on the Popess' part. I say she "moves", the others shifting to accomodate her movement, which produces the differing arrangements.

So the three historical placements are produced, as detailed by Tom Tadfor Little at his site (in the following table she is "sliding backwards")-

Empress-Emperor-Popess-Pope
Empress-Popess-Emperor-Pope
Popess-Empress-Emperor-Pope

We can analyse the qualities of these four cards into two pairs of categories - Male and Female, Spiritual and Worldly. In the world-view of the time, male is always higher than female, and spiritual is always higher than worldly.

Granting these two axes, it can be seen that the only figure with any ambiguity then, is the Popess. She is a female, and hence lower than both Emperor and Pope, but Spiritual, so might find herself above the Emperor. As she in fact is sometimes found.

Given that spiritual is always higher than worldly or material, the question of her placement lower than Empress = Spiritual Female lower than Worldly Female, in the TdM arrangement, becomes urgent.

This is where you and I agree, I think, that the TdM structure utilizes a mirroring of the Male-Female/Spiritual-Material dichotomy, so that the Worldly pair Empress-Emperor finds itself in the bosom of the Spiritual pair Popess-Pope.

As evidence that the TdM designers would do this, this sort of careful symmetry is present in other places as well, such as the spacing of the three Virtues, separated by 2 cards each - 8-11-14, or, I would argue, in the "first five" - "last five" mirroring, in which the first five are exclusively human, the last five exclusively celestial, orders.

I believe the TdM numbering is a such through-going symmetry in every respect.

Ross
 

Aoife

Aoife is propelled forward into the forum. Quaking and trembling, she reads from the sheet prepared by Firemaiden

I Aoife [ahem].........meek, humble, scared and unworthy, beseech your kind attention.

Please could anyone tell me about the symbolic aspects of the papal triple crown?

Please can I get down now Firemaiden, before my knees give way?
 

catboxer

Aoife:

Usually, a trip to the Catholic Encyclopedia will answer a question like yours. It generally tells you more than you wanted to know, although in this case it didn't.

The Papal tiara was apparently, for the first thousand years or so of Church history, just an unadorned white head covering, sort of like a helmet. Then along about the middle of the tenth century, a single diadem, or circlet of jewels, was added. That kept the Popes satisfied for another few hundred years.

Then along comes Boniface VIII, one of the really great Popes. I think he was the one who was kind of an atheist/skeptic/mafia man. I don't have the good book on the subject, "Bad Popes" by Chamberlin at hand. Anyway, Boniface VIII decided to add another diadem to the tiara, probably just because he thought it looked cool. The Catholic Encyclopedia doesn't mention any symbolic significance, but does make a passing reference to the "love of pomp" that characterized numerous of the Renaissance Popes.

Boniface VIII wanted money and power, and had no patience with theological speculation. I believe he was the Pope who, sitting at banquet with his Cardinals, pointed to a roasted goose on the table and said to the Cardinal sitting next to him, "We have about as much chance of a life after death as that thing." He was also credited with the invention of the double cheeseburger, and he ruled during the years immediately before and after 1300.

Then in the mid-14th century, Benedict XII decided that if two was good, three was better, and added another diadem to Boniface's already-doubled tiara, making it the triple crown the Popes have worn ever since.

The tiara worn by the present Pope was made near the beginning of the 19th century. Napoleon bought it for the then Pope -- I've forgotten his name already -- because he wanted the fellow to crown him Emperor of France. He offered this gift in 1804, and the Pope accepted. He was in the market for a new hat, but couldn't afford one as he had previously emptied the Papal treasury. The hat was duly made and the coronation occurred in 1805.

After all that, I have to tell you I can't answer your question. The Catholic Encyclopedia says nothing about the symbolic significance of this nifty item. All I know is that it looks awesome, but it's not the kind of thing I'd want to wear for a night out -- you know, dinner at Hamburger Hamlet and dancing at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14714c.htm
 

Diana

Aoife: Here is a very interesting website all about the Papal Tiara. (You can even change the language to Polish, if you want to :D ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_Tiara

Carole Sédillot mentions in her book "Ombres et Lumières du Tarot" that in "mythology, some of the gods wore triple tiaras representing that their power reigns over the three different levels of the cosmos: celestial, terrestial and infernal. And that later, the great kings of the East wore them." But she gives no more information about that, and I don't remember any references to triple tiaras in mythology (but then I'm not a specialist.)

It seems that the first mention of a Papal triple tiara was in 1316, and was probably introduced by Benedict XI or Clement V.

(My fantasies would make me believe it was Clement V who really got the triple tiara fashionable - but I would be happy to be proved otherwise.)

The present Pope does not wear one, nor did his predecessor, which does not please all the Catholics. (He's more of a rebel than one thinks - lol - ).
 

Diana

Something strange happened to Clement V just after his crowning.

He was crowned in November 1305, in the presence of the King of France. A public procession took place and an accident occurred. A wall fell down killing a few people, including one of Clement's V's brothers. Clement V fell off his horse, his triple tiara fell off, and when they found it, one of the jewels was missing.

(This maybe has nothing to do with your question, but it's interesting, no?).