Andrea del Sarto's "Hanged Man" sketches

mac22

jmd said:
The two, then, are perhaps not as distant as they may at first appear - even though it is not Odin represented in tarot, but rather that Odin's representation may shed light on some complementary aspect of such hanging... if understood in its full sense.

Please unpack that a bit for me....

Thanks.

mac22
 

Teheuti

jmd said:
The two, then, are perhaps not as distant as they may at first appear - even though it is not Odin represented in tarot, but rather that Odin's representation may shed light on some complementary aspect of such hanging... if understood in its full sense.
Of course. I would put this topic, in part, under the category "history of ideas" - where it is significant to collate the myths, literature and folk traditions that have accrued throughout the history of an overarching idea or an artifact. Theories about how these ideas may connect with each other then fall into lots of different categories like sociology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy and even the study of language and the brain.

Personally, I think the "history of ideas" is a vital and important aspect of tarot. Here we look for the first mention of Egypt or the "Fool's Journey" and we track both the inspirations for such ideas, as well as who picked up on that idea and how subsequent persons modified it (or came up with it independently). However, to give this arena it's due, none of the ideas should be treated with scorn, but rather as historical facts in their own right that either continue, are modified beyond recognition or disappear (or any other possibility we can find). I think Dummett and Decker (thanks be to them) did an excellent job of this in their book on the Occult Tarot, albeit with occasional emotional-sounding scorn and derision that marred the purely historical effect (but kudos for this being much less apparent than in the preceding book).

Mary
 

jmd

Oh geez - now I've dug myself a hole.... better try and fix it a little!

Perhaps I'd better be a little more 'obvious' and longwinded...

Firstly, in terms of the images in the trumps, they arise within the Christian late mediaeval and early Renaissance European context - a context that has not only image representations, but also everyday life that can be represented if such makes sense to the viewer of the image.

It is that aspect that mjhurst really importantly brings to our attention: the various and ACTUAL (rather than imagined) sources of image (and textual) representations of the times and the place.

My point is certainly that this is centrally important, and without it, some that appears to be written (and all too often repeated) seems like at most no more than dreams in the sand.

Yet, this historical basis deepens our own reflections about the nature of the hanging and, when also combined with some of the ritualistic acts we have evidence were also actual (even if only symbolically enacted - such as 'symbolic death' in some ceremonies), can add weight considerations beyond the obvious: the hanged man is first and foremost a brutal and shameful depiction.

Its brutalness, however, also calls to mind the deep transcended mental (or psychological or even spiritual) state that the bearer undergoes as victim - and it is that state that Odin's representation may call to mind and remind us: the brutal symbolic and transformative state.

As (hopefully) some may know, I too consider that first and foremost the image given is as it was all too often the case: brutal depictions that are more reminiscent of torture. Still, this does not mean that its symbolic significance - not only modern but also as it may have been exegeted at the time - may have allowed for initiatic reflections or, perhaps more appropriately, reflections as to how those who survived the all-too common various forms of torture reflected on the grace that perhaps saw their own pain 'taken away' by an ecstatic or rapturous over-shadowing.

We perhaps need to remember that not only the death by torture, but also its survival was common enough. And it is this last that may have also and in part instructed symbolic uses in initiatic considerations.
 

jmd

ps - twice I was writing my reply as Mary posted the ones that directly precede my own, so unfortunately did not take those into consideration as I typed (rather slowly)...
 

Teheuti

jmd said:
may have allowed for initiatic reflections or, perhaps more appropriately, reflections as to how those who survived the all-too common various forms of torture reflected on the grace that perhaps saw their own pain 'taken away' by an ecstatic or rapturous over-shadowing.
Yep - martyrdom, and all it implied, was an important motif for people of the time. And, I believe, there was a lot of sympathy in Northern Italy for the Cathars and other seemingly heretical groups - whether burned or otherwise tortured and killed. Plus, the image of the V-S Hanged Man, with its notably serene face, seems to ask viewers to consider possibilities beyond the most obvious ones.

When symbols became emblems there was an attempt to create a more precise visual language. Prior to (and outside of that tradition), pictorial symbols, as almost always, carry multiple referents - some of them very sophisticated in their paradoxical qualities.

Mary
 

Rosanne

Oh sorry folks I was being tongue in cheek with the Scandinavian origin of Tarot- I meant if there was such an origin- then Historians would look Odin favorably.
I like the idea of a History of Ideas- it would make an excellent forum, without the gnashing of teeth that happens between enthusiasts and Historical exactitudes that is expected. My interests often fall down the hole between the two. jmd's course has been a fascinating history of ideas with the Noblet.(with historical fact as well)
~Rosanne
 

Teheuti

Rosanne said:
Oh sorry folks I was being tongue in cheek with the Scandinavian origin of Tarot
I realized that, but it made a succinct point: that suggesting an analogy to Odin has never been an argument for Scandinavia origins of the tarot.
 

Ross G Caldwell

Even though the meaning of the card as “punishment” was never really lost (Court de Gébelin knew it was a form of punishment), it is Gertrude Moakley who made tarot writers aware of its association with treason, and in particular with the practice of “shame painting”.

Focusing in on explicit examples of the practice around the time and in the place where the trumps were created, Moakley noted a particularly close one – Francesco Sforza’s father, Muzio Attendolo (nicknamed Sforza, “the Strong”), had been a subject of shame painting in Rome in 1412, during the pontificate (soon thereafter considered an anti-pontificate) of John XXIII (Pope 1410-1419):

The Pope had given him (Muzio) the title of Count of Cotignola in gratitude for his services as a condottiere. When Muzio later offered the services of his army to one of the Pope’s enemies [Ladislas “the Magnanimous”, King of Naples], the Pope ordered him depicted on all the bridges and gates of Rome, hung by the right foot to a gallows, with his heraldic mattock in his right hand. In the other hand was a scroll with this inscription: “I am the peasant Sforza of Cotignola, traitor, who have committed XII treasons against my honor; promises, agreements, pacts I have broken.” (p. 95)

Thus Moakely was able to associate the card with an event in the past directly related to the Sforza family, for whom Bembo painted the cards (and also, without explicitly noting it, to the traditional number of the card, XII).

The “shame painting” idea persisted among historians as the “literal” meaning of the image. It is attractive because it was so widely practiced in Italy, especially northern Italy and Tuscany, and thus appears a natural source for the tarot image. Gherardo Ortalli published a historical study of the practice in 1979, “pingatur in Palatio: La Pittura infamante nei secoli XIII-XVI” (Società Editoriale Jouvence, 1979), with a revised version in French in 1994, “La Peinture infamante du XIIIe au XVIe siècle” (trans. Fabienne Pasquet and Daniel Arasse; Paris, Gérard Monfort, 1994).

From Ortalli, we learn that the two places where it was most often used were Bologna and Florence, while there are no records of it in Ferrara (perhaps notable as far as Tarot is concerned). The case of Milan is more subtle, since Ortalli quotes a law from the 1390s expressly banning the practice of shame painting in Milan.

Altogether, for what concerns the picture of infamy proper, understood as a genre characterized by precise connotations and whose diffusion was made in a manner neither sporadic nor occasional, it can be said that its use tends to stay within the limits of the 14th century. Afterwards it suffered an inexorable decline, very marked in the course of the century by legislation which took hold in places like Lodi and Milan under the domination of the Visconti. Between 1390 and 1396, at the time of Gian Galeazzo, when the legislation of the two towns was reorganized and updated with the promulgation of new collections of statutes, there appeared, in both places, a chapter intitled: “Concerning the pictures on the walls of the palaces being removed, and the names of the defamed being registered.” These clauses were inserted at almost the same date. The text from Lodi, dated to 1390, is contemporary with that of Milan, of which the redaction, finished in 1396, had been started in 1389. In reality, the common source of these texts is found in an earlier redaction of the Milanese statutes, which was begun in 1348 by Luchino Visconti and was finished in 1351 by his brother and successor, Archbishop Giovanni. Thus at Lodi and Milan, in practically identical terms it was thereafter forbidden to paint the images of those condemned to infamy on the walls of the communal palaces, and it was ordained at the same time to erase any existing images because they in fact dishonored the cities themselves. This last precision is interesting (and we will come back to it later) but, more than for this particular reason, above all, the decision in itself should be noted here. In fact it marks with certitude a general degradation of the practice, equally seen elsewhere and independent of specific interdictions – these last being thus symptoms more than causes of the crisis unfolding. (p. 26)

This ban seems to contradict something that Timothy Betts presented in his study of the tarot, in 1998 (the first time it made its way into tarot historiography as far as I know, but unfortunately Betts did not provide the source) -

Evidence for the true meaning of hanging upside down comes from a 1393 decree for Milan and Lombardy:
”Let him be drug on a [wooden] plank at a horse’s tail to the place of execution, and there be suspended by one foot to the gallows, and be left there until he is dead. As long as he lives let him be given food and drink.”
(Straxinetur ad caudam equi cum aside ad locum iustitie et ibidem per pedem furcis suspendatur, et ibi tantum teneatur quod a se ipsa moriatur; detur tamen ei de cibo et de cibo et potu donec vivit) (the dittography of “et de cibo” is in Betts’ text)

Timothy Betts, “Tarot and the Millennium” (1998), pp. 278, 299.

It seems what we have then is a continuation of the practice that originated the shame painting, and continued to inform it, but a ban in Milan on the painting itself. This ban and the punishments for breaking it were not lifted by any subsequent Visconti or Sforza that I can find.

But the practice of hanging by the foot for high crimes like treason continued under Gian Galeazzo’s successors, like his son Filippo Maria -

From a ruling of Filippo Maria of September 1, 1422 we read how those guilty of crimes against the state were punished according to the decrees of his forefathers and the statutes of the city of Milan. The criminal would be dragged behind a horse to the place of execution, and there hanged on the scaffold by one foot; or attached to a turning wheel, or quartered; his dismembered body parts were attached to the gates of the city, and his head on a metal pole, which stood at the top of the tower of the town hall.

We have a terrible decree of the Count of Virtù (Gian Galeazzo Visconti), dated September 13, 1393. He prescribes that he who conspires against the state, should be dragged behind a horse cum asside (with a rider?), along the most frequented way, to the place of justice, hanged by a foot to the scaffold, and to remain there until he dies; however while he is still alive he should be given food and drink: detur tamen eidem de cibo, et potu interim donec vivet.
(from Carlo Morbio, “Storie dei municipi italiani”, vol. III, pp. 27-29)

We could add under Filippo Maria Visconti that he demanded the Florentines remove their shame painting of Nicolo Piccinino in 1426 (which they found a difficult demand).

(what’s your point, Ross? – ummm... just making conversation?)
Ross
 

Rosanne

Thanks Ross for your 'making conversation' The Visconti information was very interesting.
What I would like to understand is why this hanging by one foot was considered
a traitor punishment or a treason punishment in the first place.
As you most likely well know woman who collaborated with the Germans almost all universally got their heads shaved- so that everyone knew their 'shame'- There are cases of it happening here during the war. Easy to understand- it is the old tradition of Hair as the crowning glory of woman and what lead to her treason- that sin her hair could cause in the heart of man.
I can understand all the gory bits, like cutting the tongue out- spilling their guts as a metaphor for spilling their words etc- but where did this association with treason and hanging by one foot come from? There is a reason usually for the punishment- like the Arabic and the Chinese cutting of the hands of a thief. The sending of an ear of a ransom victim to illustrate "are you listening now?" I just do not get the connection. I would imagine it is ancient Roman and I can't find a reason in anywhere I have looked.
'Let the punishment fit the Crime'
~Rosanne
 

Rosanne

I should have explained what I meant properly.
Hung, drawn and quartered was for crimes of treason against the Monarchy or Head of the State in Question usually because it meant that the parts were sent to the far corners of the territory in all directions symbolically. The Hung part was not to kill them.
Burning of a heretic was because it prevented the resurrection (it is only lately that cremation is an option for Catholics for that reason alone.)
Disembowelment was usually done while the subject was still alive and the innards burnt before their eyes- so they knew they would not be resurrected.
What is symbolic about the 'one foot' bit?