The Devil In The Deck

[frelkins]

Total fail here on Farley's part.

Just take a walking tour of the oldest churches/monasteries in Rome or Florence - not the redecorated ones, but look for the really medieval or even Romanesque ones. Plenty of Devils there tempting Christ, and Satans in the form of dragons (from Revelations, I think).

I also remember seeing one mural that shows Mary defeating the Devil - where was that? Hmm....I think in Rome - what was interesting is that she had a square halo. For some reason I recall it as being really early, like 9th cent. or something.

Still she is correct about the street theater and Commedia dell'Arte. The Devil is often a pompous jerk, comic.

[Rosanne]

Yes you are right frelkins.
I have read and re-read the chapter, to see what I am missing.

I think this is where she comes to her conclusions after talking about Devil as comic and wild man in the German sense of frightening devil (naughty goblin type)

With the advent of the Reformation, Martin Luther identified the Pope as the Devil and vice versa. It was not until after this time, when the devil was not strictly defined by the theology of the Church that he could be associated with a more general image of evil.......long snipppy snip... the witch trials.......increased dread of devil......and renders it unlikely that the Devil was portrayed in those early Tarot decks. The idea of the Devil as the manifestation of evil simply did not exist at that time. Even the identification of the figure on the late-15th century trumps as the Devil is problematic;such depictions were not common until well into the next century.

So I guess what she sees as what we call the Devil in the Noblet for example is a monster or prodigy, comic bogeyman, idiot deformed etc.
The notes give a reliance on an author called Luther Link wrote the The Archfiend in Art and Mask without a face neither of which I have read. So the Devil is the Comic like a spoof that scares and startles people who run away screaming and laughing. Like Halloween and Charlie Brown's Pumpkin King.
Hmmmm....

~Rosanne

[Melanchollic]

I think the author is looking at it as an "either/or" thing. People mock what they fear. I think the Devil was feared, but his role as comic relief goes back to the medieval morality plays. Death too. No doubt no body enjoyed plague, but the dark humor of Death was there none-the-less.

[Rosanne]

I have looked and have one paragraph in The Journal of Religion.

The imagery of the Devil in American films has created representations of Satan which closely resemble those presented in the medieval development of Christianity. Russell writes that there are no artistic representations of Satan before the sixth century. A possible reason can be found in Finley's Demons: The Devil, Possession, and Exorcism. He writes that "belief in Satan was made official by the Council of Constantinople in AD 547. He was declared eternal...From now on it was heresy not to believe in him." Finley simplifies the point, but if the Devil's existence was not official before the sixth century, the Church would have had little reason to commission artistic representations of him before then. In The Devil: The Archfiend in Art From the Sixth to the Sixteenth Century, Luther Link traces the development of the representations of Satan. Concluding that depictions of Satan and Jesus Christ were modified throughout the medieval period, he writes that "the changes in Jesus can be plotted; those of the Devil are more difficult, because the iconography of Jesus was defined whereas that of the Devil was not." Illustrations of the Devil are difficult to place because he is seen as a "vicious demon in various guises at any time." There were no established portrayals Satan. Consequently, images of the Devil are often wide-ranging. Link points out that the "lack of a pictorial tradition combined with literary sources that confused the Devil, Satan, Lucifer and demons are important reasons for the lack of a unified image of the Devil and for the erratic iconography."

well here is the Devil from 1229
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Codex_Gigas_devil.jpg

It is as pretty much what people thought of as the Devil= Evil
This seems to be pretty much what was depicted post Council of Constantinople. Not a Monster,deformed human, Goblin, Demon or parody- but evil.
~Rosanne

[Rosanne]

While figures of Jesus and the Saints achieved standard, recognizable forms during the Middle Ages, there was no unified depiction of Satan/Devil, despite the fact he was a key figure in Christianity.

That is the statement in many books- but I think that the Visconti could have come to a reasonable painted figure from examples around...
Therefore I believe there was some unity in early depictions of the devil as fallen angel and therefore Evil. Saint Augustine said something like...
Pride made an Angel a Devil and Humility makes Man an Angel.

Earth bound wings as in Bat
Claws to denote fallen to animal state
Red tongue for fire
Dark skin to denote 'over there/other place'
Horns
So I guess the argument for there not been a Devil in the early painted decks, because there were no unified depictions before the 16th Century does not ring true for me.

~Rosanne

[kwaw]

Farley is in error, not only in relation to this apparently, there was a long tradition associating the Pope with the Devil for example long before Luther came along.

The devil was commonly represented. Art abounds with devils of all sorts, and in Italian art had their own colour symbolism:

Black Devil - symoblises the sin of anger
Blue Devil - Symbolises the sin of pride
Brown Devil - Symbolises the sin of greed
Green Devil - Symbolises the sin of envy
Grey Devil - Symbolises the sin of sloth
Red Devil - Symoblises the sin of lust
Yellow Devil - Symbolises the sin of avarice

For an example in art and literature, look at the Devil of the Florentine chapel, related to the devil in Dante.

The devil has three faces/mouths (in mockery of the triune Godhead) that feed upon treachery ~ the three traitors Judas, Brutus and Cassius according to Dante:

Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,
And lifted up his brow against his Maker,
Well may proceed from him all tribulation.
O, what a marvel it appeared to me,
When I beheld three faces on his head!...



...At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching
A sinner, in the manner of a brake,
So that he three of them tormented thus.
To him in front the biting was as naught
Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine
Utterly stripped of all the skin remained.
"That soul up there which has the greatest pain,"
The Master said, "is Judas Iscariot;
With head inside, he plies his legs without.
Of the two others, who head downward are,
The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;
See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.
And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.


Inferno: Canto XXXIV translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
http://www.ccel.org/d/dante/inferno/infer36.htm

The name of Judas (GIVDA) is inscribed below the figure in the central mouth of the three mouthed devil fragment at the church of Santa Croce in Florence:



The three faced lucifer at Collegiata di San Gimignano by Taddeo di Bartolo as well as bearing the label of Judas also has a nether region face:



The image of the devil eating people can also be found in the earliest examples of printed devil cards:

http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/boneill/devil

Kwaw

Devils in Art: Florence from the middle ages to the Renaissance Lorenzo Lorenzi (trans. Mark Roberts).

[Rosanne]

Where have you seen a critique of the book Kwaw?
I could not find any serious discussion- before I bought it.

Farley is in error, not only in relation to this apparently..

Thank you for the post and pictures. It seems to me in the book Farley seems to think, because of woodblock style I am picking, that those early cards you linked are grotesques and monsters- not Evil as in Devil; and has trotted out usual statements that are everywhere. Also I detect some reading of threads here and elsewhere that are not credited. Some words on the Tower seem to be word for word in threads I have read here and elsewhere.

I have the plebs attitude to the written word I second guess myself before thinking someone who was published might be wrong. Hence the thread. I can remember at school we had a picture book of the Devil in those colours as an aid to memory about Mortal sins. In fact the Nuns would draw a black devil on a report card if we got angry and answered back or a little brown tubby Devil if we were piggies with food (as all boarders are).
The symbolism lived on...and on....
~Rosanne

[kwaw]

Originally Posted by Rosanne

Where have you seen a critique of the book Kwaw?

I haven't seen an in depth critique of the book, by 'not only this' I was refering to the statement you quoted in relation to Luther.

Micheal Hurst took a side-swipe at her book in his review of "Renaissance Tarot: Two XVI century Italian Essays". See note 6 here:

http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2010...i-italian.html

Which he followed up with his "Critics and their Critics" entry here:

http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2010...r-critics.html

[Rosanne]

Thanks Kwaw......I... choke.... choke have to agree with Michael Hurst.
I did not want to critique the book- but there is this 'superiority' in her talk of ...
Tarot having been associated with shoddy soothsayers and confidence tricksters thus it is an unsuitable area for academic detailed examination.....and such a paucity of scholarly work....and her work is going to correct this deficiency! Brave Farley who goes a slummin' to edumacate me .

There are some things that are worthwhile though.....for poor ol unrational me.
She does say that elegant myths and fiction are recycled ad infinitum
and proceeds to do the same.

it made me go looking so I get 10 ticks for curiosity.

~Rosanne

[Bernice]

Kwaw: Micheal Hurst took a side-swipe at her book in his review of "Renaissance Tarot: Two XVI century Italian Essays".

Side-swipe! That's a full-on smack in the face !

Sorry I can't add anything more scholarly to this discussion. This has tickled me...

Bee