Andrea del Sarto's "Hanged Man" sketches

Debra

I can't help but wonder...if Hanged Man is significant in context, after Hermit and Wheel, and before Death etc., then why not mention Strength while we're at it? And if he is a Traitor then why would that "trump" anything?

That goes back to the question of the ordering of the trumps.

That aside, however, since it IS a trump and not the first, so it does have some power, then what power is there (symbolic, in tarot context) in hanging upside down dying? Is he simply representing State Authority? Isn't there enough of that in the deck?

I haven't the stomach for books on execution although as it happens I have one here waiting to be read.
 

kwaw

As Christ was betrayed by Judas so even the virtuous may be triumphed or trumped by betrayal, as Hercules (considered a christ like type) was finally destroyed by the betrayal of his wife, historical exemplars of upright (meaning righteous) men brought low and having their upright status inverted include Socrates and Boethius (the fate of the two often compared at the time, and also taken as Christ like figures). Virtue in the form of Fortitude triumphs over the viscitudes of Fortune, the cycling highs and lows of life; but virtue is not in itself a way of avoiding such; for it is obvious to everyone that the wicked may prosper and the virtuous may suffer. However virtue prospers or perfects the soul, whose reward is in the world to come, thus it triumphs over death (as shown by the virtue of temperance trumping death). The middle rank of seven cards thus showing how the soul is perfected through combating the viscitudes of life with the armoury of virtue to reap its reward in the world to come. Life is a dance of death, its tune that of a battle march in a war between vice and virtue.

Kwaw
 

Ross G Caldwell

Thanks for that information Michael. I didn’t see the pattern with the Sforza dukes using shame painting until reading these last few posts, and then Kwaw’s . I still don’t know of any instances of the Visconti dukes - Gian Galeazzo, Gian Maria, or Filippo Maria - using it, but for the subsequent Sforza reigns – Francesco, Galeazzo Maria, and Ludovico – there are instances in each one. Perhaps the brief Ambrosian Republic had restored the practice to the books, or the Sforza dukes allowed themselves to use it (one reason for Gian Galeazzo’s and his father’s distaste for the practice must have come from a desire to distinguish themselves from the Florentines and Florence, which they regarded as a faction-ridden and dangerous city; perhaps the Sforza didn’t feel the same way).

(maybe also the Milanese continued to use it informally - like graffiti on brothels, as you quote Welch saying "In fourteenth-century Bologna these were painted in the main square, and on bordellos as a symbol of disgrace." That is, the law of 1396 might have banned only the official and legal use of it on public buildings - not every casual instance of it in out-of-the way parts of the city)

1. Francesco threatens to humiliate Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce in 1458, with a shame-painting .

2. Galeazzo Maria Sforza used a shame painting in December 1466.
Here is the story given in Gregory Lubkin, "A Renaissance Court: Milan Under
Galeazzo Maria Sforza" (U California Press, 1994 - a book I unhestitatingly
recommend). Note the context also - Galeazzo Maria Sforza has just become
Duke of Milan a few months ago, it is the Christmas season, and he

"attended Mass in the mornings and paid his respects to his mother but then gambled with friends the rest of the day, winning and losing as much as 600 ducats per day." -

"The latter part of the year 1466 was relatively uneventful for the Milanese
dominion and its rulers. The Venetian army had made menacing maneuvers after Duke Francesco's death, but no invasion followed. A political crisis in
Florence, in which the the Medici might have required Sforza military aid,
was resolved without involving Milan. Galeazzo spent much time and attention
on hunting, visiting Pavia and the Lomellina district. To the extent that he
could, the young duke involved himself also in the business of state.
Galeazzo chafed in his limited sphere of action and authority. Spirited and
full of restless energy, the young duke often could not contain himself. For
most of Christmas week in 1466, he dutifully attended Mass in the mornings
and paid his respects to his mother but then gambled with friends the rest
of the day, winning and losing as much as 600 ducats per day.

"On December 29, Galeazzo was shocked to hear that one of his friends and
companions, Donato 'del Conte', had fled the dominion. Donato was member of
the Bossi family, ancient Milanese nobles. Because he had received a large
income from the duke and a had a family in Milan, his depature surprised
everyone (22). The duke's mood turned ugly. He treated Donato as a traitor,
confiscating his property and giving his position to a cameriere of long
standing in the court, Francesco da Varese. Galeazzo held Donato's
eight-year-old son hostage, and he shamed Donato publicly by having him
'painted on cards with a harp in the right hand and a shoe in the left, and
attached [them] to the columns of the Duomo and the Broletto.' The next day, Donato's image, 'painted on a great board in the usual way' (i.e. upside
down), was hung over the gate of the Corte Arengo. Galeazzo offered a large
reward for his friend's return - dead or alive. The duke blamed his mother
for Donato's flight. He took petty revenge on her by, among other things,
having his twenty-six horses brought in to gallop noisily around the
courtyard of the palace (23)."

Notes are letters from the Archivio Gonzaga in the Archivio di Stato, Mantua
-
(22) M. Andreasi to Barbara H. Gonzaga, 25, 28 and 29 Dec. 1466.
(23) M. Andreasi to Barbara H. Gonzaga, 30 and 31 Dec. 1466.
Click to expand...

3. Ludovico “il Moro” is the most prolific – Michael’s quote from Welch –

“His son, Lodovico Maria Sforza, was still using the formula in the late 1490s, when he placed immagini infamanti of his ex-military leader and enemy Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, then working for the French king, throughout Milan.”
Click to expand...

4. And for Ludovico Kwaw also noted (and excellent little story by the way):

“For example Benadino di Corte who sold the city of Milan to the French on the 14th of September 1499 after Ludovico had left to raise an army. Ludovico had a shame painting made of Bernadino, of whom he said "Since the days of Judas Iscariot there has never been so black a traitor as Bernadino di Corte." It is also said the French themselves called the traitor Tarocchi card 'Bernadino di Corte'.*
(*"Narra il Porcacchi, che i Francesi stessi, giocando a'Tarocchi , nel dar la carta del traditore dicevano: "do Bernardino da Corte."
Saying after Plutarch "I love the treason but do not praise the traitor" Proditionem amo, sed proditorem non laudo).
Click to expand...

(what’s the source for this Kwaw?)

Ross
 

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Michael,

mjhurst said:
Given what we've learned about the subject matter of the image out of context, what meaning(s) can make sense of it in context, i.e., in the overall trump hierarchy? Specifically, why does it follow the lower-ranked cards (most significantly Time/Hermit and Fortune) and come directly before Death?

"What does this mean in Tarot" is a question which we should be able to answer.
Click to expand...

I agree, we know plenty, and can make a fairly informed guess as to how a person in circa. 1445 would have understood this image immediately. The closest historical use of it to the appearance of the game of trionfi is the Albizzi infamanti painted by Andrea del Castagno in Florence in 1440, after the battle of Anghiari against Milanese forces.

Following Kwaw's comments and things you've said to me, I'll give interpretation a shot.

The only thing we can be absolutely sure of about the position of the Traitor is that he comes immediately before Death - always, without exception, in every known order.

What he himself trumps varies only a little - between the Old Man/Time (as such in the majority of early recorded orderings, including the two earliest C orderings, Susio and Alciato, and Vieville), or Fortitude. In one case, it appears the Traitor would have trumped the Wheel of Fortune (the Colonna Cards, see Kaplan I, 134).

I take the majority sequence to be the original one - Time-Traitor-Death.

Taking the earliest painted Time cards (Charles VI, Catania, Visconti-Sforza) as indicative, and this order, he trumps the Wheel of Fortune because this is the best we can expect from Fortune - Old Age and Wealth (he is old, and he is dressed sumptuously, so not a beggar or mendicant preacher). But this situation is trumped by the (youthful) Traitor.

Why?

I think the most basic reading is then that given by Michael and Kwaw – no matter how virtuous or lucky (Julius Caesar comes to mind) betrayal can happen, and is the *worst* thing that can happen in life; if you can’t trust your closest friends, who or what can you trust? Conversely, to be known *as* a traitor, to be publically defamed and remembered for all time for this act, is the *worst* fate that can befall you in life. Like Michael says, drawing from Fanti, the image is a warning to beware of traitors, as well as a warning against being one.

In any case, it trumps all the other “human life” cards, coming just before Death, because it is the *worst* possible outcome of life. Death is inevitable, and comes to all in a myriad ways; but infamy before death is a kind of death-in-life; even if the card is interpreted as a shame painting and not an actual execution, it says that the person is as good as dead, since their fame (good report, reputation) has been destroyed.

Ross
 

mjhurst

Hi, Debra,

Debra said:
I can't help but wonder...if Hanged Man is significant in context, after Hermit and Wheel, and before Death etc., then why not mention Strength while we're at it? And if he is a Traitor then why would that "trump" anything?

That goes back to the question of the ordering of the trumps.

That aside, however, since it IS a trump and not the first, so it does have some power, then what power is there (symbolic, in tarot context) in hanging upside down dying? Is he simply representing State Authority? Isn't there enough of that in the deck?
Click to expand...
This goes back to even more basic questions, such as how can anything trump Christ's Vicar on earth, or how can the Devil trump the Virtues. And there is a crucial connection with the order of the trumps, and in particular, with Dummett's Chapter 20, titled "The Order of the Tarot Trumps". But that's another thread...

Here I just wanted to ask about Satan being upside down in Hell. In what text or image does that occur?

Best regards,
Michael
 

mjhurst

Hi, Ross,

Ross G Caldwell said:
I agree, we know plenty, and can make a fairly informed guess as to how a person in circa. 1445 would have understood this image immediately.
Click to expand...
Rosanne had (if I understood her question at all) changed the subject from things we know (i.e., the historical findings in the Jewish Execution and Shame Painting threads I started) to one of origins: "I wonder if you can extricate a reason... for hanging people from one foot?" Given that we have been discussing such reasons, (like torturing, killing, humiliating the villain pre- or postmortem, etc.), I took her question to be one of origins. That requires speculation, and if I'm going to speculate about something I'd rather speculate about Tarot, which is why I suggested changing the subject in a different direction.

Ross G Caldwell said:
... no matter how virtuous or lucky (Julius Caesar comes to mind) betrayal can happen, and is the *worst* thing that can happen in life; if you can’t trust your closest friends, who or what can you trust? Conversely, to be known *as* a traitor, to be publicly defamed and remembered for all time for this act, is the *worst* fate that can befall you in life. Like Michael says, drawing from Fanti, the image is a warning to beware of traitors, as well as a warning against being one.

In any case, it trumps all the other “human life” cards, coming just before Death, because it is the *worst* possible outcome of life. Death is inevitable, and comes to all in a myriad ways; but infamy before death is a kind of death-in-life; even if the card is interpreted as a shame painting and not an actual execution, it says that the person is as good as dead, since their fame (good report, reputation) has been destroyed.
Click to expand...
Excellent -- that was a distinction I intended to emphasize at some point. IMO, the sequence makes better sense if the Traitor is taken as an allegory of Betrayal against the protagonist (the Prince in your narrative, Everyman in mine) rather than real or alleged treason (or bankruptcy and flight, etc.) by the protagonist. The former would interpret the Traitor card a depiction of a punished traitor, while the latter would interpret the card as a depiction of a shame painting. Either is perfectly consistent with the image out of context and with something like my interpretation of the middle trumps as a Fall of Princes arc within the overall trump cycle.

It should also be noted that the two are not mutually exclusive. Boethius, in his autobiographical allegory The Consolation of Philosophy, is betrayed by being accused of treason.

Best regards,
Michael
 

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Michael,

mjhurst said:
Here I just wanted to ask about Satan being upside down in Hell. In what text or image does that occur?
Click to expand...

Sorry to answer for Debra - it is in the last lines of Canto XXXIV of the Inferno. Everything is upside-down and backwards in Hell.

Summary -
"Dante holds tight to Virgil, with his arms around Virgil's neck, and Virgil goes right up to Satan and takes hold of his flanks, which are covered with tufts of hair. From tuft to tuft he descends to the midpoint of Satan's body, and then manages to turn himself upside down and start climbing. They reach a cleft in the rock and there Virgil puts Dante down on the edge. Dante looks back, and there are Lucifer's legs upside down. Dante is utterly bewildered. Virgil explains that the midpoint of Satan's body is the center of gravity of the earth, and so at that point Virgil had to turn himself around and start climbing."
http://www.novelguide.com/TheInferno/summaries/Canto34.html

Text is basically ll. 68ff.


Line 103 -
ov' è la ghiaccia? e questi com' è fitto sì sottosopra?
'Where is the ice? Why is this one fixed upside-down?'

Best regards,

Ross
 

le pendu

For the "symbolism" of being hung by one foot upside down, it makes me think of an animal at a butcher shop. "You're not even human, you shall die like the animal you are."
 

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell said:
(what’s the source for this Kwaw?)

Ross
Click to expand...


The quote of the French naming the traitor card after Bernadino can be found in several 18th and 19th century Italian and German books, and the primary source of all of them seems to be the 16th century mapmaker and cartographer Tomaso Porcacchi da Castiglio Aretino, who also illustrated some allegories for the poem 'Orlando Furioso' by Ludovico Ariosto.

From what I can make out the story of Bernadino appears in book 4 of "Giudicio di Tommaso Porcacchi, la vita del Guicciardini descritta da Remigio Fiorentino, dediche al conte Leonardo Valmarana e a Cosimo de' Medici." That is contained in the History of Italy divided into 20 books, by GUICCIARDINI FRANCESCO written between 1537 and 1540 and first published in 1561. (Note this information is from sources in languages other than English which I may have misunderstood and need verification by someone with greater knowledge of Italian and German).

Michael Dummett in "The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards" lists among several examples of shame paintings that ordered by Lodovica Sforza of Bernadino da Corte, as mentioned by 'catboxer' in an old thread on the subject here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4868

Sforza calling Bernadinno 'never so black a traitor since Judas Iscariot' is in 'Leonardo Da Vinci' by Maurice W. Brockwell (F.A. Stokes co, 1908) available as a Gutenberg Ebook:

http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/7ldvn10.rdf

quote:

"In 1499 the stormy times in Milan foreboded the end of Ludovico's
reign. In April of that year we read of his giving a vineyard to
Leonardo; in September Ludovico had to leave Milan for the Tyrol to
raise an army, and on the 14th of the same month the city was sold by
Bernardino di Corte to the French, who occupied it from 1500 to 1512.
Ludovico may well have had in mind the figure of the traitor in the
"Last Supper" when he declared that "Since the days of Judas Iscariot
there has never been so black a traitor as Bernardino di Corte." On
October 6th Louis XII. entered the city. Before the end of the year
Leonardo, realising the necessity for his speedy departure, sent six
hundred gold florins by letter of exchange to Florence to be placed
to his credit with the hospital of S. Maria Nuova."

Kwaw
ps ~ with thanks to google:

http://books.google.it/books?q=tarocchi+traditore+bernardino+corte&ie=ISO-8859-1&spell=1&oi=spell

;)
 

Ross G Caldwell

le pendu said:
For the "symbolism" of being hung by one foot upside down, it makes me think of an animal at a butcher shop. "You're not even human, you shall die like the animal you are."
Click to expand...

I think exactly the same thing, except that both feet is more appropriate for an animal about to get its throat slit. One foot makes it humiliation *and* pain - Sarto's studies are masterpieces that convey the helplessness of the victims, and I can't personally but wonder how painful it must be, on the ankle, the knee of the bearing leg, the hip, and with the blood rushing to your head. The foot must get all its blood cut off pretty quickly, and go numb. Then the leg goes numb; to relieve the pain, you'd cross your other leg - probably in front, not behind. Having the hands tied behind was probably to prevent a victim lifting themselves up and perhaps succeeding grabbing a hold of the rope or the beam (young and nimble ones).

And how long until death? Crucifixion could last a week, dying more from dehydration than anything else, and then collapsing and suffocating. I can't imagine one-legged hanging lasting that long, but I have no idea.

Ross
 
Did Shakespeare play tarot? Trajano Boccalini (1556 – 1613)