Marco wrote Mincio looks at the girl with two jars (another allegory, likely, another river with a feminine name and two sources) It is possible that the nymph with two jars was inspired by the tarot card, specifically that of the Cary Sheet (which seems also to have been the inspiration for the Mar...

Here is the Hypnerotomachia's swan, with Leda. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pHjOqB0vy24/TmgM260zEjI/AAAAAAAADg8/ymUDox1lmBI/s1600/17HypnerotomachiaSwan.jpg Compare that to the swan in the fresco. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-02QiY2UaLd8/TmgSx_8SjJI/AAAAAAAADhM/v-XjqkvxCbw/s1600/17frescoSwan.jpg I think th...

Ah yes. In the legend, Romulus and Remus were nursed by a she-wolf, not a she-goat. I misremembered. But perhaps Romano was playing with tradition, in accord with his Dionysian theme. The same is true of the figure in the back that reminded me of the Parthenon statue. When you look at it more closel...

Thank you for your excellent scholarship, as usual, Marco. It may be that the old man is the Mincio, as you say, and the lake the one next to Mantua. The swan is a good association. However this interpretation does not exclude the one I advanced, using Dante. Dante, like Virgil, was a son of Mantua....

What the various historic Judgment cards have in common is one or more angels blowing trumpets and persons below rising from their tombs. There are frequent images of angels blowing trumpets in alchemy. With repeated distillations and sublimations, there are any number of deaths and rebirths. Each r...

Thanks for the query, Pen. I was wondering whether I should comment on that fountain. It seems to me that the fountain in back, between the sun and moon, is the "single Water" which is the goal of the Work, for which the two in front are preliminaries. I am basing this interpretation on de...

Another place with two streams, closer to the point of origin of the tarot, is the Room of Psyche at Mantua, done c. 1528 by Giulio Romano (Vitali draws attention to this scene in his essay on the Star card). Here each stream has two jugs, one pair held by an old man and the other by a nymph. The mo...

Thanks again, Steve. If I ever am tempted to use that last site and have trouble navigating it, I will know who to ask! I need to make another addition, this time regarding the Star card, in particular the two streams that Marco drew attention to in the "Glory of the World" text and "...

Thanks for the clarifications. And Cotgrove looks like an excellent translation resource, one I will try to remember to use. At the end of my post on the Sun card, I said I couldn't find a 15th-17th century alchemical equivalent for the twin boys, one being sadly comforted by the other, on the Sun c...

In alchemy the red Solar stage follows the white Lunar stage, as many works assert. I have already cited Ripley's "Vision." Another is in part 3of the "Glory of the World ", the text Marco referenced. ix. ARISTEUS, in his Second Table, says: Beat the body which I have made known ...