Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

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SteveM wrote: This reminded me of something in Dante. In his Divine Comedy, Dante enters the sphere of fixed stars through Gemini, his own natal sign:
If he had his own sign there, it's no wonder, that he preferred it.

Well, Gemini had the longest daylight days then and Florence had its Giovanni the Baptist festivities after it, after the festivity season had started with 1st of May.
The weather is usually fine, not as hot as in August, when likely everybody who could climbed the mountains and visited his country homes. So Florence might have had its own reasons to love the Gemini time, however, we've the first notes to Germini in 1517 and 1519 and not in the time of Dante, but that of Leo X. And Leo, who also loved the cards, demonstrated in Rome, how festivities were done in Florence. Till all the money was gone.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Huck wrote:... we've the first notes to Germini in 1517 and 1519 and not in the time of Dante, but that of Leo X.
But Dante didn't achieve status as Italian classic over all Italy until the 16th century--so one could say it was very much 'his time' , when the Florentine language of Dante, Petrarch & Boccacio became established as the primary language of Italian literature. Beside the Aldine edition (1502) another major edition was the Florentine edition published by Giunti in 1506, prepared by the poet Benivieni, associated with the neo-platonic Academy and a friend of Pico de Mirandola, at a time when Florence 'was eager to reclaim him as her own'.

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

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.. hm ...

.... but Minchiate/Germini was produced in Florence, and there they spoke Florentine dialect all the time. And the three crowns of poetry with Dante and Petrarca and Boccaccio were already celebrated as such in 1436 and 1440. And I can't imagine, that everybody was interested to know that Dante had been born in Gemini. Dante was dead already 190 years, but, if I remember correctly, the last pope from Florence was from 450 years ago ....
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Niccol%C3%B2_II
... however, he wasn't really from Florence, but he was only archbishop of Florence (possibly it's correct to say, that there was never a pope from Florence before Leo X. ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes )

And Leo X was from Florence, was alive and became pope, and I would think, that this moved some persons, especially in Florence.

Anyway, even if some people in Florence still thought that life without the Medici had been a better life in Florence, for the moment of 1513 the power of Florence had been in Medici hands and if the relative young reigning Medici (Leo was 37, about 10 years younger than Pope Paul II and Pope Eugen, who both started with 47 as popes, and these were also very young as popes) desired to introduce a new form of the card game Germini, then they really hadn't a big problem to realize this.

Leo succeeded to win the hearts in Florence with festivities, so I've read. It's true, that some attempted a rebellion ... http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Paolo_Boscoli . The leaders lost their heads (22 February 1513), only a few days after a celebrated carnival with Medici participation, and not a long time, before Giovanni was elected as Leo X. (9 March).
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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On the question of Gemini, there doesn't have to be just one explanation. Both work, as long as the practice of inserting the zodiac in that way didn't exist before the Medici regained "control" of Florence (or perhaps we should say, the Florentines lost control of their city to the Spanish, of whom the Medici then were puppets), or not too long after the two died. But is there any record of the Duke and the Pope being called "Gemini"? If not, the Dante explanation is sufficient.

There is also the old issue, why are the Gemini on the Milan-based Sun card, as early as the Sforza Castle cards? (viewtopic.php?f=23&t=402&p=14273&hilit=Gemini#p14273). That question certainly provoked a storm!

Huck wrote,
"So where do the "folders" and the next 32 come in, Huck" .... :-) ... I guess, I've already explained that ...
http://trionfi.com/tarot/new-themes/sepher-yetzirah/

Image


... if it's too small, visit the weblink.
I don't understand. Why are the six directions there twice? Where does the SY mention a "center"? Why are there 6 numbers for 3 elements? And aren't the elements part of the first 32? What do the simples correspond to except zodiac signs (since you want them twice)? And what about the body parts? Where do they come in? It seems like all you are doing is repeating the first 32, with nothing new except the 6 directions, arbitrarily, since there aren't 6 simples, doubles, or mothers?

Also, I don't know why you quote Westcott. His translation doesn't correspond to anything historically Jewish. You should quote Kaplan.

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

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Unless the whole sequence of zodiacal signs can be explained, isn't Gemini as highest probably just as apparently random (accidental) as the rest of the sequence? Of the signs, Gemini is the only one that follows another in the natural order of the zodiac (Taurus, Gemini), this bit would go with Dante (it took me to see the sign of Gemini, that follows Taurus, and to be inside it), but there is no explanation for the apparently random order of the rest of the sequence in Dante, as far as I can see at the moment.
Last edited by SteveM on 27 Aug 2014, 09:53, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

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mikeh wrote: Huck wrote,
"So where do the "folders" and the next 32 come in, Huck" .... :-) ... I guess, I've already explained that ...
http://trionfi.com/tarot/new-themes/sepher-yetzirah/

Image


... if it's too small, visit the weblink.
I don't understand. Why are the six directions there twice?
There are planets in the Sephiroth group involved, and there are planets involved in the letter group (at least in the common interpretation). As I see from the Wescott translation (my Kaplan book is on the run, I don't find it), that the SY of Wescott relates twice to directions, once in context of the Sepher Yetzirah group (I, 11+12), once in the letter group and there for the doubles (IV, 2).
11. He selected three letters from the simple ones, and sealed them as forming his great Name, I H V and he sealed the universe in six directions.

Five.- He looked above, and sealed the height, with I H V.
Six.- He looked below, and sealed the deep, with I V H.
Seven.- He looked forward, and sealed the East, with H I V.
Eight.-He looked backward, and sealed the West, with V H I.
Nine.- He looked to the right, and sealed the South, with V I H.
Ten.-He looked to the left(, and sealed the North, with H V 1.
(IV, 2): These seven double letters point out the dimensions, East, West, height, depth, North, South[these are six directions), with the holy temple in the middle[that's thev 7th], sustaining all things.


It uses in "I, 11" some letter trick with the holy name (IHV), possibly cause he (God in the assumption of the author) wished to refer to some numbers (10, 6, 5). Likely the author assumed, that God created a protected world. For the essential mathematical idea that seems not of importance. Possibly there was the idea of 7 cubes, from which one was the center, and the 6 others were attached to the 6 sides of the center cube, so that each of the six cubes had 5 outsides (5 senses ?) and one side leading back to the center cube. Who knows? At least they reached, that 10+6+5= 21 and that's nearly 22.
Where does the SY mention a "center"?
The "holy temple in the middle", quoted above. But "six directions" automatical imply a center.
Why are there 6 numbers for 3 elements?


You need 3 dimensions for "six directions" and three dimensions create space. Well, one could call these dimensions "elements". Mostly fire is the (first) positive, water the (second) negative, and air the (3rd) balancing element between the both others. The Chinese give 1 to the Water, Fire gets a 2 and Wood=Air gets the 3 and further you've metal (4) and earth (5).
SY takes Holy Spirit as the first, air as the second, water the next and fire as the last.

These are differences in deeper philosophy. For some time the Chinese imagined a tortoise, which carried the world. Other views made a polytheism and some a monotheism, and others thought of 3 basic components like father, son and holy spirit. Things are complicated in these different world views. We have a Hubble telescope, a big bang, and atoms and quarks and Antimaterie and Relativitätstheorie and that's also not easy. Galaxies and black holes, and billions of them. Whow .... :-) ... and we've Uranus, Neptun und Pluto and Rosetta and Curiosity, not to forget. And internet to talk about all this.
And aren't the elements part of the first 32?
... :-) ... somehow yes. Somehow not. But we get here complications ... :-)

With the system of SY and also with the I-Ching we're in the world of the ideal systems, which were serving mankind to answer three questions:

1. How did it happen, that it came to this world?
2. How is this world now?
3. How will this world end?

.... so the natural triad requesting past, present and future
.
If you have an idealistic system like "32 ways of system" or "64 hexagrams", you can build ideas, how this system developed (1.), and one will need "elements" or "ideas of elements" to explain this process.

Once this is described and cleared, the system exists as an sort of institution ("2."), for "32 ways of wisdom" or "64 hexagrams". Then the system still contains positions, which refer to the elements, but they are not really "elements", as they were understood in the situation of "1."

For instance the trigram Kan (in 1., looks 010) is understood as a specific form of "water", and the hexagram 29 (as part of "2."), also called "Kan" (looks 010010, so the trigram Kan is doubled), is also related to water, but it is as a hexagram considered as something different.
Kan (hexagram) is considered in SY a part of the mother-letter (lets assume Aleph), which corresponds to air (not water). Why to air and not to water? Cause the opposite of Kan is Li (101) and Li (as hexagram 101101) means fire. In the "32 ways of wisdom"-concept opposites are united (so Kan with Li) and the result is "Air" in the world of ideas of the SY. The Chinese also knew about the complementary hexagrams (naturally) and they had a name for this (pang-tung according Helmut Wilhelm, in contrast to other methods of pair-building called tsien-gua and giau-gua), but they didn't spend so much attention to it (as far I know ... but there are thousands of not translated manuscripts about I-Ching in their libraries, and what's all inside likely nobody knows about).
The Chinese hadn't the idea with the "32 ways of wisdom", although they knew the 32 complementary hexagrams, possibly cause they hadn't an excessive monotheism and hadn't an alphabet with 22 letters, but many thousands other signs to write with.

The problem with the future ("3.") became then a speciality for Cordovero and Isaac Luria, answered by the Adam Cadmon theories. As the Jews had suffered in 1492 and ideas appeared, that the world would be finished soon, the Kabbala seached for answers. China, the center of the world as the Chinese saw it, hadn't the problem of the Jews.
What do the simples correspond to except zodiac signs (since you want them twice)?
SY has (Wescott) ...
CHAPTER V

1. The simple letters are twelve, namely: He, Vau, Zain, Heth, Teth, Yod, Lamed, Nun, Samech, Oin, Tzaddi, and Quoph; they represent the fundamental properties, eight, hearing, smell, speech, desire for food, the sexual appetite, movement, anger, mirth, thought, sleep, and work. These symbolize also twelve directions in space: northeast, southeast, the east above, the east below, the northwest, southwest, the west above, the west below, the upper south, the lower south, the upper north, the lower north. These diverge to all eternity, and an as the arms of the universe.

2. These twelve letters, he designed, formed, combined, weighed, and changed, and created with them the twelve divisions of the heavens (namely, the zodiacal constellations), the twelve months of the year, and the twelve important organs of the frame of man, namely the right and left hands, the right and left feet, two kidneys, the liver, the gall, the spleen, the intestines, the gullet, and the stomach.

3. Three mothers, seven double and twelve simple, these are the twenty-two letters with which I H V H Tetragrammaton, that is our Lord of Hosts, exalted, and existed in the ages, whose name is Holy, created three fathers, fire and spirit and water, progressing beyond them, seven heavens with their armies of angels; and twelve limits of the universe.
And what about the body parts? Where do they come in?


In Chapter V/2 above. I agree, that the SY made not much words about it.
It seems like all you are doing is repeating the first 32, with nothing new except the 6 directions, arbitrarily, since there aren't 6 simples, doubles, or mothers?
Likely you're inspired about the second 32, which watch about the other 32 in the quote of the Bahir. But the Bahir is no the SY. The SY knew, how one could reduce the 64 to 32 (which is obvious by the structure of letters and Sephiroth), but it talks only about the 32 pairs, not about the 64. The Bahir in its quote gives an indication, that there was something with a 64 in context to the 32 ways of wisdom ... that's all. Other texts with some direction to Kabbala forget about a "64" as far I know.

Generally the first kabbalists had problems with orthodox Jews. 1170 in Provence, that was a hot bed of religious opinions with Cathars. Cathars stood (possibly) for some Dualism, and Dualism was attacked, not only by Christians, but also by orthodox Jews, perhaps cause it pointed too much to a Good and Bad side of the world ad the fight of the both sides in Zoroasrism and Gnosis. The math of the binary tree looks very much like "dualism". Perhaps they had fears about it. And it disappeared, and the impression became popular, that the 32 ways of wisdom had come from nothing. Perhaps it had some relevance in "secret teachings", but possibly it simply became "unknown", more or less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbonne
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Narbonne was home to an important Jewish exegetical school, which played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the Zarphatic (Judæo-French) and Shuadit (Judæo-Provençal) languages. Jews had settled in Narbonne from about the 5th century, with a community that had risen to approximately 2000 in the 12th century. At this time, Narbonne was frequently mentioned in Talmudic works in connection with its scholars. One source, Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, gives them an importance similar to the exilarchs of Babylon.[4] In the 12th and 13th centuries, the community went through a series of ups and downs before settling into extended decline.
Narbonne was not a major city o the Cathars, but it belonged to them.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

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SteveM wrote:Unless the whole sequence of zodiacal signs can be explained, isn't Gemini as highest probably just as apparently random (accidental) as the rest of the sequence?
There is not really an explanation, why the Germini game used just this order of the zodiac ... Gemini as the highest sign might have been chosen as "highest" cause Gemini definitely led to the longest days and the highest sun (if it wasn't chosen by the Medici for reasons of personal preference).

For "Libra" as lowest and first zodiac-sign is given, that this sign was used as first also in the German lot book form, to which I pay so much attention to and which also has a crazy zodiac presentation, and a possible reason was, that in Babylon (and occasionally also in Greece) the year started with this month.
Last edited by Huck on 27 Aug 2014, 17:43, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

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mikeh wrote: There is also the old issue, why are the Gemini on the Milan-based Sun card, as early as the Sforza Castle cards? (viewtopic.php?f=23&t=402&p=14273&hilit=Gemini#p14273). That question certainly provoked a storm!
The Sun is a symbol of Christ, and there is a tradition of associating the Redeemer with Gemini. Dante alludes to it with Virgil's prophesy of a forthcoming redeemer:

He will not feed on earth or pewter
but wisdom, love and virtue
and his home {birth} will be between felt and felt {the Heavenly Twins}.

[Felt is a symbol of Castor and Pollux, re: their felt phrygian caps as symbols of freedom, liberation. Between felt and felt means between the stars of Gemini.]

Boccacio's commentary on Dante here, that Dante could almost be describing himself as Messiah, but such messianic aspirations being so outrageous and unlawful, it cannot be.

In Dante, as the immortal brother secured his mortal brother a place in heaven, so one's place in heaven is secured through 'the Beloved'.
Huck wrote: There is not really an explanation, why the Germini game used just this order of the zodiac ...
Perhaps as I note in another thread, Phaeton not knowing how to drive would explain the random order of the zodiac :)
Wherefore he to me : " If Castor and Pollux had been in
company of that mirror, which leads of its light both
upward and down, thou wouldst have seen the fiery Zodiac
rotate yet closer to the Bears, unless it had issued forth
from its old road. How that is, if thou wouldst be able to
conceive, with inward recollection picture to thyself that
Sion stands with this mountain in suchwise on the earth,
that both have a single horizon and diverse hemispheres ;
whence, if thy intellect considers clearly, thou wilt see
how it behoves that the road, whereon to his own mishap
Phaethon knew not how to drive, should pass on the one
side of this mount, when it is on the other side of that."

Dante Purgatorio IV,61.
huck wrote: For "Libra" as lowest and first zodiac-sign is given, that this sign was used as first also in the German lot book form, to which I pay so much attention to and which also has a crazy zodiac presentation, and a possible reason was, that in Babylon (and occasionally also in Greece) the year started with this month.
Dante descends into hell at Easter, on Good Friday, 'Hell Time' is 'night-time' and is referenced through the positions of the Moon and Stars. That is, the Moon is in Libra when Dante begins his descent into Hell (Dante also extends the 'helltime=nighttime symbolism by pointing out that Libra is also the sign when 'night begins to fall', i.e, at the Autumn Equinox).
Last edited by SteveM on 28 Aug 2014, 07:45, edited 5 times in total.

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Re. Medici/Gemini

Any astrological correspondences between the zodiac and Medici would surely come from Ficino, but not sure what to make of this material:
Agathon thinks that the arts were given to humanity by the Gods because of love….Twelve gods are in charge of the tweleve signs of the zodiac…Apollo, through Gemini, teaches prophecy, medicine and archery….” (Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s Syymposium, from “Marsilio Ficino and the Twelve Gods of the Zodiac”, Carol V. Kaske, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , Vol. 45, (1982), pp. 195-202 (195).
The significance of Apollo is obvious, but in one of his last works, De Sole, he moves the Sun back to its rightful sign of Leo. On-line with translator’s note pasted below:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~alfar2/ficino.htm
The Book of the Sun represents the culmination of Ficino's life and work. Published in 1494, five years before his death, it is a supreme example of the very synthesis of astrology, religion and philosophy for which Ficino strived all his life, and illustrates his ability to convey the deepest mystical experience within a lucid, authoritative prose. In the Dedication to Piero de' Medici Ficino tells us that the origin of this work is the metaphor of the Sun in Plato's Republic, and that he was inspired by Pseudo Dionysius on the same subject.
Also note that Ficino seems to follow Macrobius’s error of relocating the ecliptic/galactic cross-point gates of the soul from Gemini/Sagittarius to the solstices: “Perhaps Cancer is called the gateway of men, since there the Sun seems on the point of descending; and Capricorn the gateway of the gods, since there the Sun seems to ascend resolutely.”

Apollo-in-Gemini teaching prophecy is certainly interesting, but I don’t think any such claims were made for Germini. Ficino connects Gemini elsewhere to prophets “Gemini is rising then, a star that signifies prophets” in Chapter 26 Libri de vita, Book III. http://ls.poly.edu/~jbain/mms/texts/mmslibri.htm

I see the Medici arms on the Judgment card, but do not see how two females as Gemini relates to the Medici….
Image


Interestingly the tradition of placing Apollo with Gemini did affect certain Tarot Sun cards (but the original context is prophecy - the Sun I get in that context, but why Gemini?):
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Phaeded