New Material on Mantegna Tarocchi & Sola Busca

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As I am new to this Forum I am not sure if this publication has been discussed here. In any event, there are some specualtions to continue with. The book is:
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Nadya Chishty Mujahid, An Introduction to Western Esotericism: Essays in the Hidden Meaning of Literature, Groups, and Games, Edwin Mellen Press, 2008

Chapters include:

5. The Epsilon-Sigma Caduceus: The Mantegna tarocchi as a book of ritual for Kappa Sigma
6. The Sola-Busca Sundial: A Renaissance tarot deck as a mutus liber of ritualistic initiation

“Carefully researched and helpfully illustrated, [the] book [also] elucidates the long history of the Tarot, which stretches back to the 15th century, and its permeation of familiar (and sometimes not so familiar) cultural texts.” – Prof. Joe Lenz, Drake University
http://www.mellenpress.com/mellenpress. ... =7437&pc=9

Elsewhere she writes:

“This leads to a question: how useful then is much of the available scholarship on the Tarot (especially that which is written in English), and can it be considered scholarship at all? The answer is that it depends on whether one views the issue from the perspective of cultural studies or from that of other disciplines. Art history has consistently regarded the development of Tarot as a fascinating sub-field, and Arthur Hind’s classic work published in the early 1900s titled Early Italian Engraving testifies to this in no small degree, as indeed do Kaplan’s above-mentioned encyclopedias. Oddly enough, Western esotericism (formerly a sub-discipline of religious studies and now widely regarded as a field in its own right) has yet to give more attention to this topic, although Irwin’s text provides a definite starting point for the scholar and layperson alike. One reason for this might be that most Western esotericism scholarship that centers on the Tarot is in French, and, fine and informative though it may be, that naturally limits its reception in the English-speaking world. However, Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism does provide a readable English section on the Tarot (by expert Jean-Pierre Laurant) with a useful list of sources. If one regards humanities as a broad and overarching discipline in itself, there certainly is a niche for Tarot scholarship under the rubric of it.”
Tarot Studies as Scholarship
Nadya Qamar Chishty-Mujahid
http://www.equinoxjournals.com/POM/.../view/3804/2701


Paper Title: Manuel Chrysoloras and the Origins of the Tarot: The Probable Masonic Influences Incorporated in the Mantegna Tarot

Abstract: This paper posits that humanist Manuel Chrysoloras, the founder of the prestigious Italian Renaissance fraternity of Kappa Sigma, was familiar with early Masonic principles and, in fact, may have been the first Renaissance Freemason. Moreover, what we now regard as the E and S-series of the “Mantegna” tarot probably originated from images used by Chrysoloras to inform his student-followers about Pythagorean, Platonic, and Ptolemaic concepts. Central to the clarification of my theories are issues concerning Chrysoloras’s links to the powerful Italian ducal houses such as the Visconti family, whose patronage of this enlightened scholar and diplomat most likely proved to be enormously influential to the development of the tarot, especially over the course of the fifteenth-century. In sum, I will demonstrate that key cards of the “Mantegna” tarot’s E-series appear Masonic in nature and were likely inspired by the classical and hermetic teachings of Chrysoloras.
ALSO:

NADYA CHISHTY MUJAHID, THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO
An Examination of Andrea Ghisi’s Venetian “Labyrinth” Game and its Hermetic Predecessor, the Mantegna tarocchi

“In 1616, Venetian nobleman Andrea Ghisi presented Giovanni Bembo (then Doge of Venice), with a curious game based on the Mantegna tarocchi. My research in hermeticism has involved an exploration of the E- and S-series of the Mantegna engravings (ca. 1460), that appear to exhibit hermetic characteristics. In this paper, I attempt to reconstruct the original game that constituted Ghisi’s “Laberinto.” Although Ghisi did not leave clear directions as to how this game was to be played, certain images of this elegant set (especially those that appear to deviate from the original Mantegna engravings) provide clues that help one establish a relationship between “Laberinto” and a type of “chess.” Special consideration will be given to the concept of “mutation”: Ghisi’s game is as mutated a version of the Mantegna tarocchi as the abovementioned “chess” is a mutated form of the most predominant version of the game played in seventeenth-century Europe.”

Nadya Chishty-Mujahid is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature from McGill University in Montreal.

Further on Chrysoloras and the Mantegna Tarot
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Following on the presentation of Nadya Chishty Mujahid,

“Manuel Chrysoloras and the Origins of the Tarot: The Probable Masonic Influences Incorporated in the Mantegna Tarot.”

Manuel Chrysoloras as the founder of Kappa Sigma is repeated extensively on Kappa Sigma websites. There is one odd clue, which you can Google to confirm:

“The Kappa Sigma Fraternity claims that its origins can be traced back to Bologna, Italy in 1400 and was modelled after the order "Kirjath Sepher".”

Nothing further is said about "Kirjath Sepher" - obviously the words are represented by the Greek Letters ‘Kappa Sigma’. Excuse my ignorance, I am way out of my depth here: but "Kirjath Sepher" produces 23,300 results on Google – obviously not a very esoteric subject.

We do not know, either from Nadya Chishty Mujahid or other sources, what Manuel Chrysoloras could have been involved with an order called "Kirjath Sepher".

Kirjath-Sepher is:

“One of the old Israelitish cities, near Hebron, is called Kirjath-sepher, or city of books. Both the city and the name, however, antedate the Jewish occupation of Palestine and are probably memorials of a time when this city[ was a center of that Assyrian culture which covered the entire region later known as Palestine.”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3080...3-h/30803-h.htm

And there is an article:
KIRJATH-SEPHER: Emil G. Hirsch Bernhard Pick
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com

Seeing that the Online Jewish Encyclopedia.com is a reputable, scholarly resource, it was interesting to say the least, to find H. P. Blavatsky offering the following:

“The “Book of Enoch” is declared apocryphal. But what is an Apocrypha? The very etymology of the term shows that it is simply a secret book, i.e., one that belonged to the catalogue of temple libraries under the guardianship of the Hierophants and initiated priests, and was never meant for the profane. Apocrypha comes from the verb crypto, [[krupto]], “to hide.” For ages the Enoichion (the Book of the SEER) was preserved in the “city of letters” and secret works — the ancient Kirjath-Sepher, later on, Debir (see Joshua xv., 15).”

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 2, ch 21, VOL. 2, p. 529: WHO INVENTED WRITING? Theosophical University Press Online Edition
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-2-08.htm

Now could Manuel Chrysoloras have been aware of the above connotations? There must be a link between the Byzantine transmission and Kirjath-Sepher, the “city of letters”. And there is, in that Kirjath-Sepher was under Byzantine rule. Thereby hangs a tale, which will take time to tell.

“ . . . . western historians, in their focus on the western activities of the more famous Byzantine individuals such as Bessarion, Pletho, and Chrysoloras, have failed to notice a factor which, directly or indirectly, affected the lives of most of these emigrés—that is, the existence of a large, cosmopolitan Greek colony in Venice. This is particularly true with respect to the later period when Venice displaced Florence as the leading centre of Greek studies in Europe.”

Deno Geanakoplos, The Greco-Byzantine Colony in Venice and its Significance in the Renaissance. In: From Byzantine East & Latin West: Two Worlds of Christendom in Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Academy Library Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1966.

To this we must add: that most vital figure of the Greeks - Cardinal Bessarion, has been credited, with the other great Humanists - Cusa and Pius II, with some influence in the creation of the Mantegna Tarot, although this suggestion is denied by some - the links to Chrysoloras may yet bear fruit.
Samten de Wet
Sunday, 13 June 2010

Re: New Material on Mantegna Tarocchi & Sola Busca

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I just found out that An Introduction to Western Esotericism: Essays in the Hidden Meaning of Literature, Groups, and Games is exemplary in both its command of scholarly detail and its delineation of new possibilities." - Prof. David Grandy Brigham Young University "Carefully researched and helpfully illustrated, [the] book [also] elucidates the long history of the Tarot, which stretches back to the 15th century, and its permeation of familiar (and sometimes not so familiar) cultural texts."

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