Re: Cosmology and the last trumps
Posted: 17 Dec 2013, 23:03
Ross,
Didn’t mean to disengage from the discussion – the usual end of year fire drill nonsense at work.
I have noticed that you have twice mentioned the lightning striking a tree so as to minimize the tower’s significance as interchangeable with any other object that can be struck. But the significance for me is whether any exemplar for this card can be read as “wrath”; a wholly independent researcher’s opinion of the tree exemplar of this card, Andy Pollett:
Phaeded
Didn’t mean to disengage from the discussion – the usual end of year fire drill nonsense at work.
Divine wrath is how I would describe the action of the lightning and the meaning of the card, not as tower, which is incidental yet commonplace in demonstrating the wrath aspect of the lightning bolt. But I do find it significant that the tower exemplar of wrath resonated so well with the card-playing public that is the name that ultimately stuck with this card and is known as today. Why? This form of wrath, lightning on a city/tower, was the perfect mnemonic device due to the many classical and biblical exempla which all indicated the same thing: Filelfo referred to the Gigantomachy in his use of sagitta for Jupiter’s wrathful lightning bolts, Nimrod struck by fiery lightning for having built the tower of Babylon in the Sola Busca (yes I know that deck is not tarot per se, but contemporary and relevant in terms of the exemplary theme in the medium of cards), while Masaccio used a similar theme for God’s expulsion from Paradise (damning rays emitted from the tower as well as the archangel with sword), and the SHS has the destruction of Lot. Even Hurst in his long-winded explication of his own ideas implies wrath: “The obscure Fire/Tower card is paired with, and triumphs over, the Devil” (in the 'Dummett and Iconography/Methodology' thread).Ross wrote:
Indeed - they looked at a card with a dramatic image of a tower being struck by lightning, and called it... saetta, fulmen, fuoco, and foudre. They didn't call it torre, turris, or tour. The name is stronger evidence of the meaning than the iconography, the prop, which is thereby proven incidental…. Lightning strikes towers, just as it strikes trees, it causes fires, it is stunning whatever it hits. But it is the lightning, not what it hits, that is the subject of the card.
I have noticed that you have twice mentioned the lightning striking a tree so as to minimize the tower’s significance as interchangeable with any other object that can be struck. But the significance for me is whether any exemplar for this card can be read as “wrath”; a wholly independent researcher’s opinion of the tree exemplar of this card, Andy Pollett:
http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards62.htmUnlike the card from the Tarot of Charles VI, more consistent with Marseille's pattern, Viéville's allegory features a man below a tree, seeking shelter from a pouring rain that some clouds deliver after having covered the sun. Some of the "drops" are red and yellow, and likely refer to thunderbolts, whereas the clouds darkening the sun represent more symbolically God's rage.
I was wondering where your signature quote came from - and I suppose all the more reason we shall continue to disagree (agreeably I hope) on this card for now. I do owe you my literary source post that will explain why I have in turn dug in my heels on the interpretation on this card. Soon….Ross wrote:
I like it so much I use it as my signature - "con gli occhi et con l’intelletto ai Cieli, la Stella, la Luna, et il Sole, le sopranaturali fatture de Dio". It means more than just this to me…
Phaeded