Well, I am going to order this.

After speaking to Robert about the decks I have and remembering that I have a copy of the Vacchetta, I decided I could use it with Dame Fortune's Wheel to study a book. So I browsed my poetry bookshelf and came out with a nice hardcover edition of Petrarch.

There was some excitement generated toward this idea because the greens went so well together. . . .

What a lovely image Cadla. Green is my definitely my favourite colour, so your photo is especially beautiful to my eye. I'd very much like to get the Dame Fortune, and hopefully I might be able to pick one up in the next couple of months. If I do, I'd love to go through the deck with you. If you'd like to link to or scan images to discuss, I'd be delighted to join you. I have his book, and have heard that it helps explain some of his choices, so that might come in handy.

robert wrote:If I do, I'd love to go through the deck with you.

Your comment about that fish got me going, so we could have a meander. A leisurely stroll through archetype and emblem sounds interesting. Your familiarity with a panoply of historical decks would be of benefit to me since I don't really collect them. If you've seen my card studies you know I tend toward a more random approach to these things.

I don't frequent forums too often but give me a shout via PM if you get hold of a copy. Thanks!

I just received this in the mail today and was delighted. I find the saturated colours and art very reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts, which are an interest of mine.

Far from being lurid or unpleasant, the colours are charming and pull you into the imagery.

Great stuff!!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Hopefully, I'll be able to budget getting one in the next few months. Do feel free to post for discussions though, I'm curious to see his choices.

The Star
Apparently known to you Robert. . . .


I recently did a small study of the Aquarius card from the Minchiate deck, so I was delighted to see the male figure in Paul Huson's card since it points to the Water Bearer Aquarius which I think a likely source for this card. Huson says the original 15th century Milanese card (from the Cary collection) was of indeterminate gender, and today we depict this archetype as a woman, but Huson is going with the male as you can see, which ties into the male youth in the Iconologia image associated with this card and the association of Ganymede with the constellation Aquarius.

Paul Huson says the dolphin seemed right to him because some of the marks in the original card suggested a fish in the water. The older decks often have a little bird sitting in a tree of bush on The Star, but no fish or even a ripple of a fish, and Paul Huson does not mention these fish-type marks in his book Mystical Origins of Tarot.

More generally, dolphins represents salvation because dolphins were supposed to rescue sailors at sea and carry them to safety. It can also represent resurrection when used in place of the whale in the story of Jonah, which it often is. Because of the association of The Star with hope and healing, I kind of like the dolphin there with his vague resonance of salvation and new beginnings.

Cesar Ripa has an emblem of the Morning Twilight or Twilight of the Morning or just The Morning, which depicts the Star of Lucifer (which Huson calls Venus), and perhaps contributed to the bright central star in this imagery. That makes sense to me too since there is one bright star in the card and several smaller ones scattered about. As a familiar emblem some of the imagery on the cards might have come from the Iconologia. The bird in early tarot packs might come from this too as the bird in the Iconologia is a swallow, which is also a symbol of resurrection and considered sacred to Venus.
Ripa calls the star Lucifer, who was the morning star, but in our day the planet Venus is called the Evening Star when in the west and the Morning Star when in the east. Except for the moon, it is the brightest object in the night sky and reaches its brightest point just before sunrise or shortly after sunset. Hence the change I expect. Plus, Lucifer is hardly politically correct since the name became synonymous with Satan.

In the actual constellations, Aquarius pours the water from his jug into the constellation Pisces, so another nod to the stars and fish there. Do we not often feel a resurgence of hope when looking up at the night sky full of stars, much like being pulled from the roiling life sea by a dolphin?

So, the fish aspect seems to be an invention of Huson's with reference to the swallow in the Iconologia and resurrection perhaps. I still like it, but I don't suppose it is historical. For me, the mish-mash of Ripa and conventional astrology seems quite natural. There is never one true way of the symbol in human art, we like to mix things up.

Cadla, I think the fish aspect may have come from the image of the Star on the Cary sheet. There are dark fish-tail shaped areas that could either be indentations in the bank (much like the ones on the cliff or precipice in the Visconti cards) or fish tails sticking out of the water.

Robert pointed me towards a thread over at AT where this question came up ( http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=62044 ), and we've been looking at the precipice, cliff edge or riverbank in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=426

Here's a link to the Cary sheet: http://highway55.library.yale.edu/PHOTO ... 613378.jpg

Pen

Oh excellent Pen, thanks. I didn't have a reproduction and Huson mentions the Cary sheet but didn't reproduce the card.

Okay, so there is the instance of a fish that Paul Huson drew on.

I think the dolphin and swallow tie in nicely together. I feel he could have depicted any fish but chose a dolphin because of the similarity in representative meaning.

I love this deck, I really do.

Ummmmm.. . . .I'm a somewhat puzzled by Robert's original comment about the fish bothering him on The Star in this deck. If he knows the Cary sheet, and indeed he has discussed that in a previous thread, why would he be puzzled? He said: "I must admit to be a bit put off by some of the conclusions that he seems to have reached, (like placing the fish on the Star card for instance)"

Why reinvent the wheel? I don't have the patience for running around after the same bone.

cadla wrote: Ummmmm.. . . .I'm a somewhat puzzled by Robert's original comment about the fish bothering him on The Star in this deck. If he knows the Cary sheet, and indeed he has discussed that in a previous thread, why would he be puzzled? He said: "I must admit to be a bit put off by some of the conclusions that he seems to have reached, (like placing the fish on the Star card for instance)"

Why reinvent the wheel? I don't have the patience for running around after the same bone.

I can't really speak for Robert, but it seems from his posts on that Cary Sheet thread over at AT that he came down on the side of riverbank indentation rather than fishy tails...

Pen

Indeed, as shown in The Precipice thread, it looks like a typical representation of a precipice to me.