Propheceien und Weissagungen

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Showing the dangers of gaming... Someone has added an interesting if not diabolical dimension to the Pope in this illustration - figures in some other pictures in this book seem to have suffered the same fate (mostly dice and circles within circles - targets?). What is that on his shoulder? There are some rather nice sibyls later on.

Pen

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From: Propheceien und Weissagungen : Vergangne, gegenwertige, und künfftige Sachen, Geschicht und Züfäll, hoher und niderer Stende / Doctoris Paracelsi, Johan Liechtenbergers, M. Josephi Grünpeck, Joan. Carionis, der Sibyllen und anderer. Imprint [S.l. : s.n.], 1549.
Last edited by Pen on 20 Jan 2011, 07:29, edited 1 time in total.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy...

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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Hi, Pen,
Pen wrote:Showing the dangers of gaming... Someone has added an interesting if not diabolical dimension to the Pope in this illustration - figures in some other pictures in this book seem to have suffered the same fate (mostly dice and circles within circles - targets?). What is that on his shoulder?
His staff has been turned into a Devil's pitchfork, his crown has been given ears and bells of a fool, and the circle indicates that he is Jewish. A diabolical Jewish pope is one traditional interpretation of the Antichrist, even today.

I can't make out the thing on his shoulder, but a small demon would be a reasonable guess. P.S. Or a frog.

The badge, hat and clothing laws for Jews in the Middle Ages
http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/M ... -ENGL.html

Best regards,
Michael
We are either dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, or we are just dwarfs.

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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Hi Michael and OP, thanks for the info.

I was looking at a wonderful handwritten and painted book the other day about The Antichrist in which a small demon/devil sits on his shoulder.

OP, I'm wondering if there's a precedent for the fly...? The object on his shoulder does seem more like a large fly than a frog or a small devil. Perhaps though, as it was simply drawn in by someone wishing to make a point, it doesn't need an established historical symbolism other than the obvious one.

Michael wrote:
A diabolical Jewish pope is one traditional interpretation of the Antichrist, even today.


The human race never ceases to amaze...


Pen
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy...

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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Ya, the fly is actually more common in Christian art than you'd think.

Crivelli's "Madonna and Child (With a Goldfinch)" in The Met is a nice general example.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/49.7.5
(Sidebar: It's quite an amazing thing in person. It looks like it was painted yesterday.)

I believe I've seen them drawn on prints like this too, but can't recall offhand where it was.
(It might be this same one, or another Pope with grafitti...)
I am not a cannibal.

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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OnePotato wrote
(Sidebar: It's quite an amazing thing in person. It looks like it was painted yesterday.)
It's amazing on screen too - I've never come across it before. And in addition to its freshness and brilliance there's something stylistically very modern about it.

From the link above
The apples and fly are symbols of sin and evil and are opposed to the cucumber and goldfinch, symbols of redemption.
All but the apple are are new (official) symbolism for me - I'd have read the fly as 'decay' rather than evil - thanks OP... (*)

And Crivelli's St George could be a Knight or Page of Batons....

Pen
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy...

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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... :-) ... I see somebody scribbling with a pen on some printed paper, maybe a 1-minute-action. I see some others starting a discussion, if he meant a fly ... :-) ... maybe it takes some days.

This remembers me, that somebody scribbled with a knife or another tool a rather bad painted nine-man-morris board on a stone plate, and the stone plate became part of the throne of emperor Charlemain. As the throne became the throne, on which many German emperors were crowned in the dome of Aix-des-chapelles, well, the consequence became, that nowadays each tourism guide has to tell the story of this 9-men-morris-board, which ... so one of the developing assumptions ..., cause the stone plates were brought from the holy country, a bored Roman soldier stationed in Jerusalem should have made. Well, best one of those, who accompanied Jesus to his last walk.
Anyway, funny as memory functions, finally the nine-men-morris-board became that, what is usually best remembered from the whole dome ... may be right after this door knob, in which the devil lost a finger, when he furiously slammed the door of the dome, after the citizens had cheated him.

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Probability suggests, that an anonymous bored medieval schoolboy some centuries later might have the same chance to have been the artist.

Anyway, the throne is very rudely made and looks rather uncomfortable.

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And if you don't believe me ...

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Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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Huck wrote:...:)...I see somebody scribbling with a pen on some printed paper, maybe a 1-minute-action. I see some others starting a discussion, if he meant a fly ... :-) ... maybe it takes some days.


Huck, I guess we all come at tarot history with different objectives. I'm fascinated by all aspects of tarot (even the case for historical divination - hell...! even the 'magic' of modern divination) and especially enjoy finding and thinking about these small personal details. They bring tarot history alive (for me) so much more vividly than The Big Picture. One day maybe I'll find an origin for the Tarot de Paris La Papesse... :grin:

And look what I've learned from this thread so far: the meaning of the badge, the fly, the cucumber and goldfinch, the Nine Men Morris Board, the Devil's finger...

Please bear with me... @};-

Pen
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy...

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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... yes, yes, I understand ... actually already Greek temples had there story-tellers and finally we got a wonderful Greek mythology. Sorry, that I couldn't offer a picture of the devil's finger, but I tried and tried, but didn't get it out of the hole. I've the suspicion, that it was stolen by a souvenir hunter, who sold it at the flea-market or maybe ebay or Christie's.

But the wolf is there, that one, whose soul the devil got, cause he was promised to get the soul of the first who would enter the church, and the wise citizens hunted the wolf through the church door, after the devil had helped to build the church.

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But the devil became very angry about the story and he went to the North-sea and filled many sacks with much sand, which with he wished to drown the city and its dome. When he was with his sacks on his way to Aix-des-chapelles and nearly had reached it and it had been a hot day and the devil was exhausted, he asked an old woman, how far he still had to go. But the woman was "lous", which means clever, she recognized him as the devil and his bad intentions, so she pointed to her very old shoes, and told him, that she had bought them this morning at the market in Aix-des-chapelles and now after such a long journey they would look like this. So the devil was disappointed, gave up and dropped his sacks. And so Aix-des-chapelles got a new mountain, which they called Lousberg. And there was found a lot of fire-stones, such, which you usually only find at the border of the ocean, cause the devil got his sand from the North Sea. And the early people of Aix-des-chapelles sold these fire-stones and even exported them till 250 km distance to the Lousberg (with archeological evidence, ca. 4500 BC - till 2500) ... which is a little strange, as the dome had been build c. 800 AD. Anyway, from the fire-stone axes had been build.

But the whole is naturally true, and if you wish to have a nice view on Aix-des-chapelles, you can climb the Lousberg and you'll have a splendid sightseeing and evience, as much you want.

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View from Lousberg in direction Haaren, in the background you see the last signs of the disappearing devil with a nine-men-morris-playing-board, and if you look very attentive also with some scribbled flies in his luggage.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Paracelsus: Propheceien und Weissagungen

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Johann Liechtenberger at ...
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVI/Schoener.htm
Johann Lichtenberger

This, more or less, was the essence of the “little prophet’s” profile according to Middelburg. Johann Lichtenberger (1440-1503), a German priest from the Rhineland and an astrologer in the court of Emperor Frederick III, was familiar with Middelburg’s work, yet he now wrote his own prediction. The first Latin edition appeared in Heidelberg in 1488, [xiii] and the first German translation in 1490. [xiv] Lichtenberger extended the historical arc further than Middelburg had: He situated his interpretation of the conjunction of 1484 within the series of Judeo-Christian “last days of the world”, and peppered it with non-Christian prophesies as well. Quotes refer hither and thither to Joachim of Fiore, Bridget of Sweden, Francis, Merlin, and the Sybil’s oracles. [xv] According to him, the following could be expected: The Church would experience great storms, princes and emperors would fight one another, and life on earth would threaten to become hell for the common people (due to war, illness, natural catastrophes and immorality). And, in the midst of all this, the ‘little prophet’ would make his entrance, as already described by Middelburg. The “end of the world” will then follow, and the “Antichrist and his sect” will appear before an age of peace ensues.

Contrary to Middelburg, Lichtenberger was not an academic scholarly type; his entire piece is a rather unsystematic compilation of various sources with only very few original thoughts. The entire passage about the “little prophet” is copied word-for-word from Middelburg. Middelburg angrily reacted to it in 1492, accusing Lichtenberger of plagiarism [xvi] —however, without any consequences and (probably) without any response from Lichtenberger. But it was Lichtenberger, not Middelburg who enjoyed public success! For he wrote not only in Latin, but in the German and Italian vernacular as well. Not to mention that he appeals to the emotions! He supplements the text with many images (woodcuts), with a total of 45 pictures illustrating the individual prophesies. The effect on the public was vast: Up through 1530 alone – during the years of the fiercest clashes between Luther’s supporters and his Roman Catholic opponents – 32 editions appeared. [xvii]

Yet another thing contributed to the popularisation of his work: Johann Gutenberg’s introduction of letterpress printing in 1440 had made it possible to publish mass editions not only of books but of smaller written works as well. Since 1499, the printing of such “pamphlets” had caught on in Germany. In a matter of just a few hours, several thousand copies could be printed (the average was 1,000 copies per edition. With 3,000 to 4,000 copies Luther’s Reformation pamphlets were bestsellers). [xviii] As a pamphlet with several 10,000 copies, illustrated with many images, Lichtenberger’s prediction thus became a mass-media event. Other astrological pamphlets also contributed to this mass-media-stirred atmosphere; many astrologers (including Johann Carion) predicted a great flood for all of Europe in 1524/25 – the result of another “grand conjunction,” that of February 1524 in the sign of Pisces. These two prophesies (the flood of 1524 and the ‘little prophet’ following from the conjunction of 1484) thus now flowed together as a single current, encountering the zeal for reform in humanistic circles, but also influencing the common people through Reformation preachers who acted as disseminators. However, they also created and exacerbated apocalyptic fears.
Huck
http://trionfi.com
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