Re: The Star

91
I just got around to reading these last few posts. I want to answer Cartomancer in a different way.

The Leber Star card doesn't just show Venus. There is a prominent ship in the background. MJ Hurst in 2009 analyzed that association correctly (http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2009/04 ... tarot.html; but be sure to read what he says in the "Comments" section), citing Frazer's Golden Bough:
The attributes of a marine deity may have been bestowed on Isis by the sea-faring Greeks of Alexandria. They are quite foreign to her original character and to the habits of the Egyptians, who had no love of the sea. On this hypothesis Sirius, the bright star of Isis, which on July mornings rises from the glassy waves of the eastern Mediterranean, a harbinger of halcyon weather to mariners, was the true Stella Maris, “the Star of the Sea.”
It is not the Egyptian Isis, unless you count the Greeks in Alexandria, who lived there for centuries, as Egyptian. It is the Greco-Roman Isis of the Roman Empire. Most educated persons in the Renaissance would have known about her role related to ships from Apuleius's Golden Ass, whose famous Book XI describes a procession to the sea by the devotees of Isis; I highlight the most important parts (http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITB ... nAssXI.htm):
Meanwhile amidst the tumult of the festive celebrations we had slowly progressed towards the seashore, and arrived at the very place where as an ass I had been stabled the previous day. There, once the emblems of the gods had been properly disposed, the high-priest consecrated a finely-crafted ship decorated with marvellous Egyptian hieroglyphics. Taking a lighted torch, an egg, and some sulphur, he uttered solemn prayers with reverent lips, and purified the ship thoroughly, dedicating it, and naming it for the Goddess. The shining sail of this happy vessel bore an inscription, its letters woven in gold, the text of a prayer for prosperous sailing throughout the new season. The mast of smooth pine was raised now, tall and splendid, the flag at its tip conspicuous from afar; gold-leaf glittered from the stern which was shaped like Isis’ sacred goose; while the whole hull of highly-polished citron-wood gleamed pale.
And it sails out of sight on convenient breezes. I assume it is a small model, as the people put offerings on it and it sails of its own accord. Of course Isis's statue was not naked. The card is an amalgam of Venus rising from the sea and Isis as goddess of sailors. Amalgams were popular then. A good discussion is of two tomb reliefs in Florence that combine Helios and Eros, and Mithras and Hercules, according to Frederick Hartt, the art historian who wrote about them (see my post at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=974&p=14328&hilit=Mithras#p14328, and find "Hartt").

In Egypt, as Plutarch recounts, the rising of Sothis, the dog-star, at dawn was taken as the herald of the Nile flood, thus an image of rebirth (http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Isis.html, sections 21, 38, 39). It was the beginning of the new year. On the other horizon, Aquarius was setting at the same time. Ptolemaic Greco-Egyptian zodiacs showed a man or woman pouring out two jugs for this sign. I don't know when these zodiac images would have reached Italy, but it may be significant that Aquarius was shown with two jugs only during the Renaissance, that I can find. Here are some examples from Egypt, one from a photo I took at Dendera, the others from Desroches-Noblecourt, Le Fabuleux Heritage de l'Egypte, p. 123. My information about Khnum is from Desroches-Noblecourt. I doubt if the Renaissance would have known the point. But they probably could have associated the two jugs with the two branches of the Nile.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... ETNota.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... r2Nota.JPG

It is a mistake to think that Egyptomania started with de Gebelin. It was very much present in Northern Italy from the early 15th century until the Council of Trent, what with the discovery of several new texts purporting to decode the hieroglyphs, and also Egypt opening up to trade and tourism. It is described in detail in Curran's The Egyptian Renaissance: The Afterlife of Ancient Egypt in Early Modern Italy (http://www.amazon.com/Egyptian-Renaissa ... 0226128938). Both Pope Alexander VI and Emperor Maximilian VI had their genealogies traced back to Osiris, and each commissioned an appropriate Egyptianate portrait, the one by Pinturicchio and the other by Duerer. Ciriaco da Ancona went to Egypt three times, sketching as he went, then giving talks on his travels when he returned. He only got as far as the Cairo area, but that would have been enough to collect some interesting images, especially if he enlisted the help of some Egyptians. He spent his last days, c. 1450-1452, in Cremona, where the Bembo tarot was made around then. His sketches of Egyptian antiquities reportedly were acquired by Alessandro Sforza in Pesaro and unfortunately perished in two fires, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciriaco_de%27_Pizzicolli). Some of his Greek sketches are still extant.

You suggest that the water on the card could be the Nile. The Nile was known to have two main branches. One was the "White Nile", which picked up much clay and many nutrients in its slow course, but didn't have much volume. The other was the "Blue Nile", which during the summer rains in Ethiopia came down from the mountains in a torrent. This was described by Plutarch. If you look at the Cary Sheet card, you will notice a small hill on one side and a larger one, suggesting a mountain on the other. That seems to me perhaps to indicate the two branches of the Nile, one from hills and the other from mountains. It took both to produce the renewal of the land. It is not hard to draw an allegorical lesson from this fact. Here is the card, along with a photo of Roman-era Sothis:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... Sothis.jpg

This is not to deny that the lady on the Cary Sheet card is also Venus, in which case the water would be the Euphrates, or in one version, the Nile. Venus and Cupid were said by pseudo-Hyginus to have escaped the monster Typhoeus by changing into fishes and jumping into the Euphrates; in Ovid, they jumped into the Nile or the Euphrates, and in the latter account two fishes carried them (all at http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite ... l#Typhoeus). I see two fishes on the card. There is also a star on her shoulder. It is another amalgam.

You ask about the seven stars as a constellation. The most logical to me, for the 17th century on, is the Pleiades, which in the King James Version, Job 38:31, was said (by God, no less) to exert "sweet influences" on humanity, i.e. exert astrological influence:
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
However the Vulgate (more accurately?) seems not to have found this implication in the Hebrew:
31 numquid coniungere valebis micantes stellas Pliadis aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare
(Shalt thou be able to join together the shining stars the Pleiades, or canst thou stop the turning about of Arcturus?)
But the two verses immediately after are about the morning and evening stars, so perhaps the association still stands:
32 numquid producis luciferum in tempore suo et vesperum super filios terrae consurgere facis
(Canst thou bring forth the day star in its time, and make the evening star to rise upon the children of the earth?)
In Greek and Egyptian mythology, which Job seems to follow, the morning star and evening star were separate entities, in Greece the masculine demigods Phosphorus and Hesperus. The name "Aphrodite" applying to both was a Hellenistic innovation, according to Wikipedia, I would guess conforming to longstanding Babylonian identification of the two with Astarte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Venus_symbol, section "Cultural Understandings").

There is much more allegorical meaning in the Star card. But that's enough on the points you raise.

Re: The Star

92
In another thread, Phaeded has proposed a great parallel for the Visconti-Sforza Star trump: this “Madonna del Parto”/"Madonna of Pregnancy" (Nardo di Cione, c. 1350, Florence). The most relevant details are the posture of the hand (suggesting pregnancy, as indicated by Phaeded) and the pattern of the decoration of the dress.
nardo_star.png nardo_star.png Viewed 20785 times 724.93 KiB
The reference is to the Book of Revelation 12,1-2:
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

Re: The Star

93
Yes, that text from Revelation is applicable--to the PMB card--as I stated on another thread recently (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=975&p=14436&hilit=clothed#p14436; search "clothed"). Also, the arguments that Phaeded adduces for Venus are good. I don't deny any of these. There are numerous valid interpretations, from deck to deck and even for one card in one deck.

Marco observes on the thread he just linked to (post viewtopic.php?f=11&t=983&p=14552&hilit=Lollio#p14552) that:
marco wrote:Vincenzo Imperiali (Ferrara, 1550 ca), in his reply to Lollio's Invective, associates the Star trump with Hope:

Per ordine dapoi si’ ne vien quella,
Ch’à naviganti da non poca spene,
D’indurli al porto, e trarli di procella.


(In the order [below the Sun and the Moon] follows the one
that gives hope to the sailors of leading them
to a port, saving them from the storm.)
The "one that gives hope to the sailors" is Isis, as is apparent from the Apuleius quote I gave previously. There were also various Christian saints that had that job, but they wouldn't have been portrayed naked, as the lady on the Star card probably was by Lollio's time. Perhaps he used something similar to the Leber/Rouen. Isis wasn't portrayed naked either, but one can take liberties with pagan goddesses. Venus was one of the Greco-Roman goddesses identified with the Egyptian Isis in Graeco-Roman literature (see e.g. http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Publicat ... venus.html).

Re: The Star

94
mikeh wrote:
Marco observes on the thread he just linked to (post viewtopic.php?f=11&t=983&p=14552&hilit=Lollio#p14552) that:
marco wrote:Vincenzo Imperiali (Ferrara, 1550 ca), in his reply to Lollio's Invective, associates the Star trump with Hope:

Per ordine dapoi si’ ne vien quella,
Ch’à naviganti da non poca spene,
D’indurli al porto, e trarli di procella.


(In the order [below the Sun and the Moon] follows the one
that gives hope to the sailors of leading them
to a port, saving them from the storm.)
The "one that gives hope to the sailors" is Isis, as is apparent from the Apuleius quote I gave previously. There were also various Christian saints that had that job, but they wouldn't have been portrayed naked, as the lady on the Star card probably was by Lollio's time. Perhaps he used something similar to the Leber/Rouen. Isis wasn't portrayed naked either, but one can take liberties with pagan goddesses. Venus was one of the Greco-Roman goddesses identified with the Egyptian Isis in Graeco-Roman literature (see e.g. http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Publicat ... venus.html).
Hello Mike,
Imperiali's verses about the star may be interpreted simply as an allegory of hope: hope guides people through life as the polar star guides sailors to a port. This is nicely illustrated by an allegory you posted here.

If one wants to see a deeper allegorical level, the obvious choice is Saint Mary, Stella Maris: the allegory of life as a stormy sea, and the Virgin guiding people to safety, was absolutely commonplace.
Imperiali might have been inspired by Petrarch:
Petrarch wrote:366. ‘Vergine bella, che di sol vestita’

Vergine bella, che di sol vestita,
coronata di stelle, al sommo Sole
piacesti sí, che 'n te Sua luce ascose,
...
Vergine chiara et stabile in eterno,
di questo tempestoso mare stella,
d'ogni fedel nocchier fidata guida,
pon' mente in che terribile procella
i' mi ritrovo sol, senza governo,
et ò già da vicin l'ultime strida.



Beautiful Virgin who, clothed with the sun
and crowned with stars, so pleased the highest Sun
that in you He hid His light:
...
Bright Virgin, stable for eternity,
star of this tempestuous sea,
guide on whom every faithful helmsman relies:
see in what a terrible storm I am,
alone, without a tiller,
and I am close to the last screams.
Or by Saint Anhtony of Padua:
Anthony wrote:Rogamus ergo, Domina nostra, spes nostra, ut nobis huius maris tempestate concussis, tu, stella maris, irradies, ad portum dirigas.

Let us pray our Lady, our hope: you, star of the sea, enlighten us, shaken by the storm of this sea, and lead us to the port.
Or by Saint Thomas, who by the way explains that "stella maris" is also implied by the fact that "Maria" sounds like "maris":
Thomas wrote:ipsa sola maledictionem sustulit, et benedictionem portavit, et ianuam Paradisi aperuit; et ideo convenit ei nomen Maria, quae interpretatur stella maris; quia sicut per stellam maris navigantes diriguntur ad portum, ita Christiani diriguntur per Mariam ad gloriam.

Moreover, she alone escaped the curse of sin, brought forth our blessing, and opened the gate of heaven. It is surely fitting that her name is “Mary,” which is akin to the Star of the Sea (“Maria—maris stella”), for just as sailors are directed to port by the star of the sea, so also Christians are by Mary guided to glory.
The hypothesis that Imperiali is referring to Isis seems to me completely gratuitous. I would like to see it supported by some documents, in order to see if they are more convincing than those I provided above.


About the Leber Star:
* the primary meaning is "a bright star", as implied by the name of this specific card and of the card in general;
* the secondary meaning is Venus: the classical goddess is represented in a canonical way, with two of her canonical attributes (the arrow and the sea);
* a still deeper meaning might be an allusion to Mary, Stella Maris. I am not so sure that this interpretation is necessary.

Anyway, about the third point above, it can be noted that there are hymns addressing Mary as "inclita stella maris" (bright star of the sea) and "virgo sidus aureum" (virgin golden star): the title "inclitus sidus" might so recall such appellations.

PS:
Erasmus wrote:Olim Venus agebat curam nautarum , quia nata credebatur ex mari: ea quoniam desiit curare, suffecta est huic matri, non virgini. Virgo mater.

Once Venus took care of sailors, for she was believed to be born from the sea. Since apparently she has failed in her solicitude, the Virgin mother has replaced this mother that is not a virgin.

Re: The Star

95
The main problem I had with the Virgin is that the lady on the card was probably shown nude. I don't know of nude Virgin Marys. My only document for Isis is Apuleius's Metamorphoses, Book XI, which was one of the first books printed in Italy and very widely read. She is not depicted there as nude, however; I speculated that pagan goddesses could be depicted that way anyway. I didn't know the Erasmus quote. If Erasmus says Venus was once the goddess of sailors, I suspect that is what Lollio had in mind, because Erasmus was also widely read. Looking on the internet, I see one well-documented essay giving Hellenistic references to Aphrodite as goddess of navigation, at http://kernos.revues.org/1567. (Theoi.com failed me!) Erasmus would have known these, and so might Lollio. So Venus is the most logical choice for Lollio's reference. There's no problem showing her nude. Or perhaps it is Lollio's joke; you first think he's referring to the Virgin, and you're shocked, looking at the card, and then you realize that he's talking about Venus. Thanks, Marco.

Re: The Star

97
Not apropos of any theory, but just a general point of interest for me and anyone who wants to discuss it - when and how does "star" become identified with apotheosis? What cross-cultural examples of it can we find, and what might be the psychology of it? Why, for instance, do we call certain famous people (but not others) "stars"?

The Christian context is well-known, linking Jesus to the "Star Prophecy" of Numbers 24:17 -

"I see Him, but not now;
I behold Him, but not near;
A Star shall come out of Jacob;
A Scepter shall rise out of Israel
,
And batter the brow of Moab,
And destroy all the sons of tumult."

But how is it that "star" becomes an understandable metaphor for this future prince, messiah? The commentaries I have looked at don't ask this question.

The symbol for "god" in cuneiform writing is a star, so this shows that applying it to a living or once-living person effectively deifies them, thus there is a common Middle Eastern background here for contextualizing the Numbers prophecy. Also, understanding that "star" (aster) can also mean what we call "constellation", Greek mythology deifies mortals and demigods often with "stars" in the heavens - the whole set of constellations relates in one way or another to the deeds of heroes like Perseus, Hercules and Jason. So it was a common Mediterranean phenomenon - presumably Ugaritic, Hittite, Egyptian and other examples can be found.

And why is it, though? Is it that they shine - so figuratively does a great person (and there too is a psychological aspect that deserves investigating - how do famous people "shine"?)? They are above, eternal, bright... It just seems so natural, yet I haven't quite grasped how it is natural to call a person a star.
Image

Re: The Star

98
Ross,
A former pet interest of mine, particularly in regard to the astrological Roman cult of Mithras (the years you've spent on tarot I was spending on that - even traveling to mithraea as far away as Turkey). Are you mainly interested in what would have been transmitted to Christian Europe or what modern scholarship has dredged up in regard to the Greeks and what was transmitted to them? I mean, do you really want to step in the abyss of Babylonian and Egyptian afterlife theories? The literature on Egypt is overwhelming because it led to the Hellenistic hermetic tradition and then the Picatrix, which was popular in the period which concerns us here.

The oldest Greek reference is Ion, a poet from Chios c. 490/480 - c. 420 BC, who wrote The Morning Star, and is mentioned in a comedy by Aristophanes, Peace [832-37], whose protagonist Trygaeus claims to have seen Ion in the heavens, where he has become the Morning Star (line 835). Also see Aristophanes’ Dionysus-in-hades comedy, Frogs, that is full of star-soul references (required reading on this subject).

Then there is a rather direct link here to Christian eschatology in Revelations chapter 2:
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches: To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in that stone a new name written, which no man knoweth except he that receiveth it." . (Revelation 2:17)
“I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” [Rev. 2:28-29)
And why does one want to become the morning star? Because oddly enough, Jesus is the morning star:
I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” (Rev. 22:16)
My primary interest shifted to the "gold tablets" (lamellae), many found in Magna Grecia in Southern Italy, and the formulaic texts on those tiny sheets of gold leaf. I see Roman Mithriasm as a later development of that earlier Greek Orphic cult, the latter having waned considerably by the Imperial period. One of the better summaries and discussion of the material here: Fritz Graf, Sarah Iles Johnston Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets, 2007. (I think you would find this subject fascinating). http://www.amazon.com/Ritual-Texts-Afte ... tual+Texts

To put the opposite spin on our Lightning discussion, that celestial fire is not wrath here but rather the very instrument of salvation in the gold tablets, especially those found in tumuli at Thurii in southern Italy, where four tombs containing gold lamellae all focus on death by lightning. There is no concensus on whether this was to be taken literally or metaphorically (I lean towards the latter – not everyone there could have been struck by lightning – it is simply a divinization process, almost alchemical, in which the soul is transformed by heavely fire). One of these Southern Italian texts:
Pure I come from the pure, Queen of those below the earth,
and Eukles and Eubouleus and the other immortal gods;
For I also claim that I am of your blessed race.
But Fate mastered me and the Thunderer, striking with his lightning.
I flew out of the circle of wearying heavy grief;
I came on with swift feet to the desired crown;
I passed beneath the bosom of the Mistress, Queen of the Underworld,
“Happy and most blessed one, a god you shall be instead of a mortal.”
A kid I fell into milk.
This formula “falling into milk” is common to other regions where the gold tablets have been found besides Southern Italy. I understand it, in an extreme minority opinion, as the Milky Way (a soul buried then falls back to its celestial home, perhaps conceived of as happening in Hades, thus “falling” from there into the sky below the earth). A key point for me is that Aratus, the most popular astronomical text at the time, does not use the commonly known Greek name for the Milky Way – kuklos gala (circle of milk) – but just milk (gala), just as it is found in the Orphic texts. Heraclides of Pontus connects souls to the Milky Way (a celestial gate is in Scorpius, whose tail is in the galatic center, the brightest portion of the “way” – usually via in Latin). The circle of grief is perhaps a notion of cyclical transmigration as well as astral control on things on earth (“fate”, mentioned above, which the lightning frees you from)– one ascends beyond that via the Orphic cult’s burial rituals.

If my musings seem too hypothetical without an ancient textual source – Manilius on the Milky Way:
“Perhaps the souls of heroes, outstanding men deemed worthy of heaven, freed from the body and released from the globe of Earth, pass hither and, dwelling in a hevaen that is their own [in the Milky Way], live infinite years of paradise and enjoy celestial bliss….Here are Cato and Agrippa, who proved in arms the one the master, the other the maker of his destony; and the Julian who boasted descent from Venus. Augustus has come down from heaven one day will occupy, guiding its passage through the zodiac with the Thunderer [ = Jupiter] at his side; in the assembly of the gods …” (Astronomica 1-373-85
Roman Mithraism merely provided a ritualistic cult that “democratically” offered the lower ranks, as it were (otherwise this was only available to the Imperial household and its state rituals of divus consecration), the celestial reward that Manilius lays out above.
Ross wrote:
And why is it, though? Is it that they shine - so figuratively does a great person (and there too is a psychological aspect that deserves investigating - how do famous people "shine"?)?

See above for how people “shine” – at least for the Orphics: via lightning (undoubtedly in a ritual magical/alchemical sense).

Perhaps not the obvious answer you want to read, but ultimately the general answer is this: Bodies (even ashes from a funeral pyre), like the stars, get buried under the earth (metaphorically for the celestial bodies when they set). The post-mortem hope is that, like extinguished stars, bodies too will rise again. And note again that the first Greek to make this connection does so with the evening/morning star (and was adapted by Christianity in Revelations). But planets, like everything in the sublunar world, move erratically; stars do not - they are "fixed," eternally. Inevitably then the post-mortem symbol of eternity becomes the stars.

It would interesting to know if these two Roman coins - explicitly linking a Roman to the stars in a post-mortem context (Julius Caesar and the comet associated with his burial/apotheosis; and Domitian’s prematurely dead son) – were dug up and circulating in the Renaissance:
Image

Image

Phaeded

Re: The Star

99
Phaeded wrote: To put the opposite spin on our Lightning discussion, that celestial fire is not wrath here but rather the very instrument of salvation in the gold tablets, especially those found in tumuli at Thurii in southern Italy, where four tombs containing gold lamellae all focus on death by lightning. There is no concensus on whether this was to be taken literally or metaphorically (I lean towards the latter – not everyone there could have been struck by lightning – it is simply a divinization process, almost alchemical, in which the soul is transformed by heavely fire). One of these Southern Italian texts:
Pure I come from the pure, Queen of those below the earth,
and Eukles and Eubouleus and the other immortal gods;
For I also claim that I am of your blessed race.
But Fate mastered me and the Thunderer, striking with his lightning.
I flew out of the circle of wearying heavy grief;
I came on with swift feet to the desired crown;
I passed beneath the bosom of the Mistress, Queen of the Underworld,
“Happy and most blessed one, a god you shall be instead of a mortal.”
A kid I fell into milk.
That's interesting, in light of the Thomas de Cantimpré mention of the high desirability of death by lightning, for righteous people, because one so struck is consumed and taken to heaven in the blink of an eye (we know this is not the case, people are often struck without being consumed, and survive as well; he must have only imagined it so, a "best case scenario") -
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=984&p=14673#p14673

I can't imagine any direct influence of these Orphic passages on Thomas, however.
Perhaps not the obvious answer you want to read, but ultimately the general answer is this: Bodies (even ashes from a funeral pyre), like the stars, get buried under the earth (metaphorically for the celestial bodies when they set). The post-mortem hope is that, like extinguished stars, bodies too will rise again. And note again that the first Greek to make this connection does so with the evening/morning star (and was adapted by Christianity in Revelations). But planets, like everything in the sublunar world, move erratically; stars do not - they are "fixed," eternally. Inevitably then the post-mortem symbol of eternity becomes the stars.
Okay, you suggest that the it is the idea of eternity - visible in the unchanging stars - that is the psychological basis for it. I think it might be a sufficient explanation.
It would interesting to know if these two Roman coins - explicitly linking a Roman to the stars in a post-mortem context (Julius Caesar and the comet associated with his burial/apotheosis; and Domitian’s prematurely dead son) – were dug up and circulating in the Renaissance:
Image


Phaeded
I think it's safe to assume that there were hundreds or thousands of such coins circulating in our period, although I have never undertaken to catalogue everything I've come across - I'm not sure it is possible to know exactly what anyone had. People like Piero de Medici, Leonello d'Este, and Gianbattista Gonzaga are all noted as ancient coin collectors, and I imagine that Filippo Maria Visconti and Cosimo de Medici, and whatever humanists you can name, must have either assiduously collected them or cherished a few treasures of their own (even I have two old silver coins that I study from time to time, one of Claudius II Gothicus (emperor 268-270), with a Justice on the reverse, and a grosso of FMV, with the Visconti arms and St. Ambrose)

The reverse of Domitian's is certainly suggestive of the Este World card. For the sidus julium, this was well-known from literature too, as it became the emblem for the cult of Julius Caesar (and thence the Julian line) when Augustus set it up.
Image