Re: The Moon

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Thanks Corsufle - reading Lambspring and looking at the images I can't help being reminded of tarot and astrology as well as alchemy. Too many directions, too little time....

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

Re: The Moon

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The Book of Lambspring, which AE Waite translated:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/hm1/hm113.htm

along with other alchemical texts, was possibly a source for some of the symbolism in the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck:

http://www.tarotpassages.com/old_moonst ... eill/4.htm

In his Pictorial Key to the Tarot Waite wrote:
The spiritual side of Alchemy is set forth in the much stranger emblems of the Book of Lambspring, and of this I have already given a preliminary interpretation, to which the reader may be referred.[1] The tract contains the mystery of what is called the mystical or arch-natural elixir, being the marriage of the soul and the spirit in the body of the adept philosopher and the transmutation of the body as the physical result of this marriage. I have never met with more curious intimations than in this one little work. It may be mentioned as a point of fact that both tracts are very much later in time than the latest date that could be assigned to the general distribution of Tarot cards in Europe by the most drastic form of criticism.

They belong respectively to the end of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries. As I am not drawing here on the font of imagination to refresh that of fact and experience, I do not suggest that the Tarot set the example of expressing Secret Doctrine in pictures and that it was followed by Hermetic writers; but it is noticeable that it is perhaps the earliest example of this art. It is also the most catholic, because it is not, by attribution or otherwise, a derivative of any one school or literature of occultism; it is not of Alchemy or Kabalism or Astrology or Ceremonial Magic; but as I have said, it is the presentation of universal ideas by means of universal types, and it is in the combination of these types--if anywhere--that it presents Secret Doctrine.

[1. See the Occult Review, vol. viii, 1908].

2.1 The Doctrine Behind the Veil: The Tarot and Secret Tradition

Re: The Moon

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Thank you Steve, that link to the symbolism in the Smith Waite is new to me - and most interesting.

There's something very appealing about Lambspring, and I have to admit that the statement by Waite in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot re. its date (indisputably later than the earliest tarot) surprised me, as I'd assumed it was older. I guess though, that we/I shouldn't be surprised to find the references and symbolism of religion (whether of Christianity or an older tradition), alchemy and astrology in any artifact or printed work from those times - they must have formed part of the foundations of daily life.

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

Re: The Moon

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Hello mmfelesi,

This what Gertrude Moakley says about the PMB Moon card in The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza Family:
Here it is the Goddess Diana who holds up the crescent moon in one hand, while in the other she carries a broken bow in her characterization as huntress.
The figure on the Charles V1 Sun card is spinning - the spindle is on her left and she's drawing the yarn out into a thread and twisting it with her right. There should be a weight on the end of the thread to make this easier.

This is what Andy says here: http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards62.htm
The long spindle held by the woman in the Moon card of French origin and in the Sun card of the tarot of Charles VI may in fact be a graphic corruption of Diana's long arrow: in particular, the detail of its rear end. This can be easily understood from a card belonging to the Leber tarot (16th century, from northern Italy, but kept in Rouen, northern France), a non-standard pattern whose trumps had Latin mottos instead of names. The subject no.16 features a rather similar allegory, a female figure standing in the sea below an 8-pointed star, with a long arrow pointing downwards; its rear part, i.e. where the feathers are, is indeed very similar to the aforesaid spindle.
There's a picture of the Leber Tarot #16 at the link above.

And there's a lady spinning on the Jacques Vieville Moon card too.

Image




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

Re: The Moon

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Thank you very much for responding, Pen. ;)

I dont think that the thread represents the arc of Diana :-? . In the case of the deck of Charles, is a spindle, like the Fates. I do not know is whether it is the same with the thread of Visconti. I think so, but I'm not sure 100%.
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: The Moon

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Hello Pen and mmfelesi.
Pen wrote:
This what Gertrude Moakley says about the PMB Moon card in The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza Family:
Here it is the Goddess Diana who holds up the crescent moon in one hand, while in the other she carries a broken bow in her characterization as huntress.
I am puzzled by this statement by Moakley. I don't see any bow in the Visconti-Sforza moon card (and I don't think a broken bow is a common attribute for Diana). From what I see, the girl is simply holding her waistband.
Pen wrote: The figure on the Charles V1 Sun card is spinning - the spindle is on her left and she's drawing the yarn out into a thread and twisting it with her right. There should be a weight on the end of the thread to make this easier.

This is what Andy says here: http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards62.htm
The long spindle held by the woman in the Moon card of French origin and in the Sun card of the tarot of Charles VI may in fact be a graphic corruption of Diana's long arrow: in particular, the detail of its rear end. This can be easily understood from a card belonging to the Leber tarot (16th century, from northern Italy, but kept in Rouen, northern France), a non-standard pattern whose trumps had Latin mottos instead of names. The subject no.16 features a rather similar allegory, a female figure standing in the sea below an 8-pointed star, with a long arrow pointing downwards; its rear part, i.e. where the feathers are, is indeed very similar to the aforesaid spindle.
The Leber Star card represents Venus, and an arrow is a common attribute for her. This allegory does not seem to me to be very similar to the Charles VI Sun card.
If we take the woman on the Charles VI card to represent Diana/Artemis, I think there is no need to think of a corruption from a quite different allegory of Venus. We could simply refer to a definition attributed to Homer himself: “Artemis of the golden spindle” (Odyssey IV 122; Homeric Hymn "To Artemis").

Marco

PS: this definition has been translated in different ways, so I am not sure that in ancient times it was taken as a reference to a spindle (other translations give "golden shaft", "golden arrows").

Re: The Moon

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marco wrote: If we take the woman on the Charles VI card to represent Diana/Artemis, I think there is no need to think of a corruption from a quite different allegory of Venus. We could simply refer to a definition attributed to Homer himself: “Artemis of the golden spindle” (Odyssey IV 122; Homeric Hymn "To Artemis").

PS: this definition has been translated in different ways, so I am not sure that in ancient times it was taken as a reference to a spindle (other translations give "golden shaft", "golden arrows").
http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filo ... /troy.html

Re: The Moon

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For interest's sake, here's Moakley's complete page of text on the Moon card.
XV11 LA LUNA (The Moon)

The Moon triumphs over the Star because she is bigger and brighter. Sforza's De Sphaera manuscript says of her:

The Moon greatly cheers the sailor,
And in fishing, fowling, and the chase
To all her children she opens the door,
Also to entertainment and other pleasures.

Here it is the Goddess Diana who holds up the crescent moon in one hand, while in the other she carries a broken bow in her characterization as huntress. The broken bow is a sign of her defeat, for she, like the Star and the Sun, is a captive in the triumph of Eternity. In the timelessness of eternity, the heavenly bodies are no longer needed as measurers of time. That is why, in the illustrations of Petrach's Triumph of Eternity, the sun and moon often appear in the sky as sad faces. The Triumph of Time, in Petrach's poem, immediately precedes the Triumph of Eternity, so the Triumph of Eternity over Time is represented by the sadness of these servants of Time.

The Moon was called Luna when she shines in heaven, and Proserpina when she is below. The poets say she was the daughter of Hyperion and sister of the Sun. According to Ovid her car had two wheels and was drawn by two horses, one black and one white.

NOTES LA LUNA

The disconsolate faces of the sun and moon appear in illustrations of Petrach's Triumph of Eternity. See Masséna (Pétrarque), passim, also Bulletin of The New York Public Library, LX (Feb 1956), whose frontspiece reproduces two miniatures from the Library's fifteenth-century ms copy Petrach's Rime, showing the Triumph of Cupid and the Triumph of Eternity.

The names, ancestry, etc of the Moon are taken from Ambrogio Calepino's dictionary, art. "Luna." Calepino was born at Bergamo in 1435. The new York Public Library has a Latin-Japanese dictionary based on one compiled originally by him. In the light of the recent interest in Zen, the following definition in that dictionary is of interest: "Meditatio, -onis. Consideratio, Xian, cufu*". "Xian" probably approximates the sixteenth-century proununciation of "Zen".
*(There's a prounciation? symbol above the final 'u' in 'cufu' - a tiny 'v'.)

The US Games book by Giordani Berti and Tiberio Gonard states: "She holds a crescent moon in her right hand and an object that some have interpreted as a broken bow in her left; in my opinion, they are more probably reins, an attribute that derives from from her 'speciality' not only as a hunter but also as a tamer of wild animals, as numerous myths recount."

Looking at the very large US Games Visconti Sforza cards, which I think are photographic copies of the original cards left to us, the object in her left hand does seem more like a twisted cord than either a broken bow or even reins, and could well be a girdle coming from under the peplum on her dress. Yet it seems odd to be holding it like that if that is indeed what it is - odd too, that Moakley, who actually examined the original cards, would think it was a broken bow (if the object was obviously a cord, or reins).

I had meant to ask mmfelesi what s/he had in mind when posting about 'the thread' - other ideas would be interesting to consider.

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

Re: The Moon

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Hello friends ;) .

Thanks for the comments. Then ... (sorry for my English prehistoric).

1. Andrea Vitali (in my opinion, the greatest expert on iconography) sayd:
In the card from the Tarots of Charles VI, as in the one from an Ancient Italian Tarot, the Sun shines high, lighting up a girl who is spinning. This is a reference to the Fates who supervise the unravelling of human life, a myth closely related to the Sun, in that they carry out the same task, dispensing life and distributing it to every living being until its death.
http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page. ... 31&lng=ENG

2. But Andrea Vitali dont says nothing about this thread white in his analysis of the moon:

http://www.associazioneletarot.it/The-M ... 0_eng.aspx

3. For me it is very important this fact, because I think the stars (sun, mon, star) in the Charles and Visconti tarot represent Plato's Timaeus and Mith of Er (described by Macrobius). And in this description of Macrobius, the Fates play a major role. Represents the need, the momentum of the world, the cosmic soul...

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When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)
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