The Star

[Pen]

Thank you Steve, you're a star...!

[sembei]

Birds also in Mantegna, but i suppose those are pigeons or sparrows.



By the way, the upper side of this card remembers me the "air" card of minchiates.

[Huck]

Birds also in Mantegna, but i suppose those are pigeons or sparrows.

By the way, the upper side of this card remembers me the "air" card of minchiates. :-l

The picture is called "Venus" and Venus was associated to Love and Love to doves.



I see what you mean.

Welcome to the Forum.

[Catholic]

I am happy that my humble thoughts gave life to this thread. I really like this card.
I will search the links provided. And I thank you all.

For now, just some comments. I really loved Steve's Stella Matutina, as I like any connection that hints that Tarot has European Catholic and Renascence roots. This would be a noble and ancient enough origin and one that, I think, has the maximum explicative power. But this is a personal preference. I will research the date of this picture as this information is important to me.

The Nicoletto da Modena engraving is lovely. And I think is closed connected with the Papesa. It seems to me that, given the European Catholic and Renascence roots, the original idea behind the Papess probably was the virtue of Faith or our Lady. But the link of our Lady with the Star, via Stella Matutina is interesting.

But, as I said, my particular research is on the Tarot de Marseille iconography. It can't be our Lady naked, pouring water. It is just not something you do on a Christian society like Europe on XVII century.

The Venus connection is more feasible to me. After all, any Greek-Roman figure was in fashion during Renaissance. But Venus is usually taking a bath, not pouring water. Besides, I don't like Mantegna-TdM direct connections since, in my mind, the Tarot de Marseille is a descendant of the Sforza decks. Mantegna is so huge that you can find almost anything Tarot related on it. But I can't see Jean Noblet using Mantegna as a source. I think Tarot de Marseille is an innovation. It is a creative reconstruction of the Sforza tradition.

Anyway, I love Pen spirit. I am not an professional historian neither and I certainly know much less about Tarot History than most members. This would be natural as some of you guys, have been my teachers. I think brainstorming with you is warranted to provide insights. But insights must generate theories. And I try to be very critic about theories on my narrow topic research of Tarot de Marseille iconography. The Pleiades Theory is not one of my strongest, but it fits better for me. For now.

Thansks,

[Pen]

Catholic wrote:

It can't be our Lady naked, pouring water. It is just not something you do on a Christian society like Europe on XVII century.

No of course not. It was Venus/the Morning Star with the cockerel announcing the dawn that seemed a stunning connection to the Tarot de Marseille when I first saw the engraving. The bird on the bush has always bothered me. There's much food for thought on those links Marco posted and the comments at the end too.

[Catholic]

I think I was a little rude. Sorry Pen. Its is hard to argue on another language.

I think other decks actually used some of the theories. I definitely saw cards with "Astronomer-Generic Stars", Aquarius, "Wise Man/ Star of Bethlehem", Venus etc. And I agree with Michael Hurst (by the way, great article, thanks) that there is no single unifying symbolism on Tarot. Any Star related theme would fit the bill for a creative card maker. But there is a single unifying symbolism on Tarot de Marseille. Quoting Michael Hurst, "Tarot de Marseille’s other stuff, a woman pouring two vessels into a stream, with a bird and bushes in the background, is just obscure.". This is the bug that bitten me.

What I trying to do is an elimination process for Tarot de Marseille:

1) Jean Noblet may have misunderstood Aquarius on a Cary Sheet like Card. But He definitely drawn a girl. So Aquarius was not his intention. Also I am not aware of any bird connection.
2) I've never found a Venus pouring water picture. Venus is usually taking a bath. That's why I don't like the Venus/Morning Star theory much. Otherwise it would fit. Although the Dodal's bird does not seem Dove-like to me.
3) Cassiopeia pours water and it would be nice if the pool/river on Tarot de Marseille was the Via Lactea. But I've never found a naked Cassiopeia. And I am not aware of any bird connection.

I am out of classical candidates. But there are a lot of naked nymphs and a lot of nymphs pouring water. The Pleiades are a famous group of water nymphs on the sky and they are seven, plus Atlas.

The bird does not appears on Jean Noblet' Star. My idea is that Jean Noblet misinterpreted the Aquarius-Cary_Star on a water nymph and have chosen the Pleiades. It seems reasonably that 50 years later, Jean Dodal was still aware of Noblet's meaning. And he could have made the mistake of mixing the Alcyones. Compare the bird on Dodal's Star with Alcyone/Halcyon bird. It looks similar to me. Conver's Bird is posterior of Dodal's and does not meet the shape.



Am I self deluded? Well If you knew me the answer would be most surely yes. Lol

[Pen]

Catholic, just a quick note (I'm out today) to say that I didn't think you were being rude at all, and I'm also uneasy with Micheal Hurst's statement that "Tarot de Marseille’s other stuff, a woman pouring two vessels into a stream, with a bird and bushes in the background, is just obscure."

The kingfisher is a tantalizing idea, but here's the Noblet Star to compare...

[marco]

I really loved Steve's Stella Matutina, as I like any connection that hints that Tarot has European Catholic and Renascence roots. This would be a noble and ancient enough origin and one that, I think, has the maximum explicative power. But this is a personal preference.

Just to note that the Christian meaning of the trump cycle is not just your personal preference. It is a point of view that has been shared by many people who investigated the subject (possibly starting with the anonymous author of the Steele sermon).

As matter of method, I think you could appreciate Michael's old Tarot Riddle page:
http://web.archive.org/web/200409190158 ... iddle.html
That page also discusses the specific subject of the Start trump, but the most interesting suggestion is starting from the context to explain the most difficult cards.

[R.A. Hendley]

I think I was a little rude. Sorry Pen. Its is hard to argue on another language.

I think other decks actually used some of the theories. I definitely saw cards with "Astronomer-Generic Stars", Aquarius, "Wise Man/ Star of Bethlehem", Venus etc. And I agree with Michael Hurst (by the way, great article, thanks) that there is no single unifying symbolism on Tarot. Any Star related theme would fit the bill for a creative card maker. But there is a single unifying symbolism on Tarot de Marseille. Quoting Michael Hurst, "Tarot de Marseille’s other stuff, a woman pouring two vessels into a stream, with a bird and bushes in the background, is just obscure.". This is the bug that bitten me.

Hi Catholic,

Thanks for your thoughts. No doubt the Marseille image is nymph-esqe. Of course during the period this deck was manufactured, biblical themes were often depicted in rather 'pagan' ways. Pagan? Jewish? Christian? Heck, I haven't got a clue. It must have been a 'known' theme, to have appeared in a popular game. I guess it is just a matter digging through loads of obscure period art and literature to find something similar that could have inspired the card maker.

I'm not convinced that the Tarot de Marseille has a unifying symbolism, as you stated above. It may, or may not. It could be that the card maker merely selected a known motif that fit each card. Really, it is just the three luminaries (Star-Moon-Sun) that have non-standard depictions of their giving subjects.

It's not hard to imagine the manufactures of the early Tarot de Marseille decks simply coping earlier patterns (Cary Sheet) or borrowed from other popular sources, and giving little thought to the over-arching meaning of the sequence, which had been established at least a century earlier. They were business men and common artisans, the ancestors of 'commercial' artists, like the sort who illustrate Dora the Explorer coloring books and cereal boxes.

[Pen]

My particular interest is not discover the hidden mystic origins of the Tarot, but make heads and tails of what Jean Noblet, Jean Dodal and Nicolas Conver had in their minds.

Kaplan's Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol.11 mentions two documents of 1659 citing

...Jean Noblet, maitre-cartier (master cardmaker), living at Saint Germaine-des Prés, rue Sainte Marguerite, paroisse (parish) Sainte Suplice in Paris. D'Allegmagne indicated that that Noblet's name is to be found on a list of cardmakers in 1664...

So we know that much, but without more - for example that he belonged to a particular society that would indicate certain interests - trying to work out what was in his mind is pretty much impossible.

The inescapable fact that certain of the tarot trumps are, and always have been, instantly recognizable for what they are, even to people with no knowledge of symbolism or iconography, suggests (to me, at least), that the others originally had equally recognizable symbolism but time passed and people forgot what that was.

Carelessness and misunderstanding in copying the images could account for anything from gender reversal to the sudden appearance of the bird in the bush, who might even have sprung into being as a misinterpreted ink speck on an old deck of cards that was being copied.

But someone please correct me if I'm way off track here.