The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

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This post is based on 2 e-mails I wrote to the site owner of „ http://tarotwheel.net „ who goes by the pen name „Iolon“ in a lengthy and somewhat disappointing communication that lasted from June 2015 to April 2016 about some issues I had with his POVs on the PMB from the 13th December of 2015 and the 15th of the same month in the same year. I made some editions to these e-mails so that the text would become more comprehensible for you. If not – just ask – as always!

Among other obvious reasons I have to post this topic here is the claim Huck made in his >> Cologne exhibition: 3 Magi << here:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1047&start=20#p16831
Rosanne's straw hat theory had indeed some merits. 
He never gave a link to that fabulous „theory“ of that „Rosanne“ person so that I could educate myself on this matter. All the while I know of other POVs from „researchers“ who deem The RED MAN to be a HATTER for FELT HATS (for peasants I suppose taken from the very irregular and quite impossible form) what has nothing to do with the reality of that craft because he (The RED MAN) would need a LOT of WATER and STEAM and a very EVEN felt-hat-form like this:

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You could buy it on ebay just now and educate yourself.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Hutform-aus-mass ... 2026734481

Such thing is made from hard wood and has – as you can see – a POLISHED surface what is nothing like the STRUCTURED STRUCTURE that you see on the table of The RED MAN. Furthermore: to be in the hatter busyness you would need a bunch of felt blanks and a lot of tools to make them fit the FORM like this 1 on ebay:

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http://www.ebay.de/itm/Hutstumpen-Melou ... 1e8b154913

In other words: It is IMPOSSIBLE to PRODUCE a felt hat at the place of business where you sell them (for very little money for such a peasant hat without any decoration. A hatter has to produce his HATs in his workshop because it is a craft that takes TIME from the BLANK to the HAT. So before an „expert“ claims to have found a „solution“ for a long standing problem he should better educate himself on the matter he is out to „solve“

And for „Rosanne's“ STRAW HAT „interpretation“ goes the same (possibility wise!) even without reading it (due to Huck's lack of links to it!

When you zoomify the tableau of The RED MAN you can clearly see that there is no straw hat STRUCTURE painted on the item at his table – not even the color is correct for regular Italian straw. From the other details there (and everywhere) you can see that the artist who painted was perfectly well capable of designing EVERYTHING correctly for the wanted IMPRESSION. So why here this lack of craftsmanship?

And a STRAW HAT MAKER who gets by on SELLING such hats for a living during Renaissance in MILAN dressed like a PRINCE? Well he must be doing a peasants work without any other reason as pursuing a hobby (what of course would have him made a „persona non gradita“ in the eyes of his Milan peers!

This whole HAT thing is illogical and not period correct because WORKING was for the COMMONERS.
My period correct explanation will follow somewhere below...

The RED MAN [13th December of 2015]

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[Here you can observe the tableau in all it's original glory at his current home and with the ZOOMIFY tool you can ogle all details – just click the „Toggle Full Page View“ button at the very right and click „+“: afterwards to zoom in as much as you like:]

http://www.themorgan.org/collection/tar ... 66/zoomify


I would like to offer you some historical info on The RED MAN and the color he wears:

The "Batelier" [I explained that notion before to him and here ...

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1044&start=60

... to you too...] wears a "Punico (> Punic Wars!) -red-costume"...

http://realmofvenus.renaissanceitaly.ne ... olours.htm

[The colors are in alphabetical order and with „P“ you'll soon arrive here > „Punico -a colour as red as scarlet. … „. Of course there are more „reds“ - but none with such symbolic weight pointing to all that I was talking about here in several topics that you can easily find when you should be be interested.]

… probably made from the Carmine that came most likely from the shield-louse Kermes vermilio or Kermococcus vermilio found on species of oak (especially the Kermes oak of the Mediterranean region) or from the even much prizier Armenian cochineal insects. 

The dye is of ancient origin - jars of kermes have been found in a Neolithic cave-burial at Adaoutse, Bouches-du-Rhône. Similar dyes are extracted from the related insects Porphyrophora hamelii (Armenian cochineal) of the Caucasus region, Porphyrophora polonica (Polish cochineal or Saint John's blood) of Eastern Europe, and the lac-producing insects of India, Southeast Asia, China, and Tibet (edited from this wikipedia link:)
By the 14th and early 15th century, brilliant full grain kermes scarlet was "by far the most esteemed, most regal" color for luxury woollen textiles in the Low Countries, England, France, Spain and Italy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_dye
In the later Middle Ages these insects were gathered commercially in several Mediterranean countries and sold throughout Europe. Kermes dyes have been found in the ecclesiastical burial wrappings in fourteenth and fifteenth-century England, at Baynards Castle in the fourteenth-century layers, and in Anglo-Scandinavian York. Kermes fell out of use with the introduction of cochineal [The new American spicies ]in the sixteenth century due to the simple fact that, while the two dyes were comparable in quality and color intensity, ten to twelve times as much kermes was needed to produce the same effect as cochineal.

Europeans first became aware of cochineal in the New World in 1523 when Hernán Cortés heard about the existence of nocheztli or grana, which had been used as a dyestuff by the Aztec and Mexican Indians since time immemorial.3 Specimens of cochineal were taken to Spain in the 1520s and records show that cloth merchants in Antwerp were buying cochineal in insect and powdered form in Spain by the 1540s.
https://www.lib.umn.edu/bell/tradeproducts/cochineal
At the time of the Renaissance in Europe, Porphyrophora insects were so valuable that in Constantinople during the 1430s, one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of Porphyrophora hamelii insects was worth more than 5 grams (0.18 ounces) of gold. The crimson Porphyrophora-based dyes were especially prized in Europe for dyeing silk, as the scarlet dye kermes was more plentiful, cheaper, and more effective for dyeing woolen textiles, which are heavier than silk and require more dye. It has been estimated that on the order of a half million dried Porphyrophora hamelii insects were required to dye one kilogram (2.2 lb) of silk crimson during this period. On the comparison between Armenian and Polish cochineal, the author of a 15th-century treatise on silks in Florence wrote that "two pounds of the large [Armenian cochineal insects] will dye as much [silk] as one pound of small [Polish cochineal insects]; it is true that it gives a more noble and brighter color than the small, but it gives less dye".

Around the end of the 16th century the Old World Porphyrophora dyes were supplanted by dyes of the Dactylopius coccus cochineal species from the Americas, which could be harvested several times per year and yielded a much more concentrated dye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_cochineal
Für ein Kilogramm sind über 100.000 Schildläuse nötig. Zur Gewinnung der Farbe werden die Läuse getrocknet und in Wasser unter Zusatz von etwas Schwefelsäure ausgekocht. Das Karmesin wird dann unter Anwendung von Alaun und etwas Kalk ausgefällt, ausgewaschen und getrocknet. Durch die Verkollerung ist es dann möglich, Karmin auch als Pigment zu verwenden (Farblacke).
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karmin
Karmin ist ein – vergleichsweise hochwertiger – Ersatz für den Purpur der Schnecken und ergibt scharlach- bis karminrote oder purpurrote Farbtöne.
same wiki
Der Ausdruck a modo principe „wie ein Prinz [gekleidet]“ bezeichnete jene, die sich das auffallende Rot leisten konnten. Rot war das nach außen sichtbare Zeichen von Macht und Wohlstand.
[Iolon claims that he is able to read German – for those who don't: google is a friend in this case maybe]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rot#Religion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red#In_th ... roque_eras

with probably shoes/boots of pricey "Maroquin leather" probably embroidered with silver yarn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco_leather

Both were of the highest price and quality. And his jacket is lined with a second and totally different color and cloth what makes it even more costly and much more difficult to take care of it - only a professional laundress could do that.

Look at a Cardinal for ex.
And the Pope with his red shoes. Maroquin leather was preferably died red and is known also 
as "Safian Leather" for gloves and came from goats.

Probably I'll be back

Adrian
The reason for this e-mail was his entry here:

http://tarotwheel.net/history/tarot%20d ... oners.html

where he defined The RED MAN as a „commoner“ BECAUSE of wearing RED:
The clothes of El Bagatella [PMB has NO names! = my addition] are rich, but even this is an illusion. He is rather poor and the red color immediately identifies him as belonging to the lowest class. The nobility avoided red colors, they preferred colors like blue and gold. Bagatella is an Italian word that means something without value.
This is a totally made up statement – just made to fit the premeditated views of a „researcher“ who deems himself to be more of a „Tarot Expert“ in contrast to Mr. Voelkle who serves at the Morgan as the Senior Research Curator. I could quote from his (Iolon's) mails should this be questioned.

This is just ONE example for the fallacy that stems from putting the cart before the horse > meaning that the LATER Tarot de Marseille Tarots PROVIDE the assumed purport for the much earlier PMB what obviously clouds the watchful eyes of the „observers“ who do NOT observe BUT use the later as a „veneer“ for the former.


The 2nd e-mail:
The RED MAN [15th December of 2015]

I should probably add that whenever I talk about Tarot cards (like the Sola Busca cards in the former e-mail) I mean the ORIGINAL ones. The "cleaned up" edition(s) for purchase don't have the concerned details - as in the case of the SB XXI: NO 18 stars behind NABU/NEBO in the blue. But his dragon is still there - not as lively as on ISHTAR's GATE though - but still.

The RED MAN is not an aristocrat of "this" world but some kind of wandering alchemist ...

((lots of them were around later still (Paracelsus - Agrippa - St. Germain - and the lore is plenty!) what kind of entrance and impression they made can be gleaned from an account by a very respected scientist of his time John Frederick Helvetius - a fellow countryman of yours ...

http://www.spookystuff.co.uk/thealchemists.html

… and Sir Isaac Newton - the pillar of modern thinking entered their ranks when he was quite young and stayed true to their cause for all his life - but in secrecy. Even the "apple experience" was a nice story for modern children who had become "reasonable" in the age of reason - he derived it from his alchemical studies instead what would have destroyed his "reputation" in the eyes of his "peers"!))

... invested in medicine (for the soul and the eye) because he has there right on the table before him a citrus fruit ...

(a golden apple - the apples of the Hesperides ... (It is the Renaissance and every aristocrat is well versed in every bit of antiquity he could get a hold on - if you ever come to read the 3500 pages of Casanova's "Histoire De Ma Vie" you will get that even 300 years later there was this URGE for knowledge and entertainment - with no TV or FB or I-phones around) ... and in THEIR myth you have a summarized version of the FILTERED back-story of Tarot so to say:

http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Hesperides.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperides
in later years it was thought that the "golden apples" of myth might have actually been oranges, a fruit unknown to Europe and the Mediterranean before the Middle Ages. Under this assumption, the Greek botanical name chosen for all citrus species was Hesperidoeidē (Ἑσπεριδοειδῆ, "hesperidoids"). It was also used by Carl Linnaeus, who gave the name Hesperidesto an order containing the genus Citrus, in allusion to the golden apples of the Hesperides, and is preserved in the term Hesperidium for the fruits of citrus and some other plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ap ... Hesperides

...cut in halfs with a big high quality every-day user knife made for cutting and so eating out in the field while being away from home. I say that because even today there are hundreds of "Coltellinai" on the net with an enormous range of products - so that any educated renaissance person could tell from the looks of the blade what it was for - and the later romantic assumption that it stood for a sword (of The MAGICIAN who took at least a dagger for his romantic magic(k)al adventures... ) which is made for thrusting and hacking is totally off.

You simply couldn't slice a golden apple with that pry-bar :) The RED MAN's knife is very much like this knife from Berti perhaps (what is a reconstruction they did due to a classical Italian painting):

http://www.emporioberti.it/pontormo.html

When you search through medieval medicine you will come across a very pricey product that is called "Aqua Perlata"...

http://www.karipearls.com/medicine.html

This Solutio was made from crushed and powdered freshwater pearls and dissolved in citrus juice.

Aqua Perlata is a funny word with 2 totally different meanings: the obvious is "Pearl Water" but the hidden meaning is: "Sling Water". Perlata (in this same Latin orthography) means PEARL and to SLING (something somewhere).

Freshwater pearls are of irregular form and shape so that they can be stacked in a pile like the one on his table (though I wouldn't advise to do it so high - but it's a model to irritate the „commoner“ and educate the adept - what Filippo was seriously toiling for with all his money when you had a look at his library and the "cards" - but not his morals).

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The thing in front of him is a wooden or metal - perhaps golden - "crusher" - still in use today for pills (see 2 crusher JPGs) and the stick in his hand that is probably made from reed he uses for fetching the irregular pearls from the border of the pile to give them into the crusher and crush them and after he has dissolved them with the juice of life he stirs up the meds in the crusher to heal your ailments in life.

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Now you may drink some and rub some on your eyelids and your inner and outer vision will clear (that is where the "pince nez" on the table of Jean Noblet's LLBATELEVR stems from that I explained already in the "Tarotée - The Back-Door To The Secret" topic) so that you can further your journey.
Later - when you are on your way again he will probably write your story into his account of the day with this reed. You may not understand why I can't explain here why reed is so important (in the hand of the later so-called EMPEROR too of course) but when you turn to Nabuchodonosor [Sola Busca] and especially NABU (who was worshiped by Italian witches in the 19th century still under the name NEBO before they worked with the cards) you may.

The RED MAN now with his profession and knowledge and connection to the 2 kinds of water has (1stly) made some riches from it that are stacked in his richly adorned (possibly gilded) treasure chest that serves him as a settle well and (2ndly) comes in handy when the "player" did get so far in the game that he was troubled with crossing over the troubled waters to the "island of bliss" that is envisioned (through a hole in the wall) by the 2 messengers who are explaining the plan of the 16 on the "world card".

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When you look with your "enchanted" eyes now at that card you will find also the PAIRS in there and the 18 and the invisible IIII and the 8 and the 9. When you are able to turn 16 into 8 rightful pairs that can evolve into 9 pairs of wisdom and foresight accompanied by IIII invisible Saints under the stars you may ask The RED MAN to take you over to "The Island Of Bliss" where The GREEN MAN (not the crowlean Monster with the unmentionable 0 above him) (and all the other blessed... ) is hanging around most of his time when he is not so busy with roaming the world.

The word to call The RED MAN is hidden in the word of power > ABRACADABRA what is originally Arabic and a circle-word like evolverevolver but you would have to know about the Phoenician sound-shift to find the wrong letter in the word. AIWASS told AC about the WRONG letter but not the "H" is the healer.

It also helps when you know that the "abra" is still in use today in Dubai:

http://www.dubai-online.com/videos/vide ... a-station/

But to know your "destin/y/ation" you must acquire God's help by calling his rightful name (and it is NOT YHVH or Allah under these stars - but his name is in the Bible still till today) so that you can revolve between the 2 worlds with permission and passion - just like the RED and the GREEN Ones do by using the heartship of the BATELIER.

There is a very old Aramaic proverb and blessing that resembles this riddle to the "T" which in this case is a "U" plus the correct name of The GOD and it means as much as: "upsurge to bliss" loosely translated and minus the second boat because you need only one boat to go beyond and back again - your eternal body in principle.

When you can find this blessing and write it down in a circle you know how the power works.
Not that you can use it for better or worse then but it will give you an idea of how the (often unwarranted) falsifications in the occult traditions came into existence without an existing "chain of command" in the specific "tradition" [that was none of course!].

For now (in this game of the world) you have to find out first what paths the 18 open and where your place is between them or in other words who of them is your persona and how can this persona evolve or diminish your being.

In Filippo's days this would have been very e(xc)lusive knowledge known to no-one in the whole world - except the brethren who made it.
Since the beginning of the 20th century it turned public foremost with the help of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff and the "Bees".

But like Filippo's forefather's who seized the "Biscione" for the Visconti [from a SARACEN HELMET that NEVER could have existed because the SARACENS never made helmets with ANY sculptures on them] - his Barakah was DEAD and couldn't survive his lifetime - what is evidently clear when you look at Filippo's first Tarot versions (later more about this perhaps?).

This is the personal tool REAL Tarot offers.

The WEAPON instead would be to classify your opponent in politics or love or wherever and find out who of the 18 represents him to find out what he goes for and what are his weaknesses in ongoing situations to lure him into his fall - while securing your own position with outstanding discipline.

When you do this for some time people around you will say that you can see the future - but that is THEIR problem - and you KNOW you can.

And so far the "Estensi-relations" went the slogan would have been: "Keep your friends close - but keep your enemies closer!"

ABRA...

Adrian
The connection to seafaring went on when you look at the WATER THEME in Tarot by different means and was so greatly misunderstood by all those "experts" who for example claimed the anchors to be the Christian symbol of HOPE!

Maybe I will address later some other details - but for now me thinks this should be sufficient for some thoughts on your part...

Adrian
Last edited by Adrian Goldwetter on 27 Jun 2016, 00:14, edited 1 time in total.

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

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Rosanne's straw hat theory had indeed some merits. 
He never gave a link to that fabulous „theory“ of that „Rosanne“ person so that I could educate myself on this matter.
... .-) ... this was a test on your research intelligence. I said, that Rosanne had worked at Aeclectic about "straw hat". Don't you have any idea, how you could find this? ... for instance

https://www.google.de/?ion=1&espv=2#q=r ... +Aeclectic

... or better ...

http://tarotforum.net/search.php
user: Rosanne
keyword: straw or straw hat
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

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Thanks for the lecture Huck - but I think I don't need 1 on this subject.

Anyways: I will now read what she had to say about straw hats and because I give always links - even to your misconceptions so that you could go in deeper in your research and better the outcome - to back up my assertions (as it should be customary for any researcher who claims something.

I did ask you several times for that - what should not have been necessary when someone out of the blue presents a claim with no source and not even a summary.

Why should I search for something that YOU brought up (without reason I should add)?

Given YOUR "research intelligence" that you "proved" quite a bit to ME concerning several cases that I only will prove here when you should deny that you failed on that subject quite a lot I do NOT think that you are qualified to be a "judge" on such a test concerning MY abilities.

Thanks for the link nevertheless

Your friend Adrian

P.S. Are you crazy? The Aeclectic link is to the Aeclectic SEARCH and not to the topic of the straw hat. I have NEVER seen such a behavior around here or elsewhere when someone PROVIDES a link to a topic of interest!

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

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Adrian Goldwetter wrote: When you zoomify the tableau of The RED MAN you can clearly see that there is no straw hat STRUCTURE painted on the item at his table – not even the color is correct for regular Italian straw. From the other details there (and everywhere) you can see that the artist who painted was perfectly well capable of designing EVERYTHING correctly for the wanted IMPRESSION. So why here this lack of craftsmanship?

And a STRAW HAT MAKER who gets by on SELLING such hats for a living during Renaissance in MILAN dressed like a PRINCE? Well he must be doing a peasants work without any other reason as pursuing a hobby (what of course would have him made a „persona non gradita“ in the eyes of his Milan peers!

This whole HAT thing is illogical and not period correct because WORKING was for the COMMONERS.
When I viewed the PMB cards in person in 2010 the curator who showed them to me, Roger Wieck (http://www.themorgan.org/search/site/Roger%20Wieck), also happened to be curating an exhibition on medieval fashion. The point being there are few more qualified to comment on the hat in question and he wholeheartedly agrees with Roseanne that it is indeed a straw hat, as that was one of the two cards I wanted to especially view and discuss with him (the other being the Fool). That curator's resulting book published the following year: http://www.themorgan.org/shop/books-and ... -1325-1515

While I do think "the red man"' is reaching (not making) for a peasant's straw hat (which symbolizes the peasantry in general) - hence its shabby shape - you are apparently completely ignorant of the nobility also wearing straw hats (it was simply practical on sunny days - and they preferred their hides to remain white). To wit (both pre-date the PMB):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... y_aout.jpg

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The object in question does not look that different from contemporary straw hats (and Wieck pointed out medieval straw hats were either white, black or natural colored): This artist even employs a similar brush technique to connote straw weaving:
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Thanks for playing,
Phaeded

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

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Thank you for your input Phaeded.

But I do not think that Roger Wieck's interpretation of the structure on The RED MAN's table goes very far – even when he agrees with the mysterious „Ros(e)anne“ - because it does not fit the evidence of the depiction and the context of the PMB tableau in question here.

May he be a curator of medieval fashion shows and author (of - maybe - some other seriously flawed book - what without quotes wouldn't count nil either way here - like Ros(e)anne's theory) he should get himself some eyeglasses and weed the what he WANTS to BE from what there IS – and maybe educate himself on some context that he will surely not find in FASHION.

What a curator should be about I discussed today with Huck here again > Mr Voelkle:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1084&p=16935#p16935

You really should not believe all the stuff that they tell you (or don't!) because they grew up in the same world like you – believing that they mentors were right.
While I do think "the red man"' is reaching (not making) for a peasant's straw hat (which symbolizes the peasantry in general) - hence its shabby shape - you are apparently completely ignorant of the nobility also wearing straw hats.
Clearly you must be joking here about my knowledge about >> the nobility [also] wearing straw hats <<.

But what would be the point of your conclusion:
… "the red man"' is reaching (not making) for a peasant's straw hat (which symbolizes the peasantry in general) …
I obviously wasn't referring to the MAKING of STRAW hats here either - because that would be a whole other case.
Since Huck didn't give a link to that story I told my bit about the FORM for a FELT hat that makes The RED MAN in the eyes of other EXPERTS a HAT MAKER and I explained the ridiculousness of that "theory" with pictures from real life FORMS for felt hats. But you should know that.

AND you should grow some muscles on those weak assumptions (other than a „fashionista's) and tell me more …

1st: What would a poor peasant's ugly and very possibly dirty and clearly smelly straw hat DO on the (market) table with it's easily removable legs in the center of the place of BUSINESS of this very rich and in some way aristocratic persona?
My assumption would be that he would have removed 1st the forgetful hand with his sharp knife from the forgetful peasant so that he remembers his place in society quickly and LASTING before he had the poor peasant himself removed to a cell (with his straw hat of course - so there would be no story left to tell here about peasant's straw hats - what obviously isn't) to think a while and ponder his impertinence.

2nd: WHY would this very rich and in some way aristocratic persona have ALLOWED a poor peasant to occupy a QUARTER of his business table with his ugly and very possibly dirty and clearly smelly straw hat (that would scare away his customers too)?

3rd: WHY would this very rich and in some way aristocratic persona REACH for an ugly and very possibly dirty and clearly smelly straw hat that belongs to a poor peasant.

4th: What would be the BACK-STORY of such a fabulous situation and WHY would it be in the PMB? For what possible purpose? To educate aristocrats on some futuristic behavior pattern that requires social consciousness towards the poor peasants who were in those days not even classified as humans by Filippo and his crowd?

Please clear these (and other curiosities that roam my mind right now) up for me!
Try to put some context to your reaching conclusions Phaeded!



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… and from what PMB tableau would this degenerate persona be?
What would be the scale compared to The RED MAN?

You should always hold first both compared pictured in their WHOLE dimensions against each other – but you obviously do not know that – to come to a FIRST feasable conclusion and from there go into the details.



Image




And by the way the HAT thing was not the point of this topic – as you may have noticed.
So why not refer to the additional info and talk about THAT?

So thank you for NOT playing.

Adrian

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

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I still haven't gotten around to a proper explication of the planetary trumps, but my theory:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1062

The peasant hat, quite obviously, would belong with a peasant - which is who we find in the preceding card to the ill-named "juggler/conjurer": The (God-denying) Fool, whose idiocy is emphasized by his case of goiter. But the Fool has been taken out of his Biblical/Psalm 52 context, so he is not simply denying the existence of God, but rather the divinely-sanctioned social structure expressed by the sum total of the trumps, the earthly "bon droyt" (more precisely, Divine Right), written throughout.

The "juggler" is neither entertaining (as reinterpreted in later decks) nor is he fashioning anything (how could he, with a simple glass, coins, knife and scepter/stylus?). The primary meaning has to be embodied in his gesture, which is reaching for the most common symbol of the peasantry - an old straw hat. Why?

I would suggest, at the very least, that the "juggler" is a highly ambiguous if not suspect character. The peasantry should only be beholden to the ruler, not this lower down personage.

And who is this person, seemingly in the finery of the nobility? As I've pointed out elsewhere (and I believe I've been the only one to point this out), the hat worn by the "juggler" is in fact the exact same hat worn by the knight and page in the Brambilla suit of coins, except the PMB figure has the ends down-turned, as if second-hand and drooping. The Brambilla page and knight of coins:
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So we have a person aping the nobility (or perhaps even a cadet branch of the Visconti with claims on the duchy was intended), associated with the suit of coins (ergo, money in general), reaching for a symbol of the peasantry.

As you will find in the link to my theory, I associate this figure with Mercury, the god of writing, commerce and thieves (this last notion will be further clarified below). Now also note the scepter/stylus, alone among all of the other PMB cards that hold this same symbol, is held in the left (sinistra) hand (the other PMB Court and Trumps holding scepters do so in the right hand: King of Coins, Queen of Batons, King of Batons, Empress, Emperor, and Chariotress). And I add the qualifying "stylus" to scepter because this person has it seemingly pressed to the desk (unlike all of the other figures with scepters), to connote the act of writing. In addition to the scepter in the "wrong" hand, also note none of the nobility of the court cards have a beard, further setting this figure off from the bon droyt peers.

But Mercury is only potentially sinister - for he becomes good when conjoined with good planets, and bad with the bad. He can't be trusted. More germane, in light of the contested Duchy of Milan, in the words of perhaps the most relevant medieval Italian astrologer (who Dante placed in hell): And he [Mercury] signifies fear and disturbances, and war, and enmities, and seditions and contrarieties. (Guido Bonatti's Book of Astronomy, Treatises 1-3, 2010: 178; tr. Benjamnin Dykes).

And to clarify why this figure is specifically connected to the earlier suit of coins (Bonatti quoting the Arab astrologer writer Sahl): “Mercury, who naturally signifies coins” (Dykes, On the Second House. Chapter 1: 706).

This figure, essentially part of a PMB trump series that is a novel exemplar of the Mirror for Princes genre, is a cautionary theme that introduces the series: Beware of sedition from within your own ranks, especially those who claim to speak for "the people" (the preceding Ambrosian Republic broke down along class lines, the government headed at the end in 1450 by a baker, butcher and notary). And I am only claiming my interpretation of this trump for the PMB - clearly this trump was reinterpreted as an entertainer, among other things, in later decks (just as many of the other trumps were reinterpreted; e.g., the Charioteer becomes male and loses the original "chastity" connotations).

Phaeded

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

8
Adrian ...
Since Huck didn't give a link to that story ...
If you had followed my description, you would have gotten this ...
http://tarotforum.net/search.php?searchid=5886359

To understand this, you perhaps have to go back to the local search engine of Aeclectic,
http://tarotforum.net/search.php
search for the field "user" and search for the field "keyword".
Fill these with "Rosanne" and with "straw hat" and you'll see, that you got a valid description. But only in the case, that you find the button "Go" ...
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

9
Thank you Phaeded for this detailed reply and explanation!

It will obviously take me some time to explain my POV of these issues in an adequate manner.
Since you seem not to be familiar with the concept of my presentation here it would be kind if you went through the texts and pictures I presented here so far on TH and Aeclectic in the linked topics because it belongs all together.

If you can spare the time and are willing to do so I would appreciate this very much because I can not write all this again in one answer to you - what you will obviously understand.

Should you have trouble finding the links I'm talking about I could give a list here.

I'll be back

Adrian

Re: The RED MAN of The Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB)

10
Hello Huck.

When I do follow your link http://tarotforum.net/search.php?searchid=5886359 ...

it takes me to an Aeclectic page where I must log in and be already a member there (what I AM) to go further.
Because THIS here is ANOTHER forum with readers who are NO members THERE at Aeclectic they couldn't follow your link - what I don't support.

Everyone who reads here should obviously be able to follow through to the linked content to be a part of this conversation here - even when he/she choses to listen (read) only.
Hello! It seems you don't have access to this page right now.
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1) You need to login to your account first. Just login below.
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Adrian