Who is the pope?

[mmfilesi]

Yes, the Discorso of Piscinia is too strange:

... E seguano nel ordine delle figure doppo il pazzo & il Bagato Imperatori e Papi intesi per ì gran Prencipi...

... After the Fool and the Bagat, there follow Emperors and Popes, representing hig Princes...

[SteveM]

The idea that originally there were two male Popes and two male Emperors is also supported by the Anonymous Discourse (1560 ca):

Well it shows that such existed in the mid-sixteenth century, but we already know that from the rules in the Pedini manuscript, which is also 'consensually dated' from the middle to the end of the 16th century.

[Ross G. R. Caldwell]

The idea that originally there were two male Popes and two male Emperors is also supported by the Anonymous Discourse (1560 ca):

Seguono due Papi, uno col Regno et l'altro senza et dopò questi l'Imperatore, et il Re, che sono le due supreme dignità; nello spirituale Cardinale et Papa, nel temporale Re, et Imperatore;

Two Popes follow, one with the reign [papal crown] and one without it. And after them the Emperor and the King, which are the highest dignities: in the spiritual, Cardinal and Pope, in the temporal, King and Emperor.

I agree the Anonymous, and Piscina too, are thinking in terms of exclusively male figures.

For Piscina, the reason is that Piemonte observed the same rule here as the Bolognese, although the iconography of their cards, that we have evidence for - including Piscina's description of cards like The World - is almost identical to the Tarot de Marseille. Piscina's interpretation mingled rules with iconography - therefore even if he were looking at a Popess or an Empress (and he probably didn't have titles on the cards), he thought of them all as "Popes and Emperors", i.e. Papi, which he would have known from his local rules.

Anonymous is different - he uses the B order, so it is surprising to see him refer only to male figures. The oldest witness to the B order, the Steele Sermon, explicitly lists a Popess and Empress, and the iconography of the Metropolitan Museum and Budapest sheets, also B order, seem to show a Popess and Empress as well. I can only guess that he, in the middle of the 16th century, might have been uncomfortable with a Popess, and let it obscure the Empress as well. Because of Protestant imagery showing the Pope as the Whore of Babylon (or the Whore of Babylon wearing the triregno), I think there was a backlash against Popess images. By the late 16th century, however, as far as I can tell, Catholics had found a new use of such imagery as a personification of the Church. I wonder if it was a new invention or just reviving an older tradition? So far I haven't seen any allegories of the Church from the 15th century that look like a Popess.

[mmfilesi]

Good analisys, thanks Ross.

****************

anyone know why the pope from the Este deck have a red cassock?



I only know one pope who dresses in red, but the chronology doesn't fit.

papaptf.jpg (23.58 KiB) Viewed 697 times

[mmfilesi]

About the three crowns of the tiara:

Nell'araldica civile vi è sempre al di sopra dello scudo un copricapo, in generale una corona. Anche nell'araldica ecclesiastica appare normalmente un copricapo, evidentemente di tipo ecclesiastico. Nel caso del Sommo Pontefice fin dai tempi antichi appare una "tiara". Essa era all'inizio un tipo di "tocco" chiuso. Nel 1130 fu accompagnato da una corona, simbolo di sovranità sugli Stati della Chiesa. Bonifacio VIII, nel 1301, aggiunse una seconda corona, al tempo del confronto col Re di Francia, Filippo il Bello, per significare la sua autorità spirituale al di sopra di quella civile. Fu Benedetto XII, nel 1342 ad aggiungere una terza corona per simbolizzare l'autorità morale del Papa su tutti i monarchi civili, e riaffermare il possesso di Avignone. Col tempo, perdendo i suoi significati di carattere temporale, la tiara d'argento con le tre corone d'oro è rimasta a rappresentare i tre poteri del Sommo Pontefice: di Ordine sacro, di Giurisdizione e di Magistero. Negli ultimi secoli, i Papi usarono la tiara nei pontificali solenni, ed in particolare nel giorno della "incoronazione", all'inizio del loro pontificato.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/bened ... vi_it.html

[robert]

We also discussed the triple crown in this thread:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=46726

--

I lean towards the idea that we have one Pope and one Bishop in the tarot.

Who is the pope? If I were to make a guess at all, I might think Gregory the Great, and I might think the "Popess" is St Augustine; or Nicholas. I'm less inclined than some others to think that the representations on the cards reflect actual living people rather than heroic or common examples.

[mmfilesi]

Thanks, Robert.

I bring here some post.

****

In a recent discussion with JMD, we were considering the possiblity that the Papess was actually a second Pope.

Both of us turned to the "Great Schism" or "Western Schism" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism) as a possibility for the Papess card in the Tarot deck. The timing is very good, 1378, recent enough to be in the minds of the creator(s) of the tarot, (assuming a 15th Century creation, as most "Tarot Historians" do).

And the setting is correct, with Avignon being a possible keypoint for early tarot development. Add the history of the Avignon papacy( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avignon_Papacy ) and you have a **VERY SLIGHT** possiblilty that Tarot might reflect this divide.

I would have left it at that, a fun fantasy worthy of minor contempation, except today I finally aquired the wonderful "tarocchino" by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli ( http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards38.htm ) which features two popes.

I realize that in the Tarocchino Bolognese the Papess, Empress, Emperor, and Pope were originally grouped as "The Popes", all of equal value, but in these cards (from around 1660-65) the Empress, Emperor and Pope are clearly such, but the Papess is also, clearly, a man... and this made me wonder again.. is the Papess really a second Pope?

Just thought I'd throw this out there in case anyone found the concept interesting.

best,
robert

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[JMD]

There are a number of cards that have clear masculine depictions in early decks, or early representations (whether these be paintings, woodcuts or stone carvings). Of these, the ones that stand out are representations are what we would familiarly name Strength (as Samson or Herakles) and the World (as Christ).

This does not take away from a more 'balanced' representation in Tarot's development, and one could even argue that the early representation may have been mis-represented by the very bias carried by the artist, to be 'corrected' with time.

With regards to card II the Papess, there has already been some wonderful notes of early representations of the image (not only as card) as clearly Papesse.

Yet, when one looks at some of the variety of images in various decks available, what seems also suggested is the possibility of two masculine figures, one bearded and the other not. Ie, one more Eastern (whether Orthodox or Coptic, for example) and the other Roman.

In this case, the beardless one would be perhaps an indicator of the Roman Pontiff, and whoever depicted the bearded Pope would also have indicated, by numbering, the eastern superiority of that Pope over the Roman see.

Alternatively, and following further this line of thought, the beardless 'pope' may be a bishop, rather than Pope...

This is not 'remaking' the image in masculine idiom, but rather looking carefully at representations, however iconographically 'faulty', and acknowledging and investigating various possibilities, to be rejected when found wanting on their own merit.

There are, in any case, a number of Renaissance paintings that appear to depict two Popes, one eastern and the other 'Roman'... though I'll have to see if I can easily find them to add to the thread.

+++

I find this suggestion by Robert and JMD extremely tempting....the Papesse is a difficult card, when trying to make sense of the trumps as a whole, because it is an iconographical anomaly. I think I read somewhere that the card by Bembo is the oldest known potrait of a papesse.
It would be useful to collect some visual data.

These are two examples of antipopes:
http://www.iqt.it/evangelo/irc/rifo...tante/cause.htm
http://www.diocesinardogallipoli.it...clementeVII.htm
in both cases the antipopes are depicted while being crowned with the tiara by the cardinals.

The other "candidate" to investigate could be the Patriarch of Constantinople.

I think Bembo's card could point to a Franciscan Pope (or papesse).
Maybe the two "popes" are allegories of different aspects of the Church (e.g. spiritual/temporal mystical/active).

Still in Bembo's card there is a detail that suggests the Papesse is a woman: (s)he has a long neck. By looking at the other cards, a long neck seems to only appear in the images of women.

Marco

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I have been searching for more images, and I am now convinced that Bembo's Papesse is a woman.

There are two main visual data that convinced me:

1) In all Bembo's cards, characters wear belts wich are high (just below the breast) for women and low for men. For instance, compare Empress and Emperor, or, in a single card, the two Lovers or the different characters on the Wheel.
Since the popesse wears an "high belt", she is a woman.

2) The papesse is VERY similar to Giotto's Santa Clara (while she is not similar at all to San Francesco, just to compare with a male figure). In particular, note the white scarf around the neck and cheecks, the high belt (again), the shape of the cloak.

Bembo's papesse seems to be a mix between Santa Clara and a Pope like the one in the Subiaco fresco. She is a Franciscan nun (a clarissa) wearing the papal crown, and bearing a book and a cross. Another interesting difference is that the veil on the head of the Papesse is white, while Clara's is black.

Marco

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Quote:
Why do you favour the allegory with respect to Papessa Giovanna? The existence of the 1497 engraving makes me think.


The answer is complex.

Last part first, I think Jacopo da Bergamo's image (or rather his engraver's image) might be influenced by the tarot itself. By 1497 (or was that 1499?), when it was published, printed tarots with images like this must have existed. In any case, it is too late to be an argument for Pope Joan imagery to have *influenced* tarot. At best it might be taken to show that some people took the tarot image to represent Pope Joan, and adapted for a woodcut in a book. BUT - a better explanation for Bergamensis' image is that his engraver adapted his engraving from a manuscript miniature, such as the one I show immediately before Bergamensis (IIRC). In both cases, they are giving the blessing sign, and lack the cross. But Bergamensis' holds a book too, which makes one think back to tarot influence...

I don't know of any studies about the personification of the Church - or "The Faith" - as a woman with a triple tiara. This is a difficult area, but I'll theorize with you here: "Faith" is one of the theological virtues - Giotto shows it, over a century earlier, in his cycle in Padua. No tiara. In the Cary-Yale, the virtue of Faith also has no tiara, but has the Chalice and Host.

My theory is that the virtue "Faith" didn't need a Papal tiara before the Papal aspect of the Church was seriously challenged - that is, during the reformation. Thus, transforming the figure of "Faith" into "The Faith" (the Roman Catholic Church), complete with Papal Tiara (triregno), might have occurred only AFTER the Council of Trent (after 1545), when the Church felt very triumphant indeed.

Are there any times before this when an image of "The Faith" as "The Church" might have been created? Perhaps after the end of the Great Schism (1379-1417), with the election of Martin V? This was seen as a great victory for the Church, so perhaps the generic virtue of "Faith" was transformed into the "The Faith" then - one of the great victories of the Council of Constance was over the schism threatened by John Huss, who questioned the validity of the Papacy. So Constance, and the end of the Great Schism, might have been thought of as a victory for the Faith, and its symbol the Papal Tiara.

But I have no direct evidence of this, and I don't know if I really think it is a good theory. All I can point to, in fact, is the Bembo image itself (very much pre-Tridentine) - thus making a circular argument.

So we are left with the fact that the only papesse images I know of that precede Bembo's are of Pope Joan. Since I can't accept that Bembo is portraying Pope Joan, I prefer to believe that somehow, the image of "The Faith", with a triple tiara, as well as her traditional attributes (as seen in Giotto's fresco for example), existed earlier than Trent.

Why can't I accept that Bembo's image is of Pope Joan? You cite a good reason - she is holding a cross, and the book of the gospels (presumably). These are both traditional attributes of Faith.

Also, although I have shown that images of Pope Joan without a baby do indeed exist, these images are always accompanied by text that identifies the figure as Pope Joan. The tarot has no text, so only context in the series can help us.
There is no context by which we might identify her as Pope Joan - the trump series is not such a narrative.

Weak arguments, I know - especially if you think that Lydgate's "Wheel of Fortune" image shows Pope Joan. This remains to be shown, but if so, then Pope Joan might be in the tarot as an example of a "Fall of Princes" narrative - she quickly rose to the highest power, and was disgraced by Fortune.

I only have one other argument, and that is from the Bolognese tarocchi.

Look at the cards at
http://www.geocities.com/anytarot/earlybologna.html
(ignore the numbers, added later to correspond to the tarot de marseille)

These are a few of an early 18th or late 17th century Bolognese pack. They are before 1725, because after that date all Bolognese packs were made to conform to a Papal edict (Bologna being a Papal city then) forbidding the images of "Papi" in the pack.

In the Bolognese pack, these four cards (which we call Papesse, Imperatrice, Empereur, Pape), were never given separate names or numbers and all had the same value in play - they were never ranked.

Also, the Bolognese designs are perhaps the most conservative of all tarot traditions - the earliest recognized of this family are the Charles VI and Catania cards, and the second oldest the Beaux-Arts and Rothschild sheets, dating from 1450-1480 and 1500 respectively. The differences between these cards and the later Bolognese designs is surprisingly little - much less than those between the Cary Sheet and its assumed descendant, the later Tarot de Marseille.

Therefore, I take the "papi" in the link above to be a close approximation of what the Papi in the earliest Bolognese pack, in the 15th century, looked like. So what do we notice?

The Papi are two pairs (they're collectively called "papi", but two are "imperatori"), two Popes, and two Emperors. Looking at the Popes, both look feminine. They're beardless, and young looking. One holds the Keys of Peter and gives a blessing, the other the Cross of the faith and a book.
It doesn't seem like this deck is trying to make a point about Pope Joan. Rather, one seems to be a personification of the Papacy (Keys), and the other the Faith (Cross and Gospels).

Theorizing - I think, for other reasons, that the Bolognese is the earliest type of design. I think also that the two pairs in the "Papi" represent the Temporal and Spiritual authorities, symbolized in a pair themselves, with an allegory of the idea of "Church" and the representative of "Church", and the idea of "Empire" and the representative of "Empire". When the deck came to be copied, a further "pairing" came to be introduced occasionally - male and female. The male authority, and the female allegory. Such a division is obviously common and standard.

One question remains to be answered - why such a pairing? It might seem natural (to pair an allegory with its representative), and that satisfies me. But it might also be that the number of the cards (22 or 21+1) demanded some such arrangement, or even that these four cards are older than the tarot deck as we know it, and were incorporated into the game whole (perhaps related to the "Imperatori" game attested earlier than tarot).

So I finally think that the tarot Papesse is really not Pope Joan, or any historical figure - I think she is an artifact of tarot itself, descending from an allegory of "The Faith".

"Quote:
The main point in favour of the "personification of the Church" seems to me to be that the figure in the card holds a cross. The cross seems to be never associated to Papessa Giovanna (and the reasons for this are quite clear).

Thank you, Ross!!!!

Marco"


My pleasure. I'm glad you found the images interesting.

I should add that the personification of the Empire as an Empress is also known, but I have no 15th century images of it - my earliest is 16th century (the link about Potestas Imperialis). I have a stunning one from the 17th century also.

Best,

Ross

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross G Caldwell
I don't know of any studies about the personification of the Church - or "The Faith" - as a woman with a triple tiara. This is a difficult area, but I'll theorize with you here: "Faith" is one of the theological virtues - Giotto shows it, over a century earlier, in his cycle in Padua. No tiara. In the Cary-Yale, the virtue of Faith also has no tiara, but has the Chalice and Host.


The most common personification of Faith in the XIV Century was indeed similar to the attached image by Maso Di Banco: the attributes are book, chalice and (single, not triple) crown. More similar to a queen of cups than to a papesse

I also attach Giotto's "Faith" (Fides). Looking at this image I think it is an excellent reference for the Visconti Sforza papesse. This faith has no Tiara, but at least her crown is not a "common" queen's crown!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross G Caldwell
Theorizing - I think, for other reasons, that the Bolognese is the earliest type of design. I think also that the two pairs in the "Papi" represent the Temporal and Spiritual authorities, symbolized in a pair themselves, with an allegory of the idea of "Church" and the representative of "Church", and the idea of "Empire" and the representative of "Empire". When the deck came to be copied, a further "pairing" came to be introduced occasionally - male and female. The male authority, and the female allegory. Such a division is obviously common and standard.


I find these arguments convincing. In particular, it is natural that allegories are female when they represent concepts corrisponding to feminine words, such as Chiesa/Ecclesia/Church, Fede/Fides/Faith or Potere/Potestas/Power.

One more word about the beautiful 1743 engraving. This is a late example of the common pattern that Panofsky, in his "Studies in Iconology", calls The Church and the Sinagogue or the New and the Old Testament.

In this cases, a positive (Church) and a negative (Sinagogue) allegories are compared in a single image. In the 1743 engraving, the only negativity in the image of the Old Testament is that she is letting fall the tables of the Law. In many cases, the Sinagogue is represented with a falling crown after Jeremiah 13:18 Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory.

I think that the use of women in personifications has never had any negative meaning. Images such as this engraving show that, even when positive and negative (or at least higher and lesser) are compared in a single image, it does not happen in a systematic way that a woman is used for the lower concept and a man for the higher one.

The PotestasImperialis / ImperialPower published by Ross is a clear example of the use of a woman for the higer personification, while a man occupies the lower (although imperial) role.

Marco

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I made some research on the history of the Triple Crown (Tiara or triregnum). I found what I looked for
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14714c.htm
"The tiara with three crowns is the rule upon the monuments from the second half of the fourteenth century, even though, as an anachronism, there are isolated instances of the tiara with one crown up into the fifteenth century."

Ross has mentioned Giotto's Faith (in the Scrovegni chappel in Padua) as relevant for the iconography of the Papesse.
I now understand that Giotto's Faith has no Tiara because the tiara as triple crown did not exist before 1314 and is not known in paintings before 1350. Giotto painted this fresco in 1306 or 1307.

The strange crown worn by Giotto's Faith may well be a "single crown" tiara, used by popes before the triple crown. A good example of this single crown tiara is the portrait of Innocenzo III submitted by Robert LePendu. It seems that Bonifacio VIII introduced a "double crown" that remained in use only for a few years.

I now feel quite sure that the Visconti-Sforza Papesse is Faith. I like this explanation because:

1. The Cary-Yale Visconti deck has a Faith Card. The complexity of the iconological evolution of tarot is reduced if we can conclude that a Faith is also present in Visconti-Sforza.

2. The personification of Faith is a common image in medieval art. The complexity of tarot as an expression of its time is reduced if we can conclude that the Papesse represents Faith.


The similarity of the Visconti-Sforza papesse with Giotto's faith is impressive, considering that the card was painted more than a century after the fresco:

A. The first and main attribute (the cross held in the right hand) is identical.

B. The second attribute (the Bible held in the left hand) appears in one case as a book in the other as a scoll; the meanings are perfectly compatible.

C. The third attribute (the tiara) is a triple crown for the tarot card and (something very similar to) a papal single crown for Giotto's fresco.

Marco

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Marco, I am in perfect agreement with you!

The only problem remaining would be to explain her place in the sequence of trumps. She is the only one of the four "papi" who changes place - she occupies every possible position below the Pope and above the Bagattella in one or more attested orders.

I interpret her changeability as a reaction to the figure as she became more and more a "papessa" and less a simple "faith". This happened because she was a card and not a fresco or otherwise easily identified painting. Thus she was moved further and further from the Pope.

One reason I favor the Bolognese practice as the original - no names, no order among these four cards - is that I can explain the allegory more simply. These four cards represent the "pillars of society", the temporal and spiritual, which are in balance. Therefore it is only in play that one can trump another. But in the abstract, they are complementary and equal.

+++

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross G Caldwell
One reason I favor the Bolognese practice as the original - no names, no order among these four cards - is that I can explain the allegory more simply. These four cards represent the "pillars of society", the temporal and spiritual, which are in balance. Therefore it is only in play that one can trump another. But in the abstract, they are complementary and equal.


Good point: an interesting consequence is that the order of the cards seems to be more an obstacle than an help in understanding the meaning of the whole deck. The fact that the Bologna Tarot has no order (between the four "Popes") makes things clearer!

Robert M. Place (The Tarot pg. 133) uses the argument that the Papesse is lower than the Pope to dismiss the possibility of the card being Faith:

A more conservative interpretation [with respect to Sorella Manfreda and Papessa Giovanna] is that the Papesse is an allegorical image of a woman wearing the Papal triple crown, which represented the Church or Faith in Renaissence art. The fact, however. that in the Tarot of Marseille's order the Empress, the Emperor and Pope all trump her shows the flaw in this interpretation.

I agree with Place about the fact that Faith should be higher than the Pope (and the Potestas images seem to point in this direction). But since, thanks to your help and insight, I now feel sure that the Papesse is Faith, I can now agree that it's better to (partially) dismiss the meaningfulness of Tarot order.
I find visual documents predating Visconti-Sforza (such as Giotto's Faith) to be much more reliable than textual documents produced later (such as what we know about Tarot order).

I can agree with Place's argument with respect to Tarot de Marseille. In that context, the card has become a Papesse, and its original meaning of Faith seems to have been lost travelling through time and space from Milano 1450 to Marseille 1650.

Marco

[I just think this one week ago xD]

[mmfilesi]

Yesterday I dont have luck with saint Google , but I think to find who are the popes, its necesary resolve these issues:

1. Why the Pope from the Este deck have red cassock instead of white?

2. Why the Pope from the Medici deck have only one crown?

3. What is the heraldic symbol of the Pope from PMB?

4. What is the heraldic symbol the Pope from tarot Medici?

5. When blue coats came into use (instead red)?

We need a Church historical tailor...

[conversus]

Until the 16th century, I think the claim is the reign of the Dominican Pius V, the Popes were wont to wear red--which is why the Cardinals wear red, to be linked to the pope. The Pope still wears red shoes, like the Cardinals.

[Yngwë Yngweron]

Triple Crown

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/3_sin.html
♐ ‘Lance’

XIV

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_Legion
V

♉ ‘Nail’

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/3_waw.html

Note the connection to San Sigismund (of Burgundy), whose Feast Day is May 1st (the 121st day of the year = 11 x 11) & the Church of San Sigismundo, where the Viscounti & Sforza families were united.