Tarot History Forum

Hi Michael,

I really love the first one, engraved by Johan Sadeler, because it pictures the exact version of the legend that I know. The hard path of the Virtue, leading to beautiful mountains afar and the easy, lovely path of Vice, with a fog that hides where it leads.

I like the Hercules at the Crossroad of Girolamo di Benvenuto (1470–1525), just bellow, because it seems to me the closer to Noblet's. Look at the angel above, prepared to strike Hercules if he chooses wrongly. Even the position of Virtue, with his left hand on Hercules shoulder, and vice with her right arm crossing Hercules' seems close. Unfortunately, the clothes, or lack of them, don't match.




Happy St. Stanislaus day,

You have heard tell of one who would not yield
to his stepmother’s fierce and burning will,
and fled, to free himself from her entreaties.

But that chaste purpose, noble in itself,
destroyed him, when the love of Phaedra turned
to hatred, terrible and malign.

And she died of it, perhaps in vengeance wrought
for Hippolytus, for Theseus, and for
Ariadne, who, loving, ran toward death.

He who condemns another damns himself;
for one who takes delight in treachery
has no just cause to mourn when he’s deceived.

Behold the famous man, for all his praise,
led captive between two sisters, both dead:
one died for him, and he takes pleasure in the other.

Petrarch: The Triumph of Love

Trump VIII L'Amore and the Transformation of Eros

The following is a synthesis of several posts I made on the Face Book Tarot History group, in response to a question posed by Giordano Bruno Berti:
"In the Love card of the Sicilian Tarot, what is the girl doing? and what is happening to that man?"

Trump VIII, L'Amore, of the Sicilian tarot may be understood as a meditation on the transformation of eros. Rather than presenting love merely as passion or desire, the composition suggests a movement from involuntary compulsion toward a higher and more conscious form of love. Viewed through classical, Christian, and Petrarchan traditions, the card portrays love as both wound and grace. Passion is not denied, but governed and elevated.

At the top of the card, Cupid aims his arrow downward. In Roman mythology, Cupid's darts inflict love suddenly and often against the will of their victims. Cupid thus represents desire as something imposed from without, a force that wounds and subjects human beings to passion. The man's raised left hand, with its palm turned upward, appears exposed to this descending dart. He stands vulnerable to the wound of desire and the disorder it may bring. His right hand seems poised to grasp the lower end of the woman's upright arrow. One hand remains open to the descent of passion, while the other reaches toward participation in a different mode of love. The image thus contrasts two directions of eros: one descending as compulsion, the other rising through conscious mastery and refinement.

The woman stands beneath Cupid and before the Man, holding an arrow upright like a sceptre. She appears not merely as the object of affection but as the mistress of love itself. At one level, she may be understood as Venus. In Virgil's Aeneid, Cupid acts "mindful of his Acidalian mother", and Servius, commenting on the passage, associated the epithet Acidalia both with the Fountain of the Graces and with the darts and wounds of love. Ovid likewise employed acidalia to evoke the pangs and anxieties of passion. Venus herself was occasionally represented with arrows, and the woman's attribute may allude to this aspect of the goddess. If Cupid's downward-pointing dart represents the involuntary onset of passion, her upright arrow signifies desire possessed and governed. Cupid wounds, but Venus rules.

Through her association with the Graces, Venus Acidalia also represents beauty, harmony, and the social bonds that civilize and refine desire. Love therefore appears not only as an affliction but also as a gift. The same force that wounds may, under the influence of grace, become the means by which eros is ordered and elevated.

At a literary and moral level, the figure recalls Petrarch's Laura. In the Trionfo d'Amore, Cupid's arrows subject all humanity to passion, yet Laura's beauty and virtue become the means by which desire is purified and ennobled. She does not extinguish love but triumphs over its disorder. Likewise, the woman in Trump VIII may be understood as a Laura-like figure whose beauty serves not merely to inflame passion but to direct it toward a nobler end. Beauty and love become a ladder to virtue.

The man carries a sword, an emblem of masculine strength and active power. His uncertain posture, however, suggests hesitation. He appears poised between advance and retreat. The tension recalls the familiar relationship between Venus and Mars. Mars possesses force through his weapons, yet Venus often exercises power over him through love. Strength alone does not triumph. Love itself becomes the stronger force, though not as blind passion but as desire brought under higher governance.

The composition may therefore be understood as a drama of three wills. Cupid above represents desire imposed. The woman represents desire governed. The man represents desire consciously embraced, resisted, or elevated. One hand remains exposed to passion's assault, while the other reaches toward participation in a more refined form of love.

In this respect, Trump VIII recalls the Lovers card of the Tarot de Marseille. Rather than simply depicting a choice between two women, Trump VI may itself be understood allegorically as a choice between two forms of Venus. The leaf-crowned woman evokes Venus Urania, the Heavenly Venus associated with virtue, permanence, and contemplative love. The flower-crowned woman evokes the earthly Venus, associated with beauty, fertility, sensual attraction, and the generative powers of nature. The crowns themselves reinforce this distinction. Evergreen leaves suggest constancy and enduring virtue, while flowers evoke beauty in bloom and the fleeting delights of the natural world. Trump VIII appears to internalize this same duality within a single Venus-like figure who unites beauty and virtue.

The contrast also recalls Augustine's distinction between cupiditas and caritas. Cupiditas is love turned toward temporal goods and the self, while caritas is rightly ordered love, made possible through grace. Seen through this lens, the card does not reject eros but depicts its reordering. Grace here may be understood in a double sense. Through Venus Acidalia it recalls the Graces and the harmonizing powers of beauty and affection. Through Augustine it signifies the divine aid by which love is properly directed. The beloved, whether understood as Venus Acidalia or as a Laura-like figure, does not merely receive desire but mediates and elevates it.

Thus the Sicilian card internalizes a choice that the Tarot de Marseille externalizes. The conflict no longer appears as a choice between two women, but between two directions of desire itself. One hand remains open to Cupid's wound, while the other reaches toward love governed by grace.

The card therefore portrays not the rejection of eros but its transformation. Love appears as both wound and gift, compulsion and grace. Cupid wounds, Venus governs, and beauty guided by virtue elevates. Passion remains the beginning, but not the end. What begins as the wound of desire may become a path toward higher love. Beauty and love become a ladder by which the soul may ascend.

SteveM wrote: 06 Jun 2026, 11:12 In Virgil's Aeneid, Cupid acts "mindful of his Acidalian mother", and Servius, commenting on the passage, associated the epithet Acidalia both with the Fountain of the Graces and with the darts and wounds of love. Ovid likewise employed acidalia to evoke the pangs and anxieties of passion. Venus herself was occasionally represented with arrows, and the woman's attribute may allude to this aspect of the goddess. If Cupid's downward-pointing dart represents the involuntary onset of passion, her upright arrow signifies desire possessed and governed. Cupid wounds, but Venus rules.

Venus with darts: