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<H1>Tarot card - Temperance</H1>
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<h3>Essays of Andrea Vitali: </h3><h1>Card 14: The Temperance</h1><br>
In Greek "sophrosyne", in Latin "temperantia" it is one of the four cardinal virtues. As Platone explains in the "Republic" it controls the
concupiscent appetite and it essentially consists, as Aristotle clears in "Nicomachea Ethics", in a moderation of sensitive pleasures in compliance
with the requirements of the "straight reason". Saint Thomas in the "Summa Theologiae" writes " Temperance that implies moderation, mainly consists
in regulating the passions that stretch to the sensitive goods, and that are concupiscence and pleasures, and indirectly regulating sadness and pains
that derive from the absence of these pleasures". (quaestio 2, articulum 2). The moderating person is therefore that one that is strained to resist to
the attraction of passions and pleasures, in particular sensual ones, when they become excessive. <br>
In the XVI th "Sermones de Ludo" it is just put close to Love as a virtue that teaches to moderate instincts. <br>
Temperance comes generally represented in miniated Tarots
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V75L.jpg" target="right">(figure 1)</a> - Visconti Sforza Tarot/
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V76L.jpg" target="right">(figure 2)</a> - Charles VI Tarot) in its more common version,
a young girl in the action to pour the water from a container in an other containing wine, with the meant to mitigate, to dampen what is too much
exciting. It expresses therefore the necessity to dominate certain instincts, that, through this virtue, they become balanced. <br>
An Iconographic varying of remarkable interest appears in Alessandro Sforza Tarot
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V77L.jpg" target="right">(figure 3)</a>.
A nude woman seats on the back of a deer, turning her shoulders to towards the head of the animal. With her right hand she pours the water from a cup
making fall the liquid on her sex, that she covers with her left hand <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V78L.jpg" target="right">
(figure 4)</a>. The cup seems to be less striking, as it has been impresses by a punch together with other decorative elements
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V79L.jpg" target="right">(figure 5)</a>. It is a particular representation of the
Temperance: a fable about ancient gods used as moral training, according with the typical praxis of the time. <br>
It is now necessary to emphasize the function that the "ancient gods" myths had in medieval age, in relation to the Christian allegory.
Fundamental to this purpose are the studies of Jean Seznec who in its work "The Survival of the Ancient Gods" writes: "mythology stretched to
transform in a moral philosophy: and "Philosophia moralis" it is not by chance the title of a work of the eleventh century, attributed to Ildeberto of
Lavardin, bishop of Tours, that brings numerous examples of allegorical interpretation taken from pagan poets as well from the Bible. But at the same
time mythology stretched to melt also with theology: as well as, renewing the tradition of the Fathers, the medieval allegorical genius discovered in
the personages and in the episodes of Old Testament forecasts of the New Alliance, in the same way it discovered in the personages and the episodes of
mythology forecasts of the Christian Truth. Really, starting from the twelfth century, in which allegory assumes the function of universal vehicle of
every manifestation of religious "pietas"(Pity), the mythological interpretation comes to an amazing development. This is in fact the age in which
Alexander Neckham connects gods of paganism with the virtues that, according to Saint Augustin, lead the man to the Saint Christian detection; the
age in which Guglielmo of Conches, commenting the "De consolatione philosophiae" by Boezio, he discovers in Euridice a symbol of the inner concupiscence
of the human heart, and in the war of the Giants against Zeus the rebellion of our bodies made with mud against the spirit; and still the age in which
Bernardo of Chartres and his disciple Giovanni of Salisbury put to the centre of their own meditation the pagan polytheism, "not to respect its false
divinities, but because they hide mysterious instructions inaccessible to common people. But above all this is the age in which the "Metamorphosis" of
Ovid profuse to sagacious interpreters unsuspicious treasures of saint truth". (1990, pag.122). <br>
According with the Christian meaning the Temperance has the task to tame in principal way sensuality, the sexual pleasures, therefore between the
virtues connected to it there is Chastity. In the "Tabernacolo" by the Orcagna (Florence, Orsammichele) are represented the four cardinal virtues,
each one placed side by side with the connected virtues, according with Saint Thomas precepts; in particular to Temperance are connected Humility
and Virginity. <br>
The representation in Alessandro Sforza card is connected to the Greek myth of Diane, that rises as a moral training allegory. The goddess, during the
recurrence of the Anados, her annual apparition, a moment in which she renewed her virginity bathing in a sacred source, was watched and wished with
concupiscence by Atteone. Furious the goddess changed him into a deer, an animal directly connected to her myth as goddess of the hunting, that was
called "elafebòlos", that means deer darter. But the deer was also considered as an animal symbol of mildness and provide with many prerogatives. In the
Tuscany Bestiario, "Libro sulla natura degli animali"(Book of the nature of the animals) a medieval moral essay, the Christian is repeatedly invited,
through opportune animal examples, to the exercise of the virtues demanded by his profession of faith and to the constant practical of confession and the
penance. In this work it is told how the deer was able to kill the snakes, in order then to eat them and to get rid of the ingested poison drinking pure
water. From this behaviour there is a precept of a moral training "Also men must imitate it, getting rid of hatred, of lust, of rage, of the avarice
resorting to the alive source, that is Christ"(Chapter XLVI). <br>
In the myth Diane is always a virgin goddess: her constant ritual is the gesture to reach and to pour water, element of regeneration and purification.
For this reason in Rome the vestal virgin temples were built between small woods in proximity of sources gushing from cliffs. Diana completes hers ritual
of purification in order not to dampen eventual ardours (since the goddess is always virgin) but pouring water in her "water" (her sex, as container
connected to liquids) she's in contact with energies of the two waters, renewing her virginal purity. <br>
Being based on the described myth the representation assumes a moral valence: as Diana has prevailed on Atteone, symbol of the temptation and she has
made him mild, in the same way men must tame and submit instincts, maintaining chaste reaching drawing off the saving water of the Temperance. <br>
The position assumed by the Goddess over the deer, it is not unusual in late medieval art. In a Venice mortar of the XV century
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V80L.jpg" target="right">(figure 6)</a> we find a fantastic animal that
is mounted by a putto exactly in the same way <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V81L.jpg" target="right">(figure 7)</a>.
In the card of the so-called the Mantegna Tarots to the feet of the young girl appears an ermine
(<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V82L.jpg" target="right">(figure 8)</a>. The Ripa in his essay of iconology writes
that in order to represent this virtue "si puo ancora dipingere l'ermellino, per la gran cura che ha di non imbrattare la sua bianchezza,
simile a quella di una persona casta"(It is still possible to paint the ermine, for the great cure it has not to smear its whiteness,
similar to that one of a chaste person) (pag 102, ed 1613). In Etteilla cards (Grand Etteilla II) the Temperance is represented as a child who has
a bite in her hand, with the obvious symbolic function to refrain the ardours, and by an elephant, as well a symbol of chastity
(<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V83L.jpg" target="right">(figure 9)</a> as it appears in the figure of the
Temperance in the Ripa essay <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/images/V84L.jpg" target="right">(figure 10)</a>.
About this concept he writes "l'elefante è posto per la Temperanza, perche essendo assuefatto da una certa quantita di cibo non vuol mai passare
il solito, prendendo solo tanto, quanto è sua usanza per cibarsi" (the elephant is placed for the Temperance, as it being accustomed to a certain
quantity of food the never wants to pass the usual one, just taking a lot, how much it is its custom in order to feed itself).( pag.297, ed 1613).
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