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<H1>Tarot card - Sun</H1>
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<h3>Essays of Andrea Vitali: </h3><h1>Card 19: The Sun</h1><br>
In the illuminated card of the Trionfi of Francesco Sforza <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-1.jpg" target="right">(figure 1)</a>
the Sun is shown as a youth with wings, who holds the shining luminary in his hand. This is the Genius of the Sun, as he appears in the Iliaco card
in the "E Series" of the Mantegna tarots <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-2.jpg" target="right">(figure 2)</a>.
The youth is virtually naked; on his neck, he wears a coral necklace, a reference to the dry heat of the Sun based on the theory of humours.
Identical necklaces can be found, in Medieval and Renaissance art, on the necks or wrists of children as talismans against the plague.
About his nakedness, Cartari, in his "Imagini de gli Dei de gli Antichi" ("Images of the Gods of the Ancients"), quoting from Macrobius,
writes that in Syria Phoebus (the Sun) and Jove were considered to be the same thing, and were represented by a single naked being who showed his sex,
conceived as the anima mundi (p. 37- ed. 1609). It should be borne in mind that the Sun, because of its qualities and virtues, gives life to everything.<br>
In the so-called "Mantegna tarots", the image which leads us to the mythological episode of the fall of Phaeton
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-3.jpg" target="right">(figure 3)</a>, who had obtained from his father Helios
permission to drive the Chariot of the Sun for one day, not knowing how to govern the fiery horses, fell away from his track, setting fire to heaven
and earth. Zeus punished the overbold charioteer by striking him with a lightning bolt and casting him into the Eridanus, the river which appears
on the lower part of the card.<br>
In the card from the Tarots of Charles VI <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-4.jpg" target="right">(figure 4)</a>,
like in the one from an Ancient Italian Tarot, the Sun shines high, lighting up a girl who is spinning. This is a reference to the Fates who supervise
the unravelling of human life, a myth closely related to the Sun, in that they carry out the same task, dispensing life and distributing it to every
living being until its death.<br>
The card of the Tarot of Ercole I d'Este <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-5.jpg" target="right">(figure 5)</a>
represents Diogenes seated in his barrel while talking with a young man, presumably Alexander the Great. The image refers to the Biblical teaching
mentioned in the book of Ecclesiastes (1:12, 17), that is that everything that happens under the Sun is vanity, even the thoughts of the wise (2:12, 7).
The same teaching is to be found in the card of the Sun of the Paris Tarot by an anonymous author of the 17th Century, where a woman looks at a mirror
held by a monkey's hand <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-6.jpg" target="right">(figure 6)</a>.
Here human nature is associated with animal nature, since awareness is missing that the quest for beauty is a vain thing, since
"All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again " (Ecclesiastes 3:20).<br>
The card of the Sun in the Vieville Tarot <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-7.jpg" target="right">(figure 7)</a>
shows a man on horseback holding a banner. The horse is a solar animal: the chariot of the Sun is drawn by horses consecrated to it. For Christianity, the
white horse becomes a symbol of majesty and is ridden by Christ, by him who is called the "Faithful and the Truthful". In this sense, Christ appears upon
a white horse in a fresco in the Cathedral of Auxerre holding a stick in his hand as a royal sceptre, symbol of power over all nations. The red and black
colours of the banner have no symbolic value, since they are colours which recur throughout the figures of the whole pack.
The 16th century Cary folio <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig-.-8.jpg" target="right">(figure 8)</a> shows me an
iconographical variant. The folio is damaged precisely at this card, but what is left is enough to show us an iconography which would be stabilised in
the Marseilles Tarots <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.9.jpg" target="right">(figure 9)</a>, the presence of
two youths under the disk of the Sun. <br>
We may suppose that it is the Sign of Gemini, commonly depicted in many astrological cycles. An identical Medieval representation can be found at the
Calvet Museum in Avignon. This is a bas relief dating back to the 13th Century, which comes from the area of Nimes. Both twins appear under the disk of
the Sun accompanied by the words, "Sol in Gemini". <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.-10.jpg" target="right">(figure 10)</a>.
Identical words appear in many miniatures, bas reliefs or frescoes of the cycle of the
months, for example in the famous cycle of the months of Torre Aquila in the Castle of Buonconsiglio in Trent.
In each of the twelve frescoes, on the top and in the middle, one can see the disk of the Sun with its rays, and the words SOL IN and to the right the
name of the sign of the Zodiac, in the ablative. <br>
However, rather than an astrological depiction, I believe that the presence of the youths under the Sun must be related to the idea of the
"ever young Sun"
which was a feature of the thought of the ancients. In fact, they depicted Apollo and Bacchus together as youths, emblems of the Sun and of its
youthfulness. Bacchus, in fact, was considered to be "il medesimo, che il Sole" ("the same as the Sun") :"Questo (il Sole) fecero gli antichi giovine
in viso senza barba, onde volendo l'Alciato ne'suoi emblemi porre la giovinezza, dipinse Apollo e Bacco, come a questi due più, che a gli altri, sia
tocco di essere giovani sempre, onde Tibullo dice che Bacco e Febo eternamente Giovani sono, e hanno il capo armato ambi di bella chioma risplendente".
"It (the Sun) was depicted by the ancients, in his face, as a beardless youth; since Alciato wanted to put youth among his emblems, he painted Apollo and
Bacchus, as it is upon these - more than on any other - that it befell to be ever youthful; hence Tibullus says that Bacchus and Phoebus are eternally Young,
and the head of both is covered with beautiful, resplendent hair" (Vincenzo Cartari "Imagini de gli Dei de gli Antichi", p. 38, ed. 1609. The first edition of the works was printed in 1556). The illustration
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig-.-11.jpg" target="right">(fig. 11)</a> of the emblem C. "In Iuventam" in Alciati's work (page 418, ed. 1621), shows the two youths "natus uterque
Jovis tener atque imberbis uterque, quem Latona tulit, quem tulit et Semele, salvete, eterna simul
et florete iuventa, numine sit vestro qua diuturna mihi" (Both the sons of Jove, young and beardless
both, one carried in her womb by Latona, the other - also - by Semele, greetings unto you, and
may you flourish together with eternal youth, and may this be for me, by your will, as long as possible).<br>
I have come across this concept of the youthfulness of the sun several times also in the work "Antiquae Tabulae Marmoreae Solis Effige" by Hieronimo
Aleandro (pages 17-18, ed. 1616), from which I quote a few lines: "Sol semper juvenis... quia occidendo (inquit Fulgentius primo Mythol.) et renascendo
semper est iunior, sive quod nunquam in sua virtute deficiat... at nihil facilius Mythologi affirmant, quam unum, enodunque, cum Sole esse Apollinem,
quem ideo adolescentulum fingi solitum dixerunt, quod Sol (inquit Isidor. VII Orig.) quotidie oriatur et nova luce nascatur" (0 Sun, ever youthful since
as you set - as Fulgentius says in his First
Book of Mythology - and rise again, you are always young; or rather, since it never loses its efficacy…
on the other hand, the Mythologists say nothing in a more certain manner than the fact that Apollo is
one and the same as the Sun, and for this reason they used to maintain that he was usually represented as a youth. In fact,
the Sun - as Isidore says in his Book VIII of Origins - rises every day and is born with a new light).
Concerning this matter, Cartari writes "La cui giovinezza (del sole) ci da ad intendere, che la virtù sua, e quel Calore, che da vita alle cose
create, è sempre il medesimo e non invecchia mai, si che divenga debole" ("The youthfulness [of the Sun]
lets us understand that it is its virtue, and that of Heat, which gives life to the created things, and such virtue is always the same and never ages,
so that it becomes weak").
The same way of representing the energy, always identical and young, of the sun, is to be found in the depiction of the god Mithras.
Strabo the geographer stated that the Persians used to venerate Helios under the name Mithras, and in late Persian, the word Mirh actually means the
Sun. In the Avestic hymn to Mithras, white horses draw the chariot of the God, which as a golden wheel, a symbol of the Chariot of the Sun.
A relief made on a rock, dating back to the times of the Sassanid sovereign, Ardashir II, in the 4th Century AD, shows Mithras with a halo of rays.<br>
In his "Annotazioni alle Imagini del Cartari" ("Notes on the Images of Cartari") Lorenzo Pignoria tells how, in 1606, he saw in Rome, on the Capitoline
Hill, a piece of marble depicting Mithras with the words "Deo Sol invict... Mitrhe" and how, among other things, "there were two figures made of stone,
one on each side, but in ruin" (p. 293-Ed. 1647). <br>
The two figures were Cautes and Cautopates, the two young youthful torchbearers who can be found in the complete representations of the god. One of these
is quite well known, and is to be found in the Mithraic cave under the Basilica of Saint Clement in Rome.<br>
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, in fact, speaks of Mithras "Triplasios" (Epist. 7,2), that is having a triple form, an affirmation of the substantial
identity of the god and of the two torch bearers as a representation of the rising Sun, of the midday Sun and of the setting Sun.
Cautes, the youth to the left of the god, is shown with a raised torch, representing the birth of the Sun. Mithras, the midday Sun, is shown slaying
a bull (a representation of the victory of the spirit over the terrestrial essence). The youth to the right of the god, Cautopates, holds a lowered torch,
signifying the setting of the luminary <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig-.-12.jpg" target="right">(figure 12; Mitra Triplasios, Bologna, City Museum)</a>).
Sometimes, next to Cautes there appears a cock. Cartari,
quoting Pausanias, explains that in Greece "...riverivano il gallo come uccello di Apollo, perché cantando annuncia la mattina il ritorno del Sole"
"… they used to honour the cock as Apollo's bird, because he would announce the return of the Sun in the morning" (page 43).
Cautopates sometimes appears near an owl, a bird which in fact shows itself after sunset. Cautes and Cautopates respectively became a representation of
Lucifer, the star which appears in the morning, and of Hesperus, the evening star.<br>
In Christian iconography, Mithras was often represented as a symbol of animal sacrifice (Mithras Tauroctonus, that is, the bull slayer). We find him in
this sense in a capital in the cloister of the Duomo of Monreale, dated between 1172 and 1189.<br>
This symbolic aspect of the Sun, that is its identical energy and its perpetual youth, represented by the solar gods as youths, was well known in the
Renaissance, as we have seen from the treatises discussed here, all published in the mid 16th century, and it is plausible to believe that this
concept was expressed iconographically in the Tarot card of the Sun. We must not forget, in fact, that throughout the Renaissance, the images of the
ancient gods used to awaken, among those who observed them, memories of the classical myths, to which a great ethical and moral value was attributed,
and that the treatises on these topics were used as reference material in order to illustrate allegories and symbolisms of a Christian nature.
As we can see on the Tarot card of the Sun of Marseilles, <a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig.9.jpg" target="right">(figure 9)</a>,
solar drops fall from the luminary onto a pair of twins, who will take on a male and female nature in the
esoteric tarots as opposite natures the union of which will lead to the realization of the Great Work.
We must point out the function of divine enlightenment which these solar drops, already present
in the Cary Folio, have always had, and which are amply documented in hagiographic iconography. We can find a significant example in a woodcut in the
"Liber Chronicarum" of 1493 illustrating the conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle on the road to Damascus: the future saint,
on horseback, is struck from heaven by celestial drops, by the divine function of enlightening hearts and minds to the faith in Christ
<a href="http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Saggi/Il_Sole/Large/Il-Sole-fig-.-13.jpg" target="right">(figure 13)</a>.
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