Moon, Tarot card iconography Andrea Vitali

<h1>Moon - Tarot card iconography Andrea Vitali</h1> <p>"If you talk about the Sky; you’ll immediately find the Moon. Someone calls it ornament of the night, mother of the dew, minister of humour, ruler of the sea, measure of time, imitator of the Sun, worker of air".<br /><br /> (Thomaso Garzoni da Bagnacavallo, <em>De’ Cervelloni universali, & ingegnosi -</em> Discorso XXXIIII in <em>Il Theatro de’ vari e diversi cervelli mondani</em>, page 157, Reggio, 1585)</p> <p> In the Charles VI Tarot (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-01.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-01.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 1</a>) and in the Ercole I d’ Este Tarot (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-02.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-02.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 2</a>) the Moon is represented as a star studied by astrologers. In the Visconti Tarot pack  (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-03.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-03.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 3</a>) a young girl holds the crescent moon in her hand in accordance with a common method used for other cards, such as the Stars card in the same pack or the same card in Bartolomeo Colleoni’s Tarot. In the Saint Clemente basilica in Rome, a fresco represents Saint Christopher while he’s going to cross young Jesus who's holding a full moon in his hand, and it is an example of light, as Saint Ambrogio said: “Ergo annuntiavit luna misterium Christi” (Therefore I announced you through the moon, Christ’s mystery).<br /><br /> In Cary’s sheet we find a completely different image: the moon dominates with its rays a half terrestrial and half aquatic landscape. In the water there’s a crab or cancer. On the hilly ground there are two opposite buildings (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-04.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-04.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 4</a>). Cancer is the zodiacal abode of the moon, and also an animal that symbolizes Inconstanza (Inconstancy) as I found in Cesare Ripa’s essay <em>Iconologia</em> (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-05.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-05.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 5</a>), in which Inconstancy is represented with a “Donna che passi co' piedi sopra un Granchio grande, fatto come quello, che si dipinge nel Zodiaco; sia vestita di color torchino, e in mano tenga la luna. Il granchio è animale, che cammina inanzi, e indietro, con eguale dispositione, come fanno quelli che essendo irresoluti, or lodono la contemplazione, hora l'attione, hora la guerra, hora la pace... La Luna, medesimamente, è mutabilissima, per quanto ne giudicano gli occhi nostri; pero si dice, che lo stolto si cangia come la luna, che non sta mai un' hora nel medesimo modo…” (pages 276-277, ed. 1669). (Woman who tramples on a great Crab, made the same as the one painted in Zodiac; she is dressed in deep blue, and holds the moon in her hands. The crab is an animal that walks forwards and backwards with same inclination as those who are irresolute and love contemplation, but sometimes they do love action, or war, or peace. In the same way the moon is very inconstant, for what our eyes can see, so one says that the fool changes as the moon does, that doesn't stay the same way for just an hour). <br /><br /> The two buildings standing aside under the moon disc are two lighthouses. Their presence is strictly connected to the moon for many reasons: first of all because this star has always been a light for sailors, because of the worship of it (as you'll see later) and because of the symbolisms connected to its designation of “Triforme” (Three Shaped). In Natale Conte’ s <em>Mythology</em> dated 1551, the author writes that the Moon was “Venerata dagli Egiziani col nome di Iside e preposta alle tempeste e ai naviganti come attesta Luciano nel Dialogo Zefiro e Noto” (Book III, cap. XVIII, page 468). (Worshipped by Egyptians with the name of Isis and it was assigned to storms and to sailors as Luciano affirms in his Dialogue between Zephyrus and Noto). <br /><br /> Cartari reports an image of the goddess (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-06.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-06.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 6</a>) holding a little ship in her hand and defining her “Imagine d’ Iside dea Egittia che è la Luna tenuta la dea de naviganti... e che sono poi stati di quelli, li quali le hanno dato nella destra mano una navicella, con la quale volevano farsi mostrare, che ella passò in Egitto, conciosia che quivi fosse celebrata una festa come scrive Lattanzio, dedicata alla Nave di Iside” (pages 85-86). (Isis Egyptian goddess image which is the Moon regarded as the sailors goddess…and then there were those who gave her a little ship in her right hand, through it they intended to show, that she passed to Egypt, aware that there was a feast as Lattanzio writes, dedicated to Isis’ Shipping). <br /><br /> Pignoria, writing about an ancient cameo representing the goddess, says: “Nel cameo s’e rappresentata Iside come si vede nelle medaglie antiche di Hadriano e di Antonino Pio;... et significa questa figura a mio giudicio il Navigio d’Iside, del quale si fa menzione nel Calendario Rustico Antico. Et nella medaglia d'Antonino si vede un Faro di Porto che tanto piu conferma la congettura. Leggasi Apuleio nell’11” (Lorenzo Pignoria in <em>Notes to Cartari' s Book of Images</em> in “Ancient Gods images”, 1647, page 298). (In the cameo Isis is represented in the same way as she is in ancient medals of Hadriano and of Antonino Pio; and for me this figure means Isis' Shipping, mentioned in the <em>Ancient Rustic Calendar</em>. And in Antonino Pio’s medal we see a lighthouse that confirms this conjecture. You can read it in Apuleio’s 11th book).<br /><br /> Really, in Apuleio’s Metamorphosis the author describes the Isis Ship giving us a great representation of this ritual. The Numismatic Cabinet of Castello Sforzesco in Milan, holds many different coins in conformity with the way that  Pignoria had described them. They are bronze Alexander drachmas of the imperial age made coined by Antonino Pio (138 - 161). On these coins there is Isis' breast on one side and “Isis Pharia”, or the goddess sailing towards a lighthouse on a wood, on the other side (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-07.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-07.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 7</a>). <br /><br /> The relation Moon-Isis as Goddess of sailors, is also underlined in a fourteenth-century capital of the Ducal Palace in  Venice, where the Goddess travels on a boat holding in her hand the lunar scythe, accompanied by Cancer exalted in its ideal domicile (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-08.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-08.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 8</a>). <br /><br /> This star representation in the Cary sheet shows two lighthouses next to each other and under the full Moon disc. To explain all this, we have to remember that the Moon was considered “Three Shaped” by ancient people and that its three aspects were connected to its three virtues. Cartari writes in his book: “È chiamata Luna Hecate e Triforme, per le varie figure, ch’ella mostra nel corpo suo secondo che più, o meno si trova essere discosto dal Sole, onde sono parimenti tre le virtù sue. L’una è quando comincia a mostrare il lume a' mortali, porgendo con quello accrescimento alle cose…L’altra è quando ha già la metà di tutto il lume... La terza è nello intiero lume” (p. 80). (She is called Hecate and Triforme Moon, for all the shapes she shows in her body more or less depend on the position of the sun that lights or hides it, and three are her virtues. One is when she shows the light to mortals and lighting things grow. The other is when she is half alighted. The third is when she’s full (moon)”. These three aspects of the three shaped Moon are represented in the sheet: the lighthouses that are on both sides of the card symbolize the first moon appearing and the half moon, while the star shining above and in the middle of the card emphasizes the full moon. And in addition  there are the three phases: crescent, full and waning moon, other aspects of the triple designation of the Moon whose light, in each of its phases is a lighthouse for those who are sailing on the sea. Probably, the water that is represented on the low side of the card is connected to the moment during which the moon does not appear for it is hidden by the sea, in accordance with ancients belief. About this Cartari writes: “Ritornando ad Apuleio - ei dice - che dormendo li parve vedere questa Dea (la Luna) la quale con riverenda faccia usciva dal Mare - perché finsero i Poeti, che il Sole, la Luna, e tutte le altre stelle tramontando si andassero a tuffar nel mare, e che quindi uscissero al loro primo apparire - e a poco a poco mostrò poi tutto il lucido corpo”. (page 87). (Returning to Apuleio - he says - that by sleeping he thought he saw this Goddess - the Moon - who was rising from the sea - for poets pretended that the Sun, the Moon and all the others stars when waning went diving in the sea and therefore that they went up when they were appearing –  slowly showing their bright bodies). <br /><br /> Referring to the obscure Moon, to quote Saint Ambrogio, Cartari underlines once more the fickleness of the star, whose instability becomes a moral teaching not to be imitated by men “Et acciocche questa immagine della Luna, oltre alle cose naturali, che in essa sono mostrate, ce ne insegni qualche altra più utile alla vita umana, riguardiamo a quello, che dice il Beato Ambrogio, il quale con l'esempio di questa, il cui lume si può chiamare ragionevolmente incerto, perche mutandosi tuttavia hor cresce, e hora scema, ci ammonisce, che fra le cose humane non è fermezza alcuna, e che tutte col tempo si disfanno. Et per questo dicevano alcuni, che gli antichi Romani di famiglia nobile portavano ne i piedi certe Lunette, con essere con quelle spesso ammoniti della istabilità delle cose humane, accioche non insuperbissero, ancora che fossero di molti beni copiosi, e abbondanti, perché le ricchezze, e altre cose tanto stimate da' mortali fanno apunto, come la Luna, la quale hora è tutta luminosa, e risplendente, hora assotiglia in modo, il lume, che di sé mostra più poco, e all’ultimo così diventa oscura, che più non vi pare essere” (page 91). (Therefore this moon image in addition to natural things shown in her, could teach us something more useful in human life, look at what the Blessed Ambrogio says, taking example from her -the moon-, whose light is almost instable, because she changes now she grows, and then wanes. She warns us that there is no stability in human things and that everything dies as time passes. For this reason someone said that ancient Romans of noble family used to put little moons on their feet, to be warned about the world’s unsteadiness and not to be proud even if they were rich, because richness and all the things that human being consider rich, behave just as the moon does, now she's brilliant and shining, now she’s getting thinner and shows a weak light and then she becomes obscure and cannot be seen anymore).<br /><br /> The presence of the dog in the great iconography of the goddess, underlines the relationship between the Moon and Diane as Guglielmo Choul tell us in his <em>Essay on ancient roman religion</em> dated 1569 showing us an ancient medal dedicated to Giulia Pia “Et per mostrare anchora meglio che Diana et Luna erano in quel tempo una medesima cosa, io ho fatto qui mettere un' altra medaglia di bronzo de la medesima Giulia nella quale è scritto Luna Lucifera” (page 81). (To show more clearly that in those times the Moon and Diane were the same person, I have put another bronze medal of Giulia here on which Lucifer Moon  is written). In the image the goddess is portrayed with a dog at her feet, and she's keeping a torch high. About this torch Cartari says that “Può l’accesa face in mano di Diana….mostrare anchora, ch’ella lucendo di notte fa la scorta a’viandanti, e perciò era chiamata quivi Diana Scorta, e duce” (page 78). (For sure the lighted torch in Diane’s hand still shows that she lights the road to travellers in the night and for this reason she was called guidance and leader).<br /><br /> A beautiful image of the goddess with these attributes (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-09.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-09.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 9</a>) can be found in Natale Conte’s <em>Mythology</em> (1616 edition). The dog and other animals that accompany her, such as deer and snakes, symbolize inseparable human instincts to subdue to get to the “Just Men City”, that, to Omero, the goddess held dearer. (J. Chevalier - A. Gheerbrant, <em>Symbols Dictionary</em>, 1986, volume I, page 103). <br /><br /> The later presence of two dogs, one black and the other white, in the Moon card, such as that of Marseille Tarot (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-10.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-10.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 10</a>), has exact references in medieval context. The two dogs or other animals become the symbols of day and night, according to a widespread concept that linked these two colours to two different and opposite situations. When talking about the Moon cart dragged by two horses, Cartari affirms that “Di questo l’uno era negro, e l’altro bianco, come dice il Boccaccio, perché non solamente appare di notte la luna, ma si vede anche il dì” (page 75). (One of these horses was black and the other one was white, as Boccaccio says, because the moon does not only appear at night but it can even be seen during the day). <br /><br /> I found another example of this kind of representation of day and night in a wonderful painting by Jacopo del Sellaio <em>The Triumph of Time</em> (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-11.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-11.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 11</a>) that is now at the Bandini Museum in Fiesole: the Old man sits on the sun circle on which hours are numbered. Under him, in correspondence with dark and light hours, there are a white and a black dog to indicate time that's passing by without stopping, in daytime as at night time. The dog colours in the Moon card symbolize, in accordance with a typical Renaissance concept, that the star virtue is always present even when it does not appear, as Catari writes: “La virtù sua ha forza non solamente in Cielo, ove la chiamano Luna, ma in terra anchora, ove la dicono Diana, e fin giù nell'Inferno, ove Hecate la dimandano, e Proserpina, perch'ella è creduta scendere nell'Inferno tutto quel tempo, che à noi sta nascosta” (page 80). (Virtue has its strength not only in the Sky, where it is called Moon, but even on earth, where it is called Diana, and even down to Hell, where it is called Hecate, and Proserpina, for she's been thought to go down there all that time that  she's been hidden to us). <br /><br /> In the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, but even later as we can see in iconology essays, human virtues were usually compared to animal virtues. Saint Ambrogio in his <em>Hexaemeron </em>(VI, c. IV, 17) affirms that the dog should be a model for Christians for the  fidelity and gratitude it shows to its benefactors. In the book <em>Archbishop, bishop of Adria, Carlo Labia’s pastoral ventures</em> dated 1685, in “Impresa LXXX - Non valent latrare” (Emblem LXXX - There is no need to bark) (page 906) the dog qualities such as “capacity, fidelity, pity, constancy and gratitude” are listed as qualities that every bishop should possess to carry out his pastoral duty.<br /><br /> A wonderful example of two dogs, one black and one white, represented in this way, can be seen at the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini.<br /><br /> The Temple is one of the most important buildings of the Humanistic Age in Italy by architect Leon Battista Alberti, commissioned by Pandolfo Sigismondo Malatesta Lord of Rimini. This building is more similar to a pagan temple than to a Christian church, and it really seems a neo platonic monument. Valturio declares that the building’s iconographic planning was inspired by Philosophy or rather “to more hidden secret of Philosophy” that could be reached only by true experts. In reality, one of the chapels deals with planets, with civilisation and Egyptian Theology symbols. Alberti started to work in 1450 and ended ten years later after Sigismondo Malatesta was condemned by Pope Pio II Piccolomini. He was a refined intellectual humanistic man "but since the Pope knew and shared intellectual habitat and symbolic system values which are the building basis, he knew well how to interpret it, even “ex contrario”, and gave a cruelly exact and very strong interpretation" (Antonio Paolucci, <em>Il Tempio Malatestiano</em>, 2000, pages 9 - 10).<br /><br /> Pope Pio II defined it a place of pagan rituals and a temple “of infidels demon worshippers”, and he used his knowledge for political ends. The object of my study is the <em>Cell of relics</em> in which, in 1451, Piero della Francesca painted a fresco representing <em>Sigismondo praying to Saint Sigismondo</em> (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-12.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-12.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 12</a>). The interesting thing here is the presence of two dogs, one black one white, on the right of the fresco, crouched and with their muzzles pointing in two different and opposite directions (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-13.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-13.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 13</a>). The presence of the dogs is justified by an allegory: to emphasize Sigismondo’s fidelity and gratitude towards his protector dogs that possess these virtues are used. The dogs' colours demonstrate that Sigismondo’s fidelity is always alive, in daytime and at night time. Their muzzles pointing in  different directions prove that Sigismondo's devotion to Saint Sigismondo is not only present now, but it has always been and always will be there: in the past as in the future. As far as I know, this is the first iconological interpretation of this figure of the two dogs in the fresco.<br /><br /> Going ahead in this study about the Moon dogs symbolism in the Renaissance, we found that they are connected to the uselessness of strong excesses born under the star. The emblem from Alciati CLXV “Inanis impetus” (Vainless strength) (page 695, 1621 edition) (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-14.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-14.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 14</a>) is very expressive: “Lunarem noctu, ut speculum, canis inspicit orbem seque videns, alium credit inesse canem et latrat: sed frustra agitur vox irrita ventis, et peragit cursus surda Diana suos”. (At night the dog looks at Moon's face as if it were a mirror, and looking at it, he believes there is another dog and barks: but his voice vainly goes in the wind and Diane goes on travelling impassive). <br /><br /> In Vieville Tarot there's a woman who's spinning under the Moon (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/18-15.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/18-15.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 15</a>). As I said before about the Sun card in Charles VI Tarot, the Fates myth is strictly in relationship to the Moon for it generates life. Really the Moon, as ancient people knew, influences human moods and plants growing, influences sea tides and human births. Cartari writes that the Moon: “Per essere pianeta humido affretta il tempo tal’ hora con il suo flusso, onde ne nascono alle volte i figliuoli nel settimo mese, che è a lei sottoposto e fa quasi sempre il parto più facile”. (For it is a humid planet, sometimes it makes the time run fast so that babies are born in the seventh month of pregnancy, and it makes birth easy). And about Fates, the same author affirms, quoting Varrone, that these goddesses “Sono state dette dal partorire, come a quelle ne toccasse la cura: donde venne che i Latini ne chiamarono una Decima, l'altra Nona, perche il tempo del maturo parto, è quasi sempre a l’uno di questi duo mesi, nono, e decimo. Ma perche chi ci nasce ha pur anco da morire, fu detta la terza delle Parche morta dalla morte, con la quale era creduta mettere fine al vivere humano” (page 223). (Are assigned to birth and take care about that, for this reason Latin called them Tenth and Ninth for birth is generally in the ninth and tenth months. But since whoever is  born has to die, the third Fate was called Death, <br /><br /> for she was believed to give death to human beings). <br /><br /> (In the text, wherever references to Vincenzo Cartari <em>Images of Ancient Gods</em> are not explained, I intend to refer to the 1609 Venice edition).</p></div> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/">Tarot cards</a> <br><br> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/00/">Tarot card Fool</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/01/">Tarot card Magician</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/02/">Tarot card Popess</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/03/">Tarot card Empress</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/04/">Tarot card Emperor</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/05/">Tarot card Pope</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/06/">Tarot card Love</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/07/">Tarot card Chariot</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/08/">Tarot card Justice</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/09/">Tarot card Hermit</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/10/">Tarot card Wheel of Fortune</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/11/">Tarot card Strength</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/12/">Tarot card Hanging Man</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/13/">Tarot card Death</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/14/">Tarot card Temperance</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/15/">Tarot card Devil</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/16/">Tarot card Tower</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/17/">Tarot card Star</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/18/">Tarot card Moon</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/19/">Tarot card Sun</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/20/">Tarot card Judgment</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/21/">Tarot card World</a> <br><br> <li><a href="http://autorbis.net">Author's site</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com">Tarot history</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/">Tarot and Playing Cards Museum</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/">Tarot Iconography</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/f/">Fortune Telling</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/mantegna-tarocchi/">Iconography of Mantegna Tarocchi</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/tarot-andrea-vitali/">Tarot card iconography of Andrea Vitali</a>