B20 - B22: Angelo, Mondo, Conclusion

B20. Angelo.

When considering the Judgment card, we have to bear in mind that the card was in the early lists called "the Angel". Along these lines, Dionysus was in the 16th century depicted as winged (http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/french/emblem.php?id=FJUb034):

The accompanying verse reads:

Peaceful Amyclae, you set up a statue of Bromius [Bacchus] the grape-bearer:
but why as a flying creature with swift wings?
Bacchus takes inventive genius from the soil, and elevates the mind,
And carries it on wings like Pegasus’s.

Amyclae is a town in Greece whose statues of the gods were described by Pausanias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amykles). Junius also quotes Catullus as a possible reference for a winged Dionysus:

But in another place abundant with flowers Iacchus was fluttering about. 

In fact "Psilas", Greek for "winged", was one of his epithets (as is "Iacchus"). Acquiring wings, the deified initiate ascends to Heaven. The effect of wine is also one of a soaring spirit.

Another name for the Judgment card, in Minchiate, was Trombe, Trumpets. In the myth of Dionysus, there is a correspondence at the lake near Argos, as I discussed in relation to the Tower card. Pausanias would not divulge the rites there, but Plutarch, section 35 of Isis and Osiris, says (http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Isis.html):

..the epithet applied to Dionysus among the Argives is "Son of the Bull". They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates has stated in his treatise on The Holy Ones..

As in the case of Castor and Pollux, Hades will not yield up a life without taking one in return. With the Dioscuri, it was the sacrifice of the immortal one, part of the time, for the mortal; in the case of the Argives, it is the sacrifice of a mortal lamb—one of Dionysus’s cult animals—for the sake of Dionysus’s immortality. The Christian story has elements of both: it is the sacrifice of the immortal lamb to raise up mortal humanity. In Virgil, you will recall, the animal was a goat. Its sin, eating of the tree, has been redeemed.

With wings, the spirit flies upwards to Heaven, Plutarch's Sun. It is the mystical realm beyond thought and word.

In the Osiris myth, it is true that in Egypt Osiris was judge of the dead; but I cannot find this mentioned in any pre-19th century source. All Plutarch says is “king of the dead” (sec. 79). I do see one reference to the Osiris myth, however: the central figure’s head forms the center of an eye not unlike the symbol of the “Wadjet eye” (at right below), a symbol surely known by the time of the “Chosson” (at left).  Plutarch refers to the eye as a symbol for Osiris (section 51) and to the Sun and Moon as the “eyes of Horus” (sec. 52).

 Since the sun sees everything during the day, and the moon at night, that eye probably would have been identified with the all-seeing eye of God, a well-known hieroglyph, most famously in the US dolar bill (below right). An earlier example is the one at left below, from an 17th century alchemical text. Quo Modo Deum translates as 'This is the way of God'.

 These two examples and others, starting with the Eye of Horus, are at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence. In the mid-15th century, what was famous was the "winged eye" device of Alberti, who was then friends with Leonello d'Este; Alberti made into a medal around 1450; suggesting God. It had the motto below it, "Quid Tum?", Latin for "What then?". A picture and brief analysis is at http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/cm/c/cast_bronze_medal_of_leon_batt.aspx
 
B21. Mondo.

In the early lists, the highest numbered card was always Mondo, although the designs varied. They usually involved a worldly scene involving castles and some divine figure above or below it. Exactly what they meant is not clear, although various interpretations have been proposed. I see no particular relationship to the cult of Dionysus. For that, the first card to which I would propose a relationship is one found at the Sforza Castle and dated to around 1600. The only other card anything like it is the final card, the "Prima Causa", in the so-called "Tarot of Mantegna", 2nd series, probably from the 1480s. It shows all the various spheres around the Ptolemaic universe with the animals of the four evangelists in the corners. Their books show the way to God.

From the world of Dionysus, what is similar to the Sforza Castle card is an Orphic medallion that Pietro Bembo bought after it was looted from Rome in 1527, probably known in Rome before that (where it is possible that the "tarot of Mantegna" was produced). It is at right below. In the center is the deity mentioned in the 5th Orphic hymn (http://www.theoi.com/Text/OrphicHymns1.html):

O Mighty first-begotten [Protogonos], hear my pray'r, two-fold, egg-born, and wand'ring thro' the air,
Bull-roarer, glorying in thy golden wings, from whom the race of Gods and mortals springs.
Ericapæus [Erikapaios], celebrated pow'r, ineffable, occult, all shining flow'r.
From eyes obscure thou wip'st the gloom of night, all-spreading splendour, pure and holy light
Hence Phanes call'd, the glory of the sky, on waving pinions thro' the world you fly.
Priapus, dark-ey'd splendour, thee I sing, genial, all-prudent, ever-blessed king,
With joyful aspect on our rights divine and holy sacrifice propitious shine.

 The epithet "two-fold" is associated explicitly with Dionysus in Hymn 42:

I call upon law-giving Dionysus...whose two-fold nature is both male and female.

 The epithets "bull-roarer" and "Priapus" also associate him with Dionysus. Priapus was Dionysus's son, but also an epithet of Dionysus, as male arousal was associated with moderate ingestion of wine. The bull was one of Dionysus's cult-animals; moreover, the bull-roarer was among the toys with which, according to Proclus' commentary on Hesiod, the Titans tempted the infant Dionysus Zagreus (http://www.hellenicgods.org/dionysos-sonofzeus).

The medallion depicts the first-born of the gods, Phanes, light-bringer, two-sexed (the meaning of "two-fold"), here surrounded by an oval in a rectangle, with a personification in each corner, the winds that were at his command. It thus is the pagan antecedent of similar depictions of an androgynous Christ, which in the tarot we first see in the Sforza Castle card c. 1600 (at left above).

The Christ of the Sforza Castle card gradually assumed a more clearly feminine shape, at first an androgynous one (below left, the Noblet of c. 1650). By the time of the "Chosson" of the late 17th or early 18th century (right), she was a lithe nude dancer with a billowing sash.

Such a sash is reminiscent of the dancing Bacchantes on Roman sarcophagi, thyrsi in hand, such as this one now at the Getty Villa, Malibu California (http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/3728684068/)

The Marseille figure could also be taken as the deified Isis, wand in one hand and a vial of sacred Nile water in the other. As Andrea has said in his essay on the card, for the Roman philosopher Macrobius Isis was the Neoplatonic World-Soul, the animating spirit of the universe (Saturnalia I, c. 20 -21). Macrobius also identified Isis as world-soul with the famous Diana of Ephesus, of the manifold breasts. Andrea cites Apuleius (Book 11 of The Golden Ass again) in this connection; Isis is "natural mother of all life, the mistress of the elements", among other things (la natura madre di tutte le cose, padrona degli elementi", in Andrea's Italian, http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=133&lng=ITA).

Isis, as we saw in the sections on the Papessa and the Imperatrice, was also identified with Venus. She is the celestial Venus of the Platonists, as described by Ficino and the humanists of Ferrara (see section on Ficino) and depicted in the canvases of Bellini and Titian for Alfonso d'Este. Andrea's essay on the card (in English at http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=133&lng=ENG) has a fairly explicit 15th century "Triumph of Venus" scene with the same sense as his Figure 14.

B22. Conclusion. 

I hope it can be seen how the project of putting Dionysus into the cards might have taken root. It was first a matter of identifying particular aspects of each card with an aspect of the myth and imposing them on cards probably not designed with that myth in mind. This way of seeing the cards actually fits the Milan designs better than those in Ferrara or elsewhere, except for the d'Este Fool and Bagatella.

Then, as this way of seeing continued, those designs were favored over other designs: the magician with the wide hat vs a narrow one, the old man with a lantern vs. one without, the lady with the lion vs. one with columns, the hanged man with the hole under him vs. the one with money bags, and so on.

Also, new elements were worked into the cards in keeping with the themes, e.g.. the animal clawing at the Fool, the purse on the Bateleur's table, the setting of the Emperor, the hand with the knife on the Pope card, the sunburst on the Lover card, the suns on the Hermit’s robe, the sphinx on the Wheel, the body parts on Death, the ropes on the Devil card,  the water on the Noblet Tower, the figure with two jugs under seven stars on the Star card, the Gemini and suggestion of a tail on the Sun card, and the eye/head of the Judgment card There are other details as well, unmentioned here so as not to make this essay longer. I discuss it all in more detail on my blog, http://22invocationsofdionysus.blogspot.com/.

I think it quite likely that Egyptian elements were put into the Cary Sheet designs, including those of the Isis/Osiris myth: notably in the Matto, Bagatella, Star, Moon, and Sun (see the discussions of those cards). One question for further research is whether it is plausible that in Milan of the PMB there was a conscious effort to put Dionysian/Osirian elements in the cards. Already in the program for the Michelino there was much information about Dionysus written by Marziano (http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona-tractatus-de-deificatione-16-heroum). Then starting in 1440 the humanist scholar and poet Filelfo came to Milan, with his Florentine conception of hieroglyphs, his knowledge of Greek texts, including the Neoplatonists, and his close relationship to the Sforza family. His influence on the PMB is unknown. But I must leave this question unexplored.

As a kind of summary, I will present Dionysian interpretations of the tarot subjects in terms of 22 of his epithets, arranged in alphabetical order according to the Greek alphabet. Since Dionysus had many epithets, it wasn't much trouble finding one for each of the appropriate letters of the alphabet, except for two, rho and upsilon, which are not the first letters of any of his epithets. These epithets come from the classical Greek literature as available to Greek-readers in the 16th-17th centuries.

Matto, sin numero: May we not profane thy mysteries, O Dionysos Aigobolos, Slayer of Goats.

1. Bagatella: May your illusions lead us to knowledge, O Botryophoros, Bearer of the Grape Clusters. 

2. Papessa: May she who knows you favor us, O Dionysos Gynnis, Womanish One.

3. Imperatrice: May your mothers help us to manifest in matter, Dionysos Dimetor, born of two mothers.

4: Imperatore:  O Enorches, Emballed One, engender in us your divine spirit.

5. Papa, Dionysos Zatheos, Most Holy One, help us to recognize the guides you send us.

6. Amore:  Life-giving Huês, Bringer of Moisture and Fertility, you send us tears of both joy and anguish. 

7. Carro: Direct our wills that we may pull your cart straight, O Thrambios, He of the Triumphal Hymn.

8: Justizia: At your feast, O Isodaitês, Giver of Equal Shares, all may partake of your joys and none is immune from your wrath.

9. Vecchio:  Your light shines, yet I follow without seeing, Dionysos Kryphios, Hidden One. 

10. Ruota: You raise me up, you strike me down, Dionysos Lênaios, He of the Wine Press. 

11. Fortezza: In your presence, O Meilichios, Gentle One, even the strongest submit to your rule.

12. Impiccato: Reveal to me my darkness, Dionysos Nyktiphaês, Illuminator of the Night.

13. Morte, O Xenos, Stranger, why do you abuse me? 

14. Temperanza:  I am an empty vessel, may I receive your spirit, Oikêtôr, Indweller of the Cup.

15. Diavolo: Dionysos Paralogos, Beyond Reason, I do not understand your ways.

16. Fuoco, Casa di Pluton: O Dionysos Sôtêr, Savior, deliver us from the torments you send us.

17. Stella: You who allow me often to forget, help me also to remember, my Teletarchê, Initiator.

18. Luna. Great Phanês, Shining One, Revealer, you illuminate the heights and the depths, in which I see my divine being.

19. Sole: Accept, Lord Charidôtês, Merciful One, this sacrifice of myself, that mortality may know immortality.

20. Angelo:  O Dionysos Psilas, Giver of Wings, show us how to fly.

21. Mondo:  O great Ômadios, God of the Raw Feast, I see that there is everywhere only your dance.

 For another type of summary, see the next section, the Appendix, which goes through all 22 cards again in terms of a different myth.