Natural Sequences Marrying Image to Number

Rosanne

Melanchollic said:
More than the numbering, I think the ordering is essential. Comparing the various dozen or more historical orderings is the way to see what is important and what is not.

Not denying that at all.
I am on a different track to the imges themselves- how they portray their position- not their group.

The virtues tend to have extreme variation within the various orderings. Obviously their positions are not essential to the main allegory.

Also true and possibly to my mind anyway they were the Horai and not Christian virtues in the sense of the Seven Virtues. Allegory is one of the ideas.

Fool, Juggler, Empress, Emperor, Papasse, Pope

..........Love, Chariot, Time, Fortune, Traitor, Death

..........Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Judgement, World

Within their group how does the image portray it's position? I think for example as in the Visconti hand painted cards, they have not found one example of the Devil and the Tower- considered lost. How about 'never there'?

While the specific numbers assigned to specific cards greatly varies, and even the names of the cards vary, this basic structure is always consistent. I think it is here we should look to understand what the message of the tarot is.

What about it was just a group from 0- 14,18,20,22 -like one, two, buckle my shoe, three four knock at the door type of thinking?
There are many threads about looking at allegory as a way to understanding the message. How about we look at the position- given by the image to see what the message is?
~Rosanne

Rosanne

Melancholic said:
Within group #1, only the Papesse's position ever varies. Why?

In the Steele Manuscript (sermon)
Bateleur at 1, Papesse at 4, Empress at 2, Emperor at 3.
This is like a few samples of 15th century cards. The only one who never seems to have moved is Le Pape at 5- except in the Charles V cards and our Pope was at position 4, Why? Dummett gives a few examples of early different positions. Le Pape at 4 as in the Charles V cards does not look right as per image to number(position).
~Rosanne

Rosanne

In uncut sheets of Italian tarrocchi cards,(1490 -1510 circa) that have the cards numbered- there is something quite different.
The World is unnumbered.
Justice is in position 20
Judgement is in Position 19
Strength is at position 9
Lovers is 8, Temperance is 6, Sun is 17, Hermit 11 etc. Papesse is 3.
There are cards that are the same card as is accepted now. 1 Bateleur, 10 is W.O.F., Hanged Man is 12, Le Pape is 5, Emperor is 4.
So this order does not fit with the same allegorical idea because Justice has moved out of it's group and is now with Star, Moon etc.
Is it worth considering why Strength at 9? Is that a more natural place for this card?
The successful outcome of exertion? The power of successful navigation of the three worlds 3x3? It looks more astrological or alchemical to me. There is a woman overcoming the powerful Lion.
A quote from Robert O'neill's Tarot symbolism might give a clue.

Now the alchemist begins to learn that brute strength will not win the day. What is needed is gentle persistence. The aggressive approach of the male only results in injury to the Spirit. Instead, the man must come to know and appreciate the 'anima', the repressed feminine traits of gentleness, love sacrifice acceptance. These female traits have been thrust aside in the headlong plunge toward material success during the first part of life.

...but never forget next comes the W.O.F. at 10

So 9 is attainment and a symbol of both male and female- fire and water- fire is the Lion and male and Water is the feminine principle. Looks good to me to have strength at position 9.
~Rosanne

Rosanne

conversus said:
What a cool exercise, Rosanne! Care to share with us some of your results? For example if Temperance seems natural to you at 6, where did you find a place for the Lovers?

Oops conversus I meant to answer you before.
I found the Lovers easiest of all to place naturally. At position 8. When you look at the card- you see (well at the woodblock cards like Marseilles) a Man between two women and Cupid or Eros aiming an arrow. There are some decks, that the arrow is in someones body- I forget which cards this is. Anyway, it seems to be offering two different women for the man to consider, and love has not loosed the arrow yet. Number 8 is taken to be the symbol of perfect balance- and why it seems to suit Justice. Originally this figure 8 was associated with the two serpents of the cadeceus balancing opposite forces. As an example balancing the spiritual forces with the worldly ones. So if one was take this image as one woman is Vice (earthly) and one woman is Virtue (spiritual) where is Cupid aiming his arrow. You have the choice to go with Lust or Love. Cupid does not make the choice in this image- the Man does. If you look at the Ogdoad (series of eights) the keywords of the Ogdoad are Love, Counsel, Prudence, Law and Convenience.
Well Justice is not often convenience lol. It is prudent to choose Love over Lust- not necessarily convenient though. If I had to make the choice, and in this subject of image depicting position- I would place the Lovers at 8. The placement of Justice is hard when you look at the image. There seems to be some merit in placing it at position 20- but I have not yet decided if it shows that sufficiently.......
~Rosanne

Melanchollic

Rosanne said:
Within their group how does the image portray it's position? I think for example as in the Visconti hand painted cards, they have not found one example of the Devil and the Tower- considered lost. How about 'never there'?

The GRINGONNEUR deck (mid 1400's) is early enough to make a FULL 22 trump set, right from the games origin, a viable possibility I reckon, as it has a surviving 'Tower' card. Personally I believe the 'hellish' nature of the Devil and Tower led some pious Catholic grandmas to remove and destroy the cards from many decks.

Rosanne said:
In uncut sheets of Italian tarrocchi cards,(1490 -1510 circa) that have the cards numbered- there is something quite different.
The World is unnumbered.
Justice is in position 20
Judgement is in Position 19
Strength is at position 9
Lovers is 8, Temperance is 6, Sun is 17, Hermit 11 etc. Papesse is 3.
There are cards that are the same card as is accepted now. 1 Bateleur, 10 is W.O.F., Hanged Man is 12, Le Pape is 5, Emperor is 4.
So this order does not fit with the same allegorical idea because Justice has moved out of it's group and is now with Star, Moon etc.

That's a great example of why I say, "san virtues". The virtues are actually outside the main allegory. They do not represent things or situations like the other cards, but how we should behave in the given situation - be fair, be brave, be moderate! That's why they seem so random and varying from region to region. We can deduce this since the virtues alone move about in this way in the various historical orderings (although mainly three basic 'virtue' patterns are common). None of the other cards move more than one or two positions (mainly the switching of Love/Chariot, Time/Fortune, and the Papesse's rank). So the basic structure (without the virtues) is highly consistent.

I'm assuming the "uncut sheets' you are referring to are the so-called Dick Sheets. With the virtues set aside, the basic structure of the trumps is for all practical purposes the same. (Dick Sheet is top, Milanese order bottom).

Before any explanations on the different 'virtue' orders can rationally be attempted, the main allegory should be understood.

Rosanne said:
I am on a different track to the imges themselves- how they portray their position- not their group.

What about it was just a group from 0- 14,18,20,22 -like one, two, buckle my shoe, three four knock at the door type of thinking?
There are many threads about looking at allegory as a way to understanding the message. How about we look at the position- given by the image to see what the message is?
~Rosanne

I'm not sure I follow you here. Shouldn't a set of allegorical images best be understood by the allegories the images are portraying? Say Father Time. Regardless of his position or what number he is given, we know what the card represents, right? Most of these images are understandable even in our era. Death is death, Love is love, the Pope is a Pope, the Emperor is an Emperor, etc.. Position won't change these basic meanings.

A few images are unfamiliar, say the Papesse, or the Tower. Here we need to do some research.

A card like the Papesse - a woman with a Papal crown has been shown to represent several things over the years, The Church or Faith, heretics like Pope Joan, the false religion of Catholics (by later Protestants). Here we need to consider not only the image, but how it is being used - its position in sequence, the other cards in the group, and how the three groups relate. So while the 'position' in the sequence is important to make an educated guess, I don't think any mystical or symbolic meaning based on the 'numerology' of the number 2, or the number 4, and so on, will answer the question correctly. Yet by looking at the various sequences,

Fool-Juggler-Papasse-Empress-Emperor-Pope

or,

Fool-Juggler-Empress-Papesse-Emperor-Pope

or,

Fool-Juggler-Empress-Emperor-Papesse-Pope

...then we can make a better guess about what the Papesse really means, and what the overall group means, and what the 22 cards overall message is. I don't think the numbers on the cards mean anything beyond an indication of their position in the sequence. But I've been wrong before... and hopefully learned from my mistakes. (Took me awhile to realize that strippers, despite their many 'charming' attributes, are probably not long-term relationship material.

)

kwaw

Melanchollic said:
...then we can make a better guess about what the Papesse really means, and what the overall group means, and what the 22 cards overall message is. I don't think the numbers on the cards mean anything beyond an indication of their position in the sequence.

It may be a mistake to assume that the popesse means the same thing in the different games - each variation offers at least an adaption to the underlying allegory, perhaps differences based on sympathy or antipathy (a reformist v. traditionalist viewpoint for example), and possibly a different allegory altogether.

Also while number symbolism may be irrelevant in one variation, it may be significant in another, the modification or variation may have been made as a more seeming match between position and number, such as VIII being a number of justice, 9 as being associated with time, 7 with the chariot, 6 with lovers etc.

I don't think number symbolism is the underlying structural theme in any of the variations, but possibly varying order to match an image with number, without affecting the underlying meaning of whatever the allegory was percieved or intended to be, had a role in producing a variation.

Number symbolism I would say was probably significant in the placements of the pair hanged man/death at XII and XIII.

I also think it a mistake to assume the placements of the virtues are 'random'; they too probably have a contextual meaning in terms of their placement among the variations.

The placement of a virtue after death for example may be related to the concept that virtue is not maintained for the sake of rewards in this world, but for the perfection of the soul whose reward is in the world to come. The identification of temperance with Fama in the Belgium pattern (and in Alciato too possibly, if his listing of fama at XIV we can take as being connected with temperance as it is in the Belgian pattern) with the hanged man (the traitor) at 13 links infamy and fame either side of death, linking in with the theme of good and ill repute as goads to right action (that is to say, to virtue).

Melanchollic

kwaw said:
It may be a mistake to assume that the popesse means the same thing in the different games - each variation offers at least an adaption to the underlying allegory, perhaps differences based on sympathy or antipathy (a reformist v. traditionalist viewpoint for example), and possibly a different allegory altogether.

Yes, that's a definite possibility.

Or perhaps, different ways of saying the same thing...

kwaw said:
I also think it a mistake to assume the placements of the virtues are 'random'; they too probably have a contextual meaning in terms of their placement among the variations.

True. They only seem random. Each variation on the virtues' ordering is quite deliberate I believe. I'm obviously generalizing here to make it a bit easier for everyone to see the point. Which is, sans virtues, the 22 trumps have a consistent structure, and that a lot of the 'renumbering' of cards in the various orders isn't as extreme a change to the overall allegory as it may at first look, and the most significant difference in the regional variation is in fact how the virtues are interpreted. At least I think that's what I was trying to say... need coffee.

Rosanne

kwaw said:
It may be a mistake to assume that the popesse means the same thing in the different games - each variation offers at least an adaption to the underlying allegory, perhaps differences based on sympathy or antipathy (a reformist v. traditionalist viewpoint for example), and possibly a different allegory altogether.

Tsk Kwaw, you always say it better than me. I take a whole thread to get my words right on the subject- and there you go and say it in under 50 words. Glad someone got my drift though

- some people might think I have become a pious grandma who would only allow one sort of woman/man for her grandson. Hey Melancholic- most woman who are in long term relationships become strippers - so no need for disappointment. :angel:

Number symbolism I would say was probably significant in the placements of the pair hanged man/death at XII and XIII.

Exactly! The realising of that one pair and numbers- lead me to consider the thread. If it was this numerical naturalness to put one pair in there- why not the same rationale for others?

I also think it a mistake to assume the placements of the virtues are 'random'; they too probably have a contextual meaning in terms of their placement among the variations.

There are reasons for why one variation came to the fore. What we call now the Marseilles and it's order- may have been because of commercial considerations like the Chateaubriand Edict- not because it had an overall better allegory. I do think card players by the 16th Century were just used to and happy with the sequence and it worked best for the game- well it must have because that is what we have now. As has been noted before- card players do not like change in pattern. Card collectors do!
Oh I do so enjoy Melancholic's show and tell scans- it helps a lot.
Love before the Chariot and Love after the Chariot have two very different ideas in using number symbolism, I would have thought. For a start Le Pape would be paired with Temperance- which is a perfect warning looking back towards the Renaissance.
~Rosanne

Rosanne

Rosanne said:
Within their group how does the image portray it's position? I think for example as in the Visconti hand painted cards, they have not found one example of the Devil and the Tower- considered lost. How about 'never there'?

If one was to look at the Visconti as Celebration (wedding) decks- it would seem very natural, that there not be the Tower and the Devil. No need for someone to remove the cards- the paradigm or model has a whole different emphasis right from the start.
~Rosanne

Rosanne

Only partial success in this exercise.
The image only suggest its position or number in the following as far as I can tell.
1 Bateleur
2 Empress
3
4 Emperor
5 Le Pape/Pope
6 Temperance
7 Chariot
8 Lovers + Equally well for Justice
9 Strength
11
12 Hanged Man
13 Death
14
15 Devil
16
17
18
19
20
21
0 Fool
The Star/Moon/ Star and maybe World seem to suggest together as a group - but does not seem to have a numeric component I can grasp- that indicates where they go in the sequence.
...but I do have a Marseilles that is minus title, Number and frame.
Ah well nothing ventured, nothing gained.
~Rosanne