Diana
(moderator: this post can be deleted now. It was redundant.)
jmd said:I'm not sure whether or not I have included this before (a quick search did not return a result), but this is part of what I wrote in my unpublished book on the chapter on the Hermit about twelve years ago:
- The Staff of the Hermit is often depicted with a serpent at its lower end, again linking it with the future Hermes he is to become following integration, and also linking it with the staff of Moses. One depiction shows the Hermit as possibly related to St Anthony, who holds a Tau cross staff, symbolising power and life, and a bell, which, symbolically, is equivalent to a lantern. Both bells and lanterns can be used as beacons (eg, at sea), and both were used to ward off evil.
Huck said:Leper was more or less overcome with 15th/16th century. It accompanied the crusades, which had their story till 1291. Since then it was diminishing. It's unlikely that it was a theme to the Marseille Tarot. It was also not a theme to the Italian Tarots, which are older.