More on Star card
Beanu, in post 52 of this thread, introduced as an association to the Star card an alchemical image of a woman with liquid flowing out of both breasts. I was not very responsive then, trying to put down my own ideas. But I have seen something recently to get me to look at that image again.
I talked a lot about the 1528 fresco with two figures, a nymph and an old man, each carrying two jars wit water pouring out of them. I have had occasion to look at another photo of that fresco, or rather, corner of a fresco--and what do you know, there is a lady with liquid flowing out of both breasts. She is the figure I had identified as Dionysus. To refresh your memory, here is the scene, as shown in
Art in Venice by Furlotti and Rebecchini (English ed. 2008, originally in Italian):
.
The colors are slightly different than in the version I posted before, because it is in a different book. The lady in question is behind the nymph with the jars. Here is a closer view:
You can see the milk flowing from her breasts, onto the rock, and then breaking up into 3 streams below her. For comparison, here is Beanu's image, posted a couple of weeks ago:
As you can see, they are quite similar. Beanu's is from the
De Occulta Philosophia, attributed to Basil Valentine, reputedly a 15th century German monk (Johannes Fabricius,
Alchemy p. 78). Although the illustrated version was first published in 1603, the image may have been known when Romano did the fresco in 1528. Since the room was used as a banquet hall on state occasions, one may assume that such imagery would have been understood by educated Europeans in general.
The earliest text reference I have found is to a text called the "Tractatus aureus." According to C. G. Jung (
Psychology and Alchemy p. 358), it was "ascribed to Hermes and regarded as of Arabic origin even in the Middle Ages." It says:
"The king shall come forth from the fire and rejoice in the marriage. The hidden things shall be disclosed, and the virgin's milk be whitened...Come hither, ye sons of wisdom, and rejoice, the dominion of death is over, and the son reigns; he wears the red garment and the purple is put on."
The earliest alchemical image I have found is in the 14th century
Aurora Consurgens, showing two philosophers suckling at the breasts of the philosopher's stone (in red). She is giving them the universal elixer, the
lac virginis or virgin's milk.
A later image, closer in form and meaning to the fresco, is in John Mylius's
Philosophia Reformata, 1624 (de Rola,
The Golden Game), p. 178):
Here there are two sets of two streams each, one set from the maiden and one from the whale. The one gives the virgin's milk, also called the water of life. The other has the water of death: it is alchemical sulphur, made into an acid bath in which the substances in the alchemist's laboratory dissolve. Fabricius (
Alchemy p. 78), describes the this water as follows:
This is the 'foutain's vinegar,' a corrosive and poisonour agent, 'splitting' or souring the 'virgin's milk' and the 'water of life.'
And about the mixture of the two waters:
"The sea is filled with the mercurial water of birth and death, described by the adepts in many ways: ";/They call the simple water poison quicksilver, cambar, permanent water, gum, vinegar, urine, sea-water, dragon and serpent....This stinking water contains everything it needs...It is the mother of all things, and out of it and through it and within they prepare the laps. ..The water is that which kills and vivifies." (Alchemical quotes, all 16th century or earlier, cited by Jung,
Collected Works Vol 16 , paragraph 454). It is again the two waters in the Star card, one for immortality and the other for mortality and the eternal round of death and new birth.
But the image of a virgin spouting miraculous milk was a perfectly orthodox Christian idea. Here is a 1533 quotation of 1533, from a Spanish pilgrim to the Holy Land:
"Outside the church [in Bethlehem] is a cave, entered by a small door, in which the Blessed Virgin Mary gave suck to her son...The pilgrims take pieces of the earth of this grotto for the use of women who have no milk." (
Women Pilgrims in late medieval England: private piety as public performance, by Susan Signe Morrison, p. 32, at Google books).
And also this one:
"Throughout the Middle Ages, the faithful cherished vials of the Virgin's milk as a healing balm, a symbol of mercy, an eternal mystery." (
Nature's body: gender in the making of modern science, by Londa L. Schiebinger, p. 59, at Google books).
The image is also pre-Christian: there were the breasts of Diana at Ephesus. The famous statue was recreated with improvements at the Villa d'Este, near Rome at Tivoli (
http://folliesofeurope.com/album/html.php). The d'Este were the rulers of Ferrara, close to Mantua and an early center of proto-tarot production.
The virgin Diana/Artemis, Greco-Roman goddess of childbirth, is a precursor to the Virgin Mary. First the one and then the other were revered at Ephesus.
And of course before that there was the "Venus of Willendorf," the rotund goddess with the big breasts whose worship was everywhere at the dawn of culture 20 to 27 thousand years ago.
OTHER DETAILS IN THE FRESCO
Three other details in the Romano fresco are noteworthy.
(1) The dead or dry tree is clearly visible behind the lady with the milk. It conrasts with the living tree next to the old man. This is a Christian contrast between the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. The tree of knowledge was said to have withered after Adam and Eve ate from it. For example, in the
Purgatorio, shortly before drinking of the two waters in the Earthly Paradise, Dante walks through a woods:
So passing through the lofty forest, vacant
By fault of her who in the serpent trusted,
Angelic music made our steps keep time...
I heard them murmur altogether, "Adam!"
Then circled they about a tree despoiled
Of blooms and other leafage on each bough...
(
http://www.online-literature.com/dante/purgatorio/32/)
He soon witnesses the tree blooming with new life, as a result of contact with a griffon representing the Church: the tree of death was transformed by Christ's sacrifice. There was also, for Dante, a tree that never withered, a heavenly tree (Paradiso XVIII, 29). A famous Renaissance painting illustrating the two trees is Piero della Francesco Rserrecion of Christ:
I do not know of any similar Greek imagery. It may be significant that this tree is directly above the nymph; to me that positioning suggests that she offers the water of death, of languishing in Hades or a return to our world for a new incarnation. She is a femme fatale, not divine love.
(2) The living tree, next to the old man, is not what I thought it was earlier: it is cut off above the first branch. I had assumed from the earlier photo that the trunk and branches extended upward, but we could not see them because of damage to the wall. That is clearly not the case:
In cut-off tree imagery, a branch usually grows upwards out of the stump, signifying death and resurrection. Here are two examples, both from the Renaissance:
(Images from Gerhard Ladner, "Vegetation Symbolism and the Concept of Renaissance," in
Images and Ideas in the Middle Ages, p. 746 p. 746, figs. 4 and 5, at Google Books). The designation "falcon" is Leonardo's. But it looks to me more like Noah’s dove, bringing back a twig of new life. As Ladner observes, the theme is clearly that of renewal (Ladner p. 733). The branch on the stump is an image that goes back at least to Roman times: a Roman fresco found at the Villa Farnesina shows the killing of the infant Dionysus accompanied by the same motif (Ladner p. 733). And the historian Livy used the image to describe the renewal of Rome after its destruction by the Gauls (Ladner p. 731).
In the Romano fresco, however, the branch is below where the trunk is cut off. The branch grows abundantly in the direction of the lake. I would surmise that the significance is the importance of experiencing the realm of the immortals as much as possible before one dies, even though one may not drink of their Lake of Memory beforehand.
In the only similar image I have found so far, it is linked with the Phoenix, the bird which dies and is reborn, and also with the conjunction of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The accompanying poem says:
“Behold how Death aymes [aims] with his mortal dart,
And wounds a Phoenix with a twin-like hart.[heart].
These are the harts [hearts] of Jesus and his Mother
So linkt [linked] in one, that one without the other
Is not entire...”
(Image and text from
The Virgin Mary as alchemical and Lullian Reference in Donne, by Roberta Albrecht, p. 62, at Google Books). It would seem that the image is of the soul’s union with Christ; only in such union can the soul partake of the Phoenix of resurrection.
There is an evident connection with the Greek image of the Phoenix. I am still researching the issue of the bird’s relationship to the tree in medieval and Renaissance imagery.
(3) If you go back to the first image in this post, you will see a blonde girl in a green dress standing on the right side, looking over at the old man with the two jars. The girl is Psyche, the protagonist of the tale that Romano is illustrating. She appears in a similar green dress elsewhere in the room, which is called the "room of Psyche." The only episode in the story that I can think of to which the scene corresponds is the one in which Venus gives Psyche the trial of going down to Hades and bringing back some of Persephone's beauty ointment for her. Psyche is of course terrified at the prospect of such an ordeal, and almost as terrified on the journey back.
In that context, the body of water would be the River Styx, and the boat in the middle would be Charon's ferry by which people get to Persephone's realm. It would thus not be the Lake of Mnemosyne that I suggested. However I am not convinced that it is only the River Styx. The body of water has many coves and bays, which are not typical of free-flowing rivers. It looks more like a long Italian mountain lake with steep sides, or perhaps a reservoir made by damming up a river in such a place. So it could still have a secondary meaning of the Lake of Memory, I think. And there may also be a play on words: it is lacus, Latin for "lake," as well as lac, Latin for "milk."