Visconti: Il Matto

[le pendu]

Keeping this on Santa for a minute (and truely, I apologize for the diversion of this topic, I promise to get back to the Visconti Fool!!), here is my favorite picture of "Der Pelzemärtel" from 1850:
http://www.zlb.de/projekte/advent/mann.htm

I notice not only the switch of twigs that looks very club-like, but the feathers in the hat and the checkered pattern on the hat.

Happy St. Nickolas day everyone!

robert

 

[Huck]

Keeping this on Santa for a minute (and truely, I apologize for the diversion of this topic, I promise to get back to the Visconti Fool!!), here is my favorite picture of "Der Pelzemärtel" from 1850:
http://www.zlb.de/projekte/advent/mann.htm

I notice not only the switch of twigs that looks very club-like, but the feathers in the hat and the checkered pattern on the hat.

Happy St. Nickolas day everyone!

robert

I don't know, if you can read German ... the article tells, that it seems, that the "Weihnachtsmann" is a young development, from 1st half of 19th century.
Hm ... I doubt that. The old man = the passing year and the babe = new (solar) year, that's the basic story of christmas or winter solstice. And it's somehow a logical story.

We've the Roman saturnalia, a festivity, when the masters seved the slaves ... we still have that, nowadays that's called "Weihnachts-Gratifikation", and when you get some extra money at Christmas. Saturn was an old man.
In the Christian legend of Jesus you've 3 old men visiting the child.

Saturn (via Chronos=Kronos, which was already an antique error, as I've heard) became Father time, also an old man.

I feel sure, that Bacchus, the child-god, was associated to Capricorn. In his form as Zeus Zagreus he was drawn to pieces by the Titans ... Kronos was a Titan. So, there is a fight between old and new.

This story old meets new is very old.

Rituals and specific forms of astro-logical (not a writing error) appear and reappear, names and protagonists exchange, but the logic stays. Old year, new year.

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Père Fouettard

I have just discovered that the French have their own bad man of Christmas, called "Père Fouettard" ("Old Whipper" is the best translation I can think of - and Le Petit Robert gives his etymology as a combination of FOU/HETRE, hétre being a "switch" in English, a branch to whip people with, so "whipping fool"). He accompanies Saint Nick on his journey today, and gives the bad kids what they deserve.

This site
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/noel/franc/mechant.htm
says he is an invention of the 18th century, buy like Huck I find it hard to believe there wasn't something like him before that.

He is usually portrayed bearded and dark, of course.

A little bit related to the fool, at least on this Saint Nicolas day

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Père Fouettard=Knecht Ruprecht etc.

I have just discovered that the French have their own bad man of Christmas, called "Père Fouettard" ("Old Whipper" is the best translation I can think of - and Le Petit Robert gives his etymology as a combination of FOU/HETRE, hétre being a "switch" in English, a branch to whip people with, so "whipping fool"). He accompanies Saint Nick on his journey today, and gives the bad kids what they deserve.

This site
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/noel/franc/mechant.htm
says he is an invention of the 18th century, buy like Huck I find it hard to believe there wasn't something like him before that.

He is usually portrayed bearded and dark, of course.

A little bit related to the fool, at least on this Saint Nicolas day

A better site for Père Fouettard -
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/IA57/LeMarmot/fouettar.htm

"En Bavière et en Autriche, il s’appelle Krampus ( ce qui signifie crochet). Dans d’autres régions d’Allemagne, on le surnomme Ruprecht ou Knechtruprecht ; il est chargé de corriger les enfants désobéissants. En Rhénanie, en Silésie et dans quelques autres endroits, il se déguise en animal ( le plus souvent en bouc) et se prénomme Pelzbock, Rasselbock, Pelznickel, Pelzruppert ou encore Bartel. (Pelz veut dire fourrure) .
En Hollande où la fête de Saint Nicolas est très importante, l'évêque de Myre est accompagné d'un ou deux personnages appelés Zwart Piet ( Pierre le Noir ). Ils sont chargés de ramasser les enfants méchants et de les jeter dans la Mer Noire ou de les emmener en Espagne. En effet d'après la tradition ces personnages noirs seraient des Maures laissés lors de l’occupation espagnole.
"Mais la terreur des enfants dans le centre de l’Allemagne, dans quelques endroits de Bavière et même en Franche Comté, se présente parfois sous les traits d’une vieille femme mi – fée, mi – sorcière. Elle porte le nom de Frau Holle ou Klausenweiblein ….

 

[Huck]

Ruppert or Rupprecht can be interpreted as another form of Robert.

"Schwarzer Peter" (black Peter) is the name of a card play in Germany, also known as Cu-Cu in Italy - we've examples in the Museum; usually pairs of animals with a single black cat, who is the "schwarzer Peter" (the black cat is associated to sorcery in children-literature, "3x schwarzer Kater"); when you keep this card as the last player, you'll get a black nose with a piece of coal . So the Dutch "swatte Piet" probably derived from that.

http://trionfi.com/01/j/i/gambler_ru/d02058.htm
http://trionfi.com/01/j/i/gambler_ru/d02060.htm

 

[Eeviee]

In the consideration of the Fool in the 14 Bembo cards I never heard a comparition to the "Wild Man". Although ... some of these "wild men" are rather similar.

I too, get a vibe like this. When I first saw the card, I thought "The Devil?" (Shame my partially RWS-trained mind!). Which then my mind linked to the Pagan God Pan as in the CH Thoth. Which my mind then connected to the NeoPagan's Green Man.

Il Matto - to return to the card - certainly seems to suggest the lowest of the low, and yet there is at the same time a Gargantuan element to his depiction: a giant, it seems, and hence more (or at least other) than human roams the earth - even his hands and feet show that its digits are not as should be. Though perhaps no more than a deformed human being, and certainly classed at the times as below even the commoners, folly has close to its state divine wisdom.

RE: "the lowest of the low"; To me, this idea of the card brings to mind mental illness and mental disorders. -After all these things were not properly medically evaluated/understood and these people were treated horribly, if not cast out of society to begin with! People with these issues of the brain were often referred to as "beasts" because of whatever ticks or unusual/uncontrollable behaviours they may have possessed/displayed. The companion book is in support of this interpretation and upon reading it, touches upon many of mine and @jmd's comments.


Also, I'd like to bring to light/get some more information on this character's chin/neck region. -When I first saw this card, I thought the deformation immediately to be testicles... Opinions/Info, please?