Popess and Twos

Du Bartas, in the continuation of the quote I gave at the beginning of my posts on the Aces and Twos, goes on:

Now, note Two's Character, One's heir apparent,
As his first-born; first Number, and the Parent
Of Female Payrs.

It is the "first number" because, as he had just said, One was not a number. Agrippa, in his discussion of the Two, notes that the Pythagoreans did not even consider Two a number, but rather "a certain confusion of unities" (Three Books of Occult Philosophy, ed. Tyson, p. 245, in archive.org). This is confirmed by the Neopythagorean Theology of Arithmetic (trans. Waterfield, p. 45, in archive.org). Agrippa himself maintains that Two is a number, but one "compounded of unity." It is "the first branch of unity, and the first procreation."

The Popess, in the majority of tarot orderings, has the number 2, thus corresponding  to the Pythagorean Dyad (at right, the Noblet, ca. 1650 Paris). How is she the "heir apparent" or "first procreation" of the Bateleur? Macrobius, in his treatise focused mainly on astronomy, is none too clear (On the Dream of Scipio, I.VI.18, Stahl translation p. 103):

two, the dyad, because it is first after the monad, is the first number. It first departed from that single Omnipotence into the line of a perceptible body, and therefore refers to the errant spheres of the planets and the sun and moon

Macribius is said to have been a Christian; so part of what he says relates well to the Son of the Christian Trinity, God incarnate. But that the Dyad is "errant" nature conveys something else. That errancy is part of a tradition. In the Neopythagorean Theology of Arithmetic, 2 is the first number that separates off from the Monad, an act of daring audacity (p. 42):

The dyad gets its name from passing through or asunder (translator’s explanation: Duas [dyad] is here linked with dia [through or asunder]), for the dyad is the first to have separated itself from the monad, whence also it is called ‘daring.’ For when the monad manifests unification, the dyad steals in and manifests separation.

It is like Eve's act of disobedience in the Garden of Eden, a declaration of independence. The Monad is androgynous, containing the Dyad within it in essence, and the Dyad is female. Macrobius says that even numbers are all Mothers, and odd numbers Fathers. We may think also of the historical Manfreda Visconti, who in a vision saw herself designated Pope, as well as the legendary Pope Joan, who disguised herself as a man in order to attend university and then kept the disguise. It is with a 1497 illustration of Boccaccio's telling of the tale that we first see the cloth behind her, which would then be a fixture of her presentation, until with Waite it turns into a curtain protecting the sanctuary. The book here without writing perhaps is to suggest the vacuity of this pope's teaching.

In keeping with these interpretations is something that Agrippa adds to his report: "This is also sometimes the number of discord, and confusion, of misfortune, and uncleanness, citing St. "Hieromagainst Jovianus" (St. Jerome's Contra Jovianus). God did not speak of the second day of creation as good, "because the number of two is evil" (Agrippa, p. 245).

Another branch of Neopythagoreanism, that reflected in Martianus Capella, adds a different dimension to the dyad, that of being the wife and sister of the Monad (Stahl and Johnson translation, p. 277, in archive.org):

Because between it [the dyad] and the monad the first union and partnership occurs, it is called Juno or Wife or Sister of the monad.

The same is noted by Agrippa. It is perhaps with such passages in mind that the authorities in Strasbourg and elsewhere ordained that she and the Pope be replaced by Juno and Jupiter. Martianus in the paragraph before had identified the monad as Jupiter, "because it is head and father of the gods" (Ibid.). 

There is an Old Testament parallel here, in the "Wisdom" books, where Sophia is said to be "with God from the beginning". Such a parallel would not have been lost on Renaissance thinking (even if I cannot find it explicitly spelled out); the Dyad/Popess would be assimilated to Wisdom or Sapientia, who was illustrated, like the early Popess, with cross-staff and book, as well as a crown (albeit not multi-leveled), in illuminated manuscripts of the time (e.g. that at left. from the 13th century Bibia Magdalena, f. 109, in the Laurentian Library of Florence).

The Theology of Arithmetic adds another interpretation of the Dyad. In the dichotomy between Matter and Form, the Dyad represents Matter. The Theology says (p. 44f):

It is also called ‘deficiency and excess’ and ‘matter’ (for which, in fact another term is the ‘indefinite dyad’) because it is in itself devoid of shape and form and any limitation, but is capable of being limited and made definite by reason and skill.

Having separated off, it nonetheless longs for a return to the Monad (p. 46).

Apart from recklessness itself, they think that, because it is the very first to have endured separation, it deserves to be called ‘anguish,’ ‘endurance’ and ‘hardship.’ (Translator’s explanation: Duas is here linked with due [anguish].)...The dyad, they say, is also called ‘Erato’; for having attracted through love the advance of the monad as form, it generates the rest of the results, starting with the triad and tetrad. (Translator’s explanation: Erato is one of the Muses; her name is cognate with the Greek for ‘love.’)

It will receive the Monad again, in a new unity or synthesis, as form imprinted on matter. It is like the Virgin Mary in Christianity, who yearns for the Messiah, and while pointing to the text in Isaiah is told that God is imprinting his nature into her womb. The Dodal Popess card was entitled "Pances," meaning "Belly," rather than "Popess," I think precisely to emphasize the womblike nature of the Dyad, embodied by the Virgin.

In Genesis, the second day of the week is one of separation, too: of the upper waters from the lower waters, and of the firmament from what is below the firmament. There it is a process that began on the first day with the separation of light from darkness, and will continue on the third day, in separating the sea from dry land.

Besides Juno, Agrippa identifies the Dyad with the "second great light," i.e. the Moon (p. 315). The Virgin was also associated with that celestial body, given that the Sun was associated with Christ. An example is Hieronymus Bosch's painting St. John the Evangelist on Patmos, ca. 1489 (viewable on many websites).

Etteilla identified the Popess with his 8th card, that of the "female querent".  He puts circles around her (8 of them). That would signify her entrapment by the planetary and zodiacal powers, as Adam and Eve were by the serpent in Eden and humanity, in the first tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum, is by physis, matter, in thrall to the seven planets and the sphere of the fixed stars.  More positively, she is the solitary one, as indicated by the word-list when the card comes in the normal Upright position. As in the previous post, words appearing only in D'Odoucet's list are in bold, those only in de la Salette's in italics:

No. 8. ETTEILLA [or the female Querent]. The Woman Who Most Interests the Querent, if Male, and the female Querent herself. Nature, Rest, Tranquility, Retreat, A Withdrawn Life, A Solitary Life, Retired Life, Life of a hermit [or hermetic: vie d’hermite],  Religious life, Orphic life. Repose of Old Age. Temple of Ardor, Silence. Taciternity.  REVERSED.  FEMALE QUERENT.  Imitation, Garden of Eden, Effervescence, Bubbling, Fermentation, Ferment, Leaven, Acidity.

As I say, it is only the upright keywords that apply to the Popess, as the embodiment of the solitary religious woman, on the model of the Virgin Mary after Jesus's death, Mary Magdalene or their mythological predecessors, such as Isis in search of Osiris. The Reverseds apply to the female Querent, as the Dyad in a less elevated state, that of Eve after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, dominated by material concerns that keep her in ferment yet longing to return to Eden.

Etteilla's cards and meanings seem derivative from the Marseille cards and the symbolic meaning attached to them by some tradition antedating him, reflecting the Roman numeral II on the card. That place in the order in turn is derivative from practice in Italy, where in at least some places the Popess had that same place in the order. But unlike the Fool, which was unnumbered or had the Arabic number 0 (for which there is no Roman equivalent), the Popess in one region where tarot cards were produced, namely Ferrara and Venice, was given the number 4, in other words, the number that other regions gave the Emperor. As for what Ferrara did give for the number 2, both the Empress and the Emperor are found. I cannot see how to interpret the Popess as reflective of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or the Emperor or Empress as reflective of the Dyad. 

This is not the only variation in number assignment in the early orders as given in written lists and as written on the cards. Starting immediately after the Pope, which is always the fifth card, there is a large variability of number assignments, in Florence and Bologna as well as Ferrara and Venice. Perhaps a few meaningful Pythagorean interpretations of these different assignments can be made, but by no means all. It seems to me that it may have been precisely the amenability of the Lombard order to a Pythagorean

account of the meanings of the figures that, among other things, made that order appealing in France. The Lombard order, as reported by Alciato in 1544 and Susio a bit earlier or later, had the Hermit 11th and Strength 9th. By the time of Catelin Geoffroy's tarot of 1558 Lyon, it was the other way around. I will discuss what difference that change makes, if any, when I get to those cards. 

On the other hand, the number 2 also applies to Etteilla's second card, that with the two children on it and a fiery star above. In d'Odoucet's system, 2 is the number of stable, permanent vegetation, which he says is driven by "a central and permanent fire" (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/14/mode/2up), which as the source of light also makes the keyword "enlightenment" appropriate. Neither of these pronouncements have any relationship to the historical numerology of that number, that I can find.  2 is also the number of man and woman as active and passive; hence the 2 children on the card. This one is closer to the number's Neopythagorean meaning, at least in so far as 2 is matter (passive) to 1's form (active). But the two figures on the Etteilla card, taken from the Marseille Sun card, look to me quite identical.

The Twos 


Looking at the Marseille-style Twos, not much stands out. We could perhaps get a sense of a fruitful bond between two people in Coins, in Swords a flowering friendship. In Cups the two dolphins at the top are "smelling the flowers," which perhaps could represent looking shyly at the opposite sex. From the number, it is something near the beginning of such a relationship. something germinating. In Batons it is popping out all over. Otherwise, it could project a lot of things onto these cards.

However it seems to me that the interpretations articulated by the Etteilla School do fit the Neopythagoreanism of the Theology of Arithmetic and other Neopythagorean accounts. They in turn, as I hope to show immediately after, fit the Sola-Busca pictorial versions of the cards, sometimes better than Waite's own meanings (taken from the Etteilla school) fit Pamela Smith's designs. Since the Marseille designs developed in between, perhaps they developed their meanings out of what the SB reflects, which Etteilla drew on.

I will start with the Etteilla school's word-list for Batons. I am drawing on two lists, D'Odoucet only in bold, de la Salette only in italics.

No. 34. TWO OF BATONS: CHAGRIN, Sadness, Melancholy, Affliction, Displeasure, Distress, Grief, Mortification, Ill Humor, Quarrel, Vapors, Gloomy Ideas.--Bitterness, Anger, Spite. REVERSED: SURPRISE, Enchantment, Deceit, Trickery, Cheating, Shock, Trouble, Unforeseen Event, Unexpected Occurrence, Fright, Emotion, Fear, Dread, Terror.--Dismay, Consternation, Astonishment, Admiration, Rapture, Alarms.---Marvel, Phenomenon, Miracle.

D'Odoucet says in the introduction to his list that the card has 4, his number for the universe, submitting to 3, his number of animal generation  (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/78/mode/2up). We may be pleasantly surprised or chagrined, he adds, thereby including the keywords. This, it seems to me, may be said of any combination of numbers. However, many of the Uprights might have been inspired by the Dyad as expressed in The Theology (p. 46):

Apart from recklessness itself, they think that, because it is the very first to have endured separation, it deserves to be called ‘anguish,’ ‘endurance’ and ‘hardship.’ (Translator’s explanation: Duas is here linked with due [anguish].)

According to the Theology, the Dyad separates from the One in an act of bold audacity. It is like Eve in the Garden of Eden, recklessly disobeying God's instruction not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The result is an experience of anguish and hardship, on its own away from the womb-like security of the Monad.

For the contemporary relevance of this material, one might look at Waite's "divinatory meanings" for the same card: for the uprights, "physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification" and "Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, fear" in the reverseds. These are almost direct quotes from the Etteilla school. The only thing Waite adds is, I assume from another tradition, "riches, fortune, magnificence," in the uprights, which fits the globe his man holds in his hand (at left), signifying that riches and conquests can be, for someone drawing this card, an empty satisfaction.

 The usual Italian twos, of a style similar to the "Marseille", of course do not illustrate these meanings. But I seem to see them in the Sola-Busca, with its nude, corpulent man looking off into the distance. His batons form an X, a typical formation of batons in the Twos; but they also act as a barrier to keep him from going further. He has separated from the One, the ideal, and feels the anguish of that separation, from which he cannot by his own efforts return. His corpulence reflects the Neopythagorean conception of the Two as matter separated off from form. Some have suggested a likeness between this man and Cosimo Il Vecchio di Medici. If so, it might depict him in exile, which he spent in Padua and Venice.

The same fit between SB, the Etteilla School, and the Theology works for Cups. In the SB we see a love-possessed putto playing the violin to his beloved. The theme of love had already been proclaimed in the earlier Visconti-Sforza (or Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo) 2 of Cups, with a banner in the middle saying "Amore Mio," My Love. In the same vein, here is the Etteilla school's word list, with Etteilla's card near right:

No. 48. 2 OF CUPS: LOVE. Passion, Inclination, Sympathy, Appeal, Proclivity, Friendship, Kindness, Affection, Attachment, Liking, Liaison, Gallantry, Attraction, Affinity. REVERSED: DESIRE. Wish, Vow, Will, Envy, Covetousness, Cupidity, Concupiscence, Jealousy, Passion, Illusion. Appetite.

These are simply the positive and negative aspects of Desire, in particular the desire of the soul for reunion with its God. Waite has for this card, "Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes," but without any Reverseds.

D'Odoucet's comments about 8, the succession of generations, as pervading the universe, 4 (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/106/mode/2up), does not capture much of what the lists contain. There is a more straightforward approach, simply in terms of the number of suit-objects on the card, rather than trying to interpret Etteilla's card numbers.  

In terms of the Theology, the Dyad wishes to attract the Monad to itself. The Theology says (p. 46):

The dyad, they say, is also called ‘Erato’; for having attracted through love the advance of the monad as form, it generates the rest of the results, starting with the triad and tetrad. (Translator’s explanation: Erato is one of the Muses; her name is cognate with the Greek for ‘love.’)

The SB Cups' putto playing a violin while looking upwards is reminiscent of the courting lover serenading his beloved below her window. Their eventual union will result in enformed matter, as expressed in the Triad onward.

Here is the Etteilla school's word-list in Swords. 

No. 62. 2 OF SWORDS: FRIENDSHIP. Attachment, Tenderness, Kindness, Rapport, Relationship, Identity, Intimacy, Convenience, Correspondence, Interest, Conformity, Sympathy, Affinity, Attraction. REVERSED: 3rd Cahier: Unhelpful or False Friends, or Relatives of Little Help. Lists: FALSE. Falsehood, Lying, Imposture, Duplicity, Bad Faith, Trickery, Dissimulation, Deceit, Deception. Superficial, Superficiality, Surface.

Etteilla's Uprights express a feeling of affection and support, much like that of the SB card. Two crossed swords might well be a sign of close connection. In the SB, the swords each is holding suggest a military context, with the younger one looking to the older for advice and support, perhaps even not wanting to be left on his own. The separation of the Dyad from the Monad is one attended by a certain amount of justified trepidation.

D'Odoucet attempts to justify the interpretation as reflecting spread of vegetation, as indicated by the nyumber 2, over the "the globe of the world," thus happy days for its inhabitants (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/134/mode/2up). These concepts have little to do with Etteilla's specific keywords, except for removing one obstacle to strife.

Waite says forthis card: "courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms; another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy." The latter are from Etteilla. Waite's primary meanings have to do with military virtues (and vices). Etteilla's list, on the other hand, seems to relate more to the Neopythagoreans' relationship between the Monad and the Dyad, or the Hebrew Bible's Yahweh and Sophia. 

Etteilla's  reverseds could relate to Yahweh's feeling of betrayal after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.  This advice could either be well-intended or duplicitous--like that of the serpent in Eden-- corresponding to the Etteilla Upright and Reversed meanings. Waite's reverseds, "Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty," would seem to derive from Etteilla's: not the lady's betrayal, but her feeling betrayed by someone else.

In the SB, the older man’s head is a curl that is most likely a horn but also suggests a lock of hair. In Renaissance symbolism forelocks represent opportunities to be seized (James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, p. 229, in Google Books).

Another detail that needs interpretation are the specks in the air to the right of the younger man. They are probably birds; their flight encourages the young man to journey likewise. Alternatively, they could be insects buzzing around him. In another deck done around this time in a similar style, the so-called Leber (named after one of its owners), the Fool card has just such insects, now drawn as 8s. They seem to be irritants. "If only someone would give me a net," the Latin on the bottom says (as translated by Marco and Ross at http://tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=1810685&postcount=7).

In other contexts at that time, insects are a metaphor for "evil tongues." Alberti, in “Rings,” a short work circulating in manuscript at this time in Northern Italy, describes his 12th ring as follows: “Behold a helmet and mask engraved in emerald, and see the swarm of flies which surrounds them!” (Dinner-pieces, trans. Marsh, p. 213). The interpretation:

Like flies, some men are born only to bite and buzz. We must shield ourselves against such men, and must assume either a mask of severity to drive them away, or a mask of indifference to ignore them. Human follies must be swallowed whole (Marsh, p. 217).

There is also Alciato, in his Emblematum Liber, which appeared in numerous widely varying editions starting in 1531. In a 1540 Spanish/Latin editionm Emblem 51, "Maledentia," Slander, offers a similar interpretation of a swarm of insects as in Alberti's "Rings"; this time they are wasps. The verse reads

Archilochi tumulo insculptas de marmore vespas
Esse ferunt, linguae certa sigilla malae.

On the tomb of Archilochus wasps had been sculpted in marble;These, as it is said, provide dependable symbols for evil tongues.
(Alciato, A Book of Emblems: The Emblematum Liber in Latin and English, trans. John F. Moffitt, p. 70).

In the context of the SB image, the flying creatures, as flying insects, thus could represent the slanderous biting and buzzing of evil or "waspish" tongues, hindering one from doing what needs doing. The young man must ignore them and seize opportunity by the forelock.

Coins is difficult to fit with the Theology. Here is the Etteilla School's combined list, along with the card. Etteilla associates it with the god and planet Mercury, as the second celestial body starting from the center of the solar system. Since Mercury is the messenger of the gods, it fits with the reversed meaning of the card:

No. 76. 2 OF COINS: DIFFICULTIES. Obstacle, Blocking, Obstruction, Hitch, Snag. Trouble, Worry, Emotion, Jumble, Mixup, Confusion, Difficulty, Unexpected Obstacle, Kink, Obscurity.--Agitation, Anxiety, Perplexity, Concern. REVERSED: LETTER (LETTRE), Note or Ticket [Billet], Document, Writing,, Sacred Writing, Profane Writing, Text, Literature, Doctrine, Erudition, Written Work, Book, Production, Composition, Dispatches, Epistle, Missives. Character. Literal Sense. Alphabet, Elements, Principles, Bill of Exchange.

Considering the suit's theme of money, that might suggest the production of a contract document, but some difficulties about both parties signing it. D'Odoucet attempts to derive these meanings from the 6 of "the sphere of the globe" and 7 representing "the sphere of life." resulting in "superabundance" (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/162/mode/2up). This seems too general.

Waite's divinatory meanings are in part simply what is suggested by his version of the card, a juggler holding a disc in each hand, and in part Etteilla's:

Gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment. Reversed: Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.

Etteilla's "embarras" has somehow dropped out, but perhaps is covered by "obstacles," etc. , as suggested also by the man on the card juggling different items that are both related and tending to go their own ways.But how is that an "embarrassment"?

The  SB card has on it two medallions, one of a young noble, in the style of a Roman profile, and the other an older man in a typical Italian hat of the time. It seems to me that the two medallions express the idea of partnership between the representatives of two classes of society. The top figure wears a laurel wreath, representing Apollo and victory, hence excellence derived from conformity to the eternal archetypes physically, aesthetically, intellectually, and morally. The Italian aristocracy saw its model in the philosopher-kings of Plato’s Republic. Rulers are victorious and win the respect of their subjects by keeping their ideas on the ideal. The other is lower down in the hierarchy. The contrast is that between Form and Matter, as the Theology relates:

The dyad is also an element in the composition of all things, an element which is opposed to the monad, and for this reason the dyad is perpetually subordinate to the monad, as matter is to form.

It is the partnership of the ideal and the material. That can cause "troubles." But it is still not clear how the Etteilla School's "embarras" got in there.

The medallions have often been understood to represent two actual people, not Venetian but Ferarrese, Ercole d'Este and Girolamo Savonarola. Ercole d'Este was Duke of Ferrara at the time the deck was made. Savonarola was originally from Ferrara, where his father had been a close friend of the previous duke. Savonarola himself was a Dominican preacher who attacked the excesses of both the aristocracy and the clergy. He was so popular that in 1994 he managed to unseat the son of Lorenzo di' Medici as ruler of Florence. Ercole had become very religious since the death of his wife, and the two men had a warm correspondence. But then Savonarola started attacking the reigning Pope himself. That was going too far. Ercole had to publicly repudiate Savonarola to forestall the papacy's coming after himself as well as Savonarola.

In this interpretation, the card expresses the friendship between the two men. The Etteilla Reverseds express the means by which the friendship was conducted, by letter, while the Uprights express the resulting embarrassment to Ercole.

This interpretation, however, is not likely part of the card's original intent. There are two likely times when the cards could have been done, 1491 and 1525 (based on an inscription on the cards of the year, reckoning from the founding of Venice). In the first case, the cards would have been before the friendship between the two men occurred (Ercole's wife died in 1493, and the correspondence started 1494); the second date, after the friendship and his eventual repudiation of Savonarola due to his defying of the Borgia pope, would have been too embarrassing to commemorate. Moreover, Savonarola is hardly a representative of matter as opposed to form; his interests were spiritual in the extreme, and he seems to have considered himself subordinate to no one but God.

In fact, the second man on the card has recently been identified not as Savonarola the Dominican preacher, but rather his grandfather Michele Savonarola (c.1385–c.1466), friend and physician to Ercole's predecessor dukes of Ferrara. This idea was put forward by art historian Paola Gnaccolini in "Il segreto dei I tarocchi Sola Busca e la cultura ermetico-alchemico tra Marche e Veneto alla fine del Quattrocento" (Il segreto dei segreti: I tarocchi Sola Busca e la cultura hermetico-alelchemica tra Marche e Veneto alla fino del Quattrocento, Milano 2012, pp 15-59), p. 36. Below, after my translation. I include the footnotes; I had no idea so much was written about the man.

Il carattere arcaico dell'abbigliamento potrebbe far pensare a un tributo postumo a un grande studioso e alchimista, che potrebbe allora forse essere, vista la coincidenza con i tratti fisionomici tramandati da un ritratto miniato (111), il medico padovano Michele Savonarola (112), nonno del più famoso' Girolamo (113) che, dopo aver a lungo insegnato all'Università patavina, si era trasferito nel 1450 a lavorare alla corte di Ferrara come medico personale di Niccolò III d'Este (e dopo di lui di Leonello e Borso).

The archaic character of the clothing might suggest a posthumous tribute to a great scholar and alchemist, who could then perhaps be seen, given the coincidence of facial features of an extant illuminated portrait (111), as the Paduan doctor Michele Savonarola (112), grandfather of the more famous Girolamo (113), who, after teaching a long time at the University of Padua, moved in 1450 to work at the court of Ferrara as the personal physician of Niccolo III d'Este (and after him of Leonello and Borso).

___________

111. See in Bologna Codex of 1450  Archiginnasio Library, Bologna, A, 125: see. Carbonelli [Sulle fonti storiche della chmica e dell'alchimia in Italia, Roma] 1925, p. 10 fig. 5.

112. Segarizzi [Delle vita e dele opera di Michele Savonarola, medico padovano del secolo XV, Padova 1900; Carbonelli 1925, pp. 10, 154-157; Samaritani ["Michele Savonarola riformatore cattolico nella corte estense a meta del sec. XV", in Atti e memoria nella deputazione provinciale ferrese di storia patria, III, XXII,] 1976 pp. 1-95 (in particular bibl. pp. 21-22 in footnote 46); Jacquart ["Medecine et alchimie chez Michel Savonarola (1385-1466)", in Alchimia et Philosophie] 1993, pp. 109-122; F. Tomolo, in La Miniature Ferrara 1998, pp. 99-101 cat. 12; Pereira [Arcana Sapienza: l'alchimia dall'origini a Jung] 2001, p. 171; Crisciani [Historia ed exempla; storia e storie in alcuni testi di Michele Savonarola", in Il Principe e la storia] 2005, pp. 53-68; Crisciani, Zuccolini [eds., Michele Savonarola, Medicina e cultura di corte (Micrologus Library, XXXVII] 2011. On the relationship between alchemy and medicine Crisciani, Pereira ["Black Death and Golden Remedies: Some remarks on Alchemy and the Plague", in The Regulation of Evil: Social and Cultural Attitudes to Epidemics in the Late Middle Ages, ed, by A. Paravicini Bagliani, F. Santi] 1998, pp. 7-39; Pereira ["L'alchemista come medico perfetto nel 'Testamentum' pseudolulliano", in C. Crisciani, R. Paravicini Bagliani, eds., Alchimia e medicina nel Mediaevo, 2003], pp. 77-108; Crisciani ["Il famaco d'oro: Alcuni testi tra e secoli XIV e XV", in Crisciani, Paravicini Bagliani 2003], pp. 217-245.

113. Hind, [Early Italian Engraving: A critical Catalogue with Complete Reproductions of all the Prints Described]1938.1, p. 242, proposed the identification of the sitter as Girolamo Savonarola, although aware of the problems of this hypothesis, even concerning the chronology.

This identification fits with the Gnaccolini's proposal that the initials "MS" stand for Marino Sanudo. Sanudo's father represented Venice in Ferrara at the right time, 1457-59, to have known this physician to d'Este. 

It occurs to me that perhaps Hind was not the first to identify the portrait, mistakenly, as that of Girolamo Savonarola, who did indeed turn out to be an embarrassment to Ercole (For more of Gnoccolini's discussion see my blog-entry at http://newmaterialsolabusca.blogspot.com/2015/07/part-5.html.)

As physician, Michele Savonarola was concerned primarily with the physical health of his ducal patients, a concern with their material well-being, in contrast to their own concern with administering the state in conformity with the ethical  ideals of Christianity, i.e. Platonic ideals vs. the physical body. It is then about the congruity of the two.

"Huck" on Tarot History Forum (http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&p=9242) has suggested that the card might represent the friendship between Ferrara and Venice at that time. In that case, the upper figure on the card might have been intended to suggest Alfonso d'Este, the heir-apparent in Ferrara, and the physician as representing Venice, since Padua had for a few centuries been the main city of Venice's holdings on the mainland. In favor of this interpretation, the figure on the card is the right age and has a short beard. Alfonso d'Este, unlike his father, was portrayed with a beard. Also Alfonso did pay a visit to Venice at that time, one in which after some strain (a war, in fact), the traditional ties between the two cities were being renewed. In that sense the card represents the initiation or resumption of cordial relations of a business or diplomatic nature.

CONCLUSION

So what we have in the Twos, and the Popess as well, are various expressions of the Neopythagorean Dyad: as daring separation, as anguish, as desire, and as union, between the archetypal world of form and the physical world of matter.

I don't see that Waite and Smith borrowed much visually from the Sola-Busca in designing their Twos, In Batons there is the same looking off into the distance as in the SB,  and the same feeling of love (although in this case the love-object is present) as in the SB Cups. However the lady in Swords has a determination that the young man in the SB lacks, while she lacks the older friend for support. As for Coins, while two objects in the juggler's hands could be form and matter, or two friends, that is not a natural interpretation. So overall I'd say 25% for borrowing from SB to Smith.

As far as Waite's word-lists in relation to Etteilla's, Waite has added "riches, magnificence" to Etteilla's upright Batons; the two lists correlate at about 75%. In Cups, the Uprights are the same, but Waite has no Reverseds. I do not know if we can count that lack as a lack of correlation. I will count it half, so again we have 75%. He has added only one word, "courage," to Swords; other than that, they are the same. So 90% correlation. In Coins, he has aided "gaiety" and "enforced gaiety" to the uprights and reverseds. So 60% there. The average is 75%.

In relation to Pythagoreanism, the general theme of the Etteilla lists, in all the suits, is that of the rewards and difficulties of two friends who are separated, like the Dyad from the Monad. This is not a surprising result, because Etteilla characterized his method as Cartonomancie, that is, card-reading by numbers. For him the number One is characterized as God, and Two as "man and woman," a distinction that can symbolically fit other entities as well.

The Sola-Busca seems to express the same idea (assuming the man in Batons has a friend in the land from which he is barred). The Pythagoreanism is less clear in the Waite-Smith imagery. It is possible that the lady in Swords feels grief for a dead brother, and I suppose getting vengeance is one way of reuniting. Coins' juggler might be seen metaphorically as a juggling act to maintain friendships with both of two friends who distrust each other (Venice and Ferrara), which would fit the reversed "letter, communication," too.  In the Waite-Smith Cups, the affection is clear enough. For Waite's lists the correlation is closer; perhaps 70% would be a good estimate overall, compared to at least 80% for the SB and Etteilla.

The abstract designs of the Marseille do not suggest any interpretations overtly; the most that I can say is how much they are consistent with Etteilla, the SB, and the number 2. The two dolphins in Cups seem to have an interest in the two flowers they are inspecting, which could suggest the beginning of a loving relationship. That the two Swords touch suggests friendship, and the flower in the center suggests it is blossoming. The belt around the two Coins is not yet very firm, as in a contract of uncertain duration, but there is no suggestion of difficulties.The foliage on the 2 of Batons goes in all directions, suggesting an as yet not very focused plan to create something or express oneself, but that is not the same as chagrin. Coins and Batons do have a relationship with the number 2, if it is considered broadly as relating to the beginning of something, but now with the SB, Etteilla, or Waite.  

 NEOPYTHAGOREAN CONSIDERATIONS IN THE TAROT AFTER ETTEILLA AND D'ODOUCET

As I have already mentioned, Levi simply restored the Marseille order and look to the cards. In regard to the number two, we find his declaration that the High Priestess - Gebelin's term now continued- is "the binary, woman, mother." She "has all the attributes of Isis," who of course was the mother of Horus. For the "binary," he imagines two columns to her left and right. And the cloth behind her is no longer simply a wall-hanging, but a veil separating the revealed from the concealed. These will continue in the tarots that follow. There is also the combination of the Moon and the Sun, the moon is the crescent shaped by the horns of Isis's headress, while the Sun is represented by a solar cross on her breast.

Christian reaffirms Levi on Isis, the two columns, the horns, and the solar cross. The columns are red, for "purity of spirit," and black, for "the night of chaos." It is the duality of matter and spirit, with, in the middle, the fecundation of the first by the second. The veil now falls in front of her head: it is she who is the mystery, half-revealed: she "personifies occult science waiting for the initiate on the threshold of the sanctuary of Isis to communicate to him nature's secrets (History and Practice of Magic, p. 96). This science is represented by the half-hidden book, whose mysteries "reveal themselves in solitude only to the wise man who wraps himself in the cloak of silent meditation" (p. 97). Thus another duality is that of "the perception of visible and invisible things," and the arcanum's keyword "knowledge," the fruit of "will." arcanum one. Finally, there is the duality of matter and spirit, the fecundation of the first by the second.

Papus repeats the idea that she is Isis, now the "reflex of Osiris," the latter being represented by the Bateleur. In Christianity she would be "God the Son" to the Bateleur's "God the Father." These are in the divine world; in the human world she is Eve and woman, and in the physical world the reflex of the natura naturans (nature naturing), the natura naturata (nature natured). The two columns, positive and negative, correspond to the two arms of the Bateleur, one up and one down. The tarot Papus sponsors, executed by Wirth, is a close approximation of Levi's description. It will be repeated, with only small variations, by other occultists.

Here again the designs of Eules Picard are of interest. In Batons, he seems to have taken D'Odoucet's keyword "vegetation" to heart, picturing blades of wheat emanating from the center and grapes hanging from their arbor on top. For him they illustrate "the practical result of two forces associated toward one aim," the union being for an elevated and moral goal. It is not clear whether he means that vegetation must be fertilized to be productive, or that the two agricultural products are themselves the two forces. They perhaps symbolize body and spirit, in particular that of Christ, as in the Eucharist the body and blood of Christ take the form of unleavened bread and wine. At the bottom is a fire (the element corresponding to Batons), which he says turns moisture into vapor; it would seem to be an illustration of a process of elevation. The forecast is for "collaboration."

In Coins we see two discs, one above the surface inscribed with a sun and held by two eagles, the other below the surface, inscribed with the symbols of the earth (the circle surmounted by a cross) and the moon, held by two roots. He says it represents matter under two aspects, above ground and below. He says what is represented is their antagonism, and also the "law of exchanges," the principle of absorption by gold and emancipation by gold. I do not know if this is an alchemical principle, a moral one, i.e. that wealth can enslave as well as liberate, or simply about money as the medium of exchange.. I cannot help but notice that in light of the Popess card the two opposites would be Osiris and Isis, or the sun and the moon, which are not exactly antagonistic. Nor is the prognostication, which he declares is "business contract."

In Cups it is the sun and the moon again, now described as active and passive; this time they are side by side on the two cups, with a crown of roses, flower of Venus. It is the principle of love, the attraction of opposites. "Engagement" is the forecast, if surrounded by favorable cards.

In Swords it is the antagonism of two opposing forces, shown here as water and fire in their extreme forms of tempest and lightning. "Rupture, Duel" is the forecast.

Jodorowsky, basing himself on the tarot of Marseille, mainly the popular one, of Conver in 1761 (2nd above) but with some variations, takes the Theology's declaration that 2 is not a number, but the basis of number, quite seriously. There is still no action, yet it is not simple potentiality: "It involves gathering one's strength, desires, ideas, and feelings in preparation for taking action" (p. 60). There is a passive receptivity, as shown in the Popess, who is cloistered, and the Hanged Man, who has his hands tied behind him. 

The 2 of Wands shows the accumulation of desires, Jodorowsky says. Three-petaled flowers growing at each side of the center add up to 6, the number of "pleasure and beauty," the goal of the quest in Wands. Energy is received in the dark blue center and spreads out into the red of action. He finds the number 7 as well, that of the petals at the ends of the two vertical stems; to Jodorowsky these are the 7 chakras, the body's "seven sacred nerve centers" (p. 281) yet to be awakened.

The 2 of Cups exhibits the accumulation of feelings as the preparation for love. At this stage it is a narcissistic love, beginning with a fascination with oneself and the projection of of one's soul upon the beloved being. The two aquatic animals at the top represent this division in the ego; their licking (or nudging?) of that flower prepares it for the insemination to come. Jodorowsky has a 2 of Cups with a phoenix at the bottom (I have not yet found a historical example). This indicates to him the immolation of this immature, incestuous Oedipal love and its replacement in the 4s by the family.

In Swords, the mind is an accumulation of plans, myths, information, and theories. Its center is red, echoed in the red of the horizontal petals. "Before it has been crafted," he says, "thought appears in the brain as chaos" (p. 280). The petals indeed do go in a variety of directions, even though they also have a certain symmetry. He observes the black in the center of the card and the "essentially black" blades of the swords, both indicating the void: "the purpose of the mind is to reach the void" (p. 280). The light blue petals are receptive of light. In the central part of the card there are 8 petals and 8 stems; this presence of 8 indicates "a profound desire for perfection," which for him is represented by that number.

He sees the two coins of the 2 of Coins as "in the depths of the earth" and then, when crafted, "money for exchange." The lower coin shows three crawling serpents, he imagines: the work leading to awareness begins with the acceptance of the matter that will subsequently become spiritualized, the pentacle transformed into a halo."

In all this, I am impressed on how much Jodorowsky's conceptions have in common with those of Picard before him. The scene in Picard's Swords is one of chaos and mutual dissolution, fire with water, toward a void from which will emerge new being. Cups are preparation for love and a family. The Coins are above and below ground, just as Jodorowsky imagines, illustrating a "law of exchange." The vegetables of Picard's Batons card represent earthly pleasures (drinking and eating) as well as the accumulation of goods useful for higher purposes.