"If you talk about the Sky; you’ll immediately find the Moon. Someone calls it ornament of the night, mother of the dew, minister of humour, ruler of the sea, measure of time, imitator of the Sun, worker of air".
(Thomaso Garzoni da Bagnacavallo, De’ Cervelloni universali, & ingegnosi - Discorso XXXIIII in "Il Theatro de’ vari e diversi cervelli mondani", page 157, Reggio, 1585)
In the Charles VI Tarot (figure 1) and in the Ercole I d’ Este Tarot (figure 2) the Moon is represented as a star studied by astrologers. In the Visconti Tarot pack (figure 3) a young girl holds the crescent moon in her hand in accordance with a common method used for other cards, such as the Stars card in the same pack or the same card in Bartolomeo Colleoni’s Tarot. In the Saint Clemente basilica in Rome, a fresco represents Saint Christopher while he’s going to cross young Jesus who's holding a full moon in his hand, and it is an example of light, as Saint Ambrogio said: “Ergo annuntiavit luna misterium Christi” (Therefore I announced you through the moon, Christ’s mystery).
In Cary’s sheet we find a completely different image: the moon dominates with its rays a half terrestrial and half aquatic landscape. In the water there’s a crab or cancer. On the hilly ground there are two opposite buildings (figure 4).
Cancer is the zodiacal abode of the moon, and also an animal that symbolizes Inconstanza (Inconstancy) as I found in Cesare Ripa’s essay Iconologia (figure 5), in which Inconstancy is represented with a “Woman who tramples on a great Crab, made the same as the one painted in Zodiac; she is dressed in deep blue, and holds the moon in her hands. The crab is an animal that walks forwards and backwards with same inclination as those who are irresolute and love contemplation, but sometimes they do love action, or war, or peace. In the same way the moon is very inconstant, for what our eyes can see, so one says that the fool changes as the moon does, that doesn't stay the same way for just an hour" (Donna che passi co' piedi sopra un Granchio grande, fatto come quello, che si dipinge nel Zodiaco; sia vestita di color torchino, e in mano tenga la luna. Il granchio è animale, che cammina inanzi, e indietro, con eguale dispositione, come fanno quelli che essendo irresoluti, or lodono la contemplazione, hora l'attione, hora la guerra, hora la pace... La Luna, medesimamente, è mutabilissima, per quanto ne giudicano gli occhi nostri; pero si dice, che lo stolto si cangia come la luna, che non sta mai un' hora nel medesimo modo…) (pages 276-277, ed. 1669).
A polysemic aspect, for the various properties that Ancients gave to the Pulsar, connotes the presence of the two towers represented on the card: on one hand they are correlated to the Platonic myth of the descending of the soul into generation (about the description of the myth, please refer to the iconological analysis of the card of the Stars); on the other hand they get the function of lighthouses.
According to the Neo-Platonic thought the Moon has a double aspect: it is kingdom of the dead and place of birth, which dissolves and regenerates the bodies. The myth is described in different ancient texts, among which in the De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet by Plutarch: “The Moon belongs to Persephone, Demeter’s daughter who owns the earth; the good men live on it after their bodies have died, waiting for the second death. Really, the man is composed not by one but by three parts: body, soul and intellect and the reciprocal division of these last two is not traumatic, as it is about the detach from the body, but gradual and full of joy. The souls of the dead contemplate the nature of the moon, that corresponds to their state of transition, as it is a mixture of terrestrial and astral elements…Finally the intellect separates from the soul to reach its own place, that is the sun: and just the souls stay on the moon, keeping the image of the body, until they completely dissolve, quickly and easily the ones of the good and the wise, slowly and hardly those of the bad ones. The moon will then produce new souls and will transmit them to the bodies born from the earth, giving them the intellect coming from the sun” (Dario del Corno, introduction to, Plutarch, The face of the Moon, Milan, 1991, pages 37-38).
This myth, very famous in the XVI century, inspired Ariosto who in his Orlando Furioso wrote about Astolphe who went on the moon, considered as repository of the intelligence of men, to recover the one of Orland, who had gone crazy.
The same myth to which the creators - or the creator - of the Cary sheet, surely referred, since they deeply knew much about philosophy. According to Iamblichus, “The souls live around or under the moon and from here the go down into generation” (Laura Simonini, edited by, Porfirius, The Cavern of the Nymphs, Milan, 1986, page 176). So there is a continuous path of new souls who go down from the moon to earth and of as many dead’ souls who go up from earth to the moon. In this constant coming and goings, the two towers define the space that divides the kingdom of the Moon governed by Persephone from the one of the earth ruled by Demeter. A limit that cannot be crossed by no one but by the renewed souls or by those who leave their body, except demons who descend from the Moon to earth “to take care of oracles, to assist and participate to supreme mysteries, being guardians and to revenge injustices and shine as savers in battles and on the sea” (Plutarch, op. cit., page 112). Therefore, the two towers become, as Porfirius writes, the doors of the descending and the ascent of the souls towards and from the generation: Cancer is the way from which the souls descend and Capricorn the one from which they go up again.
It is necessary to note, about these doors, that Porfirius in De Antro, refers that the “theologicians” (that means Chaldeans, Orphic and Pythagoreans) instead considered as descending and ascending doors respectively that of the Moon and the one of the Sun (§29), a not unique variant: for example according to Firmicus Maternus the souls descended from the sun and went up again to the moon (Cfr. Silio Italico, Pun.,13, 556). To demonstrate the awareness of this myth we find that in the card of the Moon by Paul Marteau, to whose tarots created in 1930 is due the decoding of the symbols expressed in the Marseille Tarot, the drops go up to the sky form earth to represent the ascent of the souls, according to the theory by Firmicus Maternus.
Already in Pindar (fr.133 Snell-Maehler) Persephone is the queen of the cycle of rebirth. In Orient the Moon is mother of the Universe and warehouse of all the germs (Giovanni Lido, De mens. 2,6; 3,4; 4,53). The double aspect of the Moon – Kingdom of the dead and place of birth, that dissolves and generates bodies – has its origins in the fact that the Moon is the principle star of rhythms of life, submitted to the universal law of coming to life, growing up and die: it is the “first dead”.
Kore-Persephone is said Melitōdēs (honey goddess), already in Theocritus (Idilli, 15, 94): the medieval notes interpret it as euphemistic appellation, since Persephone, as underground goddess brings to human life not honey but bitterness. The Moon called balm “bee”, is the entity that presides over the entry of the souls into generation through the door of Cancer, its house (De Antro, chapters 22, 28). In the contest of De Antro the appellation melitōdēs assumes a different meaning: if honey is the pleasure of generation, Kore-Moon is “honeyed” because into it the souls acquire the generative power (Laura Simonini, op.cit., page 175. About the qualities of honey in relation to the myth, see what we have described in the iconological analysis of the card of the Stars).
Concerning the function of the two towers as lighthouses, it necessary to know that Ancients attributed to the Moon the property to be always a light for sailors. In Natale Conte’ s Mythology dated 1551, the author writes that the Moon was “Worshipped by Egyptians with the name of Isis and it was assigned to storms and to sailors as Luciano affirms in his Dialogue between Zephyrus and Noto" (Venerata dagli Egiziani col nome di Iside e preposta alle tempeste e ai naviganti come attesta Luciano nel Dialogo Zefiro e Noto). (Book III, cap. XVIII, page 468).
Cartari reports an image of the goddess (figure 6) holding a little ship in her hand and defining her “Isis Egyptian goddess image which is the Moon regarded as the sailors goddess…and then there were those who gave her a little ship in her right hand, through it they intended to show, that she passed to Egypt, aware that there was a feast as Lattanzio writes, dedicated to Isis’ Shipping" (Imagine d’ Iside dea Egittia che è la Luna tenuta la dea de naviganti... e che sono poi stati di quelli, li quali le hanno dato nella destra mano una navicella, con la quale volevano farsi mostrare, che ella passò in Egitto, conciosia che quivi fosse celebrata una festa come scrive Lattanzio, dedicata alla Nave di Iside) (pages 85-86). The relation Moon-Isis as Goddess of sailors, is also underlined in a fourteenth-century capital of the Ducal Palace in Venice, where the Goddess travels on a boat holding in her hand the lunar scythe, accompanied by Cancer exalted in its ideal domicile (figure 7).
Really, in Apuleio’s Metamorphosis the author describes the Isis Ship giving us a great representation of this ritual. Pignoria, writing about an ancient cameo representing the goddess, says: “In the cameo Isis is represented in the same way as she is in ancient medals of Hadriano and of Antonino Pio; and for me this figure means Isis' Shipping, mentioned in the Ancient Rustic Calendar. And in Antonino Pio’s medal we see a lighthouse that confirms this conjecture. You can read it in Apuleio’s 11th book" (Nel cameo s’e rappresentata Iside come si vede nelle medaglie antiche di Hadriano e di Antonino Pio;... et significa questa figura a mio giudicio il Navigio d’Iside, del quale si fa menzione nel Calendario Rustico Antico. Et nella medaglia d'Antonino si vede un Faro di Porto che tanto piu conferma la congettura. Leggasi Apuleio nell’11) (Lorenzo Pignoria in Notes to Cartari' s Book of Images in “Ancient Gods images”, 1647, page 298). The Numismatic Cabinet of Castello Sforzesco in Milan, holds many different coins in conformity with the way that Pignoria had described them. They are bronze Alexander drachmas of the imperial age made coined by Antonino Pio (138 - 161). On these coins there is Isis' breast on one side and “Isis Pharia”, or the goddess sailing towards a lighthouse on a wood, on the other side (figure 8).
The Moon was called “Three shaped” by Ancients and its three aspects were put in relation with as many virtues. Cartari in his work writes: “She is called Hecate and Triforme Moon, for all the shapes she shows in her body more or less depend on the position of the sun that lights or hides it, and three are her virtues. One is when she shows the light to mortals and lighting things grow. The other is when she is half alighted. The third is when she’s full (moon)” (È chiamata Luna Hecate e Triforme, per le varie figure, ch’ella mostra nel corpo suo secondo che più, o meno si trova essere discosto dal Sole, onde sono parimenti tre le virtù sue. L’una è quando comincia a mostrare il lume a' mortali, porgendo con quello accrescimento alle cose…L’altra è quando ha già la metà di tutto il lume... La terza è nello intiero lume) (page 80).
These three aspects of the three shaped Moon are represented in the cary sheet: the lighthouses that are on both sides of the card symbolize the first moon appearing and the half moon, while the star shining above and in the middle of the card emphasizes the full moon. And in addition there are the three phases: crescent, full and waning moon, other aspects of the triple designation of the Moon whose light, in each of its phases is a lighthouse for those who are sailing on the sea. Probably, the water that is represented on the low side of the card is connected to the moment during which the moon does not appear for it is hidden by the sea, in accordance with ancients belief. About this Cartari writes: "Returning to Apuleio - he says - that by sleeping he thought he saw this Goddess - the Moon - who was rising from the sea - for poets pretended that the Sun, the Moon and all the others stars when waning went diving in the sea and therefore that they went up when they were appearing – slowly showing their bright bodies" (Ritornando ad Apuleio - ei dice - che dormendo li parve vedere questa Dea (la Luna) la quale con riverenda faccia usciva dal Mare - perché finsero i Poeti, che il Sole, la Luna, e tutte le altre stelle tramontando si andassero a tuffar nel mare, e che quindi uscissero al loro primo apparire - e a poco a poco mostrò poi tutto il lucido corpo). (page 87).
Referring to the obscure Moon, to quote Saint Ambrogio, Cartari underlines once more the fickleness of the star, whose instability becomes a moral teaching not to be imitated by men “ Therefore this moon image in addition to natural things shown in her, could teach us something more useful in human life, look at what the Blessed Ambrogio says, taking example from her -the moon-, whose light is almost instable, because she changes now she grows, and then wanes. She warns us that there is no stability in human things and that everything dies as time passes. For this reason someone said that ancient Romans of noble family used to put little moons on their feet, to be warned about the world’s unsteadiness and not to be proud even if they were rich, because richness and all the things that human being consider rich, behave just as the moon does, now she's brilliant and shining, now she’s getting thinner and shows a weak light and then she becomes obscure and cannot be seen anymore" (Et acciocche questa immagine della Luna, oltre alle cose naturali, che in essa sono mostrate, ce ne insegni qualche altra più utile alla vita umana, riguardiamo a quello, che dice il Beato Ambrogio, il quale con l'esempio di questa, il cui lume si può chiamare ragionevolmente incerto, perche mutandosi tuttavia hor cresce, e hora scema, ci ammonisce, che fra le cose humane non è fermezza alcuna, e che tutte col tempo si disfanno. Et per questo dicevano alcuni, che gli antichi Romani di famiglia nobile portavano ne i piedi certe Lunette, con essere con quelle spesso ammoniti della istabilità delle cose humane, accioche non insuperbissero, ancora che fossero di molti beni copiosi, e abbondanti, perché le ricchezze, e altre cose tanto stimate da' mortali fanno apunto, come la Luna, la quale hora è tutta luminosa, e risplendente, hora assotiglia in modo, il lume, che di sé mostra più poco, e all’ultimo così diventa oscura, che più non vi pare essere) (page 91).
The presence of the dog in the great iconography of the goddess, underlines the relationship between the Moon and Diane as Guglielmo Choul tell us in his Essay on ancient roman religion dated 1569 showing us an ancient medal dedicated to Giulia Pia “To show more clearly that in those times the Moon and Diane were the same person, I have put another bronze medal of Giulia here on which Lucifer Moon is written" (Et per mostrare anchora meglio che Diana et Luna erano in quel tempo una medesima cosa, io ho fatto qui mettere un' altra medaglia di bronzo de la medesima Giulia nella quale è scritto Luna Lucifera) (page 81). In the image the goddess is portrayed with a dog at her feet, and she's keeping a torch high. About this torch Cartari says that “For sure the lighted torch in Diane’s hand still shows that she lights the road to travellers in the night and for this reason she was called guidance and leader" (Può l’accesa face in mano di Diana….mostrare anchora, ch’ella lucendo di notte fa la scorta a’viandanti, e perciò era chiamata quivi Diana Scorta, e duce) (page 78). A beautiful image of the goddess with these attributes (figure 9) can be found in Natale Conte’s Mythology (1616 edition). The dog and other animals that accompany her, such as deer and snakes, symbolize inseparable human instincts to dominate to get to the “Just Men City”, that, to Omero, the goddess held dearer. (J. Chevalier - A. Gheerbrant, Symbols Dictionary, 1986, volume I, page 103).
The later presence of two dogs, one black and the other white, in the Moon card, such as that of Marseille Tarot (figure 10), has exact references in medieval context. The two dogs or other animals become the symbols of day and night, according to a widespread concept that linked these two colours to two different and opposite situations. When talking about the Moon cart dragged by two horses, Cartari affirms that “One of these horses was black and the other one was white, as Boccaccio says, because the moon does not only appear at night but it can even be seen during the day" (Di questo l’uno era negro, e l’altro bianco, come dice il Boccaccio, perché non solamente appare di notte la luna, ma si vede anche il dì) (page 75).
I found another example of this kind of representation of day and night in a wonderful painting by Jacopo del Sellaio The Triumph of Time (figure 11) that is now at the Bandini Museum in Fiesole: the Old man sits on the sun circle on which hours are numbered. Under this, in correspondence with dark and light hours, there are a white and a black dog to indicate time that's passing by without stopping, in daytime as at night time. The dog colours in the Moon card symbolize, in accordance with a typical Renaissance concept, that the star virtue is always present even when it does not appear, as Catari writes: “Virtue has its strength not only in the Sky, where it is called Moon, but even on earth, where it is called Diana, and even down to Hell, where it is called Hecate, and Proserpina, for she's been thought to go down there all that time that she's been hidden to us" (La virtù sua ha forza non solamente in Cielo, ove la chiamano Luna, ma in terra anchora, ove la dicono Diana, e fin giù nell'Inferno, ove Hecate la dimandano, e Proserpina, perch'ella è creduta scendere nell'Inferno tutto quel tempo, che à noi sta nascosta) (page 80).
In the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, but even later as we can see in iconology essays, human virtues were usually compared to animal virtues. Saint Ambrogio in his Hexaemeron (VI, c. IV, 17) affirms that the dog should be a model for Christians for the fidelity and gratitude it shows to its benefactors. In the book Archbishop, bishop of Adria, Carlo Labia’s pastoral ventures dated 1685, in “Impresa LXXX - Non valent latrare” (Emblem LXXX - There is no need to bark) (page 906) the dog qualities such as “capacity, fidelity, pity, constancy and gratitude” are listed as qualities that every bishop should possess to carry out his pastoral duty.
A wonderful example of two dogs, one black and one white, represented in this way, can be seen at the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini. The Temple is one of the most important buildings of the Humanistic Age in Italy by architect Leon Battista Alberti, commissioned by Pandolfo Sigismondo Malatesta Lord of Rimini. This building is more similar to a pagan temple than to a Christian church, and it really seems a neo platonic monument. Valturio declares that the building’s iconographic planning was inspired by Philosophy or rather “to more hidden secret of Philosophy” that could be reached only by true experts. In reality, one of the chapels deals with planets, with civilisation and Egyptian Theology symbols. Alberti started to work in 1450 and ended ten years later after Sigismondo Malatesta was condemned by Pope Pio II Piccolomini. He was a refined intellectual humanistic man "but since the Pope knew and shared intellectual habitat and symbolic system values which are the building basis, he knew well how to interpret it, even “ex contrario”, and gave a cruelly exact and very strong interpretation" (Antonio Paolucci, Il Tempio Malatestiano, 2000, pages 9 - 10).
Pope Pio II defined it a place of pagan rituals and a temple “of infidels demon worshippers”, and he used his knowledge for political ends. The object of my study is a a fresco representing Sigismondo praying to Saint Sigismondo (figure 12) painted by Piero della Francesca in 1451, formerly situated in the Cell of Relics and now next to the altar. The interesting thing here is the presence of two dogs, one black one white, on the right of the fresco, crouched and with their muzzles pointing in two different and opposite directions (figure 13).
Their presence is due to a specified allegory: fidelity and gratitude of Sigismund toward his protector Saint here are exalted in the representation of these animals, always considered as symbols of such virtues. The dogs' colours demonstrate that Sigismondo’s fidelity is always alive, in daytime and at night time. Their muzzles pointing in different directions prove that Sigismondo's devotion to Saint Sigismondo is not only present now, but it has always been and always will be there: in the past as in the future. As far as I know, this is the first iconological interpretation of this figure of the two dogs in the fresco.
Going ahead in this study about the Moon dogs symbolism in the Renaissance, we found that they are connected to the uselessness of strong excesses born under the star. The emblem from Alciati CLXV “Inanis impetus” (Vainless strength) (page 695, 1621 edition) (figure 14) is very expressive: “At night the dog looks at Moon's face as if it were a mirror, and looking at it, he believes there is another dog and barks: but his voice vainly goes in the wind and Diane goes on travelling impassive" (Lunarem noctu, ut speculum, canis inspicit orbem seque videns, alium credit inesse canem et latrat: sed frustra agitur vox irrita ventis, et peragit cursus surda Diana suos).
In Vieville Tarot there's a woman who's spinning under the Moon (figure 15). As I said before about the Sun card in Charles VI Tarot, the Fates myth is strictly in relationship to the Moon for it generates life. Really the Moon, as ancient people knew, influences human moods and plants growing, influences sea tides and human births. Cartari writes that the Moon: “For it is a humid planet, sometimes it makes the time run fast so that babies are born in the seventh month of pregnancy, and it makes birth easy" (Per essere pianeta humido affretta il tempo tal’ hora con il suo flusso, onde ne nascono alle volte i figliuoli nel settimo mese, che è a lei sottoposto e fa quasi sempre il parto più facile). And about Fates, the same author affirms, quoting Varrone, that these goddesses “Are assigned to birth and take care about that, for this reason Latin called them Tenth and Ninth for birth is generally in the ninth and tenth months. But since whoever is born has to die, the third Fate was called Death, for she was believed to give death to human beings" (Sono state dette dal partorire, come a quelle ne toccasse la cura: donde venne che i Latini ne chiamarono una Decima, l'altra Nona, perche il tempo del maturo parto, è quasi sempre a l’uno di questi duo mesi, nono, e decimo. Ma perche chi ci nasce ha pur anco da morire, fu detta la terza delle Parche morta dalla morte, con la quale era creduta mettere fine al vivere humano) (page 223).
(In the text, wherever references to Vincenzo Cartari Images of Ancient Gods are not explained, I intend to refer to the 1609 Venice edition).