The card of the Stars of the Visconti Sforza Tarots (figure 1) and that of the Colleoni Tarot (figure 2) show a girl holding high a star with her hand. The Tarot of Ercole I d’ Este (figure 3) show two astrologers scanning the sky. A single astrologer appears on the Vieville Card (figure 4). The Three Kings appear on the card of the Rothschild collection, depicted as they uphold the crown of Christ. One of the Magi, holding a vase with gifts in his hand, is shown riding a horse on the Florentine minchiate (figure 5). All the Stars shown on these cards have eight points: we shall later see what this means.

A substantial change in iconography begins to take place in the 16th century, in the Cary folio: a naked girl is shown kneeling, pouring out the liquid contained in two pitchers into a water course. Above her, in the sky, a great star appears, together with another four small stars, two by two on each side of the large star (figure 6). She is a Naiad, a river nymph depicted in the usual fashion of 16th century iconology texts. There is a splendid example painted in the Chamber of Psyche of Palazzo Te in Mantua (figure 7). I found this allegory explained in the De antro Nympharum, a work written in the second century AD, by the neo-Platonist Porphyry whose works were of great interest throughout the Middle Ages.

Michael Psellus (11th Cent.) drew up a compendium of the Porphyrian interpretation of the De Antro, but Porphyry was rediscovered through the work of the Florentine Platonists Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. In the 16th century, when printing of the Greek texts of Platonism flourished, enriched with the works attributed to the ancient theologians - Orpheus, Pythagoras, Zoroaster, the Chaldean Oracles, the Hermetic texts - the first printed edition of this work was published, edited by Lascaris and published in Rome in 1518. Pico della Mirandola in his Oratio de hominis dignitate praised the richness and the “Multiiuga religio” (Many faceted religion) of Porphyry, whereas Politian admired his Vita Plotini (Plotinus Life) as a blend of history and oratory.

Porphyry interpreted the cavern of Ithaca described in Homer’s verse, in the light of a basic theme of Plato’s thought: the descent of the soul into the world and its return to God. The verses of Homer are the following: “At the end of the port, there is an olive tree with large leaves: close to a pleasant  grotto, dark, sacred to the Nymphs called Naiads. In it are stone craters and amphorae; there the bees deposit their honey. And there are high stone looms, where the Nymphs weave purple mantles, a marvel to see; here perennial waters flow; there are two doors, one, towards Boreas, is the descent for men, the other, which turns towards Notus, is for the gods and is not crossed by men, but is the path trod by the immortals” (§1).

For Porphyry, the cavern becomes the representation of the Cosmos, and in this sense he refers numerous analogies to the cult of Mithra; the Nymphs and the bees are souls; the purple mantles woven by the Nymphs represent the body as it grows around the bones, while the two doors of the cavern are the paths along which the cosmic trail of the soul descends and rises again. But let us read what Porphyry has to say: «Theologians used to place the symbol of the cosmos and of the intelligible essence in the cavern...(§9). By Nymphs and Naiads, in a specific sense, we mean the powers which preside over the waters, but the theologians used to use this name for all the souls in general which descended through generation. In fact, they believed that all the souls used to rest on water which, as Numenius says, is divinely inspired; he says that this is precisely why the prophet also said: “the divine breath moved over the water» (§10). Numenius, a master of Porphyry, in these verses quotes the prophet Moses, whom he compared to Plato, the “Moses who spoke in Attic”. The reference is to the verses “…and the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters” taken from the Book of Genesis (1, 2).

Porphyry writes this about the members of the body developing around the bones: «The stone craters and amphorae are very suitable symbols for the nymphs who preside over the water springing forth from the rock, and what symbol could be more fitting for the souls which descend into generation and tend towards the creation of the body? Therefore the poet had the boldness to say that on these looms, “they weave purple mantles, a marvel to see”. Flesh in fact is formed on the bones and around them, in living creatures bones are stone, because they are similar to stone; therefore they say that the looms too are made of stone and not of other material; the purple mantles, obviously, are flesh, that is the tissue which is formed from blood» (§14).

Porphyry also lets us know why the amphorae are full, not of water, but of honey: “Theologians use honey in many very different symbols, because it is a substance which has many properties, since it has both the power to purify and the power to preserve...(§15). Therefore, honey is used to purify, to preserve against rotting, and as a symbol of the seductive force which induces to generation; this is why it is also appropriate for water nymphs, as a symbol of the uncontaminated purity of the waters - which are presided over by the nymphs - of their purifying virtue and of their cooperation in the generating process: water, in fact, cooperates with generation” (§17). Bees, like the Naiad Nymphs, become for Porphyry, a representation of souls: «Springs and banks belong to the water Nymphs, and especially to the soul-nymphs whom the ancients specifically called bees, since they are makers of pleasure. Therefore, Sophocles used the right expression when, speaking of souls, he said “The swarm of the dead buzzes as it comes to light” » (§18). One also finds the relationship between souls and bees in Plato (Phaedrus, 82 b) who compares temperate and just souls to bees, wasps and ants as civilized species in which only men may reincarnate.

The two doors of the cavern of Ithaca are identified by Porphyry as the two constellations from which the soul descends into generation, and then returns: “If we see the cavern as the image and symbol of the cosmos, Numenius and his follower Chronios say that there the sky has two extremities: of these, one is not further south than the winter tropic, the other is not further north than the summer tropic. The summer tropic coincides with the constellation of the Cancer, the winter one with the constellation of the Capricorn. And since the Caner is very close to us, it is logically attributed to the Moon, which is the closest to the earth; the Capricorn, since the south pole is invisible, is indicated by the farthest and highest planet” (§21). And again “Theologians, therefore, saw these two signs, Cancer and Capricorn, which Plato called openings - as doors, and they said that the Cancer is the door through which the souls descend, while the Capricorn is the door through which they rise again. The Cancer to the north is the descending path, the Capricorn to the south is the rising path. The northern regions therefore belong to the souls descending into generation, and therefore as is right, the gate of the cavern facing north is accessible to human beings; the southern regions are not the place of the gods, but of those who return to the gods, and this is why the poet said that this is the path, not of the gods, but of the immortals, an expression which is fit for souls, since they are immortal in themselves or in their essence” (§22-23).

The naked girl under the stars, therefore, represents a Naiad Nymph, the Platonic symbol of the descent of the soul into generation. The close relationship between the soul and the sky, the point of origin and return of the soul, was a general belief of the Ionian Physiology (6th-5th century B.C), but took on its definite form, starting out with Plato's myths described in the Phaedrus and Timaeus. The presence of these iconographical elements in the Myth even illustrated in the cards of the Moon and of the Sun of the same sheet of the XVI century, testify the insertion of a cosmological theme of neo-platonic nature that culminated with the representation of the Anima Mundi in the card of the World. These iconographical models have been maintained in all the following production of the classical tarots decks.

The relationship between water and life is to be found again in Christian mysticism. On the right shoulder of the Naiad, represented in the Cary folio, a small eight-pointed star appears, like those depicted in the sky. The same star often appears on the mantle of the Virgin Mary, signifying fullness of life (figure 8 - Mater Dei Galaktotrofusa, Byzantine Museum, Athens). This number is related to the eighth day of Creation, when the universe took on life in its totality, after God rested on the seventh day. Christian baptisteries are in fact octagonal, this number indicating the fullness of life which is obtained through the waters of baptism.

To represent birth into the world, an Italian tarot (always from the 16th century, currently in Rouen) shows Venus coming out of the water of the sea (figure 9). Already the Sumerians saw Venus as “she who shows the path to the Stars”, symbol of birth as goddess of Love “D’ onde viene la generatione umana” (From which human generation comes) (Cartari, Imagini de gli dei de gli Antichi, 1647, page 279). In the latter image, the goddess holds a lance in her right hand, an object which became part of her attributes together with the bow and arrows. For the ancient Persians, according to a concept which then became part of Greek and Roman mythology, Venus, as goddess of the evening, favoured love and voluptuousness, while as goddess of the morning, she presided over warfare and massacres (Dhorme Edouard, Les Religions de Babylonia et d’Assyrie, 1949, page 68).

The lance held in Venus’ hand becomes a spindle at the top, and it is always Cartari who enlightens us about this matter: “Et appresso di Pausania si legge, che Venere fu posta da i Greci per una delle parche... e che nel tempio a lei dedicato erano guardati gli ornamenti de i morti, per ammonirci della fragilità della vita humana, il principio, e la fine della quale era in potere di una medesima dea. Perché Venere fu la Dea della generatione, e il farla la più vecchia delle Parche voleva a punto dire, che ella metteva fine al vivere humano” (And in Pausanias, we read that Venus was seen by the Greeks as one of the Fates… and in the temple dedicated to her, the ornaments of the dead were kept, to admonish us about the fragility of human life, the beginning and the end of which were both in the power of the same goddess. Because Venus was the Goddess of generation, and making her the eldest of the Fates meant that she put an end to human living) (1647, pp. 161 -162).