In 2002 I had the great
pleasure of visiting the Camera di San Paolo in Parma,
I also had the good
fortune to be armed with a copy, albeit it Xeroxed, of Erwin Panofsky’s work on
the Camera. of Corregio.
Date.
Structure of Camera.
Now we know, that the
methodology that Panofsky follows in his analysis and treatment of the
iconology of the Camera, is in essence, that of the greater technique developed
by the various scholars of the Warburg Institute in London, and published in
their learned Journal, from the first volume in 1931 up to the present.
We could also include
in this survey, the work on the Palazzo Schifanoia by Abby Warburg, and more
recently, Kristen Lippencourt, also
ongoing. From this point we could include all the great astrological frescoes
of the Renaissance, and ask ourselves, if an interrogation of their
iconological programmes would have any bearing on the emergence of the Tarot.
Firstly, we have to be
clear, that though there is some dispute as to the exact date of the emergence
of the Tarot, no one is in doubt as to its full blown externalisation, some
time during the 1400’s. I am being purposefully vague, because the fine tuning
is available in the excellent research being conducted at present, in various
online Forums, and over the past decades, such as the work of Michael Dummett.
What I am saying, is that there was not a fully externalised Tarot in the 13th
century, or the 12th or the 11th etc.
Now to return to
Panofsky, and the Camera de San Paolo, as my chosen example, we find that Panofsky rigorously explores
the possible sources of the 16 emblematic pictures of the Camera. His
conclusions are very interesting, to say the least. For example, some of the
images we find in the Renaissance, are inherited from classical mythology, usually
Greek, reformulated by Rome. Renaissance Humanists, were as we know,
deeply interested in antiquarian studies, and there was a growth industry in
collecting classical artefacts, be they
coins, sculptures, and so on.
One such area of
renewed interested in classical culture comes to us in the unexpected form of
the grotesques, which we have inherited in a decorative transmission. During
the 1490’s artists lowered themselves in
wicker baskets, into the then subterranean vaults of the Domus Aurea of
Nero. We know who they were from the graffiti they left behind. Very
rapidly, the style of the grotesque,
spread like wildfire. But, it was not only the decorative qualities of this
florid Roman style that caught the attention of artists and connoisseurs of the
antique. If we look at the Francesco di Hollania paintings made from the Domus
Aurea, now in the Escorial, we find certain esoteric content as well. There are
Dionysian themes, and at least one image of an initiation of some form.
87. Mystery scene.
From
the House of Nero.
87.
Painting from the Neronian Domus Aurea, from a copy by Francisco de Hollanda,
in the Escurial codex 28, I, 20 fol. I3V and fol. 14. See Fr. Weege: Das
goldene Haus des Nero, Jahrb. deutsch. Archaol. Instit. 28, 1913, p. 179 et
seq., plate 9b; Rizzo: Dionysos Mystes fig. 10. Nilsson: Dion.
Myster., p. 85, fig. 16.
— A
young initiate, veiled, below a cradle with the phallus; a female figure rising
from the earth, with a basket. This detail (for which cf. no. 86) suggests a mixture
of Demetriac and Dionysiac ritual.