Elite Illuminism & Saturnian Ritual in Renaissance Italy

Decoding a Late-Byzantine Pagan Theurgical & Magical System

Encoded Within the Sola-Busca Tarocchi

Peter Mark Adams

Introduction

One of the more curious and intriguing artefacts to emerge from the fifteenth century is a

deck of cards known as the Sola-Busca tarocchi (circa 1491). To counteract any tendency to

disregard its importance as merely another ‘gaming’ deck, we need to recall that there was a

longstanding tradition of encoding elaborate conceptual schemes within a range of artistic

artefacts including so-called ‘noble’ tarocchi. Unlike the decks of cards that were actually

used for gaming, ‘noble’ tarocchi were not created for such mundane purposes; indeed, the

near perfect condition of the Sola-Busca after some five hundred years indicates that it was

never so used. ‘Noble’ tarocchi were commissioned by the great ducal houses, in this case by

the House of Este, Dukes of Ferrara and Modena; involved substantial expense; employed the

finest materials and utilised master craftsmen. In the case of the Sola-Busca, the complexity

of its design, the richness and, in some cases, obscurity of its literary and historical source

material, strongly suggest that its conceptual design was executed by a learned court scholar

with intimate knowledge of and access to the ducal library; and who, in addition, would need

to have been well-versed in history, literature and Platonic metaphysics, as well as being an

expert in both astrology and its practical application in theurgy and astral magic. Evidence

adduced from the historical and artistic circumstances of the d’Este court between 1470 and

1491 (when the print that would become the Sola-Busca was painted, personalised with the
coats of arms of the Venetian patrician Sanudo-Venier families and dated to mark its

completion) suggests that this designer was no other than Pellegrino Prisciani, a Renaissance

polymath and a commanding intellectual presence at the d’Este court in those years.1 As

court astrologer (just one of the many roles this able and powerful courtier held, roles which

included court archivist, professor of mathematics, chief magistrate and diplomat) Prisciani

had previously designed and supervised the execution of the large, astrologically themed and

talismanic2 fresco cycle of the Palazzo Schifanoia, one of the Renaissance’s masterworks

described by Aby Warburg as proceeding from,

“the hand of a conceptual architect well able to appreciate the profoundest harmonies of

Greek cosmology”3

Whoever the conceptual designer of the Sola-Busca was, he must have worked in tandem

with a Ferrarese master engraver (dubbed the ‘Master of the Sola-Busca Tarocchi’4) over the

course of at least one year to complete the seventy-eight sophisticated engravings required by

the project. Given that Ferrara was then in the throes of a severe economic depression, due to

the lingering effects of the 1482-1484 war with Venice, and as a consequence anti-Venetian

sentiment was running high; the investment involved in executing this project for a member

of the Venetian elite suggests that it must have served a strategic political purpose. This

background, being somewhat tangential to our subject, is fully explored elsewhere. 5 Recently

1
Peter Mark Adams, The Game of Saturn: Decoding the Sola-Busca Tarocchi (Scarlet Imprint, 2017).
2
Nicola Iannelli, Simboli e Costellazioni. Il mistero di palazzo Schifanoia Il codice astronomico degli Estensi
(Angelo Pontecorboli Editore, 2013).
3
Aby Warburg, ‘Italian Art and International Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara’, in The Renewal of
Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance (Getty Research Institute
for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999) p.582.
4
Mark Zucker, ‘The Master of the Sola-Busca Tarocchi and the Rediscovery of Some Ferrarese Engravings of
the Fifteenth Century’ Artibus et Historiae Vol. 18 No. 35 (1997) pp.181-194.
5
Adams, The Game of Saturn.
it has been suggested that the master engraver was Nicola di maestro Antonio d’Ancona

(active between 1470-1510);6 whether or not this was the artist, it was certainly someone

influenced by the distinctive style of the Ferrarese master painter, Cosmé Tura. This is

important from more than a merely stylistic or art historical perspective; for the evident

mastery displayed in the deck’s figuration directs us to pay careful attention to the drafting of

the gestural repertoire, the incorporation of disproportionate features and incongruities of

subject matter; all of which have been martialled to obliquely convey the deck’s conceptual

scheme and, in effect, guide the careful observer towards uncovering its underlying themes.

In particular, the artwork betrays an acute observation of people’s, often unconscious,

postural and gestural ‘language’; demonstrating, in line with the tradition associated with

Cosmé Tura, ‘a continuity of outer appearance and inner spiritual condition’.7

Sumptuous artefacts, like the Sola-Busca, were deeply implicated in the era’s economy of

diplomatic and political exchange involving chivalric honours, dynastic connections, gifts

and favours – and, of course, bribes. The highly personalised nature of the Sola-Busca (the

presence of Venetian coats of arms repeated throughout the trumps) made it an ideal gift to

adorn the one private space that the exigencies of Renaissance life afforded, at least to the

privileged and wealthy, the studiolo; a private space whose carefully curated collection of

paintings, books and objet d’art were felt to be most representative of some essential, but

highly personal, aesthetic.

The socio-political use of such unique artefacts is most clearly seen in the case of Duke Borso

d’Este’s lavishly illuminated Bible; this artefact accompanied him on major diplomatic

6
Andrea De Marchi, ‘Nicola di maestro Antonio da Ancona peintre-graveur, tra vis comica ed invenzioni
esoteriche’, in Tarocchi Sola Busca e la cultura ermetico-alchemica tra Marche e Veneto alla fine del
Quattrocento. Laura Paolo Gnaccolini (Skira Editore, 2012) pp.61-73.
7
Stephen Campbell, Cosmè Tura of Ferrara: Style, Politics and the Renaissance City, 1450-1495 (Yale
University Press, 1997) p.74.
initiatives where it was used to confer, through the preferential treatment accorded those

allowed to view it, special favour on its carefully selected and invited audience.

The Sola-Busca in Context

The Sola-Busca tarocchi is not only the earliest complete tarocchi in existence, it is the first

to be printed from copper engraving plates – a fact that accounts for its fine detail – and the

first (and only tarocchi for the next 500 years) to feature fully illustrated suit cards. It is this

unique feature, the employment of all seventy-eight cards, that provided the extended work

area necessary to elaborate its conceptual scheme. An earlier example of the use of a deck of

cards for precisely this purpose is provided by the so-called ‘Mantegna tarocchi’ (1465-67)

which is, incidentally, neither a tarocchi nor by Mantegna, but a Ferrarese deck of some fifty

cards illustrating the emblematic world of Renaissance thought. In addition, the d’Este

tarocchi (1473) along with the sumptuous sets of Milanese Visconti-Sforza tarocchi (circa

1450) were designed not for gaming but as gifts to celebrate dynastic marriages. The Sola-

Busca (circa 1491) therefore exists within a longstanding tradition of using unique,

decorative artefacts, that happen to include tarocchi, as artistic currency in the negotiation of

elite diplomatic, political and dynastic relations.

In this context it should also be recalled that copper plate engraving and intaglio printing

were, at that time, a recent innovation; as such they were part of the larger information

revolution of that age and their employment in the creation of this artefact, when coupled

with the evident mastery of its execution, must have added to its allure. Further underlining

the exclusivity of the cards we find that only a small number of prints appear to have ever

been taken from the engraving plates (four unpainted cards exist in each of London, Paris and
Hamburg and some 23 unpainted cards in Vienna) but only one painted and personalised

print exists; this unique artefact, called the Sola-Busca tarocchi, has been held in the Brera

Gallery in Milan since 2009, having passed the period between the sixteenth and the opening

years of the nineteenth century – some three hundred years – invisibly, in private ownership.

Given that the use of artistic artefacts to cultivate political influence was a well-established

tradition with the d’Este;8 our views on tarocchi as gaming decks are no longer relevant in the

present context.

The Deck’s Narrative Structure

Examination of the deck’s imagery reveals the employment of carefully layered ‘modes of

visuality’9 exhibiting varying admixtures of both naturalistic and symbolic representation; in

addition, many of the figures are depicted exhibiting a rich gestural language – a layer of

significance that inhabits a quite distinct semantic world beneath the more easily recognisable

naturalistic and symbolic meanings. As we will see, the deck’s gestural vocabulary is

accompanied by the employment of a variety of theurgical and magical techniques, tools and

practices derived from Neoplatonic and Hellenistic tradition; and whose most defining

characteristic is that they are wholly pagan, eschewing equally any reference to Christianity

or the more familiar magical tradition of the grimoires. We can, therefore, accurately

characterise the deck as encapsulating a late-Byzantine, Neoplatonic theurgical and magical

system and evidencing a continuing tradition of ‘Hellenismos’ amongst both the Byzantine

8
Anthony Colantuono, ‘Estense patronage and the construction of the Ferrarese Renaissance’ in The Court
Cities of Northern Italy: Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua, Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino, Pesaro, and Rimini.
Charles Rosenberg (Cambridge University Press, 2010) pp.237-238.
9
Jas Elsner, ‘Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Greco-Roman World’ in Visuality Before
and Beyond the Renaissance. Robert Nelson (Cambridge University Press, 2000) pp.45-69.
and Italian ruling elites. The commanding presence underpinning this system is the Afro-

Levantine god, Ammon-Kronos-Saturn. The provenance of this unusual, or at least

unexpected, metaphysical outlook will become clear when we come to consider its origins

amongst the Hellenistic circles within the late-Byzantine ruling elite. Its acceptance in the

court of an, ostensibly, Christian Renaissance prince, Duke Ercole d’Este (1471-1505),

becomes intelligible when we recall the judgement that,

“Ercole was an unscrupulous and devious ruler. A master of duplicity, he practiced

many of the principles, or lack of them, that were later to be codified by

Machiavelli, but at least he survived as Duke of Ferrara for thirty-four years.”10

In this context we should recall Machiavelli’s injunction that, “If the necessity arises the

Prince should know how to follow evil”. A contemporary at the d’Este court described the

duke’s behaviour,

“he took for himself all the pleasures he wanted, with music and astrology and necromancy,

giving scarcely any audience to his people”11

The use of the word ‘necromancy’ to describe the scope of the duke’s interests is significant.

In Renaissance usage necromancy referred exclusively to maleficium – demonic ritual magic

used for offensive purposes.12 For the remainder of this essay we will focus on identifying

10
Thomas Tuohy, Herculean Ferrara: Ercole d’Este (1471–1505) and the Invention of a Ducal Capital
(Cambridge University Press, 1996) p.15.
11
“Lui se piato, dice Ondadio Vitali nel suo mss., tuti li piaciri che lie parso a con musiche e con astrologie e
negromancie con pochissima audiencia al suo poplo.” cited in Antonio Frizzi, Memorie per la storia di Ferrara,
Volume 4 (Presso Abram Servadio Editore, 1850) p.160.
12
Matteo Duni, Under the Devil’s Spell: Witches, Sorcerers and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy (Syracuse
University Press, 2007) p.46.
and contextualising this information by reference to an analysis of the key cards that embody

these features.

The Deck’s Saturnian Orientation

The deck’s ritual praxis rests upon an underlying Saturnianism that underpins and unifies the

disparate ritual elements in the deck’s imagery. The deck’s imagery incorporates references,

that run like a leitmotiv throughout its imagery, to the closely related deities Ammon (North

Africa), Kronos (Greece) and Saturn (Roman). We find these references most clearly set out

in two trumps cards, ‘V Catulo’ and XVIII Lentulo’. For reasons of space we will only

consider XVIII Lentulo. This card features a figure accoutred in and surrounded by the

distinctive symbolism and clothing associated with the festival of Saturnalia, a festival

inaugurated, according to Livy, in the face of the Carthaginian threat against Rome.13 The

figure is wearing an expensive, dinner gown, or synthesibus, and a pileus – items so closely

identified with the festival that they are celebrated in Martial’s ‘Epigram’ on Saturnalia,

“Now, while the knights and the lordly senators delight in the festive robe (synthesibus), and

the cap of liberty (pileus) is assumed by our Jupiter; and while the slave, as he rattles the

dice-box, has no fear of the Aedile … what can I do better, Saturn, on these days of pleasure,

which your son himself has consecrated to you...”14

13
Livy. History, Book 22, Chapter 1.19–20.
14
Martial. Epigrams 14.1.
The synthesibus was only worn during daytime and the pileus, or cap of liberty, was only

worn by servants (who were otherwise forbidden to wear headwear) during Saturnalia. The

pileus is decorated with a red vittae, the mark of a Roman flamine or priest. The figure is

engaged in the characteristic ritual associated with the festival, placing a candle on Saturn’s

altar. In case we are in any doubt concerning the literacy employed in constructing the deck’s

imagery, the figure wears a knotted belt one end of which has been fashioned to represent a

drakon – a reference to an Orphic fragment concerning Zeus and Rhea’s intercourse in the

form of drakon preserved in a second century CE work of the early Church father,

Athenagoras,

“… how Zeus’ mother, Rhea, sought to avoid his advances by changing into a drakon; but

Zeus, also changing into a drakon, bound her with what is called the Herculean knot of which

the rod of Hermes is a symbol”15

Significantly, the figure is depicted gripping its own beard. This act has, at least since the

seventh century CE, been a standard feature of European iconography symbolising the act of

masturbation and as such continued in use as a feature of Church gargoyles well into the

early-modern period.16 Its significance in the present context, a summary of the principal

features of Saturnian ritual, points towards the practical employment of sex-magical

techniques as an integral part of the underlying praxis. Finally, we find the place of Saturn

within ritual magic summarised in the key astro–magical text known as the Picatrix; there we

learn that the qualities of Saturn are useful when, “you wish to bring down something and to

15
Athenagoras, Apology, 20.
16
Albrecht Classen, Sexuality in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times: New Approaches to a
Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-Anthropological Theme (De Gruyter, 2008) p.175 note 19.
cause evil” or for “hindering movement, concealing innocence” and, finally, for “the

destruction of cities”.

We should bear in mind, however, that the Saturnian theurgy encoded within the Sola-Busca

takes place not under the aegis of the planetary or celestial intelligence of that name, but the

chthonic form of the demiurge. We will need to locate the source of this theology in order to

establish the provenance of the deck’s cosmo-conception. More specifically, it is one specific

form of Kronos-Saturn that the deck seeks to invoke; for it is the powerful, draconian energy

of the Afro-Levantine deity Ammon that underlays the deck’s system of sorcery.

The Deck’s Gestural & Ritual Language

Beyond the naturalistic and symbolic modes of visuality we encounter a third, semantic layer

comprised of a gestural language; it is the ‘translation’ of this language that forms the main

focus of the present essay. We will find that this rich gestural language preserves a

Hellenistic theurgical and magical praxis; a ritual grammar composed of distinctively

Hellenistic ritual gestures, techniques, tools and practices that together constitute a

formidable grimoire of elite Saturnian praxis. By employing a more ritually-centered

visuality,17 these elements can be readily discerned. The imagery contains two distinct ritual

procedures: an archaic magical ritual known as ‘drawing down the Moon’, used to prepare a

talismanic menstruum; and a theurgical ritual that seeks to utilise that menstruum as an

offering in a rite designed to facilitate the possession of the theurgist by the deity who, in this

context, is summoned in the draconian form of Ammon-Kronos-Saturn. By ‘possession’ we

17
Jas Elsner, ‘Between Mimesis and Divine Power’.
mean that the theurgist seeks to induce an influx of energy consonant with the deity’s

theriomorphic characteristics – in this case, that of the drakon,

“… the goal of theurgy is nothing less than the unification of theurgist with the activity, the

energeia, of the Demiurge: In its deepest sense theurgy is demiurgy”18

We note in passing that theurgy had deep roots in Hellenistic culture, emerging as a

distinctive ritualistically oriented development of later-Platonism in such standard texts as the

second century CE ‘Chaldean Oracles’ and Iamblichus’ third century CE ‘On the Mysteries’.

Both of these works were known to and commented on by the Byzantine courtier and scholar

Michael Psellus and his circle as late as the eleventh century CE and continued to be current

in Byzantine intellectual life through the work of Michael Italikos into the thirteenth century

CE.19 We will return to consider the Byzantine provenance of the deck’s ritual grammar at a

later stage.

The Magical Ritual: Drawing Down the Moon

Trump ‘XII Carbone’ depicts a Hellenistic form of the archaic ritual known as ‘drawing

down the Moon’. This rite – mentioned as early as 700 BCE20 – is taking place under a

waning Moon (representing the negative aspect of the Cosmic Soul, or ‘Physis’ in the

Chaldean Oracles) indicative of an intent to draw malefic astral and planetary energies down

18
Gregory Shaw, ‘Taking the Shape of the Gods: A Theurgic Reading of Hermetic Rebirth’ Aries - Journal for
the Study of Western Esotericism 15 (2015) pp.136-169.
19
John Duffy, ‘Reactions of Two Byzantine Intellectuals to the Theory and Practice of Magic: Michael Psellos
and Michael Italikos’ in Byzantine Magic. Henry Maguire (Dumbarton Oaks, 1995) pp.83-97.
20
Erica Reiner, ‘Astral Magic in Babylonia’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series
Vol. 85, No. 4 pp. i–xiii & 1-150.
into a menstruum or talisman. The specific sources of these energies could be referenced in

such standard astro-magical texts as the Ghāyat al-Hakīm (The Goal of the Wise), otherwise

known as the Picatrix; a work that was used extensively in the design of the astrologically

themed talismanic frescos of Ferrara’s Palazzo Schifanoia.21 The text exhorts the sorcerer to,

“Pay attention to the Moon in every magical working … she brings about manifestation …

for she is the mediatrix … receiving the influences and impressions of the stars and planets

and pouring them out to the … world.”22

The name assigned to the trump, ‘Carbone’, was connected with two people who held the

consulship in the second century BCE and are referenced in Livy, Tacitus and Orosius. It was

also the name of a leading figure, an orator, in the d’Este court. However, none of these

references appear to have any connection whatsoever with the scene depicted on the card.

Instead, we see a figure wearing a dolphin themed green cap and holding a hollow turbo or

spinning top, one of the Hellenistic magical tools known as the ‘Toys of Dionysus’,23 into

which his beard dips. He is accoutred with a bow and quiver and a long cane tied at the

bottom with a ribbon suggestive of the shape of a drakon (Ammon) and standing in marked

contrast with the dolphin (the standard symbol for Ammon’s consort, Tanit). The overall

colour scheme is of purple, scarlet and red. The nature of the menstruum used to store the

celestial energies is indicated by the fact that the figure’s beard dips down into the receiving

vessel. We previously noted the symbolism of the beard, or of gripping the beard, in

connection with masturbation so we are justified in concluding that the menstruum is to be

comprised from sexual fluids. In confirmation of this idea we find that the deck illustrates the

21
Aby Warburg, ‘Italian Art and International Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara’.
22
Picatrix. Book 33. Chapter 3.
23
Olga Levaniouk, ‘The Toys of Dionysos’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Vol. 103 (2007) pp.165-
202.
process of extracting these fluids in two cards: the Ace of Swords and trump XVI Olivo, both

of which depict scenes whose symbolic import is the collection of semen and menstrual blood

respectively.

The Theurgical Ritual: The Invocation of Ammon

The second ritual sequence depicts a theurgical rite, the invocation of the draconian form of

Kronos-Saturn-Ammon. The core of the sequence appears in four trump cards: III Lenpio,

VIII Nerone, XV Metelo and XVII Ipeo. We find the general Hellenistic rule of observing,

equally, both the celestial and chthonic deities in the preliminary steps, the ‘proskynesis’ or

acts of obeisance, performed before the invocation of the deity proper commences. We can

interpret the nature of the ritual gestures since they observe the right-celestial and left-

chthonic deixis prescribed, for example, in Plato’s Laws,24

Trump ‘III Lenpio’ depicts a figure curtsying as he is about to deposit herbs on a brazier. At

the same time he covers his right eye with his left hand, a Hellenistic ritual gesture known as

aposkopein.25 This ritual activity evidently corresponds to the early stage of the rite wherein

(following the general Hellenistic ritual injunction concerning the left and right) the artist has

taken great care to depict the closing of the right eye with the left hand; in this way the figure

occludes sight of the celestial gods and directs his vision exclusively to the chthonic realm.

The next trump in our theurgical ritual sequence is ‘XV Metelo’; it depicts a seated figure

wearing a dragon themed hat, brandishing a wand and addressing the column before him. On

24
Plato, Laws 717a.
25
Chiara Matarese, ‘Proskynēsis and the Gesture of the Kiss at Alexander’s Court: The Creation of a New Elite’
Palamedes: A Journal of Ancient History 8 pp.75-85.
top of the column, and secured by brackets, we see a circular sphere emitting flames through

a small number of large holes in its surface. This helps to establish that this is not a censer or

thurible (which are occasionally found in a spherical shape but are distinguished by being

peppered with small holes that act to disperse the incense more effectively when swung). The

object depicted is almost certainly a dodecahedron, a ritual object or ‘iunx’, one of that

overlapping classes of magical objects that are identical with their animating daemon. This

particular object is identified in the Chaldean Oracles as ‘Hekate’s Top’ whose use is

described by the fifth century CE Platonist, and last scholarch of the Platonic Academy of

Athens, Damascius,

“Being whirled inwardly, this tool calls forth the gods; outwardly, it sends them away”26

The dragon themed hat worn by the figure aligns with such standard Renaissance instructions

for the performance of invocatory rites as described by Marsilio Ficino’s pupil, Francesco

Cattani da Diacceto.27 Invocation is only to be undertaken during an astrologically propitious

time whilst dressed in a manner, employing colours, symbolic objects and scents that are

consistent with the deity being invoked. The card’s imagery and colouration clearly indicates

that the fierce, draconian form of Ammon is being invoked; in connection with which we

note a consistent pattern of coloration and symbolism, the arms of the throne terminate in

ram’s horns.

The third, and final card in this ritual sequence, XVII Ipeo, depicts a monk with large dragon

wings and a gold diadem across his brow. He is praying towards a roughly hewn xoanon on

26
Damascius cited in Sarah Iles Johnston, Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Role in the Chaldean Oracles
and Related Literature (Oxford University Press, 1990) p.90.
27
Daniel Pickering Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2000) pp.32-33.
top of which there is a face with two wings sprouting from its shoulders. The image appears

to depict the successful completion of the rite of invocation since the dragon wings indicate

that the mage is now possessed by the deity; the gold band symbolises the state of

illumination that possession confers. The sudden shift in the style of dress, from the military

armour depicted on most trumps to that of a monk, marks a shift in both function and time-

zone reflective of the shift in the ontological status of the ritualist consequent upon their

possession by the divine energeia of the divinity. Finally, given the role of the ‘clerical

underworld’ in performing elite magic, one can only wonder if the performance of such

theurgical rituals was also left in the hands of selected clerical ritual specialists.

‘Illuminism’ in Renaissance Culture

The notion of theurgical ‘illumination’ was always an integral part of Orphic tradition. We

find it echoed in Plato’s dialogues, wherein he refers to ‘telestic mania’28 – the state

consequent upon the influx of divine energeia – as one of the blessings bestowed by the gods;

and to the ‘true philosophers’, who he likens to ‘the true Bakkhoi’, the initiates of the

Mysteries. This tradition received further confirmation in Eunapius’ fourth century CE ‘Lives

of the Philosophers and Sophists’ wherein Eunapius describes how, when Iamblichus

meditated,

28
Plato. Phaedrus. 265ab.
“…you levitate from the earth more than ten cubits … your body and clothes change to a

beautiful golden hue”29

References to this tradition were still very much to the fore during the fourteenth century in

the context of the Byzantine debate between the Hellenists and Palamite faction of the

Orthodox Church, during which we find the ancient theurgists referred to – for the first time –

as the ‘hoi pephotismenoi’, the ‘illumined ones’.30 The translation of Eunapius into Latin in

the mid-fifteenth century provided a further boost to this tradition; this work became popular

across Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (a copy being presented to Queen

Elizabeth I of England in 1568). Two different sources serve to confirm that the image

depicted on XVII Ipeo is of an epiphany of Ammon-Kronos-Saturn. The first, from the 2nd

century CE gnostic text, the Apocryphon of John, describes the deity Phanes,

“Kronos brought forth an egg. In this egg there was an androgynous god, with golden wings

on his shoulders”31

Finally, an Orphic saying preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea’s ‘Preparation for the Gospel’,

underlines the intent of the imagery,

“And to Kronos himself he gave two wings upon his head, one representing the all-ruling

mind, and one sensation”32

29
Gregory Shaw, ‘Platonic Siddhas: Supernatural Philosophers of Neoplatonism‘ in Beyond Physicalism:
Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality. Edward F. Kelly, Adam Crabtree & Paul Marshall (Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers, 2015) pp.275-314.
30
Niketas Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon
(Cambridge University Press, 2011) p.196.
31
Gilles Quispel, ‘The Demiurge in the Apocryphon of John’ in Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica: Collected Essays
of Gilles Quispel Gilles Quispel & Johannes van Oort (Brill, 2006) p.58.
 Conclusions

To better contextualise these findings and, in effect, determine the provenance of the

theurgical and magical system, we need to identify an authoritative fifteenth century

Hellenistic source known for proselytising both Platonic metaphysics and political reform

through the inception of a pagan ritual praxis; one who had close contact with and a profound

impact on members of the Italian Renaissance elite. There is, in fact, only one historical

figure who fits all of these criteria: George Gemistus also known as Plethon. Plethon was a

member of the Byzantine ruling elite, an advisor to the imperial family and generally

recognised as the foremost living authority on Plato. Unusually for that age, Plethon was also

widely suspected of being a practicing – rather than merely cultural – Hellenist, in other

words, a practicing pagan. The connection between Plethon and the Sola-Busca is evidenced

on many different levels. Most obviously, the pervasive Saturnianism underlying the deck’s

theory and practice. We can trace this directly to the concise summary of his metaphysics

presented in his ‘Summary of the Doctrines of Zoroaster and Plato’ (Appendix A, below).

This document is, in effect, the founding document of a revived intellectual Saturnianism in

Europe; and as such, it constitutes one of the foundational documents of the Western esoteric

tradition. A portrait of Plethon appears prominently on the Ten of Cups; a portrait that

corresponds in many respects with an image long thought to be that of Plethon in Benozzo

Gozzoli’s fresco, the ‘Journey of the Magi’ (Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence). The number

of the card, ten, on which this image appears is especially significant. An Orphic fragment

preserved in Philolaus states that, ‘Orpheus called ten the kleidouchos’ or ‘key-holder’. This

32
Eusebius of Caesarea. Preparatio Evangelica. Book 1.10.39.
ancient Hellenistic ritual title fully accords with Cardinal Bessarion’s (a long standing student

and admirer of Plethon) praise of Plethon as,

“the only initiator and initiated into the divine knowledge of the Platonists”33

Evidence of Plethon’s longstanding practice of proselytising a return to traditional Hellenism

(of which Plato’s ‘Republic’ and ‘Laws’ were held to be the social and political exemplars)

abound. In connection with the Byzantine Imperial court, Plethon was engaged, over the

course of a decade or more, in proselytising for the introduction of a Platonic pagan political

and social system as the only way to preserve the Empire from its decline and the incursions

of the Ottomans. In pursuit of this objective he authored two works, ‘Memorandum to the

Emperor Manuel Palaiologos’ (1414) and ‘Memorandum to the Despot Theodore’ (1418);

both of which urged a fundamental reorganisation of the Empire’s political, economy, social

and religious system to align them with the Plato’s ‘Republic’;34 and extolling the style of

leadership represented by Plato’s ‘Philosopher-Kings’,

‘Plethon imported into Mistra the firm belief in the spiritual and political regeneration of

humanity as the task of an illumined elite rather than of the political establishment, central

civil authorities and received religious institutions.’35

Finally, his large-scale work, called ‘Nomoi’ or ‘Laws’ (after Plato’s work of the same name)

sets out a comprehensive pagan liturgy for his ideal state replete with Hellenistic ritual

grammar, gestures and a ritual calendar. Plethon also wrote an extensive commentary on the

33
Vojtech Hladky, The Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon: Platonism in Late Byzantium, Between Hellenism and
Orthodoxy (Ashgate Publishing, 2014) p.208.
34
Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism.
35
Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism.
Chaldean Oracles, whose importance to the practice of theurgy was central, and which

describes one of the key tools, Hekate’s Top, used for invoking the gods and clearly depicted

in use, as we have seen, on trump XV Metelo. Traces of both of these bodies of writing

appear amongst the imagery of the deck’s ritually themed cards.

Plethon was said to have taught his liturgical system in Mistra, in the Peloponnese; long a

sanctuary for Hellenists seeking to escape censure by the Palamite tendency that now

dominated the Orthodox Church. Plethon’s connection with Italy came about through his

attendance at the Council of Ferrara-Florence 1438-39 as part of the large delegation that

accompanied the Byzantine Emperor to Italy. Outside of the conference Plethon famously

delivered a series of lectures on the superiority of Plato to Aristotle that sought to undermine

the influence of Aristotle on Europe’s intellectual imagination. George of Trebizond, a noted

opponent, reported the following snippet of conversation with Plethon during the course of

the conference,

‘I heard him myself in Florence … that within a few years the entire world, with one mind

and one preaching, would adopt the same religion. I asked him, ‘Christ’s or Mohammed’s?’

‘Neither,’ he replied, ‘but one that does not differ from paganism.’36

Given that we can fairly identify the source of the Sola-Busca’s iconography in Plethon’s

liturgical system; the question remains, why would his worldview have been preserved in the

Renaissance imagination to surface in this unique form, in this complex artefact, almost forty

years after Plethon’s death around 1453?

36
George of Trebizond, Comparatio 3.21, cited in James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance (Brill,1990)
p.172.
First and foremost, the vision he offered the elite was far more expansive, far more attuned to

their sense of themselves, of ‘man as mage’ than the narrow, medieval dogma of the Church.

The central Platonic notions of an eternal soul moving through many lives and able to affect

its destiny, its trajectory, through theurgical practice provided a liberating alternative to the

Roman Church’s monopolization of spiritual authority, obedience to which offered an escape

from the eternal fires of hell in this, the soul’s one and only life. Access to such texts as the

‘Asclepius’, which increasingly became available to Renaissance scholars from mid-century

onwards, also served to justify this re-figuring of elite Renaissance selfhood,

‘What a great miracle Man is, Asclepius, a being worthy of reverence and honour. He passes

into the nature of a god as though he were himself a god; he understands the race of daemons,

because he originates from the same source; he despises that part of his nature which is only

human, for he has put his hope in the divinity of the other part’37

We earlier noted Ercole d’Este’s interest in necromancy and the elite’s utilisation and

protection of sorcerers,

“Necromancy remained a constant feature of clergy’s occupations … making ecclesiastics

prized consultants for any magical enterprise that required the conjuring of demons.”38

The attempts of local inquisitors to sanction ‘establishment’ sorcerers – by and large, priests

and monks (the members of Kieckhofer’s ‘clerical underworld’)39 invariably led nowhere.40

37
Asclepius: A Secret Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus: 6.
38
Duni, Under the Devils Spell p.74.
39
Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 2000) pp.151-171.
40
Tamar Herzig, ‘The Demons and the Friars: Illicit Magic and Mendicant Rivalry in Renaissance Bologna’
Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 64, No. 4 (Winter 2011) pp.1025-1058.
Indeed, such is the fierce, draconian and malefic nature of this system of late-Byzantine

theurgical sorcery it would only be useful for the practice of attack sorcery, its worldview

constituting a veritable cosmology of predation and therefore culturally compatible with

practices already obtaining amongst the elite’s magical practitioners. Recently, the

ethnographically attested existence of such traditions (known, in other cultural contexts, as

‘dark shamanism’) employing attack sorcery or maleficium – one of the four main recognised

categories of Renaissance magic41– in support of elite political objectives has become

increasingly recognised.42

Given the Hellenistic ritual grammar that permeates the deck’s imagery it is evident that

Plethon taught far more than just metaphysics during his sojourn in Italy. There is nothing in

his writings to suggest, however, that he ever taught or practiced sorcery; it is, therefore, far

more likely that his system of theurgical-magic was adapted by Italian court intellectuals to

fit their longstanding culture of utilising attack magic, within which context it would appear

as a more efficacious ‘upgrade’ to existing practices. Nevertheless, the Sola-Busca itself

provides remarkable testimony to the persistence of an archaic Hellenistic theurgical tradition

within the late-Byzantine imperial elite and its propagation to elite European circles in the

15th century shortly before the fall of Constantinople. As such it marks the birth, within the

Western esoteric tradition, of an ideological Saturnianism and the notion of an illumined elite

three centuries before Adam Westhaupt.

41
Duni, Under the Devils Spell p. 41.
42
Neil Whitehead & Robin Wright, In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and
Witchcraft in Amazonia. (Duke University Press, 2004).
 Appendix A: Summary of the Doctrines of Zoroaster and Plato

1. The gods really exist. The supreme god is Zeus who is un-generated and perfect in every
way, but separate from the universe and outside of time. He is the ultimate creator of all the
other gods. The secondary deity, Poseidon, is also un-generated, is master over all form and
is entrusted with creation, which he rules along with the other super-celestial Olympian and
Tartarean deities. Along with the goddess Hera, who rules the highest matter, Poseidon
generates both the celestial deities and the chthonian spirits of nature. He rules the celestial
sphere through the leader of the Olympians, Helios; and the earthly realm, and all mortals,
through the leader of the Tartareans, Kronos.

2. The gods provide for and embrace all of us in accordance with the rules of Zeus.

3. The gods are not responsible for evil, but only for good things.

4. The gods fulfil their purpose in accordance with the best and an inexorable destiny arising
from Zeus.

5. The universe and the super-celestial gods are eternal, with no beginning and no end, having
been created by Zeus who is outside of time.

6. The diversity of the universe possesses a unity.

7. The universe is the best possible and of such perfection as to lack nothing.

8. The universe continues forever in its original form.

9. Our soul is, like the gods, immortal and eternal.

10. The soul is sent down to partake of a mortal life, first in one body and then in another, in
order to maintain the harmony of the universe.

11. Because of our ties with the gods we are naturally inclined towards the good.

12. Our happiness arises from our immortal soul, which is our essence and most important
part.