Sola Busca Cards: Ipeo
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[edit] Description
An old man dressed as a monk. Bat (or dragon) wings on his back. He is praying in the direction of a cherub's head on the top of a tree trunk.
[edit] Subject Identification
Michael J Hurst's [site] presents a few possible interpretations:
- Scipio. The Scipioni were an important Roman family, and there are many members of this family that could be candidates for the subject of this card.
- Hippias of Elis, a fifth century BC Sophist and historian (Hippias has been suggested by Tea Prentice)
- Appian (a Roman historian)
There are even more candidates:
- Epeo (or Epeus / Epeios). The inventor of the Trojan Horse.
Anyway, Hippias and Epeus, which seem the best candidates on a lexical basis, do not fit the general "Roman history" patterns for the trumps from 2 to 19.
In the "Colloquia familiaria" by Erasmus from Rotterdam, chapter LI has the title "Ippeus anippos sive Ementita nobilitas" (Knight without horse, or false nobility).
[edit] Image references
The devil represented in "The Temptations of Christ" by Sandro Botticelli in the Sistine Chapel (Rome) is very similar to Ipeo.
Bat winged men can also be seen in alchemical images. For instance on http://www.levity.com/alchemy/rosary5.html an emblem is reproduced where a bat winged hermaphrodite is represented near a "philosopher's tree" (arbor philosophorum). The philosopher's tree might explain the meaning of the tree on the Ipeo card.
[edit] External links
- cartedatrionfi Michael J Hurst's about the Sola Busca deck
- www.levity.com Alchemical text about the "Demonstration of Perfection"
- [1] The Temptation of Christ (Botticelli)
- [2] Erasmus - Colloquia Familiaria
