The Lost Tarot of Nostradamus Ebook. John Matthews
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sheep could refer to the Lamb of God, the congregation or the weak and needy. They form something akin to a language of creatures, an index of references which any educated person would have recognized immediately and been able to supply the meaning. What is interesting, however, is the way Nostradamus juxtaposes some of these familiar images so that we see a pope attacked by a unicorn, or offering food to bears, or a mythical gryphon holding a priest’s staff. Just as in his writings, he seems to be poking fun at the establishment of the time—and possibly risking an unpleasant experience at the hands of the Inquisition.
Other forms of symbolism
The presence of both astronomical and astrological imagery throughout The Lost Book is not at all surprising. Though officially frowned upon by the Church, such disciplines were still considered to play a part in understanding the universe – providing, of course, that those who followed such abstruse ways remembered that any suggested variation in the shaping of the universe was strictly forbidden and probably heretical. Thus, we find references to a possible heliocentric universe, which was still considered heresy during Nostradamus’ lifetime. There are also several images of astrologers consulting books of ancient knowledge, and a significant number of astrological signs, ranging through most of the houses. Of course, many of these feature in the symbolism of tarot, making it comparatively easy to read the hidden clues left by Nostradamus as we set about recreating The Lost Tarot. That the seer himself was no stranger to astrology is clear from the following note he made in a letter to César:
Through the omnipotence of the eternal God we are governed by the Moon, and before she completes her cycle she will reach the Sun and Saturn. According to these celestial signs the reign of Saturn will then return, for which reason, according to my calculations, the world is drawing close to an inevitable revolution.
Once again, Nostradamus is telling us that he can see into the future in more ways than one, and that his vision includes the vast tides of time governed by the houses of the zodiac.
Exactly how much of the imagery is tarot and what is not could be a matter for debate, but it is important to remember that the familiar symbolism in modern tarot was much less fixed in Nostradamus’ time than it is today.
Overall, however, it is clear that the deviser of the images for The Lost Book knew a great deal of the spiritual symbolism current at the time, and was not afraid to play with it in all manner of daring ways. It is for this reason, we think, that the book vanished for so long into the Vatican archives, only perhaps coming to light in our own time now that a more open-minded attitude exists. The enigmatic note on page 83 of the manuscript suggests that its author was leaving a very great clue to the identity of its source of inspiration—one that might have come to light even if his name had not been inscribed on the book:
To the Honest Reader: Those preceding him [Nostradamus] are missing here by reason of the injuries of devouring time, according to divine will … uttered not by possession but in sleep, and not by divine inspiration … but by other ways, for our forebears have sent us a soothsayer of good and scarce possession.
Using the images
Surveying the material wasn’t easy, as picture references for the pages of the manuscript are surprisingly hard to find, and at this stage we hadn’t approached the library where the manuscript is held. However, we were able to assign images to all the Major Arcana cards without difficulty. This convinced us that we would indeed be able to recreate The Lost Tarot of Nostradamus.
Of course, it’s apparent that, from the point of view of a functioning tarot, the manuscript is an unfinished work. While many of the familiar images are there in striking detail, others are not, especially in the case of the Minor Arcana. It’s clear that if Nostradamus intended to create a tarot of his own, these were his ideas and his reinterpretation of already recognized tarot forms, which he didn’t extend to every card. Consequently, we have used the drawings in the manuscript to construct a functioning tarot rather than resort to making anything up or bringing in supplementary drawings from other manuscripts. We have endeavoured to finish the work of creating a Nostradamus Tarot, and in the process have used nearly all the drawings contained within the manuscript in one way or another. Only a small handful were deemed unsuitable to use, being only partial sketches without any context, repetitions, or very obscure symbols.
There are about eighty images, which range from small, quick sketches to large, colorful plates with much more detail. All the Major Arcana images were well represented, but we soon realized that the Minor Arcana would be more difficult to research. This is unsurprising, as in many early tarots the so-called “pip” cards are simple repeating shapes styled similarly to playing cards, which, in reality, they probably were. But with some head-scratching, and even a bit of intuition (plus John’s thorough research of early tarot), we managed to get a set of images from the material which we felt matched well with traditional tarot meanings. I think the fact that we were successful in this underlines the presence of tarot material in the manuscript and strengthens the idea that Nostradamus was genuinely working on, at least, an outline for a tarot.
Creating the deck
Once we were able to look at all the available imagery, we began to get a feeling for how it could be structured. Much of Nostradamus’ symbolism is strange and obscure to modern eyes, unused to the religious iconography of the 1600s, and we knew that we would need to find some way of giving the suits of the deck a recognizably distinct style This was especially important, as we had decided to veer away from the “easy option” of simply using symbols (coins, for instance) for the Minors. We wished, instead, to use as much of his art as possible. Of course, this resulted in a set of Minors where it was, at times, difficult to tell whether it was wands or cups being shown!
To get around this, and to make the deck richer in symbolism, we returned to the idea of “framing” the original images. I designed five sets of distinct frames, modelled after Renaissance sculptural niches, triptych and altar frames, and picture frames from the period. These were also designed to reflect the alchemical process and the cosmological ideas current in Nostradamus’ time. For the suit of Suns, I decided to use planetary and solar symbolism and colors; for Moons, the lunar cycle was an ideal subject and incorporated some drawings by Galileo. The suit of Spheres reflects the work of Nostradamus’ near contemporary Johannes Kepler and the idea of a sequence of celestial spheres, each nesting within a framework of the preceding Platonic solid. The suit of Stars uses the astrological and astronomical ideas current at the time of Nostradamus. In each case we wanted to reflect parts of the world of Nostradamus—the thought and science of his time.
Our initial desire was to utilize high-quality photography of the drawings within our period-style frames. Apart from distinguishing the suits from one another more easily, frames helped the overall look of the tarot for the simple reason that the drawings are, at times, unfinished, and, like quickly executed sketches, are sparse, lacking in detail and seem rather “naked” on the page. However, this approach proved not to be possible, due to restrictions on the use of the original photography held by the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome and on any new photography of the manuscript owing to the “nature of the subject”. This left us in quite a dilemma as the images of the Nostradamus pictures that are in the public domain are not of good enough quality for any kind of serious reproduction. So we decided that I would use the extant references to redraw Nostradamus’ sketches as accurately as possible, and this I have done, keeping as faithful to the originals as I can.
In approaching the reconstruction work on the drawings, I first concentrated on creating all the frames, and then moved on to the drawings themselves. These are watercolor ink line drawings and, as I had decided to work digitally, I had to first create some brushes in Photoshop, to emulate the slightly calligraphic nature of the pen that the artist had used. With these, I carefully retraced all the line work, having to reconstruct very dark or obscure areas. During this process I found myself using quite a few different brushes, as the line work changed between many of the drawings. However, from an artist’s perspective, I feel sure that the drawings are all by the same person.
After the line stage I reworked the color washes and inked portions and adjusted the colors. On one or two of the drawings, the reference shots were very poor and the colors had to be derived from looking at similar images