(Cover)

Through the Western history flows the subterranean stream of symbolism, appearing in the
architectonic styles, in the literary works, in the plastic arts and every other expression of the human
thought. Many examples are well known, but scholars do not often talk about them, as if the
apparent meaning of a work was more worthwhile than the hidden one. The Divine Comedy and a
large part of the medieval poetry are just an example; the Romanic and Gothic Cathedrals are full of
representations containing a symbolical meaning. On the threshold of the Siena Dome, you are
welcome by the mysterious figure of Hermes Trismegistus, the Lord of Mystery par excellence of
the Renaissance age. But the symbolic manifestations that still remain unknown are many more.
The Orvieto Dome, another greatest masterpiece of the Italian Gothic in Central Italy, shows a
magnificent rose window created by the great sculptor Andrea di Cione, called Orcagna. It is a
beautiful circle of carved stone, having in the center a sculpted head of Christ; it is inscribed into a
square along whose sides are aligned painted heads of Saints and Prophets. Looking beyond the
purely esthetic beauty of the masterpiece, we shall be able to observe that the head of Christ is
surrounded by twenty-two rays, and that along the sides of the external square there are fifty-six
heads of Saints and Prophets. Why twenty-two and fifty-six? Twenty-two is the number of the
Books of the Old Testament, as says Origen, Father of the Church: In their disposition, the
numbers contain a certain power over things, and that power has been used by the Creator of the
Universe actually we must recognize that the books of the Old Testament as handed down by the
Jews, are twenty-two and it is meaningful that the hebraic elements are the same number. So as
twenty-two letters seem to be the introduction to the knowledge and the doctrine impressed by these
figures in men, so also the twenty-two books of the Scripture are the foundation and introduction to
the wisdom of God and the knowledge of the world (select. In Ps I PG 12, 1084). What about the
number fifty-six? To find its meaning we must search more.
Prof. Franco Cardini, author of the foreword, brings up the subject of the migration of symbols: in
the Indo-Iranian god Varuna we recognize the Ouranos of the ancient Greeks, while the Asuras,
demonized in India, for long time were considered gods by the Germans who named them Asen.
Symbols and goods travelled together for thousands of years along the Silk Road, while took place
mutual exchanges and influences among civilizations and cultures; so in the 8 th century Himalayan
Kashmir we find the hindu text named Shivasutra consisting of 22 primary aphorisms and 56
lesser ones, and in the nearby Tibetan tableland grew the ancient cult of the 22 forms of Tara The
Saviouress. Even the twenty-two letters about which wrote Origen were not the Latin ones (that
were twenty-three, and twenty-six in the modern version) but the hebraic ones. Ex oriente lux.
[Japan, XV century: Drawing by Shubun
From Kakuan, Ten Bulls.]

Symbolic forms seem run after each other from East to West changing their shape, but remaining
simple derivations from the same archetypes. In a Chronograph written in 354 A.D. by Furius
Dionisius Philocalus is contained a fragment of a liturgical Christian calendar used in Rome in 326
A.D. or perhaps before. Under the date VIII kalendas januarias that is December 25th you may
read : natus est Christus in Betleem Judaeae, Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea. That is a
baffling statement, as in Gospels there is no clue about the date when Jesus was born; quite the
opposite, Luke hints at something completely different when says: there were some shepherds in
that region, who in the nights stayed up keeping watch over the flocks. Sheep-breeding has always
been practised in Palestine between spring and autumn.
As a matter of fact, December 25th is a symbolic date: all solar gods, called Invincible Suns, like
Apollo and the Persian god Mithra whose cult was imported in Rome by the soldiers returning from
the Persian campaigns, were born on December 25 th. In Greece besides Apollo was born his brother
Bacchus, and in Syria Adonis. In Egypt was celebrated the birth of Osiris and his son Horus. In
Babylon was celebrated the god Tammuz, the only son of the goddess Ishtar portrayed with her
child in her arms and a 12-starred halo around her head: the icon of mother and new-born child
dates back to immemorial times and symbolizes the Mother Earth producing her fruits. But why that
date? Because December 25th falls around the winter solstice, that is the passageway between the
old year and the new one; the god who was born in that period looks bearer of a new message and a
new hope. East and West this way reveal to be connected to the same archetypes.
At the root of the Christian thought lies the symbol of the Mystic Scale. The medieval theology
assigns to the Universe a determined order, structured as a symbolic scale going up from Earth to
Heaven; from the top of the Scale God, the Prima Causa, governs the world with no direct
intervention, but working ex gradibus, that is through a continuous series of intermediaries so that
the divine power can descend till the inferior beings. If we read the same symbol in the opposite
direction, from the bottom upwards, the scale shows how the man can gradually rise himself in the
spiritual order and, through science and virtue, get closer to God. As Origen taught, there are
numbers that God used to create the world, and that can be used by man to come back to God: like
the twenty-two, and the fifty-six.
In Western countries exist a symbolic set studied for a long time by historians and scholars of
iconology, often explored by the depth psychology, yet ignored by most of the learned people. Its
rise dates back approximately to the same period of the Orcagna masterpiece in Orvieto. During the
Humanism it was designated with the noble title of Triumphs, later replaced by the name Tarot,
often used in a disparaging sense but whose real meaning and origin remain still unknown. It is
composed of 78 cards, divided into two groups of 22 and 56. Twenty-two Major Arcana
displaying elaborate pictures medieval-looking, deeply christian like the Pope and the Hermit,
or pagan on the contrary like the Strength, or even vaguely heretic like the Popess; and fifty-six
Lesser Arcana that remind us of the ancient numerology. In fact numbers four and ten, that the
Pythagoreans considered to be sacred, appear in the four court cards and ten numeral cards of
each suit.

[India: Shiva Nataraja, X century A.C.]

The Way to the Sacred One begins with a large section dedicated to Tarot history, then examines
the symbolical and iconographical meanings of the single cards and the analogies existing between
Tarot and some important oriental sets of symbols, as the 78 Aphorisms of Shiva and the twenty-
one emanations of Tara. It is outlined a route through the twenty-two most important images,
aimed to give back the Tarot his ancient meaning of representation of the Mystic Scale, that is the
ascent of man to the spirit heights. The book has also a rich iconographical set composed of the
pictures of the ancient deck Bernardine Suzanne, of the 22 Taras and the most important religious
and symbolic representation of India, Shiva Nataraja, Lord of Dance. In a section are outlined the
relations existing between the Tarot and the most important wisdom book of China, the I-King. The
I King structure is based, like the Tarots one, on a definite numerological sequence and has been
ascribed by the tradition to the Confucian school; its meaning has been investigated a long time by
the famous Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung.
[India, IX century A.C.:
White Tara and his 21 emanations]

The Author is member of the Cultural Association Le Tarot, committed to the systematic study of
the cards with regard to their iconography, history and symbolism. The Association has set up the
most important national and international exhibits of Tarot, and among her members are leading
figures of the academic world. The work is the fruit of a long-lasting and innovatory research on the
relations existing between western and eastern symbolism, and on the numerous unresolved
problems raised by the appearance and evolution of Tarot in western countries.

Civil lawyer, he was born in Bologna in 1959. His main fields of study are the history and meaning
of the most relevant symbols in Eastern and Western traditions. His book the Way to the Sacred
One. The Symbols of Tarot between East and West, published by Edizioni Martina in Bologna
(2008) explores the relations between western iconography and eastern philosophies like the
Tibetan Vajrayana and the middle age Shivaism. The book has a foreword by prof. Franco Cardini
and an introduction by prof. Andrea Vitali. He also wrote three historical novels, that reached the
final trial in Italian literary contests. He has been member since 2001 of the Cultural Association
Le Tarot, and as such he has been component of various scientific committees for the realization
of prestigious international exhibits of Tarot set up by the same Association.