La Torre/La Maison Dieu/The Tower

The Tower card’s appearance hasn’t changed much over the centuries, but it’s been given more names than any other tarot card. We know from literary sources of the 15^th and 16^th centuries that this card was called Arrow, Fire, Lightning, and the House of the Devil. In later centuries, it was known as La Maison Dieu (The God House) and the Tower. In previous centuries, Christians were acutely aware that God was watching them and would inevitably punish them for their sins. Medieval artists often depicted horrific scenes, resembling Tower cards, showing sinners experiencing death and destruction as fire streamed down from heaven. These scenes usually illustrate Bible stories about the fate of people who disobeyed God: the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and apocalyptic plagues in the book of Revelations.

Before we look at how these Bible stories inspired the Tower card, let’s consider the towers that were a common sight for Italians at the time tarot was invented.

Tower Houses

In the Middle Ages, every Italian town bristled with tall, skinny tower houses occupied by important families. The Tuscan town of San Gimignano is still known for its tower houses, even though only fourteen towers remain of the original 72 that crowded the town in the late Middle Ages. Ruling families in every town and city constantly engaged in competitive one-upmanship; the prize being the ability to look down on your neighbors from the lofty height of the tallest tower in the neighborhood. The highest tower house in San Gimignano rose to 230 feet; and the highest tower house still standing, in Bologna, rises to 319 feet. Undoubtedly, these towers were a symbol of pride, and a justification for arrogance, on the part of the families who built them. These towers would have attracted lightning. Watching the destruction of an unpopular family’s tower was most likely a source of satisfaction to their enemies.

Castle Tower

The Keep, or main tower, is the last thing to fall when a castle is invaded in a military conflict. Once the main tower falls, the defenders are vanquished and the old regime is gone. This can mean the disastrous end of an era, or liberation from an entrenched, conservative regime that had to be brought down by force. The photo at left is the main tower of the Sforza Castle which sits in the center of Milan. The Charles VI tower gives a sense of the solidity, defensiveness, and entrenched power of a castle tower. The flames coming from the cracks in the stonework are omens that a dynasty or regime is coming to an end.

The Soprafino tarot, created in Milan about 1835, refers explicitly to a military disaster, rather than showing generic fire from the sky like most Tower cards. A canon perches at the top, and someone peers out from the arched window. The biscione, a snake swallowing a man, is attached to the base. Originally a heraldic symbol of the dukes of Milan, it’s now a symbol of the city. This card could depict the Sforza tower, or one of Milan’s city gates.

God’s Anger

When dealt the Tower card, a 15^th-century card player might think of a tower in his own city that was recently destroyed. But the Tower card was most likely designed to illustrate God’s anger in the form of destructive fire descending from heaven. Medieval illuminated manuscripts often contained depictions of four well-known Bible stories that featured God’s fiery anger directed at humans: The Apocalypse, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Job’s trials, and the Tower of Babel.

Pouring fire down from the sky seems to be the Christian God’s favorite method of showing his displeasure. This image from a 14^th-century French manuscript illustrates Revelations 16:17-21, which tells how God commanded seven angels to pour the contents of their “vials of the wrath of God” into the air, resulting in plagues and disasters.  The seventh angel’s vial produced everything we see on Tower cards: Lightning and thunder, earthquakes, a plague of hail, and cities falling.

Another example of fire raining from heaven is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, related in Genesis 19:24-26. “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire…” This illustration shows the moment when Lot’s wife looked back at the ruined city and was turned into a pillar of salt.

A quote from Chapter 16 of Revelations might explain why there are one or two suns in the corner of most Tower cards. Revelations 16:8 says “and the fourth angel poured his vial upon the sun; and power was given to him to scorch men with fire.”

The Tower of Babel is the Bible story most often associated with the tarot Tower, and may explain why people fall from the tower in cards dating about 1500 and after. In the Bible story, the tower was not destroyed and no one fell from the Tower, but an alternate version of the story seized the medieval imagination and was absorbed into folklore and art.

Genesis 11:4-7 tells us that after the flood, Noah’s descendants all spoke one language. They decided to build a city, and a tower that would reach to heaven, to keep them united in one place. God felt threatened, so he confused their language. Since they couldn’t understand each other, they stopped building the city and scattered over the earth.  The Bible makes no mention of destruction, lightning, or people falling.

Most Medieval illustrations show the tower under construction, often with a spiral staircase up the side, or in layers like a wedding cake. Some towers were tall and plain like a typical Italian tower. But there are enough renderings of the tower being destroyed by fire to show that this more violent version of the Babel story was alive in people’s imaginations.

The illustration above combines both versions of the story. Most of the illustration is a construction scene, giving us a good look at medieval building tools and techniques. At the top, two angels terrorize the people on the platform, and a man plunges head first from top left. By the late fifteenth century, when the tarot Tower card started showing people falling head first, most card players would easily make the connection between the card and this version of the Babel story.

The Rothschild Sheet, an uncut sheet of cards housed in the Louvre, contains the first Tower card with people, that we know of. This card may be the ancestor of both Bolognese-style Tower cards and the Tarot de Marseille Tower. Bolognese Tower cards evolved over the years to show the two men flat on the ground and about to be crushed by the falling tower. In the Tarot de Marseille, they are suspended in the air, falling from the top of the burning tower. Falling people may have been inspired by the chapter in Genesis that immediately precedes the story of Babel.

Genesis 10:8-12 describes Nimrod as “a mighty one on the earth” and “a mighty hunter”. He built four cities in Mesopotamia including Babel, so he became identified in the popular imagination as the architect of the Tower of Babel, and therefore an arrogant rebel against God. Nimrod was punished with a blast of lightning that threw him from the tower.

The artist who created the Sola Busca deck made an explicit connection between Nimrod and punishment by lightning. The card, titled Nenbroto, shows a man receiving a blast of fire from the sky, while symbols of pride—his helmet and shield, as well as a pillar top, fall to the ground. A similar Tower card was designed by Giuseppe Mitelli of Bologna about 1665, where the man’s heart is pierced by fire from the sky.

Dante wrote the Divine Comedy more than 150 years before the Sola Busca deck was created. It shows the Medieval attitude toward Nimrod and city towers that was probably shared by the deck creator. In Canto 31 of the Inferno, Dante thinks he sees the tall towers of an Italian town in the twilight. Virgil tells him he is actually looking at giants buried up to their waists in the earth. One of the giants, Nimrod, can only babble nonsense. By confusing giants and city towers, Dante implies that they both embody excess pride and mindless arrogance.

La Foudre – The Thunderbold

An alternate Tower design, a shepherd under a lightning-struck tree, emerged in 17^th century Paris before spreading throughout northern France and Belgium a century later. This type of card is always called La Foudre, the lightning bolt. The first known use of this design is the Jacques Vieville deck printed in Paris about 1650. The Shepherd reappears a century later in decks of the Rouen-Bruxelles pattern, like the Vandenborre Tarot.

The biblical story of Job may have inspired this alternate Tower card. The illustration at left has every component of the tarot Tower except the tree: shepherd, sheep, and fire from heaven. Job was made to endure every imaginable disaster as a way of testing his faith in God. In the Book of Job 1:13-16, one person after another appears before Job to tell him some disaster has happened to his family or his property. At one point, a messenger runs in and says, “the fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”

In the Vieville card we see balls falling from the sky. They appear in nearly every Tarot de Marseille type deck, and could be manna, comets, shooting stars, or stylized flames. All of these possibilities have precedents in medieval art. In the Vandenborre card, they are actually flames, and the lightning bolts are arrows, which refer to the earliest known name for this card.

The House of the Devil

Literary references in mid-16^th century Italy sometimes refer to this card as the House of Pluto, or the Devil, or the Damned. Two early French Tower cards may reflect this interpretation.

In the Geofroy Tower card, Orpheus plays a vielle and makes the fatal mistake of looking back over his shoulder at his beloved Eurydice, thereby failing the test of faith. The Devil grabs Eurydice around the waist and drags her toward the underworld.

The Tarot de Paris Tower is labeled La Foudre, but is obviously a Hell mouth. A popular theme in medieval art was sinners being herded by the Devil into the mouth of Hell, rendered as the jaws of a monster. In this card, a confusing mass of demons and cowering people swirls toward the black jaws of Hell that emerge from the right edge of the card.

Tarot de Marseille

In the mid-17^th century, French tarot solidified into the Tarot de Marseille pattern. The Tarot de Marseille Tower card was always labeled La Maison Dieu. The Noblet deck shown here is the first known deck of this type.

Maison Dieu (God House) referred to a hospital or hospice for the indigent. It was also a way station for pilgrims. For most people who ended up in a Maison Dieu, it was the final catastrophe, the last stop before being released from their mortal body. Even though the card’s name changed, the image remained a tower and does not look like a hospital.

In the earlier Noblet deck, fire is coming from the top of the tower, like the 15^th century Budapest and Rosenwald decks shown above. Decks printed in the 18^th century and later all show fire going in one direction only, from the sky to the tower.

The three windows in the tower have been associated with the legend of Saint Barbara, who was imprisoned in a tower by her father. After converting to Christianity, she had three windows cut into the tower to represent the Trinity. After she escaped, it was her father, not the tower, who was incinerated by lightning.

When the Tarot de Marseille arrived in Italy in the 18^th century, Italian card makers began imitating it, complete with French card titles. When printers started using Italian titles, they called this card La Torre (The Tower).

Interpreting the Tarot de Marseille

The card depicts a sturdy stone or brick tower being damaged by lightning or fire from the sky. The earliest names for this card emphasize the fire, not the building. This points to card meanings of a catastrophe, a natural disaster, a shocking experience, a life-changing event, or receiving disturbing news.

The tower itself seems solid and enduring; yet it’s being destroyed in a very short time. This reminds us how precarious life can be; and how our world can be turned upside down in an instant. Towers are built over time, brick by brick, and stand in place for a long time. Quick destruction could mean the sudden resolution of a long-standing situation or problem. It could also mean the loss of security, or the end of a situation that you thought was permanent.

When the crenellated top turned into a crown, the card became an image of regime change, the fall of despots, and political revolution. On the personal level, it means a loss of rank or position, or an arrogant person getting his come-uppance. “Pride goeth before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

The Tower always comes immediately after the Devil in the trump sequence. This could indicate the destruction of false or limiting beliefs, liberation from the clutches of something evil, or escaping from a negative situation, like a stifling marriage, or a dead-end job.

French Occult Tarot

The French occultist and ceremonial magician Eliphas Levi said the card probably depicts the Tower of Babel, and the two people falling from the tower are Nimrod and a false prophet. Levi pointed out that the body of the person falling in front of the tower forms the Hebrew letter Ayin. He interpreted the card as meaning a reversal of fortune or the punishment for pride.

Oswald Wirth, an influential occultist who lived a generation after Levi, designed a deck to illustrate occult principles, and was the first to put Hebrew letters on the cards. We see the letter Ayin in the bottom right corner. The yellow objects falling from the sky, mingled with the bricks, are not flames, according to Wirth, but Yods, the first letter of God’s name in Hebrew.

Wirth called his card Fire from the Sky and said the high tower attracts lightning that emanates from the sun of reason. One of the falling people is a fanciful idealist, the other is the architect whose structure collapses with him, evidently a reference to Nimrod. The Tower embodies energy hardened into dogma, as well as exaggerated ambition that will inevitably lead to some hard lessons.

The Golden Dawn

When the London-based occult lodge, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, shifted the letters of the Hebrew alphabet associated with each major arcana card, the Tower acquired the letter Peh, which aligns this card with Mars. Many Golden Dawn Tower card meanings are Martian: Ambition, strife, war, courage, danger, destruction. The Golden Dawn refers to the lightning bolt of Mars, although in mythology it’s usually Jupiter who wields a lightning bolt. Golden Dawn card interpretations are similar to Wirth’s: A dramatic realization, or the sudden collapse of outmoded beliefs so something new can emerge.

The Waite Smith Tarot

A. E. Waite refers to the Tower as the House of Doctrine and the House of Falsehood. The people falling from it are atheists and heretics who deny spiritual realities. The king’s crown being knocked off the top of the tower denotes the “downfall of intellectual error committed when trying to understand God’s ways.” Waite aligns with Wirth in saying the objects falling from the sky are Yods. His interpretation of this card is the same as Wirth’s.

Modern Tower Cards

The Ancestral Path Tarot turns the traditional meaning of this card on its head. Lightning is destroying a Christian church as well as other symbols of established power and authority. This is contrary to tarot tradition, where the Christian God, the ultimate enforcer of traditional rules and values, uses fire and lightning to punish the disobedient.

The Pholarchos Tower experience is entirely internal. An ecstatic blast of cosmic energy infuses every cell of the figure’s body with light. The power of this energy tears her apart and dissolves the old self. She emerges from the experience renewed and transformed.

The Songs for Journey Home Tower is about freedom from an internal prison. The yellow spotlight is a sudden flash of awareness, when you see your life in a new light and realize you’ve been sabotaging yourself, or living in a prison of false beliefs. Remaining encased in the old, familiar tower is no longer sustainable. Your life is in free-fall. The green sea monsters, who also appear on the Devil card, are the warning signals you’ve been ignoring until it all comes crashing down.

A survey of contemporary tarot authors reveals a range of interpretations, most of them psychological. The Tower is often seen as an edifice constructed from strategies for shoring up the ego with things like expensive toys and social media fame. This no longer works when lightning strikes and you lose your job, get evicted, or your relationship falls apart, and the perfect life you’ve presented to the world falls into ruins. The authentic life you denied or repressed can turn demonic and erupt with volcanic force. It demands that you break free and radically change your life. This can lead to a gloriously renewed, authentic life, or a descent into chaos.

Most of us don’t think God is watching our every move, waiting to pounce and punish us. But stuff happens. This card can point to anything from a flat tire that makes you late for an important meeting, to a natural disaster that wipes away every trace of the life you’ve built up.

On the positive side, the lightning strike could be a flash of creative inspiration, a mystical insight, or a moment of clarity that shows you exactly what you need to do. If disaster happens, we can reframe it as the universe taking away baggage we didn’t need anyway. The falling people had their reality turned on its head; but now they are free from limiting and self-sabotaging ideas, and are falling toward a new and better life.

Conclusion

We have a lot more control over our environment and the circumstances of our lives than our medieval ancestors. In previous centuries, when bad things happened, people usually blamed outside forces like God, the Devil, or witches. These days, we often look within and ask how we may have brought our problems on ourselves. The Tower card is the bolt out of the blue that creates chaos and ruin, or liberates us from a bad situation. It can be the product of blind fate, or the result of a stunning insight that compels us to radically change our life.

See more cards and art at the Tarot Wheel website:

https://www.tarotwheel.net/history/the%20individual%20trump%20cards/la%20sagitta.html

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Illustrations

Medieval illuminated manuscript

Photo of the town of San Gimignano, Italy, fromWikipedia.

Budapest Tarot, late 15^th century. Recreated by Sullivan Hismans, Tarot Sheet Revival, 2017. Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Photo of Sforza castle

05 Tarocchi Charles VI, c. 1460. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Paris.

Soprafino Tarot. Carlo Della Rocca,, c. 1835. Restored by Il Meneghello, Milan, 1992.

Cloisters Apocalypse, c. 1330, Normandy. Illustration of Revelations 16:17-21.

Destruction of Sodom and Lot’s wife. Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral, Palermo, 12^th century

The Rosenwald Deck, c. 1475. Re-created by Sullivan Hismans at Tarot Sheet Revival, 2017. Collection of National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Destruction of the Tower of Babel by God’s Angels, Bedford Hours, 1410-1430, British Library, Medieval 15c, f1 7v

Rothschild Sheet, c. 1500. Collection of Edmond de Rothschilde at the Louvre, Paris.

Tarocchi Sola Busca. C. 1490. Facsimile by Wolfgang Mayer, 1998.

Tarocchino Mitelli c. 1660. Reproduced by Giordano Berti, 2017. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Paris

Tarot de Jacques Vieville. Paris, mid-17^th century. Collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale Française. Facsimile produced by Heron Boechat, Bordeaux, c. 1980.

Vandenborre Bacchus Tarot,Brussels, c. 1670. Carta Mundi/US Games Systems, 1983

Book of Hours of Anne of Austria. Early 17^th century. Collection of the Morgan Library.

Catelin Geoffroy Tarot. Lyon, c. 1557. Collection of Museum of Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt

Hell Mouth from a Medieval Illuminated Manuscript

Tarot de Paris, c. 1650. Facsimile by André Dimanche/Grimaud, 1980. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Paris.

Jean Noblet Tarot, Paris c. 1650. Restored by Joseph H. Peterson, 2016. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Paris

Tarot de Arnoux & Amphoux, Marseille, 1801. Facsimile restored by Yves Reynaud, 2018.

Alessandro Viassone Tarot, Turin, c. 1865. Facsimile printed by Laura’s Retro Repros, 2021.

Joseph Feautrier Tarot, Bordeaux 1762. Facsimile restored by Yves Reynaud, 2022.

Oswald Wirth Tarot, 1887. Collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Paris

The Golden Dawn Tarot. Robert Wang and Israel Regardie. U.S. Games, Systems Inc., Stamford, CT, 1977

The Centennial Waite Smith Tarot Deck. London, 1909. U.S. Games System, Inc., Stamford, CT, 2009.

Ancestral Path Tarot. Julia Cuccia-Watts. U.S. Games Systems, Stamford, CT, 1997.

Pholarchos Tarot. Carmen Sorrenti. Arnell’s Art, 2018.

Songs for the Journey Home. Cook, Katherine and Dwariko Von Summaruga. Self-Published, 1996, 2006.

See the separate Bibliography for books that discuss all the trump cards.