Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Red and blue shoes on the Hanged Man

My last post, "Sync bananza," included this image, originally from my 2022 post "Break on through to the other side":


In order to make it correspond more closely to the Flammarion engraving, I used the mirror image of the Tarot card, as is obvious if you look at the Roman numeral at the top: IIIV. Seeing this image again reminded me that some old Marseille-pattern Tarot cards actually printed a certain Roman numeral in mirror image on purpose, giving the Hanged Man the number IIX instead of XII. The reasons for this are obscure, but it is generally thought to have something to do with the figure's upside-downness.

Looking through my Tarot de Marseille files to find examples of this, I unexpectedly found something else: Here is the Hanged Man card from the deck printed by François Héri in Solothurn, Switzerland, in 1718:


Besides being numbered IIX, this card has a red shoe on the Hanged Man's right foot and a blue shoe on his right. This is quite unusual. I have 20 Marseille-pattern Hanged Man cards in my files, of which only 6 have mirror-image numerals. Of the 20 cards, 15 give the Hanged Man two red shoes, and 4 give him matching shoes of another color (blue or tan). Only Héri gives him mismatched shoes -- and he just happened to choose the correct colors and put them on the correct feet.

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Red and blue shoes on the Hanged Man

My last post, " Sync bananza ," included this image, originally from my 2022 post " Break on through to the other side "...