wraithwitch: Here is my (rather compressed) piece for the @jsamnfanart exchange. I was drawing the P
wraithwitch:Here is my (rather compressed) piece for the @jsamnfanart exchange. I was drawing the Pillar of Darkness for @darinster. And here is a footnote to go with it:In the autumn of 1437, the patriarch of theVisconti-Sforza family whole ruled over Milan had a terrible dream.“I saw a city, shining fair upon a coast:it was prosperous as any built by man within the sight of Almighty God. To thiscity came a devil, all dressed in green, and a tall noble clothed in black. Thedevil cavorted about the city and the man in sable did not heed him but insteadheld court with a great number of the city’s cats. There was a terriblecommotion in the sky, a vast tumult of darkness that swooped upon the city likea great black bird. The sky raged and the clouds thundered and the darknessbecame a tower, taller than Babel. For an instant, a great and shining eyeopened in heaven and its gaze was of such dread power that I felt as helplessas a field mouse beneath the wing of a hunting hawk.”He engaged an artist to fashion a woodcutdepicting the terrible events so he might show the prints to priests, scholars andalchemists, in the hope of divining the dream’s true meaning. Visconti-Sforzabecame obsessed with omens and divination after that and later commissioned 15separate carte da trionfi decks. It is thought that the ‘Viridi Nigrum Proelio Arcem Diaboli’ woodcutis the reason why in many early trionfi decks the devil is painted green.This is amazing! Thank you so much! Wow! So many details!! -- source link