2 c. 1500 BnF cards: French?

MikeH

Thierry Depaulis published an article in the Jan-March issue of The Playing Card that among other things proposes that two tarot cards found at the bottom of a box at the BnF are French, from Lyon around 1500. The occasion for the article was a previous one by Franco Pratesi, documenting a Florentine cardmaker's inventory of 1506 as including "trionfi alla franciosa", literally, triumphs in the French style. Was there by then a distinct style of triumphs associated with France? But the phrase could mean simply, "French triumphs", i.e. triumphs made in France. In either case, the inventory item fits with the first occurrence of the word "taraux", in Dec. 1505 Avignon. In his book Le Tarot révélé (La Tour-de-Peilz 2013), p. 46
La plus ancienne mention connue du tarot en français date de décembre 1505. Elle se lit dans un acte notarié d'Avignon, par lequel le cartier Jean Fort s'engage à livrer à un papetier de Pignerol et à un cartier local "quinque pecis modulorum sive moles artis cartarum, duabus grossis cartarum de Lugdano et quatuor duodenis quararum vulo appelatarum taraux" (cinq pièces de moules du metiér de cqrtier [bois gravé pour l'impression], deux grosses soit 2 x 144 jeux de cartes de Lyon et quatre douzaines de [jeux de] cartes communément appelés taraux) (20). Certes Avignon n'était pas en France - c'était une cité pontificale - et la langue de l'acte est le latin. Mais, de toute évidence, le mot taraux n'est ici ni du latin ni du provençal. C'est du français. Rabelais et d'autre sources l'écrivent ainsi, première orthographe du jeu. La référence à des cartes "de Lyon" dit assez d'où vient le mot. Les cartiers d'Avignon étaient en relation étroite avec Lyon, d'ou venaient leur savoir-faire et leurs modèles. II est donc permis de penser que le mot s'entendait à Lyon aussi et que le jeu y était connu autour de 1500.

(The oldest known French mention of tarot dates to December 1505. It is written in a notarial act of Avignon,whereby the cartier Jean Fort undertakes to deliver a paper at Pinerolo and a local neighborhood "quinque pecis modulorum sive moles artis cartarum, duabus grossis cartarum de Lugdano et quatuor duodenis quararum vulo appelatarum taraux" (five pieces of molds of the cartier's art [woodcut for printing], two grosses or 2 x 144 of Lyon card packs and four dozen [packs] commonly called taraux) (20). Avignon certainly was not in France - it was a papal city - and the language of the act is Latin. But obviously, the word taraux here is neither Latin nor Provencal. This is French. Rabelais and other sources write the first spelling of the pack. The reference to cards of "Lyon" says enough where the word comes from. The cartiers of Avignon were in close contact with Lyon, from where they had their expertise and their models. It is therefore arguable that the word was heard in Lyon and also there that the game was known around 1500.)
Given that the document is in Latin, except for this one word, which has a French ending, as opposed to Provencale, and that the document also mentions cards of Lyon, it is reasonable to wonder whether the cards of the Florentine inventory, and also the cards found in the BnF, were produced in Lyon or in the style produced there.

Now here is what Depaulis says in his recent article, in my translation (I have posted my scan of the original of these pages at https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KHlYf2po...5WKC8ZEvI7QQazgTIg/s1600/BookScanCenter_4.jpg)
in 1985, when the exhibition "Tarot game and magic" was in full swing, two forgotten tarot cards were exhumed by Gisele Lambert, then curator at the Bibliotheque Nationale, responsible for the inventory of the "first Italian engravers." A Hermit and a Queen of Cups, engraved on wood and colored with the help of stencils, acquired at the beginning of the 20th century, waiting their turn at the bottom of a
206

Box (18). The surprise was total. I soon published these cards, dating them from the end of the 15th century. They are significantly smaller than the painted tarots and measure only 99 x 58 mm. The backs are white.

Lambert2cards.jpg


Attributed, for lack of anything better, to Milan when they were discovered, these two cards might well be, upon reflection, ... French. One thinks of Lyon because of the Queen of Cups, which presents some similarities in the shape of the arm and hand, the treatment of the face, and the veil under the crown, with the queens of Lyon cards. In addition, these cards have straightforward [francs] borders, no trace of the flap onto the back so typical of Italian cards. With the Donson cards (Ferrara?), they are the only printed tarot cards "complete" and in color for this period.


Are these the trionfi Franciosa discussed in the Florentine inventory?
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18. They are now listed BnF, Estampes, RESERVE BOITE FOL-KH-34-(l,,3), and are visible on the server Gallica at the address gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btvlbl0510958d.r.
19. Thierry Depaulis, «Tarot: nouvelles découvertes a la Bibliotheque Nationale», Nouvelles de I'estampe, n° 80, May 1985, p. 4-5.
I think more can be said here, not against what he says, but examining some things he doesn't go into.

Depaulis offers four criteria for distinguishing French from Italian cards.
On pense a Lyon a cause de la dame de coupes qui presente quelques affinités, dans la forme du bras et de la main, le traitement du visage, le voile sous la couronne, avec des reines de cartes lyonnaises. En outre, ces cartes sont a bords francs, sans trace de rabat des dos si typique des cartes italiennes.

(One thinks of Lyon because of the Queen of Cups, which presents some similarities in the shape of the arm and hand, the treatment of the face, and the veil under the crown, with the queens of Lyon cards. In addition, these cards have blunt borders, no trace of the flap of the back so typical of Italian cards.
(1) similarities in the shape of the arm and hand;
(2) treatment of the face;
(3) veil under the crown;
(4) straightforward borders, without trace of the flap of the back

By (4) he means larger borders which can be folded over onto the other side to provide a firm connection between front and back, e.g. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PvPFGdJdOzg/VaApYUMk8_I/AAAAAAAAG2U/Ho5UQJ34ChY/s1600/Image-09.JPG.

Depaulis gives no examples of how French cards and not Italian ones fit these criteria. However Gallica does have cards from Lyon of that period, c. 1500 and a little before. They all have French suit symbols.

So let's compare Italian and French samples from around the same time period. First, Italian, two rows of the "Budapest" sheet (Kaplan, vol. 2, p 274), and the Rosenwald Sheet's row of Queens. I do not give the Rosenwald Old Man because he is on crutches, quite different from Lambert's card. I give the Rosenwald Queen only for the profile view of the face. In most tarots, including the Tarot de Marseille, the Queen of Cups is full-face, although still looking at the cup.

Budapest1Kaplan274top2rows.jpg

rosenwald-2Queens.jpg

The Budapest Queen is similar to Lambert's in the drawing of the arm and hand. Also, alone among the Queens, it has the "veil" on both sides of the head.
Lambert2cardsQu.jpg

Budapest1Kaplan274top2rowsQuCu.jpg


The Rosenwald is similar in giving a profile view, but nothing else.

rosenwald-2QueensCups.jpg


The cups are all somewhat different. In the case of the Old Man, the style of the Budapest and Lambert's is very similar, as well as the fact that both use a cane. This is something carried over from the PMB (https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UxFhOBrA...SLg/s1600/Hermit_Visconti-Sforza_tarotDET.jpg). The PMB has a pronounced hunched posture; whether it is actually a hunchback I am not sure. In the Budapest, the posture is better; there may be a bulge in his upper back, but it might be either the flow of the coat or a pack on his back. Berti and Vitali in Tarocchi, Arte e Magia give a colored version of the sheet from the Metropolitan Museum:
72dpi-met-ferrara-tarocchiHermit.jpg

In this detail Lambert's card is quite unique in having what looks like a green bundle on his back. shaped like a round pyramid of three levels. The only thing comparable is the Cary Sheet's Fool and Magician:

01CarywFool.jpg

Lambert2cardsDET.jpg


There are no especially wide borders on any of these cards. That there are numbers on the Italian Old Man card and not on Lambert's is not a problem, because the Italian card can simply have derived from a model without the number. Dummett observed that "the designs of the triumphs of the 'Budapest pack' are probably prior to the addition of numerals, considering the awkward way in which the numerals were forced into every available space" (1993, original Italian at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15166) Also, the Cary Sheet didn't have numbers.

So now French cards. Most examples of Queens, at least on Gallica, of that period are standing figures not looking at all like Lambert's, e.g. https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WTq81Qax..._8tjwfT6zXQ/s1600/ConsulterElementNum155.jpeg, https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bweb0CYW...otw4-jDuoY6s-j1rf555Ig/s1600/fclercbnfTop.jpg, https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5zrEx3oP...JY5zbOfUqe_ERVMiGlp1ZQ/s1600/fclercbnfDET.jpg.

However there was one card-maker, Jean de Dale, given variously as 1480 (Gallica) and c. 1485 (Hoffman, The Playing Card, pl. 45) that at least had them sitting, even if on horses, as well as occasionally in profile.

1480sf7.highres.jpeg


Here only one of the ladies has the "veil" going down the sides of her crown, although of a different style, and her face, if done in profile, has a certain similarity to that of Lambert's. There is also quite a bit resemblance in the arms and hands. Two other of these Queens are in profile, although they seem older and less attractive than the on with the "veil". In the context of these cards by Dale, there is indeed something French about Lambert's Queen.

1480sf7.highresQuHorse.jpg

Lambert2cardsQu.jpg

1480sf7.highresFace.jpg


So it is at least reasonably possible that Depaulis is right. However, there are also similarities with the Budapest/Metropolitan and even the Cary Sheet, in regard to the bundle on the Old Man's back--although neither of these is securely Italian, especially the Cary Sheet. Lambert's cards are clearly proto-TdM, but beyond that it is more difficult to say, it seems to me, whether it is of Lyon or somewhere else, not necessarily Italy--there is also Piedmont/Savoy, of which we know nothing. Depaulis says that they imported cards from elsewhere--Avignon, of course is documented in Dec. 1505. But probably also Lyon, he says, and "without doubt" Milan (p. 35). But the presence of the "moules", i.e. woodcuts, to be sent to a city in Piedmont--in a part controlled by Savoy--suggests that that is not all they did.

Added later: There are other reasons for thinking that Savoy/Piedmont might have been the road of the tarot, and "taraux", into France. (1) The ruling family would have known the game, at least by way of Filippo Maria Visconti's widow Marie of Savoy or Galeazzo Maria Sforza's wife/widow Bona of Savoy. (2) the area has two languages; (3) Italian-speaking Piedmont is where the "tarocch-" word is first documented, in around 1494, meaning "madman" or "fool": it occurs in two literary examples, i.e. for a literary audience, suggesting that perhaps the word was current in other contexts; (4) the word "tarocchi" appears in Ferrara, for the tarot, in June of 1505, six months before its documentation in Avignon, in a document of the court of Alfonso d'Este. He had previously spent time in Piedmont and imported musicians from there, as his wife Lucrezia Borgia liked their songs (I can't for the moment locate my source, an essay on music in Ferrara). There is also the issue of whether words are more likely to lose their "cch" going into French, or gain it going into Italian. I don't have the answer to that one.
 

Debra

I'm curious about the wallet hanging from the Hermit's belt. Does anyone recall other hermits with a clearly visible purse?
 

Huck

I don't know about the purse ... The lantern ....

Somehow it looks more like a lantern than an hour-glass. Can one say, that the lantern appeared in French Tarot decks? Any Italian hermit card with lantern? The Dick Tarocchi looks like having a lantern, other Italian productions clearly have Father Time direction.
A lantern was used by the philosopher Diogenes. Diogenes appeared with King Alexander at the sun card of the d'Este Tarot (estimated for the 1470s, Ferrara).

este-sun.jpg


The Dick Tarocchi is attributed to Ferrara cause of its card numbers (Ferrarese row).

72dpi-met-ferrara-tarocchiHermit.jpg


The big French Tarot development happened (likely, just my opinion), when the future French king Henry III crossed Italy and Ferrara in 1574. Henry became soon later a fan of Italian customs and the number of Tarot documents in France exploded in his time. Ferrara was then (begin 1570s) struck with 3 years of continuing earth-quakes and local industries had suffered a lot by it, possibly also the Ferrarese Tarocchi production. It might well have been, that Ferrarese Tarocchi masters made a step towards France, Ferrara was very destroyed then.


http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10510958d.r.

f1.highres

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10510958d/f1.highres

f3.highres

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10510958d/f3.highres
 

kwaw

I'm curious about the wallet hanging from the Hermit's belt. Does anyone recall other hermits with a clearly visible purse?

The winged hermit (time/old man/cripple) figure of the Jeu de tarot bolonais, 17th century has a purse/wallet/bag:

f23.highres


Another bologna type winged hermit - not sure if it is just a fold of cloth round his waist or is possibly also some form of pouch/bag:

Beux_Arts_Hermit.JPG
 

Debra

Thank you, Kwaw. Some time ago, Rosanne floated the possibility that the Visconti hermit--because of his unusual dress, shoes, headgear--is a Jew, and wondered if he had a purse hidden in the folds of his blue blouse.
 

Huck

Now, as you point to Bologna, I see it also here (Rothschild Tarocchi) ...

09.jpg


Added: crossposting, you already found it.

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For the "Lantern or TIME" phenomenon we have in the Mitelli Tarocchi ...

Mitelli Tarocchi (Bologna) with lantern and STARS = TAROT STAR
f35.highres


Mitelli Tarocchi (Bologna) as crippled TIME (without hour glass) = TAROT HERMIT
f7.highres


.... the function appears split on two different cards, something, which also appears much later in the Petit Oracle des Dames: "Le Sage" as the prolongation of the Hermit, and "Trahison" for the thief in the night:

d0246214.jpg


d0246216.jpg


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I took also a view at other early French Tarot: Tarot de Paris (likely), Geofroy and Noblet had an early lantern ... with the Vievil it's rather unclear, what there is. Is there even a knife?

Cathelin Geofroy Tarot ... 1557, Lyon, France, with animal suits from Vigil Solis
a09.png


Tarot de Paris (in my opinion from 1559, arranged by members of the French Gonzaga and Strozzi families branches)
09.jpg


both from http://cards.old.no/

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Vievil Tarot (c. 1650)
f21.highres


Noblet Tarot (c. 1660)
f17.highres


both from Gallica
 

kwaw

Medieval Girdle Purses

According to Museum of Bags:

Nowadays, the handbag belongs almost exclusively to the women's domain. Historically, however, bags were practical appliances primarily for men. Inside pockets had not yet been invented, so bags and purses were used for carrying money and other personal assets such as documents, letters, alms, the Bible and relics. Bags and purses came in many models, according to their function: bags with clasps, leather purses and pouches on long drawstrings. Apart from a few shoulder bags, these were all worn attached to the belt or girdle. Most were made of leather or woven fabrics; luxury models were made of silver or precious fabrics and were beautifully embroidered with silk and gold or silver thread. The oldest bag in the Museum of Bags and Purses is a 16th century goatskin men's bag with elegant buttons and a metal clasp. It has eighteen compartments, most of them with secret locks. Women often wore their bags and purses attached to the girdle on a chatelaine, a hook with long chains. After the introduction of inside pockets for men's wear towards the end of the 16th century, the men's bag slowly disappeared in the course of the 17th century."

According to Catholic tradition org:

GIRDLE/CINCTURE: The girdle, or cincture, was worn over the other clothing and, in ancient costume, served as purse, protection, and ornament. Many symbolical meanings were attached to it. Christ used it to symbolize preparation for any service that God might require of His children. "Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning in your hands"[(Luke 12:35].


The purse was also a symbol of Judas, and as Huck has noted, we see in Etteilla the Hermit becomes the 'Traitor'.

The girdle purse was also used to contain rosaries, prayer books, etc. There is possibly an example of the girdle held book on a Hermit card, in the Tarot of Lombardy (c.1810):

db887ac6aeccf292b3c42acfc99b76b8.jpg
 

Debra

Oh man. So that's "girding your loins"! Thanks for all this, kwaw.
 

kwaw

1400's Bosch, showing a figure with both a girdle (or possiby shoulder held) purse and a girdle book:

1400s_bosch_beltbook.jpg


From The Last Judgment, a triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, created after 1482. This is from the left hand shutter, showing "St. James in pilgrimage within a wicked land with a hung man..."

Here is another Bolognese Tarocchini winged-hermit, 16th century, from the British Museum:

TAROCCHINIhERMIT_zpsuoogjolf.jpg


The Bolognese Hermit bears some comparison with the Rosenwald in that both appear to use two sticks, to be on crutches - there are no wings, no purse or columb on the Rosenwald however:

09.jpg
 

Huck

Depaulis in his article came up with the idea, that the relevant new Hermit card would be a French Tarot card.
One of his arguments was the border of the cards:

in 1985, when the exhibition "Tarot game and magic" was in full swing, two forgotten tarot cards were exhumed by Gisele Lambert, then curator at the Bibliotheque Nationale, responsible for the inventory of the "first Italian engravers." A Hermit and a Queen of Cups, engraved on wood and colored with the help of stencils, acquired at the beginning of the 20th century, waiting their turn at the bottom of a Box (18). The surprise was total. I soon published these cards, dating them from the end of the 15th century. They are significantly smaller than the painted tarots and measure only 99 x 58 mm. The backs are white.

Attributed, for lack of anything better, to Milan when they were discovered, these two cards might well be, upon reflection, ... French. One thinks of Lyon because of the Queen of Cups, which presents some similarities in the shape of the arm and hand, the treatment of the face, and the veil under the crown, with the queens of Lyon cards.

In addition, these cards have straightforward [francs] borders, no trace of the flap onto the back so typical of Italian cards.

The border points to France. That's a good argument from Depaulis, I would say.

As a second big argument I see the feature of the lantern. This attribute seems to be more a French style than an Italian style, at least as far we can control it with extant old Tarocchi cards (Italian exceptions: Dick Tarot, Mitelli Tarot).

A 3rd more complex argument is formed by the late name Capucin (I don't know it's first appearance for the card) .... The Capucins had a hermit tradition since their earliest times (c. 1520).
"Frère Matthieu de Baschi venant de l'Observance ne veut plus porter l'habit de son Ordre, ayant eu la vision de saint François portant un habit avec un capuchon pointu (janvier 1525). Il demande au pape par l'intermédiaire de la duchesse de Camérino (nièce du pape) une dispense orale pour porter cet habit et prêcher d'une manière itinérante."

They took then a specific habit, a brown monk's cloak with a "Kapuze", which was connected to the cloak. The origin of this Franciscan branch was in Camerino, a region, which had had earlier some family connection to the Este family in Ferrara (as long the the Varano family ruled in Camerino).

mu-10.jpg


The colors are not right, but the bundle at the back might be interpreted as the multi-tool "Kapuze", which could have served not only to protect the head, but also to transport necessary utilities on their wanderings:

mu-9.jpg


The year 1574 was a great date in the development of the Capucins:
"C'est finalement en 1574 que Grégoire XIII donne la liberté aux Capucins de se répandre partout dans le monde. La même année les premiers frères Capucins arrivent à Paris introduits eu France sous Catherine de Médicis et Charles IX, ils s'y multiplièrent rapidement. Ils sont également, à cette époque, à l'appui de la Contre-Réforme, très présents dans les Pays-Bas espagnols (future Belgique sans la Principauté de Liège), dont les Provinces-Unies protestantes (futurs Pays-Bas), viennent de faire sécession. En 1587, un groupe de Capucins, sous la direction du saint Joseph de Leonessa, se rendit à Constantinople pour prendre en charge une mission catholique abandonnée dans le quartier de Galata. Ils furent expulsés assez rapidement du pays, car saint Joseph de Leonessa poussa le zèle missionnaire jusqu'à se rendre au palais de Topkapi afin de demander au sultan Murad III de se convertir au catholicisme.

Sur intervention du saint cardinal Charles Borromée archevêque de Milan, les Capucins s'établissent à Altdorf (en Suisse) en 1581.

The Capucins were allowed to explode their missions. They reached Paris in the same year 1574, when the Tarot card notes started to increase in number, likely influenced by the Italian interests of the young king Henry III.

The first Swiss note of "Troggn" (Swiss name for the game of Tarot).

The Capucins were a branch of the Franciscans, who already earlier engaged very much in the persecution of gambling habits (San Bernardino, St. Capistran and others).