Sacred Empty Places.

Rosanne

Hi Bernice!
Well people will strongly disagree with your thought- it is thought that the Christian storyline is there and obvious.
As you know, views here are not the only views on Tarot. There are seriously held views that Tarot is Astrological (The 22). I find that not surprising. It could have been that the images were only assigned numbers to make the card playing clearer. If you relate Tarot ideas to the story I told about your clog and fish card, the story is true but the timing and place of the cards origins is out of whack with the story- but it is possible if I tried really hard to make the connection plausible. After all- in the 18th Century a new idea about cards became plausible- it did not stand up to close scrutiny according to some.
The cards are ambiguous. If they were not- then research would not be needed.
We would know. Fun looking though ain't it?
~Rosanne
 

mac22

Rosanne said:
..... maybe it was more to do with Ice Cream :D
Ice Cream arrived in Italy in 1559. One could not play cards whilst eating Ice Cream- better burn the cards? :surprise:
~Rosanne

Not to mention sticky fingers on the cards :D

Mac22
 

Rosanne

Hi Mac22..nice you read the thread. Any questions that you might like to offer up in the quest for diversity? I am sure have an historic query that could be mulled over?

PS..I wonder if Italians given the choice between eating Gelato and burning cards, I wonder what they would choose? Methinks Gelato would win out these'adays.

~Rosanne

No one has yet put forward an explanation for the Legging-less legs of the man in the middle of the Lovers Cards on the TdM. Has he? or is he about to? made his choice for instance. Or maybe the woodblock carver was just bored.
 

mac22

Rosanne said:
Hi Mac22..nice you read the thread. Any questions that you might like to offer up in the quest for diversity? I am sure have an historic query that could be mulled over?

PS..I wonder if Italians given the choice between eating Gelato and burning cards, I wonder what they would choose? Methinks Gelato would win out these'adays.

~Rosanne

No one has yet put forward an explanation for the Legging-less legs of the man in the middle of the Lovers Cards on the TdM. Has he? or is he about to? made his choice for instance. Or maybe the woodblock carver was just bored.

Hmmmmm....... Gelato or cards....... tough choice.... hehe

Mac22
 

Rosanne

Well Mac22 - I gave you a week to think of a question and I am sorely disappointed. No Gelato for you.
I have one that I am puzzled over.... (I am always puzzled about historic Tarot)

Here is a written statement in the book The Tarot by Alfred Douglas 1972.
That is 36 years ago and some things have changed of course.

Prior to about 1750 all Tarot trumps seemed to have been named in Italian, but most later packs give the titles in French. The word 'Tarot' comes from the French cards; In Italy they are called Tarocchi. The origin and meaning of this word is not known.
Does this still hold true (these three statements)?
~Rosanne
 

mac22

Rosanne said:
Well Mac22 - I gave you a week to think of a question and I am sorely disappointed. No Gelato for you.
~Rosanne

Hey WAIT! I have two hands :)

I can enjoy my galato & turn the cards!!

Mac22
 

Rosanne

Use your sticky fingers to type a question Mac22!

Anyway- it is me that awards the gelato- not your desire to have one.

I know you have a question in there somewhere- get to it Man!

~Rosanne
 

Ross G Caldwell

Rosanne said:
Well Mac22 - I gave you a week to think of a question and
Here is a written statement in the book The Tarot by Alfred Douglas 1972.
That is 36 years ago and some things have changed of course.

Prior to about 1750 all Tarot trumps seemed to have been named in Italian, but most later packs give the titles in French. The word 'Tarot' comes from the French cards; In Italy they are called Tarocchi. The origin and meaning of this word is not known.

Does this still hold true (these three statements)?
~Rosanne

The first statement is not true, the second is true, and third is also true, but...

The earliest list of French names known is a French translation of an Italian appropriato, from about 1560. The appropriato is a poem associating each of 22 Cardinals in conclave with a tarot trump. Some of the names are merely francisations of Italian terms.

The text does not put them in order; here they are, in the TdM ordering -

mat
bagat
papesse
imperatrice
empereur
pape
amour
car
justice
bossu
rouë de fortune
force
traditor
mort
temperance
diable
gibet ordonné*
estoille
lune
soleil
ange
monde

(*the editor of the text, Thierry Depaulis, thinks that "le gibet ordonné" (a difficult phrase, perhaps meaning "the ordered scaffold" (i.e. the sentence)) is probably a misreading of "du damné", as in "maison du damné", which would be itself a translation of the Italian "casa del danato", which appears in this place in the original Italian. Traditor is already taken, and the Italian has the Casa del danato, so there has to be some explanation for this name.)

It appears that the French terms "Mat" (from Matto) and "Bagat" or "Pagat" (from Bagatto) held on for some time with players in France; the rules from 1637 use those names, as does the list on Vieville's ace of deniers (c. 1650). However Noblet's pack, from around 1650, uses the terms "Fou" and "Bateleur", showing that these names were also traditional by this time.

So we can only say that the earliest evidence for a full list of completely French names for the cards is Noblet's pack. However, I think it is reasonable to assume that French players, who had been playing the game since at least 1500, and probably a few decades earlier than that, would have developed these "native" names for the cards much earlier than 1650.

Douglas' second statement just states an obvious truth - "tarocchi" is Italian, "tarot" is French.

The third assertion is strictly correct, but a few good suggestions about the meaning exist. Here is a list of many, both good and crappy -
http://www.geocities.com/anytarot/etymology.html

I favor the derivation from "tarochus" (or tarocus) (explanation 9, possibly 1), which itself might be a Latinate version of an Italian dialect *tarocco which would mean the same thing - "imbecile, idiot". The Latin word is attested with that sense in the 1490s.

The other most popular explanation is number 4, that it comes from a form of "tare", a deduction. The first person to make this suggestion was Menestrier, in 1704.

Ross
 

frelkins

Ross G Caldwell said:
The other most popular explanation is number 4, that it comes from a form of "tare", a deduction. The first person to make this suggestion was Menestrier, in 1704.

Ross

I've always liked this "tare" idea, since tare itself comes from the Arab "tarah" thing rejected or removed. You can see how this word could be applied to a traditional way tarocchi is scored, how the points are counted - the can be deducted or "<a href="http://www.pagat.com/tarot/counting.html#subtraction">subtracted</a>." And since we have the whole Mamluk connection, use of an Arab word seems probable.
 

Rosanne

Thank you Ross- especially your article on Tarot name origins. I personally favour 9, but I see Frelkins prefers 4- I too like the Arabic connection. I would imagine in the Tavern they would be called idiot cards or weird ones. There was most likely some joking names for the people who played Tarot as well.

That appropriato list makes interesting reading- especially the bit about 'House of Damned'. I was smiling to myself how much like Dante and Hell/Inferno could be mistranslated now. The House of Dante now would make you think of the House of the Dammed. Casa Del Dante lol. It looks like the painting as well.
Is the appropriato translated anywhere?

Thanks again
~Rosanne