Di Gumppenberg 1810-1890 variations

Thanks to All That Is Divine for Mari H.!!!

Mari H.,
Your post here on the AT Forum is the only written work I found in English on Laura Tuan's I Tarocchi, which I just got today...
Your information finally filled in some significant blanks for me.
Actually, the set I got is a Spanish version, which is a bit of an improvement for me over Italian, but still...
I was going slightly bonkers until I found your postings and links, SO:
ThankYouThankYouThankYou!

I hope you like it!

I really like the I Tarocchi book by Laura Tuan. The Di Vecchi sets are gorgeous.

I just deleted my other message, because I remembered it's the Dotti set we're talking about. I had the Isa Donelli/Di Gumppenberg set on my mind.
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I'm mixing things up because I was thinking of the design patterns. If the Visconti Sforza pip and other patterns carried through (various Marseilles and regional patterns)...

-to the Ancient Tarots of Bologna 1780

-(the 1810 has Spanish style pips, different than Visconti pattern)

-then the patterns were picked up through the Di Gumppenberg 1840 (similar coloring to Tarots of Bologna)

-also reflected in the Di Gumppenberg 1845 (Della Rocca, Clasiccal Italian)

-were virtually similar in the Dotti Italiano 1865

and then seen in a Milanese Tarocco of the late 1800s...I think it's extinct now, reading Andy's Playing card site...

http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards65.htm

It would be a rather long-lived Italian pattern.

Interesting project, and I think some people (Tom Tadforlittle's Hermitage/Andy's Playing Cards) have posted about this in various segments...

Mari H.

I read the review posted Nov 2003

for the Ancient Tarots of Lombardy. I believe the gentleman bought the later Lo Scarebeo edition with the beige backgrounds and bigger card format than the light yellow 1995. Both reviews don't note the misprint in the little white book for the first and last of the major archana--the first title should be I, the Magician with the posted description and the last description is for the 0 or the Fool/Madman (the tramp that is not numbered).
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I went back to my information and my my Neoclassical sets that I bought in 2002 and 2003, the 1980 Edition Solloene with the delicate light yellow backs and and the 2003 Il Menghello version.

For collection purposes, I like my Il Solloene version the best, the one printed in 1980 limited to 1500 copies. A color picture of Il Matto and Il Bagattelliere (1) are numbered plates 29 and 30 in Stuart Kaplan's Encyclopedia of the Tarot, Volume II. More information on the edition and the majors appear on page 334, 346 and 347.

The title on the box notes the deck is called Neoclassical Italian Tarot by Ferdinando Gumppenberg, cardmaker in the locale of the garden near the Scala Theatre circa 1810 in Milan.

The Spanish pips are details noted in Mark Filpas review on the Pasteboard Masquerade and Stuart Kaplan's notes, which mean the patterns of the pips are laid out and do not interlace.

The Ace of Cups has the cardmaker Fabbricatore Gumppenberg printed on the bottom and the Ace of Swords has the Tax stamp.

While Kaplan notes that this Gumppenberg edition has the tax stamp valid from 1807 to 1816, I found out some more recent information about Di Gumppenberg in one of the Soprafino card sets that I received this year.

Gumppenberg is said to have moved to Milan in 1809 and brought with him from Munich 'besides experience and technical innovaction, the new taste and fashion that the people in Austria and Germany had enjoyed since the second half of the 18th century."

That would make sense. In terms of style and such, Napoleon's marriage to Marie Louise of Austria innn 1811 did probably have some beautiful effects on Neoclassical style

http://www.histofig.com/history/empire/personnes/autriche_marie-louise_en.html


http://www.georgianindex.net/Napoleon/king_rome/kr_cradle.html

Anyway, I thought it was a gorgeous bit of history to add to those who enjoyed this style of historical designs. I can almost see Marie Louise in L'Imperatice,' then a young and delicate woman.

Although in reading more, it was sad for the young babe crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy 'king of Rome'. The design probably didn't survive after 1816-17, with the fall of Napoleon after Waterloo.

Mari Hoshizaki

"New" Dotti at alidastore.com

Menghello has published a Tarocchi of Mary Stuart...there might have been a history, opera or theatrical performance at the time of it's original publishing?

I cannot find Kaplan or other references...may need to get this one soon.

Mari H.

The "Tarocchino Milanese" pattern

Hi all,

Great subject for a thread, Mari! After reading some of the posts, I wanted to clarify a few distinctions about the many different decks we are talking about.

Gumppenberg was a publisher of decks from the end of the 1700s into the mid 1800s. He published the designs of various deck artists (Carlo Dellarocca being one of them) in much the same way as Kaplan has published various deck designs over the last three decades. It would be inaccurate to refer to one of his designs as 'The Gumppenberg Tarot' since Gumppenberg published so many different designs -- it would be like referring to one of the several USGames decks as "The Kaplan Tarot".

It's important to distinguish between decks which Gumppenberg published and those which Dotti published. Edoardo Dotti was also an Italian publisher of Tarot decks but his works are slightly later than those of Gumppenberg. Dotti's decks -- including those which look very similar to Gumppenberg's "Soprafino" -- were published between 1836 and 1865. (Although Edoardo's father Teodoro was a publisher of cards too, he did not design the patterns we are discussing). One reason this chronology becomes important is because it helps clarify the fact that Dotti based some of his decks directly upon the earlier work of Gumppenberg and his engraver Dellarocca. More specifically, the designs we are most often here associating with Dotti were appropriated from Dellaroca's earlier and original 1835 design, the one to which the appellation "soprafino" (meaning "very refined") was actually applied.

It's also important to distinguish between the different patterns published by any given cardmaker. Gumppenberg, for example, published the deck we know as "Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano" in 1810:

http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/neoclass.html

the deck we know as "Trades and Sights of Milan" in 1820:

http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/trades.html

and the Dellarocca "Soprafino" in 1835:

http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/soprafin.html

all of which are wholly different in design. Adding to confusion is the fact that modern publishers have applied so many different titles to reproductions of a single design! (Lo Scarabeo must feel the need to create entirely new names for their historical reproductions; "The Classic Tarot", for example, is their reproduction of Dellarocca's original "Soprafino".) Dellarocca's "Soprafino" designs (perhaps the Waite-Smith of its time?) must have been quite influential because many similar decks were immediately spawned from it, including Dotti's version:

http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/dotti.html

as well as subsequent and simplified versions by Gumppenberg and others.

It is my understanding from Bob O'Neil that the pattern represented by the various "Soprafino" designs is officially known as the Tarocchino Milanese pattern. Kaplan's Encyclopedia Volume II includes several examples from multiple cardmakers (including Gumppenberg, Dotti, and several others who came later) who published versions of this pattern; here, the earliest versions by Gumppenberg and Dotti can be seen side-by-side:

http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/dotti2.html

We should remember, though, that all versions of the Tarocchino Milanese originate with the 1835 deck published by Gumppenberg and engraved by Carlo Dellarocca. (Currently, the only available reproductions of this historical deck are Lo Scarabeo's "The Classic Tarot" and Il Meneghello's limited/numbered "Soprafino".)

Thanks,

- Mark

Thanks! I welcome a correct titling

It probably would be great to start a new thread on Milanese Tarocco: you may notice this is a mish-mash of trying to learn and keep topics together but what started with Di Gumppenberg ended up being mixed up with Soprafino and other patterns...you can see I am definitely a slow learner.

At some point, I was going to investigate the Corona Ferrera (a very period piece) by Di Gumppenberg as well. I have one tiny printout in Italian does list some dates of Di Gumppenberg's activity and will add it somewhere when it seems pertinent.

I'll watch for anything if someone is inspired to write up a new thread or try to regroup in a few weeks after a family trip...

Best,

Mari H.