Ross G Caldwell
Re: 1540 ?
The difference between Marcolini's method in "Giardino di pensieri" and the method (apparently) described by Rowland is subtle, but profound - Marcolini uses only a few cards of a certain suit, or a spinner in the book, to obtain a random result that directs the reader to a written oracle; Rowland describes a reader interpreting random cards *themselves*, apparently from a full deck, without any pre-devised oracles to refer to, which is just as a modern cartomancer does it.
The use of cards as lots to obtain a random written oracle is not doubted to be early, but the idea of *reading* the cards cold, any cards that fall, is close to what we normally mean by cartomancy, and so Rowland's would be, in that sense, the earliest.
Kaplan describes Marcolini's book in his bibliography to volume I; here is Greer/O'Neill's description at Little's website -
"Francesco Marcolino da Forli, Le Sorti di Francesco Marcolino da Forti in Il Giardino di pensieri (Le Ingeniose Sorte), W 159. No Tarot cards--but definitely cartomancy--cards/pointer + book. Dummett p 94; Kaplan I/28; W. H. Willshire 1876. A descriptive catalogue of playing and other cards in the British Museum (Emmering, Amsterdam, 1975) refers to a complex fortune-telling system using playing cards. “Marcolino uses cards only as a randomizing device, ascribing no particular significance to the cards themselves (of which he uses only the suit of danari and the king, knight, knave, ten, nine, eight, seven, two and ace); they direct a questioner to the pages in the book that tell the future.”"
http://www.tarothermit.com/more.htm
Fulgour said:(as per above) according to the following article:
The earliest work on cartomancy was written or compiled by
one Francesco Marcolini, and printed at Venice in 1540.
THE FOLKLORE OF PLAYING CARDS
The difference between Marcolini's method in "Giardino di pensieri" and the method (apparently) described by Rowland is subtle, but profound - Marcolini uses only a few cards of a certain suit, or a spinner in the book, to obtain a random result that directs the reader to a written oracle; Rowland describes a reader interpreting random cards *themselves*, apparently from a full deck, without any pre-devised oracles to refer to, which is just as a modern cartomancer does it.
The use of cards as lots to obtain a random written oracle is not doubted to be early, but the idea of *reading* the cards cold, any cards that fall, is close to what we normally mean by cartomancy, and so Rowland's would be, in that sense, the earliest.
Kaplan describes Marcolini's book in his bibliography to volume I; here is Greer/O'Neill's description at Little's website -
"Francesco Marcolino da Forli, Le Sorti di Francesco Marcolino da Forti in Il Giardino di pensieri (Le Ingeniose Sorte), W 159. No Tarot cards--but definitely cartomancy--cards/pointer + book. Dummett p 94; Kaplan I/28; W. H. Willshire 1876. A descriptive catalogue of playing and other cards in the British Museum (Emmering, Amsterdam, 1975) refers to a complex fortune-telling system using playing cards. “Marcolino uses cards only as a randomizing device, ascribing no particular significance to the cards themselves (of which he uses only the suit of danari and the king, knight, knave, ten, nine, eight, seven, two and ace); they direct a questioner to the pages in the book that tell the future.”"
http://www.tarothermit.com/more.htm