Tarot and Black Death

a food for thought

Yatima's gone and ten days past.
Well, how about "the accord of Reason and Sensuality in the Fear of Death"?

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/asgds.htm

titled "Tarot and a Medieval Fantasy" an English file. Simply a survey on Lydgate's work, but might be interesting to some.

Re the Dominican game. I'm searching through the inextricable jungle of Secret Christianity and getting some impressions. The reference to the game was made in 1940 in the Japanese Catholic Encyclopedia without documentation. Those who concerned were all passed away. It seems the game was played by the Japan-resident-Dominican friars in early 17th century and it's not sure whether the game goes back to the 16th or 15th century or not. The unquestionable facts are that the wood-cards were once the fifteen images of rosary, and now they are used for divination by the Secret Christians, and the scholars said the wood cards has a connection to the Dominican game. The search goes on.

roppo

Re: a food for thought

roppo said:

Yatima's gone and ten days past.
Well, how about "the accord of Reason and Sensuality in the Fear of Death"?

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/asgds.htm

titled "Tarot and a Medieval Fantasy" an English file. Simply a survey on Lydgate's work, but might be interesting to some.

Click to expand...

Is "1412" the time of an English edition? Is the original in English?

Re the Dominican game. I'm searching through the inextricable jungle of Secret Christianity and getting some impressions. The reference to the game was made in 1940 in the Japanese Catholic Encyclopedia without documentation. Those who concerned were all passed away. It seems the game was played by the Japan-resident-Dominican friars in early 17th century and it's not sure whether the game goes back to the 16th or 15th century or not. The unquestionable facts are that the wood-cards were once the fifteen images of rosary, and now they are used for divination by the Secret Christians, and the scholars said the wood cards has a connection to the Dominican game. The search goes on.

roppo

Click to expand...

The playing card time of 15th/16th century in Germany was rather creative - it's possible, that a game like this existed. Perhaps it's also possible, that such a game disappeared from German eyes, but stayed alive in Japan. But without pictures, without name of a painter ...

But another question: How big is the interest in Tarot cards in Japan generally?

Re: Re: a food for thought

Huck said:

Is "1412" the time of an English edition? Is the original in English?




The playing card time of 15th/16th century in Germany was rather creative - it's possible, that a game like this existed. Perhaps it's also possible, that such a game disappeared from German eyes, but stayed alive in Japan. But without pictures, without name of a painter ...

But another question: How big is the interest in Tarot cards in Japan generally?

Click to expand...

The original is written in middle English and recorded in several manuscripts now in custody of the libraries of the British Museum and Trinity College, Cambridge. Specialists say Lydgate(c1370-c1450) wrote the work in 1412. I'm using the 1895 edition of Chicago Univ. Press. The above data is from the edition.

The Dominican game proves to be a very complicated and confused matter. It seems in 1620s some crooked Japanese friars sold rosary images as an indulgence and made serious troubles among the Japanese Christian community. Anyway, the search goes on.

re the interests in Tarot in Japan -- well, it's rather difficult to judge the extent from inside, but it is safely asserted that the younger generations knows much more about Tarot than they know about I-Ching. Many fortune-tellers count Tarot cards as their repertory. Anime and Manga tarots are mushrooming. Serious studies, though small in number, are appearing.

Re: Re: Re: a food for thought

roppo said:

re the interests in Tarot in Japan -- well, it's rather difficult to judge the extent from inside, but it is safely asserted that the younger generations knows much more about Tarot than they know about I-Ching. Many fortune-tellers count Tarot cards as their repertory. Anime and Manga tarots are mushrooming. Serious studies, though small in number, are appearing.

Click to expand...

May I cite you on this in the Tarot News? And if - under which name? And: Which do you think the most popular Japanese Tarot sites?

Re: Re: Re: Re: a food for thought

Huck said:

May I cite you on this in the Tarot News? And if - under which name? And: Which do you think the most popular Japanese Tarot sites?

Click to expand...

Yes, it's ok and the name "roppo" will do.
Re the popular Japanese site - well, perhaps

http://homepage3.nifty.com/west-mira/fortune/

the above is very poplular tarot-oracle site with many java-programs. Text -based, Japanese only. Almost incredible 13 million accesses in 4 years.

http://www11.ocn.ne.jp/~tarot/

this is a well-organized tarot information site. The webmaster is a one of the foremost tarotists of Japan. kenji haunts there often.

...... Yatima, come back at once! This thread is transforming into something strange! (lol)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: a food for thought

roppo said:

...... Yatima, come back at once! This thread is transforming into something strange! (lol)

Click to expand...

you're in the News now, and the News are out ...

but actually the Black death is not really a theme here ... The Black death explains, why there were NO triumphal processions (and no Trionfi cards) in specific times of 14th and 15th century - simple cause there were not enough wealth.
When Trionfi cards existed, they did so in spite of the surrounding dangers - they were games. But danger of pestilence supported games of the nobility - the rich left the cities, spending their time on the country. No normal business, free time to play cards, for instance, or free time for poetry and free time for telling stories, of course "with the ladies": see Decamerone.
Some attention should be drawn to the observation, that playing cards "are something for women" - one can learn that from many pictures, at which in context with playing cards also women appear, mostly playing with a lover. It was the normal and accepted way to flirt with the ladies.

Flirting with pestilence - what an absurd idea ...

Parisina loved cards ...
Bianca Maria loved cards ...

The cards teach some logic ... men learnt that with chess, but when approaching the (often) young girls, then playing cards were the right way to amuse them.

Oh, I'm in the News! I'm glad I could contribute a little to the Tarot community.

I envy you all, the members of Trionfi.com. Your hearts are staying in the 15th century Italian palace and flirting with young ladies by means of exquisite hand painted cards. My heart is always hanging around the gloomy late Victorian London and wandering to and fro in search of strange papers (lol)

Huck, I'm looking forward to trionfi.com's "from 14 to 22" topic. Everybody is, I suppose. The relationship between hand painted cards and printed cards is very intriguing!

quote] posted by roppo
(…) when approaching the (often) young girls, then playing cards were the right way to amuse them. .[/quote]

I know this is off-topic, but just wanted to make a short comment on this way of “approaching girls” with the help of card games. One thing it shows us, is that the cards were not taken merely as cardboard pieces with a certain facial value and range; they allowed “word games”, all kind of subtle allusions and comments; and (as chess, by the way), made possible a “winner-looser”, or “hunter and hunted”, erotic relationship between players. The same kind of romantic or erotic allusion so many times present in the imagery of hunting scenes, together with spiritual metaphors generally related to the pursue of the Soul, the hunting or fight with the sins or vices, etc. An intricate and very “tasty” subject.

roppo said:

Oh, I'm in the News! I'm glad I could contribute a little to the Tarot community.

I envy you all, the members of Trionfi.com. Your hearts are staying in the 15th century Italian palace and flirting with young ladies by means of exquisite hand painted cards. My heart is always hanging around the gloomy late Victorian London and wandering to and fro in search of strange papers (lol)

Huck, I'm looking forward to trionfi.com's "from 14 to 22" topic. Everybody is, I suppose. The relationship between hand painted cards and printed cards is very intriguing!

Click to expand...

Hm .. we don't have the solution to it. It's just a research question.
We've ONLY points of suspicion. Some of them seem to be rather near ... but ...

In the moment we concentrate on finishing the chapters Michelino deck, Imperatori and Ferrara 1441. Well, they're before "from 14 to 22" and when we understand a little more the problems of these themes, we also understand the "from 14 to 22" better ...
, says logic.

But I'll keep it in mind ... perhaps soon we will sum up a provisorial statement - actually statements like "in development" don't give a good impression

Somehow we've to hunt the "22-was-at-the beginning-theory" completely out of the temple. It's just nonsense, this conclusion was wrong.
We need also the energies of other researchers, persons, which know the Italian topic "after 1457" and can contribute to the question.

... Victorian London. You seem to research Golden Dawn papers. Fräulein Sprengel?
You had a link once, but it didn't work for me. Can you repeat it?

Huck said:

... Victorian London. You seem to research Golden Dawn papers. Frulein Sprengel?
You had a link once, but it didn't work for me. Can you repeat it?

Click to expand...

Had I? Here at AT, I think I didn't mention any GD matter. But, yes, my special interest is in the history and personalies of GD. I did some translating works with GD papers and history books, and recently offering materials for the Japanese GD students on the web. Those materials are wirtten in Japanese so that almost illegible to the outside world. My latest work is to render GD diagrams into 3DCGs. Some Jpegs are interesting to you.

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/serswod.htm

Oh, what an off-topic, a digression! I'm sorry.

re "14 to 22", I really am expecting. Of course the other topics are also great and I thank a lot to the staffs of the wonderful trionfi.com.