The Belgian Tarot

le pendu

Am I interpreting this correctly?

The consensus is that the Vieville is the earliest known deck of this pattern (1650, Paris). The Vieville has the Pope and Popess.

The Adam C. de Hautot (c. 1723, Rouen) shows the pattern, but has replaced Pope and Popess with the Spanish Captain Fracasse and Bacchus.

Many more decks (such as the Vandenborre) were created in the 1700s in what is now called Belgium, but then was the Austrian Netherlands.

A "probable conjecture" is that the pattern comes from Piedmont/Savoy.

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So... Piedmont/Savoy > Paris > Rouen > Belgium?

Why Piedmont/Savoy? Are there examples of what a Piedmont/Savoy deck would look like? (Did we just go through this with the Ottone?).

How did the Bologna similarities get into it, any ideas?

thanks!
 

le pendu

Another question:

On the Chariot, the Vieville "generally" matches the TdM style, however on the the Hautot and other Belgian Tarots the style of the Chariot is very different.

First Row: Vandenborre
Second Row: Vieville, Dodal, Noblet, Conver
d0245307.jpg

chariot_compare.jpg


Why is this? If the "Belgian" were modeled off of the Vieville, then I would expect the Chariot to look like a TdM. Where/Why did this other version of the Chariot enter the picture?
 

Ross G Caldwell

le pendu said:
Another question:

On the Chariot, the Vieville "generally" matches the TdM style, however on the the Hautot and other Belgian Tarots the style of the Chariot is very different.

Why is this? If the "Belgian" were modeled off of the Vieville, then I would expect the Chariot to look like a TdM. Where/Why did this other version of the Chariot enter the picture?

Yeah, great question.

But do we have to think that the Belgian was modeled off the Viéville? Don't Dummett and Depaulis just claim Viéville as the oldest known example of the pattern? That's something different.

The relationship between the Viéville and the Belgian tarots is undeniable; but it would seem to be a case of common ancestry rather than direct descent.

In this case, Viéville seems to have been influenced by the TdM. But it is obviously not Noblet's model, or any other known one. It seems Viéville and Noblet would have to have known each other though; and with the "Anonymous Parisian" tarot, Viéville and Noblet share the same back design - hexagon with "maltese cross". Paris seems to have been a hotbed of experimentation in the mid-17th century, when tarot was already in decline there (perhaps seen as "old-fashioned" - maybe this explains the search for variations? - but that leaves us with pure invention or borrowing, and hence - from where?).

BT Chariot has similarities to the Catelin Geoffroy tarot (uncovered chariot with seated figure holding a flower; BT has a staff with a fleur-de-lys) and Anonymous Parisian (figure holds staff), but the boy drawing the horse(s) is not there. Perhaps the lack of a canopy is a key detail; but why only one horse?
 

le pendu

Thanks Ross!

What does this mean?

Can we speculate that the Belgian is NOT "pulling" from the TdM, but is in itself another version of Tarot? And again... what does the Bologna, if anything, have to do with this version?
 

Ross G Caldwell

le pendu said:
Thanks Ross!

What does this mean?

Can we speculate that the Belgian is NOT "pulling" from the TdM, but is in itself another version of Tarot? And again... what does the Bologna, if anything, have to do with this version?

Yes - it was another version of Tarot! Remember how Dummett expressed it - the Belgian Tarot "was in fact the only standard pattern for Italian-suited Tarot packs used anywhere in Europe outside Italy that did not derive from the Tarot de Marseille."

Since you pointed out Viéville's Chariot, compared to the "standard" BT of the 18th century, it seems that Viéville was influenced by TdM. Viéville had contemporaries in Paris - Noblet, the Anonymous Parisian - which suggest that Paris had no standard Tarot of its own, and was in turmoil.

The influence of the Bolognese pattern seems distant... but Bolognese cardmakers had begun, around 1720 (IIRC), to make TdMs for export to Milan and probably Piedmont. Milanese cardmakers started to follow suit around 1800, starting with French names but Italianizing them quickly (and making beautiful cards - Gummpenberg, Della Rocca).

Cardmakers, and their plates, migrated as well. The sixteenth century is perfectly obscure in France, except for Geoffroy. But that isn't enough to say that TdM didn't exist in Lyon or Paris.

My guess - purely a guess at this point - is that the Bolognese cards moved westward, on land, and made it to Piedmont already in the 1450s. There was already a deck in France - the deck that Marcello had sent to Isabelle of Lorraine in Launay, near Angers, in 1449. It was a local deck, presumably, made in or around Milan. But there's no telling what "style" of deck it was (this is in addition to the more famous Michelino da Besozzo deck). Anyway, decks moved, more than we know. If popular tarot had penetrated as far as Lyon by the 1450s or 1460s, when there were already dozens of cardmakers making cards for export, then my belief is that the Lyonnais invented the TdM already well before the end of the 15th century. The chief innovations were placing the World as the highest card, and placing Temperance after Death, and putting numbers on the cards (maybe Ferrara had already done this). The Lyonnais cards, made also in Avignon, were exported to Piedmont (Pinerolo near Turin!) as early as 1505; and already, France ruled Milan since 1499 - and I am sure that the Lyon cardmakers had a rich market there. If so, the Cary Sheet might show what a TdM of the late 15th century looked like (but we really don't know the who, what, where, when or why of the Cary Sheet, except that it is obviously old and apparently Italian).

Speculations, speculations...
 

Ross G Caldwell

le pendu said:
Am I interpreting this correctly?

The consensus is that the Vieville is the earliest known deck of this pattern (1650, Paris). The Vieville has the Pope and Popess.

Yes. I think everyone agrees on that. This suggests that the Jupiter/Juno substitution was later. But we could just be missing pieces of the puzzle.

The Adam C. de Hautot (c. 1723, Rouen) shows the pattern, but has replaced Pope and Popess with the Spanish Captain Fracasse and Bacchus.

In addition to matching the TdM order exactly, and numbering the Fool "XXII".

Many more decks (such as the Vandenborre) were created in the 1700s in what is now called Belgium, but then was the Austrian Netherlands.

Yes.

A "probable conjecture" is that the pattern comes from Piedmont/Savoy.

I don't know if this can be called the consensus - It's just the only theory that's ever been proposed. Only two people have ever written on the question - Dummett and Depaulis, and I think Depaulis isn't sure about it. It's just the default, sole published conjecture on this obscure question.

The reason I would say that it might seem to be *not* so probable is that there are no surviving (known) Piedmontese tarot packs from before the early 18th century, and all of the documentary evidence before that shows a consistent and clear influence from France.

Thus, whatever the French tarot used, the Piedmontese used. There is no need to see a Piedmontese standard pattern that lifts up and migrates through Europe, leaving the Piedmontese to grab another style of cards - the TdM.
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So... Piedmont/Savoy > Paris > Rouen > Belgium?

That would be Dummett's way to put it. But it would be more honest to put "Piedmont/Savoy" in parentheses - (Piedmont/Savoy (?)) > Paris > Rouen > Belgium.

Why Piedmont/Savoy? Are there examples of what a Piedmont/Savoy deck would look like? (Did we just go through this with the Ottone?).

How did the Bologna similarities get into it, any ideas?

thanks!

There aren't any examples of what a Piedmont/Savoy deck would look like before the early 1700s - when it looked like the TdM.

All we have before that are mentions of tarot makers and laws about cardmaking including tarots, and one list of trumps from about 1565, which is very close to TdM but also shows Bolognese characteristics.

The lists of "Western Orders" (like TdM) can be seen tabulated by Michael Hurst at
http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1540-1739.html

The 1565 list (Francesco Piscina in Mondovì) agrees with the TdM in order, and most of the names, except that he has four Papi instead of Popess, Empress, Emperor and Pope, and he puts the Angel higher than the World. So Dummett long ago realized that this was a "composite" order, a mix, apparently, between TdM (French or Milanese) and Bolognese.

Since the Milanese orders, and the Piscina order, differ only slightly from the French TdM, it seems that Piedmont/Savoy was a hodge-podge of orders, and since Viéville is identical to the Pavia (Lombard-Milanese) order of Susio, it seems plausible to suggest that Viéville represents something like what might have existed in Savoy, and passed on into France. And since the Belgian Tarot is related to Viéville, and descended from the same family, as Viéville, it can be suggested that the BT is a descendant of the the style of decks used in Piedmont/Savoy before the 18th century.

Ross
 

kwaw

re: Bacus on a Keg

"In august 1492 Bartolomea Pascali, canon of the Provostship at Oulx in Val di Susa (western Piedmont), put on trial two friars, both born in Umbria, who called themselves (as we see from the record of interrogation) barbae, or itinerant Waldensian preachers. One of them, Pietro di Jacopo, explained that they wandered about the world preaching and listening to the confessions of the members of the sect. Later, he listed the valleys of the Piedmont and those of the Dauphine in which they were active: Val Chisone, Val Germanasca, Val Pellice, Val Fressinieres, Val 'Argentiere, and Val Pute. Of himself and his companions he said that they were called charretani, alias fratres de grossa opinione, vel barlioti, adulatores et deceptores populi.

"This was a list of offensive epithets: simulators of holiness (a behaviour then traditionally attributed to the inhabitants of Cerreto in Umbria); Fraticelli (little friars), but with a negative connotation (de grossa opinione rather than de opinione); friars of the barlotto or keg (from the infamous accusation hurled at the fraticelli in 1466), flatterers, scoundrels and deceivers.* The reasons for this self-denigrating behaviour on the part of Pietro di Jacopo are not clear. In the subsequent interrogation he confirmed that in their jargon (in eorum gergono) they were called friars of the keg, vulgarly Waldensians, and in Italy friars de opinione, that is, fraticelli…"

"… The references to 'a certain idol called Bacco and Bacon (quoddam ydolum vocatum Bacum et Bacon), which the members of the sect worshipped during their gatherings, seem to add a touch of quite incredible pastiche paganism. But the names that follow immediately after, almost seperated by a beat - 'and also the Sibilla and the Fairies (et etiam Sibillam et Fadas) - have a differenct flavour. The reference to the Appennine Sibilla aappears perfectly plausible in the mouth of someone who, like Pietro di Jacopo, was born in a village near Spoleto (Castel d'Albano). As for the fairies, their appearance in a heresy trial is totally absurd, and thus certainly authentic."

Note (p. 312):
* 39 "On the 'charretani' cf. P. Migliorini, 'I cerratani e Cerreto', in Romance Philology, 7 (1953-54), pp. 60-64, which records the diverse significance of the 15th century attestations (the first is from 1477, just before the trial we are analysing) in respect of those of the following century, when the term took on the meaning of 'quack doctor' or 'charlaton'.

Quote from ECSTACIES Deciphering the Witches Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg, p.302 and note p.312.

Kwaw
 

le pendu

Hi Kwaw,

Sorry, I just want to make sure I understand...

Does this mean that the term "Charlatan", as described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlatan descends from itinerant Waldensian preachers?

I think we've discussed on the forum before that the term Mountebank means "Jumps on bench" or such.. indicating the "barker" in the "Step right up and see the show" aspect of the Bateleur.

Are you suggesting that the Bateleur/Mountebank/Charlatan image is descended from the concept of the itinerant Waldensian preachers, therefore explaining perhaps the connection with the image in the Housebook?

Thanks,
robert
 

kwaw

"Ultimately, etymologists trace "charlatan" from either the Italian ciarlare, to prattle; or from Cerretano, a resident of Cerreto, a town that was apparently notorious for producing quacks."

These itinerant preachers too, called friars of the keg, allegedly worshippers of an idol whose name relates to that of bacus, called themselves charretani, and Ginzburg notes aspects of their behaviour traditionally attributed to the inhabitants of Cerreto in Umbria.

Perhaps then, two of our images, that of the mountebank, charlaton, and that of bacus on a keg, are rooted in traditions from the region of Umbria? Bacus on a keg remember, is not unique to the Belgian tarot, the image can be found on earlier decks on different cards [ie, to the position of pope]. There is the link with Piedmont region [the valleys of the Piedmont and Dauphine regions being where these charratani were active].

Kwaw
 

kwaw

In reference to the replacement of V-Pope with Jupiter in the Besancon and Bacus in the Belgian tarot, according to Francis Bacon in Wisdom of the Ancients (1609) "the acts of this god (speaking of Bacchus) are much entangled and confounded with those of Jupiter…"

"… the confusion between the persons of Jupiter and Bacchus will justly admit of an allegory, because noble and meritorious actions may sometimes proceed from virtue, sound reason, and magnanimity, and sometimes again from a concealed passion and secret desire of ill, however they may be extolled and praised, insomuch that it is not easy to distinguish betwixt the acts of Bacchus and the acts of Jupiter."

In relation to a possible relationship between the Spanish Captain and Bacus, as we may see between Jupiter and Juno in the besancon, or the Popess and Pope in the TdM; perhaps we may see one in that the Spanish Captain is a character from the Commedia dell'Arte, and "as the Greek drama had grown out of the dithyrambic choruses at the festivals of Dionysus, he was also regarded as the god of tragic art, and as the protector of theatres." [Smith] So there is the relationship of a member of the theatrical profession, and the divine protector of such (or do you think that a bit of stretch?).

Kwaw

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities edited by William Smith (1870).
The Wisdom of the Ancients Francis Bacon (1609)