Biographical dictionary

Huck

Hi,

I'm building in the moment a small biographical section for the most important Tarot related persons. This is not limited to 15th century, but includes also artists and card producers.

Marseille is a part I don't have too much knowledge about, so I need some advice.

Which would you include and where in the web is already some knowledge about them?

Thanks
 

jmd

Of the Marseille pattern specifically, I would include the Conver, Payen and the Dodal (more modern renditions include, principally, the Marteau-Grimaud, the Camoin-Jodorowsky and the Hadar).

As related to the Marseille, but deviating (or antedating, according to some) the Vieville and the Noblet.

Though there are others, I would suggest that these form the main basis from which others emerge.
 

Huck

jmd said:
Conver, Payen, Dodal, Vieville, Noblet

Is there any biographical material known or only just the decks?
 

jmd

Ross may have more details than I.

I am limited to materials by Kaplan, Dummett, and DePaulis, and have no access to D'Allemagne.

In another thread, Ross gives more details regarding Payen:
 

Ross G Caldwell

jmd said:
Ross may have more details than I.

I am limited to materials by Kaplan, Dummett, and DePaulis, and have no access to D'Allemagne.

In another thread, Ross gives more details regarding Payen:

Unfortunately d'Allemagne doesn't provide the exhaustive biographical documentation that Chobaut did for the cardmakers of Avignon; considering the thousands of cardmakers he lists, it would have been perhaps an impossible task.

I checked d'Allemagne's entries for Viéville, Noblet, Payen, Dodal, and Conver. For none of them does he provide a biography - he merely mentions them in passing, in the context of legal documents which mention them, or when he discusses the kinds of cards made in a certain place. In his exhaustive list of names at the end of volume two, he gives the floruit of each carmaker (the dates when they are documented as making cards).

It is interesting to remember that Noblet and Viéville were contemporaries, and are mentioned together in a document from 12 April, 1664 - along with the names of 34 other maîtres-cartiers of Paris (vol. II, p. 309)

If d'Allemagne's research notes have survived, it would make a great place to start a project of biographies of cardmakers.

But in the meantime, Thierry Depaulis' notes on Viéville, Dodal and Noblet (and others) are just as complete as d'Allemagne. For the Payens (and the other cardmakers of Avignon), Chobaut's work is unmatched, and for Conver, there are plenty of sources.