MikeH
Thierry Depaulis published an article in the Jan-March issue of The Playing Card that among other things proposes that two tarot cards found at the bottom of a box at the BnF are French, from Lyon around 1500. The occasion for the article was a previous one by Franco Pratesi, documenting a Florentine cardmaker's inventory of 1506 as including "trionfi alla franciosa", literally, triumphs in the French style. Was there by then a distinct style of triumphs associated with France? But the phrase could mean simply, "French triumphs", i.e. triumphs made in France. In either case, the inventory item fits with the first occurrence of the word "taraux", in Dec. 1505 Avignon. In his book Le Tarot révélé (La Tour-de-Peilz 2013), p. 46
Now here is what Depaulis says in his recent article, in my translation (I have posted my scan of the original of these pages at https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KHlYf2po...5WKC8ZEvI7QQazgTIg/s1600/BookScanCenter_4.jpg)
Depaulis offers four criteria for distinguishing French from Italian cards.
(2) treatment of the face;
(3) veil under the crown;
(4) straightforward borders, without trace of the flap of the back
By (4) he means larger borders which can be folded over onto the other side to provide a firm connection between front and back, e.g. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PvPFGdJdOzg/VaApYUMk8_I/AAAAAAAAG2U/Ho5UQJ34ChY/s1600/Image-09.JPG.
Depaulis gives no examples of how French cards and not Italian ones fit these criteria. However Gallica does have cards from Lyon of that period, c. 1500 and a little before. They all have French suit symbols.
So let's compare Italian and French samples from around the same time period. First, Italian, two rows of the "Budapest" sheet (Kaplan, vol. 2, p 274), and the Rosenwald Sheet's row of Queens. I do not give the Rosenwald Old Man because he is on crutches, quite different from Lambert's card. I give the Rosenwald Queen only for the profile view of the face. In most tarots, including the Tarot de Marseille, the Queen of Cups is full-face, although still looking at the cup.
The Budapest Queen is similar to Lambert's in the drawing of the arm and hand. Also, alone among the Queens, it has the "veil" on both sides of the head.
The Rosenwald is similar in giving a profile view, but nothing else.
The cups are all somewhat different. In the case of the Old Man, the style of the Budapest and Lambert's is very similar, as well as the fact that both use a cane. This is something carried over from the PMB (https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UxFhOBrA...SLg/s1600/Hermit_Visconti-Sforza_tarotDET.jpg). The PMB has a pronounced hunched posture; whether it is actually a hunchback I am not sure. In the Budapest, the posture is better; there may be a bulge in his upper back, but it might be either the flow of the coat or a pack on his back. Berti and Vitali in Tarocchi, Arte e Magia give a colored version of the sheet from the Metropolitan Museum:
In this detail Lambert's card is quite unique in having what looks like a green bundle on his back. shaped like a round pyramid of three levels. The only thing comparable is the Cary Sheet's Fool and Magician:
There are no especially wide borders on any of these cards. That there are numbers on the Italian Old Man card and not on Lambert's is not a problem, because the Italian card can simply have derived from a model without the number. Dummett observed that "the designs of the triumphs of the 'Budapest pack' are probably prior to the addition of numerals, considering the awkward way in which the numerals were forced into every available space" (1993, original Italian at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15166) Also, the Cary Sheet didn't have numbers.
So now French cards. Most examples of Queens, at least on Gallica, of that period are standing figures not looking at all like Lambert's, e.g. https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WTq81Qax..._8tjwfT6zXQ/s1600/ConsulterElementNum155.jpeg, https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bweb0CYW...otw4-jDuoY6s-j1rf555Ig/s1600/fclercbnfTop.jpg, https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5zrEx3oP...JY5zbOfUqe_ERVMiGlp1ZQ/s1600/fclercbnfDET.jpg.
However there was one card-maker, Jean de Dale, given variously as 1480 (Gallica) and c. 1485 (Hoffman, The Playing Card, pl. 45) that at least had them sitting, even if on horses, as well as occasionally in profile.
Here only one of the ladies has the "veil" going down the sides of her crown, although of a different style, and her face, if done in profile, has a certain similarity to that of Lambert's. There is also quite a bit resemblance in the arms and hands. Two other of these Queens are in profile, although they seem older and less attractive than the on with the "veil". In the context of these cards by Dale, there is indeed something French about Lambert's Queen.
So it is at least reasonably possible that Depaulis is right. However, there are also similarities with the Budapest/Metropolitan and even the Cary Sheet, in regard to the bundle on the Old Man's back--although neither of these is securely Italian, especially the Cary Sheet. Lambert's cards are clearly proto-TdM, but beyond that it is more difficult to say, it seems to me, whether it is of Lyon or somewhere else, not necessarily Italy--there is also Piedmont/Savoy, of which we know nothing. Depaulis says that they imported cards from elsewhere--Avignon, of course is documented in Dec. 1505. But probably also Lyon, he says, and "without doubt" Milan (p. 35). But the presence of the "moules", i.e. woodcuts, to be sent to a city in Piedmont--in a part controlled by Savoy--suggests that that is not all they did.
Added later: There are other reasons for thinking that Savoy/Piedmont might have been the road of the tarot, and "taraux", into France. (1) The ruling family would have known the game, at least by way of Filippo Maria Visconti's widow Marie of Savoy or Galeazzo Maria Sforza's wife/widow Bona of Savoy. (2) the area has two languages; (3) Italian-speaking Piedmont is where the "tarocch-" word is first documented, in around 1494, meaning "madman" or "fool": it occurs in two literary examples, i.e. for a literary audience, suggesting that perhaps the word was current in other contexts; (4) the word "tarocchi" appears in Ferrara, for the tarot, in June of 1505, six months before its documentation in Avignon, in a document of the court of Alfonso d'Este. He had previously spent time in Piedmont and imported musicians from there, as his wife Lucrezia Borgia liked their songs (I can't for the moment locate my source, an essay on music in Ferrara). There is also the issue of whether words are more likely to lose their "cch" going into French, or gain it going into Italian. I don't have the answer to that one.
Given that the document is in Latin, except for this one word, which has a French ending, as opposed to Provencale, and that the document also mentions cards of Lyon, it is reasonable to wonder whether the cards of the Florentine inventory, and also the cards found in the BnF, were produced in Lyon or in the style produced there.La plus ancienne mention connue du tarot en français date de décembre 1505. Elle se lit dans un acte notarié d'Avignon, par lequel le cartier Jean Fort s'engage à livrer à un papetier de Pignerol et à un cartier local "quinque pecis modulorum sive moles artis cartarum, duabus grossis cartarum de Lugdano et quatuor duodenis quararum vulo appelatarum taraux" (cinq pièces de moules du metiér de cqrtier [bois gravé pour l'impression], deux grosses soit 2 x 144 jeux de cartes de Lyon et quatre douzaines de [jeux de] cartes communément appelés taraux) (20). Certes Avignon n'était pas en France - c'était une cité pontificale - et la langue de l'acte est le latin. Mais, de toute évidence, le mot taraux n'est ici ni du latin ni du provençal. C'est du français. Rabelais et d'autre sources l'écrivent ainsi, première orthographe du jeu. La référence à des cartes "de Lyon" dit assez d'où vient le mot. Les cartiers d'Avignon étaient en relation étroite avec Lyon, d'ou venaient leur savoir-faire et leurs modèles. II est donc permis de penser que le mot s'entendait à Lyon aussi et que le jeu y était connu autour de 1500.
(The oldest known French mention of tarot dates to December 1505. It is written in a notarial act of Avignon,whereby the cartier Jean Fort undertakes to deliver a paper at Pinerolo and a local neighborhood "quinque pecis modulorum sive moles artis cartarum, duabus grossis cartarum de Lugdano et quatuor duodenis quararum vulo appelatarum taraux" (five pieces of molds of the cartier's art [woodcut for printing], two grosses or 2 x 144 of Lyon card packs and four dozen [packs] commonly called taraux) (20). Avignon certainly was not in France - it was a papal city - and the language of the act is Latin. But obviously, the word taraux here is neither Latin nor Provencal. This is French. Rabelais and other sources write the first spelling of the pack. The reference to cards of "Lyon" says enough where the word comes from. The cartiers of Avignon were in close contact with Lyon, from where they had their expertise and their models. It is therefore arguable that the word was heard in Lyon and also there that the game was known around 1500.)
Now here is what Depaulis says in his recent article, in my translation (I have posted my scan of the original of these pages at https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KHlYf2po...5WKC8ZEvI7QQazgTIg/s1600/BookScanCenter_4.jpg)
I think more can be said here, not against what he says, but examining some things he doesn't go into.in 1985, when the exhibition "Tarot game and magic" was in full swing, two forgotten tarot cards were exhumed by Gisele Lambert, then curator at the Bibliotheque Nationale, responsible for the inventory of the "first Italian engravers." A Hermit and a Queen of Cups, engraved on wood and colored with the help of stencils, acquired at the beginning of the 20th century, waiting their turn at the bottom of a
206
Box (18). The surprise was total. I soon published these cards, dating them from the end of the 15th century. They are significantly smaller than the painted tarots and measure only 99 x 58 mm. The backs are white.
Attributed, for lack of anything better, to Milan when they were discovered, these two cards might well be, upon reflection, ... French. One thinks of Lyon because of the Queen of Cups, which presents some similarities in the shape of the arm and hand, the treatment of the face, and the veil under the crown, with the queens of Lyon cards. In addition, these cards have straightforward [francs] borders, no trace of the flap onto the back so typical of Italian cards. With the Donson cards (Ferrara?), they are the only printed tarot cards "complete" and in color for this period.
Are these the trionfi Franciosa discussed in the Florentine inventory?
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18. They are now listed BnF, Estampes, RESERVE BOITE FOL-KH-34-(l,,3), and are visible on the server Gallica at the address gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btvlbl0510958d.r.
19. Thierry Depaulis, «Tarot: nouvelles découvertes a la Bibliotheque Nationale», Nouvelles de I'estampe, n° 80, May 1985, p. 4-5.
Depaulis offers four criteria for distinguishing French from Italian cards.
(1) similarities in the shape of the arm and hand;On pense a Lyon a cause de la dame de coupes qui presente quelques affinités, dans la forme du bras et de la main, le traitement du visage, le voile sous la couronne, avec des reines de cartes lyonnaises. En outre, ces cartes sont a bords francs, sans trace de rabat des dos si typique des cartes italiennes.
(One thinks of Lyon because of the Queen of Cups, which presents some similarities in the shape of the arm and hand, the treatment of the face, and the veil under the crown, with the queens of Lyon cards. In addition, these cards have blunt borders, no trace of the flap of the back so typical of Italian cards.
(2) treatment of the face;
(3) veil under the crown;
(4) straightforward borders, without trace of the flap of the back
By (4) he means larger borders which can be folded over onto the other side to provide a firm connection between front and back, e.g. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PvPFGdJdOzg/VaApYUMk8_I/AAAAAAAAG2U/Ho5UQJ34ChY/s1600/Image-09.JPG.
Depaulis gives no examples of how French cards and not Italian ones fit these criteria. However Gallica does have cards from Lyon of that period, c. 1500 and a little before. They all have French suit symbols.
So let's compare Italian and French samples from around the same time period. First, Italian, two rows of the "Budapest" sheet (Kaplan, vol. 2, p 274), and the Rosenwald Sheet's row of Queens. I do not give the Rosenwald Old Man because he is on crutches, quite different from Lambert's card. I give the Rosenwald Queen only for the profile view of the face. In most tarots, including the Tarot de Marseille, the Queen of Cups is full-face, although still looking at the cup.
The Budapest Queen is similar to Lambert's in the drawing of the arm and hand. Also, alone among the Queens, it has the "veil" on both sides of the head.
The Rosenwald is similar in giving a profile view, but nothing else.
The cups are all somewhat different. In the case of the Old Man, the style of the Budapest and Lambert's is very similar, as well as the fact that both use a cane. This is something carried over from the PMB (https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UxFhOBrA...SLg/s1600/Hermit_Visconti-Sforza_tarotDET.jpg). The PMB has a pronounced hunched posture; whether it is actually a hunchback I am not sure. In the Budapest, the posture is better; there may be a bulge in his upper back, but it might be either the flow of the coat or a pack on his back. Berti and Vitali in Tarocchi, Arte e Magia give a colored version of the sheet from the Metropolitan Museum:
In this detail Lambert's card is quite unique in having what looks like a green bundle on his back. shaped like a round pyramid of three levels. The only thing comparable is the Cary Sheet's Fool and Magician:
There are no especially wide borders on any of these cards. That there are numbers on the Italian Old Man card and not on Lambert's is not a problem, because the Italian card can simply have derived from a model without the number. Dummett observed that "the designs of the triumphs of the 'Budapest pack' are probably prior to the addition of numerals, considering the awkward way in which the numerals were forced into every available space" (1993, original Italian at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15166) Also, the Cary Sheet didn't have numbers.
So now French cards. Most examples of Queens, at least on Gallica, of that period are standing figures not looking at all like Lambert's, e.g. https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WTq81Qax..._8tjwfT6zXQ/s1600/ConsulterElementNum155.jpeg, https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bweb0CYW...otw4-jDuoY6s-j1rf555Ig/s1600/fclercbnfTop.jpg, https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5zrEx3oP...JY5zbOfUqe_ERVMiGlp1ZQ/s1600/fclercbnfDET.jpg.
However there was one card-maker, Jean de Dale, given variously as 1480 (Gallica) and c. 1485 (Hoffman, The Playing Card, pl. 45) that at least had them sitting, even if on horses, as well as occasionally in profile.
Here only one of the ladies has the "veil" going down the sides of her crown, although of a different style, and her face, if done in profile, has a certain similarity to that of Lambert's. There is also quite a bit resemblance in the arms and hands. Two other of these Queens are in profile, although they seem older and less attractive than the on with the "veil". In the context of these cards by Dale, there is indeed something French about Lambert's Queen.
So it is at least reasonably possible that Depaulis is right. However, there are also similarities with the Budapest/Metropolitan and even the Cary Sheet, in regard to the bundle on the Old Man's back--although neither of these is securely Italian, especially the Cary Sheet. Lambert's cards are clearly proto-TdM, but beyond that it is more difficult to say, it seems to me, whether it is of Lyon or somewhere else, not necessarily Italy--there is also Piedmont/Savoy, of which we know nothing. Depaulis says that they imported cards from elsewhere--Avignon, of course is documented in Dec. 1505. But probably also Lyon, he says, and "without doubt" Milan (p. 35). But the presence of the "moules", i.e. woodcuts, to be sent to a city in Piedmont--in a part controlled by Savoy--suggests that that is not all they did.
Added later: There are other reasons for thinking that Savoy/Piedmont might have been the road of the tarot, and "taraux", into France. (1) The ruling family would have known the game, at least by way of Filippo Maria Visconti's widow Marie of Savoy or Galeazzo Maria Sforza's wife/widow Bona of Savoy. (2) the area has two languages; (3) Italian-speaking Piedmont is where the "tarocch-" word is first documented, in around 1494, meaning "madman" or "fool": it occurs in two literary examples, i.e. for a literary audience, suggesting that perhaps the word was current in other contexts; (4) the word "tarocchi" appears in Ferrara, for the tarot, in June of 1505, six months before its documentation in Avignon, in a document of the court of Alfonso d'Este. He had previously spent time in Piedmont and imported musicians from there, as his wife Lucrezia Borgia liked their songs (I can't for the moment locate my source, an essay on music in Ferrara). There is also the issue of whether words are more likely to lose their "cch" going into French, or gain it going into Italian. I don't have the answer to that one.