What's so great about the Jacques Vieville Tarot?

prudence said:

Thanks for those scans, Ross.
They are sort of creepy and comical at once...They also seem so very familiar, like I have seen similar images elsewhere, but cannot place it.

The Chariot "horse-people" from this deck do seem very similar to these images, but at the same time, they do have an Egyptian quality to my eyes that the scans you provided do not. Especially the headdress/crown of the one on the left, the way it comes down in the back (I am assuming the dark strip is part of his headress), and the wrap around his jaw....

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I agree, these scans are great.
Google found a page about the first image posted by Ross. It says:
http://www.mmsh.univ-aix.fr/ala/images/manuscrit.jpg
Enluminure tirée du "livre des Prophéties papales" du XIVe siècle dont un des manuscrits
se trouve au fonds Médard de Lunel. Cette image, la "Bestia", est propre au manuscrit de Lunel.
(Cliché B. Py, droits réservés).

Google image searches for "human headed" and "man headed" give interesting results.
In particular, ancient coins:
http://www.bio.vu.nl/home/vwielink/WWW_MGC/Area_V_map/Gela_map/descrGelJ_457.html
http://www.romanorum.com.au/Info/Articles/Rivergods/Rivergods2.htm
See also this engraving from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1500 ca):
http://www.beloit.edu/~nurember/inside/about/content23.html

I am quite sure the origin of these beasts is Egyptian: this is true for almost every product of the European culture

Middle age representations of ancient themes often lacked the original "quality" (be it an Egyptian quality or a Greek quality etc). This was often due to the fact that the images were based on (possibly corrupted) textual descriptions, not on a graphical tradition. Possibly, the artists of the Ross scans were creating a sphynx having read a description of a sphynx but without ever having seen an Egyptian sphynx, not even a copy of a copy of an Egyptian sphynx.

For those interested in this area, "The Survival of the Pagan Gods" by Seznec is the book to read!

Marco

jmd said:

I accept that the horseback and flag-carrying allusion is strong. The 'problem' lies, I would suggest, in that St James is not (to my knowledge) ever depicted naked, nor, it would seem, with a two-toned banner or flag. These would be very specific if intended as St James - including the common red cross on his banner, I would suggest.

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[slaps forehead!] You know, I only just now got it, ,about this card .....for some reason I had been seeing it in my mind as the rider holding a white flag wiith a red cross on it, rather than the two-toned flag that is actually pictured. I can only assume I was superimposing the red straps that are on the horse's rump/hind quarter, onto the flag, in my memory banks. Weird, like a subliminal message or something. (those straps immediately bring to my mind the idea of a cross)

Though I suppose the image from the Vandenborre may have gotten a bit mixed into this as well, in my faulty memory that is. (it does have a cross on the flag, yet the flag is not white) Same strap deal on the rump resembling a cross, but yellow straps, with red "buckle" in center where the straps cross.

Le Pendu said:

Vieville has retained the ornamentation that, in my opinion, was lost in all existing TdM decks when, as I believe, numbers were added to the pip cards.

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This week I received my Tarocco di Marsiglia (Svizzera 1804) and to my surprise I discovered that this deck has flowers on the sides of the 8 and 9 de batons cards! Just like the Vieville, Sforza Castle and Carysheet! But unlike the Vieville, SC and Cary, it also has the numbers!

I have some scans of a related deck (Muller):




So here we have a Marseille deck that has numbers AND side-ornaments!

Is this convincing enough to rule out the 'have to add number so no more space for ornaments' theory?

Well.. I'd still say we are seeing adaptation. The Swiss I would guess is a compromise, and a good enough one at that.

I still strongly suspect that the earliest patterns had no numbers. The swiss, and remaining TdMs are just adaptations in the evolution to add numbers.

Maybe, maybe not.

You may be right that numbers were added in the TdM. But I've become quote convinced now that these numbers were not at the loss of any ornamentation that was originally there.

When I look at the way numbers are written on decks like the Dodal and the Noblet, I clearly see that the size and position of the numbers are adapted to the pictoral elements, and not the other way around.

So when looking at the Vieville batons, and the Sforza Castle, and the Cary Sheet... and we see the ornament on the side where we see the numbers on the TdM.. how is this possible? Which is it? Numbers were always there, and then removed and replaced with the ornament? Or the ornament was there and removed and replaced with the number?

We will never know. But a possibility is that the leaves were actually just added in the Vieville, the Sforza Castle and the Carysheet. All are TdM related, but not identical.

I just don't believe cardmakers like Dodal, Noblet and Conver sacrificed pictoral details in favour of numbers. All numbers (and titles) are clearly written around the pictoral details.

When you look at Noblet's 9 de coupes, the number is left out (because there was no space). In Dodal's 9 the coupes, the number is made much smaller then the other numbers, so it could still fit on the card (without sacrificing pictorials).

In the 8 and 9 de batons, there is room enough on the sides for leaves. Still, there are no leaves in the TdM's. If there had been leaves, there would still be space enough to write down the number (albeit small, like on the 9 de coupes Dodal).

I agree that the numbering and naming in the TdM's is sloppy and inconsistent (), but I also think there played a secondary role, and that there is no way pictorial details were ever sacrificed in favour of names or numbers.

Minervasaltar said:

....there is no way pictorial details were ever sacrificed in favour of names or numbers.

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Remember that these are, above all, cards. They should not be confused with pictures (although clearly there are pictures upon the cards). Some card makers would have thought it necessary to include numbers on the cards (it may even have been a legal and/or tax avoiding necessity in some regions). Some makers would have scoffed at the idea of making a card without a number much the same way that most auto designers would scoff at the idea of making a car without a speedometer (even it it looked better).

Cars and cards both have functions to serve. Both can serve the functions without the numbers being displayed to the user- If you are playing a game, it is nice to have the numbers- even at the expense of aesthetics

So- I disagree that we can assume that no card maker ever went out of his way to make room for a number where that he might not have included if he was to make a simple engraving for the sake of art.

-tb

I agree. We just don't know what happened back then and why. That's why I put words like 'I think' and 'I believe' in front of my speculations. But still I love to engage in reconstructionist theorising with other people. I love comparing viewpoints and perceprions, and we have all these great decks to put all speculations to the test.

Minervasaltar said:

I agree. We just don't know what happened back then and why. That's why I put words like 'I think' and 'I believe' in front of my speculations. But still I love to engage in reconstructionist theorising with other people. I love comparing viewpoints and perceprions, and we have all these great decks to put all speculations to the test.

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It really is astounding to think of how old these decks are.

I found this site for 1650.. around the time the the Vieville and Noblet were made:
http://www.writersdreamtools.com/view/decades/default.asp?Decade=1650
AMAZING. We're talking over 350 years ago, and we can still purchase this deck. Look how different (and similar!) things were.

I wish we could find more older cards, but we really are lucky to have the ones that we do. What made today will still be around 350 years from now? (except the styrofoam cups of course! )