Tarot and Black Death

Huck

Impressive and much - although mostly not understandable in my world. It seems, you had an interesting youth - "international marriage" :)
Here the international marriage took place around the 70ies (or at least "my international marriage"), when Asian literature, foreign Gurus and esoterical matters of all kind invaded our culture, putting some pressure on standard religions ...

As a result I can play Go better than most Japanese .. :) and autorbis once played on a level, where he could beat European champions. However, we started to late in age ... and reaching the best levels seems only possible, when you start very early.

:) Black Death, just to avoid that we lose the theme completely, perhaps we should rename the thread with "international marriage", was also a result of international exchange, forced by the Mongols, and the whole history of playing cards wouldn't have taken place without this invasion from the East :)

But Rochus is not the Fool ... Rochus is very far from it, I would say. "Near" - to the Bembo-Fool - is the "Stupidity" or "Stultitia" interpretation of Giotto in the Arena-Chapel.

http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/highlight...dova/decorati/7vices/53foolis.html&find=arena

A nearness between Marseille Tarot and Belgian very early iconography of virtues doesn't tell too much. The Milanese Trionfi production interpreted common, international farspread general symbols in a personal lombardic way, others (for instance the Marseille-Tarot) got the Italian idea and interpreted the idea in their own traditional way (which was perhaps a little nearer to some Belgian traditions than to Lombardic specialities).

Such an action doesn't change Tarot History.

Belgia has a very rich Flemish art tradition, especially in regard to early printing techniques. Flemish artists were famous in early renaissance in Italy. They exported culture and specific ways to paint to Italy. Rogier van Weyden for instance. A painter from the Sforza court was sent to him to learn to paint. He loved too much the wine and Rogier was angered about him. Great Duchessa of Milano, Bianca Maria Visconti, wrote an letter of excuse ....

In Tournay was started a playing card production 1426/1427. They had a lot of exports. Rogier came from this city.
The political background of this high culture in Belgia is the house of Burgund, which nearly formed in the 70ies of 15th century a kingdom between France and Germany, a dream, which was finished 1477 with a militarical catastrophe. France and the German Empire profited from this development, but still on the landmap the small Benelux-countries Netherland, Belgia and Luxembourg remind this earlier glorious epoch.

The influence of Flemish art spread through all Europe. An appearance of early Flemish motifs in the Marseille Tarot says - nothing.

St. Rochus ... the early Flemish and German printing archive of 15th and 16th century is full of fools. Sebastian Brant made a book about Fools and it is full of prints made by Duerer for instance. 100s of fools just by this production.
Either somebody wanted to paint St. Rochus or the "general fool" ... that is not possible to state, that St. Rochus is the Fool, that's nonsense and doesn't help anybody, at least in history of art :)
 

Namadev

Huck said:
[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.



Hi Huck,

I wouldn't be so categorical.
I'd write that the primary existence of the 4x14+22 structure isn't supported by "direct evidence" only by rational inferences.
Why 1457?
Only the 70 are attested not the 78, no?

Alain
 

Huck

Lady Tarot

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


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.
[/QUOTE]

The idea, that chess was for men and cards more fore women, existed in England still in early 17th century. Then an English king left some words, which protested against this common superstition and defended card playing against the dominance of chess.

This "female side" of early playing card development corrects the picture of the "wise men" - which in some interpretations "made the Tarot". They were something, which "pleased (highstanding) women". So the contents of the cards should be seen in this light.

Boiardo's Tarocchi poem is rather much "just about love".

Surely the Sola-Busca-Tarot was a Tarot "more for men" :)

Also involved are kids and young persons, cards are a teenager-amusement and have educative worth occasionally, for instance the Mantegna, the Murner decks, and the Louis XIV. decks.

http://trionfi.com/0/h/
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/Mantegna/
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/solabusca/index.html
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/murner/index.html
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/d00372/
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/d00394/
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/d00706/

The young luxury lady Parisina is the commissioner of cards, not her elder husband Niccolo III. He loves chess, has chess-boards and a chess book.

http://trionfi.com/0/d/13/
http://trionfi.com/0/d/14/
http://trionfi.com/0/d/15/

Filippo Maria Visconti loved cards, but had a chess club at his court.

In Florence cards was stronger prohibited, so Cosimo de Medici never played cards (so tells Bistecci), but occasionally chess (Bistecci not always tells the truth, but the ideal).

In the deciding situation from 1.1.1441 (perhaps the origin of the 5x14-deck) there are three young girls in the age of 14, 15 and 15. One of them is Bianca Maria Visconti.
Another one is Beatrice d'Este, a girl, which later becomes known in "creative" acts, involved in dancing and festivities. She is only in the background, not very well reported, but ... Her son becomes Niccolo da Correggio, a poet, and he is of influence on the early theatre, which makes first steps in the 80ies of 15th century in Ferrara.

Beatrice married Tristano Sforza (1455) after the peace of Lodi and with this she and her son Niccolo are the "most important living link" between the courts of Ferrara and Milan in the course of development and it are these both courts, which wrote Trionfi history.

http://trionfi.com/0/d/
http://trionfi.com/0/e1/00b/
http://trionfi.com/0/d/42/

Well, we assume, that Bianca Maria took much more influence on the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo deck than Francesco Sforza. She was an active duchessa - she incorporated the "right" of Francesco Sforza to be duke of Milan - and she ruled with many letters the interna of the dukedom and also international contacts. Matters of art - Trionfi cards are art in this context - had been surely "her domain", it's not likely, that the great man of war Sforza had a greater interest there. And Cremona, Bembo's home town, was especially Bianca Maria's city.

She "made" or "commissioned" it.

And the "oldest Tarotcards", the Michelino deck with its stranfe 16 gods, probably were done cause she was born - a great relief for Filippo Maria Visconti, who probably thought, that he couldn't have children.

http://trionfi.com/0/b/

It is a strange time in 1425:
At 31st of March 1425 Bianca Maria is born.
In April peace in a conflict between Emperor and Filippo Maria Visconti.
At 22th of May Parisina, the other "Lady of the cards, is beheaded.
In June Filippo Maria has his Trionfo, a singular outstanding event - he had no other. He hoped to get more children, but he got wars and wars and wars.

Bianca Maria is the "Lady Tarot" of the early Trionfi decks. Who else? The Cary-Yale was made to her marriage.

And her final concept - the 14 Bembo cards - became deciding for the order of the later Marseille-deck and the form, which Tarot has today. And - it is likely, that this concept was born in this circle of this 3 teenager girls in winter 1440/1441, perhaps one of the flirting humanists, surely present in "serving" roles, left a word here and there which took an influence, but nobody dominated young Bianca Maria, who was the Lady Di of her time in whole Italy. Her marriage "made peace" - which endured not long, her installment as duchessa in Milan "made peace" in Milan again, not immediately, but finally. And this 50 years of peace meant "success of the renaissance in Italy" in the course of time and the whole matter influenced all Europe and raised culture to unknown heights.
Well, she's only one figure in the great stream of time, but - no doubt - "Lady Tarot" was rather influential.

The later changes - somebody added 6 and somebody added 2 cards - didn't change too much of the once manifested structure. All this different orders - they stayed variations, not more.

Card playing history is a series of many, many creative acts, no doubt.

The 3rd girl, not mentioned here, was Isotta, married 1444 to one of the Montefeltros, who was killed rather immediately after marriage. His follower became Federico Montefeltro - perhaps of some influence on the Mantegna-Tarocchi. Isotto got a second husband soon and finally died at the plague - in time parallel to the marriage of Beatrice with Tristano Sforza. More or less - her person has an unknown factor, just like Beatrice she's a background figure, but for the time of winter 1441 surely
important, cause - the "right age". Isotta was - as far we know it -the first illegitime child, that Niccolo got after his marriage to Parisina. She was born just around the time of Parisina's death.
 

Yatima

No, roppo, I am not "gone," but was actually unavailable in the last two weeks. Unfortunately, I will also not have much time in August to follow the discussion.

Huck thinks, when I am away, he can state bold misconceptions, such as liking Black Death…

I know, Huck wants to pin it down to little girls, he seems to be obsessed with??? Ok, but then why would you not have erased the Death from the Tarot trumps?

May that be as it is, at the moment, I have nothing constructive to add to the allusions I have already given for an alternative origin to the court-thesis. I have stated the facts and referred to other publications to bring to attention lose other options that could crystallize around the Black Death, its cultural importance as structuring material and spiritual resources of the lat 14th century, early 15th century society in Southern Germany and Northern Italy.

As much as I like the approach of court-studies, it always, for me, implies the suspicion, the history told is a "Siegergeschichte" (a term of the Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, who died by fleeing Gestapo), that is, history written from that persons that, by power, resources and money have survived, while others, the unknown people living and forming culture besides the courts, have been forgotten…

Here, I think, could be learned another story of the Tarot yet to be unearthed...

However, Huck, if you still accept articles to be published under the auspices of trionfi.com, I would have a contribution to the 14 to 22 theory, something, if I am not mistaken, nobody has written upon yet. Let me know by personal notice...

Yatima
 

roppo

Oh, welcome back Yatima! In your absence this thread went so different from the original line (lol).

And Huck, thank you for reading my web articles. My youth was somewhat strange compared to the average Japanese, but very joyful thing for myself. You had your "international" affair. Very romantic.

As to the Dominican game, please forget my expression "pre-tarot-history". It turned out that the picture-rosary appeared around 1475. True, the clerics at that time were rather "wicked" and might well played a game with holy images, but the game, if really exists, simply can't be a predecessor to the tarot. (But picture rosary is very interesting in itself. Another important element for the history of printed tarot).

Every one has a life outside the internet; I'm not the exception. Now I have to write a story, so good bye for a week, perhaps. (Believe it or not, a Japanese magazine ordered me to write about Samurai and Swedenborg. Merry country, isn't it?)

roppo
 

Ross G Caldwell

Yatima said:
As much as I like the approach of court-studies, it always, for me, implies the suspicion, the history told is a "Siegergeschichte" (a term of the Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, who died by fleeing Gestapo), that is, history written from that persons that, by power, resources and money have survived, while others, the unknown people living and forming culture besides the courts, have been forgotten…

Here, I think, could be learned another story of the Tarot yet to be unearthed...


There is simply no good reason to believe that tarot cards were created first by "unknown people living and forming culture" without power, resources and money, and then were adapted and recreated by those known people with power, resources, and money. If you can unearth such a story, I will be among the first to take it into account, I can assure you. All I need is documentary evidence, or an extremely strong circumstantial case. So far there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in either case. The first trionfi cards appear to have been created and used by an exclusive circle of fairly well-known rich and powerful people for at least the first decade of their attested existence, and probably well beyond that.

I should add that the kind of history Benjamin - who was a Marxist and a philosopher, not a historian - is undoubtedly referring to is something like "official" history, history in the broad sense, the narrative of history that is meant to be published ("propaganda" if you like), while the history of trionfi cards is unearthed almost exclusively in the same kind of records that historians search for evidence of the common life - offhand comments, marginal allusions, laws and statutes, legends, poetry, etc. Tarot history has never had an "official" status, it has never been used to glorify any ruling party, so it is completely inappropriate, or a misuse of methodology, to suggest that because it might have been of common origin or in common hands, it simply wasn't noted (I'm sorry I don't have Benjamin on hand to check the context of his statements on this). The fact is, it was hardly ever noted at all. Tarot history has been written by *digging* for evidence, anywhere and everywhere, not simply reading it in a big book about those with power, money and resources, or commissioned by those with power, money, and resources. If a "common" origin of tarot cards was anywhere suggested by any kind of evidence, it would be part of the body of references we possess, and nobody would sweep it under the rug.

But overall it seems to me that there are three strong types of positive evidence against tarot being created outside the courts (whether aristocratic or plutocratic ("republican" like Florence and Venice)):

First, the prohibitions, which cover many cities in northern Italy from 1420-1450, which are actually directed at the subjects or common citizenry, and not the rulers or the powerful, do not mention triumphs as a prohibited *or* permitted game, until 1450. However, they are known among the rich and powerful for nearly a decade before the earliest mention of them in any statute. While laws were being made about popular games all through the decade of the 40s, is it logical to think that triumphs would go unnoted, *especially* if it was a popular tavern game?

Second, the actual records - there is no direct or indirect evidence of anybody but the rich having them, buying them, or playing them until after 1450. They were known before then to a rich and exclusive clientel. Even the Florence 1450 statute, which permitted the game, does not imply that the cards were necessarily cheap or popular. None of the prices we know indicates a very cheap product.

Third, they are called originally "trionfi" cards, and only the rich and powerful - and literate (not always rich, like some humanists) - had triumphs or knew anything about the meaning of this word, or the symbolism of triumphs present in the cards. Anyway, everybody we know who had the cards was in some way a "courtier."

Nobody denies that all social levels played cards, or that "common people" were creative. It is just that all of the evidence, every piece of it, suggests a precise origin for *trionfi* cards inside a fairly close circle of some of the most powerful people in the world at that time. Everything says, they invented them. We even have a direct case of Filippo Maria Visconti actually *inventing* a game similar to trionfi. The "idle rich" could be creative too.

That's just the evidence, and the inferences from the evidence. Nobody else talks about these cards, and nobody else is interested in triumphs, but these rich people. I have not been able to glean any suggestion of a popular standard deck of trionfi cards outside of the courts from the evidence - prohibitions, records, and the surviving cards. There just isn't any hint that *trionfi* cards were in the hands of anybody else. Lots of other cards yes, lots of other kinds of pictures, yes - but not these ones.

Finally, I can't answer for Huck, but it sounds somewhat slanderous to suggest he is obsessed with some "little girls" (If historians are obsessed with anything, it is with data and the arguments from the data). First, these girls were not all that little for the time - they were nubile, ready for marriage. They were young women, not "little girls." Second, it seems that trionfi card playing was especially the property of women and children, and when men played trionfi it was, for all we can tell, with women. So it seems reasonable for Huck to think that these three young women, two of whom at least we know were later to become extremely creative and powerful in their own right, might have had something to do with creating them.

So if trionfi cards have not been noted enough in the propaganda history written by the rich and powerful, it might be that it is not because they were of an outside origin among the common people, but rather that they have been excluded because they originated and were popular in another silent domain of history - that of women and children. Not to mention their games.

Only in this case, it is not common women and children, but rich ones whose history hasn't been written and survived.

So our choice is not to be determined by a false dichotomy between "the courts" and "the common people", but on a subtler set of factors, including the unwritten history of the less-powerful *within* the walls of the courts.
 

Namadev

Yatima said:
[…

I know, Huck wants to pin it down to little girls, he seems to be obsessed with???

Hi Yatima,

I appreciate your posts but, I agree with ross, this kind of personnal polemic is awfully close to FLAMING!

I prefer thinking that you just wanted to be "black-humouristic"...

Alain

PS
BTW, what harm is there for a man to "love" young women?
 

Ross G Caldwell

Namadev said:
Yatima said:
[…

I know, Huck wants to pin it down to little girls, he seems to be obsessed with???

PS
BTW, what harm is there for a man to "love" young women?

Oh, he might fall in love ... very dangerous :)
 

Huck

:) I don't feel flamed and understand it as humor.

... but Ross is right. Actually "our love story to little girls of 15th century" shifts the focus from "unknown holy men" with unbelievable hidden wisdom to an aspect of everyday life - just to women and the female component of that society. Not really a Sieger-story, but a "back-to-earth"argument.
And we just follow the more or less reliable documents; if we would see relevant Nothelfer documents, we would see and speak about Nothelfer documents.
We see card pictures in 15th century and on them mostly a woman. We see the Death in the Tarot cards and we see that there are many Death pictures in 15th century, it was just a common motif then. Not especially related to Black death - that's occasionally indicated in pictures in 15th century, but in the Tarot cards not in the way, that it is clear, that Black Death is the retrievable "dominating" aspect.
 

Huck

Roppo: "As to the Dominican game, please forget my expression "pre-tarot-history". It turned out that the picture-rosary appeared around 1475."

**** this looks too me more realistical and nonetheless very interesting. I would like to hear more about it. Any evidence of that early time of playing history earns its respect in our research ... there is not so much.