Did Shakespeare play tarot?

Amleth

From further reading, I wonder if tarot failed to catch on in England because of primero. It's certain that John Florio knew primero, because he included a dialogue between primero players in his "Second Frutes." Link.....

http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/primero-frutes.html

Anybody know primero? I know virtually nothing about it, only that it existed, and was simpler than tarot, more akin to poker. But apparently primero better suited the taste of the English public, and was the popular card game of the Elizabethan years. I found mention of Elizabeth, herself, playing primero.

A question of whether Shakespeare knew primero would apparently elicit only a yawn. But if it can be granted he knew primero, it's one step closer to tarot, with all its rich symbolism that should have enticed the Bard.
 

Ross G Caldwell

Amleth said:
From further reading, I wonder if tarot failed to catch on in England because of primero. It's certain that John Florio knew primero, because he included a dialogue between primero players in his "Second Frutes." Link.....

http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/primero-frutes.html

Anybody know primero? I know virtually nothing about it, only that it existed, and was simpler than tarot, more akin to poker. But apparently primero better suited the taste of the English public, and was the popular card game of the Elizabethan years. I found mention of Elizabeth, herself, playing primero.

A question of whether Shakespeare knew primero would apparently elicit only a yawn. But if it can be granted he knew primero, it's one step closer to tarot, with all its rich symbolism that should have enticed the Bard.

Here's a page with links -
http://www.pagat.com/vying/primero.html

"This is an old Italian card game which became popular throughout Europe in the 16th century and perhaps earlier. It is a showdown game in which players are dealt four cards. The combination which gives its name to the game is the prime, which consists of one card of each suit."

For anything to do with card games, John McLeod's card games site should be your first online stop
http://www.pagat.com/
 

baba-prague

Ross G Caldwell said:
Whether he knew *about* tarot cards - especially given his travels on the continent - would be harder to ascertain. I would imagine his taste in games (pure speculation here) was more on the Chess or Rithmomachia (Pythagorean - Philosopher's Game) side. A character like Edward Kelley makes one suspect that card-playing wasn't too far from Dee's sight, however.

Tarot was, according to an exhibition here, present at Rupolph's Court in Prague (whether Rudolph himself played is unknown) so it's likely perhaps that Dee would have seen the cards during his time here. However, I'm not sure that there are any direct references. When referring to Dee's library I meant less that tarot might have been included in some way and more that there would have been a plethera of other visual sources. Dee was interested - passionately it seems - in symbolism. Wasn't it Dee who was supposed - possibly - to have owned the Voynich manuscript? Plenty of rich symbolism there in just that one volume.

I'm still inclined to think that most of the Shakespearean references that refer to imagery that could be from the tarot could equally be based on many other sources such as these.

And by the way what COULD you be implying about nice Mr Kelley!?
 

John Meador

Dee & Tarot?

Dee's library reportedly contained over sixteen works of Girolamo Cardano.
It is said that every day for 25 years Cardano played cards or rolled dice.
Cardano (1564) lists sequentinum Tarochi (also Primero) as one of the games he had played:
Liber de Lvdo Aleae Capvt XXV. De ludis Chartarum.
http://www.kloster-metten.de/cardano_de_ludo_aleae.htm

"Cardan [51 yrs old] had come to London after staying in 1552 in Scotland--to which he had been invited in order to treat the asthma of John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews--and Paris, where his circle of acquaintances had had many common elements with that of Dee [25 yrs old]--such as Ranconnet and Jean Fernel"
http://www.johndee.org/calder/html/Notes4.html

"...in 1552 Jerome Cardan, the famous physician of Padua, visited England and lodged at the home of Sir John Cheke, where Dee frequently saw and talked with him"
-Walter I. Trattner (01-1964). "God and Expansion in Elizabethan England: John Dee, 1527-1583". Journal of the History of Ideas 25 (1): 17-34.

"John Dee inspected a magic gem with
Cardano in the house of the French ambassador to London,
and the two of them also investigated a perpetual motion
device."
-The book of my life (De vita propria liber) Girolamo Cardano; translated from the Latin by Jean Stoner ; introduction by Anthony Grafton

Dee most likely also knew Bruno's memory disciple Alexander Dicson(e) aka Dickson through Philip Sydney, who Dicson attended about 1584. Peter French, in his biography of Dee relays Dee's interest in mnemonics.

Cardano died 21 Sept 1576 in Rome
1582: Talbot (Kelly) visits Mortlake and holds his first seance with Dee. Hugh Platt visits Dee. William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway.
1603: Montaigne Essays translated from the French by John Florio. These
provided material for Gonzalo's description of an ideal commonwealth in "The Tempest" & Prospero’s speech on forgiveness.

"Florio’s diatribe against the “comedians” may be aimed at Shakespeare.
“Southampton might have had reasons for distrusting Florio whilst fearing to get rid of him.”
www.bc.edu/publications/relarts/meta-elements/pdf/shakes3.pdf

Re: Rumors about John Florio's Wife
http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2001/2480.html

"Florio was...probably satirized as Holofernes in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost (perhaps written in 1591) and as Parolles in All's Well that Ends Well (perhaps written in 1595). [9] He was intimate with Raleigh and Sidney, both educated at Oxford and with both of whom Bruno came in contact."
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno02.htm

Alexander Dicson is thought to have died in Scotland about 1604.
Dee died 1608.
The earliest recorded performance of The Tempest occurred on November 1, 1611 at Whitehall Palace.

“deeper than did ever plummet sound / I’ll drown my cards”
 

Ross G Caldwell

The point to be addressed in speculating whether Dee or Shakespeare knew tarot is not whether they could have know of it - they could have - but whether they would have thought it was any different from any other card game.

These guys could have memorized the sequence in an instant - they wouldn't have had to anyway, since there were numbers on all French decks by this time, as well as Minchiate, and Milan (probably) and Ferrara weren't producing decks anymore (and they were numbered anyway). The only unnumbered packs that they might have seen would be Bolognese, and the order of these trumps would have to be memorized - and it would have been easy.

The more important point is that the tarot's imagery is not particularly rich or distinctive, in relation to the kind of memory images and methods people like Bruno taught. What could a plain old conventional image of Justice have to do with the profound power of memory? Is there any reason to think the tarot was ever a repository of memory technique?

The most important thing is that the tarot trumps' imagery *was* conventional and basic. And that, as in Cardano, it was a card game. It does not seem to have appeared enigmatic or esoteric to anyone before Antoine Court de Gébelin thought so. Even when used for divination.

The sources of imagery are manifold, in art and literature. Tarot artists borrowed as freely as anyone from the rich store of imagery in art and literature. Trying to unravel the source of an image in Shakespeare, and coming to tarot trumps, would be well-nigh impossible unless it were a card-playing context, I think.

In other words, there was nothing special about the tarot trumps.
 

John Meador

Ross wrote:

"The point to be addressed in speculating whether Dee or Shakespeare knew tarot is not whether they could have know of it - they could have - but whether they would have thought it was any different from any other card game."

One distinction is that Tarot trump imagery is nearer conceptually to the mnemonic impresa (personal emblem) of Bruno/Dicsone than ordinary playing cards. (depending on the Tarot decks available to them, of course... )

"In Bruno's ...On Cause, Prime Origin and the One, Florio perhaps figures again as the understanding friend under the pseudonym of "Eliotropio," [32] a flower which formed part of his coat of arms...Eliotropio's first long speech opens by calling Bruno's task "La impresa che hai tolta," [33] ... impresa (personal emblem) ..."
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno02.htm
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno02f.htm

Wasn't it you, Ross who demonstrated the VS Fortitude/ Hercules to be a personal emblem?
Cardano wrote: "It is more fitting for the wise man to play at cards than at dice, and at triumphus rather than other games for this is a sort of midway game played with open cards, very similar to the game of Chess." Apparently, he does not mean tarochi by triumphus, however we see he does make distinctions regarding card games.
Dee is thought to have discussed astrology with Cardan during the period Cardan was in London.

"The more important point is that the tarot's imagery is not particularly rich or distinctive, in relation to the kind of memory images and methods people like Bruno taught. What could a plain old conventional image of Justice have to do with the profound power of memory? Is there any reason to think the tarot was ever a repository of memory technique?"

We already know that Bruno/Dicson's mnemonic systems were used for card games. It makes sense that it would be even easier with Tarot.

"The most important thing is that the tarot trumps' imagery *was* conventional and basic. And that, as in Cardano, it was a card game. It does not seem to have appeared enigmatic or esoteric to anyone before Antoine Court de Gébelin thought so. Even when used for divination."

Is that what is at issue here?

"The sources of imagery are manifold, in art and literature. Tarot artists borrowed as freely as anyone from the rich store of imagery in art and literature. Trying to unravel the source of an image in Shakespeare, and coming to tarot trumps, would be well-nigh impossible unless it were a card-playing context, I think. "

I certainly don't contest that, not being a Shakespeare scholar.

"In other words, there was nothing special about the tarot trumps.

If Shakespeare utilized Tarot imagery in his works, I'll have to disagree with you. That's special enough for me.

-John
 

Ross G Caldwell

John Meador said:
Wasn't it you, Ross who demonstrated the VS Fortitude/ Hercules to be a personal emblem?

I don't remember that I took it *that* far... I think that probably Ercole d'Este (I've given up thinking it was Sforza) suggested the Hercules (=Ercole) image from the Astrolabium to depict Fortitude. But whether he used it as an emblem (rather than just a punning sort of reference) in a technical sense I wouldn't say.

And that is of course like I said earlier, tarot designers borrowed relatively freely from the stock of images.

Cardano wrote: "It is more fitting for the wise man to play at cards than at dice, and at triumphus rather than other games for this is a sort of midway game played with open cards, very similar to the game of Chess." Apparently, he does not mean tarochi by triumphus, however we see he does make distinctions regarding card games.

I didn't say he didn't make distinctions *among* items of a certain class (card games), just that nobody has demonstrated that anyone prior to Gebelin made a distinction between tarot and other card games *as a class*. The trumps were in a different class of things for de Gebelin.

We already know that Bruno/Dicson's mnemonic systems were used for card games. It makes sense that it would be even easier with Tarot.

It might be, but who first did so?

"The most important thing is that the tarot trumps' imagery *was* conventional and basic. And that, as in Cardano, it was a card game. It does not seem to have appeared enigmatic or esoteric to anyone before Antoine Court de Gébelin thought so. Even when used for divination."

Is that what is at issue here?

No, the main issue is Shakespeare using tarot, obviously, but the wider issue that you opened up is not only borrowing imagery, but using that imagery in esoteric contexts - Bruno and Dee and their magico-mnemonic systems surely being considered "esoteric".


"In other words, there was nothing special about the tarot trumps."

If Shakespeare utilized Tarot imagery in his works, I'll have to disagree with you. That's special enough for me.

If anybody uses tarot outside of a playing a game - as a basis for moralization for instance, for which there are several examples before de Gebelin - I'm interested.

But I don't know of Bruno or Dee (or Shakespeare) even knowing about tarot, let alone thinking twice about it.

Of course it would be nice to read arguments that they did.
 

John Meador

Fulgour posted:
Act IV. Scene XII. Antony and Cleopatra

Antony:

My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is
Even such a body: here I am Antony;
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
I made these wars for Egypt; and the queen,
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,
Which whilst it was mine had annex’d unto ’t
A million more, now lost; she, Eros, has
Pack’d cards with Cæsar, and false-play’d my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph.
Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us
Ourselves to end ourselves.

Amleth wrote:
The Antony and Cleopatra quote that Fulgour posted is good for timing, too. The first documented evidence of the existence of A & C is a Stationers' Register entry in 1608, which is ten years after the Florio mention of tarot. That gives a full decade for the Bard to be familiar enough with tarot to allude to it in A & C, based simply on Florio, and the known documentary record.

"Using a similar device to that commended by Giordano Bruno, the play [Antony and Cleopatra] accords the two lovers a mnemonic function like that of Bruno's statues of the gods or images of planetary powers, as it compares Cleopatra and Antony to Venus and Mars (Roman planetary powers as well as deities), to Isis, Hercules and also by implication, to Osiris (alias Sarapis, Bacchus and Dionysus)."
http://www.univ-paris3.fr/recherche/sites/edea/iris/Communications/Berry-AC-Forgetting.html

Amleth began by asking:
"Particularly, is there any reason to think Shakespeare could not have had a VS deck in England at that time?

Ross responded:
"For the second part of your suggestion, that Shakespeare might be referring specifically to a copy of the Visconti Sforza cards, that is distantly possible, since Italian and English nobles would have exchanged gifts, and one such gift could have been a copy of a V-S tarot. But it would be very hard to prove unless you found such a reference in someone's inventory."

See Ross's fascinating study: Hercules and the Iconography of the Visconti-Sforza Triumph of Force-
"The d’Este family in particular seems to have had a passion for Hercules ... Another possible interpretation of the card is that it represents an image from the astrological tradition..."
http://www.angelfire.com/space/tarot/hercule.html

-John
 

John Meador

Shakespeare & impresa

Symbols and Mottoes: The Renaissance Impresa:
"In 1613, the Earl of Rutland paid Shakespeare 44 gold shillings to compose an impresa."
http://www.doomchicken.net/~ursula/sca/imprese/imprese.html

A Note on the Tournament Impresas In Pericles
Alan R. Young
Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1985), pp. 453-456
"The tournament scene in Shakespeare's Pericles (II.ii) amply demonstrates its author's familiarity with contemporary tournament practises and with the art of the impresa....
The identification of Sidney's tournament impresa as Shakespeare's source for that of Pericles must thus remain tentative."
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-3222(198524)36:4<453:ANOTTI>2.0.CO;2-E&size=LARGE

see also:
Joseph Kau: Daniel's Influence on an Image in Pericles and Sonnet 73: An Impresa of Destruction
Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Winter, 1975), pp. 51-53
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-3222(197524)26%3A1%3C51%3ADIOAII%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

Heraldry in Shakespeare
Reviewed Work(s):
* Shakespeare's Heraldry. by C. W. Scott-Giles
Review author: Henry L. Savage
Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1950), pp. 286-292
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-3222(195010)1%3A4%3C286%3AHIS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5