Cary-Yale replacements
Kaz:
I wanted to say again that your posting of the Visconti decks really adds a lot to these discussions. I always feel like I'm looking at the ancestor of all tarot when I see them, although the fact is we really don't know for sure if they were the earliest decks or not. They may have been preceded by much more humble woodblock packs, which would have been less likely to survive than the deluxe models. Who knows? tarot may have working-class origins.
I need to point out, however, that the Cary-Yale Magician posted here is a modern card rather than part of the original deck. There are 19 cards (at least -- there may be more) missing from that pack, and in 1983 the Italian artist Luigi Scapini recreated what he thought the missing 19 might have looked like. He used a combination of the press proofs from reproduction of the originals, some collage application, and some overpainting.
I noticed that Scapini dutifully included the four suit signs on the three-legged table. This is a feature much beloved by modern tarotists, but I seriously doubt that it was included in the lost original. Notice that the objects on the Magician's table in the Visconti-Sforza are odds and ends, some unidentifiable.
The other missing Cary-Yale cards recreated by Scapini were: the Fool, Justice, the Hermit, the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man, Temperance, the Devil, the Tower, the Moon, the Sun, the Male Knight of Swords (there were six court cards in each suit), the Male Page of Swords, the Queen of Cups, the Male Page of Coins, the King of Batons, the Male Knight of Batons, the Female Knight of Cups, and the three of Coins. These are included in some of the published versions of this deck.
(See Kaplan, Volume II, pages 36-41)
(catboxer)