The Visconti - and the Marseilles

Visconti and Marseilles

I appreciate this thread, especially the polarities examined --- Platonic "versus" Aristotelian, Western "versus" Eastern, Visconti "versus" Marseilles. I do not pick and choose between these apparent irreconciliables, although I respect those who feel a need to do so. Maybe I'm too naively aeclectic to pick sides. The Grail was/is guarded by the Angels who refused to choose sides in the War in Heaven, who flourished in the living middle. That is a difficult world between colliding worlds to seek and find.
Helvetica and JMD have expressed beautifully their searches for truth.
JMD's comment on the Marseilles, cited by Cerulean, calls for a quick response :" The Marseilles may be considered a superb manifestation of the Ur-Tarot. The Visconti.... cannot form that same foundation of fulness...."
I've been contemplating the first six trumps of both Tarots ( Fool through Pope) side by side. Obviously, they differ. No numbers for Visconti's Tarots, numbers for Marseilles, no titles for the Viconti's, titles for the Marseilles', to use some Aristotelian distinction.... Bag over Fool's shoulder, big stick over other Fool's shoulder. Magician's hands above table, on table. Papessa's sacred book open, closed. Flower under left arm, flower embroidered in gown. Emperors' faces in opposite directions. Pillars behind the Pope, no pillars: Distinctions.
Then I look again. Beyond the two Fools, Magicians, Papessas, Empresses, Emperors, Popes, I dimly see their Ur-Tarot, hovering like a rainbow in the mist, saying to me: " Here are my two hands . Both have five fingers. Both are my tools . Both write Beauty-Truth. Both are wings, too."

... If anything deserves the name Ur-Tarot according to the principle, that it must have 22 trumps, that it should be similar to the later motifs, that it should had been a popular one and that it should be old, then it this one - and not the Tarot Marseille:

http://www.trionfi.com/0/j/d/sheets/

Extant with 20 prints.

Which of the older Marseille decks can document its existence with more than 20 prints?

45. minute: Olympique Marseille versus FC Ferrara 1:2

Huck said:

... If anything deserves the name Ur-Tarot according to the principle, that it must have 22 trumps, that it should be similar to the later motifs, that it should had been a popular one and that it should be old, then it this one - and not the Tarot Marseille:

http://www.trionfi.com/0/j/d/sheets/

Extant with 20 prints.

Which of the older Marseille decks can document its existence with more than 20 prints?

45. minute: Olympique Marseille versus FC Ferrara 1:2

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it looks old - but it's undated on the website, and you don't suggest a date. So I reckon the goal will have to wait for verification, tarot history being somewhat slower that football

Helvetica said:

it looks old - but it's undated on the website, and you don't suggest a date. So I reckon the goal will have to wait for verification, tarot history being somewhat slower that football

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It's estimated 16th century and all in Kaplan II, p. 271 - 283.

However, all 20 priints go back to a single source, so it's not really evidence for a farspread deck. I overlooked a special information.

So let's say: 2:2, okay, 67. minute, but only by "Elfmeter".

I hope my comments here are welcome, and not too big a distraction from this terrific thread.

This is an important question to me.. the Ur tarot, Visconti, and TdM. This is the root of my fascination with the Tarot.

I love, and hate, mysteries... (I hate not knowing the answer to something) and I'm fascinated by the development of religions and spiritual paths. What first attracted me to tarot was the combination of these things... not that I could "read" cards, but that a strange collection of images, quite possibly religious, were combined or created at least 500 years ago. WHY? Or more specifically, why these images!!??!! By whom?

For me, it is this mystery that remains unsolved and for which I am searching for an answer.

One possible answer is that the images were created as a whole, to convey a religous story. Another is that the cards were created simply for a game, with easily recogonized symbology. I'm sure there are many others as well.

What I have the hardest time with is looking at the 22 trumps as a *whole*. I have yet to be convinced by any theory as to why the images exist as a group. To me, when I look at the cards I get the clearest impression that there is something MISSING, the story is incomplete. Whoever put these images together, if we assume there was a structure, must have chosen them for a reason. Yet, to me it is a mystery.

When I hear of "The Fool's Journey" or "The Bateleur's Journey", they seem very much like something laid on top of a pre-existing structure and forced to fit. I personally just don't buy it. With the wealth of imagery to choose from, why would anyone choose these images to convey their message? I have yet to be convinced of the logic or structure. A structured story/message would appear more like the "Gods" deck, or the Mantegna, to my thinking.

And there are some very strange images in the Tarot.. particularly the Popess and Hanged Man come to mind. Why would someone place a Hanged Man "above" a Pope or Emperor? Especially if we assume the accepted Italian meaning of a "Traitor". Why aren't there 4 cardinal virtues? Again, something is missing.. the big picture.

I'm left with a couple of possible conclusions:

1. We've lost the original structure. Perhaps originally there were more cards that would have made the story cohesive or recognizable.

2. We've lost the original story. Was there a popular passion play, or novel, or ballad that would have told us the story depicted in the cards?

3. The cards are a random collection. Bits and pieces of groups were combined together, Triumphs, Virtues, possibly Vices, the creator choosing their favorite images or the most recognizable.

So when I think of the Ur tarot, I think of the original creator... creating or combining these images. He/She might have been a card maker randomly choosing images from scattered plates lying around a print shop. He/She might have been an artist working in the royal courts of Italy developing an amusement for his patrons. He/She might have been a monk/nun, trying to convey a secret teaching. I'd love to know the answer.

So I search. I buy lots of TdM decks, and study them looking for clues (personally, I'm a Noblet fan). I study the Visconti decks because they are the oldest cards in existence and either offer a glimpse at some historical clues or some historical misinterpretations. I look to cathedrals, and passion plays, and Dante. I look to Sufism, Catherism, Troubadours, and Saints. Where is the WHOLE story? (Diana.. I hear you screaming now.. "It's in the cards! Just look at the cards!!!", but I'm sorry, I just don't hear the story as so many on this board seem able to.)

So here is where I earn my "Loyal Cynic" title... I'd like to believe there is a cohesive whole to the cards, that they are more than a mismatched collection of images. But I remain unconvinced that there is such a thing as "TAROT" that existed before the cards were created. I believe there is an answer, but I don't believe the Historians, or the Spiritualists, or I, have found it yet.

But I must say that the journey to find the answer, has (possibly) been more rewarding than the answer itself. The combination of ideas, the possible leads, the study of art and humanities. The history of the families. The history of the religions, and the persecusions. The changes in the cards. Why a Hanged Man? Why a Popess? All of this is the gift that tarot has brought to me.

robert

jmd said:

Also, one of the statements that some have made in this and other sections of the Forums (and which I personally seriously consider as reflecting a felt mood) is that it appears or feels as though the Marseille section is somewhat antagonistic to those who bring Waite or GD-type reflections.

I must admit that I probably contribute to this, though it is not antagonism per se, and my own contributions in other sections of the Forums, including the far rarer ones in the WCS study group, should bear this out.

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Yet a Thelemite noting the use of the adjective in the sentence, "On the C-H 'Thoth' hill, after having dully given the signs, grip and password..." might well be able to make a case for antagonism against his religion.

jmd said:

Here is, then, the reflections I made, and a plausible explanation as to the differences between forums, and also maybe why GD/WCS-type comments are possibly 'less welcome' here.

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Dogma, unless it is clearly stated as such, should not be welcomed anywhere.

jmd said:

For some of us, investigating the Marseille is a little like walking down those hills in the valleys and looking - or trying to look - carefully at the presented images.

There, neither Emperor nor Pope bears any Aries-like qualities, and no so-called 'paths' on the Tree of Life are reflected within the symbolic imagery. Yet, what is striking, is the symbolic imagery itself, and that is indeed worthy of deeper reflections...

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Of course, the actions of people on top of hills may not be clear to those patrolling the valley.

Some people may be standing on those hills trying to take clear photographs of the wildlife, not to expound dogma, but to study and document it. To use those ideas as a manual to operate the extremely complex machinery that Tarot became in the 19th and 20th centuries. Not because it is the best, or the first, but simply because it is there, and is a thing of beauty in its own right, no matter what its predecessor looked like.

They might also see similarities in behaviour amongst the same genus, different species, wandering through the valleys.They might note a tendency amongst those natives to modify their criteria until their stated claim is true.

jmd said:

To see the Marseille, however, one also needs to descend to the depths... and perhaps there, unencumbered by the light of multiple systems, perceive the inner radiance embedded in that illumined manuscript, or, rather than 'manuscript', hierosemioscript.

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If you are saying that the Marseilles deck has no inherent occult system, and that it could unwise to foist such any system on it, then I would have to agree.

What is interesting though, is that the Marseilles deck has become retroactively occult, that much of the symbolism and divinatory meanings apparently invented and used by later occult authors, have made their way to the Marseilles deck, its own history and iconography presumably being a little too sparse and lightweight, for todays demanding young goddess-worshipper. Which, ironically, might place something like the RWS as a precursor to some modern views of the Marseilles.

Ain't that a kick in the head?

jmd said:

As implied in the opening of the post in which I quote from another post I make, the Marseille may be considered a superb manifestation of the Ür-Tarot. The Visconti, by contrast, and no matter how beautiful, cannot form that same foundation of fullness that a Ür-deck needs to have

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The problem is that no criteria have been set down for any Ur-Tarot. Indeed the question has been begged as to whether such a beast ever existed, or at least could be proved to exist, and how we could recognise it if it did exist.

What you seem to be saying in this post is that because all other Tarots, are not the Ur-Tarot, then the Marseilles must be the one. This is as fallacious as the false dichotomy presented in the valleys and hills analogy.

I have to wonder at the purpose of proclaiming any Tarot the Ur-Tarot if not to use it as a club to beat non Ur-Tarot users around the head. Which might also explain the apparent apotheosis of the Marseilles, over the even earlier, but not so Ur-like Visconti. No one likes a Visconti user with a blunt instrument.

If I were a RWS snob, (which thank the Lord I'm not, sir), then I might suggest you keep any arguments in-house and try to find out what the Ur-Marseilles deck is from amongst the many variations. The fruitlessness of that exercise is likely to keep Marseilles Tarot snobs occupied for the next few millennia.

I don't mean to suggest the thread was a waste of time... the poetic, (as opposed to actual), proof of Marseilles Ur-ness was well worth it.



Vincent

Vincent, as a member of various initiatic orders, my reference to 'having given the due signs and passwords' was to be taken in the light-hearted jest intended - but my apologies to you should you be a 'Thelemite' that was offended by the reference... made, in any case, far more lightly than any pronouncements against Waite Crowley has made.

The esoteric and occult significance of the Marseille is not, in my personal view, something that has been 'later' imposed on the deck itself - though this too has indeed occured (starting from De Gebelin). The difficulties we generally face are those brought forward by Le Pendu: recognising what it is that binds the whole together.

In this, I personally consider that Mark Filipas has perhaps, by looking at the deck for its own sake, unveiled an overall pattern that may very well have played into the very overall structure of the Marseille (and Tarot in general, hence my earlier comments about its proximity to the Ür-Tarot).

This is not to in any manner imply that more recent decks do not have their wonderful and rich qualities - and have even embedded therein differing esoteric or occult reference. Of course they have. Rather, it was making a suggestion that the Marseille needs to be investigated without this overlay of later thought - hence my various hills metaphor (which I do not think is in any case totally adequate, as no metaphor can ever be, unless seen in only the sense intended).

To further comment on Le Pendu's contribution, I also wonder whether there in fact needs to be an overall story. Perhaps, if something like the AlefBeit forms part of the underpinning overall pattern, it becomes self-sufficient. Each Atouts, of course, then becomes a beginning point for allegorically rich journeys in their own right.

Vincent said:

What you seem to be saying in this post is that because all other Tarots, are not the Ur-Tarot, then the Marseilles must be the one. This is as fallacious as the false dichotomy presented in the valleys and hills analogy.

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You have not proven the false dichotomy Vincent, and therefore cannot argue a further point as though you had. And since you seem to be suggesting there cannot be an Ur-Tarot, all you can do, in logic, is to reject any tarot tradition as being the bearer of the "Ur-TArot". However, most things have an origin, and most traditions have essence at the heart of them - we can trace the first European novels, their precursors and what constitutes, in literary history, the "essence" of the European novel genre. Or perhaps it is the idea that things may be invested with an essence by human beings that bothers you?

As for the retroactive occult - for some authors, eager for long-hidden mysteries, that might be. But much of the icongraphy of the TdM was around for many centuries, not only on cards: that does not make it less likely it might be the bearer of a message, but more - since most people couldn't read when Tarot was born, and court people were rather fond of allegorical riddles, together you have all the ingredients for a system that is invested with meaning to its viewers. For us, however, many of the symbols are mysteries, since none of use live with the same world-view as 15th C. European men and women. Much of the fun of studying ancient Tarot comes from unveiling that world-view and seeing how elements of it have become universal (while others have been forgotten).