blackroseivy
About when was Tarot introduced there? I know it took root in maybe the 16th century - but was it known there earlier? (I'm doing research for a project.) 
Question about Tarot history in France
The crowned one
I think it would depend on your definition of "tarot"
Likely it was known or being introduced to France in and around 1440-45 as a deck we would recognize as "tarot like"
The Marsille pattern in the very early 1500's would be a safe bet.
Likely it was known or being introduced to France in and around 1440-45 as a deck we would recognize as "tarot like"
The Marsille pattern in the very early 1500's would be a safe bet.
Ross G Caldwell
Hi BRI,
The earliest known reference for certain to tarot cards more-or-less in France comes from Avignon in 1505. I say "more or less" because Avignon did not belong to the French Crown then, it belonged to the Papacy, which was then in Rome.
So, the earliest certain date is 1505, when "cards commonly called 'taraux'" were exported from Avignon to Pinerolo (near Turin) in Savoy (now Piedmont, an Italian province).
But the time it arrived in France and actually made a splash is harder to tell. There are some earlier hints.
In 1449, a Tarot deck was sent from Monselice in Italy to Saumur, near Angers on the western Loire (also not techincally under the French Crown at that date, but you get the picture). Whatever happened to it, we don't know.
In 1480 and 1482, there are references in northern France to a game called "la triomphe" being played. Since tarot was called "triumph" or "triumphs" in the 15th century, this might refer to Tarot. But it might also refer (being the earliest references to it, I think) to a card game played with the regular deck, which became the ancestor of all non-tarot trump-suiting games (like Whist).
In 1486 René II d'Anjou is noted to have been playing this game "la triomphe". Could have been Triomphe, could have been Tarot - given the fact that the first known Tarot in France came to his grandmother Isabelle (the one noted above in Saumur), it is tempting to speculate that it was Tarot that he played. But that's all that can be said. Triomphe with the regular deck became a very popular and iconic game by the early 16th century, so it must have been developing by the late 15th century.
My own thinking is that the tarot game, the Latin-suited deck with 22 extra trump cards, was already played in France in the 1450s. That is, it spread quickly in both Italy and France - within 20 years of its invention. Whether "triomphe" refers to tarot or not, I can't say. I can't even hazard a guess - for me it is 50/50. Tarot had to be there at some time in the late 15th century, and Triomphe with normal cards had to be there at sometime in the late 15th century.
Ross
blackroseivy said:About when was Tarot introduced there? I know it took root in maybe the 16th century - but was it known there earlier? (I'm doing research for a project.)
The earliest known reference for certain to tarot cards more-or-less in France comes from Avignon in 1505. I say "more or less" because Avignon did not belong to the French Crown then, it belonged to the Papacy, which was then in Rome.
So, the earliest certain date is 1505, when "cards commonly called 'taraux'" were exported from Avignon to Pinerolo (near Turin) in Savoy (now Piedmont, an Italian province).
But the time it arrived in France and actually made a splash is harder to tell. There are some earlier hints.
In 1449, a Tarot deck was sent from Monselice in Italy to Saumur, near Angers on the western Loire (also not techincally under the French Crown at that date, but you get the picture). Whatever happened to it, we don't know.
In 1480 and 1482, there are references in northern France to a game called "la triomphe" being played. Since tarot was called "triumph" or "triumphs" in the 15th century, this might refer to Tarot. But it might also refer (being the earliest references to it, I think) to a card game played with the regular deck, which became the ancestor of all non-tarot trump-suiting games (like Whist).
In 1486 René II d'Anjou is noted to have been playing this game "la triomphe". Could have been Triomphe, could have been Tarot - given the fact that the first known Tarot in France came to his grandmother Isabelle (the one noted above in Saumur), it is tempting to speculate that it was Tarot that he played. But that's all that can be said. Triomphe with the regular deck became a very popular and iconic game by the early 16th century, so it must have been developing by the late 15th century.
My own thinking is that the tarot game, the Latin-suited deck with 22 extra trump cards, was already played in France in the 1450s. That is, it spread quickly in both Italy and France - within 20 years of its invention. Whether "triomphe" refers to tarot or not, I can't say. I can't even hazard a guess - for me it is 50/50. Tarot had to be there at some time in the late 15th century, and Triomphe with normal cards had to be there at sometime in the late 15th century.
Ross
blackroseivy
Thank you VERY much, Ross &Tco - this is exactly what I wanted to know!
The project I am doing is a study of the 22 Majors ("Triumphs") of the Tarot, done VERY large in multi-panel pieces, in oils with gold leaf. I won't be able to do this for a while, but I wanted my facts straight. I am going by the "International Gothic" style, with original Medieval-style compositions; I created a whole set of beautiful Gothic titles in French - Flemish/French style was my idea. I didn't want to do the entire thing over in Italian - I LOVE the way the French words look - so, I wondered about provenance for it being late 15th century. I'm glad that there is; this is an original project, but I like to think about historical accuracy when I work.
Thank you again!
The project I am doing is a study of the 22 Majors ("Triumphs") of the Tarot, done VERY large in multi-panel pieces, in oils with gold leaf. I won't be able to do this for a while, but I wanted my facts straight. I am going by the "International Gothic" style, with original Medieval-style compositions; I created a whole set of beautiful Gothic titles in French - Flemish/French style was my idea. I didn't want to do the entire thing over in Italian - I LOVE the way the French words look - so, I wondered about provenance for it being late 15th century. I'm glad that there is; this is an original project, but I like to think about historical accuracy when I work.
Thank you again!
The crowned one
Ross G Caldwell said:
Great answer Ross. Good facts.
I agree with this conjuring of yours above.
Rosanne
Wonderful precis Ross! Just out of curiousity, after the intial creation, do you have any idea/thoughts who the carriers\contagions of this game were? (Not a good choice of words,but...) like cardmakers or the soldiers, noblilty or even bank staff? Seems unlikely to me to be sailors... I have been wracking my brains to work out who moved the most lol- even maybe the landstaff that moved around after the plague, but that seems a long shot.Ross G Caldwell said:
~Rosanne
The crowned one
Guild members messengers/traders and artists in times of peace. Soldiers in times of war is my thought.
Ross G Caldwell
Rosanne said:
For the game in the first few decades, I think it got to France (in the broadest sense, including Provence and Burgundy), I imagine it had to go with diplomats or aristocrats sent from Italian to foreign courts.
This is the first scenario we know of, with Jacopo Antonio Marcello's deck sent to Isabelle of Lorraine, via the diplomat Giovanni Cossa. In 1492, Ippolito d'Este sent a letter from Hungary thanking his mother in Ferrara for sending, among other things, "gilded trumps". So it's possible that Francesco d'Este, Leonello's bastard, who was sent to Burgundy in 1444 (and remained there the rest of his life), might have got some cards from his family in the same way, and introduced their play to the court there. Earlier of course, in 1408 we have the inventory of Valentia Visconti, duchess of Orleans, which contained a pack of Sarrasin cards and a pack of Lombardy cards.
These records are only the lucky accidents of aristocratic record-keeping, naturally. They can't tell us anything directly about a popular level of playing.
I can only make an educated guess about that. If we accept that Marchione Burdochio's tarot that he sold to the Este in 1442 represents a popular and standard kind of tarot, it may well have been printed. In 1448/49 Marcello got a deck he thought wasn't good enough to be sent to Isabelle (he did anyway), it may also have been printed - think of the quality of the Budapest or Dick tarots. So, let's say that printed tarots existed by the 1440s.
We know that lots of German printmakers, including cardmakers, came south to the rich cities of Italy and set up trade there in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. We know also that many Italian craftspeople went to the Papal city-state of Avignon, and after 1450 to Lyon, which was being set up as France's manufacturing and exporting capital. So there must have been plenty of Italian printmakers, including cardmakers, among them. If a printed tarot model already existed, and was being printed in places like Bologna and Florence by the 1440s, then it could have gone to Avignon and Lyon along with these artisans. It could have had 5 decades of development in France before the first notice of export to Pinerolo in 1505.
As far as I know, there is no indication of an Italian manufacturer with enough production to supply a foreign market, but German and French cardmakers, especially the city of Lyon, supplied all of Europe's card needs (in 1500 Lyon had something like 100 master cardmakers, IIRC, more than twice as many as its nearest competitor Nüremberg; by contrast we are lucky to know the names of a handful of cardmakers in all of the 15th century in Italy).
This is just a guess of course; but whether it went directly with artisans, or got adopted out of the courts by an enterprising French cardmaker in the late 15th century, I believe it was there *by* the late 15th century, in a relatively popular form, and before Charles VIII's invasion of 1494.
Ross
blackroseivy
VERY kewl, & thank you for the terrific info, Ross!
Abrac
Posted in the wrong place, sorry!
