le pendu said:
Hmmm. I'm simply not sure. I'm willing to go with two figures because it would make so much more sense when put with the Moon and Star. It would force the two figures VERY close together as nearly half of the card is shown without even completing the first figure. Even if so, I'm not sure I agree with you about it being child-like. I think it could just as likely be a very erotic version of the card with entirely/mostly nude adult figures in a very close embrace.
I agree; I think they would be very close together. But the deck has so many other differences from TdMs, that it is hazardous to guess.
As for the TdM I and TdMII. It will be very difficult to convince me that Depaulis is wrong. To me the evidence is overwhelming that the TdM I style predates. Just looking at the Cary Sheet itself brings up similarities to TdM I, and none that I can see to TdM II (missing second naked child aside..
).
I fully agree. I think Depaulis is right (and this was 20 years ago he came up with it!), and I think you are right about the Cary sheet having "TdM I" characteristics.
We know that there were cardmakers in the early 1500s in France, but how certain are we of the "style" of deck they were making? The earliest existing TdM that we have is the Jean Noblet... circa 1650 (I'm absolutely not saying it was the first).
We don't know exactly of course, but simultaneously in Avignon and Ferrara (within a few months of one another) in 1505 "taraux" and "tarochi" appear! I don't think it's coincidence... I believe it means that mass-production had reached a new level, and since the Avignon record says "taraux" is the "popular" or "common" name, this means it had some time to become common or popular. So we're looking for a "popular" type of printed deck, affordable. The popular decks of the time are represented by surviving fragments and sheets from around 1500, and by lists of trumps, Steele Sermon, Alciato, etc. Although they evolve, designs stay stable enough overall to recognize...
(where am I going with this?) okay - I think the popular "tarochi" of Ferrara looked like the B order Budapest sheets, and the popular "taraux" of Avignon probably looked like the Cary sheet, TdM order (C - more or less). The features of the Cary sheet are Italian (clothes, hair styles, overall *fineness* of the engraving) so we are dealing with Italian cards here, but we cannot get over the fact that the French were running Milan, Avignon was exporting taraux cards to Turin, and Lyon was the biggest cardmaking center of Europe at exactly this time - when this "brand" of cards is first mentioned.
My hypothesis has been for a while now, that the *native* and original Milanese designs, from the 1440s to 1490s, were simply overrun by French imports starting in 1499; Milan was one of the biggest cities in Europe (still is), and Lyon must have found a great new market here.
The same thing did not happen in other Italian cities, because France didn't control them and have as easy access to their markets. This is why we start hearing about the "C" order in Milan (and Pavia) and Savoy, first in 1543 (Alciato). The Cary sheet, even assuming it comes from Milan circa 1500, doesn't help to determine where the C order came from, since a French invasion and administration can still account for the Milanese adopting it.
Looking for precise information about the French administration of Milan during these years is an important area of research for us, and one I've barely begun.
So it makes sense that, at its most elementary level, the TdM was probably first being produced sometime between 1450 and 1650... that's two hundred years of wiggle room. How do we know that the "first" TdM wasn't created in 1550 or say 1575? Wouldn't that still have left enough time for it to "borrow" from other style, define itself, make modifications, and still show up as it does in the Jean Noblet?
So that brings up the Cary Sheet. We have several TdM style cards on the sheet.. so does this prove that the TdM style existed at least as early as the Cary Sheet? I make the assumption that the two are intimately connected in one way or another.
Absolutely. We don't know when it was created exactly... but the Cary sheet seems early enough, and so similar in designs and order to the TdM, that it seems many aspects of TdM, essential aspects such as the distinct (from A and B) Star, Sun and Moon, and the ordering of the cards, were already in place then. As I said, this doesn't prove where it originated, and it IS so different from the other Italian tarots (and given the chronology and marketing facts above), that I think it must have been the order designed in France (Lyon, I suppose...)
I'm also not saying that the Cary Sheet is the Proto-TdM. Although I do consider it just as likely as not that it could reflect a stage of mutation/experimentation that led to the TdM. It could also just as likely be a strange collection of different decks, similar in that way to what the Jacques Vieville seems.
I think it does reflect an early stage of TdM - an Italian adaptation of the French "taraux" then flooding the market.
Ross