filipas
Inspired by Mari's thread on Gumppenberg decks, there was a sense that a thread could be started which discussed the "Soprafino" pattern specifically. This would include Carlo Dellarocca's original design as well as the subsequent designs which followed that pattern. Because of its beauty, its popularity, and puzzling questions regarding its iconography, this pattern easily merits its own thread! Below is a very brief synopsis of the pattern (with edits and additions to the comments I posted a few days ago on another thread here.)
Gumppenberg was a publisher of decks from the end of the 1700s into the mid 1800s. He published the designs of various deck artists (Carlo Dellarocca being one of them) in much the same way as Kaplan has published various deck designs over the last three decades. It would be inaccurate to refer to one of his designs as 'The Gumppenberg Tarot' since Gumppenberg published so many different designs -- it would be like referring to one of the several USGames decks as "The Kaplan Tarot".
It's important to distinguish between decks which Gumppenberg published and those which Dotti published. Edoardo Dotti and his father Teodoro were Italian cardmakers contemporaneous with Gumppenberg but their versions of the design were published between 1836 and 1865, slightly later than the earlier Gumppenberg/Dellarocca deck. In other words, Dotti's version was appropriated from Carlo Dellaroca's original 1835 design, the one to which the appellation "soprafino" (meaning "very refined") was actually applied. This chronology becomes more interesting as we consider the many enigmatic details of the Dellarocca trumps which were not carried over into the designs of subsequent versions. This "de-evolution" of the original designs is a topic I plan to return to in a later post.
It can be helpful here to distinguish between the different patterns published by these cardmakers. Gumppenberg, for example, published the deck we know as "Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano" in 1810:
http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/neoclass.html
the deck we know as "Trades and Sights of Milan" in 1820:
http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/trades.html
and the deck dubbed "Soprafino" in 1835:
http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/soprafin.html
all of which are wholly different in design. Adding to confusion is the fact that modern publishers have applied more than one title to reproductions of a single design! ("The Classic Tarot", for example, is Lo Scarabeo's reproduction of Dellarocca's original "Soprafino".) Dellarocca's designs (perhaps the Waite-Smith of its time?) must have been quite influential because many similar decks were immediately spawned from it, including Dotti's version:
http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/dotti.html
as well as subsequent and simplified versions by Gumppenberg and later cardmakers.
It is my understanding from Bob O'Neil that the pattern represented by the various "Soprafino" designs is officially known as the Tarocchino Milanese pattern. Technically speaking, then, it would have been more accurate for me to title this thread "The Tarocchino Milanese pattern" since the "Soprafino" is a specific deck, not a pattern. But since the name "Soprafino" is probably more generally known, and in deference to the deck which actually birthed the pattern, the thread title seems fitting.
We can get some idea of the popularity and evolution of this pattern by browsing Kaplan's Encyclopedia Volume II, where several versions of it can be seen. Dellarocca's 1835 engraved deck has also been reproduced by Solleone in 1981 as Tarocchino Lombardo, by Il Meneghello in 1992 as Tarocco Soprafino, and more recently as Lo Scarabeo's Classic Tarot. Shortly after the original publication of Dellarocca's deck, the father/son team of Teodoro and Edoardo Dotti published their engraved version of the pattern, which has been reproduced as Il Meneghello's Tarocco Italiani and as a large edition by De Vecchi Editore. Here is a comparison from these early versions by Gumppenberg and Dotti:
http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/dotti2.html
We then find the pattern being simplified for purposes of woodcut reproduction; one version by Gumppenberg can be seen in Kaplan p.360 and three versions by Dotti can be seen on pp.369, 373. We also have the Pietro Milesi version (p.361), the Lamperi version (p. 370), and the P. Negri version (p. 378). These later modifications are visually elegant and were copied with relative consistency among various different woodcut versions. But all versions of the pattern originate with the 1835 deck, published by Gumppenberg and engraved by Carlo Dellarocca.
Thanks, and please feel free to post observations, questions, research, musings, etc. This doesn't have to be a strictly historical thread.
- Mark
Gumppenberg was a publisher of decks from the end of the 1700s into the mid 1800s. He published the designs of various deck artists (Carlo Dellarocca being one of them) in much the same way as Kaplan has published various deck designs over the last three decades. It would be inaccurate to refer to one of his designs as 'The Gumppenberg Tarot' since Gumppenberg published so many different designs -- it would be like referring to one of the several USGames decks as "The Kaplan Tarot".
It's important to distinguish between decks which Gumppenberg published and those which Dotti published. Edoardo Dotti and his father Teodoro were Italian cardmakers contemporaneous with Gumppenberg but their versions of the design were published between 1836 and 1865, slightly later than the earlier Gumppenberg/Dellarocca deck. In other words, Dotti's version was appropriated from Carlo Dellaroca's original 1835 design, the one to which the appellation "soprafino" (meaning "very refined") was actually applied. This chronology becomes more interesting as we consider the many enigmatic details of the Dellarocca trumps which were not carried over into the designs of subsequent versions. This "de-evolution" of the original designs is a topic I plan to return to in a later post.
It can be helpful here to distinguish between the different patterns published by these cardmakers. Gumppenberg, for example, published the deck we know as "Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano" in 1810:
http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/neoclass.html
the deck we know as "Trades and Sights of Milan" in 1820:
http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/trades.html
and the deck dubbed "Soprafino" in 1835:
http://www.SpiritOne.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/soprafin.html
all of which are wholly different in design. Adding to confusion is the fact that modern publishers have applied more than one title to reproductions of a single design! ("The Classic Tarot", for example, is Lo Scarabeo's reproduction of Dellarocca's original "Soprafino".) Dellarocca's designs (perhaps the Waite-Smith of its time?) must have been quite influential because many similar decks were immediately spawned from it, including Dotti's version:
http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/dotti.html
as well as subsequent and simplified versions by Gumppenberg and later cardmakers.
It is my understanding from Bob O'Neil that the pattern represented by the various "Soprafino" designs is officially known as the Tarocchino Milanese pattern. Technically speaking, then, it would have been more accurate for me to title this thread "The Tarocchino Milanese pattern" since the "Soprafino" is a specific deck, not a pattern. But since the name "Soprafino" is probably more generally known, and in deference to the deck which actually birthed the pattern, the thread title seems fitting.
We can get some idea of the popularity and evolution of this pattern by browsing Kaplan's Encyclopedia Volume II, where several versions of it can be seen. Dellarocca's 1835 engraved deck has also been reproduced by Solleone in 1981 as Tarocchino Lombardo, by Il Meneghello in 1992 as Tarocco Soprafino, and more recently as Lo Scarabeo's Classic Tarot. Shortly after the original publication of Dellarocca's deck, the father/son team of Teodoro and Edoardo Dotti published their engraved version of the pattern, which has been reproduced as Il Meneghello's Tarocco Italiani and as a large edition by De Vecchi Editore. Here is a comparison from these early versions by Gumppenberg and Dotti:
http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/dotti2.html
We then find the pattern being simplified for purposes of woodcut reproduction; one version by Gumppenberg can be seen in Kaplan p.360 and three versions by Dotti can be seen on pp.369, 373. We also have the Pietro Milesi version (p.361), the Lamperi version (p. 370), and the P. Negri version (p. 378). These later modifications are visually elegant and were copied with relative consistency among various different woodcut versions. But all versions of the pattern originate with the 1835 deck, published by Gumppenberg and engraved by Carlo Dellarocca.
Thanks, and please feel free to post observations, questions, research, musings, etc. This doesn't have to be a strictly historical thread.
- Mark