help! [which Hebrew letter correspondence?]

MikeTheAltarboy

Bards in Wales spoke of an original ten principles the doctrine of which was kept secret (which they either did not reveal or did not know), as can be found in that uneven work Barddas.
The Barddas was first published in *1862*, and "edited" by a notorius forger - it's hardly an indication of what "bards" once believed or knew.

I'm curious about your bardic alphabet. You call it ogham, but in all sources I've had recourse to, the ogham is always 20 (inscription), or 25 (manuscript) letters long, never 22. The tradition of naming the letters after trees is said to be mediaeval, since their earlier names are not of trees, and I've found no references to any numbers being associated with them. Furthermore, they're invariably in a different order than you present. Could you perhaps direct me to where I could see more clearly where you're comming from?
 

venicebard

MikeTheAltarboy said:
The Barddas was first published in *1862*, and "edited" by a notorius forger - it's hardly an indication of what "bards" once believed or knew.
I don’t want to offend one of the few who even bother to reply to me, but to dismiss Barddas completely is just silly. First of all, he wasn’t the editor, rather the reputed author of parts of it. And the work is controversial, to be sure, but much of it is an obvious compilation of what those involved with bardic tradition in his day had to say of the letter-tradition (they do not even agree amongst themselves), and from this much can be gleaned, as well as (frankly) from some of the rest of it as well. Specifically, one source therein lists the letters in the order of their numeration in medieval Irish literature (up to 16, the rest being secret), thus confirming that tradition’s presence in Wales as well. Another lists them in that order except for a few, obviously skewed on purpose. If you study the matter, you will find that opinions differ on Barddas, and while I agree one should be extremely cautious wherever modern-day ‘Druids’ are afoot (they latched onto the work as a kind of bible), it is counterproductive to discard all is of value in it along with what indeed could well be ‘forgery’, although by that standard much of what is revered in Judaic tradition would also have to be thrown out, most notably the entire Zohar. So ‘look before you leap’, my friend.
I'm curious about your bardic alphabet. You call it ogham, but in all sources I've had recourse to, the ogham is always 20 (inscription), or 25 (manuscript) letters long, never 22.
(In the early Bronze Age, it only consisted of fifteen, as the vowels—the fourth leg of LeBateleur’s table—were taboo.) Robert Graves postulated—and I later ‘proved’, based in part on correspondence of II-mistletoe-loranthus to Hebrew yod’s not extending down to the line on which one writes—the existence of two hidden or secret letters in ogham that fill it out to twenty-two. These two are II and AA, doubled vowels to complement two doubled consonants already in ogham, KK (Q-apple) and SS (St-blackthorn). I know it is popular these days also to discount everything Graves says (and I have no use for all the ‘Goddess’ madness myself), but again, to throw out an entire body of work because it happens to contain some error merely results in ignorance, not the advancement of knowledge.
The tradition of naming the letters after trees is said to be mediaeval, since their earlier names are not of trees,
I don’t know where you get this, unless it is from Peter Berresford Ellis, who posted a hit-job on ‘Graves’s’ tree-alphabet online that I tore to ribbons in rebuttal (though I like some of Ellis’s work). Even if it were true, it does not lessen the value of the tree-names, since they elucidate the symbolic meanings of letters, as can be exhaustively demonstrated by reference to ancient alphabets (letter-shapes, especially). If you read what I posted over at tarotpedia on the trumps, you will find much of this evidence explained, letter by letter.
...and I've found no references to any numbers being associated with them.
Graves gives the numbers used in medieval Irish literature to refer to the tree-letters, although I have not been able to track down his source(s). But as I say, they are listed in their numeric order by one-plus source in Barddas, also.
Furthermore, they're invariably in a different order than you present. Could you perhaps direct me to where I could see more clearly where you're comming from?
Calendar order differs from numerical order because said numbers are part of the symbolism and based on deeper science than just counting. But if you are referring to the order-difference between the first staff of ogham—B-L-F-S-N—and the first five tree-months—B-L-N-F-S—it is evidently either (as I believe) a blind (on the part of ogham-order) or a nefarious religious change (which Graves suggests). Roderick O’Flaherty in his Ogygia gives the calendar order, and this order is also a necessary conclusion from the fact that the Irish word for their alphabet is bethluisnion, not bethluisfearn.

I don’t have Graves’s The White Goddess with me, but if you wish to pursue this further, I will get the page number on which he lists the numbers associated with the letters and post it. The symbolic resonance, and power to explain so much else in the history of writing, on the part of the tree-number symbolism makes it, as far as I am concerned, a well-established doctrine. The tarot trumps themselves constitute a good deal of the evidence, as the symbolism simply is not completely explainable by any other route.

I am rushed for time at the moment, so don’t think I’m trying to be dismissive or anything. Best regards, VB
 

Ross G Caldwell

venicebard said:
Quite right on the former point: they are at least Christian, though I would argue Keltic or Gnostic, not orthodox Roman. But anyone with an abacus would note that tarot parallels Kabbalah: 22 letters, plus 10 Sefirot and four letters of the Name in four distinct worlds.

But they are always called "trumps", not letters; the pips are never called "sefirot", and the four suits are never called after the four letters of the divine name nor after the four worlds, nor are what are pictured on the suits related in any way to the sense of the names of the four worlds. And there are many other essential doctrines of the Kabbalah (meaning, say, the Sefer Yetzirah, the Bahir, the Zohar) that aren't represented in the tarot pack.

I am sure many people had abaci back in the day, could count, could compare, or whatever, and they didn't seem to notice it. Does this mean they were stupid? Does it mean that those who made the comparison deliberately hid it for some reason? I don't think so. If you think so, why do you think so? Where is the suggestion in all of the knowledge of tarot from the 15th to 18th centuries that anybody thought it was dangerous, or was suppressed in some way, or even a hint that it illustrated an esoteric teaching?

I think a better answer is, the people that were interested in Kabbalah (or Cabala) weren't interested in tarot cards, or that even if they knew about tarot cards, they didn't think to compare them because it took esoteric developments that hadn't happened yet to be able to make that comparison.

But most importantly, there are better reasons in the early 15th century for why someone may have chosen 21 trumps and a Fool to add to an already changing pack of cards. This is because the analogy of 21 pips on a die was well-known, and since the trumps seem to represent a moralization about chance and fortune (Game-player, Wheel of Fortune, Instable world) and fate, it seems the strongest connection is there. Also possibly connected is the fact that Italians wrote their alphabet with 21 or 22 letters in the early 15th century (Tuscany used 21, north used 22). The alphabet might then have represented the number of a "complete" series of something, even if there wouldn't have been a one-to-one correspondence.

Because of the antiquity of Jewish alphabet-tradition and its relation to insular Keltic alphabet-tradition (directly relating to trumps), and because the only surviving version of the doctrine of the Sefirot, or ten stages from Totality to individual, happens to be in a Jewish setting.

I don't think this is true. Neo-platonic thought in the middle ages is full of tens, and refers to spiritual development like this.

But the question is - since the card pack came from China via Mamluk turks, and this latter pack had this 10x4 pip structure, were they trying to illustrate the divine name with the sefirot in the four worlds this way? And why did they leave out the 22 letters if they did?

Or are you saying that, when the 52 card pack (or 48 card pack) made its way to Spain and Italy, someone said to themselves - if I added 22 more cards, and four Queens, I could illustrate doctrines of the Kabbalah?

Or are you saying something else?

This does not at all mean it has always been thus restricted. Bards in Wales spoke of an original ten principles the doctrine of which was kept secret (which they either did not reveal or did not know), as can be found in that uneven work Barddas.

I don't know about Barddas, but from the introductions to the copies available in various places on the internet, it seems not to be a primary source for anything earlier than the 19th century. Does it mention tarot?

I mean no offense in my tone - it is hard to convey good-nature when writing succinctly in this format, you know ;-) I still haven't figured out how to add smilies - just doesn't seem to work for me when I try to configure my User CP to include them.

But I hope no-one misreads my "tone" - I just worry that if I had to worry about how my style might be misread, I would rarely write at all. I haven't written many posts I could have already because some people get offended when their ideas are challenged, and they read it as an attack on them personally.
 

MikeTheAltarboy

pulled... Off topic to Kabbalah and Hebrew correspondence. :)
 

venicebard

Ross G Caldwell said:
But they are always called "trumps", not letters; the pips are never called "sefirot", and the four suits are never called after the four letters of the divine name nor after the four worlds, nor are what are pictured on the suits related in any way to the sense of the names of the four worlds. And there are many other essential doctrines of the Kabbalah (meaning, say, the Sefer Yetzirah, the Bahir, the Zohar) that aren't represented in the tarot pack.
On the contrary, it is the separating-out of the four worlds as Bahir-fire-Atzilut-clubs-unity (spirit), SY-air-Beriyah-swords-duality (air-splitting, thought), Zohar-water-Yetzirah-cups-triplicity (containment, form), Hermetic-earth-Asiyah-coins-quadruplicity (planetary cycles) that is clearly pictured. For the first, the Sefirot in their original form, are the first ten of twelve spokes (thirteen middot, counting return to the first) of a wheel: the 1-10 of Batons. The second bunch represent division—Swords—just as SY defines Sefirot in polarities (and trumps define them as each split in two). The third bunch (Tree as known today) represent the forms of man . . . but I won’t go into that now. And the fourth—look at them—are rounds, cycles, and stand for the planetary cycles between eternity (1) and ‘today’ (10).

Oh, I see what might be your objection, taking Swords as inconsistent with Beriyah as ‘creation’. Well, you have to realize that creation is a hollowing out, in forest for example, to create a dwelling, and this is done with iron tools. Even more fundamentally, creation is called ‘forging’, and the ‘creator’ a smith.
I am sure many people had abaci back in the day, could count, could compare, or whatever, and they didn't seem to notice it. Does this mean they were stupid? Does it mean that those who made the comparison deliberately hid it for some reason? I don't think so. If you think so, why do you think so? Where is the suggestion in all of the knowledge of tarot from the 15th to 18th centuries that anybody thought it was dangerous, or was suppressed in some way, or even a hint that it illustrated an esoteric teaching?
We know a whole culture was suppressed, in the Languedoc. The survival of tarot-card making in places like Marseille and Lyons must have been like the glue that gets pushed out beyond the edges when you squish two pieces of something together to rejoin them.

As for evidence of TdM's esoteric content, this resides in the trumps’ consistency with tree-letter symbolism (and much else besides) along with the latter’s ability to explain the shapes of Hebrew and proto-Canaanite letters, Libyan and tifinag letters, and runes. Oh, and the fact that the pillar Jachin is established in the King of Batons (yod of yod), the pillar Boaz in the Queen of Swords (vav of vav).
I think a better answer is, the people that were interested in Kabbalah (or Cabala) weren't interested in tarot cards, or that even if they knew about tarot cards, they didn't think to compare them because it took esoteric developments that hadn't happened yet to be able to make that comparison.
Here’s where we fundamentally differ, because the only ‘developments’ I see happening later were the loss of the tradition. You don’t think it is intact today, do you? I can show you that it is not.
But most importantly, there are better reasons in the early 15th century for why someone may have chosen 21 trumps and a Fool to add to an already changing pack of cards. This is because the analogy of 21 pips on a die was well-known, and since the trumps seem to represent a moralization about chance and fortune (Game-player, Wheel of Fortune, Instable world) and fate, it seems the strongest connection is there.
Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly do you mean when you say ‘21 pips on a die’? It sounds like something I should know.
Also possibly connected is the fact that Italians wrote their alphabet with 21 or 22 letters in the early 15th century (Tuscany used 21, north used 22). The alphabet might then have represented the number of a "complete" series of something, even if there wouldn't have been a one-to-one correspondence.
You lose me here, but partly simply because the one-to-one correspondence with the 22 letters becomes so clear once they are numbered properly. But how could you have “a complete series of something” without there being “one-to-one correspondence” with it?
Neo-platonic thought in the middle ages is full of tens, and refers to spiritual development like this.
I’m not expert in neo-platonic thought. I have never run across neo-platonic speculations that seemed free of error to me, whereas I find Qabbalah flawless, as revealed through Bahir, SY, the Zoharic Tree (and Lurianic interpretation), and Hermetic science, but only as regards the Sefirot (minus later rabbinic speculation), not the alef-bet, for which one needs bardic correction for numbering and placement.
But the question is - since the card pack came from China via Mamluk turks,
I don’t take this as proven. Chinese cards do not resemble Western cards in any respect that I can see (everyone counts). It is certainly plausible in the sense that the idea of cards might have come, say, through the Mongols (who had Chinese siege engineers), as Huck suggests, yet Mamluks were their enemy, not ally.
...and this latter pack had this 10x4 pip structure, were they trying to illustrate the divine name with the sefirot in the four worlds this way? And why did they leave out the 22 letters if they did?
It actually strikes me as more plausible that the Mamluks might have gotten cards, through the Moors, from Troubadour Provence, for the simple reason that it would then be understandable why trumps and queens were removed—to fit Muslim sensibilities with regard to images and sex. It could have been pips first, trumps later, but I somehow doubt this. Still, that the Sefirot were the exclusive property of the Jews we both reject (for different reasons), and there is even a shamanic drum-slash-altar found in north-western Europe that had ten round (wheel-like) legs and thirty holes around the sides (illustrated in the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology).

The tradition concerning the Name would have been a little less widespread or accessible than that of the Sefirot, though the insular Kelts most likely knew it (or of it). It has one female because only vav occurs on the nature or female side of the round (of twelve simples, once restored to their original order). My understanding is that it stands for tension between the inner and outer horizon (pointed to by yod and vav, respectively), compelling events whose purpose is to relieve said tension.
I don't know about Barddas, but from the introductions to the copies available in various places on the internet, it seems not to be a primary source for anything earlier than the 19th century. Does it mention tarot?
No (and I read a considerable portion of it). It is surprising what did survive of bardic lore, though, even up to today (through the efforts of such as O’Flaherty and Graves, in part). Barddas is quite uneven, being a compilation, but Lewis Spence, I find, defends it passionately and eloquently in a chapter of The Mysteries of Britain. Its very unevenness speaks to its authenticity, as I see it, for otherwise Mr. Morganwg would have tried to be a little more consistent.
I hope no-one misreads my "tone" - I just worry that if I had to worry about how my style might be misread, I would rarely write at all. I haven't written many posts I could have already because some people get offended when their ideas are challenged, and they read it as an attack on them personally.
Not a problem, at least with me: rest easy on that score.
 

Ross G Caldwell

venicebard said:
Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly do you mean when you say ‘21 pips on a die’? It sounds like something I should know.
You lose me here, but partly simply because the one-to-one correspondence with the 22 letters becomes so clear once they are numbered properly. But how could you have “a complete series of something” without there being “one-to-one correspondence” with it?

Let me answer these two questions.

The points on a die are also called "pips". A six-sided die (cube) has 21 points (1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21). Early in the 15th century, Bernardino of Siena and others preached that in order to lead people into sin, the Devil created games like dice and cards, and that instead of the 21 letters of the alphabet, which are used to write the holy words in prayer books, the Devil used the 21 points of a die as his "alphabet", used to play damnable games.

I think there doesn't need to be a one-to-one correspondence between the letters of the alphabet and the idea of the alphabet representing a complete series. It's like saying "I think about this 24/7". It means I think about it all the time, not that literally, each hour of the day, seven days a week, I think a particular thought. It's a metaphor.

I think the alphabet as a complete series, without a necessary one-for-one equivalence, is still used this way, in advertising. For instance, a store might say "We have everything you need for your household, from A to Z". It is the idea of completeness it emphasizes, even though there may be nothing starting with X or Z in the store.

I think the alphabet was a metaphorically complete series, A-Z. So it was "Let's show everything, the whole world, A to Z". It wasn't "Let's make a card corresponding literally to each letter of the alphabet".
 

Ross G Caldwell

venicebard said:
Oh, I see what might be your objection, taking Swords as inconsistent with Beriyah as ‘creation’. Well, you have to realize that creation is a hollowing out, in forest for example, to create a dwelling, and this is done with iron tools. Even more fundamentally, creation is called ‘forging’, and the ‘creator’ a smith.

No, my objection is that the fourfoldness of the deck doesn't need to be related to Kabbalah at all. Four winds, four directions, four elements, four gospels... so many places to find the idea. But the most obvious might be the Chinese money pack of four suits, transmitted by the Mongols to the Mamluks, and thence to Europe.

It is even possible that the same cards came from two different directions, from the Mongols in the north to Eastern Europe, and from North Africa to Spain and/or Italy.

But either way, it seems the Mongols used the fourfold pack, and they divided their regions in "hordes" by four colours, North, East, South and West, and the centre or "Golden Horde".

We know a whole culture was suppressed, in the Languedoc. The survival of tarot-card making in places like Marseille and Lyons must have been like the glue that gets pushed out beyond the edges when you squish two pieces of something together to rejoin them.

There were certainly no cards being played in the Languedoc in the 12th or 13th centuries. Everything points to cards coming to Europe in the mid-to-late 14th century.

Parts of a culture were suppressed in the Crusade and its aftermath, but the true character of the people wasn't; they have always been, and remain, distrustful of authority.

But I don't see this character in the trumps. The game was never popular here, even now when it is at its most popular in French history since the 17th century. And they use the Tarot Nouveau, which has completely different pictures on the trumps. There is really no evidence of tarot being made here ever, and I truly think there is no reason to believe it ever was. It isn't used in Catalonia either, even thought through most of the Languedoc's history the type of cards most popular here were Spanish suited types, and the Languedoc is closer in culture to Catalonia than to France.

Provence is a different matter... it is closer culturally to Italy. But they didn't suffer the Crusade like the Languedoc did. There is a big difference between one side of the Rhône and the other; it seems tarot never made it across the Rhône in its classical style.

Ross
 

Laurel

Hi Lady Orchid. I've spent a very long time researching and reflecting on this topic. I know just how mind-boggling it can be. I personally find it very useful to use Astrology/Alchemy as a Rosetta stone when it comes to Hebrew/Phoenician letter + tarot correspondences.

Aleph, Shin and Mem for example correspond to the modalities of Mutable, Cardinal and Fixed in Astrology or Mercury, Sulfure and Salt in alchemy. In practical ritual and meditation, I've found that Aleph = Fool *and* Aleph= Magician for example. The Golden Dawn correspondences of letters to cards, Etteilla's correspondences, other folks systems of correspondences might be meaningful to you... or they might not. But the only way you'll know for sure what works is to study & experiment. Don't feel stressed about what the "real answer" is... its the journey that matters more than the destination. :)
 

venicebard

Interesting about the pips on dice, thanx. Of course I realized 21 was the sum of 1 through 6, as 10 is of 1 through 4 (the tetractys). It makes me think of an added dimension to the 21 non-zero trumps, as a counterweight to the profane pips, those of dice. But I am disoriented: the ‘pips’ in tarot are abstract or inner, it being the court cards that rule nature—numbers within, images without, with numbered images (trumps) as bridge-builder between.

[Four square dice can contain all the original runes. They could be lined up to represent each group of four in the elder futhark, the initial member of which marks one of the six points of the macrocosmic hexad. I’m sure you wanted to know that.]

I understood your other point also, thanx.
Ross G Caldwell said:
No, my objection is that the fourfoldness of the deck doesn't need to be related to Kabbalah at all. Four winds, four directions, four elements, four gospels... so many places to find the idea. But the most obvious might be the Chinese money pack of four suits,
(three to four suits)
. . . transmitted by the Mongols to the Mamluks, and thence to Europe.
Here I believe you are posing theory as fact, but the theory is plausible, I agree. Chinese cards count. Well, it is perfectly reasonable to me to conclude that the idea of cards—an improvement on dominoes for certain purposes—spread from Far East to Near. And knowledge of the four elements may be compatible with the Mongols four winds (in China, I believe the elements were a little different).
There were certainly no cards being played in the Languedoc in the 12th or 13th centuries. Everything points to cards coming to Europe in the mid-to-late 14th century.
I agree they seem to have arisen about then.
Parts of a culture were suppressed in the Crusade and its aftermath, but the true character of the people wasn't; they have always been, and remain, distrustful of authority.

But I don't see this character in the trumps. The game was never popular here, even now when it is at its most popular in French history since the 17th century. And they use the Tarot Nouveau, which has completely different pictures on the trumps. There is really no evidence of tarot being made here ever, and I truly think there is no reason to believe it ever was. It isn't used in Catalonia either, even thought through most of the Languedoc's history the type of cards most popular here were Spanish suited types, and the Languedoc is closer in culture to Catalonia than to France.

Provence is a different matter... it is closer culturally to Italy. But they didn't suffer the Crusade like the Languedoc did. There is a big difference between one side of the Rhône and the other; it seems tarot never made it across the Rhône in its classical style.

Ross
You have forced me to reappraise my view. The hard-to-budge part of my view is the symbolic content of the Marseilles. But I suddenly realize that bardic Arthurian and Grail literature’s Continental survival where the culture was not brutally suppressed may account also for where TdM arose. This is startling, but I like startling. It points me in a different direction, possibly closer to the scent, n’est ce pas?

You are a gem! (Thank you)
 

Ross G Caldwell

venicebard said:
Interesting about the pips on dice, thanx. Of course I realized 21 was the sum of 1 through 6, as 10 is of 1 through 4 (the tetractys). It makes me think of an added dimension to the 21 non-zero trumps, as a counterweight to the profane pips, those of dice. But I am disoriented: the ‘pips’ in tarot are abstract or inner, it being the court cards that rule nature—numbers within, images without, with numbered images (trumps) as bridge-builder between.

I tend to see the trumps as being a kind of moralization on the regular pack, added to it as even higher than Kings. This is why the series has Emperors and Popes, but no Kings. Moralization of the regular pack had already been done, and the fourfoldness had already been understood as the "four kingdoms" of the world - from Brother John we know that the pack had been explained as an allegory of the European world, with four kingdoms. I see the trumps as following that tradition with an added layer of allegory, showing how everything - the four kingdoms, the Empire, the Papacy, human life, fate and chance, hell and the heavens are all under God's authority.

(three to four suits)Here I believe you are posing theory as fact, but the theory is plausible, I agree.

Sorry to imply that; it isn't established fact, certainly, but it is the most plausible theory.

By "the four suited" I meant the four suited version, with "tens of myriads" (shi) as the fourth suit, whose Chinese character was a cross. I don't think the 3 suited version could have prompted the Mamluk players to create a fourth suit, so some intervening link, probably Mongolian, although unproved, is the best hypothesis.
The 3 and 4 suited "Money Packs" (our term, they just call them "paper") are the smallest Chinese packs, as far as I am aware.

The Chinese four suited pack had two suits with repeated symbols, like our cards; the last two suits were decorated with characters from the long cycle of stories called "The Water Margin", which was about a band of outlaws, like Robin Hood. This story was written by at least 1300, under the Mongol domination, and commentators that I have read suggest that the popularity of the story among the Chinese is to be attributed in part to resistance to the Mongol-Yuan dynasty.

So - putting the most popular Robin Hoods on the cards was perhaps an act of popular resistance.

Naturally (my theory goes), Mongols themselves would have known of this, and so (I believe) their cards wouldn't have had the Water Margin characters on them. So, instead, they just repeated the symbols for Wan (which they called "tuman") and Shi just like in the other two suits, resulting, through the Mamluks, in our "Cups" and "Swords" (and inverted "Wan" character looks like a cup, and the Shi character looks like a sword).

All of this is unproven, of course, it's just my theory. But at least I can cite the Japanese case where, when they began producing designs after the Portuguese style, they *inverted* the cup, evidently because they didn't know what it was supposed to represent.

Thus, I think it quite plausible that Turkish or Mamluk card-makers, when they saw our hypothetical Mongolian cards, didn't know what all those inverted Y shaped "Wan" characters were, and turned them around to make Y cups.

You have forced me to reappraise my view. The hard-to-budge part of my view is the symbolic content of the Marseilles. But I suddenly realize that bardic Arthurian and Grail literature’s Continental survival where the culture was not brutally suppressed may account also for where TdM arose. This is startling, but I like startling. It points me in a different direction, possibly closer to the scent, n’est ce pas?

You are a gem! (Thank you)

Wow, thanks. I tend to agree that the earliest surviving packs have Arthurian overtones, even in the court cards - this is because the Visconti and Este families, among others, considered themselves the heirs of those traditions of Lancelot, Galahad, Roland and Charlemagne; and for the Visconti, the Lombard kingdom. The city of Tortona, a little south of Pavia, has a strong tradition that the Holy Grail was kept there for nearly a thousand years, until (IIRC) the time of Frederick II.

The Grail romances are courtly and chivalrous, and the Visconti and Este certainly attempted to live in the chivalrous spirit.

But I haven't been able to see the trump series in this light. The regular pack certainly, but the trumps appear to be something else, a moralization about Fortune, constrained by the number 21.

I think it has a Goliard feeling, which is well expressed in the "O Fortuna" song of the "Carmina Burana".

Provencal poets don't need to actually be in Provence for their spirit to have affected the sensibilities of late 14th century Italians, and thence to the trumps. It is a medieval sensibility, through and through. I find the TdM to contain less of it than the Minchiate and Bolognese trumps. I think the TdM designs were in part "translations" of the original Italian designs, like replacing two astronomers in the Moon with two dogs.

Just thinking out loud there ;-)