origin of the name tarot

Kali Kitty

sorry for my clumsy explanation, I didn't mean to say that tarot cards are fake,

Maybe the people who used them could be defined as con-men, trickster, swindlers and the like always looking for the next poor "tarocco" da taroccare, a chicken ripe to be plucked.

so tarocco = fool in the sense of "a fool and his money are easily parted".

http://culturalblog.it/wp-content/uploads/02-giocatori-di-carte-caravaggio.jpg

I think as tarot has developed though, it's become a lot more genuine and respectable than in the early days when gypsy fortune tellers were in it purely to swindle people. I mean, I assume a lot of them were, from the way readings used to be done compared to now.

I recently watched a documentary about the "Dale Farm eviction" in the UK, which is a huge affair our government has just spent about 8 million pounds of tax money on, to uphold the law and move travellers (Irish gypsies who refuse the offer of residence because they wish to keep the tradition of living in caravans) off green belt land. It was complicated and sad. But I was sort of sorry they seem to have given up the ghost as far as tarot is concerned. It's not "their thing" anymore.

So things change. Whatever the origin of the name, it doesn't mean it's not respectable now.
 

Yoav Ben-Dov

fake/false - yes, i guess you could say something like "the card gambler is given a false hope of gain", for example. but still it doesnt answer the main question: why should it be more true about tarot cards than plain cards?
 

Yoav Ben-Dov

well, look at the text.

he discusses "three kinds of games of chance, dice, cards and triumphs".

tarot are singled out not as popular, but as more diabolical (insulting to the faith) with their imagery.

and anyway, the name "tarot" is not mentioned, it is "triumphs". so it does not say anything about the origin of the name "tarot".
 

l'appeso

yes, you're right. I read it a while ago and I remembered it the wrong way,...

here i found something quite interesting

http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=269&lng=ita

il verbo taroccare significa “brontolare, protestare vivacemente, crucciarsi in particolare a causa di una forte alterazione emotiva, imprecare, sbuffare, andare in collera" (1). Alcuni studiosi ritengono che il termine tarocco sia da derivarsi da questo verbo, in quanto l’imprecare e l’adirarsi fu atteggiamento tipico dei giocatori di carte.

the verb taroccare means "to grumble, to protest, to quarrel, in particular because of a strong emotive alteration, to swear, to snort, to get angry". Some researchers argue that the term tarocco comes from this verb, in that swearing and getting angry are typical of card players
(sorry for the poor translation)
 

Huck

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones_de_Ludo_Cum_Aliis

this is the first mention of tarots (c.1470)

I guess this sermon addressed tarots and not other card games because they probably were more popular as a gambling game?

The noted link has the information:

"c.1470 is probably the earliest plausible date. (Steele dated it from 1450 to 1480.)"

This is not a fact, this is an opinion. The noted fact is, what Ron Decker wrote (also at the page): "The manuscript pages have many different watermarks. All of them date from around 1500 and come from places near Ferrara. The order of the Tarot trumps, as given in the manuscript, is the Ferrarese order. The author was definitely a monk. One of the sermons is about the stigmata of St. Francis, so I think it likely that the monk was a Franciscan. I do not know on what basis others have declared the author to have been a Dominican."
Naturally the text could have been written earlier. Indeed there is a research of Thierry Depaulis, which found, that a specific other text appearing possibly around 1470 had similarity to the later text, but inside this text the attack at Trionfi cards was missing. So the conclusion is, that the earlier text had been updated and changed in a later process.

The later text is unusual in this "attack on Trionfi cards", usually Trionfi cards during 15th century were "allowed", even when other card games were prohibited.

A form of persecution of Trionfi cards might have happened in the time of Savonarola's regiment (1494-98) and possibly still a little later.
Decker points to Franciscans near Ferrara (Ferrarese order, Franciscan themes in the codex). From the current duke of Ferrara, Ercole d'Este (1471-1505) it is known, that he had an orientation towards Savonarola (he hoped, that Savonarola would become a Ferrarese saint) and that he turned religious at the end of his life. After Savonarola was burnt, he collected nuns with stigmata in the hope, that these become saints. Member of the Savonarolists still had a refugium at Ferrarese territory after Savoarola' death. This might be well the time, when the paper was written. Ferrara had then (as an exception) a playing card prohibition and inside the longer 15th century and later Ferrara had been usually a producer state for Trionfi cards and not a state against playing cards.

this is the first mention of tarots (c.1470)

This is NOT the first mention of "Tarots". The first notes of expressions similar to Tarot appears, as I've written to you in the other thread ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=2930980&highlight=Chiama+fante+venea#post2930980
... (mid of the 1490's for "Taroch" without relation to playing cards; and 1505 with relation to playing cards).

A general expression for cards similar to the later Tarot had been ludus triumphorum, Trionfi, Triumphi, Triunfi etc. and these notes appear for the first time in February 1442 in Ferrara.

We've collected them (the list is not totally complete in the moment; you have to use the menu left):
http://trionfi.com/0/e/01

It is not clear, that all these notes relate to types of decks totally similar to the later Tarot. For instance there is a strong debate about the number of trumps in the early variants. Also there are variants of the motifs.
 

Yoav Ben-Dov

thanks - that's a lot of information

maybe this brings us back to the sense of "taking over" mentioned earlier in the thread by l'apesso - a kind of synonym for "triumph"?

in this case, the sense of "foolish" would be derived from the cards, but for some reason be originally connected with tarot cards and not cards in general?

this seems a possible story.
 

Huck

thanks - that's a lot of information

maybe this brings us back to the sense of "taking over" mentioned earlier in the thread by l'apesso - a kind of synonym for "triumph"?

in this case, the sense of "foolish" would be derived from the cards, but for some reason be originally connected with tarot cards and not cards in general?

this seems a possible story.

Taroch is a new word in the mid 1490s, at least as far we know it (otherwise one should have texts which contain it from earlier time). Just in mid of the 1490s we have a famous, very dominating battle at the river Taro near Fornovo, 6th of July 1495. Should this be accident?

800px-Fornovo-battle-Vaticano.jpg


At the top of the view you see P. Taro, likely for "Ponte Taro", there's a bridge.

It's a fresco ... "Fornovo's Battle (1495) - fresco from "Galleria delle Carte Geografiche", Musei Vaticani". It looks old.

Ponte Taro is an Italian location with 3500 inhabitants ...
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Taro
... one bridge was built in 1821, another in 1700. But likely there was another earlier bridge cause the near greater city Parma needed there a bridge. The modern river runs nowadays at the other side from Ponte Taro. See Google maps "Ponte Taro". So they likely had some water catastrophes there, which naturally endangered the bridge.
But for Fornovo we have, that it is occasionally also called "Fornovo di Taro" and ... if you look at the google results for "Fornovo" - the battle of Fornovo is still more famous than Fornovo itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fornovo

Looking at Google maps: The river is nowadays about 500 meters broad. Not that there is only water ... Look for yourself. The river was an essential part of the battle. And Fornovo and Ponte Taro have about 20 km distance.
About 32.000 men fought, and about 10% died. Others counted 42.000 soldiers and 4500 dead persons. Another counted 8560 victims. This took an hour. It rained. Everybody was happy, that he could leave the not pleasant situation. Nobody was sure, who had won the battle.
 

Yoav Ben-Dov

thanks - a beautiful map. but if anything, it may indicate that the taro battle is not connected with the name tarot.

let me summarize what we have so far: an original meaning of taroccho as either "taking over, domination" (synonyme with triumph), or "foolish" (referring to the fool card, or maybe tarot players as fools). it is assumed that such a word was used at that time, and then it became connected with the cards.

a third suggestion, mentioned by gregory, is from "gilded". but this does not seem very likely to me: by the 16th sentury tarot appears to be already a popular game, and popular decks would be printed (like the marseille cards), not gilded like the visconti-sforza. maybe one could think of a "printed-beaten" relation, but again this is not specific to tarot vs. plain cards.

so, to be connected, the taro river battle should be something like an idiom at that time, carrying the image of "domination like in the taro battle" or "foolish like in the taro battle". but in the map, which is exactly that - an image of the battle, we see two very ordered formations, like in a strategy textbook. they more or less balance each other, with a small but not overwhelming advantage to the army on the left. not the image of domination or foolishness on either side.

of course what we see in the map is only the initial formation and perhaps the first canon shot, but the same goes for the textual description of the battle as it went on. it is not even clear which side won, and the estimated casualties may look "normal" in such circomstances. not something that would impress people to the point of becoming an idiomatic expression of domination, or foolishness.

of course you may say (today's vision, not 16th century) that the whole battle was a foolish thing, all these people dying for nothing. but this is true about so many battles.. the taro river battle is not special in that. so why should it become an idiom, which would then be connected (exclusively) with the cards? does not seem very likely.
 

Yoav Ben-Dov

i just thought of another possibility, but i dont know if it makes sense: what if, by the historical accident, the taro river battle would be the first encounter of the french with the tarot cards? is this possible? we could construct an alternative story on that..