firemaiden
Ross G Caldwell said:
OH YES! They're all back up. Whew! that's fun. Now we can see the close ups. Is it not astounding how much the King looks like V - le Pape????
Does the Charlemagne set not remind you of a christmas crèche scene??
CHESS and Tarot?
OH YES! They're all back up. Whew! that's fun. Now we can see the close ups. Is it not astounding how much the King looks like V - le Pape????
Does the Charlemagne set not remind you of a christmas crèche scene??
filipas
Hi augursWell,
I'm glad the book was interesting for you, thanks for the kind words. I've since been putting together what I think are very exciting new findings about alphabetism in the Marseilles pattern and am excited to present the material soon.
I am not really versed in the history of Chess and so can only offer an uneducated guess here! While players did use chess and dice in combination, and cards and dice in combination, I've not heard of players combining Chess and Tarot. It is certainly possible that some folks tried this out but I would be surprised if such a combination ever caught on anywhere.
Thanks,
- Mark
Huck
Chess
The whole content of the page
http://trionfi.com/01/c/
is more or less aiming at "chess before Tarot" just by gathering what's there and demostrating a soft flow in various steps from humble experiments with chess-related cards to the Cary-Yale, which can be interpreted as a chess-cardplay, see
http://geocities.com/autorbis/VMnew.html
or point in the menu
From great meaning is the article to Johannes of Rheinfelden. (see menu or:
http://trionfi.com/01/c/karn/johannes.html )
There it turns out, that in 1377 Johannes has to do wit a 60 cards game, which in the iconography should have been very near to the Hofämterspie (ca. 1455) and a diversity of popular chess books around that time and later, using "professions" for number cards, which in concrete means, that in chess it was an intellectual play to compare single pawns with professions and the same habit was done with number cards. And the court cards had a natural "reigning" function above the others, so the card play was a mirror of society in four variants (the Hofämter took German, French, Bohemia, Hungary, the Johannes deck others).
http://geocities.com/tarocchi7 (Hofämter)
This sort of deck naturally had the "open question" for the Kaiser above the 4 Kings.
The development to "Imperatori" decks in the 1420ies was just the natural "next step" to complete the "incomplete" earlier decks.
It started probably with "8 special cards", perhaps to get the number 64 for all cards. 56 standard cards + 8 special cards.
See the first mention of Imperatori-cards in 1423 (menu)
The evolution to the 5x14-deck, which has a VERY GOOD CHANCE to have happened around the 1.1.1441
see: http://trionfi.com/01/d (which is in constant development)
short before the Cary-Yale came (probably) in existence, see opinion of autorbis at menu point "dating".
With this step it seems that the "professions-idea" took a step in the background and the greater allegories entered - somehow now it was Tarot, not longer chess-related. The preference of 5x14 against 5x16 was a second measurement to become independant from "chess-structure".
The later addition of some more allegories to reach structures like 4x14 + 22 or 4x14 + 41 were just final steps "before it reached us".
Summarizing:
The assertion "there were 22 trumps at the beginning ", also called "head start theory", had been blocking the mind for centuries. A deciding fact of the last decades of research was the "reigning" opinion, that the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo was interpreted as a nearly complete deck, without giving much space for the condition, that a second artist participated.
Breaking that seal meant definitely to open a complete other world of exploration and interpretation, much more interesting and also much more reliable than that, what existed before.
http://trionfi.com/01/f
firemaiden said:
The whole content of the page
http://trionfi.com/01/c/
is more or less aiming at "chess before Tarot" just by gathering what's there and demostrating a soft flow in various steps from humble experiments with chess-related cards to the Cary-Yale, which can be interpreted as a chess-cardplay, see
http://geocities.com/autorbis/VMnew.html
or point in the menu
From great meaning is the article to Johannes of Rheinfelden. (see menu or:
http://trionfi.com/01/c/karn/johannes.html )
There it turns out, that in 1377 Johannes has to do wit a 60 cards game, which in the iconography should have been very near to the Hofämterspie (ca. 1455) and a diversity of popular chess books around that time and later, using "professions" for number cards, which in concrete means, that in chess it was an intellectual play to compare single pawns with professions and the same habit was done with number cards. And the court cards had a natural "reigning" function above the others, so the card play was a mirror of society in four variants (the Hofämter took German, French, Bohemia, Hungary, the Johannes deck others).
http://geocities.com/tarocchi7 (Hofämter)
This sort of deck naturally had the "open question" for the Kaiser above the 4 Kings.
The development to "Imperatori" decks in the 1420ies was just the natural "next step" to complete the "incomplete" earlier decks.
It started probably with "8 special cards", perhaps to get the number 64 for all cards. 56 standard cards + 8 special cards.
See the first mention of Imperatori-cards in 1423 (menu)
The evolution to the 5x14-deck, which has a VERY GOOD CHANCE to have happened around the 1.1.1441
see: http://trionfi.com/01/d (which is in constant development)
short before the Cary-Yale came (probably) in existence, see opinion of autorbis at menu point "dating".
With this step it seems that the "professions-idea" took a step in the background and the greater allegories entered - somehow now it was Tarot, not longer chess-related. The preference of 5x14 against 5x16 was a second measurement to become independant from "chess-structure".
The later addition of some more allegories to reach structures like 4x14 + 22 or 4x14 + 41 were just final steps "before it reached us".
Summarizing:
The assertion "there were 22 trumps at the beginning ", also called "head start theory", had been blocking the mind for centuries. A deciding fact of the last decades of research was the "reigning" opinion, that the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo was interpreted as a nearly complete deck, without giving much space for the condition, that a second artist participated.
Breaking that seal meant definitely to open a complete other world of exploration and interpretation, much more interesting and also much more reliable than that, what existed before.
http://trionfi.com/01/f
augursWell
I must admit that my reference to "christian cabala" was a quick response made late at night after a long day. I have never really bothered to sort out for myself the various Cabala, Quabala, Kabballah varieties in any way that makes sense to me or anyone else. Thanks, jmd, for such a succint explanation.jmd said:
augursWell
Wow too! Who wouldn't want to play chess with pieces like those. I was just thinking, in a way the creators of these chess pieces, trionfi decks, etc. were the video/computer game designers of their day. Beautifully printed and colored cards would have had a lot of coolness at that point in time. Ditto the chess sets...firemaiden said:
I think, as Huck points out with numbering systems and social symbolism, that there was a lot of cross creativity going on between card makers with people trying to come out with a new, better, card game.
augursWell
Well, it did catch on once, I think it was called Dungeons and Dragons, or Magic:The Gathering, or something like that.filipas said:
Huck
chess again
I just thought it of interest to revive this older thread again just in the discussion about the nearness of Nothelfer and Black death iconography to the theme - with chess we've a theme, which really was on vogue at the courts of Ferrara and Milan. Niccolo III. d'Este was a reknown chess-player, Filippo Maria Visconti loved chess and had a chess club at his court in 1427.
Cosimo di Medici "didn't play cards" according Bisticci, but Bisticci is a liar. But he played chess - also according Bisticci. Cosimo surely had influence on the playing card prohibitions in Florence.
Probably any intellectual played chess. Any person of the rank of a knight for instance was advised to play chess.
In 14th century chess was a bestselling theme - more than other. Perhaps beside the Apocalypse.
I just thought it of interest to revive this older thread again just in the discussion about the nearness of Nothelfer and Black death iconography to the theme - with chess we've a theme, which really was on vogue at the courts of Ferrara and Milan. Niccolo III. d'Este was a reknown chess-player, Filippo Maria Visconti loved chess and had a chess club at his court in 1427.
Cosimo di Medici "didn't play cards" according Bisticci, but Bisticci is a liar. But he played chess - also according Bisticci. Cosimo surely had influence on the playing card prohibitions in Florence.
Probably any intellectual played chess. Any person of the rank of a knight for instance was advised to play chess.
In 14th century chess was a bestselling theme - more than other. Perhaps beside the Apocalypse.
Huck
Chess figures in detail
I had a visit in the library and found out, that one of the chess-professions-allegories had this structure:
rook = "administrator" - pawn = "farmer"
knight = " knight" - pawn = "smith"
bishop = "judge" - pawn = "writer"
King = "King" - pawn = "merchant"
Queen = "Queen" - pawn = "physician"
bishop = "old" - pawn = "innkeeper"
knight = "knight" - pawn = "bailiff"
rook = "administrator" - pawn = "player"
This should be the order from one of the "Schachzabel" books from 1461 or 1479 (my source has only second hand, "reporting" value).
http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.history.id_ko.i19.i2
There is no guarantee, that the systems didn't vary in other schachzabel books. Each figure was accompanied by a poem.
The Pawns obviously are related to the figure behind them, so the "smith" works for the knight, the merchant seems to be regarded as a "small king".
I had a visit in the library and found out, that one of the chess-professions-allegories had this structure:
rook = "administrator" - pawn = "farmer"
knight = " knight" - pawn = "smith"
bishop = "judge" - pawn = "writer"
King = "King" - pawn = "merchant"
Queen = "Queen" - pawn = "physician"
bishop = "old" - pawn = "innkeeper"
knight = "knight" - pawn = "bailiff"
rook = "administrator" - pawn = "player"
This should be the order from one of the "Schachzabel" books from 1461 or 1479 (my source has only second hand, "reporting" value).
http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.history.id_ko.i19.i2
There is no guarantee, that the systems didn't vary in other schachzabel books. Each figure was accompanied by a poem.
The Pawns obviously are related to the figure behind them, so the "smith" works for the knight, the merchant seems to be regarded as a "small king".
jmd
Thankyou Huck...
This information is the kind which I am certain will prove useful later, as further possible reflections are made as to the relation between not only with some of the Atouts, but with reflections pertaining to Tarot as holon or series.
Especially with regards reflections as to class structure and relations between various individuals, insights emerge.
For example, to have in front of the King/Emperor a merchant gives more credence to an understanding as to what a King of Coins may entail in reflection.
This information is the kind which I am certain will prove useful later, as further possible reflections are made as to the relation between not only with some of the Atouts, but with reflections pertaining to Tarot as holon or series.
Especially with regards reflections as to class structure and relations between various individuals, insights emerge.
For example, to have in front of the King/Emperor a merchant gives more credence to an understanding as to what a King of Coins may entail in reflection.
