New book - "Explaining the Tarot"

[mjhurst]

Vitali's image of Met-Budapest cards

Hi, Ross,

The Eastern order seems to have died out with Este rule of Ferrara, in 1598, and no example of a printed or painted deck with that ordering (at least explicitly) survives, as far as I know. Only those sheets.

Therefore, if trying to get into the mind of Anonymous, who is using the B/Eastern order, the only way to possibly have an insight into what he was looking at is to use those uncut sheets.

Here is the best reproduction of some of these cards that I know of, from Vitali's 1994 Tarocchi Arte e Magia. It includes a great Resurrection-Justice-World grouping, where God "is represented by Justice, because at Judgement day he will be a most righteous and severe Judge, repaying everyone according to their deeds. The last figure is the World, which he created from nothing; since it includes everything, it also includes this game, which is a true image and portrait of all that is contained in man, who is a little world."

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/9214/metbudapestvitalicolor.jpg

mjh

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Hi Michael,

Hi, Ross,

Here is the best reproduction of some of these cards that I know of, from Vitali's 1994 Tarocchi Arte e Magia. It includes a great Resurrection-Justice-World grouping, where God "is represented by Justice, because at Judgement day he will be a most righteous and severe Judge, repaying everyone according to their deeds. The last figure is the World, which he created from nothing; since it includes everything, it also includes this game, which is a true image and portrait of all that is contained in man, who is a little world."

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/9214/metbudapestvitalicolor.jpg

mjh

Thanks for posting that great version at such high resolution!

I think it would be possible to reconstruct the deck almost entirely, including court cards, with a little guesswork here and there (Chariot card and Tower for instance).

Of course Anonymous has a Prudence card - is it really Prudence or a gloss on Temperance?

 

[Bernice]

Many thanks for the scan link mjhurst. Great resolution!


Bee

 

[Huck]

Michael J. Hurst has written a longer and excellent review of "Explaining the Tarot" at ...

http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2010/06/renaissance-tarot-two-xvi-italian.html

 

[Bernice]

Thanks Huck.

I found this to be not just a Review but also information on the historical background. A worthwhile read, I agree.

See these two excerpts (among others - but these are more directly pertinent for describing the contents of the book);

"Tarot was a hugely popular allegorical game, played by elites and the hoi polloi alike, and this is how it was actually viewed by actual Renaissance Italians. Therefore, second only to 'The Game of Tarot', Explaining the Tarot would be the essential key to a genuine history of Tarot, or to Tarot’s role, however minor, in the cultural history of Renaissance Italy"
.........
.........
"It (the book) redundantly and conclusively answers the question with which we began: What would someone in Renaissance Italy think about the meaning of the Tarot trumps? And not merely what they might have thought about it: these two essays are examples of what they did in fact think and say about Tarot, 450 years ago. On many counts, Explaining the Tarot is a remarkable little book"


Bee

 

[Moonbow]

Thanks Huck.

Ross is becoming quite the celeb these days. Here, from Michael Hurst's site is Enrique's interview with Ross and Marco about the book:

http://tarology.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/a-brief-conversation-with-marco-ponzi-and-ross-s-caldwell/

 

[Sherryl]

.
Therefore, if trying to get into the mind of Anonymous, who is using the B/Eastern order, the only way to possibly have an insight into what he was looking at is to use those uncut sheets.

Robert Place has created a beautiful deck that faithfully reproduces the Metropolitan/Budapest sheet. He curated a Tarot exhibit at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum a few months ago and the gift shop was carrying the decks. Don't know if you can get them anywhere else.

Sherryl

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Robert Place has created a beautiful deck that faithfully reproduces the Metropolitan/Budapest sheet. He curated a Tarot exhibit at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum a few months ago and the gift shop was carrying the decks. Don't know if you can get them anywhere else.

Sherryl

Thanks for that reminder, Sherryl.

Did he do the whole deck, or just the trumps?

 

[Sherryl]

Thanks for that reminder, Sherryl.

Did he do the whole deck, or just the trumps?

Just the trumps

 

[Moonbow]

If anyone has Robert Place's deck it would be great to see a few scans of it in this thread. Does anyone have contact with him perhaps?