Rosanne
After reading several threads about 'to have Tarot one needs the medium of paper'- I got out my history books. Here is a little ramble about what I learned and where it lead me.
In 751 AD Islamic Warriors captured a caravan including three Chinese papermakers. The Art of papermaking spread with the Islamic/Muslim world across the top of Africa and thence into Spain and what is now Portugal. By 1000 AD Spain had plenty of paper and pasteboard evidenced mainly in the City of Cordova.(From Burke 1973.. Paper unknown supposedly in the west was everywhere in Cordova) The city library had over 600,000 manuscripts it is believed. Paper was been made out of rags ,cotton and linen pulp. In fact later, it was thought that the plague went to England via the old rags etc for papermaking.The Library was burnt in 1013 AD; The Christian movement to oust Muslims from the Iberian Peninsular. Cordova at the time was a city of remarkable achievments in Architecture and civilised society.
IN Andy's Playing card site there is a deck of playing cards called Italy II, some cards of Moorish origin from Spain circa 1400 sometimes called the Saracen cards. They are made of pasteboard, with woodcut designs; hand painted or finger smeared in the Moorish fashion. So I wondered what else was happening around that time?
There was this Portuguese Duke called Prince Henry the Navigator/ The Seafarer who in 1420 AD became the Govenor of 'The Order of Christ' which was the sucessor to the Knights Templar. Before that he got a group a skilled Artisans/mapmakers/printers and the like together to form a think tank which we know as the 'Voyages of Discovery'. One of those discovery trips found Maderia. In the library-Museum called Mario Barbeito de Vasconcelos in Funchal, Maderia they have listed some pasteboard miniatures 14th Century....I sure would like to see those along with their same circa miniatures of Faith Hope and Charity. If they are sailors playing cards- like those that went to Japan 150 years later that would be a find would it not? ~Rosanne
In 751 AD Islamic Warriors captured a caravan including three Chinese papermakers. The Art of papermaking spread with the Islamic/Muslim world across the top of Africa and thence into Spain and what is now Portugal. By 1000 AD Spain had plenty of paper and pasteboard evidenced mainly in the City of Cordova.(From Burke 1973.. Paper unknown supposedly in the west was everywhere in Cordova) The city library had over 600,000 manuscripts it is believed. Paper was been made out of rags ,cotton and linen pulp. In fact later, it was thought that the plague went to England via the old rags etc for papermaking.The Library was burnt in 1013 AD; The Christian movement to oust Muslims from the Iberian Peninsular. Cordova at the time was a city of remarkable achievments in Architecture and civilised society.
IN Andy's Playing card site there is a deck of playing cards called Italy II, some cards of Moorish origin from Spain circa 1400 sometimes called the Saracen cards. They are made of pasteboard, with woodcut designs; hand painted or finger smeared in the Moorish fashion. So I wondered what else was happening around that time?
There was this Portuguese Duke called Prince Henry the Navigator/ The Seafarer who in 1420 AD became the Govenor of 'The Order of Christ' which was the sucessor to the Knights Templar. Before that he got a group a skilled Artisans/mapmakers/printers and the like together to form a think tank which we know as the 'Voyages of Discovery'. One of those discovery trips found Maderia. In the library-Museum called Mario Barbeito de Vasconcelos in Funchal, Maderia they have listed some pasteboard miniatures 14th Century....I sure would like to see those along with their same circa miniatures of Faith Hope and Charity. If they are sailors playing cards- like those that went to Japan 150 years later that would be a find would it not? ~Rosanne
