oldest cartomantic mention of a "rose" spread?

[John Meador]

Anyone want to have a go at this question? Early mention of circle or
wheel layout is also of interest to me.

Thanks,
-John

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Anyone want to have a go at this question? Early mention of circle or
wheel layout is also of interest to me.

Thanks,
-John

That's a tough one, for sure. It'll certainly be buried in the 19th century somewhere. So many cartomantic texts were published from the 1790s onward. As far as I know, nobody has ever done a history of types of spreads - even a casual history or a chapter in a book.

The earliest kinds of readings are single card "appropriati" or multiple cards (a la Folengo) read in any sequence. That is, if you want to consider this cartomancy, which I do, but only in the broadest sense.

Even in the 18th century, when the Bologna kind of cartomancy is first attested, the method is to put them in a pile and read them in a straight order. But the Bolognese have other kinds of layouts, although they cannot be vouched for before 2000; it is clear they are older, but how much is impossible to say. They can only be said to be "traditional".

Casanova's girlfriend read cards in a 5x5 square, apparently around 1765.

Ross

 

[John Meador]

Hi Ross
I'm surprised no one's done a study of historic mention of types of spreads.
There would surely be a wealth of interesting data contained in such.
Is there a suggestion, in your exposure to Jean Gosselin's Pythagorean mention, of cartomancy? BTW, what region do Tiles, Hearts , Pikes, Clovers derive from?

Thanks,
-John

 

[Fulgour]

I think that books represent a 'poverty' of information.
Written records are not really what Le Tarot is about.

How does it make something more relavent because
Rigordius Phlink Pompoduphous printed his thoughts?

Before printing became commonplace in the 1700s
there were constraints on what got published and
even then, paper will naturally crumble organically.

And then~we find muggles like de Geblin and Levi,
Etteilla and just about anybody coming out of the
woodwork with volumes of gibberish by the pound.

Let us say it is 1292 (or 1392 or 1492 or 1592 or...)
and I am a Tarot reader. Would I also write a book?
And if I did would it survive more than a little while?

 

[John Meador]

the rub

"...when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specificwhich you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/technoculture/myths.html

 

[Fulgour]

Thanks John! Great link, great read, and only 3 typos!
hahaha~ really, one is in the quoted text: specificwhich

I had to create myself as a reader, due to my dislexia...
so I love books, but writers and readers are more lovely.

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Hi Ross
I'm surprised no one's done a study of historic mention of types of spreads.
There would surely be a wealth of interesting data contained in such.

It certainly would have. There is much to be done in this field. It requires a lot of fieldwork, sympathy, and good historical sense to do it, I think. Naturally there isn't much published work, since fortune-telling was never an esteemed enterprise until the secular 19th and 20th centuries, when these activities were decriminalized in the countries we are concerned with.

In my opinion, it must parallel the history of card games. We can use the same methodology to study it. Card games were not learned by books much until the 17th and especially 18th centuries - usually they were passed on by "teacher-pupil" method. Someone who knew how to play taught someone who didn't. Gradually the rules change, and people also invent new methods. We can get a good sense of the "drift" of oral methods of learning by this - and apply it to the divinatory aspects of card utilization.

I think layouts or spreads are the divination equivalent of games. The layout itself is part of the divination - not simply the meaning of the card in isolation.

Is there a suggestion, in your exposure to Jean Gosselin's Pythagorean mention, of cartomancy? BTW, what region do Tiles, Hearts , Pikes, Clovers derive from?

Thanks,
-John

Definitely France.

They're just the French suit names, for which I tried to find the nearest English equivalent - Carreau (tile or square), Coeur (heart), Pique ("pike"), and Trèfle (clover=club).

I think, but have not been able to prove, that the English suit "clubs" comes from the word "clover" (v and b are related consonants that shift in cognate languages). That is, I think that the words clover and club - as a card suit - are related.

 

[Mabuse]

Carreau (diamond), Coeur (heart), Pique (spade), and Trèfle (club).
These are the common English language equivalents for the French suit signs.
I think those would be more familiar.

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Carreau (diamond), Coeur (heart), Pique (spade), and Trèfle (club).
These are the common English language equivalents for the French suit signs.
I think those would be more familiar.

The trouble is that the familiar suit names don't explain why Gosselin assigned them to those elements. One must translate the French literally to get his meaning. Carreau doesn't mean "diamond", and if I translated Gosselin to say "diamonds bear the heavy weight, just like the earth" - it would be senseless. So only carreau's literal meaning "tile" can convey *why* Gosselin ascribed the element earth to it.

Trèfle doesn't mean "club", and Pique doesn't mean "spade" (at least in English) - and Gosselin's elemental assignations would make no sense translating them thus; i.e. "clubs belong to water, since they flourish in marshes, and spades are fire because they are penetrating weapons of war". Such a translation would explain nothing.

Usually, I think, where the Gosselin quote is found, it is either in French, where an explanation would be unnecessary, or the translation is accompanied by the French, and an explanation of the normal English names versus the French literal meaning is appended.

For instance, see Michael Hurst's entry on this at
http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1540-1739.html
under the year "1582".

 

[John Meador]

bustle for the May Queen

<snipped>
I think layouts or spreads are the divination equivalent of games. The layout itself is part of the divination - not simply the meaning of the card in isolation.
<snipped>

Has it been suggested before that early Wheel of Fortunes such as were depicted in TdM & perhaps other printed/painted decks contain the "blueprint" for a divination layout?
Another question: What is the earliest utilization of the term tarot *reading*, suggesting a textual interpretation? Is this implied in other languages as well as English?

-John