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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects. |
[DomusDei.gif]
Subject: Collected Fragments of Tarot History
A Chronological Fact Sheet and Index
[Michael.gif]
________________________________
The following list was developed initially from items in
Michael Dummett's The Game of Tarot and the first two volumes
of Stuart Kaplan's The Encyclopedia of Tarot. It includes some
items pertaining specifically to dice, quite a bit about
regular cards and unique decks, a few chess allegories, and
even some card tricks, as part of the larger historical
context of Tarot. It also includes a few Medieval artistic and
literary sources related to the allegorical content of the
trumps. The purpose of presenting details of Tarot history in
a context of other cards, games, and allegorizations is to
contrast with Tarot's almost universally presupposed esoteric
and divinatory history, i.e., eighteenth and
nineteenth-century Masonic fiction and late twentieth-century
crypto-Masonic apologetics. There are endless other games and
decks that might be included, as well as additional early
prohibitions against cards and Tarot, etc., so my selection
was usually based on either some relationship to Tarot (such
as the Italian suit-signs associated with Trappola and
Lansquenet cards) or to a more general significance in the
history of card games reflecting general tendencies, extreme
variations, or early examples of popular modern games.
Each of the roughly 250 entries has at least one source cited,
and multiple sources are cited in many cases. (The present
version is still very much a work in progress. Most of the
desired entries are included, but many citations remain to be
added as well as internal cross references and links, and many
entries need to be rewritten.) Longer entries, such as a
discussion of the Karnöffel trump suit or the "Mantegna"
cosmographic series, have been put into separate files, linked
to their entries. (A list of these linked files is also
located at the bottom of the page.) Although my own
perceptions and preconceptions inevitably color many of the
entries, I have isolated some of the more blatant commentary
(whether my own, or mine by adoption) into block quotes,
separated by heavy lines and shown in dark blue text. And in
no case should anything here be considered authority for
anything this is only a chronological listing, with some
quotes and citations, all second-hand.
Each entry attempts to include date and location, to the
extent that is possible from the references used. Dates are
used as indices, and no implication of certainty is implied!
Some are well documented, while others vary greatly in both
their precision and likely accuracy; so in a reference to the
"1450 Visconti-Sforza deck", the date is not being stated as
fact, but included as an index to this timeline. There are
three symbols that may used in the date/location line. The
symbol " P " indicates an entry concerning a particular pack
or pattern of cards. The symbol " + " indicates a reference to
fortune-telling or occult content, while the symbol " * "
indicates the absence of such a reference where it might be
expected. Italicized citations indicate the source of quotes;
bold citations refer to illustrations in Kaplan's two volumes.
One must get used to the fact and this will be said time and
again that even now we know precious little of such everyday
things as playing cards.
Detlef Hoffmann
______________________________________________________________
Fragments of Tarot History
383-405 Rome, Italy.
Pope Damascus commissioned what was to become the standard
Bible throughout the Middle Ages, Saint Jerome's Vulgate. This
Latin Bible was called the versio vulgata (common translation)
and remains to this day the official scriptural text of the
Roman Catholic Church. The Bible is an essential source for
the study of Tarot. Much of the symbolism which people have
attributed to Joachim of Flora, Dante, Petrarch, and so on,
derives directly or indirectly from the Bible. (For example,
finding a Triumph of Eternity motif in Tarot does not mean
that it was based on Petrarch's I Trionfi, but that both were
based on the Bible. Comparing the three works in detail, it
can be seen that Petrarch followed the biblical motif only in
the broadest sense, while Tarot followed Rev 21:23 directly
and did not rely on Petrarch.) The Douai-Rheims version was
the Church's official English translation of the Vulgate, and
the Rheims New Testament is available online at
http://www.hti.umich.edu/r/rheims/.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08341a.htm.)
c.400 Spain.
Arelius Prudentius Clemens wrote Psychomachia, an allegorical
battle between personified virtues and vices. "The
"Psychomachia" is the model of a style destined to be lovingly
cultivated in the Middle Ages, i. e., allegorical poetry, of
which before Prudentius only the merest traces are found." In
addition to being influential in the development of allegory
in general, the specific theme of Psychomachia, the virtues,
was endlessly varied and elaborated, and is specifically
included in Tarot. Various sites have online Latin versions,
and an English version is available online at
http://www.richmond.edu/~wstevens/grvaltexts/psychomachia.html
. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12517c.htm.)
c.524 Pavia, Italy
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, while confined to house
arrest awaiting execution, wrote De Consolatione Philosophiae.
"The Consolation dominated the intellectual life of the Middle
Ages and it was translated at different times by Alfred the
Great, Chaucer, and Elizabeth I." Boethius' Consolation was
the source for the Christian adoption of Fortuna and her
Wheel, and passages of the Consolation also explain the
therianthropic figures on the TdM version of the Wheel of
Fortune. Various sites have online Latin versions, and an
English version is available online at
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/boethius/boephil.html.
(Oxford World Classics edition;
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02610b.htm.)
c.965 Cambrai, France.
Bishop Wibold recommends the use of a dice game as a spiritual
exercise. The game associated 56 clerical virtues with the 56
outcomes of three dice. At the end of the game, the players
must exemplify the virtues for the rest of the day. Thierry
Depaulis: "Wibold was bishop of Cambrai (northern France) in
the 10th century. He devised a complicated dice game called
Ludus regularis seu clericalis which was described in a
Chronicle written in the following years. (This Chronicle was
later edited and published in 1615.) There is a long entry on
the game in Jean-Marie Lhôte's Dictionnaire des jeux de
société (1996)."
Gertrude Moakley mentioned Wibolds game in connection with the
number of cards in a Tarot deck. "Why are there fifty-six suit
cards, and why are there twenty-one trumps? The answer is
found when we remember that cards, as a game of chance,
replaced dice almost completely. In the dice games which use
three dice, there are fifty-six possible throws, and with two
dice twenty-one." (M 41-42.)
c.1230 Paris, France.
Iohannes de Sacrobosco (John Holywood) an English monk and a
contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas, published a textbook on
astronomy, De Sphaera. This was a widely known and influential
text on the subject for several centuries, and included
discussions of the three "poetic" forms of rising, Cosmic,
Chronic, and Heliacal. These are represented in the Mantegna
cosmograph by corresponding allegorical figures. The were used
to fill out the fourth decade, being placed beneath the seven
Cardinal Virtues. An online version of De Sphaera is available
at http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/sphere.htm.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409b.htm.)
c.1252 ?
The Franciscan John of Wales (aka, Johannes Gallensis, taught
at Oxford and Paris circa 1260-80), authored(?) a moral
allegory on chess. The work appeared in a collection of
sermons attributed to Pope Innocent III, circa 1300, and is
referred to as the Innocent Morality. "Reduced to bare bones,
heres what the Innocent Morality had to say. To begin with,
the King moves in all directions, because the Kings will is
law. The Queen moves aslant because women are greedy and
underhanded. The Bishop moves obliquely, which is symbolic of
the widespread misuse of the clerical office. The Knight moves
both straight and oblique (one up and one angled today we
think of this as two up and one sideways) which illustrates
the two faces of the knightly condition. On the one hand, the
Knight has the legal power of collecting rents, etc. but also
he is guilty of extortions and wrong-doings. The Rook moves
straight straightforward justice by the Kings officers. And
the poor pawn, plodding forward one step at a time? He moves
straight until he is promoted. Then he becomes as greedy and
underhanded as the Queen, showing how hard it is for a poor
man to deal rightly when he is raised above his proper
station. Besides these promising observations, there was one
additional touch, which is good for a whole sermon all by
itself: between games, all the pieces are kept together in a
bag on equal terms: It is only when they are in play that
there a social difference between them. When the game is over
(in the next world), all will be treated equally again."
(JAF.)
1265-1272 Rome/Paris.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, chief philosopher/theologian of the
Late-Medieval Church, wrote Summa Theologica. Among other
Tarot-related subjects discussed in detail in this huge work,
St. Thomas presents and defends the seven Cardinal Virtues in
an order of precedence which may have been reflected in the
original design of Tarot, and was maintained in the TdM
designs. His discussions of the individual virtues, and
Prudence in particular, are extremely valuable. Aquinas' Summa
Theologica is available online at
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14663b.htm.)
c.1275 Italy?
Dominican Jacobus de Cessolis writes a version of the Innocent
Morality. This version, titled De Moribus Hominum ed de
Officiis Nobilium Super Ludo Scaccorum, was widely influential
in both Latin and various translations. (JAF.)
c.1300 P Mamluk, Egypt.
The Mamluk style of playing cards were probably created
sometime in the 13 th century, and are the direct ancestor of
early European cards. (P 40.)
c.1300 England?
Gesta Romanorum, a collection of moralized anecdotes,
including a couple derivative chess allegories. "It was
compiled in Latin, probably by a priest, late in the
thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century. The ascription
of authorship to Berchorius or Helinandus can no longer be
maintained. The original object of the work seems to have been
to provide preachers with a store of anecdotes with suitable
moral applications There are two versions of this long-lasting
and widely distributed work (or, more accurately, collection
of works). In the English version, which Murray thinks is the
oldest, it is a section entitled Antonius the Emperor. The
King is the soul, the opposing King is the Devil, and the
Knight is the Christian. The Bishop (known as the aufin or
counsellor) is a wise man, who can abuse his wisdom by deceit.
The Rook stands for brokers and false merchants that run about
after winning and money, and care not how they are gotten. The
Queen symbolizes women, who go from chastitie to synne, and
are taken by the devil for gloves or other such gifts. The
pawn is, as usual, the common man, who has the potential to
become a king in heaven; but once he turns aside is taken and
sent to hell. In the continental version, the theme appears
twice. One, called The Game of Chess, was written before 1342,
the other some time later. In that fourteenth-century section,
the King is Christ and the Queen is the Soul. Knights are
militant Christians the eight squares commanded by the Knights
move correspond to the eight Beatitudes and Rooks are judges.
One interesting passage concerns Bishops, wise men who can
move three squares forward intellect, reason, and fortitude or
backward gluttony, robbery, and pride. Murray describes this
version as a hopeless muddle by the translator, who was
apparently working from three or more sources and knew very
little about chess." (JAF.)
1308-1321 Ravenna, Italy.
Dante Alighieri's Commedia was a masterpiece in a variety of
ways, and has been presented as an influence on the design of
Tarot by more than one author. William Marston Seabury wrote a
privately printed pamphlet, The Tarot Cards and Dante's Divine
Comedy in 1951. According to Kaplan, Seabury suggested that
the symbolism of the two works derived from the same source.
Joseph Campbell, the renowned mythographer, had an experience
reminiscent of de Gebelin's epiphany, except instead of
perceiving immediately their Egyptian content, in 1967
Campbell quickly perceived analogies to Dante's Convito, La
Vita Nuova, and Commedia. "A single philosophical strain, it
seemed to me, could be recognized as supporting, on one hand,
the mighty ediface of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and, on
the other, the enigmatic imagery of a contemporary pack of
cards." (K I:372; GT 387; Campbell & Roberts, Tarot
Revelations, page 5.)
http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/culture/lit/Italian/da_e_2.htm.
Robert V. O'Neill, as part of his monograph studying Catharism
and the Tarot, has presented a discussion of Dante and Tarot
in terms of supposed heterodox content of both works. Without
drawing any conclusions, O'Neill notes what many might
consider a common design to Tarot and Dante's Commedia. "The
paradigm involves an individual pilgrim moving through a
Neoplatonic cosmograph (Herzman, 1992). Viewed at this
mystical level (Luke, 1975), the Neoplatonic underpinnings are
most clear in the Paradisio where Dante and his new guide
Beatrice ascend through the planetary spheres, the sphere of
fixed stars, and the Primum Mobile (Jacoff 1993). At the
summit of the cosmos, Dante is granted the Beatific Vision.
This personal journey, retracing the steps involved in the
creation of the material world, lies at the center of
Neoplatonic mysticism and seems a sufficient explanation for
the spiritual individualism in Dante." In another online
essay, O'Neill argues that Dante's Commedia is "the
culmination and greatest of the [mystical] journey epics", and
that Tarot's alleged "Fool's Journey" is not only an example
of the genre, but somehow derived from Dante.
http://www.geocities.com/ninaleeb/sst/cathar9.htm,
http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/boneill/fool-journey.
1351 Italy.
Giovanni Boccaccios Decameron includes references to specific
games, but says nothing of cards. (H 12; K I:34; P 35.)
1356 - 1374 Milan, Italy.
Francesco Petrarch's " I Trionfi was written over a span of
some eighteen years beginning in 1356. Thus, the early
development of I Trionfi likely took place during Petrarch's
stay at the court of Galeazzo [Visconti] II, although Petrarch
stated in his 'Letter to Posterity' that all his works were
commenced or conceived, if not entirely composed, at Vaucluse
[France]." (K II:141-147.) Gertrude Moakley argued that this
work provided the basis for the design of the 1450
Visconti-Sforza deck. (M)
1360 France.
Les Amoureux Eschecs, a long, anonymous, romantic allegory of
chess, in the Garden of Pleasure. (Basis of Lydgates 1412
allegory, Reson and sensuallyte.) A late fifteenth century
allegory Romance of the Chessboard borrowed from immensely
influential The Romance of the Rose. Moral and romantic
allegories of chess form a backdrop for the subsequent
allegorical interpretation of cards.
1364 St. Gallen, Germany.
Ordinance "forbade dice games, and allowed board games, but
left card games unmentioned" A similar ordinance in 1379
included cards. (GT 11; P 35, 37.)
1364 Paris, France.
Confort dAmy, a poem by Guillaume de Machau, "denounces gaming
in general and dice in particular, but says nothing of cards."
(P 35; K I:34.)
1366 Italy.
"In his tract De remediis utriusque fortunae [Francesco]
Petrarch describes all the games usual at that time without
mentioning cards." (H 12; GT 11; K I:34; P 35.)
1367 Berne, Switzerland.
Early prohibition of playing cards mentioned in a 1398
document, probably mistaken in the date. (GT 11-12; K I:24.)
1369 England.
Geoffrey Chaucer writes about games, including those played by
the Knight in the Canterbury Tales, and in The Book of the
Duchess, but says nothing about cards. (K I:34; P 35.)
1369 Paris, France.
Ordinance forbade various games, but did not mention cards. A
similar ordinance in 1377 included cards. (P 35, 37; GT 11; K
I:24.)
1371 Catalonia, Spain.
The earliest reference to cards in Europe, "it first appears
as naip in a Catalan document of 1371." This reference from
Parlett seems not to be repeated in any of the other sources
examined, and comes from a 1989 article in the Journal of the
International Playing Card Society, by Luis Monreal, which
post-dates most of the other sources used for this list. (P
36.) This apparently appeared in the Diccionari de rims
commissioned by Peter IV, King of Aragon. (Ortalli, 175.)
1377 Florence, Italy.
Ordinance concerning cards, naibbe, naibbi. This source refers
to cards as "a certain game called naibbe, newly introduced in
these parts". (GT 11, 44; K I:24.) Playing "cards were to be
treated just as strictly as gambling." (Ortalli, 175.)
1377 *P Basel, Switzerland.
Dominican Johannes von Rheinfelden authored the essay
Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis,
although this dating is suspect. See Tractatus de moribus.
1377 Paris, France.
Ordinance prohibiting "card-play in contexts clearly directed
at the working classes". A similar ordinance from 1369 did not
mention cards. (P 35, 37; GD 10.)
1377 Siena, Italy.
Ordinance concerning cards, naibi. (GT 10, 44.)
1378 Regensburg, Germany.
Ordinance "declares various games, including spilen mid der
quarten , punishable by fine if played for stakes higher than
those expressly permitted." (P 36; GT 10; B 29.)
1379 Viterbo, Italy.
Cola di Covelluzzos Viterbo Chronicle reports, "In the year
1379 there was brought to Viterbo the game of cards, which in
the Saracen language is called nayb." In fifteenth-century
Italy, in France, and in Spain from 1371 to this day, cards
were referred to as naibi, nahipi, naips, naipes, naibbe,
naibbi. (GT 11, 43-44; K I:32; P 36.)
1379 Brabant, Belgium.
Account-book of the duke of Brabant, Wenceslaus of Luxembourg
and his wife Johanna, "describes a fete held at Brussels in
1379 at which cards were played." There is also an entry
noting the purchase of a deck of cards, quartspel mette copen.
(K I:24; GT 10, 65; P 37; B 64.)
1379 St. Gallen, Germany.
Ordinance prohibiting "card-play in contexts clearly directed
at the working classes". A similar ordinance from 1364 did not
mention cards. (P 35, 37; GD 10-11.)
1379 Constance, Germany.
Unspecified reference to cards. (GT 10.)
1380 P Barcelona, Spain.
Inventory including reference to "a game of cards comprising
forty-four pieces". (K II:1.)
1380 Nuremberg, Germany.
Unspecified reference to cards. (GT 10; B 29?)
1380 Perpignan, France.
Unspecified reference to cards. (GT 10.)
______________________________________________________________
The single (1371) reference to playing cards before 1377,
combined with the dozen references to cards between 1377 and
1380, from various areas in Europe, and the multiple
references to the game having been just introduced, fixes the
date of their general introduction to Europe in the
neighborhood of 1375. "The evidence thus strongly suggests
that there was no long period of evolution at the end of which
the playing-card pack as we know it emerged, but, on the
contrary, that, a matter of at most a few years before 1377,
the pack was either invented or introduced from elsewhere, in
a fully developed form, and immediately spread over a wide
area of Europe." (GT 11.) Most of the many early references
were prohibitions. "There can be no doubt that in 1377 when
the Florentines took measures against cards, declaring their
wish to combat such evil principles, volentes malis obviare
principiis, they were clearly expressing ideas widely shared
around Europe." (Ortalli 176.)
______________________________________________________________
1381 Marseilles, France.
"A certain Jacques Jean (son of a Marseilles merchant) bound
for Alexandria, Egypt, pledged to his friends Honorat d'Abe
and Micolas Miol, before a notary, not to gamble or play games
of chance on his journey: primarily taxilli (the greatly
condemned dice), but also scaqui (i.e. chess which actually
enjoyed a good reputation) and nahipi. The pledge to forsake
gambling was a well-known obligation in Mediaeval juridical
practice, especially as far as dice were concerned. But here
the novelty was the inclusion of cards among the unacceptable
games." (Ortalli 176; K I:24; B 45.)
1382 Barcelona, Spain.
Prohibition of gambling, including naypes. "The decree was read
by the town crier in the streets of Barcelona: Uno gos jugar
a nengun joch de daus, ni de taules, ni de naips." (K II:1;
Ortalli 176.)
1382 Lille, France.
Prohibition of dice and cards (quartes). "No one from then on
must dare either by day or night play as dez, as taules, as
quartes, ne a nul autre geu quelconques". (K I:24; GT 10; B
45; Ortalli 176.)
1384 Valencia, Spain.
"In 1384 the Valencia Consejo general forbade un novel joch
appellat dels naips", a new game called naips. (Ortalli 176;
GT 10-11.)
1384 Nuremberg, Germany.
A manuscript notes the "widespread adoption of the new game
throughout Europe". Dummett reports this, noting that he was
unable to confirm it. (GT 11; B 29.)
1387 Castile, Spain.
"An edict by King John I includes cards among prohibited
games." (Ortalli, 176.)
1391 Santa Maria a Monte, Italy.
Ordinance forbade various games, but still did not mention
cards. However, they were forbidden in a 1396 ordinance. The
1396 prohibition was lifted in 1419, but reinstated in 1445,
indicating the ambivalence with which cards were viewed.
(Ortalli 177.)
1392 P France.
Account book for King Charles VI, "Given to Jacquemin
Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and
colored, and variously ornamented, for the amusement of the
king, fifty-six sols of Paris." These are not the so-called
Gringonneur cards, aka Charles VI cards, which are a late
fifteenth-century Ferrarese Tarot deck. These three decks
might be better compared to the 1440 Tortona deck. (K I:24; GT
65-66; P 37.)
1393 Florence, Italy.
Chronicle di Giovani Morelli "contains a warning against the
use of dice by children. Morelli describes naibi as a kind of
game, and from the context it appears it was one which only
children played, possibly for instructive purposes." (K I:24.)
Ortalli refers to Morelli's "Ricordi memoirs written between
1393 and 1421". (Ortalli 181.) Compare this with the 1424
Ferrara reference to acquiring decks for children, and the
1516 entry.
1395 Bologna, Italy.
"A certain Federico of German origin, suspected of pushing
counterfeit coins in Bologna in 1395, also sold cartas
figuratas et pictas ad imagines et figuras sanctorum."
(Ortalli 197.)
1396 Santa Maria a Monte, Italy.
Prohibition against naibi, "albeit with a fine of only 20
soldi compared to the 3 lire for other games." (Ortalli 177.)
1396 Paris France.
"At the French court a hawker or maker of cases, Guion Groslet
appears in the account books of 1396 for having sold an estuy
for the cards of Queen Isabelle of Bavaria (Charles VI's
wife)." (Ortalli 178.)
1397 Paris, France.
Prohibition against card playing. (K I:24.) This may be the
same prohibition referred to by Ortalli, "when the prevot of
Paris forbade the gens de metier from playing cards on working
days." (Ortalli 178.)
1397 Ulm, Germany.
Prohibition against card playing. (K I:24.)
1398 San Pietro, Italy.
"...the punishment for playing naibi was 20 soldi compared to
30 for other forbidden games, while at Campi in 1410 it was as
little as half." (Ortalli 177.)
c.1400 Mamluk, Egypt.
"The future Sultan al-Malik al-Muayyud is recorded to have won
a large sum of money in a game of cards in about the year
1400". (GT 42.)
c.1400 P Mamluk, Egypt.
A nearly complete deck (47 cards) from this provenance was
found in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. As
reconstructed, it was a 52-card deck "virtually identical with
the Italian variety of the Latin-suited pack". (P 40; K I:53,
56; H 19.)
1402 Ulm, Germany.
Cardmaker (kartenmacher) mentioned as profession in registry.
(Betts, 109.)
1403 Aragon, Spain.
The King of Aragon, Martin el Humano, requested some playing
cards, un joch de naips. (Ortalli 178.)
1404 Langres, France.
"...at the Langres Synod cards were on the list of prohibited
games. And preachers did not hesitate to adopt very severe
positions on this subject." (Ortalli 176.)
1408 Orleans, France.
Inventory of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, listing "ung jeu
de quartes sarrasines and unes quartes de Lombardie (one pack
of Saracen cards; one cards of Lombardy)". (GT 42.)
1408 Paris, France.
Court records describe con artists using cards in a simple
scam "with a psychological resemblance to Three-card Monte."
(Giobbi; P 73.)
1414 Barcelona, Spain.
Multiple inventories referring to Moorish cards: "j joch de
nayps moreschs" and "j joch de nahyps moreschs", both meaning
"1 pack of Moorish playing cards". (GT 42.)
c.1415 Bologna, Italy.
A portrait of Prince Fibbia, dating from the later seventeenth
century, bears an inscription identifying him as "inventor of
the game of Tarocchino in Bologna". This apparently legendary
attribution appears to be a Fibbia family tradition, intended
to explain their arms on some Bolognese cards by attributing
the game to Prince Francesco Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia
(1360 - 1419). (K I:32 -33, II:2, GT 66-67.)
1418 Augsburg, Germany.
Cardmaker (kartenmacher) mentioned as profession in registry.
(Betts, 109.)
1422 Florence, Italy.
The first mention of playing cards in Florence. A painter,
Iacobo di Bartolomeo Sagramoro, was paid for repairing four
decks (painting the backs red) and making 13 replacement cards
from scratch, five of them with figures and eight with pips.
(Ortalli 179-180.)
1423 Florence/Ferrara, Italy.
The Ferrarese "...Marchesa Parisina Malatesti, Niccolo III's
second wife, ordered that the [Florentine] painter Giovanni
dalla Gabella be paid the handsome sum of forty gold ducats
for a valuable pack of cards, decorated with gold and brazil
['the red color extracted from brazilwood'] and fine
ultramarine blue [from 'the very expensive lapis lazuli'
stone].... This was clearly a work of the highest standard,
given the price and the value of the materials...." (Ortalli
180.)
1423 P Florence/Ferrara, Italy.
"...again the Marchesa Parisina wrote to Florence to obtain 'a
pack of VIII imperadori cards made with fine gold'.... The
cost of this pack on the Florence market was seven florins and
then there was the expense of bringing them to Ferrara, but
there was nothing exceptional about all this.... What is
really important is that this is the earliest mention of the
game of imperatori, suggesting that not only the cards, but
also a new way of playing had been imported from Florence."
(Ortalli 180.)
1423 * Bologna, Italy.
Sermon by the Franciscan St. Bernardine of Siena, Contra
alearum ludos, against games of chance in general and cards in
particular. A bonfire of vanities accompanied the sermon. See
Saint Bernardines Sermon.
1424 Ferrara, Italy.
The Marchesa Parisina ordered two packs of inexpensive cards
"sent to be used by our girls". (Ortalli 181.) Compare with
the 1393 Morelli entry and the 1516 Ferrara entry, also
referring to cards for children.
1426 Nördlingen, Germany.
Karnöffel, "a celebrated game in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
Germany", was the first known game using trumps. In the
earliest known reference to Karnöffel, it was "listed in a
municipal ordinance of Nördlingen in 1426 as among the games
that could lawfully be played at the annual city fête." W.L.
Schreiber also noted that it was "a trick-taking game played
by soldiers and peasants rather than the upper crust." (GT
184; P 165; Betts 321; WPC 42.) See Karnöffel.
1429 Basle, Switzerland?
The earliest surviving copy of Brother John's Tractatus de
moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, the original
being dated 1377. There are additional copies dating from
1472. See Tractatus de moribus.
1430 Florence, Italy.
Antonio di Giovanni di ser Franceso was listed as a naibaio by
trade. "In the portata d'estimo of 1430, he declared many
woodcuts for cards and pictures of saints tante forme di
legname da naibi e da santi." (Ortalli 197.)
c.1430 P Stuttgart, Germany.
Decks with animal and bird suit-symbols. Also from the mid
fifteenth century are some copper-engraved decks with animal,
birds, and flowers as suit-symbols. This is the tradition of
the 1544 Virgil Solis deck, and the 1557 Caitlin Geofroy
Tarots suit cards, and related to the hunting-themed decks.
(GT 14; K I:12, 59.)
1434 Florence/Ferrara, Italy.
Marchese Niccolo III of Ferrara "paid 7 gold florins to have
two packs of cards sent from Florence." These might well have
been more carte da imperatori, like those purchased from
Florence in 1423. (Ortalli 181.)
c.1430s Ferrara, Italy.
Marchese "Niccolo III had a small parchment volume: libro de
piccolo volume de carte de piegora che insegn'a zugare a
scachi, tavole, merlero et a la volpe. This was surely a games
rules booklet." (Ortalli 182.)
c.1435 Alsace, France..
Meister Ingold wrote Das Guldin Spiel, The Golden Game. About
chess: "Johannes Ingold, a Dominican from what is now Germany
(died 1465), in his work was especially concerned with the
Seven Deadly Sins, illustrating each with a game. Besides
chess, he refers to cards, music, shooting, dancing, and
several games of chance. In his outline, the King is Reason,
the Queen Will, the Bishop Memory, the Knight a warrior, and
the Rook a judge. The pawns are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Then he takes a second pass at the subject, equating the King
with Christ, the Queen with Mary, the Bishop with patriarchs
and prophets, the Knights with martyrs, the Rook the apostles,
and pawns men on earth." (JAF.)
About cards: "From [The Golden Game] we learn that the 52
cards of the pack represent the 52 weeks of the year in which
we fall into sin, the sins in question being symbolized by the
four suits (roses, crowns, pennies, rings) and thirteen ranks
depicted on the cards. We also learn that the ranks represent
various medieval characters who win one another in a given
order of precedence, suggesting the mechanics of a
trick-taking game possibly Karnöffel." (P 51; GT 15; B 29;
Ortalli 199.)
1435 Rome, Italy.
"... in the Constitutions on the Chapters of the cathedrals of
Pope Eugene IV in 1435, we learn that even canons played cards
in the choirs of churches." (Ortalli 198.)
1436 Ferrara, Italy.
In a list of jobs done by a woodworker, reference is made to a
torchiolo da carte. "This small card press is the first
evidence of the Este court's dealings with manufactured
printed playing cards as opposed to entirely hand-drawn and
painted cards. And given the very low price of the packs sent
to Parisina at Portomaggiore for her daughters in 1424, they
could not have been hand-made...." (Ortalli 181.)
______________________________________________________________
By putting those two facts together, Ortalli suggests that not
only were printed cards available in the 1420s, but that they
were being created within the Ferrarese court in the 1430s.
"...in 1436 the press for making cards was purchased directly
by the Este."
______________________________________________________________
1437 Ferrara, Italy.
"At least three packs of rather ordinary carthexele (2 lire
each)" were commissioned from the painter Iacobo Sagramoro.
For one of the decks it was noted that it had been ordered on
behalf of the Marchese. "The relatively modest price (2 lire)
compared to the price of hand-made cards suggests that the
painter coloured and added the finishing touches to cards
printed on the [1436 entry] press." (Ortalli 181, 182.)
1437 Ferrara, Italy.
"Two new packs with green and red marbled backs" were
commissioned from the painter Jacopo di Bartolomeo Busoli,
along with some repair work on other cards, "all for 6 lire ".
(Ortalli 181.)
1439 Barcelona, Spain.
Inventory referring to Moorish cards: " x jochs de naips
moreschs " and " iij altres jochs de naips plans petits ",
meaning "10 packs of Moorish playing cards" and "3 other packs
of small playing cards". (GT 42.)
______________________________________________________________
The year 1440 is about the upper boundary for the invention of
Tarot. The earliest surviving deck may date from 1440 or 41,
and the earliest documented reference to Tarot dates from
1442. "A lower bound for the date of their invention is harder
to determine. It probably occurred around 1425; the earliest
date with any claim to be plausible would be 1410." (WPC 27.)
______________________________________________________________
1440 P Germany.
Ambras hunting deck, (Ambraser Hofjagdspiel), a 56-card deck
with King, Queen, Ober, and Unter. The four suits included
Falcons, Herons, Hounds, and Decoys. "The story of falconry is
represented by the falcon as the hunting bird of prey, the
heron as the hunted bird, the hound, which seeks out the heron
after it has been struck, and the lure, which calls the falcon
back to the falconer. By virtue of the subject matter, these
cards are sometimes called falconer cards." (K I:58 - 59; GT
23; H 24; B 103.)
1440 P Milan, Italy.
Court biographer Decembrio noted that Filippo Maria Visconti
enjoyed playing a game with painted figures. Also, he noted
that a deck (ludum) was purchased from Marziano da Tortona,
"who executed with the utmost diligence images of gods, and
placed under them with wonderful skill figures of animals and
birds". (D 82; K I:26; M 52n.) (See The Besozzo Cards.)
1441 Venice, Italy.
Prohibition against the import of printed colored figures.
"This order appears to have been aimed at German card makers
as a result of a petition from the fellowship of painters at
Venice, who claimed that card making had fallen into total
decay in Venice because great quantities of playing cards and
colored printed figures were being imported." (K I:26; Ortalli
197, 199.)
1441 Strasbourg, Germany.
The distant ancestor of Poker, "first recorded at Strasburg in
1441, Poch is one of the oldest identifiable card games and
has evidently influenced the pattern of many others." (P 87.)
1441 P Milan, Italy.
The marriage of Francesco Sforza to Bianca Maria Visconti.
Kaplan suggests that this was the occasion for which the
Cary-Yale (aka, Visconti di Modrone, after a former owner)
deck was commissioned. "Two suits in the Cary-Yale pack
contain Visconti devices and two contain Sforza devices,
leading one to speculate that the deck was prepared about the
time of the wedding in 1441...." According to Dummett, the
earliest well-dated work by Bonifacio Bembo, (commonly
considered the artist responsible for the Visconti decks), is
from 1442, so this attribution is not ruled out from that
standpoint, assuming that the deck were one of his earliest
works. Dummett considers the deck to be from the same period,
"... not likely to have been painted many years after the
first invention of the Tarot pack. That event may therefore be
reasonably placed at somewhere around 1440." (K I:106-107; GT
68, 78-79.)
The Cary-Yale deck is aberrant in a number of ways, including
the presence of the three Theological Virtues among the
trumps, and the presence of additional Court cards.
Sixty-seven cards survive, including eleven trumps. (K
I:88-95; K II:26-41; H 17.)
1442 Ferrara, Italy.
An account book (Registro di Guardaroba) entry for the 10th of
February mentions that four decks were commissioned from the
painter Iacobo Sagramoro. "Sagramoro was to be paid 20 lire
'for having coloured and painted the cups, swords, coins and
batons and all the figures of four packs of trump cards,
[quattro paia di carticelle da trionfi] and making the backs
for a pack of red cards and three packs of green ones,
embellished with roundels painted in oil, which our Lord has
for his use'." This would appear to be the earliest reasonably
clear reference to Tarot cards. Another reference occurs in
the Registro dei Mandati, to pare uno de carte da trionfi.
(Ortalli 184; K II:3; GT 67.)
1442 Ferrara, Italy.
An account book (Registro di Guardaroba) entry for the 28th
of July mentions Tarot cards. "For a pack of carte da trionfi
intended for Ercole and Sigismondo (two of Leonello's
brothers), delivered to their servant Iacomo 'guercio', the
merciaio Marchione Burdochi received the sum of 12 soldi and 3
denari. Thus by now a pack of tarots was an easily purchased
item from a retail dealer at almost popular prices.... the
same money needed for one [expensive hand-painted pack] would
have bought eight from the shopkeeper with change. And this,
to my mind, is reliable proof of how tarots were now firmly
and widely established." (Ortalli 185.) (Leonello was the son
of and successor to Marchese Niccolo III.)
______________________________________________________________
Although it is not at all clear that Tarot were yet "firmly
and widely established", (and it is completely unknown from
this record how long they had been around), it is clear that
in Ferrara at least they were at this point a commodity. It is
interesting to note that Ortalli's 1436 record suggests that
some forms of both hand-painted and printed cards were being
made in-house, but this record suggests that Tarot cards were
being purchased from outside. This would appear to suggest
that Tarot did not originate in the Ferrarese court, and at
this date had not yet been fully assimilated into the court's
card manufacturing.
______________________________________________________________
1443-1455 Würzburg, Germany.
"... a chronicle from Würzburg, Germany for 1443-1455 mentions
'a certain individual... playing at cards a game called the
Emperor's Game (ludus Imperatoris)', a literal Latin rendering
of Kaiserspiel. The same Latin name occurs in records of
Ferrara." (Betts 321; Ortalli 187; GT 191.)
______________________________________________________________
In discussing these Emperor games, Ortalli first notes that
"this all suggests a very plausible connection between
Karnöffel and the 'emperor' game played in Ferrara. Thus Este
court pastimes would seem to have been linked through Florence
to circles beyond the Alps." However, he then goes on to
conclude that this cannot be the case, because in the Italian
Emperor game "there were eight 'emperors", which "is totally
incompatible with Karnöffel which had only one." (Ortalli
187.) Apparently the sole justification for this view that the
Italian game had eight emperors is the single, far-from-clear
reference in the 1423 note from Marchesa Parisina. Given the
obscurity of that single reference, and the fact that some
forms of Karnöffel had two trump suits and four "Kaisers" per
trump suit, the Italian Emperor decks might have been slightly
modified standard decks, used to play an imported version of
Karnöffel. In any case, the popularity of carte da imperaturi
was apparently limited and short-lived, with the last known
reference being in 1452 or 1454. (See both notes.)
______________________________________________________________
1443-1444 Ferrara, Italy.
References to a number of inexpensive (12 soldi) decks of
carte da imperaturi. A more expensive example (20 soldi or 1
lira marchesana) bore the devixe del Signore on the back, the
insignia of Leonello d'Este. The carte da imperaturi "were
inexpensive cards compared to the price of tarot packs and
were more like the cost of normal cartexelle or carte da
zugare. This suggests that in the game of 'emperors' the pack
must have been very much like ordinary cards and had nothing
along the lines of the trumps, which made the tarots so rich
and interesting." (Ortalli 187; Betts 321.)
1447 P Milan, Italy.
Filippo Maria Visconti died. Dummett considers the Cary-Yale
and the Brera (aka, Brambilla, after a former owner) decks to
have been for Filippo Maria Visconti. "The principal reason
for thinking that the [Cary-Yale] cards were painted for
Filippo Maria is, however, that the numeral cards of the Coins
suit, other than the Ace and 2, show actual coins, the gold
florin of Filippo Maria, bearing the letters 'FI MA' and made
by the imprint of an actual die; the same is true of all
eleven surviving cards of the Coins suit in the Brambilla
pack, but not of the Visconti-Sforza pack." If that is the
case, then this would be the latest date for the Brambilla
deck, and Dummett suggests somewhere between 1442 and 1445. (K
I:106-107; GT 68, 78 -79.) Forty-eight cards survive,
including two trumps. (K I:96-98; H 18.)
1449 P Milan, Italy.
Letter describing a set of sixteen cards as a game (ludus),
originally commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti, painted by
Michelino da Besozzo. See The Besozzo Cards.
1450 Ferrara, Italy.
"In 1450, [Piero] Andrea di Bonsignore was paid two lire for
painting two decks of Emperor cards (carte da Imperatori)".
(Betts 321; Ortalli 187; GT 191.) See Karnöffel.
c.1450 P Switzerland.
Earliest examples of Swiss suit-system are from this period,
including 1433 and 1451 references. (GT 14; P 42.) See Modern
Deck Designs.
1450 Germany.
"The earliest substantial reference to Karnöffel discovered by
Dr. von Leyden is a poem by Meissner written in or before
1450; from it, he has conjecturally reconstructed the ranking
of the highest cards as being, in descending order: the Unter,
called the karnöffel; the Deuce, called the süw (Sow); the 3,
called the babst (Pope); the 5, called the keyser (Kaiser);
and the 4, called the tüfel (Devil). The term Sow for the
Deuce was a common one, since, in many early German and some
Swiss packs, a sow was depicted on each Deuce. The other four
names, however, are peculiar to Karnöffel, and, though later
attached to cards of other ranks, they were evidently used
from an early stage in its history." (GT 188.)
1450 Milan, Italy.
A letter by Francesco Sforza, requesting two decks " carte de
triumphi ", or if Tarot decks are not available, two decks of
" carte da giocare ". "As soon as this is received, we want
you to send, by a mail rider, two decks of trump cards, of the
finest you can find; and if you do not find said trumps,
please send two other decks of playing cards, of the finest
that there are. Do this so we will have them here for all day
Sunday, which will be the thirteenth of the month." (K
II:4-5; Betts 111.)
______________________________________________________________
This item suggests that in Milan also, Tarot cards were a
commodity, and available in different qualities, as early as
1450. Tarot probably began with a form similar to the
"archetypal" design of a 56-card deck with 22 additional
allegorical cards showing a standardized set of subjects.
Whether it began as such or not, "the Tarot pack had certainly
been standardised, as regards the number and identity of the
cards, by 1450." (WPC 25.) Moreover, "cardmakers began to make
cheap printed Tarot packs, and less wealthy sections of
society took up the game, which they had done by 1450." (WPC
41.)
______________________________________________________________
c.1450 Ferrara, Italy.
"... just after 1450 many differently named games began to
appear in the registers of sentences: "la terza e quarta, la
carta di dietro, la candiana, la spiciga, il re a cavalo, il
flusso, la farina contro farina", and "il falcinello".
(Ortalli 191.)
1450 P Milan, Italy.
Francesco Sforza assumes the crown as Duke of Milan. Kaplan
suggests that this was the occasion for which the
Visconti-Sforza (aka, Pierpont Morgan-Bergamo) deck was
commissioned. Dummett considers the combination of "the ducal
crown with the fronds of laurel and palm, and the three
interlaced rings which constitute a heraldic device specific
to Francesco Sforza" to provide "incontestable proof that the
pack was painted after 1450, the year Francesco made good his
claim to the title of duke". This deck appears to have been
the latest of the three best-known Visconti decks, and
exhibits various such Sforza emblems. Moakley noted that "on
the feminine suits of Cups and Coins the devices of the
Visconti family are emphasized", and suggests that the
combination of Visconti and Sforza emblems reflects the union
of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti. (M 88.) She
also argued that the allegorical content of the Trumps
included Carnival and Lent, as well as assorted aspects of
Petrarchs I Trionfi. Seventy-four cards survive, including
twenty trumps. (K I:106-107; GT 69, 78-79; H 18; M; VS.)
1452 Ferrara, Italy.
"The last known mention of the game of 'emperors' in 1452...
refers to printed production... stanpire charte da imperaduri
da zugare." (Ortalli 187.) "Basically three types of cards
were found in normal circulation in the period from 1420 to
1460 in the duchy of Este: normal packs, 'emperor' cards,
whose popularity was short-lived (there is no further mention
of them after 1452) and tarots. The differences between the
three types may well appear to be slight. Normal cards and
'emperor cards' must basically have been the same, while
tarots simply added the twenty-two pictorial cards without
changing the rest." (Ortalli 188.)
1452 Nuremburg, Germany.
A sermon by John Capistran, a disciple of Bernardine of
Sienna, (cf. 1423), preached a sermon against gaming which
precipitated a huge bonfire of vanities, "reportedly fueled by
76 sledges, 3640 backgammon boards, 40,000 dice, and a
comparable quantity of cards." (P 38; Betts 110.) See Saint
Bernardines Sermon.
1454 Ferrara, Italy.
"...recorded in the book Conti di Borso: 'uno paro de forme de
carte, the printing blocks for a pack of cards purchased from
Piero Andrea da le Fenestre' for 20 ducats. That the court had
blocks is particularly meaningful, given that the main aim of
using them was quantity rather than quality." (Ortalli 194.)
c.1454 Ferrara, Italy.
"... records state that Borso d'Este played at cards: 'of the
Emperor' (dell'imperatore) in Ferrara around 1454." (Betts
321; GT 191.)
1456 Ferrara, Italy.
Chess "held its ground as one of the favourite aristocratic
pastimes practiced at court. But at the same time it must be
said that in all the fifteenth century documents studied so
far, there are many more references to playing cards. And
greater sums were certainly spent on playing cards. In 1456
chess and draughts ordered by Borso [d'Este, Duke of Ferrara]
cost less than 10 lire marchesane, while repair work ten years
later cost one and a half lira very small sums indeed compared
to those spent on packs of cards." (Ortalli 183.)
1456 Ferrara, Italy.
"... the Ferrara jurist Ugo Trotti, a professor of canon law,
bore witness (in his De multiplici ludo) to the spread,
variety and multifaceted character of card games, which could
not be classified en bloc with games of luck or pure chance.
Tarots in particular were included among mixed games, verging
on games of skill (and not of luck), as was chess from the
outset a game always considered to be respectable by the legal
experts." (Ortalli 188, 199.)
1457 P Ferrara, Italy.
The artist Gherardo d'Andrea da Vicenza is mentioned "in
connection with two very valuable packs; carte grande da
trionfi rich in gold and colours. The cards had to be painted
thick gold and all made with fine spendid colours: messe d'oro
fitamente, et fate tute de coluri fini et brunide, et depinte
de roverso uno paro rosa, uno paro verde. There were carte 70
per zogo [70 cards per pack] not an easy number to explain.
Priced at 14 lire each and paid with a discount of 2 soldi per
lira (the equivalent of 10 per cent) according to what
subsequent documents indicated was the 'convention' or
'custom' or 'usual rate', thus proving there was a continuous
and pre-established agreement between the artist and Borso's
court." It would appear that these decks were not only
exceptionally luxurious but also unique, probably with a
14-card trump "suit" analogous to Tarot's 22-card trump
"suit". Although we know none of the details of any such
70-card decks, there were many idiosyncratic card games
developed, both before and after this time. (Ortalli 186.)
A far more speculative theory regarding the da Vicenza decks
has been proposed, which agrees that these two 70-card decks
were analogous to Tarot as suggested above, but goes much
farther. It suggests that the subject matter of the 14
hypothetical trumps was the same as 14 of the conventional
Tarot cards. The theory suggests that this hypothetical design
pre-dated Tarot per se, and that Tarot derived from it by the
later addition of eight more trumps. It further speculates
that the 1450 Visconti-Sforza deck is an example of such a
70-card pre-Tarot deck, and that it was later modified to a
76-card design (lacking the Devil and Tower cards). At some
still later date, these pre-Tarot decks were further modified,
to become the conventional 78-card Tarot design. All of this
hypothetical evolution is undocumented speculation, and even
the first step is a huge one since the da Vicenza reference,
(the only known evidence of any 70-card deck), offers no
indication of the deck's design, much less the subject matter
of any supposed trump cards. (For a presentation of this
theory, see http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/pbm14new.html.)
1458-1463 Ferrara, Italy.
"Gherardo d'Andrea's key role seemed to settle into standard
production: from 1458 to 1463 the cost of his cards was 4 lire
marchesane per pack [of Tarot cards] with a discount of 10 per
cent (abatudo soldi 2 per lira), thus reducing the cost to 3
lire and 12 soldi.... We can document up to eight packs in one
year (1460) and the information is certainly not complete."
(Ortalli 189.)
1459 Ferrara, Italy.
A note describing certain objects being lent by Duke Borso
d'Este included "stampe for trump cards". Ortalli concludes
"that those stampe were printing blocks and the fact that Duke
Borso actually owned them is highly significant. They may well
have been the blocks for a whole pack bought in January
1454..." (Ortalli 194.)
1459 Bologna, Italy.
The earliest known reference to Tarot in Bologna. (VS 5.)
1459 England.
The first credible reference to playing cards in England is
their mention in a letter discussing permissible Christmastime
games: "pleying at the tabyllys [tables, i.e., backgammon],
and schesse [chess], and cards; sweche dysports she gave her
folkys leve to play and no odyr." (A previous dating of this
letter was c.1484.) (P 46; B 55.)
1459 P Mantua, Italy.
Heinrich Brockhaus suggested that the Mantegna series of
images was a game designed at a 1459-60 religious council in
Mantua, to serve "as a pastime for three members of the
council, the Cardinals Bessarion and Nicholas of Cusa, and
Pope Pius II himself. And in fact they were not unworthy to
occupy the leisure of these princes of the Church." (Jean
Seznecs TheSurvival of the Pagan Gods, 138-9.) See The
"Mantegna" Cosmograph.
1460 Barcelona, Spain.
Inventory referring to Moorish cards: "jochs de nayps plans, y
altres jochs moreschs", meaning "packs of ordinary playing
cards, and other, Moorish packs". (GT 42.)
1460 Ferrara, Italy.
References to Tarot in documents from the Este court become
rare. This does not mean that was no longer an interest in or
production of such decks. "For example, of the sixteen cards
(eight trumps and eight faces) in the Cary Collection, Yale
University Library, widely recognized to be Ferrara made, we
find both the Este and the Aragon coats of arms. The cards can
be linked therefore with the wedding in 1473 of Duke Ercole
and Eleonor of Aragon. They must have come from a tarot pack
definitely used and almost certainly ordered by the Ferrara
court, but there is no trace of them in the available
documents." This dearth of later records probably reflects
nothing more than that "the novelty stage had come to an end
(and the impact that novelty brings)." (Ortalli 189-190.)
c. 1460 Florence, Italy.
The earliest known Italian examples of the Children of the
Planets prints "probably comes from Florence and dates from
around 1460-1463." These astrological works have been
presented as a kind of key to understanding the alleged
astrological content of Tarot. A somewhat modernized version
of such a block book is available online at
http://www.billyandcharlie.com/planets/hansensplanets.html.
(Shephard.)
1460 P Germany.
Standard German suit-signs, Leaves, Acorns, Hearts, and Bells,
are established by this time. "During the thirty years before
that, it seems that chaos prevailed in Germany in respect of
suit-symbols. It was not until the end of the sixteenth
century that the last traces of that chaos vanished." (GT 15,
16; P 42.) See Modern Deck Designs.
1461 England.
Records of Edward IVs first parliament include the first
official notice of cards in England: "And also that no Lorde,
nor other persone of lowere astate, condicion or degree,
whatsoever he be, suffre any Dicyng or pleiyng at the Cardes
within his hous, or elles where he may let it, of any of his
servauntes or other, oute of the XII days of Christmasse". (P
46.)
1462 Visso, Italy.
Playing "ludus cartarum was punished with a fine four times
greater than that for other more trivial games, but the
penalty for dice was as much as five times greater than for
playing cards." (Ortalli 177.)
1463 England.
Prohibition against importing playing cards. "Its
protectionist tone leads some to believe that they were
already being produced in significant quantities by native
craftsmen." (P 46; B 55.)
1463 Rome, Italy.
Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus used endless analogies to allude to
the Divine: "The face of faces is veiled in all faces and seen
in a riddle." Games were among his metaphors, including one of
his own invention, a Globe Game. "Basically, the game of De
ludo globi appears to consist of the throwing or rolling of a
curiously shaped spheroid whose surface is concave at one
end... because of the shape of the spheroid used in this game
its path is a curved one. Hence, the point of the game seems
to be to roll the spheroid in such a way that it approaches
the center of the innermost circle of ten concentric circles
which have been marked out upon the ground... Cusanus
description indicates that the game was supposed to be played
outside, on whatever surface that happened to be available."
(Pauline Moffitt Watts, Nicolaus Cusanus: A Fifteenth-Century
Vision of Man.) Ten concentric circles imply a conventional
Ptolemaic cosmograph, and the difficult task of the game is in
direct analogy to the Neoplatonic mystics indirect spiritual
ascent. "Its didacticism is strictly mechanical, how to make
slanted propulsion come out straight." (Edgar Wind, Pagan
Mysteries in the Renaissance.) (See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph
for some related works.)
1464 France.
Translation of St. Bernardines 1423 sermon adds mention of the
game of 31, precursor to the modern game of 21. (P 80.)
c.1470 P Ferrara, Italy.
Six replacement cards (Fortitude, Temperance, the Star, the
Moon, the Sun, and the World) for the Visconti-Sforza deck
were created. John Shephard considers this evidence of a
revisioning of the deck, changing the content from a
Petrarchian themed series of triumphs to a complex
astrological design based on the Children of the Planets. He
also considers the Mantegna series and the Tarot de Marseille
pattern to reflect this redesign. (GT 69, Shephard.)
c.1470 * ?
This is probably the earliest plausible date for the Steele
Sermon, or Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis against gaming by an
anonymous Dominican friar. See The Steele Sermon.
c.1470 P Ferrara, Italy.
The so-called Mantegna Tarocchi, a series of 50 engraved
images in a cosmographic hierarchy is probably from this
period. This series was influential in various ways over a
long period. Cf. the 1459 Council of Mantua, the 1471
Lazzarelli work; the 1484 tomb of Sixtus IV; the 1496 images
of Durer; and the 1616 Labyrinth game of Ghisi, as well as the
more distantly related 1463 Globe Game of Cusanus. See The
"Mantegna" Cosmograph.
______________________________________________________________
An interesting example of the way in which card designs that
were created as art objects might result in decks for actual
play is given by the engraved circular deck by "PW" of Cologne
(1470?). "The title card shows three crowns in a trefoil and
carries the inscription Salve Felix Colonia. This and an extra
card on which death is clutching at a nude woman give these
round cards the character of a series which was only intended
for looking at." It had five suits, roses, columbines, pinks,
parrots, and hares. A less finely engraved copy was made by
another artist, who also reduced the number of suits to four.
This may have been intended for actual use. Yet another
artist, "Johann Bussemacher, on the basis of these two models,
now produced cards for the real cardplayer. Instead of the
round form, he chose the usual vertical rectangular shape. The
open spaces resulting from this were filled by coarse sayings
arranged in two lines. No less coarse are the representations
of the mounted queens, kings, and knaves. Only the arrangement
of the animals and flowers recalls the noble model." (H 24-25;
B 103.)
______________________________________________________________
1471 Ferrara, Italy.
A series of 27 poems by Ludovico Lazzarelli was assembled into
a volume, illustrated with 23 images from the so-called
Mantegna Tarocchi, and four other images in a similar style.
(The information in Kaplan is not reliable on this,
specifically the comment that there are "twenty-two tarocchi
illustrations" in Lazzarellis work.) (K I:26-27.) Robert V.
O'Neill described the work as a typical Renaissance Humanist
poem: praising ancient mythology and moralizing pagan stories,
assembling the collection into a Neoplatonic hierarchy.
(ONeill, "Requiem for Lazzarelli".) See The "Mantegna"
Cosmograph.
c.1473 P Ferrara, Italy.
The dEste cards. Sixteen cards survive, including eight
trumps, in the Cary Collection at Yale. Probably from this
provenance, late fifteenth century. (GT 69; K I:117-118.)
Betts offers an argument that this deck could not have been
created before 1508, based on heraldry of a shield held by the
Queen of Swords. (Betts 99-100.)
1474 Ulm, Germany.
Chronicle stating that "playing cards were sent in large bales
into Italy, Sicily, and other parts by sea" (K I:26.) Another
version: "playing-cards were sent in small casks into Italy,
Sicily, and also over the sea, and bartered for spices and
other wares." (B 29.)
1475 Rome, Italy.
Cardinal Platina, prefect of the Vatican Library, published De
honesta voluptate valetudine. "Describing how to behave
honestly and seemingly, Platina suggested that his worthy
readers relax in peace for a couple of hours after lunch, when
they should find a suitable pastime that was tranquil and
would not excite or upset the digestion. A urbane game to be
played with moderation: urbanum, facetum, modestum. No
cunning, scurrility, or acrimony. None of the arrogance,
sarcasm or clamour that generated anger and insults, at times
spilling over into brawls. At this point a practical example
had to be provided. The Cardinal had no doubts: 'Ludus sit
talis tessera scacho, ut nostro appellatione utar, carthis
variis imaginibus pictis". Thus the ideal irreproachable
ludus, along with chess, was cards." (Ortalli 198.)
c1475? P Ferrara, Italy.
The so-called Charles VI (aka, Gringonneur) cards. Seventeen
cards survive, including sixteen trumps, in the Biblioteque
Nationale at Paris. Probably from this provenance. The design
appears to reflect the designs of popular woodcut decks of the
era: for example, the polygonal halos given the virtues in the
Florentine Rosenwald cards, or the angel-surmounted World of
various decks. Interestingly, however, the figure above the
New World does not have angelic wings but instead wears the
virtues polygonal halo, suggesting that the penultimate trump
is being identified with the fourth Cardinal Virtue, Prudence,
as well as showing the Kingdom of Heaven via symbols of
sovereignty held above the New World. (GT 65-66, 69; K
I:111-116; H 18; Shephard 25-27.)
c.1475? P Ferrara, Italy.
The Rothschild cards. Thirty-one cards survive, including only
one trump. Probably from this provenance, late fifteenth
century. (GT 69; K I:120-121.)
c.1475? P Ferrara, Italy.
The Museo Civico Tarot cards. Fifteen cards survive, including
four trumps. The World is very similar to that of Charles VI.
Probably from this provenance, late fifteenth century. (GT 69;
K I:108-110, 109.)
c.1475? P France or Italy.
The Goldschmidt cards are from a very deviant Tarot deck which
is unfortunately represented by only nine cards. A bishop is
shown as an allegory of Hope, (with an anchor displayed),
probably in place of the Pope. The Ace of Cups is a fountain
of life, (showing two streams, water and blood), as in some
other decks, (Rosenthal, Victoria and Albert Museum, and
Guildhall), but in this case circled by an ouroborous. The Ace
of Spades is a death card, with crossed bones and a skull
chained to the suit symbols scabbard. Dummett states that "it
is not apparent, from the cards themselves, that they are
Tarot cards at all; not one of them can be identified with any
assurance as one of the Tarot triumphs." The Spanish style of
suit-symbols, illustrated by the Five of Clubs, may suggest a
French origin. (GT 73, 74, 75, 85.)
c.1475? P Milan, Italy.
The Von Bartsch Visconti-Sforza Tarot cards. Thirteen cards
survive, including five trumps and a Visconti serpent card.
Probably from this provenance, late fifteenth century. (GT 69;
K I:100-102.)
c.1475 P Ferrara, Italy.
A unique and influential allegorical Tarot deck was designed
by Matteo Maria Boiardo. See The Boiardo Tarot Deck.
c.1480
"According to Rafael Maffei, also known as Il Volterrano, the
game of tarots is a fairly new invention. The book by
Volterrano was published in 1506, but the manuscript is
somewhat older." Kaplan suggests that this reference may be
mistaken. (H 16; K I:33.)
c.1480 P France.
"The French suit-system, appearing about 1480, should
certainly be seen as an adaptation of the German one, with
Spades corresponding to Leaves, Clubs to Acorns, and of course
French Hearts to German ones. The shapes of the French
suit-signs, in all three cases, are regularised version of
those German signs." (GT 22.) The court card were commonly
given classical or biblical names. "Modern French packs retain
the delightful and archaic feature of court cards bearing
individual names, typically:
Suit
King
Queen
Knight
Spades
David
Pallas
Hogier
Clubs
Alexandre
Argine
Lancelot
Hearts
Charles
Judith
La Hire
Diamonds
Cesar
Rachel
Hector
Although the French named-card tradition goes back to the
sixteenth century in principle, in practice the actual names
have varied enormously and the most constant of them have not
applied consistently to the same cards." (P 43-45.)
Various regional patterns existed in France, and were formally
established by law in the eighteenth century. "A special
feature of the Paris pattern is the employment of names for
each court-card. Other regional patterns also adopted this
feature, but the Paris pattern has been consistent in always
using the same names, [those noted in the above Parlett quote]
which are still in use today." (B 45-54.) The Sola-Busca Tarot
deck also named these twelve court cards, leaving the Pages
unnamed. See The Sola-Busca Tarot, and Modern Deck Designs.
1482 +
"Lorenzo Spirito publishes Delle Sorti or Libro di ventura, an
Italian book of fortune-telling based on 20 questions grouped
around a wheel of fortune, which refer to "20 kings", and dice
yielding 56 three-line answers. This seems to be based on an
earlier manuscript." (This is the entire entry from Greer &
ONeill.)
1484 Rome, Italy.
"Some of the Mantegna images appear on the bas-reliefs of the
tomb of Pope Sixtus IV (died 1484). Some of the images, such
as Arithmetica, are so similar to the Mantegna prints that
they must be direct copies." (Robert V. ONeill, Tarot
Symbolism, 212.) See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph.
1485 + Basle
"...the verses in the [1510] Mainz Losbuch were adapted from
one published in Basle in 1485, in which the 52 oracles were
illustrated by different animals...." (GT 95.)
______________________________________________________________
"The first evidence of the use of playing cards for predicting
the future dates from the 1480s when playing cards had been
known in Europe for a good hundred years. This was Ein
loszbuch ausz der Karten a book of fate from the cards which
served to throw light on the future. The cards were shuffled,
one was withdrawn from the deck, and then the book of fate was
consulted...." This quote from Hoffman may actually refer to
the 1510 Mainz losbuch, which according to Dummett (citing
Hellmut Rosenfield) derived from earlier models. (H 50; GT
95.)
______________________________________________________________
1488 Brescia, Italy.
Prohibition of games of chance, " buschatia ", defined as
"omnis ludus taxillorum et cartarum exceptis ludis tabularum
et rectis ludis triumphorum et scachorum", thus excluding
backgammon, chess, and triumphs. (M 52n; GT 98.)
1488 ?
An essay by Galcottus Martius, writing in De Doctrina
Promiscua, offers allegorical interpretation of the four
suits: swords, spears, loaves, and cups. "When there is need
of strength, as indicated by swords and spears, Martius
suggests that many are better than just a few; in matters of
meat and drink, however, a little is better than a great or
excessive amounts...." (K I:28.)
1489 Salo am Gardasee, Italy.
Prohibition similar to 1488 Brescia, exempting Tarot. (M 52n;
GT 98-99.)
1491 Bergamo, Italy.
Prohibition similar to 1488 Brescia, exempting backgammon,
chess, and Tarot. (M 52n; GT 99.)
1491 P Ferrara, Italy.
The copper-engraved Sola Busca, a unique classical Tarot deck.
See The Sola Busca Tarot.
1492 Ferrara, Italy.
"Cardinal Ippolito dEste acknowledged receipt of numerous
items sent to him by his mother, Leonora of Aragon, the
duchess of Ferrara, including gilded tarocchi cards and cards
for the game of ronfa, triumphi dorati and carta da rompha."
(K II:8, 112; Ortalli 199, 201.)
1494 Ferrara/Milan, Italy.
Ercole I "had carte da scartino sent to him in Milan in
November 1494." (Ortalli 191.)
1496 Kaiserberg, Germany.
Bishop Johann Geiler compared the order of cards in the game
of Karnöffel or ludus Caesaris to the social order. He "begins
by remarking that in (ordinary) card games, there is a fixed
order... 'but now a game has been invented which is called
Kaiserspiel or Karnöffel in which everything is turned upside
down... and there occurs a wonderful transformation
(vicissitudo) of Kaisers, as in this game the Kaiser is made
by chance now from this set (cetu), now from another'." This
is obviously a reference to the fact that the suit chosen for
the trumps is not fixed, but varies from one hand to the next.
A similar sermon is dated 1515. (GT 184-185, 188-191; P 165.)
See Karnöffel.
"During the Reformation, Karnöffel, containing as it did,
cards known as the Pope, the Emperor (Kaiser) and the Devil,
became the source for a more substantial allegory [than Bishop
Geiler's inverted social hierarchy] by Protestant
propagandists and satirists." (GT 184.) See examples at 1537
and 1546.
1496 Germany.
Albrecht Durer created a series of imaged derived from the
Mantegna series. "Some art historians have dated the first
group [ten images drawn with a pointed pen] circa 1496 and the
later group [eleven images drawn with a broad-tipped pen]
about 1506." (K I:47.) See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph.
1497 Ferrara, Italy.
Jacopo Filippo da Bergamo, (aka Jacobus Philippus Forestus),
used the iconography of Tarot's Papess in a woodcut
illustration of La Papessa Giovanna, Pope Joan. This image
appeared in De Plurimis Claris Sceletisque Mulieribus. (Ross
Gregory Caldwell,
http://www.angelfire.com/space/tarot/papessa.html.)
1499 P Milan, Italy.
A 1499 TdM style Two of Coins, recovered from Sforza Castle.
Whether this came from a Tarot deck or a regular deck, it
demonstrates that the TdM style of cards derived quite
directly from early Milanese cards. (K II:289.)
c.1499 Ferrara, Italy.
"... in 1499 an anonymous chronicler rather irritatedly noted
that in the city playing cards is a very common custom: " si
usa et costuma de zugare a carte molto, come e a falsinelli, a
rompha, a scarto, a resuscitare li morti, a scartare et a
mille diavolamenti "." (Ortalli 191.)
1500 Reggio nellEmilia, Italy.
Prohibition similar to 1488 Brescia, exempting backgammon,
chess, and Tarot. (GT 99.)
c.1500 P Milan, Italy.
A partial sheet of uncut cards in the Cary collection at Yale
are probably from this general period, and almost certainly
from Milan. This Cary fragment is the earliest surviving
example of TdM iconography. Although this was a rather finely
engraved example of a woodcut deck, rather than the more
crudely rendered popular decks, it demonstrates that this
general design dates from the fifteenth century. Six complete
"cards" survive, plus fourteen partial "cards", including
eighteen trumps. (TT 48; K II:286.)
c.1500 P Ferrara, Italy.
Partial sheets of uncut cards in the Metropolitan Museum in
New York are probably from this general period, and from
Ferrara. Twenty trumps are shown, in whole or in part. This is
the same pattern as sheets in the Budapest Museum of Fine
Arts. (TT 48; K I:125; K II:272-273.)
c.1500 P Bologna, Italy.
Partial sheets of uncut cards in the Rothschild Collection in
the Louvre and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris are probably
from this general period, and from Bologna. Twelve "cards"
survive, all trumps. (TT 48; K I:128-129.)
c.1500 P Florence, Italy.
Partial sheets of uncut cards in the Rosenwald Collection in
the National Gallery of Art in Washington are probably from
this general period, and from Florence. Twenty-four "cards"
survive, including twenty-one trumps. (TT 48; K I:130-131.)
c.1500? P Milan, Italy.
There are a number of fragmentary sets of odd Tarot cards,
presumably from the later fifteenth century, of which the
Rosenthal set is perhaps the best example. These hand-painted
cards have more non-standard than standard features, and are
many are not even authenticated as fifteenth century cards, so
it is very difficult to draw any inferences from them. They do
exhibit some odd commonalties, and also some connections with
the better known hand-painted decks. (GT 69-75, 87-89; K
I:99-105.)
c.1500 P Germany.
The "Liechtenstein pack" from this period or possibly mid
fifteenth century, has, "besides the Latin suits, a fifth suit
of Shields". The Batons resemble polo sticks, unknown in
Europe. (GT 15, 15n, 16, 44; H 25.)
1502 P Germany.
Franciscan monk Thomas Murner published an educational deck
based on the Institutes of Justinian, thus beginning the
fecund tradition of educational cards. "With the intention of
increasing interest in reading, I have tried to counter
immoral games through this extremely uplifting game of the
imperial institutes and I would esteem myself fortunate if I
should have succeeded in restricting that which is bad by that
which is good." A related book, Chartiludium Institute
Summarie, was published decades later, in 1528. A second game
from Murner, teaching logic, was published in 1507. (H 38.)
1505 Ferrara, Italy.
"... during the reign of Alfonso (Ercole's son who succeed him
in 1505) an account book for his first year as ruler mentions
the acquisition at the end of June of as many as eighteen
packs: eight tarot packs and ten fra schartini e carte da
ronfa bought to be taken to Voghenza, obviously to help the
courtiers while away the hours during their summer sojourn.
Eighteen packs were obviously intended for a large group, thus
revealing an intense passion. And eighteen packs were not even
enough. Under 26 December in the same register a further
fifteen packs for schartini and tarots are entered as being
sent to 'Voghenza for the Signore'. (Ortalli 190.)
1507 Lyons, France.
According to Michael Dummett, "The earliest known French
reference to tarot cards is to their manufacture at Lyons in
1507." (TT 50.)
1507 P Germany.
Franciscan monk Thomas Murner published an educational game,
Chartiludium logicae, designed to teach the basic principles
of logic. "Murner followed the tradition of the mnemonic
pictures, a Late Medieval method of training the memory by
special pictures." This set was also published as a book, and
"Murner achieved such success with this that he was also
suspected of witchcraft praise indeed for a teacher." He had
published an earlier educational deck in 1502. (H 38.)
c.16 th + England.
"A set of Fortunes in English are copied onto wooden playing
cards - possibly based on divination via "Ragman Rolls" - used
in England and France since the 13th century. These were
divinatory verses on rolled parchment with threads leading to
the appropriate verse. [See Wright and Halliwell, London:
Pickering, 1841 & 1843]." (Entire entry from Greer post to
TarotL)
c.1510 + Mainz, Germany.
A "German work, entitled Eyn loszbuch ausz der Kartengemacht,
originally printed in Mainz between 1505 and 1510, bears
[little] resemblance to cartomancy in the accepted sense. This
is a volume of a type very popular in Germany in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. On each page is printed a design for
one of the cards from a German-suited 48-card pack, together
with an eight-line verse oracle foretelling the enquirer's
general destiny in life; some are very encouraging, some
extremely menacing. One could use the book by drawing a single
card from a pack, and turning to the corresponding page; but
the book was not in fact designed to make even that use of any
actual cards necessary, because there is at the front of the
book a disc with a pointer; the disc is attached to the page
only at its centre, and on the page itself is a circle divided
into forty-eight sectors, each labelled with the name of a
card. The enquirer was therefore supposed to spin the disc and
turn to the page indicated by the pointer when it came to
rest. The very crude type of oracular practice exemplified by
this book is not cartomancy, but the use of a Losbuch: several
other Losbucher of the time are known, and all of them work in
the same way, by spinning a disc with a pointer; but most of
them are not based on the playing-card pack, but on some other
set of objects, such as animals." (GT 95.)
______________________________________________________________
The use of playing cards as indices in this manner was the
first step in the evolution of cartomancy as it is practiced
today. Using the cards themselves as a randomizing mechanism
(instead of the spinner) was another small step, made possible
by the cards' use as indices. The next significant step was
the creation of special decks of cards on which the
predictions were printed, such as the 1690 Dorman Newman deck.
Fortune telling with standard decks (regular decks or Tarot)
was yet another step, occurring about a half century after
Newman's deck. The final step was the use of multi-card groups
or "spreads" of standard cards, which apparently began in the
late eighteenth century. Etteilla's 1770 book is the first
presentation of such cartomancy, although such a practice
appears to be described by Casanova a few years earlier. This
evolution was presented in detail by Dummett, and is sketched
out in A Timeline of Cartomancy.
______________________________________________________________
1510 + Nuremberg, Germany.
"The first extant book using playing cards for divination was
printed around 1510, probably in Nuremberg. Hoffmann dates the
prototype of the woodcuts in this book to pre-1500, thus
earlier, lost editions of the same text are probable."
(Christian Hartman in a post to alt.tarot, citing Hoffman and
Manfred Zollinger, Bibliographie der Spielebucher 15-18
Jahrhundert, 1996.)
1515 Germany.
Edward Schoen, a German cardmaker, made a woodcut nativity
calendar for a Leonhard Reymann. The calendar is in the form
of a wheel, with a landscape at the hub, a circle of the seven
planetary deities, a circle of the twelve zodiacal
constellations, and an outermost circle of images representing
the twelve houses. Several images from that outside ring show
subjects also included in the Tarot trumps, such as a wheel, a
reaper, an emperor, a pope, two children playing, and an image
similar to the Lover card in some TdM decks. A figure in
stocks is analogous to the Hanged Man, a punished criminal.
"The resemblance between the houses of the zodiac and several
cards of the tarot indicate that the calendar may have been
modeled after extant tarot decks...." (K II:157, quoting
Robert V. ONeill.)
______________________________________________________________
Considering that Schoen is identified as a cardmaker, the
similarities do suggest a connection between some of the Tarot
images and some of the astrological houses in a particular
chart at least in the eyes of one sixteenth century German
artist. Kaplan also quotes O'Neill as saying, "the calendar
proves a correlation between tarot and astrology", but O'Neill
is not quoted as explaining what that correlation might be, or
how this calendar proves it. The images in question do not
show a close iconographic correspondence with any particular
Tarot deck. The subject matter in question is some of the most
common in late Medieval and Renaissance art: the emperor and
pope, a wheel, a skeletal reaper, and two children playing,
can be used to illustrate an endless number of things other
than astrology, and their adoption here is hardly sufficient
to demonstrate that the Tarot images and sequence were somehow
based on astrology. Whatever lesser "correlation" might exist
seems ill-defined, and scarcely proved, by this calendar. Many
questions are raised which could only be approached with
additional information about Schoen and his work.
______________________________________________________________
1515 Kaiserberg, Germany.
Bishop Johann Geiler compared the order of cards in the game
of Karnöffel to the social order. Gieler notes that in this
inverted social order, "the Carnöffel beats them all", and "he
speaks of throwing all the cards, the King, the Kaiser, the
Ober, the Banner and the Devil, on to the fire." A similar
sermon is dated 1496. (GT 188-189; P 165.) See Karnöffel.
1516 Ferrara, Italy.
Various records of the purchase of regular cards and para de
tarocchi, Tarot decks, from multiple suppliers. "There is
again a very definite impression of an almost frenetic
interest [in card games], if we turn to the Guardaroba
register for the Camera Ducale of 1516. Cards are continually
being purchased... They are all fairly ordinary packs bought
at the same price of 8 soldi each, thus demonstrating they
were household objects, a normal part of daily court routine."
(Ortalli 190.)
These records include the earliest known use of the term,
tarocchi, from which the name "Tarot" derived. By 1550,
according to Lollio, the original meaning whatever it might
have been was unknown. (K II:8; GT 80.) See The Invettiva of
Lollio.
In addition to the purchases referred to above, other records
(Libri Camerali Diversi) show not only "further purchases, but
we also learn that the Este children (just as had been the
case at the time of Parisina [1424]) were never in short
supply of cards." (Ortalli 190.)
1519 Mexico.
"Wherever Spanish sailors or soldiers appeared, they had their
cards with them, as in 1519 during the conquest of Mexico."
"Even today, in South America, it is playing cards with the
Spanish suit-signs which are used, although national
modifications have been incorporated, usually in the
nineteenth century." (H 15.)
1522 Italy
"In 1522, a satirical poem concerning the conclave which
elected Adrian VI described the cardinal playing tarocchi."
See 1549 conclave. (GT 99.)
1523 Venice, Italy.
A volume of poetry containing the c.1475 Boiardo verses, along
with poetry from other authors, was published. (GT 76.) See
The Boiardo Tarot Deck.
1524 + Venice, Italy.
A losbuch using spinner or dice, by Sigismondo Fanti, Trionpho
della Fortuna. "Fanti's book resolves various questions
through the use of the signs of the zodiac, the
constellations, the sybils [sic] and various astrological
personages. Instead of a three-line oracle [like the later
Marcolino], four-line stanzas are used to resolve the
questions. Instead of cards, Fanti uses a pair of dice or the
chance number on a dial that contains twenty-one figures." (K
I:28; GT 95.) See 1510 Mainz losbuch entry, 1540 Marcolino
entry, and A Timeline of Cartomancy.
1524 P Venice, Italy.
"We know from Cardano [1564] that Trappola was played in
Venice as early as 1524, and can take it to be a Venetian
invention. If the flow of Italian references to it accurately
reflects the position, it had dropped out of Italian
consciousness by the end of the sixteenth century. By the
seventeenth, however, it was fanning outwards [to Bohemia,
Moravia, Austria and southern Germany, Silesia and
Czechoslovakia]." (P 251; K I:53, 57) "The trappolier or
lansquenet game [1542] came from the Italian game of
trappola." It used a 36-card Italian-suited deck. (H 14.)
c.1525? P Erfurt, Germany.
Vulgar humor had been included in some decks of the fifteenth
century, "and these grotesque and often caricatural figures
were now extended to the numeral cards. The hearts and bells,
leaves, and acorns were moved up to the top half of the card
so that a narrow or broad strip at the bottom edge remained
free for illustrations. An especially good example are the
cards of an Erfurt cardmaker which are now preserved in the
Germanishes Nationalmuseum Nurembert. Jesters fool around,
there is dancing and hunting, idling and whoring, and in every
pack there are illustrations of functions which, in our
century of cleanliness, are performed behind closed doors, out
of sight of the public eye." This is, of course, the age of
Rabelais. (H 25.)
______________________________________________________________
While much has been made about the novelty of illustrated pips
in the 1910 Waite-Smith Tarot deck, in the larger world of
playing cards they were not much of a novelty. In fact,
illustrated pips were relatively commonplace from the
sixteenth century.
______________________________________________________________
c.1526 P Florence, Italy.
"In 1526, Francesco Berni published a poem in praise of the
card game of Primiera, with a commentary in which facetious
remarks are made about the tame of tarocchi. "Capitolo del
Giocco della Primiera also included comments "Sminchiate"
[sic], suggesting the latest possible date for the invention
of the Minchiate deck. (K I:28; GT 99; K II:5.)
1526 England.
"Henry VIII tried to suppress [playing cards] in a
proclamation dated May 1526." (B 55.)
1527 Venice, Italy.
Teofilo Folengo wrote a set of five sonnets on the Tarot
trumps. Dummett writes, "these were included in his Caos del
Triperiuno, a work published in Venice in 1527 under his
pseudonym Merin Cocai.". Kaplan includes excerpts from the
work. In an introductory summary, he notes: "The verses are
inserted in a dialogue between two men, Limerno and Triperuno.
Limerno has been requested to recite verses before the queen,
and for this, he has composed sonnets for four persons,
Giuberto, Focilla, Falcone and Mirtella. The two men and two
women had led Limerno into a room where trionphi cards were
dealt out. Each person related his fate (sorte) from the cards
drawn and asked Limerno to compose a sonnet for each reading.
The work by Cocai appears to be one of the earliest references
to the use of the trionphi [sic] for divination." (GT 390; K
II:8-9.)
______________________________________________________________
Less anachronistically, the work by Cocai is one of many
sixteenth-century examples of tarocchi appropriati, a parlor
game in which people creatively spun out associations by which
a given card or cards could be used to describe themselves or
another person. The cards were not given any symbolic meaning,
but simply worked into the poem as a playful exercise of
verbal agility, humor, and flattery. Whether one calls it
divination or not is of little consequence in itself. However,
it is important to keep in mind that it was not cartomancy as
the term has been commonly used since its origin in the late
eighteenth century; nor was such activity considered
divinatory by earlier writers, occultist or literary.
______________________________________________________________
1528 P Italy.
The Rosselli Inventory catalogs the workshop of Francesco
Rosselli, listing plates for printing a number of otherwise
unknown games: the giuocho del trionfo del petrarcha in 3
pezi; the giuco dapostoli chol nostro singnore, in sette pezi,
di lengno; the giuocho di sete virtu, in 3 pezi, di lengno;
and the gioucho di pianeti cho loro fregi, in 4 pezi. (The
game of the triumph of Petrarch; the game of Apostles with our
Lord; the game of seven virtues; and the game of planets with
their borders). (D 82-83; M 53.)
______________________________________________________________
This listing of otherwise unknown games is extremely
significant, as it emphasizes just how fragmentary our
historical information really is, as well as suggesting the
allegorical and didactic nature of some of the games. Such
games might be compared with the 1470 Mantegna images and
the1463 Globe Game of Cusanus, as well as with the didactic
design of Tarot as a schematic encyclopedia of salvation. The
Mantegna series, with its obvious philosophical content, may
have been far less exceptional in that regard than is commonly
supposed.
______________________________________________________________
1529 Worchester, England.
Card playing was commonly prohibited, with exceptions made
including the twelve days of Christmas. The Bishop of
Worchester, Hugh Latimer, preached a sermon on the Sunday
before Christmas, comparing the game of Triumph (not Tarot) to
the triumph of Christ. "And whereas you are about to celebrate
Christmas in playing at cards, I intend, by Gods grace, to
deal unto you Christs cards, wherein you shall perceive
Christs rule. The game that we shall play at shall be called
the triumph, which, if it be well played at, he that dealeth
shall win; the players shall likewise win; and the standers
and lookers upon shall do the same, insomuch that there is no
man willing to play at this triumph with these cards but they
shall be all winners and no losers." (P 216; GT 26.)
1531 * Antwerp, Belgium.
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa publishes De occulta philosophia
libri tres, a compendium of occult science, with no mention of
Tarot.
1534 Venice, Italy.
"Troilo Pomeran da Cittadela wrote a series of sonnets using
the [Tarot trumps] to praise the renowned ladies of Venice".
Kaplan provides some excerpts from Triomphi de Troilo Pomeran
da Cittadela. (K II:9.)
1534 * France.
Francois Rabelais publishes The Five Books of Gargantua and
Pantagruel. "A celebrated list of sixteenth-century games
occurs in Chapter 22 of Book I of Rabelais's Gargantua, the
'fearsome' but garrulous history of a rather jolly giant,
first published in 1534." The extensive list (over 200
initially, expanded in subsequent editions) of Gargantuas
games includes among its three dozen card games one of the
earliest mentions of Tarot in France; Rabelais' list of
divinatory methods, however, does not include Tarot. (P 52; M
50; GT 202; Ortalli 191.)
c.1535 P Nuremberg, Germany.
Various woodcut decks with illustrated pips were made, "but
the most splendid one is the Nuremberg pack by Peter Flotner.
Burlesque scenes similar to those on the [1525] Erfurt cards
are now found in the sophisticated atmosphere of a superior
pack presented to Francesco dEste." Wulf Schadendorf is quoted
by Hoffmann about the "robust humour and coarse obscenity" of
the cards, also noting "Flotner sets irony and ridicule,
parody and perversion against the past, against the classical
and bourgeois way of life". Again, Rabelaisian humor. (H 25.)
1537 Germany.
A Protestant satirical work uses the allegory of Karnöffel to
berate the Pope. A number of questions are asked, including,
"Why is the selected (erwelete) Deuce, the lowest and weakest
of all the cards, called the Kaiser? To this last question the
answer is given that many believe that the Pope has stolen so
much from him that, although he is still called the Emperor,
he has become a beggar; the selected (erwelete) 6 has three
times as much as the Deuce, and so it is no wonder that the
triple crown beats the single crown of the Kaiser." (GT 189.)
See Karnöffel.
1538 Germany.
Hans Holbein s Dance of the Dead was published. "Executed by
the German Renaissance painter in the first half of the
sixteenth century, the scenes probably were not meant to be
tarot, but the imagery is surprisingly similar to some of the
traditional [trumps]...." (K I:192 - 193.)
______________________________________________________________
Not just individual images, but the sequence also reflects
Tarot content. Holbeins version of this common cycle presents
the dance of ranks and conditions within its context (usually
only implied) of mans fall and eventual salvation. Thus, there
are three distinct segments of his sequence: First, the origin
of Deaths dominion, as punishment for Adams sin in Genesis,
shown in four images. A transitional image of the dead in a
cemetery, playing musical instruments, leads into the usual
ranks and conditions segment. This begins with the Pope, the
Emperor, and a descending ranks, which blends into a diverse
collection of conditions. The third segment is represented
with a single image, Christ in judgment over the resurrected
dead. This is the full meaning of the Dance of the Dead,
although the framing elements from Genesis and Revelation were
most commonly omitted. For an analysis of Tarot's meaning, see
The Riddle of Tarot.
______________________________________________________________
1540 + Venice, Italy.
"A genuine exception to the rule that fortune-telling with
ordinary playing cards is unknown in Europe before the
eighteenth century is provided by a book by Francesco Marolino
da Forli entitled Giardino di pensieri and published in Venice
in 1540. The book is indeed intended solely to provide a means
of foretelling the future by the use of playing cards. It
constitutes, however, precisely the sort of exception of which
it is said that it proves the rule, since the procedure
involved bears scarcely any resemblance to the practice of
fortune-telling as we know it." This is essentially another
losbuch with additional complexities layered into the method:
"No symbolic significance is attributed to any individual
cards; the cards are used simply as a randomizing device, and
in fact, Marcolino's book had a much less elegant predecessor,
the Triompho di Fortuna by Sigismondo Fanti, published in
Venice in 1524, which embodies essentially the same idea, save
that the enquirer rolls dice instead of drawing cards.." (GT
94-95; K I:28; H 50.) See the 1510 Mainz losbuch entry, and A
Timeline of Cartomancy.
1542 P Germany.
Lansquenet (from the German Landsknecht,) is first noted "in
the fifth edition of Rabelaiss Gargantua in 1542. Landsknecht,
literally country knights, were German mercenaries who roamed
fifteenth and sixteenth-century Europe in quest of
short-staffed wars, maidens not yet in distress, and
opportunities to play an inane but highly romanticized
gambling game with cards. The game itself may have taken its
name from the special cards produced for mercenaries, which
were small enough to be conveniently carried in a backpack and
bore the figure of a Landsknecht for each Jack." (P 76.) "In
their figuration and size, the lansquenet cards correspond to
the Italian trappola cards of the fifteenth century. This
means that they must have spread to Germany at an early date."
(H 14.)
c.1543 Italy.
An allegorical dialog based on Tarot cards, by Pietro Aretino,
" Les Carte Parlanti, first published in 1543 and sometimes
referred to as Part 3 of his Ragionamenti, of which the first
two parts are highly pornographic." It includes information on
the names and order of the trumps. (GT 338, 390; K I:28.)
1543 + Strasbourg, Germany.
A losbuch using playing cards for fortune-telling "was issued
in Straßburg in 1543, seven year earlier than the second
edition of the lotbook by Francesco Marcolino da Forli."
(Christian Hartman, in a post to alt.tarot, citing Hoffman and
Manfred Zollinger, Bibliographie der Spielebucher 15-18
Jahrhundert, 1996.)
1544 P Nuremberg, Germany.
Virgil Solis deck, engraved. No example of the actual cards
has survived, but the designs printed on thin paper have. They
were also influential on several later decks, including the
suit cards of the 1557 Caitlin Geofroy. "He engraved lions,
monkeys, parrots, and peacocks on his set of cards. The
parrots sit on climbing roses, corresponding to the suit of
hearts, the peacocks are set against vine-shoots on which
grapes hang, representing the suit of leaves. The lions sit in
a cartouche and theirs is the suit of bells. The monkeys
perform acrobatics on ornaments which are really artistic, and
on the two of this suit there are even inscribed the
time-honored letters SPQR." (K I:132; K II:302; TT 52; H 29.)
1545 Venice, Italy.
"A treatise published in Venice states that swords represent
death (those ruined by gaming), batons = punishment (for
cheating), coins the food of play, and cups the victory toast
or the way of settling disputes between players." (This is the
entire entry from Greer & ONeill.)
1546 Germany.
A Protestant satirical work uses the allegory of Karnöffel to
berate the Pope, includes a number of rules of play. The work
"takes the form of a dialogue between the Pope and the Devil.
From this we learn that neither of the Devil and the Pope beat
each other.... that it is the 2, 3, 4, and 5, and only they,
that are called Kaiser...." The cryptic comments are
understood by "a knowledge of the nineteenth century Swiss
game... we appear to have here the same idea of partial trumps
that is found in the Swiss game." (GT 189.)
1549 Italy
"At the time of the conclave of 1549-50 which elected Julius
III, another poem was written in imitation of the earlier one
[see 1522 conclave], again describing the cardinals playing
tarocchi." (GT 99.)
c.1550 P Europe.
"By 1550, the experiments that had proved ephemeral had been
abandoned, and the various European types of regular pack had
crystallized into more or less their definitive forms." (GT
26.) See Modern Deck Designs.
1550 * Venice, Italy.
Flavio Alberti Lollio, Invettiva contra il Giuoco del Taroco.
An ironic verse diatribe against the game of Tarot. See The
Invettiva of Lollio.
1550 Ferrara, Italy.
"An anonymous poem first published by Giulio Bertoni in an
essay on Tarocchi versificati in 1917; it describes the ladies
of the court of Ferrara, and is dated by Bertoni to between
1520 and 1550, more probably nearer the later date." It
includes information on the names and order of the trumps. (GT
390; K I:30.)
c.1550 P Ferrara, Italy.
Nine cards, including four trumps, survive from a
sixteenth-century Tarot deck, in the Museo delle Arti e
Tradizioni Populari in Rome, Italy. The deck included scenes
from Orlando Furioso, and is therefore non-standard comparable
to the Rouen deck in the next entry. Both decks are more
gracefully executed than the common woodcut decks such as the
Metropolitan sheets. (TT 50; K II:287, 288.)
c.1550 P Ferrara, Italy.
Thirty cards survive from a sixteenth-century Tarot deck, in
the Municipal Library of Rouen, France. Hand colored with gold
and silver highlights, the images are classical figures, but
unlike the 1491 Sola Busca trumps, these are identifiable with
the standard Tarot subjects. (TT 50; K I:133; H 20.)
1550 Italy.
"The first card effect [magic trick] to be described and
explained in print appeared in 1550 in Girolomo Cardanos De
subtiltate. This effect was the location and identification of
a selected card. Three methods are mentioned." (Giobbi.)
1551 Bologna, Italy.
Innocentio Ringhieri wrote Cento Giuochi liberali dt
d'ingegno. Allegoresis about the magnificent "Game of the
King", allegorizing the four suits in terms of the four
virtues. Cups represented Temperance, Columns were Strength,
Swords for Justice, and Mirrors representing Prudence. (K
I:30; GT 422.)
1553 Paris, France
"In 1533 the Paris printer Charles Etienne referred in his
work Paradoxes to 'Italian cards, with which one engages in
the game called Tarot'." (GT 99.)
1557 P Lyons, France.
The Catelin Geofroy deck was a strikingly variant design, with
suits based on the 1544 Virgil Solis deck: Lions, Monkeys,
Parrots, and Peacocks. (TT 52; K I:132; K II:302, 303; H 17,
29.)
c.1560 P Austria.
"The Hofämterspiel is a late mediaeval deck containing 48
cards, all of which have survived. the Hofämterspiel was
basically inspired by the standard social structure of royal
courts during the late Middle Age. The illustrations picture
the many different members of a typical household, with their
names in archaic German, whence the name Hofämterspiel given
to the cards (literally meaning "householder's deck").
Therefore, what makes these cards particularly interesting is
not only their intrinsic value for the early history of
playing cards, but also the direct evidence they provide for
the knowledge of social hierarchy and everyday life in late
mediaeval courts." (Andys Playing Cards; H 25.)
1564 Italy.
Parlett writes: "The earliest technical details of card games
occur in the Liber de ludo aleae (Book on Games of Chance),
written in 1564 [although not published for another century]
by Girolamo Cardano, a 63-year old Italian scholar and former
playboy. This is basically a manual on gambling. His aim is to
help reduce ones loss of fortune and time by showing that
outcomes are determined not by a personification of luck but
by the rigorous if unpredictable logic of mathematics not to
mention the inexorable logic of cheating, which he also
examines in detail. To this end he quotes the probabilities of
achieving certain outcomes on the throw of various numbers of
dice or turns of cards, and explains how these figures are
reached. This entirely novel exercise was performed a century
in advance of Pascal, who is normally regarded as the father
of probability theory." Cardano lists many games, and
observes, "It is more fitting for the wise man to play at
cards than at dice, and at triumphus rather than other games
[for] this is a sort of midway game played with open cards,
very similar to the game of Chess." (P 52-53.) Note that
triumphus does not refer to Tarot. Dummett notes that "Cardano
included sequentinum Tarochi as one of a number of games he
had played." (GT 99, 356.)
1565 Piedmont, Italy.
Francesco Piscina, Discorso sopra lordine delle figure de'
Tarocchi, (Oration on the Order of the Tarot Figures), offered
an attempt to explicate the meaning of the cards and their
sequence. The results were neither plausible nor "in any sense
esoteric." (WPC 33, 267n25, 268n7.)
"Speech by Francesco Piscina, Discorso sopra la significatione
de' tarocchi, PC 16:27-36 Biblioteca Fondazione Marazza,
Borgomanero. Not a random set of cards--a symbolic system to
promote moral living. Magus is an Innkeeper, Hermit a wise
counselor, etc." (This is the entire entry from Greer &
ONeill.)
c.1570 Pavia, Italy.
Appropriati written by Giambattista Susio associates the
trumps with the ladies of the court. It includes information
on the names and order of the trumps, specifically the
Lombardy sequence of the trumps. The order presented is almost
the same as the 1660 Vievil deck. (K I:30; K II:188-189.)
1572 Italy.
Mention of appropriati. "Girolamo Bargagli wrote in 1572 in
Dialogo da Giuochi, a brief passage I saw the game of tarocchi
played, and each participant was given the name from a card,
and the reasons were stated aloud why each participant had
been attributed to such a tarocchi card." (K I:30.)
c.1576 Bristol, England.
"The puritanical John Northbrooke of Bristol wrote a sermon
about 1576 condemning [playing cards]: The playe at Cardes is
an invention of the Deuill, which he founde out that he might
the easier bring in Ydolatrie amongst men. For the Kings and
Coate cardes that we use nowe were in olde time the ymages of
Idols and false Gods: which since they that would seeme
Christians have changed into Charlemane, Launcelot, Hector,
and such like names, because they woule not seeme to imitate
their ydolatrie herein, and yet maintaine the playe it self,
the very inuention of Satan, the Deuill, and would disguise
this mischief under the cloake of such gaye names." Obviously,
the Brits were using French cards in the sixteenth century. (B
55.)
1584 England.
"Although the sixteenth century saw numerous descriptions and
explanations of card tricks, the first detailed exposition was
in Reginald Scots Discoverie of Witchcraft, in 1584."
(Giobbi.)
1585 Venice, Italy.
An opera by Tomaso Garzoni, La Piazza Universale, mentions
Tarot as a common "tavern game", and "Garzoni describes
various personages in association with each of the tarocchi
trumps." It includes information on the names and order of the
trumps, making this another of the few early sources for such
information. (K I:30; K II:188; H 16.)
1588 P Germany.
Jost Ammon produces his Book of Trades, "a book of fanciful
cards with suit marks of printers inking balls, wine-pots,
drinking cups, and books, with a verse underneath each one."
(Mann 121.) As with the Rabelaisian cards described above
(1525 and 1535) these are fully illustrated. "Frolicking fools
and dancing couples, fables and a topsy-turvy world are found
here too. Ammans cards also had an influence on the playing
cards intended for everyday use. A sheet dated 1595 from the
workshop of Heinrich Hauk the best example of his work known
makes use of ideas originating from Amman." (H 26.)
1589 + Venice, Italy.
Venetian Inquisition records suggest that Tarots Devil card
was used by witches for Satanic ritual and adoration. (Ruth
Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1989, 162.)
This is the only known reference to magical or other occult
use of Tarot before the late eighteenth century. ("Jess
Karlin", http://jktarot.com/tarmag16.)
______________________________________________________________
Because the Tarot trumps contained a widely-known collection
of images, it is to be expected that they would be borrowed
for various purposes. Jacopo Filippo da Bergamo's use of
Tarot's Papess image to illustrate Pope Joan in 1497, and
Edward Schoen's possible adoption of several Tarot images for
the 1515 astrological design, are related iconographic
borrowings. In this case, however, a card itself was
apparently used, rather than an artist borrowing the image for
a new work.
______________________________________________________________
1593 Venice, Italy.
"In 1593, Horatio Galasso published Giochi di carte bellissimi
de regola, e di memoria, in Venice. Rather than describe
tricks dependent on slight-of-hand, as Scot [1584] had,
Galasso described tricks having as their basis intelligent
applications of mathematical principles, including a stacked
deck, possibly the first description of this idea. Scot and
Galasso thus laid the foundations on which card conjuring
would build during the following two centuries." (Giobbi.)
16 th c. Germany.
"The backs of cards began to be printed with a design as far
back as the sixteenth century, line patterns printed from the
wood block being used at first. Subsequently, the backs were
coloured, marbled, or worked over with rollers. There is a
link here between the history of fancy paper and the
development of the backs of playing cards. Playing cards can
be dated from the pattern on the backs, subject to certain
qualifications." (H 9.)
c.1600 Italy.
"In the Museo Correr in Venice there is preserved a proper
pack of cards at least as far as the way in which they are
made is concerned. The back carries a picture showing two
riders, a girl, and a youth, standing at the bank of a river
and conversing with a ferryman. On the other side of the
cards, there is just a cartouche with one word, such as Water,
Air, Earth, and Fire, Virtues and Vices, Money, Peace,
Paradise, Beginning, Rome, and Venice. The backs of the cards,
which are 47 in number and must date from the end of the
sixteenth century, are printed from a wooden block but the
tops are written and drawn with a pen. This is a social game,
like that known by the name of "Continental Conversation
Cards" in the England of the eighteenth century. The cards
provide a stimulus for profound discussions between educated
people and this could easily have been the case with the
tarots of Mantegna." (H 19-20.)
1602 + England.
"Rowland, in Judicial Astrology Condemned relates that Cuffe,
secretary to the Earl of Essex, had his fortune told. He drew
three cards: 1) he saw the portraiture of himself cap-a-pie
having men compassing him about with bills and halberds, 2)
the judge that sat upon him, 3) the place of his execution and
the hangman. Taylor, 1865, History of Playing Cards, London,
p456, speculated that the cards used must have been Tarots, 1)
being the Devil, 2) being Justice and 3) being the Hangedman,
although they were called three knaves and may have been
referring to a regular playing card deck." (Entire entry from
Greer post to TarotL.)
According to Kaplan and WPC, much of Taylors work is taken
directly from P. Boiteau dAmbly, a scholar of questionable
judgment. "Boiteau was not an occultist, but a scholar with
serious intentions; but he had been influenced by Court de
Gebelin and by Etteilla, to both of whom he refers
extensively, and he supposed the Tarot pack to have been
originally invented for fortune-telling." No other source for
Rowland was cited. (WPC 214-215; K I:373.)
1603 P Germany.
"A Geistlich-Teutsches Kartenspiel (A Clerical German Card
Game) which was first published in 1603, also proves that
every playing card can provide a stimulus for a pious thought"
"The pictures are not always so subtle the deuce, marked on
all cards with a pig, provides the opportunity for comparison
with the Jewish people in the New Testament. The deuce of
bells depicts the slaughtering of a pig, the Jewish pig, with
the caption What it deserved." (H 40.)
1616 P Venice, Italy.
Labyrinth game designed by Andrea Ghisi. Many of the images
for this philosophical game were taken from the 1470
"Mantegna" series. (K II:302, 304-306.) See The "Mantegna"
Cosmograph.
1619 * England.
Robert Fludd publishes Utriusque Macrocosmi et Microcosmi
Historia, an exhaustive compendium of occult science, with no
mention of Tarot.
1622 + France.
" Pierre del'Ancre [?] publica L'incredulité et mescréance du
sortilege plainement convaincue..., en donde hace esta pueril
referencia a la cartomancia: «es una forma de adivinación de
ciertas personas que toman las imágenes y las ponen en
presencia de determinados demonios o espíritus que ellos han
convocado, a fin de que estas imágenes les instruyan sobre las
cosas que ellos desean saber». Las carticellas educativas se
habían metamo rfoseado en naipes de juego, y éstos devenían el
más flamante y popular de los métodos adivinatorios. [?]"
(This is the entire entry from Greer & ONeill.)
A translation of the 1622 quote is provided in Greer: "It is a
type of divination of certain people who take the images and
place them in the presence of certain demons or spirits which
they have summoned, so that those images will instruct them on
the things that they want to know." (Greer, 279) In the
absence of further explanation, the framing context of
"cartomancy" and "cards" appears to be anachronistic
speculation. (The only source I located for this framing
context was http://www.tarot.com.ar/histo.htm, a
Spanish-language Web page full of Tarot legends and
speculation.) Pierre de l'Ancre (15531631) was a French judge
(a devoted witch hunter) in the Basque area. Among other
notable items from his 1610 book (on angels, demons, and
sorcerers), he claimed to have personally witnessed a witches'
Sabbath, and reported on it:
See here the guests of the Assembly, each one with a demon
beside her, and know that at this banquet are served no other
meats than carrion, the flesh of those that have been hanged,
the hearts of children not baptized, and other unclean animals
strange to the custom and usage of Christian people, the whole
savourless and without salt.
1625 Spain.
An allegory about a game of Hombre, "in 1625, a remarkably
detailed auto sacramental, or mystery play, in which Christ
and the World play against Death and the Devil." This has a
striking similarity to the eschatological design of Tarot,
with its triumphs over the Devil and Death by the World, the
Tarot card which (in TdM) shows Christ. (P 200, from a journal
article by Thierry Depaulis.)
1637 Nevers, France.
The earliest surviving Rules of Tarot. Regles Dv Ieu Des
Tarots Règle du Tarot. "This anonymous pamphlet can be
assigned to Abbé Michel de Marolles who wrote it and had it
printed at Nevers in 1637." That quote, and the rules in
French, are on the Web at
http://members.pgv.at/homer/tarock/depaulis.htm.
1644 P Paris, France.
"Thomas Murner [cf. 1502, 1507] has a second and very much
more illustrious imitator Monsieur Desmarests, who developed
four packs of cards which were to be of assistance to Hardouin
de Perefix, the Archbishop of Paris, in the instruction of the
Dauphin. The etchings were made by Stefano della Bella. When
Louis XIV was six years old, in 1644, he was given the four
games of Les Roys de France, Les Reines renommees, La
Geographie, and Les Metamorphoses, which is also known as Les
Fables. The cards were made as separate packs and were sold by
Henry le Gras. Later, in 1698, the cards were also published
in a leatherbound volume. Della Bellas cards have been
imitated time and time again, and it would take a whole book
just to record the states and changes through which these
packs have passed." Endless educational and commemorative
decks were created in the seventeenth century and later. (H
38.)
1647 Rouen, France.
One of the first instruction books for cards, Le Royal Ieu du
Piquet plaisant et recreatif described Piquet. The text was
later incorporated into other rule books, including the Maison
academique des jeux. (P 53.)
c.1650 Paris, France.
A complete 78-card deck, the so-called "Parisian Tarot" may
date to the early part of the seventeenth century. "The pack
is linked to Vievil's [c.1660] by having exactly the same back
design...", and by its similarities to the Belgium Tarot
pattern. "The designs of the court cards and trumps have, for
the most part, no particular resemblance to those of any known
standard pattern." (GT 207-208; K I:135-136; K II:310-311.)
______________________________________________________________
"A million is probably a highly conservative estimate of the
number of Tarot packs produced in France during the
seventeenth century...." Only a handful have survived in whole
or part. (GT 205.)
______________________________________________________________
1654 Paris, France.
The first edition of La Maison academique, with rules for
various games including some card games. (P 53.)
1658 P Rouen, France.
The Adam C. de Hautot deck "is almost complete [71 cards], and
contains all the trumps. Save for certain details, it conforms
precisely to the pattern later found in Belgium." The de
Hautot family made cards in Rouen from the middle of the
seventeenth century, and "an A. de Hautot was a founder member
of the confrerie (charitable association) of cardmakers
established in 1658." Dummett suggests that the deck was made
in the second half of the seventeenth century. Kaplan suggests
the first half of the eighteenth century. (GT 208; K II:320,
323.)
1659 Paris, France.
Rules of Tarot included in a collection of gaming rules, one
of several later editions of La Maison academique, renamed La
Maison des jeux academique. (P 53.)
c.1660 London, England.
"John Lenthall, and his successors, published and sold playing
cards for many years, probably beginning in the early 1660s
and continuing until at least 1717." At one point, Lenthall
produced specialty cards in 40 different categories, #18 of
which was fortune telling. The so-called "Lenthall
fortune-telling deck" was created by Dorman Newman in 1690,
and later published by Lenthalls firm. (Mann 134-150; WPC
47-48.)
c.1660 P Paris, France.
A complete 78-card deck by Jacques Vievil, with aberrant
iconography and order, also has a narrative gloss on the
Trumps. Many features are reminiscent of Belgium decks, so
Vievil provides an important link in the evolution and spread
of Tarot. (K II:307, 308; GT 205-207.)
c.1660 P Paris, France.
Seventy-three cards survive from Jean Noblet's deck. "Two
documents of 1659 cite Jean Noblet, maitre-cartier (master
cardmaker), living... in Paris. D'Allemangne indicated that
Noblet's name is to be found on a list of cardmakers in 1664,
and Jacques Vieville's name is on the same list." (K II:307,
309.) The trumps can be seen at
http://www.azimutconcept.com/tarot/ecole/jeu_n.htm.
______________________________________________________________
The iconography of the Noblet Sun and World cards matches
closely with that of the corresponding cards from Sforza
Castle. The Sforza Sun card is one of a group of three cards:
"Sylvia Mann, according to Michael Dummett, dated [this group
of] cards circa 1700 due to the back designs, which are
borderless and do not fold over the fronts of the cards." The
Sforza World card is one of a group of six, which according to
Kaplan, were dated by Francesco Novati to the late sixteenth
century. If the original of the TdM pattern (sans number and
title panels) came from Milan circa 1500, then it seems
plausible that the Sforza Castle cards and the Noblet deck
might both be rather direct descendants (100-200 years
removed) of the same elusive Milanese ancestor. (K II:293,
296.)
______________________________________________________________
1669 Lyon, France.
Claude François Menestrier (cf. 1704) wrote Traite des
Tournois, Iovstes, Carrovsels, et Avtres Spectacles Pvblics,
published by Jacques Muguet. The book was an "exhaustive study
on public spectacle and its symbolism, the first of its kind.
Menestrier, a member of the Jesuit order, published widely on
the arts, ballet, music, and design. He was arguably the
foremost scholar of his century in the field of allegory,
emblems, devices, and their use. His interest in public
festivals and ceremonies resulting in his organizing several
events including the spectacular celebration for Louis XIV's
visit to Lyon in 1658 (mentioned here in his Letter to the
Reader). In this work, which took 15 years to complete,
Menestrier unravels the complex symbolism of tournaments,
jousts, pageants, masques, balls, and the like. He illustrates
his research with detailed descriptions of elaborate
festivities staged in the seventeenth century throughout
Europe, including a naval display on the Thames in 1613. An
important part is also devoted to the carrousels and fêtes in
which horses took part, and a special chapter deals with
horses engaged in these fêtes (Toole-Stott). The pictorial,
engraved chapter headings depict scenes or precessions in
several of the pageants. §Toole-Stott 10491." (Entry from an
online sales catalog; a first edition was listed for $1,800.)
1672 P Marseilles, France.
A complete 78-card deck by Francois Chosson is the earliest
extant version of the most common modern TdM design. This
design is the same as the 1718 Heri deck, as well as for the
famous and influential 1760 Conver deck, which followed
Chosson in exact detail. Modern TdM decks by Fournier and
Grimaud reflect this design. (K II:310, 312.)
1672 +
"A book in Latin on Occult Sciences written by Schwabergen, in
which he shews that in addition there are favorable hours, and
that no divinatory operations (whether by cards or otherwise)
should be undertaken when it is too foggy, stormy, raining or
windy. A calm sky appears to him an essential condition."
(Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL. No source was cited
for the quote, nor any indication of the context of the
parenthetical comment regarding cards.)
c.1680 P Constance, France.
Johann Pelagius Mayer Tarot deck, earliest surviving example
of the Tarot de Besancon pattern. (D 211, 217; K I:136.)
1690 +P London, England.
A deck of 52 fortune-telling cards, by Dorman Newman. "The
plates for [the Dorman Newman] pack were later taken over by
the cardmaker John Lenthall, who made new ones for some of the
cards." Lenthalls name is generally attached to this deck,
which appears to be the first known divinatory deck. "What we
have here is essentially the transference of the method of
Marcolinos book to a pack of cards, since the questions and
answers, and, in clue form, the intermediate instructions, are
printed on the cards themselves. This represents a step
towards the practice of fortune-telling with ordinary playing
cards, in that it liberates the user from having to consult a
book." (GT 96; WPC 47-48.)
1701 P Lyon, France.
"From at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, French
cardmakers were exporting Tarot packs to Savoy, then an
independent state comprising Piedmont as well as Savoy proper,
which became part of France only in 1880. Probably the
earliest surviving pack of this kind is one made by Jean Dodal
of Lyons, who was active there from 1701 to 1715...." The
modern Carta Mundi TdM appears to be based on this deck. (GT
196.) The trumps can be seen at
http://www.azimutconcept.com/tarot/ecole/jeu_d.htm.
1703 +
"Advertisement in The Post-Man (No. 1223) of Thursday, Dec.
30: New Cards, viz.:1, Diverting and innocent Fortune-telling
Cards." (Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL.)
1704 +
"Advertisement in the Post-Man (No. 1362) from Saturday, Dec.
30: Queen Annes Cards... at... where are also to be had
Fortune-telling Cards at 1s. a Pack." Both ads "emanated from
Samuel Fullwood, a card-maker of some repute." (Entire entry
from Greer post to TarotL.)
1704 Lyon, France.
Jesuit Claude François Menestrier (cf. 1669) interpreted the
four suits as social allegories. "Hearts represented men of
the Church, Diamonds the Merchants, Clubs were the symbols of
Peasantry, and Spades that of the Noblesse depee. these
meanings were familiar to Court de Gebelin and the comte de
Mellet." (WPC 75.) "Court cards, he says, represent the
nobility, hearts the ecclesiastics, their place being in the
c(h)oeur, (choir), Pikes, (spades) represent the nobility,
carreaux (paving-tiles) the bourgeoisie, and trefoils the
peasantry." (P 176.)
1709 P Dijon, France.
Pierre Madenie deck, in the Chosson style. (K II:314-315.)
1713 P Avignon, France.
Jean-Pierre Payen deck, in the Dodal style. (K I:148; K
II:316, 321.)
1718 P Soleure, Switzerland.
Francois Heri deck, in the Chosson style. (K II:314, 317.)
c.1718 P Soleure, Switzerland.
Francois Heri deck, in the Noblet style. (K II:314, 318.)
1735 + England.
"The Square of Sevens, and the Parallelogram by Robert
Antrobus, a system of cartomancy as taught to the author by a
Gypsy, Mr. George X---. (published in London, but most copies
burned in a fire) - known only through an 1896 edition edited
by E. Irenaeus Stevenson (original may be apocryphal)."
(Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL.)
c.1740 + Bologna, Italy.
The earliest evidence of Tarot cartomancy: "A single loose
manuscript sheet giving cartomantic interpretations of the
thirty-five cards of the Tarocco bolognese". This was
discovered in the Library of the University of Bologna. The
terminology used in the document suggests a date prior to 1750
when the two Fantesca were replaced by Fante. This is a more
highly developed form of cartomancy than that represented by
the Lenthall deck. (WPC 49-50.)
c.1750 P Central Europe.
French-suited Tarot decks were introduced in the second half
of the eighteenth century. These decks became very popular,
using arbitrary images for the Trumps. These images tended to
center on themes of animals, natural history, or rural
scenery. (Mann 171.)
1760 Marseilles, France.
Nicolas Conver created a very exact copy of the 1672 Francois
Chosson deck. Various examples of this deck are extant, and
appear to have been the basis for some modern TdM decks such
as those produced by Fournier and Grimaud. Two of the
surviving Conver decks have been published as
photo-reproductions, one by Heron, and the other by Lo
Scarabeo.
______________________________________________________________
An example of Conver's precision in copying Chosson's design
is provided by one of the minor changes he made. Chosson had
the number XII on the Hanged Man reversed, IIX. Conver
corrected this, removing the II from the left of the X and
placing it on the right, without changing the position of the
X in relation to the rest of the image. The resulting XII is
therefore oddly off center, in contrast to all the other
numbers, and to the original IIX. Such preservation of detail
is striking, suggestive of a direct copying process, either
using the original blocks, a print taken from the original, or
the cards themselves used for an image transfer.
______________________________________________________________
1765 + St. Petersburg, Russia.
Giacomo Casanova reported that his Russian peasant mistress
read the cards every day. A 25-card (5x5) spread is mentioned,
the earliest suggestion of modern-style cartomancy. (D 106;
WPC 74.)
1770 + Paris, France.
Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette) produces the first book
describing modern-style cartomancy: A Way to Entertain Oneself
with a Pack of Cards. A self-styled mathematics teacher and
professional fortune teller, presented not only a method of
fortune telling with a regular 32-card French deck, but also
mentioned fortune telling with Tarot. (WPC 74ff.)
______________________________________________________________
After Etteilla, there is far too much material on cartomancy
and occult Tarot to reference, and the presentations in A
Wicked Pack of Cards and The History of Occult Tarot are
comprehensive and accessible. Only a few highlights are noted
here, along with a couple ancillary items from outside that
subject area.
______________________________________________________________
1781 + France.
Antoine de Gebelin published volume VIII of Monde primitif,
including two essays on occult Tarot. (WPC 58ff.)
1783 + France.
Etteilla begins publishing on Tarot, with A Way to Entertain
Oneself with a Pack of Cards called Tarot. (WPC 84.)
1783 + Germany.
Patience, the game commonly called Solitaire, is noted in "the
German game anthology Das neue Konigliche LHombre-Spiel as
both Patience and Cabale. In Das neue Spiel-almanach fur 1798,
patiencespiel is represented as a contest between two players,
each of whom in turn plays a game of Patience while
bystanders, and presumably the players themselves, lay bets on
the outcome."
"Patience is only one of several words used to denote
one-player card games: it is the earliest recorded of them, is
evidently French, and also denotes one-player games in
general. In modern French the card game is more often referred
to as reussite, meaning success or favourable outcome, to
distinguish it from patience, now meaning jigsaw puzzle." "The
French use of reussite is explained in Littre as a combination
of cards [by] which superstitious persons try to divine the
success of an undertaking, a vow, etc. If this suggests an
origin in fortune-telling, the theory is reinforced by the
name of the game in Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic, namely
kabal(e), or secret knowledge. In Poland, where Patience is
called pasjans, the word kabala also occurs with the specific
meaning of fortune-telling with cards. Perhaps, then, the
original purpose of a Patience game was light-heartedly to
divine the success of an undertaking, a vow, etc., as Littre
suggests. If the game succeeds (reussit), then the answer is
favourable, otherwise not."
"The theory is further supported by the fact that the earliest
description of Patience occurs within a few years of the
invention of card layouts for cartomancy (fortune-telling),
which, contrary to popular belief, is not reliably reported
before about 1765." (P 157-158.) That reference is to the
description by Casanova. Its also worth noting that the German
description of this game occurs about a decade after Etteillas
groundbreaking book on cartomancy, and at essentially the same
time as de Gebelin and Etteillas re-invention of Tarot. Occult
meanings and divinatory uses for playing cards were clearly in
the air during the second half of the eighteenth century, as
never before in their 400 year European history.
1783 Thuringa, Germany.
"The earliest detailed account of the manner of play comes
from an article published in a German periodical of 1783,
describing Karniffle as then played among the Thuringian
peasantry." "The Thuringian and Frisian versions [of
Karnöffel] have the surprising feature of having two trump
suits, while the Swiss forms have only one." (GT 185.)
1789 +P Paris, France.
Etteillas Tarot deck, the first occult Tarot deck, is produced
between December of 88 and March of 89. One of his disciples
wrote of receiving his copy in March, noting, "You alone could
reinstate the ancient Tarot cards in their true and primeval
splendour." (WPC 91.)
c.1840 P France.
Kaplan dates the Grandpretre Tarot, reflecting the influence
of de Gebelin, to the late eighteenth century, describing it
as a hand-colored French deck, "made from copper plates in the
late eighteenth century." On Plate 8, WPC dates what appears
to be the same deck to c.1840, describing them as "anonymous
hand-drawn Tarot cards". Kaplan notes that the cards are
small, 1-7/8" wide by 3-3/8" tall (about the size of business
cards), with novel subjects, sequence, iconography, and names.
"II The Popess is III La grandepretresse (The High Priestess),
and V The Pope is II Le grandpretre (The High Priest).
Furthermore, III The Empress and IV The Emperor are
transformed into V La Royne and IV Le Roy respectively. XII La
prudence replaces The Hanged Man, and shows a man upright and
balanced on one foot, with the other foot crossed behind. Card
XV is untitled but depicts The Fool instead of the Devil.
Since only twenty-one Major Arcana remain in this deck and
card XV is untitled, it is not known for certain whether The
Devil card was originally included in the pack, or if card XV
is in fact meant to combine The Fool and The Devil." (WPC
Plate 8, K II:194, 196, 336-337.)
c.1850 Midwest, U.S.
Based on a variety of evidence, Euchre is "the game for which
the Joker was invented, probably in the 1850s." It is not
derived from the Fool in Tarot, and was probably not first
used in Poker until later in the nineteenth century. (P 191.)
1856 Paris, France.
Alphonse-Louis Constant, aka Eliphas Levi, published Dogma and
Ritual of Transcendental Magic. "Had it not been for Etteilla,
Court de Gebelins speculations about the Tarot would most
likely have been forgotten, buried in the eighth large tome of
his unfinished treatise on the supposed ancient civilisation.
For all his high-flown theories, Etteillas main objective was
cartomancy. Certainly Etteillas writings, even less readable
or capable of being taken seriously than Court de Gebelins,
would rest in the obscurity of oblivion." Although
fortune-telling "prospered as never before" in the first half
of the nineteenth century, occultism was "in a moribund
condition when Levi started to revivify it by his books about
it. The astonishing fact is that his work formed the narrow
channel through which the whole Western tradition of magic
flowed to the modern era." "Levi completed the task, begun in
the Renaissance, of synthesising the various ingredients of
the Western tradition of magic; it was he who finally made it
a single tradition." And he tied it all, "the Cabala, alchemy,
Hermetism, astrology, magnetism and even a little black magic
from the grimoires", to Tarot. This was the real founding of
modern occult Tarot. "The students of occult science in the
Renaissance would have been astonished to see that pack of
cards elevated to the rank of a fundamental source of magical
imagery and doctrine." (WPC 166f.)
1863 Paris, France.
Paul Christian, published Lhomme rouge des Tuileries, (The
Little Red Man of Tuileries). (WPC 197-202.)
c.1865 P Paris, France.
Edmond Billaudot creates the Tarot Belline deck, ("named after
Marcel Belline, a professional cartomancer who still works in
Paris"), following the descriptions from Christians Red Man.
The modern Tarot Belline cards "reproduce ones hand-drawn in
pen and ink by Demond for his own use; these were discovered
by Belline, who passed them to Grimaud to put on the market.
Belline donated the originals to the Musee des Arts et
Traditions populaires in Paris...." This is the first deck to
explicitly reference correspondence with the Hebrew alphabet.
(WPC 162, 202-203.) This deck can be seen, along with
Christian's descriptions, on Andrew Kostenko's site, at
http://ln.com.ua/~kostenko/pctarot.html.
1870 Paris, France.
Paul Christian, published Histoire de la magie. "Almost all
the matter concerning the Tarot contained in Lhomme rouge is
reproduced in the Histoire. This time, however, the word Tarot
does not occur a single time in the entire book." Instead, he
refers to an ancient Egyptian ceremony, in an underground hall
beneath the Great Pyramid. "The postulant climbs down an iron
ladder, with seventy-eight rungs, and enters a hall on either
side of which are twelve statues, and, between each pair of
statues, a painting." (WPC 205-206.)
1888 P England.
Samuel Liddell Mathers, aka MacGregor Mathers, published The
Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and
Method of Play, and was probably the principle designer of the
Golden Dawn style of Tarot deck. (K I:256.)
1888 France.
Eugene Jacob, aka Ely Star, "published a book on astrology,
Les Mysteres de lhoroscope. This was a profoundly unoriginal
work, borrowed almost entirely from the astrological writings
of Paul Christian; even the title was lifted from that of a
section of Lhomme rouge des Tuileries. Ely Star diverged from
Christian principally in his willingness to refer to the Tarot
by name." He adopted Christians occult names for the cards,
but he placed the Fool at the end of the Tarot sequence,
numbering it XXII, (thereby changing the subsequent numbering
of the Minor Arcana as well.) This innovation was followed by
many Egyptianized decks, all derivative from the 1896
Falconnier-Wegener deck. Star introduced the terms Major
Arcana and Minor Arcana, also used by Papus the following
year. (WPC 242-243.)
1889 France.
Dr. Gerard Encausse, aka Papus, published Le Tarot des
Bohemiens. "This book is of great importance, as being the
first systematic interpretation of the Tarot on its own by any
follower of Levi. It was illustrated by cards of the Tarot de
Marseille, discreetly embellished with Hebrew letters, and
also, for the major Arcana, by cards from Oswald Wirths
designs, published in the same year." (WPC 243.)
1889 P France.
Stanislas de Guaita, a "fervent admirer of Eliphas Levi", met
Oswald Wirth, and "learning, on his very first meeting with
Wirth, that he was an amateur artist, de Guaita suggested to
him that he should fulfil Levi's unrealized project of
restoring the twenty-two Arcana of the Tarot their
hieroglyphic purity. Wirth accepted the charge; having no
previoius knowledge of the Tarot, he was guided by de Guaita's
instructions. In this way, he designed a set consisting only
of the twenty-two 'major Arcana'; published in 1889, it was
limited to 350 copies, under the title Les 22 Arcanes du Tarot
Kabbalistique, with a subtitle, 'Designed for the use of
initiates by Oswald Wirth in accordance with the indications
of Stanislas de Guaita'." (WPC 238.)
______________________________________________________________
"Up to 1889, then, the subject [occult Tarot] had so far been
the preserve of a small body of students of magic. But that
was soon to change in France: from 1890 onwards, the Tarot
became a common topic in the growing literature upon the
occult." (WPC 255.)
______________________________________________________________
1896 P Paris, France.
"The most interesting manifestation of the new vogue was Le
XXII lames hermetiques du tarot divinatoire (1986), by R.
Falconnier.... It contains illustrations of the Tarot trumps,
said in the subtitle of the book to be 'exactly reconstituted
from the sacred texts, in accordance with the tradition of the
Magi of ancient Egypt'... The designs, which were intended to
be cut out, pasted on to card and coloured, had been executed
by the artist Maurice Otto Wegener, following Falconnier's
instructions. They are Egyptianized versions of those of the
Tarot de Marseille: the earliest, outside the Etteilla
tradition, of a long series of pseudo-Egyptian versions of the
Tarot. The cards are adorned with letters from the 'alphabet
of the Magi', but not with numbers, Hebrew letters, or names."
(WPC 255.)
1909 P Paris, France.
Papus-Goulinet deck Le Tarot divinatoire by Papus.
1910 P England.
Waite-Smith deck The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur E.
Waite.
1945 P England.
Crowley-Harris deck The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley.
1966 Vietnam.
"The Ace of Spades served a famous purpose in the war in
Vietnam. In February, 1966, two lieutenants of Company C,
Second Battalion, 35th Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, wrote
The United States Playing Card Company and requested decks
containing nothing but the Bicycle Ace of Spades. The cards
were useful in psychological warfare. The Viet Cong were very
superstitious and highly frightened by this Ace. The French
previously had occupied Indo-China, and in French
fortune-telling with cards, the Spades predicted death and
suffering. The Viet Cong even regarded lady liberty as a
goddess of death. USPC shipped thousands of the requested
decks gratis to our troops in Vietnam. These decks were housed
in plain white tuckcases, inscribed Bicycle Secret Weapon. The
cards were deliberately scattered in the jungle and in hostile
villages during raids. The very sight of the Bicycle Ace was
said to cause many Viet Cong to flee." (From the history page
of the U.S. Playing Card Co.,
http://www.usplayingcard.com/history.html.) Various
individualized versions of this Death Card were also printed,
some of which included threatening statements on the back,
printed in Vietnamese.
The reference to Lady Liberty refers to the design of the
Bicycle Ace of Spades, also described on their history page:
"This Ace features, within the suit sign, a woman who rests
her right hand on a sword and shield while she holds an olive
branch in her left. The image was inspired by Thomas Crawfords
sculpture, Statue of Freedom. which, in 1865, had been placed
atop the Capitol Building in Washington, DC." The Ace of
Spades as a "Death Card" dates back to the mid
fifteenth-century, with a skull and crossed bones appearing,
along with the suit sign, in the Goldschmidt Tarot deck. (K
I:110.)
______________________________________________________________
Entries in Linked Files
To preserve the chronological flow of the list, the few
entries that include extended descriptions are located in
separate files. They are linked to their location in the list,
and also grouped together here.
1377 Basel, Switzerland. Johannes von Rheinfelden's Tractatus
de moribus.
1423 Bologna, Italy. Saint Bernardines Sermon., Contra alearum
ludos.
1429 Nordlingen, Germany. Karnöffel, the first known game
using trumps.
1449 Milan, Italy. Letter of transmittal, accompanying The
Besozzo Cards.
c.1450 Switzerland. Earliest examples of Swiss suit-system:
See Modern Deck Designs.
1459 Mantua, Italy. Hypothesized origin of The "Mantegna"
Cosmograph.
c.1475 Ferrara, Italy. A unique allegorical Tarot, The Boiardo
Tarot Deck.
c.1470 ? A Dominican friar wrote Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis.
See The Steele Sermon.
1491 Ferrara, Italy. A unique classical Tarot, The Sola Busca
Tarot Deck.
1540 Venice, Italy. Marcolino's losbuch. See A Timeline of
Cartomancy.
1550 Venice, Italy. An ironic verse diatribe against Tarot.
See The Invettiva of Lollio.
______________________________________________________________
© 2003 Michael J. Hurst mjhurst@earthlink.net
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