Post by bluefedish on Jun 21, 2007 19:37:34 GMT -5
The Origins
Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century with the Mamelukes of Egypt, with suits of Scimitars, Polo Sticks, Cups and Coins. These designs rapidly evolved into the basic 'Latin' suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins, which are still used in traditional Italian and Spanish packs. All evidence indicates that the first tarot decks were created between 1410 and 1430 in either Milan, Ferrara, or Bologna, in northern Italy, when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the more common four-suit decks that already existed. These new decks were originally called “carte da trionfi”, or "triumph cards." The first literary evidence of the existence of carte da trionfi is a written statement in the court records in Ferrara, in 1442. The oldest surviving Tarot cards are from 15 fragmented decks painted in the mid 15th century for the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.
When the tarot was first used for divination isn't known, but no documented examples exist prior to the 18th century. However divination using similar cards is in evidence as early as 1540; a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli shows a simple method of divination using the coin suit of a regular playing card deck. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot, as well as a system for laying out the cards. In 1765, Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.
In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote a speculative history and a detailed system for using tarot for divination. Since the publication of this history, various explanations have been given for the origins of tarot, most of them of doubtful veracity. There is no evidence for any tarot cards prior to the hand-painted ones that were used by Italian nobles, though some esoteric schools place tarot's origin in Ancient Egypt, or Ancient India.
History of Early Tarot Decks
The relationship between tarot cards and playing cards is well documented. Playing cards first appeared in Christian Europe some time before 1367, the date of the first documented evidence of their existence, a ban on their use, in Bern, Switzerland. Before this, cards had been used for several decades in Islamic Spain (see playing card history for discussion of its origins). Early European sources describe a deck with typically 52 cards, like a modern deck with no jokers. The 78-card tarot resulted from adding 21 trumps and The Fool — analogous to the modern joker — to an early 56-card variant (14 cards per suit).
A greater distribution of playing cards in Europe can, with some certainty, be given from 1377 onwards. Tarot cards appear to have been developed some 40 years later, and they are mentioned in the surviving text of Martiano da Tortona. Da Tortona's text is thought to have been written between 1418 and 1425, since in 1418 the confirmed painter Michelino da Besozzo returned to Milan, and Martiano da Tortona died in 1425. It cannot be proven that tarot cards did not exist earlier than this date, but it seems improbable as the Martiano da Tortona text was written at least 15 years earlier than other corroborating documents.
Da Tortona describes a deck similar to tarot cards in many specific ways. What he describes is more a precursor to tarot than what we might think of as "real" tarot cards. For instance, his deck has only 16 trumps, its motifs are not comparable to common tarot cards (they are Greek gods) and the suits are four kinds of birds, not the common Italian suits.
What makes da Tortona's deck similar to tarot cards is that these 16 cards are obviously regarded as trump cards in a card game; about 25 years later, a near-contemporary speaker, Jacopo Antonio Marcello, called them a ludus triumphorum, or "game winner". The letter in which Marcello uses this term has been documented and translated on the Internet.
The next documents that seem to confirm the existence of objects similar to tarot cards are two playing card decks from Milan (Brera-Brambrilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi) — extant, but fragmentary — and three documents, all from the court of Ferrara, Italy. It is not possible to put a precise date on the cards, but it is estimated that they were made circa 1440. The three documents date from 1 January 1441 to July 1442, with the term trionfi first documented in February 1442. The document from January 1441, which used the term trionfi, is regarded as unreliable; however, the fact that the same painter, Sagramoro, was commissioned by the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as in the February 1442 document, indicates that it is at least plausibly an example of the same type. After 1442 there is some seven years without any examples of similar material, which gives no reason to conclude a greater distribution of the game during these years. The game seemed to gain in importance in the year 1450, though, a Jubilee year in Italy, which saw many festivities and movement of pilgrims.
Until this time all relevant early documents point to the origin of the trionfi cards as being in the upper class of Italian society, specifically the courts of Milan and Ferrara. At the time, these were the most exclusive courts in Europe.
In the given context, it seems apparent that the special motifs on the trumps, which were added to regular playing cards with a "four suits of 14 cards" structure, were ideologically determined. They are thought to show a specific system of transporting messages of different content; known early examples show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic ideas, for instance, as well as a group of old Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case of the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (1491) and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (produced at an unknown date between 1461 and 1494). For example, the earliest-known deck, extant only in its description in Martiano's short book, was produced to show the system of Greek gods, a theme that was very fashionable in Italy at the time. Its production may well have accompanied a triumphal celebration of the commissioner Filippo Maria Visconti, ruler of Milan, meaning that the purpose of the deck was to express and consolidate the political power in Milan (as was common for other artworks of the time). The four suits showed birds, motifs that appeared regularly in Visconti heraldry, and the specific order of the gods gives reason to assume that the deck was intended to imply that the Visconti identified themselves as descendants from Jupiter and Venus (which were seen not as gods but deified mortal heroes).
This first known deck seems to have had the standard ten numbered cards, but having kings as the only court card, and only 16 trumps. The later standard (four suits of 14 plus 22) took time to settle; trionfi decks with 70 cards only are still spoken of in 1457. No corroborating evidence for the final standard 78-card format exists prior to the Boiardo Tarocchi poem and the Sola Busca Tarocchi.
Individual researchers' opinions are that the trionfi decks of the early time primarily had five suits of fourteen cards only; the trumps and the fool were simply considered as a fifth suit with predefined trump function.
The oldest surviving tarot cards are three early- to mid-15th century sets, all made for members of the Visconti family. The oldest of these existing tarot decks was perhaps painted to celebrate a mid-15th century wedding joining the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan, probably painted by Bonifacio Bembo and other miniaturists of the Ferrara school. Of the original cards, 35 are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, 26 are at the Accademia Carrara, 13 are at the Casa Colleoni and four — the Devil, the Tower, the Three of Swords and the Knight of Coins — are lost, or possibly were never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced, combines the suits of swords, batons, coins and cups and the court cards king, queen, knight and page with trumps that reflect conventional iconography of the time to a significant degree.
For a long time tarot cards remained a privilege for the upper class of society, and, although some sermons inveighing against the evil inherent in cards can be traced to the 14th century, the Roman Catholic Church and most civil governments did not routinely condemn tarot cards during tarot's early history. In fact, in some jurisdictions, tarot cards were specifically exempted from laws otherwise prohibiting the playing of cards.
Later Tarot Decks
As the earliest tarot cards were hand-painted, the number of the decks produced is thought to have been rather small, and it was only after the invention of the printing press that mass production of cards became possible. Decks survive from this era from various cities in France (the best known being a deck from the southern city of Marseilles). At around the same time, the name tarocchi appeared.
Recently, the use of Tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of Oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, faeries, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although obviously influenced by Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the traditional major arcana.
Selected Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot
altreligion.about.com
Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century with the Mamelukes of Egypt, with suits of Scimitars, Polo Sticks, Cups and Coins. These designs rapidly evolved into the basic 'Latin' suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins, which are still used in traditional Italian and Spanish packs. All evidence indicates that the first tarot decks were created between 1410 and 1430 in either Milan, Ferrara, or Bologna, in northern Italy, when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the more common four-suit decks that already existed. These new decks were originally called “carte da trionfi”, or "triumph cards." The first literary evidence of the existence of carte da trionfi is a written statement in the court records in Ferrara, in 1442. The oldest surviving Tarot cards are from 15 fragmented decks painted in the mid 15th century for the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.
When the tarot was first used for divination isn't known, but no documented examples exist prior to the 18th century. However divination using similar cards is in evidence as early as 1540; a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli shows a simple method of divination using the coin suit of a regular playing card deck. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot, as well as a system for laying out the cards. In 1765, Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.
In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote a speculative history and a detailed system for using tarot for divination. Since the publication of this history, various explanations have been given for the origins of tarot, most of them of doubtful veracity. There is no evidence for any tarot cards prior to the hand-painted ones that were used by Italian nobles, though some esoteric schools place tarot's origin in Ancient Egypt, or Ancient India.
History of Early Tarot Decks
The relationship between tarot cards and playing cards is well documented. Playing cards first appeared in Christian Europe some time before 1367, the date of the first documented evidence of their existence, a ban on their use, in Bern, Switzerland. Before this, cards had been used for several decades in Islamic Spain (see playing card history for discussion of its origins). Early European sources describe a deck with typically 52 cards, like a modern deck with no jokers. The 78-card tarot resulted from adding 21 trumps and The Fool — analogous to the modern joker — to an early 56-card variant (14 cards per suit).
A greater distribution of playing cards in Europe can, with some certainty, be given from 1377 onwards. Tarot cards appear to have been developed some 40 years later, and they are mentioned in the surviving text of Martiano da Tortona. Da Tortona's text is thought to have been written between 1418 and 1425, since in 1418 the confirmed painter Michelino da Besozzo returned to Milan, and Martiano da Tortona died in 1425. It cannot be proven that tarot cards did not exist earlier than this date, but it seems improbable as the Martiano da Tortona text was written at least 15 years earlier than other corroborating documents.
Da Tortona describes a deck similar to tarot cards in many specific ways. What he describes is more a precursor to tarot than what we might think of as "real" tarot cards. For instance, his deck has only 16 trumps, its motifs are not comparable to common tarot cards (they are Greek gods) and the suits are four kinds of birds, not the common Italian suits.
What makes da Tortona's deck similar to tarot cards is that these 16 cards are obviously regarded as trump cards in a card game; about 25 years later, a near-contemporary speaker, Jacopo Antonio Marcello, called them a ludus triumphorum, or "game winner". The letter in which Marcello uses this term has been documented and translated on the Internet.
The next documents that seem to confirm the existence of objects similar to tarot cards are two playing card decks from Milan (Brera-Brambrilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi) — extant, but fragmentary — and three documents, all from the court of Ferrara, Italy. It is not possible to put a precise date on the cards, but it is estimated that they were made circa 1440. The three documents date from 1 January 1441 to July 1442, with the term trionfi first documented in February 1442. The document from January 1441, which used the term trionfi, is regarded as unreliable; however, the fact that the same painter, Sagramoro, was commissioned by the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as in the February 1442 document, indicates that it is at least plausibly an example of the same type. After 1442 there is some seven years without any examples of similar material, which gives no reason to conclude a greater distribution of the game during these years. The game seemed to gain in importance in the year 1450, though, a Jubilee year in Italy, which saw many festivities and movement of pilgrims.
Until this time all relevant early documents point to the origin of the trionfi cards as being in the upper class of Italian society, specifically the courts of Milan and Ferrara. At the time, these were the most exclusive courts in Europe.
In the given context, it seems apparent that the special motifs on the trumps, which were added to regular playing cards with a "four suits of 14 cards" structure, were ideologically determined. They are thought to show a specific system of transporting messages of different content; known early examples show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic ideas, for instance, as well as a group of old Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case of the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (1491) and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (produced at an unknown date between 1461 and 1494). For example, the earliest-known deck, extant only in its description in Martiano's short book, was produced to show the system of Greek gods, a theme that was very fashionable in Italy at the time. Its production may well have accompanied a triumphal celebration of the commissioner Filippo Maria Visconti, ruler of Milan, meaning that the purpose of the deck was to express and consolidate the political power in Milan (as was common for other artworks of the time). The four suits showed birds, motifs that appeared regularly in Visconti heraldry, and the specific order of the gods gives reason to assume that the deck was intended to imply that the Visconti identified themselves as descendants from Jupiter and Venus (which were seen not as gods but deified mortal heroes).
This first known deck seems to have had the standard ten numbered cards, but having kings as the only court card, and only 16 trumps. The later standard (four suits of 14 plus 22) took time to settle; trionfi decks with 70 cards only are still spoken of in 1457. No corroborating evidence for the final standard 78-card format exists prior to the Boiardo Tarocchi poem and the Sola Busca Tarocchi.
Individual researchers' opinions are that the trionfi decks of the early time primarily had five suits of fourteen cards only; the trumps and the fool were simply considered as a fifth suit with predefined trump function.
The oldest surviving tarot cards are three early- to mid-15th century sets, all made for members of the Visconti family. The oldest of these existing tarot decks was perhaps painted to celebrate a mid-15th century wedding joining the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan, probably painted by Bonifacio Bembo and other miniaturists of the Ferrara school. Of the original cards, 35 are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, 26 are at the Accademia Carrara, 13 are at the Casa Colleoni and four — the Devil, the Tower, the Three of Swords and the Knight of Coins — are lost, or possibly were never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced, combines the suits of swords, batons, coins and cups and the court cards king, queen, knight and page with trumps that reflect conventional iconography of the time to a significant degree.
For a long time tarot cards remained a privilege for the upper class of society, and, although some sermons inveighing against the evil inherent in cards can be traced to the 14th century, the Roman Catholic Church and most civil governments did not routinely condemn tarot cards during tarot's early history. In fact, in some jurisdictions, tarot cards were specifically exempted from laws otherwise prohibiting the playing of cards.
Later Tarot Decks
As the earliest tarot cards were hand-painted, the number of the decks produced is thought to have been rather small, and it was only after the invention of the printing press that mass production of cards became possible. Decks survive from this era from various cities in France (the best known being a deck from the southern city of Marseilles). At around the same time, the name tarocchi appeared.
Recently, the use of Tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of Oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, faeries, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although obviously influenced by Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the traditional major arcana.
Selected Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot
altreligion.about.com
