Oldest Tarot Cards

<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0" > <tr> <td valign="middle" width="60"><center><a href="http://autorbis.net" target="_blank"><img src="http://trionfi.com/00/kldreieck2.jpg" width="36" height="31" border="0" alt="autorbis.net"></a></center></td> <td valign="middle" width="120"><a href="http://trionfi.com" target="_blank"><font size="5" face="Garamond, Verdana"><b><center><i> Trionfi </i></center></b></font></a></td> <td valign="middle"><center> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial Narrow"> <b><a href="http://trionfi.com/" target="_top"> * START </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/tarot-history/" target="_top"> * TAROT HISTORY </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/tarot-playing-cards-museum/" target="_top"> * TAROT MUSEUM </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/a/" target="_top">* ABOUT US *</a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/" target="_top">Oldest Tarot * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/c/" target="_top">Imperatori * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/d/" target="_top">Ferrara 1441 * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/e/" target="_top">Trionfi Documents * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/f/" target="_top">5x14 * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/g/" target="_top">From 14 to 22 * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/h/" target="_top">Boiardo * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/m/00/" target="_top">Mantegna Tarocchi * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/i/" target="_top">Iconography * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/j/" target="_top">Time Table * </a> <a href="http://autorbis.net/tarot/links/02/" target="_top">Researchers * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/l/" target="_top">Locations * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/n/" target="_top">News * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/p/" target="_top">Play * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/p/01/" target="_top">Playing Cards documents * <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/q/" target="_top">FAQ * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/t/" target="_top">Name Trionfi * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/v/" target="_top">Reviews * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/x/" target="_top">Free Reading * </a> <a href="http://autorbis.net/tarot/links/01/" target="_top">Links * </a> <a href="http://trionfi.com/Images-of-Tarot-Cards/" target="_top">SURPRIZE *</a> </font> </center>  <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> var sc_project=1754543; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_partition=16; var sc_security="e83448b1"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/frames.js"></script><noscript><a href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://c17.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=1754543&java=0&security=e83448b1&invisible=1" alt="hit counter script" border="0"></a> </noscript>  </td><td><iframe style="width:220px; height:35px; margin:5px;" frameborder=0 allowtransparency=yes scrolling=no src="http://search.digitalpoint.com/iframe.php?site=trionfi.com&s=120&b=1&y=1"></iframe> </td></tr></table> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0"> <tr><td><a name="a"><b><font size="3" color="#0033ff" face="Verdana, Arial Narrow">    A</font></b></a><a href="http://autorbis.net" target="_blank"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial Narrow">UTORBIS.net </font></a> - <a href="http://trionfi.com" target="_blank"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial Narrow">TRIONFI.com </font></a> </td> <td align="right"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial Narrow">created 2003 - 2006       </td> </tr></table><hr size="1" width="90%"> <table width="100%"><tr><td rowspan="2" width="30%" align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#dddddd"> <b><font size="+1">The Oldest Tarot Cards<br> - Michelino Deck</font></b><br> <br><ul> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/" target="_top">Start</a><br><br> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/01/">The Development of this Text</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/02/">A Famous Note / Decembrio</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/03/">A Letter from Marcello</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/04/">A Manuscript of Martiano</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/05/">Surrounding Conditions</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/06/">Dating of the Deck</a><br><BR><br> </ul> <a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/07/"><FONT SIZE="+1">Analyses of the Deck</FONT></a><UL> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/71/">12 Olympic Gods</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/72/">Daphne is the centered figure</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/73/">Daphne, Petrarca, Laura, Ovid</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/74/">Daphne is hunted - like the Pagat</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/75/">Jupiter was an ancestor</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/76/">Riddle of the number 16</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/77/">Filippo Maria was very modern</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/78/">Daphne reappears</a> <br><br> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/08/">A Trionfi deck before <br>the other Trionfi decks</a><br><br> <br><br> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/09/" target="_top">Who's Who</a><br><br> <br><br> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/b-old.html" target="_blank">Old Version (summer 2003)</a></ul> </ul> <font color="red">NEW in Jan. 2005</font> <ul> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/10/">Translation of Marcello's letter</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/0/b/11/">Tanslation of Martiano's manuscript</a></ul> </ul></td><td height="50" align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#dddddd"> Oldest Tarot Cards </td></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#eeeeee"> <h1>Daphne is the centered figure</h1> <center> <table width="600" border="1" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <th align="left"><font color="#0033ff">Suit</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#0033ff">Suit-sign</font></th> <th align="left" colspan="4"><font color="#0033ff">16 "Greek" gods in increasing order</font></th> </tr> <tr> <th align="left">Virtues</th> <th align="left">eagle</th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">1. Jupiter</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">5. Apollo</font></th> <th align="left"> <font color="#FF00FF"> 9. Mercury</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#0000FF">13. Hercules</font></th> </tr> <tr> <th align="left">Riches</th> <th align="left">phoenix</th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">2. Juno</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">6. Neptun</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">10. Mars</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#0000FF">14. Eolus</font></th> </tr> <tr> <th align="left">Virginities</th> <th align="left">turtledove</th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">3. Pallas</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">7. Diana</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">11. Vesta</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#33FF33">15. Daphne</font></th> </tr> <tr> <th align="left">Pleasures</th> <th align="left">dove</th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">4. Venus</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">8. Bacchus</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF00FF">12. Ceres</font></th> <th align="left"><font color="#FF0000">16. Cupido</font></th> </tr> </table> </center> <BR><BR>As the 12 Olympic gods together with the 13th (Hercules) present a standard, the other 3 of the 16 gods might be considered, that they tell us the real story of the deck or something about the background or the central idea of this piece of art. <BR><BR>There is one figure in the deck, which is no god and that is <B> <font color="#009900">Daphne</font></B>. She is the most astonishing person between all the other 16, because one wouldn't expect her to be in this circle of almost important figures of Greek mythology.<BR>She is by this the secretly hidden and dominating figure.<BR>She was only known from one myth and that was an object to the late myth-teller Ovid, who with his “Metamorphoses” took a strong influence on the medieval time and early renaissance. In this myth he tells from a father, Peneo, which is a god of a river, from Apollo and Amor-Eros-Cupido – any Eolus or Aiolus is missing . Here is an abstract of the myth:<BR><BR><I> Since <B>Apollo </b>made fun of <B> Eros Cupido (= Amor)</B>, the God of Love hit him with a golden arrow to make him fall in love with <B> Daphne</B>. And he hit her with a lead arrow to make her insensible to love. Daphne, persecuted by Apollo, tried to escape his love by taking refuge near the river of her father Peneo. When Apollo was about to capture Daphne, Peneo, awaken by the cry of his daughter, transformed her into a laurel tree. Forever after, Apollo would wear a branch of laurel (the Greek word daphne means laurel). </I><BR><BR>(Take the opportunity and read the passage in English <A href="http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_ovid_daphne.htm" target="_blank"> here</A> and, if you like, the complete Ovid text in Latin on a very nice site with 1400 pictures <A href="http://www.latein-pagina.de/ovid/ovid_m1.htm#25" target="_blank"> here</A>, it shows various pictures, how Daphne starts to become a tree.) <BR><BR>A god of a river - if painted - might have been easily mistaken as Aiolus, the god of the winds. Or - other possibility - an unknown river-god Peneo was felt as being too unattractive, the better known Aiolos was used to replace him - medieval thinkers had their own logic and there are extant many examples of the "freedom of art".<BR><BR>Please follow mentally the following imagination: Perhaps there was a bookpainting:<BR><BR> 12 gods surrounding (Hercules included, to replace Apoll, who takes an active part in the myth), as one knows it, in the middle on top a flying cupido, in the main scene and center Daphne transforming in a laurel and Apollo (excluded) and the river father at left and the right, both watching the scene with astonishment and grieve. <BR><BR> Perhaps the 12 gods were different, standing or sitting in an upper or lower row and in a greater way painted in the front, Daphne half-tree-half-woman with her 3 accompanying partners.<BR> <BR>There are many idas, how such a (only prognosted) book-painting could have looked like.<BR><BR>Perhaps it is lost, perhaps it never has been … and there was just the funny idea of Filippo to hide the story in a card-play. Actually it doesn't matter too much, if the imagination started in the head of an earlier painter or in the head of Filippo Visconti. There is a basic truth: All pictures start in the imagination ... and this deck also. <BR><BR> As weve heard it from Marcello, the idea to the deck was from Filippo Visconti (Marcello actually cant be counted as a witness of that operation more than 30 years ago) and he was known as an inventer (as Marcello declares). But with all these unsecurities, probably Marcello is right with his opinion. Filippo Maria decided the final issue, influences might have come in the year 1424 from the Greek Emperor John Palaiologos or Carlo Malatesta with his Greek relations and his Greek interests.</td></tr></table> <hr><br><br> <center><b><font size="1">Trionfi.com </b>has its focus on Tarot History and especially the origin of Tarot in 15th century, also the representation of about 100 000 Tarot and other playing cards in the Tarot Museum. <br><b>The chapter "Oldest Tarot Cards"</b> presents specific material to the socalled "Michelino Tarot deck" - painted by Michelino da Besozzo with some security between 1418 - 1425, in our opinion most likely in the year 1424/25. The deck is lost, but it is known by 3 different sources: An accompanying manuscript by Martiano da Tortona (before 1425), a remark of Decembrio in the <I>Vita of Filippo Maria Visconti (1447) and a letter of Jacopo Antonio Marcello in the year 1449. </I>letter manuscript. <br> Author: when not otherwise specified, autorbis. 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