Guildhall and Goldschmidt Cards
- Opinions of the Experts

The Goldschmidt and Guildhall-Cards contain - my opinion - some rather interesting riddles (it has something to do with the fishes to the right and the man below, which is the former French king Louis XI on a "nice" representation, usually he is shown by somewhat nasty portraits), but before proceeding with my personal, perhaps a little bit adventurous conclusions with difficult implications, it might be of use for you to know the details of the decks and the opinions of the experts. So please study the pitures via clicking at the menu to the left and listen to the opinions of the experts about more than 20 years ago. I can't guarantee, that in the meantime anybody gave different or more fargoing theories to the decks, normally the publical interest concentrates on the Visconti-Sforza decks.
Below the expert's opinion follows my own view on the things - which was just the result of a relatively short adventure of exploration. I didn't found time to do more about it, and, openly said, I'm neither an expert of Piedmontese heraldic nor French history and both seems to be necessary to get a real sure result (which probably is even then not possible).


Stuart Kaplan in his Tarot Encyclopedia I presents 3 Guildhall cards, (p. 111), Michael Dummett in his Game of Tarot corrects him and declares (p. 73), that there are 4 Guildhall cards and that these four do belong as 2 pairs obviously to two different decks cause differences in their extensions. Kaplan also notes the fourth card "World"  in his short article to the Guildhall-cards but relates to it at p. 104 as the "Guildhall Visconti-Sforza Tarocchi Card - The World" (the card is obviously very near to the "World"-or-"Prudentia"-card in the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Tarocchi as part of the probably added 6 cards).

Pair 1: 138 x 72

Pair 2: 141 x 66 Furthermore, Kaplan reads at the Ace of Swords the words "mia" at top and "arm(o)ur" at a scroll in the middle, Dummett reads instead of "armour" the words "Vim vi".
Dummett declares, that ""Vim vi" is a motto used by various Italian families, and he says: "but I've not been able to discover one for whom playing cards are likely to have been painted". Dummett gives the information, that "the Guildhall catalogue records both pairs as having been found in an old chest in Seville" (Spain).
From this and by some other arguments related to elements on the pictures Dummett considers, that these cards were eventually not painted in Italy, the "whole design seems rather German than Italian", probably relating to the German "hunting-decks." Also he remarks, that the Page of Batons uses a Spanish type of Baton, also, that the Jack doesn't hold the baton in his hand as common at all known Italian cards.

Dummett states a lot of details, that relates the 4 Guildhall cards to the 9 Goldschmidt cards, which are located in the Spielkarten-Museum Leinfelden and which cause their strange appearance are a rarity between the Trionfi cards relicts. "It is not apparent, from the card themselves, that they were Tarot cards at all: not one of them can be identified with assurance as one of the Tarot triumphs, " Dummett notes. The noted details are: Dummett even doesn't exclude, that the second pair of the Guildhall-cards originally belonged to the same pack pack as the 9 Goldschmidt cards.
The Goldschmidt cards, according to Kaplan (Encyclopedia I, p. 110) ca. mid 15th century, either Provence or Italy, 140x66 mm, as a fragment of 9 cards, are located in Deutsches Spielkarten-Museum Leinfelden, West-Germany.

Detlev Hoffmann (Die Welt der Spielkarte, 1972), who wrote earlier than Dummett and Kaplan, adds the following details (translated) to the Goldschmidt Cards: "Provence (?), mid 15th century: Socalled. Goldschmidt cards, handpainted, background golden and 'gepunzt' on pergament, 14.0x6.5 cm, RS: dark 'Karmin' (karmin-red). Lit.: V. Goldschmidt: Farben in der Kunst, Heidelberg 1919, Bd. III, ...., 'Ein Gutachten des Doerner-Instituts vom 21.6.1955 bestätigt das Alter der Pigmente' (the age of the pigments is confirmed).

So far the opinions of the experts. I cannot add further technical information, as I was never near to the decks.
I'd only a simple idea, ... as exploration always starts. I saw the fish and I understood, that it should be a heraldic sign - similar to the Visconti snake, which also appears as a single card in two of the Visconti-Sforza decks. So I took a book full of heraldic signs and looked for the fish. Later it turned out, that it is meant as a dolphin, but to me it looked neutrally as a fish. I found various fishes ....

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