Tarot News, April 2004 (released September 2004)

Grandma of Mona Lisa invented Tarot cards?
The art researcher Maike Voigt-Lüerssen presents in her German language book "Wer ist Mona Lisa - Auf der Suche nach ihrer Identität" the hypothesis, that Mona Lisa was identical with Isabella of Aragon (1470 - 1524), the wife and cousin of Giangaleazzo Sforza (1469 - 1494), official duke of Milano from 1476 - 1494 under the reignment of his mother Bona von Savoyen (1476 - 1480) and his uncle Ludovico Sforza (1480 - 1494). Isabella was daughter of Ippolita Sforza and with that her grandmother was Bianca Maria Visconti, who is suspected to be strongly involved with the Invention of Trionfi (Tarot) cards in 1441, an intensively discussed topic at the group LTarot.
Maike Voigt-Lüerssen makes herself known for having researched renaissance pictures for more than 17 years and gotten a diploma in history. She has published various books to contemporary themes. Her thesis is documented in the web by lots of until now rather unknown picture material.

Petrarca, called father of humanism and renaissance, the poet of the poem "Trionfi": 2004, in his 700 birth year, celebrated at various places, an unpleasant discovery was done. Petrarca's body bones could be identified as being rather securely belonging to him, but the skull proved to have been that of a woman. Somebody must have exchanged the true skull in past centuries. The reminiscents were researched cause of interests to reconstruct the face of Petrarca by modern technologies. The case of robbery may be dates back to 1630, when a drunken friar and four accomplices broke in through a corner of the tomb and stole some of the poet's bones -- but have been not thought to have taken his skull at that opportunity. (More).

The study of Bob O'Neill relative to Dante and the Tarot first written in 2002 is now available on the web in Bob O'Neill's Tarot library

Tarot author Mary Greer , here in interview, published together with Tom Tadfor Little (tarothermit) announced recently a new publication Understanding the Tarot Court ( review by Diana Wilkes).

Park Sang Sun: Das Tarot Café; Achterbahn Verlag; 10 Euro. - A Corean Manga (or Manwha, East Asian type of Comic) has been translated in German language recently. The story is centered around the female Café-owner Pamela, who after midnight lays cards to unusual guests, for instance a love-sick vampir and a magical tom-cat, who loses lifes by fulfilling wishes.

Playing Card Meetings: From 20th to 22nd May 2004 in Freiburg, Germany, takes place the Joint Annual Meeting of Bube-Dame-König and Talon takes place, part of the program is an exhibition in the Augustiner Museum. At the 14th August 2004 in London the IPCS British Group Meeting is announced. From 16th to 19th September 2004 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland: IPCS Convention, from 6th to 9th October 2004 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA: 52 plus Joker Convention.

"The artist Rainer Schmid presents in Viechtach/Bavaria in the Ägayrischen Gewölbe 66 back glass paintings with 3x22 Tarot motifs, the total exponat covers 5x14 meters. The theme of the exhibition is: How the cards came from Egyptia to Bavaria, it is presented from 1st of April 2004 till 31st of October. The name "Ägairischen Gewölbe" is a German word composition of Egyptia and Bavaria, the real location is the Viechtacher Bürgerspital, the first hospital of the city builded in the year 1432. The standard exhibition presents more then 400 replics of Greek and Egyptian history.
Rainer Schmid is locally known as the artist of the Gläsernen Scheune, a 20-years-project with considerable publical success in the east of Bavaria. (more in German language).

Perrache: The recently founded yahoogroup Perrache@yahoogroups.fr engages to translate to English language the oldest known French Tarot rules from 1637, earlier transcribed by Thierry Depaulis. The group tarotgame engages in the moment in the moment in the try to find correct English termini for common French playing card expressions.

Research of Origin (Trionfi.com): Scipio Caraffa, appearing as an "unknown" person inside the Marcello letter from the year 1449, could be identified as a Venetian ambassador in the year 1446 at the French court. Other new data: Marcello became acquainted to Rene d'Anjou by a letter of Francesco Sforza at 24th of February 1449, not as earlier suspected already in 1442. By the new data the present of a playing card deck in 1449 should be interpreted as a "first present" in concrete political intentions of the state Venetia in the year 1449 to have an alliance with Rene d'Anjou against the kingdom of Naples. The article to the Michelino deck will be modified soon according to the new and better informations.

Awards for the Intolerances of the Month:
Recently the author of Tarot News was terminated as member in the Lotus Tarot Forum, which seems to be ... what? It seems to be governed by a very good looking woman with the (probable ?) function of a cover-girl named Alison Day, who tells a lot about love and other good things, but ... actually all points simply to commercial interests. The try to inform neutrally inside the forum with 2 harmless links to our news and our Museum took the course that this were identified as self-promotion and a bench of moderators started to write "positive" signals which should lead me, the misdoing individual, to better behaviour. Innocent resistance of mine, just intended to keep my original aim upright, did lead to sudden and wordless termination. Well, good bye ... Lotus Tarot. Dream your dream.
A similar result Jess Karlin got, representing his personal Tarot News, who in a very similar interest as mine posted 2 links to the group tarotgame, which normally can be described as a good initiative to do something about Tarot as a game. In this case, however, the group proved similar intolerant as the Lotus Tarot Forum and the result was identical: Jess Karlin was terminated as a member posting something theme-unrelated, any hints that this was a little unwise from inside the group didn't help to correct the moderating forces.

Well, we don't like this, and we're clear about it. Perhaps it helps, that some moderators start to think a little bit. Intolerance, if it comes from the side of tarot diviners or persons, whose main interests is the playing aspect of Tarot, is in any case unbearable ("having rules", which are blindly followed with the phantasy of advocats, doesn't better the conditions). Tarot is a multicultural object with many aspects, more than one specific group has a personal interest there. Claims, that it MUST be seen this or that way, belong to a kindergarten level of Tarot consideration and the international Internet Tarot community had enough examples of such stupid Tarot non-communication in the past, which rather obviously simply had the result, that trivial matters of Tarot history stayed unexplored.

Latest News:
Stuart Kaplan / Irak / "wizard" / 22/4 (composed by Huck Meyer)

Bianca Maria Visconti
as Madonna

Ippolita Sforza
daughter of Bianca Maria

Mona Lisa
alias Isabella of Aragon
daughter of Ippolita