Tarot and Playing Card Museum

<h1>Tarot and Playing Card Museum - online</h1 <li><a href="http://autorbis.net">Author's site</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com">Tarot history</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/">Tarot and Playing Cards Museum</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/">Tarot Iconography</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/f/">Fortune Telling</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/mantegna-tarocchi/">Iconography of Mantegna Tarocchi</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/l/">Museum Tarot Lists</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/tarot-andrea-vitali/">Tarot card iconography of Andrea Vitali</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/decks-2000/">Tarot and Playing Card Decks 1</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/decks-4000/">Tarot and Playing Card Decks 2</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/decks-6000/">Tarot and Playing Card Decks 3</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/decks-8000/">Tarot and Playing Card Decks 4</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/decks-10000/">Tarot and Playing Card Decks 5</a> <table> <td align="center" valign="middle" width="500"> <img src="p/marcello.jpg"> </td><td width="400"> <center><h3>Oldest Tarot cards</h3></center><br><br> In November 1449 Jacopo Antonio Marcello wrote a letter to Queen Isabelle of Lorraine. He send the letter together with a parcel, which contained a famous playing card deck and a manuscript with a description of it. Marcello, a Venetian provedittore and with that a high militaric official in the current war between Milan and Venice, reveals in the letter an adventurous story, by which he got in possession of the curious deck, which already had a proud age of about 25 years in 1449. <br>Marcello calls the deck a Trionfi deck, and some Tarot researchers believe, that the 15th century expression "Trionfi cards" should be translated with "Tarot cards". However, the deck shows 16 Roman gods as trumps and has birds in its suits system and all cards together are only 60 cards, not 78, as 21st century observer are used to them. So what had been the real conditions of these early Trionfi cards? </td></table> <table> <td align="center" valign="middle" width="400"> <img src="p/niccolo-este-bible.jpg" title="Illustration in the bible of Niccolo d'Este, ca. 1432-36"> </td><td width="500"> <center><h3>Imperatori Cards</h3></center> We took the name "Imperatori cards" as a headline for the phase of playing card development ca. 1420-1450, in which the name Imperatori cards appeared - to our eyes only at one location in Italy, in Ferrara, a place, where we later also find the first use and the most notes of the term "Trionfi cards". The Imperatori riddle starts with a simple small document: <br><br><center><table width="90%" bgcolor="white" border="1"><td>"1423, on the day 9 October Giovanni Bianchini to have for one pack of cards of VIII Emperors gilded, which was brought from Florence for Milady Marchesana (Parisina d'Este), which Zoesi (name of the servant) servant of said Lady had; priced 7 florins, new, and for expenses (of the transport) from Florence to Ferrara 6 Bolognese soldi; in all valued<br> ….. L. XIIII.VI. Bolognese<br> I Giovanni Bianchini wrote it on the above-written day.</td></table></center><br><br> Why are there "VIII cards" mentioned? This can't have been a complete game. Were these cards added to a normal playing cards? What means the connection to a German use of the same name (Imperatori- or Keyser-Spiel) for a German game, better known with the name Karnöffel? This has 7 trumps, but was played with normal playing cards. In this game specific names of cards had developed, Emperor, Pope, Devil, Karnöffel, expressions which we partly later find also in the Trionfi and Tarot cards. Had the Karnöffel and Imperatori cards a forerunner function for the later Trionfi cards? Is there a connection to the Michelino deck? And what mean the strange informations given by Master Ingold in 1432? Ingold expressed the opinion, that playing cards arrived in Germany in the year 1300.<br> The story of the Imperatori cards is connected to the familiary conditions at the d'Este court in Ferrara, and these are related to special glamour and drama: The nice and young Parisina was killed by her elder husband cause of adultury in 1425, short after she became a remarkable person inside playing card history. </td></table></td></table> <table> <td align="center" valign="middle" width="400"> <img src="p/alberti-flying-eye.jpg" title="The flying eye at Alerti's medal of Matteo di' Pasti"> </td><td width="500"> <center><h3>Ferrara 1441</h3></center> In February 1442 the first Trionfi documents appears, at least as far we know them. Another document from the 1st of January 1441 tells us:<br><br> <center><table width="90%" bgcolor="white" border="1"><td>"And on the said day (1 January) two lire, five soldi marchesane, reckoned to Maestro Jacopo de Sagramoro, painter, for 14 figures painted on cotton paper and sent to Lady Bianca of Milan, to make festive the celebration of the Circumcision of the present year ... L. II. V." </td></table></center><br><br> Sagramoro appears later variously as Trionfi card painter. The "day of circumcision" (= 1st of January) is documented as a traditional day of games and gambling. The price of 2 Lira Marchesana and 5 Soldi looks appropriate for a Trionfi deck with 14 units only, which could be added to a usual playing card deck. The commissioner (Leonello d'Este) is the same as in the Trionfi document of February 1442. And the date is very near to the Trionfi document of February 1442, it happens in the "same social context", though dramatical changes occur in the meantime. The person, who got the present, 15-years-old Bianca Maria Visconti, is later involved in "Trionfi cards" documents. She is 1441 in a near-to-marriage state, and it has some evidenvce, that girls got these Trionfi decks for their wedding. The 14 paintings should be playing cards. <br> But there is no 100% confirmation, the word "playing card" or "trionfi" is missing in the document. Anyway, it was interesting enough to study the Ferrarese conditions to get a clue what was going on around 1440 and what might have prepared the production of Trionfi decks, which later got a great career as Tarot cards, inspiring millions. For instance we observed, that Leon Battista Alberti had contact to the court of Leonello and that he got there the virus of Lucianic writing by Guarino, which led to his "Momus", a great satire about gods ... Roman gods again, as they appeared in the Michelino deck. Alberti took his start in Ferrara as a screen play writer and his early work "Philodoxus" uses triumphal processions and contains figures like Tychia (= Fortuna) and Chronos (= Father Time), which also have their place between the Tarot allegories, and the last scene is dominated by the trumpeter - as in Tarot or Trionfi decks. </td></table> <table> <td align="center" valign="middle" width="400"> <img src="p/fool.jpg" title="The Fool of the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Tarocchi"</title> </td><td width="500"> <center><h3>5x14-theory</h3></center> The 5x14-thory took its start in May 1989. <br> It had been observed in playing card research, that the socalled Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo-Tarocchi (dated to ca. 1452) had been painted by two different painters. This was interpreted as a matter of an accidental loss or damage of some cards, which were replaced with cards from a second painter. Now the number of the trumps, which were painted by the first artist, was just 14, the number of the replaced trumps was 6. All surviving small Arcanas (54 of 56) were given to the first painter. A comparison of the trumps with the number row of the Marseille Tarocchi gave this result:<br><br> <b>Artist 1:</b> 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10- .. -12-13- .. - 20 <br><br> <b>Artist 2:</b> <br> Star - Moon - Sun (3 bodies of heaven)<br> Force - Temperance - World (alias Prudentia) - (3 cardinal virtues)<br> <br> Both groups of the trumps have not the appearance to be the result of an accidently loss or damage of some cards. So in May 1989 the suspicion arose, that the observation about the 2 painters might tell the story, that there was first a game with 5x14-structure (14 trumps + 56 small arcana), which by a later development got 6 further trumps as an addition.<br> This observation was made on the base, that not all details of early playing card research was known, so it became necessary to research these details. In 2003 Trionfi.com made its appearance on the web and since this time it was searched for a contradiction to the 5x14-hypothesis. It was not possible to find it. Instead of the contradiction some confirmations were found, mainly:<br> <br> 1. A document of 1.1.1441, which reports the production of 14 pictures in a context, which might refer to Trionfi cards<br> 2. A document of 1449 about the Michelino deck, which gives the clear statement, that the term "Trionfi cards" not naturally indicates games with a 4x14+22-structure.<br> 3. A document of 1457, in which the production of two Trionfi decks is recorded, each with "70 cards" (5x14 = 70) <br> 4. A plausible dating of the Boiardo Tarocchi poem to the year 1487 (the Boiardo Tarocchi poem appears to be the first "sure" sign of the existence of the 4x14+22-structure in context to Trionfi-decks)<br><br> Meanwhile a long time has passed and the research has refined in many ways. Nowadays I would say, that the name "5x14-theory" is not very precise, as in fact it seems, that the early time of Trionfi card production was probably determined by the use of decks with 5x14 or 5x16-structure (or 16 trumps + another structure of suit cards), and that in the case of 16-trumps-decks the idea of the deck producer had a stronger relationship to chess. <br><br><b>(autorbis, July 2009)</b> </frameset>