I think François Chosson Tarot was believed to be the oldest Tarot de Marseille deck known to have been made in Marseilles. It was officially classified by the historians as being of unknown origin. the date written on the Two of Coins was 1672, which made it the oldest Tarot de Marseille deck know...

Huck wrote 13 cards for 4 suits (just as nowadays) is the "standard version" already for Johannes of Rheinfelden, and it's as the basic model also given by Master Ingold. An early 5x13-structure deck in Ferrara (1422) would be a logical pre-development of a later 5x14-deck in Ferrara (144...

http://classes.bnf.fr/echecs/images/3/6_01.jpg Fortune appears at the first of 24 paintings in the Echecs Amoureux (Chess of lovers) of Evrart da Conty (c. 1398), which with its 16 gods might have been the idea-giver for Filippo Maria Visconti and his Michelino deck. It's presented together with Ju...

One point I didn't understand was your answer to the question, why 13 trumps? Could you explain again just that point. One thing that occurs to me is that it might be 12 trumps (3 to each suit, it's one of the multiples of 4 that I like), an expansion of Imperator's 8, plus the wild card Fool. Hm ....

I am one post behind in my replies. The following is a reply to the post before his last one. Then as I was posting, the software alerted me that Huck had just posted. At first reading I see nothing wrong with this more recent post of his. Alberti as another possible originator of the tarot, c. 142...

Huck: Well, your "Murad" argument would only work for 1441. Who knows? The marks could be either "mura" or "mart," or maybe other things. Sure, Murad works best with 1441, but he reigned from 1421-1451. It occurs to me that Borso might have become acquainted with the t...

hi, Mike Murad II, Ottoman Emperor from 1421 - 1451 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murad_II In the peace negotiations of end of 1441 the next crusade was discussed, as this belonged to the promises given to the Eastern church during the council. Battle of Varna 1444 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle...

Ferrara 1422, the first document with playing cards: http://trionfi.com/0/d/11/ 1422, adi XXIII de marco, Maistro Iacomo depictore de havere per factura de tredexe cartexelle da zugare che luy fe de novo a tute sue spexe, tra le qualle ge ne fo cinque figure, o per recuncare, zoe retinte la cuverta ...

I have a question for Huck. In your diagram, the Fool is 11. How did it get to be zero? Why the change? Hm .. ... to understand the problem, one first has to realize, that 11111111111111111111111, even when taken as a binary number and not in a system based on 10, is very high. In the usual countin...

Thanks for calling my attention to Ross's comments about the Michelino suits, Huck. I had missed that, if he said it recently (I only remember it from the end of the "Bologna" thread). It's not much of an argument, and I sure do disagree. I would add to what you say: the eagle is Jupiter'...