Cups Temperance (who holds a cup) Wands Strength (in the Visconti-Sforza holds a wooden club) Swords Justice (holds a sword) Coins Prudence (card coins look like mirrors) I wonder if these would have been seen as being the said virtue, or being in need of the said virtue? For example, Cups = wine, ...

...the Papi representing the highest human positions/ranks, then Kings, Queens, Knights, Valets, and the professions (the pip cards - already a known allegory, at least in Germany so why not Italy?). Ross, are you saying there is a German tradition that equates the pips with different professions, ...

I'm not to clear about these.

The obstensorium is for keeping 'relics', presumably brought from the 'holy-land'. Also a Church being brought from the holy-land?? Hmmm!?

Triumphs are a genre of the period, within which Petrarch is an influential exemplar, but not an orignator (nor the only exemplar); even in the genre of the triumph of love he is not unique, but follows within the classical model of Ovid. So while the tarocchi and Petrarch are within the genre of t...

I'd agree. I think that if you were going to show the ranks of man, this is a lousy choice of 6 cards to do it with, we have a much better example with the "Mantegna" showing a structure. I'm increasingly less convinced that that is what is being demonstrated with the Fool, Bagatto, Popes...

To call the fool a 'trump' is a misnomer in terms of the game in that it does not 'trump' (excepting in late adaptions of the game that numbered it 22 and treated it as a trump) anything - it is an 'excuse' ; so I think '22 figures composing 21 trumps and the 'fool' (excuse).... I believe the Fool,...

... and I'm not trying to hammer the point... but I also tend to agree that the end of the sequence is the clearest, the cards before the Devil are harder to "naturally" order, IMHO. Oh. I missed your reply before I posted that last one. I think your right though, if we're talking exact m...

I think the end of the sequence, as you've shown above, is probably the most obvious of the group. The positions of the Papi and the virtues are the places where there would have been some difficulty in matching the known orders, just as they are the main places the three orders differ. The basic m...

Yes, but I did say "...it would be hard NOT to order the trumps similarly to at least one of the known orderings " , not the just the Tarot de Marseille ordering. The other options of course would be to 1) insert Justice before Judgement, or 2) switch the World and Judgement. All of these ...

Well, I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. But I reckon series similar to the trump sequence were common in the trionfi processions, and people would have known them, and have been attuned to the same 'wave-length' as the game designer. I'm always looking for a chance to post the ol' Val...