Something (Playing Cards ?) with paper was used in 1434 for memory and teaching http://tarocchidea.wordpress.com/storia-dei-tarocchi/ contains Gli usi didattici delle carte da gioco, furono probabilmente inaugurati da Vittorino da Feltre [14] che insegnava ai suoi scolari in alfabeto figurato litera...

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Some cards from the Cologne deck http://a-tarot.eu/p/jan-11/buergers/buerg-21.jpg You requested Agrippina, founder of the city of Cologne, highest trump in the deck (with some Cologne buildings in the background - the Cologne Cathedral wasn't finished) http://a-tarot.eu/p/jan-11/buergers/buerg-7.jpg...

Ross combines his proposal with the idea, that the 22 special cards existed, not only in number, but also in content, if I understood this correctly. Yes - there were 22 standard subjects from the beginning. I take the Bolognese order to be the original order. This differs from attested Florentine ...

This reversed ranking, as a matter of interest, is why the german "tarock" pack retained only the ace, 2,3,4 in the red suits, and 7,8,9,10 in the black suits. so, you'd end up with a deck of 54 cards, the trumps and courts unchanged. I think the reason why this was so was the players got...

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...