Yes, you're right. I didn't read far enough. It quite clearly says something to the effect of "get angry", very similar if not the same as your other dictionary.. I took "fait a lune" as the French form of "far la luna", assuming that Piedmontese uses a lot of French. "full of fury" makes sense.

mikeh wrote:Yes, you're right. I didn't read far enough. It quite clearly says something to the effect of "get angry", very similar if not the same as your other dictionary.. I took "fait a lune" as the French form of "far la luna", assuming that Piedmontese uses a lot of French. "full of fury" makes sense.

I like Florio's 'moon to shine' -- (my Popesse makes the Moon (to) shine/and I want to hang myself) -- it makes sense of the passage, don't you think?

Ma questi papi o imperatori miei
fan si, che mia Papessa far si viene
la Luna, e vo' appiccarmi da me stessa.

Marco:
But these popes and emperors that I have
make so that my Papesse wants to be
a Lunatic, and I want to hang myself.

Alternative 1:
But these popes and emperors that I have
make [it] so that my Papesse makes
the Moon grow [or shine], and I want to hang myself.

Alternative 2:
But these popes and emperors that I have
make [it] so that my Papesse makes
a great fury, and I want to hang myself.

Yes, alternative 1 fits the context better, with alternative 2 as a secondary meaning. "Grow" is in the sense of "shine brighter". I didn't mean to exclude the other meaning, of making the moon grow. But that would seem indeed to be the primary meaning: perhaps "shine brighter" would capture the idea, but "moon grow" or "moon grow bright" (for clarity) seems much the same.

I am going to finish discussing Dummett's Chapter 18, on the meaning of the triumphs. The next one is the Angel (p. 425f):

Tranne nel mazzo delle Minchiate, i morti sono sempre colti nell’atto di levarsi dalle tombe, quando l’Angelo suona la tromba, dalla quale nelle Minchiate la carta prende il nome. Ciò è ancora più esplicito sulla carta Visconti di Modrone, che mostra due angeli con trombe e la scritta «Surgite ad Judicium» [end of 425] («Levatevi al giudizio») sopra di loro e, in basso, tre figure che si levano dalle tombe. L’Angelo dei tarocchi è pertanto sempre l’angelo del Giudizio Universale e il nome alternativo ‘il Giudizio’ o 'leJugement' per la carta è pienamente giustificato.

(Except in the Minchiate, the dead are always caught in the act of rising from their graves, when the Angel plays the trumpet, from which in the Minchiate card takes its name. This is even more explicit on the Visconti di Modrone card, showing two angels with trumpets, and the words "surgite to Judicium» [end of 225] ("Arise to judgment") above them and, below, three figures who rise from their graves. The Angel of the tarot is therefore always the Angel of the Last Judgement and the alternative name 'Judgment' or 'le Jugement' for the card is fully justified.)

I have very little to add here. The Minchiate card has the words "Fama volut" on it. It is a card of glory, in the next world rather than this. The city is one with a Renaissance dome on a church. It could be Florence, Rome, or, less famously, other places.

His last one is the World:

Il Mondo è di solito rappresentato da un globo: nel mazzo Visconti-Sforza è sorretto da due putti; nel ‘mazzo Budapest’ da un angelo; nel Tarocco siciliano è il globo celeste, portato sulle spalle da Atlante; nei tarocchi d’Este è sormontato da un cherubino alato; sul foglio Rosenwald e nel mazzo delle Min-chiate è sormontato da un angelo; nei gruppi ‘Carlo VI’ e di Catania, nel mazzo parigino anonimo e nel Tarocco bolognese e nel Tarocco belga, è sormontato da una figura umana. Nel mazzo Visconti di Modrone una figura femminile siede sopra una corona che sovrasta un arco sotto il quale c’è una scena con edifìci, campagna e mare. La rappresentazione nel Tarocco di Marsiglia e sulla carta milanese ritrovata nel Castello Sforzesco, senza globo ma con una corona ovale che racchiude una figura femminile, è quindi del tutto eccezionale; se non fosse perché la carta del Tarocco di Marsiglia reca la scritta «le monde», avremmo difficoltà ad identificarla. L’iconografia non è facilmente spiegabile. I simboli dei quattro Evangelisti sono anche le quattro creature viventi intorno al trono di Dio nell’Apocalisse di San Giovanni e si possono vedere in un’incisione rinascimentale del trionfo di Dio padre. Potrebbe esserci un legame fra questo elemento e il modo strano in cui, nel sermone "De Ludo" è indicato il trionfo più alto, il n. 21, vale a dire «El mondo cioè Dio Padre».

(The World is usually represented by a globe: the Visconti-Sforza deck is supported by two putti; in the 'Budapest deck' by an angel; in the Sicilian Tarot it is the celestial globe, carried on the shoulders of Atlas; in the d'Este Tarot it is surmounted by a winged cherub; on the Rosenwald sheet and in the Minchiate deck, it is surmounted by an angel; in the 'Charles VI' and Catania groups, in the anonymous Parisian Tarot deck, and in the Tarot Bolognese and in Belgium, it is surmounted by a human figure. In the Visconti di Modrone deck a female figure sits above a crown above an arch under which there is a scene with edifices, countryside and sea. The representation in the Tarot of Marseilles and on the card found in the Sforza Castle in Milan, without a globe or a crown but with oval enclosing a female figure, is thus quite exceptional; if it was not because the card of the Tarot of Marseilles bears the inscription 'le monde', we would have difficulty in identifying it. The iconography is not easily explained. The symbols of the four Evangelists are the four living creatures around the throne of God in the Apocalypse of St. John, and can be seen in a Renaissance engraving of the triumph of God the Father. There may be a relationship between this element and the strange way in which, in the sermon "de Ludo" indicates the highest triumph, no. 21, namely, «El mondo cioè Dio Padre». [The world, that is, God the Father].)

This is good. For this last one, he simply describes the various versions and attempts a brief analysis when he can, without feeling any need to find an "original" meaning. Of the Tarot de Marseille figure he gives a cogent explanation at least of the four evangelists. The Vieville and Belgian tarot has a masculine figure in the middle; it certainly looks like a representation of Jesus, which makes sense if surrounded by his four chroniclers. That is not "God the Father", but it is the same person, given the doctrine of the Trinity, the Three-in-one. In the PMB, God the Father is actually pictured, but he is on the Angel card.

I am happily surprised that he did not say that the Tarot de Marseille female is merely a way of making the cards less religious and more attractive. Instead, he leaves the figure unexplained, which leaves the door open for further interpretation.

The Tarot de Marseille style card, with its four evangelists, is almost always the last card in the sequence of which it is a part; the only exception is Piedmont, where it numbered 21 (because they use Tarot de Marseille cards) but played as 20. As last it surely indicates the attainment of the highest heaven, that beyond the stars and the angels, at the entrance to which Jesus welcomes the soul. The oval substitutes for the circle on the PMB in which there is a city, presumably the New Jerusalem. The Angel is then in the "Primo Mobile", the "first moved" or "first whirling", where the medieval cosmograph tended to put pseudo-Dionysius's 9 levels of angels. These two levels are cards 9 and 10 of the series of the Planets in the "Tarot of Mantegna" (http://www.tarocchi.net/upload/03041245603.jpg). Card 10 of the second series had the same four animals in the corners, plus a depiction of the cosmograph of 10 circles. Nine choirs of angels plus 9 other levels plus the four elements would be 22 circles in all, but I attach no special significance to that. Most cosmographs had more than that number.

Piscina, describing this card, presents a picture (I emphasize it in bold) that corresponds to no extant card ((http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Piscina_Discorso_5):

Hora la figura del mondo in mezo questi quattro Santi Evangelisti l' Autore hà posto, per insegnarci che il mondo non puo star senza religione i precetti, della quale hanno scritto questi Santissimi Evangelisti, essendo ella il principal fondamento della quiete e conservatione de stati e della felicita de popoli, e senza la quale (si come gia habbiamo in molti luoghi accennato) noi non potremmo salvar l' anima nostra, nata solo per servir al Grandissimo Signor Dio Nostro.

(Now, the Author has placed the image of the world in the middle of these four Holy Evangelists, in order to teach us that the world cannot be without religion, whose precept has been written by these Holy Evangelists. Religion is the main foundation of the peace and conservation of the nations and of the happiness of the peoples: without it (as we have already said in many places) we could not save our soul, which was born only to serve the Greatest Lord Our God.)

Does he mean to say that there is a circle on the card, representing the world, or, since "world" includes everything, a series of circles, as in a cosmograph? If so, it would be quite similar to the "Tarot of Mantegna", second series, of the "Prima Causa" (http://trionfi.com/mantegna/s/s-mantegn ... chi/50.jpg). On the Tarot de Marseille, there is no circle, just an oval, or sometimes an almond shape, in which a human figure stands (as in the "Tarot of Mantegna" Jupiter). It is not clear to me what Piscina means.

Paradise, for Piscina, is situated in the other card, the one with the Angel:

Ma volendo finalmente l' Inventore con uno honorato e Cristiano fine fornir queste sue figure sotto le quali ha insegnato & accennato molti costumi, & amaestramenti Civili, hà posto per ultimo ritratto il Paradiso Celeste, nel qual Triomphano l' anime Beate, & vi ha fatto dipingere un Agnolo che cantando e sonando s' allegri di quelli Spiriti benedetti i quali la gratia d' Iddio prima e l' opere sue bone gl' hanno fatti degni di quella felicissima e sempiterna quiete;...

(Since the Inventor wanted to conclude his figures, with which he has taught and illustrated many civil lessons, with an honoured and Christian end, he placed as last the image of Celestial Paradise, where blessed souls triumph. There he depicted an Angel that, singing and playing, rejoices of those blessed Spirits that were made worthy of that most happy eternal rest firstly by the grace of God, and by their own good deeds.)

The card with the four evangelists is "before the image of Paradise", Piscina says next. Presumably Paradise is on the top of the card, above the Angel, where, in the PMB, God the Father is. So we have a difference in meaning when the Angel is last vs. the World: it is the last card, either way, that represents Paradise, which therefore would seem to be the goal of the sequence.

In the other type of representation, which has an actual globe depicting the World (although the Italian word is better translated as "cosmos"), the figure on top of the globe, when a "human figure", is one of a variety of personifications. When she has a sail, she is Good Fortune, as indeed this card is in the game. When she has an octagonal halo, she is probably some virtue, as Florentine virtues were often given octagonal halos. Wisdom and Prudence are both possible. The Bolognese figure would seem to be the god Mercury, probably here in his capacity as conveyer of souls from this world to the next.

The CY card is more mysterious.The lady on the top has two trumpets, typical accoutrements of Fama (one for good fame, the other for bad); the scene at the bottom seems to show some kind of knightly attainment, whether military, amorous, or religious. A military attainment is suggested by the figure at the bottom of the boat, who might be secretly leaving from one side to the safety of the other (Huck's theory). An amorous achievement might be Filippo's love for the mother of Bianca Maria (Marcos's theory). A quasi-religious attainment is suggested by the fisherman on the lake, perhaps the "fisher king" of the Parsifal story, and the red castle as the Grail Castle (an interpretation suggested by Kaplan). In that way the CY deck, if it represents "Fama" in one of the last two cards, could reflect an ancestor of the Minchiate, which has "Fama volut" on the bottom of the card. This possibility is also suggested by the three theological virtues in both decks, and Pulci's 1466 reference to a game of that name played by him and Lorenzo de' Medici. Such a deck might even have had the 12 signs of the zodiac, with the three signs on the three celestial cards of the Cary Sheet as a reminder of them. In the cosmograph, there is a circle between the planets and the angels which has no corresponding card in the tarot. The zodiac occurs in that space.But if so, such a large deck disappeared without any trace until the 16th century.

The Fool presents different issues than the others, owing to its special role in the game. Here is Dummett (p. 416)

II Matto è sempre ritratto come un folle. Il termine «mat» non è autentica parola francese, ma un semplice prestito dall’Italiano; il nome alternativo francese, *le Foni', rispecchia fedelmente l’intenzione

(The Fool is always portrayed as a fool. The term "mat" is not an authentic French word, but a simple loan from Italian; French alternate name, “le Fou', accurately reflects the intention.)

The Italian word "folle" and its cognate in French, cover what in English is given several words: madmen, jesters, and simpletons. The depictions on the card are varied, as people have pointed out. Sometimes it shows a jester, e.g. the Anonymous Parisian, which seems to derive from the Minchiate, especially the "Minchiate Francese"; both show a jester looking at his bauble. It is not clear to me what the d'Este and Charles VI depict. The d'Este might be a professional fool with his young charges, or else someone mentally deficient and thus unaware of the taboo against exposing one's private parts. In the 'Charles VI' the boys have stones; so he might be a mentally deficient person whom they are trying to kill or at least drive away. He is a giant, as in Pulci's Morgante (1478), amd seems more amused then frightened.

The word "Mat" was a French word long before the tarot. According to the Grand Robert it comes from the Persian for "dead" and is a term in chess. But the Italian word "matto" does not appear to have arisen from that usage or the Persian at all, according to the etymological dictionaries (see my post at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=966). If the "Mat" on the French card comes from the "Matto" on the Italian card, then indeed that use of the word "Mat" is in fact a loan from the Italian. Yet the Persian, as reflected in chess, may still be part of the meaning of the term in tarot, also in Italian. The Fool exists as a sacrifice, dead to the person who plays it, yet coming back to the most vigorous life at the end of the hand, as a "counting card" who also, in the A-type games, filling missing spaces in combinations.

Moakley drew attention to the feathers in the PMB Fool's hair as having a symbolic meaning of the seven weeks of Lent, suggesting the "Holy Fool" whose life was devoted to Christ and extolled by St. Paul. Besides the name and appearance, there is also his role in the game. Why does a madman get more points than a king? What is the allegorical significance of his role as the Excuse? Is he the fool that the nobles send to get killed instead of themselves? That would be neither a madman nor a smpleton, but the ordinary deceived person. Or is he the sacrificial lamb whose death prevents our own? That would account for his high point value, as well as his role as Excuse. And how could a mere madman be made the highest triumph, as it appears to become at some point, definitely by 1700 and perhaps even in the 16th century?
.
Dummett ends the chapter as follows (p. 426f):

Senza dubbio c’è ancora molto da dire sul simbolismo dei trionfi nel mazzo dei tarocchi: ma l’argomento non può essere studiato come spesso avviene sulla sola base del Tarocco di Marsiglia, senza far riferimento ai disegni, spesso molto diversi, degli altri mazzi; né senza rendersi conto che l’ordine del Tarocco di Marsiglia è ben lontano dall’essere l’unico. Quel che abbiamo detto qui non pretende di essere niente di più che una base per una indagine completa dell’argomento; ma è una base indispensabile. Ci è rimasta una sola carta, la Torre, il cui soggetto è oscuro: è evidente che era oscuro anche nel XVI secolo. Quale che siano gli elementi ancora da scoprire sull’iconografia dei trionfi, non ci sono valide ragioni per pensare che dietro la scelta dei loro soggetti si celassero misteri: la man- [end of 426] canza della Prudenza è un po’ sorprendente, ma essa potrebbe essere stata rimpiazzata dalla Papessa o forse semplicemente soppressa quando venne ridotto il numero dei trionfi a ventuno. Che questo numero sia mai stato più alto di ventuno è, di per sé, pura congettura: ma si ricorderà che il mazzo Visconti di Modrone, che comprende Fede, Speranza e Carità, probabilmente conteneva in origine tutte e sette le virtù principali, ed è possibile che, con sedici carte per seme, avesse più di ventuno trionfi. A parte questo, i soggetti sono per la maggior parte quelli familiari a qualsiasi persona colta nell’Italia del Rinascimento e pertanto proprio quelli che sarebbe stato ovvio scegliere per questa ragione, senza alcun particolare intento simbolico: quello che serviva era una serie di soggetti pittorici, facilmente distinguibili l’uno dall’altro e abbastanza definiti da portare un nome ovvio. È possibile che coloro che ritengono che ci fosse sotto molto di più riescano a dimostrare la loro teoria, ma' l’onere della prova spetta a loro, poiché non c’è alcuna ragione palese per ritenere che ci sia una particolare spiegazione per la scelta dei soggetti.

(No doubt there is much more to say about the symbolism of the trumps in the tarot deck, but the subject cannot be studied as is often the case solely on the basis of the Tarot of Marseilles, without reference to the depictions, often very different, of other decks; nor without realizing that the order of the Tarot of Marseilles is far from the only one. What we have said here does not pretend to be anything more than a basis for a comprehensive survey of the topic; but it is an indispensable basis. There remained only one card, the Tower, the subject of which is obscure: it is clear that it was obscure even in the sixteenth century. Whatever elements that are yet to be discovered on the iconography of the triumphs, there are good reasons to think that behind the choice of their subjects harbored mysteries: the lack [end of 426] of Prudence is a little surprising, but it may have been replaced by the Popess or perhaps simply suppressed when the number was reduced to twenty-one trumps. That this number has ever been the highest of twenty-one is, in itself, pure conjecture, but it will be recalled that the Visconti di Modrone deck, which includes Faith, Hope and Charity, probably originally contained all seven principal virtues, and it is possible that, with sixteen cards per suit, it had more than twenty-one triumphs. Apart from this, the subjects are for the most part those familiar to any educated person in the Renaissance and therefore precisely for this reason those would have been an obvious choice, without any particular symbolic intent: what was needed was a series of pictorial subjects, easily distinguishable from one another and bring enough to be defined by an obvious name. It is possible that those who believe that there was much more may be able to prove their theory, but the burden of proof is on them, because there is no obvious reason to believe that there is a particular explanation for the choice of the subjects.)

But are these all really "obvious choices"? Starting a sequence with a slight-of-hand artist is not obvious. If one wanted to put in the lowest rank of society, there are more obvious examples: laborers, peasants, criminals. The rationale for putting in a non-existent Popess in the same group as real human heads of society, bound to irritate the Church, is not obvious. Why would one throw in a "shame painting" image, if not for allegorical purposes? These all suggest allegorical meaning as part of a sequence: the "shame painting" just before death, the Bagato something about the beginning, the Popess something about feminine-imaged authority.

That the cards had meaning as part of a sequence is strongly suggested by the fact that the early cards had no numbers on them. It suggests that the designer wanted people to memorize the sequence for some reason. The order was somehow important to memorize. The most reasonable predecessor sequence is that of Petrarch supplemented by Boccaccio, in which practicing the virtues plays a role. That is the 16 card sequence, with the Emperor and Empress representing the player and including Boccaccio's image of Fortune.

Moreover, it is as a sequence that Piscina and Anonymous interpret the cards. How each card can be interpreted as triumphing over the one before is what Piscina mostly does, although ier n some cases he appears to have no answer (e,g, how the Moon triumphs over the Star) and skips over that particular step on the ladder.

Is it really clear that the "subjects are for the most part those familiar to any educated person in the Renaissance"? Many of these subjects were only familiar in literature, if that. The image of a woman with a papal tiara labeled "Popess" was not a familiar one, even if it had been used (without the label) for a few depictions of Mary Enthroned and the Church; For Joan the term had been "Pope". Nor was the Bagatella a conventional image, as indicated by his occasional name "innkeeper". Chastity on a chariot would have been known only from Petrarch. The "secondary" elements of the celestials were also unfamiliar ones; although a few could be identified, or misidentified, from literature or everyday life, The PMB scenes, repeated in other hand-painted Milanese decks and also the "Budapest" deck, were not familiar ones. Nor would the World cards have been easily interpreted. We are talking about a good third of the total number of triumphs. And in the others there are many unexplained details: why the horses of the Chariot are sometimes red and white or in other ways distinguished, or the feathers on the PMB Fool.

I agree with Dummett on one thing, his assertion that the sequence as we know it is a hodge-podge. Some of the groups are recognizable--stations of man, virtues, triumphs. But they had not been thrown together in such form, with such additions and occasional subtraction. Any overall interpretation based on obvious meanings is forced, meaning that it requires quite a bit of interpretation to fit, much of it piecemeal. It is like a play or movie script that starts out simple and then is tinkered with, adding things here and there and subtracting when needed. If it was all done by one person, it was somebody who didn't integrate his different drafts or pieces of drafts very well. More likely it was several people, over the course of years.

And perhaps "hidden meanings". or at least ones that aren't obvious now, were at work. I'll get into that in another post.

MikeH:

I have very little to add here. The Minchiate card has the words "Fama volut" on it. It is a card of glory, in the next world rather than this. The city is one with a Renaissance dome on a church. It could be Florence, Rome, or, less famously, other places.

His last one is the World:

city view: Bologna



**********



city view: Florence (with Medici heraldic)



Etruria = Toscana

**********



Again: Florence



Firenze tax stamp

**********

"His last one is the World:"

I think, that Fama-Angel is the last card in Minchiate, World is the 39 (though not numbered usually). So given by Kaplan, so used in our Playing Card Museum.
But maybe the arrangement is not meant as that of Minchiate.

Thanks for the image of the one with Bologna. Huck, I hadn't known that one. And yes, Florence, on the one with the Medici heraldic and the Florence tax stamp. Minchiate was also played in Rome, on decks of Roman manufacturer, if I remember Depaulis correctly. The skyline is not that of Florence currently ((http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bf2bO-nHRTc/T ... C03239.JPG). But the shape of the dome is more like Florence's (http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/florence ... 173908.jpg) than St. Peter's (http://us.123rf.com/450wm/savcoco/savco ... lle-ii.jpg), I wonder if there are any versions with St. Peter's dome; perhaps not.

By "his last one is the World" I meant the last card in Dummett's discussion.

I am now going on to discuss Dummett on "hidden symbolism". For this I am going to a chapter I skipped before, Dummett’s chapter 5, on "cartomancy, divination, and hidden meanings". He does cartomancy and divination first, arguing that there is no evidence for it before the late 18th century. I am going to start with hidden symbolism, because it is the next step after surface symbolism. Then if we look at the logical candidates for hidden symbolism at that time, we can see if any of them make sense as tools for cartomancy. Then we might have one idea what we were looking for, besides what turns up on its own.

Having reviewed the evidence for cartomancy and found it wanting, he begins the discussion of hidden symbolism as follows (p. 136f):

Tranne l’eccezione dubbia del Caos del Triperuno, gli accenni documentari e letterari ai tarocchi prima del tardo XVTII secolo non suggeriscono alcun uso cartomantico o magico dei tarocchi; ma questo non vuol dire che non ci si interessasse del simbolismo dei trionfi. I trionfi sono ovviamente simbolici; usano simboli noti a ognuno, come la spada e la bilancia della Giustizia. Lollio, nella sua Invettiva, li disprezza come l’invenzione di un ubriaco o di un pazzo; ma nessun altro scrittore, eccettuato l’anonimo predicatore del ‘sermone Steele’, esprime tanta antipatia. I poemetti di ‘tarocchi appropriati’ non si rapportano al gioco dei Tarocchi; impiegano direttamente solo i significati dei trionfi. Questi significati erano impiegati in modo simile in un semplice gioco di società descritto da Girolamo Bargagli nel suo Dialogo de’ giuochi del 1572, nel quale dice:

... ho veduto fare il giuoco de’ Tarocchi, ponendo a tutti li circostanti un nome di tarocco, e qualcun di poi a dichiarar chiamando, che à questo et à quello il nome d’un tal tarocco fosse stato posto 57.

Una situazione simile si verifica in un certo momento nel gioco descritto da Pier Antonio Viti, giocato con il mazzo non standard di tarocchi progettato da Matteo Maria Boiardo: ciascun [end of 136] giocatore dichiara per nome i trionfi che ha in mano, per divertire gli altri. Comunque, non si va in nessun caso in cerca di un significato nascosto, o nelle singole carte o nella loro sequenza: esse vengono interpretate solo secondo i loro soggetti manifesti.

(Except for the dubious exception of Caos di Triperuno, the documentary and literary references to the Tarot before the late XVIII century suggest no magical or cartomantic use or tarot; but this does not mean that the symbolism of the trumps is not of interest. The triumphs are obviously symbolic; using symbols familiar to everyone, such as the sword and scales of justice. Lollio in his Invective despises them as the invention of a drunk or a madman; but no other writer, except the anonymous preacher 'Steele sermon', expresses so much dislike. The poems of 'tarot appropriati ' do not relate to the game of Tarot; they directly employ only the meanings of the triumphs. These meanings were used in a similar way in a simple board game described by Girolamo Bargagli in his Dialogue on games of 1572, in which he says:

I saw the game... of Tarot used, so as to put to each one concerned a name in the tarot, and then someone calling to say that this and that name of such a tarot was played [posto, meaning “put”, so possibly “drawn”] 57.

A similar situation is confirmed at a certain time in the game described by Pier Antonio Viti, played with the non-standard deck of tarot cards designed by Matteo Maria Boiardo: each [end of 136] player declares for trumps in his hand a name, to entertain others. However, in no case do they do go in search of a hidden meaning, of single cards or in their sequence: they are interpreted only according to their manifest subjects.
_______________
17. Girolamo Bargagli, Dialogo de' giuochi che nelle vegghie Sanesi si usano di fare del materiale Intronato, Siena, 1572, second edition, Venezia, 1581: giudizio n. 57 (edition of 1581, p. 77).

I will get to Folengo’s Caos del Triperuno, later, since he is discussed in relation to cartomancy. He has some relationship to symbolism, too, but only in relation to what Dummett calls “manifest” symbolism, as opposed to “hidden”.

On the quote from Lollio, I think what Imperali says in his Risponsa is relevant, that Lollio played tarocchi the very same day he wrote the Invective. Dummett says (p. 129):

Immediatamente dopo la composizione di questo poemetto, un certo Vincenzo Imperiali scrisse una Risposta, in cui lodava il gioco dei Tarocchi, osservando che il Lollio aveva giocato ai Tarocchi lo stesso giorno in cui aveva composto la sua Invettiva.

(Immediately after the composition of this poem, a certain Vincenzo Imperiali wrote a Reply, in which he praised the game of Tarot, noting that Lollio had played Tarot on the same day in which he had composed his Invettiva:

Dummett then cites the lines in the Risponsa about playing with the podesta and "Giulio Cardinale". In other words, his mockery of the game has not affected his enjoyment of it, except perhaps when he loses. Lollio’s annoyance would seem to be mock-annoyance. Here I think Pratesi says something similar about Lollio in his essay on Lollio and Imperiali (http://naibi.net/A/03-FERRARA-Z.pdf):

Lollio himself is set in to the scene; he, who is so expert in shuffling the cards; he, who played with
such high ranking fellows as “col Podestà e con Giulio Cardinale” on the same day he wrote the poem; he, who proposed, being in luck, changes to the usual invitations.

In my opinion, it is worth commenting on this attitude of men of letters toward playing, rather common, to say the least, in those days. With this aim, I would like to compare this Invettiva with other works on a similar subject. That will help us to understand that most of what we find in the preserved texts does not correspond to a true feeling of the author but rather to a conventional (or else to an unorthodox, but all the same insincere) point of view.

After reviewing Berni, Aretino, he concludes:

Lollio is no exception as the answer by Imperiali clearly demonstrates. His spare moments are devoted to tarot, and not just many years before, but on the very day he wrote the poem. Only a few days before he joked with Imperiali, a less expert player, inviting him to count his own points on an occasion when Imperiali won no trick at all.

It is commonly stated that Lollio was only born in Florence, but lived from his infancy in Ferrara and in several properties he had around that town. To me, the Invettiva appears as a fruit of another “maledetto toscano”. There are several reasons, in particular of style, which make me think so; a typical liking for hyperbole, a temperament tending to rage and avarice, a mixing of academic and everyday topics, and so on. Maybe he derived from his birthplace much more than is usually acknowledged.

It is in this spirit that I invite us to regard Lollio when he says (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Lollio_a ... ra_1550_ca):

Che significan altro la Papessa,
Il Carro, il Traditor, la Ruota, il Gobbo:
Là Fortezza, la Stella, il Sol, la Luna,
E la Morte, e l'Inferno: e tutto’l resto
Di questa bizarria girandolesca,
Senon che questi havea il capo sventato,
Pien di fumo, pancucchi,et fanfaluche?

What is the meaning of the Papesse the Chariot,
the Traitor, the Wheel, the Hunch-backed Man,
Strength, the Star, the Sun, the Moon,
Death, Hell and all the rest of this
bizarre absurdity?
Only that his head was foolish,
full of smoke, trifles and fancies.

He is not serious, because anyone would know the meaning of the Chariot, the Wheel and Death at least. It is a mock-question. The others indeed are more or less puzzling, although not in their obvious surface-meaning, as given by their titles. It is rather that Imperiali doesn’t understand the non-obvious symbolism or how the various obvious meanings fit together in some overall design. Even here I think he is being playful. It might be his way of getting his reader to in fact think about the question of what they mean, apart from the obvious.

Dummett moves on to talk about the two discourses, by Piscina and Anoymous (p. 137f; for Dummett’s quotes I use the translation of Caldwell, Depaulis, and Ponzi).

Gli autori di due ‘discorsi’ italiani cinquecenteschi, entrambi scoperti da Franco Pratesi, fecero tentativi di interpretare i trionfi come una sequenza significativa. Uno dei discorsi è anonimo e di esso restano tre copie manoscritte, a Bologna, Firenze e Parigi; è intitolato ‘Discorso perché fosse trovato il Giuoco, e particolarmente quello del Tarocco, dove si dichiara a pieno il Significato di tutte le figure di esso Giuoco’. Manca la data; Pratesi l’assegna al 1570 circa. Il secondo discorso è un libro di Francesco Piscina da Carmagnola stampato nel 1565, intitolato ‘Discorso sopra l'ordine delle figure de Tarocchi’. Entrambe le opere tentano un’interpretazione simbolica, non solo dei trionfi, ma anche dei quattro semi; il Piscina, in particolare, asserisce di voler scoprire l’intenzione originale dell’inventore dei tarocchi. Secondo il ‘Discorso’ anonimo, i sette trionfi più alti rappresentano cose celesti, mentre gli altri, rappresentano la vita terrena con i suoi diletti e pericoli. Piscina considera i trionfi in un ordine diverso; da ciascun gruppo di due o tre trionfi egli estrae un tema morale. Queste opere rivelano per la prima volta quel fascino delle immagini dei trionfi che conferisce plausibilità alle interpretazioni degli occultisti e attrae anche coloro che, come Gertrude Moakley, per esempio, sono [end of 137] avversi all’occultismo.

Né l’uno né l’altro dei Discorsi è di ispirazione occultistica. Nessuno dei due scrittori associa il simbolismo dei trionfi con teorie astrologiche, ermetiche o alchemiche; entrambi sono sicuri di descrivere carte usate per un gioco e destinate fin dall’inizio a quell’uso. Il Piscina afferma che «noi habbiamo composto [questo nostro discorso] più tosto per un subito cappriccio che ne viene nel capo un giorno di festa vedendo piacevolmente giuocar una Honoratissima e Gentilissima Gentildonna di questa Città»; l’autore anonimo dell’altro ‘Discorso’ sceglie «lo scacco, la palla e il tarocco» come i tre giochi principali, e osserva che, mentre i due primi hanno ricevuto la lode degli scrittori, il terzo manca finora di un tale omaggio. Nelle numerose allusioni francesi ai tarocchi del XVI secolo, al contrario di quelli italiani, gli scrittori non si interessano mai del simbolismo delle carte, che considerano solo come strumenti di gioco, come i pezzi degli scacchi.

(The authors of two sixteenth-century Italian discourses, both discovered by Franco Pratesi, made attempts to interpret the triumphs as a meaningful sequence. One of the speeches is anonymous and there remain three copies of the manuscript, in Bologna, Florence and Paris; it is titled 'Discourse on why was found in the Game, and particularly that of the Tarot, stating the full meaning of all the figures of the Game'. No dates; Pratesi assigns it to about 1570. The second discussion is a book by Francesco Piscini da Carmagnola printed in 1565, entitled Discourse on the order of the figures of Tarocchi. Both works attempt a symbolic interpretation, not only of the triumphs but also of the four suits; Piscina in particular claims to want to find out the original intention of the inventor of the Tarot. According to the anonymous “Discourse”, the seven highest triumphs represent heavenly things, while others represent earthly life with its pleasures and dangers. Piscina considers the triumphs in a different order; from each group of two or three triumphs he draws a moral theme. These works reveal for the first time the charm of the images of the triumphs that gives plausibility to the interpretations of the occultists and also attracts those who, like Gertrude Moakley, for example, are [end of 137] adverse to occultism.

Neither of the Discourses is of occult inspiration. Neither of the writers associated the symbolism of the triumphs with astrological, hermetic or alchemical theories; both are securely describing cards used in a game and designed from the outset for that use. Piscina stated that 'we have composed [our discourse] more because of a sudden caprice that came in our mind during a feast day, seeing our very honored and gentle Lady of this city pleasantly playing"; the anonymous author of the other Discourse' chooses chess, ball and tarot as “the three main games”, and notes that while the first two have received praise from writers, the third so far lacks such a tribute. In the numerous allusions to the French tarot of the sixteenth century, in contrast to the Italians, the writers never care about the symbolism of the cards, considering them only as instruments of the game, like chess pieces.
_______________
58. See Franco Pratesi, 'Italian Cards: New Discoveries', nos. 2 and 4, Vol XV, 1987, p. 80-7, and Vol XVI, 1987, p. 27-36, together with pp. 112-3 and 126 of the catalog Il Tarocchi[/ i]; both works were exhibited at the tarot exhibition in the Castello Estense (Nos. 46 and 47). In his article in The Playing Card, Pratesi dates the anonymous ‘Discourse’ to the second half of the sixteenth century, but admits that it could be of the seventeenth century. In the catalog, he specifies the date "about 1570." In his article, Pratesi is willing to consider Rome as the place of origin of the anonymous “Discourse”, but in the catalog he indicates Venice (with a question mark): for my part, I would prefer Ferrara. Manuscripts of this 'discourse' are located in the University Library of Bologna, 1072 XIII. F, and the Central National Library of Florence, G. Capponi 24. Another was independently discovered by Thierry Depaulis in the Bibliothcque de l'Arsenal in Paris. A copy of the Discourse of Sgr. Francesco Piscina da Carmagnola on the order of the figures of the Tarot , Monte Regale (Mondovi), 1565, is in the Biblioteca Marazza Borgomanero.

These days, based on linguistic evidence, the Anonymous Discourse is given to some place in the Papal States south of Ferrara. Caldwell, Depaulis, and Ponzi, in their introduction to their translation suggest Pesaro, which might have had some association with the tarot from Alessandro Sforza, and the Adriatic coast generally.

The last point that Dummett makes in the text, that sixteenth century French sources show no interest in symbolism, unlike the ‘tarocchi appropriati’, is important, in suggesting that since the Italians were the ones to look at the cards symbolically, that it is there, if anywhere, we should find hidden symbolism before the 17th century.

The question, I think, is whether either of these authors talk about any non-“manifest” meanings. It seems to me that they do. For one, there is Piscina’s discussion of the “Inn of the Fool” and the “Inn of the Mirror”. There is a moral allegory here, but it is not at all obvious. It has to do with where the Fool is looking on the card, over his shoulder. Also, toward the end of the essay, he quotes Plato regarding the “demonio” card and relates it to the air. I don’t know whether it is obvious what the Devil card has to do with the air or not. There seems to be some relationship to the “cosmograph” of medieval astronomy and medieval Christian mysticism. And when Piscina does his moralizing based on the cards, he is very much using a particular sequence and the idea of one concept triumphing over another. That sequence is obvious to game players, but it is not on the cards; the moralization, however, is mostly a matter of combining “manifest” meanings.

However there is something else: a distinct suggestion that Pythagoreanism was used to interpret the suit cards. To start with, he says (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Piscina_Discorso_6):

...non vogliamo però lasciar di ragionar alquanto sopra il restante delle carte [23] del giuoco cose, però che apperterrano tutte alla materia nostra, la onde veggiamo l' Inventore haver posto di quattro qualita di cose, cioè Coppe, Danari, Spade, e Bastoni, per significar (dicano molti ma senza però renderne fondamento alcuno) le quattro stagioni dell' anno, o veramente le quattro età del huomo, & altri le quattro parti del mondo, ma noi non così, ma dicciamo esser poste per la diversità e conditione del viver Humano cio è guerra e pace, questi cioè ponendo per stagion di guerra, e quelli per il tempo della pace...

(Yet we do not want to omit to reason about the rest of the cards of [23] the game: all these things belong to our subject, because we see that the Inventor has placed four qualities of things, that is Cups, Coins, Swords and Batons, to mean (as many say without giving any foundation) the four seasons of the year, or the four ages of man, and others the four parts of the world. On the contrary, we say they represent the diversity of the conditions of human life, i.e. war and peace, placing these for the times of war and those for the times of peace.)

These associations to the number four are part of Pythagorean philosophy. It is supposed to show the workings of number in life as in the cosmos. Piscina makes tis explicit when he says later:

... ora perche più presto in numero quadernario che in altro potremo dire come in più perfetto anzi perfettissimo de gl' altri si come fra tutti & ispetialmente moderni il dottissimo Ficino hà scritto nel argomento fatto sopra il Timeo di Platone dal.xx. fino al .24. cap.
(Now why in number of four and not another we can say because it is more perfect than all the others. Among all, and especially the modern, this has been explained by the very learned Ficino in his discussion about Plato's Timaeus from chapter XX to XXIV.)

This vocabulary of “more perfect” numbers (although the Pythagoreans made a distinction between “complete”, which does apply to four, and “perfect”, which does not) is Pythagorean. Tarotpedia helpfully gives us Ficino’s text, in Latin and English (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Piscina_ ... on_Timaeus):

Chapter XX “Prima discussio, quare quaternarius elementorum numerus mundo conveniat” (First discussion, why the number of four elements is appropriate for the world). Number four is the first one to resolve the differences among other numbers, since it contains both the first even number and the first odd number. It also implies the simple progression of all numbers, since the addition of four, three, two and one equals ten. The Pythagoreans were right in considering as fourfold both the body and the soul, and in asserting that the never-ending source of life is quadruple. From that source come the four elements, the four humours or complexions, the four virtues that rise above time.

Chapter XXI “Secunda idem probandum discussio” (Second discussion, proving the same thing). According to Iamblichus, the Syrians and Proclus, the superior world is also divided in four: one, the limited, the infinite, and the mixed. The universe is divided in four regions: the first from heaven through the sphere of fire until the beginning of the sphere of air, the second from there until the middle of the sphere of air, the third until earth, and the fourth earth itself. Also rational beings are of four kinds: gods, men, angels and demons.

Chapter XXII “Tertia ad idem confirmandam discussio” (Third discussion, confirming the same thing). The metaphysics also consider four elements: essence, being, virtue and action. And the mathematicians as well: point, line, plane, depth.

Chapter XXIII “Quarta ad idem discussio, & de viribus proportionibusque elementorum” (Fourth discussion about the same and the powers and proportions of the elements). The position of the four elements is due to their characteristics of substance (subtle or gross) virtue (acute or obtuse) action (mobile or immobile):

Fire, acute, subtle, mobile
Air, obtuse, subtle, mobile
Water, obtuse, gross, mobile
Earth, obtuse, gross, immobile

Chapter XXIIII “Quod totus mundus ex quatuor comonitur elementis: & quomodo haec alia ratione sunt in coelo: aliter infra lunam” (The whole world is made of four elements, and the same are present, in different quantities, in heaven and under the sphere of the moon). Nobody denies that the four elements are present under the moon, but someone negates that they are present in heaven. But there are illustrious astronomers that have found that the nature of the planets depends on the elements. And the holy scriptures say that water and earth are present in heaven: and if these two elements are present in heaven, also air and fire must be present, since they are much more familiar to heaven. And the virtue of heaven is so great that things that on earth are in conflict can coexist in heaven. The movement of heaven mixes the four elements in any birth. And if there is all this union of the elements below the moon, above the moon it must be much greater. With Orpheus, we can say that also in the underworld there are four elements: Pyriphlegeton, Acheron, Ocean and Cocytum. With Plato we can say that the superiority of the celestial region is so great that the celestial fire, with respect to elemental fire and the other three elements, can be considered as a fifth element.

Ficino in chapter XX mentions the Pythagoreans explicitly. That four “contains the first even and the first odd number” and in fact all the numbers whose sum makes up the sacred “tetrakys” or ten, is another Pythagorean dictum, as well as the rest of the paragraph. Piscina says that others have associated the suits with various of these things: the four seasons, the four ages of man, the four parts of the world. But he only sees “the diversity of the conditions of life”, two kinds of war (ancient with clubs and modern with swords) and two kinds of peace (produced by wine and money).

For his part, Anonymous is one of those whom Piscina would think went beyond the evidence (Caldwell et al p. 44f):

Because all human actions are directed to one of these four goals—the gaining of riches, the use of arms, literature, or pleasure – so the very prudent author divided the game into four main parts, that is coins, swords, maces and cups, and the game was instituted for four, even if it is now mainly played by three, because the quaternary number is more perfect tha the others, since, having in itself three, two and one, it comes to include ten. Ten contains and numbers all other numbers, since hundred and thousands are but quantitites of tens. So wise nature ordered according to this number the first qualities in the principles of all natural things from which the four Elements result, and from these, the four humours of our body, and then the temperaments, according to which customs and inclinations derive from the above-mentioned four goals. From the variations in the four humours, the four ages of our life are produced: to them, the four times of the year correspond. Also, illnesses in human bodies are divided into four times.

I am surprised he did not discourse on the four court figures in relation to the four ages of man. As Marco has shown (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&p=7410&hilit=humors#p7367), the Sola-Busca relates them to the four humors. Various illuminations of the time relate the four suit signs to the four humours and the four elements. The interconnection of all these things is Pythagoreanism.

Another example, discovered after Dummett wrote, is the Tarotica document, which was imbedded in a book on the first ten numbers as they are manifested in human, natural and divine life, with similar language on the tarot suits, that they are a “quaternity” and a “ternary” making a group of seven (septenary?) multiplied by three, for a “ternary” plus a “quaternary” as the tarot deck. All of these numbers, and more, are in a Pythagorean context, as I have elaborated at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=767&start=40#p14694.

These discussions in the context of Pythagoreanism raise questions about something that Dummett says later about the suit cards. He argues that they could not have, because they were already part of the normal deck before tarot existed.

Possiamo sicuramente respingere l’idea degli occultisti ottocenteschi che le carte dei semi abbiano significati occulti poiché, a parte l’aggiunta delle Regine, quella sezione del mazzo dei tarocchi non è altro che il mazzo normale con semi italiani.

(We can safely dismiss the idea of nineteenth-century occultists that the suit cards have hidden meanings, since apart from the addition of the Queens, that section of the tarot deck is nothing more than the normal deck with Italian suits.)

The number cards were associated with particular numbers, obviously; it was a matter of counting the suit symbols and then, in the game, being able to recognize each one’s characteristic pattern. Symbolic meanings had long been attached to numbers, especially those from 1 to 10, as we know from Piscina, Anonymous, and their sources, such as Ficino. It was a main tenet of Neopythagoreanism that both the microcosm and the macrocosm were governed by numbers. Both Christian and Pagan writers had written in such terms from Roman times forward. Symbolic significance to numbers is also evident in Renaissance writers.

The number cards were not invented so as to have sych symbolic purposes, but they are easily adapted to them.. It was then only necessary to know the significance of the numbers and their application to various aspects of life: Piscina and Anonymous give various interpretations of the meanings of the suits, which we see continued and added to by de Gebelin (http://www.tarock.info/gebelin.htm) and de Mellet (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Recherch ... les_Tarots).

If Swords for Piscina means modern warfare, then the number on the card means not just how much, but also the Pythagorean interpretation of that number, pertaining to war. De Gebelin generalizes it to “le Souverain & la Noblesse toute Militaire" (the Sovereign and the military nobility). Thus law and government would be included. For de Mellet:

Toutes les Epées ne présagent que des malheurs, sur-tout celles qui marquées d'un nombre impair, portent encore une épée sanglante. Le seul signe de la victoire, l'épée couronnée, est dans cette couleur le signe d'un heureux événement.

(All the Swords predict only misfortunes, especially of odd number, still more so those that carry a bloody sword. Only the crowned sword of victory is a sign of a happy event in this suit.)

Again, this is a natural extension of the Swords as warfare.

Batons for Piscina mean the same thing as Swords but in ancient times, and with lesser effect. However already in the PMB there is the suggestion that Batons signify fertility—the “green sleeves” on the Batons courts, visible also in the Love card lady, the Empress, and the Hanged Man. De Gebelin associates Batons with agriculture, De Mellet is more expansive:

Les Bâtons destinés à l'Agriculture en pronostiquoient les récoltes plus ou moins abondantes, les choses qui devoient arriver à la campagne ou qui la regardoient. Ils paroissent mélangés de bien & de mal; les quatre figures ont le bâton verd, semblable en cela au bâton fortuné, mais les autres Cartes paroissent, par des ornemens qui se compensent, indiquer l'indifférence: le deux seul, dont les bâtons sont couleur de sang, semble consacré à la mauvaise fortune.

(The Batons signifying Agriculture portend more or less abundant harvests of them, or in general relate to the countryside or matters which pertain to it. They represent mixed fortunes for good & evil: the four court figures have green batons, and are considered fortunate, but other cards by the balance of the ornamentation indicate indifference: two only, whose batons are the colour of blood, are taken as omens of misfortune.)

These interpretations are surely merely an extension of the ideas expressed by Piscina and shown in the PMB.

According to Piscina, Cups have to do with happiness in a way related to Bacchus and wine. De Gebelin relates them to the priesthood (“le Clergé ou le Sacerdoce”); all we have to do is look at the PMB Ace of Cups to see the origin of that idea. De Mellet says “Les Coupes en général annonçoient le bonheur” (The Cups in general denote happiness). That Coins mean money is obvious; de Gebelin’s extension to commerce (“le Commerce dont l'argent est le sign”) is natural. De Mellet has “richesse”.

The next step, of course, is whether the extension of these concepts to cartomancy, as de Mellet does, is equally natural, even in Piscina’s time. To me the answer is obvious, but I will put off that question until another post.

The fifth suit would naturally be seen in the same way, or at least the first 10 cards of it. Ficino speaks of a fifth element above the other four, celestial fire. So they are associated with the sacred. The word “hieroglyph” applied to them by Anonymous and repeated by de Mellet suggests the same: sacred writing or inscription. Pythagorean principles then would naturally have influenced particular sequences of trumps being chosen over others. For example, Macrobius said that the number 8 was associated with Justice (Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, V.17). Indeed we have Justice as the 8th triumph in some A and C orders. 2, for Martianus Cappella, was the number of Prudence. 1 was the number of the Creator. And so on. (For specific references, see viewtopic.php?f=12&t=971&p=14206&hilit= ... ean#p14206 and the post following. Numbers above 10 are simply repetitions of the numbers from 1 to 10: 11 is another 1.

Decker in his recent book has attempted to show Pythagoreanism can be extended to fit all the triumphs (see my summary at the posts just given). Decker does not see fit to apply Pythagoreanism to the suits. But I have done so (and the triumphs as well; see viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&p=8518&hilit=Popess#p8518) on THF in the thread “Deciphering the Sola-Busca pips”, starting at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530. For the number cards, I fit Pythagorean principles to both the Sola-Busca number cards and the Etteilla keywords, with similar meanings. For the triumphs, I simply use two sets of ten, plus another "1" for the World; Decker has three sets of seven, but using the same ten numbers. All I can say is that works (at least mine does), and that in the case of the number cards, other ways of associating numbers with the Sola-Busca images and Etteilla keywords mostly do not work. The Sola-Busca designs, according to the most recent art historical study, which others besides me find convincing, locates the Sola-Busca with an artist of Ancona, which is very much in the region of the writer of the Anonymous Discourse.

This foray into Pythagoreanism brings up a question about hwo to interpret what Dummett means by "occult" or "hidden" symbolism. In the passage above, he mentions astrology, hermetism, and alchemy. Later he brings in Egyptian symbolism and Kabbalah. But what else? Does Pythagoreanism count? What about the mystery cults referred to in ancient sources—of Isis, Dionysus, Samothrace, Eleusis, etc.? There are also the myths propounded by the Platonists, starting with Plato’s myths of Er, the Cave, and the Charioteer. There is also Plutarch on the soul after death. There is the Chaldean Oracles, and Porphyry’s Cave of the Nymphs, and much more from Iamblicus and Proclus. These would have been known to at least a few educated Renaissance humanists and their friends, in precisely the places associated with the early tarot. Since Dummett did not cover these sources in his chapter on “manifest” symbolism, I will assume they count as “occult”. It is still not a lot, with much overlap, as these sources are by no means independent of one another. I will not be discussing such things as the Druids, Sufi mysticism, and the I Ching Those are truly esoteric, for these times and places.

There is also the question of the timeframe. Dummett often seems to want to refer only to the “original” tarot. This is something I am reluctant to do, being very uncertain what it was. As with “surface” meaning, I think it is enough to look at the decks and literary sources that we have in the context of their time and place, regardless of what Piscina and others think they are doing. These authors are mainly valuable for what they say about their own time and place, although we can often make reasonable conectures regarding a certain past period as well.

The next author that Dummett discusses regarding “hidden symbolism” is de Gebelin and his “Egyptian” symbolism. I will deal with that in another post.

mikeh wrote:Thanks for the image of the one with Bologna. Huck, I hadn't known that one. And yes, Florence, on the one with the Medici heraldic and the Florence tax stamp. Minchiate was also played in Rome, on decks of Roman manufacturer, if I remember Depaulis correctly. The skyline is not that of Florence currently ((http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bf2bO-nHRTc/T ... C03239.JPG).

If one makes a horizontal flip of the picture, the skyline turns right (more or less, at least for the 3 most important buildings).

Dummett ..

(Immediately after the composition of this poem, a certain Vincenzo Imperiali wrote a Reply, in which he praised the game of Tarot, noting that Lollio had played Tarot on the same day in which he had composed his Invettiva:

"Somewhere" (I don't remember, where, Girolamo Zorli perhaps ?), I've read about the opinion, that "Vincenz Imperiali" would just be a pseudonym of Lollio. This seems to be a rather logical idea. Lollio plays the "Fool", and Imperiali has the trumps. Or otherwise ... with Lollio as master and Imperiali as Fool.

Franco reports his finding ...
http://naibi.net/A/03-FERRARA-Z.pdf

These few lines were more than enough to induce me to ask for a microfilm copy, which I
have recently studied. Thus, we have both the Invettiva and the Risposta written by the hand of
Lollio. The first was printed many times (I guess one could list about a dozen editions, usually
inserted among other poems, but that is not of great interest here). The Risposta is on the
contrary unpublished and, since it contains a paraphrase of the Lollio text together with the
rebuttal of his arguments, it is remarkably longer than the Invettiva itself, containing precisely
459 verses in terza rima.

Further he notes ...

If nothing is known on V. Imperiali ...

In other words, nothing is known about Imperiali, which is not written by Lollio's hand. So Vincenzo Imperiale might be well just the fiction of Lollio ... a pseudonym, just invented for the day of the poem.

"Imperiale" is a contemporary game name, already mentioned the 1490s, and David Parlett expresses the opinion, that it is similar to Piquet.

Aces outrank Kings. This promotion also dates from the end of the 15th century, though it is interesting (and confusing) to note that the closely related game of Impériale ranks Ace intermediately, between Jack and Ten, as if caught in the process of migrating from low to high position.

http://www.davidparlett.co.uk/histocs/piquet.html

And Vincenz ...

Vincent is a male name derived from Vincentius (from the present participle of the Latin verb vincere, "to conquer or win").

So this all sounds like a pseudonym with "internal message" ("I win at Imperiale"... ,but I lose on Tarocchi.

Franco reports a specific passage ...

Other examples could be cited in addition, and for several games. The fact remains that,
before the corresponding technical treatises − which in some cases were only printed after a
couple of centuries − we must be satisfied with the observations continued in these “literary”
texts. Lollio is no exception as the answer by Imperiali clearly demonstrates. His spare moments
are devoted to tarot, and not just many years before, but on the very day he wrote the poem. Only
a few days before he joked with Imperiali, a less expert player, inviting him to count his own
points on an occasion when Imperiali won no trick at all.

Commonly it's the Fool, who wins no trick at all.

Here I've the passage from Zorli (luckily found)..

Vincenzo Imperiali ci è del tutto ignoto. La potente
famiglia Imperiali/e, chiamava spesso Vincenzo i propri
membri. Un indizio troppo vago. La mancanza di notizie ha
portato Enrica Domenicali ...
http://rivista.fondazionecarife.it/Arti ... ollio.html
... a sospettare che fosse uno
pseudonimo dello stesso Lollio.

http://www.tretre.it/uploads/media/LOLL ... FE1554.pdf
... at page 5.

Thanks, Huck. So I take it that "Imperiali" and "Lollio" are two sides of the same Lollio coin, two postures toward the game. Which is the real Lollio? Neither and both. It's a typical Renaissance dialogue in which the author hides behind points of view. I would only emphasize that the information you provide does not suggest that when Lolllio disparages the cards he is serious, ot that when he finds nothing there but "fumo, pancucchi,et fanfaluchehe" he is serious either (nor do I mean to imply that such was your intent).

The next author Dummett discusses is de Gebelin:

L’interpretazione occultistica del mazzo dei tarocchi può essere fatta risalire a una sola fonte, un saggio di Antoine Court de Gébelin, incluso nell’ottavo volume, pubblicato nel 1781, della sua vasta opera incompiuta Le Monde primitif. Gébelin, che pose in appendice al suo saggio una descrizione del gioco, non avanzava alcuna pretesa di dar conto di una tradizione ininterrotta. Al contrario, pare essere convinto che la sua teoria sull’origine delle carte sveli un segreto perduto da secoli. La sua assurda teoria era che il mazzo fosse stato inventato dai sacerdoti dell’antico Egitto come rappresentazione simbolica della loro dottrina religiosa. Da allora era stato innocentemente ritenuto un semplice strumento di gioco da generazioni di giocatori del tutto ignari della vera ragione della sua invenzione. Proprio in questo spirito, solo un anno dopo la stampa dell’ottavo volume di Gébelin, un articolo in una rivista tedesca ne divulgava le teorie 59. Molti di voi, esordisce l’autore, avranno spesso giocato al gioco di Tarok, senza mai rendersi conto che tutti i Taroks — cioè i trionfi — e anzi tutte le carte di qualsiasi tipo non sono altro che raffigurazioni allegoriche, portatrici di un significato morale. In seguito, gli occultisti [end of 138] tentarono di sostenere con prove pateticamente inadeguate che i loro predecessori rinascimentali avevano attribuito il loro stesso significato al mazzo dei tarocchi: ma colui che pubblicò per primo un’interpretazione esoterica non aveva avanzato alcuna pretesa del genere.

(The interpretation of the occult tarot deck can be traced back to a single source, an essay by Antoine Court de Gébelin, included in the eighth volume, published in 1781, of his vast unfinished Le Monde primitif. Putting in an appendix to his essay a description of the game, Gébelin did not advance any claim to give an account of an unbroken tradition. On the contrary, he seems to be convinced that his theory on the origin of the cards reveal a secret lost for centuries. His absurd theory was that the deck was invented by the priests of ancient Egypt as a symbolic representation of their religious doctrine. Since then it had been innocently believed to be a simple tool for generations of game players completely unaware of the true reason of its invention. It is in this spirit, only a year after the release of the eighth volume of Gébelin, an article in a German magazine divulged the theory 59. Many of you, the author begins, will often have played the game Tarok, never realizing that all the Taroks - that is, the triumphs - and indeed all cards of any kind are nothing more than allegories, bearers of a moral significance. Later, occultists [end of 138] attempted to support with pathetically inadequate evidence that their Renaissance predecessors had ascribed their own meanings to the tarot deck, but the one who first published an esoteric interpretation had not made any such claim.
_______________

59. 'Uebcr den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Tarok – Charten”, Gottingisches Magazin und der Wissenschaftcn Litcratur, 2ten Jahrgang, 1782, pp. 348-77.

What I get out of this (disregarding de Gebelin on the “original” meaning of the tarot) is that one type of “esoteric” or “occult” symbolism in the cards is that of ancient Egypt. It is easy enough to see Egyptian symbolism in the cards. When I first saw the cards, I thought the same thing—not that they originated in ancient Egypt, but that somebody had put Egyptian-style images in them, catering to the Egyptomania of the time (which existed in France throughout the 17th and 18th century, long before Napoleon). I am not talking about the 19th and 20th century versions, but the Tarot de Marseille that de Gebelin saw. This still seems to me true, going back at least as far as the Cary Sheet. The Italian Renaissance courts and humanists could not get enough of ancient Egypt and its so-called “hieroglyphs” (a word that the Anonymous Discourse uses, as well as de Mellet), starting in the 1420s. This is not to say that the cards were originally made with Egypt in mind, just that the card makers might have taken advantage, as much as they dared, of the fascination with ancient Egypt as imagined by Renaissance Italians. I would not actually call it an “Egyptian” interpretation of the cards, but rather part of a Greco-Roman interpretation, which included Greco-Roman interpretations and adaptations of Egyptian mythology as one part.

It is true that de Geblin thought he was the first to see these suggestions in the cards. I find that dubious. He was just the first to be in a position to write about it without danger of persecution. 18th century France was full of material about so-called “Egyptian mysteries”. They were incorporated into the lore of secret societies and became the subject of more than one opera. Since Masons like de Gebelin surely played the game of tarot, it is not surprising that their cards would reflect the same interests.

Dummett goes on:

Nei limiti in cui si può parlare di certezza per un qualsiasi fatto storico, è quindi certo che, nei primi tre secoli e mezzo della loro esistenza, i tarocchi furono usati per un solo scopo, cioè per giocare. Non ne consegue necessariamente che essi non debbano nulla alle scienze occulte dal punto di vista iconografico. Possiamo sicuramente respingere l’idea degli occultisti ottocenteschi che le carte dei semi abbiano significati occulti poiché, a parte l’aggiunta delle Regine, quella sezione del mazzo dei tarocchi non è altro che il mazzo normale con semi italiani. Non è, tuttavia, intrinsecamente impossibile, e neppure improbabile, che i trionfi racchiudessero una qualche sorta di simbolismo occulto: magari nella selezione dell’insieme dei soggetti, o nella loro successione, o forse nei modi convenzionali di raffigurare i singoli soggetti. Questo è possibile perché i disegni delle carte da gioco non riflettono sempre necessariamente elementi caratteristici dell’uso a cui sono destinate. L’esempio più evidente è uno dei più noti tipi di mazzi indigeni indiani, quello conosciuto come Dasavatara. I dieci semi del mazzo Dasavatara rappresentano, come suggerisce il nome, le dieci incarnazioni di Visnù. Per comprendere l’iconografìa del mazzo, pertanto, occorre far riferimento alla mitologia indù; ma questo non ha nulla a che vedere con l’unico uso a cui sono destinate le carte, e cioè a determinati giochi per i quali l’unica cosa che importa è che ci siano dieci semi distinti, ciascuno formato da dieci carte numerali e due figure.

(To the extent that one can speak of certainty for any historical fact, it is thus certain that in the first three and a half centuries of their existence, tarot cards were used for only one purpose, namely to play. It does not necessarily follow that they do not owe anything to the occult sciences from the iconographic point of view. We can safely dismiss the idea of nineteenth-century occultists that the suit cards have hidden meanings, since apart from the addition of the Queens, that section of the tarot deck is nothing more than the normal deck with Italian suits. It is not, however, inherently impossible, or even improbable, that the triumphs racchiudessero some sort of occult symbolism: maybe in the selection of the ensemble of the parts, or in their sequence, or perhaps in the conventional ways of depicting individual subjects. This is possible because the designs of playing cards do not always necessarily reflect the characteristic elements of the use to which they are intended. The most obvious example is one of the most popular of the indigenous Indian types of decks, the one known as Dasavatara. Ten suits of the Dasavatara pack depict, as the name suggests, the ten incarnations of Vishnu. To understand the iconography of the deck, therefore, necessary to refer to Hindu mythology; but this has nothing to do with the only use to which the cards are intended, namely for certain games for which the only thing that matters is that there are ten different suits, each consisting of ten pip cards and two figures.

This last is a good point and shows that he does not reject hidden symbolism out of hand. There is the use of the cards for games, and there is iconography. One can contemplate the incarnations of Vishnu on the cards even if they are used only for playing a game. It is in that spirit that we need to look at de Gebelin and de Mellet. It is in fact precisely because of the association with games and gambling that the tarot was called the “Book of Thoth”: Theuth/Thoth was the legendary inventor of games in Plato’s Phaedrus.

I want to focus on what would have seemed then—and still is—the relatively unsolved mysteries of the tarot sequence, that is to say, the Popess, the Tarot de Marseille style celestials, and the lady in the World card, plus details elsewhere. De Gebelin argues that the Popess, by analogy to the Empress, cannot be European, because the Pope is unmarried, but in Egypt, the High Priest was married to the High Priest. I think this is correct, but I am not sure. I am also not sure that people in the Renaissance would have had that idea. But a reference to Egypt is one way of explaining that title, surely by the 18th century. In addition, de Gebelin points to visual features on the card. He sees little spikes on the sides of the Popess’s crown. These are similar to the horned headdress of Isis or her priestess. Secondly, the Pope’s staff was a triple cross, the type of cross carried by the High Priest at the letter TT of the Bembine Tablet source. This is a Roman-era engraving that surfaced around 1527, with genuine Egyptian symbols on them (although not genuinely Egyptian, as they do not form sentences.) I myself have never been able to find such a cross in the Tablet, although J. Karlin says it is there, held by Ptah (Rhapsodies of the Bizarre p. 68, note 13). But the papal staff was already depicted with three cross-bars. The “horns” in the Popess’s tiara can be seen already in the PMB version (center at http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JuPxu7g5VbI/T ... ustice.jpg), as well as in the Bembine Tablet (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... ineDET.jpg); the horizontal horns on some deities also bear some resemblance to the Bagato’s hat). But crowns in general had such “horns” (at right in previous link), although perhaps not as long. This imagery is consistent with an Egyptianate interpretation, but not evidence for its being put there for that purpose.

Another thing about the Popess, however, is that the representation of Isis in the Borgia apartments is quite similar to what we see on the Tarot de Marseille card. It seems to be Mary of the Annunciation transposed to Pinturicchio’s version of Isis (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... ryIsis.jpg). It also bears some similarity, especially in the face, to the Cary Sheet figure with the crozier.

Another mystery is the sequence Star, Moon, and Sun: why does the Star come first, why do the cards, from the Cary Sheet on, look the way they do, and what are the drops that we see? De Gebelin argues that the Star is the Dog-Star, Sirius, and the lady is Sothis, “Isis’ water-carrier” for Plutarch, whose appearance on the eastern horizon at dawn was a harbinger of the coming Nile flood. There is a distinct similarity between her and Roman depictions of Sothis, identifiable by her star overhead (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... Sothis.jpg). The water-carrier, of course, is also Aquarius; but in Roman Egypt there were both male and female depictions of that constellation (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... r2Nota.JPG, from Desroches-Noblecourt, Le Fabuleux Heritage de l'Egypte, p. 123). The two streams then could be the two branches of the Nile, one of which came over the plain and the other down from Ethiopia. Correspondingly we have a mountain on one side of the Cary-Sheet Star lady. It took both the nutrient-rich water from the White Nile and the summer torrent from Ethiopia to produce the Nile Flood.

The crayfish on the Cary Sheet Moon card then symbolizes the month of the flood, from June 22 to July 22, and the body of water the flood itself. All of this was well known by Greek-speaking humanists, of which there were a sufficient number in all the places associated with the 15th century tarot. It is particularly clear for Milan, where Filelfo had the complete Moralia of Plutarch, with its “On Isis and Osiris”. Also, Ciriaco da Ancona, who had traveled to Egypt as far as the Cairo area and sketched ancient monuments there, spent his last days, the early 1450s, in Cremona, where Filelfo and the Sforza family also had stayed in 1452 to escape the plague in Milan (Robin, Filelfo in Milan p. 248), and where the Bembo artists had their workshop

The Cary Sheet has what I see as Egyptianate details (although others do not see them, I admit). The plants next to the towers could double as obelisks, which came in twos, and whatever is in the middle as a temple (see below). Next to the lake I see two crocodiles, one with something in its mouth. Crocodiles are associated with the Nile, too. What is in the crocodile’s mouth is not in the story that I know of, but it reappears in the Conver version in the crayfish’s claws. I see no Egyptian explanation for this detail.

The Tarot de Marseille adds droplets coming down from the sky, probably taken from the Cary Sheet Sun card, probably solar rays there. De Gebelin associates the droplets on the Moon card, otherwise unexplained, with the “tears of Isis” mentioned by Pausanias (Description of Greece 10.32.18, at http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias10C.html), i.e. the rain in Ethiopia. That is as good an explanation as any.

After the Nile flood, if it has been sufficient, the fields are ready for planting, a rebirth of the land that is a cause for celebration. On the Tarot de Marseille there are little pools of water scattered around on the Sun card. But why the Twins, as opposed to a lion? I do not wish to argue that the Gemini were thought Egyptian. Egypt, as it existed in the Roman period, is just part of a general Greco-Roman interpretation. In the Greek myth of the Gemini, one brother is mortally wounded, and the other sacrifices half his immortality for the sake of his half-brother, a kind of precursor of Christ’s sacrifice. This myth fits the Egyptian situation in the month of August. The period at the end of the flood was a time of pestilence, the ancient writers relate. Similarly to the Gemini, the deaths due to pestilence are a necessary sacrifice for the survival of the people. Egyptian imagery can explain why some versions of the cards had a man and a woman. The Greco-Roman era zodiac at Dendera had just such a man and a woman, probably representing Shu and Tefnet, children of the sun god (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... Gemini.jpg). All of this imagery was above ground and quite accessible by the end of the 15th century.Oddly to me, a 1496 zodiac from Troyes also shows a male and female Gemini (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... zodiac.JPG), as well as what might be a female Aquarius.

Finally, for the World card we have Isis again, said by Macrobius to be the Platonic world-soul (Saturnalia, I, c. 20 -21, cited by Vitali at http://trionfi.com/0/i/c/21/v/F2-bottom.html). Apuleius suggests something similar in saying that Isis is "mother of all things, mistress and governor of the elements" (Metamorphoses 11, at http://books.eserver.org/fiction/apulei ... leven.html). So within the oval of the cosmos is the goddess, a little bit of Platonized Egyptian mythology thrown into an otherwise Christian card, or so it surely was thought by some.

Other imagery on other cards is at least consistent with an Egyptian interpretation. It seems to me quite likely that the Egyptian interpretation was not original with de Gebelin (Dummett says something similar for de Mellet, but I cannot find the reference just now) .The 1731 French novel Sethos was set in Egypt and featured a secret initiation much like Masonic ones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethos#The_Terrasson_novel). Rameau wrote an opera about the gods of Egypt (https://www.kennedy-center.org/events/?event=RPOLA) and of course later there was Mozart’s Magic Flute, with an initiation in an Egyptian setting.

In addition, we have to take into account the popularity of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica at this time, starting in 1430s Florence, Ferrara, and Milan. Decker has shown how different images on the cards can yield different interpretations using this book (see http://books.google.com/books?id=qW11TC ... hs&f=false). It cannot account for the creation of the cards and their order, nor in most cases even give a more satisfactory explanation for a particular image than without Horapollo’s input (with a couple of exceptions, which I will discuss in a moment). But the correlations that Decker makes do tend to support certain interpretations and not others. An example would be “distant voice” as Horapollo’s interpretation of the meaning of thunder, a phenemonon that would be represented visually by lightning. Decker says that wouls surely be a divine voice. That very much fits an intepretation of the card as the voice of God calling us to rectitude in God’s eyes and disdain for this world.

An Egyptianate slant may account for some particular ways the imagery was changed in 17th-18th century France. So for example we have a sphinx-like figure on the top of the Tarot de Marseille II Wheel of Fortune (compare images at http://newsletter.tarotstudies.org/2010 ... nd-monkey/); and some of the circles on the Tower card have been turned into Priest of Osiris-style hats (compare http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3H0XppSR-kc/U ... 0/hats.JPG with the hats on the Bembine Tablet, http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... ineDET.jpg). Also, on the Judgment card a hill has been added on the Tarot de Marseille II that together with the tonsured head of the middle figure has an uncanny resemblance to the so-called “eye of Horus”: compare http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... Wadjet.jpg with the earlier http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Image:Je ... rot_20.jpg; in my caption, the name of the deck should be “Chosson", and the 1672 date is controversial; however the card is very much representative of the Tarot de Marseille II standard design.

Likewise, the bird on the Star card (compare http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... olChos.jpg) may have been added for the purpose of providng a phoenix, the well-known bird (Marziano’s deck had a suit of them) who died and was reborn at the rising of the sun in Egypt. That there is no fire in the tree is no obstacle. The bird was often presented without a fire under him. In fact, Horapollo himself makes no mention of it in his discussion. Here is the account of its death and birth, which I quote in full (II, 57):

When they wish to indicate a long-enduring restoration, they draw the phoenix. For when this bird is born, there is a renewal of things. And it is born in this way. When the phoenix is about to die, it casts itself upon the ground and is crushed. And from the ichor pouring out of the wound, another is born. And this one immediately sprouts wings and flies off with its sire to Heliopolis to Egypt and once there, at the rising of the sun, the sire dies. And with the death of the sire, the young one returns to its own country. And the Egyptian priests bury the dead phoenix.

The bird with outstretched wings is then welcoming the sun, which has not yet risen. There may be other interpretations, but this one fits Horapollo quite well, and I know of no other. Similar depictions actually illustrated 16th century editions of Horapollo; Marco provided an example (http://www.emblematica.com/en/cd08-horapollo.htm); his intention was to discount the influence of Horapollo on the Tarot de Marseille, but to me it only strengthens it (his post is at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=971#p14174). The people rising from their graves on the card is indeed a “long-enduring restoration”.

One other detail pertains to the Devil card. Why does the Tarot de Marseille Devil have long, more vertical than usual horns, like stylized antlers? The Devil of the capital in Venice, the one with ropes to the two captured souls (http://www.art-roman.net/issoire/issoire31.jpg) has no such things. One possibility is that it may have been suggested by the “Seth animal” depicted in ancient Egyptian stellae accessible then, such as one that was on a causeway at Sakkara, an ancient burial ground for nobles and pharaohs near Cairo (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lu-6PwakMv0/S ... erSeth.JPG; unfortunately I can no longer find the book in which its location was given). De Gebelin identified the Devil with Seth. I do not know if he had pictures in Le Monde Primitif of Seth with his odd head or not. That it looks like stylized antlers may also have something to do with male potency, thought in some cultures (China, for sure) to have been promoted by antler horn powder.

Well, enough on Egypt. I will get to the rest of the section on hidden symbolism later.