Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:

Huck wrote: ... see the Isabella d'Este collection, Post 3.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=432

I find that less convincing than the dog's coat explanation. Yours doesn't explain the choice of name (how did the dog resemble a card game?), nor why he chose a French form over the Italian, if he encountered it through Italians.

We don't know, when the dog was born. I would assume that the dog "Tarot" likely came with the second wife, which was of a French speaking region ... and Agrippa was then in this French speaking region. Generally one should assume, that Agrippa had (later) so much dogs, cause he desired protection for his wife.

Well, can you point to an early dated quote, where "Tarot" or "Tarotus" is used to mean "spotted"? ....

Can we point to early quotes, where "Tarot" or similar words mean a playing card deck? Yes, variously.

Can we point to quotes, where Tarot is used as a dog name? Yes, two times by Agrippa.

Is it true, that Agrippa knew the cards? Yes, very probably.
Is it true, that Agrippa knew the word "Tarot" as "spotted like the eyes of a die"? How should we know that? ...

My suggested explanation was ad hoc, and I would merely like a similar explanation for why he would name a dog after a card game.

Obviously we all know spotted dogs, so mine is intuitively appealing. Equally speculative but less intuitive explanations, such as "he was really into Tarot when he got the dog", people don't bite so easily. How do you know he was into Tarot? We know he was into dogs, and there are a lot of spotted dogs...

We might just as easily ask why he had names like "Musa" and "Franza", "Ciccone" and "Balassa".

Was one dog his muse?

What do franza, ciccone, or balassa mean?

We can't "know" why he chose those names without much more information, which was probably lost when he died.

It doesn't matter. What matters - small in the grand scheme of things - is that it is the earliest occurrence of the spelling "tarot", whatever it means in this context. With the caveat that it appears in a text printed 100 years after it was supposedly written, and that we have not seen the original manuscript nor a contemporary printing.

Th number of people, who understood the word Tarochi in playing card context might have been still rather limited, when the dog was born. Agrippa belonged to this relative few persons, who "likely" knew this word.

The number of persons, who understood the word "tarot" as "spotted" was possibly even more rare. We don't know, if Agrippa knew this very seldom used word, for us it is so rare, that we even don't know a single speaker who used it in this time ... or do I see this wrong?

What's the oldest occurrence for this use?

We see, that Agrippa used rare dog names. Monsieur and Mademoiselle and later Madame (both he brought from France) have their name gotten, cause there were from France. "Musa" shows, that Agrippa gave his dogs name with some poetic attention. Franza (from Franz ? Or Francois ?) and Ciccone (Cicco = Francesco in the Milanese region) both have this "Franz", possibly he got them also as a pair. Balassa (nobody knows this? no idea?) and Tarot. Why not Tarot from a card game?
The Fool in Tarot (possibly) had a dog ... the Mantegna Tarocchi beggar had a dog ... the association from this lead to Diogenes, Momus etc., just Lucianic spirit.
Tarot is twice noted as the first, likely he was the oldest dog.

Perhaps Balassa has something to do with Balint Balassi's (1554-1594) father?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1lint_Balassa

Who knows what one can dig up.

Bertrand wrote:Hello,
very clever idea ! maybe the dog's pelage may also have reminded tarot cards' back for some reason (I'm thinking here of the hermine back of certain cards, though they occured at a much later date).
Bertrand

hi Bertrand,
what do you mean with "hermine back of certain cards"? The backs of Noblet - Vievil - Tarot de Paris?

I imagine he means something like the Dodal back -



E.g. -
"Ermine is represented by a white field with black spots. It is the fur most commonly used in heraldry, and the spots represent the tails of this small animal, sewn to the white fur for enrichment."
http://www.houseofnames.com/wiki/furs-of-heraldry

Google images "ermine" "heraldry"

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en ... 29,r:0,s:0

https://www.google.com/search?q=ermine% ... 4QTpoaXLAQ#

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en ... 29,r:4,s:0

etc..

Thank you Ross, that's exactly what I meant, although I don't know of any example of that pattern earlier than Dodal, called "a kind of hermine pattern" (by Thierry Depaulis at least but IIRC also by earlier authors) while it differs slightly from the regular heraldic hermine (just as the back from the 17th century parisian decks are not exactly Maltese cross).

Bertrand

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Letter 72, book V has "Tarot, Franza, Musa" (page 942)

Letter 76, book V, has "Tarot, Franza, Muza" (page 945)

Both letters are just dated "Antwerp, 1529". No specific date.

His (second) wife died of the plague on August 17th 1529 - so sometime prior to then.

Here is another French reference to tarot, this one from 1580 Lyon. It is on pp. 17-19 of Charly Alverda's Trois Figures Hieroglyphiques, apparently an extract from a book called Pleasants devis récités par les suppôts des seigneurs de la Coquille. Alverda does not say when this collection was done or give a publisher. "Coquille," Alverda tells us later, is a printers' slang term for an error that occurs on the plate. The occasion is the annual "chevauchée de l'âne," ride of the donkey, a performance I think Alverda says was put on by the printers' guild. I assume that the lines in italics are comments either by Alverda or the book's editor. Alverda:

Voici un extrait de ces Devis "récités publiquement le vingtunième jour de febvrier 1' An Mil cinq cents huictante":

1er Suppôt:

J'ai tousjours joué au taroc,
Mais non pas a la vielle mode:
Car maintenant on s'accommode
D'escarter toujours à profit.

IIe Suppôt:

Ainsi je croirois bien qu'on fist
Son gain plus grand: mais en ce jeu
Celuy sur qui l'on eust bien peu
Escarter, n'en amende pas.
(L'écart ou le chien du jeu)

IIIe Suppôt:

Mais il en demeure plus bas,
Où je me trompe en mes discours

1er Suppôt:

En ce jeu l'on veut que tousjours
Le six sur tour ayt plus de force:
(Le 6 = l'Amoureux)

L'onze, le huict et le quatorze
(11, 8, 14 = Force, Justice et Tempérance)
En sont entièrement chassés.

IIe Suppôt:

Il y a bient vingt ans passés
Que sans le huict on joue en France.

IIIe Suppôt:

Doù vient cela que l'Excellence
Du preux Seigneur de la Coquille,
Avec sa troupe si gentille,
Par si longtemps n'a point faict monstre?

Ier Suppôt:

Quel grand malheur, quel grand encombre
Nous a si longtemps clos le bec?
Avons-nous reçue quelque eschec?

IIe Suppôt:

J'attendois que la paix fust faicte

IIIe Suppôt:

J'attendois qu'elle fust bient faicte.

In his second speech, the 1st Henchman wishes that Love had more force, and says that Force (Fortitude, I would think), Justice, and Temperance have been banished. The second Henchman adds that 20 years have passed since one played the 8, i.e. Justice, in France. I suspect that that is a reference to the Wars of Religion, which started in 1562 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_Religion).

Hello

mikeh wrote:Here is another French reference to tarot,

see the second post of this thread, but thanks for quoting and translating and explaining !

Bertrand