Thanks for stopping by and informing me about the opinion about the thickness of old cards that you found on another forum.
BUT I've NEVER had a „question about the thickness of old cards“ in general and from my statements in this topic and elsewhere it should be abundantly clear why this is of no concern for me.
When you did indeed find something in my words that invoked this belief in your mind please quote so that I can be more clear about that!
It would be great though when the author who seems to be on good terms with The Beinecke Library and praises their helpfulness on the thickness measurement matter could get the concerned thickness data of the there held „Visconti Tarot“ from The Cary Collection of Playing Cards – otherwise known as the Cary-Yale Tarocchi or the Visconti di Modrone cards.
The whole set:
http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/ ... t&type=tag
1 item:
http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3432602
Here you can see that the measurements provided are equally sloppy as the measurements at The Morgan:
This is of course totally unacceptable in a scientific field when those items are considered „PLAYING CARDS“ because the THICKNESS of each item (in this case MORE than 78 (!!) items) would add to an UNmanageable thickness for the whole pack – considering the roughly 1,5 mm for each original item that Mr. Voelkle provided for the Visconti-Sforza Tarot in his care > 12 cm for the whole pack!Physical Description:
1 card
col.
19 x 9 cm.
If these rectangles should be of less thickness they would have been broken while playing AND if they would be thicker they would be an even MORE clumsy block in the hands of the "players" - unfit to be shuffled and so unfit for a "card play" with "playing cards" - no?
More here with all explanations and links:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1084&p=18324#p16935
These (and the Brera-Brambilla set in The Pinacoteca di Brera:)
http://pinacotecabrera.org/en/
... share a similar make-up with the Visconti-Sforza Tarot (PMB) in The Morgan Library who where introduced at length here with my findings and analysis of Mr. Voelkle's measurements he provided in his answer to my request.
The whole point of this topic here was/is to prove that ESPECIALLY the handmade Tarots of the Visconti (and later Sforza too) - which are all described to be made of CARDBOARD which is considerably thicker than paper – were NEVER MEANT to be PLAYING CARDS.
What my opinion about their purpose is (was) I have also described in detail in several topics and comments:
They were MEANT to be HUNG on a wall (look at their well used HOLES) in special configurations and changing patterns due to a Master-plan that can be REconstructed from several details on a grid like the Kilim Carpet in the background of ALL personas of ALL Visconti family sets – so that The BOOK could be read that they present.
All the different specifics of their consistent mixed media make-up combined with the now available (still very sloppy!) thickness measurements for the PMB by Mr. Voelkle which prove now that they were not playing cards AT ALL and their abrasion patterns and HOLES in all of them point in this direction.
I did this above write-up just out of the top of my head.
Be back later perhaps.
And you could be more precise in the meantime – maybe?
I find it quite astonishing though that no-one (you included! - because here you would be one big step closer to your chess-like-assumption for early Tarot with an actual BOARD for the rectangles on which they would be placed – albeit with very different rules) would comment on the implications for this whole playing-card-drama that Mr. Kaplan set the stage for with his clearly by 50% falsified measurements which I explained already in detail.
You all claim to be after The Secret the rectangles hold - and you go for poems and paintings and genealogy and (catholic!) Christianity – but no-one seems to be interested in the FACTS:
measurements – mixed-media-make-up – usability in real-life-settings – abrasion patterns – suspicious holes – etc – etc – etc …
Why is that?
Adrian