Which of the three regional trump orders, was the original?
Posted: 19 Dec 2018, 20:50
A question was posed on this forum recently about where the first tarot was. I took me a while to decide what I thought, and now I can't find that thread. So out of laziness I am starting a new one.
Death at position XIII. In each of the three trump order regions, the Death card is trump number unlucky XIII. Perhaps the very first tarot had Death at XIII, but perhaps not. Each of the three orders has a feature, unique to that order, which allows that order to have the Death card be number XIII. It may mean something that it is a different feature in the three cases. If you look at the cards in common among the three orders, the end of the trump sequence is: Death, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Judgment, World. Since World is 21, that would make Death be 14. So there needs to be a card between Death and World, so that Death will be 13. It is mostly virtues which move about between the orders, and indeed both C order and B order have a card inserted between Death and World, and it is a virtue in both cases, but it is different virtue in the two cases, and in a different place: C order has Temperance at 14, while B order has Justice at 20.
Suppose B was first, with Justice at XX. If the first 21-trump tarot, has survived as the B order as we now have it, we can say the original inventor put Justice in a logical place, next to Judgment, but then both A and C orders moved Justice out of that logical place. Since there is nothing similar about what they did next, we can say that they each independently moved Justice from that logical place. No reason for this move is apparent, and yet they both did it. Having moved Justice from that location, to somewhere much earlier in the trumps, both A and C orders were then left with Death being 14. C order solved the problem by moving a different virtue, Temperance, to just after Death, making Death again number 13. The A-order region took a more extraordinary step, and gave the highest trump of 21 trumps, the number 20. This is managed in a different way by the different A orders. Having the last trump be 20 also gets Death to 13, but it is pretty weird. Thus, if B order was the original, two unlikely things happened:
1) C order moved Justice from its logical position. There is no known reason why they did that, and a good reason not to do it, since it made Death be 14, requiring a fix by moving Temperance after Death.
2) A order moved Justice from its logical position. There is no known reason why they did that, and a good reason not to do it, since it made Death be 14, requiring a really weird fix, so that the 21st trump was numbered 20.
If tarot first divided into B on the one hand, and a common parent of A and C on the other, then we could say that the AC common parent moved Justice from its late position, and therefore that unlikely move happened only once. But we should see some other evidence for such an AC common parent, if one ever existed. Probably none did. Therefore, if tarot started with Justice at 20, both A and C moved it earlier independently, in spite of the trouble it made in both cases. It was an unlikely thing to happen once, but a very unlikely thing to happen twice.
If the B order, with Justice in position 20, was the origin of all tarot, then something very unlikely happened. In contrast, to start with Justice in some early position, and move it to 20, moves it to a logical place, next to Judgment, and it puts a virtue between death and the end of the trumps, so that Death becomes 13. It is thus very much more likely, that B moved Justice to position 20, than that both A and C independently moved it away from 20.
This is not an argument that some B-order city such as Ferrara was not the origin of tarot, only an argument that if it was, that first tarot did not have Justice at position 20. Therefore, the fact that 20 is a really logical place for Justice to be, is not a good argument in favor of B being the original order. It is rather an argument against a B order with Justice at 20, being the original order.
Death at 14? I don't see any strong argument in favor of any of the orders being the original one. There are arguments against C order, with Temperance at position 14, being the original: it is not likely that B and A both independently moved it to somewhere earlier, causing Death to no longer be 13, which they then both had to fix. It is not likely that A order is the original, at least not with the last of 21 trumps bring numbered 20, because that's just weird. So one possibility is that the original tarot had Death at 14, and each of the three orders did something different to fix this. That hypothesis actually explains a great deal, but it leads to the question: Why did the original inventor put Death at 14, when everyone else thought it was so important to have it at 13? There are various possible reasons. The early decks did not have numbers on the trumps, and perhaps the inventor of tarot did not think of the trumps as having a sequence going from 1 to 21. After all no one today thinks of the 52 cards in a standard deck as being numbered 1 to 52. Diamonds is the second suit in the bridge ranking, but no one thinks of the Ace of Diamonds as card number 14 of the 52. The inventor may have thought of his trumps as three groups of seven, and Death was the last card of the group that had to do with human mortal life -- where else would Death be? Then the inventor would not have thought of Death as being card 14, it was rather card 7 of the mortal life group, and no more card 14, than the Ace of Diamonds is card 14.
So what city was first? If the original tarot did not have the cards in a numbered sequence from 1 to 21 with Death at 13, that still does not tell us where that original was. I think we need to think about both printed tarot and handmade tarot. Without printed tarot in the 15th century, we wouldn't have this forum in the 21st. Printed tarot most likely came from a city with a major printing industry, of which Florence was the first. Milan and also Bologna were also important; Venice was certainly important, Ferrara, I think not (others may know). If tarot had been first printed in Florence (where it was legalized in 1450), I think we would know that. It is a weak argument, but Milan is notable for being very important in early handmade tarot, and also a plausible location for the first printed tarot.
Death at position XIII. In each of the three trump order regions, the Death card is trump number unlucky XIII. Perhaps the very first tarot had Death at XIII, but perhaps not. Each of the three orders has a feature, unique to that order, which allows that order to have the Death card be number XIII. It may mean something that it is a different feature in the three cases. If you look at the cards in common among the three orders, the end of the trump sequence is: Death, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Judgment, World. Since World is 21, that would make Death be 14. So there needs to be a card between Death and World, so that Death will be 13. It is mostly virtues which move about between the orders, and indeed both C order and B order have a card inserted between Death and World, and it is a virtue in both cases, but it is different virtue in the two cases, and in a different place: C order has Temperance at 14, while B order has Justice at 20.
Suppose B was first, with Justice at XX. If the first 21-trump tarot, has survived as the B order as we now have it, we can say the original inventor put Justice in a logical place, next to Judgment, but then both A and C orders moved Justice out of that logical place. Since there is nothing similar about what they did next, we can say that they each independently moved Justice from that logical place. No reason for this move is apparent, and yet they both did it. Having moved Justice from that location, to somewhere much earlier in the trumps, both A and C orders were then left with Death being 14. C order solved the problem by moving a different virtue, Temperance, to just after Death, making Death again number 13. The A-order region took a more extraordinary step, and gave the highest trump of 21 trumps, the number 20. This is managed in a different way by the different A orders. Having the last trump be 20 also gets Death to 13, but it is pretty weird. Thus, if B order was the original, two unlikely things happened:
1) C order moved Justice from its logical position. There is no known reason why they did that, and a good reason not to do it, since it made Death be 14, requiring a fix by moving Temperance after Death.
2) A order moved Justice from its logical position. There is no known reason why they did that, and a good reason not to do it, since it made Death be 14, requiring a really weird fix, so that the 21st trump was numbered 20.
If tarot first divided into B on the one hand, and a common parent of A and C on the other, then we could say that the AC common parent moved Justice from its late position, and therefore that unlikely move happened only once. But we should see some other evidence for such an AC common parent, if one ever existed. Probably none did. Therefore, if tarot started with Justice at 20, both A and C moved it earlier independently, in spite of the trouble it made in both cases. It was an unlikely thing to happen once, but a very unlikely thing to happen twice.
If the B order, with Justice in position 20, was the origin of all tarot, then something very unlikely happened. In contrast, to start with Justice in some early position, and move it to 20, moves it to a logical place, next to Judgment, and it puts a virtue between death and the end of the trumps, so that Death becomes 13. It is thus very much more likely, that B moved Justice to position 20, than that both A and C independently moved it away from 20.
This is not an argument that some B-order city such as Ferrara was not the origin of tarot, only an argument that if it was, that first tarot did not have Justice at position 20. Therefore, the fact that 20 is a really logical place for Justice to be, is not a good argument in favor of B being the original order. It is rather an argument against a B order with Justice at 20, being the original order.
Death at 14? I don't see any strong argument in favor of any of the orders being the original one. There are arguments against C order, with Temperance at position 14, being the original: it is not likely that B and A both independently moved it to somewhere earlier, causing Death to no longer be 13, which they then both had to fix. It is not likely that A order is the original, at least not with the last of 21 trumps bring numbered 20, because that's just weird. So one possibility is that the original tarot had Death at 14, and each of the three orders did something different to fix this. That hypothesis actually explains a great deal, but it leads to the question: Why did the original inventor put Death at 14, when everyone else thought it was so important to have it at 13? There are various possible reasons. The early decks did not have numbers on the trumps, and perhaps the inventor of tarot did not think of the trumps as having a sequence going from 1 to 21. After all no one today thinks of the 52 cards in a standard deck as being numbered 1 to 52. Diamonds is the second suit in the bridge ranking, but no one thinks of the Ace of Diamonds as card number 14 of the 52. The inventor may have thought of his trumps as three groups of seven, and Death was the last card of the group that had to do with human mortal life -- where else would Death be? Then the inventor would not have thought of Death as being card 14, it was rather card 7 of the mortal life group, and no more card 14, than the Ace of Diamonds is card 14.
So what city was first? If the original tarot did not have the cards in a numbered sequence from 1 to 21 with Death at 13, that still does not tell us where that original was. I think we need to think about both printed tarot and handmade tarot. Without printed tarot in the 15th century, we wouldn't have this forum in the 21st. Printed tarot most likely came from a city with a major printing industry, of which Florence was the first. Milan and also Bologna were also important; Venice was certainly important, Ferrara, I think not (others may know). If tarot had been first printed in Florence (where it was legalized in 1450), I think we would know that. It is a weak argument, but Milan is notable for being very important in early handmade tarot, and also a plausible location for the first printed tarot.