Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

21
hi Mike
mikeh wrote:....
I still don't see how anything else about the cards could come out of chess, except possibly that. chess allegories cleared some good ground for other allegorical games (although surely there were allegorical games even before chess started being allegoricized).
We know more about the Michelino than we do about the Cary-Yale. How does anything else about chess except the number 16 get reflected in the Michelino trumps? I mean, chess doesn't have 4 groups of 4 each. or 2 goods and 2 bads, or even any gods.
... :-) ... Chess players themselves are the gods for the micro world of the chess figures.
The association of Greek/Roman gods to Chess is proven by contemporary texts, first it's the text of Evrart da Conty and a poem, which preceded this text (which I don't know), another Spanish text followed around 1470 and an Italian around 1515. More precise dates are in the chess collection thread.
And the fourth is somehow the Martiano da Tortona text.

Chess has 8 pairs, cause each officer has a related pawn. Knights for instance are related to a smith, cause they need him for their armor, and they are related to the doorkeeper, who decides, who may enter the city and who not.
Then they have 4 groups, cause there are 4 pawns at the king's side, 4 pawns at the Queen's side, and three officers help the Queen (next 4) and 3 officers help the king (another 4).
The professions show, that the King's pawns have the character of male reign, and the Queen's pawn have the character of female reign.

King's side:
Farmer's pay taxes.
Smith deliver armor.
Barber is needed, cause men have more hair (beard).
Advocat or Merchant are needed for jurisdiction and for economy.

Queen's side.
Physician is needed for women more than for men.
Innkeeper for festivities.
Doorkeeper to protect the cities (Queens rule, when the husband has one of his many journeys.
Messenger for diplomatic contacts.

Of course there are groups of 4.
Then I'd ask the same about the CY. There, you have a definite order of trumps, from least powerful to most powerful.
That order isn't at all like the order of power in chess. The Empress, unlike the Queen in chess, isn't a very powerful card, judging by all later orderings. The Emperor isn't vital to protect. There aren't pairs of cards equally powerful, with a bunch on the bottom like pawns. It seems like you have to go outside of chess to explain the power hierarchy, and then in fact chess is irrelevant. It's good as window-dressing, and dressing something up as though it were like chess might be important to some people, even Filippo, but that's all it is, as far as I can tell.
You're no really informed about the difference between old chess and modern chess. The old Queen was very weak, she became strong between 1470 and 1530, when modern chess developed. Similar the bishop was very limited in his actions, his movement was also reformed between 1470-1530. See chess thread.

We don't know, what sort of games was played with the cards. And actually we don't know all old chess variations, which were played. For instance we have already a very old chess variant with the Corier game, where the Courier was already the modern bishop. But this game uses a larger board and more figures. It's first recorded in c. 1200-1210 (Wigalois), but a legend says, that it reaches up to the first beginnings of chess in Europe.

For Tarot we have a general line iof the rules, which survived, but surely not all. Maybe some games used a row hierarchy and others not.
We have in the surviving row of Tarot, that Empress and Emperor are low cards, and indeed in the practice of the old chess game they are weak figures. For rooks (Towers) we have in the practice of old chess, that they are the strongest figures. In the Cary Yale we have Tower symbols as secondary attributes at the cards Judgment and Fame. Look at them, that you understand, what I mean.
Judgment and Fame are later in the Tarot row "high cards" as Rooks have been the strongest figures.
In the Booiardo Tarocchi poem (dated 1487) we have the "ruine" ...
Oblivion di termine e confine
Del tutto sei, Elice e Dido a Lethe
Menasti, e famma e tempo hai in toe ruine.

Oblivion, you are the end and boundary
Of all, you took to Lethe Elice and Dido,
And among your ruins you have fame and time.
.. in trump 20, so a high card. And also in the Sola Busca (dated 1491), see trump 20:

Image


Well, that's the period, when Spanish (modern) chess started to invade Italy. In the later sequence we have, that the tower is moved to number 16 (often) and 16 is he number of the chess figures. Perhaps remembering, that the old game was changed.

... :-) ... it isn't so, that older chess history is easy to understand. There are lot of variations and it's a theme similar complex as Tarot history. Tarot for instance is mostly played with the rule, that you have to trump, if you can. This is very different for instance to Bridge and other trumping games. But in chess a variation existed, already known to king Alfonso X, in which you had to take a figure, if you can. So I wrote once:
A chess variant, which is called "forced" or "game of the damsels"
And we wish next to tell of the game which they call forced. And this is because even though it
may be played according to each player’s will, in it there is also to be an element of force because
a man goes against his will losing his best piece to his opponent’s worst, willing or not by putting
it on a square where the other is forced to capture it, according to the movement of the piece
against which it is put. And this game is arranged just the same as the first and the pieces move
and capture each other in that same way except that there is in addition the forced capture. And
therefore those that play it are to be knowledgeable so that they do not put their best pieces in a
position where they are to give them up to lesser and more lowly pieces. Because in this lies all
the wisdom of this game and its play. And because of this force which we described, they call it
the forced game. But because some tell that the damsels first invented it overseas, they call it the
game of the damsels.
This is of special interest, as the later Tarot card games differed from other trump card games, that trumping was "forced" (you MUST capture, if you can) ... as in the chess game of the damsels. "invented it overseas" likely meant, that this version developed in England (?).


Yes, the Tarot game might have developed from this variant, from which we can't say, how strong it was in the development of chess.
But's it's definitely another game than usual chess with totally different strategies. And it's clear, that this rules lead to a quick game development, so shorter play, something, which might be more according the taste of female players.

There's the suspicion, often noted by myself, that Trionfi cards developed more by female influence than by male. If the forced chess variant was preferred by female players, it seems logical, that a similar behavior might have followed in Tarot rules. From "overseas" might mean from the Spanish perspective England, but also perhaps Italy?

Anyway, the Chess Tarot theory makes only sense inside the original scenario, and that's not modern chess, but the chess development just in the period of 1440-1470 ... before the big chess changes.
Chess unified itself from its many rules to "modern rules" by the influence of book printing. Book printing started c. 1470 in some greater dimensions. Something similar might have happened to card playing rules.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

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Well, thanks, Huck. So then the individual cards are generated by the Petrarchan triumphs plus King and Queen: so you have Emperor and Empress, Chastity (Chariot) and Death (the two knights, female and male), and Fame and Eternity (the two towers, female and male). A male triumphs over a female in each pair. Is that ok? So what's left is the bishops, a problem. Well, Time (Old Man) has to be one, male, because he's in Petrarch. The Pope could be the other. But then they're both male. Maybe the Church. Does Time triumph over the Church? I don't think so. Maybe the Wheel of Fortune. Time might triumph over that, and she's female. The Brera-Brambilla had one of those. The CY might, too. Didn't Filippo like Boethius or somebody similar? So no Pope. Well, didn't Filippo get excommunicated once?

Then the virtues, in the second row, are paired with the corresponding first-row card: the Chariot (Chastity) gets Temperance; Death gets Hope; Eternity gets Charity. The Queen gets Justice. The King gets Love. Or vice versa. The Pope or Church or Wheel gets Faith. I guess Time needs Prudence. Or something like that. Filippo could do what he wanted. And the order somehow goes with the paired card. I'm not sure how that works.

So I see that with the King, Queen, the 6 Triumphs of Petrarch, the 7 virtues, and chess, it's all there except one card, Pope, Church, or Wheel. And actually, since you don't need any prior tarot for this, that could be an ur-tarot. Well, I 'll have to think about all this some more. Too mind-boggling.

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

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Let me yet again register my objection to this silly line of speculation - the reason I started the thread in the first place. I don't want my silence to be interpreted as complicity, or even mild interest.

The Cary Yale trumps are STANDARD TRUMPS. They do not represent Chess pieces. The Theological Virtues are a coherent group, and also ONLY represent what they ARE, NAMELY, THE THREE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES. They also do not represent Chess pieces. They are added to the STANDARD SUBJECTS, in the same way that, in this deck, TWO EXTRA COURT CARDS are added to each suit.

The Cary Yale is an EXPANDED DECK. It is also a FRAGMENTARY DECK. Cards have been lost, from both the suits and the trumps. Given that, apart from the self-contained and coherent group the Theological Virtues, all of the other trumps are standard, it is most resonable to suppose that the missing trumps were also standard, and filled out the standard series. Just as the missing suit cards were, most reasonably, those we would expect to be missing, rather than wild subjects that are anybody's guess, or perhaps not there at all.

There is no basis to this speculation, and what boggles the mind is really that it can be conceived at all - the thought that what IS NOT CHESS, and does not resemble Chess in any way, IS, IN FACT, CHESS!

Nor was Marziano's deck based on Chess. He explains clearly that his game is conceptually FOURFOLD - it has four suits and four sets of gods and heroes. He chose four sets of four gods and heroes to exemplify the fourfold structure - Virtues, Riches, Virginities, and Pleasures. He gave them strict hierarchical order, from 1 to 16. None represents a Chess piece, and Chess is not a strictly linear hierarchy like the gods and heroes trumps in any case.

Niether the word "scaccus" or "scacchus", nor anything to do with this game, is mentioned in the text. Moralists were not coy, subtle or sly when moralizing games - they ALWAYS tell their readers what they are doing, and why. Marziano tells us why and how, and it has NOTHING TO DO WITH CHESS. It is a fourfold game based on his invented scheme.

When Huck seizes on the number 16 to justify his fantasy theory, it is no different in any way from occultists seizing on to the standard number of trumps, 22, to justify the Tarot being a Kabbalistic artifact. Both are coincidences, and the cards themselves give the lie to the fantasy - the cards DO NOT REPRESENT CHESS PIECES OR THE HEBREW ALPHABET. People who moralized the Chess game, or illustrated the Hebrew alphabet, had no need to be sly, enigmatic, esoteric, occult, speak in riddles, or any other way. They said what they meant, clearly. The designers of card games said what they meant, and the pictures say what they meant. In the case of Marziano, we also have his text, and HE SAYS NOTHING ABOUT CHESS.

WHY, ON EARTH, WOULD HE NOT HAVE MENTIONED IT??? Simple answer - because it HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CHESS.

The standard trumps say what they mean, and we must assume, if we are people who use common sense in our daily dealings with things, that they mean what they say. And they DO NOT SAY "CHESS".

Let me add another coincidence for the number 16 - Filippo Maria Visconti entered Milan triumphantly (not literally "in a triumph" please) on 16 JUNE, 1412. He thereafter established this day, the feast day of Saints Quirico e Giulitta (Quiricus and Julietta), as an annual festival day in Milan.

Perhaps it was this 16 that inspired him? At least we KNOW that this day actually inspired him, so maybe this number did too?

Or maybe BOTH, why not? The mind reels with the speculative possibilities. Quiricus and Julietta are the Triumphant Martyr King and Queen of a Chess set?...
Image

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

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You're not complicit, Ross. You wanted a discussion, I hope, or at least a trial; you can't have a hanging with a trial. And here people other than the defendant are allowed to explore possibilities besides the one articulated in the first post.

If Marziano didn't mention chess, it's probably because chess is the shared framework, and he's writing about the things that go in the framework, his ideas, not the part that isn't original with him. He might not even have been aware of it, since it was part of the shared culture of the courts. It's only we who have to be aware of it, from a different time with different games and different rules for old games. At least that's what occurs to me at the moment. Maybe Huck thinks differently.

[Added later the same day: Other reasons why Marziano might have not mentioned chess. (1) He todidn't want to appear sycophantic, knowing that Filippo liked chess. (2) Filippo had already talked to him about how he wanted a 4x4 matrix for the special cards, based on chess considerations among other things that pertain to geomancy or to the number 16.]

I should probably explain further what I meant by the Cary-Yale possibly being an ur-tarot, although it's probably clear enough already to Ross and Huck, who've read my stuff on this subject, and maybe to Michael. I don't mean the physical deck itself, which is most likely 1440s (1469 at the latest, if a commemorative). I mean the Cary-Yale as a type of deck. Decks wear out and have to be replaced. And especially fancy ones are needed as wedding or christening presents (I am thinking of the birth of Galeazzo Maria as another occasion for the deck). And the players in Milan are extremely conservative. That's partly because there are so few of them, mostly a few women, and they don't want to offend its inventor or at least prime sponsor, Filippo. Also, children players like to play exactly the same game over and over. And a few things about the deck look older than the 1440s. The clothes are reminiscent of Pisanello's designs c. 1430. The banners on the Love card most suggest Savoy and Visconti in 1428, whatever else they could be. The workshops that would are most likely to have produced these decks had been around for a while, I mean the Bembo, founded by Bonifacio and the other brothers' father, and the Zavattari. This deck, in a cheaper version, could even have stimulated all the rest, if someone brought one to the conclave in 1438. So that's what I mean by an ur-tarot.

So far, I can't see how this scenario would work at all for the Charles VI type of tarot, at least not as an ur-tarot, because of all the non-Petrarchal subjects that aren't virtues and can't be accounted for except in terms of a "Christian salvation" scenario. Also, I believe in the numbers written later on the deck. I even don't see why they wouldn't apply to the original deck. I have more to say on that subject but will save it for another post.
Last edited by mikeh on 20 Apr 2012, 21:48, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

25
Ross: First let me say that I wrote a note of apology for one thing I wrote in my reply to you a few posts back (April 18), about how it seemed like you were sneaking in your conclusion into the body of your argument. I re-read your post. I will highlight my apology in bold when I am done here.

So now I will try to state more clearly and fully what I still find questionable in two crucial components of your argument that the Charles VI originally had 21 numbered trumps, plus the Fool, even though the numbers handwritten on the cards only go up to 20. It seems to me that there might actually have been 20 numbered trumps plus the Fool from the beginning, and that the numbers on the Charles VI just might have applied to the original set of cards. There are three considerations. (1) There are reasons apart from considerations specific to Bologna and Florence for favoring the number 20. (2) I have doubts about the special conservatism of Bolognese players in this period 1440-1486. (3) I have doubts about whether we can say with reasonable probability that the Charles VI was made in Florence c. 1460, as opposed to Bologna and as opposed to c. 1470 (i.e. after the Schifanoia frescoes in Ferrara were designed).

First, I am impressed by the number 20, or 21 counting the Fool. Huck's information (I quote from viewtopic.php?f=12&t=787) is that Spirito exported lot books to Italy for the numbers 1-20 in 1482 and only later switched to books for the numbers 1-22. Speaking of Jan. 1487, his estimated date of the Boiardo poem:
We've no confirmation for the 22 inside card playing life till then. Instead we have a strange signal in 1482. Lorenzo de Spirito publishes a lot book with a system working with 20x20x20x20 structure + somehow "7 planets".
This production is sure ... far less sure is a production, which possibly took place in the year 1473, also from Lorenzo Spirito and also a lot book, but this is very insecure.
Strange is the sure production of a German lot book in 1450. This used a scheme 22x22x22x22 and at least the scheme had much similarity to Lorenzo Spirito's scheme. As far it is researched by us and perhaps generally, Germany had possibly much more lot books than Italy. The suspicion, that Lorenzo Spirito copied the scheme from a German lot book, is given. But if the major playing card form of Trionfi cards in Italy already had 22 trumps, wouldn't Lorenzo Spirito eagerly have used the German 22x22x22x22-scheme for his Italian version? No, he used the 20x20x20x20-scheme, which would be perfect, if Italy had a dominant card game based on the number 20.

Italy has such a game, and it's called Minchiate. But under this name it appears only in Florence (in 15th century) and not very often. Possibly it was elsewhere known with another name (perhaps also running as Trionfi cards.
I tend to agree that Spirito's use of 20 is a sign that the tarot maybe only went up to 20 in those days. Maybe sometimes the Fool was included in the 20. It might be that in Milan they numbered the Fool. Or they had a Tower card but no Devil.

Also, 10 is a natural, if you're thinking of an educational game. It's the base for the number system, so it's helpful for children learning arithmetic. Also, the "Mantegna" is in groups of 10. There are 10 spheres and 10 stations of man, the two groups that most closely--not exactly, to be sure--correspond to the tarot (3 virtues = planets Venus for Temperance, Mars for Fortitude, Jupiter for Justice).

And with the Fool, that makes 21, the number of combinations of two dice. There are examples of figure-cards with dominoes on them. It seems to me that a set would have had dominoes on all of them, not one without a domino, for the "null" toss. The "null" toss didn't have a good or bad outcome, hence no good or bad fortune. It was just done over, as I understand your (Ross's) presentation; correct me if I'm wrong. (This point about dice is independent of the point about lot books, I think.)

And as Huck says, there's Minchiate later.

Second, it doesn't seem to me that it is safe to argue that because the number of trumps stayed fixed in Bologna for the 300 years after 1506 (plus maybe a few years), we can infer that it was fixed for the 60 or so years before that.

One consideration is a quote by Dummett that is quoted by Andrea in "The Order of the Triumphs" (http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=221), speaking of tarot in Bologna:
"Anche se ancora esistenti nel 1588, la vecchia forma e il mazzo completo erano stati completamente dimenticati alla metà del XVII secolo, benché persistesse il nome di Tarocchino"
("Although still in existence in 1588, the old form and complete pack had been completely forgotten in mid seventeenth century, although the name Tarocchino persisted".)
Michael Dummett, Il Mondo e l’Angelo, Naples, 1993, pag. 224.
I don't know why Dummett said this; I don't have the book. In any case, how do we know that the game was even played for the whole 300 years? Maybe it was the way it was because it was rediscovered after a considerable lapse of time.

But even if they did play the same game for 300 years, I don't think it follows that players in Bologna are unusually conservative compared to other places. Players use whatever decks they can buy. Under the iron rule of the Church for 300 years (a few years after 1507 or so til 1798), I would expect that cards with Popes and Popesses on them simply weren't allowed, unofficially. And not to look like they were singling out these cards, Emperors and Empresses weren't allowed either. (That is even clearer, it seems to me, if the game died out and then was re-introduced; the Papacy would have had a say in such re-introducton.) It would not be surprising if players simply accepted the facts. That's the way politics affects players, by limiting (and sometimes expanding) their choices.

After c. 1486, to be sure, there were Pope and Popess cards in Bologna. But can we infer that there were Popess cards in Bologna in 1440 and thereafter until then? I don't think so. Bologna was very connected with Florence in those days, with artists and artisans from Florence coming to take advantage of the new climate of a Florence-friendly Bologna and a wealthy signori wanting luxury goods. Its artisans and artists also had strong connections with everywhere else in the region: Milan, Cremona, Mantua, Ferrara, Padua, Venice. It had a university in which Platonists were making inroads. That is not to say that Platonism was injected into the cards, just that there was an atmosphere of freedom, new ideas, a brief respite from scholasticism. Bologna was already a rowdy place, according to Bernardino. Now they could express themselves in other ways besides physical acts. Their tarot decks probably reflected the new times, the styles set by Galeazzo Maria, Lorenzo, Borso, and Ercole before the loss of his wife. Thanks to the Bentivoglio (Ginevra famously was rude to Savoranola in church, according to Ady), they were spared the religious extremism that hit Florence in the 90s, and they tried to defend themselves against the encroachment of the Papacy from the later 90s on. When Pope Julius put up a statue of himself by Michelangelo, no less, they toppled it and didn't mind when Alfonso d'Este melted it down to make his "Julio" cannon. They paid for that over the next 300 years.

In these circumstances, I don't think we can infer anything about pre-1487 tarot decks in use there except maybe that they would have tended to use whatever was being produced there for the export market. More is cheaper.

Now on the question of where the Charles VI came from and when. Here I will try to summarize Andrea's argument (http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=221), although with numerous quotes. I think the English translation is adequate, but the Italian is here, too, and he and I would welcome any corrections you have, I admit to not following it completely. If problems of interpretation get in our way, we can ask at least one of the writers (Andrea as opposed to Algeri) directly.

First, the quote at the bginning from Giuliana Algeri is important. She (I assume it's a she) observed the similarity between the d'Este Fool and the Charles VI Fool. She continues:
Anche le figure del Papa, della Temperanza e del Mondo, appaiono ispirate agli stessi schemi compositivi delle carte di New Haven, così come l’immagine dei due astronomi che studiano la luna si ricollega direttamente allo schema iconografico adottato nelle carte d’Este per la figura della Stella.

(Also the depictions on the cards of the Pope, Temperance and the World appear as if they were inspired by the same formative patterns as the New Haven cards, as well as the picture of the two astronomers studying the moon, directly connected to the iconographical pattern adopted in the picture on the Este Star card.)
Also, the Charles VI Temperance and Lover show a definite relationship to the Hall of the Months at the Schifonoia in Ferrara, she says.

Algeri's conclusion (unacceptable to Andrea) is that the cards are Ferrarese. However Andrea does not challenge the similarity to the Schifanoia and the d'Este. What Andrea does challenge is her conclusion. First he argues that the cards could just as well be Bolognese, perhaps ordered by someone in Ferrara (and then, I assume, later taken by someone from further south, who added the non-Ferrarese numbers). After all, there was that famous instance in 1442, of a Bolognese merchant selling a pack to Leonello's court. Andrea says that in this case:
Dovrebbe essere escluso un intervento fiorentino: data la distanza che separa le due città, sarebbe stato più logico affidarsi ai Bolognesi che erano fra l'altro molto esperti.

(A Florentine intervention should be excluded: given the distance which divides the two towns, it would have been more sensible to apply to the Bolognese, who were among other things very capable.)
Then there is the question of the Strambotto and the Rosenwald. I think Andrea is casting doubt on Depaulis's use of either of these to argue for a Tuscan origin for the Charles VI. After describing the Rosenwald, Andrea says
L’Algeri sostiene che mentre la struttura iconografica dei Trionfi appare mutuata dai Tarocchi di Carlo VI, le restanti carte appaiono di elaborazione successiva.Di contrario avviso è il Depaulis che vede in questo mazzo una sorta di “proto-minchiate” fiorentine. Fra l'altro, da una comparazione che egli compie fra l'ordine di queste carte, i Tarocchi di Carlo VI e quelle indicate nello Strambotto de' Trionfi dei primi del sec. XVI, ne risulta una forte similarità, giungendo così ad affermare che anche i Tarocchi di Carlo VI sarebbero stati prodotti in Toscana.

Nell'ordine di tutti i mazzi presi in esame sono presenti minime varianti, prodotte a mio avviso sia da una diversità del gioco che poteva differenziarsi da città a città, più che da regione a regione, sia da una variante temporale, cioè dal diverso periodo di creazione dei mazzi. I Tarocchi di Carlo VI furono infatti realizzati nella seconda metà del sec. XV, come affermano gli storici dell'arte, mentre sia lo Strambotto che i Tarocchi Rosenwald sono di epoca leggermente più tarda. In quel periodo dieci anni potevano influire moltissimo (figura 2 - Ordine del Tarocco Bolognese e dei Tarocchi Toscani - figura 3 Una sezione del primo foglio del Tarocco Rosenwald).

(Algeri argues that while the iconographical structure of the Triumphs [in the Rosenwald, Andrea means] is apparently drawn from the Charles VI tarot, the remaining cards most probably belong to a later development. Of an opposite opinion is Depaulis, who sees in this pack of cards a sort of Florentine “proto-minchiate”. On top of that, from a comparison he performs between the orders of these cards, the Charles VI and those indicated in the Strambotto de' Trionfi of the early XVI century, a strong simiarity is shown, allowing him to claim that the Charles VI might have been made in Tuscany.

In the order of all the packs of cards examined we find very small changes, made - in my opinion - both by the differences in playing the game, which could differ from city to city, even more from from region to region, and by a temporal change, that is, from the different times of manufacture of the packs. Actually the Charles VI tarots were made in the second half of the XVth century, as the art historians affirm, while both the Strambotto and the Rosenwald Tarot belong to a slightly later age. In that period ten years could have a large influence...
I don't quite follow all of what Andrea is saying relative to Depaulis, perhaps because I haven't read Depaulis. Andrea doesn't seem to be challenging Depaulis's idea of the Rosenwald as a "mini-Minchiate." But this last part, that "ten years could have a large influence" seems to me quite true, whether you are speaking of Bologna or Florence.

For me the point is that the Charles VI could just as logically have been made in Bologna as in Florence, and just as logically 1470s as 1460. I take the date of the d'Este cards, c. 1475, as clearly established; but that isn't so important for considerations here; they could have been taken from a pattern extant far earlier in Ferrara, even before 1460. What I find especially of interest is what Algeri says about the similarities beteeen the Charles VI on the one hand and the d'Este cards and the Schifanoia on the other. It seems to me that the Schifanoia, and probably the d'Este, would have used Ferrarese models. I suppose the Ferrarese could have used a Florentine Charles VI for their design of the Schifanoia frescoes and for their d'Este cards. But the Schifanoia seems so Ferrarese otherwise; it was an object of civic pride. I can understand why they might have borrowed from the "Mantegna" cards for the Schifanoia: the "Mantegna" were done by a Ferrarese artist, in part inspired by the Belfiore Muses of 1449. I have more trouble seeing them copying cards from Florence, again out of civic pride. Bologna, however, was also a major production center and could have produced cards for Ferrara and even Florence (if something there had curtailed production or increased costs).

So not only do I have doubts about the special conservatism of Bolognese players, I am left in great uncertainty about where the Charles VI was made, for whom, and when, at least between Florence and Bologna and between 1460 and 1470. Perhaps you can clarify further, Ross.

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

26
hi Ross,

we have not much text about Trionfi cards at all during 15th century, we both know that. There is no direct relation to a chess interpretation between it.
There is also not a direct relation to the number 22, though in two cases we can simply count and have a 22 in Sola Busca and Boiardo Tarocchi poem. That's fine. In three other cases we can count and get a 16.

We have a humble chess comparison in Johannes of Rheinfelden:
The subject of this treatise may be compared with the game of chess, for in both there are kings, queens, and chief nobles, and common people, so that both games may be treated in a moral sense.
That says not much.

We have a 900-1000 pages work with Evrart's de Conty's work "Eschecs amoureux", in which 16 gods are related to chess and the gods are - at least in some editions - even painted. Likely that's 50 times more text than we get with all Trionfi card texts in 15th century together. Well, and that's only one book.

Chess was a game, which was taken rather serious. It's very difficult to argument the point, that chess hadn't a dominating influence. A chess iconography - a sort of catalog with repeating pictures in the same composition, similar to the Tarot card phenomenon - existed since c. 1300, the Trionfi card development with a fixed number of standard pictures as it has led to the Tarot game was just following the earlier model. Just by this there's a natural relationship.

Filippo Maria Visconti (Milan) played Chess, Niccolo d'Este (Ferrara) played Chess, Cosimo di Medici (Florence) played Chess, even Galeazzo Maria played chess with his wild boys, and he placed his money on possible winners. And the Trionfi card fresco in Pavia 1469 had been in the room, where the women took their meals. The men even didn't see it.

Image


... rather similar to Cary-Yale emperor and Cary-Yale Empress

Image

The jester and the old man in the Courier game.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

27
Hi, Huck,
Huck wrote:We have a humble chess comparison in Johannes of Rheinfelden:
The subject of this treatise may be compared with the game of chess, for in both there are kings, queens, and chief nobles, and common people, so that both games may be treated in a moral sense.
That says not much.
It says nothing at all... about Tarot.
Huck wrote:We have a 900-1000 pages work with Evrart's de Conty's work "Eschecs amoureux", in which 16 gods are related to chess and the gods are - at least in some editions - even painted. Likely that's 50 times more text than we get with all Trionfi card texts in 15th century together. Well, and that's only one book.
Which also says nothing at all about Tarot.
Huck wrote:Chess was a game, which was taken rather serious.
Which no one has ever doubted, nor debated.

Say it a thousand more times, it will still add nothing to your case. The Grail romances were popular, too, but that doesn't mean that Margaret Starbird's interpretation of Tarot makes any sense. Astrology was popular too, but that doesn't mean that John Shephard's interpretation of Tarot makes any sense.
Huck wrote:It's very difficult to argument the point, that chess hadn't a dominating influence. A chess iconography - a sort of catalog with repeating pictures in the same composition, similar to the Tarot card phenomenon - existed since c. 1300, the Trionfi card development with a fixed number of standard pictures as it has led to the Tarot game was just following the earlier model. Just by this there's a natural relationship.
It is the most blatant sort of cherry-picking to claim that Chess had iconography like Tarot.


Huck wrote:... rather similar to Cary-Yale emperor and Cary-Yale Empress
Yes, that is a textbook example of cherry-picking. When you have to suppress or distort most of the evidence to make your case, your case is not worth making.

The Cary-Yale deck is, as Ross pointed out, a slightly expanded version of the archetypal Tarot pattern as described by Decker, Depaulis, and Dummett, which has lost some cards.



Just like the other examples I posted. Old decks mean lost cards. This is not particularly subtle, complex, sophisticated, obscure, novel, unexpected, or otherwise difficult to understand. Each surviving deck lost a different subset of cards. This too is what would be expected.

I don't know what your position is now, but you used to claim that the earliest deck had 14 trumps with these subjects: Matto (numbered 11), Bagatto, Popess, Empress, Emperor, Pope, Love, Chariot, Justice, Old Man, Fortune, Traitor, Death, and the Angel. That was based on the surviving original cards of the Visconti-Sforza deck. However, EVERY early deck with more than three surviving trumps and EVERY listing of trumps includes subjects from the archetypal pattern that are not included in your list of 14. For example, the Cary-Yale deck included the World and Fortitude cards, which should not have been invented yet.

Best regards,
Michael
Last edited by mjhurst on 21 Apr 2012, 00:53, edited 2 times in total.
We are either dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, or we are just dwarfs.

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

28
Nice, with the Jester and the Old Man, Huck. There's also an Archer. And maybe the designer looked at the cards and said, yes, I can use a couple of those. But it's something, your chess set. Every little bit helps. Likewise your King and Queen. They're nothing to rest a theory on, of course, but you're not doing that.

The 25 trump speculation about the CY is useful for showing how the CY's existence, in particular with its three theological virtues, does not contradict the theory that there was a a standard 22 trump deck to start with. But that's all it shows, which seems to me not much.

One other thought, this time in regard to the chess theory, following up on my exchange with you (Huck).

There would seem to be six groups of CY cards, on the chess theory:

(1) 2 Royalty cards, male (Emperor) and female (Empress)
(2) 2 Bishop cards, male (Time) and female (Church or Fortune)
(3) 2 Knight cards, male (Death) and female (Chariot)
(4) 2 Rook cards, male (Judgment) and female (Fama)
(5) 4 male pawn cards (cardinal virtues?)
(6) 4 female pawn cards (theologicals plus Love?--or vice versa, for 5 and 6)

I looked to see how the Beinecke had suits assigned to trumps. Here it is:
SWORDS: "Empress of Swords"; "Emperor of Swords"; "Love (Swords)".
BATONS: "Fortitude (Batons)"; "Faith (Batons)"; "Hope (Batons)".
CUPS: "Charity (Cups)"; "Chariot (Cups)"; "Death (Cups)".
COINS: "World (Coins)"; "Judgment (Coins)".
To be sure, we don't know when these groupings were made; all we know is that it was before they reached Yale. In each case, two of the cards corresponds to one of the six groupings above. So perhaps somebody was thinking of something like these groups. On the other hand, these pairs probably occurred naturally in the order of trumps even if constructed on some other principle, but also using Petrarch (even Chariot/Death, as long there weren't any intervening cards). Still, the groupings would seem to have fitted less well to the chess theory, if chess weren't a factor.

It would seem that in desirability Swords (war) would be least and Coins (prosperity) most. However it is possible that Batons were least desirable (not very good weapons). That's just not the order at the Beinecke.

My question to Huck: Does the power of the card groups correspond to the power of the chess groups, in chess as it was played then? That is, were the royals the least powerful, followed by the pawns, followed by the knights, followed by the rooks (and excluding from this list the bishops)? If not, were the royals at least less powerful than the knights? If the answer to this second question is "no" then I have some trouble with the chess theory itself, because surely the Empress and Emperor were lower numbered trumps than Chariot and Death. If the answer to the first question is "no", then that detracts from the usefulness of the Beinecke groupings, in that Swords isn't first, but not entirely in that it fits otherwise, if we ignore the other cards in the groups.

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

29
.... :-) ... You're making progress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier_chess

Image


There's only one Schleich ... Jester
There only one old man

Image


Image


upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Aa_shortassizeposn2.jpg

This was already played in 12th century. It also served to make the game more quick.

Trionfi cards appear together with Petrarca pictures (c. 1440)

Chastity was accompanied by virtues.

Fou is the French name for the chess bishop

Schleich kommt von schleichen

Sun-Moon-Star replace the 3 theological virtues

Petrarca's figures were six - chess has six figures

Pulci was the first, who mentioned the word Minchiate

Pulci educated Lorenzo

Pulci wrote Morgante, when he educated Lorenzo

Morgante was a giant

Pulci realized the first 15 chapter 1461-1463

... :-)

Forget about Beinecke ... at least for the moment
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory

30
mjhurst wrote:Hi, Huck,

Old decks mean lost cards.
Michael, since we know us you say "No" "No" "No" "No" "No" "No" "No" etc.

Tarot is a game with pictures. Chess is a game with figures. Game means "play with it" ... remember, when you were a child and played with small Indians and Cowboys. That's your personal Ur-Chess. Similar reacted persons with these little chess figures.

History is another game and Historical Research also. It's just a play, how different information might fit together.
Huck
http://trionfi.com