hi Mike, hi Ross,
mikeh wrote:
I still think the Michelino was the first tarot, and after that came a predecessor to the Cary-Yale, a Petrarchan Christianization of the Michelino, somewhat along Pen's lines. Perhaps the 1425 Trionfi festivities (mentioned in Huck's last post) suggested the modifications, as well as Filippo's growing religiousity. The new version might have been Marziano's second experiment, before his unfortunate demise.
I think, that European playing card traditions reach back to 1300 ... this is not proven with hard evidence, but only indicated by too much insecure documents, and by the generally bad information situation from this time. Ingold said, that he had read, that playing cards had come in the year 1300 to Germany. Ingold might have been born c. 1380, he knew stories from his parents and teachers, and to some degree Ingold might have been a sort of chronist himself. If playing cards had come generally much later (c. 1370) it's somehow plausible, that Ingold ... who made much journeys and so did not know only the Strassburg reality ... would have heard about it as a modern and massive sensation. This Ingold didn't report, but something, which he had read in an old book (?) - "Nun ist das spil vol untrü, und
als ich gelessen han, so ist es komen in tüsche land des ersten do man zalt von Cristus geburt tusend drühundert jar" ("als ich gelessen han" = "as I've read"), which he considered reliable.
Nonetheless we have the condition, that Johannes of Rheinfelden perceived the medium as "new" in his own world perception in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1377 - that's 50 km near to Strassburg, where Ingold wrote 55 years later. Both Strassburg and Freiburg are near enough to the big European trading way of the Rhein and if we don't perceive Johannes "as completely off from the world", we must assume, that it cannot have been, that playing cards were distributed in large manner along this trading way, which connected Norhern Italy with the Netherlands, crossing Western Germany, if we assume, that Johannes speaks truth regarding the his own perception.
On the other hand Johannes describes the playing card invasion as rather gigantic in a manner (much games and different cards, the whole city is filled with cards) that it is impossible to assume, that playing card industry was just invented yesterday. In European regions, not observed by Johannes, playing card production must have developed in the usual slow steps before. Naturally, as we know, that playing cards were first in China or at least far in the East, one would find their European origin somewhere along the importing trading routes and then natural not in central Europe, but at the periphery.
One common import route was surely Spain and with the Mamluk cards and the Latin suit system (swords etc.), which is far spread in Southern Europe, we have some evidence for it. However, a second and third and fourth rather important trade route went via the Black sea. One naturally follows the great river Donau (Danube) and reaches Vienna as the major Western city. A second had its run from the Krim towards Kiew, but then leaning to the West and crossing lower Polonia, reaching Breslau as the first bigger Western city. A third way leads further North via Nowgorod, then feeding the Ostsee, which was reigned by the Hanse as a trading institution. From this 3 major ways two did lead through territory, which was dominated by the Goldene Horde, a branch of the Mongolian armies, which generally didn't experience the great cultivation of that Mongols, which took influence on Persia. Later in 14th century, we see Tamerlane (Mongol leader reigning in Persia) attack the Goldene Horde ... so Mongolians differed between themselves.
From the period of 1324-30 we have as "insecure evidence" statutes of the Deutscher Ritterorden (with close relations to the Hanse), which report the existence of playing cards with a prohibition (possibly a document forgery). From 1303 we have a further insecure note, that 3 card players were killed by lightning in Brieg (reported twice in 17th century) ... Brieg lying east of Breslau at the trading route to Kiew. Then we have the Hübsch article (from 1849), who states, that there are playing cards in Prague in 1340 and before already Polish nobility played with them. From all this period between possibly 1300 and 1418 we have as information about the structure of the decks only that, what we know of Johannes and a spurious Spanish information, which talks of a 44-card-deck in Spain.
That's not much, and logic demands to assume, that there were more varying experiments, much more creativity with cards, as we know of. So a "I still think the Michelino was the first tarot" naturally doesn't meet the point. We have, that Tarot appears as a card-game-word in 1505 (but we have, that Tarot similar cards existed already before), and also we have, that for Trionfi (or similar) as a card-game-name likely the condition existed, that it hardly existed before 1440 (as argued in my post before), but it naturally doesn't mean, that Trionfi card similar objects didn't already existed before. Marcello (1449) declares the Michelino deck (before 1425 - quasi posthum) to a Trionfi deck.
When we look now at the Michelino deck and compare it to other deck information of the early time of playing card development, then we see, that there are two similarities:
a. it's by the Martiano description similar to the rudimentary later Tarot rules
b. It has a longer hierarchical row of trumps ... as one may it assume for the Trionfi decks and knows it for the Tarot decks
c. It has a 4x15 deck a structural similarity to the 4x15-deck (60 cards) of Johannes von Rheinfelden
The point c. is disputed by Ross in his recent posts:
I don't agree with your characterization of the Marziano design as making the gods part of the suits. The bird-suits and the gods are two different aspects of the fourfold thematic design.
Let's call the four moral characteristics (Virtues, Riches, Virginities, Pleasures) the "horizontal" aspect, and the birds and gods the "vertical" aspect of the design. The vertical aspect has two parts - birds and gods. The gods are effectively a fifth suit.
......................Birds............|........Gods
Virtues............Eagles............|....1, 5, 9, 13
Riches ..........Phoenices..........|....2, 6, 10, 14
Virginities.....Turtledoves.........|....3, 7, 11, 15
Pleasures..........Doves............|....4, 8, 12, 16
Jove is not "Jove of Eagles" - he's just number 1 of the gods. He's one of the four gods in the god-suit of the "theme" of Virtues, just as the Eagles suit is the bird-suit in the theme of Virtues.
Cupid isn't "Cupid of Doves" - he's just number 16 of gods, etc., for all the rest.
"Every one of the gods is above all of the orders of birds and the rank of kings." I could get into this more, but let me offer the corroborating evidence, namely Marcello's reaction to seeing Michelino's rendition of Marziano's text. He calls it a "new kind of Triumphs". Now, on what basis does he compare it to a normal deck of Triumph cards?
We have 4 suits called Virtues, Riches, Viginities and Pleasures, not 4 suits necessarily connected to birds. The suits are designed with 4 different birds, which (likely) were on each number and the Kings. From the description of the gods we have, that the birds are not noted by Martiano ... but we have, that the 4 figures for Pleasures are the gods Venus (Love), Bacchus (Wein), Ceres (Corn, bread ?) and Eros (again Love), from which at least 3 are good recognizable as "pleasure", and from the 4 figures for virginity Pallas, Diana, Vesta and Daphne we have 4 virgins. The idea "Riches" is not totally clear, but we may suspect Juno (Earth ?), Neptun (Water), Mars (Fire) and Eolus (Air) are meant as elements and in this context "Riches" would make sense. As Virtues are designed Jupiter, Apollon, Mercury, Heracles, okay, that's not unplausible, but also not totally suggestive.
Anyway, there's enough to recognize them as cards as belonging to one of the 4 suits. Also, there's the slight (not likely) possibility, that the cards had small signs of recognition (small birds). Most descriptions of Martiano are more little essays to the gods, mostly it's less recognizable, how the figures might have been painted.
Here's the text, translated by Ross:
Indeed the first order, of virtues, is certain: Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Hercules. The second of riches, Juno, Neptune, Mars and Aeolus. The third of virginity or continence: from Pallas, Diana, Vesta and Daphne. The fourth however is of pleasure: Venus, Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid. And subordinated to these are four kinds of birds, being suited by similarity. Thus to the rank of virtues, the Eagle; of riches, the Phoenix; of continence, the Turtledove; of pleasure, the Dove. And each one obeys its own king.
As I read it, the suits are Virtues, Riches, Virginities and Pleasures, each with 15 cards totally, a king, 4 gods, 10 numbers.
A usual deck for Skat has 32 cards. 4 cards are predefined trumps (the Jacks) as long the game is called Skat (naturally one can play other games with the deck) ... this doesn't change, that the deck has 4x8-structure. In Schafkopf you have 36 cards, 8 cards (Ober and Unter) are predefined trumps (naturally one can play other games with the deck) ... this doesn't change, that the deck has 4x8-structure.
It's very common for card playing to make such definitions, for instance in the choice which cards shall be trumps and which are not. The trump definition or the rules of games are quasi software, the deck form is hardware. As hardware the Michelino deck has a 4x15 structure.
We had this already earlier.
MikeH wrote:
But enough of the "might haves." For me, the key problem is, how did the Fool get to be unnumbered? I can only see one way, and it leads back to Milan.
The usual way to explain the unnumbered status is to say that Roman numerals had no zero. So you can't put his number on the card, which is really Zero. After all, Zero is what is on the Sola-Busca Fool card. In the late 18th century, both de Mellet and Etteilla gave it the number Zero. So there was a tradition for zero.
- In Germany/Bohemia we have 4 Fools in the Hofämterspiel as the Aces, so Nr. 1. In the Johannes of Rheinfelden deck description (60-cards-deck) numbers are given to the cards: 1-10 is clear, from the courts The King got 15, and number 11 was given to the Unter. In a normal card game with 4x13 the king likely had 13, the Ober 12, and the Unter 11.
The Unter often got a funny-foolish outfit in (at least German) card decks
In a famous founding of the first Carnival order at 12.11.1381 (these carnival orders are now an important matter for those, who celebrate carnival; at the given opportunity this was a knight order, and each member had the duty to carry a small silver fool) in Cleve in honor of Adolf III von der Mark, count of Cleve, the count took himself the number 11 at the signing list. The date was 12th of November, one day after 11.11., which in modern times is celebrated as the begin of Carnival. In medieval times the 1.1. (first of January) was occasionally used for the celebrations of the Feast of Fools.
But ... for the 5x14-theory, as far it is based on the 14 Bembo-special cards ... we have the problem, that Fool=0 and Judgment=20 cause the problem, that the row of the cards is disturbed:
0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-...-12-13-...20
the advantage of this row is, that 0 and 20 are "numbers easy to count" and that the total sum
0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+...12+13+...20 = 100
If one would correct the upper row with Fool=11 and Judgment=14, one would get
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14
but one would have numbers difficult to count and the not pleasant total result
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14 = 105
From which one may assume, that in Germany (which didn't invent Tarot) the Fool idea had an association to 1 or to 11 and still it has ...
but in Italy, which developed Tarot in small steps, the Fool adapted the "Zero" instead.
Generally one has to suspect, that the basic rules of Tarot (the game) are older than any special cards for Trionfi decks.
Tarot usually has special function for the "highest trump" (World), the "lowest card" (Bagatto) and for the Fool and for each of them the value "4 or 5" points, as high as the 4 Kings. If one would attempt to play a Tarot similar game with common deck, one would define just a suit as trump and then would have to decide, which cards shall be Bagatto, Fool and highest card. Naturally the trump-king would be made highest trump, and the trump-Ace would be made lowest trump, but there would be difficulties to define the Fool. But ... if there was already a tradition to see the Unter-figure as a funny card, one would take the Unter as the Fool. And the Unter was already related to the number 11.
Common cards, normal 5x13 decks (or 4x12 or 4x14, this doesn't change much for a basic game) were cheap and had been not rare, luxury cards as the Trionfi and Tarot cards were expensive. Naturally it was more played with cheap decks as with expensive decks.