The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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For a different purpose(that is other than Historical research) I have been muddling around with various pre-1800 Tarot de Marseille style decks to find a way to fit cards into a coherent scheme from the numbered order of the cards. The scheme was based on the Giotto Chapel in Padua and the Malatesta temple really. It went to my belief that Tarot in it's esoteric way (if really there was such a thing at the beginning) depended on the order of the cards.
The constant was only the subject not the order and only one numbered order+subject fitted my scheme. That was the Noblet type cards in the numbered order we accept today.
So...... I want to know.
1. Given that decks we have/know about having different numbered orders seem to be able to have been used succesfully for the game- Is the numbered order of great importance in The Historical research of these cards?
I will attach a sample of my scheme so that you can see what I mean. The scheme in itself is not important for the question.
~Lorredan
Tarot de Marseille Bologna Sicilian

Mercury Bateleur Moor Juggler
Virtue Papesse Moor Empress
Vice Empress Moor Emperor
Mars Emperor Moor Constancy
Virtue Pope Love Temperance
Vice Lovers Chariot Fortitude
Venus Chariot Temperance Justice
Virtue Justice Justice Lovers
Vice Hermit Force Chariot
Moon WOF WOF WOF
Virtue Strength Hermit Hanged man
Vice Hanged Man Hanged Man Hermit
Saturn Death Death Death
Virtue Temperance Devil Ship
Vice Devil Tower Tower
Jupiter Tower Star Star
Virtue Star Moon Moon
Vice Moon Sun Sun
Sun Sun World World
Above Judgement Judgement Judgement
Below World Bologna Beggar
Fool

Faith………Infidelity/Apostasy/Adultery
Hope………Despair
Charity…….Indifference
Justice……..Injustice/Covetousness/Poverty
Prudence…..Foolishness/Folly
Strength……Weakness/disloyalty
Temperance……..Wrath/Greed
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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Here's a question, and it's not me who thought it up.
If the ordering was really important, wouldn't you bind the images into a book so there could be no mistake?
The fact that they can be moved around, isn't that the whole point? (For game-playing, I mean.)
Once they put numbers on the trumps, it's easier to keep track of the rules. Before there were numbers, maybe the game played a bit differently.

Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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debra wrote:Here's a question, and it's not me who thought it up.
If the ordering was really important, wouldn't you bind the images into a book so there could be no mistake?
The fact that they can be moved around, isn't that the whole point? (For game-playing, I mean.)
Once they put numbers on the trumps, it's easier to keep track of the rules. Before there were numbers, maybe the game played a bit differently.
At least two things allow us to suppose that it has always been played more or less like it is today.

The earliest indication we have of a Tarot rule is from Ugo Trotti, writing in 1456, who says the game is played in partnership, "two against two". This is the classic rule we know from both the earliest Bolognese rules (16th century) and the earliest French rules (1637).
viewtopic.php?f=11&p=11037

Bolognese trumps did not begin to bear numbers until the late 18th century, much later than all the other sorts of trumps. So, Bolognese players really did memorize the order without any numbers at all, for over 300 years.

Thus, the absence of numbers on the trumps is not grounds for supposing that numberless trumps were played differently than numbered ones. There is an ordered hierarchy, and one card trumps another by virtue of its rank in the hierarchy.
Image

Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
At least two things allow us to suppose that it has always been played more or less like it is today.
How much "more or less" is of interest--"maybe the game played a bit differently."
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
Bolognese trumps did not begin to bear numbers until the late 18th century, much later than all the other sorts of trumps. So, Bolognese players really did memorize the order without any numbers at all, for over 300 years.

Thus, the absence of numbers on the trumps is not grounds for supposing that numberless trumps were played differently than numbered ones. There is an ordered hierarchy, and one card trumps another by virtue of its rank in the hierarchy.
You might be right. I have reservations about the "thus." I can't see how the evidence and logic establish that a single order was memorized, or preclude a different mode of play for cards with unnumbered trumps.

Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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debra wrote:
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
At least two things allow us to suppose that it has always been played more or less like it is today.
How much "more or less" is of interest--"maybe the game played a bit differently."
"More or less" meaning "not exactly, but clearly similarly enough that the differences are superficial to the categorization of the type of game". In other words, a difference in degree, not kind.

I take your "bit differently" to mean a difference in kind, A LOT differently. Sorry if I misunderstood.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
Bolognese trumps did not begin to bear numbers until the late 18th century, much later than all the other sorts of trumps. So, Bolognese players really did memorize the order without any numbers at all, for over 300 years.

Thus, the absence of numbers on the trumps is not grounds for supposing that numberless trumps were played differently than numbered ones. There is an ordered hierarchy, and one card trumps another by virtue of its rank in the hierarchy.
You might be right. I have reservations about the "thus." I can't see how the evidence and logic establish that a single order was memorized, or preclude a different mode of play for cards with unnumbered trumps.
The facts establish that an order WAS memorized, and played, without numbers. Numbers were also added early to most kinds of trumps (just as cards evolved to show titles, numbers on the pips, became double ended, and showed corner indices, all in concert with developing technology and the tastes of players). The only reasonable conclusion is that everywhere Tarot was played, it was played as a card game with an ordered hierarchy of trumps. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise, since the fact of being unnumbered can be shown to be irrelevant to the play of the game.

Clearly Tarot was used in parlour games like tarocchi appropriati as well, where the hierarchy of the trumps was irrelevant. But this is a secondary use of the cards, not the reason they were invented.
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Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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debra wrote: You might be right. I have reservations about the "thus." I can't see how the evidence and logic establish that a single order was memorized, or preclude a different mode of play for cards with unnumbered trumps.
Of course they can't preclude it as a strictly logical possibility; but the facts can make the idea that the trumps were invented to be used as anything other than an ordered hierarchy in a trick-taking game extremely implausible, because baseless (the only basis having been that some of the earliest trumps bear no numbers, a datum which can be shown to be irrelevant when interpreting the purpose of the cards).
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Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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I don't want to hijack Rosanne's thread, so I'll make this brief.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: The facts establish that an order WAS memorized, and played, without numbers. Numbers were also added early to most kinds of trumps (just as cards evolved to show titles, numbers on the pips, became double ended, and showed corner indices, all in concert with developing technology and the tastes of players). The only reasonable conclusion is that everywhere Tarot was played, it was played as a card game with an ordered hierarchy of trumps. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise, since the fact of being unnumbered can be shown to be irrelevant to the play of the game.
While this may well be correct, it requires too much speculation about everywhere and all time, in my view.

As far as I know, no facts establish that prior to numbering, a single order was memorized and played at any given time, or that a single order prevailed prior to numbering within any given community (eg Bologna) . Nor, as far as I know, do the facts demonstrate that the "preferred" order in any given community remained stable over the long term prior to numbering (eg, 300 years of the Bologna game).

One might consider the flexibility of poker.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Clearly Tarot was used in parlour games like tarocchi appropriati as well, where the hierarchy of the trumps was irrelevant. But this is a secondary use of the cards, not the reason they were invented.
I have not suggested anything other than a game. I suggested the possibility that there were differences in early rules of play.

Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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Debra- I have no concerns about HiJacking.
Sometimes your command of English far out strips mine.

I guess some terms are not interchangeable.

In Kaplan Chapter 9 Vol.11 it says.....
If there were a definite sequence to the trump cards, as many scholars believe, it would seem that the fifteenth century tarocchi cards would have been numbered to facilitate play. It is possible, but unlikely, that the players of the game of truimphi or tarocchi were expected to memorize which trump card was valued above another; ....
(my emphasis)
I know that Sermones de Cum Alis gives an arabic numbered sequence but for example puts Temperance at 6.

As I said in the opening post The comparison of Numbering (or not) and titles for the atouts varies, not so much in subject matter but places in the trumping sequence.
If I was to try and work out a reason for the subjects of Tarot in a systematic way -the order of the Trumps
for my purpose has to have a logic. If for example I believed that there was a Salvation sequence to Tarot then the order would go in a particular way. Somewhere along the way there is a hiccup in the sequence.
So back to Debra's post ....is it likely that there was a difference in the games between the origin and say 1650?
and how important is the sequence of the Trumps (over the subject matter) in historical research?
I need to state also that I believe tarot was/is game not an esoteric tool- but is used as an Esoteric tool thesedays.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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debra wrote:I don't want to hijack Rosanne's thread, so I'll make this brief.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: The facts establish that an order WAS memorized, and played, without numbers. Numbers were also added early to most kinds of trumps (just as cards evolved to show titles, numbers on the pips, became double ended, and showed corner indices, all in concert with developing technology and the tastes of players). The only reasonable conclusion is that everywhere Tarot was played, it was played as a card game with an ordered hierarchy of trumps. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise, since the fact of being unnumbered can be shown to be irrelevant to the play of the game.
While this may well be correct, it requires too much speculation about everywhere and all time, in my view.
Well, your view isn't the majority view. Typically when studying a subject, one acquaints onself first with the standard references (which include primary sources, or bibliography for them), or talks to experts in the field, or ideally both, before forming an opinion. For the history of Bolognese Tarot, the standard references are -

Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot (1980), chapter 16.
Thierry Depaulis, ed., Tarot: jeu et magie (1984), pp. 56-60.
Girolamo Zorli, Il Tarocchino Bolognese (1992).
M. Dummett, Il Mondo e l'Angelo (1994), chapter XIX.
M. Dummett and John McLeod, A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack (2004), chapter 11.
Andrea Vitali and Terry Zanetti, Il Tarocchino di Bologna (2005).

Assuming you're serious, I trust you'll seek out those resources and study them, if you won't take my word for it. Or, find someone else who is acquainted with the evidence and whose authority you'll respect.

Girolamo Zorli is occasionally on this list - he is one of the founding members of the Accademia del Tarocchino Bolognese http://www.tarocchinobolognese.it/, an organization dedicated to the promotion of the game (including studies of its history), and runs the Tre Tre website, which allows you to play the most popular Italian card games online, and also incidentally contains many of the best primary sources about early Tarot, including the Bolognese version http://www.tretre.it/ ; http://www.tretre.it/menu/accademia-del ... a-del-tre/ . You can also seek out Andrea Vitali at http://www.letarot.it/index.aspx?lng=ENG (click "Essays" for a few articles on Bolognese Tarot, among many others of course about Tarot in general) or Thierry Depaulis, to offer your thoughts on the history of Bolognese Tarot. Michael Dummett himself, sadly, passed away in December of last year.
As far as I know, no facts establish that prior to numbering, a single order was memorized and played at any given time, or that a single order prevailed prior to numbering within any given community (eg Bologna) . Nor, as far as I know, do the facts demonstrate that the "preferred" order in any given community remained stable over the long term prior to numbering (eg, 300 years of the Bologna game).


In fact quite the opposite is true, especially for Bologna, which is why I urge you to consult the standard references before offering your opinion, at least where you wish to contradict everybody who is familiar with the evidence. The conservatism of the Bolognese game, in both style of play and the iconography of the cards, is one of its most marked characteristics, for the whole history of which we can say anything with surety.

Everything known about Bolognese Tarot allows us to suppose that they always used the same kind of cards and the same ordering of trumps in play. The cards were not given numbers until late into the 18th century. Before that, three different rule books, dating from the late 16th and the mid-18th centuries, give the trumps in precisely the same order - except with no "numbers" of course, they are just listed in that order. This order is exactly echoed by Bolognese poems or appropriati of the 17th and 18th centuries, as it was by Giuseppe Mitelli's free rendering of the Bolognese game, which was printed in book form (a condition you remarked might be nice to see) in 1665.

The iconography of the trumps, from their earliest known printed examples (the Beaux-Arts/Rothschild sheets (BAR), and the Devil card of Angolo Hebreo, mid-16th c.), through the 17th century (a nearly perfectly preserved example in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris), and on into the 18th until today, has hardly changed at all. Most of the changes are superficial, but there are two important exceptions. The Devil was made less fearsome before the mid-17th century (he is no longer eating people like in BAR and Agnolo Hebreo), and, in 1725, the papal legate in Bologna forced all the cardmakers to remove the images of the Popes and Emperors, replacing them with Moors (he also demanded that the Angel (Judgement), but changed into "a lady", but this was not done).

Furthermore, the similarity between the earliest painted cards of the A or Southern Type (of which Bologna and Florence are the two main examples), dating from around 1460, to the printed cards of the Bolognese pack, alluded to above, gives good reason to believe that this conservatism extends far back into the 15th century, plausibly to the origin of the game.

So the conservatism of the Bolognese tradition is confirmed by both external (documentary) and internal (iconographic) evidence.

Of course that's just a summary. If you want the primary evidence upon which those conclusions are based, you need to go to the sources I mentioned. If you don't trust me, ask someone whose opinion you will accept, or do the work yourself.
One might consider the flexibility of poker.
One might consider the flexibility of Tarot too; over 250 games are documented and detailed in Dummett and McLeod. However, many archetypal features can be deduced from the earliest surviving games, enough of which hold them in common that we can reasonably reconstruct the basic features of the original game (wherever it was invented).
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Clearly Tarot was used in parlour games like tarocchi appropriati as well, where the hierarchy of the trumps was irrelevant. But this is a secondary use of the cards, not the reason they were invented.
I have not suggested anything other than a game. I suggested the possibility that there were differences in early rules of play.
Nobody would dispute that. But why is it important to insist on this point, as if I didn't know it? Do you have a theory about games not included among those already documented, or that Tarot was not invented to play a particular game?
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Re: The Importance of Tarot Sequence?

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Lorredan wrote: If I was to try and work out a reason for the subjects of Tarot in a systematic way -the order of the Trumps
for my purpose has to have a logic. If for example I believed that there was a Salvation sequence to Tarot then the order would go in a particular way. Somewhere along the way there is a hiccup in the sequence.
So back to Debra's post ....is it likely that there was a difference in the games between the origin and say 1650?
and how important is the sequence of the Trumps (over the subject matter) in historical research?
Rosanne, the way I see it, your question would link the card game back to appropriati-ish story-telling--the use of the cards' pictures more creatively than simply as markers for assigned point values or power to trump. Is this what you have in mind? Before the trumps had numbers and each became automatically identified as having more or less point value, that story-telling played a part in the game? A poker player can specify hierarchies for playing card hands without explaining why Aces are high--how it's often played in casual groups--players take turns dealing, and whoever deals lays out the values for that hand. Variable trump orderings could be an opportunity for players to specify different hierarchies. "Why do you say the Angel should be there?" "Ah, glad you asked..."

I'd be surprised if everyone just memorized the ordering--machine-like--as they were as intelligent and inventive as people always are--and the trumps can tell one or more stories, suggesting multiple purposes and complex intentions. Is this what you mean in talking about variations from a salvation sequence?

At any rate, it's not a question of proving conscious intent by the person(s) who chose the images and carved the blocks. Even with contemporary cultural artifacts, specifying purposes and intent is problematic because they convey meaning that may be recognized, if at all, only subconsciously, why good critics can see more in a painting, film or book than the creator was aware of. The images and stories would be recognizable, yet there's always slippage between the details and what's seen and understood. People read Superman comics without recognizing half the messages in the story. Even so, when we have a reason to *look* at the pictures it changes the experience, and without numbers, the pictures themselves might play a greater role in the play.

--Debra