Re: Tarot Origins and Early 15th Century Woodblock Printing
Posted: 20 Jul 2012, 02:27
OK, I'm going to stop being polite now.
Most of your speculations are irrelevant to a geneology of the modern tarot, my research question, which traces only the variants that contribute to the modern decks. As a pragmatic restriction, my first step is to say that the "bottleneck" for all modern designs and tarot conceptions is the Tarot de Marseille design. This may not be 100% accurate, but it is close. Once this is settled, the question becomes finding the antecedents to the Tarot de Marseille in 15th century Northern Italy, where all trionfi designs, of which most have left no descendants, originate.
Obviously the Cary sheet is a major data point. It is printed. It has the "astrologized" moon and star cards, perhaps also the sun. In addition, some of the contemporary Sforza castle cards show the tetramorphic world. Neither show the conventional Tarot de Marseille designs for the devil or the magician. Are the "astrologizations" borrowings from older Minchiate cards? Where did the tetramorphic world come from? These designs might orignate with condensations of multiple cards into one. For instance, the moon could be condensing Minchiate cancer and tarot moon; the world could be condensing the Tarot world/fame card with a Byzantine style last judgement with a conquoring Christ in a tetramorph as judge.
Clearly, to answer these questions, the number of cards in older hand painted decks (or their metaphoric source) is completely irrelevant. To answer this question, we need to know something about the library of images to which card makers had access, and the tastes of the less than noble card players to whom they sold the cards.
In short, I am not in the least bit interested in finding out what may have been meant by every use of the term "Trionfi" from 1400 to 1475. Moreover, if that is your research question, Huck, you are following the wrong method, at least by the standards of modern art history. An orthodox method for finding the meaning of "Trionfi" would require you to carefully attend to the meaning the word held for the speakers and audience, not for what it suggests to you, or might have meant in the general culture. Most of your fishing expeditions are irrelevant to your own research questions, never mind mine, since they do not properly restrict the meaning of the mentions of Trionfio to the actual context of the speaker and audience, to which you don't seem to pay attention. You may want to reread Baxandall on these points.
Most of your speculations are irrelevant to a geneology of the modern tarot, my research question, which traces only the variants that contribute to the modern decks. As a pragmatic restriction, my first step is to say that the "bottleneck" for all modern designs and tarot conceptions is the Tarot de Marseille design. This may not be 100% accurate, but it is close. Once this is settled, the question becomes finding the antecedents to the Tarot de Marseille in 15th century Northern Italy, where all trionfi designs, of which most have left no descendants, originate.
Obviously the Cary sheet is a major data point. It is printed. It has the "astrologized" moon and star cards, perhaps also the sun. In addition, some of the contemporary Sforza castle cards show the tetramorphic world. Neither show the conventional Tarot de Marseille designs for the devil or the magician. Are the "astrologizations" borrowings from older Minchiate cards? Where did the tetramorphic world come from? These designs might orignate with condensations of multiple cards into one. For instance, the moon could be condensing Minchiate cancer and tarot moon; the world could be condensing the Tarot world/fame card with a Byzantine style last judgement with a conquoring Christ in a tetramorph as judge.
Clearly, to answer these questions, the number of cards in older hand painted decks (or their metaphoric source) is completely irrelevant. To answer this question, we need to know something about the library of images to which card makers had access, and the tastes of the less than noble card players to whom they sold the cards.
In short, I am not in the least bit interested in finding out what may have been meant by every use of the term "Trionfi" from 1400 to 1475. Moreover, if that is your research question, Huck, you are following the wrong method, at least by the standards of modern art history. An orthodox method for finding the meaning of "Trionfi" would require you to carefully attend to the meaning the word held for the speakers and audience, not for what it suggests to you, or might have meant in the general culture. Most of your fishing expeditions are irrelevant to your own research questions, never mind mine, since they do not properly restrict the meaning of the mentions of Trionfio to the actual context of the speaker and audience, to which you don't seem to pay attention. You may want to reread Baxandall on these points.