I have always wondered why a group of cards could be used for readings when it was a game.
Why was it such a curious mix of sacred and secular?
Why there are Virtues but not Prudence or Wisdom?
Why is there a calm and detached Hanged man not properly tied?
Why there was always a hitch in the cards in numbered sequence that is an anomaly according to what you perceive as a sequence- it is not a ladder to Salvation, it is not astrological, it is not a play or a poem; yet it is parts of all these things?
Why is there a world (secular) next to a depiction of the Resurrection or an Angel (sacred)?
Why are there four persons on a white dais ?
Why does it look like a Fool’s journey ?
Why can ‘t one find other examples of the whole set -not just parts?
Why are the cards all rather obscure in some form or another- the Star looks like Aquarius for example.
Were the cards left overs at the printers or especially designed?
…and what is with the crazy name?
For me it has been nearly forty years of why? Why? Why?
The people who frequent this forum and other forums(who write on it and share their thoughts generously) have added in amazing ways to my understanding of parts of this intriguing thing called Tarot- but not the whole thing except the certainty it is a game created in the amazing time we now call the Renaissance in a country we now call Italy. If I believed in reincarnation I would say I was a merchant in Florence who was fortunate enough to be able to read and write and play games of cards….. Anyways I digress.
I was reading about Visual Rhetoric and found that 80% of written works around in 1400 was in classical Latin and a very small percentage of people could read it, so as we know visual rhetoric was the most used form to inform the majority of the people. Jerome who lived in 4th Century became Christian was trained in rhetoric and he translated for emerging Christianity- the Bible. In classic Rhetoric he asks in a letter…
“what does Horace have to do with the Psalms? What does Virgil have to do with the Gospels? What does Cicero have to do with the Apostle Paul, what does Plato and Peter have in common, or Aristotle and Paul?
What fellowship is there between light and darkness ? Yes I thought exactly….what do all these things have in common with Tarot? Yes there is the answer -Tarot is a visual ‘Rhetoric for Dummies’ There were of course many advice books/ manuscripts on Rhetoric and conduct and courtesy and many were written by “Dictators” and teachers in places like the Bologna University. The earliest one we have still is
By an anonymous writer who composed a short guide for the would-be podestà called Oculus pastoralis,
Translated means the “The Eye of the Shepherd” aprox 1222; in six simple and brief chapters it guides the novice through the requirements of the office, the salary, the address of welcome given by the retiring podestà to the new one, the choice of counsellors, the handling of money accounts. The fifth chapter offers some model speeches on public occasions, such as the death of prominent citizens, on making war and the training officials. There were apparently many of such manuscripts- How to be a good wife, good Priest,
A good merchant and naturally they were illustrated in part. In fact one of the earliest images that there is for the Wheel of Fortune is from an ‘How to ‘ book is in the ‘Poetria Nova’ by Geoffrey of Vinsauf. Or Giovanni of Viterbo’s ‘Government of Cities’ Persuasion by words and we still do it visually today with advertisements.
The subject is vast and there have now been written many books on the subject and it’s history.
One of the methods used in Rhetoric is a word derived from Greek called ‘Heuristic’ which in Greek was ‘invention’ or to find out or self educate and had some tricks to use.. Tropes, memory, drawing to explain something, working backwards from the solution to form the argument, flash card type examples…..
So for example the game title Tarot could be explained as working backwards Orat- it speaks by reflection
(as in the much later Mirror for Princes genre) of the eye or Oculus Orat which I wondered in another thread would be in Italian Occhio Oratore - verbal pun Tarocchi.
Now working backwards from the card we call the World -how would I frame a speech to persuade one to have the highest ideal of a State? How would I remember the points to raise?
~Lorredan
Toastmasters For The Signore
1The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts
Eden Phillpotts