sprouts1115 wrote:I like the idea of 14 trumps as the first Tarot deck. It makes sense you would start with 14 trumps with a 4x14 deck. It just doesn't make sense to suddenly have 22 trumps. I also think trumps were added on later, more is better right? History tells us that. I remember reading about a deck of 40 trumps with constellations. If you had to, what cards would be the 14 starting trumps? Obliviously, you would take out "The Fool", "The Tower", "The Star", "The Moon", "The Sun" 22-5 = 17 cards. What other 3 would you take out. Maybe take out the 3 Cardinal virtues "Temperance" , "Fortitude(Strength)", "Justice"
Using the old list above that leaves us with:
1 - Bagatella
2 - Empress
3 - Emperor
4 - The Popesse
5 - The Pope
6 - Love
7 - The Chariot
8 - The Wheel
9 - The Hunchback
10 - The Hanged man
11 - Death
12 - The Devil
13 - The Angel
14 - The World
Or would you do things different.
Well,
I don't ask me, what I would do, but what history did. We have the so-called Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Tarocchi (surviving with 20 trumps - no devil and no tower - and 54 of 56 "small arcana"; one of the small arcana was lost late). It's calculated to be one of the oldest surviving deck fragments (c. 1450).
This deck - so art history - was painted by two different artists, one painted 14 special cards [13 trumps + Fool] and all the small arcana [so 68 cards], the other painted 6 trumps and nothing else.
Tarot History of c. 1980 answered the problem with defining, that the deck was complete (22 special cards, 4x14 small arcana as "usual Tarot"), but some cards (all of them trumps) were lost and "replaced".
A later generation of researchers found to the idea, that the 6 trumps of the second artist might not have been "lost", but just were "added" to a deck with 5x14-structure.
It was found in the work of the first painter:
0 - Fool
1 - Bagatella
2 - Popesse
3 - Empress
4 - Emperor
5 - The Pope
6 - Love
7 - The Chariot
8 - Justice
9 - The Hunchback
10 - Wheel
....
12 - The Hanged man
13 - Death
....
20 - Judgment
The numbers were not on the cards, but just taken from the Tarot de Marseille as the most popular version.
The result ...
0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10- ... - 12 - 13 ... 20
... looked not caused by accidental loss of cards.
It looked, as if it has descended from the row 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14
Now later a specific information was found, that John of Rheinfelden (in the year 1377) counted for a 4x15 deck with 5 court cards
1-10 for the number cards
11-15 for the 5 court cards
There's a natural problem with the "0", "zero".
The Roman number system I, II, III, IV, V etc. didn't use it, the Arabic number system used it. In 1377 (JoR) not much persons in Europe used the "0", and also around 1450 it weren't much. It established with more use in the course of growing printing technology end of 15th century. The Sola Busca Tarocchi from 1491 has a "0".
From this observation a "0" used in a card game c. 1450 is not probable.
If we move the "0 Fool" on the "empty" position "11", we've one step repaired.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11(Fool)-12-13 ... 20
The "Judgment" is according its iconographic idea a "finishing card" ... so we can move it to the "also empty" number "14"
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11(Fool)-12-13-14(Judgment)
In the JoR-system the position 11 would have been the court card "lower marshal", the "Unter", a figure, which was often presented on playing cards as funny. It might well be, that this "funny Unter" has a rather old tradition, preceding the time of 1450. The promotion from "funny Unter" to "0 Fool" is rather natural.
Further we have, that at 11.11. in each year the carnival season starts (this also might reach in the early time of playing card production).
So that's it in short.
A longer version, a little old (from 2003), with some more complex aspects, is here:
http://trionfi.com/0/f/07/
Graphic
http://trionfi.com/0/f/08/