EUGIM wrote:And italians decks are not Tarot de Marseille...

We have, so far, no reason to believe that the Tarot de Marseille is, or isn't, French, or Italian. But that's another thread:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=71

* Here you have an sphinx well boobed as might called it...

jmd wrote:I personally totally agree with Robert on this: wit the Tarot de Marseille-I and early decks, the figure atop the wheel is 'simply' a crowned person, ie, a representation of a (perhaps caped) crowned King.

But then, the other two (or three, in earliest depictions) beings circling the wheel are also human, whereas in the Tarot de Marseille-I they are already shown as animal - in the Noblet as Ass (ascending) and Monkey (descending).

Actually, I'd like to remind us all (as I'm sure you know JMD) that the earliest version we have, the Visconti Sforza, has animal ears and tails on the human figures, especially jack ass ears,.. I'd guess that right from the start there was the intention to show perhaps foolish, or to equate the riders of the wheel with baser, animal instincts. The animal parts are in the gold foil area.

* Yes is correct Robert,but in the case of Tarot de Marseille decks the ears ass are tied Monsieur...

EUGIM wrote:* Here you have an sphinx well boobed as might called it...

Copia de tdp-5.jpg

So, in the case of the Tarot of Paris, in France, we have a sample of Sphinx in tarot. Where is the sample, in tarot, besides the (supposedly!) Tarot de Marseille, that shows a Griffin?

(and again.. I remind you that I personally really don't care if it is a sphinx or a griffin, I absolutely fail to see why it would matter, especially since I personally see nothing but a poorly crafted human being... as shown on the Wheel of Fortune card from the exact same deck as the Sphinx):



To me, it's much more interesting to see the Noblet and the Paris, and the Vieville... and watch as the figure seems to degrade and change into the Sphinx/Griffin.

* Okay...

-Ends of story just for me...

Cheers !

Thanks for pointing that out Robert.

I suspect that this is one of those 'transformations' that was ever-so 'natural' to those of the times, and that the ascent as Ass and fall as monkey were far more commonly understood than they today are.

For examples (taken from my own notes for the pdf-course), according to the mediæval Physiologus, the devil was simia Dei (God's monkey), and the monkey was associated with humanity's fall and continued to represent human sin into the Middle Ages (Cf Corbey's Metaphysics of Apes, p.66). As for the Ass, it probably derives from a joke that confounds 'Bisodia' as the name at times used for Christ's Ass but also infers fantasy (or more properly speaking phantasm).


When I wrote above that the earliest depictions were of four people, I thought of both that card but also of non-tarot representations (and of course there are also non-tarot representations with animal depcitions too).

With the question from Eugim about 'where are the boobs', I'm not sure why you've even asked that, Eugim... or perhaps both the Ancient Greeks and the Egyptians also 'forgot' to often add them:

I'm not sure if I ever noticed before that the Visconti Sforza Fortune has wings. Lovely.

* JMD: I am very surprised,believe me...

-You will "never" find an egyptian example.

. Because this not less detail is only worth to find at "Europe" translation of the image.

Kitsch done it may be as usuall ???

* And the ass has not tied ears.