Collection Frame Stories

1
The character of a frame story - as it is generally understood - is given at ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_story
... which notes the begin of the Frame story development with ...
The earliest known frame stories can be traced back to ancient India sometime in the first millennium BCE, when the Sanskrit epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, Vishnu Sarma's Panchatantra, Syntipas' The Seven Wise Masters, and the fable collections Hitopadesha and Vikram and The Vampire were written. This form gradually spread west through the centuries and became popular, giving rise to such classic frame tale collections as the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), The Decameron, and Canterbury Tales.
Now I'm interested NOT in the generally frame stories, but frame stories, which somehow are interesting in matters of Tarot history research. I've given two examples recently, the "Seven Sages of Rome" ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=162962
... and with the 20/21 women in Pierre Le Moyne's "Femmes fortes" ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=162795

The "seven sages", which have survived in different traditions, split in various versions, which are grouped in Eastern and Western versions, and the Eastern seems to have formed 2 major patterns, a longer and a shorter:

1. Western version with 15 stories, but likely based on a scheme with 16 elements
2. Eastern (1) normal version ("7 veziers", based on c. 21 stories, but likely based on a scheme with 22 elements
3. Eastern (2) "Sindibad" version, which has 30 stories, but likely based on a scheme with 32 elements and specifically based on the scheme, as it is known as "32 ways of wisdom" in Sepher Yetzirah. In this version the 22 elements (Eastern 1, normal version) are embedded in the teaching of the pupil by Sindibad (begin of text, 3 stories) and the expanded successful defense of the pupil (6 stories, end of text).

In the French example of Pierre Le Moyne he uses 20 female figures of the past in a 4x5 scheme (5 Jews, 5 Barbars, 5 Romans, 5 Christians) and the whole has less the character of a "Frame story" in the classical sense, but the author organizes his work in a mathematical pattern ... and there's the relationship to playing card decks.

Playing card decks naturally use a mathematical form, mostly it could be addressed by a simple matrix. The most usual form is the 4x13-deck, 4 suits with 13 cards. The suits are describable with 10+3, 10 number cards and 3 court cards ... without any view at the iconographic content (which is a variable in endless forms). Tarot decks are a little more complicated, cause the 5th "Trump" suit is different in number than the other 4 suits: so 4x14+22 designs an abstract Tarot deck without any fixed iconographic content.

As we're in search for comparable objects to the Trionfi card and Tarot development, we're natural interested in Frame books with an recognizable mathematical pattern ... it's better, if the used pattern relates to a game ... and it's best, if the pattern relates to a game pattern used in the Tarot and Trionfi development.

You think, that there are none with this quality ... ? ... of course there are. Here ... in short form ... are two of them:

"Il Novellino" by Masucchio (published 1476)
http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/pdf/Volume_3/t56.pdf

50 chapters with erotic stories of the Naples region, written by the secretary of condottiero Roberto Sanseverino (1476 in the service of Milan), who helped in the publication after the author had died. One of the stories became the plot for Shakespeare's "Romeo and Julia". The chapters are sorted in 5 groups with 10 stories each as the ...
Mantegna Tarocchi (5x10-scheme)
http://trionfi.com/mantegna/
... from which Trionfi.com assumes, that it was formed with 50 elements in 1474/75. So we a synchron phenmenon between the both, which often leads to the sucessful findng, that both prcductions were "somehow" related and happened not accidental at the same moment.

Similar related seems to be the Pentamerone (1633)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Basile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentamerone
Il Pentamerone del cavalier Giovan Battista Basile:
overo, Lo cunto de li cunte, trattenemiento de li peccerille di Gian Alesio Abbattutis..
http://books.google.com/books?id=FIUHAA ... navlinks_s
... which is a fairy tale collection with the meta story, that 10 women in 5 nights tell 50 stories (so again the 5x10-scheme). This again is embedded in a meta-meta story ...

How the story began ...
http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/stories/pent01.html (begin) ...
and the plot in short:
The frame-story is that of a cursed, melancholy princess named Zoza ("mud" or "slime" in Neapolitan, but also used as a term of endearment). She can not laugh, whatever her father does to amuse her, so he sets up a fountain of oil by the door, thinking people slipping in the oil would make her laugh. An old woman tried to gather oil, a page boy broke her jug, and the old woman grew so angry that she danced about, and Zoza laughed at her. The old woman cursed her to marry only the Prince of Round-Field, whom she could only wake by filling a pitcher with tears in three days. With some aid from fairies, who also give her gifts, Zoza found the prince and the pitcher, and nearly filled the pitcher when she fell asleep. A Moorish slave steals it, finishes filling it, and claims the prince.
...
The now-pregnant slave-queen demands (at the impetus of Zoza's fairy gifts) that her husband tell her stories, or else she would crush the unborn child. The husband hires ten female storytellers to keep her amused; disguised among them is Zoza. Each tells five stories — most of which are more suitable to courtly than juvenile audiences. The Moorish woman's treachery is revealed in the final story (related, suitably, by Zoza), and she is buried, pregnant, up to her neck in the ground and left to die. Zoza and the Prince live happily ever after.
Basile's stories became of importance for Charles Perrault ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Perrault
Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author who laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known include Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) and La Barbe bleue (Bluebeard). Perrault's stories continue to be printed and have been adapted to opera, ballet (for example, Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty), theatre, and film.
... and later the brothers Grimm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%2 ... hold_Tales
Image


As Masucchio's 50 stories were from Naples, and Basile also had been of Naples, there are good chances, that Masucchio's work influenced Basile.
But generally these constructions based on "10 story-tellers" are related to the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, written in 1350/51 after the big plague: In the meta story 10 persons (3 men and 7 women) attempt to escape the plague, gather at the church ... and flee to a villa near Florence in Fiesole (Fiesole has a major importance for Boccaccio anyway).
There each of the speakers tells one story in each night from Monday till Friday (Saturday and Sunday are holidays). So "10 days" make 100 stories and two weeks.

Image

So at a Tuesday morning after Divine Service in the venerable church of Santa Maria Novella seven girls met and decided to look up a safer place ...

Image

... in Fiesole, in 8 km distance to Florence.

******************

This might be enough as examples, what I would understood as "Frame stories with some relevance to Tarot and Game history research".

If any reader is aware of such texts, I would be enjoyed, if he/she would leave a note here. Thanks.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection Frame Stories

4
Hello,
Huck wrote:Thanks Bernard
You're welcome (although it's Bertrand, a bright raven not a bear hard) !
Regarding this link, it should be noted that the pictures are from the "Grand Tarot Belline", a deck issued in the 50's or 60's by the cartomancer Belline, and supposedly designed by a late XIXth century cartomancer, the Mage Edmond, not from P.Christian's book, where the illustrations (illustré de 22 figures kabbalistiques) are only horoscope-like charts and not cards.
Also despite what the link may lead to think, Christian describes the 78 cards, not only the 22 trumps.

P.Christian's "L'homme rouge des tuileries" is undoubtely a leading inspiration for Belline's Tarot deck, but its alleged origin before 1950's cruelly lacks solid references - peculiarly, it doesn't appear in Depaulis "Tarot Jeu et Magie", while the "tarot des centuries" hoax is present.

I don't have "a wicked pack of cards" ( :( ), but the link seems to indicate there are more detailled informations there.

Bertrand

Re: Collection Frame Stories

5
Bertrand wrote:Hello,
Huck wrote:Thanks Bernard
You're welcome (although it's Bertrand, a bright raven not a bear hard) !
Regarding this link, it should be noted that the pictures are from the "Grand Tarot Belline", a deck issued in the 50's or 60's by the cartomancer Belline, and supposedly designed by a late XIXth century cartomancer, the Mage Edmond, not from P.Christian's book, where the illustrations (illustré de 22 figures kabbalistiques) are only horoscope-like charts and not cards.
Also despite what the link may lead to think, Christian describes the 78 cards, not only the 22 trumps.

P.Christian's "L'homme rouge des tuileries" is undoubtely a leading inspiration for Belline's Tarot deck, but its alleged origin before 1950's cruelly lacks solid references - peculiarly, it doesn't appear in Depaulis "Tarot Jeu et Magie", while the "tarot des centuries" hoax is present.

I don't have "a wicked pack of cards" ( :( ), but the link seems to indicate there are more detailled informations there.

Bertrand
It would be nice to see the original text of Christian. "1950's" in your text seems to be a typo, probably you wished to write "1850's"?
"Wicked Pack" states, that the cards were made c. 1865 (as they "owe little to Etteilla and much to the later interpretation of Paul Christian"). As painter is assumed "Edmond", and it is said, that Grimaud published two decks "Oracle Belline" (52 cards) and "Grand Tarot Belline" (the shown deck) for Marcel Belline, who seems to have still active in 1990's. Belline lived in the same street, where Edmond lived.
http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/guide/astro ... racle.html

http://www.axelle-voyance.com/voyant-belline.html
http://www.medium.fr/article/marcel-belline-19
The deck is said to have been hand painted by or for Edmond for his personal use. Wicked pack don't give a doubt about Edmond as producer. Belline donated the originals to the Musee des Arts et tradition populaires in Paris. It seems that the museum defends the authorship (?)

The 52-card-oracle
Image

Image

http://cartomancie.roflforum.net/t56-be ... s-and-text
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection Frame Stories

6
Hello,

no I meant 1950, it was not a typo : I was speaking about the deck, not Christian's book, although it was an error since the first of both Belline's (supposedly Edmond's) decks was published in 1961.
Belline was an active cartomancer from 1950 to 1980 according to wikipedia. According to his narrative, he discovered Edmond's decks (Oracle and Tarot) in an old attic. Both deck were then published by Grimaud starting from 1961 for the oracle, and later on I suppose for the Tarot.

The cards were supposedly designed in the XIXth century, but I don't know of any evidence apart from Belline's testimony. Most informations about these decks are found in books explaining how to use them for cartomancy or the booklet issued with the decks. Are there any other sources indicated in "A Wicked Pack of Cards" ?

I tend to suspect its authenticity, but it's only based on a vague feeling - the story might be true, but anyway the deck wasn't disclosed to public eyes before at least 1961. The story seems to have inspired in bigger proportions the "Nostradamus Tarot" hoax, that may be why I tend to suspect it.

Back to Christian's and his frame stories, the description of the 22 "arcana" (the term he was first to use for the cards according to Depaulis) found on the link you gave earlier is included in the narrative as the transcription of a "manuscript" written by an old man and given to a young Napoleon. Said manuscript is said to be inspired by researches from a bishop whose mid XVIIIth century story is told by said old man to said "soon to be emperor".
It turns out later that the old man is in fact the bishop and that the framed narrative was his personal story. The old man vs bonaparte story is itself framed by P.Christian's first person narrative prologue and epilogue.

Bertrand

Re: Collection Frame Stories

7
Bertrand wrote:Hello,

no I meant 1950, it was not a typo : I was speaking about the deck, not Christian's book, although it was an error since the first of both Belline's (supposedly Edmond's) decks was published in 1961.
Belline was an active cartomancer from 1950 to 1980 according to wikipedia. According to his narrative, he discovered Edmond's decks (Oracle and Tarot) in an old attic. Both deck were then published by Grimaud starting from 1961 for the oracle, and later on I suppose for the Tarot.

The cards were supposedly designed in the XIXth century, but I don't know of any evidence apart from Belline's testimony. Most informations about these decks are found in books explaining how to use them for cartomancy or the booklet issued with the decks. Are there any other sources indicated in "A Wicked Pack of Cards" ?

I tend to suspect its authenticity, but it's only based on a vague feeling - the story might be true, but anyway the deck wasn't disclosed to public eyes before at least 1961. The story seems to have inspired in bigger proportions the "Nostradamus Tarot" hoax, that may be why I tend to suspect it.

Back to Christian's and his frame stories, the description of the 22 "arcana" (the term he was first to use for the cards according to Depaulis) found on the link you gave earlier is included in the narrative as the transcription of a "manuscript" written by an old man and given to a young Napoleon. Said manuscript is said to be inspired by researches from a bishop whose mid XVIIIth century story is told by said old man to said "soon to be emperor".
It turns out later that the old man is in fact the bishop and that the framed narrative was his personal story. The old man vs bonaparte story is itself framed by P.Christian's first person narrative prologue and epilogue.

Bertrand
"Wicked pack of cards" does not give any sign of distrust in the dating question for the cards, as far I see it. Perhaps the museum has made some dating research itself (paper analysis or something like this), which made them sure about it. Anyway, it's not our theme.

The Frame story sounds interesting. In Wicked Pack they say,, that an astrologer Auger Ferrier (17th century according book) is involved in the Napoleon prophecy. Actually he seems to be of 16th century from the court of Catherina de Medici ...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auger_Ferrier
I don't know, what makes his astrology so remarkable, that Christian used it. One source names him of similar value as Nostradamus.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Collection Frame Stories

8
Huck wrote:"Wicked pack of cards" does not give any sign of distrust in the dating question for the cards, as far I see it. Perhaps the museum has made some dating research itself (paper analysis or something like this), which made them sure about it. Anyway, it's not our theme.
finding paper from the XIXth century is pretty easy and would be the first concern of an amateur con artist - but it's not the theme...
The Frame story sounds interesting. In Wicked Pack they say,, that an astrologer Auger Ferrier (17th century according book) is involved in the Napoleon prophecy. Actually he seems to be of 16th century from the court of Catherina de Medici ...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auger_Ferrier
I don't know, what makes his astrology so remarkable, that Christian used it. One source names him of similar value as Nostradamus.
If I remember correctly, Auger Ferrier is an astrologic reference both for Christian who claims he owns a rare manuscript (maybe he speaks about his "Jugements Astrologique sur les Nativités" or "Jugemens astronomiques sur les nativitez" maybe something else), and - if I remember correctly again - for Bonaventure Guyon/Prior de Lagny too (the "old man" I mentionned earlier). He (Ferrier) is not directly involved in the Napoleon prophecy (again from what I remember)
Auger Ferrier is sometimes spelled Oger Ferrier ( here for instance).

Bertrand

Re: Collection Frame Stories

9
I'd a few longer days with the Canterbury Tales ... it's a Frame Story, no doubt.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=732

I'd already longer the suspicion, that the Canterbury Tales might have some Chess relation. This time I'd overcome shy- and lazyness and took the attempt to research it a little bit.

Well, I would say after it, that it has a relation. Actually it is in this kind of literature a relative to the "Echecs Amoureux", which is more or less contemporary (Chaucer is said to have worked from 1387 - 1400 on the Tales and left it unfinished; Evrart de Conty seems to have been ready in 1398, but the text is very voluminous and it might be assumed, that the work took long years).

About the Echecs amoureux I've variously written here ..
search.php?keywords=echecs+amoureux&ter ... mit=Search
... and elsewhere ...
http://tarotforum.net/search.php?searchid=3235528
... and it is clear, that is ALSO a Frame Story (an author has a chess game with a woman and loses it - in short) and with its "16 gods order" it seems rather sure, that it influenced Filippo Maria Visconti, when he ordered 16 gods as trumps in the Michelino deck, which - perhaps - might be called "the oldest Trionfi deck".

Evrart de Conty is strongly related to the "Roman de la Rose", and his 32 chess figures with allegories, which at least partly were taken from the Roman de la Rose, make this apparent. Chaucer made a translation of the Roman de la Rose and "adapted" the text ...
The late medieval French allegory, Le Roman de la rose [The Romance of the rose], the conjoined production of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, has long been recognized as an important literary influence on Middle English poetry. The majority of recent studies focus on Geoffrey Chaucer’s translation, citation, and adaptation of the Rose. Directions in scholarly study include increasing attention to the formal complexity and polyvalence the model of the Rose provides, on-going interest in constructions of sexuality and gender, and a greater emphasis on the inter-relation of Chaucer’s response to the Rose with the responses of French and Italian poets, including Guillaume de Machaut, Eustache Deschamps, Guillaume de Deguileville (or Digulleville), Christine de Pizan, and Giovanni Boccaccio. The discovery of a new manuscript fragment of the Middle English Romaunt of the Rose and the re-assessment of earlier linguistic exchange also set forth interesting possibilities for future exploration. Beyond the field of Chaucer studies, scholars of late medieval England’s alliterative poems, notably Cleanness but also Piers Plowman, have re-examined the ways the Rose may have shaped the construction of devotional, sexual, and social ideologies within this poetic tradition. The growing interest in Chaucer’s contemporary John Gower and in the English poetry of the fifteenth century, especially the works of Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate, has brought further recognition of the Rose’s widespread influence, as well as the continued influence of Rose-inspired intermediaries, including not only Guillaume de Deguileville and Christine de Pizan but also Evrart de Conty, Alain Chartier, and Charles d’Orléans.
http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subjec ... les_bpl667

I don't know, if there was a direct communicative link from Conty to Chaucer (letter exchange, personal meeting), it would be interesting to know.

****************************

As it is my intention to fight my way through a whole series of "Frame stories", so I've to take a short course with them. The Canterbury Tales surely would deserve a longer discussion. I think, the next will be the Decamerone, I think.
Huck
http://trionfi.com