Re: Tarot de Paris 1559 ...

32
They appear to be simple playing card stock, paper coated with plastic. They feel indistinguishable in thickness or texture to the Flornoy cards or the Heron Conver facsimile. They are not as sturdy as the thin (full?) plastic Scarabeo cards.

My guess is they'd get ragged if you repeatedly riffle-shuffle them; but that they can be damp wiped. I try not to flex cards like this if I want them to keep; but I have no real expertise in using cards like this gently.

Re: Tarot de Paris 1559 ...

35
Bernice wrote: ... the mystique of those images :) Very tempted.
I'm not much of a reader, but I like to lay out the cards and tell stories. These cards are telling stories of politics and vanity; at least, that's how the expressive figures and dense symbols, which seem more like rolexes than rosaries, speak to me. If that appeals to you ...

Re: Tarot de Paris 1559 ...

36
I found this deck made by "Jean Volay", 17th century.


http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/c ... more-views

The style of the card top left with heraldic and inscription "JeanVolay" I perceive as similar to the style of the coins in the Tarot de Paris, which were also filled with heraldic.

The name of Jean Volay is connected to Auvergne and the city of Thiers. Later a Delotz family used this production name.
http://books.google.de/books?id=Y46lc2K ... ts&f=false

(For "Delotz" at page 431) ...
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There's mentioned a date of 1582, when Tarots were produced there.

I found at ...
Leber, Catalogue des livres imprimés, manuscrits, estampes, dessins et ..., Band 1
page 241
http://books.google.de/books?id=1lAVAAA ... navlinks_s
.. the following passage ...

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... according which Jack Volay already had been already active in the time of 1575 . For the game of Reversi, which according ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversis
... ("The game of Reversis was first mentioned in France in 1601, under the name Reversin, played with a 52-card pack.") Leber's note is of interest, cause he knows Reversi already for the time of Francois I. Well, I've no idea, how Leber recognized, that these were Reversi cards.

I'm a little bit puzzled, how it comes, that I find just at this same place (directly above the note of the Reversi deck) in Leber's catalog I, p. 241, a note about 24 Vigil Solis cards, which in their description seem to have been those, which are now part of the Catelin Geofroy cards from Lyon and 1557.

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This might say, that the Vigil Solis cards possibly weren't part of the Geofroy finding, but just added cause of similarity. But something is wrong with my consideration. Kaplan presents 38 Geofroy cards (in Kaplan I+II), from which 13 are trumps, which leaves 25 for the pips and courts and knows no monkeys, Leber has 24 cards and Leber knows monkeys, and Kaplan suspects only, that there were monkeys. So the both fragments were not identical, but possibly from the same deck, which once had been parted?

Our Museum has the complete Vigil Solis (as I assume) ...
http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks07/d05352/d05352.htm
... and this is a 4x13-deck and has no Aces (as relatively common for German decks). So the Aces are (possibly) NOT by Vigil Solis ... and the Catelin Geofroy deck has two Aces, a Lion and a Parrot, and the Lion has a "Catelin Geofroy 1557" and the Parrot also.

Kaplan I, p. 132
Kaplan II, p. 302/303

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

Back to the Tarot de Paris and the Jean Volay deck in London ...

The batons are "Spanish" in both (not astonishing, if we assume as production location in Thiers)

Image

Jean Volay

Image

Tarot de Paris

Swords: both are short, but the Tarot de Paris swords are curved in the manner of a machete

Image

Jean Volay

Image

Tarot de Paris

The cups in the Tarot de Paris are very individual

Image

Jean Volay

Image

Tarot de Paris

And the coins ... there's some similarity

Image

Jean Volay

Image

Tarot de Paris

Well, I don't know and don't feel competent, if the similarity is a general one (to the style of the time) or specific to the Tarot de Paris. I don't know enough about the decks of the time.

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

During this research I stumbled about an interesting page with many card pictures for the Aluette game
http://www.aluette.net/

It's worth a visit.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Tarot de Paris 1559 ...

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Once we had a case ...

http://trionfi.com/0/p/87/

... around an Aluette deck in the year 1570, made by a ''Jehan Bresson"

Image


On the above mentioned Aluette page http://www.aluette.net/ I find ...
Jehan Bresson

Image


Origine: Musée de LAKENHAL, Leyde, Hollande. TRAITÈ DE L'ALLUETTE, vol.5-2/2, page MCCIX,
planche n°1135.

Observations: C'est au cours de la guerre entre les Espagnols et les Hollandais en 1574 que ce portrait aurait
été retrouvé et gardé par Willem Azlbrechtz de Berthey. Le portrait serait complet, mais nous connaissons que
ces 32 cartes. Elles ont le même graphisme que celui de B. GAMETON de la même date. L'As d'Èpée, le
Cavalier de Denier, le Valet de Coupe, le Roi de Denier ... sont bien au portrait de l'Aluette primitive.

F.T°
(Marseille ?, 1587)

Image


Origine: Charlotte SCHREIBER, vol.3, planche n°93. TRAITÈ DE L'ALLUETTE, vol, 2-1/3, page 97,
planche n° 111 à 113.
Observations: 21 cartes de ce portrait anonyme daté par, le Deux de Coupe, de 1587. Ce Deux de Coupe est
au même graphisme que ceux de B. GAMETON et de J. BRESSON de 1570. Initiales FT° sur le Trois de
Bâton et le Quatre de Coupe avec une cordelière, étoile à six branches sur le Quatre de Denier, Cinq de Denier
avec le couple de profil.
The Ace of Coin in the Bresson deck again has this similarities tothe Tarot de Paris.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Tarot de Paris 1559 ...

38
Image


That's the 2 of coins in the Tarot de Paris.

Image


That's the heraldic of Ludovico Gonzaga (possibly the commissioner of the deck) on the 2 of coins, the heraldic of Ludvico Gonzaga. It looks at the top different to all other coins presented in the deck.

Image


The card with the words Jehan Bresson is recognizable at the top. It also has this "Gonzaga style".

Image


The card of the Jehan Volay deck of late 17th century (British Museum) offers the same special look.

That was so far my consideration.

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

However, from the material on the aluette.net webpage there are similar pictures of the ace of coins, the first from a time from before 1512. I'll show them below.

The webpage seems to be managed by a Jacques Leonard, who appears as author at this list ...
http://recherche-archives.vendee.fr/arc ... e/ALLUETTE
... which contains studies to the game or deck Aluette since the 1920s, then written by a Marcel Baudouin ...
http://stgil.e-monsite.com/pages/person ... logue.html
... and related to the region of Vendée (a french departement at the West coast of France, filled with relative small locations). The region got in the recent past some attention cause of resistance against French governments (1793, 1815, 1832) and nowadays it's the major location of a political party, the Mouvement pour la France
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouvement_pour_la_France
The life of the author Bauduin reads like hero literature. Beside many other engagements he engaged also for Aluette. This part of the texts is online. Bauduin died 1941.
There's other later Aluette literature mentioned, and Jacques Leonard appears as one of the authors.

I don't understand, what's the specific interest in this research, my French isn't so good for such details. The picture collection looks rather good. A research about Aluette.

"Aux luettes" appears one line above "Au tarau" in the game list of Rabelais in 1534.

Well, I'm interested in the Ace of Coins: I have collected the ace of coins, as far they are available and have a bird on top or something, which looks like a bird (till 1700). This are ...

... an earlier picture of the aluette.net page.

Image


It's commented with ..
Antoine de LOGIRIERA (1er portrait)
(Toulouse 1484-1512)

Origine: Musée Paul DUPUY, Toulouse, Collection Paul Blanc - H. D'ALLEMAGNE, tome II, page 388 -
TRAITÈ DE L'ALLUETTE, vol.2-1/3, page 77, planche n°79.
Observations: 10 cartes de ce 1er portrait en couleurs d'A. de LOGIRIERA. Il n'est pas facile de dater ce portrait,
mais sur l'As de Denier nous pouvons lire "IONAS.DEL.GRATIA.RER.NAVARX Nous pensons qu'il s'agit de
Jean d'Albret, roi de Navarre de 1484-1542. C'est le premier portrait connu sur lequel nous voyons une vraie vache
sur le Deux.
Image

1567

Image

1570

Image

1570, dito

Image

1665

Image

1665 dito

Image

1686

Image

1690

***********

Other Aces of coin in the same collection

Image

1498

Image

1500

Image

1500, dito

Image

1520

Image

1538

Image

1617 (Spanish ?)

Image

1647 (Spanish ?)

Image

1647 (Spanish ?)

Image

1648 (Spanish ?)

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

The game: French Wiki has a longer page than the Spanish wiki ... perhaps an indirect statement, who plays the game more intensive. Pagat.com gives historical remarks from Thierry Depaulis.
http://www.pagat.com/put/aluette.html
Aluette is a four-player trick-taking game, but although the players play in teams of two, the partners do not combine their tricks. The object is to win more tricks than any other individual player, or in case of equality to be the first to have won them; the team of the player who achieves this wins the point. Thierry Depaulis has provided the following historical introduction.

Aluette (or la Vache, "The Cow Game") is played in Vendée and the coasts of Brittany, using a 48 card Spanish suited pack with special designs. Aluette is a very peculiar trick-taking game where suits are irrelevant. Partners can use gestures to signal what cards they hold. The play mechanism is similar to that of early games like Truc / Trut and Put, and it cannot be a coincidence that 3's, 2's and aces are high cards in all these games. The use of Spanish suited cards is surprising, but there is a theory that these suits were originally used throughout France and were displaced in most of the country by French suits when those were invented in the 15th century. Aluette may be an extremely old game: some late 15th-century records from the South-West of France mention a card game called Luettes. However, it is clear that Nantes is the modern cradle of the game, and until about 1700 there was in Nantes a large group of Spanish merchants, and Spanish suited cards made in Thiers (Auvergne) were conveyed on the Loire river up to Nantes where they were shipped to Bilbao and Navarra. Therefore a late introduction, perhaps in the 17th century, through Spanish merchants in Nantes is also possible.
Well, the game looks interesting.

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

The two of coins of the Tarot de Paris looks a little bit like the Ace of cups in the Aluette game.

The Ace of coins in the Tarot de Paris looks a little bit like the Ace of Swords in the Aluette game.

Image


Image
Huck
http://trionfi.com