Oh how wonderful Yves. Thank you for this.

Hello Robert, Debra Egim and all,
Thanks for...your thanks

I like to share my collection and I planned to share more in due time.

It will happens in adequate place: A dedicated web site and in future.

For this I need to get authorisations from some Museums and particulars.

It will be part of a bigger project where a new Tarot of Marseille "Made in Marseille" deck will be introduced.

A new théorie and a book will also be issued and all this materials should be considered as working documents for your creativity and thoughts.

My only contribution is to: Collects decks, find historicals facts, throw ideas in Air and encourage a créator friend of mine, preventing him from: Marchands du Temple (how to translate this french expression in English ).

About François Chosson deck, I estimate that, made or not by Chosson; this deck is a very good contributor to let say "historical original pattern model" of Tarot of Marseille (Tarot of Marseille beeing a non restrictive area of course).

Friendly,

Yves

Indeed - thank you Yves.

Eugim, given the details shown, I personally fail to see how it is likely that the 'c' forms part of an '8'. Remember that it is not simply a 'c', but rather one that has that small segment moving straight up on the left-hand side, something an '8' would not have even if damaged.

Hello JMD:
It s obvius that it isn t simply a C topic... / Come on...
So why you didn t you look on my others considerations of the deck,aside the C topic ?
I mentioned the "Rubens" angel on VI card,or now here the XII as IIX,the green X on X card,or that at XV card he little left devil hasn t the 3 dots on his leg as on Conver etc,etc,etc...
That show to me how nearest is from Conver deck and how farthest also is.
I mean having at mind that both decks have been allways cross related.
Don t you think that those details are more deep and useful as an approach to dating Chosson deck ?
For me Chosson deck has a Baroque "touch art engrave line" that makes me consider that may be it s not too older as 1672 by contrast to the others deck from Vieville to Conver(Time and Place).
As a final example compare XIIII card between Chosson and Conver and "feel" the different art line I mentioned.
That s makes Chosson far from Conver but closest if we have on mind the others decks de Marseilles,just I think.
Suppose we haven t the 2 de deniers of the others decks(Vieville,Noblet,Dodal,Conver and Chosson) ...
Well we only have the image,the iconography "brush stroke",that what make a Van Gogh different from Renoir (Get it ?/I m sure you done).
Also that the Baroque art took place curiously at the time were all the mentioned decks were done.
But only as I see Chosson shown it.
See also his 2 de coupe as Ross said Chosson show the G S and Conver G M,well now compare it with the VII card and see by contrast that Chosson has the initials G S and Conver V T.
Well my caro amicci,my bon ami I think that these is the kind of of a best approach to elucidate "the problem",just as I see it...
On the other side we have the recent welcomed Marc O: Rainville,ROM, who in his sie sustain that Tarot the Marseilles is from Medieval time.
He gave his arguments.I respect deeply him but I could be agree on a conceptual point of view but the iconography don t "fit" for his thesis.
BTW I m waiting he do the "thang" at once...

As usual I again tell to you my bon ami,that all we have are the iconography.
I m far to be close with Michael Hurst (With regard to the unkindly replay to Le Pendu) whom I deeply respect and from whom I learned and learn to much,but he has a somewhat very useful "motto" for me that is " SEQUENCE CONVEY MEANING".
And that s is all about... ( You won the big prized gift here Michael for that )
That drives to many avenues of thoughts I think.
1-Placing in time a deck related to others.
2-So by contrast try to see the supposed evolution on an iconographic sense I mean.
3-And see also contradictions.
For example having LE PENDV card.
See which decks show XII as IIX,then compare the date of the decks and we have here what once I told to Robert about "jump" of details denying iconographic time facts deck evolution.

PS 1 / By the way I m still at Aeclectic that is somewhat "Camoin infected" (Best said),and I walked on a retro-mind and I found by chance a thread where M. Filipas pointed that XVIII is for him a Sun Eclipse... (You know that I am far from his side..)
(Remember our "friendly hot cross posts" about XVIII card ? )

PS 2 / I "feel" that once the "Ascended Masters" left Aeclectic to come here ,well I must say that the Vodka it s not the same my amigo (Friend)...

PS 3 / i tried to attached for you XIIII of Chosson and Conver and the "Big Brother" told to me that were to big...
It s that true ?

Allways on my heart...

PS 4 /Replay to me brother,you re allways wellcomed at my little princes litle planet...

Eugim

I have split a conversation between Mr. mjhurst and Mr. Eugim into it's own thread to maintain the focus of this thread on discussing (even broadly) the François Chosson tarot.

What remains of that split conversation (some has been edited by the posters) can be found moved to one of the Private areas of the forum:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=59

For those of you remaining in this thread, I've placed Earl Grey tea and homemade black current scones out on the sideboard here in the study. For those of you wishing to follow the moved thread, I've place Amaretto and biscotti as tribute to the apparent "Italian" theme of the conversation.

I'm perplexed, Michael - and honestly mean that.

In no sense do I dismiss your work. It is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the best available online.

My comment about specifically the Wheel of Fortune and Boethius was something that I am sure many have independently seen - whether coming to it from mediaeval studies, church historical studies, history of art... or, in my case, (history of) philosophy. If there is something I wrote that somehow suggests a dismissing of your contributions, then I must have expressed myself rather poorly, and without that intent.

Hi, Jean-Michel,

jmd wrote:I'm perplexed, Michael - and honestly mean that.

In no sense do I dismiss your work. It is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the best available online.

My comment about specifically the Wheel of Fortune and Boethius was something that I am sure many have independently seen - whether coming to it from mediaeval studies, church historical studies, history of art... or, in my case, (history of) philosophy. If there is something I wrote that somehow suggests a dismissing of your contributions, then I must have expressed myself rather poorly, and without that intent.

Dismissing my interpretation as obvious would be completely uninteresting, were it not for your oddly ambiguous statements. It is of little interest in any case, but your ambivalence does raise questions. Likewise, finding my interpretation unconvincing is also of little interest, again, except for your apparent ambivalence. AFAIK, no one has found my interpretation of the middle trumps persuasive. Those things are beside the point.

This was my actual complaint/inquiry:

Michael wrote:As for your suggestion that I am copying you without attribution, if that is true I sincerely apologize. If you explained the symbolism on the Tarot de Marseille Wheel by reference to specific passages in the Consolatione before I did, I'd love to see it so that I might cite you for it. I did not mean to slight you, but I simply don't recall having seen it. If you explained that the trumps above the Pope and below the Devil are a distinct section of the overall cycle and explained that the hierarchy of that section shows the turn of Fortune's Wheel before I did, I'd love to see that so that I can credit you for the discovery. If you pointed out that the lowest two subjects of that section are successes, the middle two reversals, and the final two illustrate downfall, in a Boethian, Wheel of Fortune, Fall of Princes narrative arc, I will be thrilled to quote what you wrote and give you credit for explaining the central role of the Wheel in the overall cycle. If you explained the position of the three virtues in Tarot de Marseille as being directly connected with those successes, reversals, and catastrophes in the manner of Petrarch's Remedies, again please let me quote your posts on the subject. I do not mean to ignore anyone who "got there first", and I would very much like to quote you and cite you for these discoveries, despite the fact that I don't recall having seen them.

The suggestion of plagiarism or unacknowledged borrowing is naturally disturbing, and I will correct any oversights I've made IMMEDIATELY. I assure you that I was not aware of any of these things being presented by you.

When you ignored that request for clarification, I restated my concern in reply to another poster, who for some reason thought that I was attacking you. The facts are just the opposite. And despite my repeated attempts, I cannot persuade you to either clarify what you meant (i.e., that your insinuation was not as vile as it might seem), or to explain to me exactly what I should be citing you for. And now you post this drivel, changing the subject to something meaningless.

Using other people's ideas, with citations, is research. I like reading and I like citing those who had good ideas -- I seek them out for just that purpose. Using other people's ideas, without citing them, is intellectually dishonest. I don't want to do that, and I don't like having it suggested about me, so I attempted to clarify what you meant by your comments.

I know that you are not a complete dolt, so apparently you're just playing a game by ignoring my clearly stated concerns and pretending that it's about something else, something silly. Whatever the game is, I concede -- but I still don't appreciate your insinuations. If you wrote something that I should cite, I would very much like to do so.

Best regards,
Michael

For myself, Michael, I have yet to be convinced of any totally convincing reason for the cycle or sequence. I personally suspect that it is far more a combination of a variety of influences over time. My 'claim' (if one can call it that) is not with all the other insights you bring to consideration, but rather that Boethius and the Wheel of Fortune are 'obvious' to those who may have a background in various historical disciplines - and that when I first read Boethius, the connection to the specific card was for me obvious (without further connections to other surrounding cards or sequences).

My only 'proof' would be to drag some notes from some courses I taught in the early 1990s and again in mid-1990s, and perhaps ask those who participated to confirm such - but really, even then, for the purposes it was a 'historical side-note' of key imagery development, rather than iconographic exegesis, on which the courses tended to more focus. The context was more like: "here is a likely scenario of the development of the image pre-tarot (Boethius), early and central tarot (Boethius), and its further development moving away from this central aspect since the 1850s from the influence of E. Levi".

Such independent insight on one very narrow and specific aspect makes not something plagiarism - from either your contributions, nor mine. I must admit that, on an entirely different area, I still wonder if others (including reasonably well known authors) plagiarised (knowingly or unknowingly) my working out in the 1980s of meaningful correlations that can be suggested between court cards and the MBTI - as all the works that emerged arose after an ex-student of mine took my notes to an international Tarot Conference held in the mid-1990s and passed them around. But really, even there, I need to be open to the real possibility that anyone having interests in both tarot and the then highly popularised MBTI will suggest to many possible correlations that can be (anachronistically) made - all independently one of the other, and so with no plagiarism, despite similarities.

So I had not suggested (and certainly never implied - and if it appeared that way, than I want to clearly state that this was not intended) that you had copied me without attribution!

I trust my explanation above (the first two paragraphs) explains what I did and how - in the context of discussions in courses, not published manuscripts... though I may perhaps have an early post that mentions such (I am frankly not sure, though a search on Aeclectic did not come up with anything, and the very few posts I made to alt.tarot in earlier times I doubt would have). So no formal evidence, and certainly not a claim to the details and narrative you draw out from a broader and more sequentially inclusive trump group.

For myself, I focussed far more on the possibility of Romanesque and Lumiere petroglyph and painting influences from the mid-1990s until about three years ago... and probably focussed on such with seeking to understand the various textual (or narrative) influences thereon and their possible connections to trumps as individual images.

Sorry, huh?

What are we talking about here? Are we talking about the OBVIOUS relationship between Boethius and the trump of the Wheel of Fortune? That's been named a bizzilion times, and my impression from Jean-Michel was that he was just reaffirming the obvious connection. A quick search through AT shows dozens of mentions to this, including even little old me in my very first topic on AT years ago, my third post:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.ph ... t=Boethius

Huck mentions it, Firemaiden mentions it, it's assumed that Boethius is a common source for the Wheel.

Michael, you seem to be saying that you have gone BEYOND that, and shown Boethius as not only a source for the wheel but other cards in the sequence as well. I'm not sure that Jean-Michel was referring to that at all.

Mr James...
Do you really think and feel that on my previous post so before yours,I went too far from the "Neuralgic center point" of the topic thread ?
I assumed that I liked crossed some box gloves with M r.Hurt but you can t you deny that I at least ever pointed the "Chosson problem".
You want to exile me,so do it...

BTW 1- I love too much "your" movie
2- I m returning to and I m also want "ta" see if the others pay or not attention aside boxing matches...
Surely I will will never agree with Michael here,but at last I respect him very at all..

-So are you talking to me ?

Eugim ( It s Eugim btw ...)

My best respect Dear James