I start this thread in order to discuss the important news reported by Huck in the Trionfi.com: News and Updates thread.Huck wrote:5 pictures of this deck are presented at "Il Castello dei Tarocchi".
see http://trionfi.com/n/
All these pictures have two dice results, and all 5 motifs appeared in the 1493 "Schedel'sche Weltchronik" without dice results.
In 1494 Bianca Maria Sforza married the new Roman king Maximilian of Habsburg. Bianca Maria was addicted to playing cards. German public seems to have been interested to answer with publications on this new political reality.
One of the projected Nurremberg publications became a book project about "Roman Trionfi", started in 1493 and finishing with no result in 1496/97, likely stopped cause the new political realities didn't apply to the expected "big business" with Italian-German topics.
The deck seems to have been a product of this "too enthusiastic" short period. There are more than this 5 cards, and perhaps we will get better information in near future.
See also this beautiful card posted by Huck, featuring something that looks like a domino tile.
So, Hoo has found that the Weltchronik (history of the world) is available online. I attach the two pages that include the sun/moon image.hoo wrote:Thanx Huck ! I look forward to further revelations. Googling for "Schedel'sche Weltchronik" I found a surprise link on Wikipedia to a very nice colored editon of what should be this book, though it is called the "LIber Chronicum" at the Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum (MDZ). The sun and moon picture from the card appears several times along with many other interesting things.
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00034024/image_1
There is also a very similar uncolored book with same title, but significant differences. Many of the best illustrations are missing and it is a much more boring book.
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00044259/image_1
If I understand correctly, these 5 images on those cards are taken from this book. I think this is a very important discovery for Tarot History. It shows a completely different deck from the Visconti etc. and a definite source for the images. From a book ! It certainly puts the traditional Tarot in a new perspective.
Of course, decks like the Mantegna and the Minchiate demonstrate a much broader iconography than the Visconti already. But here we have a known source for the card images.
- The dice are also quite nice
The paragraph illustrated by this image:
TRANSCRIPTION:
Quintus Curcius philosophus[?] increpavit Alexandrum eo quem sibi optabat adhiberi divinos honores. d.
Si deus es largire nobis beneficia immortalitatis et non aufferas.
Si homo semper id cogita aliis postposit.
In diebus quibus Alexander natus est: diris prodigiis romani territi fuerunt.
Nam sol visus est pugnasse cum luna. Saxa sanguine sudaverunt: in die plures lune apparuerunt in celo.
Nox usque ad plurimam diei partem tendi visa est tunc et saxa de nubibus cecidere et per septem dies grando lapideis immixtis et testarum fragmentis terram latissime verberavit.
Olimpias mater Alexandri occiditur: que mortem sine omni pavore muliebri imperterrita suscepit.
TRANSLATION:
Quintus Curcius complained that Alexander had ordered that divine honours were offered to him. “If you are a god, give to us the benefits of immortality, do not take them. If you are a man, think always of this and forget the other thoughts [?].
In the days in which Alexander was born, the Romans were frightened by great prodigies. It seemed that the sun fought against the moon. Stones sweated blood: during the day, multiple moons appeared in the sky. The night extended to the greatest part of the day and stones fell from the sky and for seven days a wide area was stricken by a hail of stones mixed with fragments of clay.
Olimpiades, mother of Alexander, was killed: she faced death without any womanly fear.
The first paragraph is derived from Quintus Curtius Rufus' "Histories of Alexander the Great" VII,8. Possibly, also the other two paragraphs derive from the same text.
Thinking of the Sola Busca deck, I find interesting that these two pages include a number of the court cards of that deck (Alexander, Olimpias, Philip, Natanabo/Nectanabus).