Re: help identification tarot of marseilles
Posted: 30 Apr 2021, 16:44
Mike and Huck have already discussed some of the similarities between these cards and the Minchiate decks from Lucca, including the elephant on the 4 of Coins and the appearance of some of the trumps, notably trump IIII. However, there are some other similarities too. Rosele pointed out to me in a PM that the Chariot card shows the inscription FAMA VOLA, which also appears on the Lucca cards, as Huck noted here: viewtopic.php?p=21718#p21718
She also pointed out the cross on the flag of the Water card, which doesn't appear on the Water card in most Minchiate decks (they have a flag on the ship, but no cross is visible). But I don't know if the Lucca Minchiate decks have a cross like this on that flag, because I have not yet been able to find an image of the Water card from a Lucca Minchiate deck.
Another interesting detail of the cards Rosele discovered is that the Hanged Man is printed in mirror-image reverse, with the number appearing as IIX. This is not something that appears in the Lucca decks, or in the Ganellini decks made in Genua (at least, not in the ones that I have seen). However, this reversal does appear in a deck illustrated on p. 121 of Hoffmann & Dietrich, Tarot Tarock Tarocchi (Leinfelden-Echterdingen: Deutsches Spielkarten-Museum, 1988) and that deck matches Rosele's cards in every other respect as well, including the FAMA VOLA inscription on the Chariot (trump 40 also bears the same words, as usual).
[media]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BKTAI- ... hELgVEMG-/[/media]
This deck survives in the form of three woodblocks which the book says are from the 18th century; the illustration is an imprint made from that woodblock in 1969. The book does not attempt to say where the deck was originally produced, but it does report that the Ace of Batons carried the inscription "NEL FINAL" so it looks like the cards were produced in the Marquisate of Finale. According to Huck, Franco Pratesi says there were Minchiate decks being made there in the town of Finale, so this deck was probably made there. Franco says Minchiate cards were also made in Oneglia (on the Impero river), so Rosele's deck was probably made in Oneglia.
In other words, what we have here seems to be a specific Ligurian variant of the Minchiate deck, which was different even from the one made in Genoa, but which (like the Genovese deck) still had features in common with the Lucca decks. This is not surprising, as Lucca is in northwestern Tuscany, and therefore "on the way" from Florence (where Minchiate seems to have originated) to Liguria—we can assume that all the Minchiate/Ganellini decks produced in the areas between Lucca and the Impero river would have had these shared characteristics at some stage. But those shared characteristics did not include the reversed Hanged Man, which is therefore a distinctive marker of the local Ligurian variant.
UPDATE: I just realized (looking at the above illustration) that the NEL FINAL woodblock tells us why the Hanged Man was printed in reverse: the Ligurians turned the card upside-down, so the man is dancing instead of hanging. This is interesting, as it raises the possibility of a connection to the Viéville/Belgian tarot decks, which also turned the Hanged Man upside-down in this way. I have long been of the belief that the deck that Piscina was using in Piedmont in the 16th century must have also shown the Hanged Man upside-down, because he seems to be describing a figure hanging by the neck, having committed suicide (this is one of several reasons for believing that Piscina's deck must have been a French-made deck a lot like Viéville's, or at least a Piedmontese deck copied from a French deck of that type). Perhaps tarot decks like that were in use not only in Piedmont, but also throughout Liguria as well, and this resulted in this card being upturned in the Minchiate deck too, when it reached that region.
One could take the speculation even further: The Sicilians used a similar name for Minchiate to the name used in Liguria. Perhaps Minchiate came to Sicily via the Sicilian emigrant community in Liguria, and consequently the Hanged Man in the Sicilian tarocco deck also has its ultimate origins in Viéville-style tarot decks used in northwestern Italy...
She also pointed out the cross on the flag of the Water card, which doesn't appear on the Water card in most Minchiate decks (they have a flag on the ship, but no cross is visible). But I don't know if the Lucca Minchiate decks have a cross like this on that flag, because I have not yet been able to find an image of the Water card from a Lucca Minchiate deck.
Another interesting detail of the cards Rosele discovered is that the Hanged Man is printed in mirror-image reverse, with the number appearing as IIX. This is not something that appears in the Lucca decks, or in the Ganellini decks made in Genua (at least, not in the ones that I have seen). However, this reversal does appear in a deck illustrated on p. 121 of Hoffmann & Dietrich, Tarot Tarock Tarocchi (Leinfelden-Echterdingen: Deutsches Spielkarten-Museum, 1988) and that deck matches Rosele's cards in every other respect as well, including the FAMA VOLA inscription on the Chariot (trump 40 also bears the same words, as usual).
[media]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BKTAI- ... hELgVEMG-/[/media]
This deck survives in the form of three woodblocks which the book says are from the 18th century; the illustration is an imprint made from that woodblock in 1969. The book does not attempt to say where the deck was originally produced, but it does report that the Ace of Batons carried the inscription "NEL FINAL" so it looks like the cards were produced in the Marquisate of Finale. According to Huck, Franco Pratesi says there were Minchiate decks being made there in the town of Finale, so this deck was probably made there. Franco says Minchiate cards were also made in Oneglia (on the Impero river), so Rosele's deck was probably made in Oneglia.
In other words, what we have here seems to be a specific Ligurian variant of the Minchiate deck, which was different even from the one made in Genoa, but which (like the Genovese deck) still had features in common with the Lucca decks. This is not surprising, as Lucca is in northwestern Tuscany, and therefore "on the way" from Florence (where Minchiate seems to have originated) to Liguria—we can assume that all the Minchiate/Ganellini decks produced in the areas between Lucca and the Impero river would have had these shared characteristics at some stage. But those shared characteristics did not include the reversed Hanged Man, which is therefore a distinctive marker of the local Ligurian variant.
UPDATE: I just realized (looking at the above illustration) that the NEL FINAL woodblock tells us why the Hanged Man was printed in reverse: the Ligurians turned the card upside-down, so the man is dancing instead of hanging. This is interesting, as it raises the possibility of a connection to the Viéville/Belgian tarot decks, which also turned the Hanged Man upside-down in this way. I have long been of the belief that the deck that Piscina was using in Piedmont in the 16th century must have also shown the Hanged Man upside-down, because he seems to be describing a figure hanging by the neck, having committed suicide (this is one of several reasons for believing that Piscina's deck must have been a French-made deck a lot like Viéville's, or at least a Piedmontese deck copied from a French deck of that type). Perhaps tarot decks like that were in use not only in Piedmont, but also throughout Liguria as well, and this resulted in this card being upturned in the Minchiate deck too, when it reached that region.
One could take the speculation even further: The Sicilians used a similar name for Minchiate to the name used in Liguria. Perhaps Minchiate came to Sicily via the Sicilian emigrant community in Liguria, and consequently the Hanged Man in the Sicilian tarocco deck also has its ultimate origins in Viéville-style tarot decks used in northwestern Italy...