Here are some suggestions for notes on the trumps:
Fool
1. I hope you will include Horace 22nd ode, as I am convinced you are right.
2. its only value is that which it gives to the others: possibly refers to the use of the Fool to complete sequences, although this is a rule that he does not mention when discussing the rules.
Bateleur
1. Jacob's staff or rod: (1) possibly a reference to Gen. 30:37-42, well known from Shylock's paraphrseit in Shakespeare's
Merchant of Venice (1.3.79-111). Jacob increased his flocks at the expense of his uncle Laban by means of speckled rods placed before strong ewes in heat, which caused the ewes to give birth to speckled young, which Laban had said would belong to Jacob. (2_In Jewish traidition, Jacob's staff, with which he crossed the Jordan, is the same as that of Moses and Aaron. So when Jacob crossed the river Jordan, it parted for him at the touch of his staff.
High Priestess and High Priest
1. Horns of Isis. On the headdress of the principal goddess of the "Table of Isis".
2. Table of Isis. This is the so-called "Bembine Tablet", from its first known possessor, Pietro Bembo of Venice. Scholars today date it to Rome in the 4th century c.e., made by someone familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphs but not with Egptian syntax. In copies of the Tablet, letters in Greek and Latin were inserted for ease in identifying specific details.At that sign on the tablet the god Ptah holds a staff with several crosses.
2. Festival of Pamylia: Plutarch,
Of Isis and Osiris 36, at
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Plutarch ... and_Osiris.
Osiris Triumphant.
1. The sun as the physical symbol of Osiris: Plutarch,
Of Isis and Osiris 51.
Marriage
1. 'FIDEI SIMULACRUM', depicting marital faith. The man Gebelin names, in 2nd century Rome, did make a monument to his wife of the name given (
http://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epi_einzel.php? ... elegstelle), but whether it had on it the motto indicated is a matter for further research. The emblem was used by Alciato,
Emblemata, Augsburg, 1531, entitled "FIDEI SYMBOLUM," in which "chaste love", Anteros, naked, stands between Truth, naked, and Honor, clothed. Cartari,
Imagini degli Dei degli Antichi ( Images of the Gods of the Ancients), 1647 edition, has it with the title "FIDII SIMALCRUM", with the motto, "Image of Faithfulness: Truth is mother, Honor is Father, Love is their bond." All the figures are clothed.
Moon
1. Tears of Isis: Pausanias,
Description of Greece 10.32.18, at
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias10C.html.
Dog Star
1. Isis as dog-star and Sothis,
Of Isis and Osiris 21, 61. Horapollo,
Hieroglyphica, Book 1, section 3
2. Rising of Dog-star heralding the Nile inundation,
Of Isis and Osiris 38-39
4. Opening of the year: seems implied by Horapollo,
Hieroglyphica, Book 1, sections 3 (year) and 5 (season), together with Plutarch, as above.
5. Butterfly: a bird on most versions of the card, but in the Besancon used in Switzerland it could be mistaken for a butterfly. There were two birds that symbolized regeneration. One was the Phoenix, in Horapollo,
Hieroglyphica, II. 57. The other was the Ibis, but I do not know a pre-Gebelin source.
Death
1. paraded a skeleton: Plutarch:
Of Isis and Osiris 17.
2. Maneros, Herodotus,
History, book II, at
http://www.piney.com/Heredotus2.html.
Typhon
1. As brother of Isis and Osiris, Plutarch,
Of Isis and Osiris 61.
Maison-Dieu
1. Rhampsinitus and the clever thief: Herodotus,
History, book II, at
http://www.piney.com/Heredotus2.html.
Time, Badly Named the World
1. egg from which everything emerged in Time: Orphic fragments, at
https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Phanes.html.
Also, later there is a reference ot St. Bernard of Siena and his stated burning of "carte triumphale". The source is
Acta Sanctorum, vol. XVI (May, vol. V), Antwerp, 1685, which printed three Lives of the saint, of which the reference to
triumphales carticellae in Bologna 1423 is in the first and latest, written sometime after the translation of the saint's body in 1472. Two earlier
Vitas do not mention this particular sermon, number 42, preached in Bologna 1423. One mentions a sermon preached in 1425 Siena, number 41, which mentions kings and queens but not triumphs. As Vitali points out, this only shows that triumphal cards had not reached Siena by that date and has no bearing on the accuracy of the
Vita written later. See
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=227&lng=ENG. However Charles V and Saint Bernardino were not contemporaries. Charles V died in 1380, the same year St. Bernardino was born.
As for when playing cards reached Europe, the only secure date, as Pratesi has shown in a series of notes (for Spain, see
http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com ... l-s_6.html; more notes on other regions are on the sidebar); however Spain remains a liely point of entry as indicated by early insecure dates, due to its proximity there to Arabs in general and Mamluk troops in particular. Muslim law forbade gambling, but Mamluks, brought at first as slaves from non-Muslim areas and continuing to maintain contact with relatives, would have been especially loose in their observance.