Tarot History Forum

I am opening this thread to discuss a document to which attention was brought by Ross in his online essay "Brief History of Cartomancy", http://www.academia.edu/6477311/Brief_h ... cartomancy. It has since then been credited (e.g. by Mary Greer, https://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/04 ... ing-cards/, and Andrea Vitali, an addition to Zanetti's essay at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=175) as the first "unambiguous" reference to fortune-telling with cards in Spain, and in fact Christian Europe generally. I have some questions about its unambiguousness. It seems to be quite ambiguous; but perhaps I am missing something (I and a native Spanish-speaking friend who does fortune-telling and has some familiarity with archaic Spanish). However there is another reference to fortune-telling with cards in 1497, not so far discussed in English that I know of (as opposed to Spanish), that does seem to be unambiguous. And also a lot-book using cards from Spain of 1502. But I am not at all sure of my understanding of the Spanish or of the facts.

Also of interest is the Emperor card in the c. 1450 account. It is clear that this is an example where the Emperor is a card that in trick-taking games is superior to all the suit cards. However I am not concerned with it, or the identity of the person its verse is directed to, which is rather obviously his patroness. If anyone wants to know more, please ask. Likewise ask if you want more quotes from the article by Marino that I am citing.

Ross in "Brief History of Cartomancy" finds the first reference to fortune-telling with cards in c. 1450 Spain:

Writing from the Spanish court around the year 1450, Fernando de la Torre described how, with a special form of naipes [cards] he had designed, players could "tell fortunes with them" who each one loves most and who is most desired and many other and diverse ways (puédense echar suertes en ellos á quién más ama cada uno, e á quién quiere más por otras muchas et diversas maneras. "Echar suertes" means "cast lots" and is the common Spanish term for telling fortunes. This is the earliest time in history the term is used in connection with playing cards.

Ross explains in another essay (http://ludustriumphorum.blogspot.com/20 ... -game.html) that the proposed deck was of four suits, 12 cards per suit (omitting the 10), in four colors, plus a trump card called the "Emperador". The conventional suits had the names of four classes of women: nuns, widows, wives, and maidens. Stanzas of from 1 to 12 lines were related to each card. Ross provides the whole Spanish original at the link just given.

MARINO'S ARTICLE

Ross refers to an article about these cards:

Nancy F. Marino of the University of Michigan has recently written an article on this text which I haven't seen - Fernando de la Torre's "Juego de naipes" a Game of Love (La Corónica: A Journal of Medieval Spanish Language and Literature, vol. 35, no. 1, 2006, pp. 209-248).

Marino's article is readily accessible, at least in North America. But since it is not in JSTOR, I will give some relevant details. She recognizes the "Juego" as a highly symbolic conception. In the symbolism of the time, the suit colors correspond to the categories of women assigned to them. Purple of course was the color of royalty, in this case associated with the Emperor card. Red was "the color of vestments associated with martyrs and the Holy Spirit", as well as "hatred, sexual passion, pride or audacity" (p.223). Black is associated with sorrow and widowhood (p. 225). Blue, the color for cups, signified "steadfastness in love" (p. 229). Green is the color of "hope and youth" (p. 231). The court cards in three of the suits represent specific personages. In Swords, it is actual people in Castile at that time, the Abbess of a Convent, aunt of the king, for the King, the King of Castile for the Knight, and an illegitimate girl of the family, "as signified by the bar that crosses her insignia" (p. 215), for the Page. The courts in Batons and Cups are celebrated characters in literature, religion, and mythology: Dido, Judith, Lucretia, etc. At the same time the verses explore various possible romantic relationships with such women, using the conventional sexual symbolism of the time. With a lady in (phallic, among other things) Swords, for example, it is a battle, and probably a losing one.

Marino adds that another set of cards, with fortunes on them, is alluded to in c. 1497, in connection with Jeronimo Pinar's Juego trabado que hizo ala reyna doña Isabel; but "these are not playing cards". There was also a lot-book, El libro de las suertas, with much the same kinds of questions that de la Torre was concerned with: the identity of one's loves, their extent, etc. It was published three times between 1502 and 1528, which for her "demonstrates the lingering vogue of fortune-telling card games in Spain" (p. 240, n. 36). Then it was put on the Index of prohibited books until well into the nineteenth century. Marino also suggests that the allegorical deck of 4 suits and 21 triumphs designed by Matteo Boiardo in Italy, 1460-1492, could have been used for such purposes. It has the suits as different passions (fear (swords), jealousy (coins), hope (cups), love (batons)); a short verse about a specific personage--Dido, Judith, Lucrezia, etc.--is on each. (The poem is at http://newsletter.tarotstudies.org/2007 ... ardo-poem/.)

IS THE C. 1450 AN EXAMPLE OF FORTUNE-TELLING?

Both Ross (above. in his translation of "echar a suertes") and Marino (p. 240) affirm that de la Torre's description alludes to the deck's use in fortune-telling, among other things. Marino says (p. 240):

But here there is also an unmistakable allusion to the use of playing cards for fortune-telling, perhaps the earliest such reference in Spain.

She does not say precisely what this "unmistakable allusion" is; but later on the same page she talks about how de la Torre says that with the deck one could tell "the identity of one's lover, the extent of that love, and so forth" (p. 240). That sounds like a reference to either the part Ross translates or the passage immediately preceding, in my attempt at translation:

E pueden iugar con ellos perseguera ó tríntin assy como en otros naypes, y de más pueden se conosçer quáles son meiores amores sin haber respecto á lo que puede contesçer. Porque á las veces es meior el carnero que la gallina, et pueden conosçer su calidat, y puédense echar suertes en ellos á quién más ama cada uno, e á quién quiere más, et por otras muchas et diversas maneras.

(And they can play with them persevera or trintin as with other cards, and moreover can know who are best loves without respect to consequences. Why at times it is better the ram than the hen, and can know its quality, ...etc.

"Persevera" and "trintin" seem to be the names of card games, Marino reasonably says. I am afraid to ask why or when at times the ram is better than the hen (or perhaps I have misunderstood). Then comes the same as before, only with the word "cual" rather than "quien". The difference is that "cual", although it can mean "who", at least as frequently has the sense of "which", as in "which type". "Quien" is "who" or "whom". But here it seems to me that the "quien" that follows the "cual" most likely comes to the same thing as the "cual". In de la Torre's "á quién más ama cada uno", whom each one loves most, the "quien"--who or whom--could simply be a type of lover, not his or her identity in the sense of a particular person. Its being a particular person would go against de la Torre's requirement of secrecy and his denigration of gossip, which such a fortune, even if the beloved herself is unrevealed, would surely promote.

"Echar a suertes" is likewise ambiguous. Besides telling fortunes, it also means decidir por el azar, decide by chance, as in flipping a coin (http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/tran ... spen=Echar). In the game, as Marino presents it, the context seems to be that of drawing cards randomly for the purpose of reading the verse on it. Perhaps people were supposed to read them out loud. The verses are not fortunes, or so I conclude from sampling their content with help from a native Spanish-speaker who has some familiarity with archaic Spanish. Nor do they sound like fortunes from Marino's own account of them, as I hope will be clear in what follows.

The stanzas for Swords, Marino says, are de la Torre's personal confession about his love affair with someone who became a nun; she encouraged him by promising some measure of satisfaction, but in the end gave him none. He complains about her betrayal of him. (Of course she didn't say what kind of satisfaction she was promising; perhaps it was of a spiritual nature.)

In Batons, the court cards depict Judith and Dido, both of whom in 15th century Spain were seen as widows who were faithful to their dead husbands. Marino says (p. 226)

In fifteenth century Spain authors prefer to use Dido as a model of chaste widowhood.

The verses, however, say something else. He recommends pursuing widows if they are "young, rich, and beautiful" (p. 226). They can offer security and are free from danger. Moreover, "she will be inclined to want physical love again" (p.227), and will be a "seasoned" lover. Widows, however, must be on guard against unscrupulous men, and bad tales that might be told about them (verse for 3 of Batons), since they want to b thought well of (2 of Batons). So he is offering advice to both sides of the category, in what seems to be one long poem about this type of lover.

In the case of married women, his picture for the King of Cups is Lucretia, the virtuous wife who kills herself. In the verses, he offers the example of an adulterous woman who was killed, along with two servants and two men (comendadores, i.e. military commanders), by her husband. The King subsequently, in 1448, pardoned the murderer. So there are risks involved in liaisons with married women, as well as obvious rewards. It is important not to betray the woman but to keep her secret, de la Torre says at the end--indeed, not only for her reputation, but for one's own health.

In Coins, the subject is maidens. The virtuous ones on the court cards are Ghismondo, from Boccaccio, and Hero, from the tale of Hero and Leander, as well as a lady in love with Lancelot; he says it is the "lady of the lake" but that might be a confusion with another lady, one who after curing him of poisoning swears eternal virginity because of her love for him (p. 231f). Ghismonda kills herself after being presented with her lover's heart by her father, who had slain him. Hero kills herself after Leander accidentally dies. De la Torre declares these loves to be the best and emphasizes the courtly aspects, as opposed to sexual ones. They may result in "torment" for the lover, but preferable to any "favor" given by the others. About them, he ends by saying "Servir a vos es raynar", to serve you is to reign (I guess).

What is in the verses, then, is an exploration of love relationships with women in the four categories. Reading these thoughts, a person would get the author's point of view on each type, in 12 poems per category of from 12 to 1 lines each. By such means a player "casting lots", i.e. choosing cards randomly, could indeed learn who "each one loves most and who is most desired", in the sense of which type one desires, taking on the role of the lover of each category by means of the verse, to see if it is an attractive type of love.

It is admittedly possible that when de la Torre says the cards are useful for discovering "who is loved best" and "who is desired most" he means an actual lover fitting the description on the card. For determining the "extent" or "quality" of that love, it might be the number of lines that matters. I do not deny this possibility. I only say that it is not the only way of reading the text, and it is not the most natural way of seeing the verses or his introduction to them.

IS THE 1497 AN EXAMPLE OF FORTUNE TELLING?

The Juego trabado que hizo ala reyna doña Isabel (Troubadour game made for the lady Isabel) of c. 1497 is different. (For Spanish-language accounts, see http://diegocatalan.blogia.com/2010/121 ... senora.php and http://cvc.cervantes.es/el_rinconete/an ... 012_01.htm.) In this game single cards are dealt at random to various members of the court. Dice can also be used to determine the players' "lots". The first line of a fortune is on each card, and the participant is to recite, or perhaps sing, the whole stanza of that versified fortune. The first website linked to gives one example, stanza 31. It is a fortune not for the player reciting it but an unmarried lady, perhaps the doña Isabel herself. The first link above gives an example, Stanza 31. My translation needs scrutiny.

A vos dama se os publique
que la dicha os da el rosal
qu’es de todos como enrrique
entre blancas vn real.
Y ell aue sera vn doral.
Y un romance verdadero
de dolor muy desigual:
Gritando va el cauallero.
Y el refrán de los antigos:
Que muchos son los amigos.

(To you, lady, this is made public
giving you the rose
that of all enriches,
a royal one among the white.
And ell aue [the bird?] will be golden
And a real romance
Of pain very uneven:
Crying is the knight.
And the saying of the ancients:
That many are the friends.

This stanza follows chivalric convention, in which the knight's love for the lady is frustrated at least temporarily. If there is a golden bird, it might be referring to the characters in a chivalric romance. This is indeed fortune-telling, but of a weak sort (although no weaker than many), since what matters most is the performance, and just about any love involves a certain amount of pain.

Both de la Torre's and Pinar's games with cards have some similarity to Matteo Boiardo's game in Italy, as it was described in the late 15th century by the writer Antonio Viti (http://trionfi.com/0/h/):

E da questo dar di carte che tocar deve a chi per sorte ha la migliore, nascie il primo piacere: perciò che ognuno lege li versi che nelle carte sue sono e mostranli a li compagni. Et in ciò si vedono a le volte a donne et omini venire terzetti che sono grandemente al proposito loro, e di gran riso de chi gli ascoltano.

(And of this, to give the cards, the one who draws the highest card distributing them by chance, gives rise to the first pleasure: that each read the verses in their cards and show them to their companions. . .And in which the women and men seeing at times in the tercets what is greatly appropriate to them, and they give a great smile to those who listen.

In the broader definition of the term, that might count as divination, too, but of an even weaker sort. merely expressing what is already known about the person's character, with no discrediting of the procedure if the verse doesn't happen to fit (in other words, it's not seen as a prediction or a special insight into what is hidden).

So I remain very puzzled about the 1450 Spanish case, as it seems of the same type as the Boiardo, if that, with regard to fortune-telling. If these are fortune-telling, then so are the tarocchi appropriati, when they were applied to particular persons at a social occasion.

But I am happy that Ross steers us to Marino, who mentions the 1497 verses and also the 1502 lot-book. The latter is earlier than the one in Mainz that uses cards, at least as one alternative way to generate the random numbers needed.

Try this other paper under my name there, Mike (I'm surprised it didn't come up in a Google search for you) -

"El Juego de naypes of Fernando de la Torre: A Fifteenth-Century Spanish Card Game"

https://www.academia.edu/6477341/_El_ju ... _card_game

Thanks, Ross. I didn't know about that other essay of yours. I don't know how I missed finding it. Greer was what came up first, and she gave links to the two essays I linked to. I guess I assumed that was all you had. Also, I notice that the link says "c. 2015" and had a small number of hits (38). Maybe it wasn't there when I first looked. I've been pondering this for a while; I just wanted to talk to a native speaker before I posted anything. Well, I have to remember to do a new search before I start a thread.

It definitely helps to have the translation, even if every translation is also an interpretation and the original may be less clear, especially from a distance of five and a half centuries. But I perhaps see vaguely what is going on.

Enrique translates "echar suertes en ellos á quién más ama cada uno, e á quién quiere más" as "tell fortunes about who loves who and also about who they love the most". But the word "más" appears in both parts. So literally it's "cast lots in them [the cards] to see to whom each one loves more/most, and to whom desiring more/most".

It's not totally clear me to me what that means in terms of the proposed deck, or what the difference is between the two parts of what I just quoted. The various stanzas aren't fortunes, they are just thoughts of the author's about each type of love. Perhaps he means by "echar suertes" receiving cards from the deck, let us say 12 of them, if it's a four-handed game, and then if the player finds that, e.g., black cards predominate, that means that of the four categories the women most available to him would be widows. Then "e á quién quiere más" might mean that the if the cards of the predominant suit have few lines of verse, i.e. the lower numbers, compared to other suits in his hands, then he doesn't desire women of that type most. Or the other way around.

Maybe there is a distinction between "quierer" and "ama", desire vs. love. Or the infinitive vs. the indicative, perhaps to suggest that one can tell not just what women he loves, but also which women desire him (i.e. are available to him). But I don't know which would be which, or which aspect of the cards--suit or number--would reveal which.

I was expecting that the stanzas would be in the form of fortunes. They are not. They are just the author's thoughts on each type of love. But something corresponding to the "which" (quáles, "which", not quales, "who", in the earlier part)--i.e. which type--and the "who" (quién) later, together with "most" (mayores, más), is in the color of the predominant suit (which type of love?) and the number of lines of verse (how much loved).

A game will probably have more than one hand. So it might be the trend that matters. And there is also the question of seeing whether this type is actually something the player wants to choose; that involves reading the verses to see the pluses and minuses. The "fortune" is rather light-hearted and doesn't actually predict the future or suggest actual conduct, just dispositions to conduct. They could certainly be the occasion for jokes in the course of the game.

The Boiardo deck could be used the same way. i.e., if "jealousy" cards predominate, that is something the player would have to deal with in particular, in which the examples on the cards serve as instruction and warning. However the instructions for using the deck, unlike in the case of de la Torre, don't say or suggest that explicitly.

One more question for Ross, a little off topic, since it isn't Spain. There is the now-famous quote from Francesco Giovanni Pico, 1507:

There are many kinds of lots [sortium], as in casting bones, in throwing dice, in the figures depicted in a pack of cards [in figuris characeo ludo pictis]; and in the expectation of whatever first should arrive, in picking the longer husk, or in casting the eyes on a page.

About which Ross says, in his 2006 report to the IPCS:

The methods Francesco Pico describes appear to be astragals, dice, playing cards, drawing lots, and bibliomancy. What strikes me about the phrase "figuris chartaceo ludo pictis" - in the figures depicted in 'chartaceo ludo' - is the emphasis on the figures. This suggests to me that Pico is not referring to Losbucher or Lot-book divination, in which the figures on the cards were irrelevant, but a more immediate kind of cartomancy dependent on interpreting the figures depicted on the cards.

My problem is that from the inclusion of "picking the longer husk", dice, etc, it seems that what is important might be just the rank of whatever it is that is being looked at, from shortest to longest, from 1 to 6, or 2 to 12, etc. If so, the figures might be important only in so far as they determined the rank. That is the same as with lot-books. So it might well be lot-book divination, especially if "figuris characeo ludo pictis" could include pictures of suit-objects on cards as well as people of various ranks. But I'm not sure that "figuris" could apply to number cards as well as court cards.

Alternatively, could it be a type of cartomancy in which what was important was the genders of the court cards next to one another, as in determining the faithfulness of a lover, if, for example, the Jack designating the husband turned up next to a Queen different from the Queen designating the querent? Or maybe for determining the social status of the one a woman will marry, by the status of the male court card that turns up next to the Queen designating the querent?