Tarot History Forum

The Cary Sheet Devil and Krampus

In this thread back on Aeclectic I asked about the relationship between the Cary Sheet Devil and Krampus.

Also in the thread I did find a French Devil with similar iconography in a book I picked up at the Bodleian Library, the image is from the British Library.

Title of Work: Book of Hours
Illustrator: Master of the Brussels Initials
Production: France (Paris), circa 1407
Description: (Whole folio) A scene in Hell; historiated initial and decorated border with foliage, figures and birds. From the Penitential Psalms and Litany.

I've found another one as well, also British Library.

devil carrying his soul basket
Holkham Bible, England ca. 1320-1330
BL, Add. 47682, fol. 11v

Coincidently, in the thread on the Bolognese sequence, Ross recently posted another image with the "inlets", from the Sphaerae coelestis et planetarum descriptio (Biblioteca Estense Universitaria alfa.x.2.14, f. 12r)

Chapel of the White Penitents at La Tour : Part of the Last Judgment scene that was executed in 1492 by Currand Bravesi and Guirard Nadal.

SteveM wrote: 21 Apr 2025, 22:24 Chapel of the White Penitents at La Tour : Part of the Last Judgment scene that was executed in 1492 by Currand Bravesi and Guirard Nadal.

For more inmages of the Chapel's Frescos see here:

https://paulsmit.smugmug.com/Features/E ... FL9xfKEY3Q

SteveM wrote: 21 Apr 2025, 22:28

SteveM wrote: 21 Apr 2025, 22:24 Chapel of the White Penitents at La Tour : Part of the Last Judgment scene that was executed in 1492 by Currand Bravesi and Guirard Nadal.

For more inmages of the Chapel's Frescos see here:

https://paulsmit.smugmug.com/Features/E ... FL9xfKEY3Q

Fantastic! Thanks Steve!

Well, as long as we're looking at the Star and Moon: (1) On the Moon card, does anyone else see the two crocodiles on the shoreline of the pond, one with something in its mouth? They would have morphed into dogs later. (2) Also on the Moon card, the "plant" to the right of the tower on the left is on a plain behind the tower and so too big to be a plant, even though it's much like one. It looks to me like an obelisk with bushes around it. Then next to it in the center, it looks like a temple - so a place of refuge from the giant lobster and the crocodiles. And another obelisk on the other side. Egyptian temples came with two obelisks and often a pond or lake. (3) On the Star card, it strikes me that the two "inlets" could be the two fishes of Pisces, the sign immediately below Aquarius on astrological pictures of the zodiacal signs on the ecliptic. Another thing is the two jugs: in this period, two jugs were common, whereas both before and after - I'm not sure when, maybe before 1400 and after 1600 - he only poured one jug. How did it happen that there were two?

Robert wrote: 21 Apr 2025, 19:09 I've always struggled with understanding why the Sforza Castle World has the bull's face cut off. Your suggestion that the image was originally wider is intriguing and makes a lot of sense to me, The Lion and Eagle also look cut off on the side and the Angel might as well have had more wing. What's also interesting that that might bring it closer to the Noblet for proportions. I've always thought of the Noblet as being a "short, wide" Tarot de Marseille type 1, but maybe the proportions are not so different than an earlier version that we don't have a copy of?

I guess I need to find out the how close the dimensions of the Sforza Castle cards are and cards like the Dodal, which I've always assumed would have been similar in size.

The Sforza Castle tarot cards are larger than anything from France: 139 x 67.5 mm according to Dummett's own measurements. But he gave slightly different dimensions for the World card: 135 x 67.5. He thought this meant that a strip from the top of the card had come off when the backing paper became detached from it (the backing paper is no longer present on that card), which seems implausible to me because the edges of the card look perfectly neat, too neat for a strip to have been torn off. You can even still see the black line marking the top edge of the card, the line that presumably divided it from the next card on the woodblock, to show the cardmaker where to cut the sheet.

I think Ross has also measured the cards personally and might be able to verify Dummett's measurements.

The removal of the strips from either side of the design would not have been due to the physical size of the cards but rather to the difference in format (i.e. the height-to-width ratio). The Dodal is 122 x 66 mm, almost the same as the recenty discovered Vachie deck, currently the oldest preserved Tarot de Marseille deck known (dated 1639), which is 122 x 64 mm.

You seem to be implying, if I am understanding you correctly, that the pip cards in the Sforza Castle would have had numbers but they were stripped when the cards were cut down from a wider block? The same issue is on the two pip cards on the Cary Sheet though, as well, no numbers, correct?

I think it's probably more likely that the pip cards of that Sforza Castle tarot set were actually just ordinary Milanese playing card designs, and that the tarot trumps were added to them. In other words, the designs for the pip cards are exactly the same as the designs that would have been used to print ordinary decks of 52 cards, and they probably hadn't changed much in over a hundred years at the time when this deck was made. No need to remove any numbers or make any other changes. My hypothesis is that the cardmaker created copies of French tarot trumps (and presumably also tarot queens) to add to those 52 cards. Therefore, those added trumps and queens are the only cards that would have needed to have their format made more narrow by taking a strip off either side.

This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the border lines around the image are slightly thicker on the pip cards than on the World card, suggesting that the designs were created at a different time. This could also help to explain why the World card is slightly shorter: perhaps the cardmaker or the engraver made a slight error when attempting to give the added trumps and queens the same dimensions as the existing regular cards.

There might have been numbers on the pips of the French deck or there might not have been—either way it probably wasn't relevant for this deck because the cardmaker didn't need to copy those cards.

And this is where I am really confused, do you agree that the early Tarot de Marseille pattern likely didn't have numbers and titles and then they were added, or do you believe that they did and were stripped. Apologies for my confusion.

I think we can be quite certain that the earliest version of the Tarot de Marseille didn't have the titles on the trumps, because the Sforza Castle World shows the legs of the lion and the ox, whereas the earliest surviving Tarot de Marseille cards (such as the Vachie) do not. So it seems clear that the addition of the title caused the image to lose a strip along the bottom.

A similar logic inclines me to think that the numbers at the top were not originally there either, because the halo of the eagle is cut off by the border line at the top of the Sforza Castle World—it also looks like the man's halo has lost a tiny bit too—so again we get the impression that a slice of the design was removed, this time to make way for the box at the top containing the number. On the early Tarot de Marseille cards from France, the halos have been restored by allowing them to extend across that border line, but the Italian cardmakers never did that because normally the space beyond the border line would be covered by the turned-over edges. So we can't be sure whether the French card from which the Sforza Castle card was copied showed the halos going beyond the line or not. But either way, we can be pretty certain that the halos on that original French card did not entirely fit below the line, and that was probably the result of the number box being added to an image that did not originally have it.

As I said above, those two cards in the BnF also support the idea that the earliest Tarot de Marseille trumps had neither numbers nor titles, because the Hermit card has neither and the queen card has no title, and it definitely looks like they were made in France. Those cards admittedly aren't Tarot de Marseille, but they must have been from a fairly close precursor of it.

Lovely to meet you, btw.

Likewise
If I manage to get to this year's IPCS Convention at Oxford in September, we might even be able to meet in person.

mikeh wrote: 22 Apr 2025, 13:57 Well, as long as we're looking at the Star and Moon: (1) On the Moon card, does anyone else see the two crocodiles on the shoreline of the pond, one with something in its mouth? They would have morphed into dogs later.

Yes, but I think maybe it is just a matter of seeing things in the jagged shaped inlets, same with the fish tales of the Star.

(2) Also on the Moon card, the "plant" to the right of the tower on the left is on a plain behind the tower and so too big to be a plant, even though it's much like one. It looks to me like an obelisk with bushes around it. Then next to it in the center, it looks like a temple -

Obelisks? Maybe, or just a tree with foliage and bushes. There does look to me to be a building of some sort in the middle, but it is not clear enough for me to determine that it's a temple, though I suppose that is a reasonable inference.

(3) On the Star card, it strikes me that the two "inlets" could be the two fishes of Pisces, the sign immediately below Aquarius on astrological pictures of the zodiacal signs on the ecliptic.

Possibly, but on the whole I think likely another case of pareidolia, as with the crocodiles and obelisks.

Another thing is the two jugs: in this period, two jugs were common, whereas both before and after - I'm not sure when, maybe before 1400 and after 1600 - he only poured one jug. How did it happen that there were two?

Of the 12 examples of Aquarius with 2 vessels at the Warburg 1 is from the 11th century, 1 from the 13th, 5 from the 14th, and 5 from the 15th.

Here are a couple of other examples I previously posted in another thread, both from the late 15th century:

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius -- Nude woman stands in stream and pours water from jugs held in each hand:
Book of Hours France, Paris, ca. 1480 MS M.253 fol. 1v:
Book of Hours France, probably Cambrai, 1490-1500 MS M.1053 fol. 1v
Zodiac Sign: Aquarius -- Woman stands and pours water from jars held in each hand.
sandyh posted several more examples in the same thread :
viewtopic.php?p=20527#p20527

Of the examples posted by SandyH at least 4 of those with two vessels were from the 15th century:

Book of Hours
Italy, probably Milan, 1470-1480
MS G.14 fol. 1v

Book of Hours
France, Paris, ca. 1425-1430
MS M.453 fol. 1r


Book of Hours
France, Langres, ca. 1465
MS G.55 fol. 2r


Breviary
Belgium, Bruges, ca. 1500
MS M.52 fol. 2r

Ganymede was also related to Aquarius, & his emblematic bird was the rooster, as we see in the later Piedmontese (but probably related to concept of morning bird, morning star, rather than Ganymede")
The rooster as an emblem of the Morning Star would associate the female figure with Venus [the Morning Star]?

Venus in the posture of Aquarius could be seen as a type of magical image of the first decan of Aquarius (ruled by Venus).

SteveM wrote: 23 Apr 2025, 08:23
Of the 12 examples of Aquarius with 2 vessels at the Warburg 1 is from the 11th century, 1 from the 13th, 5 from the 14th, and 5 from the 15th.

Here are a couple of other examples I previously posted in another thread, both from the late 15th century:

Of the examples posted by SandyH at least 4 of those with two vessels were from the 15th century:

Book of Hours
Italy, probably Milan, 1470-1480
MS G.14 fol. 1v

Book of Hours
France, Paris, ca. 1425-1430
MS M.453 fol. 1r


Book of Hours
France, Langres, ca. 1465
MS G.55 fol. 2r


Breviary
Belgium, Bruges, ca. 1500
MS M.52 fol. 2r

An example from the 16th century [c.1540]
~So of 19 examples we have :

11th century: 1
13th century: 1
14th century : 5
15th century: 11
16th century: 1

Thanks for that investigation, Steve. I hadn't been aware of the Warburg database, which I found linked to on Wikipedia. My contention was that from around 1400 to around 1600 and not before, Aquarius was often shown pouring out of two jugs instead of one. That needs to be modified. Before around 1350, it is extremely rare for Aquarius to be shown pouring from two jugs. The representations increase dramatically after 1350, going back down again after 1500. Another thing is that it is typically a male figure before 1350, although there are a few females. After that, they are common, again until around 1500 or so, although I saw one for 1619. So why, on both counts?

I notice also that the 11th century one is from Spain (Leon) and has two fish cross his body. In 1458, at the Roccabianca in Lombardy, Aquarius is shown holding a fish. I wonder if there was an association of Aquarius with John the Baptist. Anyway, my fish hypothesis remains. The figure with the jugs is surely Aquarius (although not excluding other associations).

Also, the object left of center does not look like a tree - no leaves, no branches. And a triangular top, like an obelisk.
And while the things I identify as crocodiles could be extensions of the inlets, their long horizontal length counts against it. There are also very crocodile-like jaw shapes. Moreover, the two dogs later plausibly replace such crocodiles.

My hypothesis is that a Greco-Egyptian conception of Aquarius became popular, probably due to the opening up of trade by the Mamluks. The Greco-Egyptian zodiac at Dendera, among others, shows a figure with two jugs and female breasts on a male body where Aquarius should be, with the tails of two fish quite close to the figure's body. I cannot find any 14th-15th century sketches of that zodiac, or other representations of the same but it would have been easy for someone to do, as it is in a little house on the roof of the temple. There is a Mamluk book of 1354 with the wrong half of the zodiac on one of its pages, https://collections.mfa.org/objects/13823; if so, presumably the other half would be there somewhere. According to the eminent French egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt in Le fabuleux héritage de l'Egypte (in archive.org), papyrus manuscripts including Egyptian zodiacs circulated in Europe in the Middle Ages, including in the library at Cluny (p. 315); she finds their influence at Vezelay (p. 314) and maybe Autun (p. 316). The reason for two jugs was to represent the two main branches of the Nile, the White and the Blue, she says (p. 311). On the card, the mountain at the left would stand for Ethiopia, the source of the Blue Nile, as Plutarch related, unlike the plain over which the White Nile went. Also, the Egyptians recognized only five planets, i.e. the smaller stars. Isis in Greco-Egypt was equivalent to Venus for Rome, at least as protector of sailors. This is also evident in the Rouen/Lwvwe Star card, the "Famous Star" with a ship in the background. And Plutarch associated the soul of Isis with the dog-star (Of Isis and Osiris 21-22), which would be the big star on the card. This was the time of Alexander VI's Egyptianized decorations of his apartments, with Ascanio Sforza, pupil of Filelfo (who had the Moralia), as his vice-chancellor.

Such a zodiac would not have influenced the Moon card - its Cancer is a very insect-like crab, actually quite similar to Cancer in some of the early zodiacs on the Warburg database - thin front claws, often a line down the back resembling a scarab's. Why a crab turned into a lobster or crayfish in this same time period, although more common in the 11th-13th centuries than the two jugs, is another mystery. Perhaps in some language the same word encompassed both. Another phenomenon is the male-female Gemini, similar to the Greco-Egyptian (Shu and Tefnet, children of the the sun-god), which turns up in the Tarot de Marseille as well as zodiacs.