Tarot History Forum

SteveM wrote: 23 Apr 2025, 10:00 11th century: 1
13th century: 1
14th century : 5
15th century: 11
16th century: 1

Another 15th century from the Krampus region of Geneva. Off topic but I've included the authors initials, the style is one we are family with as also used by cardmakers, especially of Alluetee decks, but also some Tarot such as the Payens [only one of which has initials however- P V - which makes me wonder of Philip Vachier had some connection with that Payen deck too].

mikeh wrote: 25 Apr 2025, 01:28 Thanks for that investigation, Steve. I hadn't been aware of the Warburg database......

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.

There are several more examples of the Aquarius figure with fish at the Warburg:
https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/ ... omy-046508 If you zoom in then the obelisk looks more like a tree trunk with foliage - but that could be an artifact of low resolution.

Thanks for the fish.

Yale's image of the Cary Sheet is fairly high resolution, 529 kb for the whole card. In general, most of the lines are about that thick, coming off the woodblock. It's just what the knife produces on the woodblock. When the image is the size it would be on a card, it looks like two vertical lines close together, with a triangle on top . There may well be a tree to the right of the building.
Here it is full resolution on the right, proportionately higher resolution on the left: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/i ... oncard.jpg

That below is full resolution on the left, reduced resolution on the right; it looks the same as the 529 kb version in the link.

Hello

Steve, in this post you share a Piedmontese star card. Do you know specifically which deck it is, or what museum reference it has? It seems interesting if it's from Piedmont. It possibly predates the Piedmontese designs engraved on copper in the 19th century. It's the image you posted here:
viewtopic.php?p=27090#p27090

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Robert, I'm interested (like you) in studying the possible Cary Sheet order. I conceived a theory a couple of years ago. I hadn't noticed the two cards stuck together. I also thought that part of the sequence is reversed. I think that's what you said. What part is reversed, and why was the order of those cards reversed?

I'm studying your theory. I'd like to comment on some details about what you've explained, to better understand your theory.

It seems to me you're calling a complete card a Pope, where I see a female Pope with a book on a lectern, next to a small man. You say she's a woman. I don't know if you've seen the book. I think that card is called a Pope, although the order seems odd. It would be the Pope if it were a man, but we agree that it looks like a woman, and the book is typical of the Pope, except in Tarocchino dalla Tore, where a man (Pope?) has a book. This detail doesn't seem very important, but it affects the order. You accept that she's a woman, and I would call her a Pope. It would be good to explain why they could call the Pope Pope, or why they swapped the two positions.

On the other hand, I understand that your theory assumes that the Hanged Man (exists in Cary) and Time (not seen in Cary) are swapped compared to the order of Pissoir and Vieville. You think Death and Time were underneath the two cards stuck together. And you might think the top two cards (Angel and World) were printed on another sheet.

I can't understand why someone would glue two cards on top of each other. Did the Cary sheet appear as filler material in a binding? If there were two poorly printed cards or the paper had torn, it's possible someone glued two cards in that spot to create a nice sheet that could be used to decorate something. However, it seems absurd for a card maker to glue well-printed cards on top of other poorly printed cards, since the maker has to separate the cards without creating a united set of illustrations. If the sheet was used to fill the inside of a book cover, it also seems odd to me to glue two cards on top of each other, since no one will see those cards used as filler. Perhaps a piece of paper was missing and was completed with that piece of stick cards, but then they are not glued cards but rather occupying an empty space. In that case, it's still strange that they made such a perfect cut, if they only intended to have a piece of paper to create bulk inside a hard cardboard for a book cover. Perhaps one possibility is that there wasn't a single printed card in that space, and they glued those two cards together. Do you have another idea? I don't understand why they glued two cards there. Did you discover the two glued cards or do they say so at the museum? Perhaps the museum knows which image is underneath the two stuck-together cards.

Where were the two missing cards (Angel and World)? It would be good to know the size of the Cary sheet to see what size it might have been before it was cut. That way, we'll know if there were more cards than we see, or if the World and Angel were perhaps on another sheet. Were there only 20 cards in the Cary sheet? Is that a common size for a piece of paper or half-sheet of paper from that period? Perhaps you've already studied that. I'm thinking about it now for the first time.

Nice! Thanks for your ideas.

Hello

INTRODUCTION:

Months or years ago I read somewhere in this forum a reflection on the size of the paper. That scholar said that Rosenwald has the medium leaf size of that time and defend that Rosenwald was manufactured with two wooden blocks screwed on a paper that later cut in half, so we have the rosenwald leaf of triumphs (24 cards). I dont remember the details of these reflections but I think that someone responded by saying that the two wooden blocks were not really screwed. Anyway, what interests me is not modified: the rosenwald sheet is half the sheet of the size of that time. Possibly, the paper was cut in half and in each paper a block of wood (24 cards) was printed.

Few weeks ago, I asked somewhere in this forum (THF): why a deck of cards in Italian was called a couple? Today I found a response by Pratesi in next link, where he say that one naibi deck was printed in two papers, as in Rosenwald pips:

http://trionfi.com/paro-paio-para

In part 5, Pratesi say:
"This series of 3x8 cards printed on a single sheet with a single woodblock could change into 4x6 with a different shape of the block and the same number of cards, but more reasonably could change into a higher number of smaller cards, or a smaller number of larger cards"

This fragment of Pratesi says it was possible to print 24 cards distributed in 4x6, different than in Rosenwald (3x8). It seems that Pratesi speaks of four rows for six columns. I would like to know what Pratesi was thinking of saying 4x6. He says that the paper with 4x6 distribution would have a different size than each rosenwald sheet. It seems that is not a problem for Pratesi. That is, it was possible to manufacture a letters of cards with four rows for six columns? The size of the paper would be different than in Rosenwald. Does that have a solution? Maybe there were papers of other sizes or proportions?


MY PROBLEM:

Robert Dive that the Cary sheet had four columns for five rows. I have calculated the measure and is very similar to the size of the rosenwald sheet. On the other hand, I had another theory before reading Robert. I thought that the Cary sheet was formed by four rows and six columns. I have calculated the size of that sheet and does not seem very consistent with the size of Rosenwald or with double the size of Rosenwald, that is, the size of the paper. Then I thought Robert is right and I am not right. But Prratesi mentions a 4x6 distribution like the one I speculated to the Cary sheet. Do you know the manufacturing logic or an example of a deck printed with the letters distributed in 4x6?

I noticed the debate about astrological links to card meanings, and I’ve found it really helps to look into how zodiac signs influence personality traits to deepen card interpretation. For anyone wanting to explore this more, https://www.trusted-psychics.co.uk/horoscope-readings/the-signs-of-the-zodiac/ breaks down the signs in a simple way that connects well with tarot themes, especially for understanding court cards and elemental associations.