Tarot History Forum

Yes, I agree, Euggie.

If you have cards, you can play with them. Just like stones. If you have a handful of stones, you can make a game to play with them.

This does NOT mean the cards were made FOR THE PURPOSE of gaming.

* I am agree Deb-Bee...

- The stones example is very too much enlightening candy ...

. Another question : If so as Deb said.

The rules of the game has the same deepness as the images show ?

à bientôt j'espere ...

Eugim

EUGIM wrote:One Potato said and I am agree with him : " How do we determine what the order WAS at the time, if the cards are not numbered? "

- If there was an order known as a fact by the players,so was unnecessary to number the cards.
Who first decided it ?

The order is pretty obvious people. These allegories where all well known through the trionfi parades, and other popular entertainments. I think the structure of the Tarot is very clever, but it was a reflection of popular culture, an amusement, not a theology lesson or a philosophy course. Really, if you have any background knowledge of the contemporary themes that would have been known to Italians at the time, it would be difficult not to order the sequence into one of the three commonly known patterns, excluding perhaps the Virtues.

Robert,

I'd like to see a 'building block' that says that the trumps were influenced by the trionfi tradition, or was there some other reason the game was called 'Trionfi'?

EUGIM wrote:* I am agree Deb-Bee...

- The stones example is very too much enlightening candy ...

. Another question : If so as Deb said.

The rules of the game has the same deepness as the images show ?

à bientôt j'espere ...

Eugim

With all due respect, that’s a fallacious argument.

The art of the Middle Ages is full of examples of utilitarian objects made with painstakingly care and featuring complex scenes, and there is no reason to think these objects were originally intended for anything else than its utilitarian purpose, even when these images were almost always of an allegorical -and therefore didactic- nature. It would be curious to say “If I am given a chalice I may office the Eucharist with it... but chalices were really intended to be brought to people’s ears so they could listen to the voice of people standing in a different room”. A deck of cards, designed for the purposing of gaming, could have shown didactic images without that suggesting that the deck original purpose wasn’t gaming. I would suggest that, rather tan arguing that point with argument as “It may be possible that...” we give more thought to what ‘gaming’ means (Ross already provided an interesting hint in that regard). All games have as its main purpose the repetition of a pattern in an amusing way so new skills can be learned and later on applied to life. Nothing in the alleged depth of the images contradicts their ludic purpose.

But then again, if anybody is willing to offer any theory backed with evidence about how the cards were designed for purposes different than gaming, this forum would be a great place to share it.


Best,


EE

R.A. Hendley wrote:I'd like to see a 'building block' that says that the trumps were influenced by the trionfi tradition, or was there some other reason the game was called 'Trionfi'?

I'll add "The Trumps were influenced by the "Trionfi" tradition" unless there is any opposition?

EnriqueEnriquez wrote: But then again, if anybody is willing to offer any theory backed with evidence about how the cards were designed for purposes different than gaming, this forum would be a great place to share it.

Agreed. As I understand it, virtually every early reference to the cards is a reference to the game, and where collections of divination are noted, tarot is notably absent. Is this correct?

robert wrote:

R.A. Hendley wrote:I'd like to see a 'building block' that says that the trumps were influenced by the trionfi tradition, or was there some other reason the game was called 'Trionfi'?

I'll add "The Trumps were influenced by the "Trionfi" tradition" unless there is any opposition?

No objection here. To make it more interesting, I might reword it "The imagery and sequence of the trumps were influenced by Trionfi traditions."

There is one possible objection missing - Michael Hurst would, I believe, say that the name of the game refers simply to the action of one card vanquishing the next (triumphing over), so this might be a sufficient explanation, without bringing in references to classical triumphs, Petrarch, or the trionfi (parade cars with allegorical scenes). In other words, the name of the game explains nothing about the choice or sequence of the images.

I'm pretty sure that's an oversimplification of his view, but it's the best I can do without pretending to speak for him.

Ross

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:

robert wrote: There is one possible objection missing - Michael Hurst would, I believe, say that the name of the game refers simply to the action of one card vanquishing the next (triumphing over), so this might be a sufficient explanation, without bringing in references to classical triumphs, Petrarch, or the trionfi (parade cars with allegorical scenes). In other words, the name of the game explains nothing about the choice or sequence of the images.

I'm pretty sure that's an oversimplification of his view, but it's the best I can do without pretending to speak for him.

Ross

Okay, I'll use "The imagery and sequence of the trumps were influenced by Trionfi traditions.", if Michael wants to discuss the point, he's a member here and is welcome to do so.

robert wrote:

EnriqueEnriquez wrote: But then again, if anybody is willing to offer any theory backed with evidence about how the cards were designed for purposes different than gaming, this forum would be a great place to share it.

Agreed. As I understand it, virtually every early reference to the cards is a reference to the game, and where collections of divination are noted, tarot is notably absent. Is this correct?

Absolutely correct. The earliest connection of tarot to a system of divination is in a manuscript found by Franco Pratesi in the late 1980s in Bologna, which lists 35 cards of the Bolognese tarocchini and gives divinatory keyword-meanings to them, adding that they are to be laid out in 5 piles, with 7 cards to each pile (what happens afterward isn't given). The list mentions "fantesca" (female knaves) in the suits of Denari and Coppe, a practice which was apparently dropped in Bologna after 1750, which means that the manuscript dates to before 1750, or at least not long after it (see WPC 49-50; Il tarocchino di Bologna (Vitali and Zanetti, 2004) 80; tarotpedia entry
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Bolognes ... Divination )

I characterize it as "pure cartomancy", rather than "esoteric cartomancy". Pure cartomancy uses normal cards (not specially made divining cards), and the meanings are not based on an esoteric system or rationalization (so notable for Etteilla's tarot system and the late 19th century tarot systems).

Ross

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:

robert wrote:

EnriqueEnriquez wrote: But then again, if anybody is willing to offer any theory backed with evidence about how the cards were designed for purposes different than gaming, this forum would be a great place to share it.

Agreed. As I understand it, virtually every early reference to the cards is a reference to the game, and where collections of divination are noted, tarot is notably absent. Is this correct?

Absolutely correct. The earliest connection of tarot to a system of divination is in a manuscript found by Franco Pratesi in the late 1980s in Bologna, which lists 35 cards of the Bolognese tarocchini and gives divinatory keyword-meanings to them, adding that they are to be laid out in 5 piles, with 7 cards to each pile (what happens afterward isn't given). The list mentions "fantesca" (female knaves) in the suits of Denari and Coppe, a practice which was apparently dropped in Bologna after 1750, which means that the manuscript dates to before 1750, or at least not long after it (see WPC 49-50; Il tarocchino di Bologna (Vitali and Zanetti, 2004) 80; tarotpedia entry
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Bolognes ... Divination )

I characterize it as "pure cartomancy", rather than "esoteric cartomancy". Pure cartomancy uses normal cards (not specially made divining cards), and the meanings are not based on an esoteric system or rationalization (so notable for Etteilla's tarot system and the late 19th century tarot systems).

Ross

Thank you Ross. What about the "negative evidence"? What documents exist that do talk of divination from the period, and is tarot mentioned?