Tarot History Forum

* So what about de 14 cards theory ?
I mean as is suggested and historically supported at Trionfi.
(Bembo Ferrarese documents of 1441 )

- How then developed in a 22 pack ?

EUGIM wrote:* So what about de 14 cards theory ?
I mean as is suggested and historically supported at Trionfi.
(Bembo Ferrarese documents of 1441 )

I'm sure you mean the Ferrara document of 1457, that mentions "carte grande da trionfi que sono carte 70 per zogo", which means "big triumph cards which have 70 cards per pack".

No mention of (Bonifacio) Bembo in Ferrara, at least connected to tarot cards, that I know of.

Maybe also you are conflating it with the 1441 reference to 14 pictures painted for Bianca Maria Visconti on "carta da bambaxo", which is thick paper, and could be thought of as cards. No mention of Bembo (that was Sagramoro), but again, there is no indication as to what the subjects were.

I often say this would be a good subject to base a short story on, but not a real history.

- How then developed in a 22 pack ?

The briefest answer possible is that given the spread of the game geographically in the first 20 years, it seems highly implausible that a change so fundamental as the addition of different sets of the same cards could have been adopted all over that area continuously. I.e. everybody started with 14, then they all adopted another 4, and then another 2 - and they were all the same. Therefore, the simplest model is that tarot started out with the standard subjects - 22 trumps, or, better described, 21 trumps and a Fool.

In order to counter this reasoning, Autorbis on Trionfi.com suggests that the various appearances of the name "trionfi" as in "carte da trionfi" refer to special and one-occasion decks, and that they were often of different subjects - that there was no standard except the 5x14, which was only a very local production between Milan and Ferrara. The 5x14 theory depends on all the data being indicative - i.e. that it represents essentially all there was - and that the standard pattern didn't develop until much later, in the 1470s or even 1480s.

The first assumption, that the data is representationally indicative, is historically absurd. What has survived is both accidental and merely hints at what really existed. We know this because although cards were immensely popular at all levels of society, only a few cards from the 15th century survive, except for luxury decks. And even the luxury decks are just a sample of what was produced (yet, with minor variations or exceptions, they all show the same subjects).

The second seems to be contradicted by notices in the 1440s and 1450s that infer a larger popular production of Triumph cards. They were sold retail, off-the-shelf. Unless there was a demand for them, they wouldn't have been pre-made (and the sheets of cards - Metropolitan Museum, Budapest Museum, Rothschild and Beaux-Arts, Cary Sheet - also show the same standard subjects).

Thus, there was a game, it was known as "Triumph", and people went to specific cardmakers expecting to find it. Those cardmakers must have made their product according to a standard that their customers expected, that could be used right away.

The analogy I like is with mountaintops coming through the clouds. If you've ever been on top of a mountain so high that you were above the clouds, you could see other mountaintops all around in the distance. You know that it extends below the clouds, but you can't describe it accurately, but you know it is there (in tarot's case, a standard). The 5x14 theory argues that the mountain tops are free-floating, that there is nothing below the clouds - there is no standard, nothing supporting each mountain top.

Ross

On the plus side of the theory, we do have early examples of "non-standard" decks. We know about the "16 gods" deck, and we have the Cary-Yale Visconti which is clearly non-standard. There are also references to the "70 card deck", and to Bianca Visconti having 14 images made for her as an educational gift.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that there were 14 trump card decks, and I might even be willing to consider that the 22 card deck somehow grew out of that.

Where the "5 X 14 Theory" goes to hell in a handbasket, for me at least, is in trying to prove that the Sforza-Visconti is an example of a 14 card deck. Nope. I just don't buy it at all. The combination of cards doesn't work for me at all, and the explanation, as shown on Trionfi, I find completely unconvincing.
http://trionfi.com/0/f/08/t1.php

(frames!!! FRAMES!!!! GOD DAMNED FRAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

* Sorry !

- I ve been talking about Boiardo poem.
As Huck Meyer pointed : " ... there is simply no evidence for a Trionfi deck with 22 trumps before the Boiardo poem - and the Boiardo poem is at least 20 years later than the first note of Trionfi ..."


-Au revoir...

robert wrote:On the plus side of the theory, we do have early examples of "non-standard" decks. We know about the "16 gods" deck, and we have the Cary-Yale Visconti which is clearly non-standard. There are also references to the "70 card deck", and to Bianca Visconti having 14 images made for her as an educational gift.

There were and are always a lot of non-standard decks of course. The question is does "carte da trionfi" connote a standard? That's a name, a designation, and "triumph(s)" (in Florence in 1450 and Ferrara in 1456), was the name of the game played with it.

The "16 gods" deck wasn't called a "carte da trionfi" except anachronistically by comparsion with a standard deck.Bianca's pictures shouldn't be used to prop up any argument - the word "carta" in this context is in the singular, and just means "paper". Whatever the pictures were, they were made on "carta". It is a leap - bigger or smaller depending on your historical conservatism - to consider them playing "cards".

But the Cary Yale is interesting and still there is room for debate where it stands - but in any case, the non-standard part includes only extra court cards and the three Theological Virtues, which are quite logical additions to a standard, and for the Virtues, was in fact done in the Minchiate. But the rest of the Cary-Yale's trumps are standard.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that there were 14 trump card decks, and I might even be willing to consider that the 22 card deck somehow grew out of that.

So places like Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, Milan, Padua, Mantua, Rome, Naples - all gradually added the same cards over about 40 years - as if some center were dictating the changes? All ended up with the same standard subjects?

In other words - is it more likely people were creative in changing a standard (the model which explains the variations as variations), or that they created tarots willy-nilly and ended up with a standard set of subjects across Italy in 40 years, arranged slightly differently but "synoptically"?

But I think the idea of such an evolution from 14 to 22 is appealing and seductive for many, just like the identification of the Popess with Maifreda.

Where the "5 X 14 Theory" goes to hell in a handbasket, for me at least, is in trying to prove that the Sforza-Visconti is an example of a 14 card deck. Nope. I just don't buy it at all. The combination of cards doesn't work for me at all, and the explanation, as shown on Trionfi, I find completely unconvincing.
http://trionfi.com/0/f/08/t1.php

(frames!!! FRAMES!!!! GOD DAMNED FRAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Yeah, frames suck. There are much much better ways to keep the "menu" visible (I think... aren't there?)

This is tricky, but you have to apply yourself to it - if you pull out the weight of the original 14 Bonifacio Bembo cards, you have destroyed HALF at least of the rationale of the 5x14 theory. The other half is the 1457 Ferrara reference. Okay, maybe not half, the other parts constitute a few percentage points of weight too.

All of which Ross, is why I don't believe in the 5 x 14 Theory. I was simply explaining which parts of it seemed "easier to swallow" for me.

When you express your view of what it would take to have the 22 show up in the same way in so many places later... the 5 X 14 is even harder to swallow.

For me, another piece of evidence is to look at the page from Kaplan which shows how many Visconti decks there were, and the variety of numbers in the remaining decks. Are we going to come up with a 5X3 and a 5x6, etc.. theory to explain them as well?

I'll scan that page and add it here, just as a reference.

* As we all also know well,Pico della Mirandola,a qabballist,who denied his Master Marsilio Ficino,was a nephew of Boiardo.(Marsilio was a Neoplatonist ).

-Boiardo was a poet which have jew friends.
So trying both references it is not " outrageous " to suppose that this is the first historical evidence of the "infection" of the Tarot with alien ideas with any historical link.

-So from Count de Mellet to E. Levy we have here a long caravan of deliberated misunderstood ...