Tarot History Forum

Cartes à jouer & tarots de Marseille: La donation Camoin (2004)
is partly online ...
http://books.google.com/books?id=ahuwte ... &q&f=false

I found this note:


Does anybody know, what this note about "1372" is referring to?

As far as I know, it doesn't refer to anything.

The best explanation I can offer is that it is a mistake.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:As far as I know, it doesn't refer to anything.

The best explanation I can offer is that it is a mistake.

Well, it's not a private text, but an exhibition catalog. Perhaps somebody should ask Depaulis or look in the book text, if possible. The passage appears in the opening, a lot of the text isn't shown.

Huck wrote: Well, it's not a private text, but an exhibition catalog. Perhaps somebody should ask Depaulis or look in the book text, if possible. The passage appears in the opening, a lot of the text isn't shown.

I'd be embarrassed to ask him about such an obvious mistake (whether it is due to Ingrid Sénépart, who wrote this article ("Histoire d'une exposition", p. 20), or to the editor(s)), and which he probably had no part in.

"The history of playing cards is an old one, as Theirry Depualis has recounted for us so well. In Marseille, it begins in 1372 with the arrival of the game of naib in the town of Viterbo in Italy, just a few years before the story of Jacques Jean, related by Joseph Billioud and dating from 1381, who promises not to play the game of naib during his voyage from Marseille to Alexandria."

Ingrid Sénépart refers to Thierry's contribution to the catalogue, "Brève histoire des cartes à jouer" (pp. 33-39; also published online at
http://as.de.trefle.free.fr/Histoire_Cartes.htm )-

Page 33 (no reference to Viterbo in paragraph 2)

http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/book ... oire33.jpg

Page 34 (etc...)

http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/book ... oire34.jpg

Thierry doesn't refer to Viterbo at all. She or somebody has simply made an error.

"The history of playing cards is an old one, as Theirry Depualis has recounted for us so well. In Marseille, it begins in 1372 with the arrival of the game of naib in the town of Viterbo in Italy, just a few years before the story of Jacques Jean, related by Joseph Billioud and dating from 1381, who promises not to play the game of naib during his voyage from Marseille to Alexandria."

Maybe it's my stupid French, but I would have translated ...

"The history of playing cards is an old one, as Thierry Depaulis has recounted for us so well. In Marseille, it begins in 1372 with the arrival of the game of naib in the town (which I understood as the mentioned city "Marseille") from (via ... or "through the way of" ) Viterbo in Italy, just a few years before the story of Jacques Jean, related by Joseph Billioud and dating from 1381, who promises not to play the game of naib during his voyage from Marseille to Alexandria."

But, alas, likely you're right.

No, you're right, she says "via" which I missed from translating too quickly (I thought the passage made no sense... I am sure I have dyslexia).

But, it is still a bit shakey, since there is no evidence that the game of cards came from Viterbo to Marseille. The fact that she says "just a few years" (or "a couple of years") also shows 1372 to be a typo or a mistake - 9 years wouldn't be characterized as "just a few years". Or, she implies that 1372 is the earliest Marseille reference.

If Sénépart were a playing card historian and had discovered a reference 1372 in Viterbo, she'd know that the real reference is to 1379 and she had made a real discovery, and would have footnoted it. Likewise with Marseille.

Ah, good, that's there no confusion about French language ... and it's easy to overlook something, it comes from quick reading, which has its advantages in consideration of the mass of information, but occasional errors ...

So, maybe indeed serious enough to request further info, though the probability is still high, that it's just a Coquille, as I've learned in these days (as far I understood this word ... .-) ...) ... maybe there was some talking between the author and Depaulis, and the author thought, she had understood and Depaulis might have never read the text, considering, that he knew everything already.
At least it would be stupid, if it's real and we wouldn't know it.

Huck wrote:that it's just a Coquille, as I've learned in these days (as far I understood this word ... .-) ...)

nearly perfectly as it seems, is is indeed a "typo" - although you shouldn't capitalize it.
I didn't read the thread in details, so sorry if it has been mentionned : the supposed typo happens twice in the same text (page 20 as cited above but also page 19, just before one of the book's many advertisements for the "Camoin-Jodorowsky tarot"), so it is doubtful that it is a typo, and looks like a mistake.

Bertrand