Collected Fragments of Tarot History

Page 4 — 1540 to 1739
Marcolino to Cartomancy

One must get used to the fact—and this will be said time and again—that even now we know precious little of such everyday things as playing cards.
Detlef Hoffmann

1540 Venice, Italy

[IMAGE] “A genuine exception to the rule that fortune-telling with ordinary playing cards is unknown in Europe before the eighteenth century is provided by a book by Francesco Marcolino da Forli entitled Giardino di pensieri and published in Venice in 1540. The book is indeed intended solely to provide a means of foretelling the future by the use of playing cards. It constitutes, however, precisely the sort of exception of which it is said that it proves the rule, since the procedure involved bears scarcely any resemblance to the practice of fortune-telling as we know it.” This is essentially another Losbuch with additional complexities layered into the method: “No symbolic significance is attributed to any individual cards; the cards are used simply as a randomizing device, and in fact, Marcolino’s book had a much less elegant predecessor, the Triompho di Fortuna by Sigismondo Fanti, published in Venice in 1524, which embodies essentially the same idea, save that the enquirer rolls dice instead of drawing cards..” (GT 94-95; K I:28; H 50.) In the preface, Marcolino refers to Trappola, and the deck to be used was a 36-card Trappola deck. (GT 356.) Hargrave wrote, “The cards employed by Marcolini are the king, knight, knave, ten, nine, eight, seven, two, and ace of danari. This work is known to iconophilists for the beauty of its wood cuts, after the designs of Giuseppe Porta and Salviati. Besides the frontispiece it contains ninety-nine wood cuts which are emblematic of the virtues and follies, and of the sayings and doctrines of ancient moralists and philosopners. Under each illustration are explanatory triolets, with miniature cards. A reprint of this book was published in 1784.” See the 1510 Mainz Losbuch entry; and A Timeline of Cartomancy.

1542 Germany

[IMAGE]   Lansquenet (from the German Landsknecht,) is first noted “in the fifth edition of Rabelais’s Gargantua in 1542. Landsknecht, literally ‘country knights’, were German mercenaries who roamed fifteenth and sixteenth-century Europe in quest of short-staffed wars, maidens not yet in distress, and opportunities to play an inane but highly romanticized gambling game with cards. The game itself may have taken its name from the special cards produced for mercenaries, which were small enough to be conveniently carried in a backpack and bore the figure of a Landsknecht for each Jack.” (P 76.) “In their figuration and size, the lansquenet cards correspond to the Italian trappola cards of the fifteenth century. This means that they must have spread to Germany at an early date.” (H 14.)

1543 Strasbourg, Germany

A Losbuch using playing cards for fortune-telling “was issued in Straßburg in 1543, seven year earlier than the second edition of the lotbook by Francesco Marcolino da Forli.” (Christian Hartman, in a post to alt.tarot, citing Hoffman and Manfred Zollinger, Bibliographie der Spielebucher 15-18 Jahrhundert, 1996.)

1543 Venice, Italy

An allegorical dialog based on Tarot cards, by Pietro Aretino, “Les Carte Parlanti, [The Cards Speak] first published in 1543 and sometimes referred to as Part 3 of his Ragionamenti, of which the first two parts are highly pornographic.” It includes information on the names and order of the trumps, and a reference to Minchiate. (GT 338, 390; K I:28.) According to Kaplan, “the supplement dealing with cards—Les Cartes Parlantes—was not actually published until 1589.” Hargrave writes, “There is a curious little vellum-bound book, published in Venice in 1545, The Cards Speak. The interpretation of the suit signs is that swords recall the death of those who have become mad over gaming; batons or clubs, the chastisement that they merit who cheat; coins or denari, the food of gaming; cups, the wine in which disputes of the gamesters are drowned.” (HG 245.)

1543 Basel, Switzerland

“Andrea Alciato, the jurist famous for his Emblem book and the genre it created, gives an early list of the trumps in his 1543 Parergon Juris.” Alciato’s ordering of the trumps, as translated by Ross Caldwell, is the same as that of Vievil’s 1660 deck, with the single discrepancy of reversing the Chariot and Fortitude. This is similar to the 1565 order of Piscina and the 1570 order of Susio, all of which are related to the Belgium Tarot. The 1658 Hautot deck is another related design. This variety of the TdM design shows Temperance with a banner reading FAMA SOL, and has the Hanged Man inverted. These peculiarities could be related to the names Alciato applied to these two cards, Fama and Crux.

1544 Nuremberg, Germany

[IMAGE]   Virgil Solis deck, engraved. No example of the actual cards has survived, but the designs—printed on thin paper—have. They were influential on several later decks, including the suit cards of the 1557 Caitlin Geofroy Tarot deck. “Solis engraved lions, monkeys, parrots, and peacocks on his set of cards. The parrots sit on climbing roses, corresponding to the suit of hearts, the peacocks are set against vine-shoots on which grapes hang, representing the suit of leaves. The lions sit in a cartouche and theirs is the suit of bells. The monkeys perform acrobatics on ornaments which are really artistic, and on the two of this suit there are even inscribed the time-honored letters SPQR.” (K I:132; K II:302; TT 52; H 29.)

1545 Venice, Italy

“A treatise published in Venice states that swords represent death (those ruined by gaming), batons = punishment (for cheating), coins the food of play, and cups the victory toast or the way of settling disputes between players.” (This is the entire entry from Greer & O’Neill.) This appears to be a paraphrase of Hargrave, describing the 1543(1589) Les Cartes Parlantes.

1546 Germany

A Protestant satirical work uses the allegory of Karnöffel to berate the Pope, includes a number of rules of play. The work “takes the form of a dialogue between the Pope and the Devil. From this we learn that neither of the Devil and the Pope beat each other…. …that it is the 2, 3, 4, and 5, and only they, that are called Kaiser….” The cryptic comments are understood by “a knowledge of the nineteenth century Swiss game… we appear to have here the same idea of partial trumps that is found in the Swiss game.” Another Protestant example is from 1537, and earlier, sermons by Bishop Geiler (1496 and 1515) had also used Karnöffel as social allegory.(GT 189.)

1549 Italy

“At the time of the conclave of 1549-50 which elected Julius III, another poem was written in imitation of the earlier one [see 1522 conclave], again describing the cardinals playing tarocchi.” (GT 99.)

c.1550 Europe

“By 1550, the experiments that had proved ephemeral had been abandoned, and the various European types of regular pack had crystallized into more or less their definitive forms.” (GT 26.) See Modern Deck Designs.

1550 Venice, Italy

Flavio Alberti Lollio, Invettiva contra il Giuoco del Taroco. An ironic verse diatribe against the game of Tarot. See The Invettiva of Lollio.

1550 Ferrara, Italy

“An anonymous poem first published by Giulio Bertoni in an essay on Tarocchi versificati in 1917; it describes the ladies of the court of Ferrara, and is dated by Bertoni to between 1520 and 1550, more probably nearer the later date.” It includes information on the names and order of the trumps. (GT 390; K I:30.)

c.1550 Ferrara, Italy

Nine cards, including four trumps, survive from a sixteenth-century Tarot deck, in the Museo delle Arti e Tradizioni Populari in Rome, Italy. The deck included scenes from Orlando Furioso, and is therefore non-standard – comparable to the Rouen deck in the next entry. Both decks are more gracefully executed than the common woodcut decks such as the Metropolitan sheets. (TT 50; K II:287, 288.)

c.1550 Ferrara, Italy

Thirty cards survive from a sixteenth-century Tarot deck, in the Leber Collection in the Municipal Library of Rouen, France. Hand colored with gold and silver highlights, the images are classical figures, but unlike the 1491 Sola Busca trumps, these are identifiable with the standard Tarot subjects. “The pack is obviously non-standard, and is a classicised one: the court figures are labelled with inscriptions in Latin identifying them with characters of classical history (e.g. the King of Coins with Midas, King of theLydians), while the trump cards, although clearly identifiable with the usual subjects, also have Latin inscriptions interpreting them in terms of classical mythology (e.g. the Devil is represented by Pluto and is labelled 'Perditorum Raptor'). The numeral cards are very elaborate, the Batons, in particular, being depicted as whole trees. A complete pack, very closely related to the one at Rouen, but not identical with it, was known to Count Leopoldo Cicognara, and was described by him in his book on playing cards of 1831. He illustrated it by all four Aces and trump card showing Apollo and Cupid, obviously representing the Sun and Love cards. The pack has now disappeared.” (GT 392; TT 50; K I:133; H 20.)

1550 Italy

“The first card effect [magic trick] to be described and explained in print appeared in 1550 in Girolomo Cardano’s De subtiltate. This effect was the location and identification of a selected card. Three methods are mentioned.” (Giobbi.)

1551 Bologna, Italy

Innocentio Ringhieri wrote Cento Giuochi liberali dt d’ingegno. Allegoresis about the magnificent “Game of the King”, allegorizing the four suits in terms of the four virtues. Cups represented Temperance, Columns were Strength, Swords for Justice, and Mirrors representing Prudence. (K I:30; GT 422.)

1553 Paris, France

“In 1533 the Paris printer Charles Etienne referred in his work Paradoxes to the chartes Italianes, desquelles on s‘esbat au ieu appelé le Tarault (Italian cards, with which one engages in the game called Tarot’.” (GT 99, 202.)

1553 Florence, Italy

An anonymous “tarocchi appropriati poem, I Germini sopra Quaranta Meritrice della Città di Fiorenza, published in Florence in 1553” associates each of the forty Minchiate trump cards with a named Florentine courtesan. (GT 339.)

1553 Frankfurt, Germany

Detlef Hoffmann notes that a popular work, “the anonymous Das gross Planetenbuch published at Frankfurt in 1553 (there was an earlier edition, published at Strasbourg in 1546) also omits all mention of cartomancy; Hoffmann refers to an expanded version, Das gross Planetenbuch sampt der Geomancie, Physiognomie und Chiromantie, issued at Erfurt in 1669... and there was a Dutch translation, Het groote Planeet-Boeck, published in Amsterdam in 1684.” (GT 97.)

1557 Lyons, France

[IMAGE]   The Catelin Geoffroy deck was a strikingly variant design, with suits based on the 1544 Virgil Solis deck: Lions, Monkeys, Parrots, and Peacocks. It is the earliest example of the TdM order of the trumps. The peculiar Hanged Man image derives from the iconographic tradition of “Jewish Execution”. The image shows 1515 (left) and 1586 (right) examples of such hangings, along with the Geoffroy trump image in the middle. (TT 52; K I:132; K II:302, 303; H 17, 29.)

c.1560 Austria

“The Hofämterspiel is a late mediaeval deck containing 48 cards, all of which have survived…. the Hofämterspielwas basically inspired by the standard social structure of royal courts during the late Middle Age. The illustrations picture the many different members of a typical household, with their names in archaic German, whence the name Hofämterspiel given to the cards (literally meaning ‘householder’s deck’). Therefore, what makes these cards particularly interesting is not only their intrinsic value for the early history of playing cards, but also the direct evidence they provide for the knowledge of social hierarchy and everyday life in late mediaeval courts.” (Andy’s Playing Cards; H 25.)

1564 Italy

Parlett writes: “The earliest technical details of card games occur in the Liber de ludo aleae (Book on Games of Chance), written in 1564 [although not published for another century] by Girolamo Cardano, a 63-year old Italian scholar and former playboy. This is basically a manual on gambling.… His aim is to help reduce one’s loss of fortune – and time – by showing that outcomes are determined not by a personification of ‘luck’ … but by the rigorous if unpredictable logic of mathematics – not to mention the inexorable logic of cheating, which he also examines in detail. To this end he quotes the probabilities of achieving certain outcomes on the throw of various numbers of dice or turns of cards, and explains how these figures are reached. This entirely novel exercise was performed a century in advance of Pascal, who is normally regarded as the father of probability theory.” Cardano lists many games, and observes, “It is more fitting for the wise man to play at cards than at dice, and at triumphus rather than other games… [for] this is a sort of midway game played with open cards, very similar to the game of Chess.” (P 52-53.) Note that triumphus does not refer to Tarot. Dummett notes that “Cardano included sequentinum Tarochi as one of a number of games he had played.” (GT 99, 356.)

1565 Piedmont, Italy

Francesco Piscina, Discorso sopra l’ordine delle figure de’ Tarocchi, (Oration on the Order of the Tarot Figures), offered an attempt to explicate the meaning of the cards and their sequence. The results were neither plausible nor “in any sense esoteric.” (WPC 33, 267n25, 268n7.) “Speech by Francesco Piscina, Discorso sopra la significatione de’ tarocchi, PC 16:27-36 Biblioteca Fondazione Marazza, Borgomanero. Not a random set of cards--a symbolic system to promote moral living. Magus is an Innkeeper, Hermit a wise counselor, etc.” (This is the entire entry from Greer & O’Neill.)

c.1570 Pavia, Italy

Tarocchi appropriati written by Giambattista Susio associates the trumps with the ladies of the court. It includes information on the names and order of the trumps, specifically the Lombardy sequence of the trumps. The order presented is almost the same as the 1660 Vievil deck. (K I:30; K II:188-189.)

1572 Venice, Italy

Mention of appropriati: “Girolamo Bargagli wrote in 1572 in Dialogo da Giuochi, a brief passage… ‘I saw the game of tarocchi played, and each participant was given the name from a card, and the reasons were stated aloud why each participant had been attributed to such a tarocchi card.” (K I:30.) Cf. following entry.

1575 Venice, Italy

[IMAGE]   “The earliest printed account of the game of tarots is given in a small volume, ‘Dialogo de Givochi che nelle Vegghie Sanesi si usano di fare. Del materiale intronato. All’ illustrissima et eccellentissima Signora Donna Isabella de’ Medici Orsina Duchessa di Bracciano. Appresso Bertano. In Venetia, MDLXXV.” (HG 227.)

1576 France

“In 1576 Pierre de Larivey Champenois composed and published a riddle to which the solution was le iue du Tarot (the game of Tarot).” (GT 100.) This “curious riddle… appears in a French translation of Straparola’s Facetious Nights [Le piacevoli nocci, translated Les facétieuses nuits], although it is nowhere in the original [1553] Italian work.” (M 50.) Straparola “appears to be a pseudonym alluding to the author's verbosity”. The Facetious Nights is a group of 75 tales with a framing story to unite them, like the Arabian Nights, Decameron, or Canterbury Tales. It is a renowned collection of stories, including folk and fairy tales. (Waller Hastings.) Champenois’ riddle was inserted into Night XIII, Tale 7. (GT 100.) In each of four stanzas, it appears that a trick is played in a different suit, and trump subjects appear to be playing the game. For example, the first stanza seems to be about a victorious warrior (the Triumphal Chariot?) losing a trick in Swords. (M 51; GT 202.) The last line appears to suggest that all the figures will be resurrected to die again, by rechef (re-shuffling?) for the next hand.

c.1576 Bristol, England

“The puritanical John Northbrooke of Bristol wrote a sermon about 1576 condemning [playing cards]: ‘The playe at Cardes is an invention of the Deuill, which he founde out that he might the easier bring in Ydolatrie amongst men. For the Kings and Coate cardes that we use nowe were in olde time the ymages of Idols and false Gods: which since they that would seeme Christians have changed into Charlemane, Launcelot, Hector, and such like names, because they woule not seeme to imitate their ydolatrie herein, and yet maintaine the playe it self, the very inuention of Satan, the Deuill, and would disguise this mischief under the cloake of such gaye names.’” Apparently the British were using French cards (cf. 1480) in the sixteenth century. (B 55.) This type of false history of playing cards seems to have been widely known in the 16th century, and derives from De Aleatoribus by Pseudo-Cyprian. The online Catholic Encyclopedia describes it: “A homily (the famous De Aleatoribus) long ascribed by St. Cyprian, but by modern scholars variously attributed to Popes Victor I, Callistus I, and Melchiades, and which undoubtedly is a very early and interesting monument of Christian antiquity, is a vigorous denunciation of gambling.” The work included two key elements, calling dice a snare of the Devil, and comparing it with idolatry. (The 1470 Steele Sermon also makes the charge that dice, cards, and Tarot are tools of the Devil, which was apparently a commonplace.) The term dice was variously interpreted by medieval writers, but although different authorities debated what should be included or excluded from the category, all of them agreed on its use as a generic term. Generally, it appears to have been interpreted as including all gambling activities based on chance (rather than gambling on matters of skill, for example) under that rubric. Even chess, a generally respectable game, was included by some writers. Cf. the 1599 Pierre de la Primaudaye reference for a similar interpretation which explicitly cites Cyprian.

1582 ?

A book by Gosselin (La Signification de l’ancien jeu des chartes pythagorique) associates the four suits with the four elements, in a 52-card French-suited deck. (One Tarot author noted that the term “Pythagorean” in the title is an example of the inflated manner in which the label was used at the time. It was slapped on to anything concerned with numbers to add a false patina of age and wisdom, and cards had numbers.) Franco Pratesi summarized the attributions as follows:
“Firstly, it will be seen, that in a common pack of cards there are four types of characters: which are Tiles, Clovers, Hearts and Pikes. These show us the four Elements, of which all natural things are composed…
— The Tiles, [Diamonds] which are depicted on the cards, signify the earth: for just as the earth sustains all heavy things, so the tiles are used to bear the heavy things placed on top of them.
— The Clovers, [Clubs] which are depicted on the cards, represent water: for the reason that the clover is an herb that flourishes in moist places, and is nourished by means of the water that makes it grow.
— The Hearts, which are depicted on the cards, signifies to us air: since our hearts could not live without air.
— The Pikes, [Spades] which are depicted on the cards, represents to us fire: for just as fire is the most penetrating of the Elements, so the Pikes are very penetrating weapons of war; and with each of the above-said characters are marked thirteen cards in a deck, which gives the sum of fifty-two cards.”
(From a TarotL post by Ross Caldwell; quoted from Franco Pratesi in Jean-Marie Lhôte, Dictionnaire des jeux de Société, note 18 page 652.)

The sidebar Allegorical Games includes a number of other such interpretations of the suit signs. It is interesting to note that this very early attribution of suits to elements differs from either of the popular modern associations, although the ambiguity in matching French and Latin suit-signs confuses the issue. Here is one such comparison.

Attributions of Suit-signs to Elements
1582 Correspondences	Staff as Fire	Staff as Air
Staff/Club/Clover = Water	Staff = Fire	Staff = Air
Sword/Spade/Pike = Fire	Sword = Air	Sword = Fire
Cup/Heart/Heart = Air	Cup = Water	Cup = Water
Coin/Diamond/Tile = Earth	Coin = Earth	Coin = Earth

With regard to the “correct” matching of suit signs, John McLeod has suggested that the practical approach is to look at card games that are played with both Latin and French suited cards, in which the suits are significant, and see what correspondence is used. For example, in Hombre the highest trump is always the ace of swords or spades and the third highest is the ace of batons or clubs (trefoils). Hombre was played with both French and Latin suited cards from at least the 17th century, and therefore the association of those suits is confirmed by something more significant than any symbolic or etymological correspondence. The identification of coins with diamonds also seems to be very strong, based on such considerations.

1584 England

“Although the sixteenth century saw numerous descriptions and explanations of card tricks, the first detailed exposition was in Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, in 1584.” (Giobbi.)

1585 Venice, Italy

An opera by Tomaso Garzoni, La Piazza Universale, mentions Tarot as a common “tavern game”, and “Garzoni describes various personages in association with each of the tarocchi trumps.” It includes information on the names and order of the trumps, making this another of the few early sources for such information. (K I:30; K II:188; H 16.)

1585 Rouen, France

“Tarot cards were being made in Rouen by 1585.” (GT 203.)

1585 France

Thierry Depaulis reported (in the text accompanying Heron’s Le Tarot de Jacques Vieville) on a 1585 poem, Le Triomphe du Berlan, by Jean Perrache. The poem includes multiple references to Tarot which are reminiscent of those used in the 1637 rules. These include expressions such as “seven tarots” (the Tarots par excellance in the 1637 rules) and “the rule of twenty” (cards in excess of twenty per player are discarded at the beginning), as well as use of the word “bagat”. (Alain Bougearel, p.c.)

1588 Germany

Jost Ammon produces his Book of Trades, “a book of fanciful cards with suit marks of printer’s inking balls, wine-pots, drinking cups, and books, with a verse underneath each one.” (Mann 121.) As with the Rabelaisian cards described above (1525 and 1535) these are fully illustrated. “Frolicking fools and dancing couples, fables and a topsy-turvy world are found here too. Amman’s cards also had an influence on the playing cards intended for everyday use. A sheet dated 1595 from the workshop of Heinrich Hauk – the best example of his work known – makes use of ideas originating from Amman.” (H 26; M 121.)

1589 Venice, Italy

Venetian Inquisition records suggest that Tarot’s Devil card was used by witches for Satanic ritual and adoration. (Ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1989, 162.) The use of a playing card for magical (Satanic) purposes is echoed in the 1622 report of Pierre de l'Ancre. (“Jess Karlin”, http://jktarot.com/tarmag16.)

Borrowed Images
Because the Tarot trumps contained a widely-known collection of images, it is to be expected that some other works would borrow from their iconography (just as a variety of works borrowed from the Mantegna cosmograph images). Jacopo Filippo da Bergamo’s conflation of Tarot’s Pope and Popess images to represent Pope Joan in 1497, and Erhard Schoen’s possible adoption of several Tarot images for the 1515 astrological design, are examples of such iconographic borrowings. The 1597 mention of Tarot in the same context as Alciato’s Book of Emblems clearly suggests that by this time the Tarot images might well be considered such a source of images. In the Venetian case above, however, a card itself was apparently adopted for a novel purpose, rather than an artist borrowing the image for a new work.

1591 Zerbst, Germany

“Detlef Hoffmann points out that Caspar Peucer’s Commentarius de praecipuis Diviniationum generibus, Servesta, 1591, makes no mention of cartomancy… The point is an extremely strong one, since Peucer’s book is a painstakingly thorough survey of all known methods of foretelling the future.” The various other editions date back to 1553 in Wittenberg, and include two French translations in 1584, Les Devins ou commentaire des principales sortes de devinations, one published in Lyons and the other in Anvers.” (GT 97.)

1593 Venice, Italy

“In 1593, Horatio Galasso published Giochi di carte bellissimi de regola, e di memoria, in Venice. Rather than describe tricks dependent on slight-of-hand, as Scot [1584] had, Galasso described tricks having as their basis intelligent applications of mathematical principles, including a stacked deck, possibly the first description of this idea. Scot and Galasso thus laid the foundations on which card conjuring would build during the following two centuries.” (Giobbi.)

1594 Paris, France

“…in their statutes of 1594, the master cardmakers of Paris repeatedly referred to their profession as that of cartiers et faiseurs de cartes, tarotz, feulletz et cartons (cardmakers and makers of cards, tarots, leaflets and cardboard.)” (GT 203.)

1597 Lyons, France

[IMAGE] The canonist Pierre Gregoire (Syntagma Juris Universi, Part III, Bk. XXXIX, §4, p. 464) saw vestiges of erudition apparent in Tarot and some other series of images, (probably Alciato’s emblem books which were published by Wechel). “Yet among invented games are ‘pages’, in which, while being played, certain traces of learning are even found, as in Tarots, and in those which are printed together with the sentences of the sacred scriptures and philosophers, by the printer Wechel of Paris. Human desire squanders all the rest, along with those like them, where money comes in the middle, and that desire is going to be felt.” (From a TarotL post by Ross Caldwell, “1597 mention of ‘Tarotiis’ as an ‘erudite’ game”, 9/5/04.) The fact that over a century and a half after Tarot’s invention this writer could discern that vestigia quoque quaedam eruditionis apparent, ut in Tarotiis is particularly noteworthy. Popular writers seemed to find nothing worthy of serious comment in Tarot, and most clerical writers merely ignored Tarot. In a 1612 commentary, Gregoire himself included “cards” along with “characters” and “amulets” as prohibited, in the context of averting evil or other superstitious behavior.

The Emblematic Tradition
The most striking thing about Caldwell’s 1597 quote from Pierre Gregoire is not the use of the Latin form of “Tarot”, nor the fact that the author saw vestiges of erudition in Tarot, although both of those aspects are interesting. The most remarkable thing is that this quote seems to connect Tarot (circa 1600) with the emblematic tradition of Andrea Alciato (Emblematum liber, Augsburg, Steyner, 1531). Wechel published two early versions of the Book of Emblems.

   Emblematum libellus, Paris, Chrétien Wechel, 1534
   Livret des emblemes, Paris, Chrétien Wechel, 1536

While the possibility exists that Wechel also published an actual game, to which Gregoire was referring, it seems more likely that what is being discussed is the game of Tarot, which is compared to the extremely popular books of Wechel. Inventi tamen ludi sunt foliorum, in quibus dum luditur, vestigia quoque quaedam eruditionis apparent, ut in Tarotiis, & iis cum quibus excusae sunt unà sententiae sacrae paginae & philosophorum, apud VVechellum Lutetiae typographum. Caeterum, & illis & similibus abutitur humana cupiditas, dum prodit in medium pecunia, & habendi desiderium.

The impetus behind the emblem format and its appeal were related to the Renaissance fascination with Egyptian hieroglyphs and the idea of pictorial communication, linking symbols directly with Platonic concepts and embodying ideas without the supposed corruption of language. The figments which Renaissance Neoplatonists imagined in ancient signs were in almost every case overblown fantasy analogous to modern interpretations of the Tarot images. Despite that, the relationship in emblem books between image, motto, and text continues to fascinate modern readers. (Alciato links.)

In addition to imposing their elaborate allegorical fantasies on ancient symbols, new images were devised to symbolize complex ideas. These included novel variants and combinations of conventional icons, such as Love, Death, Fortune, the Virtues, Sapientia, Astrology, and so on. Analogies with Tarot are easy to devise, and in this 1597 quote such analogies appear to have documented support: Gregoire seems to have seen at least a generic connection circa 1600. The emblematic tradition, along with the hieroglyphic tradition, were expressions of the kind of symbolism which many modern Tarotists see in the trumps, and the possibility of a connection with the trumps is something that various Tarot authors have mentioned. Although few of the early Tarot images actually appear to be related to this later tradition, (most of them being simple and even iconic images, like the Pope, Love, Death, Fortune, Justice, etc.), some of the more obscure TdM images, when taken in isolation, suggest this kind of symbolic play. An English version of Alciato is online at the Memorial University of Newfoundland site: Alciato’s Book of Emblems

1599 Paris, France

Pierre de la Primaudaye (1546-1620), a Protestant Êcuyer (a gentleman in the employ of a noble) wrote the following in La Philosophie de l'Academie françoise (Paris, Pierre & Jaques Chouët, 1599, p. 163).

“And Saint Cyprien wrote a treatise expressly to show how Christians should hold games of luck and chance in abhorrence, where he says among other things that such games are traps and inventions of the Devil, which he has made in order to put idolatry always in greater usage and recommendation among men. It is noteworthy on this subject that Mercury, who is held to have been the inventor of the pack of cards, had himself painted on them and ordained that for the entry into this pastime, one should sacrifice to him in kissing the card, or pouring out some wine to the honor of his painting. When the Christians received this corruption of idolaters, they only changed the images, in putting those of a King, a Queen and a Valet in place of those of the pagan idols. For this reason we can say that to play such games is to take pleasure in the works of the Devil, and to revive and confirm the ancient idolatry in some manner, instead of abolishing the entire memory of it.”

Ross Caldwell, who reported this reference, noted that Primaudaye “avoids antagonising Catholics directly—he lives in 16th century France after all—but his criticism of ‘idolatry’ reminds us of the Protestant arguments against Catholicism. Catholic authors take a more measured stance with regards to playing cards”. This type of false history of playing cards was apparently widely known in the 16th century, at least among those who were inclined to condemn cards as the invention of the Devil. Cf. the 1576 John Northbrooke sermon. (From a TarotL post by Ross Caldwell, “An early account of a pagan origin for playing cards—1599”, 9/7/04.)

16th c. Spain

[IMAGE]   Ombre began in sixteenth-century Spain as a four-handed game. “The national Spanish game of hombre evidently had its origin in the chivalric age, and in the Spanish pack for playing it there are forty cards. The eights, nines, and tens are left out, and, in accordance with the Oriental custom, there is no queen. Her place is taken by a caballero, or mounted knave…. Because hombre was so often a game à trois, little triangular card tables were made, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, on purpose for playing it.” (HG 249-250.)

16th c. Germany

“The backs of cards began to be printed with a design as far back as the sixteenth century, line patterns printed from the wood block being used at first. Subsequently, the backs were coloured, marbled, or worked over with rollers. There is a link here between the history of fancy paper and the development of the backs of playing cards. Playing cards can be dated from the pattern on the backs, subject to certain qualifications.” (H 9.)

c.1600 Italy

“In the Museo Correr in Venice there is preserved a proper pack of cards—at least as far as the way in which they are made is concerned. The back carries a picture showing two riders, a girl, and a youth, standing at the bank of a river and conversing with a ferryman. On the other side of the cards, there is just a cartouche with one word, such as Water, Air, Earth, and Fire, Virtues and Vices, Money, Peace, Paradise, Beginning, Rome, and Venice. The backs of the cards, which are 47 in number and must date from the end of the sixteenth century, are printed from a wooden block but the tops are written and drawn with a pen. This is a social game, like that known by the name of ‘Continental Conversation Cards’ in the England of the eighteenth century. The cards provide a stimulus for profound discussions between educated people and this could easily have been the case with the tarots of Mantegna.” (H 19-20.)

1602 Vicenza, Italy

“In the Musée de Hal at Brussels are the first double-headed cards known. Surprisingly enough, they have Italian suit signs. The king of batons bears a round escutcheon, on which is a two-headed eagle and the words ‘Carte da Giuoco.’On the two of swords is ‘Fabrica di Gaetano Salvotti in Vicenza sul Corso, 1602’” (HG 245.) This error in dating derives from Romain Merlin’s 1869 Origine des cartes à jouer. The deck actually dates from the second half of the nineteenth century—“[Sylvia Mann] has drawn attention to the fact that 1602 is to be regarded as the house number of the cardmaker. This assumption is confirmed by the duty stamp from the second half of the 19th century which is to be seen on the pack illustrated by Merlin. (H 13.) Double-headed cards apparently originated in the later part of the eighteenth century, and double-headed Tarot decks were known by 1780. (GT 27.)

1603 Sulzbach, Germany

[IMAGE]   “A Geistlich-Teutsches Kartenspiel (A Clerical German Card Game) which was first published in 1603, also proves that every playing card can provide a stimulus for a pious thought…” “The pictures are not always so subtle… the deuce, marked on all cards with a pig, provides the opportunity for comparison with the ‘Jewish people in the New Testament.’ The deuce of bells depicts the slaughtering of a pig, the Jewish pig, with the caption ‘What it deserved’.” (H 40; HG 106-107.)

1610 France

“Some are devoted particularly to the service of God; others to the preservation of the State by arms; still others to the task of feeding and maintaining it by peaceful labors. These are our three orders or estates general of France, the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Third Estate.

“This statement is amont those which open the Traité des Ordres et Simples Dignitez published in 1610 by the Parisian Charles Loyseau, a work immediately recognized as highly useful and continually reissued throughout the seventeenth century. These words serve to define the social order, i.e., the political order, i.e., order itself. Here we are confronted with three ‘estates’, three fixed and stable categories, three levels of a hierarchy…. The members of the highest order turn their attention heavenwards, while those of the other two look to the earth.” See The Three Estates. (Georges Duby, The Three Orders, 1.)

1612 Lyon, France

The canonist Pierre Gregoire created a compendium of papal and conciliar pronouncements and Church law, “Iuris Pontifici”. In the Chapter on Sortilege, in a commentary to article XII from the first council of Rome (in 722) under Pope Gregory II, Gregoire included “cards” along with “characters” and “other types of amulets for averting evils, or any other thing which is done superstitiously”. This was in the context of proscribing magical practices performed pursuant to visiting a fortune teller. “If anyone has heeded or consulted diviners, soothsayers, or enchanters, or used phylacteries, let him be anathema.”

The commentary may not refer to cards being used for divination, but rather to the use of amulets, incantations, etc., i.e., magical practice “heeding” the advice of diviners, soothsayers, or enchanters, or even consulting them. The reference to “cards” might refer to playing cards, or perhaps to some other form of card used as a magical object. Conversely, it may well refer to divination using cards, (possibly via lot books), which appears to be the clear meaning of the 1620 French reference. (Ross Caldwell post to the mailing list TarotL, 12/31/03: A Few Other Non-gaming References.) Gregoire noted in a 1597 work that vestiges of erudition were apparent in Tarot, indicating that he saw more than just the negative side of playing cards.

1616 Venice, Italy

Labyrinth game designed by Andrea Ghisi. Many of the images for this philosophical game were taken from the 1470 “Mantegna” series. Hargrave cites this as yet “another early volume on divination”, which is consistent with her fondness for such interpretation. (HG 244; K II:302, 304-306.) See The “Mantegna” Cosmograph.

1619 England

Robert Fludd publishes Utriusque Macrocosmi et Microcosmi Historia, an exhaustive compendium of occult science, with no mention of Tarot, nor regular cards.

1620 Paris, France

A manual for priests and penitents included the following: “‘He sins mortally who asks, or is willing to ask, charlatans or diviners about a lost object or some other secret: or else tries to know the same thing by lots, rolling dice, cards, books, a sieve, or an astrolabe...’ Martin de Azpilcueta, Enchiridion sive Manuale Confessariorum et Poenitentium (Paris, François Huby, 1620): c. XI, note 30 (p. 191). Martin de Azpilcueta died in 1586, and this book is a translation into Latin of an original Spanish edition from 1556 Compendio del Manual de Confessores. It remains to be seen if the Spanish edition speaks of cards, and how.”

This is a clear condemnation of playing cards for reasons beyond their use in gaming, specifically their use in divination. It probably refers to their use with lot books. (As an aside, a form of divination practiced with a sieve is known as coscinomancy.) This item is very reminiscent of the 1612 comments of Pierre Gregoire. Both references were discovered by Ross Caldwell. (Ross Caldwell post to the mailing list TarotL, 09/02/04:
An early mention of divination with cards: 1620.)

1622 France

Pierre de l'Ancre, in L'Incredulité et mescreance du sortilege plainement convaincue, reported the story of a man who “had uncovered the holy Ciborium in the Church of the Holy Saviour in Blaye… who exhibited before the Judges a promise that the Devil had made him make on a Two of Hearts, which he had kept for a long time as being for the Judges: which shows us that the Devil had chosen this card to mark that he would not have two hearts to serve two masters.” (Ross Caldwell, posted to the mailing list TarotL, 12/31/03: A Few Other Non-gaming References.) Such an ad hoc use of a playing card for magical purposes is in keeping with the more obvious use of the Tarot Devil card by Venetian witches in 1589. A second item from the same 1622 source follows.

“Pierre del’Ancre [?] publica L’incredulité et mescréance du sortilege plainement convaincue…, en donde hace esta pueril referencia a la cartomancia: «es una forma de adivinación de ciertas personas que toman las imágenes y las ponen en presencia de determinados demonios o espíritus que ellos han convocado, a fin de que estas imágenes les instruyan sobre las cosas que ellos desean saber». Las carticellas educativas se habían metamo rfoseado en naipes de juego, y éstos devenían el más flamante y popular de los métodos adivinatorios. [?]” (This is the entire entry from Greer & O’Neill.)

A translation of the 1622 quote is provided in Greer: “It is a type of divination of certain people who take the images and place them in the presence of certain demons or spirits which they have summoned, so that those images will instruct them on the things that they want to know.” (Greer, 279) In the absence of further explanation, the framing context of “cartomancy” and “cards” appears to be not only anonymous but anachronistic speculation appended to the reported necromancy. The only source I located for this framing context was http://www.tarot.com.ar/histo.htm, a Spanish-language Web page full of Tarot legends and speculation. However, the magical use of cards during this era is documented in both the previous item from de l’Ancre and the 1589 Italian reference.

Pierre de l’Ancre (1553–1631) was a French judge (a devoted witch hunter) in the Basque area. Among other spectacular items from his 1610 book (on angels, demons, and sorcerers), he claimed to have personally witnessed a witches’ Sabbath, and reported on it: “See here the guests of the Assembly, each one with a demon beside her, and know that at this banquet are served no other meats than carrion, the flesh of those that have been hanged, the hearts of children not baptized, and other unclean animals strange to the custom and usage of Christian people, the whole savourless and without salt.” Such a witness is not entirely credible, and he appears to make no reference to cards in the Greer & O’Neill quote. However, I include this entry because Greer and O’Neill found it worth citing—without any caveat—in their brief survey of non-gaming uses of Tarot, and worth repeating in Greer’s later book.

1625 Spain

An allegory about a game of Hombre, “in 1625, a remarkably detailed auto sacramental, or mystery play, in which Christ and the World play against Death and the Devil.” This has a striking similarity to the eschatological design of Tarot, with its triumphs over the Devil and Death by the World, the Tarot card which (in TdM) shows Christ. (P 200, from a journal article by Thierry Depaulis.)

1626 Haarlem, Netherlands

[IMAGE] An engraving by Jan van de Velde II shows a sorceress (Desire) conjuring demons (Evils) of vice: smoking, drinking, and gambling. “What evils desire commands, in the small secluded place; who, by sweet incantation, overcomes the minds of the purest mortals, induces frenzy in everyone! But how quickly it slips by; Death overtakes brief life, brief delights. Laughing for a moment, in eternity suffering regret.” (The engraving was pointed out by Mary Greer; the text was translated by Ross Caldwell.)

1634 Paris, France

A book on divination with dice, “Le Passetemps de la Fortune des Dez was published at Paris in 1634. It is a calf-bound volume with the arms of its original owner stamped in gold in the center of both covers. There is a greeting to the reader in the form of a rondeau, and at the end of the book the Biblical prophets are explained in a long series of couplets. The space between explains all possible combinations of throws, and also pictures in full-page engravings the signs of the zodiac, with most interesting decorative work all around them, evidently deeply and darkly symbolic.” (HG 77.)

1637 Nevers, France

The earliest surviving Rules of Tarot. Regles Dv Ieu Des Tarots Règle du Tarot. “This anonymous pamphlet can be assigned to Abbé Michel de Marolles who wrote it and had it printed at Nevers in 1637.” A 1585 literary source includes references to Tarot that are very similar to some rules and expressions found in this document. That quote, and the rules in French, are on the Web at http://members.pgv.at/homer/tarock/depaulis.htm.

1644 Paris, France

“Thomas Murner [cf. 1502, 1507] has a second and very much more illustrious imitator –Monsieur Desmarests, who developed four packs of cards which were to be of assistance to Hardouin de Perefix, the Archbishop of Paris, in the instruction of the Dauphin. The etchings were made by Stefano della Bella. When Louis XIV was six years old, in 1644, he was given the four games of Les Roys de France,Les Reines renommees, La Geographie, and Les Metamorphoses, which is also known as Les Fables. The cards were made as separate packs and were sold by Henry le Gras. Later, in 1698, the cards were also published in a leatherbound volume. Della Bella’s cards have been imitated time and time again, and it would take a whole book just to record the states and changes through which these packs have passed.” Endless educational and commemorative decks were created in the seventeenth century and later. (H 38.)

1647 Rouen, France

One of the first instruction books for cards, Le Royal Ieu du Piquet plaisant et recreatif described Piquet. The text was later incorporated into other rule books, including the Maison academique des jeux. (P 53.)

c.1650 Paris, France

A complete 78-card deck, the so-called “Parisian Tarot” may date to the early part of the seventeenth century. “The pack is linked to Vievil’s [c.1660] by having exactly the same back design…”, and by its similarities to the Belgium Tarot pattern. “The designs of the court cards and trumps have, for the most part, no particular resemblance to those of any known standard pattern.” (GT 207-208; K I:135-136; K II:310-311.)

Sic Transit…
“A million is probably a highly conservative estimate of the number of Tarot packs produced in France during the seventeenth century….” Only a handful have survived in whole or part. (GT 205.)

1652 London, England

William Rowland, in Judiciall astrologie, judicially condemned, (1652) tells of Henry Cuffe, (1563-1601), secretary to the Earl of Essex, who had his death foretold twenty years in advance of the fact. Since Cuffe was executed in 1601, the incident allegedly dates from 1581, when he would have been 18 years old. The basis for the initial prediction is apparently not stated. However, when Cuffe asked for details, the fortune-teller had him draw three cards. The cards drawn were three knaves or jacks. Apparently Cuffe was instructed to interpret the meaning of the cards. The first knave Cuffe interpreted as himself. The second knave he interpreted as the judge who would sentence him. The third knave he interpreted as the hangman who would execute him. “Knaves one and all” appears to be the point of the mildly clever anecdote. Obvious details were invented to embellish each interpretation, such as Cuffe being surrounded by armed men and the hangman being at Tyburn.

Henry Cuffe and the Three Knaves
Henry Cuffe was the private secretary and close friend of the Earl of Essex. In 1601 Cuffe persuaded Essex to take overthrow the Queen. The plot, discussed in most histories of the era, ended with Cuffe hanging at Tyburn (a name synonymous with execution) in London.

Mary Greer has pointed out that the Rev. Edwin S. Taylor, (History of Playing Cards, 1865), claimed the cards used must have been Tarot trumps, specifically the Devil, Justice and the Hanged Man. Such unsupported speculation, and its continued repetition more than a century later, are typical. However, there is no reason to think that Tarot was used for fortune telling this early; there is no reason to think that Tarot was even being played as a game in England; there is no reasonable connection between the descriptions and the Tarot cards; and the cards are named, “three knaves”. It seems likely that “three knaves” refers to three knaves, i.e., jacks, and that the reported details simply reflect the manner in which the cards were interpreted. Kaplan and WPC note that Taylor is “practically a translation of an earlier work by P. Boiteau D’Ambly.” (K I:373.) “Boiteau was not an occultist, but a scholar with serious intentions; but he had been influenced by Court de Gebelin and by Etteilla, to both of whom he refers extensively, and he supposed the Tarot pack to have been originally invented for fortune-telling.” (WPC 214-215.) As David Parlett summarized the problem, the use of a text such as Taylor, “over a century out of date has had the unfortunate effect of misleading the unwary, especially journalists and occultists, into perpetuating notions of the subject that have since been thoroughly discredited.”

Despite the fact that there is no reason for associating the Rowland account with Tarot, and despite the fact that there is only a clever turn of phrase involved in the interpretation (the charm of it derives from Cuffe, his judge, and his executioner being equally identified as knaves, a sardonic social comment which was no doubt the primary point of the story prior to Rowland’s use of it), it is nonetheless a mid-17th century description of fortune-telling with cards outside the use of lot books. Although it does not suggest any divinatory meaning associated with the cards, it may be the earliest existing reference to cards themselves used for fortune-telling, rather than as a randomizing device for lot books. In 1864, one year before Taylor, Cuffe’s tale was recounted in R. Chambers’ two-volume Book of Days. In the entry for February 21 (pp.280-284) Chambers included an extended "Notes on English Cartomancy" section.

1654 Paris, France

The first edition of La Maison academique, with rules for various games including some card games. (P 53.)

1656 England

[IMAGE]   “During the troubled years succeeding the fall of Charles, the demand for cards could not have been great. There is a curious little alphabet game of this time, each card having two rows of letters upon it and through the space in the middle runs a couplet, such as

   Od cypherd year are Leap yr. never
   Even cyphered yr. are Leap yr. ever.

The usual suit signs are placed diagonally on each card, and its value designated by Roman numerals, while the court cards and aces are marked by the letters L, C, D, and M. It is hard to tell whether they are meant for a children’s game or as a sort of ecclesiastical calendar, which many of the couplets seem to imply. They are probably the Scholer’s Practicall Cards published by F. Jackson, M.A., in 1656. A little book of instructions tells how to spell, write, cipher, and cast accounts by means of the cards. Several games might also be played with them, among them Saunt, an early English name for piquet.” (HG 172-3.)

1658 Rouen, France

The Adam C. de Hautot deck “is almost complete [71 cards], and contains all the trumps. Save for certain details, it conforms precisely to the pattern later found in Belgium.” The de Hautot family made cards in Rouen from the middle of the seventeenth century, and “an A. de Hautot was a founder member of the confrerie (charitable association) of cardmakers established in 1658.” Dummett suggests that the deck was made in the second half of the seventeenth century. Kaplan suggests the first half of the eighteenth century. (GT 208; K II:320, 323.)

1659 Paris, France

Rules of Tarot were included in a collection of gaming rules, one of several later editions of La Maison academique, renamed La Maison des jeux academique. It “describes several French versions and one Swiss one.” (GT 195; P 53.)

c.1660 London, England

“John Lenthall, and his successors, published and sold playing cards for many years, probably beginning in the early 1660s and… continuing until at least 1717.” At one point, Lenthall produced specialty cards in 40 different categories, #18 of which was fortune telling. The so-called “Lenthall fortune-telling deck” is sometimes dated to the 1660s, but apparently it was created by Dorman Newman in 1690, and later published by Lenthall’s firm. (Mann 134-150; WPC 47-48; HG 172.)

1660 England

[IMAGE]   “Hombre entered England with the return of king and cavaliers from foreign parts in 1660, as suggested by a political tract of that year metaphorically entitled The Royal Game of Ombre. Catherine of Braganca, Charles II's wife from 1662, was a keen player, as were so many denizens of high society that by the end of the year Parliament had proposed to pass an Act against the laying of Ombre, or at least to limit the stakes to £5, a proposition ‘received with ridicult’…. The year 1662 also sees the first published description in English of ‘The Noble Spanish Game, called l’Ombre’ in Cotgrave’s The Wits Interpreter, later plagiarized in Cotton’s Complete Gamester.” (P 199; HG 249-50.)

c.1660 Paris, France

A complete 78-card deck by Jacques Vievil, with aberrant iconography and order, also has a narrative gloss on the Trumps. Many features are reminiscent of Belgium decks, so Vievil provides an important link in the evolution and spread of Tarot. (K II:307, 308; GT 205-207.)

c.1660 Paris, France

Seventy-three cards survive from Jean Noblet’s deck. “Two documents of 1659 cite Jean Noblet, maitre-cartier (master cardmaker), living… in Paris. D’Allemangne indicated that Noblet’s name is to be found on a list of cardmakers in 1664, and Jacques Vieville’s name is on the same list.” (K II:307, 309.) The trumps can be seen at http://www.tarot-history.com.

Trionfi da Milano
The iconography of the Noblet Sun and World cards matches closely with that of the corresponding cards from Sforza Castle. The Sforza Sun card is one of a group of three cards: “Sylvia Mann, according to Michael Dummett, dated [this group of] cards circa 1700 due to the back designs, which are borderless and do not fold over the fronts of the cards.” The Sforza World card is one of a group of six which, according to Kaplan, were dated by Francesco Novati to the late sixteenth century. The ancestor of the TdM pattern (sans number and title panels) came from Milan circa 1500, so it seems plausible that the Sforza Castle cards and the Noblet deck might both be rather direct descendants (100-200 years removed) of the same elusive Milanese ancestor—of which we have no surviving example. If that is the case, it would mean the French copied the iconography of that early Trionfi da Milano pattern precisely, and the only changes were adding the number and title panels. (K II:293, 296.)

1663 Rome/Sicily

“On [the Marchese di] Villabianca’s testimony, the 78-card pack was introduced into Sicily by the Viceroy in 1663. Since the Minchiate pack was, according to him, introduced at the same time, it must have been in Florence or in Rome that the Viceroy had become acquainted with these games, and he is much more likely to have visited Rome than Florence.” (GT 413.) Among the many oddities of the modern Sicilian Tarot deck and game, it is Portuguese-suited, and shortened. “From the Coins suit, the 2 and 3 are omitted; from the other three suits, there are omitted the Ace, 2, 3, and 4.” In all four suits, the lowest court card is called a Maid, Donna. A card referred to as la Miseria is the lowest trump, beneath the Bagotti, and other strange things appear in the trump series. (GT 371ff.)

— il Fuggitivo (the Fugitive, i.e., the Fool)
— la Miseria (Destitution)
 1 - i Bagotti or i Picciotti
 2 - the Empress
 3 - the Emperor
 4 - la Costanza (Constancy)
 5 - Temperance
 6 - Fortitude
 7 - Justice
 8 - Love
 9 - the Chariot
10 - the Wheel of Fortune
11 - the Hanged Man
12 - the Hermit
13 - Death
14 - il Vascello (the Ship)
15 - la Torre (the Tower)
16 - la Stella (the Star)
17 - la Luna (the Moon)
18 - il Sole (the Sun)
19 - il Palla (the Globe) or l’Atlante (Atlas)
20 - Giove (Jupiter)

1664 Bologna, Italy

“The earliest pack that can for certain be identified as a Tarocco Bolognese pack is the copper-engraved pack specially designed for the Bentivoglio family by Gioseppe Maria Mitelli in 1664. Mitelli’s pack is completely non-standard; the numeral cards of Batons and, more particularly, of Swords have a certain general resemblance to those of the anonymous seventeenth-century Parisian Tarot pack, and, in the Swords suit only, to the Leber tarocchi…. [This pattern] can be very clearly recognised from the two sheets, in the Rothschild Collection at the Louve and in the École des Beaux Arts.” (GT 315.)

1666 Antwerp, Belgium

[IMAGE]   “There is a fat little book, five hundred and twenty-eight pages thick, ‘The Spiritual Card Game with Hearts Trumps, or The Game of Love, by the Reverend Father Joseph of St. Barbara, a barefoot Carmelite. Illustrated and adorned with many copper plates. The Third Edition. Antwerp.’ There is a dedication, followed by six ecclesiastical approvals, dated 1666.

“There is an engraved title-page and full-page engravings of the thirteen cards of the heart suit. There is more of symbolism in this game of the good Flemish father than is found in similar German games, and there is the gentleness and the reverence of a Fra Angelico in the pictured designs. The king shows saints and the great of the earth, kneeling before God the Father; the queen shows two saints in adoration before Mary, the Queen of Heaven; the knave shows the rich and mighty before the throne of the crucified Christ. The ten shows Moses with the Ten Commandments, each one a heart upon the tables of stone; the nine shows nine choirs of angels; the eight pictures eight Christian virtues; the seven, seven works of mercy; the six, the goals to be striven for in human life; the five, the wounds of Christ; the four, the last ends, being the death and the ordeal, hell, and heaven. The three pictures the Holy family; the two, the worship of God the Father and Mary the Mother; and the one, the Truth which must be in a Christian Heart.” (HG 161.) Cf. the 1778 moralization, The Soldier’s Prayer-Book, and the sidebar on Allegorical Games.

1668 Bologna, Italy

“…in 1668 there was written an unpublished tarocchi appropriati poem in which various ladies of Bologna were identified with the Tarocco trumps, and another one about the same time relating to the canons of S. Pietro.” (GT 317.)

1669 Lyon, France

Claude François Menestrier (cf. 1704) wrote Traite des Tournois, Iovstes, Carrovsels, et Avtres Spectacles Pvblics, published by Jacques Muguet. The book was an “exhaustive study on public spectacle and its symbolism, the first of its kind. Menestrier, a member of the Jesuit order, published widely on the arts, ballet, music, and design. He was arguably the foremost scholar of his century in the field of allegory, emblems, devices, and their use. His interest in public festivals and ceremonies resulting in his organizing several events—including the spectacular celebration for Louis XIV’s visit to Lyon in 1658 (mentioned here in his Letter to the Reader). In this work, which took 15 years to complete, Menestrier unravels the complex symbolism of tournaments, jousts, pageants, masques, balls, and the like. He illustrates his research with detailed descriptions of elaborate festivities staged in the seventeenth century throughout Europe, including a naval display on the Thames in 1613. ‘An important part is also devoted to the carrousels and fêtes in which horses took part, and a special chapter deals with horses engaged in these fêtes (Toole-Stott).’ The pictorial, engraved chapter headings depict scenes or precessions in several of the pageants. §Toole-Stott 10491.” (Entry from an online sales catalog; a first edition was listed for $1,800.)

1672 Marseilles, France

The deck by François Chosson, dated in Kaplan v.II to 1672, is more likely from the second quarter of the eighteenth century. See the 1734 entry.

1672

“A book in Latin on Occult Sciences written by Schwabergen, ‘in which he shews that in addition there are favorable hours, and that no divinatory operations (whether by cards or otherwise) should be undertaken when it is too foggy, stormy, raining or windy. A calm sky appears to him an essential condition.’” (Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL. No source was cited for the quote, nor any indication of the context of the parenthetical comment regarding cards.)

1674 London, England

[IMAGE]   “The first English book entirely devoted to indoor games, The Compleat Gamester, was published anonymously in 1674. A later editor ([Richard] Seymour) plausibly ascribes its authorship to Charles Cotton: the title is evidently modeled on Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, of which Cotton himself produced a greatly expanded edition in 1668. It is a strange mixture of plagiarism and originality. The opening chapter… had already appeared as a pamphlet entitled, The Nicker Nicked: Or the Cheate of Gaming discovered (1669); and such card games as had already appeared in [John Cotgrave’s] Wits Interpreter were merely copied out for retransmission, not always accurately. (The chapter on Piquet, therefore, goes back to the French booklet of 1647.) To these, however, Cotton added a number of other card games, some unknown from any other context, which he evidently wrote himself. A change of style is discernible after the four chapters lifted from Cotgrave.” (P 56; HG 205-6.)

1690 London, England

[IMAGE]   A deck of 52 fortune-telling cards, by Dorman Newman. “The plates for [the Dorman Newman] pack were later taken over by the cardmaker John Lenthall, who made new ones for some of the cards.” Lenthall’s name is generally attached to this deck, which appears to be the first known divinatory deck. “What we have here is essentially the transference of the method of Marcolino’s book to a pack of cards, since the questions and answers, and, in clue form, the intermediate instructions, are printed on the cards themselves. This represents a step towards the practice of fortune-telling with ordinary playing cards, in that it liberates the user from having to consult a book.” (GT 96; WPC 47-48.)

Ancient “Egyptian” Fortune-Telling “Cards”
The Dorman Newman deck is not a deck of playing cards, but a deck of fortune-telling cards modeled after playing cards. Fortunes written on various items which could be selected randomly have been used as oracles in different cultures. The use of playing cards for this purpose seems natural, and the only surprise is that it apparently took so long to develop. Fortune-telling with regular playing cards, (other than as a randomizing device for lot books or special fortune-telling decks), apparently began to emerge a few decades after the development of fortune-telling cards like Newman’s, and by the end of the eighteenth century cartomancy as we know it, with both regular playing cards and with Tarot, had become well established. However, an interesting parallel with the fortune-telling cards comes from a very different time and place, centuries before playing cards were invented. This is documented in the Papyri Graecae Magicae. John Opsopaus offers the following account.

Method of 29 Letters for Receiving an Omen
"Great is the Lady Isis!" Copy of a Holy Book found in the Archives of Hermes: The Method is that concerning The 29 Letters [of the Coptic alphabet], through which Letters Hermes and Isis, who was seeking Osiris, Her Brother and Husband, found Him. Call upon Helios and all the Gods in the Deep concerning Those Things for which you want to receive an Omen. Take 29 Leaves of a Male Date Palm and write on each of the Leaves the Names of the Gods. Pray and then pick them up Two By Two. Read the Last Remaining Leaf and you will find your Omen, how things are, and you will be answered clearly.

Selections from Papyri Graecae Magicae, by John Opsopaus.

c.1690 Bologna, Italy

According to Dummett, “to judge from the Bubliothèque Nationale pack and from a single-ended one made after 1725 in the British Museum, there must, around the period 1690-1730, been a custom of replacing the Jacks of the Cups and Coins suits by Maids. They subsequently disappeared, however; and since they do not figure in Mitelli’s pack of 1664, and accounts of the game published in 1753 and 1754 refer only to Fanti (Jacks) and not to Fantine or the like, the period when the pack had this feature must have been relatively brief; in any case, it is not wholly without precedent (the Minchiate pack has Maids in these two suits), and little importance should be attached to it.” (GT 316.)

1701 Lyon, France

“From at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, French cardmakers were exporting Tarot packs to Savoy, then an independent state comprising Piedmont as well as Savoy proper, which became part of France only in 1880. Probably the earliest surviving pack of this kind is one made by Jean Dodal of Lyons, who was active there from 1701 to 1715…. The type of design which it exemplifies is a slight variant on the celebrated standard pattern known as the Tarot de Marseille, and is ancestral to the modern Tarocco Piemontese.” (See 1736.) The modern Carta Mundi TdM appears to be based on this deck. (GT 196.) The trumps can be seen at http://www.tarot-history.com.

1703

“Advertisement in The Post-Man (No. 1223) of Thursday, Dec. 30: ‘New Cards, viz.:—1, Diverting and innocent Fortune-telling Cards.’” (Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL.)

1704

“Advertisement in the Post-Man (No. 1362) from Saturday, Dec. 30: ‘Queen Anne’s Cards… at… where are also to be had Fortune-telling Cards at 1s. a Pack.” Both ads “emanated from Samuel Fullwood, a card-maker of some repute.’” (Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL.)

1704 Lyon, France

Jesuit Claude François Menestrier (cf. 1669) interpreted the four suits as social allegories. “Hearts represented men of the Church, Diamonds the Merchants, Clubs were the symbols of Peasantry, and Spades that of the ‘Noblesse d’epee’. …these meanings were familiar to Court de Gebelin and the comte de Mellet.” (WPC 75.) “Court cards, he says, represent the nobility, hearts the ecclesiastics, their place being in the c(h)oeur, (‘choir’), Pikes, (spades) represent the nobility, carreaux (paving-tiles) the bourgeoisie, and trefoils the peasantry.” (P 176; WPC 75.)

1709 Dijon, France

Pierre Madenie deck, in the Chosson style. (K II:314-315.)

1713 Avignon, France

Jean-Pierre Payen deck, in the Dodal style. (K I:148; K II:316, 321.)

1718 Soleure, Switzerland

François Heri deck, in the Chosson style. (K II:314, 317.)

c.1718 Soleure, Switzerland

François Heri deck, in the Noblet style. (K II:314, 318.)

1719 Holland

[IMAGE]   Holland produced many satirical decks in the eighteenth century. “The earliest of these pictorial series is a satire on the Papacy…. All of the papal scandals are raked up and pictured, so that the use of the cards was forbidden to all good Catholics, and all possible copies were burned by the command of Rome. The subjects begin in the heart suit and are continued through the diamonds, clubs, and spades, thought they do not follow in exact chronological sequence. Pope Joan is on the three of hearts, Luther and Calvin are in the club suit, and the spades tells the story of Pasquier Quesnel of Amsterdam, against whom Clement XI issued a bull because of his heresies. The little cards are contemporary with these stirring events, which accounts for the great interest in the episode.”

1725 Bologna, Italy

“In 1725 an absurd event led to a change in the Bolognese tarot pack. Luigi Montieri, a canon, produced a geographical and heraldic tarot pack, which outraged papal authorities by the description, on one card, of Bologna as having a governo misto [mixed government]. Montieri and others concerned with the publication of the pack were arrested. However the papal authorities soon realized that to proceed with the case would cause great indignation in Bologna. Accordingly, they dropped their original objection and professed instead objection to the figures of the pope, popess, emperor, and empress, ordering them to be replaced by four Moors. This was done not only in Montieri’s pack but in all subsequent Bolognese packs.” (Michael Dummett, “Tracing the Tarot”, FMR, Jan/Feb 1985; GT 84-85, 318-319.) Montieri also objected to the Angel (Last Resurrection) card, and demanded it be replaced with a Dama or Lady. “Bologna was then in the Papal States, but, under an agreement of 1447, enjoyed considerable autonomy. What annoyed the Roman authorities was that, in the list of forms of government given on the Matto, Bologna was cites as having a ‘mixed’ government.” The four Papi were replaced with four Moors, but the Angel was not replaced. “Presumably, with the affront to Papal dignity thus allayed, there was felt to be no need to press the objection to the depiction of a sacred subject on the Angelo.” (GT 319-320, 378.)

Tarot Defrocked
Occultists, New-Age authors, and neo-Pagans have sometimes claimed that the existence of obviously Christian emblems in the Tarot trumps was not part of the original design, but rather the result of a later redaction in which the Egyptian, Cabalistic, Pagan, heretical, or other supposed original content was suppressed and supplanted. In fact, just the opposite evolution took place. Almost from the beginning, the Christian allegory of the Tarot trumps was deemed inappropriate for a card game. In the Steele Sermon, (1450 -1480?) the author complains bitterly about the inclusion of “the Emperor [a Christian figure] and the Pope, the cardinal virtues [Christian values], the planets, the angels and (he claims) even God himself are made to enter into the game (in ludum intrare).” (GT 98.) Gaming in general was a vice—note that most early references to cards were prohibitions—and a game which included the Pope, the dangerously ambiguous Popess, and clear references to the End Times was inherently blasphemous to some ecclesiatical authorities. Over time, more and more decks removed the offending cards.

“What passed without offence in the ribald era of the Renaissance was no longer so readily acceptable. From the Leber Collection pack, from Aretino’s dialogue and from many poems we known that the Pope and Popess continued to figure in the 78-card Tarocco pack; their omission from the [1520s] Minchiate pack, however, was the first instance of a piece of tact or caution that was often repeated elsewhere, and it is probable that by the late seventeenth century they had ceased to adorn playing cards anywhere save in France, the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland, and, of course, Bologna. Perhaps it was more a matter of proximity to Rome, for in Rome itself and throughout the Papal States (except in Bologna) it was Minchiate that, among the games of the Tarot family, became preeminently popular.” (GT 338.) Apparently the most commonly offensive cards were the Popess, Pope, Devil, Tower, Angel, and World. One story (1760) even suggests that a Czechoslovakian cardmaker was beheaded for the perceived “satire” inherent in the Lombardy pattern.

1732 Amsterdam, Netherlands

“[Romain] Merlin adds that Pierre Richlet’s Dictionnaire de la langue francaise, new enlarged edition, Amsterdam, 1732, fails to list cartomancie, although astrologie, chiromancie, geomancie, and necromancie are all defined.” (GT 97.)

c.1734 Marseilles, France

A complete 78-card deck by François Chosson appears to bear the date 1672, which would make it the earliest extant version of the most common modern TdM design. However, the earliest recorded Marseilles cardmaker by that name worked in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, and therefore the deck (although not necessarily the design) probably dates from that period. This design, referred to by Thierry Depaulis as “TdM II”, is the same as the 1718 Heri deck, as well as for the famous and influential 1760 Conver deck, which followed Chosson in exact detail. Modern TdM decks by Fournier and Grimaud reflect this design. (K II:310, 312; Depaulis p.c.)

1735 England

“The Square of Sevens, and the Parallelogram’ by Robert Antrobus, a system of cartomancy as taught to the author by a Gypsy, Mr. George X---. (published in London, but most copies burned in a fire) - known only through an 1896 edition edited by E. Irenaeus Stevenson (original may be apocryphal).” (Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL.)

1736 Serravalle, Italy

“By the second quarter of the century this earliest form of the Tarocco Piemontese was being made in Piedmont itself; the earliest example known to me is one by Giuseppe Ottone of Serravalle made in 1736 and now in the Museo de Naipes Fournier in Vitoria.” (GT 196.)

Other Fragments

Page 1: Before there was Tarot
Page 2: First Century of Tarot– Pt.1
Page 3: First Century of Tarot– Pt.2
Page 4: 2nd & 3rd Centuries of Tarot
Page 5: Modern (Occult) Tarot