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50031119 vii om
Preface
what follows is the beginning of a compilation of
relevant BIOGRAPHICAL DATA pertaining to early
(game) Tarot artists.
quite a number of people are convinced of the
importance of scrutinizing the details of early
(game) Tarot to see if there might be any
justification for considering their occult
design or content; examining bios of artists
is one way of going about this, as is looking
at what else was being made at the same time.
i -- who: Italians (including Bembo(s)+Zavattaris)
ii -- when: 15th century (esp. 1420-1490)
iii -- where: Milan/Bologna/Ferrara
======================================
Artists in 15th Century Northern Italy
======================================
compilation of notes on their backgrounds,
knowledge, personal history, and interests.
--------------------------------------
SOURCE 1. KAPLAN, Vol II.
focal interest: knowledge of occultism
particular topical focus suggested by the
TarotL 'Tarot History Information Sheet',
compiled and edited by Tom Tadfor Little:
Hermeticism
Kabbalism
Astrology
Neoplatonism
Pythagoreanism
Heterodox Christianity
http://www.tarothermit.com/infosheet.htm
======================================
138
Their presence in fifteenth-century
Lombardy suggests the possibility
that one or more of them contributed
to the preparation of early playing
cards. Further research about these
artists may bring to light valuable
information in the search for the
tarocchi artists.
------------------------------------
The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Stuart
R. Kaplan, U.S. Games Systems, Inc.,
Volume II, 1994 (1986); pp. 138.
=====================================
Ibid. here-on in Kaplan, "quoted" or [rephrased].
[there's a prayer book, the "Visconti Book
of Hours", which had a bunch of artists
working on it, including decorators like
Belbello, who painted the Gonzaga family's
prayer book, and most of the d'Este Bible.
for this reason I'm leaving out all mentions
what I recognize of orthodox religion, just
peculiar mentions (to me) of some kind which
may support some sort of reference to
divination/magic/alchemy (what I deem occult)
in the motivations/knowledge of these artists.]
-------------------------------
A) Besozzo's Postal Planetaries
Kaplan describes a letter, contended to have
been about 16 cards by Michelino da Besozzo
(heavily involved painting cloisters, cathedrals,
"several art researches have suggested that [he
painted] the frescoes at the Casa Borromeo in
Milan including the famous scene of tarocchi
card players", may have painted the triumphs of
Petrarch (says Cattaneo)).
Kaplan says that the letter is described by a
Frenchman, a Mr. P. Durrieu, writing in 1911,
in *Michelino de Besozzo et les relations entre
l'art italien et l'art francais*. he says this
letter, supposedly from a servant of Rene of Anjou
to his first wife, dated 1449, described 16 cards.
I find confirmations of such correspondence from
more than one source otherwise also.
138
They must have been executed before 1445.
They are believed to have been commissioned
by Filippo Maria Visconti.
The set of cards comprised four groups of
triumphs, with four cards in each group.
The lowest group was the triumph of Virtue,
and the highest group, Pleasure, with Cupid
triumphing over all.
_Virtue Riches Virginity Pleasure_
Jupiter Juno Chastity (Pallas) Venus
Apollo Neptune Diana Bacchus
Mercury Mars Vesta Ceres
Hercules Aeolus Daphne Cupid
Kaplan doesn't say what the likelihood of this letter's
authenticity might be, whether the letter has been
confirmed as existing, etc. see below also for this
artist's construction of a non-tarot deck with gods!
apparently it is not considered a Tarot deck on
account of its structure (60 cards?).
-----------------------------
B) Giotto's Virtues and Vices
_Giotto_ (1266-1337) did frescoes in the Arena Chapel
at Padua. Kaplan claims Ronald Decker
139
views the Giotto frescoes that depict the virtues
and vices
[these
Prudence Folly
Fortitude Inconstancy
Temperance Wrath
Justice Injustice
Faith Infidelity
Charity Envy
Hope Despair ]
as suggestive of some of the Major Arcana
cards in the tarot pack. A definite connection
between Giotto and the early Visconti is well
established....
Kaplan says "the iconographic connection is worthy of notice."
no mention of anything that fits on my list above as yet.
----------------
C) Mantegna Note
139
The Tarocchi of Mantegna prints, usually described
as cards, date from 1470 and are often credited to
Andrea Mantegna, although no evidence exists to
support this claim.
----------------------------------------
D) Decembrio's Steeley Emblematic Images
140
Around 1440, Decembrio, the official biographer of
Filippo Maria Visconti, wrote that the duke enjoyed
playing a game that used painted figures. According
to Robert Steele (1900), Decembrio also related that
Duke Filippo paid fifteen hundred gold pieces to
Marziano de Tortona [acted as the duke's secretary
and lived with the Viscontis] for a pack of cards
decorated with images of gods, emblematic animals
and figures of birds. Tortona might have been acting
as an agent on behalf of the unnamed artist.
presumably he's talking about the following article
[from his bibliography in Vol. I]:
_**STEELE_, Robert. "A Notice of the Ludus
Triumphorum and some Early Italian Card Games
with some Remarks on the Origin of the Game of
Cards," *Archaeologia*. London. 1900. LVII.
Series 2. Vol. III. References to playing cards
including Sermones de Ludo Cumalis and
description by Cicognara of the Visconti-Sforza
and Gringonneur cards (p. 185-200).
the term "emblematic" caught my eye. what is meant here?
--------------------------------------------
E) Courtly Bembos, Conventional Zavattaris?
otherwise, the Bembos and Zavattaris (well-known
in association with tarocchi art) aren't given
descriptions which indicate occult knowledge.
Bonifacio Bembo is believed to have been the
artist of the Pierpont Morgan-Bergamo deck and
the Cary-Yale tarocchi deck. his imagery merely
"idealize[s] court life". if Van Marle (1926)
is followed, there is little information about
"the progeny of the [Zavattari] family", but
following Algeri (1981), the Zavattari brothers
themselves aren't described as particurly occult.
Kaplan continues with Francesco Petrarch and
his poem that Moakley theorized influenced
early Italian tarocchi and minchiate cards.
Dummett likes most of Moakley.
================================================
SOURCE 2. DUMMETT, "The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards"
there are some very fun things therein. anything which
undermines the general contentions about Tarot or
reflects potential consonance with occult topics or
those mentioned in the Info File, I'll mention below.
first off, we might consider whether we're even using
the right language. :>
The word *tarot*, which has been adopted into
English, was borrowed from French, in which it
was formerly often spelled *tarau* or the like,
and is simply the French word for the Italian
*tarocco* (plural: *tarocchi*). Tarocchi was
not the original name for tarot cards, but was
first recorded in 1516 in one of the account
books of the court of Ferrara. Throughout the
fifteenth century, tarot cards were referred
to simply as *carte da trionfi*, that is,
cards with trumps. In the sixteenth century,
the word *tarocchi* came into general use;
as applied to the cards individually, it
functioned in the same way as *trionfi*,
namely to distinguish the trump cards from
the suit cards (with some ambiguity about
whether it applied to the *matto* [Fool]).
The origin of the words has been and remains
a mystery; in a poem published as early as
1550, Alberto Lollio speaks of it as being
"without an etymology."
------------------------------------------
"The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards",
Michael Dummett, George Braziller Inc.,
1986; pp. 1-2.
==========================================
so they didn't originally make 'Tarots', they made
'Cards With Trumps'. the Tarot History Info Sheet
also mentions this in its content (translating
*carte da trionfi* as "cards *of* the triumphs";
my emphasis.).
Ibid. here-on in Dummett, "quoted" or [rephrased].
3
[Antoine Courte de Gebelin] claims that tarot
were invented by ancient Egyptian priests to
conceal symbolic instruction in their religious
doctrines in the guise of an instrument of play.
... In any case, the occult interpretation of
tarot cards originated in France during the
second half of the eighteenth century.
From that time, there is a great mass of
documentary references to tarot cards
beginning in Italy in the fifteenth century,
in France and Switzerland in the sixteenth
century, and in Germany and many other
countries in the eighteenth century. Naturally,
some of these references record only the
purchase or manufacture of tarot packs and
hence provide no clues about their function.
But a great many speak explicitly of the games
played with them, and none give a hint of any
other use. Two of the writers would undoubtedly
have mentioned any occult associations, had
they known of them: an anonymous fifteenth-
century Dominican preacher, who vehemently
denounces tarot cards, regular cards, and dice
in a sermon against gaming, and the sixteenth-
century Ferrarese poet Alberto Lollio in his
mock-serious verse diatribe against the game.
Tarot cards were unquestionably invented to
play a particular type of game, forms of which
remain immensely popular in various parts of
Europe (above all in France, where the game
has had a great revival during the last thirty
years) and, until de Gebelin's ideas were
adapted by professional French fortune-tellers
and occultists and, after 1880, by those of
other countries, they were never used for any
other purpose.
Dummett mentions that it is the *trumps* that serve
to distinguish the decks we're examining from other
types of decks, and that these were invented in
Europe, but probably not in tarot:
4-5
The first game to incorporate the idea of trumps
was probably not tarot but a game of the German
peasantry called Karnoffel. (Karnoffel, however,
used partial trumps, able to beat some, but not
all of the cards of a plain suit.) But, almost
certainly, the idea of trumps arose independently
of the two games, and etymology shows that it was
from tarot -- not Karnoffel -- that it was borrowed
for trick-taking games played in every country of
Europe. The Italians added new cards to the pack
to act as trumps; in other countries, one of the
four suits of the regular pack assumed this role.
The idea spread more quickly than the game of tarot
itself: a game called Triumphe was being played in
France by 1482, and games with similar names
appeared in England (as the ancestor of Whist) and
Spain in the sixteenth century. These games
differed markedly from one another but were all
known by their then most unusual feature, the use
of a trump suit. The English word *trump* is
simply a corruption of *triumph*, and, like the
German *Trumpf*, is derived from the Italian
*trionfo*, used originally for a trump card in
a tarot pack. The invention of tarot cards thus
contributed a fundamentally important idea to
card play, without which many of the card games
played today could not exist.
see below for Little's explication of Pratesi and the
deck created for Marziano da Tortona by Michelino!
the author states that "a tarot pack, with its
thirty-eight picture cards, allowed greater scope
for artistic invention" and even though it is
"more likely that precious hand-painted cards
would survive than cheap popular ones",
based on the enormous number of extant cards
remaining of this type, which "outnumber regular
decks by more than two to one", Decker says
6
it is hard to resist two conclusions:
first, that tarot was enormously
popular at the courts of Ferrara
and Milan and,
second, that it originated as a game
for the nobility.
he says the first written records of the cards
is in 1442. he says that the trumps varied a bit
in their sequences, and that this is because
initially they weren't numbered. this is similar
to his claim with Decker in "A History of Occult
Tarot: 1870-1970", Duckworth, 2002.
7
With only one exception, none of the hand-
painted packs have numbered trumps. Nor
do either of the two fragmentary late
fifteenth-century popular Milanese tarot
packs that have survived, although the
numeral XXI is found on a single trump,
the World, that remains from a late
sixteenth-century popular Milanese pack.
In Bologna, no numbers were placed on the
trump cards until the second half of the
eighteenth century. Before that, as card
game books indicate, a player was required
to memorized the order of the trump subjects.
This was evidently true everywhere until the
practice of numbering the trump cards was
adopted in one place after another. The
pioneer appears to have been Ferrara: in a
late fifteenth-century popular pack from
that city, all of the trumps are numbered,
save the World.
he describes 3 trump-sequence traditions, and the
history of card deck composition. the three trads
are: Ferrara, Bolognese, and Milanese. analysis
of these three would be important to any who
maintain that a significance may be found in the
original(s) with some arcane or occult meaning.
Dummett describes the order of trumps "everywhere
in Europe outside of Italy of the Milanese type".
he also mentions that
11
It is generally agreed that the Visconti-Sforza
pack was painted for Francesco, the first Sforza
duke of Milan. His predecessor was the third
duke, Filippo Maria Visconti.... the pack...
cannot have been painted earlier than 1450 [when
he had secured the surrender of Milan and "made
good his claim to the duchy" "to which hereditary
title he had, of course, no legitimate claim"].
and that the other decks may have been done earlier.
Dummett thereafter describes the origination of the
Visconti-Sforza and its artists
Only four cards are missing from the Visconti-
Sforza pack: the Devil, the Fire (or Tower),
the Knight of coins, and the 3 of swords. Six
of the trumps are manifestly of a different
artist: Fortitude, Temperance, the Star, the
Moon, the Sun, and the World. It is usually
supposed that the same artist painted the
remaining sixty-eight cards, and the Brambilla
and Visconti di Modrone packs as well. These
two packs are generally thought to have been
painted for Filippo Maria Visconti because,
in the Brambilla pack, the sign of the coins
suit was made from actual imprints of both
sides of a coin issued by the duke; the same
is true of the Visconti di Modrone pack except
for the ace, the 2, and the court cards. More-
over, although the Brambilla pack has fewer
heraldic features than the other two, those
it has all relate to the Visconti, and none
specifically to the Sforza: the caparisons
of the *cavalli* bear Visconti emblems, and,
as in the Visconti-Sforza pack, the Visconti
motto, *a bon droyt* (with good right),
appears on several cards. It therefore
seems quite certain that it was painted
for Filippo Maria.
Dummett goes on to analyze the probable artists
of the Brambilla and Visconti-Sforza packs. he
mentions Bonafacio Bembo and Francesco Zavattari,
the art historians Toesca (1912; assigns the cards
to the Zavattari brothers), Longhi (1928; Bembo),
Wittgens (1936; confirming Bembo), Rasmo (1939;
also confirming Bembo), and finally Algeri
("very recently"; Francesco Zavattari).
Dummett describes Gertrude Moakley's theory "in
her splendid book on the Visconti-Sforza pack"
14
that the Visconti di Modrone pack was a
*germini* or *minchiate* deck, a suggestion
followed by Algeri. This theory, one of
Moakley's very few mistakes, is utterly
unhistoric. The only basis for it is the
presence of the three theological virtues.
A *germini* pack has, like ordinary tarot
decks, four court cards, not six. Moreover,
with forty trumps, it is essential to number
them, whereas the Visconti di Modrone trumps
are unnumbered.... It's invention, as a
deliberate variation on an established game,
is to be dated to between 1526 and 1543, and
arose in a quite different cultural milieu
from the Visconti court at Milan. Describing
the Visconti di Modrone cards as a *germini*
pack is a piece of pseudo-scholarship.
I don't see any descriptions of the knowledge or
intent of the deck designers or artists within
Dummett's book, other than the general comments
which he makes above.
so much for what I have (as yet!) of Dummett (soon!)
================================================
SOURCE 3: WWW
------------------------
www.tarothermit.com
Little's conclusion within the Tarot History Info
Sheet as to artist's meaning is that:
care should be used in making statements
about the original meaning of the cards
based on the familiar titles and ordering.
The intention of the original designer(s)
of the tarot in selecting the symbols for
the trump cards is unknown, although there
are many conjectures, some more plausible
than others. Writers should avoid giving
the impression that the intention is known
or obvious....
----------------------------------------
http://www.tarothermit.com/infosheet.htm
various contributors mentioned;
Copyright 2000-2001 members of TarotL
========================================
Little *does* have something more to say about
that on his site, newer than either of the previous
authors (Kaplan '86, reissued in 1994; Dummett '86),
and relates to a source unmentioned by either Kaplan
or Dummett, named Franco Pratesi (1989).
Little describes him as an Italian card historian
who wrote within 'The Playing Card' (1989) of
a precursor to the Cards With Trumps.
[note: here are the articles I found referenced
by Pratesi at
http://www.geocities.com/research_of_tarot/trionfireference.html
Pratesi 1989a
Franco Pratesi: The Earliest Tarot Pack Known
in The Playing Card , Vol. XVIII, No. 1,
August 1989. p. 28-32.
Pratesi 1989b
Franco Pratesi: The Earliest Tarot Pack Known
in The Playing Card, Vol. XVIII, No.2,
November 1989, p. 33-38.
Pratesi 1990
Franco Pratesi, "Carte da gioco a Firenzo:
il primo secolo (1377-1477) (Florentine
cards - The First Century) in The
Playing Card, XIX No. 1, August 1990,
p. 7-17.]
Tom's examination of Micholino's deck as previously
described in Kaplan is much more extensive as
it describes an *accompanying book*:
Marziano da Tortona served as secretary to
duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan. But
that perhaps gives the wrong impression of
him. He was a scholar, Filippo's tutor, and
specialist in astrology (or astronomy, as the
two disciplines had not yet gone their
separate ways in the 15th century). Some time
around 1415 (date not entirely certain, but
not later than 1420), the young duke (he was
in his early twenties, having assumed the
title in 1412 at the age of 20) directed
Marziano to devise a card game according to
the duke's instructions.
Instead of the ordinary suits of swords,
coins, staves, and cups, the new deck was
to have suits representing virtues, riches,
virginities, and pleasures. The suit signs
were appropriate birds: eagles, phoenixes,
turtles (turtledoves?), and doves. Each suit
also had four cards higher than kings, depicted
as classical deities. This was apparently an
early exploration into the idea of "trumps",
because whereas the regular suit cards have
no power over cards of different suits, the
sixteen deities have an internal ordering that
bypasses their suit assignments and determines
which card wins over others.
The amazing thing is that Marziano actually
wrote a book to go with this deck of cards. In
the book, he describes the structure of the deck,
and then goes into great detail about each of the
classical deities, what they represent, and how
they are depicted on the cards. This was the first
ever "companion book" for a deck of cards, and it
is sitting in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris
to this day! Not surprisingly, it does not give
divinatory meanings. But interestingly, neither
does it gives the rules of a card game. The focus
is on the allegorical meaning of the pictures and
their proper ranking.
But Marziano didn't make the cards himself. They
were turned over to a noted artist, Michelino da
Besozzo, who apparently made cards of extraordinary
beauty. In 1449, after the duke had died, a Venetian
captain named Marcello (in alliance with Francesco
Sforza in the attempt to capture Milan) heard of the
enormous value of these cards and "acquired" them
from the duke's estate and had them sent to the
queen of Lorraine as a present. He was also
determined to get the book along with them, which
he did. The cards apparently have not survived.
these appear to be the same as the previous reference
to the 16 cards referred to by Mr. P. Durrieu in 1911
in *Michelino de Besozzo et les relations entre l'art
italien et l'art francais*. apparently this book only
recently came to light? has anyone seen it or know
if a translation of its content has been made?
Tom continues:
Now obviously, these are not precisely tarot cards.
But this is the earliest and most extraordinary
insight into the way in which allegorical playing
cards were being invented in northern Italy in the
15th century. (The Boiardo game is a somewhat later
example of a similar idea, and we might toss in the
Sola-Busca and the 16th-century workshop inventory
that included such items as "the game of our Lord
and the apostles", "the game of the triumphs of
Petrarch", and so on)....
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.tarothermit.com/marziano.htm
Copyright 1999 Tom Tadfor Little
===========================================
----------------------------------------------------
other WWW NOTES
re early deck structure:
There are 6 (perhaps only 4) documents which give
informations about the deck structure of Trionfi
decks, 3 of them are fragments of playing card decks:
1. Brera-Brambilla deck: very unsecure
in his informative worth,
even allow a 4x14 + 4 - deck
2. Cary-Yale deck: has 24 courts and 56 pips,
the number of trumps is unclear,
motives vary of the "standard"
(probably a 5x16-structure)
3. Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo deck: The first
artist (Bonifacio Bembo) produced
(probably) 70 cards, all trumps are known.
4. Document B: The present to Bianca Maria
speaks of "14 Figure"
5. Document 03: Marziano describes 16 gods
and 4 court cards and 40 pips,
with some insecurities this would be
60 cards totally.
6. Document 16: 70 cards are mentioned,
probably refering to a 5x14-deck
2 documents and one unsecure document suggest a
5x14-structure 1 document and an unsecure document
suggest experiments with the number of 16 trumps.
No document really suggests the existence of 22 trump cards.
-------------------------------------------------------------
http://geocities.com/research_of_tarot/trionfidoc.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
re the deck designed by Marziano and created by Michelino
Preliminary translation (by Ross Gregory Caldwell)
He sometimes played at triumph cards. And in this game he
took so much delight that he paid for one finished pack of
triumph cards one thousand and five hundred ducats. Of this
the foremost author and (casone) was Marziano da Tortona
his secretary, who with marvellous ingenuity and greatest
industry finished this deck of cards with the figures and
images of the gods and with the figures of animals and
birds which he placed under them.
-----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.geocities.com/research_of_tarot/tri28.html
===========================================================
[note: I can't get this one again to confirm!]
-------------------------------------------------------------
pop-author contentions
Robert M. Place ("Tarot of the Saints"):
I believe that the internal structure and
symbolism of the Tarot is mystical. Therefore,
its creators could be called mystics. However,
by that I don't mean to imply that they were a
secret of a heretical group. Historic evidence
leads to the scenario that the Tarot was a product
of popular culture in 15th century northern Italy.
Renaissance culture made a synthesis of various
historic trends that began to appear in the
centuries that proceeded it.
The Medieval Christian Gnostics called themselves
Cathari, and although we can trace a line of
transmission between them and the ancient Gnostics,
there are many aspects of their beliefs that
changed over the centuries. The Cathari lived in
Southern France and northern Italy in the 13th
century, and some have theorized that they were
the source of the doctrine expressed in the Tarot.
note that this presumes a doctrine expressed therein.
Robert O'Neill, author of Tarot Symbolism, has
done a lot of research into this possibility.
Recently he wrote a series of articles on this
subject in which he reaches the conclusion that
the Cathari are definitely not the source of the
Tarot images. Two of the main reasons are, first,
that the Cathari believed in such a strong
separation between the spiritual world and the
physical that they considered most aspects of the
physical world evil. This included shunning all
sacred relics and icons. Therefore, they were not
about to create a series of sacred images.
Secondly, the inquisition did its best to insure
that most of the Cathari went out of existence
before the Tarot was created. What O'Neill did
find is that the Cathari had a more lasting
influence by contributing to the mix of ideas
that became the Renaissance. Their lack of
materialism and spiritual striving inspired more
orthodox groups such as the Franciscans and
synthesized well with Neoplatonic and Hermetic
mysticism. It is this Hermitic mysticism that I
believe is captured in the Tarot. The Hermeticists
were striving for gnosis and can be called
Gnostics. However, Hermeticism was part of
mainstream culture in the Renaissance.
----------------------------------------------
http://www.llewellynjournal.com/article/359
==============================================
the author provides no examples of Hermeticism in early
Tarot imagery or explanations for why early artists
would have had occult intentions (rather than ordinary
illustrative motivations) for use of any such images.
=============================================================
Googlegroups was the last stop:
Jess Karlin had this general description:
...tarot arose in North Italy some time between
1425-1450. Its symbolism is filled with ideas
and persons that reflect that North-Italian
birthplace. There is NO evidence that tarot
originated for any other purpose than as a gaming
device. On the other hand, it is fair to say that
no one can reasonably speculate about what the
people who used tarot in the beginning (or prior
to 1781) either thought about it, nor how they
may have used it, in addition to gaming.
----------------------------------------------
I found this in an old post of JK's alt.tarot FAQ,
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Renaissance+Tarot+Italian+artist&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=360E3B16.373C92C7%40texas.net&rnum=8
which FAQ has been revised and now sits at:
http://jktarot.com/faq.html#4
==============================================
URLs/sites I checked at which I could find no occult mentions
in bios of early artists on these pages about the artists:
http://geocities.com/autorbis/trionfiartists.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.wonderful-tarot.com/english/masters.htm
are there more complete descriptions of early artist bios?
other resources online that have personal bio infos for compilation?
those who want to contribute to this project please send only
quotations from sources with relevant data (deck artist bios
which pertains to the occult topics for which we're looking,
complete with source info, copyright information, etc.). thanks!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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