(February 2011) : Gargantua and Pantagruel
(February 2011) : Gargantua and Pantagruel
(February 2011) : Gargantua and Pantagruel
(February 2011)
Contents
[hide]
1 Etymology
2 History
o 2.1 Early decks
5 Varieties
o 5.1 French suited tarot decks
o 5.2 German suited tarot deck
o 5.3 Spanish suited tarot deck
o 5.4 Non-occult Italian-suited tarot decks
o 5.5 Occult tarot decks
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
9 Further reading
Etymology[edit]
The English and French word tarot derives from the Italian tarocchi, which has no
known origin or etymology[citation needed]. The singular term is tarocco, commonly known
today as a term for a type of blood orange in Italian. When it spread, the word was
changed to tarot in French and Tarock in German. There are many theories to the origin
of the word, many with no connection to the occult.[3] One theory relates the name
"tarot" to the Taro River in northern Italy, near Parma; the game seems to have
originated in northern Italy, in Milan or Bologna.[4] Other writers believe it comes from
the Arabic word turuq, which means 'ways'.[5] Alternatively, it may be from the
Arabic taraka, 'to leave, abandon, omit, leave behind'[6]
History[edit]
Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century, probably from Mamluk
Egypt, with suits of Swords, Batons or Polo sticks (commonly known as Wands by
those practicing occult or divinatory tarot) , Cups, and Coins (commonly known as
disks, or pentacles by practitioners of the occult or divinatory tarot) These suits were
very similar to modern tarot divination decks and are still used in traditional Italian,
Spanish and Portuguese playing card decks.[7]
The first known documented tarot cards were created between 1430 and 1450 in Milan,
Ferrara and Bologna in northern Italy when additional trump cards with allegorical
illustrations were added to the common four-suit pack. These new decks were originally
called carte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the additional cards known simply as trionfi,
which became "trumps" in English. The first literary evidence of the existence of carte
da trionfi is a written statement in the court records in Florence, in 1440. The oldest
surviving tarot cards are from fifteen fragmented decks painted in the mid 15th century
for the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.[8]
Early decks[edit]
Le Bateleur: The Juggler from the Jean Dodal Tarot of Marseilles. This card is often
named The Magician in modern English language tarots
Picture-card packs are first mentioned by Martiano da Tortona probably between 1418
and 1425, since the painter he mentions, Michelino da Besozzo, returned to Milan in
1418, while Martiano himself died in 1425. He describes a deck with 16 picture cards
with images of the Greek gods and suits depicting four kinds of birds, not the common
suits. However the 16 cards were obviously regarded as "trumps" as, about 25 years
later, Jacopo Antonio Marcello called them a ludus triumphorum, or "game of trumps".[9]
Special motifs on cards added to regular packs show philosophical, social, poetical,
astronomical, and heraldic ideas, Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case of the
Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (1491)[1] and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem, written at an unknown
date between 1461 and 1494.[10]
Two playing card decks from Milan (the Brera-Brambilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi)
extant, but fragmentarywere made circa 1440. Three documents dating from 1
January 1441 to July 1442, use the term trionfi. The document from January 1441 is
regarded as an unreliable reference; however, the same painter, Sagramoro, was
commissioned by the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as in the February 1442 document.
The game seemed to gain in importance in the year 1450, a Jubilee year in Italy, which
saw many festivities and the movement of many pilgrims.
Three mid-15th century sets were made for members of the Visconti family.[11] The first
deck, and probably the prototype, is called the Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone
Tarot) and was created between 1442 and 1447 by an anonymous painter for Filippo
Maria Visconti.[11] The cards (only 67) are today in the Cary collection of the Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, in the U.S. state of Connecticut.
[12]
The most famous was painted in the mid-15th century, to celebrate Francesco Sforza
and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the duke Filippo Maria. Probably, these
cards were painted by Bonifacio Bembo or Francesco Zavattari between 1451 and 1453.
[11]
Of the original cards, 35 are in The Morgan Library & Museum, 26 are at the
Accademia Carrara, thirteen are at the Casa Colleoni,[11] and four: The Devil, The Tower,
The Knight of Coins, and the 3 of Swords, are lost or were never made. This "ViscontiSforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced, reflects conventional iconography of
the time to a significant degree.[13]
Hand-painted tarot cards remained a privilege of the upper classes and, although a
single sermon by a Dominican preacher inveighing against the evil inherent in cards
(mostly centered around their use in gambling) can be traced to the 14th century,[14] no
routine condemnations of tarot were found during its early history.[1]
Because the earliest tarot cards were hand-painted, the number of the decks produced is
thought to have been rather small, and it was only after the invention of the printing
press that mass production of cards became possible. Decks survive from this era from
various cities in France, and the most popular pattern of these early printed decks is
called the Tarot de Marseille[15] such as the Jean Dodal Tarot (Lyon) and the Jean Noblet
Tarot (Paris) for example.
Rog, meaning "King" or "royal", and that the Tarot literally translated to the Royal Road
of Life.[20]
Varieties[edit]
The Industrie und Glck (Industry and Luck) tarock deck of Central Europe
uses Roman numerals for the trumps. It is sold with 54 cards; the 5 to 10 of the
red suits and the 1 to 6 of the black suits are removed.
The Cego deck is used in Germany's Black Forest bordering France and has 54
cards organized in the same fashion as the Industrie und Glck. Its trumps use
Arabic numerals but within centered indices.
The Tarot Nouveau has 78 cards and is commonly played in France. Its trumps
use Arabic numerals in corner indices.
The illustrations of French suited tarot trumps depart considerably from the older Italian
suited design. The Renaissance allegorical motifs were abandoned for new themes or
simply just whimsical pictures of daily life. With very few exceptional recent cases such
as the "Tarocchi di Alan", "Tarot of Reincarnation" and the "Tarot de la Nature", French
suited tarot cards are nearly exclusively used for card games and rarely for divination.
Cego trumps
A Schafkopf/Tarock deck
German suited decks for Bavarian tarock are very different. They only have 36 cards,
ranging from 6 to 10, Under Knave (Unter), Over Knave (Ober), King, and Ace. In this
game's hierarchy, Ace is the highest followed by 10, King, Ober, Unter, then 9 to 6.
There is no dedicated trump suit, the three players have to agree on one suit though in
some places the heart suit is the default trump suit. The deck is also used to play
Schafkopf.
The Tarocco Piemontese consists of the four suits of swords, batons, cups and
coins, each headed by a king, queen, cavalier and jack, followed by the pip cards
for a total of 78 cards. Trump 20 outranks 21 in most games and the Fool is
numbered 0 despite not being a trump.
The Swiss 1JJ Tarot is similar, but replaces the Pope with Jupiter, the Popess
with Juno, and the Angel with the Judgement. The trumps rank in numerical
order and the Tower is known as the House of God. The cards are not reversible
like the Tarocco Piemontese.
The Tarocco Bolognese omits numeral cards two to five in plain suits, leaving it
with 62 cards, and has somewhat different trumps, not all of which are
numbered and four of which are equal in rank. It has a different graphical design
than the two above as it was not derived from the Tarot de Marseille.
The Minor Arcana (lesser secrets) consists of 56 cards, divided into four suits
of 14 cards each; ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are
the King, Queen, Knight and Page/Jack, in each of the four tarot suits. The
traditional Italian tarot suits are swords, batons/wands, coins and cups; in
modern tarot decks, however, the batons suit is often called wands, rods or
staves, while the coins suit is often called pentacles or disks.[21]
The terms "major arcana" and "minor arcana" were first used by Jean-Baptiste Pitois
(also known as Paul Christian) and are never used in relation to Tarot card games.
Tarot is often used with the study of the Hermetic Qabalah.[22] In these decks the have
Kabbalistic illustrations, most being under the influence of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
The images on the "Rider-Waite" deck were drawn by artist Pamela Colman Smith
following the instructions of mystic and occultist Arthur Edward Waite and were
originally published by the Rider Company in 1910. The subjects of the Major Arcana
are based on those of the earliest decks, but have been modified to reflect Waite and
Smith's view of tarot. A difference from Marseilles style decks is that Smith drew scenes
with esoteric meanings on the suit cards. The Rider-Waite wasn't the first deck to
include completely illustrated suit cards. The first to do so was the 15th century SolaBusca deck.[23]
Older esoteric decks such as the Visconti-Sforza and Marseilles are less detailed than
modern ones. A Marseilles type deck is distinguished by having repetitive motifs on the
pip cards, similar to Italian or Spanish playing cards, as opposed to the full scenes found
on "Rider-Waite" style decks. These more simply illustrated "Marseilles" style decks are
also used esoterically, for divination, and for game play, though the French card game of
tarot is now generally played using a relatively modern 19th century design of German
origin.[citation needed] Such playing tarot decks generally have twenty one trump cards with
genre scenes from 19th century life, a Fool, and have court and pip cards that closely
resemble today's French playing cards.[citation needed]
The Marseilles' numbered minor arcana cards do not have scenes depicted on them;
rather, they sport a geometric arrangement of the number of suit symbols (e.g., swords,
rods/wands, cups, coins/pentacles) corresponding to the number of the card
(accompanied by botanical and other non-scenic flourishes), while the court cards are
often illustrated with flat, two-dimensional drawings.
An example of a modernist tarot deck is Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot (Thoth
pronounced /tot/ or //). Crowley, at the height of a lifetime's work dedicated to
occultism, engaged the artist Lady Frieda Harris to paint the cards for the deck
according to his specifications. His system of tarot correspondences, published in The
Book of Thoth and Liber 777, are an evolution and expansion upon that which he
learned in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.[24] Crowley's interpretation has been
criticised by some other students of the Golden Dawn system for following the 'lefthand path', identified with Satanism.
In contrast to the Thoth deck's colorfulness, the illustrations on Paul Foster Case's
B.O.T.A. Tarot deck are black line drawings on white cards; this is an unlaminated deck
intended to be colored by its owner.
Other esoteric decks include the hermetic Golden Dawn Tarot, which claims to be based
on a deck by S.L. MacGregor Mathers.
The variety of decks in use is almost endless, and grows yearly. For instance, cat-lovers
may have the Tarot of the Cat People, a deck replete with cats in every picture. The
Tarot of the Witches and the Aquarian Tarot retain the conventional cards with varying
designs. The Tree of Life Tarot's cards are stark symbolic catalogs; and The Alchemical
Tarot, created by Robert M. Place, combines traditional alchemical symbols with tarot
images.
These contemporary divination decks change the cards to varying degrees. For example,
the Motherpeace Tarot is notable for its circular cards and feminist angle where the male
characters have been replaced by females. The Tarot of Baseball has suits of bats, mitts,
balls, and bases; "coaches" and "MVPs" instead of Queens and Kings; and major arcana
cards such as "The Catcher", "The Rule Book", and "Batting a Thousand". In the Silicon
Valley Tarot, major arcana cards include The Hacker, Flame War, The Layoff and The
Garage; the suits are Networks, Cubicles, Disks and Hosts; the court cards CEO,
Salesman, Marketeer and New Hire. Another tarot in recent years has been the Robin
Wood Tarot. This deck retains the Rider-Waite theme while adding Pagan symbolism.
As with other decks, the cards are available with a companion book written by Wood
which details all of the symbolism and colors utilized in the Major and Minor Arcana.
See also[edit]
Hofamterspiel
Lotera
OH Cards
References[edit]