Tarot triumphant Tracing the tarot by Michael Dummett ay sek af co teen trump) ead bedded — pean passion for centuries. Inderd, the wave F (eatin ft dels ges to bra minature dst a mpl fllime by ee fmies Eeaig ed pin the cons. Th game's opelarity land ats esta variation ate detailed bere by Micha! Dunnett, profes of lnc at New Colee Onford a. cards are now known best as instruments of divination, supposedly embodying occult symbolism. However, this is not how they were originally regarded. The practice of fortune-telling with playing cards began during the eighteenth century, and tarot cards swere first used for this purpose in the 1780s in France. It was in France, to0, that the occultist interpretation of the tarot developed during, the nineteenth century; it did not spread outside France until the late 1880s, when it was taken up in Britain by dh Rosicrucian secret society, the Orde of the Colden Dasen, to which some well-known literary and theatrical people belonged. But there is no evidence for esoteric interpretations or uses of the tarot pack before 1780. All the literary references to the pack, from fifteenth-century Italy and sixleenth-century France on, mention the eards only as an instrument of play. The twenty-two trionfi were ‘added to the pack so that a new card game could be played. For three and half centuries. nobody had any idea of using the cards for other purpases. This is not to say that there was no occult symbolism inherent in the trionfi. The designs of many playing- ‘card packs contain symbolis unrelated to the intended use of the ‘cards: and the Renaissance was the gh pin forthe occ sciences in Europe. which were respected by scholars and tolerated by the Church ‘as never before or since. But any occultisi in the iconography of the tarot pack was either widely overlooked or quickly forgoiten. The earliest known mention of the tarot pach is from Ferrara in VU2. By the time it reached the French, Suiss. and Jans, it must have appeared agether strange: the Talian suit signs were unfamiliar to them. To Hialians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, the packs origins were evident. They ‘new it to be an ordinary pack of cards to which teenty-two cards — tarvechi~ had been added. It is further distinguished by having four court cards in each of the four suits: a queen as well as the usual king. cavalo, and fante. Tarocchi was not the original name. Ti came into use during the sixteenth century the earliest known occurrence being again from Ferrara 4. The derivation of the word is sknown, a fact remarked on as early ‘as 1550 by the Ferrarese poet Alberto Lollio. The twenty-two additional ids were previously known as fi, a term also used for the game played with the augmented pac which was referred was eat the lesigns of the playing card are standardized to ensure that « player ‘can identify each card instantly. Hoover, because card playing is carried on at the local level, different standard” designs came to be used in different regions. Just the same sas true of ta ind since the tarot pack in Maly was. and was seen as, ‘an ordinary pack with extra cards added to it, the same designs were used before the eighteenth century for the suit cards of the tarot pack. Playing cards are disposable objects: when a pack no longer can be used for play. itis thrown away. For that pre-vighteenth-century cards are exceedingly rare. ‘and every one that survives is of ds: 16 crucial historical value. Atleast a million tarot packs cere manufactured in France during the seventeenth century: of those, onky three survive in whole or in part. Perhaps half a million packs were produced in France during the sixteenth century: one survives. The history of playing cards after 1735, ho is easily traced. Examples every type of playing-card pack after that date are found in relative abundance. The individual subjects used for the trionfi appear to have been _standardized early in the history of the pack: with few exceptions, all Jifteenth-century pac ‘set of subjects. Th nol, strictly speaking, one of the tionfi~ although itis a mistake to suppose any historical connection betwcen it and the joker, which originated in nineteenth-century America. The remaining, tieenty-one cards may be divided into three groups. The lowest is the hagatto, almost always called in the fifteonth cand sixteenth | is probably an indication of the low ranking of the card rather than a reference to ts subject. A merchant or mountebanikis are gathered around. The occulliss idea that he is « magician is without foundation, as is the notion that the Jour suit symbols are to be seen on the card. The next four are the papal an imperial cards called papi. in Bologna): the pope. the emperor, the empress, and the paapessa. Occullisis call the pope and papessa the hierophant and the high priestess, bat the figures coal pack kal unquestionably Cl characteristics: however, in many later packs these Christian characters were replaced by other figures. The papesst must have been included in ribald spirit. The earl example of this card is fr m the packthe Visconti family who en elecied pope by the heretical thich she belonged, and had dat the stake in 1300. this was the firs time the appeared in the tarot pack: it replaced the missing U virtue of Prustence. x1 group of cards could be life: love: the cardinal Fortituile (always n early sources as ka ro, as she is now, Ia forza), the tumphal ear; the fof fortune: the card now known ermit: the hanged man; and The wheet of fortune was a fnosen symbolic theme of eral and early Renaissance The animals nove found on feel of some modern cards are a of the eardmakers. In early tsthey are alteays human rising or falling in the world J turns: the mistake derives the ass'sears or tail that ed the folly of their ambition cards requiring explanation ‘hermit and the hanged inan. emit was called il veechio or il in the early sources. He carried lass instead of « lantern, this mistake dates back to the uonth century. Teofilo Folengo in iliempo. and Time was was originally intended to . The hanged man was we. He is shown bby one foot, a inhich traitors were . The walls of the Bargello in tvere often adorned by such and the pope ordered the condottiere Muzio Attendolo, Francesco Sforza’s father, to be so represented on all the gates and bridges of Rome: Ludovieo Sforza (it Moro) gave a similar order concerning the treacherous governor of Milan, Bernardino da Corte, who surrendered the Castello to the French. ‘The final sequence represents spiritual ‘and celestial powers: the devil, the tower, the star, the moon, the sun, the teorld, and the angel. The angel is the angel of the Last Judgment. On early cards the world is usually represented by a globe, held aloft by putti or supporting.a fittte. Th constancy in thoRepresentation of the three celestial bodies: extraneous details of all kinds are depicted on the lower halves of the cards. The pussling card is the tower, This again is a modern name: in early sources it is called la saetta, il fuoeo, la casa del ole, and Vinferno. In the colebrated French version of the pack ‘known as the sarot de Marseille itis oddly named la maison dieu, sehich ‘may have resulted from a misunderstanding of la casa del volo, The card usually shows a building being struck by lightri ‘on fire and collapsing. In some late fifieenth-century versions, the building isin fact a tower, Without these earlier examples, one might be tempted to suppose that an event of 1521 led to a reinterpretation of the card. In that year one of the tor the Castello Sforzesco in Milan suddenly collapsed, killing many French soldiers; lightning was said 10 have struck out of a clear sky. Soon fier. the French were expelled from Milan. In a fete versions of the card, the building is a hell-mouth, from which a devil emerges to draga an inst hell; but thi ‘appear to represent the o meaning of the card. By the end of the fifteenth cent tarot cards were known almost 47 Tarot triumphant everywhere in northern Tialy: but th three great centers of the game, and those from which we have the carlie evidence of it, are Ferrara, Bologna and Mitan, Each had its own distin i des d in a different order. Since ph ‘would be impossible without a fixed, agreed order for the ttionfi, these different orderings must have been established when the game was firs introduced into eack place, Unfortunately. it is impossible to determine in which of these three citi the cards and the game were invenie My guess is the d'Este court in Ferrara. It is no coincidence that Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso were al patronized by the Este princes: the whole court lived in an atmosphere ¢ romance and fantasy ~the sort of atmosphere in whieh the trionfi cere probably devised. However, thisis only a guess: any one of the three cities may hare been the birthplace ¢ the game. Almost all the extant hand-painted cards can be assigned, with certaints or high probability, to the court of Ferrara or the court of Milan, Even making allowances for hand-pairter cards’ greater likelihood of survival, is hard to resist the impression that tarot began as a game of the nobility These easily packs were not intended for display. At Ferrara men devoted themselves to producing hand-paint cards as their principal profession. Dule Borso gave three such painters board and lodging at court lo enable them to carry on their work, With su phrases as per tio de la Signora the records make it plain that their products were not mere ornaments. The earliest surciving packs are the three now usually ascribed 10 the Cromonese painter Bonifacio Bembe (c.1420—€, 1480), although Giulia Algeri has recenily argued the claim Francesco Zavaitare, in Cli Zavatia (Rome, 1981). From the mostTarot triumphant complete of these, only four cards ate possession of the Colleoni family of Bergamo, part in the Accademia Carrara, and part in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, Six of thet bby another hand. probably a Ferrarese artist, arud date {from about 1470; presumably they replaced lost or damaged cards. The other two packs by the same artist ‘are usually known as the Brambilla ‘and Visconti di Modrone packs, after their former owners. The Brambilla, of which only to trionfi survive, is in the Brera Gallery in Milan; the Visconti di Modrone is in the Cary Collection at the Yale University Library. They were probably both painted for Francesco Sforza’s father- in-lae, the last Visconti duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Viscorati. who died in L417. In both packs actual imprints of Filippo Maria's coinage ‘are used for the suit of d Both were probably painted toward the end of Filippo Maria’s thi reign, and certainly so if they were Bembo’s work. The Visconti di Modrone pack diverges from the standard composition. It had as many as six court cards por suit, a male and Jemale figure of each rank: king and queen, both mounted: page and maid, both sianding. The set of trionfi is incomplete; only eleven sur addition to standard subjec including Fortitude, it contains the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope. and Charity. Itis impossible to know whether this pack was unique or represents an early stage before the ‘composition of tarot packs had been standardized. We can be sure that an incomplete hand-painted pack was a tarot if one of the cards isa Wwe may presume that it was if one of them is a ‘queen. Lac 1 of these, we cannot be sure that it was not a tarot pack, since all the cards of a regular pack also belong to the tarot pack. oe in-las Those hand-painted, fifteenth-century sets containing either a trionfo ora queen outnumber those that do not 110 to one, strong testimony to the popularity of tarot among the ility. Most of the other hand painted sels that we can associate with Milan include or wholly consist of cards imitated from those made for Francesco Sforza. sometimes exactly copied, sometimes with slight variations. Other fificonth-century hand-painted were made in Ferrara for the is in the Cary atania, the most famous pa Paris (once wrongly believed to have been made for Charles VI), and a fourth in the Rothschild Collection in the Louvre, 112-417 The game of tarot developed into a whole family of games, which include ‘many of the subtiest and most demanding card games. Moreover. the game had a profound importance in the history of eard playing. Tarot played in tricks (prese) and the trionfi permanently serve as do trumps (atutti) in bridge. In fuct, the trump and the German Tru: derive from rionto. Trick-taking games probably entered Europe with playing cards theiaselves, but tramps ‘area European invention. Unless the game of tarot was invented a& early as ieecond decade of efiftegruh cenlairy, it was not the frst eard game to.use trumps. That hoiide belongs to the German game of Karnoffel. recorded as early as 1426.and still played in parts of Switzerland. Probably tarot and Karndfol rere invented independently: residents of an Italian Renaissance court were unlikely to have been acquainted with «a game played by German peasants. In any ease, etymological evidence rmalves it certain that it was from tarot cand not Karnoffel that the idea of trumps was borrowed for other games. The word Trumpf was not originally a used in Karni Fel; but from the late {fifteenth century in France and the early sixteenth century elseuhere, derived from teionko: triumphe in France, triumph in England (the ancestor of whist and bridge), ir Spain, and so on. These games were played with regular eards, not with the tarot pack. but they incorporated the idea of a trump suit ~an idea that spread faster than the game of tarot itself. Hand-painted tarot cards ave not the only ones to have survived from fifteenth-certury Italy. We also have some late fifteenth-century popular cards from Bologna, Milan. Ferrara, and Florence. Sixteen trioafi from incut sheets are divided beticeen the Rothschild Collection in the Louxre and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. With one exception (the devil) these tare amazingly close in design to Bolognese tarocehi of the seventeenth century. An incomplete uncut sheet shouwing a number o and the seven and eight of bastoni, isin the Cary Collection at Yale. The trionfi care not numbered: the sheet was most probably made in Milan. Thrve damaged sheets of rather erude popular cards from Ferrara including mos! of the tionfi, arein the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Theodore Donson in New York possesses tio finished cards with designs identical to the correspo cards in the Metropolitan Museum. AU the trionfi are numbered except the highest card, the world, and are in the order that we know, from literary sources, to hive been observed in Ferrara. Finally, three almost undamaged sheets in the Rosenteald Collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. D.C2 make up a tarot pack lacking only six cards. 4 The sixicenth and seventeenth conturies yield a more meager crop. ‘but with the aid of documentary sources we cun trace the history of