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Post by joustos on Mar 25, 2018 21:33:43 GMT
For a long time, I have not played any card games, and I am against gambling, but I think that non-gambling card games are good for families and amongst friends, just for entertainment. No full deck has survived, but we have a good number of individual cards in various libraries, and full decks are available in reproductions: cards mainly from the Brambilla Deck, from the Visconti-Sforza Deck, and [from Naples] from the Charles VI Deck. Dummett is still the major authority on the tarot cards and tarot games. Originally the cards were called "triumphs" (whence the idea of "trump cards") but later were called Tarocchi [Tareaus or Tarots in French; Tarocks; etc.] In Florence, Italy, they used to have festivals -- processions and games of "triumphs", namely ox-drawn carts with triumphal agents, such as an Emperor, Death (a skeleton-attired person), the Devil, and so forth. So, what the tarot card portray is Powers or Powerful Agents which were generally recognized in Christian Italy. In France they made virtual copies of the Tarocchi, but they started using captions (names of the Powers at the bottom of the pictures), and Roman numerals to indicate a card's rank of power: the higher the number, the greater the power. A complete deck of cards has: The Ordinary suits (the military Powers) and the Tarots proper, which are, therefore, stronger than, or beat, the military powers (in card games). Each of the four suits of the military powers has an ace and contingents of soldiers (2to 10) and (pictured:) a she-flag-bearer, a he-flag-bearer or Jack, a she-rider, a he-rider, a queen, and a king. The personnels of the four armies are distinguished by their emblems: Sword, Baton, gold Coin, and Cup (or Chalice-like) glass. Since there was no monarchy in the free-commune of Milan, I always wandered why the cards depicted aristocrats. Recently it dawned on me: The King of Swords is Harold the Great who, say the Gospels, ordered a massacre of the innocents; the other three kings are the kings from the East who came to pay homage to the newly born king (Jesus) by bringing him incense (raisinous sticks), gold, and bitter myrrh in a cup [for a foretaste of his suffering]. The tarots proper]: I. Il Bagatto:The Magician II.La Papessa; The She-Pope (like a historical one, who deceived Cardinals) III. L'Imperatrice: the Empress (who existed in Europe) IV. L'Imperatore: the Emperor (of the then holy Roman-Germanic empire) V. Il Papa: the Pope (supposedly the supreme political and spiritual power) VI. L'Amore: Love or the Lovers (depicted: Francesco Sforza & Bianca Visconti) VII. Il Carro: the Chariot (the war leader; Mars; Courage, Fortitude) VIII. La Giustizia: Justice (with the traditional device: the scales) IX. Il Tempo: Time (Chronos; depicted Old Man; probably: Wisdom) X. La Ruota della Fortuna: The Wheel of Fortune (Chance) XI. La Forza: Force. XII. L'Appeso /Il Traditore: The Hanged Man/ The Traitor or Betrayer. XIII. La Morte: Death XIV. La Temperanza: Temperance (Moderation, the 4th Cardinal Virtue) XV. Il Diavolo: the Devil (or Satan) XVI. La Torre: the Tower (actually the Furnace/Athanor Fire) XVII. La Stella: the Star (probably the Planet of one's own destiny) XVIII. La Luna: the Moon XIX. Il Sole: the Sun XX. l'Angelo/IlGiudizio: The Angel who summons to the final Judgement XXI. Il Mondo: the World to come (the Kingdom of God). Originally included, but later removed, the three theological Virtues (gifts of God): Faith, Hope, Charity. Mixed visuals: sforza-visconti-tarot/
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Post by joustos on Jun 19, 2021 18:23:33 GMT
I am trying in vain to post some of the images of the Visconti-Sforza tarot cards.
There is one card (the left one in the sixth row above): Il Matto (the Fool), which is not a trump card. He is not a power, but he cannot be triumphed over either, as he always evades being captured, so to speak. The first picture on the right is Il Bagatto (the Magician or "juggler"), sitting by a table, the lowest (# 1) of the Powers. [For more pictures, search Tarocchi; Tarot cards; Visconti Tarot; etc.]
ON THE NATURE OF THE TAROCCHI (TAROT CARDS): There are many informative online posts about the Tarot Cards, including Dummet's historical studies, but only esoteric interpretations (of the cards), which I reject. For the concerned readers, here is the result of my sporadic investigations and analyses over the years. Various decks of tarot cards were made in Italy around the middle of the 15th century; playing cards had been made before in China, Mameluk Egypt, and Europe. Only fragments of tarot decks have survived, but we can envision a typical original tarot deck from later decks, especially the so-called "Tarot de Marseille". Well, originally a tarot deck consisted of 78 cards or two sets of cards, the Ordinary playing cards, which had the picture cards of kings, queens, knights, and jacks (or flag-soldiers), analogous to the pieces of a chess set -- for a war game; and the Extraordinary playing cards, originally called Trionfi (Triumphs, Trumps) or Tarocchi or , in esoterical circles, Major Arcana. (However, the name "tarocchi" or taraux/tarots -- or the singular form [Tarocco; Tarot; German Tarok] was later applied to the whole deck/pack of 78 or reduced cards, and we still follow this custom.) My earliest interpretation was this: All the picture-cards display world powers. However, the major arcana (the "tarots" proper) are over-powers, as they [in the hands of the players] can overwhelm, triumph over, lower powers [kings, etc.] My latest iconographic interpretation involves the realization that an Italian tarot deck exemplifies the Renaissance syncretism of Fatalism [astrology, etc.] and Christian Theology [the powers that are present in or will emerge in the world], out of Necessity. So, the depicted powers are the modern Fates [ Moriai in Greek, but not the ancient Furies, creatures of the Underworld]. {Supposition: Persons who had an inkling about the nature of the pictures started to use tarot decks to tell the future, though of individual persons rather than the world or history.} Explicitly: The picture-cards of the Ordinary Section (sometimes called Minor Arcana) are obvious military powers). Their royal emblems, which define four suits of cards, are Sword, Dinar (gold Coin), Cup, and Stick (Baton, Scepter). The four iconic kings represent or were inspired by Herod the Great who, out of fear, ordered the massacre of all newborn (when he was told that a new king was born in Judea), and by the three King-Magicians who brought gold, incense, and myrrh to baby Jesus. The pictures of the tarot-cards are listed in an above post. {Suspicion:If I were one of the makers of the tarot cards, I would have preceded the Angel byt the four horsemen of the Apocalypse (harbingers of the end of this world: Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. However, War was already implied by the Chariot Card, and the Death Card (13th) was already established. So, to avoid repetition of cards and to avoid the facing of horrors in a card game, the authors may have decided to depict the three theological Virtues (which had been portrayed in ecclesiastical art). However, players may have complained about an excess of tarot cards or the presence of sacred values in a card game, wherefore those Virtues were omitted in future productions of tarot decks.
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