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Collected Fragments of Tarot History

A Chronological Fact Sheet and Index

[Michael.gif] ________________________________

The following list was developed initially from items in Michael Dummett's The Game of Tarot and the first two volumes of Stuart Kaplan's The Encyclopedia of Tarot. It includes some items pertaining specifically to dice, quite a bit about regular cards and unique decks, a few chess allegories, and even some card tricks, as part of the larger historical context of Tarot. It also includes a few Medieval artistic and literary sources related to the allegorical content of the trumps. The purpose of presenting details of Tarot history in a context of other cards, games, and allegorizations is to contrast with Tarot's almost universally presupposed esoteric and divinatory history, i.e., eighteenth and nineteenth-century Masonic fiction and late twentieth-century crypto-Masonic apologetics. There are endless other games and decks that might be included, as well as additional early prohibitions against cards and Tarot, etc., so my selection was usually based on either some relationship to Tarot (such as the Italian suit-signs associated with Trappola and Lansquenet cards) or to a more general significance in the history of card games reflecting general tendencies, extreme variations, or early examples of popular modern games.

Each of the roughly 250 entries has at least one source cited, and multiple sources are cited in many cases. (The present version is still very much a work in progress. Most of the desired entries are included, but many citations remain to be added as well as internal cross references and links, and many entries need to be rewritten.) Longer entries, such as a discussion of the Karn�ffel trump suit or the "Mantegna" cosmographic series, have been put into separate files, linked to their entries. (A list of these linked files is also located at the bottom of the page.) Although my own perceptions and preconceptions inevitably color many of the entries, I have isolated some of the more blatant commentary (whether my own, or mine by adoption) into block quotes, separated by heavy lines and shown in dark blue text. And in no case should anything here be considered authority for anything this is only a chronological listing, with some quotes and citations, all second-hand.

Each entry attempts to include date and location, to the extent that is possible from the references used. Dates are used as indices, and no implication of certainty is implied! Some are well documented, while others vary greatly in both their precision and likely accuracy; so in a reference to the "1450 Visconti-Sforza deck", the date is not being stated as fact, but included as an index to this timeline. There are three symbols that may used in the date/location line. The symbol " P " indicates an entry concerning a particular pack

http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/occultism/divination/tarot/t...

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or pattern of cards. The symbol " + " indicates a reference to fortune-telling or occult content, while the symbol " * " indicates the absence of such a reference where it might be expected. Italicized citations indicate the source of quotes; bold citations refer to illustrations in Kaplan's two volumes.

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 ______________________________________________________________

Fragments of Tarot History

383-405 Rome, Italy.

Pope Damascus commissioned what was to become the standard Bible throughout the Middle Ages, Saint Jerome's Vulgate. This Latin Bible was called the versio vulgata (common translation) and remains to this day the official scriptural text of the Roman Catholic Church. The Bible is an essential source for the study of Tarot. Much of the symbolism which people have attributed to Joachim of Flora, Dante, Petrarch, and so on, derives directly or indirectly from the Bible. (For example, finding a Triumph of Eternity motif in Tarot does not mean that it was based on Petrarch's I Trionfi, but that both were based on the Bible. Comparing the three works in detail, it can be seen that Petrarch followed the biblical motif only in the broadest sense, while Tarot followed Rev 21:23 directly and did not rely on Petrarch.) The Douai-Rheims version was the Church's official English translation of the Vulgate, and the Rheims New Testament is available online at http://www.hti.umich.edu/r/rheims/. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08341a.htm.)

c.400 Spain.

Arelius Prudentius Clemens wrote Psychomachia, an allegorical battle between personified virtues and vices. "The "Psychomachia" is the model of a style destined to be lovingly cultivated in the Middle Ages, i. e., allegorical poetry, of which before Prudentius only the merest traces are found." In addition to being influential in the development of allegory in general, the specific theme of Psychomachia, the virtues, was endlessly varied and elaborated, and is specifically included in Tarot. Various sites have online Latin versions, and an English version is available online at http://www.richmond.edu/~wstevens/grvaltexts/psychomachia.html . (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12517c.htm.)

c.524 Pavia, Italy

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, while confined to house arrest awaiting execution, wrote De Consolatione Philosophiae. "The Consolation dominated the intellectual life of the Middle Ages and it was translated at different times by Alfred the Great, Chaucer, and Elizabeth I." Boethius' Consolation was the source for the Christian adoption of Fortuna and her Wheel, and passages of the Consolation also explain the therianthropic figures on the TdM version of the Wheel of


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Fortune. Various sites have online Latin versions, and an English version is available online at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/boethius/boephil.html. (Oxford World Classics edition; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02610b.htm.)

c.965 Cambrai, France.

Bishop Wibold recommends the use of a dice game as a spiritual exercise. The game associated 56 clerical virtues with the 56 outcomes of three dice. At the end of the game, the players must exemplify the virtues for the rest of the day. Thierry Depaulis: "Wibold was bishop of Cambrai (northern France) in the 10th century. He devised a complicated dice game called Ludus regularis seu clericalis which was described in a Chronicle written in the following years. (This Chronicle was later edited and published in 1615.) There is a long entry on the game in Jean-Marie Lh�te's Dictionnaire des jeux de soci�t� (1996)."

Gertrude Moakley mentioned Wibolds game in connection with the number of cards in a Tarot deck. "Why are there fifty-six suit cards, and why are there twenty-one trumps? The answer is found when we remember that cards, as a game of chance, replaced dice almost completely. In the dice games which use three dice, there are fifty-six possible throws, and with two dice twenty-one." (M 41-42.)

c.1230 Paris, France.

Iohannes de Sacrobosco (John Holywood) an English monk and a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas, published a textbook on astronomy, De Sphaera. This was a widely known and influential text on the subject for several centuries, and included discussions of the three "poetic" forms of rising, Cosmic, Chronic, and Heliacal. These are represented in the Mantegna cosmograph by corresponding allegorical figures. The were used to fill out the fourth decade, being placed beneath the seven Cardinal Virtues. An online version of De Sphaera is available at http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/sphere.htm. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409b.htm.)

c.1252 ?

The Franciscan John of Wales (aka, Johannes Gallensis, taught at Oxford and Paris circa 1260-80), authored(?) a moral allegory on chess. The work appeared in a collection of sermons attributed to Pope Innocent III, circa 1300, and is referred to as the Innocent Morality. "Reduced to bare bones, heres what the Innocent Morality had to say. To begin with, the King moves in all directions, because the Kings will is law. The Queen moves aslant because women are greedy and underhanded. The Bishop moves obliquely, which is symbolic of the widespread misuse of the clerical office. The Knight moves both straight and oblique (one up and one angled today we think of this as two up and one sideways) which illustrates the two faces of the knightly condition. On the one hand, the Knight has the legal power of collecting rents, etc. but also he is guilty of extortions and wrong-doings. The Rook moves


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straight straightforward justice by the Kings officers. And the poor pawn, plodding forward one step at a time? He moves straight until he is promoted. Then he becomes as greedy and underhanded as the Queen, showing how hard it is for a poor man to deal rightly when he is raised above his proper station. Besides these promising observations, there was one additional touch, which is good for a whole sermon all by itself: between games, all the pieces are kept together in a bag on equal terms: It is only when they are in play that there a social difference between them. When the game is over (in the next world), all will be treated equally again." (JAF.)

1265-1272 Rome/Paris.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, chief philosopher/theologian of the Late-Medieval Church, wrote Summa Theologica. Among other Tarot-related subjects discussed in detail in this huge work, St. Thomas presents and defends the seven Cardinal Virtues in an order of precedence which may have been reflected in the original design of Tarot, and was maintained in the TdM designs. His discussions of the individual virtues, and Prudence in particular, are extremely valuable. Aquinas' Summa Theologica is available online at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14663b.htm.)

c.1275 Italy?

Dominican Jacobus de Cessolis writes a version of the Innocent Morality. This version, titled De Moribus Hominum ed de Officiis Nobilium Super Ludo Scaccorum, was widely influential in both Latin and various translations. (JAF.)

c.1300 P Mamluk, Egypt.

The Mamluk style of playing cards were probably created sometime in the 13 th century, and are the direct ancestor of early European cards. (P 40.)

c.1300 England?

Gesta Romanorum, a collection of moralized anecdotes, including a couple derivative chess allegories. "It was compiled in Latin, probably by a priest, late in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century. The ascription of authorship to Berchorius or Helinandus can no longer be maintained. The original object of the work seems to have been to provide preachers with a store of anecdotes with suitable moral applications There are two versions of this long-lasting and widely distributed work (or, more accurately, collection of works). In the English version, which Murray thinks is the oldest, it is a section entitled Antonius the Emperor. The King is the soul, the opposing King is the Devil, and the Knight is the Christian. The Bishop (known as the aufin or counsellor) is a wise man, who can abuse his wisdom by deceit. The Rook stands for brokers and false merchants that run about after winning and money, and care not how they are gotten. The Queen symbolizes women, who go from chastitie to synne, and are taken by the devil for gloves or other such gifts. The


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pawn is, as usual, the common man, who has the potential to become a king in heaven; but once he turns aside is taken and sent to hell. In the continental version, the theme appears twice. One, called The Game of Chess, was written before 1342, the other some time later. In that fourteenth-century section, the King is Christ and the Queen is the Soul. Knights are militant Christians the eight squares commanded by the Knights move correspond to the eight Beatitudes and Rooks are judges. One interesting passage concerns Bishops, wise men who can move three squares forward intellect, reason, and fortitude or backward gluttony, robbery, and pride. Murray describes this version as a hopeless muddle by the translator, who was apparently working from three or more sources and knew very little about chess." (JAF.)

1308-1321 Ravenna, Italy.

Dante Alighieri's Commedia was a masterpiece in a variety of ways, and has been presented as an influence on the design of Tarot by more than one author. William Marston Seabury wrote a privately printed pamphlet, The Tarot Cards and Dante's Divine Comedy in 1951. According to Kaplan, Seabury suggested that the symbolism of the two works derived from the same source. Joseph Campbell, the renowned mythographer, had an experience reminiscent of de Gebelin's epiphany, except instead of perceiving immediately their Egyptian content, in 1967 Campbell quickly perceived analogies to Dante's Convito, La Vita Nuova, and Commedia. "A single philosophical strain, it seemed to me, could be recognized as supporting, on one hand, the mighty ediface of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and, on the other, the enigmatic imagery of a contemporary pack of cards." (K I:372; GT 387; Campbell & Roberts, Tarot Revelations, page 5.) http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/culture/lit/Italian/da_e_2.htm.

Robert V. O'Neill, as part of his monograph studying Catharism and the Tarot, has presented a discussion of Dante and Tarot in terms of supposed heterodox content of both works. Without drawing any conclusions, O'Neill notes what many might consider a common design to Tarot and Dante's Commedia. "The paradigm involves an individual pilgrim moving through a Neoplatonic cosmograph (Herzman, 1992). Viewed at this mystical level (Luke, 1975), the Neoplatonic underpinnings are most clear in the Paradisio where Dante and his new guide Beatrice ascend through the planetary spheres, the sphere of fixed stars, and the Primum Mobile (Jacoff 1993). At the summit of the cosmos, Dante is granted the Beatific Vision. This personal journey, retracing the steps involved in the creation of the material world, lies at the center of Neoplatonic mysticism and seems a sufficient explanation for the spiritual individualism in Dante." In another online essay, O'Neill argues that Dante's Commedia is "the culmination and greatest of the [mystical] journey epics", and that Tarot's alleged "Fool's Journey" is not only an example of the genre, but somehow derived from Dante. http://www.geocities.com/ninaleeb/sst/cathar9.htm, http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/boneill/fool-journey.

1351 Italy.


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Giovanni Boccaccios Decameron includes references to specific games, but says nothing of cards. (H 12; K I:34; P 35.)

1356 - 1374 Milan, Italy.

Francesco Petrarch's " I Trionfi was written over a span of some eighteen years beginning in 1356. Thus, the early development of I Trionfi likely took place during Petrarch's stay at the court of Galeazzo [Visconti] II, although Petrarch stated in his 'Letter to Posterity' that all his works were commenced or conceived, if not entirely composed, at Vaucluse [France]." (K II:141-147.) Gertrude Moakley argued that this work provided the basis for the design of the 1450 Visconti-Sforza deck. (M)

1360 France.

Les Amoureux Eschecs, a long, anonymous, romantic allegory of chess, in the Garden of Pleasure. (Basis of Lydgates 1412 allegory, Reson and sensuallyte.) A late fifteenth century allegory Romance of the Chessboard borrowed from immensely influential The Romance of the Rose. Moral and romantic allegories of chess form a backdrop for the subsequent allegorical interpretation of cards.

1364 St. Gallen, Germany.

Ordinance "forbade dice games, and allowed board games, but left card games unmentioned" A similar ordinance in 1379 included cards. (GT 11; P 35, 37.)

1364 Paris, France.

Confort dAmy, a poem by Guillaume de Machau, "denounces gaming in general and dice in particular, but says nothing of cards." (P 35; K I:34.)

1366 Italy.

"In his tract De remediis utriusque fortunae [Francesco] Petrarch describes all the games usual at that time without mentioning cards." (H 12; GT 11; K I:34; P 35.)

1367 Berne, Switzerland.

Early prohibition of playing cards mentioned in a 1398 document, probably mistaken in the date. (GT 11-12; K I:24.)

1369 England.

Geoffrey Chaucer writes about games, including those played by the Knight in the Canterbury Tales, and in The Book of the Duchess, but says nothing about cards. (K I:34; P 35.)

1369 Paris, France.

Ordinance forbade various games, but did not mention cards. A similar ordinance in 1377 included cards. (P 35, 37; GT 11; K I:24.)


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1371 Catalonia, Spain.

The earliest reference to cards in Europe, "it first appears as naip in a Catalan document of 1371." This reference from Parlett seems not to be repeated in any of the other sources examined, and comes from a 1989 article in the Journal of the International Playing Card Society, by Luis Monreal, which post-dates most of the other sources used for this list. (P 36.) This apparently appeared in the Diccionari de rims commissioned by Peter IV, King of Aragon. (Ortalli, 175.)

1377 Florence, Italy.

Ordinance concerning cards, naibbe, naibbi. This source refers to cards as "a certain game called naibbe, newly introduced in these parts". (GT 11, 44; K I:24.) Playing "cards were to be treated just as strictly as gambling." (Ortalli, 175.)

1377 *P Basel, Switzerland.

Dominican Johannes von Rheinfelden authored the essay Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, although this dating is suspect. See Tractatus de moribus.

1377 Paris, France.

Ordinance prohibiting "card-play in contexts clearly directed at the working classes". A similar ordinance from 1369 did not mention cards. (P 35, 37; GD 10.)

1377 Siena, Italy. Ordinance concerning cards, naibi. (GT 10, 44.)

1378 Regensburg, Germany.

Ordinance "declares various games, including spilen mid der quarten , punishable by fine if played for stakes higher than those expressly permitted." (P 36; GT 10; B 29.)

1379 Viterbo, Italy.

Cola di Covelluzzos Viterbo Chronicle reports, "In the year 1379 there was brought to Viterbo the game of cards, which in the Saracen language is called nayb." In fifteenth-century Italy, in France, and in Spain from 1371 to this day, cards were referred to as naibi, nahipi, naips, naipes, naibbe, naibbi. (GT 11, 43-44; K I:32; P 36.)

1379 Brabant, Belgium.

Account-book of the duke of Brabant, Wenceslaus of Luxembourg and his wife Johanna, "describes a fete held at Brussels in 1379 at which cards were played." There is also an entry noting the purchase of a deck of cards, quartspel mette copen. (K I:24; GT 10, 65; P 37; B 64.)

1379 St. Gallen, Germany.

Ordinance prohibiting "card-play in contexts clearly directed at the working classes". A similar ordinance from 1364 did not


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mention cards. (P 35, 37; GD 10-11.)

1379 Constance, Germany. Unspecified reference to cards. (GT 10.)

1380 P Barcelona, Spain. Inventory including reference to "a game of cards comprising forty-four pieces". (K II:1.)

1380 Nuremberg, Germany. Unspecified reference to cards. (GT 10; B 29?)

1380 Perpignan, France. Unspecified reference to cards. (GT 10.) ______________________________________________________________

The single (1371) reference to playing cards before 1377, combined with the dozen references to cards between 1377 and 1380, from various areas in Europe, and the multiple references to the game having been just introduced, fixes the date of their general introduction to Europe in the neighborhood of 1375. "The evidence thus strongly suggests that there was no long period of evolution at the end of which the playing-card pack as we know it emerged, but, on the contrary, that, a matter of at most a few years before 1377, the pack was either invented or introduced from elsewhere, in a fully developed form, and immediately spread over a wide area of Europe." (GT 11.) Most of the many early references were prohibitions. "There can be no doubt that in 1377 when the Florentines took measures against cards, declaring their wish to combat such evil principles, volentes malis obviare principiis, they were clearly expressing ideas widely shared around Europe." (Ortalli 176.) ______________________________________________________________

1381 Marseilles, France.

"A certain Jacques Jean (son of a Marseilles merchant) bound for Alexandria, Egypt, pledged to his friends Honorat d'Abe and Micolas Miol, before a notary, not to gamble or play games of chance on his journey: primarily taxilli (the greatly condemned dice), but also scaqui (i.e. chess which actually enjoyed a good reputation) and nahipi. The pledge to forsake gambling was a well-known obligation in Mediaeval juridical practice, especially as far as dice were concerned. But here the novelty was the inclusion of cards among the unacceptable games." (Ortalli 176; K I:24; B 45.)

1382 Barcelona, Spain. Prohibition of gambling, including naypes. "The decree was read by the town crier in the streets of Barcelona: Uno gos jugar a nengun joch de daus, ni de taules, ni de naips." (K II:1; Ortalli 176.)

1382 Lille, France. Prohibition of dice and cards (quartes). "No one from then on must dare either by day or night play as dez, as taules, as quartes, ne a nul autre geu quelconques". (K I:24; GT 10; B 45; Ortalli 176.)


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1384 Valencia, Spain.

"In 1384 the Valencia Consejo general forbade un novel joch appellat dels naips", a new game called naips. (Ortalli 176; GT 10-11.)

1384 Nuremberg, Germany.

A manuscript notes the "widespread adoption of the new game throughout Europe". Dummett reports this, noting that he was unable to confirm it. (GT 11; B 29.)

1387 Castile, Spain.

"An edict by King John I includes cards among prohibited games." (Ortalli, 176.)

1391 Santa Maria a Monte, Italy.

Ordinance forbade various games, but still did not mention cards. However, they were forbidden in a 1396 ordinance. The 1396 prohibition was lifted in 1419, but reinstated in 1445, indicating the ambivalence with which cards were viewed. (Ortalli 177.)

1392 P France.

Account book for King Charles VI, "Given to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and colored, and variously ornamented, for the amusement of the king, fifty-six sols of Paris." These are not the so-called Gringonneur cards, aka Charles VI cards, which are a late fifteenth-century Ferrarese Tarot deck. These three decks might be better compared to the 1440 Tortona deck. (K I:24; GT 65-66; P 37.)


Chronicle di Giovani Morelli "contains a warning against the use of dice by children. Morelli describes naibi as a kind of game, and from the context it appears it was one which only children played, possibly for instructive purposes." (K I:24.) Ortalli refers to Morelli's "Ricordi memoirs written between 1393 and 1421". (Ortalli 181.) Compare this with the 1424 Ferrara reference to acquiring decks for children, and the 1516 entry.

1395 Bologna, Italy.

"A certain Federico of German origin, suspected of pushing counterfeit coins in Bologna in 1395, also sold cartas figuratas et pictas ad imagines et figuras sanctorum." (Ortalli 197.)

1396 Santa Maria a Monte, Italy.

Prohibition against naibi, "albeit with a fine of only 20 soldi compared to the 3 lire for other games." (Ortalli 177.)

1396 Paris France.


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"At the French court a hawker or maker of cases, Guion Groslet appears in the account books of 1396 for having sold an estuy for the cards of Queen Isabelle of Bavaria (Charles VI's wife)." (Ortalli 178.)

1397 Paris, France.

Prohibition against card playing. (K I:24.) This may be the same prohibition referred to by Ortalli, "when the prevot of Paris forbade the gens de metier from playing cards on working days." (Ortalli 178.)

1397 Ulm, Germany. Prohibition against card playing. (K I:24.)

1398 San Pietro, Italy.

"...the punishment for playing naibi was 20 soldi compared to 30 for other forbidden games, while at Campi in 1410 it was as little as half." (Ortalli 177.)

c.1400 Mamluk, Egypt.

"The future Sultan al-Malik al-Muayyud is recorded to have won a large sum of money in a game of cards in about the year 1400". (GT 42.)

c.1400 P Mamluk, Egypt.

A nearly complete deck (47 cards) from this provenance was found in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. As reconstructed, it was a 52-card deck "virtually identical with the Italian variety of the Latin-suited pack". (P 40; K I:53, 56; H 19.)

1402 Ulm, Germany. Cardmaker (kartenmacher) mentioned as profession in registry. (Betts, 109.)

1403 Aragon, Spain.

The King of Aragon, Martin el Humano, requested some playing cards, un joch de naips. (Ortalli 178.)

1404 Langres, France.

"...at the Langres Synod cards were on the list of prohibited games. And preachers did not hesitate to adopt very severe positions on this subject." (Ortalli 176.)

1408 Orleans, France.

Inventory of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, listing "ung jeu de quartes sarrasines and unes quartes de Lombardie (one pack of Saracen cards; one cards of Lombardy)". (GT 42.)

1408 Paris, France.

Court records describe con artists using cards in a simple


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scam "with a psychological resemblance to Three-card Monte." (Giobbi; P 73.)

1414 Barcelona, Spain.

Multiple inventories referring to Moorish cards: "j joch de nayps moreschs" and "j joch de nahyps moreschs", both meaning "1 pack of Moorish playing cards". (GT 42.)

c.1415 Bologna, Italy.

A portrait of Prince Fibbia, dating from the later seventeenth century, bears an inscription identifying him as "inventor of the game of Tarocchino in Bologna". This apparently legendary attribution appears to be a Fibbia family tradition, intended to explain their arms on some Bolognese cards by attributing the game to Prince Francesco Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia (1360 - 1419). (K I:32 -33, II:2, GT 66-67.)

1418 Augsburg, Germany. Cardmaker (kartenmacher) mentioned as profession in registry. (Betts, 109.)


The first mention of playing cards in Florence. A painter, Iacobo di Bartolomeo Sagramoro, was paid for repairing four decks (painting the backs red) and making 13 replacement cards from scratch, five of them with figures and eight with pips. (Ortalli 179-180.)

1423 Florence/Ferrara, Italy.

The Ferrarese "...Marchesa Parisina Malatesti, Niccolo III's second wife, ordered that the [Florentine] painter Giovanni dalla Gabella be paid the handsome sum of forty gold ducats for a valuable pack of cards, decorated with gold and brazil ['the red color extracted from brazilwood'] and fine ultramarine blue [from 'the very expensive lapis lazuli' stone].... This was clearly a work of the highest standard, given the price and the value of the materials...." (Ortalli 180.)

1423 P Florence/Ferrara, Italy.

"...again the Marchesa Parisina wrote to Florence to obtain 'a pack of VIII imperadori cards made with fine gold'.... The cost of this pack on the Florence market was seven florins and then there was the expense of bringing them to Ferrara, but there was nothing exceptional about all this.... What is really important is that this is the earliest mention of the game of imperatori, suggesting that not only the cards, but also a new way of playing had been imported from Florence." (Ortalli 180.)

1423 * Bologna, Italy.

Sermon by the Franciscan St. Bernardine of Siena, Contra alearum ludos, against games of chance in general and cards in particular. A bonfire of vanities accompanied the sermon. See


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Saint Bernardines Sermon.

1424 Ferrara, Italy.

The Marchesa Parisina ordered two packs of inexpensive cards "sent to be used by our girls". (Ortalli 181.) Compare with the 1393 Morelli entry and the 1516 Ferrara entry, also referring to cards for children.

1426 N�rdlingen, Germany. Karn�ffel, "a celebrated game in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Germany", was the first known game using trumps. In the earliest known reference to Karn�ffel, it was "listed in a municipal ordinance of N�rdlingen in 1426 as among the games that could lawfully be played at the annual city f�te." W.L. Schreiber also noted that it was "a trick-taking game played by soldiers and peasants rather than the upper crust." (GT 184; P 165; Betts 321; WPC 42.) See Karn�ffel.

1429 Basle, Switzerland?

The earliest surviving copy of Brother John's Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, the original being dated 1377. There are additional copies dating from 1472. See Tractatus de moribus.


Antonio di Giovanni di ser Franceso was listed as a naibaio by trade. "In the portata d'estimo of 1430, he declared many woodcuts for cards and pictures of saints tante forme di legname da naibi e da santi." (Ortalli 197.)

c.1430 P Stuttgart, Germany.

Decks with animal and bird suit-symbols. Also from the mid fifteenth century are some copper-engraved decks with animal, birds, and flowers as suit-symbols. This is the tradition of the 1544 Virgil Solis deck, and the 1557 Caitlin Geofroy Tarots suit cards, and related to the hunting-themed decks. (GT 14; K I:12, 59.)

1434 Florence/Ferrara, Italy.

Marchese Niccolo III of Ferrara "paid 7 gold florins to have two packs of cards sent from Florence." These might well have been more carte da imperatori, like those purchased from Florence in 1423. (Ortalli 181.)

c.1430s Ferrara, Italy.

Marchese "Niccolo III had a small parchment volume: libro de piccolo volume de carte de piegora che insegn'a zugare a scachi, tavole, merlero et a la volpe. This was surely a games rules booklet." (Ortalli 182.)

c.1435 Alsace, France..

Meister Ingold wrote Das Guldin Spiel, The Golden Game. About


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chess: "Johannes Ingold, a Dominican from what is now Germany (died 1465), in his work was especially concerned with the Seven Deadly Sins, illustrating each with a game. Besides chess, he refers to cards, music, shooting, dancing, and several games of chance. In his outline, the King is Reason, the Queen Will, the Bishop Memory, the Knight a warrior, and the Rook a judge. The pawns are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then he takes a second pass at the subject, equating the King with Christ, the Queen with Mary, the Bishop with patriarchs and prophets, the Knights with martyrs, the Rook the apostles, and pawns men on earth." (JAF.)

About cards: "From [The Golden Game] we learn that the 52 cards of the pack represent the 52 weeks of the year in which we fall into sin, the sins in question being symbolized by the four suits (roses, crowns, pennies, rings) and thirteen ranks depicted on the cards. We also learn that the ranks represent various medieval characters who win one another in a given order of precedence, suggesting the mechanics of a trick-taking game possibly Karn�ffel." (P 51; GT 15; B 29; Ortalli 199.)

1435 Rome, Italy.

"... in the Constitutions on the Chapters of the cathedrals of Pope Eugene IV in 1435, we learn that even canons played cards in the choirs of churches." (Ortalli 198.)


In a list of jobs done by a woodworker, reference is made to a torchiolo da carte. "This small card press is the first evidence of the Este court's dealings with manufactured printed playing cards as opposed to entirely hand-drawn and painted cards. And given the very low price of the packs sent to Parisina at Portomaggiore for her daughters in 1424, they could not have been hand-made...." (Ortalli 181.) ______________________________________________________________

By putting those two facts together, Ortalli suggests that not only were printed cards available in the 1420s, but that they were being created within the Ferrarese court in the 1430s. "...in 1436 the press for making cards was purchased directly by the Este." ______________________________________________________________


"At least three packs of rather ordinary carthexele (2 lire each)" were commissioned from the painter Iacobo Sagramoro. For one of the decks it was noted that it had been ordered on behalf of the Marchese. "The relatively modest price (2 lire) compared to the price of hand-made cards suggests that the painter coloured and added the finishing touches to cards printed on the [1436 entry] press." (Ortalli 181, 182.)


"Two new packs with green and red marbled backs" were commissioned from the painter Jacopo di Bartolomeo Busoli,


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along with some repair work on other cards, "all for 6 lire ". (Ortalli 181.)


Inventory referring to Moorish cards: " x jochs de naips moreschs " and " iij altres jochs de naips plans petits ", meaning "10 packs of Moorish playing cards" and "3 other packs of small playing cards". (GT 42.) ______________________________________________________________

The year 1440 is about the upper boundary for the invention of Tarot. The earliest surviving deck may date from 1440 or 41, and the earliest documented reference to Tarot dates from 1442. "A lower bound for the date of their invention is harder to determine. It probably occurred around 1425; the earliest date with any claim to be plausible would be 1410." (WPC 27.) ______________________________________________________________

1440 P Germany.

Ambras hunting deck, (Ambraser Hofjagdspiel), a 56-card deck with King, Queen, Ober, and Unter. The four suits included Falcons, Herons, Hounds, and Decoys. "The story of falconry is represented by the falcon as the hunting bird of prey, the heron as the hunted bird, the hound, which seeks out the heron after it has been struck, and the lure, which calls the falcon back to the falconer. By virtue of the subject matter, these cards are sometimes called falconer cards." (K I:58 - 59; GT 23; H 24; B 103.)

1440 P Milan, Italy.

Court biographer Decembrio noted that Filippo Maria Visconti enjoyed playing a game with painted figures. Also, he noted that a deck (ludum) was purchased from Marziano da Tortona, "who executed with the utmost diligence images of gods, and placed under them with wonderful skill figures of animals and birds". (D 82; K I:26; M 52n.) (See The Besozzo Cards.)

1441 Venice, Italy.

Prohibition against the import of printed colored figures. "This order appears to have been aimed at German card makers as a result of a petition from the fellowship of painters at Venice, who claimed that card making had fallen into total decay in Venice because great quantities of playing cards and colored printed figures were being imported." (K I:26; Ortalli 197, 199.)

1441 Strasbourg, Germany.

The distant ancestor of Poker, "first recorded at Strasburg in 1441, Poch is one of the oldest identifiable card games and has evidently influenced the pattern of many others." (P 87.)


The marriage of Francesco Sforza to Bianca Maria Visconti. Kaplan suggests that this was the occasion for which the


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Cary-Yale (aka, Visconti di Modrone, after a former owner) deck was commissioned. "Two suits in the Cary-Yale pack contain Visconti devices and two contain Sforza devices, leading one to speculate that the deck was prepared about the time of the wedding in 1441...." According to Dummett, the earliest well-dated work by Bonifacio Bembo, (commonly considered the artist responsible for the Visconti decks), is from 1442, so this attribution is not ruled out from that standpoint, assuming that the deck were one of his earliest works. Dummett considers the deck to be from the same period, "... not likely to have been painted many years after the first invention of the Tarot pack. That event may therefore be reasonably placed at somewhere around 1440." (K I:106-107; GT 68, 78-79.)

The Cary-Yale deck is aberrant in a number of ways, including the presence of the three Theological Virtues among the trumps, and the presence of additional Court cards. Sixty-seven cards survive, including eleven trumps. (K I:88-95; K II:26-41; H 17.)


An account book (Registro di Guardaroba) entry for the 10th of February mentions that four decks were commissioned from the painter Iacobo Sagramoro. "Sagramoro was to be paid 20 lire 'for having coloured and painted the cups, swords, coins and batons and all the figures of four packs of trump cards, [quattro paia di carticelle da trionfi] and making the backs for a pack of red cards and three packs of green ones, embellished with roundels painted in oil, which our Lord has for his use'." This would appear to be the earliest reasonably clear reference to Tarot cards. Another reference occurs in the Registro dei Mandati, to pare uno de carte da trionfi. (Ortalli 184; K II:3; GT 67.)


An account book (Registro di Guardaroba) entry for the 28th of July mentions Tarot cards. "For a pack of carte da trionfi intended for Ercole and Sigismondo (two of Leonello's brothers), delivered to their servant Iacomo 'guercio', the merciaio Marchione Burdochi received the sum of 12 soldi and 3 denari. Thus by now a pack of tarots was an easily purchased item from a retail dealer at almost popular prices.... the same money needed for one [expensive hand-painted pack] would have bought eight from the shopkeeper with change. And this, to my mind, is reliable proof of how tarots were now firmly and widely established." (Ortalli 185.) (Leonello was the son of and successor to Marchese Niccolo III.) ______________________________________________________________

Although it is not at all clear that Tarot were yet "firmly and widely established", (and it is completely unknown from this record how long they had been around), it is clear that in Ferrara at least they were at this point a commodity. It is interesting to note that Ortalli's 1436 record suggests that some forms of both hand-painted and printed cards were being made in-house, but this record suggests that Tarot cards were being purchased from outside. This would appear to suggest


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that Tarot did not originate in the Ferrarese court, and at this date had not yet been fully assimilated into the court's card manufacturing. ______________________________________________________________

1443-1455 W�rzburg, Germany.

"... a chronicle from W�rzburg, Germany for 1443-1455 mentions 'a certain individual... playing at cards a game called the Emperor's Game (ludus Imperatoris)', a literal Latin rendering of Kaiserspiel. The same Latin name occurs in records of Ferrara." (Betts 321; Ortalli 187; GT 191.) ______________________________________________________________

In discussing these Emperor games, Ortalli first notes that "this all suggests a very plausible connection between Karn�ffel and the 'emperor' game played in Ferrara. Thus Este court pastimes would seem to have been linked through Florence to circles beyond the Alps." However, he then goes on to conclude that this cannot be the case, because in the Italian Emperor game "there were eight 'emperors", which "is totally incompatible with Karn�ffel which had only one." (Ortalli 187.) Apparently the sole justification for this view that the Italian game had eight emperors is the single, far-from-clear reference in the 1423 note from Marchesa Parisina. Given the obscurity of that single reference, and the fact that some forms of Karn�ffel had two trump suits and four "Kaisers" per trump suit, the Italian Emperor decks might have been slightly modified standard decks, used to play an imported version of Karn�ffel. In any case, the popularity of carte da imperaturi was apparently limited and short-lived, with the last known reference being in 1452 or 1454. (See both notes.) ______________________________________________________________

1443-1444 Ferrara, Italy.

References to a number of inexpensive (12 soldi) decks of carte da imperaturi. A more expensive example (20 soldi or 1 lira marchesana) bore the devixe del Signore on the back, the insignia of Leonello d'Este. The carte da imperaturi "were inexpensive cards compared to the price of tarot packs and were more like the cost of normal cartexelle or carte da zugare. This suggests that in the game of 'emperors' the pack must have been very much like ordinary cards and had nothing along the lines of the trumps, which made the tarots so rich and interesting." (Ortalli 187; Betts 321.)


Filippo Maria Visconti died. Dummett considers the Cary-Yale and the Brera (aka, Brambilla, after a former owner) decks to have been for Filippo Maria Visconti. "The principal reason for thinking that the [Cary-Yale] cards were painted for Filippo Maria is, however, that the numeral cards of the Coins suit, other than the Ace and 2, show actual coins, the gold florin of Filippo Maria, bearing the letters 'FI MA' and made by the imprint of an actual die; the same is true of all eleven surviving cards of the Coins suit in the Brambilla pack, but not of the Visconti-Sforza pack." If that is the


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case, then this would be the latest date for the Brambilla deck, and Dummett suggests somewhere between 1442 and 1445. (K I:106-107; GT 68, 78 -79.) Forty-eight cards survive, including two trumps. (K I:96-98; H 18.)


Letter describing a set of sixteen cards as a game (ludus), originally commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti, painted by Michelino da Besozzo. See The Besozzo Cards.


"In 1450, [Piero] Andrea di Bonsignore was paid two lire for painting two decks of Emperor cards (carte da Imperatori)". (Betts 321; Ortalli 187; GT 191.) See Karn�ffel.

c.1450 P Switzerland.

Earliest examples of Swiss suit-system are from this period, including 1433 and 1451 references. (GT 14; P 42.) See Modern Deck Designs.

1450 Germany.

"The earliest substantial reference to Karn�ffel discovered by Dr. von Leyden is a poem by Meissner written in or before 1450; from it, he has conjecturally reconstructed the ranking of the highest cards as being, in descending order: the Unter, called the karn�ffel; the Deuce, called the s�w (Sow); the 3, called the babst (Pope); the 5, called the keyser (Kaiser); and the 4, called the t�fel (Devil). The term Sow for the Deuce was a common one, since, in many early German and some Swiss packs, a sow was depicted on each Deuce. The other four names, however, are peculiar to Karn�ffel, and, though later attached to cards of other ranks, they were evidently used from an early stage in its history." (GT 188.)

1450 Milan, Italy.

A letter by Francesco Sforza, requesting two decks " carte de triumphi ", or if Tarot decks are not available, two decks of " carte da giocare ". "As soon as this is received, we want you to send, by a mail rider, two decks of trump cards, of the finest you can find; and if you do not find said trumps, please send two other decks of playing cards, of the finest that there are. Do this so we will have them here for all day Sunday, which will be the thirteenth of the month." (K II:4-5; Betts 111.) ______________________________________________________________

This item suggests that in Milan also, Tarot cards were a commodity, and available in different qualities, as early as 1450. Tarot probably began with a form similar to the "archetypal" design of a 56-card deck with 22 additional allegorical cards showing a standardized set of subjects. Whether it began as such or not, "the Tarot pack had certainly been standardised, as regards the number and identity of the cards, by 1450." (WPC 25.) Moreover, "cardmakers began to make


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cheap printed Tarot packs, and less wealthy sections of society took up the game, which they had done by 1450." (WPC 41.) ______________________________________________________________

c.1450 Ferrara, Italy.

"... just after 1450 many differently named games began to appear in the registers of sentences: "la terza e quarta, la carta di dietro, la candiana, la spiciga, il re a cavalo, il flusso, la farina contro farina", and "il falcinello". (Ortalli 191.)


Francesco Sforza assumes the crown as Duke of Milan. Kaplan suggests that this was the occasion for which the Visconti-Sforza (aka, Pierpont Morgan-Bergamo) deck was commissioned. Dummett considers the combination of "the ducal crown with the fronds of laurel and palm, and the three interlaced rings which constitute a heraldic device specific to Francesco Sforza" to provide "incontestable proof that the pack was painted after 1450, the year Francesco made good his claim to the title of duke". This deck appears to have been the latest of the three best-known Visconti decks, and exhibits various such Sforza emblems. Moakley noted that "on the feminine suits of Cups and Coins the devices of the Visconti family are emphasized", and suggests that the combination of Visconti and Sforza emblems reflects the union of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti. (M 88.) She also argued that the allegorical content of the Trumps included Carnival and Lent, as well as assorted aspects of Petrarchs I Trionfi. Seventy-four cards survive, including twenty trumps. (K I:106-107; GT 69, 78-79; H 18; M; VS.)


"The last known mention of the game of 'emperors' in 1452... refers to printed production... stanpire charte da imperaduri da zugare." (Ortalli 187.) "Basically three types of cards were found in normal circulation in the period from 1420 to 1460 in the duchy of Este: normal packs, 'emperor' cards, whose popularity was short-lived (there is no further mention of them after 1452) and tarots. The differences between the three types may well appear to be slight. Normal cards and 'emperor cards' must basically have been the same, while tarots simply added the twenty-two pictorial cards without changing the rest." (Ortalli 188.)

1452 Nuremburg, Germany.

A sermon by John Capistran, a disciple of Bernardine of Sienna, (cf. 1423), preached a sermon against gaming which precipitated a huge bonfire of vanities, "reportedly fueled by 76 sledges, 3640 backgammon boards, 40,000 dice, and a comparable quantity of cards." (P 38; Betts 110.) See Saint Bernardines Sermon.



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"...recorded in the book Conti di Borso: 'uno paro de forme de carte, the printing blocks for a pack of cards purchased from Piero Andrea da le Fenestre' for 20 ducats. That the court had blocks is particularly meaningful, given that the main aim of using them was quantity rather than quality." (Ortalli 194.)


"... records state that Borso d'Este played at cards: 'of the Emperor' (dell'imperatore) in Ferrara around 1454." (Betts 321; GT 191.)


Chess "held its ground as one of the favourite aristocratic pastimes practiced at court. But at the same time it must be said that in all the fifteenth century documents studied so far, there are many more references to playing cards. And greater sums were certainly spent on playing cards. In 1456 chess and draughts ordered by Borso [d'Este, Duke of Ferrara] cost less than 10 lire marchesane, while repair work ten years later cost one and a half lira very small sums indeed compared to those spent on packs of cards." (Ortalli 183.)


"... the Ferrara jurist Ugo Trotti, a professor of canon law, bore witness (in his De multiplici ludo) to the spread, variety and multifaceted character of card games, which could not be classified en bloc with games of luck or pure chance. Tarots in particular were included among mixed games, verging on games of skill (and not of luck), as was chess from the outset a game always considered to be respectable by the legal experts." (Ortalli 188, 199.)

1457 P Ferrara, Italy.

The artist Gherardo d'Andrea da Vicenza is mentioned "in connection with two very valuable packs; carte grande da trionfi rich in gold and colours. The cards had to be painted thick gold and all made with fine spendid colours: messe d'oro fitamente, et fate tute de coluri fini et brunide, et depinte de roverso uno paro rosa, uno paro verde. There were carte 70 per zogo [70 cards per pack] not an easy number to explain. Priced at 14 lire each and paid with a discount of 2 soldi per lira (the equivalent of 10 per cent) according to what subsequent documents indicated was the 'convention' or 'custom' or 'usual rate', thus proving there was a continuous and pre-established agreement between the artist and Borso's court." It would appear that these decks were not only exceptionally luxurious but also unique, probably with a 14-card trump "suit" analogous to Tarot's 22-card trump "suit". Although we know none of the details of any such 70-card decks, there were many idiosyncratic card games developed, both before and after this time. (Ortalli 186.)

A far more speculative theory regarding the da Vicenza decks has been proposed, which agrees that these two 70-card decks were analogous to Tarot as suggested above, but goes much farther. It suggests that the subject matter of the 14


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hypothetical trumps was the same as 14 of the conventional Tarot cards. The theory suggests that this hypothetical design pre-dated Tarot per se, and that Tarot derived from it by the later addition of eight more trumps. It further speculates that the 1450 Visconti-Sforza deck is an example of such a 70-card pre-Tarot deck, and that it was later modified to a 76-card design (lacking the Devil and Tower cards). At some still later date, these pre-Tarot decks were further modified, to become the conventional 78-card Tarot design. All of this hypothetical evolution is undocumented speculation, and even the first step is a huge one since the da Vicenza reference, (the only known evidence of any 70-card deck), offers no indication of the deck's design, much less the subject matter of any supposed trump cards. (For a presentation of this theory, see http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/pbm14new.html.)

1458-1463 Ferrara, Italy.

"Gherardo d'Andrea's key role seemed to settle into standard production: from 1458 to 1463 the cost of his cards was 4 lire marchesane per pack [of Tarot cards] with a discount of 10 per cent (abatudo soldi 2 per lira), thus reducing the cost to 3 lire and 12 soldi.... We can document up to eight packs in one year (1460) and the information is certainly not complete." (Ortalli 189.)


A note describing certain objects being lent by Duke Borso d'Este included "stampe for trump cards". Ortalli concludes "that those stampe were printing blocks and the fact that Duke Borso actually owned them is highly significant. They may well have been the blocks for a whole pack bought in January 1454..." (Ortalli 194.)


The earliest known reference to Tarot in Bologna. (VS 5.)

1459 England.

The first credible reference to playing cards in England is their mention in a letter discussing permissible Christmastime games: "pleying at the tabyllys [tables, i.e., backgammon], and schesse [chess], and cards; sweche dysports she gave her folkys leve to play and no odyr." (A previous dating of this letter was c.1484.) (P 46; B 55.)

1459 P Mantua, Italy.

Heinrich Brockhaus suggested that the Mantegna series of images was a game designed at a 1459-60 religious council in Mantua, to serve "as a pastime for three members of the council, the Cardinals Bessarion and Nicholas of Cusa, and Pope Pius II himself. And in fact they were not unworthy to occupy the leisure of these princes of the Church." (Jean Seznecs TheSurvival of the Pagan Gods, 138-9.) See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph.



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Inventory referring to Moorish cards: "jochs de nayps plans, y altres jochs moreschs", meaning "packs of ordinary playing cards, and other, Moorish packs". (GT 42.)


References to Tarot in documents from the Este court become rare. This does not mean that was no longer an interest in or production of such decks. "For example, of the sixteen cards (eight trumps and eight faces) in the Cary Collection, Yale University Library, widely recognized to be Ferrara made, we find both the Este and the Aragon coats of arms. The cards can be linked therefore with the wedding in 1473 of Duke Ercole and Eleonor of Aragon. They must have come from a tarot pack definitely used and almost certainly ordered by the Ferrara court, but there is no trace of them in the available documents." This dearth of later records probably reflects nothing more than that "the novelty stage had come to an end (and the impact that novelty brings)." (Ortalli 189-190.)

c. 1460 Florence, Italy.

The earliest known Italian examples of the Children of the Planets prints "probably comes from Florence and dates from around 1460-1463." These astrological works have been presented as a kind of key to understanding the alleged astrological content of Tarot. A somewhat modernized version of such a block book is available online at http://www.billyandcharlie.com/planets/hansensplanets.html. (Shephard.)

1460 P Germany.

Standard German suit-signs, Leaves, Acorns, Hearts, and Bells, are established by this time. "During the thirty years before that, it seems that chaos prevailed in Germany in respect of suit-symbols. It was not until the end of the sixteenth century that the last traces of that chaos vanished." (GT 15, 16; P 42.) See Modern Deck Designs.

1461 England.

Records of Edward IVs first parliament include the first official notice of cards in England: "And also that no Lorde, nor other persone of lowere astate, condicion or degree, whatsoever he be, suffre any Dicyng or pleiyng at the Cardes within his hous, or elles where he may let it, of any of his servauntes or other, oute of the XII days of Christmasse". (P 46.)

1462 Visso, Italy.

Playing "ludus cartarum was punished with a fine four times greater than that for other more trivial games, but the penalty for dice was as much as five times greater than for playing cards." (Ortalli 177.)

1463 England.


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Prohibition against importing playing cards. "Its protectionist tone leads some to believe that they were already being produced in significant quantities by native craftsmen." (P 46; B 55.)

1463 Rome, Italy.

Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus used endless analogies to allude to the Divine: "The face of faces is veiled in all faces and seen in a riddle." Games were among his metaphors, including one of his own invention, a Globe Game. "Basically, the game of De ludo globi appears to consist of the throwing or rolling of a curiously shaped spheroid whose surface is concave at one end... because of the shape of the spheroid used in this game its path is a curved one. Hence, the point of the game seems to be to roll the spheroid in such a way that it approaches the center of the innermost circle of ten concentric circles which have been marked out upon the ground... Cusanus description indicates that the game was supposed to be played outside, on whatever surface that happened to be available." (Pauline Moffitt Watts, Nicolaus Cusanus: A Fifteenth-Century Vision of Man.) Ten concentric circles imply a conventional Ptolemaic cosmograph, and the difficult task of the game is in direct analogy to the Neoplatonic mystics indirect spiritual ascent. "Its didacticism is strictly mechanical, how to make slanted propulsion come out straight." (Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance.) (See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph for some related works.)

1464 France.

Translation of St. Bernardines 1423 sermon adds mention of the game of 31, precursor to the modern game of 21. (P 80.)

c.1470 P Ferrara, Italy.

Six replacement cards (Fortitude, Temperance, the Star, the Moon, the Sun, and the World) for the Visconti-Sforza deck were created. John Shephard considers this evidence of a revisioning of the deck, changing the content from a Petrarchian themed series of triumphs to a complex astrological design based on the Children of the Planets. He also considers the Mantegna series and the Tarot de Marseille pattern to reflect this redesign. (GT 69, Shephard.)

c.1470 * ?

This is probably the earliest plausible date for the Steele Sermon, or Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis against gaming by an anonymous Dominican friar. See The Steele Sermon.


The so-called Mantegna Tarocchi, a series of 50 engraved images in a cosmographic hierarchy is probably from this period. This series was influential in various ways over a long period. Cf. the 1459 Council of Mantua, the 1471 Lazzarelli work; the 1484 tomb of Sixtus IV; the 1496 images of Durer; and the 1616 Labyrinth game of Ghisi, as well as the more distantly related 1463 Globe Game of Cusanus. See The


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"Mantegna" Cosmograph. ______________________________________________________________

An interesting example of the way in which card designs that were created as art objects might result in decks for actual play is given by the engraved circular deck by "PW" of Cologne (1470?). "The title card shows three crowns in a trefoil and carries the inscription Salve Felix Colonia. This and an extra card on which death is clutching at a nude woman give these round cards the character of a series which was only intended for looking at." It had five suits, roses, columbines, pinks, parrots, and hares. A less finely engraved copy was made by another artist, who also reduced the number of suits to four. This may have been intended for actual use. Yet another artist, "Johann Bussemacher, on the basis of these two models, now produced cards for the real cardplayer. Instead of the round form, he chose the usual vertical rectangular shape. The open spaces resulting from this were filled by coarse sayings arranged in two lines. No less coarse are the representations of the mounted queens, kings, and knaves. Only the arrangement of the animals and flowers recalls the noble model." (H 24-25; B 103.) ______________________________________________________________


A series of 27 poems by Ludovico Lazzarelli was assembled into a volume, illustrated with 23 images from the so-called Mantegna Tarocchi, and four other images in a similar style. (The information in Kaplan is not reliable on this, specifically the comment that there are "twenty-two tarocchi illustrations" in Lazzarellis work.) (K I:26-27.) Robert V. O'Neill described the work as a typical Renaissance Humanist poem: praising ancient mythology and moralizing pagan stories, assembling the collection into a Neoplatonic hierarchy. (ONeill, "Requiem for Lazzarelli".) See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph.


The dEste cards. Sixteen cards survive, including eight trumps, in the Cary Collection at Yale. Probably from this provenance, late fifteenth century. (GT 69; K I:117-118.) Betts offers an argument that this deck could not have been created before 1508, based on heraldry of a shield held by the Queen of Swords. (Betts 99-100.)

1474 Ulm, Germany.

Chronicle stating that "playing cards were sent in large bales into Italy, Sicily, and other parts by sea" (K I:26.) Another version: "playing-cards were sent in small casks into Italy, Sicily, and also over the sea, and bartered for spices and other wares." (B 29.)

1475 Rome, Italy.

Cardinal Platina, prefect of the Vatican Library, published De honesta voluptate valetudine. "Describing how to behave honestly and seemingly, Platina suggested that his worthy


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readers relax in peace for a couple of hours after lunch, when they should find a suitable pastime that was tranquil and would not excite or upset the digestion. A urbane game to be played with moderation: urbanum, facetum, modestum. No cunning, scurrility, or acrimony. None of the arrogance, sarcasm or clamour that generated anger and insults, at times spilling over into brawls. At this point a practical example had to be provided. The Cardinal had no doubts: 'Ludus sit talis tessera scacho, ut nostro appellatione utar, carthis variis imaginibus pictis". Thus the ideal irreproachable ludus, along with chess, was cards." (Ortalli 198.)

c1475? P Ferrara, Italy.

The so-called Charles VI (aka, Gringonneur) cards. Seventeen cards survive, including sixteen trumps, in the Biblioteque Nationale at Paris. Probably from this provenance. The design appears to reflect the designs of popular woodcut decks of the era: for example, the polygonal halos given the virtues in the Florentine Rosenwald cards, or the angel-surmounted World of various decks. Interestingly, however, the figure above the New World does not have angelic wings but instead wears the virtues polygonal halo, suggesting that the penultimate trump is being identified with the fourth Cardinal Virtue, Prudence, as well as showing the Kingdom of Heaven via symbols of sovereignty held above the New World. (GT 65-66, 69; K I:111-116; H 18; Shephard 25-27.)

c.1475? P Ferrara, Italy.

The Rothschild cards. Thirty-one cards survive, including only one trump. Probably from this provenance, late fifteenth century. (GT 69; K I:120-121.)

c.1475? P Ferrara, Italy.

The Museo Civico Tarot cards. Fifteen cards survive, including four trumps. The World is very similar to that of Charles VI. Probably from this provenance, late fifteenth century. (GT 69; K I:108-110, 109.)

c.1475? P France or Italy.

The Goldschmidt cards are from a very deviant Tarot deck which is unfortunately represented by only nine cards. A bishop is shown as an allegory of Hope, (with an anchor displayed), probably in place of the Pope. The Ace of Cups is a fountain of life, (showing two streams, water and blood), as in some other decks, (Rosenthal, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Guildhall), but in this case circled by an ouroborous. The Ace of Spades is a death card, with crossed bones and a skull chained to the suit symbols scabbard. Dummett states that "it is not apparent, from the cards themselves, that they are Tarot cards at all; not one of them can be identified with any assurance as one of the Tarot triumphs." The Spanish style of suit-symbols, illustrated by the Five of Clubs, may suggest a French origin. (GT 73, 74, 75, 85.)

c.1475? P Milan, Italy.


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The Von Bartsch Visconti-Sforza Tarot cards. Thirteen cards survive, including five trumps and a Visconti serpent card. Probably from this provenance, late fifteenth century. (GT 69; K I:100-102.)


A unique and influential allegorical Tarot deck was designed by Matteo Maria Boiardo. See The Boiardo Tarot Deck.

c.1480

"According to Rafael Maffei, also known as Il Volterrano, the game of tarots is a fairly new invention. The book by Volterrano was published in 1506, but the manuscript is somewhat older." Kaplan suggests that this reference may be mistaken. (H 16; K I:33.)

c.1480 P France.

"The French suit-system, appearing about 1480, should certainly be seen as an adaptation of the German one, with Spades corresponding to Leaves, Clubs to Acorns, and of course French Hearts to German ones. The shapes of the French suit-signs, in all three cases, are regularised version of those German signs." (GT 22.) The court card were commonly given classical or biblical names. "Modern French packs retain the delightful and archaic feature of court cards bearing individual names, typically:

Suit

King

Queen

Knight

Spades

David

Pallas

Hogier

Clubs

Alexandre

Argine

Lancelot

Hearts

Charles

Judith


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La Hire

Diamonds

Cesar

Rachel

Hector

Although the French named-card tradition goes back to the sixteenth century in principle, in practice the actual names have varied enormously and the most constant of them have not applied consistently to the same cards." (P 43-45.)

Various regional patterns existed in France, and were formally established by law in the eighteenth century. "A special feature of the Paris pattern is the employment of names for each court-card. Other regional patterns also adopted this feature, but the Paris pattern has been consistent in always using the same names, [those noted in the above Parlett quote] which are still in use today." (B 45-54.) The Sola-Busca Tarot deck also named these twelve court cards, leaving the Pages unnamed. See The Sola-Busca Tarot, and Modern Deck Designs.

1482 +

"Lorenzo Spirito publishes Delle Sorti or Libro di ventura, an Italian book of fortune-telling based on 20 questions grouped around a wheel of fortune, which refer to "20 kings", and dice yielding 56 three-line answers. This seems to be based on an earlier manuscript." (This is the entire entry from Greer & ONeill.)

1484 Rome, Italy.

"Some of the Mantegna images appear on the bas-reliefs of the tomb of Pope Sixtus IV (died 1484). Some of the images, such as Arithmetica, are so similar to the Mantegna prints that they must be direct copies." (Robert V. ONeill, Tarot Symbolism, 212.) See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph.

1485 + Basle

"...the verses in the [1510] Mainz Losbuch were adapted from one published in Basle in 1485, in which the 52 oracles were illustrated by different animals...." (GT 95.) ______________________________________________________________

"The first evidence of the use of playing cards for predicting the future dates from the 1480s when playing cards had been known in Europe for a good hundred years. This was Ein loszbuch ausz der Karten a book of fate from the cards which served to throw light on the future. The cards were shuffled, one was withdrawn from the deck, and then the book of fate was consulted...." This quote from Hoffman may actually refer to the 1510 Mainz losbuch, which according to Dummett (citing Hellmut Rosenfield) derived from earlier models. (H 50; GT 95.) ______________________________________________________________


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1488 Brescia, Italy.

Prohibition of games of chance, " buschatia ", defined as "omnis ludus taxillorum et cartarum exceptis ludis tabularum et rectis ludis triumphorum et scachorum", thus excluding backgammon, chess, and triumphs. (M 52n; GT 98.)

1488 ?

An essay by Galcottus Martius, writing in De Doctrina Promiscua, offers allegorical interpretation of the four suits: swords, spears, loaves, and cups. "When there is need of strength, as indicated by swords and spears, Martius suggests that many are better than just a few; in matters of meat and drink, however, a little is better than a great or excessive amounts...." (K I:28.)

1489 Salo am Gardasee, Italy.

Prohibition similar to 1488 Brescia, exempting Tarot. (M 52n; GT 98-99.)

1491 Bergamo, Italy.

Prohibition similar to 1488 Brescia, exempting backgammon, chess, and Tarot. (M 52n; GT 99.)

1491 P Ferrara, Italy.

The copper-engraved Sola Busca, a unique classical Tarot deck. See The Sola Busca Tarot.


"Cardinal Ippolito dEste acknowledged receipt of numerous items sent to him by his mother, Leonora of Aragon, the duchess of Ferrara, including gilded tarocchi cards and cards for the game of ronfa, triumphi dorati and carta da rompha." (K II:8, 112; Ortalli 199, 201.)

1494 Ferrara/Milan, Italy.

Ercole I "had carte da scartino sent to him in Milan in November 1494." (Ortalli 191.)

1496 Kaiserberg, Germany.

Bishop Johann Geiler compared the order of cards in the game of Karn�ffel or ludus Caesaris to the social order. He "begins by remarking that in (ordinary) card games, there is a fixed order... 'but now a game has been invented which is called Kaiserspiel or Karn�ffel in which everything is turned upside down... and there occurs a wonderful transformation (vicissitudo) of Kaisers, as in this game the Kaiser is made by chance now from this set (cetu), now from another'." This is obviously a reference to the fact that the suit chosen for the trumps is not fixed, but varies from one hand to the next. A similar sermon is dated 1515. (GT 184-185, 188-191; P 165.)


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See Karn�ffel.

"During the Reformation, Karn�ffel, containing as it did, cards known as the Pope, the Emperor (Kaiser) and the Devil, became the source for a more substantial allegory [than Bishop Geiler's inverted social hierarchy] by Protestant propagandists and satirists." (GT 184.) See examples at 1537 and 1546.

1496 Germany.

Albrecht Durer created a series of imaged derived from the Mantegna series. "Some art historians have dated the first group [ten images drawn with a pointed pen] circa 1496 and the later group [eleven images drawn with a broad-tipped pen] about 1506." (K I:47.) See The "Mantegna" Cosmograph.


Jacopo Filippo da Bergamo, (aka Jacobus Philippus Forestus), used the iconography of Tarot's Papess in a woodcut illustration of La Papessa Giovanna, Pope Joan. This image appeared in De Plurimis Claris Sceletisque Mulieribus. (Ross Gregory Caldwell, http://www.angelfire.com/space/tarot/papessa.html.)


A 1499 TdM style Two of Coins, recovered from Sforza Castle. Whether this came from a Tarot deck or a regular deck, it demonstrates that the TdM style of cards derived quite directly from early Milanese cards. (K II:289.)


"... in 1499 an anonymous chronicler rather irritatedly noted that in the city playing cards is a very common custom: " si usa et costuma de zugare a carte molto, come e a falsinelli, a rompha, a scarto, a resuscitare li morti, a scartare et a mille diavolamenti "." (Ortalli 191.)

1500 Reggio nellEmilia, Italy.

Prohibition similar to 1488 Brescia, exempting backgammon, chess, and Tarot. (GT 99.)

c.1500 P Milan, Italy.

A partial sheet of uncut cards in the Cary collection at Yale are probably from this general period, and almost certainly from Milan. This Cary fragment is the earliest surviving example of TdM iconography. Although this was a rather finely engraved example of a woodcut deck, rather than the more crudely rendered popular decks, it demonstrates that this general design dates from the fifteenth century. Six complete "cards" survive, plus fourteen partial "cards", including eighteen trumps. (TT 48; K II:286.)



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Partial sheets of uncut cards in the Metropolitan Museum in New York are probably from this general period, and from Ferrara. Twenty trumps are shown, in whole or in part. This is the same pattern as sheets in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. (TT 48; K I:125; K II:272-273.)

c.1500 P Bologna, Italy.

Partial sheets of uncut cards in the Rothschild Collection in the Louvre and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris are probably from this general period, and from Bologna. Twelve "cards" survive, all trumps. (TT 48; K I:128-129.)

c.1500 P Florence, Italy.

Partial sheets of uncut cards in the Rosenwald Collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington are probably from this general period, and from Florence. Twenty-four "cards" survive, including twenty-one trumps. (TT 48; K I:130-131.)

c.1500? P Milan, Italy.

There are a number of fragmentary sets of odd Tarot cards, presumably from the later fifteenth century, of which the Rosenthal set is perhaps the best example. These hand-painted cards have more non-standard than standard features, and are many are not even authenticated as fifteenth century cards, so it is very difficult to draw any inferences from them. They do exhibit some odd commonalties, and also some connections with the better known hand-painted decks. (GT 69-75, 87-89; K I:99-105.)

c.1500 P Germany.

The "Liechtenstein pack" from this period or possibly mid fifteenth century, has, "besides the Latin suits, a fifth suit of Shields". The Batons resemble polo sticks, unknown in Europe. (GT 15, 15n, 16, 44; H 25.)

1502 P Germany.

Franciscan monk Thomas Murner published an educational deck based on the Institutes of Justinian, thus beginning the fecund tradition of educational cards. "With the intention of increasing interest in reading, I have tried to counter immoral games through this extremely uplifting game of the imperial institutes and I would esteem myself fortunate if I should have succeeded in restricting that which is bad by that which is good." A related book, Chartiludium Institute Summarie, was published decades later, in 1528. A second game from Murner, teaching logic, was published in 1507. (H 38.)


"... during the reign of Alfonso (Ercole's son who succeed him in 1505) an account book for his first year as ruler mentions the acquisition at the end of June of as many as eighteen packs: eight tarot packs and ten fra schartini e carte da ronfa bought to be taken to Voghenza, obviously to help the


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courtiers while away the hours during their summer sojourn. Eighteen packs were obviously intended for a large group, thus revealing an intense passion. And eighteen packs were not even enough. Under 26 December in the same register a further fifteen packs for schartini and tarots are entered as being sent to 'Voghenza for the Signore'. (Ortalli 190.)

1507 Lyons, France.

According to Michael Dummett, "The earliest known French reference to tarot cards is to their manufacture at Lyons in 1507." (TT 50.)

1507 P Germany.

Franciscan monk Thomas Murner published an educational game, Chartiludium logicae, designed to teach the basic principles of logic. "Murner followed the tradition of the mnemonic pictures, a Late Medieval method of training the memory by special pictures." This set was also published as a book, and "Murner achieved such success with this that he was also suspected of witchcraft praise indeed for a teacher." He had published an earlier educational deck in 1502. (H 38.)

c.16 th + England.

"A set of Fortunes in English are copied onto wooden playing cards - possibly based on divination via "Ragman Rolls" - used in England and France since the 13th century. These were divinatory verses on rolled parchment with threads leading to the appropriate verse. [See Wright and Halliwell, London: Pickering, 1841 & 1843]." (Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL)

c.1510 + Mainz, Germany.

A "German work, entitled Eyn loszbuch ausz der Kartengemacht, originally printed in Mainz between 1505 and 1510, bears [little] resemblance to cartomancy in the accepted sense. This is a volume of a type very popular in Germany in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. On each page is printed a design for one of the cards from a German-suited 48-card pack, together with an eight-line verse oracle foretelling the enquirer's general destiny in life; some are very encouraging, some extremely menacing. One could use the book by drawing a single card from a pack, and turning to the corresponding page; but the book was not in fact designed to make even that use of any actual cards necessary, because there is at the front of the book a disc with a pointer; the disc is attached to the page only at its centre, and on the page itself is a circle divided into forty-eight sectors, each labelled with the name of a card. The enquirer was therefore supposed to spin the disc and turn to the page indicated by the pointer when it came to rest. The very crude type of oracular practice exemplified by this book is not cartomancy, but the use of a Losbuch: several other Losbucher of the time are known, and all of them work in the same way, by spinning a disc with a pointer; but most of them are not based on the playing-card pack, but on some other set of objects, such as animals." (GT 95.) ______________________________________________________________


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The use of playing cards as indices in this manner was the first step in the evolution of cartomancy as it is practiced today. Using the cards themselves as a randomizing mechanism (instead of the spinner) was another small step, made possible by the cards' use as indices. The next significant step was the creation of special decks of cards on which the predictions were printed, such as the 1690 Dorman Newman deck. Fortune telling with standard decks (regular decks or Tarot) was yet another step, occurring about a half century after Newman's deck. The final step was the use of multi-card groups or "spreads" of standard cards, which apparently began in the late eighteenth century. Etteilla's 1770 book is the first presentation of such cartomancy, although such a practice appears to be described by Casanova a few years earlier. This evolution was presented in detail by Dummett, and is sketched out in A Timeline of Cartomancy. ______________________________________________________________

1510 + Nuremberg, Germany.

"The first extant book using playing cards for divination was printed around 1510, probably in Nuremberg. Hoffmann dates the prototype of the woodcuts in this book to pre-1500, thus earlier, lost editions of the same text are probable." (Christian Hartman in a post to alt.tarot, citing Hoffman and Manfred Zollinger, Bibliographie der Spielebucher 15-18 Jahrhundert, 1996.)

1515 Germany.

Edward Schoen, a German cardmaker, made a woodcut nativity calendar for a Leonhard Reymann. The calendar is in the form of a wheel, with a landscape at the hub, a circle of the seven planetary deities, a circle of the twelve zodiacal constellations, and an outermost circle of images representing the twelve houses. Several images from that outside ring show subjects also included in the Tarot trumps, such as a wheel, a reaper, an emperor, a pope, two children playing, and an image similar to the Lover card in some TdM decks. A figure in stocks is analogous to the Hanged Man, a punished criminal. "The resemblance between the houses of the zodiac and several cards of the tarot indicate that the calendar may have been modeled after extant tarot decks...." (K II:157, quoting Robert V. ONeill.) ______________________________________________________________

Considering that Schoen is identified as a cardmaker, the similarities do suggest a connection between some of the Tarot images and some of the astrological houses in a particular chart at least in the eyes of one sixteenth century German artist. Kaplan also quotes O'Neill as saying, "the calendar proves a correlation between tarot and astrology", but O'Neill is not quoted as explaining what that correlation might be, or how this calendar proves it. The images in question do not show a close iconographic correspondence with any particular Tarot deck. The subject matter in question is some of the most common in late Medieval and Renaissance art: the emperor and pope, a wheel, a skeletal reaper, and two children playing, can be used to illustrate an endless number of things other


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than astrology, and their adoption here is hardly sufficient to demonstrate that the Tarot images and sequence were somehow based on astrology. Whatever lesser "correlation" might exist seems ill-defined, and scarcely proved, by this calendar. Many questions are raised which could only be approached with additional information about Schoen and his work. ______________________________________________________________

1515 Kaiserberg, Germany.

Bishop Johann Geiler compared the order of cards in the game of Karn�ffel to the social order. Gieler notes that in this inverted social order, "the Carn�ffel beats them all", and "he speaks of throwing all the cards, the King, the Kaiser, the Ober, the Banner and the Devil, on to the fire." A similar sermon is dated 1496. (GT 188-189; P 165.) See Karn�ffel.


Various records of the purchase of regular cards and para de tarocchi, Tarot decks, from multiple suppliers. "There is again a very definite impression of an almost frenetic interest [in card games], if we turn to the Guardaroba register for the Camera Ducale of 1516. Cards are continually being purchased... They are all fairly ordinary packs bought at the same price of 8 soldi each, thus demonstrating they were household objects, a normal part of daily court routine." (Ortalli 190.)

These records include the earliest known use of the term, tarocchi, from which the name "Tarot" derived. By 1550, according to Lollio, the original meaning whatever it might have been was unknown. (K II:8; GT 80.) See The Invettiva of Lollio.

In addition to the purchases referred to above, other records (Libri Camerali Diversi) show not only "further purchases, but we also learn that the Este children (just as had been the case at the time of Parisina [1424]) were never in short supply of cards." (Ortalli 190.)

1519 Mexico.

"Wherever Spanish sailors or soldiers appeared, they had their cards with them, as in 1519 during the conquest of Mexico." "Even today, in South America, it is playing cards with the Spanish suit-signs which are used, although national modifications have been incorporated, usually in the nineteenth century." (H 15.)

1522 Italy

"In 1522, a satirical poem concerning the conclave which elected Adrian VI described the cardinal playing tarocchi." See 1549 conclave. (GT 99.)

1523 Venice, Italy.

A volume of poetry containing the c.1475 Boiardo verses, along


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with poetry from other authors, was published. (GT 76.) See The Boiardo Tarot Deck.

1524 + Venice, Italy.

A losbuch using spinner or dice, by Sigismondo Fanti, Trionpho della Fortuna. "Fanti's book resolves various questions through the use of the signs of the zodiac, the constellations, the sybils [sic] and various astrological personages. Instead of a three-line oracle [like the later Marcolino], four-line stanzas are used to resolve the questions. Instead of cards, Fanti uses a pair of dice or the chance number on a dial that contains twenty-one figures." (K I:28; GT 95.) See 1510 Mainz losbuch entry, 1540 Marcolino entry, and A Timeline of Cartomancy.

1524 P Venice, Italy.

"We know from Cardano [1564] that Trappola was played in Venice as early as 1524, and can take it to be a Venetian invention. If the flow of Italian references to it accurately reflects the position, it had dropped out of Italian consciousness by the end of the sixteenth century. By the seventeenth, however, it was fanning outwards [to Bohemia, Moravia, Austria and southern Germany, Silesia and Czechoslovakia]." (P 251; K I:53, 57) "The trappolier or lansquenet game [1542] came from the Italian game of trappola." It used a 36-card Italian-suited deck. (H 14.)

c.1525? P Erfurt, Germany.

Vulgar humor had been included in some decks of the fifteenth century, "and these grotesque and often caricatural figures were now extended to the numeral cards. The hearts and bells, leaves, and acorns were moved up to the top half of the card so that a narrow or broad strip at the bottom edge remained free for illustrations. An especially good example are the cards of an Erfurt cardmaker which are now preserved in the Germanishes Nationalmuseum Nurembert. Jesters fool around, there is dancing and hunting, idling and whoring, and in every pack there are illustrations of functions which, in our century of cleanliness, are performed behind closed doors, out of sight of the public eye." This is, of course, the age of Rabelais. (H 25.) ______________________________________________________________

While much has been made about the novelty of illustrated pips in the 1910 Waite-Smith Tarot deck, in the larger world of playing cards they were not much of a novelty. In fact, illustrated pips were relatively commonplace from the sixteenth century. ______________________________________________________________

c.1526 P Florence, Italy.

"In 1526, Francesco Berni published a poem in praise of the card game of Primiera, with a commentary in which facetious remarks are made about the tame of tarocchi. "Capitolo del Giocco della Primiera also included comments "Sminchiate" [sic], suggesting the latest possible date for the invention


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of the Minchiate deck. (K I:28; GT 99; K II:5.)

1526 England.

"Henry VIII tried to suppress [playing cards] in a proclamation dated May 1526." (B 55.)

1527 Venice, Italy.

Teofilo Folengo wrote a set of five sonnets on the Tarot trumps. Dummett writes, "these were included in his Caos del Triperiuno, a work published in Venice in 1527 under his pseudonym Merin Cocai.". Kaplan includes excerpts from the work. In an introductory summary, he notes: "The verses are inserted in a dialogue between two men, Limerno and Triperuno. Limerno has been requested to recite verses before the queen, and for this, he has composed sonnets for four persons, Giuberto, Focilla, Falcone and Mirtella. The two men and two women had led Limerno into a room where trionphi cards were dealt out. Each person related his fate (sorte) from the cards drawn and asked Limerno to compose a sonnet for each reading. The work by Cocai appears to be one of the earliest references to the use of the trionphi [sic] for divination." (GT 390; K II:8-9.) ______________________________________________________________

Less anachronistically, the work by Cocai is one of many sixteenth-century examples of tarocchi appropriati, a parlor game in which people creatively spun out associations by which a given card or cards could be used to describe themselves or another person. The cards were not given any symbolic meaning, but simply worked into the poem as a playful exercise of verbal agility, humor, and flattery. Whether one calls it divination or not is of little consequence in itself. However, it is important to keep in mind that it was not cartomancy as the term has been commonly used since its origin in the late eighteenth century; nor was such activity considered divinatory by earlier writers, occultist or literary. ______________________________________________________________

1528 P Italy.

The Rosselli Inventory catalogs the workshop of Francesco Rosselli, listing plates for printing a number of otherwise unknown games: the giuocho del trionfo del petrarcha in 3 pezi; the giuco dapostoli chol nostro singnore, in sette pezi, di lengno; the giuocho di sete virtu, in 3 pezi, di lengno; and the gioucho di pianeti cho loro fregi, in 4 pezi. (The game of the triumph of Petrarch; the game of Apostles with our Lord; the game of seven virtues; and the game of planets with their borders). (D 82-83; M 53.) ______________________________________________________________

This listing of otherwise unknown games is extremely significant, as it emphasizes just how fragmentary our historical information really is, as well as suggesting the allegorical and didactic nature of some of the games. Such games might be compared with the 1470 Mantegna images and the1463 Globe Game of Cusanus, as well as with the didactic design of Tarot as a schematic encyclopedia of salvation. The


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Mantegna series, with its obvious philosophical content, may have been far less exceptional in that regard than is commonly supposed. ______________________________________________________________

1529 Worchester, England.

Card playing was commonly prohibited, with exceptions made including the twelve days of Christmas. The Bishop of Worchester, Hugh Latimer, preached a sermon on the Sunday before Christmas, comparing the game of Triumph (not Tarot) to the triumph of Christ. "And whereas you are about to celebrate Christmas in playing at cards, I intend, by Gods grace, to deal unto you Christs cards, wherein you shall perceive Christs rule. The game that we shall play at shall be called the triumph, which, if it be well played at, he that dealeth shall win; the players shall likewise win; and the standers and lookers upon shall do the same, insomuch that there is no man willing to play at this triumph with these cards but they shall be all winners and no losers." (P 216; GT 26.)

1531 * Antwerp, Belgium.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa publishes De occulta philosophia libri tres, a compendium of occult science, with no mention of Tarot.

1534 Venice, Italy.

"Troilo Pomeran da Cittadela wrote a series of sonnets using the [Tarot trumps] to praise the renowned ladies of Venice". Kaplan provides some excerpts from Triomphi de Troilo Pomeran da Cittadela. (K II:9.)

1534 * France.

Francois Rabelais publishes The Five Books of Gargantua and Pantagruel. "A celebrated list of sixteenth-century games occurs in Chapter 22 of Book I of Rabelais's Gargantua, the 'fearsome' but garrulous history of a rather jolly giant, first published in 1534." The extensive list (over 200 initially, expanded in subsequent editions) of Gargantuas games includes among its three dozen card games one of the earliest mentions of Tarot in France; Rabelais' list of divinatory methods, however, does not include Tarot. (P 52; M 50; GT 202; Ortalli 191.)

c.1535 P Nuremberg, Germany.

Various woodcut decks with illustrated pips were made, "but the most splendid one is the Nuremberg pack by Peter Flotner. Burlesque scenes similar to those on the [1525] Erfurt cards are now found in the sophisticated atmosphere of a superior pack presented to Francesco dEste." Wulf Schadendorf is quoted by Hoffmann about the "robust humour and coarse obscenity" of the cards, also noting "Flotner sets irony and ridicule, parody and perversion against the past, against the classical and bourgeois way of life". Again, Rabelaisian humor. (H 25.)

1537 Germany.


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A Protestant satirical work uses the allegory of Karn�ffel to berate the Pope. A number of questions are asked, including, "Why is the selected (erwelete) Deuce, the lowest and weakest of all the cards, called the Kaiser? To this last question the answer is given that many believe that the Pope has stolen so much from him that, although he is still called the Emperor, he has become a beggar; the selected (erwelete) 6 has three times as much as the Deuce, and so it is no wonder that the triple crown beats the single crown of the Kaiser." (GT 189.) See Karn�ffel.

1538 Germany.

Hans Holbein s Dance of the Dead was published. "Executed by the German Renaissance painter in the first half of the sixteenth century, the scenes probably were not meant to be tarot, but the imagery is surprisingly similar to some of the traditional [trumps]...." (K I:192 - 193.) ______________________________________________________________

Not just individual images, but the sequence also reflects Tarot content. Holbeins version of this common cycle presents the dance of ranks and conditions within its context (usually only implied) of mans fall and eventual salvation. Thus, there are three distinct segments of his sequence: First, the origin of Deaths dominion, as punishment for Adams sin in Genesis, shown in four images. A transitional image of the dead in a cemetery, playing musical instruments, leads into the usual ranks and conditions segment. This begins with the Pope, the Emperor, and a descending ranks, which blends into a diverse collection of conditions. The third segment is represented with a single image, Christ in judgment over the resurrected dead. This is the full meaning of the Dance of the Dead, although the framing elements from Genesis and Revelation were most commonly omitted. For an analysis of Tarot's meaning, see The Riddle of Tarot. ______________________________________________________________


"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 Marolino 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.) See the 1510 Mainz losbuch entry, and A


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Timeline of Cartomancy.

1542 P Germany.

Lansquenet (from the German Landsknecht,) is first noted "in the fifth edition of Rabelaiss 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.)

c.1543 Italy.

An allegorical dialog based on Tarot cards, by Pietro Aretino, " Les Carte Parlanti, 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. (GT 338, 390; K I:28.)

1543 + Strasbourg, Germany.

A losbuch using playing cards for fortune-telling "was issued in Stra�burg 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.)

1544 P Nuremberg, Germany.

Virgil Solis deck, engraved. No example of the actual cards has survived, but the designs printed on thin paper have. They were also influential on several later decks, including the suit cards of the 1557 Caitlin Geofroy. "He 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 & ONeill.)

1546 Germany.


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A Protestant satirical work uses the allegory of Karn�ffel 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." (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 P 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.


"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.)


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.)


Thirty cards survive from a sixteenth-century Tarot deck, 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. (TT 50; K I:133; H 20.)

1550 Italy.


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


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 'Italian cards, with which one engages in the game called Tarot'." (GT 99.)

1557 P Lyons, France.

The Catelin Geofroy deck was a strikingly variant design, with suits based on the 1544 Virgil Solis deck: Lions, Monkeys, Parrots, and Peacocks. (TT 52; K I:132; K II:302, 303; H 17, 29.)

c.1560 P Austria.

"The Hof�mterspiel is a late mediaeval deck containing 48 cards, all of which have survived. the Hof�mterspiel was 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 Hof�mterspiel 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." (Andys 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 ones 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


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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 lordine 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 & ONeill.)

c.1570 Pavia, Italy.

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 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.)

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." Obviously, the Brits were using French cards in the sixteenth century. (B 55.)

1584 England.

"Although the sixteenth century saw numerous descriptions and explanations of card tricks, the first detailed exposition was in Reginald Scots Discoverie of Witchcraft, in 1584."


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(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.)

1588 P Germany.

Jost Ammon produces his Book of Trades, "a book of fanciful cards with suit marks of printers 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. Ammans 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.)


Venetian Inquisition records suggest that Tarots Devil card was used by witches for Satanic ritual and adoration. (Ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1989, 162.) This is the only known reference to magical or other occult use of Tarot before the late eighteenth century. ("Jess Karlin", http://jktarot.com/tarmag16.) ______________________________________________________________

Because the Tarot trumps contained a widely-known collection of images, it is to be expected that they would be borrowed for various purposes. Jacopo Filippo da Bergamo's use of Tarot's Papess image to illustrate Pope Joan in 1497, and Edward Schoen's possible adoption of several Tarot images for the 1515 astrological design, are related iconographic borrowings. In this case, however, a card itself was apparently used, rather than an artist borrowing the image for a new work. ______________________________________________________________

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.)

16 th 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


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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 + England.

"Rowland, in Judicial Astrology Condemned relates that Cuffe, secretary to the Earl of Essex, had his fortune told. He drew three cards: 1) he saw the portraiture of himself cap-a-pie having men compassing him about with bills and halberds, 2) the judge that sat upon him, 3) the place of his execution and the hangman. Taylor, 1865, History of Playing Cards, London, p456, speculated that the cards used must have been Tarots, 1) being the Devil, 2) being Justice and 3) being the Hangedman, although they were called three knaves and may have been referring to a regular playing card deck." (Entire entry from Greer post to TarotL.)

According to Kaplan and WPC, much of Taylors work is taken directly from P. Boiteau dAmbly, a scholar of questionable judgment. "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." No other source for Rowland was cited. (WPC 214-215; K I:373.)

1603 P Germany.

"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.)


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1616 P Venice, Italy.

Labyrinth game designed by Andrea Ghisi. Many of the images for this philosophical game were taken from the 1470 "Mantegna" series. (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.

1622 + France.

" Pierre del'Ancre [?] publica L'incredulit� et mescr�ance du sortilege plainement convaincue..., en donde hace esta pueril referencia a la cartomancia: �es una forma de adivinaci�n de ciertas personas que toman las im�genes y las ponen en presencia de determinados demonios o esp�ritus que ellos han convocado, a fin de que estas im�genes les instruyan sobre las cosas que ellos desean saber�. Las carticellas educativas se hab�an metamo rfoseado en naipes de juego, y �stos deven�an el m�s flamante y popular de los m�todos adivinatorios. [?]" (This is the entire entry from Greer & ONeill.)

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 anachronistic speculation. (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.) Pierre de l'Ancre (15531631) was a French judge (a devoted witch hunter) in the Basque area. Among other notable 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.

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.)


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1637 Nevers, France.

The earliest surviving Rules of Tarot. Regles Dv Ieu Des Tarots R�gle du Tarot. "This anonymous pamphlet can be assigned to Abb� Michel de Marolles who wrote it and had it printed at Nevers in 1637." That quote, and the rules in French, are on the Web at http://members.pgv.at/homer/tarock/depaulis.htm.

1644 P 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 Bellas 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.) ______________________________________________________________

"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.) ______________________________________________________________

1654 Paris, France.

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

1658 P Rouen, France.


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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 included in a collection of gaming rules, one of several later editions of La Maison academique, renamed La Maison des jeux academique. (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" was created by Dorman Newman in 1690, and later published by Lenthalls firm. (Mann 134-150; WPC 47-48.)

c.1660 P 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.)


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.azimutconcept.com/tarot/ecole/jeu_n.htm. ______________________________________________________________

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. If the original of the TdM pattern (sans number and title panels) came from Milan circa 1500, then it seems plausible that the Sforza Castle cards and the Noblet deck might both be rather direct descendants (100-200 years


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removed) of the same elusive Milanese ancestor. (K II:293, 296.) ______________________________________________________________

1669 Lyon, France.

Claude Fran�ois 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 f�tes in which horses took part, and a special chapter deals with horses engaged in these f�tes (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 P Marseilles, France.

A complete 78-card deck by Francois Chosson is the earliest extant version of the most common modern TdM design. This design 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.)

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.)

c.1680 P Constance, France.

Johann Pelagius Mayer Tarot deck, earliest surviving example of the Tarot de Besancon pattern. (D 211, 217; K I:136.)

1690 +P London, England.

A deck of 52 fortune-telling cards, by Dorman Newman. "The plates for [the Dorman Newman] pack were later taken over by


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the cardmaker John Lenthall, who made new ones for some of the cards." Lenthalls 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 Marcolinos 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.)

1701 P 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 modern Carta Mundi TdM appears to be based on this deck. (GT 196.) The trumps can be seen at http://www.azimutconcept.com/tarot/ecole/jeu_d.htm.

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 Annes 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 Fran�ois 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 depee. 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.)

1709 P Dijon, France.

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

1713 P Avignon, France.

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

1718 P Soleure, Switzerland.


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

c.1718 P Soleure, Switzerland.

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

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.)

c.1740 + Bologna, Italy.

The earliest evidence of Tarot cartomancy: "A single loose manuscript sheet giving cartomantic interpretations of the thirty-five cards of the Tarocco bolognese". This was discovered in the Library of the University of Bologna. The terminology used in the document suggests a date prior to 1750 when the two Fantesca were replaced by Fante. This is a more highly developed form of cartomancy than that represented by the Lenthall deck. (WPC 49-50.)

c.1750 P Central Europe.

French-suited Tarot decks were introduced in the second half of the eighteenth century. These decks became very popular, using arbitrary images for the Trumps. These images tended to center on themes of animals, natural history, or rural scenery. (Mann 171.)

1760 Marseilles, France.

Nicolas Conver created a very exact copy of the 1672 Francois Chosson deck. Various examples of this deck are extant, and appear to have been the basis for some modern TdM decks such as those produced by Fournier and Grimaud. Two of the surviving Conver decks have been published as photo-reproductions, one by Heron, and the other by Lo Scarabeo. ______________________________________________________________

An example of Conver's precision in copying Chosson's design is provided by one of the minor changes he made. Chosson had the number XII on the Hanged Man reversed, IIX. Conver corrected this, removing the II from the left of the X and placing it on the right, without changing the position of the X in relation to the rest of the image. The resulting XII is therefore oddly off center, in contrast to all the other numbers, and to the original IIX. Such preservation of detail is striking, suggestive of a direct copying process, either using the original blocks, a print taken from the original, or the cards themselves used for an image transfer. ______________________________________________________________

1765 + St. Petersburg, Russia.


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Giacomo Casanova reported that his Russian peasant mistress read the cards every day. A 25-card (5x5) spread is mentioned, the earliest suggestion of modern-style cartomancy. (D 106; WPC 74.)

1770 + Paris, France.

Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette) produces the first book describing modern-style cartomancy: A Way to Entertain Oneself with a Pack of Cards. A self-styled mathematics teacher and professional fortune teller, presented not only a method of fortune telling with a regular 32-card French deck, but also mentioned fortune telling with Tarot. (WPC 74ff.) ______________________________________________________________

After Etteilla, there is far too much material on cartomancy and occult Tarot to reference, and the presentations in A Wicked Pack of Cards and The History of Occult Tarot are comprehensive and accessible. Only a few highlights are noted here, along with a couple ancillary items from outside that subject area. ______________________________________________________________

1781 + France.

Antoine de Gebelin published volume VIII of Monde primitif, including two essays on occult Tarot. (WPC 58ff.)

1783 + France.

Etteilla begins publishing on Tarot, with A Way to Entertain Oneself with a Pack of Cards called Tarot. (WPC 84.)

1783 + Germany.

Patience, the game commonly called Solitaire, is noted in "the German game anthology Das neue Konigliche LHombre-Spiel as both Patience and Cabale. In Das neue Spiel-almanach fur 1798, patiencespiel is represented as a contest between two players, each of whom in turn plays a game of Patience while bystanders, and presumably the players themselves, lay bets on the outcome."

"Patience is only one of several words used to denote one-player card games: it is the earliest recorded of them, is evidently French, and also denotes one-player games in general. In modern French the card game is more often referred to as reussite, meaning success or favourable outcome, to distinguish it from patience, now meaning jigsaw puzzle." "The French use of reussite is explained in Littre as a combination of cards [by] which superstitious persons try to divine the success of an undertaking, a vow, etc. If this suggests an origin in fortune-telling, the theory is reinforced by the name of the game in Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic, namely kabal(e), or secret knowledge. In Poland, where Patience is called pasjans, the word kabala also occurs with the specific meaning of fortune-telling with cards. Perhaps, then, the original purpose of a Patience game was light-heartedly to divine the success of an undertaking, a vow, etc., as Littre


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suggests. If the game succeeds (reussit), then the answer is favourable, otherwise not."

"The theory is further supported by the fact that the earliest description of Patience occurs within a few years of the invention of card layouts for cartomancy (fortune-telling), which, contrary to popular belief, is not reliably reported before about 1765." (P 157-158.) That reference is to the description by Casanova. Its also worth noting that the German description of this game occurs about a decade after Etteillas groundbreaking book on cartomancy, and at essentially the same time as de Gebelin and Etteillas re-invention of Tarot. Occult meanings and divinatory uses for playing cards were clearly in the air during the second half of the eighteenth century, as never before in their 400 year European history.

1783 Thuringa, Germany.

"The earliest detailed account of the manner of play comes from an article published in a German periodical of 1783, describing Karniffle as then played among the Thuringian peasantry." "The Thuringian and Frisian versions [of Karn�ffel] have the surprising feature of having two trump suits, while the Swiss forms have only one." (GT 185.)

1789 +P Paris, France.

Etteillas Tarot deck, the first occult Tarot deck, is produced between December of 88 and March of 89. One of his disciples wrote of receiving his copy in March, noting, "You alone could reinstate the ancient Tarot cards in their true and primeval splendour." (WPC 91.)

c.1840 P France.

Kaplan dates the Grandpretre Tarot, reflecting the influence of de Gebelin, to the late eighteenth century, describing it as a hand-colored French deck, "made from copper plates in the late eighteenth century." On Plate 8, WPC dates what appears to be the same deck to c.1840, describing them as "anonymous hand-drawn Tarot cards". Kaplan notes that the cards are small, 1-7/8" wide by 3-3/8" tall (about the size of business cards), with novel subjects, sequence, iconography, and names. "II The Popess is III La grandepretresse (The High Priestess), and V The Pope is II Le grandpretre (The High Priest). Furthermore, III The Empress and IV The Emperor are transformed into V La Royne and IV Le Roy respectively. XII La prudence replaces The Hanged Man, and shows a man upright and balanced on one foot, with the other foot crossed behind. Card XV is untitled but depicts The Fool instead of the Devil. Since only twenty-one Major Arcana remain in this deck and card XV is untitled, it is not known for certain whether The Devil card was originally included in the pack, or if card XV is in fact meant to combine The Fool and The Devil." (WPC Plate 8, K II:194, 196, 336-337.)

c.1850 Midwest, U.S.

Based on a variety of evidence, Euchre is "the game for which the Joker was invented, probably in the 1850s." It is not


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derived from the Fool in Tarot, and was probably not first used in Poker until later in the nineteenth century. (P 191.)

1856 Paris, France.

Alphonse-Louis Constant, aka Eliphas Levi, published Dogma and Ritual of Transcendental Magic. "Had it not been for Etteilla, Court de Gebelins speculations about the Tarot would most likely have been forgotten, buried in the eighth large tome of his unfinished treatise on the supposed ancient civilisation. For all his high-flown theories, Etteillas main objective was cartomancy. Certainly Etteillas writings, even less readable or capable of being taken seriously than Court de Gebelins, would rest in the obscurity of oblivion." Although fortune-telling "prospered as never before" in the first half of the nineteenth century, occultism was "in a moribund condition when Levi started to revivify it by his books about it. The astonishing fact is that his work formed the narrow channel through which the whole Western tradition of magic flowed to the modern era." "Levi completed the task, begun in the Renaissance, of synthesising the various ingredients of the Western tradition of magic; it was he who finally made it a single tradition." And he tied it all, "the Cabala, alchemy, Hermetism, astrology, magnetism and even a little black magic from the grimoires", to Tarot. This was the real founding of modern occult Tarot. "The students of occult science in the Renaissance would have been astonished to see that pack of cards elevated to the rank of a fundamental source of magical imagery and doctrine." (WPC 166f.)

1863 Paris, France.

Paul Christian, published Lhomme rouge des Tuileries, (The Little Red Man of Tuileries). (WPC 197-202.)


Edmond Billaudot creates the Tarot Belline deck, ("named after Marcel Belline, a professional cartomancer who still works in Paris"), following the descriptions from Christians Red Man. The modern Tarot Belline cards "reproduce ones hand-drawn in pen and ink by Demond for his own use; these were discovered by Belline, who passed them to Grimaud to put on the market. Belline donated the originals to the Musee des Arts et Traditions populaires in Paris...." This is the first deck to explicitly reference correspondence with the Hebrew alphabet. (WPC 162, 202-203.) This deck can be seen, along with Christian's descriptions, on Andrew Kostenko's site, at http://ln.com.ua/~kostenko/pctarot.html.

1870 Paris, France.

Paul Christian, published Histoire de la magie. "Almost all the matter concerning the Tarot contained in Lhomme rouge is reproduced in the Histoire. This time, however, the word Tarot does not occur a single time in the entire book." Instead, he refers to an ancient Egyptian ceremony, in an underground hall beneath the Great Pyramid. "The postulant climbs down an iron ladder, with seventy-eight rungs, and enters a hall on either side of which are twelve statues, and, between each pair of


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statues, a painting." (WPC 205-206.)

1888 P England.

Samuel Liddell Mathers, aka MacGregor Mathers, published The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play, and was probably the principle designer of the Golden Dawn style of Tarot deck. (K I:256.)

1888 France.

Eugene Jacob, aka Ely Star, "published a book on astrology, Les Mysteres de lhoroscope. This was a profoundly unoriginal work, borrowed almost entirely from the astrological writings of Paul Christian; even the title was lifted from that of a section of Lhomme rouge des Tuileries. Ely Star diverged from Christian principally in his willingness to refer to the Tarot by name." He adopted Christians occult names for the cards, but he placed the Fool at the end of the Tarot sequence, numbering it XXII, (thereby changing the subsequent numbering of the Minor Arcana as well.) This innovation was followed by many Egyptianized decks, all derivative from the 1896 Falconnier-Wegener deck. Star introduced the terms Major Arcana and Minor Arcana, also used by Papus the following year. (WPC 242-243.)

1889 France.

Dr. Gerard Encausse, aka Papus, published Le Tarot des Bohemiens. "This book is of great importance, as being the first systematic interpretation of the Tarot on its own by any follower of Levi. It was illustrated by cards of the Tarot de Marseille, discreetly embellished with Hebrew letters, and also, for the major Arcana, by cards from Oswald Wirths designs, published in the same year." (WPC 243.)

1889 P France.

Stanislas de Guaita, a "fervent admirer of Eliphas Levi", met Oswald Wirth, and "learning, on his very first meeting with Wirth, that he was an amateur artist, de Guaita suggested to him that he should fulfil Levi's unrealized project of restoring the twenty-two Arcana of the Tarot their hieroglyphic purity. Wirth accepted the charge; having no previoius knowledge of the Tarot, he was guided by de Guaita's instructions. In this way, he designed a set consisting only of the twenty-two 'major Arcana'; published in 1889, it was limited to 350 copies, under the title Les 22 Arcanes du Tarot Kabbalistique, with a subtitle, 'Designed for the use of initiates by Oswald Wirth in accordance with the indications of Stanislas de Guaita'." (WPC 238.) ______________________________________________________________

"Up to 1889, then, the subject [occult Tarot] had so far been the preserve of a small body of students of magic. But that was soon to change in France: from 1890 onwards, the Tarot became a common topic in the growing literature upon the occult." (WPC 255.) ______________________________________________________________


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"The most interesting manifestation of the new vogue was Le XXII lames hermetiques du tarot divinatoire (1986), by R. Falconnier.... It contains illustrations of the Tarot trumps, said in the subtitle of the book to be 'exactly reconstituted from the sacred texts, in accordance with the tradition of the Magi of ancient Egypt'... The designs, which were intended to be cut out, pasted on to card and coloured, had been executed by the artist Maurice Otto Wegener, following Falconnier's instructions. They are Egyptianized versions of those of the Tarot de Marseille: the earliest, outside the Etteilla tradition, of a long series of pseudo-Egyptian versions of the Tarot. The cards are adorned with letters from the 'alphabet of the Magi', but not with numbers, Hebrew letters, or names." (WPC 255.)


Papus-Goulinet deck Le Tarot divinatoire by Papus.

1910 P England.

Waite-Smith deck The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur E. Waite.

1945 P England.

Crowley-Harris deck The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley.

1966 Vietnam.

"The Ace of Spades served a famous purpose in the war in Vietnam. In February, 1966, two lieutenants of Company C, Second Battalion, 35th Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, wrote The United States Playing Card Company and requested decks containing nothing but the Bicycle Ace of Spades. The cards were useful in psychological warfare. The Viet Cong were very superstitious and highly frightened by this Ace. The French previously had occupied Indo-China, and in French fortune-telling with cards, the Spades predicted death and suffering. The Viet Cong even regarded lady liberty as a goddess of death. USPC shipped thousands of the requested decks gratis to our troops in Vietnam. These decks were housed in plain white tuckcases, inscribed Bicycle Secret Weapon. The cards were deliberately scattered in the jungle and in hostile villages during raids. The very sight of the Bicycle Ace was said to cause many Viet Cong to flee." (From the history page of the U.S. Playing Card Co., http://www.usplayingcard.com/history.html.) Various individualized versions of this Death Card were also printed, some of which included threatening statements on the back, printed in Vietnamese.

The reference to Lady Liberty refers to the design of the Bicycle Ace of Spades, also described on their history page: "This Ace features, within the suit sign, a woman who rests her right hand on a sword and shield while she holds an olive branch in her left. The image was inspired by Thomas Crawfords sculpture, Statue of Freedom. which, in 1865, had been placed


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atop the Capitol Building in Washington, DC." The Ace of Spades as a "Death Card" dates back to the mid fifteenth-century, with a skull and crossed bones appearing, along with the suit sign, in the Goldschmidt Tarot deck. (K I:110.) ______________________________________________________________

Entries in Linked Files

To preserve the chronological flow of the list, the few entries that include extended descriptions are located in separate files. They are linked to their location in the list, and also grouped together here.

1377 Basel, Switzerland. Johannes von Rheinfelden's Tractatus de moribus.

1423 Bologna, Italy. Saint Bernardines Sermon., Contra alearum ludos.

1429 Nordlingen, Germany. Karn�ffel, the first known game using trumps.

1449 Milan, Italy. Letter of transmittal, accompanying The Besozzo Cards.

c.1450 Switzerland. Earliest examples of Swiss suit-system: See Modern Deck Designs.

1459 Mantua, Italy. Hypothesized origin of The "Mantegna" Cosmograph.

c.1475 Ferrara, Italy. A unique allegorical Tarot, The Boiardo Tarot Deck.

c.1470 ? A Dominican friar wrote Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis. See The Steele Sermon.

1491 Ferrara, Italy. A unique classical Tarot, The Sola Busca Tarot Deck.

1540 Venice, Italy. Marcolino's losbuch. See A Timeline of Cartomancy.

1550 Venice, Italy. An ironic verse diatribe against Tarot. See The Invettiva of Lollio. ______________________________________________________________

� 2003 Michael J. Hurst [email protected]


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