View Full Version : Early decks with XVI as The Star?
In Graham Hancock's new book 'Talisman' (a lengthy read) he mentions de Gebelin numerous times in the context of the French and American revolutions and as a master mason. Hancock persistently tries to connect the esoteric influence of Sirius (Dog Star) with de Gebelin and then to a deck that has a XVI card as the Star. Can anyone tell me to what deck or decks he may be refering?
Aloha,
*jpt
Yes................I guess, I've had no luck in finding any another reference. What deck is it from? Are there others, I mean was the XVI Star indicative of a particular region or school of thought?
*jpt
The image I attached in the previous post is reproduced in volume II of Kaplan's Encyclopedia of Tarot, p 274, for which he simply gives the details as being from an 'uncut sheet [...]circa late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, presently located at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest'.
As many extent sheets from the period do not bear numbering, it is difficult to ascertain what position within the sequence they may have occupied.
As soon as you mentioned the Star as XVI, however, I knew of at least this one - one amongst the earliest to bear striking resemblance to the Marseille pattern, yet 'clearly' (I would argue) depicted as masculine.
Hi JPT
You may find this site useful too:
Andy's Playing Cards (http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards26.htm)
But I warn you, there seems to be a casino pop-up on opening the site now!
Thankyou Moonbow*
I had totally forgotten of the classification of the Bologna style has having only certain numbered cards with the Star being 'consistently' XVI.
After looking at Andy's site, the occurance of XVI Star seems to be a regional peculiarity ( Ferrara - Venice - Bologna). It was, therefore, an anomalous branch on the tarot tree — which makes it all the more obvious that GH dressed up an obscurity to appear as mainstream just to support his other arguments. Very common in that genre ....... anybody hear an echo down the hall ....something about a guy named Da Vinci?????????
Mahalo nui loa JMD and Moonbow! (Maui thanks)