Links to many, many old decks

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 23 Jul 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Huck	23 Jul 2003
Hi, here you'll find many old cards plus some reports about them: http://www.trionfi.com/01/ **** link updated Here you'll find a report about the oldest Tarot cards: http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/marcello1.html Some of them are discussed in the historical forum of aeclectic occasionally.

Huck	24 Jul 2003
Hi, it was posted to the forum of the general decks. Alright, these are historical decks, but they are also decks. Why did I post them there? A lot of people didn't realise, that there are a lot of things in "Tarot history", which are attractive, nice-looking and an invitation to be studied. When they enter the history corner, this means our high-level-talkings, they experience "complicated things", and they experience "too complicated for me" and they do leave and go to another forum. The result is, that the many interesting objects stay unexplored by them. The link, that I've posted to "decks" offers an easy way to hundreds of pictures of old playing cards. It opens the sense for this "culture of Tarot", just like a museum it does. Not too much words, many pictures. Just looking at pictures is a way to get interested. Only "complicated words" doesn't work, humans have senses. So: this post here doesn't do much (and I've posted it here already). This post in the other forum is a "hidden treasure" and opens a new world for those, which take a look there. And the theme is not hurted. These are decks. Tarot decks.

Diana	24 Jul 2003
Huck! Your thread has now been moved back to Tarot Decks. You've made an excellent argument for having it here. :) I hope everyone will take advantage of these great links that Huck has provided.

Trogon	25 Jul 2003
Huck, I'm glad you talked Diana into moving this thread back here. ;) I probably would've missed it otherwise. Very interesting web site! Thanks for posting these links... wow.

wavebreaker	25 Jul 2003
Those are some really interesting links Huck, thanks for sharing!

Huck	25 Jul 2003
Thanks for your interest. Tarot cards in 15th century were part of the general raising interests in art. Although the Tarot artists mostly were only minor artists, there are some interesting names. Michelino da Besozzo, who painted the "first" Trionfi deck, was seen as the greatest artist of his time. His style became unmodern soon, so he left no great story about him. It is interesting to observe Tarotcards in relation to other art production of the time. There is a wonderful picture gallery in the web: http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/welcome.html with a search-function, with which you can search for special Tarot-motifs, and see, how they were painted generally. For instance: Iustitia, a virtue, which became the Tarotcard Justice. For instance you might find Giotto's 14 virtues and vices and you will see, they already look a little bit like Tarotcards, although they are 100 years older. Or the Palazzo Schifanoia, which contained an astrological model painted on large walls in wonderful pictures. These are not Tarotcards, but this is the mental world, where they do come from. It's an interesting adventure to look for the sources.

Huck	08 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Huck Hi, here you'll find many old cards plus some reports about them: ... The link is updated and has moved to: http://trionfi.com/01/j especially new is the representation of the Mantegna deck: http://trionfi.com/01/j/mant

The Links to many, many old decks thread was originally posted on 23 Jul 2003 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.