Is Tarot Pagan?

blackroseivy said:

I say that it represents a palimpsest of belief systems that date to prior to Christianity, however were very much consolidated in the Christian era. To sum up briefly.

Click to expand...

An interesting choice of word blackroseivy- palimpsest. Yes I guess I agree Tarot is a made over set of images in the Renaissance, which could be said to be Christian as the times were. The old idea rubbed out and renewed, but not erased.
So if it was that, it would beg the question what did it still represent? To me it seems to be the debate between the non Christian and Christian view of Fortune /Fate and God's Divine providence.
Here is an article written by VINCENZO CIOFFARI, That explains this and is how I perhaps see Cards/Gambling and why it also may have been seen as idolatrous.
http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv2-27
It is a practical reason why Tarot can be a Game and Divination. No contradiction between the two in my view. The Goddess Tyche at work.
~Rosanne

Great answer, Rosanne - makes one to think! (I need to look up Tyche now because I don't know much about her!)

John Northbrooke was a Protestant protesting against Jacobean excesses

http://www.rtjournal.org/vol_3/no_1/pilkinton01.html

He was paid, this source said, to preach in public and his views were...common for the time? The only reason he seems to be noted to theatre history, for instance, is the mention of how evil this pastime was that far back. The fact that theatre development in Ferrara in the 1500s might have been for religious as well as festival masques or reenactments doesn't mean it's pagan.

It was a pastime that people liked and people had more fun at alehouses and theatre and card-playing pastimes than attending church...and this was also noted by others here...

So here's a English religious revivalist of 1577 whose not very favorable to Catholic communities...and many of the Italian cities were quite proud of Roman roots...Cardinal Ippolitto d'Este (son of Lucretia Borgia) raided the ancient Hadrian's Villa to adorn his lavishly built palace (1550s) with Roman artifacts...

Here's a general snapshot of Northbrooke's time...

In 1558, Mary Tudor (of England) died, and her half sister, Elizabeth I became queen of England and Ireland, a woman whose regal bearing and intelligence impressed England's folk. Elizabeth's reign began with enthusiastic support in England, and she inaugurated political and religious stability in the country and aloofness from Spain. Elizabeth had been reared a Protestant, and she was ill-disposed to Roman Catholic jurisdiction which did not recognize the legitimacy of her birth. Protestant exiles returned to England, and they advocated England's church be purified of its remnants of Catholicism, and they were to become known as Puritans. But Elizabeth kept to middle ground. She did not care what people believed so long as they kept quiet about it. What she was insistent upon was dignity in church services and political order.

Elizabeth governed without use of ecclesiastics in foreign or domestic bureaucratic affairs. Archbishops were restricted to church affairs. During her reign, Protestantism became firmly established in England, and England developed further as a sea power.

Sensuality and Religious Conflict

After 1560, Europe was still suffering from periodic epidemics and famines. One-half of all infants born alive were dying before twelve months. The wealthy might live to between 48 and 56, and the poor, who did not eat as well, might live to 40. But it was God whom most people feared. And having a fear of God was still seen as a requirement for being a good person.

These were also times of sensuality, in Italy perhaps more so than in England, the English tending to see the Italians as more morally corrupt. It was in Italy - more densely populated than England - that the Renaissance had begun, and the Renaissance was more liberal in sensuality than the traditions that had preceded it. The English also saw their only great city, London (population 120,000), as more sinful than the rest of their country. London was seen as a place of pleasure and freedom. Relations between men and women were more casual there than elsewhere in England.

http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h18-eg.htm

Actually, a broad look at the 1500s where it says "Sensuality and Religious conflict" broadly describes English and Italian society differences and views...
perhaps the thinly veiled incitements to not favor rival faiths can be read in sermons such as Northbrooks..."

It didn't have to be cards for Northbrooke to raise oh-so-English eyebrows at the mention of thinly disguised Roman antiquities...and
there's a few excerpts to his sermons about how he sees people seem to praise someone for 'faults' that Northbrooke darkly refers to as leading to unholy things--the theatre, dice, mixed groups of men and women in theatre buildings...his sentiments seemed to be treating all these different things with words that are quite impolite, equating such pastimes as horrid (temptations?)

I think I'm rambling-sorry--may have to edit this later after sleeping to make any sense...hopefully the links will be retained as helpful...

Interesting topic and collection of notes and views...

Cerulean

That was not a ramble cerulean- just an interesting walk in Northbrook's world.
I think you have a point here that ties in with Ihcoyc's idea of anti Papist idolaters.

perhaps the thinly veiled incitements to not favor rival faiths can be read in sermons such as Northbrooks..."

Click to expand...

...very thinly veiled hehe.
~Rosanne

OK I guess it is hard to see what someone like NorthBrook saw, when his words are of another agenda in the main; so I will go in another direction to answer this question of whether Cards and thence Tarot is Pagan(as in Non Christian) at it's heart.

In sometime around 1440 Decembrio wrote of Filippo Maria Visconti that the Duke enjoyed playing a game that had painted Figures. He also relates that the Duke paid 1500 gold pieces for a pack of cards decorated with images of Gods, animals and stylised birds.

There are two codices in 1471 illustrated with Tarrochi of Mategna series. One of the codices has a poem describing classical Gods based on Tarrochi figures; apparently the writer has seen in a shop with the figures of Antique Gods and liberal Arts of Tarrochi prints.

Between 1441 -1494 Boiardo wrote some verses describing Trionfi, describing states like grace and Wisdom, but the 16 Court cards were shown as persons from ancient times like Ptolemy, or mythological figures like Venus.

Then there is a commentary by Berni in 1526 that has this passage..
...,to play at most for the fourth part of a Carlino, at Tarrochi, or at Trionfi, or any Sminchiate whatever; which in every way signifies only foolery and idleness, feasting the eye with the Sun, and the Moon, and twelve signs as Children do.

.....and so it goes. Of course there are comments on the Christian images of Triumphs as well- but not nearly the ones that describe the cards as ancient Gods etc.
From 'Fragments of Tarot history' comes this quote...
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.
Maybe this is not true? Maybe Studying Ancient Greek and Roman myth and Legend would be more edifying as to Tarot.
I am not questioning that Tarot originated in a Christian Country, but that it's base as a sequence was ancient myth and legend in images clothed in Renaissance style. This would somewhat disguise the image, I should think- just as Botticelli's Goddess Flora is Italian Renaissance clothed.

One Venetian who was typical of Christians of the time- when writing a diatribe against card playing invoked not Christ or the Virgin Mary at the end, but fondly prayed that he would make offerings and Vows to the Gods in Heaven to make cards disappear.

Much of the Renaissance seems to be about Civil Religion which is not the same as personal belief. Then there is the re- discovery of ancient Texts at the time of Tarot.
~Rosanne
(much of the information is from Kaplan's Encyclopedias)

I'll suggest some background to others...and a sweet return for myself...

I think I understand that Roseanne's questions deal with Italianate preference for Roman heritage mythology and subjects based in fine engravings and literature we associate with tarotlike structures from 1440 onwards --- and the eye on pagan themes, gods and mythic allegory with tarot was a lovely exploration in a book titled

"Pagan Dream of the Renaissance"

http://www.fluxeuropa.com/pagan_dream.htm

And it was a dream the families of Ferrara created in the little bits and pieces and it's a beautiful romance to weave with tarocchi history...but I think with a sigh and smile, others have written about this before...but let me linger awhile
in rereading these sources before anything else...

I'm also going to take awhile to reread some of the historical association with playing cards and early tarot in the Robert O'Neill library...for some reason I had more associations with tarocchi/tarot's religious iconography and so Godwin's Pagan Dream of the Renaissance above will be a good counterbalance...

http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/boneill/

I linked earlier to a thread that mentioned early developments in tarot, but upon reflection, it had less to do with the pagan or religious imagery of early tarot, so I'll look for other links/threads/resources that work with those subjects...

and it will be a pleasure to see what others have discussed and explored when I return...

Best wishes

Cerulean

Cerulean said:

I think I understand that Roseanne's questions deal with Italianate preference for Roman heritage mythology and subjects based in fine engravings and literature we associate with tarotlike structures from 1440 onwards --- and the eye on pagan themes, gods and mythic allegory with tarot was a lovely exploration in a book titled

"Pagan Dream of the Renaissance"

http://www.fluxeuropa.com/pagan_dream.htm

And it was a dream the families of Ferrara created in the little bits and pieces and it's a beautiful romance to weave with tarocchi history...but I think with a sigh and smile, others have written about this before...but let me linger awhile
in rereading these sources before anything else...

Click to expand...

That book I enjoyed! Well worth the mentioning thank you!

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=98232&highlight=boiardo

Click to expand...

I too, with a sigh and a smile for words lost in the ether.......

and it will be a pleasure to see what others have discussed and explored when I return...

Click to expand...

Me too

~Rosanne

I forgot to mention the thrust of my inquiry. It is reflected in this statement.

One of the strangest paradoxes of Western culture is the way in which the Christian courts of the Renaissance adopted classical mythology as a sort of alternative religion. Even popes and cardinals seem often to be taking Jupiter and Venus as seriously as Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

~Rosanne

Rosanne said:

I forgot to mention the thrust of my inquiry. It is reflected in this statement.

One of the strangest paradoxes of Western culture is the way in which the Christian courts of the Renaissance adopted classical mythology as a sort of alternative religion. Even popes and cardinals seem often to be taking Jupiter and Venus as seriously as Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

~Rosanne

Click to expand...

Not really. The Japanese, after adopting Buddhism, in order to look more 'cosmopolitan' in the eyes of the Chinese, still kept the old Shinto Gods. Buddhist temples kept Shinto shrines 'on property', and both sets of Gods were honored. It wasn't until the Imperialist movement in the 19th century reinstated the Emperor (Meiji) as ruler of Japan, were the native Gods considered superior and the Shinto shrines moved to separate locations. I believe similar patterns are evident in most Asian cultures. Chinese Buddhist monks know poems and legends of the Taoist immortals, and your average Chinese is just as likely to pray at a Taoist temple as a Buddhist one.

Actually I think something a little different was happening in Renaissance Italy. Semitic religions are much less tolerant to 'competition' than Asian religions. Art and writing depicting the 'old Gods' was not condemned because Christianity had become so established, that the old religion was no longer seen as a threat to the power of the Church. So when Botticelli painted his Venus, absolutely no one worried about him not being a good Catholic. If Botticelli would have started going around telling people he really believed Venus was REAL, people would have laughed him out of town. And no Pope or Cardinal would have had a shrine to Jupiter in their room before which the prostrated themselves and made offerings.

The tolerance of the Church to the old Gods was actually a testimony to the complete triumph of Christianity in Europe. The old Greco/Roman religion was simply not a threat, because the interest in the old Gods was not in anyway based on actual belief or worship. They had been utterly reduced to 'myths'.

Ha! melancholic- I was a little enthusiastic with the word 'Religion', and I take your point. (the Greeks did not even have a word for religion)
On the other hand Paganism offered a range of images and symbols beyond the restrictions of Christianity. It was an independently existing world that was (and still is) accessible through the senses, so in that sense was a real objective existence. The Italians filled all their private spaces with these sensual and symbolic images. After all Botticelli's Primavera was Bedroom art for its life, until it was put in a Museum. I am not sure where The Birth of Venus was placed- not in a church that is for sure.
So why not cards- after all why would this pastime show Christianity? It was forbidden to show Christ in anything secular. The Church in many ways at the time had lost a lot of its power and was worried about another belief system.
Constantinople had fallen. I am not sure Christendom was at all feeling secure.
We often talk about Europe as if we were looking down on it from above- when in actual fact there was not a complete covering of Christianity in daily practice. Why would Puritans and Calvinists be so upset if they did not think the Catholic clergy were like the Gods of old and the Churches like Temples. They acted like it- they may have believed in Christ, but lived like Deities on Earth. The common man went to Church, and still continued to follow non Christian practice in his daily life. He still threw salt over his shoulder, when he spilled it. They lived a double life spiritually, much as we do now- they consulted astrologers at the birth of their children ( which was forbidden by the Church).
The Medici Chapel Fresco may have a Christian theme, but a distinctly Pagan atmosphere, with it family geneology up there like Roman Gods. That fresco, had to have a special dispensation, and was allowed because it was a private Chapel and not a Church. They may not have said they believed in the Goddess Venus ( as they most like did not) but they certainly believed in the Goddess Fortuna it seems.
~Rosanne