Major XVI: Fire

I've read that the Tower card is called "Fire" in early decks, before La Maison-Dieu, but I've never seen it entitled such.

I've seen Le Foudre, The Lightning, depicted, but never Il Fuoco or Le Feu referring to flames instead of a bolt of electricity.

Where does it appear?

Aeric said:

I've seen Le Foudre, The Lightning, depicted, but never Il Fuoco or Le Feu referring to flames instead of a bolt of electricity.

Where does it appear?

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anonymous tarot from paris, XVIIth century
Vieville tarot
most Rouen-Bruxelles tarot also called "latin suited Belgian tarot" (i.e Adam de Hautot's, Vandenborre, etc...)
Mitelli's tarocchino
and probably more but those are the ones from the top of my head.
Catelin Geoffroy doesn't have card names, but the XVIth trump still exists, and in my personal opinion and intuition (not based on pragmatic checkable facts) it must have been called "la foudre" too.

edited to add : sorry I misunderstood your question. I'm not sure "the fire" appears elsewhere than in playing card use, but if it appears, it will be in italian decks, and most of the times "fire (from the sky)" is implied.

Bertrand said:

I'm not sure "the fire" appears elsewhere than in playing card use, but if it appears, it will be in italian decks, and most of the times "fire (from the sky)" is implied.

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I checked a sampling of my Italian decks, from Mitelli (no titles) to current gaming decks and did not find "fire" anywhere. This card is universally called La Torre except in some older TdMs where they were still using French titles -- then it was La Maison Dieu.

Perhaps someone who's French is shaky or non-existent confused Feu and Foudre, other people repeated it, and an urban legend was born.

It is called 'fire' (foco) in Teofilo Folengo's Il caos del Triperuno. Venice, 1527

GIUSTIZIA, ANGIOLO, DIAVOLO, FOCO, AMORE

"Dux malorum foemina et scelerum artifex". SEN.

Quando 'l Foco d'Amor, che m'arde ognora,
penso e ripenso, fra me stesso i' dico:
— Angiol di Dio non è, ma lo nemico
che la Giustizia spinse del ciel fora.

"Justice, Angel, Devil, Fire, Love”

"The leader of all wickedness is woman ; she is the cunning mistress of crime" - SEN [Seneca "Hippolytus" 559]

When I consider the fire of Love
that always burns me, I say to myself:
This is not an Angel from God, but the enemy
that Justice put out of heaven.

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Caos_Del_Triperuno

It is also referred to as 'Fire' (Fuoco) in Piscina's 'Discorso' on the tarot.

Piscina Francesco: Discorso sopra la significatione de’ tarocchi. Mondovì 1570. Citato nel Mare Magnum del Marucelli che si conserva manoscritto a Firenze

Others include:

Foco - Pomeran, Triomphi, poem, 1534.

Il Fuoco - G. Susio, poem, 1570.

Il Fuoco - Garzoni, La Piazza Universale, 1587.