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Around the mid 1500s, while the south of France had already become confident with the new card game imported from Lombardy, the northern part of the country was probably being introduced to the same novelty.
Besides a number of fancy or non-standard tarots, mainly produced during the same 16th century, the standard pattern adopted in northern France by those days was certainly based upon the cards coming from Lombardy through Lyon, i.e. the early Marseille tarot. But this was not the only influence received by the cardmakers of Paris. They certainly knew the Spanish cards, as well as the hunting decks from German-speaking countries, and - most of all - they knew the tarots from north-eastern Italy, similar in structure to the Lombard ones, but whose illustrations might have been judged more appealing.
The deck presented in this page was made in Paris by cardmaker Jacques Viéville, active from 1643 to 1664. There is enough evidence that during the same years other manufacturers (for instance Jean Noblet, c.1650) were producing tarots with the classic Marseille pattern.
But Viéville's own cards, yet close enough to the standard design that had come from the south of France, reveal some interesting differences, which are consistent with the aforesaid influence likely exerted by the north-eastern Italian design, i.e. the one classified by Dummett as B, or eastern group, or Ferrara tarot (see page III for details).
Viéville's deck still consists of its original 78 subjects. Unfortunately, this is not true for other decks made in France during the same age, a few of which have survived only partly, and many of which have completely disappeared. Therefore, we may wonder whether this tarot should be labelled as a new pattern, that would have coexisted with the more traditional Marseille variety, rather than considering it simply "Viéville's edition", i.e. a deck that the French maker produced as a variant, after having been influenced by Italian decks, but that was not followed by any other local maker.
There is also a third possibility: this tarot may have been the early sign of a slow change that about one century later led to the creation of the pattern used in northern France and Belgium during the 1700s (see Van Den Borre's tarot for more details).
In fact, many differences in Viéville's tarot are also present in earlier samples (for instance, in the 16th century Tarot de Paris, that came from the same city), and the ones found in the French-Belgian pattern, that would have developed between Rouen, Bruxelles and Gent, are even more similar. And most of these differences almost certainly came from the tarot of Ferrara (group B).
It is probably not a coincidence that one of the famous luxury tarots of the 15th century belonging to the aforesaid group, the so-called tarot of Charles VI, ended up in Paris, where it is still held.
Despite the name, the aforesaid cards of Charles VI are not at all French. They were painted in the north-east of Italy during the late 1400s, and were taken to France maybe soon afterwards, inspiring a wrong but long-lasting theory according to which the deck had been created for the French king Charles VI, to entertain the sick monarch who suffered from fits of madness. But Charles' reign ended in 1422, whereas the style of the tarot's illuminations definitely mismatches such an early dating.
However, the Tarot de Paris shows that Ferrara's pattern may have reached the French capital even earlier than the tarot of Marseille.
THE TRUMPS
Despite the several differences pointed out so far, the Parisian tarot is indeed similar to Marseille's pattern for most of its subjects; many details match, and only a few trumps substantially differ, all of which belonging to the second half of the series.
Among the quasi-identical ones is Justice, whose female figure lost one position in ranking, but gained a pair of wings. These are a graphic corruption of the upright rear part of a chair or throne seen behind this allegory in the classic illustration from Marseille.
The twelfth trump, the Hanged Man, besides the reverse left-right orientation, seems to have been rotated, as well.
In fact, the number at the base of the card is IIX, i.e. a XII turned upside-down. Actually, this could also be the same XII turned left to right, but since no other number among the cards of the set appears reversed in this direction, and since this is the only subject whose number is printed at the bottom of the card, we may reasonably think that in the eyes of Jacques Viéville the Hanged Man was to be held in a "head-up feet-down" position, despite in this way the already peculiar attitude of the personage looks even more unnatural.
As mentioned in the Marseille gallery, part 2, problems in orienting this subject were sometimes found in some Marseille tarot editions, as well. The one shown on the far right has the number correctly placed, i.e. above the illustration, but spelt upside down, despite the name at the bottom makes it clear that this was the right way of looking at the card.
More differences are found in Temperance, although at first sight they are not so eye-catching: the female figure is crowned, and lost the wings she had been given in southern France (almost "stolen" by the aforesaid Justice). She no longer holds a vase in each hand, but a vase and a sceptre, while the other vessel is resting on the ground. A completely new feature is the ribbon, or cartouche, on which runs vertically the motto SOL FAMA, "the only fame", whose meaning may be "the only virtue (to be remembered for)". What is more interesting, though, is that the text is reversed, while the number XIIII is correctly spelt; this may suggest that the engraver was not really aware of the writing's meaning, and gave it small consideration, copying it merely as a graphic detail; this would also be consistent with the hypothesis mentioned in part 3 of a pattern whose plate may have been obtained by copying another deck, i.e. a positive model, whose text was spelt correctly.
Another unusual feature is the colour scheme used for the figure's dress: half red and half blue, almost arranged as the quarters of a heraldic crest, probably referring to temperance as the virtuous blend of two opposites (also note how a blue fluid is being poured into a red one).
The Devil takes us back to the late medieval tradition, as it features a demon with many faces all over its body. The creature is seen sideways, without any small additional demon.
A similar representation was used by Italian tarots, in particular those of Bologna, which may suggest a further shade of influence for for Viéville's tarot, this time coming from Dummett's group A, or southern group.
The sixteenth trump is Lightning.
Apparently, the winds of change that in the south of France had turned this subject into la Maison Dieu were maintained by the Parisian maker, and the original name survived.
JV - Lightning
Unlike the card from the Tarot of Charles VI, more consistent with Marseille's pattern (its picture is shown in part 2), Viéville's allegory features a man below a tree, seeking shelter from a pouring rain that some clouds deliver after having covered the sun. Some of the "drops" are red and yellow, and likely refer to thunderbolts, whereas the clouds darkening the sun represent more symbolically God's rage.
This interpretation is probably more naive than the one used in earlier decks; the allegory found in the late 16th century Tarot de Paris basically had the same meaning, although its visual impact is even more symbolic, as thunder is represented by a demon with a drum.
The Lightning trump survived in the Flemish tarot (Regional Tarots, part 4), but definitively subsided when this pattern died out.
the Star, featuring an astronomer
tarot de Paris (left) and JV
The three cosmological subjects are rather close to the Tarot of Charles VI, and prove once again a relation between the tarots made in Paris and the ones from north-eastern Italy, whose closest traces today are found in Bologna's tarot, closer in pattern than Milan's own to the ones made around Ferrara. However, Viéville's set does not overlap the classic sequence of trumps of Ferrara's tarot, as if their ranking had been partially rearranged, and among them is even a new subject.
For an easy reference, the following table summarizes the subjects and ranks found in the tarots compared so far.
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The table seems to suggest that the French cardmakers dropped one of the two astronomy subjects, maybe because they considered them redundant, so that the rank of the woman with a spindle was shifted back one position (from the Sun to the Moon), whence the opportunity of introducing a new allegory for the third subject.
Alternatively, the French cardmakers may have dropped one astronomer card for the specific purpose of bringing back the female figure to rank XVIII, so to respect the ancient symbolic relation between the Moon and female nature. In fact, in the Lombard tradition, i.e. in the Visconti tarots, as well as in Mantegna's cards, the Moon features a female allegory, representing goddess Diana, who often carries a bow and arrow. In the Cary sheet and later on in Marseille's pattern, the allegory remained a female, who pours water into a river.
( the Moon from JV, the tarot of Charles VI and the tarot of Ercole d'Este)
The long spindle held by the woman in the Moon card of French origin and in the Sun card of the tarot of Charles VI may in fact be a graphic corruption of Diana's long arrow: in particular, the detail of its rear end. This can be easily understood from a card belonging to the Leber tarot (16th century, from northern Italy, but kept in Rouen, northern France), a non-standard pattern whose trumps had Latin mottos instead of names. The subject no.16 features a rather similar allegory, a female figure standing in the sea below an 8-pointed star, with a long arrow pointing downwards; its rear part, i.e. where the feathers are, is indeed very similar to the aforesaid spindle.
The nineteenth trump, the Sun, seems to be the one more freely interpreted, away from the strict cliché of the two twins found in the Lombardy-Marseille scheme.
In Vieville's edition a blonde naked rider on horseback carries a two-colour flag, without any specific clue except the red cross on the horse's hindquarters, although this likely represents the animal's harness, rather than a crest. This cross is very similar to the one that in most tarot editions (including Vieville's own) appears in the following subject, Judgement, on the flag that hangs from the angel's trumpet, and is a traditional symbol of resurrection.
Almost surprisingly, the last card, the World, abandons the north-eastern Italian scheme and turns back again towards the southern French heritage, featuring the classic female figure that holds a sceptre, inside the almond-shaped wreath, with the Tetramorph (i.e. the evangelists' symbols) in the four corners.
This text is from Andy's Playing Card Site for those with trouble finding the information...
