Were Names and Numbers on Early Tarot de Marseille?

I've been spending a lot of time looking at various TdM and cousin decks, and am leaning towards thinking that the earliest TdM cards probably did not have Names or Numbers on them.

One reason for thinking this is the way the images seem to be cut off on the tops and bottoms of some TdM cards.

Another is looking at the Cary Sheet and the Sforza Castle cards.

What is the general opinon on this? What's yours?

best,
robert

Phoenician Roots

Beginning with Le Bateleur and Aleph with the rest
of the cards proceeding logically to Le Fol and Tav,
numbering the cards was simply rather redundant.

But look at the state of things today: people can't
even recognize the alphabet or agree on numbers.

I think I have read more than a few times that the early tarot majors had no numbers and no order . Which I find wonderful- so much more thought provoking , chaotic, and interactive . Pours marvelous fiery destruction down upon numerology and fool's journey theories.

If somebody reads this thread and doesn't know the Cary sheet, please have a look: http://association.tarotstudies.org/news24.html
It's beautiful, and seems to seriously support Robert's hypothesis.

The fact that ancient decks had no numbers on them points out that the order of the trumps was well known by all players. The fact that in different cities different ordering were used points out that the order was known by the players, but was not implicit in the cards. If a necessary order were implicit in the trumps, players in different cities would have used that implicit ordering, instead of producing new orderings.

I think that the designers of the first deck(s) had very clear the reasons of the ordering of the trumps, but such reasons were lost on their less literate contemporaries, and are even more lost on us, XXI century schyzoid tarotists

Marco

DoctorArcanus said:

I think that the designers of the first deck(s) had very clear the reasons of the ordering of the trumps, but such reasons were lost on their less literate contemporaries, and are even more lost on us, XXI century schyzoid tarotists Marco

Click to expand...

Gosh DoctorArcanus, I'm not a schyzoid (yet) but I can count,
A1 B2 C3 D4 E5 F6 (how am I doing so far?) G7 H8 I9 J10...

Art as Letterform (Part 2)
by Mark Filipas

http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Essays/epsilon.html
Click on this link to "read" all about it...

DoctorArcanus said:

The fact that ancient decks had no numbers on them points out that the order of the trumps was well known by all players.

Click to expand...

If we take the Visconti decks into account, there are no numbers. But we can see in the early woodblock cards in Kaplan that some numbers were started to be added almost right away, on cards that perhaps were either confusing, or to clear up differences in how the game was played in different towns possibly.

If we look at the Vieville deck, we have images without titles, and we have numbers that look very much like an addition. The "space" has not been created yet.

If we look at the Sforza Castle cards, there are several deck samples that have no title or number, the World being, I think, the most interesting.

Also, some of the pips are also shown without the numbers.

When we look at the TdM cards, it feels to me that many of the cards are cut off. It's interesting to look at the Vieville Chariot and the Strength cards for instance. On Vieville, you can clearly see the top of the Chariot where other "scalloped" Chariot roofs are cut off (Noblet, Dodal, etc). Strength shows the top of the hat and the foot with the tail of the lion.

I'm suspicious that these were details that would have appeared on TdM decks, but were cut off when the name and number areas were added.

I'd even go as far as to wonder if the only reason Death remained unnamed is because too much importance was placed on the scythe to have allowed it to be cut off.

It seems to me that the TdM started with images that had no name and probably no number, and that they were added not by enlarging the cards, but by replacing part of the image area.

I don't think this is an unusual belief, I'm under the impression that it is pretty commonly assumed to have been the process, but perhaps I'm wrong.. just been thinking about it lately and appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts.

best,
robert

le tarot de systems inc.

I hadn't thought of imagining a medieval usgames,
but then if every known deck qualifies as evidence
of an unknown other deck ~anything at all works.

I get your meaning Fulgour, but then I guess that means the earliest TdM was created by Jean Noblet in 1650?

I think most of us assume the TdM may be at least 150 years older than that.

And we do have the Cary Sheet and the Sforza Castle cards that might be clues.

best,
robert

PS
Would it more likely be a medieval Lo Scarabeo? ; )

to say the first cards were not numbered is dangerous. exact indisputable dates of early tarot evidence is indeed hard to find. In early tarot we see various examples of numbering mixed with un-numbered examples of actual cards. I suspect with French TdM decks, which are quite numerous, there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to numbering.

le pendu said:

And we do have the Cary Sheet and the Sforza Castle
cards that might be clues.

Click to expand...

The "Cary" sheet is just that, a scrap of paper,
while entire decks stand intact for us to view.

As far as "Visconti" decks, illiterate rich people
who couldn't count or spell for beans, would've
wanted a user-friendly pack of 'nice' silly cards.