venicebard
(on the forest's fringe, looking in)
Huck, your long bit is interesting history mixed with erroneous conception based on an understandable blind-spot: your theory of Visconti origin of tarot leaves two unanswered questions of great import according to what can be deduced concerning tarot’s structure and its individual cards’ designs, by which I mean Marseille and Cary-sheet types (block-cut), which I take as an established norm that must have had a period of development (in Provence?) of the occasional variants within the traditional meanings (LeDiable, LeMonde) by the time the Cary sheet (circa 1500?) or even the earlier hand-painted ones appear, the commonest type by its nature disappearing, being most replaceable. The questions are:
(1.) What evidence is there of British bardic knowledge there at that time (I know Arthurian lore did penetrate the region)?
(2) What evidence is there of confluence of Judaic esotericism WITH that knowledge to produce such extraordinary embodiment of seemingly ancient tradition forcing itself to the surface of society as mere ‘cardplay’ yet by its pattern betraying deeply powerful esoteric roots?
The fact that I can demonstrate the basis on which these questions are asked does not, I am sure, make them sound any less strange to any not privy to that demonstration. I throw them out anyway just in case some answer may actually materialize, for which I would thank the god Luck/Lugh for prompting said tongue.
As of now, much as I would love to see that you had pinned down the decade tarot (as I define it) emerged, I have not as yet seen anything to dissuade me from a Provencal origin: it embodies clearly definable reconstruction of a very old tradition of letter- and number-symbolism made possible only by studying two decayed surviving relics of it, bardic (Irish/Welsh) and Judaic (‘Work of the Chariot’, Jewish-Gnostic). Today we have an added tool (since these two have decayed even further) in surviving fragments of the previous reconstruction, Qabbalah, as well as some several alphabets of related traditions that can be studied for their pictographic iconography: tifinag, Libyan, Meroitic, and the Germanic runes, these last based on Keltic tree-letters.
Now if you could turn up concrete evidence that the new flowering of both Jewish esotericism and British poetic lore that graced both 12th-century Provence and the Tarot of Marseilles had its germ slightly earlier in NW Italy, or more to the point that the fruit of that flowering – bardo-Qabbalistic Gnosis, for want of a better term – was brought to NW Italy... leaving some actual relic of its arrival sufficient to ‘take the heat off’ Provence as its probable place-of-germination... you would have something indeed!
ON TO REVELATIONS ITSELF
Now, to the question commencing this thread. Let’s consider things in some detail and make a study of our own, what say you, in honor of Isaac Newton’s deep interest in it.
I was struck by the theme of winds at the outset of Ch.7: VII LeChariot represents wind-in-one’s-face upon forward motion (in part deducible from Sefer Yetzirah). Yet Ch.4 starts out with the theme of the door, meaning Hebrew dalet (‘door’), whose actual trump though (by bardic numbering) is XII LePendu. A very pronounced NON-fit would be Ch.6, to my ear, as it appears to reflect neither VI L’Amoureux’s amity nor vau’s and-ness (conjoining). And Ch.8 makes for harsh ‘justice’, although one might make a case for some connexion to chet.
So far, it seems uneven, leading me to postpone further study till the morrow. But I shall return, to make renewed onslaught with ‘energy reinforcements’. Glad to finally be driven to follow in Newton’s wake (we're in good company).
Huck, your long bit is interesting history mixed with erroneous conception based on an understandable blind-spot: your theory of Visconti origin of tarot leaves two unanswered questions of great import according to what can be deduced concerning tarot’s structure and its individual cards’ designs, by which I mean Marseille and Cary-sheet types (block-cut), which I take as an established norm that must have had a period of development (in Provence?) of the occasional variants within the traditional meanings (LeDiable, LeMonde) by the time the Cary sheet (circa 1500?) or even the earlier hand-painted ones appear, the commonest type by its nature disappearing, being most replaceable. The questions are:
(1.) What evidence is there of British bardic knowledge there at that time (I know Arthurian lore did penetrate the region)?
(2) What evidence is there of confluence of Judaic esotericism WITH that knowledge to produce such extraordinary embodiment of seemingly ancient tradition forcing itself to the surface of society as mere ‘cardplay’ yet by its pattern betraying deeply powerful esoteric roots?
The fact that I can demonstrate the basis on which these questions are asked does not, I am sure, make them sound any less strange to any not privy to that demonstration. I throw them out anyway just in case some answer may actually materialize, for which I would thank the god Luck/Lugh for prompting said tongue.
As of now, much as I would love to see that you had pinned down the decade tarot (as I define it) emerged, I have not as yet seen anything to dissuade me from a Provencal origin: it embodies clearly definable reconstruction of a very old tradition of letter- and number-symbolism made possible only by studying two decayed surviving relics of it, bardic (Irish/Welsh) and Judaic (‘Work of the Chariot’, Jewish-Gnostic). Today we have an added tool (since these two have decayed even further) in surviving fragments of the previous reconstruction, Qabbalah, as well as some several alphabets of related traditions that can be studied for their pictographic iconography: tifinag, Libyan, Meroitic, and the Germanic runes, these last based on Keltic tree-letters.
Now if you could turn up concrete evidence that the new flowering of both Jewish esotericism and British poetic lore that graced both 12th-century Provence and the Tarot of Marseilles had its germ slightly earlier in NW Italy, or more to the point that the fruit of that flowering – bardo-Qabbalistic Gnosis, for want of a better term – was brought to NW Italy... leaving some actual relic of its arrival sufficient to ‘take the heat off’ Provence as its probable place-of-germination... you would have something indeed!
ON TO REVELATIONS ITSELF
Now, to the question commencing this thread. Let’s consider things in some detail and make a study of our own, what say you, in honor of Isaac Newton’s deep interest in it.
I was struck by the theme of winds at the outset of Ch.7: VII LeChariot represents wind-in-one’s-face upon forward motion (in part deducible from Sefer Yetzirah). Yet Ch.4 starts out with the theme of the door, meaning Hebrew dalet (‘door’), whose actual trump though (by bardic numbering) is XII LePendu. A very pronounced NON-fit would be Ch.6, to my ear, as it appears to reflect neither VI L’Amoureux’s amity nor vau’s and-ness (conjoining). And Ch.8 makes for harsh ‘justice’, although one might make a case for some connexion to chet.
So far, it seems uneven, leading me to postpone further study till the morrow. But I shall return, to make renewed onslaught with ‘energy reinforcements’. Glad to finally be driven to follow in Newton’s wake (we're in good company).
