Blind Alley of the Marseilles; a provocation

[Le Fanu]

After much deck consumption, shopping, lusting and that ongoing search for THE deck, I have returned - like the prodigal son - to my Minchiate Etruria Florentina. The bliss at coming full circle is for another thread, but I was thinking this morning (on my way to work) why I love it so much; and one of the reasons (apart from the fact that it just seems so inexhaustible) is that it means I can read with a historic and non-scenic deck but which ISN´T Marseilles. It is, in short, in a category of it´s own and I find this liberating. Can anyone else understand why?

Why does the concept of Marseilles paralyse me so much? I have lots of beautiful historic decks from the "Marseilles" category but always have a vague sense that Im not reading with the right one? And one gets all bogged down with the deviations and the sense of the "essential" Marseilles (It must be Convers, or Dodal. Can´t be Vieville...) I just find it so - yes- paralysing.

And the Minchiate; so thrilling and exhilerating; and so little to compare it to. The Minchiate is...well.. the Minchiate. You don´t really compare it, you try to fathom it, to use it, not really think about different editions.

Does anyone else feel this paralysis, or is it just me?

 

[Bernice]

For me, the paralysis occurs with most decks - the 'strict' marseille and RWS alike. Although the RWS wins hands-down over the marseille for inducing rigidity.

I think it's because any pre-set deck becomes a 'prision'. And if you're going to contemplate and read the deck, you come to a stage when pre-set decks are far too limiting. However, I don't experience these symptoms with Playing Cards... strange.

Bee

 

[Le Fanu]

I think it´s important to know where we can go to feel a certain liberty; for you it´s Playing Cards (and, yes, I can understand that). But don´t you have a sense that sometimes the urge to define a deck, a style ("is it or isn´t it?") becomes overwhelming?

I can feel myself drifting away from the Marseilles a little because of the baggage, yet still craving that format of the non-scenic.

Hence the Minchiate (which has been lying fallow the last few years; I see that most of the threads Ive searched on it are from a couple of years ago ; it´s due a renaissance )

 

[Bernice]

I have twice tried to buy the Minchiate and both times something went wrong. I can understand your attraction to it the images facinate me, and it's deck like no other - a one-off!

Yes, it's due for a renaissance!

The only other decks that have a measure of 'freedom' are certain oracle decks. The Lenormand (i.e. with dead simple images) is one such, but even then I've added to it, I have a 40 card Lenormand

Bee

 

[Le Fanu]

I have twice tried to buy the Minchiate and both times something went wrong. I can understand your attraction to it the images facinate me, and it's deck like no other - a one-off!

Persist! I found mine (Lo Scarabeo) on a flea market ages ago, and there was an antique bookshop near my house which had one (also the Lo Scarabeo edition) in the window for ages and ages getting increasingly faded in the sun. As Ive been getting more and more sucked in by the Minchiate recently, I decided to buy it; a 2nd copy. The first deck I have ever bought a spare of. It is a magical deck; do keep trying to locate a copy, it really is like no other deck. Literally.

And, as I said, peculiarly liberating...

 

[Hooked on TdM]

And one gets all bogged down with the deviations and the sense of the "essential" Marseilles (It must be Convers, or Dodal. Can´t be Vieville...) I just find it so - yes- paralysing.

Does anyone else feel this paralysis, or is it just me?

Nope I don't. Mind you I don't pay much attention to the it has to be this to be a Marseille talk. I consider my 1JJ Swiss to be Tdm and my Vieville, no matter what variations they have. I do note how others classify decks, but I don't let it affect me. I feel a great freedom with them, rather than feeling penned in.

Perhaps I am just too mule-headed to give much weight to other's definitions? lol

Hooked

 

[frelkins]

Fanu, I love the LS Minchi; I read with it all the time and I know Kilted Kat does too. I treat it as TdM style historic deck and read with it that way.

I don't understand what you mean by TdM baggage; these historic decks have the least baggage for me.

The Minchi & the Vacchetta are my fave decks! Then the Noblet & the Bologna. They all read so great, very freeing!

 

[Le Fanu]

I don't understand what you mean by TdM baggage; these historic decks have the least baggage for me

Just the idea of giving quite a reductivist category to a very disparate style. I mean, just imagine, if we discovered a 17th Century tarot from Italy, we would bracket it under Marseilles rather than take it fully on its own terms. Im a firm believer that these terms go deep. The Italian decks are labelled "Marseilles", the Swiss decks are labelled "Marseilles". I know that it is a generic rather than geographical label, but I think it denies the richness of a tradition. Why would I label all 17th Century engravings "Flemish" if they were not?

The baggage I mean is this and the search for a consistancy in a very inconsistant world

If it weren´t for all the extra cards in the Minchiate, thet would have been bagged as a Marseilles too. But thankfully it defies all yardsticks. I like that. And I agree with you frelkins, the Vachetta is also a wonderful deck. In fact all these historic decks are; I have a soft spot for them all.

 

[Melanchollic]

I think I understand what you mean Le Fanu. It was just a bizarre turn of history that the Milanese pattern that we call the TdM came to be the dominant one. If the French had not brought the pattern back to France, things may have been different.

I have little interest in the later tarot decks, those that came after the TdM, since as you point out, they all are derivative of this pattern.

I really love the pre-Marseille decks, especially the sheet fragment decks. I'd love to see some intelligent 'reconstruction' of some of those.

I really love this deck. Several fragments exist, one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dubbed the "Dick Sheet" (after Harris Brisbane Dick), and another in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, and also in the collection of Theodore B. Donson in New York. With so many surviving versions of this pattern, I can only assume it was very common and popular among the 'cheap and cheerful' decks of the time.

Robert Place restored a few of the images for his Tarot book, but he filled in the eyes with eyeballs. I like the 'empty eyed' look. It has the feel of Greco-Roman sculpture, which is probably just the 'classic' look the engraver was going for...

 

[Bernice]

Melancholic, are there pics of all the cards in this deck online?

Just thinking that maybe it would be possible to clean 'em up for private/personal use (a virtual deck). Wouldn't have to be a painstaking artistic historical tidy-up - only for personal perusal....

Bee (in hopes....)