Florins, Weights, Measures and Point Scoring.

[Rosanne]

Due to Ross's thread on the Hourglass and the measure of time, I wondered if Tarot scoring had anything to do with The Biblical weigths and measures; in particular the terms of Leviticus. Has there been any study of scoring vis a vis the Bible?
Old Man = 15 shekels
Old Woman= 10
Male 20-60years =50
Female 20-60 years = 30
Male 5-20 =20
Female 5- 20 =10
Babe M =5
Babe F = 3
Poor Male = 0
Poor Female=0
Hmmm when we are poor we are equal.......worth nothing.
Florin of Florence
1252 first issued from O.Fr. florin, from It. fiorino, from fiore "flower," from L. florem "flower". The 13c. gold Florentine coin was stamped on the obverse with the image of a lily, the symbol of the city. Later it had Saint John the Baptist on the transverse side.
When the Florin was issued in 1252 it was valued at 1 Florin= 20 soldi=240 Denari.
By 1378 1 Florin= 68 Soldi, by 1460 1 Florin = 78 Soldi (lol and we worry about inflation!) I have not been able to find out if in 1460 when the Florin equalled 78 Soldi- was the Denari that made up a Florin nearly 1000?- But an interesting subject. Does anyone know of Studies on this?
Cheers
Rosanne

 

[Rosanne]

As an artifical adding the deck if based on the denari in 1460, each Soldi was worth 12 Denari, one Florin would be worth 936 Denari?
40 pips = 220 Denari
16 Courts = 480 Denari
Fool= Nothing
21 Cards have 236 Denari total value.
Adding in sequence 1+2+3+4 etc you get 231.
I do not know how they scored traditionally.
~Rosanne

 

[BrightEye]

The highlight of my every morning is looking what Rosanne has been up to while I was asleep. You come up with some stuff! How do you think of it all? How do you get from the Hermit's hourglass to weights and measures in the Bible? It probably says somewhere in the other thread and I missed it... When is the book coming out?

 

[Rosanne]

Lol BrightEye- apart from women having less value as in the bible and the poor valued at nothing- there is nothing 'Shekel' about tarot.
It is a game like Euchre with more thought!
If using a 78 Deck the whole deck is dealt and basically when it is ended you count the tricks/trumps. The best cards are Kings, Queens, first five Trumps, last five Trumps and Mr Excuse me- I don't want to play my best card yet -Le Fou. Pips don't count except as follow suit. Depending on the variant game, you group the tricks you have taken and add the points.
The Numbers appear important not the symbols on the cards, because with a large hand, you are not going to see the card just a corner- so I guess you better be able to distinguish it readily, as when one plays 500.
I am still intrigued with the coincidence of the value of the Florin at the time of Tarot's birth. It seems an odd chance that in the years between 1440 -1490 the Florin in Italy was made up of 78 Soldi, instead of the 20 soldi when the Florin was created in 1252. Maybe just a coincidence like the number 22 and correspondances- but an interesting piece of Trivia nonetheless.
There really is not much to research in Tarot in an amatuer way- when it all boils down. Think I will go and count ancient buttons instead I wonder how it became standard to have 7 buttons on a shirt? The height of man or the days of the week? ~Rosanne

 

[BrightEye]

Think I will go and count ancient buttons instead I wonder how it became standard to have 7 buttons on a shirt? The height of man or the days of the week? ~Rosanne

LOL - more of that, please. I'm going to stare at the next man in shirt, counting his buttons!! Never noticed that before.

 

[Debra]

I wonder how it became standard to have 7 buttons on a shirt? The height of man or the days of the week? ~Rosanne

Or the size of the hand that slides inside the shirt to help unbutton it.

Anyway, here's what they say at Answers.com, not a great historical resource but near the top of what comes up in google:

"There are almost always at least seven buttons on the front of a dress shirt, regardless of size. Eight buttons is standard with higher end dress shirts."
http://www.answers.com/topic/dress-shirt-1

 

[BrightEye]

How does a woman's (or man's) hand relate to the number 7? I get the unbuttoning bit, but wouldn't it be better if it were less than 7? You'd be able to get down to it quicker, no?

 

[Debra]

I suspect it's a compromise between tight closure (many many buttons) and ease of unbuttoning (fewer). Who knows. I can't imagine why it would be days of the week,though

 

[philebus]

Well, I don't know about the biblical weights but it is not inconceivable that the scoring could once have been tied to the currency. I'm not sure that the number of cards would been so tied, so much as the points in the pack, as stakes would be played against them. Taking the traditional points as they are now:

Fool, Pagat, World are 5 points
Kings are 5 points
Queens 4 points
Cavaliers 3 points
Valets 2 points
and all others are 1 points

A simple count give you 130 points but the most common counting scheme is to group the cards in 3s and subtract 2 points for each group, which means that there are 78 card points in the pack.

However, while these point values are standard throughout Europe, Italy is the home of exceptions to the rule, where there are some variations today. Without checking, I'm not sure how much we know of the point values used in the early Italian games.

The number of points in the pack can also vary with the counting scheme. For example, the French group the cards in pairs and subtract one point for each, giving 91 points.

If other point-trick games from the period use a similar point structure, at least for the court cards, then I would think that the point=currency is just a coincidence. Sadly, I'm not a historian, just a card player, so I'll wait for some of the more knowledgeable bods to comment further.

 

[Rosanne]

Hehehe The seven ages of Man- from child to child (senility) the Handspan of 77 years, depicted in a shirt. Of course a dress shirt is unusual- like a blue Moon so it gets an extra button
Anyways my meanderings on Tarot History have just about come to a close- most people seem to be interested only on the occult side or whether one should sleep with one's cards, or whether the Page of Cups means you're Gay.
"Bollocks "I say.. interesting that horses pull the Chariot not Bulls... thinking out loud here....ah well ~Rosanne
Thanks Philibus- we posted at the same time- interesting what you say about 78 points in a pack!