DoctorArcanus
I am reading the excellent "The Tarot, History, Symbolism and Divination" by Robert M. Place.
At page 25 I read:
While the game qualifies as as a type of divination, the best evidence that the Tarot's fifth suit was used for incontestably divinatory practices in the Renaissance appears in a work published in Venice in 1527, know as the "Merlini Cocai Sonnets". This set of five sonnets was authored by Teofilo Folengo writing under the pseudonym Merlini Cocai. The sonnets describe a scene in which trump cards are dealt and laid out then used to determine the fates of the story's main characters. In the library of the University of Bologna, historian Franco Pratesi discovered a document written in 1750 that describes a related method of divination utilizing the entire Tarot that was practiced in Bologna in that century. This evidence suggests that in Italiy there was an ongiong tradition of using the Tarot for divination at least form the ealy sixteenth century to the time that the Traot was dicovered by the occultists in the late eighteenth century.
I thought this statement deserved a little invastigation. I found a page where one of the sonnets by Folengo is quoted.
http://www.tarock.info/renier.htm
This aritcle is of the greatest interest. Here is an english translation of the sonnet where I inserted the number of the Trionfi when they are mentioned:
Love (6), under whose Empire (4) many deeds
go without Time (9) and without Fortune (10),
saw ugly and dark Death (13) on a Chariot (7),
going between the people it took away from the World (21).
Death said: no Pope (5) nor Papesse (2) was ever won
by you. Do you call this Justice (8)?
Love answered: Him who made the Sun (19) and the Moon (18)
defended them from my Strength (11).
You are a Fool (0), continued Love, my Fire (16),
that can appear as an Angel (20) or as a Devil (15),
can be Tempered (14) by those who live under my Star (17).
You are the Empress (3) of bodies. But you cannot kill hearts,
you only Suspend (12) them. You have a name of high Fame,
but you are nothing but a Trickster (1).
This skillfull composition mentions all the 22 Majors!
The other four Tarot sonnets by Folengo are each dedicated to a person. They were composed by distributing the Majors to four people (each one received 5 or 6 cards) and then interpreting the cards in relation to that person. I think these sonnets are even more interesting, but I could not find them on the internet. I read on ATF (Ross G Caldwell) that they are quoted in Kaplan II (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=4398&page=2&pp=10&highlight=folengo)
In my opinion, this and the other sonnets are examples of tarocchi appropriati: i.e. poetry based on tarot cards. For instance: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=510993#post510993
Folengo seems to be talking about a kind of society game, where people meet to play with tarot and poetry. I agree with Michael J. Hurst http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1480-1539.html#1527
On ATF (same thread as above) there is a complete description by JMD of the Bologna document dating about 1750 found by Franco Pratesi: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=4398&page=3&pp=10&highlight=pratesi
I also found at http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1740-Present.html the following description of such document: "A single loose manuscript sheet giving cartomantic interpretations of the thirty-five cards of the Tarocco bolognese…”. Cards "are put down in five piles, making seven cards in each pile.”
Possibly, each pile was given to a different person. This process would be similar to Folengo's, and I think this similarity is of the greatest interest. I really appreciated that Rober Place undelined this similarity!
On the other hand, Place seems to be too absolute: he writes as if everything were perfectly clear, while we are still working on something that is not so well documented.
In particular, I think that the similarity between two documents one of which was written more than 200 years before the other cannot be taken as definite evidence of an "ongoing tradition".
I also disagree with Place's definition of Folengo's work as "incontestably divinatory practices". What I think is that this evidence points out the direct evolution from game playing to divination. The Bologna document descibes a kind of divination game in which the cards in a deck (a reduced deck of 35 cards, not the "entire Tarot") are distributed among the participants, just like a game of cards.
I would be interested in reading you opinions on this matter, and I hope you will enjoy Folengo's sonnet as much as I do
Marco
At page 25 I read:
While the game qualifies as as a type of divination, the best evidence that the Tarot's fifth suit was used for incontestably divinatory practices in the Renaissance appears in a work published in Venice in 1527, know as the "Merlini Cocai Sonnets". This set of five sonnets was authored by Teofilo Folengo writing under the pseudonym Merlini Cocai. The sonnets describe a scene in which trump cards are dealt and laid out then used to determine the fates of the story's main characters. In the library of the University of Bologna, historian Franco Pratesi discovered a document written in 1750 that describes a related method of divination utilizing the entire Tarot that was practiced in Bologna in that century. This evidence suggests that in Italiy there was an ongiong tradition of using the Tarot for divination at least form the ealy sixteenth century to the time that the Traot was dicovered by the occultists in the late eighteenth century.
I thought this statement deserved a little invastigation. I found a page where one of the sonnets by Folengo is quoted.
http://www.tarock.info/renier.htm
This aritcle is of the greatest interest. Here is an english translation of the sonnet where I inserted the number of the Trionfi when they are mentioned:
Love (6), under whose Empire (4) many deeds
go without Time (9) and without Fortune (10),
saw ugly and dark Death (13) on a Chariot (7),
going between the people it took away from the World (21).
Death said: no Pope (5) nor Papesse (2) was ever won
by you. Do you call this Justice (8)?
Love answered: Him who made the Sun (19) and the Moon (18)
defended them from my Strength (11).
You are a Fool (0), continued Love, my Fire (16),
that can appear as an Angel (20) or as a Devil (15),
can be Tempered (14) by those who live under my Star (17).
You are the Empress (3) of bodies. But you cannot kill hearts,
you only Suspend (12) them. You have a name of high Fame,
but you are nothing but a Trickster (1).
This skillfull composition mentions all the 22 Majors!
The other four Tarot sonnets by Folengo are each dedicated to a person. They were composed by distributing the Majors to four people (each one received 5 or 6 cards) and then interpreting the cards in relation to that person. I think these sonnets are even more interesting, but I could not find them on the internet. I read on ATF (Ross G Caldwell) that they are quoted in Kaplan II (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=4398&page=2&pp=10&highlight=folengo)
In my opinion, this and the other sonnets are examples of tarocchi appropriati: i.e. poetry based on tarot cards. For instance: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=510993#post510993
Folengo seems to be talking about a kind of society game, where people meet to play with tarot and poetry. I agree with Michael J. Hurst http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1480-1539.html#1527
On ATF (same thread as above) there is a complete description by JMD of the Bologna document dating about 1750 found by Franco Pratesi: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=4398&page=3&pp=10&highlight=pratesi
I also found at http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1740-Present.html the following description of such document: "A single loose manuscript sheet giving cartomantic interpretations of the thirty-five cards of the Tarocco bolognese…”. Cards "are put down in five piles, making seven cards in each pile.”
Possibly, each pile was given to a different person. This process would be similar to Folengo's, and I think this similarity is of the greatest interest. I really appreciated that Rober Place undelined this similarity!
On the other hand, Place seems to be too absolute: he writes as if everything were perfectly clear, while we are still working on something that is not so well documented.
In particular, I think that the similarity between two documents one of which was written more than 200 years before the other cannot be taken as definite evidence of an "ongoing tradition".
I also disagree with Place's definition of Folengo's work as "incontestably divinatory practices". What I think is that this evidence points out the direct evolution from game playing to divination. The Bologna document descibes a kind of divination game in which the cards in a deck (a reduced deck of 35 cards, not the "entire Tarot") are distributed among the participants, just like a game of cards.
I would be interested in reading you opinions on this matter, and I hope you will enjoy Folengo's sonnet as much as I do
Marco