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Christine Payne Towler 1 THE CONTINENTAL TAROTS by Christine Payne-Towler In the essay titled "The Major Arcana" I empha- Tarots show Roman numerals on some of their size that "something happened" to the Tarot in Major Arcana, but not all of them, and not in the the late 1600s, when a new trend emerged in the order we are now familiar with. Those very old images of the Major Arcana. I point to the woodblock decks tend instead to follow the list Marseilles family of decks and the Etteilla Tarots enumerated in a sermon written by an Italian to illustrate my point. The friar in the late 15th century (see illustration images shown by Antoine opposite page 1 in Volume 1 of Kaplan's Ency- Court de Gebelin in his clopedia of Tarot). There is also another order book Le Monde Primitif derived from the Charles VI pack that keeps further validates this idea. Temperence, Fortitude and Justice together in a The remainder of this group. A very small minority of Tarots follow essay is about exploring this order, including Etteilla’s Tarots. "what happened." Many of the earliest decks did not show either Let's review the situation Roman or Arabic numerals, titles or astrology of Tarot in the first half of sigils. Some of the images do, however, utilize the 1600s. Since the early traditional scenes and characters from the signs 1400s, both handmade of the zodiac, the personae of the planets and and woodblock Tarots other traditional mythic themes familiar to the culture of the times. THE MOON CARY Y ALE SCAPINI DECK A look at these oldest showed a remarkable constancy of internal packs reveals images structure even though some packs were either from the persecuted edited or expanded to meet the needs of the Cathar movement as well various games for which they were created. as Hebrew, Greek and Tarot appeared in 72-card form in Italy around Gypsy occult symbolism. 1450, although this model may represents The vehemence with "splice" between preexisting symbol sets: the which the Church at- twenty-two Hebrew alphabet-keyed set called tacked the cards and their the Major Arcana, and the Turkish Mamluk makers only reinforces cards of unknown provenance, a 15th century the evidence that Tarot version of which can be seen in Volume 2 of was the repository of Stuart Kaplan's Encyclopedia of Tarot (see essay heretical wisdom pre- on the Minor Arcana). served in imagery. Close MONTEGNA’S study of the excellent THEOLOGIA Kaplan also explains that the numerical order the book called Tarot Sym- Arcana appear in now is carried over from the bolism by Robert O’Neil exposes the falsity of French pack by Catelin Geofroy, published in the belief that there were no esoteric associations 1557 (Vol. 1, p. 65). Some earlier fragmentary with Tarot imagery before Eliphas Levi. 2 The Marseilles family of Tarots began to appear Tarot makers who preferred the archaic form. in the late 1400s or early 1500s, slowly evolving The two Marseilles-style decks that date this and becoming more distinct as versions were telling change in the Tarot canon are the Tarots reproduced and a their popularity spread. The by Jacques Vieville and Jean Noblet, both deck we are featuring from this family is based Parisian cardmakers in the Marseilles tradition. on the classical Italian-Piedmontese tarot of Giusep Ottone, first published in1736. Dr. A Glance At the Cards in Question Lewis Keizer considers this family of decks to Two defining characteristics of the oldest Tarots be the best reproduction of the earliest Arcana were a Lovers card that shows "The Union of the to have survived the Inquisition (see "The King and Queen" theme, and a Devil card that Esoteric Origins of Tarot: More than a Wicked shows the image of a traditional werewolf or Pack of Cards"). lamia from European pagan antiquity. After the change in the late 1600s, those two cards are O’Neil suggests that the Marseilles Tarots were drawn to entirely different models, called the actually the original "folk" pattern, but since Two Paths and Typhon (or later Baphomet). most copies were woodblock-print "catchpenny" These amendments to the Arcana can first be decks, not expensive works of art like the seen in the aforementioned two French handmade decks of the Milanese ducal families, Marseilles Tarots which appeared in the early they more easily became worn and were dis- 1660s. A century later these same amendments carded and replaced. (I agree to the extent that I appeared as illustrations in Le Monde Primitif by too think the earliest extant Tarots are probably Court de Gebelin, and Etteila’s Tarot also fol- not true to the sources that originally inspired lowed them faithfully. By the beginning of the Tarot.) This helps explain the uniqueness of the 19th century, all schools Visconti Sforza and of Tarot used the "new" related Tarots, which models despite their have more in common other differences. Ad- with the Mantegna Tarots justments were made at that the Marseilles. the same time to several other Major Arcana, but Most of the differences the Lovers and the Devil from one pack of serve as perfect "mark- Marseilles Tarots to ers" in Tarots that another were simply local accepted this new details entered into the influence. standard image to identify the maker and the region In Volume 2 of Stuart HE OVERS T L in which the given Kaplan’s Encyclopedia, DEVIL EAN OBLET S DECK J N ’ version was produced. we have an excellent JEAN NOBLET’S DECK But in the early 1660s, illustration of the devel- two decks appeared that permanently changed opment of these two the look of several Major Arcana. Subsequently, "new" Arcana as they appeared in 1660 in those changes "leaped out" of the Marseilles Jacques Vieville and Jean Noblet’s decks. Kaplan mold, appearing in the works of de Gebelin and was kind enough to put them on opposite pages, all the Etteilla variants of the following century, and we can actually see the ideas developing. effectively obliterating the older versions of Apparently Vieville liked the new version of the these cards except in the case of a nostalgic few Lovers, but rejected changes to the Devil, while 3 Jean Noblet went all the way and changed them both. It is uncanny how they form the line of demarcation--before them, only the old forms appear, but after them, entirely new images take over. It's hard not to wonder "what happened here?" Introducing Athanasius Kircher One way to answer the above question would be to ask the parallel question, "What else was happening in Europe during the second half of the 1600s that might cause a ripple of change in the Tarot?" This question is easier to answer. In a general way the answer is "the closing years of the Renaissance." But the more specific answer, very relevant to Tarot, is "Athanasius Kircher." One has only to find a copy of Joscelyn Godwin's wonderful presentation Athanasius Kircher: A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge from Thames and Hudson to realize that this German Jesuit scholar is a key to many riddles in the history of esoteric Tarot. PAN/JUPITER KIRCHNER’S T AROT In the essay "Kabbalah/Cabbalah," an entire all over Europe. (see chapter on The Major section is devoted to Kircher's Christian Arcana) If we accept this resemblance as rel- Cabbalah paradigm. It is he who adapted the evant to the changing of the Devil cards of Tarot, paths of the Tree of Life into the form that then we can see the process by which we might modern magicians and Tarot practitioners are find evidence in Kircher's work or that of his familiar with. It is also Kircher who was so contemporaries for the shift in the Lovers card, convinced of the Egyptian source of the ancient and possibly other details as well. Unfortunately, mysteries, and so learned and literate in the my catalog of Kircher's work is not extensive exposition of his ideas, that the sheer force of his enough to let me point to such a striking parallel certainty impregnated esoteric thought for image in the case of the Lovers. But even partial centuries afterward. And I think it is he who, exposure to his ideas and images serves to either directly or indirectly, affected the look of convince us that Kircher’s voracious mind made the Tarot forever after. itself an expert on whatever it contemplated. As you gaze upon his illustration of Pan or Meanwhile, the article by Dr. Keizer points to Jupiter, it is difficult to miss how closely the the mid-1700s as a pivotal time in the history of "new" Devil image that appears in the 1660s Tarot, because that is the time of the Fratres resembles Kircher's conception. A shift in Lucis or Brothers of Light. In essence, Dr. gender in evidence by Levi's time (late 1880’s), Keizer says that the books published by de in which the Devil gravitates from a masculine Gebelin and Etteilla, lauding the Egyptian origin form, through a form with attributes of both of the Tarot Arcana, were not original in their genders, to the final female form, gives us the ideas at all, but were "already common under- Baphomet image favored in the esoteric schools standing in French occult circles, which were 4 essentially Freemasonic" (p. 12). Keizer sets became associated with the Fratres Lucis by the forth that the "Egyptian Initiation" manuscript time of the French Revolution, was not revealed that was translated and published by Paul publicly until 1870, by Paul Christian.
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