Until 1725, Bolognese tarot had two female Popes (no Empress) and two male Popes (no Emperor), and a long succession of Popes had no reason to comment on this stylistic choice, until 1725. The Popesses and the Popes were replaced with four Moors, since exotification of foreigners was apparently all nice and dandy at the time. Bologna, boasting the world's oldest university, was located within the Papal States at the time (long before the unification of Italy), so the Papal administration had a say on what was allowed to be printed. 

Another note to myself: Take a closer look at revolutionary French decks without Empress, Emperor, Kings, Queens and Jacks. 

Another note to myself: Compare the Paris pattern and the Rouen pattern!!!

From the late 18th century to the mid-20th century there circulated a hypothesis, wild as it may seem now, that the tarot deck was invented in ancient Egypt – and with ancient Egypt I mean the time period c. 2700 BCE to 395 CE, but please remember, that Egypt was under foreign administration (Persians, Græco-Macedonians and Romans) from 525 BCE.

Today, we know more about both ancient Egypt and the history of playing cards, than what was known in the 1780s. The Rosetta Stone and all that. Handbooks about card games available during my childhood often repeated the claim, that the ordinary 52 card playing card deck began as a simplification of the tarot deck, but it is now attested, that it is the other way round. Decks for card games consisting of 52 cards existed in Egypt during the high middle ages, and reproduced in Spain and Italy from the 1370s. The guesswork in the 1780s had been correct about the geographical origin, but missed the chronological mark with somewhere between 4100 and 700 years, and the significance of this is, that the raise of playing cards didn't occur in a pre-Christian polytheistic setting (as the Enlightenment Era thinkers had presumed, thinking that all the nice symbols on tarot cards are surviving hieroglyphics), but in a predominantly Islamic culture (with a significant Coptic Christian minority) and without the 22 trumps that makes tarot decks so famous. Both Egyptian, Spanish and Italian playing cards had four suits, easily recognised by today's tarot readers: Swords, Sticks, Cups and Coins.

All court cards were originally male: A sultan and two officials with the title nā'ib, which means 'representative'. In the past, that word could, among other meanings, refer to an assistant judge, but it could also refer to a vice-regent or other types of officials. Today we are mainly familiar with a court consisting of a king, a queen and a jack, but some traditional German decks (and I will return to them in a later blogpost) still preserve one male Ober (Upper) knave and one male Unter (Lower) knave, which is a remarkable example of how slowly the taste of card game players may change over centuries. As for the word nā'ib, it still survives in the Spanish word for playing card, naipes.

In due season, I will focus my attention on tarot decks proper (the well-known 78 card version, of course, but also the less known 64 card version from Sicily, the 62 card version from Bologna and some other overlooked versions or derivations). Before that, I will take a look at how ordinary playing cards evolved. They do not look the same everywhere. Though the four old suit marks survived with only minor changes in Spain, in most-but-not-all parts of the Italian peninsula, in the tarot deck, in the minchiate deck and in the aluette deck, already in the mid-15th century they were adapted into (Spade-shaped) Leaves, Acorns, Hearts and Bells in many German-speaking principalities. This latter German set of suite marks formed, in turn, the basis for the French suits, which are well known in many parts of the world today: Spades, Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds.

Something often forgotten by the present generation, particularly outside of Italy and Germany, is how late Italy and Germany became united countries, in 1861 and 1871, respectively. Gaming habits do not die swiftly. The former countries, out of which Italy and Germany were united, still cultivate regional identities, and the decks and games popular in any particular region often go back for centuries. This factor also cause consequences for divination methods. Regional cartomancy methods in the past were, of course, based on the particular deck or decks popular among card players in each of these regions at the time. Foreign decks lost competitive strength, because of customs duties, even if the place of origin of these decks were just in the neighbouring principality, where decks looked differently, and other card games were popular. Therefore, it isn't irrelevant for card readers to know something about regional playing card decks. It was out of them many decks, later designed for explicit cartomantic use, evolved.

To be continued.

For instance, someone, who wish to buy a Sibilla deck, and not something else than a Sibilla deck, should know, that a Sibilla Indovina does not follow the structure generally known as a 'Sibilla' (I will return to this subject matter in a later blogpost). Similarly, @reall remarked four years ago, that people in their surroundings think of the 36 card Traditionelle Wahrsagekarten deck, when they ask for 'a tarot deck'. It follows, that these persons would be surprised (and maybe disappointed), if they ended up with an actual 78 card tarot deck derived from Milanese tarot instead, because that wasn't what they expected. 

The field may seem overwhelming at first, so I will try to –step by step– disentangle the confusion surrounding the matter, as far as my knowledge goes, and write a buyer's guide, as it were. I admit, that I have still very much to learn, and some parts of the landscape are still foreign terrain to me. However: buyer's remorse can be avoided. In a manner, I will try to pass the torch. 

Experienced diviners, art historians or folklorists will not find any surprising here.

To be continued.