Earliest deck available on the market?

[JoshF]

What is the earliest deck dating back in or before the 14th/15th century with original illustration?

[gregory]

You say "on the market..." Do you mean a copy of a really early deck that you can now buy without going bankrupt ? There are good Visconti decks out there, and Marseilles ones, too.

[AprilShowers]

There's a really great blog post published in 2016 on the official website for The Metropolitain Museum of Art. Written by curator Tim Husband, it discusses a brief history of decks dating back to this time period along side some digital images of the original illustrations you're looking for.  If you're interested in looking at Exhibition details and images, search for "The World in Play: Luxury Cards, 1430–1540."

[Guest]

The oldest available Tarot deck would be the Visconti-Sforza although it's missing a few cards. Oldest available complete Tarot deck would be the Sola Busca. Both can currently be bought mass-produced at affordable prices.

[fire cat pickles]

Tarot Heritage is a great resource if you're interested:

https://tarot-heritage.com/history-4/early-tarot-1420-1475/ (Visconti-Sforza)

ETA: I like this deck but I have tried reading with it and I just can't. And it is incomplete (ugh).

https://tarot-heritage.com/history-4/italian-tarot-in-the-15th-century/ (Sola Busca)

 

Don't forget the Rosenwald (I love it!) This one is not found originally in deck form, but Sullivan Hismans has done a beautiful repro from the Rosenwald Sheets that is absolutely wonderful:

https://tarot-heritage.com/2017/10/31/the-rosenwald-deck/

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by fire cat pickles

[Scandinavianhermit]

The Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo tarot is from the mid-15th century, but The Devil, The Tower, Knight of Coins and Three of Swords are missing from that one, so all modern decks based upon the PMB (of which there are several) add modern replacements for those four cards. Actually, we can't be 100% sure the PMB originally included any Devil or Tower, because the selection of trumps seem to have varied a lot during that phase of tarot development, as seen in the Cary-Yale deck (which includes the non-standard Faith, Hope and Charity among the trumps).

 

Though a complete 78 card deck, the Sola-Busca (c. 1491) has non-standard trumps.

 

Geoffroy de Catelin's tarot deck from 1557 is one of the oldest tarot decks preserved in full. So are the Budapest sheets, I believe. The latter are notoriously hard to date precisely. The time window 1475-1550 is probable, dates before and after that improbable: The court cards are wearing pieces of clothing non-existing before c. 1475, because of fashion trends.

 

Up to the Budapest sheets and Geoffroy de Catelin there are always a few cards missing from the standard structure we are familiar with today, which is very irritating. It seems like a high degree of experimentation with the number and artistic motifs of trumps was going on between 1425 (only five trumps) and 1550, and we can't be entirely sure whether a particular trump is lost or if it was never there to begin with. In 1441, for instance, Jacopo Sagramoro painted a deck with only 14 trumps for Bianca Maria Visconti's use. A poem dated to c. 1500 leave The Popess out, and so does the Minchiate (or Germini) deck with 41 trumps, and this despite that the PMB included a Popess. The Rosenwald sheets lack The Fool. The Cary sheet lack The Hermit, Death, The Angel/Judgement and The World. 

Edited March 25, 2024 by Scandinavianhermit