Timeline?

[Scandinavianhermit]

I can't find any thread about the timeline of tarot, so I begin a new thread about that subject matter. I invite you to add more information, preferably well-attested information using critical methods ('Channeled' matter does certainly not count as critical methods).

 

TAROT TIMELINE

 

• 1351-1374. Petrarca writes the collection of poems, known as Trionfi. This title will later be used about the non-suite cards of the tarot, and the English word trumps is derived from this.
• 1371. Ordinary playing cards attested in Spain.
• 1376. Ordinary playing cards attested in the Italian peninsula.
• 1377. Ordinary playing cards attested in Switzerland.
• 1380s. Ordinary playing cards attested in Florence, Regensburg and Basel.
• c. 1412-1425. Philippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, order a hand-painted 16 trumps card deck from Michelino da Besozzo.
• 1423. Margravess Parisina Malatesta of Ferrara imports an Imperadori deck with 8 trumps.
• 1426. Germans in Nördlingen plays Karnöffel, a stick-taking card game with a 52 card deck.
• c. 1427-1431. The Stuttgarter Jagdspiel deck makes the three court cards in each of two suits female, in each of two suits male.
• c. 1440. Hofjagdspiel in Tyrol includes four court cards in each suite: A King, a Queen, an Ober ('Upper')and an Unter ('Lower'). The terms 'Ober' and 'Unter' are borrowed from the Karnöffel game.
• 1441. Jacopo Sagramoro painted a deck with 14 trumps for Bianca Maria Visconti, the same year she married Francesco Sforza. At this time the number of trumps were not yet 22. Ross Caldwell discovered this in 2003.
• c. 1442-1466. The Cary-Yale deck is painted at some time during this time period, presumably for the use by Philippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan. Only 11 trumps are preserved, and three of them, though resembling the Minchiate deck, lack counterparts in the later standard 22 trump tarot.
• 1453. The East-Roman empire collapses, and is replaced by the Ottoman Empire. Byzantine scholars flee to northern Italy, including Florence.
• ?. The Brera-Brambilla deck was painted by Bonifacio Bembo for either Philippo Maria Visconti in the 1440s or for Francesco Sforza 1463. Only two trumps are preserved: The Emperor and Fortune's Wheel.
• c. 1450-1466. An artist, presumably Bonifacio Bembo, painted the tarot deck today conventionally known as the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo deck, presumably for Bianca Maria Visconti, then Duchess of Milan. No Devil, nor any Tower, are preserved, but the trumps are otherwise identical with the standard set attested in the early 16th century.
• c. 1460. Friar Giacomo della Marca condemns gambling, but do not mention playing-cards or tarot cards (Cf. 1500). 
• c. 1475-1550. The printed Budapest Sheets include the earliest attested sequence of all 22 trumps of what posterity will consider the 'standard' tarot. It's just a pity, that these sheets can't be dated with greater accuracy.
• [WHEN?] The d'Este family in Ferrara order a hand-painted deck, later erroneously and anachronistically associated with king Charles VI of France. Six trumps are lost.
• [WHEN?] Guildhall Library Tarocchi is painted
• [WHEN?] Rosenwald Sheets is printed

• [WHEN?] Beaux-Arts-Rotschild Sheets is printed

• 1499. France occupy Savoy and Milan.

• c. 1500. The so called Cary Sheet is printed.

• c. 1500. A revised version of Giacomo della Marca's sermon against vice (Steele Manuscript) do include playing cards and tarot cards (Cf. 1460). Ronald Decker found this out in 1989.

• c. 1500. A poem printed in Rome and Venice mentions all tarot trumps except the Popess. N.B. The Popess is not included in Minchiate decks. 

• 1557. Catelin Geoffroy prints a tarot deck.

• 1559. The older deck known as Tarot de Paris is printed, but there also exist quite a different younger one, printed in 1650. The World in this deck will inspire the 'Belgian' tarot's World. Both of them resemble a piece of art in the cathedral of Siena.

 

 

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

 

[Misterei]

@Scandinavianhermit. Very cool. I am a real believer that the History is important.

Not sure if this counts:

1527 first literary reference to reading fortunes with Triunfi in an Italian play.

 from Caldwell:

 

Meanwhile, early in the same century there appeared what many consider the first account of a Tarot divination. Teofilo Folengo (whose pen name was Merlin Coccai), in his strange allegory Chaos del Triperuno, 1527), describes the scene:

 

(Limerno speaks) "...yesterday Giuberto, Focilla, Falcone and Mirtella secretly led me into a room where, since they’d found playing cards of trumps [Tarot], they dealt these according to chance among themselves, and having turned toward me, each one of them explained to me the specific destiny of the trumps received, entreating me to write a sonnet about them for each person. (…)

Edited December 31, 2023 by Misterei

[Morsoth]

I've posted an eclectic timeline on my blog too, not just about tarot or cartomancy (it's also about Paganism, Witchcraft, Druidry, Occultism, etc.), but there is lots of dates about what you are interested in there: https://druidcraftblog.wordpress.com/timeline/

 

It's kind of messy on the site, the original version is in Microsoft Word, and looks way better, but that's the best I could do with Wordpress.

 

Thanks for your dates, I'll update my version with yours too!

[Scandinavianhermit]

4 hours ago, Morsoth said:

I've posted an eclectic timeline on my blog too, not just about tarot or cartomancy (it's also about Paganism, Witchcraft, Druidry, Occultism, etc.), but there is lots of dates about what you are interested in there: https://druidcraftblog.wordpress.com/timeline/

 

It's kind of messy on the site, the original version is in Microsoft Word, and looks way better, but that's the best I could do with Wordpress.

 

Thanks for your dates, I'll update my version with yours too!

Thank you, @Morsoth, and a clarification: When two years are mentioned with a hyphen, that denotes earliest possible year and latest possible year.

[gregory]

There's an excellent one here:

 

https://tarot-heritage.com/history-4/tarot-history-chronology/

 

Mary Greer did one too, but I can't find it at this moment.

[Morsoth]

15 hours ago, Scandinavianhermit said:

Thank you, @Morsoth, and a clarification: When two years are mentioned with a hyphen, that denotes earliest possible year and latest possible year.

Exactly! Either that, or a known time period, like "1501-02…. Redaction of El Libro de las Profecías (Book of Prophecies) by Christopher Columbus" which is a 2-year period. If the dates are greater than 2-4 years, it's (most of the time) a grey area that denote a possible year like you mentioned.

 

And this "1531/33…. Release of De occulta philosophia (Books of Occult Philosophy) by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa" is because the first book was printed in 1531 in Paris, Cologne, and Antwerp, while the full three volumes first appeared in Cologne in 1533.

 

In doubt, just copy-paste the keywords and the date, and you'll get a because understanding. This "quick" timeline is part of a bigger book (3000 pages) about Celtic Paganism, Divination and Spirituality.