Interestingly, the same iconography for
the World is also found in the early tarots of group
C (particularly those of the Visconti group); but at the beginning of the 16th century this interpretation was replaced by the female figure enclosed in an almond-shaped frame, with the symbols of the four Evangelists in the corners, typical of the Tarot of Marseilles.
In Bologna, instead, it changed into a small Mercury standing on a circle divided into quarters, i.e. a reminiscence of the original 'city' (see page II).
The Fool is a subject whose common interpretation is shared by all three tarot groups. In the CVI he is an adult with a childish attitude (playing with the large beads of a kind of rosary), wearing an idiotic grin on his face, while in the EE he looks completely unaware of what happens around him. Two common details, probably peculiar to tarot group B, are the hood he wears, with donkey ears, and the children or young pages who tease him. In the CVI they pick up stones for throwing them at him, while in the EE they play with his exposed genitals (the personage wears nothing but the hood). |
the Fool from CVI and EE
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In both cases the children are elegantly dressed, as to stress the fool's nudity (in the CVI he is not completely naked, but only wears briefs).
The Fool is in fact man deprived of his social status (and teased for this), stripped of the superstructures which grant him a certain rank among other humans (e.g. money, clothes, power, nobility, etc.); but under this primitive condition his mind can roam, free from binds. |
detail of the Fool's face
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CVI ~ children pick up stones in the Fool |
This can be read as a metaphoric praise of man's natural quest for truth and goodness, claimed by the humanistic movement (which developed in Italy in the second half of the 1300s, and greatly inspired the game of tarot). Humanism emphasized man's uniqueness, making him the measure of all things in nature. This explains why in tarot games the Fool card is usually given a dual interpretation: alone, it has no value (i.e. the materialistic reading of this allegory, in terms of social ranking), but when challenging another trump its tremendous power makes it prevail upon any subject, including the World (i.e. man as the center of the Universe). |
THE SUIT CARDS
The suit cards still extant from the four illuminated decks are rather few, but enough to tell that the structure was the same as in other known tarots, i.e. pip cards running from 1 to 10, and four courts featuring a knave, a cavalier, a queen and a king.
The pip cards are reminiscent of the ones belonging to the Pierpont-Morgan Visconti tarot, i.e. with a white background decorated with flowers.
Also the shape of the pips in the suits of Swords and Coins is consistent with the aforesaid tarot, including the use of a generic pattern for the coins, not based of the real local currency. |
knave of Cups and king of Swords from the AS,
the only surviving courts of this tarot
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the shape of Cups
in Ferrara tarots |
Instead Batons are featured as tapered maces, i.e. with a thin handle and a thicker head. Also the Cups differ from those of the Visconti tarots, as the shape of their upper part is less rounded, and the notches along the shaft are two, whereas the Cups in the Visconti tarots have only one.
Unfortunately only a single ace has survived, namely the ace of Cups from the AS. Another ace, of Swords, is the subject of one spare card in a group of four, held by the Correr Museum in Venice; they are very similar to the ones belonging to the AS, thus clearly coming from a fifth illuminated tarot whose other subjects went lost. The ace features a straight sword pointing upwards, whose blade crosses a crown, in the same fashion as the one still found in the Bergamasche and Bresciane pattern. |
EE ~ knave and cavalier of Batons, cavalier of Swords, queen of Cups and king of Coins
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The court cards were made using the same technique as the one used for the trumps, i.e. a gold hammered leaf for the upper half of the background and for some details, while the rest of the illustration is painted.
Seeking for curious details among the extant courts, the cavalier of Swords from the EE (above, in central position) runs with his horse over the body of a dead enemy. But the most interesting ones are probably the suit cards of the RS, whose number is much greater than the surviving subjects from other decks.
All the courts of the Rothschild tarot feature a distinctive detail above the personage's head: a decorated arch in a typical late medieval fashion, unique among the illuminated tarots known, yet found in the Dick sheets (over kings and queens only, and over the three trumps featuring virtues) and in the Rosenwald sheets (over some of the trumps), as previously mentioned in
part III. Its purpose is merely decorative.
CVI ~ the knave of Swords,
only surviving court card |
It has also been mentioned that two leading scholars in the field of tarot history, S.Kaplan and M.Dummett, disagree about the interpretation of two subjects from the RS (left): what Kaplan sees as the Emperor and the king of Coins, is believed by Dummett to be, respectively, the king of Coins and the knave of the same suit.
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RS ~ knave and king of Coins,
or king of Coins and the Emperor?
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The presence of the aforesaid arch above both personages is consistent with the latter interpretation; although in this case the knave would appear as a middle-aged man, wearing a whitish beard, this is not a unique feature: in fact, a similar one is found in the so-called
Italy 2 cards (after their catalogue number in the Fournier Museum of Alava, Spain), an archaic Latin-suited pattern of Moorish inspiration, surely earlier than the RS by several decades, which testifies the existance of bearded knaves at an early stage of Western playing card history.
Among the courts of the Rothschild Tarot, interesting subjects are also the knaves and the cavaliers of each suit. Unlike the personages featured in other decks, whose formal and rather static attitude is almost reminiscent of a model posing for a painter, the two lower courts of the RS appear much more lively, depicted in unusual attitudes, as if their dynamic action had been frozen by a photographic camera. Particularly curious is the only extant card of the RS not held by the Louvre Museum in Paris, i.e. the cavalier of Swords (below, far right), in which the horseman bends completely forward, lifting his shield, up to the point that his head and a part of his shoulders are no longer visible.
more courts from the RS: knave, cavalier and queen of Batons, and cavalier of Swords
Shields are a further interesting detail of the RS: they are carried by the cavalier of Swords, and by the queen and king of Batons. They do not bear heraldic devices, as in other illuminated tarots, as their surface is made of polygonal sections in relief, not too different from the texture of a tortoise shell. The one carried by the cavalier of Swords has a central crease, which divides its surface into two halves. This particular shape, and the position it is held in, are both very similar to the shield carried by the Moorish cavalier of Swords in the aforesaid
Italy 2 deck.
