Steve's comments on Janus are excellent. I think the inscription reads something like "Pacis in germanicum Martem venia: per Sebastianum Brand defleta". I am not able to completely translate this, but I think we can identify the left image with Peace (Pax, pacis) and the right image with W...

I have found here: http://www.edizionimartina.com/edizioni_martina/DettagliTesti/316.asp a quote from the "Discorso sopra l'ordine delle figure dei Tarocchi" (Discourse about the order of the Tarot images) written by Francesco Piscina and published in 1565. Of course, it is a "late&qu...

How about then: "There is no esoteric, alchemical, kabbalistic, numerological, geomantic, astrological, heretical or magical narrative intended in the original set of trumps." With the word "intended" we also take care of Prudence's concern about what somebody might have seen in...

I also wonder if this couldn't be cleaned up a bit.. still seems confusing as is: The trump series originally had a coherent meaning. There are three families of orders for the trump series. Every one of the original orders has a coherent symbolic meaning. Not every tarot trump series has a coheren...

So for number 9, is this acceptable: There is no esoteric, alchemical, kabbalistic, numerological, geomantic, astrological, heretical or magical narrative of the trumps. ??? Hello Robert, to me it's ok. If possible, I would only make clear that we speak of the orginal, intended, narrative of the Tr...

Thank you Ross, I agree that the tarot sequence is not based on any astrological doctrine and I think that the meaning of the Star, Moon and Sun is not astrological. I think the astrological element here is that the personification of these three celestial bodies (e.g. in Visconti Sforza) seems to p...

Hello Enrique, the fact that you want to replace the statement I propose with a much weaker one makes me think that you somehow disagree. I would like to know more of what you think on this topic :) Of course, we can say that “Tarot is originally from Roman-Catholic Europe”. But this sentence would ...

Is it fair to suggest that the more "typical" of common ideology, the more possible it is that the game could have been created outside of the court system? This seems fair to me :) Does it take a highly educated court personality to create the structure seen in the tarot? Or could a comm...

Hello Ross. Would you be satisfied if Petrarch's Trionfi was described as "The progress of the soul according to the Roman Catholic religion"? It is that, but it is also so much more. Petrarch was a faithful Catholic of course, but his design of the journey of human life is not a doctrinal...

This is a candidate “tarot history building block” that I think deserves some preliminary discussion. My opinion is that original Tarot was a religious game, based on the Roman Catholic faith. According to the Webster on-line dictionary, “religious” means “relating to or manifesting faithful devotio...