We have the date of 1557 for the Catelin Geofroy deck and is said "from Lyon" .... I actually wonder, what makes this "from Lyon". So I just ask the question, what's the documentary evidence for this.
I remember, that we've found the name Catelin Geofroy (? or similar) in a work about a cardmaker, who was active in Lothringen (Lorraine) late in 16th century, about 30 years. The matter of this text was to import Tarot cards to Lorraine, and inside the context it seemed, that before there were not Tarot cards in Lorraine.
Somewhere in this Forum-jungle should be the source for it, perhaps I find it.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=611&p=8910&hilit=g ... ancy#p8910
Mémoires de l'Académie de Stanislas (1850/51)
or
Memoires de La Society des sciences, lettres and arts de Nancy
... Recherches sun L'industrie en Lorraine,
et principalement dans le Departement de la Meurthe
par M. Henri Lepage
the interesting articles are:
Page 1.
Chapitre II
des Papeterie
as "somehow related to our theme" and ...
Page 51 till 105
Chapitre III
De la Fabrication des cartes a jouer
... that, what interest us
At page 74 and page 75 appears that, what interests us especially: There is noted a card maker in Lyon "Cathelin Geoffroy" ... well. that one, which is known as a card producer of some fragmented Tarot cards (oldest known French Tarot cards) in 1556 ..., but in the context of the article it is meanwhile 1599 (!!!), so possibly it's not the one Catelin Geofroy, but another with the same name or the same fabrication.
I don't find this, but ... this ...
https://www.google.de/books/edition/His ... frontcover
... and this at
https://cards.old.no/1557-geofroy/
This man is known to have worked as a cardmaker in Lyons from 1582 to 1603 – in that source the name is spelled Catelin Geoffroy, and in yet another Cathelin Geoffroy.
From this I've to assume, that there was a Catelin Geofroy (or similar) in Lyon from 1582-1603 and there was another or the same Catelin Geofroy 25 years earlier in "somewhere" (possibly in Lyon, but not naturally in Lyon), who made the Catelin-Geofroy-Tarot-deck 1557 and this included card motifs of Virgil Solis, a card producer and artist from Nuremberg (far away in 800 km distance) ... and a very active man. Virgil Solis died 1562, still living in 1557.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Solis
And the capital of Lorraine, Nancy, has a distance of 400 km to Lyon. And in 1599 the year 1557 had been 42 years ago.
So Lyon 1557 might be correct for Catelin Geofroy, but is a little bit vague. Virgil Solis ...
Virgil Solis wuchs als Sohn eines zugezogenen Malers in Nürnberg auf. In seiner Gesellenzeit besuchte er sicherlich Augsburg, vielleicht aber auch Zürich und Rom.
The father of Virgil Solis came from a place outside of Nuremberg. Virgil Solis probaly studied in Augsburg, Zürich and Rome. Likely it was normal, that talented artists attempted to get occupations in cities with good printing conditions as in Lyon and Nuremberg.
***************
I've given earlier a lot of arguments, that the Tarot de Paris was made in 1559 and not in c. 1600 as otherwise claimed. The base for this argument I gave an analysis of the coin suit. There was heraldic shown of the female lover (Diane de Poitiers) of King Henry II., who died in a knight tournament in 1559. Also there were heraldic of the Italian Gonzaga (Mantova) and Strozzi (Florence) family.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=755&hilit=1559
... it's a long thread.
It's very probable, that after the death of Henry II there was no reason to spend some personal honor to Diane de Poitiers. On the other side members of these families had fought on the French against the Habsburg dynasty, both had reason to spend some Italian culture in France and were possibly the promoters of this deck.
The Diane de Poitiers heraldic at the begin of the coin-9.
Analyses of the heraldic specialist Michel Popoff ...
The H for Henry II at the begin of the coin-10.
Analyses of the heraldic specialist Michel Popoff ...
compare:
https://archive.org/details/ThierryDepa ... ew=theater
Popoff wrote for the 2 of Coins: "1. Gonzague, ducs de Mantoue 2: Strozzi"
I suspected earlier in the context of Gonzaga/Strozzi ...
If the 1559 interpretation is correct, and the commissioners were indeed Louis Gonzaga (20 years old) and Filippo di Piero Strozzi (18 years), these funny and careless elements perhaps are explained by the youth of the soldiers, who perhaps wished to amuse their French comrades with a new Italian game (new in France, not in Italy).
Strozzi heraldic: