L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 8 LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE FRANCESCA BEZZONE O nly naming them brings to mind mystery and div- ination, the magic aura of the unknown surrounds them: but are tarot cards really that difficult to decipher? They may be - for those who believe in such things - at least when it comes to read- ing the future, but their history is not at all unclear, and it has strong Italian roots. This may come as a mild sur- prise to some, as the most popu- lar tarots in the US and in the anglophone world, the Rider- Waite deck, was the brainchild of esoterism expert and Golden Dawn member Arthur Edward Waite and of illustrator and occultist Pamela Colman Smith. Published for the first time in 1910, the iconic images of their major arcana made it into popu- lar culture more than once: in 1968, theatre fans would receive The Lovers card when going to see Hair; in 1973, they were in the hands of a fortune teller in the Bond movie Live and Let Die. Roseanne Cash wanted them in her video for The Wheel and they even appeared in an episode of The Simpsons. Yet, tarot cards have much older origins than their popular English speaking version may lead us to believe. Some say the very first to use cards as a form of divination were the ancient Egyptians, whose "tarots" were nothing but an easy-to-consult instrument for high priests to read and interpret the Book of Thoth. Others think the Chinese were the first to introduce them to the world, and explicitly asso- ciate them to the Ching, a 30 century old book used for divina- tion, and to the fact the Chinese were also the inventors of paper and playing cards: it may be a long stretch, but it remains cer- tainly an interesting theory. Indeed, playing cards did come to Europe through the East: it is likely it was a Mamluk play- ing card deck that first entered the old continent: they were first attested at the end of the 13th century. Why do I mention play- ing cards? Well, because original tarots were nothing more than a deck of regular playing cards with added major arcana, or tri- onfi to say it like an Italian. First records of their existence date to the Este court of Ferrara, back in the 15th century. But it is in Milan that things got serious. Apparently, in 1449 resourceful army captain Jacopo Antonio Marcello bought a deck of tarots to Isabel of Lorraine, wife of René d'Anjou, accompa- nied by a letter where he described their use: he called them "carte de' trionfi." Along with the letter, he sent along a short treatise on the game written by some Marziano da Tortona, then personal secretary of the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti. Good old Marziano only explained the meaning of 24 of the cards, 16 representing greek gods and 4 representing kings, specifying the mind behind the creation of that spe- cial deck was the duke himself. Ten years later, in 1460, Matteo Maria Boiardo published Il Capi- tolo del Gioco dei Tarocchi, the guide to a 78 cards game that was to become incredibly popular all over the peninsula: among the most popular decks those of Venezia, the Tarocchino of Bologna, a 62 card deck lacking the 2,3,4 and 5 cards and the Minchiate of Florence, that added 20 cards to the original 78, including the Cardinal, the 12 signs of the zodiac, the 4 ele- ments and the 3 theological virtues. If, certainly, the minor arcana of our modern tarots derive from ancient oriental games, the idea and nature of the major arcana are an Italian thing: called origi- nally trionfi, their very name ties them unequivocally to Italy. I Trionfi is the title of a famous work by Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, where allegory and symbology abound: in it, Petrarca describes the Trionfi dell'Amore (the Lovers of the major arcana), della Castità (which became Temperance in the arcana), della Morte (card XIII of the minor arcana), della Fama (card XXI) del Tempo (card XI) and of Eter- nità (card XIX). Trionfi at the time were a popular show, made of complex allegorical floats, similar in concepts to those still common in many parts of Italy during Carnevale time: it was on these floats Petrarca based its work and it is in this work the major arcana found their origin. So now we know their story, but what about they way they were used? At least initially, tarot cards were not a divination instrument. It is likely they were, on the other hand, used to play games similar to briscola, where the major arcana would win over other cards; the only partly eso- teric reference to their use was made in Il Caos del Tri per Uno, a work by monk Merlin Cocai, where they were used to interpret people's personality. As an incise, Merlin Cocai himself - real name Teofilo Folengo - could be matter for an interesting article: a Benedictine monk, by his own admission he abandoned religious life to follow his love for Girolama Dieda and moved to Venezia, only to change his mind and return to the cloister some years later. Even if historical research debunked Folengo's tales of debauchery, he remains a pretty interesting character indeed. Back to tarot cards, we have to wait the 17th century to find the first attestations of their use in occultism, in the city of Bologna, even if it was eventual- ly the French, a century later, to make them popular in that con- text. Beside the already mentioned Tarocchino di Bologna and Minchiate di Firenze, another popular historical Italian tarot deck is that of the Tarocchi del Mantegna, named after magnifi- cent Italian painter Andrea Man- tegna, but ultimately created by two different, unknown artists. The most curious fact about these tarots is that, well, they are not tarots at all, as they do not have minor arcana. Apparently they weren't used neither for playing games nor for divination, but as a didactic instrument to illustrate medieval ideals. Not Italian, but among the most popular decks in the world is the Marseille deck, named after the French city where it was created. And then, of course, we have the Rider-Waite deck, with its unmistakable blue box and elaborated illustrations. More British than Britain they may be, but tarots, as we now know, have been speaking Italian for 500 years before Mr Waite came out with the idea. Tarots today are synonym with the occult and with divination, but they started as simple cards game, sometimes in the 15th century, at the Visconti's court in Milan Italy added major arcana to playing cards, creating a new deck: tarots A mysterious deck, with Italian origins: the tarots

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