Games - Tarocchi

	Games - Tarocchi

The Name Tarocchi

Tarocchi (Italian, plural form of Tarocco) also known as Tarock (German-Austrian name) and Tarot (French name), is a specific form of playing card deck, which in its history was used for different trick-taking games and also for cartomantic interests and divination (concrete forms appear at least since the article of Court de Gebelin in the year 1781), also as a field for artists to display specific iconographical forms often connected to an ideological system in the background (already a strong factor in the first decks known in 15th century). It is recorded as one of the oldest types of playing card decks known.

The playing material (a deck with usually 4x14 normal Italian suits and court cards, which include in contrast to other forms a cavallo or knight, with additional 21 trumps and a Fool; the suits may differ to other national patterns) is older than the name of the game, which, according current research state, became known in the year 1505 parallel in France (Taraux) and Ferrara (Italy, as Tarocchi) () (). An earlier form of the game had the name Trionfi or triumph, this name developed later as general term for trick-taking (trumpfen in German, to trump in English) and disappeared in its original function as deck name. This earlier name of the game is first documented in February 1442, Ferrara .

Although the objects are relatively clear of Italian origin (28 notes of the term Trionfi from 1442 - 1463 are counted), it seems, that the final name Tarocchi developed from French influence (Italian speakers of today claim that French words with an ending "-ot" had been commonly transformed in endings with "-occo" and "-occhi".) The poet Berni in 1526 still has some mockery for this (still new) word: "Let him look to it, who is pleased with the game of Tarocco, that the only signification of this word Tarocco, is stupid, foolish, simple, fit only to be used by bakers, cobblers, and the vulgar".

Various contradicting suggestions has been made in the past to explain the original meaning of the word "Tarot". They range from "old Egyptian origin" till the more profane "a cardmaker from the French village Taraux produced Tarot cards".

Trionfi Cards (later called Tarocchi) and their Iconography

All relevant early documents point to an origin of the Trionfi cards (later Tarocchi cards) in the upper class of the society in Italy and specifically to the courts of Milan and Ferrara, which belonged to the most exclusive courts of their time in Europe. In the given context it's obvious, that the special motifs on the trumps, which were added to normal playing cards with a usual 4x14-structure, were ideological determined, they had been thought to show a specific system, which could transport messages of different content (the known early examples show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical and heraldic ideas for instance, also a group of old Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes could serve as content as in the case of the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi).

As example: The earliest known deck (socalled Michelino deck after the painter)(http://trionfi.com/0/b] is described only in manuscript (by Martiano da Tortona, produced at an unknown time between 1418 - 1425), the cards are lost. But the document shows clearly, that this deck was produced to show a Greek gods system (an ideological idea in a time, when Greek content was taken in Italy with some enthusiasm) and likely the production accompanied a triumphal festivity of the commissioner Filippo Maria Visconti, which means, the deck had concrete function to express and consolidate the current political power in Milan (as common for the time also in other productions of art). The 4 suits showed birds, which appeared regularely in common Visconti-heraldic, and the used specific order of the gods gives reason to assume, that the deck partly should focus, that the Visconti identified themselves as descendents from Jupiter and Venus (which were - as in this time usual - seen not as gods, but as heroes, which were deified once).

This first known deck seems to have had the usual 10 number cards, but kings only and only 16 trumps - the later standard (4x14 + 22) wasn't settled and still in 1457 a document is known, which speaks of Trionfi decks with 70 cards only . Till the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (produced at an unknown date between 1461 and 1494) and the Sola Busca Tarocchi (1491) any confirming evidence for the final standard form with totally 78 cards is missing.

Individual researcher's opinions formulate in the current moment, that the Trionfi decks of the early time had mostly 5x14 cards only and that the row of trumps and fool were simply considered as a 5th suit with predefined trump-function. The number of the produced decks (mostly very expensive items) is considered to have been rather small a longer time, first forms of mass production with cheap decks developed according this opinion late (in the discussion is ca. 1470 - 1480).

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tarocchi

Games - Tarocchi

The Name Tarocchi

Trionfi Cards (later called Tarocchi) and their Iconography

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