Talk:Visconti-Sforza Tarot
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
The Visconti-Sforza deck was not related to the "occult" I took the liberty of substituting "game-stub" for "occult stub" as there is no evidence this earliest surving tarot deck was used for "occultic" purposes. This deck was designed to play early tarocchi card games Smiloid 00:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC) Reply
Seeing as they were not one "Visconti-Sforza" family but rather two different families, I'd suggest moving any relevant and reliable information to the respective pages for the House of Visconti and House of Sforza and delete this one. / Havard 22:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC) Reply
- Since nothing has been said to oppose the suggestion, I have now marked the page for deletion. I have copied any relevant info as mentioned above. Havard 18:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC) Reply
- Two different families? This is a patriarchal view. In this case the matriarchal continuity may be more important. See Catherine Jagiellon.
- Anyway, maybe this article should be moved to Visconti-Sforza Tarrot cards. -- Petri Krohn 22:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC) Reply
- There are already substantial articlea on the Houses Visconti and Sforza. It is based on that I don't see the need for a joint Visconti-Sforza article with redundant and only partial information. I'll support a move as suggested, to sharpen the article on the deck, which seems to have some notability. Havard 21:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC) Reply
I recently read The Castle of Crossed Destinies. In the end note (written in 1973) Calvino states that the Tower and Devil cards were lost from the pack -- split between Bergamo and a library in New York (forget which one). Have examples been found since, or are the ones that I have seen on the web artists' hypothetical replacements? — Eoghanacht talk 17:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC) Reply
- In an answer to my own question, this source confirms the Tower and Devil are lost. I'll presume, then, that any Viscoti-Devils or -Towers are modern conjectures. — Eoghanacht talk 17:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC) Reply
From the italian article, via the translation request page.
Some remaining issues:
- Argentato - silver coloured or silver coated?
- Some of the information (if not all of it) is present in other articles, but I'm not sure what belongs where.
- Citations were missing from the original on the "controversial" dating and numbering of the cards, on the transfer of possession, current location, commissioned studies etc. I'm sure it's out there, but I don't have the time right now to check.
- Should I be using the terms "major and minor arcana" or "court" cards - i.e. are these appropriate terms for early tarot decks?
- Is there another term for non-major arcana, non-court cards? I've used "pip" "numbered" and "non-face" without much consistency.
I'm busy until after Xmas - I'll have another look then for duplicate info and citations. Anyone else - dig in if you feel like it - this might include deleting the whole thing and moving the info elsewhere.
The statement "The Visconti-Sforza decks, as with most modern tarot decks, had their origin in the Tarot of Marseilles" is a mad anachronism, as the Tarot of Marseilles dates from more than a centruy AFTER the original Italian decks like the Visconti-Sforza. His mistake originates in the fact that the printed Marseille-decks seem to have become classical, both in the naming and numbering of the original Italian trionfi as well as in the basic imagery. Also the (classical) number of 22 trionfi seems to go back to the Marseille tradition, not to the former Italian. As I am not a native English speaker I suggest that a proper English speaking person with proper knowledge of history and facts will redo this whole page, which has a lot more to offer in the world of fake facts and mad assumptions. (It could be an idea to translate from the dutch wiki http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_%28waarzeggerij%29, which is a bit more appropriate.) Adriaan Krabbendam 20:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC) Reply
Images labeled incorrectly
[edit ]The cards that are labeled as the King and Queen of Spades are actually the Emperor and Empress.
Why are the names used for the suits in this article a mix of English and Italian? The words used seem to be "bastoni" (Italian), "spades" (English--yes from the Italian, but certainly not pluralized this way in Italian, where "spade" is the plural), "cups" (English), and "denari" (Italian). I don't have a strong feeling about which should be used (since this is an English language article, I would think the English, with perhaps a gloss noting the Italian name), but at the very least it should be consistent. The only reason I'm not changing it right off, is this is bizarre enough to make me question how it would be this way by accident, and feel I should see if there is some reasonable explanation.--Ericjs (talk) 23:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC) Reply
Visconti-Sforza tarot deck suffers from two misconceptions. First, it is not one deck but several (the total number of which is disputed). Secondly, "tarot" or "tarocchi" was not yet used to describe these decks until the 16th-century. They were originally called trionfi and lack the standardized appearance and number of cards found in later tarot patterns. Decks at this stage were still in the experimental phase. I suggest renaming it Visconti-Sforza trionfi decks or just simply Visconti-Sforza decks.--Countakeshi (talk) 14:55, 4 October 2015 (UTC) Reply
- They were not called "tarocchi" in their time, but they are very often called tarocchi in this time, see for example the site of the Beinecke Collection at Yale university , but I agree that it's wrong to use the singular "deck", they are three different decks (plus later copies), so I support a move to Visconti-Sforza decks.--Moroboshi (talk) 05:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC) Reply
Adding a note here incase anyone wants to review this and possibly further develop the existing article with information from this unpublished draft from 2012; User:Michael Hurst/Visconti-Sforza. You can do this if you use the "Copied" template on the talk page. Joojay (talk) 20:38, 20 October 2021 (UTC) Reply
Why does the section on the Brera-Brambilla deck make a point of saying that only one Pipe Card is missing? All three decks seem to have 39 Pips out of 40 remaining, so they ALL are missing only 1 card.
is there a reason this is specifically mentioned in the third deck? Or just different writers or written at different times?
in any case, it would be nice to know, for each deck, exactly which cards are missing, including the Pips.
For that matter, the middle deck specifies that it includes Faith, Hope, and Charity - but the section also specifies that some believe the deck had 86 card (including 8 extra face cards). Does this mean Faith, Hope, and Charity replace three of the traditional Trumps, since they don't seem to be additional ones? Mastakos (talk) 05:09, 25 March 2025 (UTC) Reply
- A complete list of both present and absent cards (whether trumps, face cards, or pips), from all three decks, can be found on the Italian article on the topic. — 2A02:2F08:800E:2600:1FD:9EED:2DFC:4629 (talk) 02:28, 28 October 2025 (UTC) Reply
- The first eight trumps, spanning from the fool to the chariot, are reminiscent or derivative of a pair of jacks, queens, kings, and knights, respectively, representing the various hierarchical layers of medieval society.
- The Visconti-Sforza packs have both female charioteers, and female knights (mounted ladies). — ~2025-32526-37 (talk) 18:37, 11 November 2025 (UTC) Reply
- Justice and temperance are evocative of a queen of swords and (maid of) cups, respectively, while fortitude resembles a page of wands, as does the fool. — 2A02:2F08:800E:2600:256E:A17E:1985:E092 (talk) 16:11, 29 October 2025 (UTC) Reply
- The six cards spanning between death and the (final) judgment are either wholly absent from, or form later additions to each of the three packs, suggesting its initial trump set having originally consisted of a fifth sixteen-card suit, similar to the other four, bringing the total to eighty, a precursor to the latter mass-produced seventy-eight card tarot, whose twenty-two trumps and four queens span two thirteen-card suits, its size being precisely one and a half times that of a standard deck. — 2A02:2F08:850E:C200:256E:A17E:1985:E092 (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2025 (UTC) Reply
- The trumps of the Morgan Library card collection are arranged in Michael Dummett's type B order. — 2A02:2F08:8A14:E200:9053:471C:DF6F:7061 (talk) 17:18, 30 October 2025 (UTC) Reply
— 2A02:2F08:800E:2600:5443:848F:BF76:835 (talk) 23:18, 26 October 2025 (UTC) Reply