Andrea Vitali & Michael Howard (Edited by)

BOLOGNA & THE TAROT

An Italian Legacy from the Renaissance

History Art Symbology Literature

Appendix edited by the International Tarot Museum

cm. 17 x 24

pp. 512 of text with over 100 color photos

Paperback cover

Mutus Liber (Museodei by Hermatena Edizioni), Riola (Bo), 2020

(www.mutusliber.it - info@mutusliber.it)

In English

ISBN 978-88-99841-85-0  

Purchasable on:

http://www.mutusliber.it/bologna_e_i_tarocchi.html

A book like this has never been published in English and probably never will be again. The result of forty years of books, exhibitions, etc., by Andrea Vitali and ten years of collaboration with Michael Howard on translations, the focus is on Bologna, highlighting the city as one of the chief reference points for the birth of the Tarot. Together with essays by other authoritative experts, the result is a unique compendium of information drawn from original 15^th-19^th century sources, for the most part unpublished since their own time and now translated into English.

One essay presents the casual literary works known as tarocchi appropriati, which assigned the Triumphs (‘major arcana”) to various personages: noble ladies (in Pavia, Ferrara, and Bologna), ecclesiastical activists, street prostitutes, etc., mostly translated here for the first time.

Elsewhere Vitali comments on numerous Bolognese authors who utilized themes from the Tarot, reporting all the relevant passages, again mostly translated for the first time by Vitali and Howard. Again the cards are mined for their allegorical content, now including the tactics of the game and applied to the most varied situations: wars, the vicissitudes of love, humorous medical prescriptions, etc.

From the early sources, Vitali and Franco Motta present what is surely the most comprehensive analysis to date of the meaning and etymology of the word tarocchi (which in French became tarot), bringing new information and insights. Vitali does the same for the presence of the Magician - called the Bagatella early on - in the procession of the Triumphs, as well as offering new insights into various Triumphs as steps on a “mystical ladder.”

In that spirit Howard gives an extensive examination of the whole Bolognese order. He also presents a new look at an 18^th century Bolognese cartomancy tradition that may be related to one promoted in France by Etteilla (especially in one rare early work previously unexamined).

Clothing historian Elisabetta Gnignera gives a vestimentary analysis of the so-called Tarot of Charles VI, with the aim of identifying where the deck was made, in which she draws a conclusion different from that usually made today. Her way of looking at the cards, through subtle distinctions in fashion among cities, is an education in itself.

Through recently discovered documents, Ross Caldwell discusses the origin and symbolism of the Bolognese “Equal Papi” rule, whereby the same the same title and rank is given to all four of the cards elsewhere called Empress, Emperor, Popess, and Pope.

Alberto Beltramo writes on the production of Tarot cards in Bologna, including how they were made and the ambivalent attitude of the Church towards playing cards.

French tarologist Alain Bougearel presents his thesis that by around 1500 the Tarot sequence might for some have been divided into sections defined by the “pentagonal numbers” of medieval number theory.

These are only some of the topics examined. This volume of 512 pages is enriched by hundreds of illustrations, most in color: cards, artworks, and documents. 1000+ footnotes provide both transcriptions of the original sources and, where available, where ti find them on the Internet. It is a monumental work in which, through testimonies in Bologna and elsewhere in northern Italy. an overview of the Tarot’s history is created, of interest not only to Tarot enthusiasts but also to those who want to know more about Italian literature, art, and popular culture.

Bologna and the Tarot, An Italian Legacy from the Renaissance

History Art Symbology Literature

CONTENTS

Chapter One: The Ludus Triumphorum: an Ethical Game

by Andrea Vitali

Chapter Two: An Etymological Hypothesis: Tarot, Fool, Tárachos

by Franco Motta

Chapter Three: The Words Tarocco and Tarot

by Andrea Vitali

1. The first occurrences of these words as names of a game
2. Taroc- words outside the game
3. The Etymology of tarocco
4. Why a word with this meaning?
5. Summary

Chapter Four: “El Bagatella”(The Magician), Symbol of Sin

by Andrea Vitali

1. Etymology, preliminary
2. Meaning, and another etymology
3. Symbolism

Chapter Five: Triumphs, Tarocchi, and Tarocchini in Bologna of the Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries

by Andrea Vitali

1. The Prince, inventor of the game
2. The sermon of Saint Bernardino of Siena
3. Documents and cards

Chapter Six: “Carte da zugare ... depinte al dito modo”:Vestimentary Notes on the So-called “Charles VI” Tarot

by Elisabetta Gnignera

Chapter Seven: Tarocchi Appropriati: Triumphs Matched to Persons

by Andrea Vitali and Michael S. Howard:

1. An appropriati in the “Type A” order of Florence
2. Five appropriati in the “Type A” order of Bologna
3. Three appropriati in the “Type B” order of Ferrara and Venice
4. An appropriati in the “Type C” order of Pavia and Milan
5. Summary

Chapter Eight: The Bolognese Order of Triumphs

by Michael S. Howard:

1. Two literary examples
2. Matto and Bagattino
3. The four Papi
4. From Amore through Carro
5. From Ruota through Morte
6. Mondo and Angelo (with apologies to Diavolo through Sole)
7. Demonio / Diavolo through Sole
8. Summary

Chapter Nine: The Priority of the Equal Papi Rule in Bolognese Tarocchi

by Ross G. R. Caldwell

1. Piedmont
2. Giuseppe Maria Buini and Ercole Mamellin
3. The symbolism of the rule
4. Summary

Chapter Ten: Points of Iconology

by Andrea Vitali

1. People hanging by one foot
2. Traitors in Bologna
3. The hermit with a column
4. The Madman (Fool)

Chapter Eleven: Playing Cards Printed in Bologna in the Modern Era

by Alberto Bertramo

1. Opus Diaboli?
2. An expanding market
3. Cards made in Bologna – a aign of quality
4. The Montieri affair

Chapter Twelve: Tarocchi and Tarocchini in Literature

by Andrea Vitali

1. Giulio Cesare Croce (near Bologna 1550- Bologna 1609)
2. Cesare Rinaldi (Bologna 1559-1636)
3. Adriano Banchieri (Bologna 1568-1634)
4. Giovanni Gabrieli, called Sivello (work dated 1594)
5. Bartolomeo Bocchini (Bologna 1604-1648/1653)
6. Niccolò Forteguerri (Pistoia 1674-1735)
7. Francesco Maria da Bologna (pseud. Ergasto Acrivio)  (1674-?)
8. Girolamo Baruffaldi (Ferrara 1675-1755)
9. Francesco Aloisio Barelli (work dated 1719)
10. Giuseppe Ippolito Pozzi (Bologna 1697–c. 1752)
11. Camilla Rosa Grimaldi (Bologna 1708-1741)
12. Francesco Algarotti (Venice 1712-1764)
13. Giancarlo Passeroni (near Nice 1713- Milan 1803)
14. Antonio Golini (Bassano del Grappa 1717-1782)
15. Giambattista Roberti (Bassano del Grappa 1719-1786)
16. Francesco Albergati Capacelli (Bologna 1728-1804)
17. Benvenuto Robbio, Conte di San Raffaele (near Turin 1735-1794)
18. Giovanni Greppi (Bologna 1751 – Milan 1827)
19. Giosuè Carducci (near Pisa 1808 – Bologna 1858)
20. Three Unidentified Bolognese Authors (c. 1756?, before 1725, after 1725)
21. Conclusion

Chapter Thirteen: The Bologna Cartomancy Sheet Compared with Etteilla (Eighteenth Century)

by Michael S. Howard:

1. The triumphs
2. The suit cards
3. Etteilla’s earliest work on cartomancy
4. Comparing the sheet with Etteilla
5. The direction of influence
6. Conclusion

Appendix A: Keywords for the triumphs

Appendix B: Keywords for the suit cards

Chapter Fourteen: Arithmology and the Order of Trumps (Triumphs)

by Alain Jacques Bougearel

1. The arithmological approach to the Tarot
2. The three orders of trumps
3. The 22 pictorial allegories and the 21 trumps + the Fool

Chapter Fifteen: Winckelmann and Tarocchino, 1755

by Andrea Vitali

Archetypes and Symbols: The Museum of Tarot as the schola of seeing

by Adolfo Panfili

The International Tarot Museum, between Art and Magic

by Giovanni Pelosini

Author Biographies

ILLUSTRATIONS