Tarot de Paris

It will come as no surprise that I think a lot of rubbish is talked about the history of the tarot. The simplest explanation of its history is that card games were made reflecting the society of the middle ages (much as the Game of Life board game of my youth) which in the course of time got various moral, mythical and metaphysical meanings superimposed on it. I think the best evidence against the romantic origins of kabbalists, Romanies, etc, is that many of the early decks are what would nowadays be called non-typical tarot decks. The modern 22 trumps were by no means standard, & if you can get hold of a modern French or Italian deck for the playing the actual game & its many regional variants, you will find yourself in a very different world from our English-speaking Golden Dawn/Waite/Crowley-influenced tarot milieu.
One of these early atypical decks is the Tarot de Paris, from the first half of the 17th century, which arrived today as my birthday present to myself. It is available from amazon.co.uk & also amazon.fr.
The tarot history website summarises the little that is known about its history thusly:
It is generally accepted that this one of a kind deck was originally published in the early 1600s. If this is correct, it would mean that it is older than any existing Tarot de Marseille (TdM), (the Jean Noblet Tarot is dated to around 1650, and the Jean Dodal to the early 1700s). Of course, the Cary Sheet indicates that, (at least elements of), the TdM style has been around since around 1500. The Tarot de Paris is usually considered the oldest existing deck that still contains all 78 original cards.
The Tarot de Paris (TdP) follows the numbering of the TdM, and like the TdM has titles and numbers printed on the cards. Some of the cards are clearly related to the TdM, but many have unique designs or are related to other decks. In some ways, the deck reminds me of the Jacques Vieville, it has a crude and wild streak, but sometimes the artwork is incredibly rich and beautiful. Some of the detail in the facsimile version published by Grimaud in 1985 is difficult to see clearly as the colours used in the original have darkened obscuring some of the lines and making some of the artwork difficult to decipher.
(Source: http://www.tarothistory.com/2009/04/05/tarot-de-paris-the-parisian-tarot/ Scans of all the trumps are available there too. N.B. The colours in those scans are not as warm as the colours in the deck I've got.)
Andy's Playing cards summarises the strange mixture of influences in these cards as:
In conclusion, the Tarot de Paris may be considered as the attempt by an unknown card designer to blend the local traditional tarot with elements borrowed from other existing patterns (Italian, German, Spanish), moved by the intention of creating a fancy, unusual, attractive deck. And since four centuries later his cards still stir our interest, we should agree that his goal has been fully achieved.
(Source: http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards68.htm Other galleries of early and unusual cards may also be found there)
I want to give some first impressions of the deck I have. I have been trying to read with a Grimaud Tarot de Marseille, but unfortunately find myself totally disconnected to it, but this deck feels very much like that one. The cards are square, not over-laminated, have a simple back & each card has its chequered border. I have a heavy cold so can't smell, but I'll bet they smell of card rather than plastic. If you don't look closely they look like Marseille but when you do, oh joy, this deck is a bawdy mediaeval world populated by eccentrics & real people! Since playing cards were made to play card games with (astounding theory I know) I'm also pleased to find a deck with an indication of which card is which near the top of the deck so that I'll be able to play tarot patience with them.
Andy's Playing Cards tells me that the real eccentricity of this deck, & the thing that shows the German influence, is the aces, which show the suit symbol on a banner, but what I like best is the trumps, of which these are the highlights for me.
The fool is an actual fool. He has a head on top of his stick, which I suppose may be formed from a bladder to hit people.
The 'magician', definitely of the David Blaine type, is doing tricks for two men who watch spellbound as a dog sleeps under the table.
The Pope doesn't seem to have a face: whether this is through age or reproduction, or whether it's an original feature, I don't know. None of the other comments I've found mention it, so it may just be me.
The lovers are embracing (the woman's hand is going between the man's legs!) Without the third character in Marseille-type decks.
The chariot is drawn by geese. A boy with a cat-o'-nine-tails sits on one of them trying & failing to bring them into order, since they will insist on going in different directions.
Justice has two heads - one male, one female - facing in different directions & both blindfolded.
The hermit is shown with buildings surrounding him: leaving them, I suppose. He is holding what looks like one of those implements Catholic religious used to use to 'mortify the flesh'. Andy's Playing Cards says that this is a rosary, though.
The expression on the face of the woman in Strength is one of pure concentration. Frankly she looks like a vet trying to look at the cat's teeth, or giving the cat a pill, which brings out the aspect of subduing some great force in this card.
The Hanged Man's head rightly (in my humble opinion) comes below the level of the ground on the card. I'm very attached to the interpretation of this card as being rooted in the earth so that all the sephiroth of the tree can be manifested in your body at once. This is why it is associated with time in suspension: everything is in equilibrium so the only change will be that necessary to maintain homeostasis.
Death is numbered, a move almost designed to annoy the Tarot de Marseille fundamentalists. There is an absence of severed heads, & his scythe seems to have an unusually fancy handle, ending in a sort of T shape.
Andy's Playing Cards sees Temperance as the standard depiction. What I see is the woman actually putting a fire out with the water from her jug. You can see the flames & the smoke. I'd not thought of temperance as being the juxtaposition of two opposed forces, rather than a balance of complementary forces, before.
The Devil is similar to the Vieville pattern, has no bound minions, & holds a whip.
The Tower or Maison Dieu become La Fou(l)dre, or lightning. Incidentally this reminds me to comment that it seems the commentaries online about this deck become far too wound up by the 'non-standard' spellings of the names in this deck. At that time standard spelling was a thing of the future. Anyway this card has the vieville name but not the picture. Andy's Playing Cards seems to have the best description:
The following card is probably the most interesting of the series: inscribed LA FOVLDRE (for la Foudre, "lightning"), it is a subject that the Tarot de Paris pattern retained from earlier tarots in place of the Tower or la Maison Dieu. Burning thunderbolts or balls of fire fall from the sky (see also this subject in Vieville's edition), and while humans desperately seek shelter, a demon, the central figure of the composition, dramatically remarks the rage of the heavens with the thundering sound of his drum.
The Star shows an astrologer with his instruments. He looked to me initially like Galileo Galilei, who was contemporary & which would make this deck incredibly up to date.
The Moon is one of the sweetest cards. By the light of the moon a man with a harp serenades an undressed woman in an upstairs window. A more earthy way of expressing the theme of things that are hidden coming out into the open!
In The Sun a woman is horrified by a blue monkey. I need to think more about this card!
The LWB, which is in French only, seems to be a sensible historical summary of the tarot & this deck's place in that history. It makes some interesting points about how the cards' use in the game can reflect their place in the cosmology of the tarot world. For example the Fool can neither be trumped nor trump another card.
All in all I would highly recommend this deck for a different take on early tarot decks.
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