Das Tarockspiel der Visconti ( I Tarocchi dei Visconti )

Creator(s): Bonifacio Bembo or Francesco Zavattari
Date: 1977, 1974, 1450*
Country: Germany
Publisher: edition popp
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 3881550119
Type: Lombardy
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. I pp. 63-107, 285







Notes: 
The name Visconti Tarot is used collectively to refer to incomplete sets of approximately 15 decks from the middle of the 15th-century, now located in various museums, libraries, and private collections around the world. No complete deck has survived. For those three of them, which have the most surviving cards, exist today reprints.

One, which is named the Brera-Brambilla is located in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan it was painted for Filippo Maria Visconti, another is named the Visconti di Modrone pack and belongs to the Cary Collection at Yale University. At least the numeral cards for this pack were also painted for Filippo Maria Visconti, though it may be that the trumps and court cards are of a later date.  The third deck, which is referred to as the Visconti-Sforza, was painted for Francesco Sforza, who was married to Filippo Maria Visconti's only child Bianca Maria.

From this pack the Pierpont-Morgan Library in New York has 35 cards, the Accademia Carrara has 26 in its catalogue, while the remaining 13 cards are in the private collection of the Colleoni family in Bergamo.

"Das Tarockspiel der Visconti" is a reprint/restauration of the Visconti-Sforza Tarot. The original Italian edition from 1974 by Monumenta Lomgobardica was named "I Tarocchi dei Visconti", this is the German edition from 1977 printed by Grafica Gutenberg. It's a limited edition of 400, mine is number 3.

It is not sure, who the artist(s) for the Visconti decks were. Sometimes Bonifacio Bembo gets credited with the artwork, other scholars attribute the cards to Francesco Zavattari.

The Visconti-Sforza pack contains 74 cards, the four cards missing are The Devil, The Tower, Three of Swords and Knight of Coins. The replacement for the Knight of Coins was created by using a reversed image of the Knight of Cups and substituting a coin for the cup in the knights hand. The Three of Swords was made by erasing the two inner crossed swords from the Five of Swords. The Devil and The Tower were recreated in full color in a style as they may have appeared in the fifteenth century. The artist who recreated the missing cards is not named.


 Six of the cards ( Fortitude, Temperance, the Star, the Moon, the Sun and the World ) in this deck are likely made by a different artist than the other cards, four of those six later cards have the feature that in the foreground the earth terminates abruptly in a vertical cliff.

The pin holes at the top of each card do suggest that they were given or lent as artist’s models to other painters (this possibly explains how four cards are now missing). There are several incomplete sets, which contain one or more cards copied from this deck, sometimes reversed, sometimes with the original orientation.

Many cards contain either heraldic motifs or inscriptions such as “a bon droyt” or “amor myo”.The figures on the suit of bastoni wear silver pleated garments and carry a long staff. Those on the suit of cups wear gold garments, embellished by the heraldic device of sun and rays; each figure holds a large chalice.
The suit of swords shows figures dressed in full armour, carrying a large sword. The characters represented on the suit of coins wear garments decorated with blue ribbons wound around circular suns. The Knight of this suit is the only one not wearing a ducal crown.

Grand Etteilla

Creator(s): Etteilla
Date: 1826, 1970
Country: France
Publisher: Grimaud
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 
Type: Etteilla
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. II, p. 409








Notes:
Etteilla was the pseudonym of the french occultist Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1738 – 1791). In around 1770, he had created the Petit Etteilla, a cartomantic divinatory deck based on playing cards for the French card game piquet (32+1 cards). The Grand Etteilla was a purpose-built divinatory tarot deck designed by Etteilla around 1788. It was Etteilla's own deck, he did not publish any tarot decks during his lifetime, but some of the card images were used as illustrations in Etteilla's books on tarot. This type is referred to by card historians as Grand Etteilla I

The first known variant of Grand Etteilla I appeared in 1826, published by Pierre Mongie l'aine, an important Parisian bookseller and publisher. This deck was packaged in a green original box that has a label reading Le Grand Jeu de Cartes Soixtante-Dix-Huit Tarots, pour Dire La Bonne Aventure. L'Art de tirer les Cartes et les Tarots, ou l'explication de ce jeu, est en I vol. in-18, et coute 3 fr. pris a Paris, et  3 fr. 50 c. franc de port, chez Mongie aine, libraire, Boulevard Italien, No. 10. The hand colored cards show the same design as this Grimaud deck, except that there is no sun on card 1 and the figure on 14 Force Majeur are nude on this deck and clothed on the Grimaud deck. The 1826 version has blank backs.

It's interesting to compare the Dusserre Grand Etteilla (not to be confused with the Dusserre Tarot Égyptien) with the Grimaud Grand Etteilla. The Dusserre has rounded corners,
the older keywords and is a photoreproduction deck. The Grimaud has newer (revised) card keywords. The Dusserre's keywords are French only; the Grimaud's are bilingual French and English.

A variation, which differed only slightly from Grand Etteilla I, was published in 1838 by Simon Bloquel, this variation is referred to as Grand Etteilla II.

Like the Tarot de Marseille Etteilla’s deck has twenty-two Major Arcana and fifty-six Minor Arcana. But, aiming to restore the purported ancient Egyptian elements, Etteilla reinterpreted the Majors; he re-ordered them and often applied radically innovative iconography and new names. He did so in part because, as he explained in his book, the first seven Trumps should depict a creation myth. In addition, Etteilla first publicly assigned the zodiacal signs and Four Elements to selected cards. The Minors were also redesigned, but the changes were far less radical than with the Majors.

Lismon Etteilla Tarot

Creator(s):  Z. Lismon
Date: 1890*, 2012
Country: France
Publisher: Blocquel*, HistoricalRetrospective
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:   
Type: Etteilla
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol.II, pp. 404, 405







Notes: 
The Lismon Etteilla is of type Grand Etteilla II and was -according to Dummett- the work of Simon Blocquel, a publisher at Lille, who worked in collaboration with his father-in-law Jean-Baptist Castiaux. The two of them liked using anagrammatic pseudonyms such as Blismon, Z. Lismon, Zlismon, Buqcellos, Milbons and Monblis.  A French biography of Blocquel can be found here.

The first evidence for this deck was in a book called Le Grand Etteilla, ou l'Art de tirer les cartes published 1838 by Blocquel, which served to advertise his new version of  Etteilla's cards. The authors name, Julia Orsini, maybe another pseudonym of Blocquel.

There were at least four editions of the Lismon Etteilla between 1838 and 1917, the oldest one (1838), which was mentioned in Kaplans Encyclopedia, has a misspelling of "Eteilla" on card number one, the following editions have the correct spelling "Etteilla".

Tax stamps for playing cards in France were abolished in 1790 and return in 1890, lasting until 1917. Thus the tax stamp on the Two of Swords dates a deck between 1890 and 1917.

The second edition (e.g. see  here) has a correct spelling of Etteilla, a complete upper left wreath on card #74 but no tax stamp, thus it dates before 1890.

The third edition can be seen on the British Museum page,  it has a tax stamp on the Two of Swords (thus it dates after 1890) and a complete upper left wreath on card #74.

The fourth edition has a tax stamp on the Two of Swords and a missing part in the upper left wreath of card #74, possibly because the printing block has got damaged. The reprint by HistoricalRetrospective was from the fourth edition.

 All Grand Etteilla II editions have on the Ace of Wands  Chute or "Fall" as the upright and the reversed is Naissance or "Birth" (The 1900-20 Grimaud Etteilla ''corrects" this so that Birth/Naissance is the upright and Fall/Chute is reversed).

Grand Etteilla II was engraved on wood and did not diverge greatly from the original Etteilla deck. The titles are printed on both sides of the picture frame. Some images and keywords are different from Etteilla’s original deck. The Coins have become wreaths enclosing a quatrefoil. The lower panels on the numeral cards are new. The cards 1,10,12,15 and 21 have been redesigned.

Francois Chosson Tarot

Creator(s): Francois Chosson
Date: 1736, 2012
Country: France
Publisher: Yves Renauld
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:   
Type: Marseilles
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol.II, pp. 310, 312







Notes:
This deck is a facsimile of the Chosson Tarot in the Historical Museum Blumenstein in Solothurn. It is a limited edition of 3000, mine is number 104.

The original Tarot Chosson is uncertain in dating. On the 2 of Deniers appears as date 1672. A proofed date is April 21, 1736, when Francois Chosson deposited two copies of the sheet of packaging (also reproduced with the present facsimile), one to the trade association of the traders and cardmakers, the other in the Clerk's Office of the Police of Marseilles.

The initials of the engraver on the Chariot and the Two of Cups are "G.S." There are not  many known cardmakers with the initials GS in the right dates, but there is a "Guilhen Sallonetz" mentioned together with his father or brother Jacques Sallonetz in Marseille in 1662. Further in the list, there are others - Guillaume Sellon (1676-1715), Jacques Sellon (1676-1708), along with Jean-François Sellon (1676-1688) Antoine Sellon (1713-1715), and Claude-François Sellon (1730) - all in Marseille.

The names Sallonetz and Sellon are probably two forms of the same name, one in Provençal, and one in French. "Guilhen" is a Provençal form of "Guillaume" . So there seems to be a family business that is attested from 1662-1730. Perhaps Chosson bought it after the final Sellon retired.

Another point about the 2 of Deniers is that the name Chosson has smaller and thicker letters than name François. Also, the name "Chosson" does not curve properly in relation to the curve of the banner, unlike the elegant and properly-fitted "François."

Maybe that the name "François" is the original 1672 name, and that "Chosson" was added later (old name cut out, new name glued in). The old name then must have been "Sellon". Two of the Sellon family have the middle name "François" - Jean-François and Claude-François. Since a tradition among French families is to give the son(s) the middle name of the father,it is possible that "François Sellon" was the founder of the house and his presumed son Guillaume is the engraver (a detailed discussion on the dating of the Chosson Tarot can be found here ).

Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano

Creator(s): Ferdinando Gumppenberg
Date: 1810*, 1984
Country: Italy
Publisher: Solleone
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:   
Type: Milanese
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. II, pp. 346, 347

Notes:

This deck by Gumppenberg was printed from fine metal engraving plates and handcolored. The ace of swords carries the tax stamp valid from 1807 to 1816. The name of the cardmaker, Gumppenberg, appears on the ace of cups.

There are  two editions that reproduce the original deck. This one is titled Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano and was first published in 1980 as a limited edition of 1500 and 1984 as a second edition of 999 by Edizioni del Solleone under the direction of Vito Arienti. Mine is no. 642 of the second ed. 

The other edition, which is nearly identical, was printed in 1995 by Lo Scarabeo and titled Antichi Tarocchi Lombardi. The designs of  these two decks have a few minor variations, because the cards for the  reproductions are taken from two instances of the original designs: The Ace of sword in the Lo Scarabeo edition  has a different tax stamp and it has a slightly different illustration on the death card, all other cards are identical.

The Major Arcana have Roman numerals and italian titles, and the designs depart from traditional tarot images. The Magician (Il Bagattelliere) is depicted as a travelling salesman, carrying around his wares in a tray. The Lovers card differs from usual renditions by switching the roles of the man and the woman. In the Tower card the lightning stroke and the falling battlements are missing; the tower seems intact and so on.

The pip cards in the swords and battons are of the Spanish type and do not interlace. The designs on the faces of the cards have a repeating border design, a thin line of alternating oval and round shapes .

Tarot de Marseille Pierre Madenie 1709

Creator(s): Pierre Madenie
Date: 1709, 2012
Country: France
Publisher: Yves Renauld
Number of cards: 78
ISBN:
 Type: Marseilles
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. II. pp. 314, 315






 
Notes:
Pierre Madenies Tarot is the earliest of the so-called Tarot de Marseilles, type II. It is similiar to its precursors, the Noblet and Dodal. There is one copy in the Swiss National Museum (see Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume II, p 314-315) and there is another similar copy  lacking the Trumps housed in The British Museum.

This is a facsimile of the complete copy, preserved in the Swiss National Museum of Zurich, wrapped in the reproduction of its original sheet of packing, and protected in a telescopic box. Limited edition of 3000 copies, mine is number 351. There are two extra cards which tell a brief history of the deck – one in French, one in English.

The french text on the wrapper paper translates: “Fine Tarot Cards, made by Pierre Madenié, working near the cemetery of Notre Dame at Dijon, cardmaker for the Lord Duke, Governor of the Province of Burgundy.” The makers name and date of production are on the two of coins. The Major Arcana contain roman numerals at the top of each card except for Le Mat, which is unnumbered. Card titles in French appear on all Major Arcana except Death, and on all the court cards.