Sola Busca tarot

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The Queen of Batons ("PALAS") from the Sola-Busca Tarot Deck, now in the Brera Museum Palas solabusca.jpg
The Queen of Batons ("PALAS") from the Sola-Busca Tarot Deck, now in the Brera Museum

The Sola Busca tarot is the earliest completely extant example of a 78-card tarot deck. It is also the earliest tarot deck in which all the plain suit cards are illustrated [1] [2] and it is also the earliest tarot deck in which the trump card illustrations deviate from the classic tarot iconography. Unlike the earlier Visconti-Sforza tarot decks, the cards of the Sola Busca are numbered. The trump cards have Roman numerals while the pips of the plain suits have Arabic numerals. [3]

Contents

The deck was created by an unknown artist and engraved onto metal in the late 15th century. A single complete hand-painted deck is known to exist, along with 35 uncolored cards held by various museums. [3] The deck is notable not only for its age, but also for the quality of its artwork, which is characterized by expressive figures engraved with precise contours and shading. [4] Various theories have been suggested about who created the deck, but its authorship remains uncertain. [3] [5]

Composition

The Sola-Busca deck comprises 78 cards including 21 trumps (trionfi) plus the Fool (Matte) and 56 suit cards. There had been many previous decks structured in this way. [6] The names and illustrations on the trump cards in the Sola Busca are somewhat idiosyncratic for its time. The departure from classic trump iconography in the Sola Busca is a trait shared by later French suited tarot decks such as the Bourgeois Tarot and the Industrie und Glück Tarock decks.

The characters depicted in the Sola-Busca cards include Nebuchadnezzar and Gaius Marius, the uncle of Julius Caesar. Trump cards loosely follow the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and include members of the Roman Pantheon such as Bacchus. All the characters can be easily linked to their equivalents in standard tarot decks.

Painted deck

The complete painted deck is housed at the Brera Museum in Milan. It can trace its provenance to the noble Busca-Serbelloni family. In the early 19th century, the deck was owned by Marchioness Busca (born Duchess Serbelloni) of Milan. [1] In 1907, the Busca-Serbelloni family donated black-and-white photographs of all 78 cards to the British Museum, where they were likely seen by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, inspiring the subsequent Rider–Waite Tarot deck. [7] From 1948, the deck was owned by the Sola-Busca family, from which it received its name. [1] In 2009, the deck was purchased for €800,000 by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and delivered to the Brera Museum. [1] [8]

Unpainted cards

Thirty-five unpainted cards are also known. The Albertina museum in Vienna owns 23, including all of the trumps except the first and last, Mato and Nabuchodenasor. [9] The 20 trump cards originally belonged to Count Moritz von Fries, while the other three came from the Imperial Court Library. [10]

The British Museum owns four unpainted cards, which it purchased from William and George Smith in 1845. [3] Four unpainted cards are also housed in Hamburg and Paris. [3]

Impact

The similarities between the artwork of the Minor Arcana of the Waite-Smith deck and Sola-Busca's plain suits has led some scholars to suggest that artist Pamela Colman Smith drew inspiration from the earlier work. [2] Smith created the art for her deck two years after the acquisition of photographs of the Sola-Busca deck by the British Museum, and likely saw the cards on display there. Notable similarities include the Three of Swords card and the Ten of Wands card in the Rider deck, which is very similar to the Ten of Swords card in the Sola-Busca deck. [7]

Research

In 1938, Arthur Mayger Hind described the Sola Busca Tarot in his Early Italian Engravings and supposed that the deck was engraved around 1490 and then hand-painted in 1491, as a result of reading some of the inscriptions on the cards. He also supposed that the deck was created for a Venetian client by Mattia Serrati da Cosandola, a miniaturist operating in Ferrara (the center of Tarot card production at the time). In fact, many inscriptions on the cards refer without any doubt to the Republic of Venice. [11]

In 1987, in the catalogue of a great Tarot exhibition realized at the Estense Castle of Ferrara, Italian historian Giordano Berti wrote a summary of all the research made up to that point by various scholars. [12]

In 1995 the Italian scholar Sofia Di Vincenzo, in her book titled Antichi Tarocchi illuminati. L'alchimia nei Tarocchi Sola-Busca (Turin, 1995 and Stamford, 1998), argued that many images of the Sola Busca deck are related to themes of European alchemy as practised during the Renaissance. [13]

In 1998, the German publisher Wolfgang Mayer printed, for the first time, a faithful version of the 78 cards in a limited edition of 700 numbered copies.

In 2012, the Pinacoteca di Brera organized the exhibition Il Segreto dei Segreti - I Tarocchi Sola Busca e la cultura ermetico-alchemica. In the catalog, the possible author of the engravings, Nicola di Maestro Antonio, the possible inspirer, the hermeticist Ludovico Lazzarelli, the year and place of execution of the color version, Venice in 1491, are suggested. It has been established in an irrefutable way that the Sola Busca Tarot is linked to the hermetic-alchemical tradition. The key figure is the King of Swords, titled Alecxandro M., who, according to a legend reported in the medieval manuscript Secretum secretorum , was initiated into alchemy by his master, the philosopher Aristotle. [14]

In addition to Alexander the Great there are other characters linked to the hermetic-alchemical tradition. The Knight of Swords, Amone, refers to Zeus Ammon, the mythical putative father of Alexander who welcomed him in the Siwah Oasis. The Queen of Swords, Olympias, Alexander's mother, was known as a sorceress. The Knight of Cups, Natanabo, was an Egyptian priest and magician. Prof. Gnaccolini, inspired by the study of Sofia Di Vincenzo, cites many other explicit alchemical allegories. [14]

Trump suit

Plain suits

Cups

Coins

Batons

Swords

Notes

  1. ↑ The Fool, explicitly depicted here, is unambiguously numbered zero, being unnumbered in all other tarots, save for Belgium, where it is counted as XXII, rather than 0. It portrays the Lord of Misrule, presiding over the medieval Feast of Fools, itself a continuation of the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, whose so-called "king" presided over similar mischief. The Popess, absent from this deck, might also share a satiric origin; see Pope Joan.
  2. 1 2 The former was the first king of Rome, after its founding by Romulus and Remus, while the latter thwarted the last attempt made by its last king of restoring the Roman monarchy, thereby consolidating the nascent Roman Republic. Their trumps occupy consecutive positions.
  3. ↑ Defeated Sextus' father (VI) at the battle of Lake Regillus. Two of his eponymous descendants, Spurius Postumius Albinus and Aulus Postumius Albinus, accompanied Marius (IV) in the Jugurthine War against Bocchus (XIV).
  4. 1 2 Co-consuls in 102 BC. Their trumps occupy consecutive positions.
  5. ↑ His forename or praenomen (see Roman naming conventions) coincides with his position.
  6. 1 2 The trumps symbolizing the rape of Lucretia and the rape of Europa occupy consecutive positions.
  7. ↑ His name explicitly marks his position. The Lovers, signifying (consensual) romantic relationships, occupies the same or previous location in all other tarots, save for Sicily.
  8. ↑ The Chariot, explicitly depicted here, occupies the same position in non-Italian tarots. Zeus, unambiguously portrayed here, occupies a similar position (V) in Switzerland and Besançon, being labeled by his Roman equivalent, Jupiter.
  9. 1 2 Successive lifespans, the former dying around the same time the latter was born. Their trumps occupy consecutive positions.
  10. ↑ Strength, employing similar imagery in non-Italian tarots, occupies the next (Bologna) or previous (Florence) position in two other Italian tarots.
  11. ↑ The Hermit, employing similar imagery, [A] occupies the same position in non-Italian tarots.
  12. ↑ According to Joannes Lydus, the Roman festival alluded here, celebrating Veturius' craftsmanship, consisted in symbolically beating with sticks a man dressed as an animal. In the contemporary Visconti-Sforza Tarot, a trump card occupying an adjacent position (either IX or XI, depending on whether its trump order is of Type B or Type C , according to Michael Dummett's classification) depicts a man clubbing a lion, wildlife portrayed on non-Italian renditions of Strength.
  13. ↑ The Wheel, employing similar imagery, occupies the previous two positions in all other tarots, being placed between Strength and The Hermit in most decks, save for Florence and Sicily.
  14. 1 2 Co-consuls in 113 BC.
  15. ↑ The Hermit, employing similar imagery, [A] occupies the same (Sicily) or previous (Bologna and Florence) position in three other Italian tarots.
  16. 1 2 Both sided with Pompey against Caesar during the civil war.
  17. ↑ His namesake was a prolific writer, along with Cicero (XI) and Livy (XVI). The only trump explicitly depicting a corpse. Death occupies the same position in all tarots.
  18. ↑ A later hand overimposed an A over the first O, in reference to Bacchus, also found in Belgian Tarot.
  19. ↑ The Sun, explicitly depicted here, occupies a similar position (XVIII or XIX) in all other tarots, save for Florence.
  20. ↑ Conflation with Ipos, listed centuries later in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577), and The Lesser Key of Solomon (ca. 1650), a grimoire inspired by the Greater Key of Solomon , written ca. 1400 in Italy, and thus contemporary with the Sola Busca deck; see also Renaissance magic. The Devil, explicitly depicted here, occupies a similar position (XIV or XV) in all other tarots.
  21. ↑ The Hermit, employing similar imagery, [A] occupies a distant position in all other tarots.
  22. 1 2 Both are biblical kings. Their trumps occupy consecutive positions.
  23. ↑ The Tower, explicitly depicted here, occupies a distant position (XV or XVI) in all other tarots.
  24. ↑ A T and O map accompanied by a here be dragons [B] sign is portrayed in the background. The World, explicitly depicted here, occupies either the last or penultimate position in all tarots.
  25. 1 2 According to Plutarch's Moralia , Olympias' (Q⚔) original name was Polyxena (Q♣).
  26. 1 2 Their names, like that of Amun (C⚔), echo the theonyms Apollo and Serapis. Amun and Apollo are solar deities, while Amun and Serapis are Egyptian gods.
  27. ↑ Textual corruption of Rubellius Plautus, when rendered as rv[b]elio plavto, and written in a circular or annular fashion, thereby obscuring not only the difference between L and V, but also the text's exact starting position, the R. being then (mis)interpreted as a standalone abbreviation, as in Lucio Cecilio R. (K♥), where it stands for Rufus, or R. Filipo (K⬤), where it stands for Rex.

Subnotes

  1. 1 2 3 Commonly depicted as an elder wearing a long beard, either holding a lamp (Piedmont and non-Italian tarots), or leaning on crutches, in all other Italian versions.
  2. ↑ Dragons are also depicted on the aces of Portuguese-suited playing cards.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Berti, Giordano (2013). "History of Sola-Busca Tarot". Sola-Busca Tarot Mayer 1998. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 Kaplan, Stuart (1990). Encyclopedia of Tarot. Vol. 3. U.S. Games Systems. p. 30. ISBN   0880791225.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Collection online". British Museum. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  4. ↑ Zucker, Mark J. (1997). "The Master of the 'Sola-Busca Tarocchi' and the Rediscovery of Some Ferrarese Engravings of the Fifteenth Century". Artibus et Historiae. 18 (35): 181–194. doi:10.2307/1483546.
  5. ↑ Bezzone, Francesca (5 April 2019). "Mystery and history of art merge together in the Sola Busca tarots". L'Italo-Americano. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  6. ↑ Dummett, Michael (1980). The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City. University of California: Duckworth.
  7. 1 2 Berti, Giordano (2013). "Sola-Busca & Waite-Smith Tarot". Sola-Busca Tarot Mayer 1998. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  8. ↑ Panza, Pierluigi (16 February 2010). "I tarocchi per rilanciare Brera". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). p. 39. Archived from the original on 15 June 2015.
  9. ↑ Kaplan, Stuart (1990). Encyclopedia of Tarot. Vol. 2. U.S. Games Systems. p. 297. ISBN   0880791225.
  10. ↑ Willshire, William Hughes (1876). A Descriptive Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum. Chiswick Press. pp. 77–78.
  11. ↑ Hind, Arthur (1938). Early Italian Engravings. pp. 241–247, 370–393.
  12. ↑ Berti, Giordano (1987). Le Carte di Corte. Gioco e Magia alla Corte degli Estensi. Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale. pp. 88–91. ISBN   88-7779-016-4.
  13. ↑ Di Vincenzo, Sofia (1998). Sola Busca Tarot. Stamford: U.S.Games Systems. pp. 25–33. ISBN   1-57281-130-7.
  14. 1 2 Various, authors (2012). Il Segreto dei Segreti - I Tarocchi Sola Busca e la cultura ermetico-alchemica tra Marche e Veneto alla fine del Quattrocento. Milan: Skira. ISBN   978-88-572-1764-2.
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