Talk:Visconti-Sforza Tarot

Game stub
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)

Proposed deletion
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)


 * 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)


 * 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)


 * 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)

Missing cards
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? &mdash; Eoghanacht  talk 17:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * 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. &mdash;  Eoghanacht  talk 17:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

translation inserted
From the italian article, via the translation request page.

Some remaining issues:


 * 1) Argentato - silver coloured or silver coated?
 * 2) Some of the information (if not all of it) is present in other articles, but I'm not sure what belongs where.
 * 3) 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.
 * 4) Should I be using the terms "major and minor arcana" or "court" cards - i.e. are these appropriate terms for early tarot decks?
 * 5) 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.

Agraba2006 09:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

redoing the page
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)

Images labeled incorrectly
The cards that are labeled as the King and Queen of Spades are actually the Emperor and Empress.

Names of suits
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)

Rename the article
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)
 * 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)

Related unpublished draft
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)