AN EARLY ARRIVAL OF TRIUMPHS INTO ROME
by Franco Pratesi, 3.11.2011
Many thousands of pages have been written on the origin and first spread of tarot. Instead of summarising the main ‘theories’, let me start with a rather recent article, which lists the relevant places and dates involved. Two figures of that article are an excellent starting point: one is a map of Italy with regions shadowed in two ways: dark grey, in which trionfo was known before 1452; light grey up to 1475. The second figure is a table in which places and dates, from 1442 to 1482, are put in order – at its bottom we find the year 1442 in correspondence with Ferrara, then on subsequent lines we find Cremona/Milan/Pavia, followed by Florence, Siena, Padua, Bologna, Ancona/Fabriano/Recanati, Mantua, Naples, and Rome. The initial presence in Rome is marked at 1474 and it is this date which is the most interesting here. (More)
Also reported in the Tarot News.
