By way of summary, I want to investigate three questions. First, how much does the Waite-Smith owe to the Sola-Busca? Second, How well do the Theology of Arithmetic and “Etteilla” word-lists describe the Sola-Busca?
Added in 2017 (now in process of development): Third, is there any relationship between Etteilla's word lists and another list, similar at least in that associated words with cards, that Franco Pratesi found in Bologna and dated to around 1750? If so, that would be a further confirmation of a connection, as Bologna is not far from Venice, albeit its list is two and a half centuries later.
THE SB CARDS AND SMITH’S DESIGNS
For this first question, here is the score, inning by inning, if I may use a North American figure of speech. I have tried to keep track, number by number, of the degree, in percentages, to which Smith's designs show some influence from the SB. Now it is just a matter of averaging those percentages; or, if you like, saying which do and which don't.
Among the Aces, the only one of the Smiths that might owe something to the SB is the Ace of Cups: in that it represents the three persons of the Trinity, it corresponds to the SB Ace of Coins. The relationship is more conceptual than iconographic, so I would score the Aces at .5 out of 4. Or, in another way of counting, 1 out of four with some relationship.
In the Twos, Batons in both a man looks wistfully off in the distance. I give that .75. Cups has lovers, but with two instead of the one lovelorn putto. A .5. Swords has the common crossed swords pattern; but that is hardly specific to the SB. The motif in Coins is borrowed form the “Marseille.” So about 1.25, or 2 out of 4 with some influence.
In the Threes, of course, Swords borrows heavily from the SB: 1.0. In Cups and Coins, all we have is the equilateral-triangle pattern, .25 each, or 1.5 overall, 3 out of 4 with some influence.
In the Fours, Coins borrows heavily, a score of 1.0. In Cups, Smith carries over the idea of the missing cup, so some influence, about .75. Swords, with the theme of triumph in death, borrows a lot but looks different, .75. So 2.5, or 3 out of 4 with some relationship.
In the Fives, Staves shows a fight, and the SB implies one: .75. Swords shows a loss of weapons in both cases, but otherwise different: .75. There is some connection in Coins, either love as illness or illicit love as outside the church and disastrous: .75 again So around 2.25 out of 4, although 3 out of 4 show influence.
In the Sixes, in Swords, we have the sorrowful journey in both cases: about .75; the same, I’d guess. In Cups, the theme of innocent children: .75 again. In Staves, man carrying messages, again .755. Total 2.25 out of 4, or 3 out of 4 with some relationship.
In the Sevens, Smith’s outnumbered youth in Batons has a vague relationship to the SB’s man bowed over by their weight: .5. Smith’s dreamy young man matches SB’s, 1. Swords is a close match: 1.0. Total 2.5, or 3 out of 4.
In the Eights, Smith’s young metal worker in Coins comes from the SB 7 of Coins, 1.0. That’s the only one that bears any relationship. So 1.0 and 1 out of 4.
In the Nines, the exotic man in Cups bears some relationship in mood to the sea-creature. .5. And that’s the only one I see, 1 out of 4.
In the Tens, the flying Cups are about .5 similar. And the 10 of Batons comes from the SB Swords, 1.0. Total 1.5, or 2 out of 4.
Averaging the first figures, we get 14 out of 40 possible. Averaging the second figures, we get 17 out of 40. Or 30% figured one way, 42% the other. Either way, the SB is a major influence on the Waite-Smith. A lot more than the five cards that look similar would indicate.
I can also estimate how much the Etteilla school's word-lists influenced Waite. It is just a matter of averaging the 10 scores.
I tried to quantify the discrepancies, by going back and estimating the degree of fit between the members of no less than five pairs, which I put at the end of each section. The pairs are: Smith to Sola Busca, Etteilla to Sola-Busca, Waite to Etteilla, Pythagoreanism to Etteilla, and Pythagoreanism to Waite. I can now report the results.
For Smith designs to SB designs, it seems to me in retrospect that in most cases either she used an SB design or she didn't. Counting as best I could, it seems to me that she used an SB design 14 times. Excluding the Aces, which aren't based on the SB at all, that is 14 out of 36 (1 of the Twos, then 1, 2, 1, 3, 3, 1, 1, and 1. That is not even a majority, but it is considerably more than the 5 or so that have usually been credited.
For how much of Waite's lists come from Etteilla, it seems to me that he does so about 85% of the time (100% for the Aces, then 75, 75, 62, 82, 85, 70, 60, 83, 90).
On how much Etteilla corresponds to the SB, excluding the Aces the result is 83% (75, 100, 60, 100, 100, 87, 60, 100, and 70).
Another question how much the SB is influenced by the Theology of Arithmetic, and how much the Etteilla and Waite word-lists are influenced by a Theology of Arithmetic- based tradition.
In every case, the SB images seemed to fit something in the Theology. But there is also a lot in the Theology that is not in the imagery for a particular card. I ignored those parts.
On the other hand, occasionally I would make a mistake and try to apply the wrong section in the Theology to a particular number in the cards. It wouldn't work. I would think my whole enterprise ws doomed, until I discovered my mistake. Try it yourself. I can't make a connection that is within the realm of possibility between a section on one number in the Theology and a different number on the cards.
It was definitely not true as often that the Waite-Smith designs reflected a Pythagorean view of that number.
This was true of th100e word-lists, too. Combining them out of sequence, the "wrong" word-list for a particular card, wouldn't work for me. I leave it to others to see whether they can devise equally plausible "connections", so to speak, where I couldn't.
On how much Etteilla fits Pythgoreanism, I get 88% (100, 75, 100, 75, 75, 90, 100, 75, 90, 100).
On how much Waite fits Pythagoreanism, I get 84% (100, 70, 95, 75, 75, 87, 100, 75, 75, 90).
On how much the Smith-Waite designs fit Pythagoreanism, I get 69% (100, 30, 30, 50, 50, 75, 100, 90, 75, 90) . The designs tend often to use the one part of Waite's list that doesn't relate to that philosophy.
I initially didn't bother counting the number of times the SB fit Pythagoreanism, as I assumed it would be 100%, because the figures are so ambiguous it would not hard to fit any philosophical schema to them, especially one where I can select among a large number of choices. Indeed, going back and looking at the SB images again, they do all fit the Pythagorean concepts I have put into use. A few are a bit strained, but not many, perhaps dropping the percentage to 98% at most. I am not sure, however, that they could fit in any other arrangement. There is my experience of trying other fits between the SB and Pythagoreanism and they didn't work.
That there is a reduction in the fit of Pythagorean concepts to the cards, from 100% (Sola-Busca) to 84% (Etteilla and Waite) to 62% (Waite-Smith cards) is not surprising. The drop is to be expected when instead of copying what came before one picks something without always using the principle being measured.
The high correlation between Etteilla and the SB, however, is surprising, given the separation in time and space between the two, and that little appears to have been written down. A set of pips with SB pictures and Grand Etteilla Uprights and Reversed keywords would in fact not look incongruous. Certainly the correlations of SB cards with Etteilla school word-lists have not shown many incongruities.
For the second interval, from Etteilla to Waite, Waite had merely to use what Etteilla had already written. That was not true for the first inteval, when little was written down. I don’t think it is simply that I have tailored my interpretations so that the SB and the “Etteilla” fit together. The images and the lists are too specific. As I have said, in the process of writing drafts of my posts, I occasionally made mistakes and tried to fit an SB card with an “Etteilla” word-list for some other card. In most cases I couldn’t make it work.
Could Etteilla have made up his lists by looking at the SB? I doubt it. The SB images weren’t general knowledge then; and Etteilla’s own imagery is radically different from the SB’s. Moreover, the correspondences are rougher at the beginning of his career and get better, as though he had obtained more information from somewhere. The only conclusion I can think of is that the SB was part of the Italian cartomantic tradition from which Etteilla said he drew in constructing his keywords. (I will give some evidence for that in the next section.) In his first book, I theorize, he invented the notion of “Reversals” but probably took them mostly from standard meanings then in use, upright or reversed not distinguished, from the cards not used in the Piquet deck. Then in the full deck he introduced later, the so-called “Grand Etteilla,” he restored the meanings to the cards that originally had them, with a few improvements derived from his sources.
He also added reversals for all the cards--from where, we don't know, but they are appropriate. A.relationship to the Theology and other Pythagorean texts is more likely than to the SB. If Reversals were indeed not used before Etteilla, he may have made up some and gotten some from a another tradition, using Pythagoreanism either directly himself or indirectly from others..
Etteilla did say in one place (I will quote from it later) that his method was based on that of a certain Greek refugee in Spain.. The Theology of Arithmetic at least was in Greek.
THE PRATESI CARTOMANCER IN BOLOGNA, C. 1750
Befpre Etteilla there is only one surviving cartomantic word-list giving keywords for tarot cards, which Franco Pratesi found in a Bologna library and dated to around 1750. If what I am saying about the Sola-Busca is correct, and that its associations to the cards survived to Etteilla's time, there should be correlations between it and Etteilla's lists.
Here is Franco's list for the trumps:
The high correlation between Etteilla and the SB, however, is surprising, given the separation in time and space between the two, and that little appears to have been written down. A set of pips with SB pictures and Grand Etteilla Uprights and Reversed keywords would in fact not look incongruous. Certainly the correlations of SB cards with Etteilla school word-lists have not shown many incongruities.
For the second interval, from Etteilla to Waite, Waite had merely to use what Etteilla had already written. That was not true for the first inteval, when little was written down. I don’t think it is simply that I have tailored my interpretations so that the SB and the “Etteilla” fit together. The images and the lists are too specific. As I have said, in the process of writing drafts of my posts, I occasionally made mistakes and tried to fit an SB card with an “Etteilla” word-list for some other card. In most cases I couldn’t make it work.
Could Etteilla have made up his lists by looking at the SB? I doubt it. The SB images weren’t general knowledge then; and Etteilla’s own imagery is radically different from the SB’s. Moreover, the correspondences are rougher at the beginning of his career and get better, as though he had obtained more information from somewhere. The only conclusion I can think of is that the SB was part of the Italian cartomantic tradition from which Etteilla said he drew in constructing his keywords. (I will give some evidence for that in the next section.) In his first book, I theorize, he invented the notion of “Reversals” but probably took them mostly from standard meanings then in use, upright or reversed not distinguished, from the cards not used in the Piquet deck. Then in the full deck he introduced later, the so-called “Grand Etteilla,” he restored the meanings to the cards that originally had them, with a few improvements derived from his sources.
He also added reversals for all the cards--from where, we don't know, but they are appropriate. A.relationship to the Theology and other Pythagorean texts is more likely than to the SB. If Reversals were indeed not used before Etteilla, he may have made up some and gotten some from a another tradition, using Pythagoreanism either directly himself or indirectly from others..
Etteilla did say in one place (I will quote from it later) that his method was based on that of a certain Greek refugee in Spain.. The Theology of Arithmetic at least was in Greek.
THE PRATESI CARTOMANCER IN BOLOGNA, C. 1750
Befpre Etteilla there is only one surviving cartomantic word-list giving keywords for tarot cards, which Franco Pratesi found in a Bologna library and dated to around 1750. If what I am saying about the Sola-Busca is correct, and that its associations to the cards survived to Etteilla's time, there should be correlations between it and Etteilla's lists.
Here is Franco's list for the trumps:
La Stella = Regalo, Carro = Viaggio, Mondo = Viaggio Lungo, Traditore = Tradimento, Diavolo = Rabbia, Luna = Notte, Sole = Giorno, Bagattino = Uomo maritato, Matto = Pazzia, Amore = Amore, Forza = Violenza, Morte = Morte, Tempra = Tempo
(The Star = Gift, Carro = Journey, World = Long Journey, Traitor = Treason, Devil = Anger, Moon = Night, Sun = Day, Bagattino = Married man, Matto = Madness, Love = Love, Strength = Violence, Death = Death, Tempra = Time)
The suit cards will perhaps be of more interest. But here there is a question: which version of the list do we take for Etteilla? It seems to me we should go as early as possible. His keywords for the tarot deck (which I have been using up to now) are an expanded version of those he gave for a shortened deck with cards only in the four suits, and with only 8 cards per suit, given in his first book, of 1770, on how to tell fortunes with a piquet deck. While I do not have access to the first edition, According to Decker, Depaulis, and Dummett, the assignments are the same as in the second edition, which is online in Gallica, the website of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Each card, unlike those of the Bolognese cartomancer, has two meanings, upright and reversed. Also, the piquet deck is missing two cards from each suit of the tarocchini, the Knights and the Sixes. But instead of using those meanings, I think we can go back even further.
There is another list of "Etteilla" meanings that was published anonymously in 1797, in which the author claims he is publishing a short pamphlet Etteilla did for his friends in 1771. This one has very few reversals, and Decker, Depaulis, and Dummett (DDD, for short) think it is probably his earliest version, which he claimed he did in 1757, when he was "fifteen or sixteen". DDD do not give the actual list of keywords, but I was able to obtain scans of an 1801 reprint of the 1797 book from the University of Chicago (I am reasonably sure about that, because it conforms in every detail to DDD's quotations and paraphrases of the 1797). It seems to me worth comparing that c. 1757 with the c. 1750 list reported by Pratesi.
Pratesi's report uses Italian abbreviations: B for Batons, C for Cups, D for Coins ("Denari"), S for Spades, A for Ace, R for King, Q for Queen, C for Knight ("Cavallo") F for Page (Fante, male, in Batons and Swords, Fantina, female, in Cups and Coins), Beneath these, for each suit, I have given Etteilla's keywords, suit by suit, using the equivalence Trefles (Trefoils, i.e. Clubs) = Denari (Coins), Coeurs (Hearts) = Coppe (Cups), Piques (Pikes) = Spade (Swords), and Carroux (Tiles, i.e. Diamonds) = Bastoni (Staves). These equivalences were given by de Mellet in his 1781 essay on cartomancy and seem to work in this context as well:
Bologna RD = L’uomo (A man), QD = Verità (Truth), CD = Pensier dell’Uomo [thought of a man], FD = Denari (money], FD = Signorina (Girl), AD = Tavola (Table), 10D = Denari (Money).
Etteilla Trefles/Trefoils/Coins (English Clubs). K = dark-haired man; Q= dark-haired woman, J = Dark-haired boy, A = A lot of money, 10 = House, 9 = A present; 8 = dark-haired girl, 7 = Money.
Bologna RC = Un Vecchio [an old man], QC = Donna Maritata [married woman], CC = Accomodamento [accomodation], FC = La Donna, AC = La Casa [House]
Etteilla Coeurs/Hearts/Cups. K=blond man, Q = blonde woman, J = blond boy, A= Bottle, table, 10= city, 9=Victory, 8=blonde girl, 7=Thought,
Bologna RB = Un signore non ammogliato [unmarried man], QB = P...na, CB = Martello della porta [hammer of a door], FB = Pensiere della Donna [thought of the woman], AB = Baronate
Etteilla Carreaux/Tiles/Batons (English Diamonds). K=a man, Q=a woman, J=military man/servant, A=Letters or news, 10=Gold/Anger, 9=Delay, 8=Country, 7=Gossip.
Bologna RS= Mala Lingua [bad tongue], AS = Lettera, 10S = Lagrime [tears].It seems to me that while there are obviously differences between the two lists, there may be a relationship between them. The Italian Cavalli [Knights] have dropped out, as to be expected, since French suits don't have them. If the Italian deck had 6s, there is no sign of them in the list. The colors of French suits have influenced Etteilla's Kings, Queens, and Valets (which unlike the Bolognese are all male). "Letter" from Swords goes to Etteilla's Diamonds and "Gossip" from Swords ("bad tongue) goes to Etteilla's Diamonds/Batons. There are similar switches in Coins/Clubs and Cups/Hearts. Granting these adjustments, it looks to me like Etteilla's list is related to the Bolognese one. In fact, it seems to me that many of the marginally Pythagorean elements in Etteilla, such as "Table", "House", "Thought", and "A Present", come from this tradition. Unfortunately for my thesis, there is nothing Pythagorean about the Pratesi Cartomancer. Perhaps there were different expressions of the tradition, one intellectual and the other not, in which Pythagoreanism was not preserved.
Etteilla Piques/Pikes/Swords. K = Robed/widowed man, Q = Gallant/Widowed woman, J = Envoy/curious, A = Love/Pregnancy, 10 = Tears, 9 = Ecclesiastic/Mourning, 8 = Illness.
There are likely other influences on the tradition that is common to both lists. Geomancy was popular in Italy at the time and place of the SB. Etteilla, for his part, talks about his system being based on 33 "sticks" used by a Greek refugee in Spain. Not counting one card added by Etteilla, 32 is half the number of geomancy figures, 16.
Geomancy's 16 figures in medieval Europe were called Vita=Life, Lucrum=Riches, Fratres=Brothers, Genitor=Father, Nati=Sons, Valetudo=Health, Uxor=Wife, Mors=Death, Itineris=Journeys, Regnum=Kings, Benefacta=Good Fortune, Carcer= Prison. They also divide into mothers, sisters, nieces, witnesses, judge, and (optional) super-judge. (For all these, see https://www.princeton.edu/~ezb/geomancy/geostep.html).
Is there any relationship to the cards? There is some correspondence, but in fortune-telling some commonalities are to be expected, if they are basic to human life--things like good and bad fortune, and people categorized in important ways. If fortune-telling with cards developed from geomancy, the idea of family relationships (mother, father, sons, niece, etc.) would seem not to have been retained, replaced by stage of life, marital status (boy, man, widower, old man; one system even has children). To these are added hair color, related to suit color, and profession. Geomancy's Judge reappears as the Robed Man in Etteilla, Life as Pregnancy, Death as Mourning, Journeys as Envoy (although stays "Journeys" in Etteilla's trump cards), Health as Illness. Other things are replaced by new associations letters, city, love, gossip.
Another type of parallel in Etteilla to previous divination practices is that illustrated by the 1730 century English play "Jack and the Giant Killer". where predictions are made based on the positions of significators. Mary Greer quotes from the play "Jack the Giant Killer" (https://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/04 ... ver-folly/), in which two women read the fortunes of four men by identifying each with the King of the suit that best fits his personality:
Greer explains:First woman. You. Lord Gormillan, are the King of Clubs; Lord Thunderdale shall be the angry Majesty of Spades; The Diamond Crown Lord Blunderboar shall wear; and King of Hearts Lord Galligantus shall assume.
This practice seems also to have been incorporated into geomancy, although not in the same way. Here is Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomancy):The cards were probably laid out in several rows, perhaps a square of 25 as we see in later examples. The significator card shows the location of the person within the situation, while the other court cards represent the other people involved. The cards that fall between the main significator and the significator of another person show what is occurring between them.
Pietro d'Abano was a c. 1300 professor at Padua who died in prison during a trial for heresy, apparently connected with denying the causal role of angels and demons in the lives of humans, as opposed to astrological influences (what a thing to die for!). In legend, he was also considered a powerful summoner of demons (even if he denied their influence on humans). His writings, or translations, on the decans are considered a major influence on the astrological program at the Schifanoia Palace in Ferrara. The PMB Strength card seems modeled on one of the figures in an illustrated Abano book (http://www.trionfi.com/0/i/r/11.html).Pietro d'Abano discusses the primary modes of perfection used in geomantic interpretations with significators in his geomancy essay.[11] In astrological geomancy, the significators are chosen based upon the identity of the querent and the identity of the quesited. Generally, except when the querent asks about a situation about a subject with no immediate connection to themselves, the querent's significator is located in the first house (see Derivative house). The querent's significator is identified based upon the focus of the query: this is based upon the relation of the query to the astrological houses. Some questions require more than two significators, such as in a query involving several primary factors (e.g., two parties quarrelling over an estate).
It is surely true that this feature of cartomancy--the significator--goes back to that time in geomancy.. On the other hand, it is a natural component of randomized procedures for making decisions. When we "draw straws" to see who will go first, the straws are all significators. Court cards are natural significators. We see that in the Fernando de la Torre's comments about his proposed cards in 1450 Spain (cited by Ross Caldwell at http://www.academia.edu/6477311/Brief_h ... cartomancy):
Ross also gives examples from the Spanish witch trials, e.g.:...players could tell fortunes with them to know who each one loves most and who is most desired and by many other and diverse ways.
There are also the comments about Boiardo's version of the tarot deck, written around the beginning of the 16th century in Ferrara or Urbino (http://trionfi.com/0/h/):Once, she had the cards read by the wife of a poor water-bearer. She wanted to know if her man loved another woman: the King of Cups represented the man and the Jack of Coins represented Lady Maria. Getting both cards together would signify that the young man only loved Lady Maria; but getting any other Jack with the Knight or the King of Cups would be a signal of the young man having another lady.
And sometimes the tercets are so appropriate that the friends laugh heartily, ...and the tarocchi appropriati popular in 16th and 17th century Northern Italy, where particular triumphs were assigned to particular ladies. These last two arenot divination per se, just this phenomenon of signification.
Systems of divination do influence one another, especially when there are already natural commonalities. These features seem to converge in Etteilla's system.
APPENDIX: THE SB AND THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS
Finally, I have report on something I did not pay attention to in the individual chapters, namely, how well the Sola-Busca pips correlate with an assignment of suits to temperaments that was worked out by Marco on Tarot History Forum. This is not, strictly speaking, Neopythagorean. However it is interesting. Based on conventional symbols of the four temperaments that appear in the SB court cards, Marco assigned Coins to the Sanguine temperament, Swords to the Choleric temperament, Cups to the Phlegmatic temperament, and Batons to the Melancholic Temperaments.
Here are the degrees to which the various pips correlate to Marco’s schema:
Aces: 75%. (The cherubs holding up the club do not seem to me to reflect melancholia.)
Twos: 100%
Threes: 100%
Fours: 0%
Fives: 0%
Sixes: 100%
Sevens: 100%
Eights; 50%
Nines: 0%
Tens: 0%
So Marco’s schema works about half the time; and for a given number, it usually either works all the way or it doesn’t at all. For almost every card, however, it does make sense to assign it a temperament, if not the one that Marco’s schema would predict.
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