A Maison Dieu XVI is not a Tower

[KoyDeli]

From the Royal Edict of 1701:

"Permettons néanmoins aux maîtres cartiers d'imprimer chez eux les cartes appelées tarots, ainsi qu'ils ont fait jusqu'à présent, à la charge de les apporter aux bureaux du fermier pour y être marquées comme ci-dessus et en être les droits payés: à l effet quoi, ils pourront conserver les planches qui leur ont servi jusqu à présent pour l'impression desdites cartes..."

"Let us nevertheless allow the master card-makers to print at home the cards called tarots, as they have done until now, on the charge of bringing them to the offices of the farmer to be marked there as above and to be their rights paid: to the effect that they will be able to keep the plates which they used until now for the printing of the said cards: "

I have just re-read the Edict and I have to add a qualifier and correction to that, and my statement that 'there was never an Edict concerning the destruction of tarot moulds/plates' was wrong, they were to be destroyed if or at such time they were too worn or damaged to print from.*

While the tarot card-makers were allowed to keep the moulds they had used until that time, and to print from them at home, at such a time when the moulds became too worn and torn, or otherwise too damaged to be used for printing, then at that time they were to be destroyed in front of police officers, at which time the Farmers will be free to change the figures of the cards, and a print from new moulds wouldo be registered.

"... : sera loisible à notredit fermier de changer les figures desdites cartes, lorsque lesdites planches se trouveront usées ou endommagées, lors duquel changement les anciennces planches seront rompues en presence desdits officiers de police, lesquels en dresseront leurs proces-verbaux, & mettront en leurs greffes les empreints des nouvelles figures, sans toutfois que le cours des cartes qui se trouveront avoir été imprimees & marquées des ancient figures & marques, en puisse être pour ce interrompu:..."

".....our said farmer will be free to change the figures of said cards, when the said plates will be worn or damaged, during which change the old moulds will be broken in the presence of said police officers, who will draw up their minutes, & will put in their records the imprints of the new figures,...."

*Note however, we have evidence of some blocks being used over a 60 year or more period - sometimes by different card-makers, with a change of name on some cards if necessary. [This wasn't always required, the Strasbourg TdB card-makers for example all used the blocks of Francoise Isnard, and a space was left for the different makers to stamp their name.]

[Diana]

KoyDeli: I like it when messengers fall from the sky like you have with all your baggage of news and information. Sometimes there are happy days. Thanks for contributing all you do. You told me once about the Children of the Planets and I was hugely grateful too.

[KoyDeli]

La Maison Dieu

The four parts of a House .

Saulnier (regent of the University of Paris from 1413 to 1421) - following St. Bernard of Clairvaux - describes the four allegorical 'ways' of a house: the exterior, the interior, the above and the below. The exterior is the house of the holy Church, in which the good exercise the virtues and acquire merit for the life to come. The interior is called our conscience, in which God resides delicately, quietly and in secret. Below is the house of judgement and torment, the prison of the sovereign prince of hell. Above is the house of the sovereign King of paradise, in which the sovereign Emperor honours his friends.

In Saulnier, writing c1413 - 1421, we see an example of archaic French for the House of God, that is, he writes it maison Dieu, instead of maison de Dieu as in Modern French, in his quote of John 14:2: ‘En la maison Dieu mon pere a pluseurs mensions...' In the house of God my Father there are many mansions....

Here is his original French text, from "Livre de la maison de conscience" after 1413, for Cartherine d’Alencon:

"Et pource que a la mageste reale appartient a avoir pluseurs maisons et en chascune edifier et ordonner diverses mensions, ainsi le dit nostr sauveur Jhesucrist [John 14:2]: ‘En la maison Dieu mon pere a pluseurs mensions et habitiations’. Pour quoy est a entendre que selon la verite et doctrine de la saincte scripture il est quatre manieres de maisons, c’est assavoir la maison de dehors et la maison de dedens, la maison dessus et la maison dessoubz. La maison par dehors peult ester dicte la maison de saincte esglise; c’este la congregacion et assemble de tous bons crestiens, en laquelle chascun se doit occupier et excerciter en bonnes oevres et vertueses et acquerir merite pour la vie pardurable. En ceste maison le souvrain roy de gloire gouverne et adresse ceulx qui veulent bine labourer. La maison par dedens peult estere appellee nostre conscience, en laquelle Dieu se delicate habiter et demourer paisiblement et secretement ... La maison basse peult ester dicte la maison de jugement et de tourment. Ce la prison et la charter du du souverain prince qui est la charter d’enfer ... La maison dessus est la maison du roy souverain de paradis, en laquelle l’empereur souverain honoure ses amis et les coronne glorieusement."

The eyes below the House of God in the Noblet [c.1660s] suggest that below it is a type of Hellmouth, that beneath it is the house of the sovereign Prince of Hell.

As Saulnier wrote:

In the House of God my Father there are many mansions...

[En la maison Dieu mon pere a pluseurs mensions…]

Below the modern reproduction is a close-up of one the eyese in the original at the BnF.

"Below is the house of judgement and torment, the prison of the sovereign prince of hell."

[La maison basse peult ester dicte la maison de jugement et de tourment. Ce la prison et la charter du du souverain prince qui est la charter d’enfer …]

[KoyDeli]

Noblet, Vieville and probably the maker of the Anonymous Parisian were all members of the Parisian Guild of Cardmakers in the 17th century - Vieville appears in records from the 1640's to the 1664, Noblet from 1659 - 1664, all three as members of the Guild during that period more than likely knew each other and of each others work.

Just a little correction/amendment to that, re: Noblet 1659 - 1664. I have recently come across a document with mention of Jean Noblet, Master card-maker, from 1681. It is five pages long and I have not translated it yet. Here is the first paragraph/page of the original:

[testpattern]

But in brief - read the biblical passages about Babel carefully. The Tower of Babel is NOT destroyed, nor are human beings cast off of it to their destruction. Genesis 11:1-9 Thus imso, this card can not be, nor refer to the Tower of Babel.

Belenus

However, the story of God destroying the Tower is found in various Apocrypha, is in Midrash, and was related by multiple Jewish and Classical historians. So just because it doesn't show up in the Pentateuch doesn't mean that the tower's destruction wasn't part of popular myth. We see renderings of the Tower of Babel's destruction in the Rohan and Bedford Books of Hours that share iconography with the TdM card. The Bedford especially has a scatter of falling masonry that is very suggestive of the confetti fall in the cards.

[Scanner]

Neither do I think that La Maison Dieu is a hospital.
The probability of this building being a hospital is also just one of many interpretations.

Actually it doesn‘t matter if the translated title of this card is „House of God“ or „God‘s house“. Both might refer to a tower (of Babel), symbolizing the constructor‘s hubris being equal with god.

What makes me suspicious on the hospital theory is that it‘s a high rise building.
I know almost nothing on medieval french architecture, but from an objective point of view a tower could mean a number of building types.

@ Testpattern, I followed up your hint to Bedford Book of Hours.

I don‘t know if that‘s the rendering you mean (?)
The image of the falling people resembles quite amazing the Tarot card.

[testpattern]

I don‘t know if that‘s the rendering you mean (?)
The image of the falling people resembles quite amazing the Tarot card.

Yes, that's the one. And I think I have seen one or two more medieval renderings that seem to support that this was established iconography for the Tower of Babel. I have no problem with other interpretations, whether they turn the colored balls into crumbs of manna or the Tower into a Hôtel-Dieu, but that the imagery fundamentally refers to the apocryphal destruction of the Tower of Babel, I have no doubt. And if this was intended to be a trump used in gameplay, that seems like a more useful ludic function.

[testpattern]

I was mistaken when I said that the Rohan Book also featured the tower's destruction, as the Bedford Hours does. But the Rohan does show workmen tumbling from the summit much like their fellow travellers in La Maison-Dieu. I like the caption; if my grasp of Medieval French is at all accurate: "The pagans built the Tower of Babel against God's commandment, so he struck them down and turned their work into nothing."

[Scanner]

What I find particularly interesting is that the Bedford Book has been published between 1400 and 1430.
It might be worth knowing if the creator(s) of the first Tarot de Marseille had access to the Apocrypha or those hour books.

Unfortunately the Tower card is missing in Europe’s oldest (Visconti) deck.
But when you compare XVI with other XVI (for instance a Belgian tarot from 1700) you find very similar meanings.

The title for XVI of this tarot is La Foudre (the Ligtning) which depicts several lightnings are striking a tree.