https://www.academia.edu/8119804/Thierr ... ies_Part_I
Excerpt:
"In 1669 competition came from Aix-en-Provence where playing cards started to be made, and a ban was imposed by Louis XIV on calico printing in 1686.(French soyeux – silk makers – wanted to be protected.) In spite of these setbacks the Marseillais cardmakers seem to have been quite successful. At the turn of the century there were ten workshops, all busy with both the local and export markets. Were tarot cards made in Marseille at that time? This is very likely.Although no cards with a name or an address from Marseille is known to exist, Yves Reynaud was lucky enough to fnd two tarot cards, a nine of Coins and a Popess [Fig. 7a-b], that had been re-used to reinforce the binding of a small book printed in Marseille in 1686, the anonymous L’amy sincere de Messieurs dela Religion P.R. qui veut les convaincre des erreurs de leur secte (A Marseille: chez C.Brebion, 1686).
These cards were probably made in the same city, thus providing us with the earliest ‘Tarot de Marseille’ tarot cards! They postdate, however, by some twenty years the cards of same design produced by Jean Noblet in Paris."