Coming from East and taken by the Arabian world, the so called Minor Arcana - composed by ten numeral cards (from ace to ten) and by four cards of court (king, queen, knight, page) for each seed (swords, wands, cups, coins) - came to Europe thank to commercial relations starting from the XIV century. As a true autonomous game of cards, these 56 cards were later united to the 22 triumphs and started to form the cards deck that we have been knowing since the XVI century to nowadays as “Game of Tarots”.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to know the real meaning of the cards seeds through the descriptions of men of that time, since they left many diversity of interpretation. In the work Bizzarrie Accademiche (Academic Eccentricities) by Giovan Francesco Loredano, we find discourses and verses that had been read and acted in the Accademia degli Incogniti, founded by Loredano himself. Among these, there is the discourse Che moralità si può cavare dal giuoco delle carte (What morality can it be in the game of cards), in which the author dwells upon the vice of cards game and its dangerousness. At the end he makes a digression on the seeds so described: “We could say that in the game of cards there are the four seasons of the year. Swords indicate Spring, during which every Prince moves his weapons. Coins represent Summer, in which it is possible to pick up the grain and the income. Cups full of wine symbolize Autumn. Wands are the symbol of Winter, since the trees in Winter are nude as batons. Even because in winter batons are necessary to keep us warm” (Venice, 1638).
But elsewhere we find that in the Giuoco del Re tratto dal Giuoco delle Carte (Game of the King derived by the game of cards) described by Innocenzo Righieri in this essay named Cento Giuochi liberali e d’Ingegno (Hundred liberal and brain Games), the seeds are combined to the four moral virtues, and that is Cups to Temperance, Columns (Wands) to the Fortress, Swords to Justice and the Mirrors (Coins) to Prudence (Venice, 1553).
The same conception, with three different combinations, can be found in the work by Loredano, where it is explained that in the game of cards there are the four principal Virtues: “In Coins there is Justice that gives the right thing to every one. In cups there is Temperance. In wands there is Prudence. But it was represented by Egyptians with en eye on a stick; and in swords there is Fortress” (op. cit.)
Pietro Aretino, in his work Le Carte Parlanti (The talking cards) of 1543 talks about the meanings of the cards seeds that he makes derive from the nature of the game itself. The work, structured as a dialogue among the cards and an author’s friend, a certain Padovano, famous in Florence as a card painter, is extremely interesting to understand the mentality of the gamers of that time. Here there is the passage in which the cards declare their meaning:
PADOVANO: Before going further, please tell me what the meanings of the Kings are.
CARDS: Loyalty, what gamers should have.
PADOVANO: What about Knights?
CAR: The escape and the condition of the one who leaves instead of keeping the bank.
PAD: The Page?
CAR: Servitude, needed for the game.
PAD: Swords?
CAR: Death of those who get desperate while playing.
PAD: Wants?
CAR: The punishment that deceivers deserve.
PAD: Coins?
CAR: The substance of the game.
PAD: What about Cups?
CAR: The drink good to reconcile quarrels between gamers.
PAD: Since in Italy people are playing with French cards, please tell me what do the Capers (Spades) mean.
CAR: Their good salad picks the appetite of those who love inns.
PAD: What about Diamonds?
CAR: The firmness of the one who plays.
PAD: And Hearts?
CAR: The will to give one’s hand (on the contrary: to fight).
PAD: And Clubs?
CAR: The pleasure to talk well.
Further, in his work, Aretino talks even about German seeds:
CAR: In their cards, besides Clubs and Hearts, they have Bells and Acorns.
PAD: Why these and those ones?
CAR: Acorns mean small things, good enough to sustain nature’s hunger, nature that in the beginning was able to feed humanity with such food.
PAD: What about Bells?
CAR: Bells are used on fool’s legs, and show the foolishness of those who toil to accumulate richness preserved by those who don’t know that richness is a weak flower.
We report now the passage from the manuscript Sermo perutilis de ludo of the very first years of the XVI century already quoted (please, read the essay The Theatre of Brains) in which the author, am anonymous monk, explains the meanings of the four seeds interpreted on the base of the conviction, largely diffused in the clerical environments, of a demoniac origin of the games of cards (following the original text there is the translation in Italian)
De secundo ludorum genere scilicet cartularum dico quod si lusor cogitaret quod in cartulis significatum est, forte ab eis cavaret. Nam in cartulis quadruplex differentia est.
On second nature of games I say that if the player thought about the meaning of the cards, he would run away. In fact in the cards there is a fourfold difference.
Ibi nam sunt denarii per manus lusorum discurrentes. Et hoc significat instabilitatem pecunie in lusore, quia debes cogitare, quando intras in ludum, quod denarii tui ibunt in malam horam eo quod perdes.
There is Money running away form players’ hands. And this means the instability of the money of the player, because you must think that when you enter in the game you will loose your money.
Sunt et Cuppe ad ostendendam paupertatem ad quam ita deveniet lusor, quod carens cypho ad bibendum utetur cuppa.
They are also there the Cups to show what a poverty will come, because the poor player with no more glasses will drink in a cup.
Sunt et bastoni. Lignum est arridum ad insinuandam siccitatem divine gratie in lusore. Sunt postremo et enses ad declarandum brevitatem vite lusoris quia plerumque occidunt.
They are also there the Wants. The wood is dry to suggest the aridity of the divine grace in the player. There are even the swords that mean the brevity of the life of the player since he will be killed, etc...
Nullum enim genus peccatorum est ita desperatum sicut lusorum. Quando perdit et non potest habere desideratum punctum, cartulam, vel triumphum, percutit crucem in denario, blasfemando Deum vel sanctos, cum rabie projicente taxillos dicendo suipsomet. 'Che me sia moza la mano,'. Facillime irascitur socio ridenti, et continuo in contumelias surgit et percutiunt...
Really, no kind of sinners is so desperate as that of the card players. When a player loses and cannot have the desired point, the card or the triumph, it strikes the cross in the money, cursing God or the saints, and he throws away the dice with anger telling himself ‛That I had my hand cut off’ etc. Very easily he becomes angry with the companion that derides him and continually rise some offenses and they beat each other etc.