Dating the Sola Busca Tarot
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The oldest known deck with a fully illustrated Minor Arcana is a deck called the Sola Busca Tarot. This deck was created in Italy, but it resists attempts to accurately date when it was made, with most scholars providing a range of possibilities from 1471 – 1598. Even more frustrating is the revelation that the deck was engraved and printed at one time and then painted with additional details at a later date, making it almost impossible to know the author's intention behind its unusual images.
One way to begin the process of dating the deck is to review when its artwork was referenced on other decks, described in books, or mentioned in correspondence. All of the Italian tarot decks which are older than the 1500s were mentioned in written sources contemporary with their creation. This is how historians are able to definitively date older tarot decks without the presence of a copyright, printer's mark, tax stamp, or other identifying symbols. One of the oldest tarot decks, the Michelino Deck, probably created in 1423, has not survived to the present day, but its existence is attested in numerous sources dating to that time period.
It should seem strange to modern historians that a deck as unique as the Sola Busca Tarot would not be mentioned anywhere in print until 1802, somehow remaining completely hidden for four hundred years. Compounding this unusual situation is the fact that at least two copies of the deck were printed—one was later painted while the other was left in its uncolored state. By the early 1800s, this black and white version had been dissected and scattered around various manuscript collections in the care of European noble families.
First Encounters With The Sola Busca
The first person to encounter the Sola Busca Tarot was an Italian writer and priest named Pietro Antonio Maria Zani. In the 1790s, he was traveling around Italy writing his book Materiali, which explored the history of artworks created with copper and wood engravings. During his time in Naples, Zani made an extremely brief mention of finding five uncolored tarot cards in two separate collections.
One collection was that of the Terres brothers, a family of booksellers whose reputation was apparently grand enough that in 1785, they were the subject of a portrait engraving (see below). The other cards were in the collection of Don Ciccio de Luca, an extremely wealthy man in Naples who also owned a drawing by Raphael and was later granted a title of nobility. Unfortunately, Zani does not specify which cards were in which collection. Nor did he bother to elaborate on when or how the owners acquired them.
Curiously enough, Zani makes a point to call these cards part of an “unfinished” card game. He does not use this phrase anywhere else in the book, although he certainly came across incomplete decks of engraved cards in other collections he viewed. So in the late 1790s, the Sola Busca tarot was still being illustrated.
The first person to examine and describe the colored Sola Busca Tarot was Count Leopoldo Cicognara, and Italian art collector, historian, and artist who also served as a minister in the Cisalpine Republic, a short-lived puppet state created by Napoleon during his conquest of Italy. His 1831 book Memorie Spettanti Alla Storia Della Calcografia (Memoirs Relating to the History of Copperplate Printing), contained a thorough description of the Sola Busca Tarot and included his hand drawn copies of some of the cards.
At the time Count Cicognara examined the deck, it was in the collection of Marquess Carlo Busca. The count's major contribution to the scholarship of the deck is his description of the painted inscriptions that had been added to some of the cards. Although the names of the figures on the cards were part of the original engravings, a later artist painted on additional text not present on the black and white versions.
The Senate of Venice
The two most important painted additions are the phrase “SENATUS VENETUS” (“Senate of Venice”) on the shield of the fourth trump card and “ANNO AB URBE CONDITO MLXX” (“1,070 years since the city was founded”). The first phrase indicates that the deck was created in Venice, Italy.
The second phrase, anno ab urbe condito, was commonly used during the Renaissance in reference to the founding of Rome in 753 BC, similar to the way our calendar system begins with the birth of Jesus Christ. Count Cicognara believed the legends on the two shields should be combined and by calculating 1,070 years from the founding of the city of Venice in 421 meant that the deck was created in 1491.
His assertion has not challenged by anyone for nearly 200 years, but it is quite clearly incorrect.
To begin with, the Senate of Venice did not exist at the same time the city of Venice was founded, when it was still part of the Roman Empire. The Republic of Venice did not exist as an independent country until 727, when the citizens rose up and assassinated their Byzantine governor, electing Orso Ipato as their first sovereign leader with the title of Doge. If we utilize 727 as the starting date intended by the artist, then a curious thing happens when we add 1,070 years: we arrive at the exact date the Republic of Venice ceased to exist in 1797.
As Napoleon Bonaparte pushed his army across northern Italy, he forced the abdications of the kings, dukes, and princes who bowed before his cannons. Venetian Doge Ludovico Manin struggled between defending his country in a valiant fight or surrendering to save his people. Some of the doge's commanders led a disorganized attempt to repel the French army in isolated skirmishes, but they only succeeded in angering Napoleon, who declared: “I want no more Inquisition, no more Senate, I shall be an Attila to the state of Venice.” Within a week, the Venetian Senate voted to disband and Doge Ludovico Manin abdicated from his throne, leaving Venice in the hands of the French.
If we look at the Sola Busca Tarot in the context of the fall of the Republic of Venice, the overall theme of the deck begins to make more sense. The figures in the Major Arcana are almost exclusively heroes from the early Republic of Rome, before it was ruled by an emperor. Nero, the only Roman Emperor in the entire deck, is depicted as killing babies in a fire.
The deck's two biblical figures—Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar—are both shown as Napoleonesque villains. Nimrod is depicted as a giant who destroys everything he touches, like Napoleon's army marching through conquered territories. This comes from a verse in the Old Testament's Book of Micha: “And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.” (5:6)
While Nebuchadnezzar was one of the greatest Babylonian rulers, he was viewed very harshly by the Jews, who called him a “destroyer of nations.” In the biblical account, Nebuchadnezzar was responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem, plundering Solomon's Temple, and initiating the Babylonian captivity—a period of forced relocation for thousands of Jewish people. His card in the Sola Busca Tarot, the World, is usually considered a good card, but in the context of a ravaged Venice, it was a warning to Napoleon about the folly of his global ambitions.
Minor Arcana: Distinctly Anti-Napoleon
In the Minor Arcana, we find the strongest evidence for the author's anti-Napoleon, pro-Republic sentiments. First, it is possible for the Sola Busca Tarot to be both alchemical and mystical while simultaneously deriding the conquest of Venice by the French. The pictures in the Minor Arcana cards arouse plenty of associations with spirituality, astrology, arithmetic, and alchemy. They may have been designed with those themes in mind, but it is difficult to ignore the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte on several of the cards:
The Four of Cups has a naked Napoleon putting a cup into a bag with a hole in the bottom.
The Nine of Coins has a naked Napoleon being burned to death under a brass vessel.
The Seven of Batons has Napoleon—dressed in his French uniform!—struggling under the burden of heavy sticks.
The Nine of Batons has a giant, naked Napoleon clinging to heaps of sticks.
The Two of Swords has a naked Napoleon grabbing the hair of a satyr who is kneeling before him.
The Six of Swords has Napoleon in his underwear hauling a bag of swords.
These representations are beyond mere speculation—each figure truly resembles the portraits of Napoleon after his conquest of Venice. Among the court cards, the unnamed pages, who all have a slightly sad look on their faces, bear a striking resemblance to Napoleon as a young general—as he was during the Italian campaign.
Take, for example, the famous painting of Napoleon as Commander of the Army in Italy, storming the bridge at Arcole. Everything in his appearance matches the four pages, but especially the length and color of his hair, the tone of his skin, the shape of his face, and his downcast expression. In traditional playing cards, the page usually embodied a young noble warrior who had not yet risen to the rank of king. That was the exact position of Napoleon at the time he invaded Italy.
Further examination of the numbered cards in the Minor Arcana reveals more associations with the late 1700s and the fall of Venice. The Two of Batons shows a hulking idiot swaddled with a purple cloth, but his hat is the distinctive corno ducale of the Doge of Venice. Upon his abdication, the last monarch of Venice, Doge Ludovico Manin, became the subject of ire for all of Venice, to the point of being publicly ridiculed when he tried to walk in the street like the dunce pictured on the card.
If the date of the Sola Busca's creation is between the fall of Venice in 1797 and the deck's description by Zani in 1802—the final version could be even later, because he described it as “unfinished”—then there should be other indicators in both the design and content of the cards, to confirm this theory. There are several:
The Four of Coins card incorporates a large nude woman as a figure of Fortune which is not found anywhere else in the tarot. It is, however, found in a few Tarot of Marseilles-style decks produced in the 1700s.
In the mid-1500s, playing card manufacturers began labeling their court cards with the names of historical people. The fact that several of these names were incorporated into the Sola Busca Tarot conclusively puts their creation after 1491. By the 1700s, these names became a common feature on playing cards printed throughout Europe, but especially in France where they were known as the Paris Pattern or Rouen Pattern.
Over time, regional printers changed the names of the historical figures, sometimes altering their appearance as well. However, thanks to the specificity in the Sola Busca Tarot engravings, the deck can conclusively be dated to after 1750 due to the names and portraits selected for some of the court cards.
Playing cards with the Paris Pattern featured Pallas as the Queen of Spades, while in the Sola Busca, she is the Queen of Batons. Around 1550, Helen was added to the deck as the Queen of Hearts, although there is some debate if she is intended to be Helen of Troy or Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great.
In the Sola Busca, Helen is the Queen of Coins. Finally, although Alexander the Great was almost always labeled as the King of Clubs in these playing cards, only in the 1700s was he depicted standing beside the wheel of a chariot as he is shown in the Sola Busca with a wheel beside his throne. Additionally, Alexander's pose and his griffin throne almost perfectly match his depiction in the fragmentary Leber-Rouen Tarocchi from the 1500s.
The Piquet of Charles VII deck of playing cards (probably made around 1510) features Apollin as the King of Spades. Historians unanimously agree this figure is the demon Abaddon, spelled Apollyon in Greek. Medieval Christians believed the Muslims worshipped Apollin as one of their primary gods, and he features in numerous poems from the period, including the 11th century Song of Roland. Many playing card decks with named court cards also include Roland and his uncle Charlemagne, helping to conclusively identify Apollin as an imagined demon of Islam.
There are many more such examples discussed in my book An Occult Guide to the Tarot. Given the preponderance of evidence, we must conclude that either the Sola Busca tarot somehow influenced the development of court cards in all playing card decks throughout Europe—without being mentioned once in any historical source—or its author incorporated those existing designs into their deck at a later date than is commonly accepted.
The Knight of Coins
The Knight of Coins in the Sola Busca Tarot is one of the most perplexing figures in the entire deck. Its legend “SARAFINO” has complicated the efforts of scholars and historians to accurately date the deck, determine its author, or even figure out who the people on the cards really represent. However, the uniqueness of the name and its presence in the suit of coins may be the key to unraveling the entire mystery of the Sola Busca.
As a proper name, or someone worthy of inclusion in this deck, “Sarafino” does not exist in the historical record of Italy. In Italian, sarafino is first seen in the written record as a translation of the Portuguese word, xarafin (the “x” is pronounced as an “s” in Portuguese). A xarafin was a coin used by the Portuguese in their Indian colonies from the 1500s until the 1800s. Therefore, it allows us to safely date the deck as later than is currently believed.
The word first appears in the Italian language in a 1577 translation of an earlier Portuguese book, History of the Discovery and Conquest of India by the Portuguese. It is important to understand that at this time, the Duchy of Milan was part of the Portuguese Empire though personal union under Phillip II, who was not only King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and the Netherlands, but was also the Duke of Milan. So the Italian people were directly connected to Portuguese affairs in India through both trade and politics. Thus, the word sarafnio entered the popular lexicon in Italy to the point where it was included as a common word in later Italian-English dictionaries.
It may seem odd that the author labeled the Knight of Coins as the embodiment of a coin, but this was actually common practice among the creators of playing card decks using the Paris Pattern. While the court cards in those decks were usually labeled with the names of specific historical people, the jack or knave cards would sometimes bear a very general name, such as “Captain Wet” to symbolize a naval leader. The author of the Sola Busca appears to have made this knight the embodiment of money moving through international commerce by naming it Sarafino.
Why the Big Mystery?
But why would the relatively recent provenance of the Sola Busca Tarot remain a mystery for so long?
The first two people who examined the cards were fervent supporters of Napoleon. Pietro Zani, who only saw five of the cards, actually received a grant from Napoleon to conduct his research. Additionally, at the time of his report, he did not view any of the numbered Minor Arcana cards which contain the illustrations of Napoleon. It is even possible the owners of the cards deliberately kept them hidden from his prying eyes so as not to offend Zani's loyalty to his patron.
Despite starting out as a supporter of the French revolution and champion of freedom from the tyranny of monarchal families, as Napoleon's power grew, so did his desire to trample the civil liberties of those he ruled over. This included freedom of speech and the press, and he had no problem imprisoning or even executing his critics, once remarking, “If I gave the press free rein, I would not stay in power for three months.” This is the likely reason the full deck was not widely known prior to Napoleon's abdication in 1814.
The second scholar to study the Sola Busca Tarot, Count Cicognara, was also indebted to Napoleon, who had granted him important posts in the Cisalpine Republic and made him a knight in the Order of the Iron Crown—the highest honor in Napoleonic Italy. Even if his rational mind comprehended what he was looking at, the numbered Minor Arcana cards of the Sola Busca Tarot showing a naked Napoleon laboring in his soiled underwear would have been the equivalent of a burning cross to Cicognara.
The count's desire to preserve the memory of his beloved emperor—who had died less than ten years prior—may explain why he was so eager to set the date of the deck's creation in the 1400s, but it is a mystery why no later historian has ever challenged his faulty assertions in the face of such obvious evidence.
Despite the fact that the Sola Busca Tarot is nowhere near as old as it is claimed to be, as the first fully-illustrated Minor Arcana, it is still an important piece of tarot history.
In 1907, a photographed copy of the deck was donated to the British Museum and this was used for inspiration by Pamela Colman-Smith as she filled in the pip cards on the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot in 1909, ensuring the legacy of the Sola Busca Tarot and its mysterious author live on to the present day.
