Gertrude Moakley was a library cataloger. She became interested in the Visconti-Sforza tarot cards as a way to test the usefulness of the library as a research tool. It should be easy, she thought, to track down some study of the cards and their symbolism. (The Visconti-Sforza cards are a lavish, hand-painted deck, currently housed in museum collections. They are one of the earliest surviving tarot decks.) She found, of course, that no serious studies of this sort had been made, so she set out to research the cards herself.
This book is the result of her research. It was published in 1966, long before other published studies of tarot history (Dummett, O'Neill, etc.). It's good to keep this in mind, because when Moakley was writing, she had no competition. There were no other historically plausible "tarot origin theories" for her to contend with.
After introductory remarks, the book begins with an "Undocumented Prelude", which is intended to set the mood and give the reader a sense of context. Moakley asks us to imagine a carnival procession in 15th-century Milan. The duke, Francesco Sforza, is there, along with his wife, Bianca Maria Visconti. In the imaginary procession, we meet many of the figures depicted on the tarot cards. The Magician (Bagatino) is the Carnival King, a somewhat clownish figure dressed in red, who presides over the parade and will suffer a mock execution to signal the end of Carnival and the begin of Lent. The Fool, dressed in white rags with feathers in his hair, is the personification of Lent. He has no fixed place in the procession, but appears everywhere, making witty remarks and reminding people that Carnival will soon end.
One of the "parade floats" is a triumphal chariot with Cupid directing his arrows at a pair of lovers, dressed to represent the duke and his wife. Accompanying the victorious cupid are a number of presitigious captives: the Emperor and Empress, the Pope and Papess. The latter provides an opportunity for the Fool (King Lent) to make a joke about Sister Manfreda, a relation of Lady Bianca who was elected pope by the heretical Guglielmites. Cupid is also attended by two of the cardinal virtues: Temperance and Fortitude. The latter is unconventionally portrayed by a man, allowing for some ribald humor with the symbolism of his staff and Temperance's cup. Companies of footmen bearing cups and staffs march alongside.
Next comes Fortune, whose only captives are apparently the four figures tied to her wheel. Then more footmen, this time with coins as symbols of Prudence. Next comes Death, attended by Father Time (hermit) and the Devil, who stands beside a flaming hellmouth (tower). The hanged man appears as an acrobat on a gallows, who quips about the duke's father being condemned as a traitor by the pope.
The final triumph is the triumph of Eternity, accompanied by Justice, the Sun, Moon, Stars, and the four living creatures of the tetramorph, as seen on the World card. In the center of the car is God enthroned, accompanied by trumpeting angels.
Moakley ends this little imaginary scene with the remark that the end of Carnival and beginning of Lent will feature a bonfire, into which people will throw their playing cards, depicting many of the carnival figures, as a sign of repentence from their idle pleasures.
In later chapters, Moakley takes each of the cards in turn, documenting the connections she makes as well as evidence allows. But before we even get into the particulars, this imaginative exercise raises some interesting points.
What, exactly, is being suggested? Does the parade scene serve just to show that the figures on the tarot cards were living symbols of the time, that might be encountered in other facets of the popular culture? Or is she suggesting a much more specific connection, that the tarot cards are a point-by-point depiction of a Carnival procession? For someone trying to understand what might be behind the symbolism of the tarot, this is a critical question, and Moakley fails to address it with sufficient directness--this is perhaps the reason there are so many different opinions about the "correctness" of Moakley's theory among tarot enthusiasts even today.
A similar ambiguity persists throughout the book about the "local humor" aspect of the tarot, as we see in the jokes relating the Papess and Traitor to particular persons in the Visconti and Sforza families. It's not clear whether we are to presume that these figures exist in the tarot solely for the sake of reference to the ruling family of Milan. If so, then Moakley would (I think) be required to defend or at least carefully consider the position that the tarot was a Milanese invention, which she does not do. Is she explaining the origin of tarot decks generally, or just the origin of the Visconti-Sforza cards?
Although these nagging problems cause me some discomfort as a reader, one must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The salient point made in the prelude is that tarot players would be familiar with the general pattern of allegorical triumphs from the popular culture of the time. The idea of Pope and Emperor being conquered by Love or Death, or of the Sun, Moon, and Angels attending the Eternal God in a final triumph over all the other powers of creation were probably as familiar to the 15th century public as the basic structure of the TV sit-com is to 20th-century Americans. That the tarot sequence and the parade triumphs share some common imagery and structure would be almost impossible to deny.
Part 2: Triumphs and the Game of Triumphs