Tarocchi di Mantegna, c.1465 - The World of Playing Cards

Tarocchi di Mantegna

The so-called Tarocchi di Mantegna are a set of 50 copper-engraved images (c.1465) which were probably a social game or instructional series for educated people. In fact they have nothing to do with Mantegna. The cards are numbered consecutively from 1 to 50, divided into the following groups: Society; Apollo and the Nine Muses; the Arts and the Sciences; the Seven Virtues and Sun, Time and the World; the Planets and the Spheres. Of the known examples none were made into a pack of playing cards, but were printed onto thin paper as black and white outlines.

In some respects the Mantegna Tarocchi remind us of the Hofämterspiel. The outward design and hierarchical structure, beginning with the fool and leading up via craftsmen to the aristocracy, the king and the pope, is similar. Each figure has a name and a number. A distinction is that the Tarocchi reflects a world order prompted by humanism, with the aristocracy and the church ranking lower than the arts, the sciences, the virtues, the planets and the spheres. The Hofämterspiel reflects feudal society.