What happened to the Visconti Devil cards since they are missing from every 15th century Tarocchi deck?
As other cards are missing from these decks I never gave it much thought until Ria Dimitra, the author of the 2006 supernatural romance novel Visconti Devils, invited me to read her book. Her novel is an enjoyable, easy read about a modern Tarot artist who is intrigued by the mystery—why did none of the original, fifteenth century Renaissance Devil cards survive? There are no Tarot readings in her book, but the early history of the cards is well portrayed with no glaring errors, which is a remarkable feat in its own right.
Synchronistically, I had no sooner finished the book than I was perusing Andrea Vitali’s scholarly articles at LeTarot.it and read new evidence for the use, five centuries ago, of Tarot in witchcraft. I invite you to read what I wrote here about the 16th century Venetian witchcraft trials using the Devil card. Vitali’s article adds many interesting details (see first link at the end of this article).
It seems that when a lady wanted to satisfy a sinful lust or coerce an unresponsive gentleman, she knew it was inappropriate to appeal to Heaven and so she would make her appeal to the Devil, sometimes in the church itself. In a reversal of the regular prayers, the woman would place the Devil from the Tarot pack on a shelf “ass up,” with a lighted oil lamp having a wick from the bell cord of a church held upside down. Hands were to be clasp together behind the back making the “fig” gesture. With hair down, she would recite the “Our Father” for three consecutive nights. Sometimes blood and bones would be included and both hanged and ‘quartered’ men were called on.
When caught, the punishments were relatively mild considering that these women could have been killed for their actions. Instead, their superstitious rites were seen more as a feminine weakness brought about through the sin of lust. One woman, Catena, was, among other indignities, publicly pilloried with a miter on her head (see the miter used as an indication of heresy in the picture on right). The miter was inscribed with a sign saying she was condemned as a witch (striga) for the magical use of herbs (herbera). This ironic use of the miter, usually worn by both bishops and pope, is reminiscent of the late 15th century Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis (“Steele Manuscript”) in which La Papessa in the Tarot is described as “O miseri quod negat Christiana fides”: “O miserable ones, what [with respect to which] the Christian faith denies” (or, as several online translators offer, “O wretched that denies the Christian faith”).”
But, as to our opening question, there is no way we can know for sure what happened to the earliest Devil cards (if they even existed). However, it is interesting to speculate based on likely scenarios.
According to Vitali’s research it seems that Emilia “took a tarot card, and it was the devil, that she stole for the purpose.” It appears it may have been a requirement of this magic rite that the Devil card had to be stolen. Could this be why the Devil card and, perhaps a few of the other cards, are missing from all the earliest Tarot decks?
The use of images for invocation was common at this time, based on the belief that the image stood as a surrogate for the being depicted—that there was a direct physical connection between the image and its referent. Furthermore, early woodcut Tarot cards were produced in the same print shops as saints cards and may even, on occasion, have been substituted for each other.
Girolamo Menghi in Flagellum daemonum (1577) recommended the physical and verbal abuse of images of the devil as an operative way of impacting evil spirits. Subsequent guides to exorcism followed Menghi’s lead, calling for the exorcist to draw or paint the devil’s portrait, along with his name, and then burn the paper. Such “exorcism by fire” evolved into the bonfires of vanities, especially at what was deemed the devil’s feast of Carnival. Fredrika H. Jacobs in Votive Panels and Popular Piety in Early Modern Italy further explains, “It was believed that the pain inflicted on the image was transferred to and experienced by the devil.”
Similarly, as we’ve seen from the court records in Venice, the devil could be invoked to grant wishes that were unworthy to be asked of the holy family or the saints. Invocations of entities through images by persons or in situations other than those ordained by the Church was regarded as superstition, witchcraft or heresy.
In the Visconti-Sforza (Pierpont-Morgan/Brera) deck only four cards are missing: The Devil, The Tower, Three of Swords and Knight of Coins. It’s easy to imagine a ritual invoking the Devil to punish the Knight of Coins with the desctructive Tower because of a betrayal or heartbreak depicted by the Three of Swords (see the Sola Busca deck on right).
What do you think?
For further details read:
“Tarot and Inquisitors: In the Serenissima and Trentino, between ‘witches’ and ‘Diabolical Priests'” by Andrea Vitali, translated from the Italian by Michael S. Howard.
“The Conjuration of the Tarrocco: A magic ritual in sixteenth-century Venice” by Andrea Vitali, translated from the Italian by Michael S. Howard.
“Tarot and Playing Cards in Witchcraft” by Mary K. Greer.
Votive Panels and Popular Piety in Early Modern Italy by Fredrika H. Jacobs.
Also read the following discussion of early evidence of divination with Tarot including ruminations on the subject by the translator Michael Howard:
“Il Torracchione Desolato: A card-reading sorceress in a poem of the XVIIth century” by Andrea Vitali, translated from the Italian by Michael S. Howard.
I highly recommend the numerous translations and articles by Michael S. Howard on historical Tarot. A directory to where they can be found is at: http://michaelshoward.blogspot.com. I am so grateful to him for all he has done to make Italian, French and out-of-print sources available to us all.
Mary K. Greer has made tarot her life work. Check here for reports of goings-on in the world of tarot and cartomancy, articles on the history and practice of tarot, and materials on other cartomancy decks. Sorry, I no longer write reviews. Contact me
Mary K. Greer's Tarot Blog 
24 comments
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January 27, 2018 at 2:31 pm
Donnalee
Interesting speculation and links, Mary–thanks!
January 27, 2018 at 2:42 pm
Ivy Lieberman
I believe you are right. Two ideas come to mind. First, not many, practically no one but the monks, could read or write their intent when creating a ‘spell’, and secondly, the cards tell a story, one, two, three or more cards as a sentence may create a scenario. Brilliant!!
January 27, 2018 at 3:06 pm
mkg
Ivy,
The 15th century decks were made for members of the Italian courts who were highly literate. The origin of printing with the Gutenberg press c1450 made reading much more common – the number of books printed in the first 50 years is incredible and Italy became a major print center. Dante’s Comedia was so well-known that his vernacular was rapidly becoming the common dialect of the Italian states. However, among the common people and possibly even the women in Venice mentioned above, literacy may not have been as great. It is easy for us to create stories about what may have happened. In fact, Italo Calvino in Castle of Crossed Destinies played with the idea of telling one’s personal tale using only Tarot and not words. Remember, though, history is often much stranger and more interesting than all our imaginings.
Mary
January 27, 2018 at 4:53 pm
Pitch313
A daring practice for me was to go to Mission Dolores in San Francisco and light a candle to the Goddess. Going three nights to church to invoke the Devil using a stolen Tarot card or cards is beyond me, magically speaking.
But magic using Devil cards as you describe makes sense. Folks are so clever at it that they figure out rituals I couldn’t imagine…
January 27, 2018 at 7:29 pm
mkg
Pitch313,
Many years ago a group of us were doing a rain ritual at Dolores Park that was interrupted by the police who drove right across the grass to confront us. When they learned we were invoking rain during the midst of a major drought they let us be – after we had extinguished our candles (that were in glass jars!). It unexpectedly rained the next day (the first rain in six months or more) so we must have done something right.
Mary
January 27, 2018 at 10:48 pm
Peter Mark Adams
The only card in the Soka-Busca deck to show the kind of wearing you would associate with it being constantly held is Ipeo which depicts a monk with the devil’s wings worshipping a figure on a crude wooden xoanon.
January 28, 2018 at 7:55 am
sweetwood19
The caption accompanying the Papessa in the “Sermones de ludo cum aliis” actually reads: You wretched men… What the Christian faith disallows!” So, not a description of the Papessa herself, but an observation about her (and women clerics in general?) in the form of a lamentation, whether wry or no.
January 28, 2018 at 9:26 am
What happened to the Visconti Devil cards? — Mary K. Greer’s Tarot Blog – AmoVigiliae
[…] via What happened to the Visconti Devil cards? — Mary K. Greer’s Tarot Blog […]
January 28, 2018 at 12:34 pm
mkg
sweetwood19,
Over the years several Latin scholars have examined the phrase and none have seen it the way you describe. However, none can be absolutely certain how that phrase was to be read. Your translation does not fit with the rest of the commentary by the monk who wrote the Steele manuscript. Have you examined the entire thing and can you explain how your interpretation fits with the whole? I’m open to documentation that would support your translation.
Mary
January 28, 2018 at 1:33 pm
Sherryl E. Smith
Years ago I wrote a short story about a woman in the Sforza family using the four missing cards to perform a spell. Happy to read someone else speculating on the same thing. After seeing the Visconti Sforza cards in the Morgan Library, and noticing how the Lovers card was in the worst shape of any, I wondered if it had been repeatedly used for love magic.
January 28, 2018 at 5:33 pm
mkg
Sherryl,
I’d love to read your short story! I saw the cards at the Pierpont Morgan but don’t remember noticing the condition of the Lovers. It’s very interesting to contemplate their use in love magic. It appeals to me. I remember that the curator at the Morgan remarked that the cards had been Morgan’s prize possession and resided always on his desk in a special box. The fact that they were pinned to a wall at some point suggests that they may have been used for meditation, prayer or something along that line.
Your website is one of the very best on Tarot history and the development of today’s decks and reading styles. I also like your material on reading the more traditional Tarot decks. Found at: https://tarot-heritage.com .
Mary
January 28, 2018 at 9:48 pm
Sherryl E. Smith
Mary, thanks so much for your kind words about my website. I find it intriguing that someone pinned all 78 cards to a wall. Did they meditate on the pips, or was it just sparkly wall paper?
January 29, 2018 at 8:49 am
sweetwood19
Mary, Although there is a wee bit of wiggle room due to the lack of punctuation in the phrase as reported (was there any in the “Sermones”?) as to the translation, absolutely. Latin is not a symbolic system, a puzzle that needs to be worked out before it can be properly understood. It is an ordinary human language that was used for ordinary communication. Even children spoke Latin! Documentary evidence is not necessary here. All you need to know is how the Latin language works. Latin is a highly inflected language. Latin word order is relatively fluid because nouns, pronouns and adjectives have different forms, with mostly distinct endings, that identify their function in a given sentence. In addition, Latin works by “agreement,” i.e. singular forms can only go with singular forms, plural with plural, nominative with nominative, etc. “Christiana fides” is a noun+adjective phrase that is feminine singular and in the nominative case, and therefore must be the subject of the verb “negat,” a third-person singular form. If it were the Christian faith that was being denied, it would appear in the sentence as “Christianam fidem,” in the accusative or the case of the direct object. The only other possibly nominative word, which might vie for place as the subject, is “quod” which is singular and neuter in gender. Neuter nouns and pronouns in Latin have the peculiarity of having the same form in both the nominative and accusative cases. “Christiana fides,” however, can ONLY be nominative and so must be the subject, thus making quod the object. (Your “she whom” would have to be “quam,” not “quod.”) Miseri is a plural form (and masculine in gender, so it cannot refer to a “she”), and while it might otherwise function as a subject, being plural, it does not agree with the singular verb “negat.” So we look for another option. It happens that “miseri” is also the form for the vocative or case of “direct address.” The vocative particle “o” is also a clue. “O miseri” means “O wretched men!” As to the rest of the sentence, depending on the missing punctuation, you have either: “What the Christian faith disallows!” or “What does the Christian faith disallow?” To me, after “O miseri,” an exclamation in itself, it seemed more likely an exclamation rather than a question. Dd
January 29, 2018 at 9:02 am
sweetwood19
OK. I have looked over the Latin text of the “Sermones…” It is clear that the author’s attitude is one of disapproval and that the sentiment is one of admonishment and not regret. But the general construal of the sentence is unmistakable. Dd
January 29, 2018 at 2:23 pm
mkg
sweetwood19,
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation. If I had had you as my Latin teacher I might have gone beyond a single year of study.
What form would have been used if “O miseri” was referring to both male and female persons – people in general rather than just men?
I’m going to go with “what the Christian faith denies/disallows” as that seems most likely given the rest of the sermon but I’ll also offer the translation that I got using 5 different online translators (not that they are necessarily right): “that denies the Christian faith.”
January 31, 2018 at 1:57 pm
Michael S Howard
Other possibilities for why the Devil card is missing:
(1) Given the association of the card with devilish rites, the owners of the decks removed it from the deck and either hid or destroyed them, both to prevent such use and to avoid the implication that they themselves might be using the card for such rituals. Or they simply found the Devil card unseemly. This could have been done at any time, up to at least 1750. It was a very scary time in Northern Italy. We don’t know how scary in Lombardy, where the Visconti cards likely were, because the Inquisition records were destroyed in 1788 (for the protection of the families involved, we are told; see http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=917&p=13698), all except in Modena and Reggio-Emilia (where there wasn’t much persecution, thanks to the Estense). We know about some of the persecution, including in 16th century Cremona where the cards were made, from the memoirs of Inquisitors who boasted about their successes. (See online Lea, History of the Medieval Inquisition, vol. 3, among others.) We are lucky that Venice, having its own Inquisition (independent of the papacy and the Dominican Order), did not destroy everything, too.
The Inquisitors seem not to have been as relentless in Florence and Ferrara as in Lombardy and Bologna. There are little numbers on the “Charles VI” cards, made for the Medici (the Medici “palle”, balls, are on the Chariot); they only go up to 20 (not counting the unnumbered Fool). The little hand-written numbers on surviving cards indicate that at one time there was a Devil card but no Popess. Whether it was removed or never made is unknown.
(2) No Devil cards may have ever been made for the Visconti and Sforza hand-painted commissions, for the above reasons.
(3) The Devil card wasn’t yet part of the deck in Lombardy, i.e. before around 1465. Some of the hand-painted decks in the Sforza style were painted later, but these decks may have been meant to follow the style of the Visconti-Sforza deck done before that date. While it is mentioned in the “Steele Sermon”, it may have been delivered after then, and anyway it is from the Ferrara area, not Lombardy. In some areas the Popess may not have been part of the deck either. There is also the Tower, which is absent in Lombardy but present in the “Charles VI’ cards of Florence. The ranking of the subjects varied considerably from place to place in those days, but we don’t know about variability in which subjects were used.
(4) It may be pure coincidence that the Tower and Devil cards are missing from the Lombard luxury decks. Robert O’Neill, a scientist, calculated the odds, for the Lombard decks, and they were not prohibitive. It is in his book “Tarot Symbolism” somewhere (unfortunately there is no index).
It seems to me least likely that the card was stolen from the Lombard hand-painted decks, because these cards were considered worth preserving, were owned by powerful families, and the risk of discovery and the penalties for theft would have made it preferable just to steal a card from a cheap deck. At the time of the trial in question, cheaper decks were readily available, as surviving sheets of uncut cards with numbers on them reflecting the Ferrarese order testify.
Another consideration is that “stolen” might have been a euphemism for “bought” or “was given”. It may seem worse to say that it was stolen than bought or given, but the person giving testimony is already damned and may not have wanted to implicate others as accomplices. But again, if a card is just going to be burned, it makes more sense, I think, to buy, steal, or be given a card from a cheap deck.
Thanks for letting people know about my online stuff, Mary. I will let Andrea know about your citing him, too. We are currently working on improving both the Italian and English versions of his 22 iconological essays. Many years have passed since he wrote them, and the translations he had done are fairly crude. During Andrea’s Christmas break we managed to revise, more or less, the Popess through Chariot. More to follow, but probably at a slower pace.
And thanks for that excellent discussion of Latin grammar, Sweetwood. I have two questions (or areas for questions) to ask someone who understands Latin.
One is about the “&” in the Sermones manuscript (you can see this part online): if the meaning is “O Wretches, what the Christian faith disallows!”, why is there an “etc.” at the end? The sentence looks complete enough. Is it meant to mean “I could say more, if I wasn’t just making a brief list”? Another alternative: the sentence is “O wretches, because the Christian faith disallows…” (“Quod” can mean “because”, according to Wiktionary). Then the sentence is incomplete, but will have a reasonably obvious completion (to them, not necessarily to us)..
Then there is the question of the meaning of the sentence, in either language. Most probably, it seems to me, he is indignant at the very idea of a card with such a title; it only confirms his thesis that the deck is blasphemous. He is indignant that anyone could say even in jest that a woman could sit in the chair of St. Peter. However if the sentence is read “O wretches, because the Christian faith disallows..” might it be possible to finish it with e.g. “…such a deck of cards as this!”. In that case might it be possible for the Popess to be the exemplar of the Christian faith, which many researchers think the card in fact represented?. So: “O wretches (you card-players), because the Christian faith (i.e. the Popess) disallows… (such a deck as this), or some such thing.
February 2, 2018 at 11:45 am
mkg
Michael,
I agree – the simplest explanation is that the Devil (and Tower?) cards were removed because of fear or distaste – either of the image itself or its implications to others. I really appreciate the historical background you provide. Getting an overview of the social and cultural effects of changing events in Northern Italy is not easy for those who haven’t deeply studied the places and periods involved.
I like your questions regarding the Latin and hope sweetwood will respond. It also seems to me that the monk who wrote the Steele Manuscript thought the cards (and especially the Papess?) to be blasphemous. However, the Vatican itself has plenty of sculptures and a few paintings depicting Mother Church/Faith in the garb of a Popess.
Thanks for joining the conversation with such helpful information and questions.
Mary
March 7, 2018 at 6:45 am
Nelly van der Werff
Thanks for another interesting article. I think it’s possible that the tower and devil never existed. When Filippo Maria Visconti thought of the first deck with 16 extra cards (http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona-tractatus-de-deificatione-16-heroum), They might not have been an extra suit, but part of the 4 suits. 4 extra cards for each suit. The Visconti extra cards without devil and tower would mean 20 cards total and that would make 5 extra cards for each suit. Therefore, I think it’s plausible that those 2 cards never existed. What we seem to be doing a lot is working backwards from what we consider a standard deck and then try to make past decks fit that norm. But at that time decks were still in a state of development, particularly hand painted decks.
March 7, 2018 at 6:38 pm
mkg
Nelly,
You are so right about the decks being in a fluctuating state of development. I hadn’t heard the theory before that each suit would have four trumps associated with it. Is there any indication of which cards went with which suit? This is opposed to the idea of a separate suit of trump cards. However the deck, even in its earliest mentions, is referred to as Il Trionfos to distinguish it from common playing cards. Whatever occurred, by the close of the 15th century there were an acknowledged 21 Trionfos, plus the Fool/Matto (always mentioned separately), in addition to the four suits.
March 9, 2018 at 4:28 am
Nelly van der Werff
Hi Mary, The idea of 4 suits with 4 Greek Gods added per suit made sense to me from the link above. But it’s absolutely possible that I misunderstood this. I think this Michelino deck is later referred to as a deck of cards with trionfi. I agree that at the close of the 15th century 21 trionfi and a fool were very much the standard. But the Visconti cards are from earlier. That a standard was quickly decided on makes sense to me, because when playing cards, you don’t want to have play with different decks each time, meaning that you have to ‘translate’ the suits and trumps each time to what you are used to (Kind of the problem I’m having with RWS Tarot en TdM) and it’s also cheaper to print the same deck over and over. The Visconti Sforza deck and the Cary Yale were hand painted sets. That’s another reason I think the Devil and Tower were never part of early Visconti Sforza decks,because I find it hard to believe that one would use a hand painted, expensive card, not easily replaceable for witchcraft.
March 12, 2018 at 3:14 pm
mkg
Nelly,
The Michelino card are earlier than the Visconti ones, however only the book survives, not the cards themselves, so how they look is lost. I believe you are right that they were known as trionfi. I have never heard a theory, though, that the Visconti and Sforza decks also only consisted of 4 suits, each with four trump cards. Whatever the origin, the deck soon took on the form we recognize today.
Mary
February 23, 2019 at 4:54 am
Michael S. Howard
It’s been a while since I checked these comments. About the Cary-Yale cards attaching to suits, that’s something I’ve advocated for a while. But I write so much it’s hard to find, it was first in 2010, but a better version is in 2016, in a note by Fanco Pratesi where he quotes me and dialogues with my position. I’ve been dialoguing with him off and on ever since, and even more frequently in my head. For the Pratesi note translated into English, see my blog at
https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/jan-17-2016-ruminations-on-visconti-di.html
Now I have a more comprehensive view, where not only the Cary-Yale but Florence, Bologna and even Ferrara are included. My hypothesis is that the Cary-Yale is the last of a transitional game ordered around the four cardinal virtues, one for each suit, devised to satisfy Marziano’s desire to have a game that will “arouse to virtue,” as he hopes, erroneously in my view, will be true of his game of the gods. I just recently put this theory online, at http://moakleyupdated.blogspot.com/2017/03/appendix-ii-suits-virtues-and-visconti.html. In my view, and Pratesi’s, in Marziano’s game the 16 gods are both a suit of triumphs (he doesn’t use the word) and 4 extra cards per suit. In my hypothesis the Cary-Yale is the same, and the same in the other centers. As for the Visconti-Sforza deck, I can’t say. It would be possible to have the 4×5=20 structure even with 22 cards, if the Magician and the Fool were outside the grid. It could also have been just 14 cards, i.e. 4×3 + 2, using just the “first artist” cards. See my blog.
February 24, 2019 at 3:42 pm
mkg
Michael,
Wow, thank you for the update. This is great info. I’m leaving for the Northwest Tarot Symposium so don’t have time to check all your details right now, but I’ll get back to this. I do want to note that all early references to the Triumphs (as far as I know) are to 21 Trumps plus the Fool, which suggests a 3×7 grid +1.
February 25, 2022 at 10:00 pm
Mel Hofmann - Energy Healer and Artist
Thanks for this very informative post on your website. and we hope you will keep it up.