Cards History | Part 5

As for the queen of diamonds, European artists of the XIV and the XV centuries had not come to the unique conclusion about her image, but for France where the queen of diamonds was painted as the queen of Amazons from Greek mythology. In the XVI century they pictures Rachel as the queen of diamonds. This biblical character from the legend of Jacob was believed to be especially greedy and mean, that is why she perfectly fitted the image of the "queen of money" and the motto printed on this card by the French: "Vive the players!".

Early Italian artists called the queen of clubs by the name of Lucretia, the wife of Tarquinius Collatinius. Violated by Tarquinius Superbus this virtuous wife couldn`t stand her shame and committed suicide. For some period no mythical or historic character suited the role of the queen of diamonds. From time to time one could find the pictures of Hecube, the queen of Troy, and Florimela, the image of woman`s charm, created by Spenser. But they failed to become permanent queen. The allegoric Beauty under the name of "Disappointment", painted as a girl with a wedding ring in hand, had the same destiny. At last the French called the queen by the name of Argina (anagrammed Latin name "regina"). This was a success. Since then all queens and king`s lovers, characters of lampoons were called "Argina". Henri III, sexual fetishist who liked to wear woman`s clothes was nicknamed Argina in folk songs and court rhymes. He was very insulted to know this fact and even passed an edict that banned any hinds on monarchy either in oral or in written form, though nobody took it seriously.

In the course of times four knight have disappeared from Tarot cards. Now it is impossible to say something about their prototypes. But jacks as they were called in France or pages are the real persons as kings and queens. And though the name of the card means " servant" and "jester", thus people of lower estate, it is connected with the adventurers and noble pirates.