Question by Terry: What two Roman Gods show up with there own cards in some Tarot Decks?
Best answer:
Answer by philebus
There are actually three, which appear in two different patterns.
As the games of tarot spread beyond Italy, some players became a little concerned regarding the Church’s attitude towards two of the trump cards: The Female Pope & The Pope. Historically, the Church didn’t actually object to these cards – back then, they were recognized as a card game and not as anything occult (for their first 350 years tarot cards were only used for card games, it is not until the end of the 18th century that we see the first occult associations and use in divination, and for 100 years even that was limited only to France).
The Female Pope in particular is worth noting because people these days will think that it must have been heretical but in Italy it was an established figure in religious art of the time, being used to represent any number of things, such as the Virtue of Faith or the New Covenant. However, outside of Italy, this use was little known and so caution was sometimes preferred. And so in one pack, the two cards were replaced by a figure called The Spanish Captain and the Roman god Bacchus. In another, they were replaced by Jupiter and Juno. These last two are still in use today in a pack known as the Swiss 1JJ, which in English speaking countries is sold for divination but in its native Switzerland is still used to play the games of Troccas and Troggu.
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