Chaucer, Estates Satire, and 'Tarocchi': The Example of the Ellesmered Squire

Description: A subgenre of estates portraits, not touched on by Mann, includes "tarocchi," the richly illuminated playing cards of fourteenth- and fifteenth- century Italy that developed into tarot cards and modern playing cards. The four suits represent the four estates: aristocracy, clergy, yeomanry, and merchants. Each suit represents ranks within the estate, and the twenty-two honors, or "atouts," are based on physical and psychological categories such as the Ages of Man and the four humors.; Chaucer's Knight, Squire, and Yeoman bear close correspondences to the iconography of the suits; the Ellesmere Squire offers a particularly close analogue to the aristocratic youth in the fifteenth-century Visconti "tarocchi" deck.

Chaucer Subjects: General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.; Squire and His Tale.