Tarot de Besançon / Swiss 1JJ — The Juno & Jupiter Variant

At a glance

A confessional adaptation of the Tarot de Marseille for Protestant Europe: it keeps the whole Marseille structure but replaces the two clerical Catholic trumps — the Pope (V) and Popess (II) — with the classical gods Jupiter and Juno. The 20th-century Swiss 1JJ deck (the "JJ" = Jupiter and Juno) is its best-known descendant and was, for many English-speaking readers, the first tarot they ever handled.

Origin & dating

The pattern emerges in Strasbourg in the early 18th century and is produced across Alsace, Colmar, Konstanz, Ulm, Munich and Switzerland. Cardmakers later moved production to the eastern French town of Besançon, giving the type its name. The 1JJ is a later Swiss standardisation (notably the AGMüller/Schaffhouse decks of the 19th–20th centuries).

Provenance & evidence

Many surviving printed editions; the Jupiter/Juno substitution is the diagnostic feature. It is squarely a Marseille (C-order) descendant, not an independent branch.

Game or divination?

Game first, like the Marseille — but the 1JJ became widely sold in the 20th century as a divination deck (U.S. Games' 1JJ was a gateway product for Anglophone readers). So it straddles the game→oracle transition in its commercial life.

The fear question

The most literal "fear" deck in the library — but the fear was religious-political, not occult. Renaming to "Besançon" and swapping Pope/Popess for Jupiter/Juno was almost certainly done to avoid offending Protestant sensibilities in confessionally mixed markets (Catholic clerical figures were unwelcome). The deck was edited not because anyone feared sorcery, but because card-makers feared losing Protestant customers — commerce and the Reformation, not the Inquisition.

Counter-voices

Because Jupiter and Juno are pagan deities, esoteric readers sometimes treat the Besançon as evidence of a "restored classical/Hermetic" layer beneath the Christian Marseille. The documentary reading is more mundane: it's a marketing-and-religion edit for Protestant regions, not a recovered antique symbolism.

Open questions / corrections owed

Pin down the 1JJ's specific publisher/date in the grammar (AGMüller/Schaffhouse vs. generic "Swiss").
Keep it filed as a Marseille variant, with the Jupiter/Juno swap noted per card.