Please note that the previous post has been amended to explain more fully how the first trick is done. How to make it work had eluded us for a few days. It is a matter of interpreting the author's words in a particular way that is not obvious on first glance. Franco found two 17th century poems on t...

This essay concerns a man famous for his card tricks. In a work done with the sponsorship of no less than the last lineal descendant of the main branch of the Medici rulers of Florence, Electress Palatine Maria Luisa dei Medici (1691-1716). He is better known for his tricks than for his writing, and...

I spoke too soon, about being done with new information about playing card production in Florence, 1750-1845. Franco has a new essay, as of Jan. 20, 2024, on precisely that subject, for the period 1743-1768, this time not about the bureaucracy as much as about where games with playing cards were all...

Well, I have nothing to add, Phaeded. I want to continue with Ziegler. My general purpose is to see whether he has anything to say that might shed light on the sources of the Robertet Triumphs. After the six comes the Wheel of Fortune. While not a Petrarchan triumph, it is a tarot subject, hence of ...

Thanks for your engagement, Nathaniel and Phaeded. Phaeded wrote, The palm frond almost always means martyrdom and I think you are essentially on the right track here - she is offering the reward, the crown of salvation, to her "children", the Faithful. The prostrate figure - labeled 'Le S...

Yes, I see your point (I hope). With "Europe" written on the globe, the arrow becomes God's help in assisting (Roman Catholic) Christianity's conquest, making Christians agents of his wrath; the crown is then that of Christianity's dominion over the world, meaning the world in time. With t...

Below is my translation, assisted by Google Translate and Franco, of the last - at least for now - of a series of reports on playing card regulations and state bureaucracy in the Grand Duchy in the period after 1750. The previous one reported various control measures to "reduce fraud, searches,...

I want to look at what Ziegler says about the image of Time. He describes the image as "An old man with a walking stick and an hourglass, an astrolabe on his belt, stands on the personification of fame lying on the ground." As far as sources, he says: The personification of time as an old ...

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS TWO POSTS, TRANSLATION OF https://naibi.net/A/FI1814.pdf. Now p. 5; endnotes on his p. 6 appear as footnotes on bottom of appropriate page, here and in the other two posts) 5 1. One representing a medallion with a half-bust and inscription at the bottom Pelican----No. 1 2. As...

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST, TRANSLATION OF https://naibi.net/A/FI1814.pdf, now with pp. 3-4. 3 Once said Figures have been printed, he [each manufacturer] can take them to his own factory to be colored according to the model (Note 10) that will be given to him by the Office, but before this, the n...