I stumbled about the following

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Lollio_a ... ra_1550_ca ....

???? likely from Marco ?

with a certain connection to Girolamo Zorli's
http://www.tretre.it/uploads/media/LOLL ... FE1554.pdf

There one can read in the translation ...

I think it was a good idea to give to the game
such a name, which is currently obscure,
because it has been corrupted by the length of time.
The antique name was “Teroco”,
from “teriocor”, that in the Latin language
simply means “I play three times”.
Because we see that the player is ready
to make three kind of games at the same time,
as he shows in his doctrine.
The first one is the invite, when cards are dealt;
whoever has the best Ronfa^, together with trumps,
is the winner of the invite that was made.
Those who lose the first one, hope that in the second one
their losses will be repaid,
but often it happens that they lose more.
This [second game] is the coupling of honours,
that deserve a certain win, according
to the pacts that had been previously agreed upon.
According to the usage, the third one follows
the value of the Tarots and of the court cards:
whoever has more points makes a corresponding win.

I don't know, who is working about it, but this description sounds, as if there is a relationship of this game to Gleek. GLEEK ... which is seen as a forerunner to Poker and described in some English sources begin of 17th century, if I remember correctly. The game appeared as "glic" at the court of Louis d'Orleans and Valentina Visconti.
At least the 17th century versions also had this "three-fold-game" character.

************

I detected later, that it had been a topic here ...

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=465

Gleek ....

"Sources: Cotgrave, Wit's Interpreter, London, 1662. Plagiarized with some changes in Cotton, The Compleat Gamester, 1674. Also described in Francis Willughby's Volume of Plaies, c1665. This is the Cotgrave version, with help from Willughby. 1st attest: Elyot's Knowledge, 1533 (OED)."
stated by Justin du Couer, but "Glic" is earlier

http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/game-recon-gleek.html

David Parlett
http://www.davidparlett.co.uk/histocs/gleek.html

Huck, it's not necessary to see that version of Tarocco to be related to Gleek because it was quite common in that period for games of all types to compounded with additional game features. In England in the 1500s and 1600s we can be fairly sure that Trump scored for honours and Ruff scored for the ruff/ronfa. These games were otherwise identical and were likely the local forms of the Italian games Trionfo and Ronfa.

It would appear then that Tarocco was big enough to accomodate both of these scoring features without having split them across separate games. The Gleek portrayed by Cotton was a form of Trump/Ruff with features for the ruff and for gleeks which were accompanied by a substantial round of Poker-like betting making it a quite distinctive game.

If Gleek was related to any Italian game it is more likely to have been one whose name had a similar meaning, i.e. Cricca, "clique, cabal, cards of the same rank". I'd say that the Italian cricca, French clique, German gleich, Dutch gelijk and English alike all ultimately come from the same root meaning things that are the same, equal, and that glic/gleek was a member of that family. It may be that cricca was meant to be translated into French as clique but came out as glic in some local dialect. There's something odd about cricca, cricche as though it's r was an l originally.

hi Al,

Al Craig wrote:Huck, it's not necessary to see that version of Tarocco to be related to Gleek because it was quite common in that period for games of all types to compounded with additional game features. In England in the 1500s and 1600s we can be fairly sure that Trump scored for honours and Ruff scored for the ruff/ronfa. These games were otherwise identical and were likely the local forms of the Italian games Trionfo and Ronfa.

It would appear then that Tarocco was big enough to accomodate both of these scoring features without having split them across separate games. The Gleek portrayed by Cotton was a form of Trump/Ruff with features for the ruff and for gleeks which were accompanied by a substantial round of Poker-like betting making it a quite distinctive game.

If Gleek was related to any Italian game it is more likely to have been one whose name had a similar meaning, i.e. Cricca, "clique, cabal, cards of the same rank". I'd say that the Italian cricca, French clique, German gleich, Dutch gelijk and English alike all ultimately come from the same root meaning things that are the same, equal, and that glic/gleek was a member of that family. It may be that cricca was meant to be translated into French as clique but came out as glic in some local dialect. There's something odd about cricca, cricche as though it's r was an l originally.

The expression "glic" was used in the account books of Louis d'Orleans, far before other card game names are known.
Trionfi cards, together with 3 other names or "ways to play card" are allowed in Florence in 1450 ("dritta", "vinciperdi", "trionfo" and "trenta"). In 1463 the allowance is repeated, then Cricce and Ronfa are added to the allowance (now totally 6 names). This maybe part of a game development in Florence between 1450 and 1463.
http://trionfi.com/0/p/05/
http://trionfi.com/0/e/05/

In later prohibitions around 1488-1491 and 3 Venetian cities "Trionfi" is called an allowed game, but in one city (Bergamo) Cricce and Ronfa are prohibited in the same proclamation. The German researcher Schreiber notes the game "quentzlis" or "quentzen" in Germany, which he brings together with the understandable expression "sequence". Also he notes, that a game Rauschen or Rußen was used in context of Cricce, so possibly this a German mutation of the word Ronfa. Also he notes, that Cardanus in 16th Century uses the expressions Sequentiae and Sequentium Tarochi.
Bergamo .... http://trionfi.com/0/e/41/
Ronfa ... http://trionfi.com/0/p/19

Dummett with "the earliest reference to Ronfle in Godefroy's dictionary is from 1414" relates this French Ronfle to Ronfa. In a passage, that is given by Schreiber about a playing card dispute with juristic consequences, it seems apparent, that "two kings" were very good cards in a game Ruß, which the two disputing players desired and which gave reason for the dispute.

Generally a card deck is made from Sequenzen (suits, "gleich" in relation to the suits) with the natural condition, that also "Gleiche" (in rank) exist ("gleich" = English "equal", the German equivalent for "glic"), which are 4 Kings, 4 Queens, 4 Jacks etc.. Naturally both "structural basic rules" are used in games and especially in the game of Poker, in which Sequenzen of the same suit and "Gleiche of the same rank" determine the value of a hand.

"bocken, becken, boeckels" is noted by Schreiber, who knows an allowance in 1448 and later various prohibitions in 15th century, later in Germany known as "pochen" or "Pochspiel" or "Bockspiel". In a scene with Emperor Maximilian and his jester and some other players in 1508 it appears, that one player had three Aces and the jester had three Kings and would have lost, but the Jester took the hand of Maximilian and declared, that this would be the fourth King ... so at least a rudimentary form of Poker seems to have been played.

Parlett, who reports about 17th century sources for Gleek in England assumes 2-persons-Piquet with a 32-cards-reduced deck as the forerunner. Generally Piquet is assumed to have been a dominant game ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piquet

... starting in early 16th century according this description.

Well, the interesting observation is, that the passage ...

I think it was a good idea to give to the game
such a name, which is currently obscure,
because it has been corrupted by the length of time.
The antique name was “Teroco”,
from “teriocor”, that in the Latin language
simply means “I play three times”.
Because we see that the player is ready
to make three kind of games at the same time,
as he shows in his doctrine.

... includes a sort of etymology (one of very much, as we know) for the name Taraux, and that he speaks of "3 connected games", something, which he might have said for 17th century Gleek and likely of 16th century Piquet also.
Naturally a full 78-cards-Tarocchi-deck would give another game as a game with a reduced 32-cards-Piquet-deck.

Well, as I'm more interested to understand the Trionfi movement of 15th century, I would guess, the most interesting part is the 1463 allowance and addition of Ronfa and Cricce.

Thanks Huck, those are good references. Having re-read the Lollio-Imperiale description of Tarocco I would agree with you that it is related to Gleek. I had misunderstood the reference to "the coupling of honours" and would now see it as a reference to gleek-like card combinations.

That there should be a relationship between the two games is not really surprising. The two game families of Trionfo and Tarocco, though played with different cards and scored differently, were sufficiently alike to be able share the same extra game features. So if Trump could have a variation like Gleek then so could Tarocco.

Parlett does not say that Gleek was derived from Piquet, only that you can think of it as being like a 3-player version of it. Gleek, with it's twelve tricks and turn-up card, is quite clearly a form of Trump but of the 3-player antagonist variety rather than the 4-player partnership one. The earliest references to glic are most likely for a simpler game of card combinations without the tricks.

Parlett also, in his article on Piquet, adjusts the earliest date for ronfle from 1414 to 1454 though without saying why. I'd prefer to see ronfa, "snoring", as a comical Italian corruption of trionfo particularly as the games with those names seem to have been closely related.

Interestingly, Rabelais, in his list of games in Gargantua, lists the games "a la ronfle, au glic, aux honneurs" together and they could be seen to be equivalent to Ruff, Gleek and Trump respecively and similarly to Ronfa, Cricca and Trionfo.

Well, the whole case has another dimension ...

As far I understood it with my only bad Italian, I'm nozt the first, who immediately expected, that "Vincenzo Imperiale"
might be pseudonym for Lollio himself.

Lollio attacks the game (as Lollio and as a suffering player, who makes rather bad experiences) ... his better self "Vincenzo Imperiale" seems to defend it.
As far I understood it, a real Vincenzo Imperiale couldn't been proven, but it's proven, that a game "Imperiale" was played in Milan 1493. And continued to be played there for centuries.
Actually I would assume, that "Imperiale" might a prolongation of the earlier "Imperatori game".

Apart from my delight in the English bastardization "gleek," I find it rather sad that we don't often get together and play card games any more.

I was up at someone's cottage recently, and there were three children in the family and all they did was watch DVDs or television. We used to play card games when camping and boating, that's all there was to do other than swimming.

There is something about playing a game with trumps, whatever the level or configuration, that sharpens the mind and makes the hours go by. Years ago at lunch time in a store I worked in, we used to play Euchre. I am terrible at trump games because I never remember the cards that have been played, but my parents were very sharp at Bridge and had a regular group.

We've lost something. Okay, we gained the Internet but....it's delightful to read about these games. There's something very soothing about the calculations, strategy, and memory in such games. I love Poker, but am not terribly good at that either since I don't remember the cards played, you really need to note that internally to play such things well.

True to form, I find myself not really caring when and who played it.

The enticing idea for me is what happens to the human brain when people get together to play Gleek.