Title page from the first Gargantua is missing in all known copies - in the only known copy to be more accurate. Hence the datation is vague. From Rabelais biographie et from references in the book itself, the publishing was dated between 1534 and 1535. Then there were five versions, the latest being the 1542.
Pantagruel - which in the story chronology describes events posterior to Gargantua - was published in 1531-1532. The "Pantagrueline pronostication" from which you posted the picture above is again another text, published in 1533, and not the Pantagruel.
Guy Demerson postulate that one of the Gargantua goal (the book, not the character) was to recreate the folkloric character.

Regarding the pre-Rabelais characters :
In "Les Grandes Chroniques..." Grand-Gosier and Galemelle are created from whale bones by Merlin to help Artus. Rabelais doesn't keep this arturian context, and creates a whole new genealogy to Pantagruel.
The name Pantagruel was also used for a character in "Le Mystère des Actes des Apôtres" from the XVth century ( http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Myst%C3 ... %C3%B4tres )
"Les Grandes Chroniques" is cited by Alcofrybas Nasier(=Rabelais) at the beginning of his prologue to Pantagruel, where he acknowlegdes the reference - where he also cites Orlando Furioso and popular novels from the XVth.

Bertrand

Bertrand wrote:Title page from the first Gargantua is missing in all known copies - in the only known copy to be more accurate. Hence the datation is vague. From Rabelais biographie et from references in the book itself, the publishing was dated between 1534 and 1535. Then there were five versions, the latest being the 1542.
Pantagruel - which in the story chronology describes events posterior to Gargantua - was published in 1531-1532. The "Pantagrueline pronostication" from which you posted the picture above is again another text, published in 1533, and not the Pantagruel.
Guy Demerson postulate that one of the Gargantua goal (the book, not the character) was to recreate the folkloric character.

I've difficulties to understand the meaning of the last sentence ???? "goal (the book, not the character)"

Regarding the pre-Rabelais characters :
In "Les Grandes Chroniques..." Grand-Gosier and Galemelle are created from whale bones by Merlin to help Artus. Rabelais doesn't keep this arturian context, and creates a whole new genealogy to Pantagruel.
The name Pantagruel was also used for a character in "Le Mystère des Actes des Apôtres" from the XVth century ( http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Myst%C3 ... %C3%B4tres )
"Les Grandes Chroniques" is cited by Alcofrybas Nasier(=Rabelais) at the beginning of his prologue to Pantagruel, where he acknowlegdes the reference - where he also cites Orlando Furioso and popular novels from the XVth.

Bertrand

The "Grandes Chroniques" refer to "Les Grandes Chroniques du Grand et Enorme Géant Gargantua", the text of the Anonymus, I assume.

Your remarks cause some ideas ...

http://www.france-pittoresque.com/traditions/48.htm

The Fete-Dieu, somehow created by Rene d'Anjou in Aix (or Tarascon), as it is said, in 1462 ... which likely was a developing festivity, and one can't say, what it really was in 1462 (if I understand it correctly). It knows between many other figures also "12 Apostles" (Apôtres, if I understand this correctly) ... part of the festivity is the "king of Bazoche", and there was somehow the right of this institution to create (religious) theater, which developed to have some satirical and critical dimensions, more like carnival (though it happened at Pentecost Monday). The text "Le Mystère des Actes des Apôtres" (contemporary to Renee's invention) seems to be intended as a part of this festivity.
The small devil Pantagruel fits with the theme of the festivity ... "Le livre fait référence à un petit démon marin au nom de Pantagruel, qui assèche la gorge des ivrognes en leur jetant du sel dans la bouche." ...the legal use of alcohol with some fun about the problems with it.

There seems to a rather direct way from Pantagruel I(1460-70) to Pantagruel II (Rabelais).

Huck wrote:

Bertrand wrote:Guy Demerson postulate that one of the Gargantua goal (the book, not the character) was to recreate the folkloric character.

I've difficulties to understand the meaning of the last sentence ???? "goal (the book, not the character)"

No wonder, it's a complex way to say something simple... pardon my weak english once again. I simply mean "Rabelais's intention was to re-create/reinterpret the folkloric character in a different context (grosso modo humanism instead of arturian lore)". Sorry !

Bertrand

... no problem ...

I've difficulties with this feast in Aix-de-Provence ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=lk4NAA ... ix&f=false

This report is from 1777.

http://www.france-pittoresque.com/traditions/48.htm

Telle était la procession d'Aix en 1490, et déjà quelques personnages, tels que Adam, Eve, Caïn, Abel, les Patriarches, etc., étaient supprimés. La procession du Saint-Sacrement, ainsi qu'elle était observée il y a encore quelques années à Paris, suivait ce cortège. En 1645, et principalement en 1680, les archevêques de la ville voulurent supprimer les scènes profanes de cette cérémonie ; le peuple mécontent menaça de brûler l'archevêché, et les prélats renoncèrent à leur censure. La fête continua donc sans obstacle jusqu'en 1789. A ce moment, la Révolution, qui renversait toutes les cérémonies du culte catholique, abolit aussi la procession d'Aix : elle fut reprise à l'époque du concordat ; mais alors elle était bien déchue de son ancienne bizarrerie.

This seems to say, that it disappeared, without leaving a sort of local tradition.

Generally there's a relation between the development of the Italian Trionfi (the celebrations, not the cards) and this festivity (and likely to the development of French carnival, after the feast of the fools was attacked an occasionally forbidden).
The Italian condottiero Montefeltro and his wife appear as figures in the Aix show ... likely this refers to the preceding battles around Naples, in which Montefeltro fought against the duke of Calabria, king Renee's son. The festivity is said to have started in this time.

The composition of the gods in the show has some similarity to the 16 gods, which were used in "Eschecs amoureux" of Evrart de Conty in 1398, a representation, which possibly influenced the 16 gods in the Michelino deck c. 1425 commissioned by Filippo Mari Visconti.
The Michelino deck was send in 1449 to Renee d'Anjou, but the composition of Aix has more similarity to the 16 gods of Evrart da Conty (which appeared around this time in illustrated books (at least one version is known).

But somehow it seems difficult to get information of the first composition of Renee's festivity (best the variant of 1462), but likely no sure report has survived.

TWO OBJECTS (1755 and 1756) and three books (possibly 4)

1.
Palamedes redivivus:
das ist, Nothwendiger unterricht wie heutiges tages gebräuchliche spiele, als das stein-oder schach-spiel, das picquet-, hoick-, thurn- und l'ombre-spiel ... zu spielen
J. G. Dyck, 1755 - Games - 153 pages
http://books.google.de/books?id=E-pYAAA ... en&f=false



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2 a. Die Kunst die Welt mitzunehmen in den verschiedenen Arten der Spiele, so in Gesellschafften höhern Standes, besonders in der Kayserl. Königl. Residenz-Stadt Wien üblich sind ...
[this seems to be volume 1 of the following volume 2 ... = 2 b. ... but after some research this can't be, as the Taroc article appears in both books. So one likely has to assume, that 2a is a first version and that 2b is the Volume 2 of the second enlarged version ... unluckily Volume 1 is not reachable by books.google.com]
François Danican Philidor
G. Bauer, 1756
http://books.google.de/books?id=dysVAAA ... &q&f=false

2 b.
Die Kunst die Welt mitzunehmen in den verschiedenen Arten der Spiele, so in Gesellschaften höheren Standes, besonders in der Kayserl. Königl. Residenz-Stadt Wien üblich sind, Volume 2
Bauer, 1756
http://books.google.de/books?id=75xPAAA ... en&f=false






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TRIUMPH

This is called a Venetian version and is described in two variants. It's a total different game than the Triumphus Hispanicus, described by Vives and Maldonaldo around 1540, and has likely nothing to do with Trionfi games of 15th century.
It's played with 52 cards with the counting Ace = 1, 2 = 2, 3 = 3, 4 = 4, (totally 40) and 2 figures = 1 point (totally 6 points), 10 = 1 (totally 4 points). Pique Valet counts 6 points, 10 of Carreaux counts 5 (so altogether totally 61 points) ... but Pique Valet and 10 of Carreau counts twice then. The description isn't clear and talks of 62 points, which are necessary to win.
An alternative counting system has 72 points.

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MINCHIATE

Okay, that's a sort of contemporary Minchiate.

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GALINELLA

It sounds, as if this is another name of Minchiate (wich was also called Gallerini and Ganellini). I didn't found a description in the book.

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KAISERSPIEL

For Kaiserspiel or Imperiale: This is a game with 32 cards for two players and 36 for 3 players. That's likely a very different game to Karnöffel (also called Keyserspiel) or Imperatori in early 15th century.



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TAROC for 3 or 4 persons

The article starts with an enthusiastic poem (not shown).
Then an unknown etymology is offered: Taroc comes (probably) from Portugal. Mongue, Sküs an Pagato are named after 3 evil brothers in "Algabrien", famous for their cruel activities. Tarocco is the name of of a player, who sponsored from his wins a cloister in Seruval or Setuval. But Setubal exists near Lisbon (50 km).
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&clien ... CHMQ8gEwAQ
There's a cloister, founded c. 1490:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_ ... t%C3%BAbal
The kingdom of Portugal was addressed "Reino de Portugal e dos Algarves", so "Algabrien" (German) = "Algarves"

The probable first time, when Austrian players really detected the Italian Trionfi cards in a manner, that they couldn't overlook them, was likely in winter 1451/52, when Emperor Fredrick III married the Portuguese princess Eleanore. Naturally some Trionfi cards should have reached then the Austrian court. As they came with a Portuguese princess ... well, they must have been "from Portugal".
The founder of the cloister in Setubal in c. 1490 was a woman, Justa Rodrigues Pereira, who descended from
Nuno Alvarez Pereira( June 24, 1360 – April 1, 1431)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuno_%C3%81lvares_Pereira
... a great general with many merits, who turned to become a mystic (1423) and was beatified in 1918 and became a saint in 2009.



Well ... Eleanor, the Portuguese bride, was born in 1434, and very likely had learned this hero story in her youth.

Eleanor and Frederick were dissimilar, and her interest for dance, gambling and hunting was not shared by Frederick, and their relationship was affected by their differences. Frederick sent Eleanor's Portuguese entourage home after the wedding because of the cost, and she suffered from homesickness; he also blamed her for having caused the death of several of their children by letting them eat Portuguese food, and therefore took over the upbringing of the remaining children entirely for himself. During the period of captivity in Vienna, when people were forced to eat rats, cats and dogs, she cheered people up. History have claimed that Eleanor was taken from a splendid court in Portugal to a cultural wasteland in Vienna because of her spouse's strict economic sense.

She became mother of Maximilian, and when Maximilian became emperor in 1493 and married then his children (1496) to children of the Spanish court of Ferdinand and Isabella (preparing the Spanish-German of Charles V), then the much earlier marriage of Eleanor to a weak German emperor got posthumous a new light of very big meaning.
Portugal had been then indeed later united with the Spanish crown in 1580 and 1640.

The Iberian union was a political unit that governed all of the Iberian Peninsula south of the Pyrenees from 1580–1640, through a dynastic union between the monarchies of Portugal and Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession.[1] Following the Portuguese crisis of succession, a dynastic union joined both crowns, along with their respective colonial possessions, under the control of the Spanish monarchy. The term Iberian union is a creation of modern historians.
The unification of the peninsula had long been a goal of the region's monarchs. Sancho III of Navarre and Alfonso VII of León and Castile both took the title Imperator totius Hispaniae, meaning "Emperor of All Hispania" centuries before. The union could have been achieved earlier had Miguel da Paz (1498–1500), Prince of Portugal and Asturias, become king. He died early in his childhood.

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

The word Taroch, Tarocchi formed likely not before 1494 and it appeared first in 1505.

Nuno Álvares Pereira had defended the independence of Portugal against Castile, likely he stood for the independence of Portugal (against other Spanish ideas). Exchanging him much later to a gambler "Tarocco", who became sponsor of a cloister during 16th century might have been once a political joke in 16th/17th century.





The author doubts the etymology and gives arguments on the similarity between French "Excuse and the Austrian "Sküs".

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HANS JOACHIM ALSCHER
http://www.tarock.info/

had reported these texts already in 2003:

Regeln bey dem Taroc-Spiele (Leipzig 1754)
Älteste Tarockregeln in deutscher Sprache, auch abgedruckt in "Palamedes redivivus" Leipzig 1755

Die beste und neueste Art, das in den vornehmsten Gesellschaften heutiges Tages so beliebte Taroc-Spiel, so wol in drey Personen zum König als in vier wirklichen Personen mit zweyerley Karten recht und wohl zu spielen, nebst einigen Betrachtungen über dieses Spiel und einem Anhang von ganz neuerfundenen Kartenkünsten (Wien und Nürnberg 1756)
Ältestes österreichisches bzw. ältestes Wiener Tarockbuch

Regeln des Minchiatta-Spiels (Dresden 1798)
Deutschsprachige Regeln des Minchiate

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Added later:

Die beste und neueste Art das in den vornehmsten Gesellschaften heutiges Tages so beliebte Taroc-Spiel:
So wol in drey Personen zum König, als in vier wirklichen Personen mit zweyerley Karten recht und wohl zu spielen: nebst einigen Betrachtungen über dieses Spiel, und einem Anhang von ganz neuerfundenen Karten-Künsten
bey Georg Bauer, Buchhändler, 1756 - 78 pages
http://books.google.de/books?id=c5DPOwA ... CDkQ6AEwAg
no preview

1760: Natürliches Zauber-Buch, oder neu-eröfneter Spielplatz rarer Künste:
Mit vielen Figuren erl, Volume 2
Schwarzkopf, 1760 - 526 pages
[includes Taroc-rules, which at least in great parts are copied from earlier works ... and other game rules]
http://books.google.de/books?id=i7g5AAA ... &q&f=false

Hans Sachs

Sehr herrliche schöne & warhaffte Gedicht:
Das fünffte vnd letzte Poetisch Buch. Mancherley Artliche Newe Stuk, schöner gebundener Reimen, in drey unterschidliche Bücher abgetheilet : Inhaltend: den gantzen Psalter, deß Königlichen Propheten Davids: das gantze Buch Jesus deß Sohns Syrachs ... Item, schöne Tragedien, Comedien ... (Google eBook)
by Hans Sachs
Kruger, 1616 - 437 pages

A carnival play of Hans Sachs (1494 - 1576) ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Sachs
... with the name "Der verspilt reuter" (= the gambling horseman) presents the figure "Clas Schellendaus" (Schellendaus means the "2 of bells"), who gets money and clothes of his master with the help of two farmers, who think, that the master is a robber and Clas Schellendaus the victim.

In the opening Clas Schellendaus has a monolog, and presents the games, that he knows about:

Preaching 1689, Athanasius of Dillingen

Argonautica Spiritu-Moralis ex Mortali ad Immortalem & à Temporali ad Aeternan Vitam quadripartita:
Geistliche und Sittliche Schiffart Auß dem Sterblichen in das Unsterbliche ... In vier Jahrs-Lauff absgetheilet : Das ist Einfältige doch nutzliche Predigen Auff alle Sonn- und Feyertäg ...
Athanasius (von Dillingen)
Bencard, 1689 - 812 Seiten
http://books.google.de/books?id=IYpCAAA ... 22&f=false