Since this starts a new page, be sure to notice my post that ended p. 3 as well. In that one, among other things, I acknowledged a critcism of Phaeded's and became aware that I had not sufficiently studied, or translated, an important note of Franco's from a year ago. I had started, in a file dated Dec. 20, 2015, but never got back to it after Christmas. It is about two convictions for playing triumphs in what appears to be January of 1444.

Well, better late than never. Here is a translation of Franco's "1440-1450: Firenze – Condanne per giochi di carte nei Libri del Giglio" , http://www.naibi.net/A/424-GIGLIO444-Z.pdf. It's short. Comments in brackets are mine. Franco cites two law enforcement bodies, each headed by a different officer from outside of Florence: the podesta, like a mayor; and the captain, I assume relating to the militia. For these offenses, the apprehending body was also the sentencing body. Franco's previous study picked out sample years from each decade in the archive to see what looked worth further study: 1426, 1430, 1435, 1440, 1445, 1450, 1455, 1460, 1465, 1469. He decided that the decade 1440-1450 was of particular interest.

I feel that I must be making a mistake in translating the quotation from a previous note, because my rendering has him saying that in this decade, 1440-1450, the game of triumphs was already allowed, when it clearly was prohibited in 1440 but allowed first in 1450. So I include Franco's Italian original in that quote.

Any suggestions for improvement are as always welcome.


1440-1450: Florence - Convictions for card games in the Books of the Lily

Introduction

The present study follows others dedicated to the same archive of the Books of the Lily [Giglio, symbol of Florence], (1) the records of the [Judicial] Chamber of the City of Florence, where convictions were reported of those bearing weapons, being out at night and gambling. The idea for this research originated directly from an earlier one, in which the wealth of information found for the year 1445 was an incomprehensible contrast to the shortage, or even absence, of convictions recorded in neighboring years; (2) that strange situation was commented upon as follows.

Dai dati presenti nell’elenco riportato sopra, si può concludere che nel 1445 ci furono molte più condanne per giochi di carte che nei decenni vicini. Se ciò corrispose a un effettivo rafforzamento dei controlli proprio in quell’anno e forse in anni vicini è possibile, ma difficile da verificare; per capire meglio la situazione, sarebbe utile un’ulteriore indagine centrata sul decennio 1440-50. Similmente speculativo rimane qualsiasi tentativo di collegare queste condanne dei giochi che si facevano con le carte comuni proprio nel momento in cui si stavano diffondendo i trionfi, i nuovi mazzi di carte speciali che si utilizzavano in giochi che in genere erano permessi. Sarebbe di grande interesse trovare in questi libri qualche citazione che testimoniasse la comparsa dei primi trionfi, ma se per un gioco di carte non era possibile infliggere condanne era proprio quello, insieme alla diritta e a pochi altri.

(From the data in the list above, it can be concluded that in 1445 there were many more convictions for card games than in neighboring decades. Whether this corresponded to an effective strengthening of its controls in that year and perhaps in adjacent years is possible but difficult to verify; to better understand the situation, further investigation would be useful, centered on the decade 1440-50. Similarly speculative is any attempt to link these convictions for games done with common cards precisely to the time when triumphs were being diffused, the new deck with special cards used in games that were generally allowed. It would be of great interest to find in these books a few citations that would witness the emergence of the first triumphs, but if for a card game it was not possible to impose penalties precisely for that one, along with diritta and a few others.)

[Note added later: the proper translation of the last clause is "... but the special cards were used in [a type of] games [i.e. trick-taking] that, along with diritta and a few others, were generally allowed, and it was hardly possible to impose penalties for that one." I thank Franco for his help on this.]
Consequently, the aim of this new research was simply to resolve the doubts about the frequency of convictions for card games in the decade 1440-1450 . You will see that the results have exceeded expectations, also responding to another question, that the relationship with the new triumphs, which was thought inaccessible in this way.

The Books of the Lily examined

The archive of the the Books of the Lily is in practice constituted by a continuous series of large annual registers. Those of interest in this study are listed in the following table
_____________
1. ASFI, Camera del Comune, Provveditori poi Massai, Libri del Giglio.
2 http://www.naibi.net/A/422-GIGLIO450-Z.pdf

2

Volumes marked with an asterisk have already been used in the study cited previously, and what had been found for the year 1445 is taken here with only the correction of the name of one parish. (In fact, the years mentioned are to be understood as from the beginning of February to the end of January of the following year; in addition, the dates, written in the Florentine style of the time, have been changed so as to increase by one year, those from 1 January to 25 March. [In Florence the year started on March 26, Conception Day.]) To answer the initial question we will need to submit and review a list of all the captures recorded for card players in the various years, but some information about these books must first be given, albeit failing to dedicate a detailed examination to this series.

In particular, # 36 is alien to the series and appears inserted in this location to replace the "true" Book No. 36, lost. Instead of reporting convictions from the various courts in a year, we find here, after an extensive initial rubric with names, lists of citizens who were debtors to the town over the course of twenty years, as a result of convictions for absences from councils and similar offenses. In Book No. 37 the majority of convictions are overwhelmingly for being out at night, while among those of the captain some convictions, and in the same measure, are just for "standing and watching gambling". In No. 38 there are only two convictions for playing cards, but we'll see that they are the most important of the whole lot. No. 39 contains a few convictions for gambling, but the frequency of all the sentences, mostly for being out night, is low; of note in the captain's section is the presence of various foreign players who finish with the "baptism" [of which more later].

The situation is very different when you switch to considering year by year the five years following that which motivated the investigation: while previous books make us see 1445 as a "normal" year the subsequent ones present it almost like the last in a situation that was changing profoundly. In particular, Book # 41 contains for the podestà, only a page with 5 convictions for weapons, 1 out at night and 1 for dice games; for the captain only 8 convictions, for being out at night. In Book # 42 we find only three sentences for games, and a few others for arms or being out at night. The vast majority of the sentences recorded in No. 43 are instead for being out at night - fifty between podestà and captain – with a few for weapons and only three for games for the podestà, of which only one is identified for cards. No. 44 is mutilated and there are no cards in the captain’s section;

3
in the two pages that contain convictions by the podestà, 24 of 25 are for night outings.

In conclusion, it is true, as we shall see later, that the distribution of convictions for card games is irregular and concentrated in a few years, but a similar trend can be seen for other convictions by the podestà and captain.

Convictions for card games

All the convictions for which card game are specifically indicated are presented in chronological order in the following table.

4
.
In the headings and within the columns the following abbreviations are used:
M for the month, from January to December indicated with the number from 1 to 12;
G: for the day [giorno] of the capture, in the month of the previous column;
R: Executor [rector]: podesta p, captain c;
D: the date of payment;
V: the volume of the particular Book of the Lily;
C: the page [carta] in which the sentence is recorded.
N: notes, with the particulars specified below.
.....1. The corresponding entry is 11 soldi
.....2. Instead of giocho di charte, here it still reads naibi.
.....3. Instead of giocho di charte, here we read giocho di charte a trionfi.
.....4. The type of profession is silk processor.
.....5. The type of profession is painter.
.....6. The corresponding entry is 2L.

The previous study, which considered sample data of a book for five years, could lead to the conclusion that the situation for the year 1445 was extraordinary; now we see that a number of convictions comparable is also found in other years of that decade, and particularly those immediately preceding. This does not imply that the distribution of convictions appears now homogeneous: there are still gaps only some of which - such as the one for 1441 and partially for 1449 - are easily explained by the absence of the corresponding records among those preserved. It should also keep in mind that other convictions for card game can be hidden among the many cases where what is explicit is that it is a dice game. However, 1445 indeed appears as a kind of watershed between the previous years when there were quite a number of convictions for the game, with a significant presence of those for card games, and the years in which these sentences they were registered numbers very low. The set of new data requires some further comment, also because some are particularly interesting.

In previous studies on the same archive he had already seen that the sums that entered into the coffers of the town from the game for convictions remained surprisingly constant at the value of ten lire for more than a century, and here

5
one gets further confirmation for the decade under review. If you notice in the numbered registers other than 10L. or 2F.2L.13s.4d. this corresponds to the fact that the player had managed to escape (or that flight had been permitted) leaving instead part of his clothing, a value below the expected fine. In correspondence to these items of clothing are recorded numbers rather low and different, obviously depending on the nature and state of conservation of the objects and possibly also depending on the buyer. For card games, there are only cases like this, and the proceeds are respectively eleven soldi and two lire.

In the rather frequent cases that more players are caught in the same day, it is not certain, it seems likely, that those who were surprised gambling, or seeing gambling, are put together. As regards the origin of the players, there is a lower frequency of foreign players against those recorded for dice games. These Florentine players come from over a dozen parishes, or boroughs [?: popoli], of the city, including some of the most central locations. Only two show their professions, respectively of silk processor and painter. It can be assumed with reasonable plausibility that all these Florentine players were simple commoners and that none of them belonged to the ruling class; however, they must not be of the poor, without having available, in person or with the help of relatives and friends, the fee to be paid to the municipality for the sentences reported. In fact, only one of these players, from Arezzo, does not pay the sum and leaves the Stinche [Florence's prison] with the "baptism" [on which more later].

Among these convictions for card games, two particulars, for unexpected clarification on the type of cards used, require a separate comment.

The convictions of 1444 for the game "delle carte a trionfi"

The most surprising finding of all is represented by these two sentences of 1444, recorded at the end of the Book of the Lily No 38, dedicated mainly year to the year 1443.

Giovanni di Ser Piero popolo San Simone fu preso adi 3 di genaio per giuchare alle charte a trionfi per presente chapitano. Pagho adi 24 di fìebraio a Batista Guicciardini cassiere di camera.

Vieri di Nanni popolo San Simone fu preso adi detto per giuchare alle charte a trionfi per detto rettore. Pagho adi 3 di febraio a Batista Guicciardini cassiere di camera.

(Giovanni di Ser Piero San of borough Simone was taken on 3 January for playing cards at triumphs by the captain present. Paid 24 February to Batista Guicciardini, Chamber cashier.

Vieri Nanni of borough San Simone was taken on said [detto] for playing cards at triumphs by the rector said. Paid 3 February to Batista Guicciardini, Chamber cashier.)

[Note: when I translate "guichare alle charte a trionfi" as "playing cards at triumphs" I am trying to be as literal as possible. A less literal translation would be simply "playing triumphs" or perhaps, with more information, "playing the card game of triumphs"]

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These two convictions were wholly unexpected, and of fundamental importance. For a very long time the first known documentation on triumphs was that of 1442 from the court of Ferrara and its basis and that of other documents from Ferrara and ancient playing cards extant from the court of Milan, thousands of pages have been written on the presence of triumphs in the princely courts. However it is known that already in Florence in 1450 triumphs was so esteemed and now traditional as to be excluded from the prohibition on games (3). Then Thierry Depaulis reported to interested experts that naibi a trionfi of Florentine production were present in a text of 1440 (4) and the similar expression naibi di trionfi was found, still in the Florentine environment, in 1452. (5) Now here we no longer find even naibi, there are already carte a trionfi, and we are only at the beginning of 1444, in the midst of the city, the polar opposite, if I may say so, of the environments of the princely courts of northern Italy.

The convicted for trionfi are two, and everything indicates that they were taken as they played together, the immediate inference is that it was in this case a game for two players, which is more than plausible; but on this there would be necessary other confirmations, because the number of captured does not correspond generally to the number of players that would be required, beginning with the cases, rather numerous, where one is captured. Particularly important is the parish where these players lived, or the borough named after it. The church of St. Simone was next to the Stinche, the terrible Florentine jails full of debtors. The area is quite popular today, but back then it was surrounded by tanneries and dyeing establishments of all sorts, surrounded by poor or even miserable housing. In short, these triumphs were not in the delicate hands of gentle ladies or ladies of the court, or even the lords of the ancient nobility, but in those of little presence, and still less influence, in Florence of the time.

Of the two players involved we know only that one was the son of a notary, notaries had neither the prestige nor the wealth of those of today. Probably the identity of these players can be specified by controlling other documents kept in the ASFI, beginning with the catasti [taxations based on property and household composition]. In the most fundamental one, of 1427, there would be (then he would have been 43 at the time of sentencing) Vieri de Giovanni Altoviti of 26 years, but for
_______________
3. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, 19 No. 1 (1990) 7-17.
4. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773
5. F. Pratesi, Playing-Card Trade in 15th-Century Florence. North Walsham 2012. (IPCS Papers 7), pp. 61-63.

7
this player the reading of the name is not even entirely sure in the document under examination. On the other hand, Giovanni and Piero are such frequent names as to make any identification difficult and uncertain, and also of notaries and jurists with the name Piero registered then in Florence, among which to search for the father of the second player, there are 392. (6)

However. even more important than a precise confirmation of the identity and social status of these players is that of emphasizing the fact, shown here without a doubt, the ill repute in which the relatively new triumphal cards were held. We know that in other times and other places the game of triumphs was considered something similar to chess, a noble game, such that when the control of gambling increased, it would be among those privileged to be excluded from the game prohibitions. Well, certainly the game of triumphs was an “intelligent” game deriving directly, so it seems, from the game of diritta, as a trick-taking game where one had to gradually reflect on what card to play; nevertheless, with all its good points, including the amount and the superior quality of the cards used, here we see the players of triumphs captured by the company of the captain and forced, like zara [a dice game] players, to pay the usual ten lire for not being incarcerated in the Stinche and freed only after one or two months, through "baptism" with the usual bucket of water over the head.

Evidently the provisions of 1450.reported above, were not yet ready, which will make it lawful in Florence to play - as well as diritta, torta and trenta - also triumphs.

In the decade 1440-50 studied here, the podestà and the captain had in Florence among their multiple functions also that of seeing that offenses against the laws on the bearing of arms, being out at night and gambling were not committed. The last case is that of our specific interest; indeed, we have limited ourselves to studying the circumstances, much in the minority, in which convictions for playing cards are explicitly mentioned. The doubt that the year 1445 was characterized by an abnormal control of these offenses has been reduced, in the sense that there are similar situations in several previous years, while for the following years all these sentences are to become less numerous. Of great interest is the documentation of convictions
___________
6 http://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/c ... rview.html

8
for playing the card game of triumphs in 1444, when the known testimonies of these "new" playing cards are still very rare; but here we find this game, usually considered "noble", practically equated to the playing of normal cards, in turn equated if only to the identity of the sentence, with gambling done with dice.

Franco Pratesi – 12.10.2015

I want to make a few comments on Franco's essay, of which I just posted my attempt at translation.

Mainly, it is not clear from his data that triumphs was a reviled game. It was simply prohibited, or at least not yet officially allowed. One of the men most likely is from the family of a notary. Notaries, the expansion for which Leonardo Bruni was particularly responsible, were the mass base of humanism. Doing a search for "notaries" on THF I came across Ross's comment "Notaries were well-paid professionals" (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=345&p=12859&hilit=notaries#p12859). Not rich, I assume, but paid enough to give their children an education the equal of their own, with enough Latin to write it, including translating from Italian in court transcriptions, and read basic Latin classics.

We don't know why he and his companion were arrested. It might be that he worked at the jail in a clerical capacity and was violating a work rule by playing cards, even on a break, in public so near the jail. It might make people who came with things for the relatives suspect that the goods went to pay gambling debts instead of to their relatives. There is also the principle of breaking the law in the shadow of the jail. In any case, he is made an example of. In such a case, it is the person who is being reviled, not the game.

Also, in reviewing Franco's previous notes on the Book of the Lily, it seems that Franco has indeed not yet examined the 1430s in detail, except for 1430 and 1435, which apparently turned up nothing interesting.

It is without doubt a cheap deck. Whenever there are luxury decks, you have to assume that there are also cheap versions, because in general the luxury versions don't show much wear. In this case, to be sure, the game is not being played by the family member of a rich merchant or banker. It is in the era of mass consumption, "mass" at least in the sense of the classes to which the game has appeal, more than the ruling families or their competitors, but still with a good education of the "humanistic" sort.

We have price informations (playing cards) in some Arezzo articles (Pratesi 2013) and in some Florence articles (Pratesi 2012) and in Rome (Esch 1213), and also some expensive records in Ferrara.

For the time before 1441-1-1:

*************
Florence region

Lapini records 1415-22 and 1453-1455 (these with Trionfi) / 51 records before 1440
http://trionfi.com/lapini-playing-cards

Bertelli/Prato records 1428/29 / 25 records before 1440
http://trionfi.com/naibi-trade-prato

Silk dealers aquired decks (1431 - 1460), first Trionfi record 1449 / 14 naibi records before 1441-1-1
http://trionfi.com/naibi-aquired

Silk dealers sales (1439 - 1454), first Trionfi record 1445 / 30 records in 1439-40, before 1441-1-1
http://trionfi.com/naibi-silk-dealers

Totally 120 activities before 1441-1-1

***************
Arezzo region

1400 Arezzo / 1 record before 1440
http://trionfi.com/evx-arezzo-playing-cards

1400-1408 Arezzo / 17 records before 1440
http://trionfi.com/evx-arezzo-giglio-di-bettino

1421-1439 Arezzo / 4 records before 1440
http://trionfi.com/evx-arezzo-agnolo-di-giovanni

***************
Rome

Rome shipment 1428 / 2 records
http://trionfi.com/evx-oldest-known-nai ... rt-to-rome

***************
Ferrara

A handful of records with expansive prices

*****************
Further notes

A big number of naibi notes in legal records (Florence), naturally with no prices for the decks

1377
http://www.naibi.net/A/423-1377-Z.pdf
1388-96
http://www.naibi.net/A/417-ESECUTORE-Z.pdf
1398
http://www.naibi.net/A/416-GIGLIO300-Z.pdf
1400-25
http://www.naibi.net/A/420-GIGLIO400-Z.pdf
1426-99
http://www.naibi.net/A/422-GIGLIO450-Z.pdf

**********

The summary for all this is, that we have not very much documents before 1441-1-1 (120 in Florence, 22 in Arezzo, a handful in Ferrara, so roughly 150 together), which attest, that decks, which had the name "Trionfi", didn't exist - probably.

Even, if we would have 1500 documents, it might be possible, that Trionfi aren't mentioned (although they - as a hypothesis - existed) just cause we might just haven't records from the man, who had produced them. Or no documents from the market, on which they are traded (likely the top market, only available, if one has a lot of money).
The legal documents might have spared Trionfi decks, cause nobody wanted to attack such rich persons, which could be customer of this market. If we read about the document of Mantova (1387) ...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=762#p10876



... it's clear, that there a deck was produced of a rather expensive character and this easily might have been something special comparable to the topic of the Michelino deck (for instance). A document of 1407 (also Mantova) notes "ludus cartarum novarum a ludendo, non parvi preci et mirabiliter pictarum" and "par cartarum a ludendo, magnum et antiquatum" and the "ludus cartarum novarum a ludendo" might be also something like early "Trionfi cards" with a broad range for the participating special motifs. It seems not plausible, that these "art-of-the-courts" experiments stood alone in the 50 years of sure playing card history (1377 begin -1425 latest date Michelino deck), there should have been much others. 50 years are 50 years, even when the playing card prohibition tendencies might have been stronger than later, and the number of productions surely was much smaller than between 1425 -1475.

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

The gamble punishment 1444 in Florence possibly gives us a hint.

There is some agreement between us, that Petrarca poem motifs played a role for the choice of the name "Trionfi" for playing cards in a special style. There's (possibly) also some agreement, that the Trionfi poem wasn't so much popular before 1430, and that Petrarca's afterlife relation to Florence became more friendly than at his lifetime. 1436 Leonardo Bruni wrote the first Petrarca biography in the Flöorentine region, Manetti followed c. 1440. Manetti loved Bruni, and when Bruni died, Manetti had a funeral oration and got the title poetus laureatus for it. So I've read.
That happened ... Bruni died 1444, March 9.

In the same year (May 22) San Bernardino died, the long-time Franciscan foe of the playing cards. Pope Eugen arranged, that he unusually quickly became a saint.

Archbishop Antoninus of Florence, also known for active anti-playing-cards operations, ...

Antoninus was consecrated Archbishop of Florence on 13 March 1446, at the Dominican priory in Fiesole, on the initiative of Pope Eugene IV, who had come to admire him through his participation in the major Church councils of the period.
..
His relations with the Medici regime were close but not always harmonious, with his serving several times as an ambassador for the Republic to the Holy See during the 1450s.

All this happened after the Trionfi prohibition case ...

Giovanni di Ser Piero popolo San Simone fu preso adi 3 di genaio per giuchare alle charte a trionfi per presente chapitano. Pagho adi 24 di fìebraio a Batista Guicciardini cassiere di camera.

Vieri di Nanni popolo San Simone fu preso adi detto per giuchare alle charte a trionfi per detto rettore. Pagho adi 3 di febraio a Batista Guicciardini cassiere dicamera.

http://www.naibi.net/A/424-GIGLIO444-Z.pdf

... , cause this was in Jan/Feb 1444, so short before these dates.

So none of this can be the reason, why the Trionfi game, likely a relative new invention, got such a heavy opposition.

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

From Giannozzo Manetti we know, that he was a hardliner against playing cards.

The topic is old ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=815&p=11638&hilit=bisticci#p11638

There was a hole in our observation of the Trionfi documents of Ferrara (1443-1449) and another similar hole in the observation of the acquirement and sales of playing cards of the silk dealers. I declared this as significant for a sort of unknown prohibition in the 1440s, with the opposition of others.

One of the debates is here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=815&p=11638&hilit=bisticci#p11638

The keypoint to this suspicion is the time of Manetti in Pistoia. 1446/47. Manetti definitely acts then against playing cards in a strong manner .

from myself ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t= ... t=bisticci
... in 2008, so rather long ago and occasionally repeated

Giannozzo Manetti (1393-1459)
a person of some interest in more than one wy.

1. he was responsible for a sharp attack on gaming in Pistoia in 1446/1447, which adds to our general suspicion, that in the 40's of 15th century the situation for aplaying cards was difficult.

2. He became a crowned poetus laureatus in 1443 ... this is of interest to the general Trionfi development, for instance to Alberti's literary contest in 1441. And of special interest is Bisticci's "they crowned him with a laurel crown, a custom which had not lately been observed." ... which should mean, that an old custom was revived after a long time.

"He condemned the worthless and the sluggards. Gamblers and gaming he hated as pestiferous abominations."
http://books.google.de/books?id=lyMQTgO ... ng&f=false

"Giannozzo was governor of Pistoia and, as at Pescia, would accept neither gift nor tribute. He kept more servants and horses than the law allowed. The place was given to gaming; indeed the people thought of little else. Hating this vice as he did, he resolved to put an end to it as long as he was there, and to effect this he issued a proclamation that whoever should play any forbidden game should be taken and treated with four strokes with a rope. Moreover, he fixed a fine which every offender would have to pay, wherefore during his time of office gaming ceased."

(Source of possible interest in this matter: Giannozzo Manetti, Chronicon pistoriensis [Historia pistoriensis], in Rerum italicarum scriptores, a cura di L. A. Muratori, vol. XIX, Milano, 1731, coll. 987-1076, probably written 1446 - 1447)

Pistoia had 996 households in 1442, Manetti's work started Oktober 1446.
http://books.google.de/books?id=seDbXV9 ... ti&f=false
"On his return to Florence he was drawn for the Assembly, and about this time Messer Lionardo of Arezzo died (1443). The Signoria decided that his memory should be honoured in every possible way. It was decreed that the custom of delivering a funeral oration should be revived and Giannozzo was charged with this duty and that he should be crowned with laurel after the ancient custom. To these obsequies all the illustrious men of the city came to his coronation. Many prelates attended, as the court of Rome was then in Florence, and Giannozzo delivered an oration worthy of the subject, and they crowned him with a laurel crown, a custom which had not lately been observed."
http://books.google.de/books?id=lyMQTgO ... ng&f=false

********

Generally we have to assume, that Bisticci was against gambling (and likely also against cards). He suffered personally after the attack on Lorenzo de Medici in 1478, cause he had to leave the city. It seems, that his biographies were written after this.

From Manetti's life ...

Nel 1443 fu inviato presso Alfonso d'Aragona, che si trovava fuori Napoli per stabilire un'alleanza con il Papato; nel 1445 fu a Napoli in occasione delle nozze del figlio di Alfonso, Ferdinando.

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gia ... ografico)/

Manetti was in 1443 in Naples, possibly in the context of the triumphal festivities of Alfonso. He managed - as active diplomat - good relations between Pope Eugen and Alfonso, which had the consequence, that 24.000 Naples/Chiesa soldiers stood against Sforza with 8000 soldiers in the region of Fano, ..
https://www.google.de/maps/place/61032+ ... 13.0194201
.... a rather difficult position for Sforza, as one can imagine. This was in October 1443, so before the 1444 case of punished Trionfi gambling in Florence (the soldier numbers are given by Klaus Schelle: Die Sforza)
Bistecci, who gave the story of Manetti in Pistoia in his biographies, also reported the negative position of Alfonso of Aragon against playing cards and also the actions in the same direction by archbishop Antoninus. With the help of Alfonso Pope Eugen arrived the most dominant position in his life, which often saw him in difficult and weak positions. Bistecci had a very customer customer in Manetti, he helped to build his library, and Bistecci had also a position against playing cards, rather obviously.

It seems to me, that Manetti might have been a driving force for the increased prohibition tendencies in Florence, which also influenced the numbers in the silk dealer records in a negative manner.

Huck wrote: There are specific elements, which make it a forerunner of the Tarot game. First: It has clearly trumps (in the description of Martiano da Tortona and this is the oldest clear description of trumps). Second: it is called a new Ludus triumphorum (Marcello's letter) and Trionfi games are commonly considered as forerunner for Tarot games. Third: It has a hierarchical trump row and this consists NOT of common playing card motifs (court and number cards).

1. The Marziano 'trumps' are not Tarot's trumps. Period.
2. Marcello was in Sforza's camp and Sforza was ordering tarot. It was already known before the discovery of Marziano; i.e., Marcello called Marziano's card game with a card game name he was already familiar. Doesn't make them the same.
3. Again, Marziano's trumps are not tarot. They are merely both card games - Imperatori has about as much in common with tarot as does Marziano. Under your logic, anything other than a non-standard card deck is somehow tarot.

I wrote:
The audacity here is that [Giusti] reaching out to Malatesta was a brazen act of foreign relations; Giusti presumably did so with the consent of the Medici in order to re-establish a condotte with the mercenary ruler of Rimini (who was once friendly enough to participate in the ritual consecration of the Florentine duomo in 1436, before Visconti paid him off for at least his neutrality).

To which Huck wrote:

Malatesta was immediately involved in a siege of Forli, already in August (before he got the deck) ...

Combatte i ducali agli ordini di Francesco Sforza, mentre il fratello Domenico si conduce al soldo dei Visconti. Colloca il campo a Ronco ed assedia Forlimpopoli: i difensori hanno spesso la meglio sui suoi uomini. Si accampa a Selbagnone ed assedia Forlì.

http://www.condottieridiventura.it/inde ... di-brescia

I don't know, how you define ally.

Someone at Anghiari (or paying for someone to be there, as did Venice with Attendolo).

This verifies exactly what I wrote - a machine-translation of Treccani/Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 68 (2007) entry of Malatesta:

So in 1440 Filippo Maria Visconti, with cunning strategy, he sent in Romagna, as a diversion, Niccolo Piccinino with 6,000 riders to threaten directly the Malatesta territories, against whom he had also moved Guidantonio da Montefeltro. The capitulation of the Malatesta brothers was the only possible solution: at the end of March, M. went to polenta to make a deal that involved the assignment to him, in common with his brother and reversing the previous alliances, each consisting of a pipeline part of Piccinino, although neither of them was obliged immediately to fight against Francesco Sforza, Venice, Florence and the Church [i.e., the allies at Anghiari]. Probably during the same Piccinino negotiations he concluded a peace on the lords of Rimini and Urbino, following a year before the war fought against M. Federico da Montefeltro. http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/sig ... ografico)/

Phaeded

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:

Phaeded wrote: At all events, your qualified statement must read 'quasi-tarot' was invented in Milan...by a humanist. Why Ross seemingly dismisses this last piece of information and places the creation of an even more complex series of subjects within the hoi polloi of the card-playing public continues to perplex me.

"Dismiss" is too strong a word; I just don't feel that Marziano's example should predispose us to think that the same kind of person invented Tarot. Boiardo...Don Messore ...Marziano ...

I have no problem backing off to 'literate', although all of those people, of the cloth or not, could be said to partake of humanist culture. Today we use 'humanist' almost as a synonym for 'secular' (with a strong non-religious overtone), but things were much grayer/co-mingled then; Alberti is an excellent example of that.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: I imagine that Tarot was invented by someone like the jurist Malatesta Ariosti...In any case, "humanist-jurist-poet" could well be a description of a single person. They are not exclusive definitions.

I don't think we disagree here. But all of the examples you have just given in this thread are far from what I was imagining when you said tarot arose from the card-playing milieu. All of the above are attached to a court culture, versus some kind of social feedback involving street/tavern card players and the producers of the decks in minor guilds. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems we are closer to agreeing to the type of person who designed it, albeit your reservations about it having to be a 'pure' court humanist (a rare occupation at all events; i.e., Filelfo was also a teacher at the University of Pavia and could be simply labeled as such - 'rhetor').

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: Note that, unlike Marziano, Boiardo, and Sola Busca, the Tarot is just a standard pack with 22 trumps. The others are complete re-imaginings of the subject matter of the suits and trumps.

True, but those 22 trumps have occupied how many countless hours of our lives?

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:That said, if I had to wager - when Franco discovers it and asks us to place our bets - I'd say 1439, at least after July.

And I'll let my chips ride on July...1440. ;-)

I would like your opinion of my Medici-Giusti-Malatesta proposition, specifically that Giusti was acting on behalf of the Medici, whether uncommissioned and just currying favor or not, and that favor only makes sense if the tarot production in the summer of 1440 was connected in some way to the Medici. As I have clarified in my response to Huck, Malatesta was most definitely forced into a neutral position at the time of Anghiari by Visconti. Given the personal connection of Cosimo to Malatesta (the latter would one day be painted by Gozzoli in the former's personal palazzo chapel for an event that happened before Anghiari), the reaching out by someone within the Florentine domain to Malatesta would tread on the most touchiest of subjects - a ruler (however 'Republican' in this instance) and his condottieri.

Phaeded

PS - Cosimo obviously orchestrated the consecration ritual of the duomo with the completion of Brunelleschi's dome in 1436, 2 years after his triumphant return from exile. After the pope gave his blessing, Cosimo performed a civic-religious ritual after Malatesta did the same, closely connecting the two in the public eye (Belcari's account below):

After the consecration of the altar, while the cardinal of San Marco was preparing himself to sing and Cardinal Orsini was lighting the twelve candles of the church, the Holy Father knighted the worthy Florentine
citizen and jurist, Messer Giuliano Davanzati, who was then the standard-bearer of justice. The dis-
tinguished podesta of Florence gave him the spurs, the great lord of Rimini, [Sigismondo Pandolfo]
Malatesta, tied the sword around his waist, and the Holy Father pinned the precious decoration onto
his chest. Mass followed, after which the cardinal of San Marco distributed indulgences for six years
and six quarantines, but then yielded to the request of the noble citizen Cosimo de’ Medici, who asked
for indulgences up to seven years. Again, upon the request of Cosimo, the most reverend cardinal of
San Marcello allowed the cardinal of San Marco to offer indulgences for ten years and ten quarantines,
although he had already refused the same request previously from all the cardinals and the Florentine
signoria.

Phaeded wrote:

Huck wrote: There are specific elements, which make it a forerunner of the Tarot game. First: It has clearly trumps (in the description of Martiano da Tortona and this is the oldest clear description of trumps). Second: it is called a new Ludus triumphorum (Marcello's letter) and Trionfi games are commonly considered as forerunner for Tarot games. Third: It has a hierarchical trump row and this consists NOT of common playing card motifs (court and number cards).

1. The Marziano 'trumps' are not Tarot's trumps. Period.
2. Marcello was in Sforza's camp and Sforza was ordering tarot. It was already known before the discovery of Marziano; i.e., Marcello called Marziano's card game with a card game name he was already familiar. Doesn't make them the same.
3. Again, Marziano's trumps are not tarot. They are merely both card games - Imperatori has about as much in common with tarot as does Marziano. Under your logic, anything other than a non-standard card deck is somehow tarot.

1. Trumps in later Tarot are also different from the use of trumps as for instance in Bridge. "Every one of the gods, however, is above all the orders of birds and the ranks of kings. But the gods are held to this law among themselves:
that who will be first designated below, he should lead all the others following in sequence." .... writes Marziano.
That's a trump definition and it clearly indicates a hierarchical row.
A "trump definition" is something completely different as the "Trump design" ... if you mean this. We don't know the rules of 15th century Trionfi decks, and also not of 16th century Tarot. So we cannot know, if the common rules rules of this time had differences to the Michelino deck rules.
Also it's true, that we don't know, if Martiano expressed his rules just in a limited way, just sparing a few words, where he should have written some more to explain his game concept to "us" (the 20th century people). It's likely true, that Filippo Maria understood, what he meant.

2. Some told earlier, that all decks called "Trionfi" were always the same sort of "Trionfi". Since the invention of the 5x14 theory at least this is disputed. Sforza ordered Trionfi cards, not Tarot. Marcello's camp was not necessarily Sforza's camp.

3. If Imperatori cards were meant as trumps, they were similar to the trumps in the Michelino deck. At least it's true, that we know about the Imperatori decks less than about the Michelino deck.

What are you talking today? I don't understand you.

For Malatesta and his political stand in August 1440 ... we talked so often about Anghiari. Didn't you get, that Malatesta changed the sides short after the battle of Anghiari? How do you explain, that Malatesta attacked Forli?

I agree, that Malatesta was forced in a neutral position before.

Phaeded wrote

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:That said, if I had to wager - when Franco discovers it and asks us to place our bets - I'd say 1439, at least after July.

And I'll let my chips ride on July...1440. ;-)

I'm not sure what is being bet on. What is Franco supposed to discover? Somebody arrested for playing triumphs in the 2nd half of 1439? Well, that would prove Phaeded wrong, but not much else. But given the relative frequency of triumph-sightings, there's what, 10 to 1 odds that even if triumphs was being played all over town, anyone would get caught in that particular 6 month period. The rest, from Feb.1440 to 1449, Franco has already looked at.

Phaeded, the cards you are betting on are already on the table for all to see. The only question is about the cards that haven't been uncovered, whether they beat yours, and whether, in this game, they will ever be uncovered. (The chances of a draw are pretty good.) You already have 1440, from Depaulis, and Jan. 1444, from Franco. There's nothing in between, at least in the books of the lily or the diaries of Giusti. Franco has already looked in 1440 and found nothing, 1441 is missing, and 1442 and 1443 came up empty. There's nothing else to see, after July 1440. But three and a half years is a perfectly decent time after invention, in an enterprising place like Florence, before some loser in a lowlife place gets nabbed playing with a cheap deck.

Huck wrote: 1. "...that who will be first designated below, he should lead all the others following in sequence." .... writes Marziano.
That's a trump definition and it clearly indicates a hierarchical row.
...
2. Some told earlier, that all decks called "Trionfi" were always the same sort of "Trionfi". Since the invention of the 5x14 theory at least this is disputed. Sforza ordered Trionfi cards, not Tarot. Marcello's camp was not necessarily Sforza's camp.

3. If Imperatori cards were meant as trumps, they were similar to the trumps in the Michelino deck....

1. The ordinal cards also have a hierarchy. By this definition anything with hierarchy = tarot.
2. Jesus h. Christ - from your own webpage: "Last year in the field of Milan, when I [Marcello] was in the camp of the highest and most celebrated leader Francesco Sforza, I was put in charge of the troops of our most illustrious republic, which he had relieved with assistance while we were waging war against Milan." http://trionfi.com/jacopo-marcello-letter-1449 And again, they called it 'trionfo' ('tarot' was not used then and you know that) because that's all they knew; i.e., well traveled elites with connections all over Italy, especially Florence, were completely IGNORANT of Marziano's unique deck.
3. Whatever.

But enough of this nonsense. Until Marziano's deck was pried out a Visconti palazzo and more than likely bought at auction - and smuggled out of Milan to Marcello - during the turmoil of the Ambrosian Republic ("Indeed, for a long time it was difficult for one book and deck of cards to be able to be found among the furniture, so much of the riches and splendours of the Duke being scattered as well as destroyed in the disturbance." - Marcello), there is NO EVIDENCE ANYONE KNEW ABOUT IT OUTSIDE OF MARZIANO AND FILIPPO (at most, intimates of the Ducal court). Unless you are making the case for the ur-tarot as being from Milan, then Marziano had ZERO influence on tarot because no one else knew it existed. In this light it's immaterial whether Marziano's deck is considered tarot, 'quasi-tarot' or just a unique card game about the 'deification of 16 heroes.' At most Marziano may have had an influence on the unique 16 card suits of the Milanese CY, but as for the trumps conceived in Florence - zilch.

Phaeded

mikeh wrote: There's nothing in between, at least in the books of the lily or the diaries of Giusti. Franco has already looked in 1440 and found nothing, 1441 is missing, and 1442 and 1443 came up empty. There's nothing else to see, after July 1440. But three and a half years is a perfectly decent time after invention, in an enterprising place like Florence, before some loser in a lowlife place gets nabbed playing with a cheap deck.

Why are you restricting the realm of evidence to card playing laws and their application? Giusti's evidence was from a diary; plenty of Florentines kept a zibaldone, not to mention the periodic catasto, or the mercantile account books, etc. Florence was extraordinarily well-documented and that has been combed over by numerous scholars (such as Newbiggin), in addition to Pratesi. Perhaps the ur-tarot was initially distributed to Medici partisans to celebrate the victory and that's how Giusti knew about it?

As for "1441 is missing, and 1442 and 1443 came up empty" - that's just for Florence, and ignores other potential tarot references. There are two other non-Florentine pieces of potential tarot evidence that cluster within 13 months of Giusti and speak to the quick diffusion of the innovation. You know these evidence and events well - one being highly contested - but it's pertinent to restate them here:

6-29-1440: Medici victory at Anghiari over Visconti mercenaries and Florentine exile rebels lead by the Albizzi
9-16-1440: Giusti gives un paio di naibi a trionfi to former condottiero of Medici, Malatesta
1-1-1441: In Ferrara "14 figures painted on cotton paper and sent to [visiting] Lady Bianca of Milan"
10-26-1441: Wedding of Bianca Visconti to Francesco Sforza (presumed approximate date of the CY)
11-20-1441: Treaty of Cavriana in which Visconti’s concessions to Sforza of Cremona and Pontremoli (Bianca’s dowry) are confirmed by Venice, recently at war with Sforza leading her arms versus Milan (he switched with the betrothal/dowry).

All of these events happen within a year and a half of the Medici victory; and most of them swirl around the person of Francesco Sforza. The Florentine herald's song of praise after the battle singles out the "men of Sforza" (in fact it was M. Attendolo, paid for by allied Venice, but the Florentines viewed this as an extension of Sforza's arms); as Visconti's military campaigns continued to falter headed into 1441 Filippo sends his daughter to Ferarra to try to force Sforza's hand back to him (she had been first promised to Sforza back in 1432); the subsequent wedding happens that fall and the territorial concessions are confirmed by the Venetians within a month (all historical records indicate Sforza essentially authored that treaty). None of this is contested (I suppose one can muse that Bianca was let out of her monastery-like existence in Abbiategrasso to go sight-seeing in Ferrara...but please).

I'd now like to flesh out the contested hypothesis - that the New Year's "14 figures" painted for Bianca, so that she might "make festive celebration of the Circumcision", were in fact tarot.

The circumstantial evidence that this was tarot is substantial:
1. The reference occurs only 6 months after Anghiari, but given the recent transfer of the Council of Ferrara to Florence, communication between the two cities must have been at an all time high. Note that this is Florence->Ferrara, with no influence of the Marziano deck.
2. A name for the innovation, less than six months old given the assumptions here, is too new to be commonly known, at least by the court underlings recording the commission (it is just described literally). Even Ross refers to the new Florentine term as a 'hapax' - an unheard of phrase employed by Giusti.
3. A 70 card deck, implying a 14 trump suit, is mentioned in Ferrarese records in 1457 (so perhaps the Florentine ur-tarot was 70 cards and lingered before being surpassed by the 22 trumps represented by the PMB).
4. By the end of the year Bianca is married and at that time presumably given a commemorative Milanese CY deck (no need to guess at the means of diffusion here if she was given the gift of tarot back in Ferarra, which her father undoubtedly took an interest in because of Marziano....but otherwise no influence of the Marziano, besides the 16 cards of the otherwise four standard suits).
5. The CY 'World''s vignette can arguably depict Sforza arriving from the south/right, from his base in the Marche, to Cremona where the wedding will take place, with Ravenna on the Adriatic in the distance (Venice took Ravenna from Ostasio Polenta, allied to Visconti, with a fleet in February 1441, ten months before the wedding/treaty; also note that the other dowry city of Pontremoli is near Genoa, another city Visconti lost in 1435; thus both cities place Sforza on antagonistic fronts in both the east and west, but the place of his wedding, Cremona, would obviously be of larger significance and face a larger enemy - Venice).
6. Bianca is given a gift with which to "make festive" (fare festa) - how is that not an activity? What kind of late medieval activity does one play with images (figure)?

Finally, if the 14 figures are not trionfi, what were they? The Feast of the Circumcision invites no opportunity for a related series of Christian art and the only known Christian series with 14 images is strictly associated with Easter - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stations_of_the_Cross
. If not tarot we are to believe yet another novel series of images was created within 6 months of tarot?

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote: 2. Jesus h. Christ - from your own webpage: "Last year in the field of Milan, when I [Marcello] was in the camp of the highest and most celebrated leader Francesco Sforza, I was put in charge of the troops of our most illustrious republic, which he had relieved with assistance while we were waging war against Milan." :D http://trionfi.com/jacopo-marcello-letter-1449 And again, they called it 'trionfo' ('tarot' was not used then and you know that) because that's all they knew; i.e., well traveled elites with connections all over Italy, especially Florence, were completely IGNORANT of Marziano's unique deck.

...

But enough of this nonsense. Until Marziano's deck was pried out a Visconti palazzo and more than likely bought at auction - and smuggled out of Milan to Marcello - during the turmoil of the Ambrosian Republic ("Indeed, for a long time it was difficult for one book and deck of cards to be able to be found among the furniture, so much of the riches and splendours of the Duke being scattered as well as destroyed in the disturbance." - Marcello), there is NO EVIDENCE ANYONE KNEW ABOUT IT OUTSIDE OF MARZIANO AND FILIPPO (at most, intimates of the Ducal court). Unless you are making the case for the ur-tarot as being from Milan, then Marziano had ZERO influence on tarot because no one else knew it existed. In this light it's immaterial whether Marziano's deck is considered tarot, 'quasi-tarot' or just a unique card game about the 'deification of 16 heroes.' At most Marziano may have had an influence on the unique 16 card suits of the Milanese CY, but as for the trumps conceived in Florence - zilch.

Phaeded

... :-) ... "zilch" is the name of a dice game ... do you mean this?

"Sforza's camp" was here used as a global expression, just my opinion. Likely Sforza's complete army was distributed at different locations. When Colleoni fought his battles in Savoy (April 1449, about 2500 + 3500 at the different sides), Sforza's major army wasn't present, for instance.
http://www.comune.borgomanero.no.it/Bor ... manero.pdf

Decembrio had mentioned the deck in his biography about Filippo Maria (August/September 1447). Likely the existence of the game was discussed, naturally not everywhere and not by everybody.

Well, likely the Michelino deck was a single object, though it might have had some cheaper imitations. Who knows ...

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

I'd now like to flesh out the contested hypothesis - that the New Year's "14 figures" painted for Bianca, so that she might "make festive celebration of the Circumcision", were in fact tarot.

For the sake of some precision in our discussions, we should call such decks not "Tarot", but Trionfi.

... .-) ... well, the title is "Tarot origins"