I wrote
I have indeed wondered about the commentaries that went with the moralizations, whether there might be something of interest there to us. Even more, I've wondered about the commentaries on Petrarch and Boccaccio. If you know of any that are accessible, such as Filelfo's, I would also be all ears.
Checking my sources, I see that I misremembered Filelfo's commentary, which is on the Canzone and Sonetti and not the Trionfi, as Phaeded observes.
For the commentaries that really are on the
Trionfi, all the ones I had read about were from the 1470s-1490s. However they might be worth checking to see if they have any information about the game. There are:
1. Bernardo Lapini di Monte Ilicino,
Gli sonetti, canzone e Triumphi del Petrarca, col commento, first ed. 1475 Bologna, in many manuscripts and probably print editions.
2. Antonio da Tempo,
Comento sopra i Sonetti, Canzone, e Trionfi del Petrarca, Venezia 1477.
3. Jacopo di Poggio di Bracciolini,
Commento sopra el Triompho della Fama, 1485.
4. Niccolo Paranzone,
Opera di preclarissimo Francesco Petrarca con li comenti sopra i Trionfi, Sonetti, e canzone. 1508 Venezia, 1st ed. 1494. Seems to be a print edition.
5. a poem by an Alberto Orlando,
Canzone sopra i Trionfi del Petrarca. In U. Capuis, ed.,
Canzone di Alberto Orlando da Fabriano per dichiarare i Trionfi di Francesco Petrarca , Livorno 1874. I find it mentioned (by Pelegrin, p. 310 of her book on Petrarch mss. in France) first in a 15th century ms. of the Trionfi, so it is early. Aded later: it's 1453, per
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mar ... ografico)/.
There are various references to these works on the web; I am not clear where the texts can be found for study, except for the Bracciolini. There are two copies in Chicago, one at the Newberry Library minus its preface, and another, complete, at the University of Chicago. These are the only ones listed for the U.S (by Ullman, but I see that there are microfilm copies and other editions elsewhere in the US). This Bracciolini is the son of the famous one; he was hung in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy, 1478 (
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/iacopo-bracciolini/). I could not find out information about the lives of the other people.
Phaeded wrote,
What I've demonstrated is there is no link between Petrarch and Marziano,...
Nobody ever said there was. Fitting the pieces of the puzzle together in ways that nobody ever fit them and then refuting your straw man is not helpful. 16 fits with the CY via the Marziano and the idea of same number of trumps as suit cards in the tarot (we don't know about Marziano here, but it is possible), a hypothesis that seems to have some support (not proof) in regard to the number 14 and works well as a reconstruction of the deck. Petrarch fits with the CY in virtue of the subjects--albeit shown in a chivalric and not Petrarchan way--on extant cards: Love (as in "Amor" on the tent), Chastity, Death, Fame, Eternity. Petrarch does not in this hypothetical scenario fit with Marziano.
Then somehow you conclude:
1. Marziano - already ruled out as unrelated to the tarot trumps and presumably unknown in Florence.
Ruled out in relation to Petrarch, yes, but so what? It is the structure that is important, the 16 allegorical triumphal figures overlaid on 4 suits (hypothesized but reasonable in the case of the CY), with suggestions from Yale of a 4x4 grid. Dismissing inconclusive evidence does not make it go away as evidence. As far as the Marziano being unknown in Florence, that doesn't matter. The CY is in Milan. The minchiate, which is what Pratesi related to the number 16 and the CY, is in Florence. The postulated 16 trump tarot (not Marziano) is what links Milan and Florence, reflected in the CY and minchiate, Marziano being a possible ancestor or parallel development to both types.
Added later same day: I corrected some bibliographic information on the five works commenting on the Trionfi.