Phaeded wrote: 14 Sep 2018, 22:12
A minor counterpoint , but Pratesi has already connected a provincial member of the clerical class to card-playing at an early date (
http://trionfi.com/evx-arezzo-playing-cards). More importantly, the humanist members of the curia, including those who would even go on to become pope (such as Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who penned the bawdy
Historia de duobus amantibus in 1444), were not necessarily adverse to a novel and fashionable (i.e., expensive hand-painted decks) means of passing the time, especially as they easily mixed with the humanists in Florence when in residence there. Ignorance of tarot, intended for clerics or not (but note the tondo – ace of coins? - of the cardinal on the Rosenthal “Colleoni deck”), and the well-traveled papal court of the middle half of the 15th century seems unlikely in the extreme.
Phaeded. how do you get from my assertion "the game was not intended for the clerical class" to the implication you draw that "Ignorance of tarot, [on the part of the clerical class] seems unlikely in the extreme"?
You know better than to make such strawman arguments. You can question on what basis I make my assertion that it wasn't created for churchmen, but I won't allow you to suggest that I was implying
in any sense that the clerical class were
ignorant of the game. That is patently ridiculous, since it is false.
Have you forgotten that I have written about Don Messore, the personal chaplain of Meliaduse d'Este, who actually made trionfi cards in Ferrara in 1454?
In a different context -
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 05 Sep 2013, 10:33
Don Messore went to Egypt with Meliaduse d'Este in the winter of 1440-1441, and left a very full record of the trip - and Don Messore went on to MAKE TAROT CARDS.
Of course Don Domenico Messore was a churchman, and no humanist, and in his record he makes no mention of hieroglyphs at all, even though he has plenty of Arabic words. He wasn't stupid. He was impressed by the pyramids of Giza, which he knew by the name of
garnarii de Pharaone (referring to Genesis 41, 35ff, and 47, 22, where the word is
horrea (the references to Genesis are from the editor of Don Messore's text, Beatrice Saletti)), and even speculated that the name "garnarium" is a corruption of the word "granarium", and that the original word was "carnarium", in the sense of sepulcher (so "carnarii de Pharaone" - Pharaoh's tomb). But he doesn't evince the slightest interest in hieroglyphs.
We probably don't have any of Don Messore's cards, but it is a good bet that his cards didn't include subtle Egyptian (or Horapollian) hieroglyphic references. That is, he made conventional Tarot cards for the game played with them, as the players expected.
And here, for their itinerary in Egypt -
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=692&p=10119&hilit=messore#p10119
I know very well that ordained men were not ignorant of the game, and never implied that they were.
It is notable in this context that the Pope was not removed from Ferrarese tarots, although, as I suggested in the previous post, it seems to me that the Ferrarese
ordering of the trumps implies religious tinkering.
Phaeded wrote: 14 Sep 2018, 22:12
It seems to me that your preference for a possible 1439 Florentine date, as tied to the Church Council, is precisely because of this Patriarch (or rather firsthand knowledge of an "Eastern Pope", by the presence of this Patriarch) and that the
Tarocchino Bolognese deck's "Papi" reflects the Florentine ur-order/trumps, ergo the proof (which puts the burden of proof of a "Popess" on Milan, something I'm actually in agreement with).
However, please consider this historical rationale for pushing the Bolognese "Papi" tradition back to the time when Cardinal Bessarion was the papal legate there:
Bessarion Bologna in Hankins.png
(James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 1, 1990: 247)
My preference for the date is only an inference from the distribution of attested dates, which as I have argued for over a decade suggests 3-5 years before 1442, or 1437-1441 inclusive. Of course, in 2010 we had the completely unexpected discovery of Giusto Giusti, putting 1440 and Florence front and center, after 136 years where nothing had been discovered mentioning the game earlier than 1442. Generations of scholars had come and gone, not that any of them had been waiting, but I had the good fortune to see my prediction fulfilled. It was perfectly consistent with the model.
But nothing else is implied; I don't know if the Council or anything to do with it is relevant to what informs the conception and design of the game or the subjects of the trumps. I only cite those things as potentially interesting background, consistent perhaps with a perceived battle or rivalry between the two churches and the two emperors, but I don't think that could ever be proven. I don't believe the equal-papi rule requires it; this was a time of rival western popes as well, and pope-emperor rivalry was proverbial.
So, no, my preference for this date and Florence is not because of the council or the presence of the Eastern Church. It is tempting as a background, and tempting to see my view through that lens, but that is emphatically NOT why I place my bets there. If there were no topically relevant circumstances in Florence in 1439, I would
still be constrained by my reading of the evidence to put it there between 1437 and 1440.
So also for the equal-papi rule, my preference for it is not based on the Eastern-Western pope scenario, but because I think that Bologna preserves the original game, that the equal-papi rule is a "lectio difficilior" which has a hard time surviving outside of Bologna, but since it is found in the Piemonte-Savoy game, and is hinted at in Piscina's (and Anonymous IIRC) accounts, is best explained as being part of the original game, but quickly lost almost everywhere.
Again, my preference for the equal-papi rule is based on reasoning completely independent of any topical situations. You might invoke Bessarion for Bologna, but how does that explain the rule in Piemonte then? My preference is that the rule is original, at least by 1440 in Bologna (I have no justification for saying it might be Florentine, but why not?), and that the game already went from the original center to popularity in Piemonte during that decade. This implies that it was also taught to the first players in places like Ferrara and Milan, but that in neither place did the rule survive, as observed by Dummett and Mcleod for towns just outside of Bologna to this day, where there is a tendency to number the Mori and turn them into normal trumps.
Regarding two popes in Bologna, remember that Visconti imposed Felix on them in 1439. I don't know what practical effect that had, but it was law for a couple of years. Again it is circumstantial and hardly persuasive, not least because it is so topical and forces us to consider that somebody really thought Felix might be in competition with Eugene, which I think no one in the real world ever really believed, only the schismatics in Basel.
Phaeded wrote: 14 Sep 2018, 22:12
The above quote from Hankins by itself is not satisfactory, but the full career of Bessarion must be taken into account. (...) Thus there is no need to explain the Bolognese "Papi" by way of the Council of Florence (and a supposed ur-tarot connection to it).
Well, I hope it's clear I try to avoid such reliance on topicality or precise contemporary events. I think it is a mistake to interpret the game of triumphs, structure and rules, through specific historical events.
Phaeded wrote: 14 Sep 2018, 22:12
I'd like to address your take on the San Giovanni procession's influence on trionfi in your other 1457/Sforza/trionfo post (still working on my long-winded reply).
I look very much forward to discussing this.
P.S. If I sound snarky or short, I am not. I am just writing in cramped and dim conditions, and under a time constraint. I want to get this out so you can respond, so not much time for careful phrasing, so please don't read anything unkind into my tone or whatever. Thanks!