Re: Le Tarot dit "de Charles VI"
Posted: 15 Sep 2018, 10:08
Further concerning the plausibility of Germini/Minchiate being far earlier than generally thought, there is a parallel dynamic in Filippo Maria Visconti’s (presumably it was his commission) conception of the Cary Yale. I.e. the notion of “improving on” the standard game of Triumphs by adding whole groups of trump subjects, in the Cary Yale additionally two extra female court cards per suit.
And, both games were limited in their influence; FMV’s was apparently never imitated, and Pulchi/Lorenzo’s Minchiate perhaps never leaving a small circle of cognoscenti, until rediscovered (or recreated over whatever their model was) 40 years later.
The point is that creative minds were tinkering with the structure of the standard game from the beginning. Not only the ordering of the trumps, where the inherited order suggested a deficiency from a certain moral perspective, but also in adding some higher subjects (never lower), to further elevate or ennoble the game. This is not to mention evolution in rules , which happens constantly in all games.
For instance, switching the places of Angel and World, and placing Justice to stand for judgment between them as in B, which suggests that some moralist in Ferrara decided that the World was the world to come, and that therefore the Resurrection had to come before it, but, critically, Judgment had to come between these two things. In B, the order changed, but not the number. This “spiritualization” of the trump sequence, which demanded that the group of Cardinal Virtues be broken up and used ad hoc for moralistic reasons, like band-aids over sensitive links in the sequence, suggests to me that it was someone religious like Don Messore who changed the order for Ferrarese players (the Este family forcing cardmakers in their domains to conform to this order, perhaps by printing numbers on the cards).
The strong link between Este rule and the tarocchi game, where their demise is coincident with the disappearance of the game in their regions at the end of the 16th century, was noted by Dummett.
And, both games were limited in their influence; FMV’s was apparently never imitated, and Pulchi/Lorenzo’s Minchiate perhaps never leaving a small circle of cognoscenti, until rediscovered (or recreated over whatever their model was) 40 years later.
My observation here in 2016 suggested this dynamic –Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 06 Sep 2018, 15:19 There seems nothing, in principle, against the hugely extended trump sequence being invented so soon after standard Trionfi. After all, John of Rheinfelden attests to many variants of playing cards in his neighborhood, within a decade or so of the introduction of cards into Europe.
So, some genius in Florence may have looked at the standard Trionfi trumps and had the same reaction people have had since Court de Gébelin to the regular trumps - where is Prudence? But he also wondered why more standard symbols weren't included, like the Theological Virtues, the Elements, and the Zodiac signs. It may have also been an effort to outdo the Trionfi inventor. And he may have done this shockingly early, by our standards.
The argument "too soon" isn't very strong.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1120&hilit=messore&start=10#p17851Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 03 Nov 2016, 18:39 On the transmission Florence to Milan question, I think the game went from Florence through Bologna to Milan. A good time to look for it would be during Visconti's administration of Bologna 1438-1441. Plenty of all Milanese classes would have encountered the game during that time.
I would imagine that Filippo Maria Visconti himself, who we know liked card games, and co-invented one, saw one of the luxury Florentine productions, like the one commissioned by Giusto Giusi for Sigismondo Malatesta, and decided to have one made for himself, and he tried to go one better with the Cary Yale.
The point is that creative minds were tinkering with the structure of the standard game from the beginning. Not only the ordering of the trumps, where the inherited order suggested a deficiency from a certain moral perspective, but also in adding some higher subjects (never lower), to further elevate or ennoble the game. This is not to mention evolution in rules , which happens constantly in all games.
For instance, switching the places of Angel and World, and placing Justice to stand for judgment between them as in B, which suggests that some moralist in Ferrara decided that the World was the world to come, and that therefore the Resurrection had to come before it, but, critically, Judgment had to come between these two things. In B, the order changed, but not the number. This “spiritualization” of the trump sequence, which demanded that the group of Cardinal Virtues be broken up and used ad hoc for moralistic reasons, like band-aids over sensitive links in the sequence, suggests to me that it was someone religious like Don Messore who changed the order for Ferrarese players (the Este family forcing cardmakers in their domains to conform to this order, perhaps by printing numbers on the cards).
The strong link between Este rule and the tarocchi game, where their demise is coincident with the disappearance of the game in their regions at the end of the 16th century, was noted by Dummett.