A very bad translation of a Franco Pratesi article on parchment naibi
Posted: 06 Jun 2018, 21:39
I present with great diffidence my very bad translation, if indeed it merits that word. I have found several references to Pratesi's idea that early naibi were on parchment (or perhaps he means something else made from skins). None of these referencesw have been in English. Sentences I am especially unsure about I have marked **
The original is
1487: San Miniato - Due paia di carte da giuchare. (01.07.2014)
located : http://www.naibi.net/A/325-RUFFELLI-Z.pdf
1487: San Miniato - Two decks of playing cards
Franco Pratesi - 01.07.2014
INTRODUCTION
I recently visited the historical Archives of the Municipality in San Miniato Basso (ACSM); and for the preliminary information on the location and on the archive I can refer to what I have I have already written in a previous note. (1) The documents that I tried first were those of the Academy of Volunteers, of the nineteenth century, but the presence in the ACSM of also some older material led me to search for news about the history of playing cards, hoping to find some new information on the naibi and on triumphs.
1. The archival collection
[ I could not translate this section as it has XV century Italian in it.]
2. The book of accounts
I began examining the accounting books in the Opera Ruffella collection, looking first at one that has a heading different from the others: instead of indicating Marchionne Ruffelli alone, it indicates him together to his companions, spezialli or speziali. (4) Here is how the book in question is presented in the Inventory. (2)
«341 (1486/1497) Journal of the income and expenditure of Marchionne Ruffelli and "special companions". Register with Rep .; cc. 142; 30x22x3; Parchment."
In Fig. 1 the title page of the book is reproduced, which also contains an indication of the content. In fact, the goods sold are even more varied than one might expect in a grocery store. There are indeed many sugared almonds, pepper, and the like, but there are also knives, cloths, and other items that you would rather think of finding in a classic village shop, where you can find for sale all sorts of things.
The information contained in this book is very copious, because the pages are all completely written, with a very minute writing, and with minimal spaces left between the lines. For as regards the spelling, I must confess that the last months passed on documents of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries my vision was blurred by those of the fifteenth century, which I read better before.
3. The two decks of cards
Among all the various merchandise of the San Miniato grocery I also found "due paja di carte da giuchare." [two decks of playing cards]. The interested person is a widow: Madonna Leonora wife was of Giunta Barbers. Playing cards fall into a list of objects inserted at different times. In this case, the date indicated is December 23, 1487, more than a century after the first news on the naibi in Florence.
As with other objects, the indication refers for more details to a previous one registration in another book of accounts. I asked permission to reproduce the text, visible in the Fig. 2, so that anyone can better enter the news in the context, reading in person all the information stored in this regard.
I also looked for any indications of other decks of cards among the goods recorded in the book, but I did not find any. As I said above, I can not exclude that an eye better exercised may instead find many there.
For now, I dwell on these two decks, as they were really the only ones documented in all this archival collection.
That the decks of playing cards were then referred to as pairs of cards is a known fact; the term a pair with the meaning of a bunch is still frequent later, even in the eighteenth century. On the other hand, there is the spelling of giuchare when we would most commonly write giocare or giuocare, but giuchare is quite understandable and reasonably common.
Of a certain importance is the fact that of these two decks of cards we find the cost. There sum of 3s. 8d. for two decks of cards corresponds to 1s. 10d. per deck, or 1L. 2s. a dozen.
Compared to what we know from sales in Florence a few decades earlier (5), this is a low price, which was found only among paper goods, like the productions of Niccolò di Calvello. ** This fact confirms the opinion that the playing cards had become over time objects of daily use, which no longer had those characteristics of finely crafted works and paintings, which only in a small part do we actually know.
4. Discussion and comments
I had to reflect on the fact that here the playing cards are called playing cards. This may not seem a point surprising enough to be reflected on: in fact, the term that would be surprising here is precisely "naibi," which in Florence was practically used exclusively, from the earliest times.
In particular, if one says card, there may be the ambiguity between a piece of paper in general and one specifically cut and painted for use as a game tool; so much so that normally it is written, as here, with the complete indication playing card, unless the context is such as to exclude other interpretations from the start.
If instead we talk about naibi, the ambiguity is of a different kind. None of the historians who have been interested has questioned that the naibi were playing cards, but the attributions were divided between those who saw in these particular papers those "original" or we might say "Islamic" cards, with some little figurines for childish games, ** and those who - erroneously - identified them with the triumphs, indeed especially with those particular cards of the triumphs that were usually later referred to as the major arcana by specialists (of course, not by serious players and historians). **
The main problem with the naibi, considered from the point of view of the terminology, is that it is not a word belonging to the Italian lexicon but it would seem introduced from the outside, presumably together with the objects called by that name.
There are several Italian cities where playing cards were called cards from the beginning, and the term naibi does not appear in any document. Over time, even when they used the term "naibi," it was paraphrased with the more "Italian" term of cards. In Florence the term of naibi resisted longer than elsewhere.
But were the naibi really the same thing as ordinary playing cards? By now you can be sure that the sometimes suggested distinction of naibi as triumphs has no reason to be maintained. Personally I agree with the experts who for many decades now consider naibi as the first "ordinary" playing cards used in Florence.
In short, one can pass from the use of the term naibi to that of cards to indicate the same object, or at least one that was very similar and usable as an alternative. The point on which I am found to reflect is just this: were "cards" really identical to "naibi" or were they only one updated version?
I have no valid reasons to support the hypothesis, however, it is not impossible, that between naibi and cards there were also differences in the total number of cards in the deck, or in the images depicted on them, in particular a different distributions of the "numeral" cards and those higher, the face cards. We admit, however, for simplicity, that they were just the same elements, with the same numbers and the same figures.
However, I still have doubts about the identity of the two objects. In particular I am inclined to assign a "normal" paper substance only to playing cards and not to naibi. Many historians have suggested that the naibi were painted parchment sheets. Well, if the naibi were parchment, and cards were paper, this may already be a reason that is sufficiently valid for the introduction of the two different names for similar objects.
The transformation of parchment material to paper may have occurred at different times in the various places and, above all, that the previous processing of the paintings on parchment is kept only in places where the production of objects of that kind was in full development.
One point that seems important to me is that already in the middle of the fourteenth century we find a large importation of argenpelli [pieces of silver-gilt leather] and gilded leather, as well as other leather from the Iberian Peninsula, probably starting from Morocco and maybe beyond. (6) About the gilded leather, or even gold leaf, one can remember that golden background was a typical feature of the finest Florentine cards.
Even the natives who arrived in Rome in 1428 by sea were part of an shipment including hide bundles. (7) ** If that association was consolidated, and as long as the naibi were products in the field of leather goods, there was no reason to call them cards. Only when it became convenient to replace the parchment with the "bambagina paper" it became natural to use for those objects of a name deriving from the material with which they were made.
In short, in my opinion, if in San Miniato in 1487 we find two paja di charte da giuchare instead of the "usual" naibi, this means that by now the use of paper had long prevailed also in the manufacture of those objects and therefore the term used to indicate the cards originally no longer had any reason to be used.
I do not think that the difference in the term was due to the fact that it was quite far from Florence and therefore the typically "Florentine" term of naibi was not used so far away.
CONCLUSION
At the end of 1487 two decks of playing cards are recorded in the books of a grocery store of San Miniato. Here we discuss the indication, the cost, and the terminology used, comparing these data with those known for Florence in previous times of a few decades.
The spelling of this register does not allow a fluent reading and it is possible that others recordings of this kind have so far escaped the attention of those who consulted it.
NOTE [ If you want to follow any of these links I suggest you do so from the original .pdf - sandyh ]
1. http://naibi.net/A/324-PULCINELLI-Z.pdf
2.http://ast.sns.it/index.php?id=13&uid=5 ... gati_CA_27
_Operepieecompagnielaicali&L=0
3. ASFI, Regia Consulta, Prima Serie, 456, c. 169 r.
4. ACSM, Opera Ruffella, 341.
5. http://naibi.net/A/123-SILKPUR-Z.pdf
6. The Playing-Card, 26 No. 2 (1997) 38-45; http://naibi.net/A/64-ORPELLI-Z.pdf
7. http://trionfi.com/evx-oldest-known-nai ... rt-to-rome
The original is
1487: San Miniato - Due paia di carte da giuchare. (01.07.2014)
located : http://www.naibi.net/A/325-RUFFELLI-Z.pdf
1487: San Miniato - Two decks of playing cards
Franco Pratesi - 01.07.2014
INTRODUCTION
I recently visited the historical Archives of the Municipality in San Miniato Basso (ACSM); and for the preliminary information on the location and on the archive I can refer to what I have I have already written in a previous note. (1) The documents that I tried first were those of the Academy of Volunteers, of the nineteenth century, but the presence in the ACSM of also some older material led me to search for news about the history of playing cards, hoping to find some new information on the naibi and on triumphs.
1. The archival collection
[ I could not translate this section as it has XV century Italian in it.]
2. The book of accounts
I began examining the accounting books in the Opera Ruffella collection, looking first at one that has a heading different from the others: instead of indicating Marchionne Ruffelli alone, it indicates him together to his companions, spezialli or speziali. (4) Here is how the book in question is presented in the Inventory. (2)
«341 (1486/1497) Journal of the income and expenditure of Marchionne Ruffelli and "special companions". Register with Rep .; cc. 142; 30x22x3; Parchment."
In Fig. 1 the title page of the book is reproduced, which also contains an indication of the content. In fact, the goods sold are even more varied than one might expect in a grocery store. There are indeed many sugared almonds, pepper, and the like, but there are also knives, cloths, and other items that you would rather think of finding in a classic village shop, where you can find for sale all sorts of things.
The information contained in this book is very copious, because the pages are all completely written, with a very minute writing, and with minimal spaces left between the lines. For as regards the spelling, I must confess that the last months passed on documents of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries my vision was blurred by those of the fifteenth century, which I read better before.
3. The two decks of cards
Among all the various merchandise of the San Miniato grocery I also found "due paja di carte da giuchare." [two decks of playing cards]. The interested person is a widow: Madonna Leonora wife was of Giunta Barbers. Playing cards fall into a list of objects inserted at different times. In this case, the date indicated is December 23, 1487, more than a century after the first news on the naibi in Florence.
As with other objects, the indication refers for more details to a previous one registration in another book of accounts. I asked permission to reproduce the text, visible in the Fig. 2, so that anyone can better enter the news in the context, reading in person all the information stored in this regard.
I also looked for any indications of other decks of cards among the goods recorded in the book, but I did not find any. As I said above, I can not exclude that an eye better exercised may instead find many there.
For now, I dwell on these two decks, as they were really the only ones documented in all this archival collection.
That the decks of playing cards were then referred to as pairs of cards is a known fact; the term a pair with the meaning of a bunch is still frequent later, even in the eighteenth century. On the other hand, there is the spelling of giuchare when we would most commonly write giocare or giuocare, but giuchare is quite understandable and reasonably common.
Of a certain importance is the fact that of these two decks of cards we find the cost. There sum of 3s. 8d. for two decks of cards corresponds to 1s. 10d. per deck, or 1L. 2s. a dozen.
Compared to what we know from sales in Florence a few decades earlier (5), this is a low price, which was found only among paper goods, like the productions of Niccolò di Calvello. ** This fact confirms the opinion that the playing cards had become over time objects of daily use, which no longer had those characteristics of finely crafted works and paintings, which only in a small part do we actually know.
4. Discussion and comments
I had to reflect on the fact that here the playing cards are called playing cards. This may not seem a point surprising enough to be reflected on: in fact, the term that would be surprising here is precisely "naibi," which in Florence was practically used exclusively, from the earliest times.
In particular, if one says card, there may be the ambiguity between a piece of paper in general and one specifically cut and painted for use as a game tool; so much so that normally it is written, as here, with the complete indication playing card, unless the context is such as to exclude other interpretations from the start.
If instead we talk about naibi, the ambiguity is of a different kind. None of the historians who have been interested has questioned that the naibi were playing cards, but the attributions were divided between those who saw in these particular papers those "original" or we might say "Islamic" cards, with some little figurines for childish games, ** and those who - erroneously - identified them with the triumphs, indeed especially with those particular cards of the triumphs that were usually later referred to as the major arcana by specialists (of course, not by serious players and historians). **
The main problem with the naibi, considered from the point of view of the terminology, is that it is not a word belonging to the Italian lexicon but it would seem introduced from the outside, presumably together with the objects called by that name.
There are several Italian cities where playing cards were called cards from the beginning, and the term naibi does not appear in any document. Over time, even when they used the term "naibi," it was paraphrased with the more "Italian" term of cards. In Florence the term of naibi resisted longer than elsewhere.
But were the naibi really the same thing as ordinary playing cards? By now you can be sure that the sometimes suggested distinction of naibi as triumphs has no reason to be maintained. Personally I agree with the experts who for many decades now consider naibi as the first "ordinary" playing cards used in Florence.
In short, one can pass from the use of the term naibi to that of cards to indicate the same object, or at least one that was very similar and usable as an alternative. The point on which I am found to reflect is just this: were "cards" really identical to "naibi" or were they only one updated version?
I have no valid reasons to support the hypothesis, however, it is not impossible, that between naibi and cards there were also differences in the total number of cards in the deck, or in the images depicted on them, in particular a different distributions of the "numeral" cards and those higher, the face cards. We admit, however, for simplicity, that they were just the same elements, with the same numbers and the same figures.
However, I still have doubts about the identity of the two objects. In particular I am inclined to assign a "normal" paper substance only to playing cards and not to naibi. Many historians have suggested that the naibi were painted parchment sheets. Well, if the naibi were parchment, and cards were paper, this may already be a reason that is sufficiently valid for the introduction of the two different names for similar objects.
The transformation of parchment material to paper may have occurred at different times in the various places and, above all, that the previous processing of the paintings on parchment is kept only in places where the production of objects of that kind was in full development.
One point that seems important to me is that already in the middle of the fourteenth century we find a large importation of argenpelli [pieces of silver-gilt leather] and gilded leather, as well as other leather from the Iberian Peninsula, probably starting from Morocco and maybe beyond. (6) About the gilded leather, or even gold leaf, one can remember that golden background was a typical feature of the finest Florentine cards.
Even the natives who arrived in Rome in 1428 by sea were part of an shipment including hide bundles. (7) ** If that association was consolidated, and as long as the naibi were products in the field of leather goods, there was no reason to call them cards. Only when it became convenient to replace the parchment with the "bambagina paper" it became natural to use for those objects of a name deriving from the material with which they were made.
In short, in my opinion, if in San Miniato in 1487 we find two paja di charte da giuchare instead of the "usual" naibi, this means that by now the use of paper had long prevailed also in the manufacture of those objects and therefore the term used to indicate the cards originally no longer had any reason to be used.
I do not think that the difference in the term was due to the fact that it was quite far from Florence and therefore the typically "Florentine" term of naibi was not used so far away.
CONCLUSION
At the end of 1487 two decks of playing cards are recorded in the books of a grocery store of San Miniato. Here we discuss the indication, the cost, and the terminology used, comparing these data with those known for Florence in previous times of a few decades.
The spelling of this register does not allow a fluent reading and it is possible that others recordings of this kind have so far escaped the attention of those who consulted it.
NOTE [ If you want to follow any of these links I suggest you do so from the original .pdf - sandyh ]
1. http://naibi.net/A/324-PULCINELLI-Z.pdf
2.http://ast.sns.it/index.php?id=13&uid=5 ... gati_CA_27
_Operepieecompagnielaicali&L=0
3. ASFI, Regia Consulta, Prima Serie, 456, c. 169 r.
4. ACSM, Opera Ruffella, 341.
5. http://naibi.net/A/123-SILKPUR-Z.pdf
6. The Playing-Card, 26 No. 2 (1997) 38-45; http://naibi.net/A/64-ORPELLI-Z.pdf
7. http://trionfi.com/evx-oldest-known-nai ... rt-to-rome