Re: Trionfi.com: News and Updates

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I don't understand.

It seems pretty clear now that by the end of the 1440s, if there ever was any experiementation, it has ended.

By the end of the 1440s, the standard 4x14+22 card deck seems well established, and is being sold mass market.

The challenge for anyone doubting that the standard was the standard right from the start is proving that anything other than the standard existed before the end of the 1440s, and there seems to be very little time between possible birth (1430s to mid 1440s) and mass production.

Or am I misunderstanding the weight of the evidence??

Re: Trionfi.com: News and Updates

22
robert wrote:I don't understand.

It seems pretty clear now that by the end of the 1440s, if there ever was any experiementation, it has ended.

By the end of the 1440s, the standard 4x14+22 card deck seems well established, and is being sold mass market.

The challenge for anyone doubting that the standard was the standard right from the start is proving that anything other than the standard existed before the end of the 1440s, and there seems to be very little time between possible birth (1430s to mid 1440s) and mass production.

Or am I misunderstanding the weight of the evidence??
I think the Cary Yale is the only thing which can be used as evidence against an original standard. Of course, it has mostly standard subjects, but three non standard subjects, which are nevertheless a complete and coherent group. It ALSO has two extra court cards per suit, which means that it was non-standard in both ways - standard 56 cards, and standard number of trumps or at least trump subjects.

To hold that the Cary Yale is evidence of a proto-Tarot, which then evolved into standard Tarot (which was Dummett's position in 1980; I don't know if he changed really throughout his life), one has to hold that the game evolved exclusively in the Visconti court before going out into the world in its standard form. Because of the obscurity of the dating (Cicognara suggested 1428 because of the arms of Savoy and Visconti on the Love card, therefore suggesting the marriage of Filippo Maria and Maria of Savoy in 1428), Dummett variously suggested earlier datings for the invention of Tarot so that it had time to evolve from the prototype of the Cary Yale into standard Tarot. He himself didn't accept the 1428 dating because it became clear that it was done by Bonifacio Bembo, who could not have been painting in 1428; his documented career begins in 1445, IIRC, so he is held to have been born around 1420.

In any case, for Cary Yale to be what Tarot looked like before it became standard requires the courtly invention scenario, and presumably the Visconti invention scenario, and a period of experimentation before the Visconti Sforza, which is standard, was painted.

All of this line of thinking happened before the extent of common Tarot cards became better known, as well as the re-dating and re-attributing of the Charles VI and Catania cards to Florence. Now these cards are contemporary with the Visconti Sforza - they may be slightly earlier or later or the same time, but together with the documentary evidence of the 1440s and 1450s, they show that the period of experimentation, if there was one, was over by the 1440s.

Since the Cary Yale was made in the 1440s, it cannot be therefore used as evidence of a period of experimentation or as the reflection of the proto-Tarot inside the Visconti court before 1450. The simpler explanation then becomes, that it was itself an expansion of the standard Tarot, already in existence.

So, to sum up, there is really no good evidence against the assumption of a standard set of subjects in the 1440s.
Image

Re: Trionfi.com: News and Updates

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robert wrote:I don't understand.

It seems pretty clear now that by the end of the 1440s, if there ever was any experiementation, it has ended.

By the end of the 1440s, the standard 4x14+22 card deck seems well established, and is being sold mass market.

The challenge for anyone doubting that the standard was the standard right from the start is proving that anything other than the standard existed before the end of the 1440s, and there seems to be very little time between possible birth (1430s to mid 1440s) and mass production.

Or am I misunderstanding the weight of the evidence??
There's evidence, that a card game or card deck called "Trionfi" took a specific career in the 1440s and 1450s. There's no new documentation, what this was. A document of 1457 tells, that it had 70 cards. Marcello took the Michelino deck as a new ludus triumphorum. The Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo looks, as if it had in its origin also 70 cards. And all the other arguments. Evidence for the 4x14+22 structure is extant with the Boiardo poem and Sola Busca and that are rather strange Trionfi decks.
We've now a new focus on Florence and Florence had finally a favor for Minchiate, and not for Tarocchi.

Franco Pratesi, silk-dealer article:
For many experts, trionfi represent a very special field for study, much more interesting than ordinary playing cards, as if the two articles had little – nearly nothing - in common. Actually, the situation can appear to be worse: lots of experts are not even interested in the whole family of trionfi packs, but just in one and only one of them, which had 78 cards exactly. (By the way, the most important trionfi packs that have been used widely, and for centuries, in the Central-Italian regions of my focal interest had either 97 or 62 cards.)
We've REAL mass production likely starting in 1464 ("309 Triunfi" imported to Rome: at least we've no real evidence before) and for 1466 we've the start of the word Minchiate.Well, we don't know, how much cards this Minchiate then had.
We've for the moment this word only seldom in 15th century, only 3 times and all from Florentine territory. Perhaps others took Minchiate as "Florentine Triunfi".
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Trionfi.com: News and Updates

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That's an older article, written in the time, when we didn't know as much as today. We had far less statistical material.
But the impressions are still the same as today. A hole in the documents 1442 - 1448, a peak, when the bigger development started. Although it's not mentioned in the article, it was suspected, that Borso's disinterest in Trionfi decks possibly referred to the begin of the use of mass production technology.
Start: Analyses of Documents (1) - autumn 2003
The theories about the origin of Tarot cards depend - beside the existence of a few fragmentary playing card decks - on few documents only.

One sort of documents contains the appearance of the word "Trionfi" in context to playing cards. In the following we will discuss and demonstrate as good as possible in the moment these documents between the years 1442 and 1463.
Main conclusions out of the following considerations:

The state before 1442 is a riddle, but it should be suggested, that the idea to Trionfi decks developed at the court of Leonello d'Este in Ferrara, where it met at begin no great interests.
Trionfi decks are rare but existent between 1442 - 1449
The interests explodes at various places around 1449 till 1452
The height of interests is probably around 1454 - 1456, perhaps till 1460
After that the game becomes to be a normal game
The Trionfi deck probably had mostly a 5x14-structure in that time.

The situation of the early documents, in which the name "Trionfi" in context to playing cards appears, is as follows:

2 documents in 1442 (Ferrara)
0 documents in 1443 - 1448
6 documents in 1449 - 1452 (from 5 different places)
20 documents in 1453 - 1463 (1 entry from Bologna, 19 from Ferrara)

After the 2 first notes, which in their meaning are considered in the article Ferrara 1441, there is a huge gap in the first years (1443 - 1448) with no notes about Trionfi decks at all.

A probability calculation, that this gap of "no entries" happened accidently, ends with a result from around 1 : 2000, which means, that it is highly unlikely, that this is an insignificant, accidental sign of the process. It should be interpreted as a logical result of a specific unknown reality behind the entries, in this case it is likely, that there were in these years

A. either not many Trionfi decks at the begin of the development,
B. or that the name Trionfi was uncommon.

In the case of B. there should be another name watchable, which looks as replaced. Such a name is not known, so it looks likely, that this feature must be interpreted as "there were not many Trionfi decks in the begin" (which is a logical feature of a begin; all products start to exist only in small number).

However, the list of the 28 entries depends highly on the account books of Ferrara. Only 5 entries are notes outside of this city. These 5 entries are:

1449 Marcello-letter (related to Milano-Venetia-Padua)
1450 Sforza-letters (related to Milano and Lodi near Milano)
1450 Statute in Florence
1452 Malatesta-letter; (related to Rimini, Milano and Cremona)

1459 Rapture in Bologna

There is a clear peak of events outside of Ferrara in the years 1449 - 1452, additional to that also the entries in Ferrara restart after the above observed gap in time. All this together again seems to be remarkable, and looks like a rare, not accidental result, and it seems justified to drag from it conclusions about the distribution of Trionfi cards at this time.

Generally: A thing has a good chance to be mentioned somewhere (in this case mostly letters), when it is new to many people. So the later (after 1452) missing of Trionfi-notes outside of Ferrara beside the "rapture in Bologna" is "naturally", Trionfi had left then the state of being a novelty.
The entries from Ferrara one should exclude from this consideration, because there was a steady production of Trionfi and Trionfi-notes in Ferrara - cause the account books there reported simply expenses, a "novelty"-phenomenon can't be observed by this. From the entries in Ferrara alone one should assume, that the interest in Trionfi is highest around the time of 1454, when a sort of Trionfi card manufacture existed at the Ferrarese court. In the political time this is parallel to the peace of Lodi 1454, which ended a periode of long wars and opened a longer phase of peace between the Italian cities, probably the Trionfi cards as a social phenomenon helped to channel the aggressions in playing war only at the playing card table and not in reality.

From this the hypothesis can be built, that Trionfi decks are new to most people in Italy in this time 1449 - 1452. As the decks are noted already in 1442 the years between 1442 and 1449 must be evaluated as a time, when the decks either existed only in small number or were only reachable to a smaller cycle of people, either chosen by location or social group.

The following graphic displays a view of the "peak of Ferrara-foreign events in the years 1449 - 1452" (red points), the continuous report of Ferrara (black points) with the "gap of entries in the years 1443 - 1448" and points to the great interest in the year 1454 (13 decks) by giving the number of decks we are talking of (lower line). Totally 44 decks are in the documents involved, three documents (M) speak of decks in a global manner, which points into the direction of mass production, 2 documents (R) in 1454 refer to special actions (no new decks involved).

Image


On the basis of the above stated opinions one can take a near look at the documents, if something could be detected, which contradicts our main interpretations or something, which supports them. Naturally the Trionfi-notes outside of Ferrara are of special importance.

1449: Scipio Caraffa (appears in Marcellos letter, document 03 ) doesn't know the game (this suggests, that the type of deck type is new). Marcello himself already knows it and actually Marcello and Scipio first consider a deck, which is "too cheap for the hands of a queen" (the existence of this deck indicates an already existing mass production or production of decks with minor quality). Marcello is from Venetia/Padua, if one assumes, that the game spread from Ferrara (near Venetia), his acquaintance with the new sort of deck is explainable.
Marcello searches for manufacturers, who could produce a deck (it seems, he knows more than one, but it is unclear, if this are just manufacturers for playing cards, who could also produce Tarot cards, if necessary).
New or not new ? This entry suggests, that there is already some acquaintance with the deck, but it might be a "local condition" (Venetia and Ferrara have a distance of ca. 80 km, if one assumes a small mass production in that region, it doesn't mean, that this form of new deck already reached Milano outside of the court - especially since there was war between Venetia and Milano and normal trade was handicapped).

1450: (Sforza, document 06 ): In Sforzas letter it seems, that the great duke with all his possibilities has obviously problems to get a simple Trionfi deck. He's in Lodi, when he writes the letter (somewhere on the country, 30 km from Milano), not in Milano. It seems, there is no deck on the country, but possibly in Milano.
New or not new ? It seems clear: In Milano are not many Trionfi decks (however, there is the plague in Milano at that time and that might have caused the rarity, see below).

1450 (Florence): A statute allows Trionfi and some other games after the late 40ies seemed to have been a time of stronger card prohibition than before. A general theory about Florence and the rest of Italy assumes, that "in Florence all things were earlier than everywhere else, there was more creativity". A statute signals a broad stream of Trionfi cards - in Florence.
But let's look precisely at the situation of 1449 - 1450:

Nov. 1449: Marcello writes his letter. The political situation is very critical - all eyes watch Milano. Sforza tries to capture the city. There is famine in the city. Some thousand people will die soon cause of hunger, before Sforza is successful (Feb./March 1450).
Venetia tries to intervene, but it doesn't work. Florence is happy after Sforza's victory (Cosimo de Medici had helped Sforza, now there is a new alliance possible, where 25 years had been more or less war between Florence-Milano).
Short before Milano had a political experiment: trying to become a republic 3 long years, getting rid of a reigning duke in 1447 at the death of the unloved Filippo Maria Visconti. In the case the experiment would have had been successful, then Milano would have been the 3rd great republic of Italy beside Florence and Venetia. Under this condition other smaller cities would have thrown away their reigning nobility soon and the whole course
of renaissance might have become rather revolutionary. This didn't happen, Sforza reestablished the dukedom in his own interests and reached a new, relatively peaceful balance between feudalism and republics.
The anarchical state, that accompanies political changes, gave Sforza the opportunity to seize the power.

In the year 1450 a plague reached Milano. 30 000 - 60 000 people (!) died in Milano. Probably that's the reason, why Sforza is not in Milano, but in Lodi. And the relatively chaotic conditions in the city:

a. death of Fillipo Visconti in 1447, the funeral ended in a revolt
b. 3 years Ambrosian republic
c. with a 3/4 year siege + famine + victory of Sforza
d with a plague with horrible much victims later in the year 1450

result in the condition: difficulties to get a Trionfi deck in Milano. The city is still a little chaotic in this year.
The plague was not only regional, but I've no data, if Florence was involved. In times of the plague games had a great chance - see the Decamerone of Boccacchio. In Florence there is in the late 40ies strong "playing card prohibition". Perhaps with the success of Sforza in Milano the general context demanded "more liberal laws", so we have a release for players. Perhaps the plague and the play during the plague took an influence.
And Florence is a place, where people reacted quickly: In 1377 Florence was the first city, that prohibited cards.
New or not new? Trionfi might be new in Florence, although the statute signals: it is well known.

1452: Malatesta writes to the Sforzas, if he could have a connection to the trionfi producers in Cremona. This means: Malatesta - probably at that time in Rimini or in military mission in the region of Naples or Florence, far away (that's not totally sure) - invests considerable engagement to get such a deck. This he probably wouldn't do, if the Trionfi were reachable all and everywhere.
Local condition in Rimini or Naples (in Florence Malatesta wouldn't have the problem, one should assume): no Trionfi deck reachable or at least no quality Trionfi deck reachable. Or Malatesta is a card gatherer, another possibility.
Local condition in Milano: The Sforzas seem to have solved their card problem.
New or not new? This story tells, that Trionfi are relatively new, still.

And now to Ferrara: although in the years 1450 - 1463 there is constantly something about Trionfi noted in Ferrara, there is NOTHING between 1442 - 1449. And the interest seems to develop slowly: 3 decks are produced in 1450 ( document 04 ) and one in 1451 ( document 07 ) and that's all before 1454, when Ferrara tried to start a mass production (in small dimensions, but the production of ). In concurrence to these documents appear in Ferrara also notes about the Imperatori deck, which disappears soon after the raising Trionfi success from Ferrara.
Looking precisely at the first 2 entries from Ferrara 1442 (document 1 and 2): Document 01 starts optimistically with 4 Trionfi decks,
Dokument 2 speaks of a deck for two boys, 9 and 11 years old. Additionally the document B points to a creative situation around 1st of January 1441, where the Trionfi deck idea might have been born.

Conclusion out of these contexts: The very early Trionfi in Ferrara isn't taken serious by adult players and stayed as toys for younger humans. The court of Leonello (1442 - 1450) didn't show great interest, instead of this we see a greater interest for Imperatori decks in 1443 and after that no other document, which might indicate, that the courtly interest in playing cards generally was very weak between 1443 - 1450, that means till the death of Leonello. Looking precisely at all notes of Ferrara, we see a Parisina-phase between 1422 - 1424, a period of nothing about playing cards after her death till 1434, and then a period of playing card interests till 1443 with enough young persons in the right age at the court and then a pause again till 1450 - perhaps simply cause a disinterest of the regent Leonello in these years. In 1450 this changes, perhaps with Borso (although document 4 still happened under Leonello), but the Ferrarese documents do not reflect "Trionfi-enthusiasm", as one might read out of the Marcello-letter, the Florence-statute and the Sforza-letters. Perhaps one can interpret this as "less interested as elsewhere" at this time, and perhaps this refers to the condition that "around Ferrara the deck is NOT a novelty".

A underground stream, not watchable to our eyes leads from the Ferrarese situation in 1442 to a situation in 1449/1450, where some trionfi decks exist, but this kind of play is not known everywhere and not existent in great number.

A communication between Pier Candido Decembrio and Leonello after the death of Filippo Visconti (1447) about Decembrio's "Vita di Filippo Visconti" gives some further information about the state of Trionfi decks around that time, compare Ross Caldwells article at Document 28 (Polismagna) and the special article to the occurrence.

There are 6 (perhaps only 4) documents which give information about the deck structure of Trionfi decks, 3 of them are fragments of playing card decks:

1. Brera-Brambilla deck: very unsecure in his informative worth, even allows a 4x14 + 4 - deck
2. Cary-Yale deck: has 24 courts and 56 pips, the number of trumps is unclear, the motifs differ from the "standard"; probably it had a 5x16-structure)
3. Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo deck: The first artist (Bonifacio Bembo) produced (probably) 70 cards and 14 trumps, all trumps are known.
4. Document B gives more strength to the 5x14-theory, it speaks of "14 figure" in a very special context.
5. Document 03 : Marziano describes 16 gods and 4 court cards and 40 pips, with some insecurities this would be 60 cards totally.
6. Document 16 : 70 cards are mentioned, probably referring to a 5x14-deck

2 documents and one insecure document suggest a 5x14-structure
1 document and an insecure document suggest experiments with the number of 16 trumps.

No document really suggests the existence of 22 trump cards.
(autorbis)
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Trionfi.com: News and Updates

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Huck wrote:That's an older article, written in the time, when we didn't know as much as today. We had far less statistical material.
But the impressions are still the same as today. A hole in the documents 1442 - 1448, a peak, when the bigger development started. Although it's not mentioned in the article, it was suspected, that Borso's disinterest in Trionfi decks possibly referred to the begin of the use of mass production technology.
There's a document for 1445 now -

"The first sale in which I have found the name of trionfi mentioned here is on 23 January 1445 to Martino di Giovanni. First we find a line of text with "4 paia di charte d’Antonio di Dino a 10s. paio". To this line no total price is associated and, even if it has not been deleted, I believe that this line was actually replaced by the two following ones: "3 paia di charte pichole d’Antonio per s.6 paio montano L.-s.18", and "1 paio di trionfi di charta grandi per s.25 paio montano L.1s.5". Of course 25s. is much more than 6s. of the other packs. However, we have two variations to take into account, from piccoli to grandi and from carte to trionfi, in either case with about a doubling of the price. Instead of the 40s. that we could deduce from the "mean" sale of 4 packs at 10s., we only have 3 additional soldo to pay."

http://trionfi.com/naibi-silk-dealers

Any hole in the 1440s is now only 3 years at most. To that we should add the Brambilla and Cary Yale decks, which Bandera put at 1443-1445, because of Bembo's career, and without any theoretical agenda (such as proving an evolutionary hypothesis). To that we might add the Borromeo fresco, also dated mid-1440s, although in truth no Triumph cards can be seen (or were even seen in an old photo from before the bombing).

3 or 5 or even 8 years is well within the margin of uncertainty that art historians of this period are comfortable with. You frequently come across datings for paintings and illuminations like "Third quarter of the 15th century", "Last quarter of the 14th century", "Second half of the 14th century", etc. I think they would be envious at the statistical data WE have for our obscure deck of cards. It is probably the best attested card game of the 15th century. The 1440s for triumphs are a case where absence of evidence is definitely NOT evidence of absence.

Finally just consider Burdochio's deck - it was not a luxury, commissioned production. It was retail, like those given as payment to the silk merchants, and like those Sforza demanded be bought for him in December 1450.

The commissions - such as Giusto Giusti's and Malatesta's in 1552 - don't specify to add special trump cards, or make any special figures. They just ask for "trionfi" - the only thing they do is add the coat of arms of the recipient on the backs. What the artist must have used to paint the Triumph cards was a standard model, with the standard subjects.
Image

Re: Trionfi.com: News and Updates

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
Huck wrote:That's an older article, written in the time, when we didn't know as much as today. We had far less statistical material.
But the impressions are still the same as today. A hole in the documents 1442 - 1448, a peak, when the bigger development started. Although it's not mentioned in the article, it was suspected, that Borso's disinterest in Trionfi decks possibly referred to the begin of the use of mass production technology.
There's a document for 1445 now -
....
Any hole in the 1440s is now only 3 years at most. To that we should add the Brambilla and Cary Yale decks, which Bandera put at 1443-1445, because of Bembo's career, and without any theoretical agenda (such as proving an evolutionary hypothesis). To that we might add the Borromeo fresco, also dated mid-1440s, although in truth no Triumph cards can be seen (or were even seen in an old photo from before the bombing).
0 from c. 25 ...
... is not so as bad as ...
... 1 from c. 100

*****************
Imagine, you've a roulette with 25 possible results

you place 6 chips at the possibilities 1443, 1444, 1445, 1446, 1447, 1448 in each round.

0 from c. 25 is equal to ... In 25 rounds you lose 6x25 = 150 ...
1 from 100 is equal to .... In 100 rounds you win once 25, but you loose 6x99 = 594 ... this makes 594 minus 25 = 569 (loss naturally). That's worse.

Another way to observe the hole:

I just reduce it to 24 years, it's easier to calculate, cause the basic chance is then 1/4 , cause of 6/24.
It seems to me (I've math as an occasional hobby, I'm not a specialist), ...
that the chance, that you get none in 25 attempts is ...
1 : (4^25) / (3^25) = 1 : 1328.82691
... simplified "less than 1:1000"

... and the chance, that you get 1 in 100 attempts is ...
1: ((4^99) / (3^99)) / 4 = 1 : 5.84621702 × 10^11
... simplified a "1 : a number with 12 ciphers"
(... :-) ... a provisional "sorry" for the case, if would be wrong with it ...)

... and the latter should be smaller then.

Which means in short, that the "hole-phenomenon" in the distribution of the Trionfi notes has become much more manifest, as it had been before, in my humble opinion.

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

But, actually the data used for this statistic is still rather small, so anyway that's all a little bit insecure. Maybe Franco with all his researcher talents finds a Florentine Trionfi specialist, who against all trends of his time produced 50 Trionfi decks for a secret circle market of Trionfi card lovers just in the time of "the hole" ... we would have then 50 documents, and all talk of a hole would look like rubbish, although it wouldn't be naturally so. It just would prove, that we have in our research a focus on a selected aim.
If we would take all data of general playing card research (under the condition, that we would have enough), we would get a more reliable statistic. But we have not enough of it, as far I know.

... :-) ... actually we're interested to find one of the first Trionfi card specialists.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Huck's "holes"

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Hi, Ross,

"Doesn't the form of our expression mislead us here? For isn't it a misleading metaphor...?"
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Any hole in the 1440s is now only 3 years at most.
It may seem like a quibble, but Huck's "holes" metaphor seems particularly misleading. There is no hole, because there is no broad stretch of material in which a hole could exist. As you have pointed out, there are only scattered bits and pieces, extremely fragmentary evidence. We are missing 99.99% of the evidence we might wish to have.

The game was probably being played regularly by lots of people in each of many different towns and cities. We have sufficient evidence to know that Tarot was played over a wide area, and played by both the aristocracy and the hoi polloi, at a very early date. But we do not have evidence from every town, every gathering place, for every day of every month of every year, or anything remotely like that. So the absence of evidence at any particular point is to be expected -- it is not a "hole" which requires special explanation.

As an example, look at the "holes" for Bologna.

Do we take the absence of evidence as evidence of absence, and speculate about two points when the game was played in Bologna and create "theories" about why it wasn't popular until 1460, why it became unpopular for 15 years, and then had a momentary resurgence, etc? That would be absurd.

We have to accept the fragmentary nature of historical evidence. For example, when a 5-century old deck of cards is incomplete, we shouldn't be surprised or pretend that it's actually complete and invent "theories" about various decks with fewer than 22 trumps. It is both obvious and to be expected that the earliest decks are incomplete in both suit cards and trumps. Likewise, we have only the sketchiest information about popular decks, and even the luxury decks. We have only a few dozen data points from the first decades of Tarot.

Best regards,
Michael
We are either dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, or we are just dwarfs.

Re: Franco Pratesi's Florentine discoveries

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In the case, that you really have problems to understand it ...

TWO YEARS
NO HOLE 1. - 1440 recently from Depaulis 2012
NO HOLE Document 1.1. 1441
NO HOLE 2. - Feb 1442 - Leonello
NO HOLE 3. - Jul 1442 - deck of the boys

SIX YEARS
HOLE 1443
HOLE 1444

Exception form Hole 4. - 1445 - silk-dealer sale from Pratesi 2012
HOLE 1446
HOLE 1447
HOLE 1448


THREE YEARS
NO HOLE 5. - 1449 - Marcello game in camp
NO HOLE 6. - 1449 - Marcello - Michelino deck
NO HOLE 7. - Dec 1449 - Giovanni di Domenico - 6 decks acquired by silk dealers from Pratesi 2012
NO HOLE 8. - Mar 1450 - Leonello 3 decks
NO HOLE 9. - April 1450 - Giovanni di Domenico - 3 decks acquired by silk dealers from Pratesi 2012
NO HOLE 10. - Dec 1450 - Letter I of Francesco Sforza
NO HOLE 11. - Dec 1450 - Letter I of Francesco Sforza
NO HOLE 12. - Dec. 1450 - Trionfi allowance in Florence (older detection of Franco Pratesi)
NO HOLE 13. - Jan 1451 - Antonio di Dino - 2 decks - acquired by silk dealers from Pratesi 2012
NO HOLE 14. - ? 1451 - Trionfi allowance in Gambassa - Florentine territory(2011 detection of Franco Pratesi)
NO HOLE 15. - 1451 - Trionfi allowance in Asinalunga - Sienese territory (2012 detection of Franco Pratesi

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

Image


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

Image
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Franco Pratesi's Florentine discoveries

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In Chapter 21 of The Game of Tarot (page 418) Michael Dummett wrote:
Originally called triumphi, a set of cards including them were carte da triumphi, cards with trumps. Thus, in the passage of his Caos del Triperuno leading up to the five sonnets on the tarot trumps, Teofilo Folengo has Triperuno being led to a room where there were carte lusorie de trionfi, 'playing cards with trumps'; and Sperone Speroni, in his brief tract on games, says that to the cards of the four suits one sometimes adds certain other cards called tarocchi, so that the first distinction to be made concerning the cards used is whether they are with tarocchi or without tarocchi.
So he seems to speaking of separate sets of trumps being added to ordinary playing cards as well as (later in the text) packs including both suits and trumps. This might account for some of the price differences.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy...

Re: Franco Pratesi's Florentine discoveries

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Hi Huck,

I can't say that I really understand where you're coming from with this. I look at Ross' chart, and it's clear that we have a lot of tarot activity happening in the 1440s in Milan, Ferrara and Florence. As Ross and Michael have pointed out, chances are that there was a lot of activity probably happening in Bologna as well, as it connects two of the other centres, but we just haven't found the evidence for it, which is no surprise if we consider that we're talking about card decks from over 500 year ago. What strikes me as really surprising is that we have as much as we do! You say there's a hole between 1443 and 1448 where we don't have any evidence, only six years! Now, there's a hole in your hole! We've got a hole at 1445, right in between your dates. Do we need to fill in the five remaining years for you to be satisfied that there is a lot of evidence pointing to a game being played in different locations at the same time?

I sort of hate to ask these questions, but to even begin to understand where you are coming from I guess I have to... If they weren't playing with a 22 card deck in these different places, what were they playing with? Are you suggesting that in Florence, in the 1440s, they weren't using a tarot deck, they were using a Minchiate? Or, (god forbid this from flowing from my lips), a "Proto-Minchiate"? ("Ur-Minchiate" :ymsick: ) Are you still arguing that these are all different, "experimental" decks being sold?