This here so as not to interrupt another thread about Petrarch.

"Cosimo De medici had his own copy of The Trionfi by 1418."

"...Cosimo acquired his copy in 1418."

Do I have to take your word for it, or would either or you, Lorredan or Phaeded, care to provide documentation of this assertion?

Wish I could help you out on the 1418 refenece but I was just assuming Lorredan’s reference was correct. At all events the trajectory of this thread has veered far from the question of Marcello/Monselice/Petrarch (which was a dead end) and is headed…where?

In the book Cosimo de’medici and The Florentine Renaissance by Professor Dale Kent (deceased) 2006 2nd Printing ISBN 0-300-08128
Part One The Patron’s Oeuvre Page 13 it says…..

As in Cosmos’s patronage, dynastic, civic, and religious themes were integrated in Petrarch’s Triumphs; love triumphs over chastity, death over love, fame over death, time over fame, and eternity over all. Cosimo had his own copy of the Trionfi by 1418, a splendidly illuminated edition of the text was Piero’s first manuscript commission, and Giovanni read Petrarch for diversion at his villa in Fiesole.45.

45. In the Index it says…
On this last see Brown, Bartolommeo Scala,17, and below,pp297-9; on Cosimo’s books,chapter.4.; on Piero’s,pp. 296-9
17 in the index: Gombich, “Early Medici as Patrons” Evidence from several articles in Beyer and Bouher, Piero de medici, tends to confirm this this suggestion. On the chapel and it’s frescoes, below, ch 13 and 14,pp.339-41; see also particularly Acidini, Chapel of the Maji, and Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, ch.3.
(The suggestion, as it turns out was that the Chapel of Maji painted by Gozzoli used from Matteo de Pasti the technique of Gold dust painting that he told Piero Cosimo about when he was commissioned to illustrate the unillustrated text of the Trionfi)
So the next index note 46 reads so…
See his letter to Piero published by Milanesi, “lettere di’arist”, 78-9. The English translation in Chambers,Artists and Patrons, 94-5, is accompanied by a misleading commentary; see alternatively Gilbert, Italian Art, 6 and Ames-Lewis, Matteo de ‘Pasti.

So I get hold of Gombrich’s Book on the Renaissance and read…

If these two letters happen to tell us of the Commissions the Medici did not give,
We are compensated by a third letter written to Piero two years later, in 1441, which gives us a first glimpse of his taste. It is written by Matteo de’Pasti, from Venice, and deals with a commission to paint the Trionfi of Petrarch, which were destined to become so popular in decorative art

And goes on to give a partial translation of the letter.
So I look for Francis Ames-Lewis book called the “Library and Manuscripts of Piero di Cosimo de Medici” and find it is in the fine arts library and cannot be inter- loaned.
The Librarian tells me over the phone that Ames-Lewis mentions the manuscript in the book and that Ames Lewis’s research shows it was the first commission of Peiro and that the folio cover had Cosimo’s palle on the ink text and Piero’s device of a diamond ring with three ostrich feathers in white/red and green.(Faith Hope and Charity) added at a later date.
I was told there was a Francis Ames-Lewis essay in.…
Cosimo "il Vecchio" de' Medici, 1389-1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de' Medici's Birth: Including papers delivered ... at the Warburg Institute, London, 19 May 1989
This book of Essays is not available to me except for a one hour inspection at the Fine Arts Library and I have to book the hour…hahahahha.
So same wonderful Librarian felt sorry for me and when available will forward me a copy of an essay at a time and I have the 4th essay which is nothing to do with Petrarch or Ames-Lewis and his research.
I do not keep wonderful reading records and my notes are in notebooks for my own ramblings about subjects that have some value for myself and my interests. Some books are on the same page as other subjects and they would not form a cohesive index.
This post is my best to give some clarity to the statement of Cosimo having a text of I trionfi in his hands in 1418. It seems that there is a truth in the statement, regardless of whose knickers get in a knot about the subject.
The subject was not what I was reading about in the first place, and I regret even bring it up, regardless of how true it is or is not. I was reading about the demographic, economic, and human environment of the monastic communities of 15th Century Florence. In particular the ones Cosimo the Elder supported, gave books to, provided work etc. The most important for Tarot (to my mind) is the Worthy Men of Saint Martin or The Buonomini di San Martino- originally attached to the Camaldolese Monastery; The ‘shamed poor’ who before 1470 were exclusively all artisans, who were seriously disadvantaged and made poor by the tax laws, famine and plague. The connection to Petrarch was that the “shamed Poor” would sing for their supper, recite poetry, put on plays etc in the square directly opposite Torre del Castagna. But that is another story for the Unicorn Terrace as I have no intention of ever posting in this research forum again.

Huck should you read this…you will find a lot of fruit in researching Petrarch in the
Zibaldoni or informal books/scrapbooks/manuscripts of the 15th Century held at the Biblioteca Nazionale, the Riccardia and the Laurenziana. There are many thousands. One early 15th century one is at the Biblioteca Riccardiana 1103, folio 10v. Matteo di Giunto acquired a compilation of Petrarch’s Trionfi belonging to an unidentified owner, and added his own illustrations and his own coat of arms of a boars head. This was common practice apparently to either erase a previous device or put a new one on the cover. Petrarch’s works inspired the overwhelming majority of these informal book illustrations.We call it scrapbooking today.
~Lorredan

In the book Cosimo de’medici and The Florentine Renaissance by Professor Dale Kent (deceased) 2006 2nd Printing ISBN 0-300-08128
Part One The Patron’s Oeuvre Page 13 it says…..

As in Cosmos’s patronage, dynastic, civic, and religious themes were integrated in Petrarch’s Triumphs; love triumphs over chastity, death over love, fame over death, time over fame, and eternity over all. Cosimo had his own copy of the Trionfi by 1418, a splendidly illuminated edition of the text was Piero’s first manuscript commission, and Giovanni read Petrarch for diversion at his villa in Fiesole.45.

45. In the Index it says…
On this last see Brown, Bartolommeo Scala,17, and below,pp297-9; on Cosimo’s books,chapter.4.; on Piero’s,pp. 296-9
17 in the index: Gombich, “Early Medici as Patrons” Evidence from several articles in Beyer and Bouher, Piero de medici, tends to confirm this this suggestion. On the chapel and it’s frescoes, below, ch 13 and 14,pp.339-41; see also particularly Acidini, Chapel of the Maji, and Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, ch.3.
(The suggestion, as it turns out was that the Chapel of Maji painted by Gozzoli used from Matteo de Pasti the technique of Gold dust painting that he told Piero Cosimo about when he was commissioned to illustrate the unillustrated text of the Trionfi)
So the next index note 46 reads so…
See his letter to Piero published by Milanesi, “lettere di’arist”, 78-9. The English translation in Chambers,Artists and Patrons, 94-5, is accompanied by a misleading commentary; see alternatively Gilbert, Italian Art, 6 and Ames-Lewis, Matteo de ‘Pasti.

Hm ... does it mean, that Brown, Bartolommeo Scala,17, likely ...
http://books.google.de/books/about/Bart ... edir_esc=y
no Snippet, no Preview
... gives the answer to the question about 1418? But it does sound like not ... Perhaps Kent refers to the 1418 inventory just by memory, but the inventory has no Trionfi poem record.
We all have to live with errors, nonetheless we've to avoid them as far as possible. It's not always possible.

But that is another story for the Unicorn Terrace as I have no intention of ever posting in this research forum again.

Come on. Research lives always with some pragmatism, at least in my personal case. One shouldn't invest too much energies in hopeless questions. One shouldn't forget good humor. One shouldn't forget the cooperative mood. And here's lonesome enough.

Lorredan wrote,

I was told there was a Francis Ames-Lewis essay in.…
Cosimo "il Vecchio" de' Medici, 1389-1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de' Medici's Birth: Including papers delivered ... at the Warburg Institute, London, 19 May 1989
This book of Essays is not available to me except for a one hour inspection at the Fine Arts Library and I have to book the hour…hahahahha.
So same wonderful Librarian felt sorry for me and when available will forward me a copy of an essay at a time and I have the 4th essay which is nothing to do with Petrarch or Ames-Lewis and his research.

I have said book in front of me, checked out from my local library. There is no essay by Ames-Lewis, just a two page editor's preface. There is, however, an essay on Cosimo's library (which your otherwise "wonderful" librarian seems not to have noticed), "Cosimo and his books", by A. C. de la Mare, with an 18 page appendix describing manuscripts that he has inspected (and some he has not) and thinks correspond to titles in one or another inventory. There is one entry for a work by Petrarch (p. 150); it is for "Canzione", in the category of "Other Manuscripts Probably Identifiable in the 1418 Inventory". He gives it as no. 64 in the 1418 Inventory.

Looking in the book's index under "Petrarch" I see three entries, all to this one essay; one on p. 144 is to a Tibullus with Cosimo's ex libris, "perhaps copied from a lost MS from Petrarch". There is also a comment in the body of the essay, that the 1418 inventory lists "copies of poetical works by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio" (p. 119), with nothing more specific about the Petrarch. However it would seem that he has the Canzione in mind.

I have requested the Ames-Lewis-authored book you mentioned from Interlibrary Loan. We'll see what happens.

The nice thing about these forums is that we can cooperate, checking one other's references if nothing else. That was Sylvia Mann's main role for Dummett in the writing of The Game of Tarot. Think of us as your Sylvia Mann.

And while I think of it, I am very interested in the topic of 15th century monasteries, in regard to who supported them, whose and what books went there, what illuminations they did, how they shared books, etc. So I will read the 4th essay in the book I have in front of me, "The Buonomini di San Martino" by Dale Kent Is there anything else?

Hi Mikeh! The "wonderful" Librarian was somewhat 'tongue in cheek'
I now live well outside the city environs- and one sad aspect is the lack of a library service- so lucky you!
I am well over Petrarch.
I have named one grumpy bird 'Petrarch'
As to my latest passion on Monastic Life-Lay Confraternities and Charitable trusts etc.
Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento, Essays edited by Timothy Verdon and John Henderson.(very interesting for facts and figures and works of Art)
Friendship, Love and Trust in Renaissance Florence (Bernard Berensen Lectures) Dale Kent (easy to read- confusing notes.)
Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna, by Nicholas Terpestra (Ok)

Public Life in Renaissance Florence by Richard C Trexler (Very Good and easy to read)
...and anything on Cosimo the Elder Medici's fear of Heavenly action for his unavoidable Usuary and the possibility of being hung in Hell by his moneybags. It is estimated he spent about 3 Gold Pieces a day on Charity through various Monastic confraternities. For Tarot look to his involvement with the Armenian Church.

Huck, I have not lost my sense of Humour- others have.
~Lorredan

Lorredan wrote:
I am well over Petrarch.

Whew!

Who had Petrarch in his library, when--what makes this an interesting question? Maybe tarot trumps were invented by a scholar who reflected on the materials in his library, sat down and figured out a game, and then commissioned specific paintings to illustrate his idea, thus inventing Tarot.

Why believe this? Is this how games really got invented in the 1400's? This is a story of origins that readers and writers find appealing--we like to think everything starts with Words. But Tarot is not words, it's pictures.

This is like the idea that art is mostly 'work for hire,' with the ideas coming from thinkers and the execution done by painters. It's a limited view of the creative process.

There's other ways for games to evolve. You start out with the cards themselves, cards you can play different games with--different from Snakes and Ladders, where the hardware and board limit the options. Card games in general evolve one into the other. They are primarily mathematical. The philosophical meanings are enfolded into the mathematics, just as they are enfolded into the images.

I am on the phone with OnePotato as I type this.

debra wrote:Who had Petrarch in his library, when--what makes this an interesting question? Maybe tarot trumps were invented by a scholar who reflected on the materials in his library, sat down and figured out a game, and then commissioned specific paintings to illustrate his idea, thus inventing Tarot.

Why believe this? Is this how games really got invented in the 1400's? This is a story of origins that readers and writers find appealing--we like to think everything starts with Words. But Tarot is not words, it's pictures.

This is like the idea that art is mostly 'work for hire,' with the ideas coming from thinkers and the execution done by painters. It's a limited view of the creative process.

There's other ways for games to evolve. You start out with the cards themselves, cards you can play different games with--different from Snakes and Ladders, where the hardware and board limit the options. Card games in general evolve one into the other. They are primarily mathematical. The philosophical meanings are enfolded into the mathematics, just as they are enfolded into the images.

I am on the phone with OnePotato as I type this.

In social life there is a common phenomenon, that ... for instance: Bayern Munich soccer Club has a good phase, and becomes European Football Champion. The fan article shop is enjoyed and sells now 500 % fan articles more than usual.
This wasn't different at other times. The emperor visits Italy. A lot of people travel to watch the emperor. Tourism, pubs etc. earn money.
If Petrarca's Trionfi poem was more or less unknown, it couldn't and wouldn't stimulate the production of card decks, which were then called Trionfi decks. But if in a phase of suddenly increasing Petrarca and Trionfi poem enthusiam during 15th century at the same time or short after Trionfi cards appear, then we have a similar causal relation as with Bavaria Munich and wins and losses of the fan-article-shop.
For this reason we're interested to know, when precisely the Trionfi poem became very popular.

It doesn't play a role for the fan-article-shop, which article he sells. It's mostly only important, that a Bvaria Munich is noted on them.

.

But Huck, there is already a big market for "fan club" stuff--shirts, hats, coffee cups, stickers, etc.-- a very different situation.

I guess it's a difference of judgement and interest. In my judgement this quest to find out if there was a manuscript in his library with some of the same ideas as on the tarot trumps is not so important. I surely don't think it's a key bit of information.

Also I'm not so interested in the ordering of the trumps. Which makes me a Grumpy Bird.

debra wrote:But Huck, there is already a big market for "fan club" stuff--shirts, hats, coffee cups, stickers, etc.-- a very different situation.

I guess it's a difference of judgement and interest. In my judgement this quest to find out if there was a manuscript in his library with some of the same ideas as on the tarot trumps is not so important. I surely don't think it's a key bit of information.

Also I'm not so interested in the ordering of the trumps. Which makes me a Grumpy Bird. (*)

In the situation of 1440 playing cards already existed and possibly also decks with similarities to the later Tarot cards.

Most early documents about Trionfi card only give evidence, that something like "Trionfi cards" existed (it's named so). Clues on structure and content of the game at specific situations is rarely given and in these few cases the received data contradicts the assumption, that the mentioned decks already had the form of the later Tarot. But what we are sure about is, that the word "Trionfi" was used in playing card context, and this starts at a specifiv time, in 1440 ... but not only there.

We see, that at the same time the word was also used in other contexts, so also the "full illustrated Trionfi poem versions" start at 1442 and in documents 1441. And around the same the later typical 15th century Italian Trionfi processions take a start.
That can't be accidental. So we have to be sure about the growing popularity of the Trionfi poem of Petrarca.

Debra wrote:

Who had Petrarch in his library, when--what makes this an interesting question? Maybe tarot trumps were invented by a scholar who reflected on the materials in his library, sat down and figured out a game, and then commissioned specific paintings to illustrate his idea, thus inventing Tarot.

Why believe this? Is this how games really got invented in the 1400's? This is a story of origins that readers and writers find appealing--we like to think everything starts with Words. But Tarot is not words, it's pictures.

This is like the idea that art is mostly 'work for hire,' with the ideas coming from thinkers and the execution done by painters. It's a limited view of the creative process.

But if you look at the first game known with a large bunch of special cards, the Michelino, with its 16 gods, that's exactly how the game was developed, by a humanist for a nobleman.

And a century later, the inventory of the print-maker and print-seller Francesco Rosselli, after his son's death in 1525, listed the titles "Game of the Seven Virtues," "Game of the Planets," and "Game of the Triumphs of Petrarch" (Early Italian Engravings p. 222). These are the exact titles given by Hind from the inventory. I would imagine they are games for children. If you combine two of these ideas (seven virtues and six triumphs), adding an Emperor and Empress (our little players) and a Wheel of Fortune, for the element of chance: 6 + 7 + 3 = 16 trumps and the Cary-Yale, just the thing to help educate Filippo's women and children as to the upright life and road to salvation.

Many decks with special cards were devised for educational purposes, perhaps even most, by people who saw themselves as educators. And that's what the 15th century humanists usually were: tutors. Even in 18th century England this was true of special card decks. Look at the examples at http://www.gamesetal.net/cis.html.