In one of the documents of Ferrara in 1457 appears a Petrecino, page of the signore Borso d'Este. He paints one Trionfi deck, just in the time, when 13-years-old Galeazzo Maria had been in Ferrara at a visit. Gherardo Vicenza is paid for the colors.
http://trionfi.com/0/e/17/

A Petrecino da Firenze is known as the artist of this work, which presents duke Borso:


http://metmuseum.org/Collections/search ... cino&pos=1
He made medals. The date 1471 is possibly not likely (?).

http://www.villaggioglobaleinternationa ... 49_603.pdf
... has the dating 1460, which seems much more plausible, if we assume, that Petrecino da Firenze is identical to Petrecino, the painting page of 1457.

15. Petrecino da Firenze
Borso d’Este, 1460
Bronzo (fusione), diametro mm 91
Ferrara, Musei Civici di Arte Antica,
inv. N51139
Hill 96

http://www.atlantedellarteitaliana.it/i ... 240&page=3
gives Petrocini da Firenze as active between 1447-1460. The picture shows both sides of a medal.


A greater image of the backside:



Another picture:


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... 27este.JPG

Further:
http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/p ... dwc2rrme2d

PETRECINO DA FIRENZE (active c.1460 in Ferrara), Borso d'Este (1413- 1471), gilt-bronze medal, 1460, BORSIVS. DVX. MVTINE. Z. REGII. MARCHIO. ESTENSIS RODIGII. COMES (Borso, Duke of Modena and Reggio, Marquis of Este, Count of Rovigo), bust left, with long hair, wearing cap with fluted crown and jewel at side and richly brocaded robe with jewels on shoulder and breast, rev., signed and dated OPVS PETRECINI DEFLORETIA MCCCCLX (The work of Petrecino of Florence 1460), a hexagonal font with open lid revealing a ring within, set in a rocky landscape; the sides of the font incised with crosses and the sun, with human face, shining from above; three towns on the mountains in the distance, 96mm, pierced, some wear to the gilding but an extremely fine contemporary cast with elements of the design finely chased in E40000-60000 Literature: Hill 96; Armand I, 33, 1; Kress 36 (lead); B”rner 40; Bargello 27; Johnson/Martini -390 (lead and bronze); Boccolari 58, 37. Provenance: Leu Numismatik, Auktion 74, Zurich, 19- 21 October 1998, lot 720. Little is known of the medallist Petrecino of Florence who made only three signed medals, all in the year 1460. His style is very close to the equally obscure Jacopo Lixignolo who also produced a signed medal of Borso in that year. Hill mentioned a painter of playing cards called Petrecino da Firenze, who, after 1460, entered a monastery. Borso d'Este became Marquis of Ferrara on the death of his brother, Leonello d'Este, in 1450. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III gave him the title of Duke of Modena and Reggio in 1452 and Pope Paul II conferred the Dukedom of Ferrara on him and his successors on Easter day, 1471; he died later that year and was succeeded by his brother Ercole d'Este. Besides playing a full role in the turbulent and complex politics of his day, Borso was a great patron of the arts. Bindings and the art of the illuminated manuscript flourished under him - the 'Bible of Borso d'Este' attests to this. Painting, sculpture and architecture, as well as tapestry production, intarsia and medal-making, were commissioned and encouraged. In 1450 the Commune of Modena commissioned Donatello to erect a gilt-bronze statue of Borso in his honour, although the work was never executed. The font on the reverse of the medal is an Este heraldic device. Its placement within a rocky barren landscape may allude to Borso's important irrigation projects which he set up in the country. The very fine chasing on the present medal may well be by the hand of a contemporary goldsmith.

From:
From Borso to Cesare d'Este:
the school of Ferrara 1450-1628 : an exhibition in aid of the Courtauld Institute of Art Trust Appeal, June 1st-August 14th 1984
Courtauld Institute of Art, Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd
http://books.google.de/books?ei=a7RkULD ... rch_anchor

Well, that's interesting. Somebody believes, that also for 1458 a Trionfi card document exists, in which Petrecino participated. That's new to me.
But I find it already in Ortalli 1996, Prince and the Playing Cards. He refers to Adolfo Venturi ...


Page 731in Adolfo Venturi 1885
I don't find it online.
And:

Further I find
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/l ... -ala.shtml

RAZZANTI, PIETRO DI NERI (7ta/.) . A Florentine Gem-engraver,
born in 1425. He returned to Florence in 1477 after an absence of
several years, and obtained an exemption of state dues on the condi-
tion of his opening a school for the teaching of his art. He was still
living in 1480. Milanesi suggested he may have been the same
person who signed PETRECINI (q . v.} the medals of Borso d'Este
and Gian Francesco Pico della Mirandola, 1460.

A similar story I saw told about Petricini 1447 in Ferrara. I got the suspicion, that there might be a dating error, somebody exchanging 1447 with 1477.

Huck,
As usual, an interesting find and research on your part. To me the significance here is one more sign pointing towards Florence, where Petrocini da Firenze was obviously from.

The question: was this deck, noted in the historical record on August 2nd, also of 70 cards like the deck specifically enumerated as 70 cards on July 21st of the same year (just 10 days before)? It would appear likely. Why 70 then and is there a connection of that number to Florence (i.e., were there 14 trumps from the get-go)?

Will post soon in a new thread my theory of the development of the trump cards from the Giusti deck to the PMB deck (which is when I think the trumps were expanded from 14 to 22, not without some lingering 14 trump decks such as our Ferrarese decks of 1457).

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote:Huck,
As usual, an interesting find and research on your part. To me the significance here is one more sign pointing towards Florence, where Petrocini da Firenze was obviously from.

The question: was this deck, noted in the historical record on August 2nd, also of 70 cards like the deck specifically enumerated as 70 cards on July 21st of the same year (just 10 days before)? It would appear likely. Why 70 then and is there a connection of that number to Florence (i.e., were there 14 trumps from the get-go)?

Will post soon in a new thread my theory of the development of the trump cards from the Giusti deck to the PMB deck (which is when I think the trumps were expanded from 14 to 22, not without some lingering 14 trump decks such as our Ferrarese decks of 1457).

Phaeded

The deck with the 70 cards note and the action with Petrecino as painter seem both related to the visit of the 13-years-old Galeazzo Maria. Everybody - beside Venice - was very interested to have good relations to Sforza, so politeness to the future heir of Milan was an action of very big importance, diplomacy at a high level. If the situation was so, that the 70-card-decks were part of this politeness, cause Trionfi was played with 70 cards still in Milan, then possibly the production of Petrecino also used this structure. But who knows, possibly Galeazzo Maria was interested in the Ferrarese Trionfi game, and it was a "Ferrarese version" with possibly another version of trumps. It's curious, that not Gherardo da Vicenza was the new artist, but Petrecino, but it is explained by the condition, that Gherardo was too old too be amusing and Petrecino was young enough to serve the young Galeazzo Maria as a "personal painter" with a Trionfi deck according his wishes.

I don't think, that we can read from the situation, that a Florentine type of deck was made ... well, it's possible, that Petrecino was taken to present "Florentine style". But all this we can only speculate about.

Bianca Maria got in 1441 during her long visit in Ferrara the "14 figure" pictures, which possibly related to a Trionfi deck production.
The marriage of 1454/55 of Beatrice d'Este with Tristano Sforza had revived the old youth friendship between Bianca Maria and Beatrice d'Este, who since then often lived at Milan and became a great dame there till 1497. Biana Maria and Beatrice had a splendid understanding. Perhaps Beatrice and Tristano accompanied Galeazzo Maria? Tristano had been generally used as a diplomat. But we have no report. Letters have survived, but they seem to tell not the full story. It's plausible, that Galeazzo Maria came with some delegation.

Huck said: ...If the situation was so, that the 70-card-decks were part of this politeness, cause Trionfi was played with 70 cards still in Milan, then possibly the production of Petrecino also used this structure. ...Bianca Maria got in 1441 during her long visit in Ferrara the "14 figure" pictures, which possibly related to a Trionfi deck production.

Huck,
My view is that all of the pre-PMB decks - Anghiari, Bianca's New Year Eve's deck, and Cary-Yale/Brambilla - had 14 trumps (7 virtues with 7 exemplars or antitypes) and that Sforza's "people" (I have someone in mind) added a third level of 7 more (plus the Fool) for the expanded PMB deck which eventually became the standard.

But in 1457, only some six years after the PMB innovation of ca. 1450, we should not be surprised to see the original format lingering, especially if the format was invented in Florence in 1440 (to celebrate Anghiari), copied by Ferrara shortly thereafter (for Bianca/1441 New Year's Eve deck), and then still produced by a Florentine artist in Ferrara in 1457. And why would Milan still produce a 70 card deck when a 78 card deck (22 trumps) was created for and associated with the founding act of the Sforza dynasty? It is much more likely that Ferrara still used the original format and simply produced what they knew (the Este did not assist Sforza in taking Milan so would not have been recipients of one of the hand-painted copies of the original PMB - we don't know how many of the PMB decks were created [Kaplan shows fragments of several]). Furthermore Galeazzo was not married yet, so if you are the Este why not produce a "wooing deck" to amuse the young prince such as the one that had been once produced for his mother (one whose format was also likely appropriated and embellished with Sforza/Visconti belli for the 1441 wedding's Cary-Yale deck)?

Phaeded

Huck,
My view is that all of the pre-PMB decks - Anghiari, Bianca's New Year Eve's deck, and Cary-Yale/Brambilla - had 14 trumps (7 virtues with 7 exemplars or antitypes) and that Sforza's "people" (I have someone in mind) added a third level of 7 more (plus the Fool) for the expanded PMB deck which eventually became the standard.

But in 1457, only some six years after the PMB innovation of ca. 1450, we should not be surprised to see the original format lingering, especially if the format was invented in Florence in 1440 (to celebrate Anghiari), copied by Ferrara shortly thereafter (for Bianca/1441 New Year's Eve deck), and then still produced by a Florentine artist in Ferrara in 1457.

hi Phaeded,

Leonello had been at the festivities in Milan in March 1450, as far I know. [

img]http://a-tarot.eu/p/2012/zz2/zz2.jpg[/img]
http://books.google.de/books?id=GdB3LNu ... 50&f=false

At least he participated as the peacemaker. Later on, 1454/55 Ferrara and Milan celebrated their friendship by the marriage of Beatrice d'Este and Tristano Sforza.

I see this row of events:

1377: A deck with 60 cards exists (with 10 numbers and 5 court cards, the numbers present professions), also a deck with 5 suits (John of Rheinfelden)

1418-1425: Michelino has (likely) a modified 60-cards-deck. Courts (only 4 King) 16 trumps (Roman gods) and likely 10 bird cards in each suit. The gods have replaced the other cards, so in memory it's just a 4x15-deck.

1422: There's a curious operation in Ferrara, in which 13 cards (5 figure and 8 others) are produced and 4 "paro" of already existing cards get new colors. "Paro" is usually translated as "pack of cards", but in this specific case it might be, that the word was used for suits. 4 paro = 1 deck with 4x13 cards would make together with 13 new cards (5 figure for 3 courts and 1 and 10) and 8 not figured number cards would make totally a deck with 5x13-structure.

1423: Very expensive "VIII Imperatori cards" are imported from Florence to Ferrara. This new cards only make sense as an "addition of cards", similar to the 13 cards operation a year before.

1440: Anghiari and a deck produced in Florence for Malatesta, first known use of the Trionfi name. We don't know, which style it had, we don't know, if it's the "first", we don#t know about the number of trumps.

1.1.1441: A documents notes 14 pictures, and they is paid at a day 1st of January, which has some tradition as a day for gambling. The painter is Sagramoro, who later paints Trionfi decks. If 5x14-decks existed, these 14 cards might have been used as a trump addition.

a little later: The Cary-Yale exists. It has 6 court cards, and so one should suspect a deck based on the number 16. So possibly 16 trumps, as in the Michelino, and totally a 5x16 deck. The reconstructed deck looks a little bit, as if it is made under inspiration of Petrarca and Chess.

short after 1450: PMB is made by 2 painters, analysis of the closer conditions leads to the opinion, that the original form (only by one painter) had been 5x14. Totally there are 20 trumps, and the six added trumps look like a complete sub-system (3 virtues and sun-moon-star), so the assumption exists, that the later PMB-form indeed had 20 trumps.

1457: The Ferrarese account book notes the production of two decks with 70 cards, which points to the 5x14-structure.

1462: The Cambini document reports 96 Trionfi decks exported from Florence to Venice. This is much hgher number than in earlier documents (maximal 12 or 13 decks in other documents before). Other documents with high numbers follow since 1463 (Esch), indicating a change in the trade and higher popularity of the game.

C. 1463 (my assumption): The Charles VI deck fragment contains 16 trumps. An analysis of the participating cards leads to the opinion, that this might have been also modeled according ideas connected to chess. The deck is given to Florence and I would say, that there is a Medici relation (Medici heraldic at Chariot card).

1466: The word Minchiate appears for the first time, possibly indicating a higher number of trumps as before.

From Iacopo Antonio Marcello (1449) we know, that a deck like the Michelino deck could be called a ludus triumphorum.

We have no evidence for the use of a model with 22, which doesn't mean, that we can exclude such variations with 100% security (also we can't exclude other variations of the basic structure). We just have "indications" of decks with 14 trumps (3 documents) and 16 trumps (3 documents) and possibly also of a 5x13-deck. With the special 70-card-note in Ferrara we possibly have another "indication", that Ferrara might have used another number of trumps as Milan and that Milan used 5x14. But it's only an indication.

**********

And why would Milan still produce a 70 card deck when a 78 card deck (22 trumps) was created for and associated with the founding act of the Sforza dynasty? It is much more likely that Ferrara still used the original format and simply produced what they knew (the Este did not assist Sforza in taking Milan so would not have been recipients of one of the hand-painted copies of the original PMB - we don't know how many of the PMB decks were created [Kaplan shows fragments of several]). Furthermore Galeazzo was not married yet, so if you are the Este why not produce a "wooing deck" to amuse the young prince such as the one that had been once produced for his mother (one whose format was also likely appropriated and embellished with Sforza/Visconti belli for the 1441 wedding's Cary-Yale deck)?

I see the possibility to explain the somewhat strange and curious 70-cards-note in this manner. But for the moment we have no early evidence for any appearance of the number 22 in context with game called "Trionfi". And the PMB alone looks - in my opinion - very strong as having developed from a 5x14-structure.

***********

Here's another point to think about.

The silk dealers card business very much depended on 4 persons: Antonio di Dino, Antonio di Simone, Niccolo di Calvello and Matteo Ballerini, totally 466 of 521 decks (nearly 90%). Matteo Ballerini appears late and somehow replaces all others.

Niccolo di Calvello made always the cheap decks (below 2 Soldi), which were sold in dozens.

Antonio di Dino made mostly decks for 5 (PIC) and rarely 9 Soldi decks (MEZ and seldom GRA). Later he made also Trionfi decks.

Antonio di Simone made nearly always decks for 9 Soldi and a little bit more (usually MEZ). I counted an average of 9.43 Soldi. Near to the end of the business (1452, in the time, when Trionfi decks started to become a greater part of the business) he produced in 7 deals totally 18 decks, which had the price of 12 Soldi and the quality GRA (for Grandi).
http://trionfi.com/naibi-aquired#3-3

What's the destiny of the 18 GRA-decks? In the given situation it seems plausible to assume, that they were made to be added to GRA-Trionfi decks (GRA-decks were very rare before the Trionfi phase) ... in one case Antonio di Simone made 2 GRA decks for 9.5 Soldi (1450), and he took only the common price ... perhaps this was just a test.

If we assume this, we possibly get a lesson for all the Trionfi decks at the silk dealers price list. If we see an entry for Trionfi decks we have to add the costs for the 56 (or less ?) other cards, for the quality PIC possibly something around 5 Soldi, for MEZ possibly something around 9 Soldi and for GRA possibly 12 Soldi.

If we assume 9 Soldi as the lowest standard price (PIC), it would mean 9+5 = 14 Soldi for a full deck. If we would assume a GRA Trionfi deck for 18 Soldi, we have to add 18 + 12 = 30 Soldi.

It's just a consideration ... naturally it might be, that "Trionfi" meant occasionally "Trionfi + 56 others" and occasionally "only Trionfi".

Huck,
I'll have to disagree with you on this point:
"short after 1450: PMB is made by 2 painters, analysis of the closer conditions leads to the opinion, that the original form (only by one painter) had been 5x14. Totally there are 20 trumps, and the six added trumps look like a complete sub-system (3 virtues and sun-moon-star), so the assumption exists, that the later PMB-form indeed had 20 trumps."

Whether the "replacement" cards were: a) contracted by the patron with another artist because he found those particular original cards inferiror/unacceptable; b) painted by the Bembo brothers at the same time but revealing different styles (Dummet's theory), c) were simply taken from another PMB deck to replace lost cards (a strong possibility seldom considered), or d) later in time were painted by another artist to replace lost cards (a different rationale from "a'), the 14 (surviving) cards represent no meaningful series.

Major problems for seeing the survivng 14 PMB cards as a stand-alone 14 card trump group:
1. One of the civic virtues (Justice) but not the other three (depending on how you view the World/Prudence)?
2. The Fool always stands apart from the other trumps - so really you have 13 + 1.
3. Strength, Temperance and The World are all in the predecessor pack of Cary-Yale - why edit those out (only to add them back in when the deck was supposedly expanded)? And even with the World-as-Prudence 3 of the 4 civic virtues is not a "complete" subsystem - its merely incomplete.

Sorry, but I have to side with Caldwell and Hurst here - it is simply a coincidence that 14 trumps survived (or were painted by one of the Bembo bros in Dummet's theory) - but not even 14 at that, there are truly only 13 trumps (the Fool is a problem for inclusion as part of a series proper). Of course Caldwell/Hurst don't see any 14 trump decks, but that's a different problem (but they have never adequately explained away the three theological virtues in the CY deck which I accept as the original format - all 7 virtues - and edited out with the emergence of the PMB when the Church was not part of the rationale for the cards as it was in Florence in 1440).

As for your point about Grandi decks – of course the simple answer is that wealthier people bought those, perhaps with the option of embellishing with their stemma added on the court cards. I think the bigger picture issue is the emergence of card-playing in the decades before 1440 with someone (the Medici in my view) adding an extra 14 trump cards for propaganda reasons. Thus a Grandi deck could have been expanded for hand-painted decks for condottieri such as Malatesta or Sforza. Cheap trionfi decks would have been used for the masses – perhaps solders were specifically targeted. In fact I’m analyzing Pratesi’s data and correlating it to the dates of movements of troops through the towns where decks were sold.

Phaeded

Hi Phaeded,

Phaeded wrote:Of course Caldwell/Hurst don't see any 14 trump decks, but that's a different problem (but they have never adequately explained away the three theological virtues in the CY deck which I accept as the original format - all 7 virtues - and edited out with the emergence of the PMB when the Church was not part of the rationale for the cards as it was in Florence in 1440).

I find my explanation adequate. Like the court cards of that deck, the trump series is also expanded. So, if the Cary Yale were the original format of Tarot, you would be consistent only if you argued that 6 court cards per suit were also the original format.

In what way is that explanation, based on the internal evidence and precedence of the deck itself, inadequate?

In his discussion of the number of trumps in the Visconti di Modrone/Cary Yale, Dummett remarked incidentally that the ratio of cards in a suit to cards in the trump sequence in standard Tarot was 2:3 - 14:21. He noted that if the three Theological Virtues in the Modrone were added to the trump sequence, and we take into account the 6 court cards of each suit, the ratio in this deck then remains exactly the same - 16:24 - 2:3 (counting the Fool outside the sequence in both). A nice coincidence! But we can't go any further but to note it, since it stretches credulity to think that the designer of the Modrone and the standard Tarot had some "rule" about a 2:3 ratio, and we know from the Minchiate that such a ratio was not necessary for a successful game.

Ross

Phaeded wrote: Whether the "replacement" cards were: a) contracted by the patron with another artist because he found those particular original cards inferiror/unacceptable; b) painted by the Bembo brothers at the same time but revealing different styles (Dummet's theory), c) were simply taken from another PMB deck to replace lost cards (a strong possibility seldom considered), or d) later in time were painted by another artist to replace lost cards (a different rationale from "a'), the 14 (surviving) cards represent no meaningful series.

"the 14 (surviving) cards represent no meaningful series."
If you think this, you have to realize, that 13 of the surviving 14 cards appear in a common row of Tarot cards between 0 and 13.
So - somehow, not totally precisely, but really good enough (13 of 14)- you have just stated, that the sequence of Tarot is not meaningful. Do you really want to say this?

Major problems for seeing the survivng 14 PMB cards as a stand-alone 14 card trump group:
1. One of the civic virtues (Justice) but not the other three (depending on how you view the World/Prudence)?

A virtue can stand alone in the concept of an art product, there are enough examples. If it was the interest of the commissioner of the 6 added cards to have 4 virtues, it wasn't necessary, that the commissioner of the 14 cards had the same idea.
That there is only one virtue in the 14 cards, is not a problem, it's just a quality.
If we look precisely at the card, it's an untypical virtue Justice with a fighting knight in the background, which isn't a common attribute. It might be part of a "courting scene", as it might have appeared in the writings of Christine de Pizan, who had a sort of goddess of Justice in matters of love.

2. The Fool always stands apart from the other trumps - so really you have 13 + 1.

If you have a deck and it has 4x14 cards in its suits, and you recognize a 5th group of cards belonging to these other 4x14, where the number of cards is also 14, you must be stupid not to recognize the 5x14-structure in the game.
In the given game the Fool is included in the additional 5th group and it seems, that this group was called "Trionfi". The word "trumps" didn't exist in this early time, as far I know, so I don't know, where do you got your 13+1 concept from. Taking it from much later games rules or modern language behavior ("the Fool is NOT a trump"), is not appropriate.

3. Strength, Temperance and The World are all in the predecessor pack of Cary-Yale - why edit those out (only to add them back in when the deck was supposedly expanded)? And even with the World-as-Prudence 3 of the 4 civic virtues is not a "complete" subsystem - its merely incomplete.

We can recognize big variations between Trionfi card models (Sola Busca, Boiardo poem, Michelino deck, Cary-Yale), we cannot define the rule, that the 5x14 deck of Milan was necessarily very interested to imitate the Cary-Yale Tarocchi in all its points. The first and greater difference between both is, that one used 16 cards as Trionfi and the other 14.

Sorry, but I have to side with Caldwell and Hurst here - it is simply a coincidence that 14 trumps survived (or were painted by one of the Bembo bros in Dummet's theory) - but not even 14 at that, there are truly only 13 trumps (the Fool is a problem for inclusion as part of a series proper). Of course Caldwell/Hurst don't see any 14 trump decks, but that's a different problem (but they have never adequately explained away the three theological virtues in the CY deck which I accept as the original format - all 7 virtues - and edited out with the emergence of the PMB when the Church was not part of the rationale for the cards as it was in Florence in 1440).

About coincidences, of which some are "mere coincidences" and others are "connected causality":

Imagine a festivity after a football game between the teams of two villages A and B. It's not mere coincidence, but common behavior, that usually the fans of one team gather at one table and the fans of the other team gather at another. In the given situation we may assume, that a lot of participants have gone, one team at 11 p.m. is present with 14 fans or players (village A) and the other with 8 fans or players (village B). A photo is taken at this time and it shows 13 of the 14 fans or players of village A at a big table and one fan or player of the other group (village B).

An observer of this photo , who didn't participate at the festivity, but who knows the players and fans of village A, will have no problems to recognize, that the photo shows the table of village A. Naturally he is puzzled about the one foreign person (and where's the missing Peter ?), but it's clear, that it is the table of village A. After requesting "Who is that?" he gets the answer, that this is the man, who was begged to make a photo, and so they started talking, and so the guy took a beer and he sat down, forgetting about the photo, and then another of village A (let's call him Peter) made the photo and so it comes, that Peter hadn't been on the photo.

So in this story nothing is "mere coincidence" and everything has some logic. If somewhere something like "13 of 14" appears, it's usually not "mere coincidence", if it based inside a greater group of 22 or higher.
I don't have the precise numbers, but ...

2^22 is more than 4.000.000
More than 350.000 solutions have 14 on side A and 8 at the other side B.
in this cases "14 of 14" has the chance of "1 : 350.000" for a "mere coincidence"
and "13 of 14" has the chance (14*8) : 350.000, which roughly makes 14*8 : 350000 = 1 : 3125 or 0.032%

In such cases it's not totally nonsense to speak of the possibility of "mere coincidence", but it is very, very unlikely, that it is "mere coincidence".

As for your point about Grandi decks – of course the simple answer is that wealthier people bought those, perhaps with the option of embellishing with their stemma added on the court cards. I think the bigger picture issue is the emergence of card-playing in the decades before 1440 with someone (the Medici in my view) adding an extra 14 trump cards for propaganda reasons. Thus a Grandi deck could have been expanded for hand-painted decks for condottieri such as Malatesta or Sforza. Cheap trionfi decks would have been used for the masses – perhaps solders were specifically targeted. In fact I’m analyzing Pratesi’s data and correlating it to the dates of movements of troops through the towns where decks were sold.

Hm ... the deciding point in my observation about Antonio di Simone was, that we might get a wrong calculation of the Trionfi deck prices, when we use the data of Franco Pratesi in a naive manner. It's actually our interest to know the precise prices, and if they are considerable higher as we expect it, we make something deadly wrong.

Huck wrote:
That there is only one virtue in the 14 cards, is not a problem, it's just a quality.

My point is those 14 cards do not make a recognizable series of subjects. My theory on the other hand has the well-known seven virtues paired with exemplars or anti-types. I can explain why there are 14 - the seven virtues were particualry ubiqitous in Florentine civic art where Giusti's deck was made. And I also posit that he followed the Medici lead here (assuming other decks were made for other condottieri with Giusti following suit). The virtues would have been especially likely as the timing and outcome of a battle cannot be predicted - no one had the luxury of time that Filippo Visconti and Marziano did in coming up with a novel game. The Medici/Florence needed to press something already existing into their immediate propdanda needs (the exemplars/antitypes allowed for some innovation or at least range of options beyond the virtues themselves). I don't see how you can similarly explain why those particular 14 subjects should be grouped together.

But you also believe the CY deck had 16 trumps with chess being the model; but that leaves you with the same problem - two series of 8; one of the series you have as the four civic virtues to which you randomly added the fool, sun, moon and love: you won't find those eight subjects grouped togther anywhere else in late medieval art (or at any time for that matter). Of course what is driving you is the Michelino deck and the 16 court cards of the CY deck. As Ross has pointed out elsewhere (an Alectic thread?) , Marcello notes that Michelino is a new invention - different from the trionfi deck they all already knew which rules Michellino out as the protoype (as an aside I will say the discovery of this novelty would have been a likely impetus to expand the 14 card format in the following year or two when PMB was created - especially for one aspiring to inherit that Visconti's dukedom; i.e., by inventing an expansion of the original format Sforza was doing something Duke Fillipo might have done). But the real issue is the internal evidence of the 16 CY court cards, on which Ross also touched in this thread:

Ross wrote:
Like the court cards of that deck, the trump series is also expanded. So, if the Cary Yale were the original format of Tarot, you would be consistent only if you argued that 6 court cards per suit were also the original format.

Obviously the number of court cards did not have to match the trumps in number (e.g., PMB) but a valid point: why the CY court card deviation increasing the courts to 16 in number if the original design was merely 14 trumps to match the four 14 suits (with 4 court cards each)? Oddly, it all pivots on the Lovers’ card…

We all agree the CVI deck is Florentine, no? I date CVI to the years following the Pazzi conspiracy, 1478-1481 [on that, some other time], but at all events we can agree it is later than the PMB and follows its format. Yet even if expanded from the original 14 card format the CVI deck would likely retain how some of the subjects were depicted in the original 1440 deck. But Giusti was not celebrating a wedding with his original deck, but rather in all likelihood the battle that had just taken place outside of his hometown three months earlier - Anghiari. A Lovers card depicting a couple with their belli is wholly inappropriate for that deck. How then would that card have looked? Why not the CVI Love card, also from Florence? It shows 3 couples in movement, most likely in a formal dance which would of course drawn the erotic spiritelli overhead. In fact the couples are quite similar to the so-called “Adimari Cassone” (ca. 1450) by Giovanni di Ser Giovanni Guidi, called Lo Scheggia, where a wedding scene is unfolding in front of the Baptistry (http://www.kimbellart.org/artandlove/cassone_panel.asp ). The significance? It reflects age-old Tuscan traditions that symbolize civic prosperity under good rule. For an earlier parallel, the fresco of “good government” in the Siena town hall features dancing women which you will not find under the “bad government” section. For an in-depth explication of all of this I refer you to Charles Dempsey’s The portrayal of love: Botticelli's Primavera and humanist culture at the time of Lorenzo (1992; this study is fairly diachronic and not limited to Lorenzo M.’s time period; e.g., he discusses the Siena fresco).

Assuming the CVI Love card is close to the original prototype, the CY card is then a replacement depiction of the related theme - Lovers vs Love. But as we see in the “Admiari cassone” the subject of dancing couples was closely identified with marriage and thus worthy of retaining in the 1441 marriage deck somehow; thus the 6 court cards: three women for three men in each suit. Impractical to expect the card-playing public to abandon their games based on 14 card suits and thus the innovation did not stick, but the Lovers card nonetheless becomes canonical after PMB became the standard format. The Lovers, vs “Love”, was retained in PMB for no other reason, I would presume, than the problem that Sforza’s claim to Milan largely rested on his marriage to Bianca Visconti, thus that sacramental union needed to be highlighted again in 1450/1451.

Huck Wrote: If we look precisely at the [PMB] card, it's an untypical virtue Justice with a fighting knight in the background, which isn't a common attribute. It might be part of a "courting scene", as it might have appeared in the writings of Christine de Pizan, who had a sort of goddess of Justice in matters of love.

If the knight were “courting” he’d be jousting with a pennant from his lover tied to his lance as we find
in the “World” card of CY (see the same Dempsey work for considerable detail on jousting and wooing). No, this knight has a sword drawn as if charging into battle – but this clearly connotes civic protection that comes with the administration of justice (the restitution of “a bon droyt”). However there is an additional meaning here tied to the events of 1450: when Sforza starved Milan into submission he had two triumphal entries into the city – the second ingresso was coldly planned and resulted in the official ducal investiture; the first one, so the official propaganda explains, was informal with the loving crowd swarming up to Sforza - his troops distributing bread to the starving populace - so that he could not even dismount as he was eventually lead directly into the cathedral on horseback. Look again at the PMB Justice card – there is a gothic portal such as is typical for the entrance to any gothic church; while clearly aping the Giotto prototype in Padua in regard to the gothic arch, here, the conquering knight juxtaposed in the background behind the gothic portal almost reads like a pictorial version of events on that February day in 1450 when Sforza first entered the city and was popularly acclaimed duke (Gary Ianziti is clear that the commune’s popular acclaim was also fundamental to Sforza’s chancellery arguments to the Emperor for why he should receive the imperial rescript – see his Humanistic Histiography Under the Sforzas: Politics and Propaganda in Fifteenth-century Milan, 1988). Finally I ask: what is the alternate meaning of the PMB Justice card if it were made later in 1468? The theory is that it celebrated the marriage of Bona of Savoy – why then, again, not a wooing/ jousting knight instead of one brandishing a sword?

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote:

Huck wrote:
That there is only one virtue in the 14 cards, is not a problem, it's just a quality.

My point is those 14 cards do not make a recognizable series of subjects.

I don't understand your problem. It is from 0-13 the row of the Marseille Tarock, with the mistake, that 11 = Strength is missing.
If you have the perspective, that the Marseille Tarot are a not "recognizable series of subjects", your answer is okay, but if you have the perspective, that there is some meaning in the Marseille Tarot, you cannot comment the same or nearly the same feature in the 14 Bembo cards.

At ...
http://trionfi.com/0/f/11/
... one of the oldest articles at Trionfi.com (2003) with a graphic ...



... you can see, how the 14 cards make sense. For the "mistake", that the card 11 is missing, there's the following explanation, that the original row had been ...

1 Magician
2 Popess
3 Empress
4 Emperor
5 Pope
6 Love
7 Chariot
8 Justice
9 Hermit
10 Fortune
11 Fool, later 0
12 Hanging Man
13 Death
14 Judgment, later 20

This row needs an explanation, why the Fool shall have had a relation to the number 11, which would explain the above observed mistake. There is more than one explanation:

11.11. is the day, when carnival season starts.
This depends on the church calendar. Before Christmas there is a-40-day-Fastenzeit, which last till 21st Dezember. Then there is a 3 days pause and then is the birth of Jesus and 40 days later (a woman wasn't clean till 40 days after birth) the festivity Maria Lichtmess (2nd of February is given. This is the earliest possible day for the carnival, which depends on the first full moon after 21st of March, which determines the week of Eastern (the Sunday after this first full moon. The end of carnival is 40 Fastentage (Sundays are not counted, cause they were not Fastentage) before Eastern (so this makes 6 x 6 days + 4 (4 are Aschermittwoch, Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the rest of the week after carnival). 40 days after carnival is Christi Himmelsfahrt (a Thursday), 50 days after Eastern is Pfingsten and 60 days after Eastern is Fronleichnam (another Thursday).
This is a very old pattern, older than playing cards.

12th of November 1381 ...
... a time, when card playing was rather young and had just have some larger distribution, Graf Adolf von Kleve founded the knight order of the Fool, likely with some reference to the day 11th of November. This is seen by some as the first form of carnival organization.

1.1. had been one of the days for the Feast of the Fools ...
... which was rather distributed and started to become prohibited around the time, when the Trionfi cards developed. The prohibition was suggested already at the council of Basel (around 1433), but it seems to have become reality around 1445 with the the success of pope Eugen. 1445 it was prohibited in Paris. It seems, that Carnival developed to a larger festivity after this.

In 1377 John of Rheinfelden had written his famous work to playing cards, and in his beloved 60 cards game he sorts the 15 cards in each suit with ...

15 King
14 Queen
13 Ober
12 Maid
11 Unter
the 10 numbers get 1-10

The Unter got the number 11 ... in the following card tradition its often observable, that the Unter got funny attributes, which made him look foolish. Using 12, 13, 14, 15 etc. as active counting numbers in playing card games - though not in Tarot games, where they at least still reign in the ranking -
unusual in common playing card rules, but in 1377 (and likely some time later) it seems to have been a model. From this we have an older tradition, that the 11 was related to the "foolish" Unter.

"Missing zero"
It was common to count I, II, III, IV, V etc. and not common to count 0-1-2-3-4-5 ... in the course of 15th century it became normal, that the "O" was used as a sin and was known. We have a "0" in the Sola Busca in 1491.

So we have in the 14 Bembo cards 11 = Fool and this fits, cause 11-13 presents so 3 negative symbols with ...

11 stupidity
12 treason
13 death

Sooooo ... would you really assume, that the 14 cards in this arrangement don't have a recognizable meaning?

For the reason, why 11 was changed to "0" and 14 to 20, we have the reason, that 11 and 14 are difficult to count in a game, but much easier to count if you add a "0" or a "20". And as a play of higher elegance we have, that

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14 = 105
... is 105, but ...
0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+20 = 100
... 100 is much more pleasant.