Re: New Andrea Vitali essays in Ital. & Engl. (now June 2014

11
Looking at that poem, I see that the "minch-" word is "minchiatar", so probably a verb. There is the reference to "Triomphe" here, capitalized, as though perhaps a game.
Se tu volessi fare un buon minuto
togli Aretini et Orvietani e Bessi
e sarti mulattieri bugiardi e messi,
e fa' che ciaschedun sie ben battuto;
poi gli condisci con uno scrignuto
e per sale vi trita entro votacessi,
e per agresto minchiatar fra essi
accioché sia di tutto ben compiuto.
Spècchiati ne' Triomphi, el gran mescuglio
d'arme, damor, di Bruti e di Catoni
con femine e poeti in guazabuglio:
questo fanno patire i maccheroni
veghiando il verno, e meriggiando il luglio
dormir pegli scriptoi i mocciconi.
Dè parliàn de moscioni,
quanta gratia ha il ciel donato loro,
che trassinando merda si fan d'oro.
Let's see. Between Google Translate and Florio (my usual mix) I get:

If you wanted to make a good minced meat
take the Arezzans and Orvietans et Bessians
and tailors, mule-drivers, and assumed liars,
and make each one well beaten;
then season it with one hunchback
and for salt you mince in a privy-emptier,
and for sourness minchiatar among them
to the end that everything is well done.
Mirrored in Triumphs, the great mix
of arms, of love, of Brutuses and Catos
with women and poets in a hodge-podge [confusion]:
this do suffer the maccheroni [poets?]
up late the winter, and noontime July
sleeping eyelashes writing, the sniveling fools.
A parliament of fleas,
how much grace heaven has given them,
that in dragging shit is made the gold.

"Minchiatar" probably means something like " engaging in foolishness". There is then a possible further meaning, referring to Minchiate. There is a similar pun in a 1526 work, quoted in Singer, Researches into the History of Playing Cards, 1816, pp. 27-28:
Un altra, piu piacivolene di costui per intrattenare un poco piu la festa, et dar piacere alla brigate, ha trovato che Tarocchi sono un bel gioco, & pargli essere in regno suo quando ha in mano un numero di dugento carte che a pena le può tenere, et per non essere appostato le mescola cosi il meglio che può sotto la tavola, viso proprio di Tarocco colui a chi piace questo gioco, che altro non vuol dir Tarocco che ignocco, sciocco, Balocco degno di star fra fomari & calzolari & plebei a giocarsi in tutto di un Carlino in quarto a tarocchi, o a trionfi, o a Sminchiate che si sia, cche ad ogni modo tutto importa minchioneria e dapocagine, passendo l'occhio col Sol, et co la Luna, et col Dodici, come fanno i puti.

(Another, as more pleasing, prolonging the entertainment, and giving pleasure by looking at the paintings, has found that the Tarocchi are an excellent game, & he seems to be in his glory, when he has to his hand a number of two hundred cards that he can scarcely hold, and so as not to be seen he shuffles as well as he can under the table. Let him look to it, who is pleased with this game of Tarocco, that this word Tarocco says nothing other than stupid, foolish, simple, fit only to be used by cobblers & bakers & the vulgar, to play at most the fourth part of a Carlino, at tarocchi, at triumphs, or any Sminchiate whatever, which in every way signifies only foolery and idleness, feasting the eye with the Sun, and the Moon, and the twelve [signs], as children do.}
That "Sminchiate", capitalized, refers to Minchiate as well as to "foolishness" is clear from a reference recently found by Vitali, for which see http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=255#.

Then there is another possible double meaning, "triomphi" is a reference to something like tarot or the cards in that game. We also have a hunchback, a traitor (like Brutus), an Emperor (noble person like Cato), a liar (Bagatto), any number of fools, a triumphator (arms), love, women (empress or popess), up late (the moon or stars), noontime July (sun). the angel (grace) and the world (heaven). But erhaps I'm just adding foolishness.
Last edited by mikeh on 29 Jul 2021, 10:09, edited 5 times in total.

Re: New Andrea Vitali essays in Ital. & Engl. (now June 2014

12
It's a sonnet, the 14 normal lines and an additional tercet (so 17 lines). I saw this 17-line-form elsewhere.

Poets make fun with sonnets, especially Burchiello, the barber poet, who had a barber shop and likely amused his guests and customers with them. He was loved for it.

Burchiello suffered from the Medici. If the Medici stood at a specific time for "new Trionfi customs", it might have been natural for Burchiello to make mockery about it (and about the Medici).

-uto
-essi
-essi,

uto;

-uto
-essi,
essi

-uto.

-uglio
-oni
-uglio:

-oni
-uglio
-oni.

-oni,
-oro,
-oro.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: New Andrea Vitali essays in Ital. & Engl. (now June 2014

13
Andrea's new essay, previously in Italian only, is now in English, too, "May cancer come to Goffo and to Tarocco
New documents between history and literature, XVIth - XIXth centuries". Highlights: Ippolito d'Este's letter from Hungary mentioning the "golden triumphs" he had received, and a poem in which "tarocco" is associated with "fool" and foolishness. The Italian expression "may cancer come" is an idiomatic way of cursing something.

http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=453#.

New in English Dec. 2014

14
Three more essays of Andrea's are now available in English. They are:

A clownish sermon (1529): Instead of the sacred mysteries, a talk on how to play Triumphs
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=465&lng=ENG

Predicting the future with the tarot: Significance and potential of tarot cards as divinatory symbols
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=467#

Of the Passion of Gambling: Character and portrait of the gambler in France and Italy of the 19th century
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=485&lng=ENG

These are translations of essays posted in July in Italian:

Una predica buffonesca (1529): Invece dei santi misteri, si parla dal pulpito su come giocare a Trionfo
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=465&lng=ITA

La predizione del futuro con i Tarocchi: Significato e potenzialità dei tarocchi come simboli divinatori
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=467

Della Passione del Gioco: Carattere e ritratto del giocatore nella Francia e nell'Italia del XIX secolo
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=485&lng=ITA

I have initiated a thread discussing "A clownish sermon (1529)" at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1050 (thread title: Latimer's "sermons on the cards," 1529).

I have referred to Andrea's essay "Prediction of the future with the tarot" in the context of medieval Jewish divination at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1049&p=15838&hilit=Andrea#p15838 (in the thread "Jewish-Christian interactions in Italy before 1500).

Andrea has also posted, since July, two more new essays, now in Italian only:

Maladetta sie tu, antica lupa: Avarizia: il peccato di avidità di giocatori, prostitute e usurai
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=471

Leonardo e le Carte: Il mondo dei giocatori di carte fra perseveranti e redenti (secc. XV-XIX)
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=484

Re: New Andrea Vitali essays in Ital. & Engl. (now April 201

15
Two essays are now available in English; one is new in Italian also, and an older one, newly expanded in the Italian version, is now in English.

The new one is called, in English, A 'Cavaleyro' taroco (XIIIth century): A vain and foolish knight in a cantiga of Pedr'Amigo de Sivilha and is at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page. ... 09&lng=ENG. It concerns the probable use of the word "taroco" in one manuscript of a 13th century Portuguese "cantiga", i.e. "song", The problem is that the word doesn't actually occur in the surviving copy; but what is there is close to it in spelling, if a false separation of syllables is supposed, and does not make sense in the context where it appears, whereas "taroco" does, according to a husband-wife pair of highly esteemed Portuguese philologists. In the critical edition of the same poem, what appears is "oco", corresponding to "louco, desvairado, vaidoso" in modern Portuguese, i.e. "crazy, frenetic, vain". The Italian original of the essay is at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page. ... 09&lng=ITA.

The second essay is The meaning of the word ‘Tarot’: The name of the game with the Triumphs, taken from the card without number, at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page. ... 70&lng=ENG. Actually, I think the word in the title should be "tarocco", not "tarot", since the essay is about the Italian word and not the French or English one. About half the essay is taken from other essays of Andrea's, putting in one place his most important information and arguments about the meaning of the word. The second half of the essay is new. It consists of a lengthy discussion from 1825 of the subtle differences among 27 different words that are often used interchangeably and typically show up in Google Translate as "fool" or "foolish". The English language could use such a work, as many of these distinctions exist in English, even today. The Italian version is at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page. ... 70&lng=ITA.

For readers of Italian, there are also a couple of new essays still in Italian only, Leonardo e le Carte: Il mondo dei giocatori di carte fra perseveranti e redenti (secc. XV-XIX), at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=484, and Un topolino bagatello - 1596: Tre documenti cinquecenteschi sul ‘bagatello’, at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=505.

Re: New Andrea Vitali essays in Ital. & Engl. (now April 201

16
mikeh wrote: If you wanted to make a good minced meat
take the Arezzans and Orvietans et Bessians
and tailors, mule-drivers, and assumed liars,
and make each one well beaten;
then season it with one hunchback
and for salt you mince in a privy-emptier,
and for sourness minchiatar among them
to the end that everything is well done.
Mirrored in Triumphs, the great mix
of arms, of love, of Brutuses and Catos
with women and poets in a hodge-podge [confusion]:
this do suffer the maccheroni [poets?]
up late the winter, and noontime July
sleeping eyelashes writing, the sniveling fools.
A parliament of fleas,
how much grace heaven has given them,
that in dragging shit is made the gold.

Well, I don't know what "minchiatar" means here, maybe "adding foolishness". It still seems like a verb.

The last line is perhaps alchemical, as the prima materia was found in dung. Or it's just an ordinary metaphor.
I think 'mosciono' is flies,* not fleas, thus a flies to shit metaphor:


If you wanted to make a fine mince,
take those from Arezzo, Orvieto and Bessi,
and tailors, lying mule-drivers and emissaries,
and ensure each one’s well beaten;

in order that it’s all done well
you then season with a hunchback,
and for salt mix in a shit-taker
and for sour juice piss among them.
.
Aping the Triumphs -- the great mess
of arms, of love, Brutuses and Catos,
and mishmash of women and poets --

the scribblers endure
late winter nights, and for summer siesta,
sleep at their desks, the fools.

For a parliament of flies,
how gracefully heaven provides for those
who drag through shit to make gold.


*Florio has horse-flies, in Pulci's Morgante it refers to clouds of midges around vats at wine-making time.

Image


*votacesi - florio:

Image


A person whose job it was to dig out and remove human excrement from privies and cesspits: privie-taker, dung farmer, gong farmer, nightman, see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_farmer

Privie-taker, chamber valet was also derogatory slang for homosexual, sodomite, in which case one might possibly read it as:

then season with a hunchback,
and for salt mix in a sodomite,
and for sour sauce fuck between them,

* re: 'minchiatar' ? Modern meanings of minchi- words include:

minchia (verb, noun), minchi (plural) - cock (penis), tackle, fuck.** goddamn

minchiata, minchiate - bullshit, crap.

minchiona/i - simpleton, idiot, nut

minchione - testicle, idiot, simpleton

re: penis meanings, etymologists suggest a root in latin mentula.

The meaning of simpleton, idiot is found in Floria's Italian Dictionary with main meaning of foolishness, sops, etc. Suggesting a similar relationship between the name of the game minchiate and fool, folly as with the name tarocchi:

Image


Image


Which might give a reading along the lines of:

for salt mix in a nightman,
and for sourness play the fool between them,

One version of the poem has instead 'minghiatar' and editor suggests it is related to 'mingo' I piss, from latin mingere.

Huck suggests that the vulgar connotations of these minchi- words were a later development:
Huck wrote:From the later development we have, that Minchiate became a nasty penis-related word, at least in regions, which were not Tuscany.
Well, perhaps it belongs to a word development, when people of foreign nations transform neutral words (Minchiate as a card deck name in Tuscany) to bad names (with the intention of mockery for persons of Tuscany). This occasionally is related to different kitchens: "Froschfresser" (frog eater) is a German mockery about French people and "Sauerkraut" is used in negative English expressions (as I've heard).
Pulci's poem with minch-... words follows ironical kitchen problems, and also Burchiello's poem.
However, I think the context of this poem, and earliest example of a possibly related word (minchiatar - c.1440), suggests a vulgar connotation early on, its rarity in published material possibly because of it being vulgar slang vernacular unsuitable for 'literary' works.
Last edited by SteveM on 21 Feb 2016, 02:49, edited 24 times in total.

Re: New Andrea Vitali essays in Ital. & Engl. (now April 201

17
SteveM wrote: Huck suggests that the vulgar connotations of these minchi- words were a later development:
Huck wrote:From the later development we have, that Minchiate became a nasty penis-related word, at least in regions, which were not Tuscany.
Well, perhaps it belongs to a word development, when people of foreign nations transform neutral words (Minchiate as a card deck name in Tuscany) to bad names (with the intention of mockery for persons of Tuscany). This occasionally is related to different kitchens: "Froschfresser" (frog eater) is a German mockery about French people and "Sauerkraut" is used in negative English expressions (as I've heard).
Pulci's poem with minch-... words follows ironical kitchen problems, and also Burchiello's poem.
However, I think the context of this poem, and earliest example of a possibly related word (minchiatar - c.1440), suggests a vulgar connotation early on.
As long we have only this one minchiattar of c 1440 as example for minch...-words before 1466, every interpretation stays necessarily doubtful. One needs at least a few more examples to get some security.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: New Andrea Vitali essays in Ital. & Engl. (now April 201

18
SteveM wrote:
If you wanted to make a fine mince,
take those from Arezzo, Orvieto and Bessi,
and tailors, lying mule-drivers and emissaries,
and ensure each one’s well beaten;

in order that it’s all done well
you then season with a hunchback,
and for salt mix in a shit-taker
and for sour juice piss among them.
.
Aping the Triumphs -- the great mess
of arms, of love, Brutuses and Catos,
and mishmash of women and poets --

the scribblers endure
late winter nights, and for summer siesta
sleep at their desks, the fools.

For a parliament of flies,
how gracefully heaven provides for those
who drag through shit to make gold.

Just in case this attempt at translation may cause confusion, just want to explain that in order to make some sense of the poem in English I have transposed some words & lines. For example the strophe:

questo fanno patire i maccheroni
veghiando il verno, e meriggiando il luglio
dormir pegli scriptoi i mocciconi.

Which I have translated as:

the scribblers endure
late winter nights, and for summer siesta,
sleep at their desks, the fools.

scribblers = third line - scriptoi(writers/writing desk) i mocciconi (worthless men) (a writer whose work has little or no value or importance).

fools = first line - maccheroni

questo fanno patire i maccheroni
themselves {suffer/endure} the {maccaroni/fools}

veghiando il verno, e meriggiando il luglio
{watchover/ awake late over nigh} {the winter}, and {midday rest} the July

dormir pegli scriptoi i mocciconi.
{sleep} {for/by/at the} {writers/writing desks} {the worthless men/snot/fungus (the porcini (pig-like) mushroom)}

Making assumptions that 'fools' that sleep at their 'writing desks' are by implication 'writers', of little worth (mocciconi) - ergo - foolish scribblers.

The whole is reliant on google and dictionaries and thus probably full or errors.