hi Mike,

... ... as you correctly note, some of the ideas of Andrea Vitali go back to Trionfi.com
You have to calculate, that the communication between Andrea and Trionfi.com is not 100% error-free, also the translation from Andrea's Italian writing back to English has its difficulties. Andrea is himself not very secure in English language, so the translation is usually done by somebody else and Andrea can't control it. And Andrea might himself misunderstand something occasionally, dealing with information in foreign language
has its problems.

mikeh wrote: ...
The number 8 comes from Petrarch

... from the Imperatori cards, not from Petrarch

I assume that "XIV century" is a mistranslation of "Quattrocento."

You're right.

Vitali is short on details. If there were two major waves of printed card production, one with 14 trumps and the other with 22, just when was each, even roughly? The 14 must have been produced at least until the mid-1450’s, for there still to be hand-painted versions in Ferrara in 1457. And in between, could there have been hand-painted versions that added cards, some of which then were later incorporated in the 22-trump edition? And just which cards would the original 14 have been, more or less?

... ... you better keep to that, what we earlier talked about, as far you're interested in the original.

Hi Mike,

mikeh wrote: Since you didn't know about Antongaleazzo's lawyer credentials, there are perhaps other things you don''t know. Here is a summary, from Ady. In 1412 he received a special grant from John XXIII, to receive the proceeds from the tax levied against moneylenders (i.e. Jews). Ady surmises that it was a reward for his role in putting down a Bolognese revolt against the Papacy the year before. Around the time of his law degree in 1414, Annibale was born out of wedlock. There was considerable doubt as to whether Antongaleazzo or Gaspar Malvesi was the father. On one account, the matter was settled by the dice. Then he went to the Council of Constance, accompanying John XXIII with Batista Canetoli and other Bolognese lawyers (plenty of consciousness of two popes in the Law Faculty!). After John XXIII's imprisonment, he and the others returned and declared a republic. In 1420 Antongaleazzo married Annibale's mother (Gaspar married Antongaleazzo's sister) and also achieved mastery in Bologna. Pope Martin V reacted by imposing an interdict on the city; Antongaleazzo decided that the most prudent course was to remove himself in favor of the Pope and the Canetoli. For 3 years he and his family lived in the Castel Bolognese outside the city. But he was still a rallying point for disaffection, so he "bowed to the inevitable" and in 1423 "went off to seek his fortunes elsewhere," as a condittiere for Florence. In 1426 he and his brother Ercole started serving the Papacy. In 1434 Cosimo di Medici became all-powerful in Florence, and probably as a result of Cosimo's urging, in 1435 Eugenius IV allowed Antongaleazzo and his brother to return. After mass soon after, the papal guards seized and beheaded him.

Thanks for those details. I didn't know all of them, like settling Annibale's father by dice (!). I haven't looked into his life

Now for a different topic. What is your response to Vitali in the following passages? First, from http://www.associazioneletarot.it/The-H ... 1_eng.aspx)

The number of the Triumphal cards at the beginning maybe was composed by 8 allegories, later by 14 and then was finally set on 22, number that in the Christian mystical meaning represents the introduction to the wisdom and the divine teachings engraved in humanity. Such path, that reports a progressive adaptation of these "playing cards" to religious numerological laws, was probably adopted to avoid the sentence of the Church which was continually cast against the card games considered of hazard.

The number 8 comes from Petrarch; the number 14 would correspond to a celestial ladder. Vitali gives a picture with close to 14 rungs, someone climbing the virtues. The number 14 comes from Trionfi, as Vitale says in another essay. But he doesn't construct a specific correspondence between rungs and particular cards.

I don't accept such unqualified assertions as a theory, and even when qualified, they would be only a version of 5x14 theory, of which you have the primary spokesman right here in this forum.

There are many errors in Vitali's presentation, some due to mistranslation (in the English at least) and some to misunderstanding, and I don't have the time to take them on line by line. Just note that if it talks about 5x14 ideas or Bolongese things like Marchione Burdochio, it comes from trionfi.com, including my own discoveries of the January 1441 reference and Marchione's origin in Bologna, both from Franceschini (but not noted by him, just transcribed from the archives. He wanted to give art historians this resource, not to provide a detailed synthetic study of everything in it - it will last for generations, if not centuries - unless every single manuscript is scanned or photographed (from every library in the world, as I have dreamed of if I had the means) in the meantime -, as the primary resource for students of the Este family's relations with artists until the early 16th century).

The whole quote seems to imply constant and uniform evolution, which I don't think Huck's 5x14 theory posits.

The number 8 comes from the phrase "VIII Imperatori", and it is 5x14 interpretation that it means 8 trumps.

"Finally set(tling) on 22" implies some kind of central tarot authority, and constant checking and double-checking for comparison among players of all regions in order to reach agreement - an absurd scenario.

His meaning for the number 22 is ad hoc and not present in any early 15th century source that I know of. It is really crypto-Kabbalism. This can be seen in the next sentence, describing the number as conforming to "religious numerological laws", in order to avoid some kind of sanction on Tarot that is nowhere recorded. Tarot is always permitted by civil authorities, where mentioned at all, and never mentioned by religious authorities, except a few preachers acting on their own, always in the context of other games. I don't know any case in which a number would make something more palatable to the Church or to preachers, if the activity or object itself were objectionable.

Then, at http://www.associazioneletarot.it/Bolog ... 9_eng.aspx Vitale describes the move from 14 (arrived at from Trionfi's evidence) to 22:

To be able to understand when this increase happened, in my opinion we need to analyze the so-called Tarots of Charles VI (now in the National Library in Paris) of the second half of the XV century, so called because in the XIX century it was wrongly identified as a deck mentioned in 1392 in a book of counts of the French king. Only 17 cards remain of which 16 Triumphs and the Page of Swords. The order that makes distinguish these cards, to which shortly later were combined Romans numbers, results to be that of the Bolognese Tarot with the Angel to dominate the World and with minor variations in the numbers of cards of the Chariot, Strength and Temperance. In the illustrated scheme (figure 3) their order is compared with the traditional one of Bologna. The substitution of the Popess, of the Pope, of the Emperor and of the Empress with Four Popes, was effected in the XVI century because the four figures possessed a same value of taking.

I guess these are matters of interpretation. Factually, however, he is out of date and therefore has wrong information in some respects. The Chariot should be numbered "X" - the same as the Catania Chariot ("10"). The ascription of the cards of de Gaignières' collection to Charles VI seems to have already happened in the 18th century, and I think you can infer from statements already made in de Gaignières' lifetime that the dating to his reign was already current at the end of the 17th (i.e. two witnesses of about 1700 claiming that they are 300 years old, that is, right in the middle of Charles VI's reign).

Translating "Papi" as "Popes" is misleading - there is no reason to think the Bolognese (or anybody) ever had 4 Popes. The original term should be kept - papi - with the implied 2 Popes and 2 Emperors, respective "fathers" of the Church and Empire. Papa in this context is just a term for "head", related to "papa" - father or, really, "dad"; in the Florentine context it comes to lose even that semantic limit, tied to the iconography, and just means the lowest trumps, including the Bagattino as "Papa Uno" and Love as "Papa Cinque".

And finally, after noting the Bolognese merchant in Ferrara:

So, if in 1442 they were illuminated cards and the popular cards of triumphs, this means that their origin is to be found in the preceding decades. It is in fact a formulation based on the historical method of attribution for which, in this case, it is necessary to consider the time needed for this game to become so popular to be produced even as works of art in the greatest Courts of Northern Italy. The dating of the invention of the canonical triumphs is therefore to be anticipated at the first decade of XIV century, a date that corresponds to a series of situations in Bologna from which we can hypothesize that it was that city to give them birth.

I assume that "XIV century" is a mistranslation of "Quattrocento." What I get from this is that Bologna may have been the origin of the 22 (if we can exclude Florence), but that previously there was a 14 trump game, recorded in Ferrara, perhaps brought there from Bologna. That would reconcile all the data. Vitali holds that if there were popular decks there in 1442, the game must have been in Bologna for decades; hence the game started in Bologna.

For Vitali the important thing here, unstated, is the Bolognese legend (perhaps not really that widespread) that Francesco Fibbia "invented the game of Tarocchini" - the same legend says he died in 1419, meaning he invented it before then. Then he relies on the guessing method of "a few decades" before the first notice of something, and finds the two compatible. Finally, he has found a reference to this Francesco, presumably, who actually died in 1399, and draws a middle between the two incompatible dates 1399-1419; that middle is 1410 (inclusive). So, "first decade" of the 15th century.

If you look at the chart I posted a few posts back, you can see why I don't rely on the guessing method of a few decades or so from invention to first historical notice. Over 300 years of playing card historiography, and 136 years after the discovery of the two earliest Ferrarese references in 1442 - with many active researchers in Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, and Milan, has failed to push the date back beyond 1442, while MUCH, much more has been found filling in the pattern AFTER 1442. Given that the information from all of these places remains constant from the 1430s and 1440s, the sudden appearance of carte da trionfi, both documentary and physical evidence, indicates that the date is not much earlier than 1442, and cannot be 2 to 3 decades earlier.

Here are my own criticisms: (1) Vitali's assignment of the "four papi" to the 16th century is in question if masculine-looking Empresses and Popesses were around earlier.

Right. We have no direct evidence that they were however. The strongest indirect evidence, to me, is that the rule is so deeply rooted in Piedmont/Savoy, and they were already receiving French cards by 1505, which presumably had the Popess and Empress. So calling the cards "papi" (and "papots" in French) must have been the custom already from the late 15th century, for it to have survived the imposition of other figures.

(2) An alternative explanation for why the popular deck was in Bologna (besides the game's being around for decades) is that Bologna was a republic, and the deck had propaganda value for the Bentivoglio from the late 1430''s on, and hence did not need decades.

That might be true, but for theoretical purposes getting it to Bologna and seeing a political allegory in it is enough for the moment, although I'm sure it could be developed further, as you have done. I don't know if the figure on the Chariot is better seen as a Bentivoglio or a Piccinino for the moment, and that depends on the interpretation of Caesar we think it represents.

(3) Vitali is short on details. If there were two major waves of printed card production, one with 14 trumps and the other with 22, just when was each, even roughly? The 14 must have been produced at least until the mid-1450’s, for there still to be hand-painted versions in Ferrara in 1457. And in between, could there have been hand-painted versions that added cards, some of which then were later incorporated in the 22-trump edition? And just which cards would the original 14 have been, more or less?

Short on details and references, as well as analytic reflection. You know my opinion - there is no need to posit incremental growth of the trump series. An original invention of 22 standard trumps that got picked up and transformed in various locations and milieux accounts for differences in iconography. Card loss accounts for the incomplete trump sets, and experiment accounts for the single example of addition to the trump series before Minchiate (the Cary Yale of course).

So I am tempted to add my speculations to Vitali’s account, to fill in the blanks and see if they make sense. For example, Milan, for its painted cards, adds 2 to the 14, for its own reasons (the 16-trump Michelino, the 16-card suits, etc.), and creates the CY. Then later Milan adds more, for the PMB.

As I see it, when Francesco Sforza ordered Trionfi in 1450, he was expecting a standard product that he could play Triumphs with, not something that could be anything. It was not a commission, it was just a purchase. In other words, they were made according to a standard, and when someone asked for carte da trionfi, they knew what to expect.

I don't see the need for incremental growth as a theory. People tend to like it because it pushes the number 22 into a time when Kabbalistic ideas might have influenced the number of Trumps.

To this list, Milan adds what I call the “ancestor” cards: the Popess, for Sister Manfreda;

I have a long critque of this thesis, that I hope will see the light of day soon. It primarily deals with Barbara Newman's ideas.

the Hermit, for grandfather Amadeo; the Hanged Man, for grandfather Muzio. (In between being a duke and being a pope, Amadeo of Savoy was a hermit.) The printer in Bologna (the Microsoft of 15th century tarot) says, “Great,” and adds them to his next edition, along with others that other places have added, with names like Bagatto, Empress, Star, Devil, and Tower. He makes Empress and Popess suitably androgynous, to appeal to the local cynics and commemorate Annibale and Antongaleazzo.(Annibale’s tomb was done in 1458.) Fortunately he has secured a monopoly in this business, one way or another.

That's interesting. I just don't accept the idea of a cardmaker making "editions" every few years - a game is popular or not. A new game becomes popular or not. If it is, it stays as it is. The standard playing cards became standard for a reason, and it wasn't monopoly, it was popularity. The only card anybody tried to add was the Queen, which seems to have made a 56 card or four-court standard for a little while in early 15th century Italy, but it has left no physical trace. Only the three-court version survives - one with a Queen, in France and countries adopting her pattern, one with a Knight, in Italy and Spain and countries adopting those patterns, and one with an Upper and a Lower figure below the King, in Germany. Four courts was unstable. But the standard pack, whether shortened in the pips or not, is very stable with regards to the courts, the only picture cards, throughout the centuries. I can't see all kinds of wild experiments with additions and different subjects being attempted by serious cardmakers of Tarots, with constant additions especially. Just look at the pattern of the Cary Yale, with six courts - that never got adopted in a printed form. It seems to have been an isolated experiment.

So I have another question, Ross, having to do with the invention of the Popess.

This is for another post.

Ross

Well,
I think, you're too hard in the judgment.

In the general research development Italian Tarot research did a lot in the past and English language development learned from it (inclusive Trionfi.com - for instance we profited strong from the work of Franco Pratesi), no doubt, especially when personal translation possibilities improved with the progress of the comforts of general internet.
Now the flexibility of Tarot Internet researchers had led to a dominant progress in the "English group" and the Italian group has difficulties to integrate this process and its quick development.

But it's not a competition ... it's more cooperation, as it should be, although the communication process operates occasionally with errors and language difficulties. And we still have a lot to learn, and Italian research has the simple advantage to be nearer to the sources.
Andrea's website - which is to our luck also available in English - is directed primarily to Italian public and the Italian communication situation.
Our communication here has the advantage, that it can be much more specific ... and personal. ... .-) ... let's enjoy this advantage.

Thanks, Ross, for the comments on Vitali. I'm still not clear on how unrealistic it is to suppose that a Bolognese printer put out two editions of the printed tarot, one with 14 trumps and one later with 22 trumps. Here is another way of putting my elaboration of Vitali. The deck with 14 would have been developed 1438-1440, perhaps printed for the Visconti wedding, but printed at least by early 1442. It would have been authoritative in the sense that all its subjects were accepted in other cities, as well as its three general groupings of the sequence (beginning, middle, end). But other cities, Milan to be sure, would have added cards, given some of them different looks, and varied the order within the three groupings, in their luxury decks. Then in the late 1450's or the 1460's, perhaps in connection with the memorial tomb for Annibale in 1458, a second version of 22 trumps is printed, incorporating the additions. And even though other printed versions may have been published, this one, because it is has the prestige of the original author and is so inclusive, proves authoritative as to subjects, although blurring a few genders. Differences in look and order within groupings remain in other cities. This second deck is kind of like the Waite-Smith of our day in impact: it sets the standard as far as subjects (in the Waite-Smith, including pip cards). And although other decks continue to be printed with different takes on the same subjects, and even variations in the sequence, the subjects are now fixed. This seems to me the simplest scenario that accounts for all the data presented so far, without discounting any of it. Or am I missing the point? If I am, just point me to what I should re-read.

One thing about Vitali that I didn't think of is that he also has an Italian-language website (duh), so if I want I can look at the Italian: http://www.letarot.it/.

On the dice, "This story, as told by Ghirardacci, was vehemently denied by later generations of Bentivoglio, but no effort on their part could establish that Annibale was born in wedlock" (Ady p. 11). It is in Pt. III, p. 54. Ady adds in a footnote, p. 12:

Sorbelli in his preface (pp. lxxx-cxvi) gives an account of the controversy which took place in the eighteenth century on the question of Annibale's birth. Marchese Guido Bentivoglio could not prove his ancestor's legitimacy, but he succeeded in suppressing an entire edition of Pt. III of Ghirardacci's history, thus delaying its publication until the twentieth century.

I found Steve's suggestion of Julius II as Caesar interesting. I hadn't thought of that. I was looking for the name "Caesar." So Julius comes as liberating theocrat to save the republic from the excesses of its rulers. But then who would be the Hanged Man? Would it be the "would-be Caesar," as the Bentivoglio called Cesare Borgia (Ady p. 158), whose father bribed his way to the papacy, made the future Julius furious, and betrayed everyone? And what, in that scenario, is the explanation for the fleur-de-lys on the Chariot? Is it that Julius was the candidate, against Borgia and after, of the Medici? (I take it that more than one person could be Caesar in the story, since several of the Bentivoglio would also fit.)

And thanks, Huck, for the information about where the Costa "Triumph of Fame" was discussed on Aeclectic. I got it by searching "fame" and "costa," and there it was, at http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.ph ... fame+Costa. Nice pictures and good, lengthy quotes. But Hurst focused too much on "fortune," at the expense of "sapienta." He gives a large blow-up of the "fortuna" part of the fresco, but you can hardly see the details in the painting that relate to "sapienta." That's the part I found interesting, because the lady with the horn, besides being "fama," is both, from the perspective of the 1490 tournament, "fortuna" and "sapienta," the two kinds of "fama" contesting there. The "sapienta" persona tends to be ignored. And Hurst didn't include Drogin's pictures of the two flanking tomb-reliefs, one for the scholar and one for the soldier of fortune. In his exposition of Drogin, Hurst focused on a footnote (doing very well with it, to be sure) and ignored the main point. So maybe I will do a post on the "World" thread after all, when I get a chance. But you'll have heard it all from me already.

Since no one has added a post after my last one, I edited my previous one rather than giving you my second thoughts about it in a new post. If you have already read that one before this current post appeared, re-read the first paragraph, to which I have made changes. Thanks.

Mike,

for Marchione Burdochi and the document of July 1442:

There are two interpretations. Ross arguments in his interpretation, that Burdochi brought and sold cheap Bolognese Trionfi cards. This would assume an early Bolognese Trionfi card production.

I think (not that I could exclude Ross' version with 100% security), that the Ferrarese Trionfi card production of February 1442 saw 4 noble decks (which are noted in the account books) and a series of similar cheaper cards for the normal market, made at own costs (and with Leonello's allowance) by Sagramoro. Sagramoro sold this edition (or the rest of it) to Marchione Burdochi (there is evidence, that Sagramoro and Burdochi had other dealings with each other in the same year - Burdochi only appears in this year, otherwise he's unknown). So - according my interpretation - Burdochi sold Ferrarese decks in Ferrara and Bologna. And these decks weren't really cheap, they were only cheap in relation to the others.
I assume, that the use of the name "Trionfi decks" was first used in combination of decks, which were made at specific occasions, "triumphal festivities", which for Ferrara was given in February 1442 with a festivity, by which Leonello was accepted as new Signore of Ferrara.

At 1.1.1441 the terminus "Trionfi cards" isn't used in Ferrara, but it is used in February 1442 (also in Ferrara). So it might be, that the terminus was introduced with its new meaning at October 1441 at the marriage of Bianca Maria Visconti and then the whole marriage was used as a sort of universal peace symbol, ending the war Milan-Venice. Also Florence had festivities this month (Alberti's poetical contest).
The account book of Ferrara uses a "reducing" term with his trionfi cards, cartexele (= small Trionfi cards ?), and the price is not the "high price" for gilded cards later. This is obviously only a smaller product, not in the dimensions of the Cary-Yale Tarocchi, "becoming a new signore" had as festivity not the rank as the "big peace marriage" of October.
In the same month October 1441 Sigismondo Malatesta also married in related action, a daughter of Francesco Sforza. Possibly another cartexele-production.
Recently we became aware, that also Bologna had a marriage this year (Bentivoglio with a distant Visconti-niece), though a little too early. A contact to Bianca Maria and her "Ferrara-adventure seems somehow plausible). But it might be, that they with the peace in Milan produced an own deck in a "later reaction".

Well, we have a "wave of peace" in October 1441 with the detection of a new media, "marriage decks" called Trionfi cards, at the same time are detected other modern trends of art, "wedding cassone" with Petrarca's Trionfi motifs and also the appearance of the first illustrated Trionfi-poem-edition, commissioned by Pietro di Medici - probably this all not an accidental relation.
Part of the show - Trionfi cards, Trionfi cassone, Trionfi celebrations, Trionfi books, poetical contest in Florence - is the condition, that Petrarca's crowning as a poetus laureatus in 1341 had have its 100th year anniversary in 1441.
Another reaction is the crowning of a new poetus laureatus far in the North, Silvio Enea Piccolomini, the future Pope of 1458-1464, got this honor.

In this context one should study:

Huck at aeclectic wrote: http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t= ... t=bisticci

"Giannozzo Manetti (1393-1459)
a person of some interest in more than one way.

1. he was responsible for a sharp attack on gaming in Pistoia in 1446/1447, which adds to our general suspicion, that in the 40's of 15th century the situation for playing cards was difficult.

2. He became a crowned poetus laureatus in 1443 ... this is of interest to the general Trionfi development, for instance to Alberti's literary contest in 1441. And of special interest is Bisticci's "they crowned him with a laurel crown, a custom which had not lately been observed." ... which should mean, that an old custom was revived after a long time.

"He condemned the worthless and the sluggards. Gamblers and gaming he hated as pestiferous abominations."
http://books.google.com/books?id=ly...NwlWU#PPA375,M1

"Giannozzo was governor of Pistoia and, as at Pescia, would accept neither gift nor tribute. He kept more servants and horses than the law allowed. The place was given to gaming; indeed the people thought of little else. Hating this vice as he did, he resolved to put an end to it as long as he was there, and to effect this he issued a proclamation that whoever should play any forbidden game should be taken and treated with four strokes with a rope. Moreover, he fixed a fine which every offender would have to pay, wherefore during his time of office gaming ceased."

(Source of possible interest in this matter: Giannozzo Manetti, Chronicon pistoriensis [Historia pistoriensis], in Rerum italicarum scriptores, a cura di L. A. Muratori, vol. XIX, Milano, 1731, coll. 987-1076, probably written 1446 - 1447)

Pistoia had 996 households in 1442, Manetti's work started Oktober 1446.
http://books.google.com/books?id=se...eZpBwkywvSyoMBQ

"On his return to Florence he was drawn for the Assembly, and about this time Messer Lionardo of Arezzo died (1443). The Signoria decided that his memory should be honoured in every possible way. It was decreed that the custom of delivering a funeral oration should be revived and Giannozzo was charged with this duty and that he should be crowned with laurel after the ancient custom. To these obsequies all the illustrious men of the city came to his coronation. Many prelates attended, as the court of Rome was then in Florence, and Giannozzo delivered an oration worthy of the subject, and they crowned him with a laurel crown, a custom which had not lately been observed."
http://books.google.com/books?id=ly...NwlWU#PPA378,M1
"

In 1443 Florence answered to the petus laureatus crowning of the hated Enea Piccolomini, who was a man from Siena and people from Siena and people of Florence had their differences. And they honored a person, which expressed a more than normal hate on playing cards and this in the period after a positive "wave of Trionfi cards" in 1441-1442 ... And the general political situation was so, that pope Eugen, who had a long period of extreme weakness with flight from Rome, anti-pope and anti-council, got to his feet up again and was finally victorious and who had a clear relation to San Bernardino and his Franciscans, strong haters of the medium playing cards.
And we have no record of Trionfi card productions between 1443-1449, we've observable increased prohibition tendencies in Florence, and we've nearly no playing card production noted in Ferrara. We have a new king in Naples (Alfonso) and it seems, that he also has a bias against playing cards (Bisticci's biography - see aeclectic-article) and we have a daughter of him married to Leonello, so "an active power" forming the current life at the Ferrarese court (generally playing cards were for women and children at courts).

So ... all, what we can say, this first start of Trionfi cards wasn't a great success, it seems, that playing cards generally found much opposition in this time.
The next wave of Trionfi cards started 1450.

We've for Bologna two playing card producers noted ... one in a sort of a legend, that he was advised by San Bernardino to print IHS-designs instead of playing cards and a second, Ioannes d'Alemagna, son of a already dead Ioannes of Colonia, who was involved in a battle by feasts with a Bolognese in 1427.
There are two points about it: None of both is really loved - at least for that, what we know of them by document. Second point: The German card producer from the first legend might be the same person as the Ioannes from the 1427 document.

Indeed a Joannes (Giovanni) d'Alemagna existed as an artist, he married into a Venetian artist family (Vivarini). He is known to have painted in the manner of the "school of Cologne" and he was active in religious topics (if he ever made "playing cards", he was converted finally), for instance he painted San Bernardino and that not only once. Actually a painter of some fame.
He worked in Venice and Padova, not too far from Bologna. He died in 1450 as a colleague of the young Mantegna. In the 1448 documents he's called Ioannes d'Alemania, son of (the already dead) Ioannes - so rather similar to the Bolognese card producer in 1427.

It's not clear, that this is a correct identification and Iohannes is a common German name, but possibly we've for Bologna only one card producer mentioned and this one is a "converted card producer" with most of his time having another occupation.
Sagramoro was also a card producer, but mostly he made his living with other work.

Generally we've signs of some unusual card experiments (Imperatori / Michelino deck) in Italy in the 1420's, these happen to be from Ferrara, Florence and Milan - not Bologna, though, if we assume the heart of the Prince Fibbia story as containing a "true story" (in it's details it's more or less definitely wrong), we would have also a sign of Bologna.

Yes, a good summary of the complications, Huck. I was just trying my hand with Occam's razor, a device that sometimes has its merits. There are to be sure signs pointing to earlier development of tarot-like decks in other cities, as you say. But wasn't it Leonello, or someone connected with him, who bought the deck from Burdochi? It seems a bit odd that he/they would have bought a Ferrarese deck from Burdochi rather than from its source in Ferrara.

mikeh wrote:Yes, a good summary of the complications, Huck. I was just trying my hand with Occam's razor, a device that sometimes has its merits. There are to be sure signs pointing to earlier development of tarot-like decks in other cities, as you say. But wasn't it Leonello, or someone connected with him, who bought the deck from Burdochi? It seems a bit odd that he/they would have bought a Ferrarese deck from Burdochi rather than from its source in Ferrara. Maybe Burdochi dealt in both kinds, Bolognese as well as Ferrarese.

Well ... there are various insecurities at both sides. A German artist in Bologna not necessary means, that this ever had much seen of Germany (for instance his major affinity to Germany was, that his father was from Germany) and a Bolognese merchant in Ferrara not naturally means, that Burdochi lived in Bologna. But, somehow it's probable, and probably Burdochi lived "at various locations", just a trader, living from transporting items from one location to the other, buying cheap, selling high.
We know from other documents, that Burdochi had other dealings with Sagramoro in the same year. He knew Sagramoro, that's definite, an occasional playing card producer. The natural connection between a producer and a merchant is, that the merchant buys from producers and sells to customers.
The normal function of a merchant is to sell, not to transport "ideas how to produce playing card decks". Somehow Ross' Model implies, that Burdochi brought the idea to Trionfi decks to Ferrara ... in the case, that this was a special action, then we don't need a Michelino deck, a Cary-Yale Tarocchi and a note of 1.1.1441 to explain . But it's doubtable, that the Ferrarese court heard of a Trionfi deck in Bologna via Burdochi, cause Bologna is near and the news had reached Ferrara anyway. Then Burdochi had just the function to sell the deck.

Why is it then so, that we just hear, that Burdochi had dealings with Sagramoro? Ferrara had 30.000 inhabitants, there are a lot of persons, which Burdochi might have known. The whole gets only a face, if Burdochi bought from Sagramoro decks ... and delivered himself other things, perhaps on the basis of a long developed relation between the both.
Sagramoro made playing cards since 1422.

Ferrara had generally the function to be creative ... as other courts, especially also the Milanese court. Sagramoro and perhaps also other artists at the Ferrarese court likely lived also from productions, which they sold elsewhere ... they couldn't live from the court salary, mostly. So a merchant, who dealt a little bit with art and generally delivered material needed for the production of art, would have had a logical function. Ferrarese art in Bologna, this would be a business. Bolognese art in Ferrara, that seems not logical.
Imperatori cards imported from Florence, this makes sense, in the contrary.

In Ross' explanation the tail waggles a little bit with the dog, not the dog with the tail. Ferrara wouldn't have imitated Bologna, I would assume.

Well, it's a pity, it seems not possible to get more information about this Marchione Burdochi.

Hi Mike,

mikeh wrote: So I have another question, Ross, having to do with the invention of the Popess. It seems to me that if one assumes, with Vitali, that the numbers on the Charles VI cards reflect their original order and not just a later one, then the Devil is established as an original card in that deck but not the Popess, omitted by personal preference of the commissioner, just as, in the PMB, the Tower and Devil are omitted by personal preference. This strengthens the idea that the jump from 14 was to 22 and not to 21 and then a later jump to 22.

I think it supports the contention that there was originally a standard series of 22 subjects, which have been lost in most decks.

I don't deny the premise that a luxury commission could change/substitute or even omit a subject, but the implication is that the subject is there in the standard series and the commissioner choses to change or not include it.

For Charles VI, it is important to note the Florentine Strambotto poem, recently discovered, which also omits the Popess (but has an Empress). Depaulis deduces that this, and the numbering on the Charles VI cards, is evidence of a transitional phase in Florence. In other words, the Charles VI had lost its Popess (or extra Pope or Emperor, I might also suggest) by the time they were numbered - probably suppressed (or "thrown away" in a more religiously conservative period, like the late 15th century). Rosenwald shows a Florentine pattern with a Popess and Empress, which would allow us to date the sheet earlier than the poem.

The end of the transition is evident in the Minchiate papi, which are all male, and are only three (perhaps in some early Minchiates it might still be a female - Kaplan's reproductions aren't good enough to tell - or maybe the iconography is vague in any case).

I presume that one reason you don't say that the numbers in the Charles VI reflect the original order, is that you say that the Popess was invented in Florence. But the evidence for her invention is in Milan: the PMB figure, plus, historically, the Visconti ancestor and Boccaccio's Famous Women, describing Pope Joan, in the Pavia library, corresponding to the foot popping out like a baby in the Fournier version. Could you explain why you say that Florence invented the Popess?

Briefly, if she and the Empress weren't invented in Bologna, they had to be invented somewhere! (that's the facetious way of putting it - but if for many other reasons I take the position that the Bolognese pattern is original, then it follows). It's either Florence or Milan, since both have it.

Less briefly, it is a way to account for the transmission of the Popess and Empress in the French and Ferrarese (or Eastern at least) patterns, as well as in Milan. I also try to think which scenario is more likely original, between an equal papi rule with two Popes and two Emperors, or a sequential hierarchy and no equal papi rule, including a Popess and Empress. I conclude that it is less likely that someone erased the hierarchy and created rivalry between all these figures as a ludic doctrine, than that someone didn't like the rivalry and made a hierarchy. Thus, the equal-papi rule is original, the "lectio difficilior". The long presence of the rule, along with the high Angel, in the Duchy of Savoy (later Savoy and Piedmont), shows that it must have come from Bologna directly or indirectly at a very early time - time enough to take root before 1505, when they are already importing French (Avignon) cards.

I take the presence of Popess and Empress to reflect a luxury, literary taste (or "courtly"), and two Emperors and Popes to reflect a realpolitik (or "republican") view of the world at the time Tarot was invented . I take the realpolitik to be more likely original than the literary because the adoption from the greater to the smaller (popular to courtly) is more likely than the adoption of the smaller to greater (courtly to popular), at least and especially in the case of the apparently rapid spread of the game. Most of what remains is luxury and courtly of course, since luxurious items are heirlooms and valuable to others as well, and the courts kept records that others didn't - historical accident favors them; but the Este purchase from Marchione Burdochio shows a court adopting a popular product in action, and both Marcello's first deck, given to him to play with in late 1448 or early 1449, Sforza's order to procure only "the finest" Tarots available (implying those much less fine), and Trotti's offhand recommendation of Triumphs as a good game, show that the popular product is just below the surface, mostly lost to history.

The accepted evidence of the standard trumps for Florence is the painted cards (Catania, Charles VI, Rothschild), Rosenwald, the Strambotto poem published by Depaulis in 2007, and the Germini. That's in chronological order.

The painted cards give us no iconographical information about the two other papi. Only Emperor and Pope are present. The numbering tells us there was one other numbered papa below the Emperor, when the cards were numbered. But we don't know when that was.

Rosenwald shows us a Popess and an Empress. The Strambotto lists "Pope, Emperor and Empress", but omits a Popess. Rosenwald has been dated "circa 1500", and the Strambotto is also dated, much more precisely, as circa 1500 (due to the publisher's dates). Depaulis takes this as evidence that the Popess was dropped in Florence at some time shortly before 1500, and the numbering of the Charles VI reflects this - meaning that the Popess had been literally removed from this old deck at some point - if she existed at all and the missing figure, with the number "II", were not another Emperor. This might also allow us to date the Rosenwald sheet to earlier than 1500.

In Germini/Minchiate, the three remaining Papi are all males, and number II is wearing a crown. Merlin, in the 19th century, dubbed him "The Grand Duke of Tuscany", but he is really known in the Minchiate sources only as "Papa Due". He never had a native, descriptive name. So, after they dropped the Popess but still had an Empress, they changed the Empress to a male figure, and the three remaining papi entered Germini that way (along with the custom of calling the the lowest five cards all "papi").

So, since Rosenwald possessed four papi, and the Strambotto and Germini only have three (out of the four we are talking about), it appears that Florence dropped the Popess at some point, and the numbering on the Charles VI reflects the contemporary order, suggesting that the numbering was done after the drop, that is, after 1500.

If the numbering were done after 1500, this explains also the number on the Chariot, which reflects the Germini order, above the Wheel. The position of the Wheel in the Rosenwald sequence is insecure, since it is apparently out of place on the sequence of the sheet, where it is between the Hanged Man and Death - an order unheard of in Tarot. It is also unnumbered, and there is no "XI". The person who numbered the Rosenwald sheet placed the Chariot as "X", after Fortitude as "VIIII", so Depaulis and most commentators, me included, would put the Wheel at "XI", which is the same as the Strambotto.

So - the Rosenwald sheet and the Strambotto, both around 1500, attest to a time when the Chariot was below the Wheel. The Charles VI and Catania numbering, and the Germini order, attest to when the Chariot was moved to above the Wheel. There is evidence for a moving Chariot in Florence, and therefore reason, if not proof, to believe that neither is the original order.

Back to the original question. Given the Rosenwald, Florence apparently knew four Papi before it knew three. It also apparently knew two females and two males before it knew three males. Thus it matches the Visconti Sforza, which is datable to at least 1460. The Cary Yale (c. 1445) even knows an Empress, which implies a Popess as well, for the same configuration. Therefore, it seems inescapable that the original Trionfi had a Popess, Pope, Emperor and Empress. How can the Bolongnese two popes and two emperors, only known explicitly from 1565, compete with that?

It can't compete directly, since there is no direct evidence. The only circumstantial evidence is the strength of Bologna's claim to have invented Tarot, or inherited it directly from Florence, and the conservatism of the game and iconography, whose only known throughgoing change was enforced on it in 1725, when cardmakers were forced to make Moors rather than Popes and Emperors. All the other changes are natural evolution, which can be observed in all styles or patterns of cards.

For Florence inventing the Popess (and Empress), in place of the second Pope and Emperor, I suggest that it has to do with the literary, and thence luxury, taste for Petrarchan triumphal images, which is greatest in Florence beginning in the 1440s. This imagery makes its way into the actual painted cards in the Charles VI, Catania and Visconti Sforza Hermit, who, holding an hourglass, should only appear in the late 1450s. Likewise the young woman on the Chariot is a luxury taste, not present in any printed, or "common" version. In the case of the Popess, images of Petrarch's Trionfi include Pope Joan as a captive of Love by 1480. I suggest that she was seen as appropriate for this subject already by the 1440s in Florence.

We know that Florentine artisans emigrated to Milan in the 1440s, and to Lyon starting in the 1450s, when the policies of Charles VII and especially Louis XI (after 1461) aimed at making Lyon the industrial center of Europe. Essentially Louis made Lyon a free-trade zone, and gave unheard of concessions to foreign artisans, merchants and bankers who agreed to work in the city. I think that Visconti must have enticed people to Milan with a similar plan.

So I can see luxury card painters having introduced the Florentine pattern into Milan, resulting in the style we see in the Visconti Sforza. Likewise, I think Tarot probably came from Florence to Lyon already in the 1450s or 1460s, perhaps in both forms, but certainly in a popular form. This accounts for why Catelin Geoffroy, the Anonymous Parisian, Viéville, and the Tarot de Marseille (all French patterns in fact, until the substitutions of the 18th century) all have the same sequence of papi and the subjects of Popess and Empress. Rosenwald must represent the last surviving branch of some original Florentine 78 card deck that went to France, except for a few things - the grouping of the virtues, the position of the Chariot, and the switch of the highest cards (as well as the vignettes below the Star, Moon and Sun, which are different in every pattern). For me the simplest solution is that the Florentine cardmakers were more productive, and travelled more, than any Bolognese cardmakers. Their pattern was much more widespread.

The switch of World for Angel as the highest card must have happened twice (in the Eastern patterns (Steele, Budapest/MetMuseum) and French), unless we assume some kind of influence from one on the other, which does not seem apparent given the differing placement of the virtues, and the different iconography.

In Florence-A, Ferrara B, and in France in one case, Viéville, the Chariot has moved from being just after Love. It seems it is not clear that the Chariot should be there, so it is counterintuitive to think that the Tarot de Marseille and most French patterns, and Bologna, came to the idea independently. Therefore, it seems that whatever Florentine pattern became widely diffused still showed this order, meaning it was not Rosenwald but an ancestor. Moving the Virtues around seems endemic to everything but A, so I guess that it easy to suggest that the movement of Virtues is a natural reaction to the sequence outside of the earliest centers. Viéville shows that the Tarot de Marseille pattern of Virtues wasn't the only one in France, but it was early nonetheless, since Geoffroy (1556) apparently has it. I would say that it was an invention of a French cardmaker (or an immigrant) to break up the monotony of the virtues, or, to keep Death at 13 when the cards came to be numbered (since 13 as a superstition is first attested in the 16th century in France).

So, in summary, since Florence has a Popess by the end of the century (Rosenwald), but Bologna never does (although we don't know the 15th century images of course), and in Florence these cards are all numbered - again something Bologna never does, even to this day - and finally drops the Popess without replacing her with anything, as well as never having any equal-papi rule that we know of, it suggests that the experimentation with the game and its imagery was more frequent in Florence than Bologna.

Since it is harder to see Milanese influence on Florence than vice-versa, I suggest that the luxury game came to Milan from Florence. Since the Cary Yale has an Empress, it should also have had a Popess, which means that the Florentine influx was by 1445 - which we know did in fact happen. Bologna is not known to have made luxury cards, so whatever impact this more popular level of game had is unknown.

I suggest that in luxury taste the influence of Petrarchan triumphal imagery was more common. We know that Pope Joan is pictured in illustrations of the Triumph of Love by 1480. Pope Joan is also used as an example in the poem of Martin le Franc, "Le Champion des Dames" (1440-1442), of which the earliest illustrated manuscript appears to be from 1451. I haven't seen it but I'm hoping to find more examples of Pope Joan standing up for her own defense. So Pope Joan was "in the air" in the 1440s, not only through Boccaccio but among people interested in the "Querrelle des dames" genre. I think it's anachronistic to think of her as implicitly blasphemous; at this time, she was considered a historical figure, which could be used as an example in various ways. Le Franc's use was to criticize a corrupt papacy, by showing how, although a woman, Joan (Jehanne) was not guilty of simony or heresy (both charges levelled against Eugene IV, the rival of Felix V, Martin le Franc's patron). In Tarot, I think she is seen as a suitable feminine equivalent of the Pope, like the Empress for the Emperor, all captives of Love. And all adapted to a luxury taste for literary tropes.

Whatever the reason for her inclusion (along with the Empress, whom I consider to have been invented at the same time), I think it is less likely for the Bolognese to have changed the figures into two Popes and two Emperors, than the other way around. This is especially so during the early 16th century, when direct Papal rule became a fact. The best time is during the schism, which happens to fall in the best time for the game to have been invented.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this post.

Well ...

... what is about this "Strombetto poem"? This is new, I never heard of it ...

...and, considering the suggested existence of early Trionfi deck production in Bologna, why do we have in 1459 in the earliest real Bolognese Trionfi document a German producer? Shouldn't it be an Italian, if we assume the long tradition, that it would have?