Ross wrote
I don't see any reason to think the Marziano-Michelino deck had any influence on the development of Trionfi, unless the trionfi were invented in the Visconti court, and then only conceptually - the idea of adding trumps to the pack….
I have explained how the Cary-Yale (CY) develops from the Michelino at
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&start=20#p468
Ross wrote, in response to my question about whether he thought the CY had 24- 25 trumps
Yes - I believe it had the 22 usual subjects, plus the three Theological Virtues. By analogy with Piero della Francesca's Triumph of Battista Sforza, which shows the Theological Virtues on her Chariot, along with the CY's own addition of two female courts in every suit, I strongly suspect the deck was made for a female Visconti.
None of the luminaries in fact is in the CY as we have it, a nice coincidence. In my account of the development of the CY from the Michelino, I admit, there is no room for both the theological virtues and the three luminaries. But the two sets actually have similar meanings. The Star of Bethlehem offers Hope; Faith, like the Moon, is our light in the darkness; and the Sun renews life, like Charity not seeking anything in return. Putting in both is redundant. I know that both sets are in Minchiate. But there, they have the whole zodiac separating them and providing a different context. The presence of both sets there, with the theological virtues where the luminaries usually are, along with its female pages, to me shows the presence of CY-like Milanese decks in Florence, which the Florentines synthesized with another tradition coming from elsewhere to create the Minchiate.
If the luminaries were not in the CY, then they got into the tarot when either someone replaced the theological virtues with them (not really sacrilegious if they had an eschatological meaning), or there was another tradition that did have them, and Filippo Visconti, for whatever reason, replaced them with the theological virtues. Even if the luminaries were in the CY, there was probably another tradition he got them from. But where? Filippo would have probably ignored or deprecated a game played by businessmen in Florence or businessmen and students in Bologna. (Ross might disagree; but all accounts say that he was an aloof, unpopular leader. He seems to have frustrated everybody by his paranoia. My guess is that to him businessmen were probably just tax-evaders. After he died, nobody wanted an aristocrat ruling over them.) But the Estensi in Ferrara were a noble family far more ancient than his, going back at least to the 9th century. In the 13th century their women had been sung about by Ferrara court troubadours. Petrarch spent his last years living near their Italian countryside base in Este. They also seem to have been interested in cards, perhaps even in Marziano’s game of the gods, A combination of evidence points to 14 trumps there: payments for 13 cards in 1422 (possibly "imperator", possibly a 5th suit or maybe just repairs of existing cards--this parenthesis added in response to Huck's post below), 14 paintings on paper Jan. 1441, 70-card decks in 1457. Filippo’s emissaries had spent extended time in Ferrara in 1428 and 1433 for the peace conferences, probably with continued contact afterward. Given that the luminaries but not the theological virtues are in the d’Este cards, it seems to me likely that the luminaries were part of the tradition there, either before Filippo's "theological virtues" deck or decks, or in response to them. Filippo either invented the game himself (perhaps stimulated by a prior game) or, more likely to me, changed Ferrara's luminaries to the theological virtues. Besides the similar meanings, there are visual links: the CY Hope lady looks at a star; and his Charity holds a sun-like mirror. But his version didn’t catch on. The PMB changed them back to the luminaries, yet with visual reminders of the other set: the Star lady looks at a star, the Moon lady holds a broken bow instead of Faith’s cross, and the Sun and putto replace mirror and suckling infant.
Could Ferrara have gotten the tarot from Bologna and then passed it on to Filippo? Or have endorsed the game, if introduced at the 1441 wedding, raising its status in Filippo’s eyes? That scenario might fit a 1445 date for the CY, but not much earlier. It takes time to adapt a foreign game to one’s own taste and the taste of one’s recipients. If they already had Ferrara’s game, it would be easier. For the CY, what is the occasion? By 1445 daughter Bianca has gone over to the enemy, literally. And as far as his wife was concerned, Filippo was probably thinking more of how to keep the duchy out of Savoy’s hands when he died. The only occasion I can think of is the 1444 birth of his grandson. But was that a joyous occasion for Filippo, or just another complication, and not an occasion worthy of giving out an heirloom? Meanwhile there is the Borromeo fresco, back in Milan (on the assumption that the game is tarot--this comment added after Huck's post following). I prefer to think that the CY was not an isolated example, but typical of Milanese decks c. 1438-1447, and in fact was a commemorative deck done after March of 1450.
Here is my conclusion, for further consideration to be sure: Florence, by its Minchiate, as I have said, shows signs of combining developments from different cities. Bologna, by its geographical position and its marriages, was well situated to do the same, both c. 1440 and later in the century. As citizen-republics, their modes of entertainment would not have been much emulated by the card-playing nobility of Ferrara and Milan, unless these groups already had something very like the game already. But both Florence and Bologna, precisely because of their republican governments, and with strong printing industries, had the motive (especially Bologna, with its serial assassinations) and means to popularize their decks to a greater public at home and abroad. Thus it was probably they who set the deck at the particular 22 trumps that we have, in a basic A order.
Once a deck with 22 trumps was standard, cardmakers had to deal with the convention that death be 13, since in the A order, with the Popess included (perhaps not at first, as I believe), or all four “papi,” Death would be 14. Since it is 13 in all the lists, I can’t see it as a coincidence. Adjustments had to be made, not necessarily the same in different places,. Thus in B, Justice is second to the end, as it may have been in Ferrara all along. In C, Temperance is put just after Death. I think that was done in the PMB, no later than the 2nd artist, because the lady in Temperance, Star, and Moon makes a set, of which at least the last two are in consecutive order. In A, either two cards get the same number, as in the Rosenwald, or both Bagattino and Fool are unnumbered, as in Tarocchino, or the Popess is left out, as in the strambotti poem. .