Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

41
mmfilesi wrote: Some doubts.

a) Why are we sure the Burdochio's deck are from Bologna?

I know this document:

1442 [28 July – credit to Marchione Burdochi, merchant]:
E adi dicto per uno paro de carte da trionfi; ave Iacomo guerzo famelio per uxo de Messer Erchules e Sigismondo frateli de lo Signore. Apare mandato a c___,………… L. 0.XII.III [Franceschini 1996:170; cf. Bertoni 1917:220 note 3]

with Ross translation:

And on the said day for one pack of triumph cards; has Iacomo “cross-eyed”, servant, for the use of Masters Ercole and Sigismondo brothers of the Lord. Appearing in mandate at c. ______, ………….L. 0. XII. III

But in this document dont said the decks are from Bologna. If Burdochio is a merchant he can buy the decks from other places, as Firenze, where the gioco da trionfi is not-forbiden in 1450 (and thats mind is popular), or...?
I’m fairly “sure”, but obviously we don’t “know for sure.” It’s just the most parsimonious (an explanation needing the fewest assumptions) deduction from the evidence, the clues. What are the clues? He was from Bologna, he was a merzaro (what’s that?), in the records as edited by Franceschini he is mostly selling taffeta (what’s that?), and in one instance the servant Giacomo guerzo is paid for a pack of carte of trionfi he bought from Burdochio.

First clue – Bologna. Clear enough.

Second clue - “Merzaro” came into modern Italian in two forms, “merciaro” and “merciaio”, of which only the latter has survived today (modern dictionaries note “merciaro” as an obsolete form).

Florio, in his “Worlde of Wordes” (1598), translates “merciaro, merciaio” as “a mercer, a pedler, a haberdasher of small wares.”

This word “mercer” in English generally means a cloth merchant – and Marchione did indeed sell cloth. But the word also implied “haberdasher”, which is the English for sellers of other things necessary for working with fabric, like thread, needles, buttons, cord, etc. (and zippers more recently, but unknown in the times we’re talking about). So it seems it is best to think of Marchione Burdochio as selling a variety of things. Finally, as you can see from Florio, it also meant “peddler” – could be any knick-knacks he was selling – maybe like not-so-luxurious carte da trionfi.

George W. McClure , The Culture of Profession in Late Renaissance Italy (University of Toronto Press, 2004), translates Leonardo Fioravanti’s “merzaro” as “shopkeeper”: "In a chapter ‘On the Art of the Shopkeeper and Its Subtleties’, he argues that ‘to become an adequate shopkeeper is much more difficult than to become a Doctor of Law, because if the Doctor encounters difficulties in diverse points of law, the shopkeeper encounters diversity in a million products.’” (‘Ma a voler fare un sofficiente Merzaro, è molto piu difficile, che non è fare un Dottore di Legge: perche si il Dottore trova difficultà in diversi punti di Legge, il Merzaro trova differentia in mille migliara di merci’) (pp. 74, 270 note 28; translation of Fioravanti, Dello specchio di scientia universale (Venice, 1583), 108v; my bold).

Third clue – taffetà. Taffeta wasn’t made in Ferrara, but it was a Bolognese specialty (see, e.g., the introduction of Luca Molà, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Johns Hopkins UP, 2000) pp. 3-8, which briefly surveys the silk industry in Italy from the middle ages to the mid-quattrocento) Of course we don’t know with absolute certainty, with documentation, where the Bolognese merzaro got his silk cloth, a specialty of his own city, but it seems safe to assume he got it from his hometown. Of course maybe he got it from Florence, or Lucca, or Venice, which also made it – or maybe we should just rest with the most parsimonious conclusion. He’s from Bologna, he sells Bolognese fabric. As a mercer/haberdasher, he also sells other things, like, in one proven case, a pack of carte da trionfi… it seems logical to suppose that he got them from the same place that he got his taffeta. It isn’t parsimonious to assume he had time to travel the whole of Italy looking for novelties to bring with him wherever he went, and presumably sell them at an even greater profit than if he had gotten them from his own home (that’s an interesting position – how cheap was the original price of the pack then, if it were made twice as far away? Huck should answer that – I know his answer already, the Este court artist Sagramoro in Ferrara sold them to the Bolognese merzaro to sell back to the Este court…)

Basically, we have no reason to believe that the carte da trionfi that Marchione Burdochio sold to Giacomo the servant were from anywhere else but Bologna. If we bother to ask the question "where did Marchione get the cards?", if we bother to try to tease out the implications of the meager clues offered to us by the documentation, then Bologna is the simplest and clearest guess. It is an “educated guess”. It is one, small, step in the darkness of ignorance back in time; but it is a step based on deductions from the evidence. Given the evidence – Bologna, merzaro, taffeta – any other suggestion is a leap based on nothing but wishful thinking.
Image

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

42
hi Mike, hi Ross,
mikeh wrote: I still think the Michelino was the first tarot, and after that came a predecessor to the Cary-Yale, a Petrarchan Christianization of the Michelino, somewhat along Pen's lines. Perhaps the 1425 Trionfi festivities (mentioned in Huck's last post) suggested the modifications, as well as Filippo's growing religiousity. The new version might have been Marziano's second experiment, before his unfortunate demise.
I think, that European playing card traditions reach back to 1300 ... this is not proven with hard evidence, but only indicated by too much insecure documents, and by the generally bad information situation from this time. Ingold said, that he had read, that playing cards had come in the year 1300 to Germany. Ingold might have been born c. 1380, he knew stories from his parents and teachers, and to some degree Ingold might have been a sort of chronist himself. If playing cards had come generally much later (c. 1370) it's somehow plausible, that Ingold ... who made much journeys and so did not know only the Strassburg reality ... would have heard about it as a modern and massive sensation. This Ingold didn't report, but something, which he had read in an old book (?) - "Nun ist das spil vol untrü, und als ich gelessen han, so ist es komen in tüsche land des ersten do man zalt von Cristus geburt tusend drühundert jar" ("als ich gelessen han" = "as I've read"), which he considered reliable.

Nonetheless we have the condition, that Johannes of Rheinfelden perceived the medium as "new" in his own world perception in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1377 - that's 50 km near to Strassburg, where Ingold wrote 55 years later. Both Strassburg and Freiburg are near enough to the big European trading way of the Rhein and if we don't perceive Johannes "as completely off from the world", we must assume, that it cannot have been, that playing cards were distributed in large manner along this trading way, which connected Norhern Italy with the Netherlands, crossing Western Germany, if we assume, that Johannes speaks truth regarding the his own perception.
On the other hand Johannes describes the playing card invasion as rather gigantic in a manner (much games and different cards, the whole city is filled with cards) that it is impossible to assume, that playing card industry was just invented yesterday. In European regions, not observed by Johannes, playing card production must have developed in the usual slow steps before. Naturally, as we know, that playing cards were first in China or at least far in the East, one would find their European origin somewhere along the importing trading routes and then natural not in central Europe, but at the periphery.
One common import route was surely Spain and with the Mamluk cards and the Latin suit system (swords etc.), which is far spread in Southern Europe, we have some evidence for it. However, a second and third and fourth rather important trade route went via the Black sea. One naturally follows the great river Donau (Danube) and reaches Vienna as the major Western city. A second had its run from the Krim towards Kiew, but then leaning to the West and crossing lower Polonia, reaching Breslau as the first bigger Western city. A third way leads further North via Nowgorod, then feeding the Ostsee, which was reigned by the Hanse as a trading institution. From this 3 major ways two did lead through territory, which was dominated by the Goldene Horde, a branch of the Mongolian armies, which generally didn't experience the great cultivation of that Mongols, which took influence on Persia. Later in 14th century, we see Tamerlane (Mongol leader reigning in Persia) attack the Goldene Horde ... so Mongolians differed between themselves.
From the period of 1324-30 we have as "insecure evidence" statutes of the Deutscher Ritterorden (with close relations to the Hanse), which report the existence of playing cards with a prohibition (possibly a document forgery). From 1303 we have a further insecure note, that 3 card players were killed by lightning in Brieg (reported twice in 17th century) ... Brieg lying east of Breslau at the trading route to Kiew. Then we have the Hübsch article (from 1849), who states, that there are playing cards in Prague in 1340 and before already Polish nobility played with them. From all this period between possibly 1300 and 1418 we have as information about the structure of the decks only that, what we know of Johannes and a spurious Spanish information, which talks of a 44-card-deck in Spain.
That's not much, and logic demands to assume, that there were more varying experiments, much more creativity with cards, as we know of. So a "I still think the Michelino was the first tarot" naturally doesn't meet the point. We have, that Tarot appears as a card-game-word in 1505 (but we have, that Tarot similar cards existed already before), and also we have, that for Trionfi (or similar) as a card-game-name likely the condition existed, that it hardly existed before 1440 (as argued in my post before), but it naturally doesn't mean, that Trionfi card similar objects didn't already existed before. Marcello (1449) declares the Michelino deck (before 1425 - quasi posthum) to a Trionfi deck.
When we look now at the Michelino deck and compare it to other deck information of the early time of playing card development, then we see, that there are two similarities:

a. it's by the Martiano description similar to the rudimentary later Tarot rules

b. It has a longer hierarchical row of trumps ... as one may it assume for the Trionfi decks and knows it for the Tarot decks

c. It has a 4x15 deck a structural similarity to the 4x15-deck (60 cards) of Johannes von Rheinfelden

The point c. is disputed by Ross in his recent posts:
I don't agree with your characterization of the Marziano design as making the gods part of the suits. The bird-suits and the gods are two different aspects of the fourfold thematic design.

Let's call the four moral characteristics (Virtues, Riches, Virginities, Pleasures) the "horizontal" aspect, and the birds and gods the "vertical" aspect of the design. The vertical aspect has two parts - birds and gods. The gods are effectively a fifth suit.

......................Birds............|........Gods
Virtues............Eagles............|....1, 5, 9, 13
Riches ..........Phoenices..........|....2, 6, 10, 14
Virginities.....Turtledoves.........|....3, 7, 11, 15
Pleasures..........Doves............|....4, 8, 12, 16

Jove is not "Jove of Eagles" - he's just number 1 of the gods. He's one of the four gods in the god-suit of the "theme" of Virtues, just as the Eagles suit is the bird-suit in the theme of Virtues.

Cupid isn't "Cupid of Doves" - he's just number 16 of gods, etc., for all the rest.

"Every one of the gods is above all of the orders of birds and the rank of kings." I could get into this more, but let me offer the corroborating evidence, namely Marcello's reaction to seeing Michelino's rendition of Marziano's text. He calls it a "new kind of Triumphs". Now, on what basis does he compare it to a normal deck of Triumph cards?
We have 4 suits called Virtues, Riches, Viginities and Pleasures, not 4 suits necessarily connected to birds. The suits are designed with 4 different birds, which (likely) were on each number and the Kings. From the description of the gods we have, that the birds are not noted by Martiano ... but we have, that the 4 figures for Pleasures are the gods Venus (Love), Bacchus (Wein), Ceres (Corn, bread ?) and Eros (again Love), from which at least 3 are good recognizable as "pleasure", and from the 4 figures for virginity Pallas, Diana, Vesta and Daphne we have 4 virgins. The idea "Riches" is not totally clear, but we may suspect Juno (Earth ?), Neptun (Water), Mars (Fire) and Eolus (Air) are meant as elements and in this context "Riches" would make sense. As Virtues are designed Jupiter, Apollon, Mercury, Heracles, okay, that's not unplausible, but also not totally suggestive.
Anyway, there's enough to recognize them as cards as belonging to one of the 4 suits. Also, there's the slight (not likely) possibility, that the cards had small signs of recognition (small birds). Most descriptions of Martiano are more little essays to the gods, mostly it's less recognizable, how the figures might have been painted.

Here's the text, translated by Ross:
Indeed the first order, of virtues, is certain: Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Hercules. The second of riches, Juno, Neptune, Mars and Aeolus. The third of virginity or continence: from Pallas, Diana, Vesta and Daphne. The fourth however is of pleasure: Venus, Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid. And subordinated to these are four kinds of birds, being suited by similarity. Thus to the rank of virtues, the Eagle; of riches, the Phoenix; of continence, the Turtledove; of pleasure, the Dove. And each one obeys its own king.


As I read it, the suits are Virtues, Riches, Virginities and Pleasures, each with 15 cards totally, a king, 4 gods, 10 numbers.

A usual deck for Skat has 32 cards. 4 cards are predefined trumps (the Jacks) as long the game is called Skat (naturally one can play other games with the deck) ... this doesn't change, that the deck has 4x8-structure. In Schafkopf you have 36 cards, 8 cards (Ober and Unter) are predefined trumps (naturally one can play other games with the deck) ... this doesn't change, that the deck has 4x8-structure.
It's very common for card playing to make such definitions, for instance in the choice which cards shall be trumps and which are not. The trump definition or the rules of games are quasi software, the deck form is hardware. As hardware the Michelino deck has a 4x15 structure.

We had this already earlier.
MikeH wrote: But enough of the "might haves." For me, the key problem is, how did the Fool get to be unnumbered? I can only see one way, and it leads back to Milan.

The usual way to explain the unnumbered status is to say that Roman numerals had no zero. So you can't put his number on the card, which is really Zero. After all, Zero is what is on the Sola-Busca Fool card. In the late 18th century, both de Mellet and Etteilla gave it the number Zero. So there was a tradition for zero.
  • In Germany/Bohemia we have 4 Fools in the Hofämterspiel as the Aces, so Nr. 1. In the Johannes of Rheinfelden deck description (60-cards-deck) numbers are given to the cards: 1-10 is clear, from the courts The King got 15, and number 11 was given to the Unter. In a normal card game with 4x13 the king likely had 13, the Ober 12, and the Unter 11.
    The Unter often got a funny-foolish outfit in (at least German) card decks
    In a famous founding of the first Carnival order at 12.11.1381 (these carnival orders are now an important matter for those, who celebrate carnival; at the given opportunity this was a knight order, and each member had the duty to carry a small silver fool) in Cleve in honor of Adolf III von der Mark, count of Cleve, the count took himself the number 11 at the signing list. The date was 12th of November, one day after 11.11., which in modern times is celebrated as the begin of Carnival. In medieval times the 1.1. (first of January) was occasionally used for the celebrations of the Feast of Fools.
But ... for the 5x14-theory, as far it is based on the 14 Bembo-special cards ... we have the problem, that Fool=0 and Judgment=20 cause the problem, that the row of the cards is disturbed:

0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-...-12-13-...20
the advantage of this row is, that 0 and 20 are "numbers easy to count" and that the total sum
0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+...12+13+...20 = 100

If one would correct the upper row with Fool=11 and Judgment=14, one would get
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14
but one would have numbers difficult to count and the not pleasant total result
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14 = 105

From which one may assume, that in Germany (which didn't invent Tarot) the Fool idea had an association to 1 or to 11 and still it has ...
but in Italy, which developed Tarot in small steps, the Fool adapted the "Zero" instead.

Generally one has to suspect, that the basic rules of Tarot (the game) are older than any special cards for Trionfi decks.

Tarot usually has special function for the "highest trump" (World), the "lowest card" (Bagatto) and for the Fool and for each of them the value "4 or 5" points, as high as the 4 Kings. If one would attempt to play a Tarot similar game with common deck, one would define just a suit as trump and then would have to decide, which cards shall be Bagatto, Fool and highest card. Naturally the trump-king would be made highest trump, and the trump-Ace would be made lowest trump, but there would be difficulties to define the Fool. But ... if there was already a tradition to see the Unter-figure as a funny card, one would take the Unter as the Fool. And the Unter was already related to the number 11.

Common cards, normal 5x13 decks (or 4x12 or 4x14, this doesn't change much for a basic game) were cheap and had been not rare, luxury cards as the Trionfi and Tarot cards were expensive. Naturally it was more played with cheap decks as with expensive decks.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

43
Thanks for calling my attention to Ross's comments about the Michelino suits, Huck. I had missed that, if he said it recently (I only remember it from the end of the "Bologna" thread). It's not much of an argument, and I sure do disagree. I would add to what you say: the eagle is Jupiter's bird, everyone knows that. The dove is Venus's. Turtledoves represent faithfulness--not quite virginity, but at least temperance, which is close. The goddesses there are famous virgins, as you say. I don't know if they were associated with a particular god. The gods in the "riches" column were probably all associated with riches, i.e. Neptune, who can bring riches or destroy them, with his seas and tempests. Mars is war, another source of riches. Juno is marriage, another source of riches. (children). Aeolus (wind) moves the sails and brings the rain that keeps the crops from dying. (When I say these things, it feels like I am repeating something already said; but I can't remember where, or if it was me or someone else. I don't have time right now to check.)

By a "new kind of triumphs," I would assume Marcello meant the designs on the cards, not what he is used to.

On the Fool's number, you are saying that he has a number (zero) because he has to fit in a particular row on a chessboard. That is of course a different account of the origin of the CY than mine, since I see it as growing out of the Michelino directly. That's a case in which I would invoke Ross's law, that simpler is better--unless there is a good reason why it can't be that simple, I would emphasize. I see no good reason to invoke chess, even if Filippo did love the game. I think Michelino plus Petrarch is enough. Okham's razor and all that.

I have to take back what I said about the Steele Sermon. The preacher says of the Fool, "sie nulla (nisi velint)" The Fool, thus null (unless they wish) (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones ... _Cum_Aliis). By then, it already was Zero. He may have put the Fool last as a rhetorical flourish.That doesn't affect my argument, since the Sermon is later than the CY.

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

44
mikeh wrote:Thanks for calling my attention to Ross's comments about the Michelino suits, Huck. I had missed that, if he said it recently (I only remember it from the end of the "Bologna" thread). It's not much of an argument, and I sure do disagree. I would add to what you say: the eagle is Jupiter's bird, everyone knows that. The dove is Venus's. Turtledoves represent faithfulness--not quite virginity, but at least temperance, which is close. The goddesses there are famous virgins, as you say. I don't know if they were associated with a particular god. The gods in the "riches" column were probably all associated with riches, i.e. Neptune, who can bring riches or destroy them, with his seas and tempests. Mars is war, another source of riches. Juno is marriage, another source of riches. (children). Aeolus (wind) moves the sails and brings the rain that keeps the crops from dying. (When I say these things, it feels like I am repeating something already said; but I can't remember where, or if it was me or someone else. I don't have time right now to check.)
For riches I could assume just the 4 elements. 4 elements are somehow an established system.
Ross was quoted from a post made today in this thread.
On the Fool's number, you are saying that he has a number (zero) because he has to fit in a particular row on a chessboard. That is of course a different account of the origin of the CY than mine, since I see it as growing out of the Michelino directly. That's a case in which I would invoke Ross's law, that simpler is better--unless there is a good reason why it can't be that simple, I would emphasize. I see no good reason to invoke chess, even if Filippo did love the game. I think Michelino plus Petrarch is enough. Okham's razor and all that.
For Trionfi decks, which are organized according the figures on a chess board (Cary Yale and Charles VI), it's not totally sure, if they had any row or numbers at all. A Chess-Board has no numbers. The Cary-Yale has no Fool (likely) in its reconstruction (says the theory), if it hadn't used a French Fou as bishop. The 16 Charles VI trumps had a Fool, but at a pawn-position.
No, I spoke of the 14 Bembo trumps, and these are the 14 of the 20 trumps of the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo-Tarocchi, which were painted by the first painter of it.
This part of the 5x14-theory is very old, it was already published 2003 ... and till then there was no reason given to change that.

http://trionfi.com/0/f/11/





I mean Fool represented as 0 - (11) and Judgment presented as 20 - (14)
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

45
Thanks for telling me about the other posts yesterday, Huck. First, I was writing, and second, I didn't refresh. You guys are quick.

Ross wrote
Since it can't be the content, it has to be the STRUCTURE that the two types of deck had in common: they both had five suits. The "sixteen celestial princes and barons" are the very first thing that lept to his eye when he describes it for Isabelle. They obviously stood apart, in their appearance and order.
Yes, they did stand apart, mainly in their appearance. As for the order, they may have had one order for trumping, another order (4x4) for suits. It is that second question that is at issue: four suits or five? Four suits seems obvious to me, and to Huck, if I understand him.

As to what you said just before the part I quoted, about there not being corresponding content between the two sets of trumps, that can be discussed ad infinitum. I gave what I thought was a plausible set of content-correspondences in the 5x14 thread. I can repeat them here if necessary. Huck may have a different set, I can't remember. There doesn't have to be much correspondence, just something that would have brought to the designer's mind, in the new Petrarchan context, the CY subjects.

As for how the middle-class production got started after a Milanese import, consider my other explanation, that it was by means of Filippo's troops that were stationed in Bologna. The new game didn't catch on in the Milanese court, perhaps even by Filippo's desire, but it did catch on among Piccinono's troops. So he sponsored the middle-class productions as treasured but not very costly gifts to his men, in Bologna. Once in production, it becomes popular. The Bentivoglio do the same, perhaps. And even when Piccinino becomes disliked there, the game stays, with one or other of the Piccinino allegorically becoming the prideful Caesar-figure laid low, on the Chariot card.

I have a question for Huck. In your diagram, the Fool is 11. How did it get to be zero? Why the change?

I wrote,
have to take back what I said about the Steele Sermon. The preacher says of the Fool, "sie nulla (nisi velint)" The Fool, thus null (unless they wish) (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones ... _Cum_Aliis). By then, it already was Zero. He may have put the Fool last as a rhetorical flourish.That doesn't affect my argument, since the Sermon is later than the CY.
Actually, my misreading of the Steele Sermon does affect my argument. If "zero" = "without number in the Roman system of numbers," the numberless aspect is perfectly well accounted for by the Roman lack of a zero.

What I am really doing is trying to give an account of how the Fool got to be a wild card, i.e. a card that can be played at any time but can't take the trick. Was it common for decks then to have a permanent wild card? If not, how did it come about? Well, some genius could have just stipulated it, but I think there is a more natural explanation. A wild card is a card not part of any suit, so it can go where it likes. It seems to me that the most natural way for one to come about is for all the other cards to be in suits, for the purpose of what cards you can put into play in the trick-taking part of the game. That's what the Michelino has, 4 suits, even though the trumps are arranged hierarchically (with Cupid at the bottom). The Fool rule is then a modification of that structure, which is preserved in the CY. It may have gone in two steps, in the designer's thinking if not in actual games. First Cupid became the Fool (since he makes fools of us), and then the Fool got detached from the suits altogether, with the Bagatella taking his place (who also makes fools of us). So Cupid is replaced by two cards in one version of the proto-CY (first or second version), one of the cards a wild card.

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

46
mikeh wrote: I have a question for Huck. In your diagram, the Fool is 11. How did it get to be zero? Why the change?
Hm ..
... to understand the problem, one first has to realize, that 11111111111111111111111, even when taken as a binary number and not in a system based on 10, is very high. In the usual counting system based on 10 it's ...

2^22 = 4 194 304

Then one has to understand, that the binary system with it's values 1 and 0 can describe the existence of trumps in a Tarot deck, for instance the phenomenon "missing cards".

If you define the order in the Marseille Tarot as the basic system, and the card Fool as the first 1(or 0) of the row, Magician as the second etc. till its end, and then compare it to the "14 cards painted by the first painter", you would get the result (with 1 = exists" and 0 for "not exists") ...

1111111111101100000010

... which looks unusual and not accidental, cause it contains an unbroken row of 11x the 1-value, which naturally is comparable to the sensation, when at a roulette-table you get 11x "red numbers". Well, that are the rare moments, when you with 1 Dollar can win 2047 others.

But the row 1111111111101100000010, though it looks unusual and not accidental, looks also "disturbed in the "original order". When you return to the "original" row, one should see, how this deck developed.

There is no easier way to return to something, which might have been the original order, as if you change the number 20 to 14 and the number 0 to 11. Then the row would look like this:

0111111111111110000000

which naturally would be identical to ...

1111111111111100000000

if you assume, that the original hadn't a "0 = zero" in its row.

And that's naturally very simple and rather obviously "not accidental", that's just counting from 1 to 14.

From this observation you can now go to the question, which intention caused the change from ...

1111111111111100000000 (original) to 1111111111101100000010 (disturbed).

... and if you think about it a longer time, then it's plausible, that 20 and 0 were chosen, cause that are numbers, which are easier to count (during game) than 11 or 14. And also there's the reason, that the disturbed row ...

0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+ ... 12+13 ....... + 20 = 100 ... has a very round number as "full points". Cad players love round numbers.

In this way the change makes sense, if one assumes, that at the time of the change a game rule existed, which used these values 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 ... this form of point-counting is not used in the rules of Tarot, as we know them. But it appears also in the Johannes of Rheinfelden text for his 60 card game with 4x15 structure. He counted from 1 to 15.

From this calculation it also appears, that this order of the 14 Bembo trumps has a very small chance to be accidental, it must have had a logical reason based on the condition, that there were originally only 14 special cards, not 22.

Perhaps it also played a role, that the invention of "0=zero" and a replacement of the old Roman counting methods became just "modern", I don't know.
What I am really doing is trying to give an account of how the Fool got to be a wild card, i.e. a card that can be played at any time but can't take the trick. Was it common for decks then to have a permanent wild card? If not, how did it come about? Well, some genius could have just stipulated it, but I think there is a more natural explanation. A wild card is a card not part of any suit, so it can go where it likes. It seems to me that the most natural way for one to come about is for all the other cards to be in suits, for the purpose of what cards you can put into play in the trick-taking part of the game. That's what the Michelino has, 4 suits, even though the trumps are arranged hierarchically (with Cupid at the bottom). The Fool rule is then a modification of that structure, which is preserved in the CY. It may have gone in two steps, in the designer's thinking if not in actual games. First Cupid became the Fool (since he makes fools of us), and then the Fool got detached from the suits altogether, with the Bagatella taking his place (who also makes fools of us). So Cupid is replaced by two cards in one version of the proto-CY (first or second version), one of the cards a wild card.
I think, first the Unter position (either only one, but perhaps also more) got funny functions, then Amor as an Unter-replacement, then the Fool. But one shouldn't overlook, that already chess had a funny pawn (before the Tower at the queen's side) by Cessolis in 1300. The pawn before the bishop (Queen's side) also had some funny aspects, he became the innkeeper. Later the Bagatello occasionally was addressed as the "innkeeper". Also one has to observe, that theater plays often used "two funny servants" .... :-) ... "the 0 and the 1", one might say.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

48
Ferrara 1422, the first document with playing cards:
http://trionfi.com/0/d/11/
1422, adi XXIII de marco,
Maistro Iacomo depictore de havere per factura de tredexe cartexelle da zugare che luy fe de novo a tute sue spexe, tra le qualle ge ne fo cinque figure, o per recuncare, zoe retinte la cuverta de rosso de quattre para de carte, computantdo una para de quelle che gie refe le cuverte nove de carte extimade per li factura L. VI. Factures solvi faciant dictam pecuniam L. VI.
Iacobus Zilfredus scripsit XI aprilis 1422
Benastru d'Ipocratibus
Trionfi.com ...
Ortalli interprets the passage: "In the 1422 document he (Iacopo Sagramoro) had been given a twofold task: he had to repair 4 packs of playing cards to be painted red on the back, and make 'ex novo' 13 'cartexelle', five of which were figures (and therefore the other 8 numerales). It is difficult to say whether these new cards were or were not an independent pack; they may even have been required for some game with only 13 cards of which we have lost all trace. I would surmise it is more likely that the new cards were intended to replace missing or irreparably damaged cards in the four packs to be repaired, and since the backs of all the cards were repainted the new cards would not stand out from the old ones." In context to this Ortalli relates to another entry from 1423, in which Sagramoro also was used as card-restorator: "... he had to repair the back, fix the corner, glue down where necessary and make two new cards." We will meet Sagramoro at other occasions: although being a painter of
probably only minor value, he became the great Trionfi artist of the early time.


Ortalli thinks, that it is only a repairing and replacement commission. However, the number of 13 new cards, from which 5 are figures, possibly might NOT refer to a replacement activity, but just refer to the invention of a new 5th suit. In playing card decks it is not unusual, that Ace and 10 and three court cards are all painted figurative, so this would be "5 of 13". It might be, that the writer is insecure about the word "paro", which usually means a complete pack of cards, but in this case might take the sense of "suit".
4 "paro" get new painted backs ... possibly one deck existed with 4 suits and just this deck got fresh painted backs and to the whole deck was added a 5th suit. According this interpretation there had been a 4x13-deck, which was updated to a new 5x13-version.

A year later (1423) we have in a more famous document the import of "a pack of VIII imperadori cards made with fine gold" cards from Florence. If we assume, that Ferrara had a very worthwhile 4x13 deck, which was once updated to a 5x13 version (action in 1422), but according a rapid change of the game ideas "needed" also to be played in a 4x15 version (as known rather contemporary also from the Michelino deck). Then the 8 gilded Imperatori cards would have served to as "second possible addition" for the basic deck.
In a further activity in the same year a new card deck was ordered for 40 Ducati, much higher than the later prices for very worthwhile cards.

Gherardo Ortalli himself is confused about the document of 1422 and also about the VIII imperatori cards.

Further we have the order of playing cards for children by young mother Parisina, a year later (1424).

And then (1425) we have the catastrophe, Parisina, which is in 3 of the 4 very early Ferrarese playing card documents directly mentioned (from this we see, that playing cards are an object for women, not for men), is killed by her husband Niccolo d'Este cause of adultery with the son and heir of Niccolo, Ugo. And Ugo is also killed.

This changed the course of the Ferrarese state. Playing cards don't appear again in the account books till 1434, well, that's a time, when the many daughters of Niccolo start to marry (from this we see again, that playing cards are for women, and of especial value, if the girls marry). Following this reinvention of "love with playing cards" in Ferrara we have interests in cards till 1443, then we get a mysterious break, and the playing cards return back on the point, after Francesco Sforza took successfully Milan in end of February 1450 and projected a Trionfo in end of March ... and Leonello visited the celebrations and needed very urgently Trionfi decks.

Well, the document of 1422 and the following entries about Imperatori cards and the deck for 40 ducati give reason for a suspicion, that the Michelino deck wasn't a lonely experiment "before 1425". Naturally one cannot exclude, that Ortalli interpreted the document correctly. But it would be nice, if others started to discuss the true meaning of the document.
Ross wrote:Ferrara, February 10, 1442, is the earliest documentary reference to the game. There are about 30 more references to it over the next two decades in the same source, the accounting books of the ruling Este family. Since the two earliest Visconti packs, from Milan (or rather, Cremona), cannot be dated with certainty to earlier than this date, Ferrara has evident priority.

However, the internal evidence of this earliest document suggests that the cards being referred to are not the original invention. The artist, Sagramoro, must have been using a model. The entry reads “the cups, coins, swords, batons, and all the figures, of four packs of cartexelle da trionffy, two with green backs and two with red backs”. This description of the composition of the pack is never repeated (nor that particular spelling of “trionfi”), which suggests the item called “cartexelle da trionffy” was a novelty that required some explanation in this first instance.

Sagramoro had models, for instance that from 1.1.1441. Also there is some probability, that the marriage of Bianca Maria had a Trionfi deck ... likely the Cary-Yale.
It's not probable, that "high nobility" followed in their "expression of pomp and glamor" Bolognese ideas. We have an example of an entry to Ferrara of a famous theater play writer Ugolino Pisani , who had his great successes in Bologna. The cultivated Ferrarese nobility style found quick arrogant ways to have this famous author gone without any honors, especially it's collectively perceived as funny, how the youngest member of the high community blames the not welcome guest.
It's simply not probable, that around this time Ferrara would have taken intellectual topics from Bologna.

Ferrara accepted Alberti, and this was once in Bologna ... but not immediately, although he was a friend of Meliaduse, Leonello's brother, and also had already won some impressive "young fame". Alberti came only during the council to Ferrara, so only on a side path, not by a "real personal invitation". Ferrara had about 30 students in the 1430s and had about 300 in the 1440s. So there was a rather exclusive cycle, which once decided to grow. But when? 1437 seems to have been still the "closed cycle" phase. In the years of war till 141 growing numbers of students should have been rare. But naturally the council created an impulse to do something, the few students of Guarino and his Greek teachings were surely not enough to answer the need for translation, so foreign persons turned in and helped.
Well, the Ferrarese council ended in disaster, cause the plague arrived, and the Florentine offer with "a little money" was accepted. So all this great impulse stranded in some frustration and Niccolo turned his political direction to Milan, and the doubtless "fresh energy" quickly turned to nothing or at least to "not much"..

One might argument, that Niccolo with his change to the Milan side started to embrace Bologna. But is this probable during a time with many political moves, in which people easily changed the party according the winds of time with quick changing war situations?

*********************

The Trionfi games in February 1442 appear rather immediately after Niccolo, signore of Ferrara, died (26.12.1442), possibly poisoned in Milan. The 4 ordered Trionfi decks have the function to celebrate the new signore Leonello. Would Leonello, famous for his own creative ideas, with a bunch of artists and deep thinking humanists around him, all willing to do a lot to get creative commissions, take Bolognese motifs to celebrate his own great moment?
For political reasons it might have been, that Leonello would have taken influences from Milan, but not from Bologna in its somewhat chaotic state in the past 20 years ... that's my analysis of the situation. What do we have really for the 20 years before 1440 from Bologna for playing cards?

1423: Bernardino preaches against playing cards.
Same opportunity (?): A card maker in Bologna stops card production, concentrates on IHS-pictures.
1427: A German card playing producer is attacked by another man working with paper.

3 not-friendly actions ... who wants to make out of this a flourishing playing card industry in Bologna? Nurremberg was the most productive playing card city of 15th century. But when St. Capristanus preached in Nurremberg, there was really a serious production pause of several years, after the production had recovered (nobody doubts this pause). Playing card producers moved away from the city ... they naturally didn't come immediately back and reinstalled themselves.
Pope Eugen was present in Bologna for some time during in the 1430's. Pope Eugen was pro-Franciscans (the anti-playing-card-party) and so naturally against card playing. So short time before the council we should have had again strong prohibitive tendencies.

Actually there is the slight chance, that the Bolognese-German card producer Giovanni di Colonia of Orioli's remark later became Giovanni d'Alemagna ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_d%27Alemagna
... an artist of some fame, who got well paid commissions from the church. The legend of the Bolognese card maker, who painted or printed IHS symbols, is only a legend and I think, it is not clear if he really belongs to 1423 (it might also refer to another time). In the case, that the Giovanni of Colonia of 1427 really gave up his card maker business and turned to become a painter for religious topics, he might have been the original IHS-painter.
San Bernardino died 1445 and became a Saint in 1450 (the year, in which Giovanni d'Alemagna died). His partner Antonio Vivarini belonged to the first, who painted San Bernardino as a Saint.

Given to 1451-56 ...


In the case, that it is true, that Giovanni the card producer was identical to Giovanni d'Alemagna the high paid artist, it's a possibility, that the Bolognese legend refers just to this person ... well, this would reduce the known Bolognese card producers by one person.

*****************

Inside of this theme Alberti's "Philodoxus" is of interest and this is really "made in Bologna". I've reported about this variously without reaching much reaction ... well, maybe it's thought that's a stupid idea, which needs no reflection.

At two opportunities triumphal processions occur in the text ... perhaps as an irony of the author. Once the major hero Philodoxus declares "I'm here on my Trionfo ... " (or similar), at a second appearance the opposing anti-hero is fooled with a non-existent Trionfo, which is given somewhere else. The anti-hero immediately disappears (he wishes to see it) and the scene is free for the real hero and his friend.
Further there is an arrangement of 20 scenes and 20 "allegorical figures", which appear as roles in the text. The scenes naturally have a hierarchical row from 1-20 and somehow the 20 allegorical figures seem to be arranged to present the 20 scenes, so that the impression of a Trionfo with 20 elements is given. The last scene-figure is the trumpeter (compare the judgment card), the first two scenes is filled with two funny servants (Bagatto/Fool ?). Major roles are played by Chronos (Father Time) and Tychia (Fortuna).

Well, especially the date is of interest: 1424 - which is near to to both great Trionfo o Alfonso d'Aragon (1423) and near to the production time of the Michelino deck (before 1425) and near to the card experiments in Ferrara (1422, 1423, 1424). As Alberti in this time was naturally dominated by and passive against activities, which were made by Alfonso d'Aragon, Filippo Maria Visconti and the d'Este court, he naturally had only commenting fuction. Something must have happened in this period, which made "triumphal processions" in this time to a public theme.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

49
I am one post behind in my replies. The following is a reply to the post before his last one. Then as I was posting, the software alerted me that Huck had just posted. At first reading I see nothing wrong with this more recent post of his. Alberti as another possible originator of the tarot, c. 1424, perhaps following up on an expanded Imperator deck, or designing one himself, with 13 trumps. Tarot fits in well with Alberti's writings, and not just the Philodoxus (I am thinking of his writing on hieroglyphs, which started c. 1430). But I would invite people to consider also Martiano, for reasons given in my post, for somewhere between 12 and 24 trumps (my preference, 16-17). And maybe there was more than one, interacting and bounding off one another, as we do here, but slower.

So here is what I wrote, prior to reading Huck's most recent post:

Thanks, Huck. I apologize for asking the question (about how the Fool got to be zero). You already explained it to me once before, on the 5x14 thread, and I forgot.

The more fundamental question is: which came first, the proto-CY or the proto-PMB? The only reason for introducing the PMB into the discussion is if you think a version of it is the ur-tarot. And that's just what the 5x14 theory says: that the ur-tarot was dreamed up by Bianca Maria Visconti and her girlfriends at Christmas time in 1440, and is expressed in the "14 figures" made for her in Jan. 1441. Then, you say, her father didn't like it and had his own version drawn up, a modification of the 14 figures, the 16 figures of the CY. Then Bianca finally got her deck made when she became duchess.

[Note added later: it appears from his most recent post that Huck has abandoned the idea that Bianca et al were the originators. Please clarify, Huck.]

Well, I find that idea implausible.I don't deny that Bianca Maria was a driving force behind the PMB, whenever it was. But It seems to me that the proto-CY was earlier, and that its program was drawn up by an erudite humanist of Visconti's court. Bianca Maria was already a fan of the tarot before Christmas 1440. If the 14 figures were a proto-PMB, they may have been her and her girlfriends' ideas, or even Leonello and his friends' ideas, once he knew what Bianca Maria liked (he was courting her), but they were variations on something already established. She had played the game with her mother and/or father.

Everything about the CY, in comparison to the PMB, says "earlier." If you look at the Emperor card, it is the same type as the Brera-Brambilla's, different from that of the PMB. The style is earlier, too, more ornate, again more like the BB's.

The proto-CY has to be the product of someone quite familiar with Petrarch, and not just from watching the floats go by. The author also knows his (or her) Plato, as evidenced by the winged horses on the Chariot, from the Phaedrus, not an easy allegory to follow, and quite a controversial one. (Literally, the allegory is about what is both good and bad about a male's barely controllable sexual passion for a beautiful body of the same sex.) The deck's designer also has some idea what the previous Emperor (died 1838, and now beards were out of fashion) and Empress (disgraced at the Council of Constance) looked like, and what the court clothing of a previous period was.

Admittedly, a humanist in Filippo's court in 1441 could have looked at Bianca's "Fourteen figures" and come up with a new set of designs, then executed in time for her wedding. Yes, the substitute could be given to her as a wedding present, just to let her know that father knows best. Well, I can't imagine anyone going to such trouble, with such haste, and with such excellent results, just to assert, stupidly, one's authority (I say stupidly, because such crude expressions of will usually just make the recipient feel disrespected). But I can't refute the idea.

For me, there is also the issue of what some have called the author's signature in the Faith card. Cicognara thought he could make out the first four letters of "Martiano." Tolfo couldn't make them out exactly, but she liked the idea; I still see them there, although admittedly they could be different. (We discussed this in Oct. 2009, starting viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&hilit=Martiano&start=20#p4685; then Huck replies a couple of days later, then Marco, etc.) But Martiano makes more sense to me than some Muslim ruler of the time, as Huck proposed, because of his association with the previous deck. Tolfo, and Cicognara too, saw these letters as the author's signature. They are next to the figure of King Nino of Nineveh (per Tolfo). Nino opposed Judaism but then converted, thanks to Jonah, I think it was. I do not see how the Muslim ruler fits here. Martiano might.

Tolfo suggests an association between Martiano and heresy, but I don't know why she said that. Huck said Martiano was "definitely dead by 1425" (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&hilit=Martiano&start=20#p4688) but I don't know why he said that. Maybe Martiano had to disappear in a hurry; maybe it wasn't a natural death. Well, whatever happened, it might have been enough to make his cards unpopular in the Visconti court--except to Bianca Maria's mother and maybe her father, who would have considered the cards his rather than Martiano's, because he's the one who started it and had the cards made. Even the cards themselves smear Martiano's name, putting Judas next to his. But 10 years later Piccinino doesn't care, and his soldiers don't know anything about it. Nor do the good people of Bologna, Florence, and Ferrara. Only the commissioner of the actual CY cares (1441-1444?), and so we have "mart" next to Judas on the Faith card.

To me Martiano is much more believable as designer of this group of cards, this ur-tarot--both highly original and also highly dependent on what came before in cards and literature--than a group of 13 year old girls who spend most of their time, that Christmas, at masses and parties.

Ross proposes a scholar of some sort in Bologna. That is more believable. Against that I have what looks like a connection to the Michelino, my argument about how the Fool got to be a wild card, the stylistic features on the first known cards, and then how they would have got from Milan to Bologna in time for a 1442 sale in Ferrara. And while there were other humanists in Milan and Pavia who could have done the job, I have given reasons for thinking that Martiano might have designed both the Michelino and a proto-CY, and that his personal situation may have had something to do with why the game wasn't played at court.
Last edited by mikeh on 26 Mar 2018, 04:13, edited 1 time in total.

Re: The Ur Tarot: the very beginning

50
hi, Mike

Murad II, Ottoman Emperor from 1421 - 1451
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murad_II

In the peace negotiations of end of 1441 the next crusade was discussed, as this belonged to the promises given to the Eastern church during the council.
Battle of Varna 1444
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Varna
Cardinal Cesarini, died in Varna, organized the crusade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Cesarini

Francesco Sforza was discussed as leading general of the crusade ... this was all part of the Venetian/Milanese peace 1441, and 1441 is the likely date for the Cary-Yale. Later only very few Italians took part.

The place at the card are just places to identify the "bad man", that's not a typical designer name position.

**********
The information about Martiano are given by Kaplan II, p. 148. "Martiano was definitely deceased by February 1, 1425". He still signed documents in 1423, so was living then.
Huck
http://trionfi.com