Otello wrote:

Well, for sure I'm not pretending my ownership of the 5x14 theory; having an idea is very different from verifing a theory, looking for evidence, etc. (I imagine you know better than me... On my side, I'm not professionally involved in history of art, for me it's just a hobby) and I was very happy to discover you made this job and, at least, you have found good foundation for this theory.
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... Well, it was a long way through all these oppositions, I enjoy everybody with a similar theory ...
Back to your previous message, I agree on most of your thesys;
- I think the CY deck was 5x16 (it looks obvious to me, for the same reasons of the 5x14 theory)
- I think the 3 steps evolution (14>20>22) is very reasonable and it's very possible the Snake takes the place of the Devil.
- I agree the 22+4x14 pattern is a later development, maybe younger than Minchiate.
- I do not agree about the Falconer taking the Tower place; I'm with Kaplan here: I think more likey the Falconer is the Fool; after all there are some variation in other Rosenthal cards (The Star, The Sun, Aces...), so it's reasonable to imagine the Fool was changed, too.
I mean, in my opinion trying to assign the place of the Tower to the Falconer just because the subject have some variations is a little "forced".
The "falconer = Tower" idea was based on the imagination, that the deck was from 1468 and before the Charles VI-deck (which has a Tower). As both assumptions are gone now, it's not really vital, perhaps in a state of a "outsider-possibility.
- I do not agree with the theory of the Charles VI having 16 figures only, because the 16 existing cards serie does not look complete to me: at least I miss Bagatto and Star, but I'd be ready to accept Bagatto is "included" in the Fool, if at least we had the Star instead of the Tower...
Finally, I think the desperate

search for a place for Prudence in the Tarot deck is misleading and the weakest part of every theory I've read (yours, Ross's, etc.), but I think it's better to speak about this matter in a separate thread.
Off course: I've no evidence for my opinions.
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the assumption, that prudence was there in the "world-card" (in the PMB II = "6 added cards") as part of the 5x14-theory + "6 added cards", was later confirmed by "4 figures with octagonal halos" in the Charles IV. deck. There are Fortitude, Justice and Temperance and a 4th with octagonal halo ...
This was considered to be "world" ... later
I hope, you see the octagonal halos on both and they are also at the both others.
It was debated, that there are similarities of this "world" card to "Fame"
One or some "Fama"-representations with octogonal halo and inside the 6-elements Petrarca signs produced in the 1450's and 1460's came to our attention.
So, whatever it was, it seems to be a mix between Fama - World and Prudentia ... just cause Prudentia had been the 4th cardinal virtue.
Indeed, the hypothesis, that the Charles VI had a complete trump set, arrived for us late and was then very surprising. But after some arguments got weight, that it had been earlier than generally suspected (c. 1470), it turned out by closer observation, that a reconstruction of the original chess pattern seemed possible.
And it had some parallels to the assumed Cary-Yale-composition. The major difference between Cary-Yale and later Tarot was the exchange of 3 theological virtues and Sun-Moon-Star ... in the later Minchiate the 3 theological virtues reappeared together with a "real" Prudentia, just as a "Florentine detail".
The Charles VI has only Sun and Moon and no star (with some right you miss it). It has also missing Papessa and Empress, two cards, which also don't turn up in the later Minchiate. The devil is missing, which is generally assumed to be of a very late date. The wheel is missing ... and it is also missing in the Cary-Yale-reconstruction. And the Bagatello is missing (as you note) and it is also missing in the Cary-Yale-reconstruction.
The Wheel was missing ... if both were a sort of chess game, they were not games of luck. This was an important difference. Games of luck were attacked, games of skill were allowed. So the Wheel was missing with some logic.
If we take the Bagatello as the "gambler" representation, its missing might explain for this reason. Till 1463 we have only one gambler card, that of the Bembo-version. It has symbols of the 4 suits at his table, somehow designed as a "master of the cards".
In the common Tarot the 4-figures-sequence Papessa-Empress-Emperor-Pope is that element, what mostly refers to the usual chess: Bishop - Queen - King - Bishop. But Charles VI hasn't Queen-Empress and later Minchiate also hadn't. So one has to assume, that Papessa-Empress-Emperor-Pope was "Northern tradition" and "Florentine tradition" took the Pope at the Queen-position. There was generally made much of the Italian-Roman intention to have the "Pope above the Emperor", and in the Mantegna Tarocchi (9 is Emperor, 10 is Pope) and in the usual Tarot (Pope 5, Emperor 4) it was realized. An idea, which places the Pope as a bishop in a chess game, might have found some critique. Possibly used in the Northern variants with some innocence, in Florence or "around Rome" such an identification would feel less convincing. In the common Cessolis chess tradition the bishop was an adviser (an aged man), and so it seems, that the Florentine version took Father Time and as the polar contradiction the bad adviser (the Traitor). The Pope got the Queen position (or possibly even the King's position, such making the Emperor to the weaker Queen). The Medici had some strong orientation to the pope.
Sun and Moon together are a valid "common pair", also without Star, as it turned up in later Tarot.
The dating suggests the year 1463, cause in this year "Trionfi cards were called an allowed game" (for a second time, the first happened in 1450).
The cards Moon shows two astronomers, one with rather significant "ugly" face. Toscanelli, Florentine mathematician had a rather significant "ugly" face (and it indeed looks a little bit similar to that of Toscanelli) and he worked for the Medici. The other astronomer with a sort of Turban looks like Regiomontanus.
Regiomontanus came 1461 to Italy. Before any association between the two astonomers wouldn't have been possible.
The sun card shows a woman with wool-spindle. That was the industry, which made Florence a rich city. Toscanelli at the moon card had demonstrated a Florentine virtue, "Science". This woman now shows another Florentine virtue, "industry".
Observing now the condition, what had happened ... "Sun-Moon-Star replaced 3 theological virtues" (common Tarot insight) ... then we see, that originally possibly "Florentine virtues replaced theological virtues".
In the Cary-Yale-reconstruction it was assumed, that the 7 virtues + the card Love represented the the row of the 8 pawns of Chess. From this it has to be assumed, that the 8 pawns in a Florentine Tarot also would present 7 virtues + Love, but instead of 3 theological virtues they incorporated 3 Florentine virtues.But what's the third Florentine virtue?
The Fool.
Lorenzo de Medici had been "a little bit educated" by Luigi Pulci in the period 1461-1463 and in this time the "Morgante" was made, reaching a state till chapter 15 or 16 (first from 23 (maybe c. 1470), later from 28 (possibly 1478). Morgante was a giant, and the hero Orlando did win his friendship during a stone-throwing-battle. The Charles VI Fool shows a giant-Fool and 4 little men with stones in their hands.
Later in the development of the Morgante story a second giant, a little bit smaller than Morgante, was invented, Margutte. In the later d'Este Tarot (estimated to be from "a little later than 1473") we see also a giant-Fool and a giant-Magician. Perhaps Pulci accepted with the invention of Margutte the existence of the Bagatello in the earlier game.
So there we are. Death and Triumphal chariot present horses - a good and a bad one as it was with the advisers. It stays the "Tower in destruction" - bad tower - and the judgment - good tower. At the Cary-Yale-picture judgment we see a tower, not very dominant, but it's clearly there.
The whole fits with the year 1463 and the condition, that a "standard" Tarot didn't exist and the whole genre is in the phase of creative development. Lorenzo is a teenager (14 years), in the view of the time "just grown-up" and he has a strong "creative influence" by Pulci, more a "funny poet" than "too serious". Pulci with difficult financial conditions.
In 1464 the Medici Chapel gets ready (Gozzoli pictures) with its march of the 3 holy kings, and likely this causes the star as an additional picture in the trio sun-moon-star ... perhaps this moves an internal progress to some Minchiate structure (rather insecure, which trump-number then was favored).
Actually there's a teenager group with very noble conditions and creativity was part of their education. Card playing was a medium for young people then, serious older men played ... if they played ... chess, this was accepted.