mikeh wrote: Yes, there is a pattern, and it is not accidental. The question is, why is it a pattern? I say the pattern is caused by the difficulty of identifying the virtue cards and the "papi", due to its being an all-male sequence. These constitute most of the cards that are in the first 9 of the usual sequence, not counting the first two, as you say. That's most of it, and explains the correspondence between those cards in the SB and the missing cards of the Lucca deck. What remains to be explained is why those cards were distributed in the SB sequence the way they were. Whatever the explanation, I cannot imagine that Lucca had anything to do with it.

The story of Prince Fibbia (insecure as it is) indicates, that Lucca (Fibbia was from Lucca) had rather early some unusual playing cards (whatever they were in the case, that the whole story has some truth).

Emperor Charles IV and his very early connections to playing cards (insecure as these assumptions are based on the remarks of the researcher F. L. Hübsch) had two early visits in Lucca, once around 1333 and a second time during his visit to Italy 1368. Lucca got independence in 1369 and formed a democracy ...

Von den Truppen Ludwigs des Bayern besetzt, an den reichen Genuesen Gheradino Spinola verkauft, vom böhmischen König Johann besetzt, an die Rossi aus Parma verpfändet, von denen an Martino della Scala aus Verona abgetreten, an die Florentiner verkauft, an die Pisaner übergeben, nominell befreit von Kaiser Karl IV. und von seinem Vikar regiert, gelang es Lucca, seit 1369 zuerst als Demokratie, nach 1628 als patrizisch-aristokratische Oligarchie, seine Unabhängigkeit als Stadtrepublik neben Venedig und Genua zu behaupten.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucca

Dokumentation from the Regesten

Activities as young man
In 1331 he [Charles * 1316 as young man] gained some experience of warfare in Italy with his father [John the Blind]. At the beginning of 1333, Charles went to Lucca (Tuscany) to consolidate his rule there. In an effort to defend the city, Charles founded the nearby fortress and the town of Montecarlo (Charles' Mountain).




Emperor coronation 5th of April in Rome 1355, journey in Italy since begin of October 1454 till mid of July 1355. More than the half time Charles spend "near Lucca".
Charles IV is only one day in Lucca, but much more time in Pisa (c. 114 days, 20km to Lucca) and Montecarlo (8 days; near Lucca) and Pietra Santa (17 days; about 20km to Pisa and to Lucca).
http://regesta-imperii.digitale-sammlun ... b1877_0782

Emperor journey to Italy 1368/69
Even if one can't read German, it's easy to see, that Lucca had been the most important location in Italy for this emperor visit. Charles used about 6 months from his 17 months in Italy for time in Lucca and had some more time connected to Lucca problems in Pisa.










If there was some playing card production in Bohemia in 1368, there's some probability, that the cards spread a little bit on the roads of the late emperor. A half year in Lucca 1368/69 should give some opportunity, that some nobles or higher officials in Lucca became acquainted to the game.

The games and deck types, which Johannes of Rheinfelden knew in 1377 (only 8-9 years later), might have been known already in 1368. One of the games is described as having 5x13-structure, and easily the 5th suit might have been dedicated as a trump suit ... whatever the painted objects might had been. And possibly such a game became known in Lucca

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Lucca had been again an used place for emperor Sigismondo (son of Chales IV during his journey to Italy in 1431-1433.

Sigismund reached Milan at 22 November 1431.
Sigismund reached Lucca at 31 May 1432.
http://regesta-imperii.digitale-sammlun ... t1897_0220
Sigismund has last document at 4th of July 1432 in Lucca, arrives at Siena at 12th of June.
http://regesta-imperii.digitale-sammlun ... t1897_0222

So this had been only a stay a little longer than a month. Most time was spend in Siena (nearly 10 months). The emperor stayed in Italy a little less than 2 years.

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Before emperor Heinrich VII, grandfather of Charles IV had spend mos f his short regency in Italy. Pisa was visited in February till April 1312 and again in March 1313. Pisa was allied with Henry in the following war. Henry died 24 August 1313 cause of malaria during a siege on Siena. His corpse was transported to Pisa, where he was buried. Possibly the following close relation of Charles IV to Lucca/Pisa depended on this earlier connection between Pisa and Henry VII.

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We followed a longer time the idea to search for events, which might have triggered the invention Trionfi cards. Especially Phaeded suggested strongly the battle of Anghiari end of June 1440 as the deciding event. I personally thought often of the council Ferrara/Florence in 1438/39.
But there was also a war between Lucca/Florence, which might have initiated a first experiment. Giusto Giusti and his condottieri and Francesco Sforza participated at this longer. A peace was concluded at begin of 1438, with a small progress for the Florentine side. Sforza went then away and prepared for the wedding with Bianca Maria, who didn't come. The event looks far less dramatic or deciding than the battle of Anghiari or the council, but one doesn't know. Perhaps a first sort of "first Trionfi deck" was made then, perhaps inspired by a Lucca tradition, how to play with cards.
Actually one should take it as a serious possibility, especially in regard of the recent exploration of the Sola-Busca deck, which has a very surprising similarity to a game form, which was played more than 200 years later in Lucca.

With the first playing card note in Ferrara (1422) we have (possibly) a report about another 5x13 deck in Italy.
http://trionfi.com/playing-cards-ferrara-1422

The somewhat strange deck of Lucca (69 cards with 4x14+13-structure), looks like a deck, which originally had 5x13 cards, but was later expanded by 4 queens.

Huck wrote: We followed a longer time the idea to search for events, which might have triggered the invention Trionfi cards. Especially Phaeded suggested strongly the battle of Anghiari end of June 1440 as the deciding event. I personally thought often of the council Ferrara/Florence in 1438/39.
But there was also a war between Lucca/Florence, which might have initiated a first experiment...

Well, I did post this in regard to Lucca:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=985&p=14658&hilit= ... esi#p14658

1430, Prato, 16 deck sales spike: “1429/30 - NAIBI TRADED IN PRATO BY A NOTARY”, Franco Pratesi, 06.04.2012 . Of 21 deck sales recorded, all but 5 occurred in August and September 1430. Those late summer sales can be explained by the war with Lucca: “the troops of Francesco Sforza arrived in Lucca [sent by Visconti in relief of the city being besieged by Florence], and by July 1430, he was able to remove the siege placed on the city by Fortebraccio [leading the Florentines]; not only was he able to quickly throw back the invaders, but soon had installed military fortifications in the field against them (which had been constructed by the Florentines, but discarded in their flight from Lucca when Sforza arrived” (Ken Johnson dissertation, “Lucca in the Signoria of Paolo Guinigi,1400-1430.”, 2002: 292). The Florentine troops would have retreated back to the town of Prato in the Florentine contado via that city’s Porta Lucchese; the sales of cards there are in the two months following their retreat from Sforza when an influx of troops could have been expected to be quartered there during the ensuing fall/winter - the cessation of the campaigning season.

Of course to me this is just a data point for the thesis that card-playing was pronounced in that often idle class in need of amusement: soldiers. Trionfi developing out of that social context....Cosimo Medici being extremely keen to subsequently keep Sforza in his fold after the setback versus him at Lucca in 1430.

Phaeded

Huck wrote,

Actually one should take it as a serious possibility, especially in regard of the recent exploration of the Sola-Busca deck, which has a very surprising similarity to a game form, which was played more than 200 years later in Lucca.

But every deck we know about between the Prince and the Lucca deck fails to conform to the Lucca model you project, including the SB, in that they all have subjects below where Lucca's start. That seems to me to count against the highly speculative connections you postulate.

as far as a stimulus for the trionfi, there are many possibilities. What would Fibbia's stimulus have been, since you bring him in, Huck? I myself tend to have as my conjecture the same as Dummett's in Il Mondo e l"Angelo, namely the stimulus of Marziano's "game of the gods" for a duke that loved cards. To that I would add, as other stimulus, Filippo's 1427-28 wedding activity and Bianca Maria's betrothal, c. 1431. In Milan illuminated pages (cartes) went with weddings. In Florence they may have as well at that time, if indeed the Rothschild cards were for a wedding. I see the conclave as if nothing else a stimulus for the deck's popularity and the addition of complexity, to make the game suitable for adults, either in the rules or the number of cards.

mikeh wrote: Actually as far as a stimulus for the trionfi, there are many possibilities. What would Fibbia's stimulus have been, since you bring him in, Huck? I myself tend to have as my conjecture the same as Dummett's in Il Mondo e l"Angelo, namely the stimulus of Marziano's "game of the gods" for a duke that loved cards. To that I would add, as other stimulus, Filippo's 1427-28 wedding activity and Bianca Maria's betrothal, c. 1431. In Milan illuminated pages (cartes) went with weddings. In Florence they may have as well at that time, if indeed the Rothschild cards were for a wedding. I see the conclave as if nothing else a stimulus for the deck's popularity and the addition of complexity, to make the game suitable for adults, either in the rules or the number of cards.

Mike,
I don't see on what basis you persist in pushing back the date when all of the earliest evidence is clustered in the window of 1440-1443 - Giusti, the CY and the first two Ferrara decks (before that there is just naibi - no trionfi - despite fairly exhaustive searches). If you include the "14 painted images" for Bianca then you have the two earliest references (Giusti 9/1440; Ferrara/Bianca 1/1441) and deck (CY, c. Oct./1440) all within 14 months of one another. This all points to the arrival of something that quickly became fashionable after 1440 - no trionfi deck nor reference before then.

As for the CY as "Savoy" - please explain away the pomegranates and fountains on the batons and swords, "married" to the Visconti stemmi on the coins and cups suits. You can't, because the pomegranates and fountains are not Savoy stemmi. The flag on the CY Love card is Pavia and can be related to the issue of succession, more clearly stated in the medal cast for Sforza at the same time advertising his right to use the name Visconti - "VICECOMES" (Visconti in Latin) - essentially conjoined with his own (made at the same time by the same artist for a medal for F. Visconti): Phaeded

Phaeded wrote: Mike,
I don't see on what basis you persist in pushing back the date when all of the earliest evidence is clustered in the window of 1440-1443 - Giusti, the CY and the first two Ferrara decks (before that there is just naibi - no trionfi - despite fairly exhaustive searches). If you include the "14 painted images" for Bianca then you have the two earliest references (Giusti 9/1440; Ferrara/Bianca 1/1441) and deck (CY, c. Oct./1440) all within 14 months of one another. This all points to the arrival of something that quickly became fashionable after 1440 - no trionfi deck nor reference before then.

Mike spoke of "stimuli". I think we agree, that the fashion to call decks "trionfi" arrived in or short before 1440, at least as long contradicting evidence isn't found.
Nonetheless we've the point, that the Michelino deck arrived 1425 or before and was so similar, that Marcello in 1449 took it as a new Trionfi deck. And from the rules of the Michelino deck we know definitely, that "trumping" was used in the game. So there's some reason to assume, that there existed possibly other "similar decks" ("stimuli") with trumping rules before the "Trionfi time". The 5x13-deck of John of Rheinfelden 81377) might have been one of them.

mikeh wrote:Huck wrote,

Actually one should take it as a serious possibility, especially in regard of the recent exploration of the Sola-Busca deck, which has a very surprising similarity to a game form, which was played more than 200 years later in Lucca.

But every deck we know about between the Prince and the Lucca deck fails to conform to the Lucca model you project, including the SB, in that they all have subjects below where Lucca's start. That seems to me to count against the highly speculative connections you postulate.

I can't see the suggested relation SB (1491) and Lucca deck (c. 1700) as "highly speculative", although the decks are naturally rather different.
But the SB is rather different to all other decks, so any idea about a relation between SB and normal Tarocchi sequences is then "highly speculative". Well, from all speculative ideas about SB, my suggestion suggests only 13 identifications following in its main line simply a mathematical scheme, other suggestions don't express any idea about the sequence and just assume that 22 trumps on one side should express 22 symbols on the other side. And that's indeed rather "hair-drawn".

as far as a stimulus for the trionfi, there are many possibilities. What would Fibbia's stimulus have been, since you bring him in, Huck?

Fibbia came from Lucca and brought a game to Bologna. It's not really probable, that he brought "Tarocchino" ... but a legend might be true in a different way. Maybe he brought a game, which somehow was related to the Tarocchino. Marcello called the Michelino deck a Trionfi deck, but likely this name wasn't used in 1425. The case is similar to Fibbia's story. The Michelino deck was also rather different, but the description contained rudimentary rules with known later Tarocchi rules.

I myself tend to have as my conjecture the same as Dummett's in Il Mondo e l"Angelo, namely the stimulus of Marziano's "game of the gods" for a duke that loved cards. To that I would add, as other stimulus, Filippo's 1427-28 wedding activity and Bianca Maria's betrothal, c. 1431. In Milan illuminated pages (cartes) went with weddings. In Florence they may have as well at that time, if indeed the Rothschild cards were for a wedding. I see the conclave as if nothing else a stimulus for the deck's popularity and the addition of complexity, to make the game suitable for adults, either in the rules or the number of cards.

Yes, there were opportunities to produce "nice interesting playing card experiments" before 1440. As long we have no confirmation, that playing card were produced at these opportunities, we have nothing. When we have the production noted and the price was equal or higher than 20 soldi, we might suspect, that it were possibly "hidden Trionfi decks" or "stimuli decks", which prepared the later '(or earlier) Trionfi series, which really was called "Trionfi".

Phaeded wrote:
Well, I did post this in regard to Lucca:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=985&p=14658&hilit= ... esi#p14658

1430, Prato, 16 deck sales spike: “1429/30 - NAIBI TRADED IN PRATO BY A NOTARY”, Franco Pratesi, 06.04.2012 . Of 21 deck sales recorded, all but 5 occurred in August and September 1430. Those late summer sales can be explained by the war with Lucca: “the troops of Francesco Sforza arrived in Lucca [sent by Visconti in relief of the city being besieged by Florence], and by July 1430, he was able to remove the siege placed on the city by Fortebraccio [leading the Florentines]; not only was he able to quickly throw back the invaders, but soon had installed military fortifications in the field against them (which had been constructed by the Florentines, but discarded in their flight from Lucca when Sforza arrived” (Ken Johnson dissertation, “Lucca in the Signoria of Paolo Guinigi,1400-1430.”, 2002: 292). The Florentine troops would have retreated back to the town of Prato in the Florentine contado via that city’s Porta Lucchese; the sales of cards there are in the two months following their retreat from Sforza when an influx of troops could have been expected to be quartered there during the ensuing fall/winter - the cessation of the campaigning season.

Of course to me this is just a data point for the thesis that card-playing was pronounced in that often idle class in need of amusement: soldiers. Trionfi developing out of that social context....Cosimo Medici being extremely keen to subsequently keep Sforza in his fold after the setback versus him at Lucca in 1430.

Phaeded

Yes, the Lucca war which ended in 1438, was preceded by another Lucca-Florence war around 1429-33, and surely both events were connected as other earlier Lucca-Florence wars or the wars of Pisa against Florence, which were finished in 1406 by the condition, that Florence took Pisa.
But in the case of 1430 it were more the Albizzi who took the war initiative than the Medici, as far I know.

The curious thing about the peace with Lucca in 1438 was, that it indeed stayed reliable for a longer time. Likely Lucca anyway had lost its international importance then, that it had during 13th and 14th century, and so it wasn't interesting enough to take it by a costly war (possibly it profited from the good relations Milan-Florence after 1450. Pisa was save in the hands of Florence till 1494, when the Florence domination paused till 1509.

Our new member Adrian Goldwetter made a rather good observation to the Sola-Busca trumps. In private communication he asked: "Have you counted the stars? And their "spokes"?" ... at card 21.



I count 18 stars and 4 spokes, which together make "22 objects" and card 21 (last trump) is naturally a good place to describe in hidden manner the structure or composition of a deck.

Well, and we have 4 cards outside of the common "18 Roman heroes", 2 Babylonian kings at card 20+21 and "0 Mato" and "1 Panfilio" as representations of the common Fool and Pagat. These might be the "4 spokes" and the 18 remaining heroes might be the stars.

9 stars are in the left upper quarter of the cycle, the 9 others are at the right upper quarter. And we have - according the earlier analyzes - 9 Roman heroes with recognized Tarot attributes, and 9 Roman heroes without recognized Tarot attributes.

The dragon wings create further divisions. The left quarter is divided in two sections with 3 and with 6 stars, and the right quarter is divided in a group of 8 stars and a single star.

The 8-stars group in the right quarter are arranged in a manner, as if they are meant in pairs.
The 9 remaining cards of the 13 cards, which are "recognized" and also are used in the Lucca Tarocchi (4 of these are used as "spokes") contains 4 pairs (4/5 and 8/9 and 12/13 and 16/17) and one single card (7 Chariot).

The remaining 9 cards (the not recognized Roman heroes) are parted in a group of 3 and 6 cards. For the moment I've no opinion, how this information should be interpreted.

*********

It seems, as if this new detection confirms the earlier observations.

Phaeded wrote,

As for the CY as "Savoy"...

I don't know why you persist in thinking that I am talking about the CY. I am not. I am talking about a conjectured previous tarot, one that Dummett hypothesized as existing in c. 1428 as a development from the Michellino.

We cannot assume that the first tarot decks we know about are the first tarot decks that existed. That would be crude verificationism, i.e. the past as a construction out of present memories and evidence. Time and space form a grid on which we place verified and postulated events and entities as we and others reconstruct them (in the case of the past) and project them (in the case of the future). There are many blank spaces on this grid, or spaces the filling of which is less than clear. (See Dummett's Time and the Past, that part of which I summarized in one of the Dummett threads.) For those blank spaces, all we can do is generalize from inventions we do know about and how long it took them to be recorded in a way that survives to today. The result is immensely variable: eyeglasses, an item of interest to monks, took at least 20 years (recorded independently in sources in two Italian cities); buttons, which were of much less interest to them, took centuries. The standard practice for that time-period is to allow at least 15-20 years, which Dummett scrupulously does, at least in his 1993 and 1996 books (the later books didn't deal with that issue, and I can't remember what Game of Tarot says).

It is true that we have nothing recorded for those blank spaces. But that is not a 0, unless a 0 is in fact recorded but rather "no known record", on a non-level playing field in which many records in Milan and elsewhere, then and later, were destroyed.Then we have recourse to the multitude of instances that lead to the rule of thumb of 15-20 years. And speculations of more or less probability about what to fill that gap with. 0 is one speculation.

Huck wrote

Fibbia came from Lucca and brought a game to Bologna.

This isn't claimed in the legend as recorded in the 17th century. The legend claims he invented a game which in the 17th century the Bolognese knew only as "Tarocchini". It does not say where he invented it. Either way, what was the "stimulus"? I say we have no way of knowing. He might have been bored Or angry at society and decided to mock it with those subjects. Or needed something to keep his children occupied. There are too many possibilities. We can, on the other hand, speak of stimuli for artisan production of a game once invented. i.e. troops being idle somewhere, a conclave with much idleness somewhere else, troops and leaders from various locations gathering together and seeing what one another has brought for amusement.

Huck: Very interesting, about those stars etc. As for the 9 and 9, might these be heroes facing left and heroes facing right, given that the stars are on the right and left? The 3 might be the heroes associated with the virtues, and the 6 the other heroes.

mikeh wrote:Huck wrote

Fibbia came from Lucca and brought a game to Bologna.

This isn't claimed in the legend as recorded in the 17th century. The legend claims he invented a game which in the 17th century the Bolognese knew only as "Tarocchini". It does not say where he invented it. Either way, what was the "stimulus"? I say we have no way of knowing. He might have been bored Or angry at society and decided to mock it with those subjects. Or needed something to keep his children occupied. There are too many possibilities. We can, on the other hand, speak of stimuli for artisan production of a game once invented. i.e. troops being idle somewhere, a conclave with much idleness somewhere else, troops and leaders from various locations gathering together and seeing what one another has brought for amusement.

The "Tarocchino" is wrong, the "inventore" might be wrong, too. But it's possible, that Fibbia brought an idea how to play with cards and possibly modified the idea to Bolognese interests, which would make him an "inventor".

Huck: Very interesting, about those stars etc. As for the 9 and 9, might these be heroes facing left and heroes facing right, given that the stars are on the right and left? The 3 might be the heroes associated with the virtues, and the 6 the other heroes.

Beside No. 6 all even numbers from 2-19 look from right to left and all odd numbers look from left to right. As the groups with 9 are both composed by a mix of even and odd numbers, it can't be, that all 9 look in the same direction.

The right upper quarter (the recognized group) has 5 looking from right to left and 4 looking from left to right, the other not recognized 9 has 4 looking from right to left and 4 looking from left to right and one looking straight (No. 6).

And I would say, that one can't recognize the virtues, only No. 15 is a little bit suggestive for Strength cause of the column.