mikeh wrote:Thanks for the clarifications, Huck. I think I understand better. I need no more convincing that Louis XI is a viable possibility for the Goldschmidt falconer. However it seems to me that the points I raised about the shortcomings of pigment analysis, about tarot playing in France, and about the spread of Flemish artistic styles, still hold. So Charles VIII remains in the running, even if he never went to Dauphiné or Flanders.

Well, Ludovico Tizzone, conte of Desana, is a 3rd possbility and not a bad one.
http://www.repertoriumpomponianum.it/po ... izzone.htm
He has the preference that his dolphin is really crowned, whereas one may doubt it for the Dauphine dolphin.



Only the crowned dolphin card leads to Louis, his son and to Ludovico Tizzone.

Dauphine dolphin: There is something,but is it a crown?


http://en.numista.com/forum/topic28336.html

Desana dolphin: There is something, and it seems to be a crown:


http://www.cgb.fr/italie-ligurie-comte- ... 920,a.html

Perhaps all three biographies lead to good situations, where the deck might had been done. Other heraldry on the 9 Goldschmidt cards lead to things, which we can't identify to belong to "interesting persons".

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

The crown of the dolphin at the card ...



... looks like a French lille. I don't know, if this means anything.

The Balbiano family from Chiesi (11 km near to Turin, so also close to Dauphine) have also a crowned fish in their heraldry. But this fish looks different.

In the analyses of the extant Trionfi cards we're used, that heraldic designs are interpreted as signs of ownership or internal production (Visconti-Sforza cards, Este cards etc.).

However, we know other examples in the extant playing card production: The Hofämterspiel uses heraldry for the 4 suits (Bohemia, Hungary, Germany France), the same is done in the 5x14-deck of Master PW (flowers for Germany, France, Spain and Africa-parrots and hares for the Ottomans). From 17th/18th century we know general heraldry decks, each card presenting one special heraldry (the special Tarocchino deck from Bologna 1725 presents the whole world, and there are other heraldry decks in France before).


http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks02/d00309/d00309.htm


http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks07/d05362/d05362.htm


http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks03/d01775/d01775.htm

Then we have the strange coin suit in the Tarot de Paris (I think, from 1559), presenting a lot of French shields.

**********

Knowing this, it becomes risky to conclude from a single card (crowned dolphin) of 9 Goldschmidt cards (so a fragmented deck) on the one and only should-be-owner by heraldry conceptions, which were likely used successful at some of the V-S cards, Este cards etc.
There had been also other concepts to use heraldry on playing cards and we simply don't know, what use we have in the Goldschmidt cards. The material is simply not complete and it's difficult to find a final conclusion.

Huck wrote,

Knowing this, it becomes risky to conclude from a single card (crowned dolphin) of 9 Goldschmidt cards (so a fragmented deck) on the one and only should-be-owner by heraldry conceptions, which were likely used successful at some of the V-S cards, Este cards etc.
There had been also other concepts to use heraldry on playing cards and we simply don't know, what use we have in the Goldschmidt cards. The material is simply not complete and it's difficult to find a final conclusion.

To be sure, no "final conclusion" yet. But so far there are only three candidates. We at least can have pros and cons, even if we can't eliminate anybody.

There are other considerations besides heraldics. The image of the lady at a kneeler was also used, uniquely as far as I have found, to represent Charlotte of Savoy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_of_Savoy, verified in the book by Lacroix I mentioned earlier). That would count against Ludovico Tizzone but neither of the other two, as wife of one and mother of the other. Also, there is a fleur-de-lys on the bishop's miter, suggesting France.

The particular representation of a castle on another card could also be a heraldic, but it is too common a one to identify anything by.

And there is one as yet unidentified heraldic, on the falconer, as Phaeded observed.

It's true, we have 3 candidates for the crowned dolphin, but here is other heraldry and we cannot identify them and it looks, as if the others don't come from the same heraldry house.
This looks, as if the deck uses a composition of different heraldry. Possibly it's a group of the Piedmontese context, with no large nobility houses involved (in the case, that one could believe in the Desana identification with the Tizzone family; which somehow looks probable, if one could accept, that the Gioldschmidt research wasn't very precise).

Or it comes from Burgundy. But I think, the material, that we have is not good enough to say anythng.

hi Mike,

I'd earlier given a reference to to the researches of Aleandre Pinchart for the region of Northern Burgundy:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=345&p=13147&hilit=pinchart#p13147

I'd copied a few pages at that opportunity, but there is more in the book ...
https://books.google.de/books?id=VixCAA ... es&f=false

It's rather much material.

Page 21 of https://books.google.de/books?id=VixCAA ... es&f=false was interesting. It says that Tournai's card production activity dropped precipitously after 1521, when the city was taken over by Charles V. Before that, Tournai was part of France, since the 11th century. Rogier van der Weyden, who was from Tournai, didn't have a Flemish name until 1435, when he was named official painter of Brussels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogier_van_der_Weyden). Before that he was Rogier de la Pasture. So all that documentation about Tournai in the 15th century isn't about a city in Burgundy at all. It seems to have been a center of Netherlandish art, judging from wiki entries for other Tournai artists, just not part of Burgundian territory. It was even English for a brief period, 1513-1518. Given the the jockeying between France and Burgundy during the 15th century, was Tournai even allowed to export cards to Burgundy? So I am left wondering where Louis would have gone to get a vanity deck made. Would he have crossed the border? That might not have been wise, given his father's hostility to him. Maybe you had an idea about that earlier in the thread, Huck, I don't remember. I suppose there were cardmakers in Burgundy, too. Painters seem to have been able to cross borders, at least de la Pasture did. But the regulations may have been different there at some point, I don't know.

mikeh wrote:Page 21 of https://books.google.de/books?id=VixCAA ... es&f=false was interesting. It says that Tournai's card production activity dropped precipitously after 1521, when the city was taken over by Charles V. Before that, Tournai was part of France, since the 11th century. Rogier van der Weyden, who was from Tournai, didn't have a Flemish name until 1435, when he was named official painter of Brussels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogier_van_der_Weyden). Before that he was Rogier de la Pasture. So all that documentation about Tournai in the 15th century isn't about a city in Burgundy at all. It seems to have been a center of Netherlandish art, judging from wiki entries for other Tournai artists, just not part of Burgundian territory. It was even English for a brief period, 1513-1518. Given the the jockeying between France and Burgundy during the 15th century, was Tournai even allowed to export cards to Burgundy? So I am left wondering where Louis would have gone to get a vanity deck made. Would he have crossed the border? That might not have been wise, given his father's hostility to him. Maybe you had an idea about that earlier in the thread, Huck, I don't remember. I suppose there were cardmakers in Burgundy, too. Painters seem to have been able to cross borders, at least de la Pasture did. But the regulations may have been different there at some point, I don't know.

I stumbled about the same question once, and I've to say, that even after longer study I didn't get a clear idea about it. One has to calculate, that the begin of that Burgundy in 14th century, what interests us, had been a son of a French king and an uncle of Charles VI. Charles VI was weak, and Burgundy became indeed more powerful than France, but somehow Burgundy was also France. The new French king Charles VII was very weak in the beginning and somehow limited to the South-Eastern part till Jeanne d'Arc, and Burgundy made, what they wanted. And some of the cities in the Northern region also made what they wanted. So somehow there were occasionally fights ... for instance Gent ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_of ... 2%80%9353)

That was 1449-53, so close to the time, which interests us. 1453 is also the year, when the French got the English out, other battles.

Tournai is a city at a river and it had the bridge. Left and right are Flemish people, not French people. For the Picardy, which has a good part West of Tournai (so closer to France and in France nowadays) I read ...

From 1419 onwards, the Picardy counties (Boulogne, Ponthieu, Amiens, Vermandois) were gradually acquired by the Burgundian duke Philip the Good, confirmed by King Charles VII of France at the 1435 Congress of Arras. They were again seized by King Louis XI of France after the Burgundian Wars and the death of Duke Charles the Bold in 1477.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy
compare the map

If these were Burgundian cities what shall one then believe for Tournai? 1435-1477 is precisely the time, which interests us.

I've read about a modern amusing movie, in which a French man in the civil service was send to Picardy and all his friends were disgusted about his destiny. Surprisingly it wasn't so ad as all had imagined. Somehow Picardy is not French, I understood.

French card production in Lyon is said to have taken a strong development (c. 1480) just in the time when Tournai possibly came into French hands. One might suspect, that they exported production technology from Tournai?

But, I don't know, there are contradictions in that, what I got as results. Tournai is also called the only part of Flandern, which still belonged to France.
Tournai once had been capital of the early Merowinger (5th century) and the oldest city in the region, perhaps it was out of respect for the old history, that Tournai still belonged to France, somehow like West-Berlin still belonged to West-Germany, when East-Germany had become a state for itself. Tournai is somehow the origin of France.

Childeric, father of Clovis (= Chlodwig) and of the wife of Theoderic (who reigned in Ravenna) was buried near Tournai. The place was found in 17th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childeric_I

Here's a map ... Salische Franken were those of interest.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childeric ... ine_de.svg

They were invaded from Netherlandish and North-West German regions, so I#ve read.

Perhaps it was just a strategical decision to make just Tournai to a place of playing card production. Playing cards were an object for heraldry, and heraldry referred to the "origin".

The questions about Tournai that seem to be relevant are these: (1) if the city was legally part of France (regardless of what language the people there spoke) at the time the future Louis XI was in Burgundian Flanders, would it be feasible for him to get cards made there? And (2) could the Flemish merchants exporting cards to Italy have been from Tournai?

On the second question, it seems to me that merchants from Tournai could have been considered Flemish, because Tournai, even though legally French, was still part of the Flemish-speaking region and itself largely spoke Flemish.
It also seems to me that the demand for cards at that time must have been more French than Burgundian/ Netherlandish, because the city stopped being a producer of cards once it became part of Burgundy/Netherlands

mikeh wrote:The questions about Tournai that seem to be relevant are these: (1) if the city was legally part of France (regardless of what language the people there spoke) at the time the future Louis XI was in Burgundian Flanders, would it be feasible for him to get cards made there? And (2) could the Flemish merchants exporting cards to Italy have been from Tournai?

On the second question, it seems to me that merchants from Tournai could have been considered Flemish, because Tournai, even though legally French, was still part of the Flemish-speaking region and itself largely spoke Flemish.
It also seems to me that the demand for cards at that time must have been more French than Burgundian/ Netherlandish, because the city stopped being a producer of cards once it became part of Burgundy/Netherlands

(1)

Well, Louis was mainly in Genappe near Brussels in the 5 years (1445-1461).
Bianca Maria had send a Milanese artist to Rogier van Werden, Zanetto Bugatto. German wiki has him there from Dezember 1460 - May 1463.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanetto_Bugatto
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanetto_Bugatto
Kleio.org gives different information (since 1463).
A letter exists, from which there is recorded trouble between Zanetto and Rogier (likely at the start of his visit, so in a time, when Louis was still in Burgundy, early 1461), cause Zanetto consumed too much vine and cause Zanetto took a commission from Louis. Rogier didn't like that, and Bianca Maria had to beg for his patience, that Zanetto could stay. So much I know from various sources.
Rogier was born in Tournai, and became town painter in Brussels in 1436.

Genappe has the shield ...

... which is similar to a castle held by one of the ladies at the Goldschmidt cards.


This story has not so much to do with the card producers of Tournai ... beside the point, that Rogier was "from Tournai" and likely knew the early Tournai card producers there from his youth.

(2)

One of the merchants in Rome is named "Johanni Tornieri" and he travels often with the Flemish merchants (they appear together in the Roman custom records at the same date, that's likely the way how Esch got this info). Johanni Tornieri is not recognized as Flemish by Esch.
The name "Tornieri" appears in 16th century in Italy in context of the printing business: Giacomo Tornieri, printer in Rome.
"Tornieri" is an Italian name (not very common). In an earlier research it seemed, that it had more a North Italian distribution (mainly around Verona).
Persons, who organized the international trade often stayed there, where they traded. Johanni Tornieri might have developed from a "Johannes of Tournay" or from another person "from Tournay". Verona as a starting point has some logic, as Verona is close to the Brenner-Pass (major trade way). Verona close to Tirol with a lot of German/Austrian influences had a natural attraction for people from the North.

Johanni Tornieri is connected to the most unusual deal at the Esch lists. He imported in 1463 "20 doz.triunfi picholi", estimated by the custom officer on 2 1/2 ducats and it is the last entry, that we know from him (no record in 1464 and 1465, though there are records of him in 9 years; actually in every year, which is recorded).
This is the highest number of imported triunfi decks (240) and it is by far the lowest price, so low, that it is around the cheapest card decks, that we know from other prices (on the silk dealer list the prices of Niccolo da Calvello, the specialist for cheap decks).
If there is no reading error in this document, this indicates a production revolution for Trionfi cards. At this moment
likely everybody was able to buy such a deck. The common cheapest price for a Triunfi deck at the silk dealer lists were 9 soldi, in the last deal of Tornieri it looks, as if it had fallen to less than 1 soldi. Roughly 1/100 ducat for each deck.

Parallel to this we see that the most active person in the import of playing cards, Pierozzo di Ser Francesco (25% of the documents, 42 % of the recorded decks) ...
http://trionfi.com/n/130902/
... has only one small import with not numbered "triunfi" and "1 doz.triunphi senza oro" in 1464 and nothing in 1465. In 1463 (before the Tornieri import) he had still 7 doz. Triunfi in a value of roughly 9-10 ducats. Roughly 1/10 ducat for each deck.

On the lists Tornieri was addressed once as "Gugliermo" (1453) and once as "Guglielmo" (1462), possibly a relative, who traveled instead of Johanni.

*********

In modern times we perceive, that cheap productions in China destroy the base for local productions in Europe. Something similar might have happened to the Italian playing card market for some time. Imports from Burgundy, imports from Tournai?

In 1477 the state Burgundy was more or less destroyed in favor of Habsburg and French interests. The start of very intensive French card production is given as of c. 1480 in the region of Lyon.

The Picardy came to France then (1477). Atrecht, Artois and Hainaut came to Habsburg by Charles V., so the French Tournai still was surrounded by foreign territory (as I understand it). In 1521 it came to Habsburg and Tournai lost its special state.
One has to remember, that in the Emperor election of 1519 Charles V. competed with Francois I., the French king and a North-East German candidate Kurfürst Friedrich der Weise. The money of the Fuggers and the wisdom of Friedrich the wise saved the decision for for Charles V.
Tournai had to suffer for it and also Milan dropped back to the empire with the battle of Pavia (1525) and both became Spanish territory after some time.

Tournai had strong fortifications (I think, I've read so), but the cannons improved. So it became English 1513, was given back in 1519 and was in Charles' hands in 1521.
Louis XI must have seen in 1477 and likely already earlier the future troublesome state of Tournai and cared, that France got a strong playing card production in other regions, somehow a logical operation. There was a Burgundian-French war already in 1465, Galeazzo Maria Sforza participated then.
Already that war might have been perceived in Tournai as very dangerous.

Huck wrote,

Genappe has the shield ...

... which is similar to a castle held by one of the ladies at the Goldschmidt cards.

Many towns had shields or castles similar to the castle on the card. It seems to me that the castle has somehow to relate to the woman next to it. She is somehow associated with the castle, its owner perhaps. Is there such a woman for Genappe?

It might be that the cardmaker was told to draw a woman holding a castle, and the cardmaker, familiar with the Genappe shield, drew one vaguely like it. But since there are many shields and castles of that sort, it seems to me that the woman is at least as important, for identifying the origin of the design, as the shape of the castle.