Re: Bolognese sequence

171
Huck wrote:Well ...

... what is about this "Strombetto poem"? This is new, I never heard of it ...
This is why I have urged you for years to join the IPCS, so you could have these things for yourself and I wouldn't have to type it all out for you #:-s (the same goes for you Mike, although it will cost you around US $55 a year (£35), which is £7 more than Europeans like Huck, who only need £28 or around €31 per year). A lot of things published there are not available on the internet.

I have already mentioned it several times on the thread, and since you didn't ask I didn't spell it out (search "strambotti" and "strambotto").

Although already (re-)published in 1896,
http://www.archive.org/details/collezio ... 32linggoog
(page XLIII)

it was only rediscovered for card history in 2007, by Thierry Depaulis and published with two versions in his article "Early Italian Lists of Tarot Trumps", The Playing Card vol. 36 no. 1 (July-Sept. 2007), pp. 39-50.
He mentions it in his review of Dummett and McLeod,
http://www.tarotgame.org/supreview.pdf (page 3)

Strambotti de Triumphi

Mi racomando a quel angelo pio,
al mondo, al sole, alla luna & lo stello,
alla saetta & a quel diavol rio,
la morte, el traditore, el vechierello.
la rota, el caro & giusticia di Dio,
forteza & temperanza & amor bello,
al papa, imperatore, imperatrice,
al bagatello, al matto più felice.


The dating to around 1500 is very secure and the reasons given in Depaulis' article. The reason it is considered Florentine is because the rhyme scheme is Tuscan (abababcc) (other types of Strambotti have different distinctive rhyme schemes). It is also of the A type order, and matches the Rosenwald (allowing for the corrected Wheel position and showing the suppression of the Popess, which is one part of what makes it remarkable).
...and, considering the suggested existence of early Trionfi deck production in Bologna, why do we have in 1459 in the earliest real Bolognese Trionfi document a German producer? Shouldn't it be an Italian, if we assume the long tradition, that it would have?
I don't think we have the right to expect anything in that matter. There are no named popular trionfi-card producers before Pietro Bonozzi in Bologna in 1477; I don't remember off-hand any named at all in Italy in the 15th century besides him, but surely you don't think popular trionfi-cards weren't produced in Italy in the 15th century?

No, all of that information has been lost, in every city. If I could suggest a scenario, it is that if the local production of Bolognese trionfi was for the students in the university, maybe a few hundred decks, then it might be off the radar because the university was largely autonomous, and expenses like these would not be found in the main business records of the city councils. But even if not, the absence of named trionfi-producers in Bologna is nothing special, it is the case in every city. Popular trionfi, that is, of course.
Image

Re: Bolognese sequence

173
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
Although already (re-)published in 1896,
http://www.archive.org/details/collezio ... 32linggoog
(page XLIII)
I found this ...
wiki wrote:Serafino dell'Aquila alias Serafino Cimini di Bazzano alias Serafino dei Ciminelli (1466-1500), Italian poet and improvisatore, was born in 1466 at the town of Aquila, from which he took his name, and died in the year 1500. He spent several years at the courts of Cardinal Sforza and Ferdinand, duke of Calabria; but his principal patrons were the Borgias at Rome, from whom he received many favors. Aquila seems to have aimed at an imitation of Dante and Petrarch; and his poems, which were extravagantly praised during the author's lifetime, are occasionally of considerable merit. His reputation was in great measure due to his remarkable skill as an improvisatore and musician. His works were printed at Venice in 1502, and there have been several subsequent editions. Serafino was a member of the Knights of Malta [1]
... Death of the author in 1500, printed 1502, assuming he didn't make poetry before his 20th year, we get a dating from 1486 - 1500 for the poem, in extreme case 1480 - 1500 (I asssume, that the poem is undated). Or are there any other arguments?

This seems to be the oldest of the many poems, which incorporate the row of the triumphs (?). Possibly they had a function as a memory help to know the row, if the cards had no number.
The short life description indicates his presence in Aquila, Rome, Naples, that's not Toscana (?).
Italian wiki wrote: Appartenente alla nobile famiglia dei Ciminelli, figlio di Francesco e di Lippa de' Legistis, il giovane Serafino si recò a Napoli nel 1478 insieme ad uno zio materno e fu assunto come paggio presso il conte di Potenza Antonio de Guevara iniziando lo studio della poesia e della musica con la guida di musicisti allora famosi come Wilhelm Guarnier e Josquin Després.

Ritornato all'Aquila nel 1481 vi rimase fino al 1484 quando si trasferì a Roma presso il cardinale Ascanio Sforza e nel 1490 lo seguì a Milano dove in breve tempo si fece apprezzare per le sue doti di poeta.

L'anno seguente ritornò a Roma dove iniziò a frequentare il gruppo letterario che si raccoglieva intorno al segretario apostolico Paolo Cortese e strinse particolare amicizia con Vincenzo Colli detto il Calmeta che in seguito sarà il suo biografo.

Passato nel 1493 al servizio di Ferdinando II d'Aragona a Napoli ebbe modo di conoscere e frequentare il Giovanni Pontano e Jacopo Sannazzaro. In seguito venne chiamato a Urbino presso Elisabetta Gonzaga, poi a Mantova presso Isabella d'Este e in seguito a Milano.

L'opera poetica dell'Aquilano, copiosa e versatile, è composta da epistole amorose in rima, da tre egloghe a carattere pastorale, da due atti scritti per essere rappresentati ( l' Oroscopo e l' Orologio), da una Rappresentazione allegorica della voluttà e da Virtù e fama che venne recitata tra il 1495 e il 1597 presso la corte di Mantova, oltre a numerose rime di vario tipo, come strambotti, sonetti e capitoli ternari.
Well, it tells he was everywhere, but not in Toscana. Actually not a reason to use not a Toscan poetry style, why not. I'd be twice in England, maybe totally 10 days, and I write English.
Ross wrote:
it was only rediscovered for card history in 2007, by Thierry Depaulis and published with two versions in his article "Early Italian Lists of Tarot Trumps", The Playing Card vol. 36 no. 1 (July-Sept. 2007), pp. 39-50.
He mentions it in his review of Dummett and McLeod,
http://www.tarotgame.org/supreview.pdf (page 3)

Strambotti de Triumphi

Mi racomando a quel angelo pio,
al mondo, al sole, alla luna & lo stello,
alla saetta & a quel diavol rio,
la morte, el traditore, el vechierello.
la rota, el caro & giusticia di Dio,
forteza & temperanza & amor bello,
al papa, imperatore, imperatrice,
al bagatello, al matto più felice.

I count 21 Trionfi, the usual series variated by the loss of a Papessa ... you also note it. 21 is not 22, but naturally the missing card might have been lost only in the poem, perhaps with personal reasons of the poet. Either it was dangerous (negative reason) to speak in the presence of pope Alexander (with his many children) of a "Papessa", or the poem was addressed to the "real Papessa of the moment" (positive reason), so the "missing Papessa" was actually the only person present (Vannozza dei Cattani a countess of the House of Candia, mother of 3 sons and a daughter) ... playing cards were a medium mainly for women.

angelo pio - Angel - 21 - (20 with "Missing Papessa")
al mondo - World - 20 - (19)
al sole - sun - 19 - (18)
alla luna - moon - 18 - (17)
& lo stello - star - 17 - (16)
alla saetta - lightning, tower - 16 - (15)
& a quel diavol rio, - devil 15 - (14)
la morte - death - 14 - (13)
el traditore - hanging man - 13 (12)
el vechierello - hermit - 12 (11)
la rota - wheel - 11 (10)
el caro - chariot - 10 (9)
& giusticia di Dio - justice - 9 (8)
forteza - strength - 8 (7)
& temperanza - temperance - 7 (6)
& amor bello, - love - 6 - (5)
al papa - pope - 5 - (4)
imperatore - emperor - 4 (3)
imperatrice, - empress - 3 (2)
MISSING PAPESSA - 2
al bagatello - Pagat - 1 (1)
al matto più felice - fool - 0 - (0)

I get a Death with number 14, if I assume, that Papessa was present ...this is rather unusual, but possibly part of the Rosenwald, which otherwise (if the row of the pictures would be correct), would have the Wheel with 14 (but the incomplete numbers tell "possible 11") and another contradiction to Rosenwald is in the position of strength and justice.

If I take the row of a Minchiate 0-15, 36-40 (which somehow also has a missing papessa, as the two emperors + grand duke only take 3 positions), I'm correct with everything beside an exchange of the positions of carro/wheel (see numbers in brackets), the carro has 9 and wheel 10 in the poem and in Minchiate the chariot 10 and the wheel 9 ... so the row of the poem with accepting, that Papessa is really missing, is very near to Minchiate and less near to the Rosenwald (accepting, that on the papi-position 2-4 a replacement took place) . Do we agree in this point?

Anyway, it's a greater progress to have finally a date "before 1500 and before 1505" of something, which is almost rather near to the final versions. Though, 21 instead of 22, still in the flow ...
...and, considering the suggested existence of early Trionfi deck production in Bologna, why do we have in 1459 in the earliest real Bolognese Trionfi document a German producer? Shouldn't it be an Italian, if we assume the long tradition, that it would have?
I don't think we have the right to expect anything in that matter. There are no named popular trionfi-card producers before Pietro Bonozzi in Bologna in 1477; I don't remember off-hand any named at all in Italy in the 15th century besides him, but surely you don't think popular trionfi-cards weren't produced in Italy in the 15th century?

No, all of that information has been lost, in every city. If I could suggest a scenario, it is that if the local production of Bolognese trionfi was for the students in the university, maybe a few hundred decks, then it might be off the radar because the university was largely autonomous, and expenses like these would not be found in the main business records of the city councils. But even if not, the absence of named trionfi-producers in Bologna is nothing special, it is the case in every city. Popular trionfi, that is, of course.
Maybe we don't have a right to expect anything, but in the case of missing information there is only progress by careful evaluating just of the things, which are definitely fact. And it's a fact, that it is a German producer and not a Bolognese-Italian, which probably would be the case, if we would have a long established tradition of trionfi card production in Bologna. Possibly it's an indication, that the Trionfi card production in 1459 slowly turned from hand painted cards to pre-printed motifs, as Germans often entered in the business with printing technologies. And possibly Bologna was earlier in this process, as for their university they had stronger interests in the printing medium.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Bolognese sequence

174
Huck wrote: Well, it tells he was everywhere, but not in Toscana. Actually not a reason to use not a Toscan poetry style, why not. I'd be twice in England, maybe totally 10 days, and I write English.
The strambotto was revived by poets somewhat in the 15th century and became very popular.

Different rhyme schemes became known by their own names, the two most popular being the Tuscany and the Sicilian, as you say and I agree use of such labels does not neccesarily identify the origin of the poet that uses it. As with chess, one is free to use the Sicilian opening without being from Sicily. Examples of the form and rhyme scheme can be found among poets such as Poliziano, Ariosto, Boiado, Pucci... and among poets throughout Europe as its popularity as a poetic form spread.

According to Wikipedia the most common rythmical form in Tuscany is a stanza of 8 lines of eleven syllables with rhyming scheme ABABABCC, the L'ottava toscana, it gives an example of Aristo's Orlando furioso 6,1

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottava_rima

According to wikipedia (italian) :
 strambotto: si tratta di una ottava a rima alternata nei primi versi e a rima baciata negli ultimi due. Viene usato nella poesia popolare del Duecento e ripreso nel Quattrocento da poeti colti, come il Poliziano. Questo metro, in Toscana, venne denominato rispetto (spicciolato, se composto da una sola ottava, continuato, se da più ottave).

google translation:
 strambotti: it is an octave rhyming alternately in the first verse and rhyming couplets in the last two. It is used in folk poetry of the thirteenth century and revived in the fifteenth century by poets educated, like Poliziano. This meter, in Tuscany, was called over (small change, if made by a single octave, continued, though several octaves).
But for our purpose the most interesting poet connected with the Court of Milan was Serafino Ciminelli of Aquila, who first came there with Ascanio Sforza in 1490, and remained till 1493. He returned with Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, in 1495, and was present at the investiture of Il Moro on May 26. In September of the same year he accompanied the Duke and Beatrice to the camp of the league before Novara, and it was during the negotiations with Charles VIII that he charmed the French king and his courtiers with a specimen of his improvising powers. After the death of Beatrice he left Milan for Mantua, and died soon afterwards in 1500 at the age of thirty-four.

In his youth he had been a close student of Petrarch, but at Milan he came under the influence of Il Cariteo, a native of Barcelona, who lived at Naples as secretary to Ferdinand II of Aragon. It was from Il Cariteo that he learnt to write strambotti, for which he was especially famous, and which he turned from a popular into a Court love-poem. It was mainly, too, from Il Cariteo that he learnt to stuff his poems with conceits and to employ other tricks for producing unexpected effects. He had another master in Antonio Tebaldeo of Ferrara, tutor to Isabella d’Este, who carried exaggeration and the abuse of rhetorical figures to an even greater pitch than Il Cariteo; and he had an admiring imitator in Pamfilo Sassi, a much older man, who was living at this time at his native Modena.

All these poets, it will be seen, were connected with one or more of the closely allied Courts of Naples, Milan, Ferrara, and Mantua. Thus there arose a poetical school, which strayed from the Petrarchian fold into a jungle of rhetorical artifice and bad taste. Its interest for us is that it was much admired by some of the French 16th century poets, notable by Maurice Sceve, Mellin de Saint-Gelais and Desportes.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s2s8 ... la&f=false
There is also an entry in the biographical dictionary here with an occassionally contradictory account:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9w1F ... erafino%20

Re: Bolognese sequence

175
hi Stephen,

thanks for this ...
"In his youth he had been a close student of Petrarch, but at Milan he came under the influence of Il Cariteo, a native of Barcelona, who lived at Naples as secretary to Ferdinand II of Aragon. It was from Il Cariteo that he learnt to write strambotti, for which he was especially famous, and which he turned from a popular into a Court love-poem."
This seems to say, that he didn't wrote Strambotti before 1491 - cause ...

Image


Image


...
1485 - 1491 ... six years in the service of cardinal Ascanio
1491 - 1494 ... in Naples and there he learns the art of Strambotti

Trivulzio was then in Naples, also from Milan (with Ascanio the Serafino probably also had been in Milan a little bit)
Sannazaro was there
Lazzarelli was there

Sannazaro organised and wrote a "Trionfi della Fama" in March 1492 at the Naples court ... from all Trionfi descriptions (as festivities) that I've got information from, this had been the most near to the Trionfi cards sequence, though (probably) still rather different. The description was not really complete. A Fama appears, an Apollo, a Fool.
From the life description it seems, that Serafino would have made (likely) a Milanese or a Naples sequence, but naturally might be also Roman.

... but I see, that the both life descriptions contradict, so at least there are difficulties to interpret them.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Bolognese sequence

176
Hi guys. Well, I’m still on p. 17 of this thread, responding mainly to Ross’s viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&start=160#p5585 although I’ve tried to incorporate the later material.

Huck: What I find attractive in Ross’s analysis is his emphasis on printed cards as the trend-setters. Such dissemination has a qualitatively more powerful effect on tarot card development than luxury cards. They are an attractive explanation for the close similarity between A, B, and C orders, despite regional differences: by the 1460’s, the same 22 subjects, or maybe a few less, but no additional ones, in the same three beginning, middle, and end groupings, with only a few exceptions. Where such a deck would have been printed is another matter.

For the early 1440’s, however, it is a different situation. The number 14 and its multiples, or a few more, appear regularly. That is why Vitali’s postulation of a 14 trump printed deck is appealing. Where it came from is again another matter: Florence, Bologna, and Ferrara all remain possibilities, both for the 14 of the 40’s and the 22 of the late 50’s. That we have no records of such decks in Bologna may be just because the Bentivoglio records were destroyed in 1507.

More information is needed. Thus we turn to Ross’s informative post on the Popess.
Rosenwald shows us a Popess and an Empress. The Strambotto lists "Pope, Emperor and Empress", but omits a Popess. Rosenwald has been dated "circa 1500", and the Strambotto is also dated, much more precisely, as circa 1500 (due to the publisher's dates). Depaulis takes this as evidence that the Popess was dropped in Florence at some time shortly before 1500, and the numbering of the Charles VI reflects this - meaning that the Popess had been literally removed from this old deck at some point - if she existed at all and the missing figure, with the number "II", were not another Emperor. This might also allow us to date the Rosenwald sheet to earlier than 1500.
How do we find out which came first, the Strambotto and Rosenwald or the Charles VI numbering etc.? Well, we look at the position of the Wheel.
The position of the Wheel in the Rosenwald sequence is insecure, since it is apparently out of place on the sequence of the sheet, where it is between the Hanged Man and Death - an order unheard of in Tarot. It is also unnumbered, and there is no "XI". The person who numbered the Rosenwald sheet placed the Chariot as "X", after Fortitude as "VIIII", so Depaulis and most commentators, me included, would put the Wheel at "XI", which is the same as the Strambotto.

So - the Rosenwald sheet and the Strambotto, both around 1500, attest to a time when the Chariot was below the Wheel. The Charles VI and Catania numbering, and the Germini order, attest to when the Chariot was moved to above the Wheel. There is evidence for a moving Chariot in Florence, and therefore reason, if not proof, to believe that neither is the original order.
So it’s first the Rosenwald and Strambotto, then the Charles VI etc. numbering. But if Huck (following Steve) is right, in his most recent posts, the Strambotto might be before the Rosenwald. If so, we seem to have first no Popess, then Popess, then no Popess.

Another problem: On my copy of the Rosenwald (Kaplan vol 1 p. 131; perhaps you have another) Fortitude is numbered “IIIV,” i.e. eight, the same number as Justice. This might not be an error: it might be the designer’s way of keeping Death at 13. If so, spot nine is open, where Wheel might go. The Old Man might go there, but it is not unheard of for him to go between Hanged Man and Death, as in the Sicilian, also type A. It strikes me that the Rosenwald might be a late 15th century experiment that didn’t catch on, one that attempted to keep Death at 13 and Temperance lower than Death, but also have both a Bagatto (absent from the Bolognese Tarocchino) and a Popess (absent from Minchiate), by giving two virtue cards the same number. The Rosenwald is odd in some of its imagery, too: Lover, Devil, Star, Moon, and Sun.

Death’s number is a general problem about the A order’s being primary. If there are four “papi”, including a Popess, then either Death is not 13, or there is no Bagatto, or two cards share a number. You want to say that Death’s being 13 is not primary. I think you’re right, for the 1440’s. But I am not supposing that decks had 22 trumps then. You are, Ross. If Death became unshakably 13, including the later A orders, then some other order must have been dominant, at least in that regard. (There is also the B order’s way out, putting Justice after Death. But that argues for Ferrara as the source of the one or two popular decks, perhaps not an unreasonable hypothesis.)

In any case, all of these A orderings (Strambotto, Rosenwald, Charles VI numbers) are much later than the 1440’s or even the 1460’s. We are nowhere near determining who invented the Popess. So we come to Milan.
The Cary Yale (c. 1445) even knows an Empress, which implies a Popess as well, for the same configuration.
But how does it follow that if the CY had an Empress, it must have had a Popess? You are assuming that the CY designer was thinking in terms of two pope-figures and two emperor-figures. But maybe he or she wasn’t thinking in those terms. Maybe he or she was thinking about the difference between the two orders, secular and ecclesiastical. Secular positions (to Milan’s way of thinking) are hereditary: if there’s no empress with sons, there’s a succession problem. The same, even more so, for dukes. Duchesses, in Milan, are as important as Dukes for passing down the title, of which Milan is unfortunately aware. Or perhaps, if Bianca is being thought of as Duchess, she is even more important than the Duke. But none of that is true for the Pope; there, the succession is not supposed to be hereditary! So we have one ecclesiastical figure, two secular figures.

By the time of the PMB, however (it seems to be getting later and later: not 1455 now, but 1460; well, never mind!), Bianca wants to put ancestors in. And maybe she sees Boccaccio’s Pope Joan as a positive role model for Ippolita, along with some cautionary advice. In Boccaccio, God only gets angry at Joan when she becomes Pope; before that, he seems to be helping her. So now we have a Popess, as an instructional tool and an ancestor-card.
For Florence inventing the Popess (and Empress), in place of the second Pope and Emperor, I suggest that it has to do with the literary, and thence luxury, taste for Petrarchan triumphal images, which is greatest in Florence beginning in the 1440s. This imagery makes its way into the actual painted cards in the Charles VI, Catania and Visconti Sforza Hermit, who, holding an hourglass, should only appear in the late 1450s. Likewise the young woman on the Chariot is a luxury taste, not present in any printed, or "common" version. In the case of the Popess, images of Petrarch's Trionfi include Pope Joan as a captive of Love by 1480. I suggest that she was seen as appropriate for this subject already by the 1440s in Florence.
Luxury... Milan was equally as as luxury-conscious as Florence in the 1440’s, maybe more so, being a duchy with an official court. We don't so far have a reason for preferring Florence over Milan, for this imagery.

Petrarchan... Why “already by the 1440’s”? One reason for Pope Joan's being in the 1480 Petrarch illustration might have been the Popess’s already being familiar from popular printed cards produced outside Florence. As you say, you can't get her from Petrarch.

The only remaining reason for there to be a Popess in Florence originally is that it fits your theory of four authority figures originally, which get changed to male/female pairs.
We know that Florentine artisans emigrated to Milan in the 1440s...
This statement needs a citation. The Visconti and Medici had been enemies, and nobody that I’ve read sees evidence of Florentine influence in Milanese art at that time. With the Sforza it was different, but that was the 1450’s.
So I can see luxury card painters having introduced the Florentine pattern into Milan, resulting in the style we see in the Visconti Sforza.
What does Florence—as opposed to Padua--have to do with the Bembo? The style of the CY and original PMB is Lombard, perhaps with some Paduan influence (from their time in Brescia), and in the second artists’ cards, Ferrarese.
Likewise, I think Tarot probably came from Florence to Lyon already in the 1450s or 1460s, perhaps in both forms, but certainly in a popular form.
Well, perhaps then, although some defense of that statement would be useful, one that doesn’t apply as well to the Sforza, who were on just as good terms with Louis XI as the Medici. But by the late 1450’s, a 22 trump mass-produced deck with the Popess is more believable, available in both Florence and Milan but perhaps produced elsewhere, incorporating Milanese and other cities’ innovations. And why do you say that Lyon used the Florentine A order? Are you assuming that the Piedmontese order, when it was similar to Bologna’s, came from there? I have assumed, based on later evidence, that Lyon took the C order. And if Lyon did take Florence’s A order, which one was it--without the Popess, without Death being 13, or with 2 cards numbered the same?

Re: Bolognese sequence

177
hi Mike,

as I wrote (or indicated) in the 4 Moors article

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=422

Image


... the chess bishop caused Pope and Popess as a model, cause, if you change Chess-King to Chess-Emperor and Chess-Queen to Chess-Empress, what shall you do with the bishops? They also needs to be promoted, and the logical alternative to bishop is Pope, but there are two bishops and two popes is not, what a good Christian desired. So Pope and Popess, but that could cause other trouble.

The chess-bishop existed already in 12th century, though it was in the Cessolis interpretations changed to an "Old" or "Elder", "councillor" or "Adviser", for instance in this way ...

Image


... 1463 in a Heidelberger Chess manuscript.

In the Chess-Tarot-Version of 1463 (16 trumps of Charles VI) the Empress was not present, and so it needn't a popess, and the Chess-Queen was presented as Pope, avoiding a double Pope or a Pope with Popess. The bishop was interpreted as an "old man" (hermit, Father Time) as in the Cessolis tradition, but with a bad counterpart and counter-adviser, the "hanging man" and this is a young man. So this version was free of the Popess problem and had solved the double bishop with a good/bad contrast of the adviser.

The Cary-Yale, also a Chess version, has Emperor and Empress, but we don't know, which card were replacing
the bishop roles. This might have been also hermit and hanging man (as the deck already shows Petrarca elements as Fama), but might have had in contrast Pope and Papessa (as prolongation of the bishop-motif) ... well, we don't know it, these cards are missing. Both versions are somehow logical. But if it hadn't Pope and Popessa, would it then mean, that Pope and Papessa never had been on a card deck before?

We've a complete generation of Imperatori deck evolution before and from the connection to Karnöffel we know, that Pope and Imperator=Keyser=Emperor were essentials in these decks, a major topic in any case.

This should have been enough, that Empress-Emperor-Pope-Papessa idea appeared with some guarantee before the Cary-Yale and VERY probably also already in chess context.
You don't need expensive Trionfi cards to play chess with cards ... With a normal 4x16-deck (64-cards) you could imitate twice the 32 chess-figures, so you could care for 4 players to play 2 games. And if you were ready with it, you could play other games with the cards.

I don't know, if you ever took a look at ..
http://games.rengeekcentral.com/

.. this is Alfonso the Wise's (nearly Emperor once) book of chess of late 13th century. The appendix is especially worth reading, it's astonishing, how much different games they got with a minimum of playing material. The times were poor, it was necessary to make a lot out of few things only. So playing card decks, which also could replace normal chess figures are somehow logical. And they were already logical before 1440.

mikeh wrote: Huck: What I find attractive in Ross’s analysis is his emphasis on printed cards as the trend-setters. Such dissemination has a qualitatively more powerful effect on tarot card development than luxury cards.
I don't mind the importance of mass production to determine the real successful deck - the question is, when this mass-production started to exist.
But luxury decks wouldn't have imitated mass production decks. And they wouldn't have made worthwhile 5x14 and 5x16-decks, if already a 22-version existed. And there are only spurious indications, that these mass-production existed in Bologna. And in stylish questions the intellectual taste of Ferrara was not interested to imitate "bad taste" of Bologna.
..
Rosenwald has been dated "circa 1500",
... this is a rough estimation
... and the Strambotto is also dated, much more precisely, as circa 1500 (due to the publisher's dates). Depaulis takes this as evidence that the Popess was dropped in Florence at some time shortly before 1500, and the numbering of the Charles VI reflects this - meaning that the Popess had been literally removed from this old deck at some point - if she existed at all and the missing figure, with the number "II", were not another Emperor. This might also allow us to date the Rosenwald sheet to earlier than 1500.
The Charles VII might be 37 years older than this ca. 1500 ... whatever you say, 37 years are a very long time, more than a generation. In the year 2010 and also in 15th century. The Strambotto isn't clear, if it is "Florentine", this person Serafino is rather "international". As already shown, the Strombotto poem has more similarity to Minchiate than to the Rosenwald.
How do we find out which came first, the Strambotto and Rosenwald or the Charles VI numbering etc.?
The hand painted cards should be older. And the Charles not necessarily had numbers, if it mainly imitated chess. As already said, between these productions are generations.

...
By the time of the PMB, however ....
The 14 Bembo cards followed the 5x14-idea, so it hadn't anything to do with chess.

Cary-Yale and Charles VI have (probably) 16 trumps, so they might be chess imitations and after a control they still look like chess imitations. That's another game idea. Chess figures are distinguished by their ability to move, they've not a real hierarchy, any figure can beat each other figure. Though, their ability to move creates a sort of "hierarchy of importance" and "by definition", the King/Emperor is the most important figure, although weak in the fight or by his moving possibilities.

The Bembo cards need a hierarchy between the cards, the chess versions not necessarily. We see from the later development, that the 5x14-version determines the later decks, the chess-variations lose their function and real players prefer to play chess with wooden figures and not with cards (a lot of deck ideas appear and die, that isn't unusual).
Chess was at this time not played as today, in variations it was even played with dice and probably the recorded variations mirror not the complete number of variations (which should have been many).

The later successful card game Tarot strongly is influenced by the idea of a hierarchy between the cards, which leads to the numbering tradition and to memory-poems of the row (the whole is far from chess).
But at the technical side of the game it isn't a real big difference, if you play it with 14, 16, 21 or 22 special cards, a hierarchy is a hierarchy and decides the issue of a trick - and that's needed for Tarot games, but also appears in other trick-taking card games.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Bolognese sequence

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Hi Mike,
mikeh wrote:
We know that Florentine artisans emigrated to Milan in the 1440s...
This statement needs a citation. The Visconti and Medici had been enemies, and nobody that I’ve read sees evidence of Florentine influence in Milanese art at that time. With the Sforza it was different, but that was the 1450’s.
So I can see luxury card painters having introduced the Florentine pattern into Milan, resulting in the style we see in the Visconti Sforza.
I provided the citation here, back on page 16 (I know this thread is long and confusing...)
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&start=150#p5547
I suspect it was the privileged classes who adopted this game from the Bolongese scholars who first created it, and began commissioning luxury versions. The first recorded is that of the Este, by their house artist Sagramoro in 1442 (not extant); the next luxury versions are those of Visconti, Brambilla and Cary Yale, done by Bonifacio Bembo between 1443-1445 (Bandera 1999) - these are extant; the next seems to be the Issy-Warsaw cards, in Ferrarese style, around 1450. In this the Chariot resembles the Visconti Chariots, which shows mutual influence of their styles. On the other hand, the Visconti-Sforza Hermit looks like the Florentine Charles VI and Catania Hermits, dating probably from the late 1450s. My conclusion is that luxury cards were highly sought after and changed hands as gifts among the privileged classes during the 1440s and 1450s.

If the Florentine style of luxury cards influenced the Milanese style, it could have been the game was introduced through the Borromeo family, who originated in Tuscany, and by the 1440s were extremely influential in the Visconti court and Milanese milieu, while maintaining contact with Tuscany. Their interest in Trionfi is proven by the fresco of wealthy people playing the game on the wall of a room in their palace in Milan, which is contemporary with the composition of the two Visconti packs. Tuscan influence also came from immigration of artisans from Tuscany into Milan in the 1440s -
The (silk) industry expanded more rapidly in the west. In Milan it was already in evidence in the 1440s, when Duke Filippo Maria Visconti took a personal interest in its development, appointing agents with the task of attracting foreign craftsmen. In 1442, his envoys came up with the name of a Florentine, Pietro di Bartolo, who was welcomed with open arms in Milan and later came to be counted as the founder of the local silk industry. After 1443 he was joined by many other artisans and entrepreneurs who arrived in Milan from Liguria and Tuscany (especially Lucca), and in the 1450s there was also a considerable immigration of Bergamask craftsmen and setaioli who had previously settled in Venice.
(Luca Molà, The Silk Industry in Renaissance Venice (Johns Hopkins UP, 2000) pp. 3-4)

So there was plenty of room for an importation of Florentine cards in the early 1440s. We seem to have a triangle of Florence-Ferrara-Milan for luxury cards, with Florence being the dominant model originally (Jacopo di Poggino is called a "card painter" (depintore di naibi) in Florence in 1446, although printed cards were already strongly present), Ferrara remaining an in-house speciality of the Este, and Milan's pattern coming to be preferred in the 1450s (witnessed in Malatesta's letter to the Duchess Bianca Maria requesting cards from the Cremona workshop in 1452; although a condottiere for Florence (although decommissioned at the time of his request for the cards), he nevertheless sought Milanese cards).
What does Florence—as opposed to Padua--have to do with the Bembo? The style of the CY and original PMB is Lombard, perhaps with some Paduan influence (from their time in Brescia), and in the second artists’ cards, Ferrarese.
I'm not talking about the style, which is obviously done by artists with those various backgrounds. I'm only suggesting that Florentine luxury cards were conceivably the model, or inspiration, for the Milanese/Cremonese artists - I wouldn't expect them to try to copy the style. If Florentine artisans, possibly including a card painter or two, began coming in 1443, that is enough time for the Brambilla and Cary Yale to have been commissioned, and adapted from the Florentine model.

Remember we have no evidence of the C ordering being used in Milan until 1547, with Alciato's list (actually it is the earliest evidence of the C order anywhere, the next is probably Catelin Geoffroy's Tarot (1556) and then Susio's Pavia poem (c. 1570)). My contention has always been that the French occupation, beginning in 1499, introduced the C order to Milan. Thus, we have no idea how the Visconti cards were ordered, but I would suggest it was a variety of A.
Image

Re: Bolognese sequence

179
mikeh wrote: For the early 1440’s, however, it is a different situation. The number 14 and its multiples, or a few more, appear regularly. That is why Vitali’s postulation of a 14 trump printed deck is appealing. Where it came from is again another matter: Florence, Bologna, and Ferrara all remain possibilities, both for the 14 of the 40’s and the 22 of the late 50’s. That we have no records of such decks in Bologna may be just because the Bentivoglio records were destroyed in 1507.
We are in the same position with regard to Milan, where the Ducal records were also destroyed (or at least, they have always been lost) with the advent of the Ambrosian Republic, 1447. But there we have luxury cards, heirlooms, which we don't have for Bologna. Perhaps the Bentivoglios had a Bolognese artist makes some - we know they had Mitelli do one in 1665.
So it’s first the Rosenwald and Strambotto, then the Charles VI etc. numbering. But if Huck (following Steve) is right, in his most recent posts, the Strambotto might be before the Rosenwald. If so, we seem to have first no Popess, then Popess, then no Popess.
I forgot to answer this point, but the Strambotti de triumphi seems to be anonymous. We can't use Serafino's biography to find out anything about it. I'll get back to that.

Popess - no Popess - Popess is counterintuitive - there is no reason not to prefer dating the Rosenwald sheet a decade earlier, c. 1490, so the only presumption that remains (in my scenario) is a change from two Emperors and Popes to the Rosenwald configuration. Either that, or the Popess and Empress are original features, and the Bolognese changed it. You already know why I prefer the first scenario - the unlikeliness of inventing rival Popes and Emperors after the schism was ended and the Council (and conciliar controversy) was a distant memory (not to mention the fall of Constantinople in 1453, eliminating the Eastern Empire), and the conservatism of Bologna's game, in contrast to Florence's continual evolution.
It strikes me that the Rosenwald might be a late 15th century experiment that didn’t catch on, one that attempted to keep Death at 13 and Temperance lower than Death, but also have both a Bagatto (absent from the Bolognese Tarocchino)
? - Bologna certainly has a Bagattino
and a Popess (absent from Minchiate), by giving two virtue cards the same number. The Rosenwald is odd in some of its imagery, too: Lover, Devil, Star, Moon, and Sun.

Death’s number is a general problem about the A order’s being primary. If there are four “papi”, including a Popess, then either Death is not 13, or there is no Bagatto, or two cards share a number.
The Bolognese don't number the Bagattino. They started putting numbers on the cards in the late 18th century, but rules from 1754 show that even before numbers began appearing, the Bagattino was considered numberless. He had a position, the "lowest" (ordinal number), but no number (cardinal number). In contrast to the Fool, who has no position. Fool and Bagattino are also called contatori (counters), because they both act as "wild cards" in a restricted sense, being able to substitute for missing cards in sequences and combinations.
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Re: Bolognese sequence

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:I forgot to answer this point, but the Strambotti de triumphi seems to be anonymous. We can't use Serafino's biography to find out anything about it. I'll get back to that.
Sorry, my bad; from the link you gave I understood it was taken from one of the 16th century collected works of Serafino, my lack of understanding of the language and difficulties with reading through the text online. Huck also seems to be under the same misunderstanding, could you clarify the position with the poems and its inclusion in the text you linked too?