Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:The first scenes show the note that was passed to him that warned him of the betrayal, but which he didn't read.

Actually it looks like a pack of playing cards ... but probably you're right.

Nice find, Robert.
The name of the artist ... something like this?
"Apollonio di Giovanni (di Tomaso) [Dido Master; Master of the Jarves Cassoni; Virgil Master; Compagno di Pesellino]"

I also think, that Apollonio paints similar to the Charles VI. He has a very special sense for head decorations.

Thank you Robert.

This cassone seems to represent a very similar scene.
I think I have seen other "cassoni" in which scenes from classical history were represented. Maybe a triumph of Chastity was seen as appropriate for the bride, while historical exempla were dedicated to the groom?

Marco

mikeh wrote: You talk a lot about destruction of records in all the cities. Well,much of Ferrara was destroyed in the salt war, yet there are still records. Much of Milan was destroyed by the French and others, yet the Sforza-era correspondence and other records of tarot remain, such as the Borommeo mural, and numerous decks. Florence experienced very little destruction, it is the best preserved city of them all, yet there is nothing there, in records or paintings, to suggest tarot early on. Bologna largely escaped destruction, mainly the Bentivoglio palace was destroyed.. There is nothing there, either. According to Ady, some of the Bologna records were moved to Ferrara. I assume they have been examined for tarot information, with nothing found Yet somehow for you Florence and Bologna become the main centers of tarot dissemination. I don't get it.

Bentivoglio and Visconti record-destruction were targeted, intentional destructions. This is different from historical accident. Louis XII did not try to erase all trace of Sforza rule in Milan, including destroying their administrative records and palaces, as Julius did with Bentivoglio in Bologna, and republican partisans - or just looters - did with Visconti's palace and records in 1447.

The Borromeo fresco is lucky to have survived, if you have seen a picture of what happened to the palace in WWII (but it was already photographed by then anyway, although only in b/w). That's historical accident.

If the Este records had been destroyed, Ferrara's early Tarot status would look like Milan's, slightly attenuated - some early luxury cards, possibly as early as 1450 (if we have judged the Issy Chariot/Warsaw cards rightly), and Trotti's mention in 1456. If Visconti's records had been preserved, we might have the commissions for the Brambilla and Cary-Yale, or at least mentions of trionfi. In any case, the overall picture, given in the chart I posted, would not change much.

Florence does have early evidence of trionfi, being a permitted game in 1450. It also has some of the earliest cards, Charles VI, Catania, Rothschild, all plausibly 1450s or 1460s (1420s has been argued for Rothschild (that's the "?" in the chart, but you can see that it is at such variance with the pattern that it seems highly implausible to be dated so early - but it is early whatever the case). The lack of Medicean commissions just suggests that the Medicis weren't big trionfi players.

Bologna's lack of either luxury cards or documented commissions, and the insularity of their game, just suggests to me that Bologna's was always a popular production, staying below history's radar for the most part. By "popular" I don't mean the street or tavern, nor widespread - I mean people of Trotti's class, educated, professional.

Why Bologna or Florence? Because Marchione Burdochio's pack was of this last kind, slightly out of reach of the lowest kind of card player. The simplest solution is that since he is from Bologna, dealing in silks (chiefly taffetà in these records), the Bolognese speciality, then his other wares also came from Bologna, especially if they are novelties (no use trying to sell something Ferrara already had) - meaning carte da trionfi were a novelty. Non-luxury novelty from Bologna, suggests Bologna as the invention place. Bologna's A pattern's relation to Florence's allows Florence also to be the invention place. In any case A, and in any case sub-luxurious, and not courtly.

The pattern of evidence suggests the game was invented very close to 1442, which makes the presence of a "popular" form of the game in Bologna already by then hard to explain by a Milanese or Ferrarese courtly invention scenario. It had to have gone out of the courts and adapted quickly - too quickly for the pattern. If you like courtly invention, you are almost forced to suggest a position outside of the <5 years of the pattern; you are back to guessing, a decade or so if you like. Vitali likes 30+ years (first decade of 15th century); Depaulis wouldn't be surprised at 1430; Huck avoids the problem by saying that "trionfi" was just a new name for many old things, and the final form wasn't established until around 1490.

Study all the evidence, take your pick of scenarios, draw your lines of descent and see what is the most parsimonious theory. Some conditions will have to be presumed and remain unprovable, but the fewer the better.

Here's mine - an original set of 22 subjects, added to a 56-card pack to invent a new game called "Trionfi", gets adopted in various regions and by patrons who make luxury versions. Three families of regional styles emerge, with sub-variations in each. The original game was invented for the professional, courtier class, in drawn and handcoloured or printed form, and was taken up by the rulers themselves and the wealthy elites, and made according to luxury specifications.

Luxury versions stay faithful to the 22 subjects except for one instance, the Cary Yale. The augmented trumps appear less remarkable when we note that the court cards are augmented as well - this luxury variation's formula was "augmentation".

The luxury market's heyday was the 1440s to the 1460s, declining afterward steadily to the end of the century.

Variations based on the standard structure appear later as well - like Boiardo and Sola Busca.

Why anyone would want a more complex scenario I can only guess. One reason seems to be that the later the 22 standard subjects emerge as a group, the more chance that Kabbalistic ideas might have influenced the structure.

mikeh wrote: Ross said,

this B order, mass-produced, goes to France, where they like the numbered cards with Death at 13, but the Virtues are inelegantly placed; a Lyon cardmaker (say) rearranges the Virtues but keeps one above Death to keep it at 13, while at the same time retaining the high World.

Well, that part, at the end of your post, is what I already said. It makes sense and is enough. Your long exposition before that, about the A order's journey to Lyon, is not much in accord with Occam's razor.

It just seems an inescapable conclusion that an influx of Florentine artisans into Lyon, beginning in the 1450s, would bring the A order. Italians from other regions must have gone too. If from Venice, where we know there was a card industry, then they would have brought the B order. It might be best to imagine Lyon in the second half of the 15th century as a "melting pot" of Tarots and other kinds of cards. For instance, the trumps of Geofroy in 1557 show a mix of styles, and apparently unique creations, while his suits are those of Virgil Solis' Nuremburg cards of 1552.

My response to Ross's next post:
A might still have been first, with no Popess, in both Florence and Milan (and Bologna, if you insist). Or actually, if there were only 14-20 trumps in 1440-1442, an ancestor of A. Then, with a Popess, B develops in Ferrara (or Venice, I don't care, but before that its ancestor, perhaps shorter, is in Ferrara). The Rosenwald is then an unpopular attempt to insert the Popess into the A order. Yes, the C order might have been invented in France, from the B order. Or in Milan, after the Popess and perhaps other new cards are introduced. Or in Milan it might have gone: (1) ancestor to A; to (2) something between A and C, unknown; to (3) C, in France.

If by "no Popess" you mean that her place is occupied by another Pope, I can agree with most of that scenario - except for your continued insistence on there being "shorter" sequences of trumps. But I keep believing that there must have been either TWO females, or none - to balance the two males. In other words, I don't easily imagine an Empress being "inserted" among the Papi all by herself, her presence gradually turning one of the Popes into a woman. I imagine it was done at the same time.

The Strambotto is our only documentary proof of an Empress in any A order, and Rosenwald is our only physical example. Rather than inserting a completely new card, the Popess, into the Strambotto's order, it seems better to interpret the Strambotto as standing midway between Rosenwald and the Minchiate, as a witness to the removal of one of the Papi, before the gender of the Empress was changed and as such all three are present in the Minchiate.

The best explanation of the Empress turning into a "Grand Duke" seems to be that an isolated female just seemed wrong - the Pope had to be changed for religious sensitivity, but the presence of Imperial figures in a card game posed no problem, so an Imperial female's only problem must be her gender. Force of inertia, the two other males, changed her, an example which adds weight to my contention that an isolated female in the Cary Yale should make us suspect there was another one, but corresponding to the Pope (besides the commonsense argument that all four figures should be there anyway).

This is the information from the museum for the Caesar painting:

Apollonio di Giovanni (about 1415/17 - 1465) and Marco del Buono Giamberti (?1403-after 1480)

The Assassination and Funeral of Julius Caesar
?tempera and gilding on panel
Fox-Strangways Gift, 1850

Tales of ancient heroism from Plutarch's Lives often featured in the decoration of painted chests. Dating from about 1455-1460, this tells a story in episodes defined by Roman architecture. Latin inscriptions identify the characters.

From left to right, Caesar sacrifices to Apollo, then goes to the Forum. In front of the Pantheon he is given a warning. Next, he is assassinated in the Senate. Above his funeral Pyre, at Trajans' column, Caesar's spirit watches.

--

Here's a (poor) photo of the whole scene, at least you can get a sense of how it all fits together:

Great Robert, thanks!

I'd like a closer look at the Apollo and Caesar's spirit - I can't make out if it has a "soul" in it, it looks like it might be the comet that appeared a month or so after the assassination, which was taken to signify his apotheosis.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Great Robert, thanks!

I'd like a closer look at the Apollo and Caesar's spirit - I can't make out if it has a "soul" in it, it looks like it might be the comet that appeared a month or so after the assassination, which was taken to signify his apotheosis.

here is the Apollo:


I'm not sure if I have anything decent of the spirit, I'll take a look.
--ETA
Here's the best I can do:

hi Ross,

In my opinion the "4 papi"-phenomenon developed from ideas to transfer chess-king and chess-queen (also card king and card-queen) to Trionfi-card-emperor and Trionfi-card-empress.

This idea had consequences for the other chess figures, which also had to be "promoted". For the bishop figure it's known, that it was originally an elephant with the expression "alfin", in the Cessolis tradition it became the old or elder or the counciller, in a Slavic variant it has been an archer. The French name is fou and the German modern name is Läufer (runner), associating indirectly an idea of connection to the "messenger-pawn", which had some similarity to the Pagat. Nonetheless a very early bishop figure is known from 12th century from Northern Europe, so it existed, probably also for Italy.

The Hofämterspiel is said to have been produced 1455 in Bohemia for the young king Ladislaus, who had been 1452 (12-years-old) in Italy (beside other cities: in Ferrara) and with some guarantee he had seen Italian Trionfi cards of this time.
In his game 6 court cards are used, 4 of them are placed on numbers:

Ace = 1 = 4x Fools
6 = 4x Jungfrauwe
9 = 4x Marshall = Unter
10 = 4x Hofmeister = Ober
unnumbered = 4x King
unnumbered = 4x Queen

Although Ladislaus had seen Italian cards, it seems, that his painter wasn't impressed. No Trionfi cards. Instead the deck seems to have relations to the deck of Johannes of Rheinfelden, which knew 5 of 6 court cards in a 4x15 deck: Ober and Unter, Maid = Jungfrauwe, Queen + King ... for the moment we don't know, how the Aces were used - we're still waiting for a translation of the Johannes-of-Rheinfelden text.

But ... considering the French "fou"-expression for the chess bishop and the fact, that Emperor Charles IV had been educated at a French court (so had have French influences), we may translate the game of Ladislaus to ...

Card-King = Chess-King
Card-Queen = Chess-Queen
Card-Fool = Chess-Bishop alias CHESS-FOU
Card-Marshall = Chess-Knight
Card-Hofmeister = Chess-Rook
Jungfrauwe .... ??? ... = PAWNS

If we look at the Cary-Yale and its reconstruction, we see, that Filippo Maria filled the pawns-positions with Virtues, and all "female virtues" were probably all Jungfrauwe = "virgins" and the 7 virtues accompany the bride on her triumphal march, which probably also was a virgin.

Beside that the Hofämterspiel has enough professions to fulfill the usual Cessolis-expectation, that the pawns are professions.

So we have 3 Trionfi card decks (Trionfi interpreted as "Trionfi-function") surviving with Chess relations (all rather different and it was the enjoyment of high standing persons to have different decks) ...

1441 Cary-Yale
made for 16-year-old Bianca Maria
1455 Hofämterspiel
made for 15-years old King Ladislaus
1463 Charles VI
made for 14-years old Lorenzo de Medici

... and beside that we've an assumed, not really existing "Trionfi-deck" - so a fiction, of the citizens of Bologna with their clear interest of "liberty" of ca. 1440 with 22 cards - , which is said to have caused all that, what followed ... but all these humble persons in reigning positions didn't dare to extend the number of trumps, this was "too risky" ... what shall one conclude about the reality of the Bologna-early-deck fiction?

High nobility had an interest to educate their children to the game, which was officially accepted as "educative worthwhile" and this game was chess. There we have the motif for Trionfi cards and the reason, why Trionfi cards were allowed and other card games not.

A number of 21 special cards would have associated the game with dice and there are 21 points on a die, which were variously attacked and forbidden strongly. It simply wasn't their interest at specific times, when card prohibition still was strong, to have this association.

Well, the 4 Papi developed from chess, when the bishop needed to be promoted, cause Chess-king became Trionfi-card-Emperor (and the promotion caused bishop to Pope and the question, what to do with the second bishop ... so it's not really possible to fix the appearance of the 4-Papi-rules to the years 1438-1441) and if this fails, the suggestion "Bologna deck in 1438-1441" drops back to Marchione Burdochi, and where his decks came from, you say "from Bologna" and I assume "from Sagramoro", but even if "from Bologna" would be true, nowhere is an indication, that it had 22 special cards.

Recently I discovered to my own astonishment in the "The Precipice" - thread, that the Precipice appears on 6 of the 14 Bembo cards and that they've (in numbers, they appear at the only imagined Bembo numbers 0=11, 1, 6, 10, 12, 13 ) some parallels to the Hofämterspiel (which uses 1, 6, 9, 10, [11], [12] for court cards) ...

compare viewtopic.php?f=12&t=426&start=20

wrote:Which to my own astonishment meets somehow (not completely) with the structure of the Hofämterspiel, which has court cards at

1 Fools
6 Jungfrauwe (virgins)
(9) Marshalls (... in the Bembo cards no cliff)
10 Hofmeister
11 (unnumbered in the original) Queens
12 (unnumbered in the original) Kings

Whatever it means, this is a little strange ... the discrepancy between both decks might have been caused by adapting the idea to a deck with less (or more cards), one system using 9-12 (4x12) and the other 10-13 (5x14) for something special (at one side court cards, at the other cliffs)

King Ladislaus, for whom the Hofämterspiel was made, was with Emperor Fredrick in Italy, 1452, 12 years old. He should have met Galeazzo Maria at Mantova, 8 years old ... .-)

This led to the idea, that the precipice was used by the designer to part the 14 cards for unknown reasons
in 2 groups, one with 6 and the other with 8. The group of 6 seems to indicate "6 risky actions or states", the group of 8 looks like "8 safe elements".

The "6 risky elements" might refer to 6 different chess figures, as there are king, queen, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns:

Fortune ... Queen
Magician ... King
Love ... pawn, as always
Fool ... might present a weak knight, but also fou = bishop has some logic
hanging man .. hanging from high = rook, tower
death ... an archer = archers were used as bishops, but might be knight

The "8 safe elements" might refer to 8 chess officers (without considering pawns):

Papessa = bishop
Empress = Queen
Emperor = King
Pope = bishop
Chariot = knight
Hermit = knight (or rook?)
Justice = Rook (or knight? with sword? with knight in background?)
Judgment = Rook

Although the 14 Bembo cards appear as the tradition, which brought up Tarot-Trionfi decks with a dominating hierarchical row (1-14 first), it also shows elements of the chess pattern.

So we have a fourth chess deck, following the Precipice detail, now to add to the other 3.

What do we have in the background of all these Trionfi documents up to the mid 1460's? We have real surviving cards and the connected decks have similarity to chess. The analyses of the findings lead to different variations, they show chess interpretations with different opinions, how to interprete the figures ... and all of them have only 14 or 16 special cards. We learn, that there was a discussion and the discussion led to different productions.

You're much too early with all your suspicions about mass productions here and there and variation A doing this and variation B doing that. And you've no evidence of mass-production for the early time.

And if we find a 22 version before or around this time, I would assume, that it would use different motifs.

One detail is interesting ... Justice in the Bembo version has a knight in the background, and so it looks like a knight figure. However, in Ferrara instead Justice was made (later) a very high trump (Nr.20), likely, cause it had been earlier a ROOK (my opinion at least).
The rook in the running chess versions of the time had a very strong position, the chess queen and chess bishop were earlier relative weak figures. So we have as the probable rooks in the Cary-Yale the figures FAME and JUDGMENT-ANGEL, which later in the Florentine deck Minchiate were the two highest trumps. As probably rooks in the Charles VI we've JUDGMENT and the TOWER (and in the Minchiate the Tower is the highest of the first 15 - before the break, when the 20 special Minchiate motifs are imported).

In the version of the Sola-Busca - with a production year of 1491 in far distance to this very early discussion - we have a Tower=Rook symbol at card 20:



... still second highest trump.

And for the Boiardo (I arrange it in a quote, that it is better seen)

In the Boiardo poem we have in Nr. 19

"Tempo, che gli homini a la morte sproni,
Nestor servasti, e si pur vinne al fine,
De un viver tal non par che se ragioni.

Time, you that hurry men to death,
You saved Nestor, and if in the end he came to an end,
It seems impossible to think of such a life. "

The keyword seems to be "Time" (= old Nestor), so "Father Time"

and in Nr. 20, which is in one pair with 19 we have:

"Oblivion di termine e confine
Del tutto sei, Elice e Dido a Lethe
Menasti, e famma e tempo hai in toe ruine.

Oblivion, you are the end and boundary
Of all, you took to Lethe Elice and Dido,
And among your ruins you have fame and time. "

Keyword is "Oblivion", "ruins" (as ruine" last word of the tercet) might associate "Tower" and "Rook", but Fame and Time are also mentioned ... Time is, as already recognized, Nr. 19, so "Fame" should associate Nr. 21. Here it is:

"Fortezza d'animo in Lucretia liete
Exequie fece: per purgar sua fama
Se uccise, e all'offensor tese atra rethe,
...
Dando exempio a chi 'l nome e l'honore ama.

Inner strength made happy the death of
Lucretia: to clean her fame
She killed herself, and she prepared for the offender a dark net,

Giving an example to those who love their own name and honour."

So, somehow, a sort of clear statement at the end of the poem

19. TIME
20. RUINE = TOWER = SAETTA
21. FAMA

Tower, twice at Nr. 20, both probably in Ferrara decks and probably 1487 and 1491 ... after the Ferrarese war, which wasn't old history in January 1487.
The proud chess knight Ercole, celebrated by Boiardo's Orlando's poem had learnt, what defeat means in 1487. He became more peaceful and in his later phase rather religious, actually infected by Savonarolism.

The Giovanni festivities in Florence had been stopped in 1478, after the assassination of Lorenzo's brother. It seems, that the whole Italian Trionfi culture took a pause, more or less. At the climax of this development Ferrara lost its feathers, but survived. Ercole's theatre initiative, starting already January 1486 was an operation to restore the old glamour of Ferrara, though on the background, that the economical conditions in Ferrara were still bad.
"Ferrara in ruins", that's the message of the high tower in these new Trionfi games, after the war, which ended in 1484.
A 22-structure was used twice in Ferrara, possibly (?) for the first time. Ferrara was often the initiator of something.

Well, that's later.

From our knowledge we have to assume, that after-1450 Milan preferred a 5x14 version and Ferrara also (70 cards note of 1457), but it should be assumed, that inside the Ferrarese mind was the idea "justice is a rook" and in the Milanese mind "Justice is a knight".



And with this we've 5 different Chess-Tarot versions to observe (Cary-Yale - Charles VI - Hofämterspiel - Bembo Cards - Ferrarese 14-trumps-variation), and if we would have full overview about all productions, we probably would have some more.

Chess is the elder brother of playing cards and still in 15th century unequal mightier than the social phenomenon playing cards. Galeazzo Maria Sforza has a little time with playing cards in 1468-69, but then his gambling interests are occupied with chess and betting on tennis. Meister Ingold has a long chapter about chess, which fills the half book and than a much smaller chapter about playing cards between other gaming occupations. Trotti is ready with Trionfi and card decks in 2-3 sentences at totally 35 pages, they're noted and that's all. On the negative prohibition side playing cards are small against dice. Simply : playing cards were still a small social phenomenon, a not too wide spread object a long time (maybe already of some more importance in Germany). Suitable for women and children, or very young men, at least at the courts.

Alfonso of Aragon left card-playing, when 18 ... this probably meets with the general understanding, when young men should become more serious in their behavior. Cards were for children and young men. Women did need them, as they had educative function with the children - so somehow allowed for women.

Chess, still focused in 15th century and still the king of the games, was improved and radically changed (inventing the moves of modern bishop and Queen) in ca. 1470 in Spain and the common change everywhere took only one generation ... so stated at a chess history page. 1495 it reached Italy, probably with a Spanish pope in 1492 ... I still have to study the details.

****
Thanks for the Strambotto information ... still there seems to be the (small) possibility, that it didn't happen before 1505 and so all these questions stay alive.

Ross wrote

Why Bologna or Florence? Because Marchione Burdochio's pack was of this last kind, slightly out of reach of the lowest kind of card player. The simplest solution is that since he is from Bologna, dealing in silks (chiefly taffetà in these records), the Bolognese speciality, then his other wares also came from Bologna, especially if they are novelties (no use trying to sell something Ferrara already had) - meaning carte da trionfi were a novelty. Non-luxury novelty from Bologna, suggests Bologna as the invention place.

Good argument, Ross, for Bolognese invention of the quasi-popular tarot. I didn't know about the rest of Burdochio's merchandise. Yes, silk was a Bolognese specialty, not a Ferrarese one. Perhaps your citation for this merchandise is back in the thread somewhere. I should read it, if it's accessible. It seems to count against Huck's proposal that Burdochio got his cards in Ferrara. That was a stumbling block for me.

Ross wrote

...Bologna's A pattern's relation to Florence's allows Florence also to be the invention place. In any case A, and in any case sub-luxurious, and not courtly.

The pattern of evidence suggests the game was invented very close to 1442, which makes the presence of a "popular" form of the game in Bologna already by then hard to explain by a Milanese or Ferrarese courtly invention scenario. It had to have gone out of the courts and adapted quickly - too quickly for the pattern.

Well, Picconino entered Bologna in May 1438, on behalf of Milan. He or an aide might have brought a Milanese deck, then or almost any time later, until the expulsion of his forces in June 1443. And there was the May 1441 wedding, which as market might have accelerated the production time, or as distribution point might have been another place to provide an enterprising Bolognese with the model. How much time does it take to produce a novelty item?

Ross wrote

Luxury versions stay faithful to the 22 subjects except for one instance, the Cary Yale. The augmented trumps appear less remarkable when we note that the court cards are augmented as well - this luxury variation's formula was "augmentation"..

As you know, there is evidence from Ferrara, too, that tarot did not have 22 trumps originally, as late as 1457, but rather 14, but this evidence is subjectd to interpretation.

"Augmentation." Are you saying that the Cary-Yale had 24 or 25 trumps, as Dummett once theorized? If so, what were the others, and what other examples or precedents do you have? I would think it more likely that the CY had 16 or 17 trumps (Fool, if any, unattached to any suit), based on the precedent of the Michelino. The Beinecke's associaton of trumps with suits was not invented by them, they tell me, nor was it unprecedented in Milan, since the same was true of the Michelino. And other decks, although perhaps not 5-suited ones, also had female knights at least. Hind shows French female knights in Vol. 1 of his Introduction to a History of the Woodcut. I am not sure when they were done, but they look fairly early to me.



We agree that C probably was invented by the French. B is Venice--is it safe to say 16th century? Late 15th century? Is it also Ferrarese? For the Charles VI and BAR, we surmise that the order was somewhat like the numbers on the Charles VI cards, the Rosenwald, the Tarocchino, the Sicilian and Minchiate--i.e. type A. It is the Minchiate, played in both Florence and Bologna, that really connects these citiesin tarot history, besides numerous cultural and political ties. So A is at least as old as Minchiate and the Rosenwald, again post-1490. We infer that the original order, more or less, in Bologna and Florence was the same. Thus the A, in comparison to B and C, is the "original" order, in the sense of being the one of the three we can project back the furthest. As For the CY, PMB, and d'Este, do we have any clue what the order was, or what generally the order "originally" was in Milan and Ferrara?

Your (and Huck's) contention that there had to be a Popess if there was a Pope, an Emperor, and an Empress, still seems to me dogmatic. Moreover, even if Bologna was the point of origin, or of quasi-popular dissemination in 1440-1442, it might have had three "papi" then, to be on the safe side (2 Emperors and a pope, if anyone asked, or vice versa), augmented to 4 after Constantinople.

Ross wrote

Why anyone would want a more complex scenario I can only guess. One reason seems to be that the later the 22 standard subjects emerge as a group, the more chance that Kabbalistic ideas might have influenced the structure.

There could have been Kabbalist influence at any point, at the time of origin or after (for the latter, to keep the number at 22, and in possible esoteric use of the cards, a la Pico). Assuming that Bolognese Jewish Kabbalists spoke Italian, in a university town such as Bologna, 1440 would be as favorable as 1460. A Jewish student of Kabbalist literature there might at any time have shared with an inquiring university student a brief outline of the sefiroth. There just wasn't yet a brash, young, rich man going into print then. For myself, I never took seriously the idea that Kabbalah might have influenced the tarot at its point of origin, until this thread and the Bologna University hypothesis. But without further evidence, other factors, such as the ones we have been discussing, are the only ones relevant as to how tarot developed in this pre-Pico period. As for why 22 at all, I am satisfied with Vitali's quote from Origen and the accidents of historical development.

Ross wrote

Why Bologna or Florence? Because Marchione Burdochio's pack was of this last kind, slightly out of reach of the lowest kind of card player. The simplest solution is that since he is from Bologna, dealing in silks (chiefly taffetà in these records), the Bolognese speciality, then his other wares also came from Bologna, especially if they are novelties (no use trying to sell something Ferrara already had) - meaning carte da trionfi were a novelty. Non-luxury novelty from Bologna, suggests Bologna as the invention place.

Good argument, Ross, for Bolognese invention of the quasi-popular tarot. I didn't know about the rest of Burdochio's merchandise. Yes, silk was a Bolognese specialty, not a Ferrarese one. Perhaps your citation for this merchandise is back in the thread somewhere. I should read it, if it's accessible. It seems to count against Huck's proposal that Burdochio got his cards in Ferrara. That was a stumbling block for me.

Ross wrote

...Bologna's A pattern's relation to Florence's allows Florence also to be the invention place. In any case A, and in any case sub-luxurious, and not courtly.

The pattern of evidence suggests the game was invented very close to 1442, which makes the presence of a "popular" form of the game in Bologna already by then hard to explain by a Milanese or Ferrarese courtly invention scenario. It had to have gone out of the courts and adapted quickly - too quickly for the pattern.

Well, Picconino entered Bologna in May 1438, on behalf of Milan. He or an aide might have brought a Milanese deck, then or almost any time later, until the expulsion of his forces in June 1443. And there was the May 1441 wedding, which as market might have accelerated the production time, or as distribution point might have been another place to provide an enterprising Bolognese with the model. How much time does it take to produce a novelty item?

Ross wrote

Luxury versions stay faithful to the 22 subjects except for one instance, the Cary Yale. The augmented trumps appear less remarkable when we note that the court cards are augmented as well - this luxury variation's formula was "augmentation"..

As you know, there is evidence from Ferrara, too, that tarot did not have 22 trumps originally, as late as 1457, but rather 14, but this evidence is subjectd to interpretation.

"Augmentation." Are you saying that the Cary-Yale had 24 or 25 trumps, as Dummett once theorized? If so, what were the others, and what other examples or precedents do you have? I would think it more likely that the CY had 16 or 17 trumps (Fool, if any, unattached to any suit), based on the precedent of the Michelino. The Beinecke's associaton of trumps with suits was not invented by them, they tell me, nor was it unprecedented in Milan, since the same was true of the Michelino. And other decks, although perhaps not 5-suited ones, also had female knights at least. Hind shows French female knights in Vol. 1 of his Introduction to a History of the Woodcut. I am not sure when they were done, but they look fairly early to me.

Note added Dec. 2018: on closer inspection these female riders all have crowns imbedded in their hats. So they are queens!
We agree that C probably was invented by the French. B is Venice--is it safe to say 16th century? Late 15th century? Is it also Ferrarese? For the Charles VI and BAR, we surmise that the order was somewhat like the numbers on the Charles VI cards, the Rosenwald, the Tarocchino, the Sicilian and Minchiate--i.e. type A. Minchiate, especially played in both Florence and Bologna, connects these citiesin tarot history, besides numerous cultural and political ties in the 15th century. So A is at least as old as Minchiate and the Rosenwald, again post-1490. We infer that the original order, more or less, in Bologna and Florence was the same, because of the strong traditions there. Thus the A, in comparison to B and C, is the "original" order, in the sense of being the one of the three we can project back the furthest. As For the CY, PMB, and d'Este, do we have any clue what the order was, or what generally the order "originally" was in Milan and Ferrara?

Your (and Huck's) contention that there had to be a Popess if there was a Pope, an Emperor, and an Empress, still seems to me dogmatic. Moreover, even if Bologna was the point of origin, or of quasi-popular dissemination in 1440-1442, it might have had three "papi" then, to be on the safe side (2 Emperors and a pope, if anyone asked, or vice versa), augmented to 4 after Constantinople.

Ross wrote

Why anyone would want a more complex scenario I can only guess. One reason seems to be that the later the 22 standard subjects emerge as a group, the more chance that Kabbalistic ideas might have influenced the structure.

There could have been Kabbalist influence at any point, at the time of origin or after (for the latter, to keep the number at 22, and in possible esoteric use of the cards, a la Pico). Assuming that Bolognese Jewish Kabbalists spoke Italian, in a university town such as Bologna, 1440 would be as favorable as 1460. A Jewish student of Kabbalist literature there might at any time have shared with an inquiring university student a brief outline of the sefiroth. There just wasn't yet a brash, young, rich man going into print then. For myself, I never took seriously the idea that Kabbalah might have influenced the tarot at its point of origin, until this thread and the Bologna University hypothesis. But without further evidence, other factors, such as the ones we have been discussing, are the only ones relevant as to how tarot developed in this pre-Pico period. As for why 22 at all, I am satisfied with Vitali's quote from Origen and the accidents of historical development.