Michael,

The extremely fragmentary nature of our documentation is often ignored on this list. Some people can't even grasp the idea that surviving decks have lost cards.

One of your typical polemical statements, with which you seem to attempt to improve your helpless argumentative position in the related theme.

Guiniforte Barzizza ...

Ross at ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=868&p=12758&hilit= ... rte#p12758

I have never seen a comprehensive list of manuscripts, with date and provenance, of the poem [Trionfi poem by Petrarca] before it was first printed (even that I don't know off hand - 1473 perhaps).

The only use of it I have come across before 1441 is in a letter of Guiniforte Barzizza, from Milan in March 1439, to a Francesco Scitigles (otherwise unknown, I believe).
The book is a collection of writings of Gasparino and Guiniforte -
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/itali/ ... itali.html

The letter begins here -
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/itali/ ... /s122.html

Barzizza quotes extensively from the Trionfo d'Amore, parts 3 and 4, as well as from the Canzoniere, sonnet CXXXII.
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/itali/ ... /s128.html
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/itali/ ... /s129.html
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/itali/ ... /s130.html
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/itali/ ... /s131.html

The only abiding impression I get from my readings is that the Trionfi did not become popular until the 1440s. There seems to be more recent literature on the subject, if you look around the web for bibliography, but it will take a determined effort to find these studies. The most recent I have that discusses the question is Gian Carlo Alessio, "The 'lectura' of the Triumphi in the Fifteenth Century", in Konrad Eisenbichler and Amilcare A. I annucci, eds., Petrarch's Triumphs, Allegory and Spectacle (University of Toronto Italian Studies 4, Doverhouse Editions, 1990), pp. 269-290. He refers to evidence about the Portilia commentary, published in 1473, and suggests it was written after 1426, because it mentions the author Celsus, who was only becoming known after that date. It is not completely clear what the origins are, but they stretch from Rimini, through Florence, to Naples.

Prints of the subjects, in the their "canonical" artistic form, invented in Florence, begin appearing in the 1460s.

So Guiniforte Barzizza had a copy of at least the Triumph of Love (the Trionfi are not listed in Visconti's library), and the poem obviously had a devoted underground following, but the lavish illustrated "canonical" editions seem to have begun appearing in the 1440s.

A "Scitigles" had been identified as a Francesco Centellas ...


https://books.google.de/books?id=CuvSMN ... es&f=false

... which is confirmed by this anonymous timeline:
http://www.unil.ch/files/live//sites/ce ... rte_3_.pdf







It seems, that the person also used the name "Raimondo Riusec"


https://books.google.de/books?id=fOhVAw ... ec&f=false

It seems, that the family name had been "de Centelles Riu-sec i de Cardona" ...
http://www.geni.com/surnames/de-centell ... de-cardona
... with Cardona being a place near Barcelona (so in Aragon then)
https://www.google.de/maps/place/08261+ ... 3f525b48e3

... possibly this man ...

Francesc Gilabert de Centelles-Riu-sec i de Queralt

Ramon de Riu-sec
hist
Comte d’Oliva i camarlenc d’Alfons el Magnànim, conegut també per Ramon de Riu-sec.
?, 1408 — Esglésies, Sardenya, 1480?
Fill de Bernat de Centelles-Riu-sec i de Cabrera. Prengué part en les guerres d’Itàlia al servei d’Alfons el Magnànim del 1433 al 1458. Com a segon comandant de la flota reial, capitanejada per Bernat de Vilamarí, es distingí en la segona batalla naval de Ponça (1454), contra els genovesos. Formà part de l’ambaixada tramesa pel rei a Calixt III, per felicitar-lo per la seva elecció (1455). El rei Alfons li donà Empúries de Sardenya (1438), on tenia altres possessions heretades dels seus pares, i li concedí el títol de comte d’Oliva (1449). El 1444 permutà el seu feu de Naso a Sicília pels de Galati, Xarafulli, Xaratorossa, Capproni i Palazzolo, de Pere de Cardona i de Villena, comte de Collesano. El 1478 fou nomenat portantveus de governador de València. Sembla que morí a Sardenya, on havia anat per intervenir a favor de la seva germana Caterina, casada amb Salvador d’Arborea, comte de Goceà, a qui havien estat confiscats els béns.

http://www.enciclopedia.cat/EC-GEC-0016890.xml

A piece of the family history with the focus on 1439 ...
http://www.araldicasardegna.org/genealo ... eacuto.htm

Oltre a Francesco Giliberto rimasero in Sardegna le sorelle Caterina, sposata con Salvatore Cubello, e Violante, sposata col sassarese Angelo Cano; Bernardo, sempre più impegnato lontano dall'isola, cessò di essere viceré nel 1430 e probabilmente morì nel 1433.
Francesco Giliberto, dopo la morte di suo padre, seguì Alfonso V nelle sue imprese lasciando la Sardegna; non partecipò alla definitiva liquidazione della contea di Monteleone, quando il castello fu preso e distrutto durante il viceregno di Giacomo di Besora. Tuttavia il favore reale non gli venne meno; nel 1437 fu nominato Governatore del Logudoro, le navi che possedeva e con le quali faceva guerra da corsa ottennero la franchigia delle prede. Nel 1438 riprese i titoli paterni di consigliere e di maresciallo ed ottenne il privilegio di poter alienare liberamente i propri feudi e di poterli trasmettere ereditariamente in via femminile o collaterale anche ab intestato. Ottenne così un'ulteriore estensione dei privilegi già concessi a suo padre ed il complesso dei suoi feudi assunse così caratteristiche simili a quelle che avevano gli altri grandi feudi sardi, in linea con le crescenti aspirazioni autonomistiche dei baroni. La morte di suo padre aveva lasciato insoluto il problema della dote delle sorelle. Il ruolo che egli aveva assunto al seguito del re lo costringeva a spese rilevanti. Dovette così trovarsi in momentanee difficoltà finanziarie per cui tra il 14 marzo ed il 14 maggio 1439 arrivò ad una complessa transazione con suo cognato Salvatore Cubello, al quale cedette il Costavals, staccato dal Mejlogu, per tremila ducati d'oro veneziani e semila lire di Cagliari, col patto di tenersi il territorio in pegno finché il Cubello non avesse pagato i tremila ducati. Gli vendette il Marghine e Macomer, antico oggetto del contendere tra le due famiglie, per ventiquattromilacinquecento lire cagliaritane; forse questo secondo contratto mascherava solo un prestito in quanto Francesco Giliberto si impegnava a garantire il passaggio di proprietà al cognato e ai suoi successori, obbligando l'intero patrimonio feudale ed una penale di ottomila lire. La necessità di contanti del nostro doveva essere forte; nel 1441 gli veniva ingiunto di pagare tremila lire al re che doveva far fronte alle spese per le sue guerre e nel 1442 vendette al cittadino sassarese Cristoforo Manno per tremila ducati un'altra considerevole parte del Mejlogu. Alcuni anni dopo le sue condizioni finanziarie appaiono più floride; nel 1447 acquistò dal nipote Michele Cano per quattromilasettecento ducati d'oro di Venezia la baronia del Coghinas e una nuova porzione del territorio di Osilo.

Somehow I get, that a letter about Amore at 4th of March 1439 from Guiniforte Barzizza to Scitigles (= Francesc Gilabert de Centelles-Riu-sec i de Queralt Ramon de Riu-sec) might have something to do with Amore between Salvatore Cubello [future brother-in-law of Scitiglis] and Catalina [sister of Scitiglis], the complex interactions seem to have taken place in March till May the same year, so rather close to the mentioned letter.

About Salvatore Cuballo I get this biography ...



... which gives the impression, that he became prisoner in 1435 and was released in 1435.

The other note about him gives the impression, that he stayed in Milan till 1439 (?) ... maybe I misunderstood this.



The genealogical record speaks of a marriage in 1439, this text dates the wedding earlier.

Hi, Huck,

Huck wrote:Michael,

The extremely fragmentary nature of our documentation is often ignored on this list. Some people can't even grasp the idea that surviving decks have lost cards.

One of your typical polemical statements, with which you seem to attempt to improve your helpless argumentative position in the related theme.

Really?

Several of the prominent posters to the list routinely take findings out of context, and assign those findings extravagant importance. This often takes the form of focusing on a particular finding and then jumping to a highly speculative conclusion. For example, several folks seem to have adopted the view that Tarot was invented in Florence, and to take that as an established fact. This ignores "the extremely fragmentary nature of our documentation", making my comment an observation of fact rather than a polemical statement.

Assuming that Florence is the original home of Tarot is the polemical position.

Several of the prominent posters to the list also persistently fail to accept the fact that every early deck we have has lost cards. Failing to accept that, in an "attempt to improve your helpless argumentative position in the related theme", is the polemical position. My comment is simply an observation of two related facts: Lost cards are the norm, and some people here refuse to accept that.

Best regards,
Michael

mjhurst wrote: Several of the prominent posters to the list routinely take findings out of context, and assign those findings extravagant importance.

...hm. Perhaps as you do yourself with Guiniforte in the post before? Well, I don't mind that you argument for this possibility ... as there are only possibilities and nothing really sure. So others can do this with other contexts in their own right. What's bad about it?

This often takes the form of focusing on a particular finding and then jumping to a highly speculative conclusion.

As for instance the idea, that the later Tarot was exactly the same as a Trionfi deck in 1439, at least as an archetype. Actually I don't understand, what you mean with this.

For example, several folks seem to have adopted the view that Tarot was invented in Florence, and to take that as an established fact.

Dummett, Depaulis and Decker had excluded earlier Florence as a possible place of origin, this also was wrong. Florence has gained a lot of good arguments, but naturally the question for the real place is still unsolved as many other questions. Florence likely had the most artists and likely had the most artists who made playing cards. And it has the oldest document now and the most documents. But the question isn't solved with it, no doubt.

This ignores "the extremely fragmentary nature of our documentation", making my comment an observation of fact rather than a polemical statement.

Historical documentation is per se always fragmentary, even with 100 movie cameras you can't capture the reality of one single soccer game ... :-) ... and (likely) for this reason our ability to get a not attackable version of an "explanation of the Trionfi origin" is simply impossible. Your polemic is in the second sentence of the quote: "Some people can't even grasp the idea that surviving decks have lost cards." With this global (stupid) accusation you wish to hide the bad state of the pet theory, naturally everybody knows that cards generally might have been lost. But naturally the possibility exist, that in some observed historical decks cards have been expected to have gone lost by researchers which never existed.
Once Tarot history research started with the hypothesis, that Tarot once replaced the word Trionfi ... this global assumption produced contradictions in related Trionfi card documents. Some researchers attempt to explain the contradictions. You - as it seems - prefer to ignore the contradictions.

Assuming that Florence is the original home of Tarot is the polemical position.

I think, nobody here has forgotten about the Michelino deck.

Several of the prominent posters to the list also persistently fail to accept the fact that every early deck we have has lost cards. Failing to accept that, in an "attempt to improve your helpless argumentative position in the related theme", is the polemical position. My comment is simply an observation of two related facts: Lost cards are the norm, and some people here refuse to accept that.

There are enough historical decks, which are complete, that's a proven state. More decks have lost cards, but the state is different in the description ... 0 cards lost, 1 card lost, 2 cards lost etc. The state of 0 cards lost is given relative often in comparison to other states.
There is no "norm" that defines "the number of lost cards" in historical decks. Speaking of a "norm" is just a stupid idea, there are simply facts about the extant decks and these includes the number of cards, which are still there.
I remember: You and Ross once invented this word to win an argument in the debate, but it was only a "word game". No additional Tarot card appeared with it, no additional Trionfi card document was born with it.

For instance: the 5x14-deck of Master PW is complete. The Burgundian hunting deck is complete. The Hofämterspiel is complete. What's the value of this "norm"? It gives nothing new.

Hi, Lothar,

Huck wrote:

mjhurst wrote: Several of the prominent posters to the list routinely take findings out of context, and assign those findings extravagant importance.

...hm. Perhaps as you do yourself with Guiniforte in the post before?

I don't think that I took anything out of context. Rather, there is a whole world of historical and iconographic findings which form the larger context for the Guiniforte thesis. That is alluded to in the line about being the right guy (his interests and background, connections) in the right place (Milan, working for Filippo the cardplayer) at the right time (the period shortly before Tarot was invented, when card games were being invented). My arguments are all about trying to put the many different pieces together. In addition to parsimony, we need explanatory power and theoretical integration if we are to construct a good hypothesis, filling in the blanks about the origin of Tarot.

Huck wrote:

Michael wrote:This often takes the form of focusing on a particular finding and then jumping to a highly speculative conclusion.

As for instance the idea, that the later Tarot was exactly the same as a Trionfi deck in 1439, at least as an archetype.

Wrong again. The archetypal-deck argument is based on putting the different pieces of evidence together, IN context. That is why you can't understand it, and have never understood Dummett. Each surviving deck is fragmentary, with different extant cards. Taken OUT of context, as you do, you can argue that they are very different deck designs with less than 22 trumps. But when all the evidence is considered together we can see that they are all fragmentary survivals of the same design. One hypothesis which explains many decks -- parsimoniously.

Huck wrote:

Michael wrote:For example, several folks seem to have adopted the view that Tarot was invented in Florence, and to take that as an established fact.

Dummett, Depaulis and Decker had excluded earlier Florence as a possible place of origin, this also was wrong.

Really? Where was it definitively excluded? Or was it simply ignored because of a lack of supporting evidence?

Huck wrote:Florence has gained a lot of good arguments, but naturally the question for the real place is still unsolved as many other questions. Florence likely had the most artists and likely had the most artists who made playing cards.

That is not a new argument. Of course Florence had the most creative artistic community; this is not news.

Huck wrote:And it has the oldest document now and the most documents.

And that is precisely taking evidence out of context and jumping to conclusions. The single piece of evidence you refer to is SLIGHTLY earlier, so it is only by giving it unwarranted importance that you can conclude that Florence was the original home of Tarot.

As for "the most documents", that is a matter of chance survival of a single set of records, which happen to contain years worth of transactions. For example, there is no reason, as Ross has pointed out, not to think that Bologna might have had as much trade in Tarot decks as Florence. We just got very lucky with a great cache of information. Moreover, these later transactions offer no particular support for Florentine priority.

Huck wrote:

Michael wrote:This ignores "the extremely fragmentary nature of our documentation", making my comment an observation of fact rather than a polemical statement.

Your polemic is in the second sentence of the quote: "Some people can't even grasp the idea that surviving decks have lost cards." With this global (stupid) accusation you wish to hide the bad state of the pet theory, naturally everybody knows that cards generally might have been lost.

The fact that you routinely dismiss the idea of lost cards has nothing to do with my own reconstruction of the early days of Tarot. When you confuse the two, you end up with incoherent non sequiturs.

Huck wrote:Once Tarot history research started with the hypothesis, that Tarot once replaced the word Trionfi ... this global assumption produced contradictions in related Trionfi card documents. Some researchers attempt to explain the contradictions. You - as it seems - prefer to ignore the contradictions.

I'm sure that you have some idea in mind, but what you wrote here doesn't seem to make sense.

Huck wrote:

Michael wrote:Assuming that Florence is the original home of Tarot is the polemical position.

I think, nobody here has forgotten about the Michelino deck.

No one said that they did. I said that assuming Florence is the original home of Tarot is a polemical position, and it is. Once again, I said something factually true, and you said something irrelevant.

Huck wrote:

Michael wrote:Several of the prominent posters to the list also persistently fail to accept the fact that every early deck we have has lost cards. Failing to accept that, in an "attempt to improve your helpless argumentative position in the related theme", is the polemical position. My comment is simply an observation of two related facts: Lost cards are the norm, and some people here refuse to accept that.

There are enough historical decks, which are complete, that's a proven state. More decks have lost cards, but the state is different in the description ... 0 cards lost, 1 card lost, 2 cards lost etc. The state of 0 cards lost is given relative often in comparison to other states.
There is no "norm" that defines "the number of lost cards" in historical decks. Speaking of a "norm" is just a stupid idea, there are simply facts about the extant decks and these includes the number of cards, which are still there.
I remember: You and Ross once invented this word to win an argument in the debate, but it was only a "word game". No additional Tarot card appeared with it, no additional Trionfi card document was born with it.

For instance: the 5x14-deck of Master PW is complete. The Burgundian hunting deck is complete. The Hofämterspiel is complete. What's the value of this "norm"? It gives nothing new.

Regarding the term "norm", I'm sorry that you don't understand it and that you think that Ross and I invented it. We didn't invent it, and it isn't something intended to confuse you. It simply means that something is "normal", i.e., not unusual. I was using it to mean much more common than the alternative. That is, decks with lost cards are much more common than complete decks. Again, it is simply an observation of fact that we have very few early Tarot decks which are complete. The earliest is probably the Sola Busca deck, which is extremely variant.

With regard to your bogus counterexamples, we were talking about 15th-century decks which tell us something about 1) the original or early design of Tarot in general, and 2) Cary-Yale in particular. NONE of these complete decks you bring up tell us anything about the original or early design of Tarot. So again you are changing the subject to something irrelevant.

This has been fun, but you don't seem to have anything coherent or relevant to say... so I'll let you get back to your world of fantasy decks where Tarot is based on Chess and the 16 Heroes game. I just stopped in to defend Dummett from people who don't seem to have read him.

Best regards,
Michael

Hi, Michael,

mjhurst wrote:Imagine your chart with two differently colored dots, one for Tarot references (the black ones) and another set for non-Tarot references to playing cards. The second set suggest that if Tarot had existed earlier, then some evidence of it should have survived.

Yes, that'd be a very good exercise - for somebody who needs to literally see it. The sudden and (relatively) massive appearance of "trionfi", both documents and cards, in the middle of all the references to normal playing cards, is unambiguous. It means something. And it does not mean that everybody all at once decided to start calling a whole body of disparate kinds of playing cards, with scores of different sizes and arrangements, and prices, by the single name of "trionfi", to distinguish them from normal cards (and what are those?).

Roman goes to his mercer, says he wants a pack of "naibi a trionfi", looks inside and says "but those aren't the naibi a trionfi I wanted! I want the ones with 40 pictures of prostitutes!"

One of the potential problems with Tarot being invented more or less as we know it is that it has several unique features. The problem is that the rapid early spread of Tarot offers little time for the development of these features. This means that we must either assume that they were present at the beginning, or that every novelty which was subsequently added to the game was faithfully transmitted to various locales across Italy and into France. Dummett, for example, thought that the Fool as Excuse was such a novelty that it was implausible for it and the other unique elements of Tarot to have all been created ex nihilo. The Fool must have been a later development.

Yes, all at once is too much. Even "the idea of trump cards" isn't unique to Tarot, we know (better than Dummett did in 1980).

The idea of an extra card, or a few, with special powers, either added cards or granted to some of the normal series, seems to generate out of the game itself. And it is not limited to card games. The unlikelihood of a pawn making it to the last row of the opposing side has generated the "Queening" rule; I don't know how old it is, if it predates the powers of the Queen, but I seem to remember that it does, and any other piece stonger than a pawn could be chosen to duplicate.

In card games, the Chinese have their "Old Ghost" as an extra card with powers, and of course the Joker, or two even, has developed in our own standard cards. And the rules where Aces are high, and that sort of thing.

Because games themselves develop these features, they are not imposed from outside, I call the phenomenon "ludic logic". It is, essentially, a kind of folkloric phenomenon, whereby a nothing or nobody rises to the strongest, an unexpected thing.

As you point out later, an Excuse or Fool could be earlier than Tarot, which is what I think. I also think there were immediate precursors to Tarot in Florence, indirectly suggested by Fernando de la Torre. Karnöffel's special cards had colorful names, among them Pope and Emperor, and Devil, which are "folkloric" and commonplace, stock figures. It is not surprising at all to find an Emperor added to a deck.

But none of these are Tarot, which is a fairly extensive and strictly ordered sequence. Only Filippo-Marziano's 16 Heroes is such a sequence, and it does not possess the suggestive narrative of the Tarot trumps, which require it in order to be memorized. I think that Marziano's heroes had to have been numbered on the cards.

Where we differ is that I continue to see Milan as the most likely point of origin.

The fact that the 16 Heroes deck was created by a learned courtier, Marziano da Tortona, for Filippo Maria Visconti is strongly suggestive. That is, we know that unique card games were being invented there, not too long before Tarot was invented. Milan is also where the earliest surviving decks were commissioned. Tarot was probably created by a later courtier, but also for Filippo. You have pointed out that Gasparino Barzizza and his son Guiniforte, humanists known for their interest in both Stoic philosophy and Petrarch, were courtiers for Filippo. In 1434 Guiniforte acquired the position his father had held at the University of Milan.

You also noted that Guiniforte mentioned Petrarch's Triumphs in 1439, but there is no question that this work, and Remediis, were quite generally known by the elite at the time. (The copy of Remediis with the striking Ranks of Man miniature is attributed to Milan, c.1400.) Gasparino gave a funeral oration for Marziano, indicating their connection. Guiniforte served Alfonso V of Aragon (who enjoyed the great and allegorical entry of 1443), as well as the courts of Visconti, Monferrato, and d'Este. The great Latin moral works of Boccaccio and Petrarch, (De Casibus and De Remediis), as well as their allegorical cycles (Amorosa Visione and I Trionfi) would have been dear to the hearts of both father and son. And so on.

Therefore, Guiniforte is my candidate for the title, Inventor of Tarot. He was the right guy at the right place at the right time.

This point of origin would help explain several things. First, in terms of Cary-Yale, it would explain why the Visconti court would have the best and earliest examples of Tarot decks. The Bembo style decks from Cremona were copied repeatedly. It was a game invented for their court, so its design and meaning would have been well understood there. That is why, only a few years after its invention, something as grand as the Cary-Yale expansion could be commissioned.

In terms of the complexity of the game, it offers an explanation for the various novelties being present from the start: we know that the Milanese court with Filippo liked card games and that at least one completely unique game, the 16 Heroes game, was invented before Tarot. There is no reason to assume that it was the only game they invented before hitting on the brilliance of Tarot. The years between the invention of the 16 Heroes game and Tarot may have seen one or more other cards games designed, and some even created and played. Something like the Excuse, albeit not necessarily with a fool depicted, might have been part of an earlier game, so that it was not invented for Tarot but borrowed from that earlier game.

At some point (let's say 1438), someone (let's say Guiniforte) would design a lofty, inspirational trump cycle, an allegory worthy of the nobles he served and based on the Stoic-Christian and Petrarchian values/themes he held dear. If Tarot was born in Milan fully formed, a great game that borrowed from years of lesser games like 16 Heroes, that would explain why it had such great success and spread so quickly, why it became so popular in 15th-century Italy.

That's a provocative theory, I have no way to absolutely disprove it (naturally; if I did, you wouldn't believe it). I have some thoughts on the matter, of course, but I will have to draw them together.

For me, of course, the preponderance of evidence strongly suggests A, and since 2012 that means Florence. But Florentine styles changed quickly, so the best information we possess of the original game is Bologna. That is, outside of the cards now considered Florentine, such as Charles VI, Catania, Rothschild, and the Rosenwald sheets (the latter Tuscan, not necessarily from Florence, if I remember correctly).

But be careful with Guiniforte; before long, somebody will discover that he studied Hebrew, and you know where that leads.

Best regards,

Ross

About Guiniforte Barzizza ...

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gui ... rafico%29/

BARZIZZA, Guiniforte (Guinifortus Barzizius, Bargigius, de Barziziis). - Figlio terzogenito di Gasperino, nacque a Pavia al principio del 1406; aveva 32 anni compiuti il 19 marzo 1438, quando annunciava al fratello Giovanni Agostino e al cugino Cristoforo il proposito di sposarsi (Furietti, II, p. 114).
...
Nel marzo 1438 sposò Caterina dei Malabarba di Milano; e ciò gli diede occasione di scrivere più di una lettera in favore del matrimonio.

It looks to me, as if the letter of March 1439 (which included the Patrarca text of Amore") is this letter mentioned by treccani.it.

As discussed, the person "Scitigles" (= Francesc Gilabert de Centelles-Riu-sec) was addressed in the letter, possibly also the brother-in-law of Scitigles, Salvatore Cubella, who somehow was also in the state of "recently married" (the true date of the wedding seems to be a problem) .

We have, that Cubella also belonged to the Aragon prisoners of Filippo Mara Visconti in 1435, an opportunity, from which we have the still "not confirmed description" that playing cards were involved. Possibly also Scitigles belonged to the prisoners (?) ... no information about this.

http://www.araldicasardegna.org/genealo ... eacuto.htm
... gives the best information. According this it looks, as if the wedding between Cubella and the sister of Scitiglis already took place 1430-33. Also it gives an active Scitiglis already in 1424, although the birthyear of him is given with "1408?" elsewhere, which would make Scitiglis in the year only 16 years old. It's not spoken of him as a prisoner in Milan in 1435, but generally it's said, that he fought for Alfonso d'Aragon in his wars since 1433.

**********

Guiniforte went to Alfonso d'Aragon in 1432-33, then returned to Milan. Valla left Milan in 1433 and arrived at Alfonso d'Aragon in 1435. There he stayed till 1448. Panormita (also in Milan) reached Alfonso in 1434 and stayed for his life. Wiki notes, that Panormita was active in the negotiations between Alfonso d'Aragon and Filippo Maria in 1435.

For Guiniforte in 1435 we have this note:

Nell'agosto 1435 il re Alfonso d'Aragona, battuto a Ponza dai Genovesi, era venuto a Milano, prigioniero del Visconti, insieme col fratello Enrico. Durante la prigionia, che in realtà durò poco, perché ai primi di ottobre dello stesso anno Alfonso e il Visconti avevano già firmato gli accordi per un'azione comune, il B. si adoperò al servigio dei suoi vecchi padroni, e in favore del loro segretario, e suo amico, Giovanni Olzina.

... .-) ... yes, right, Guiniforte studied Hebrew ...

https://books.google.de/books?id=aR0fwr ... 22&f=false

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: ...if I needed to find the source of inspiration for the inventor's selection of imagery for the trumps in 1439, the John the Baptist festival, with the parade on June 23, provides enough.

The variant I assume is that the 1440 St. John celebrations happened right before the battle of Anghiari and could thus be linked to the Florentine victory (and note the Count of Poppi, who had defected to Piccinino right before Anghiari, was ruler of a tribute city that had to give a gift to the Baptistery [listed in various accounts; see below] - his town and the spoils of the greater Casentino were the only real reward of the campaign that culminated with Anghiari; you can read Bruni's account of this in English translation via Google books here: https://books.google.com/books?id=V7WfY ... pi&f=false). But I stop at the general affect of the St. John festival as an inspiration for trionfi as neither the procession nor any other minor event in the festival bears a very close relation to to the trump sequence. I'm positive you've read Newbigin's work on Florentine festivals - especially St. John - but I'll conveniently link to her translations again here:

http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~nnew41 ... rence.html

___________________________Descriptions of the St John the Baptist festa

Anonymous poem, 1407 text and translation

Goro di Stagio Dati, description of San Giovanni Battista celebrations, c. 1420 ["Two months in advance, they begin to make the pallium and the clothes for the servants and the pennants and the pennants for the
trumpets; and the brocade pallia that the Communes tributary cities pay as tax; and wax candles and
the other things that they are required to offer....Close by, around the ringhiera of the Palazzo Vecchio, there are a hundred processional banners or more, on their poles, fastened with iron rings: and the first are those of the major cities that pay tribute to the Commune, such as Pisa, Arezzo, Pistoia, Volterra, Cortona, Lucignano, Castiglione Aretino, and the lords of Poppi and Piombino, who are subject to the Commune"]

Agostino di Porto, description of San Giovanni Battista edifici, before 1454

Matteo Palmieri, description of reformed procession, 1454

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:But, if you want my speculations about who and why, my first presupposition is that the inventor was a cardmaker, and that he was not acting in any official or quasi-official capacity for making propaganda for the City, the Council of Union, or the victory at Anghiari. The invention of the game of Trionfi was just that, not speaking for anyone or anything. The game was just a very clever invention by someone who liked card games and had a great idea.

You have consistently suggested trionfi came out of the general card-playing milieu - I was just checking to see if see if you'd modified that position at all; thanks for restating that.

I lean towards a humanist devising the subjects behind the trump cards, not a simple cardmaker, and the ruling faction of the town in question (with who the humanist would have been attached - e.g., Leonardo Bruni) to explain the quick adoption and diffusion of the game. But for now I'd liken our disagreement to the Shakespeare authorship debate - the Earl of Oxford camp finds it impossible that someone unconnected to the court to have written the plays (too many references to court intrigues embedded in the plays), while a strong argument continues to be made for the traditional source of the plays - an actor from Stratford on Avon. But I fail to see why Giusti ordered a common cardplaying game for an aristocratic mercenary captain that both Giusti and Cosimo expected benefits from via an alliance; the larger context of Giusti's journal clearly places this gift in the context of being a diplomatic gift (and like all diplomatic gifts - it was sent with an expected windfall).
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giu ... rafico%29/

I'll leave my own point of view with a quote from the year that immediately precedes your time range for the emergence of the ur-tarot:

For their own enjoyment artists should associate with poets and orators who have many embellishments in common with painters and who have a broad knowledge of many things whose greatest praise consists in the invention." Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, Book 3, 1436

Phaeded

For the father Gasparino Barzizza we have, that he had a closer relation to Vergerio ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Paol ... _the_Elder
... and this had been rather active with Petrarca texts.

So a few things might have gone from the father to the son and we Guiniforte as somebody, who writes about Petrarca.

A German text about Petrarca Hermeneutik ...
https://books.google.de/books?id=3jWzkC ... ca&f=false
... has its focus on a later Petrarca biographer Alessandro Vellutello and gives remarks about the earlier biographers: Ilicino, Squarciafico/Filelfo, Pier Paolo Vergerio, Sicco Polenton, Leonardo Bruni, Coluccio Salutati, Pier Candido Decembrio. Luigi Marsili and Guiniforte Barzizza are only mentioned in a footnote of the German text as ging commentaries to the "Petrarca Volgare" (besides others).
My understanding of Petrarca is humble, I depend on the judgment of others. Guiniforte gets by me less points than other Milanese authors as Ilicino, Filelfo und Decembrio. Guiniforte gets a few extra points, cause he quotes Petrarca's Trionfi in the right time, sure, but these are only two pages and not necessarily very meaningful.

Very important becomes Ilicino for the Trionfi poem, but he is too young. Not too young was his father ... and Ilicino's work was based on that of his father in direct manner (at least this is assumed). Filelfo and Pietro Lapini da Montalcino (the father) got commissions from Filippo Maria in the 1440s to work on the Petrarca Volgare. When it comes to early bookprinting, Ilicino and Filelfo dominate the Trionfi poem market in the 1470s, and actually this is a little bit (perhaps) an argument in the Trionfi card question.
It makes logic, that Filippo Maria (rather old, when he gave the commissions) asked other elder men for their opinion in the Petrarca question.

So in my private evaluation I would suggest Pietro Lapini as the most suspicious scholar in the question of the Milanese Trionfi ... if it really had its origin in Milan. But these commissions of Filippo Maria were given later than the first Trionfi notes, that we know of.

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

I worked in this thread on the research ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=489&p=6365&hilit=anselino#p6365
... it has many twists, as I was surprised myself by the results and had often reason to correct earlier errors.

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

Another point of importance: Lapini seems to have been close to Martiano da Tortona, from which we know, that he worked about cards.

Franco has written a new note on the origins of the tarot (http://www.naibi.net/A/520-BILANCIOT-Z.pdf), done for a friend of his as an introduction to the subject. It mostly covers ground already visited on this Forum in more detail, so I would prefer not to present a translation of the whole thing. However there is one part that seems to extend the discussion in a way related to what is in this thread, namely, exploring the two possible predecessors of the tarot, Marziano's "game of the gods" and that of "8 Imperatori", in more detail, considering also the ordinary suit cards in these decks, on one assumption about their ratio to the special cards. I had never thought very much about this issue in either deck. In fact I had not thought of all 8 Imperatori as triumphal cards at all. First let me give a slight introduction, and then part of one section of Franco's new note.

It is well known that Dummett proposed that the ratio of 3:2 would apply to tarot triumphs (21)/ordinary cards (14). In the case of the Cary-Yale, that would be 24 triumphs/16 ordinary cards, again 3:2. He did not consider the Fool as a triumph, being that it played a different role in the game.

If we applied that same ratio to Marziano's game, with 16 triumphs, the ratio does not work exactly. Of the ordinary cards, he only mentions Kings If we suppose 10 number cards plus kings, the ratio, 16/11, is very close to 1.5, 1.44 in fact. If there are any less, the situation gets worse. With one more, the ratio is 1.75. So 16/11 is the best fit, corresponding exactly to what Marziano says explicitly.

With 8 Imperatori, Franco's idea is to suppose that these 8 also functioned as a 5th suit of triumphs, in addition to being added onto the other 4, exactly as in Marziano. Again, 8 triumphs divided by 3/2 does not work out exactly. The closest would be 5 ordinary cards, for a ratio of 1.6. In that case, it seems to me, there might not be any number cards at all (supposing both male and female pages), or just 1 or 2.

However there is another proposed ratio of triumphs to ordinary suit, that of 1:1. This is presupposed by Huck's 5x14 theory. It is also that of his (and my) hypothesis for the Cary-Yale, of 16 triumphs to 16 in an ordinary suit there. Additional support, cited by Franco in his note, is evidenced by a sale in Bologna of 1477, in which the ratio of the cost of a triumph deck vs. an ordinary deck is precisely 5/4. And it is one way of seeing the 70 card decks of 1457 Ferrara, of 14x5 (but it could also be 22 + 4x12). It also corresponds to the "14 figures" of 1441 Ferrara (which could be non-tarot related).

Extending that ratio back in time to Marziano, we get 16 cards per suit, exactly as in the Cary-Yale. Extending it to 8 Imperatori, we get 8 ordinary cards per suit, which could either be 3 courts and 5 numerals, exactly half of their corresponding numbers in Marziano, or 4 courts and 4 numerals, half and half. That the Imperator deck comes out to half the size of the Marziano is interesting in itself. Here is Franco on 8 Imperatori (my English translation follows the Italian):

3. Firenze - Imperatori

Riprendendo in esame la situazione fiorentina, prima delle testimonianze esplicite sui trionfi, ne abbiamo alcune che in qualche modo possono essere collegate. La produzione delle carte da gioco ebbe a Firenze una fioritura superiore alle altre città, sia per la quantità che era possibile produrre nelle botteghe fiorentine, sia per la qualità che si andava affermando sempre più nelle medesime botteghe artigiane. Abbiamo documentazioni che indicano la produzione e la messa in vendita di mazzi di carte di qualità diversa, secondo tipi che appaiono presto già standardizzati. In particolare sembra che molto apprezzate nelle altre città fossero in particolare le carte fiorentine con fondo dorato, che evidentemente rientravano in uno standard produttivo locale adottato anche per immagini diverse.

A noi, per arrivare ai trionfi, non interessa tanto la qualità superiore, quanto qualsiasi traccia di tipi diversi di carte. Il principale tipo che lascia aperto il dubbio che si potesse trattare di un nuovo modello di carte [17] sviluppato nella direzione dei trionfi è quello delle “carte da imperatori”. Di queste carte fiorentine abbiamo testimonianze solo da Ferrara, dove ne erano utilizzate verso la metà del secolo anche di produzione locale 26. Prima di essere registrate a metà Quattrocento nei libri di spesa, risulta da noti documenti precedenti della stessa corte di Ferrara che erano già state acquistate a Firenze, a cominciare dal 1423 27, per l’uso di quella corte, un paio di decenni prima della loro produzione ferrarese, e della documentazione sui trionfi.

Nel primo dei documenti su questo mazzo si parla di “otto imperatori”, il che potrebbe far pensare all’aggiunta di otto carte superiori, al disopra dei quattro re. Risulta stimolante pensare, ma è solo una congettura qualsiasi, a una possibile analogia con un mazzo del tipo di quello di Marziano in forma dimezzata, con le otto carte aggiunte che fossero inseribili due per seme sopra ai rispettivi re, ovvero come gruppo a parte in un quinto seme di otto carte che avrebbe portato il numero complessivo di carte dalle 32 dell’ipotetico mazzo ordinario alle 40 dell’ipotetico mazzo da imperatori.

(By reconsidering the Florentine situation, first from the explicit testimony on triumphs, we have some thing that somehow may be linked. The production of playing cards was in Florence a superior flowering to other cities, both for the amount they could produce in the workshops, as well as for the quality that was increasingly developing in the same workshops. We have documentation showing the production and sale of dard decks of diverse quality, according to types that soon appear already standardized. In particular, it seems that in particular Florentine cards with a gold background were very popular in other cities, which apparently fell in a local production standard adopted for different images.

To us, for getting to the triumphs, the superior quality is not so interesting as what traces there are of different types of cards. The main type that leaves open the the issues of being possible to furnitsh a new model of cards [17] developing in the direction of triumphs is that of the "emperor cards". We have Florentine testimonies of these cards only from Ferrara, where they were used in the mid-century and also produced locally (26). Before being recorded in the mid-fifteenth century account books, it is known from earlier documents of the same court of Ferrara that already they were purchased from Florence, beginning in 1423 (27), for the use of that court, a couple of decades before their Ferrara production, and of their documentation of triumphs.

In the first documents on this deck it is called "eight emperors", which might suggest the addition of eight superior cards, above the four kings. It is stimulating to think, but it is only a guess, of a possible analogy with a pack of the Marziano type halved in form, with the eight added cards inserted two per suit to the respective kings, or in part as a group in a fifth suit of eight cards that would bring the total number of cards from 32 of the hypothetical ordinary deck to 40 in the hypothetical emperors deck.)
_____________
26 A. Franceschini, Ludica, 2 (1996) 170-174.
27 A. Franceschini, Artisti a Ferrara in età umanistica e rinascimentale. Vol. 1. Roma-Ferrara 1993

Franco even has two diagrams to illustrate how this model for 8 Emperors corresponds to Marziano's game (this does not appear on his website's version of the essay; he sent it to me by email). First is Maziano, then Imperatore. The red squares are the triumphs.
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-02OkepB1eFI/ ... MARZtr.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ml6fd_IkIHM/ ... MPEtr1.jpg

Franco then goes on to mention, as "more interesting", the game of Karnoffel, whose alternative name "Kaiserspiel" is very close that of "Emperors", played north of the Alps. He remarks that it seems to have been a game of the people rather than the courts, but does not elaborate. There is not enough there to run with, but there is for what I have already quoted.

First, there is for me the question of whether "8 Imperatori" deck as outlined would have an allegorical interpretation, as in the case of Marziano's game. Franco does not deal with that question, but it seems of interest. What would the 8 Imperatori be Imperatori of? In Christian Europe, there were famously 2 Emperors, an Eastern and a Western, each with his Empress. For other Emperors, we would have to look elsewhere, either in history or in geography. In the Eastern Mediterranean there were 2 empires, one centered in Turkey and the other in Cairo. If so, then the four emperors would also correspond to compass directions: NW (Holy Roman), NE (Byzantine), SE (Turks), SW (Cairo). Of these, the Byzantine would be the weakest. If so, a balance of power would obtain if the Holy Roman was the strongest, and the other two were in the middle. That might make for a pleasant game. It is one possibility, and that is enough to make the hypothesis of an allegory plausible.

The question then is how this deck could develop into the tarot deck. Franco does not expand on this issue. I can see different ways. One is the one already discussed on this thread: to put an Emperor and Empress in place of 2 of Marziano's gods and identify 14 more subjects. What leads to the tarot is the 6 Petrarchan triumphs, plus the Wheel of Fortune from Boccaccio, plus the 7 virtues of the Church. The result (step 1, perhaps around 1428) is then consistent with the Cary-Yale existing cards. This then goes to Florence, where it is put into an order consistent with the later Minchiate (step 2, around 1430). There more cards are added and the theological virtues plus Prudence are subtracted, except in the proto-Minchiate (step 3, late 1430s-1450s, probably with substeps). We have already explored this route. See the diagrams in Franco's notes and my responses in this thread.

Another way of proceeding would to add to the template of Emperors itself, assuming the Marziano deck is not known in Florence, keeping one Emperor and one Empress but changing the other 6 to another group of 6. The Petrarchan triumphs come to mind. Then, to correspond to the 14 cards of a regular suit, 6 more are added. If these are the three moral virtues and the three theological virtues, we are at the same point as before, except minus the Wheel and Prudence. The Wheel is then added, Prudence is conflated with Fame and called "Il Mondo", and the rest of the cards are added.

In this case there are other ways of proceeding. One is, after the 2 Imperatori and the 6 Petrarchans have been assimilated, adding other cards and skipping the theological virtues and Prudence altogether, except in the proto-minchiate. It is again a 3 step process, first to 8 tarot-type subjects (c. 1430 or earlier), then to 14, or 14 plus the Fool (c.1435 or later), and then to 22 (c. 1440 or later).

This procedure has the advantage of having 5x14 as an intermediary stage, as opposed to a reduction from 16. However it has the disadvantage that Florentine cassone as known tend to support the 7 virtues as a group appearing earlier (i.e. early 1430s) than the Petrarchans (1440s). 7 virtues cannot be added as such to 2 Imperatori and still stay inside the template of 8 cards. I suppose one virtue, Prudence, could be omitted; or else there could be only 1 Imperatore at first. Then the 6 Petrarchans could be added, for 14, and either exchanging the theologicals and/or Prudence for other subjects then or waiting until the next stage, when the tarot subjects are expanded to 22. The 5x14 stage (with the Petrarchans), c. 1435 or later, then gets reflected in the cassone and book illuminations of the 1440s, with the full complement waiting until later in the decade or the next.

That is as far as I can get at this point. To be sure, the process could be done at once (conflating all three steps), or in just 2 steps (conflating 1 and 2), starting from either the template of 16 or the template of 8. However there are other possibilities worth exploring and with some justification in the traces that remain.

Added 45 minutes later: Well, I can go a little further, or at least stick my big toe out. This has to do with when the Florentine tarot and the minchiate would have parted company, that is to say, when Prudence and the Theologicals would have been kept, or added, in minchiate but removed or not added in tarocchi. My question is whether the issue of legalizing the game would have affected this parting of the ways, so that it wouldn't have happened until after 1450. The game was illegal until 1450, although as we know it was played before then. However commercial possibilities and general acceptability--for example, of tarot themes on cassone and birth trays--would have been greatly increased after legalization. (In my own experience, I have the example of marijuana as a recreational tool.) However the negative aspects would be downplayed as much as possible. So as little suggestion as possible of devils, and as much suggestion as possible of the beneficial effects on piety by way of the theological virtues. This is an argument for the use of the theologicals and non-use of the Devil card, until after 1450. Hanged Men and Lightning-Struck Towers, however, would probably be OK, because they deserve it. I am not sure about the Bagatto, the Fool, and the Popess. The Pope is OK, because he is shown trumping the Emperor.