Phaeded: thanks for reminding me of that passage. That indeed very much anticipates putting the Fool last. It is not so much the moralizing, because moralizing can keep the Fool at the bottom as much as it can raise him up: it depends on how subtle the moralizing is. I think Praise of Folly is pretty good, and so is Montaigne, in pretty much the same spirit, making fun of pretenses to knowledge about how everyone should live. Nor is it the part about the Fool representing the beginning and end of life, because that could be interpreted in the morbid way of Jaques in As You Like It: "second childishness and mere oblivion,/ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_world%27s_a_stage). It is the part about the "Inn of the Mirror" and the "Inn of the Fool" that I like, the part he says "will seem to be a joke". The Inn of the Mirror is Wisdom/Prudence, the last trump, where people used to go. Now they go to the Inn of the Fool, in a pejorative sense. But the Fool is looking over his shoulder at the Inn of the Mirror, i.e. Wisdom/Prudence, the last triumph (as though the cards were arranged in a circle): the Fool directs us toward the wisdom that we know nothing; so the Fool contains in himself the last trump, in his looking outside the frame of the card, where no one who follows him thinks to follow his gaze. And so he in a sense is the last trump, beyond wisdom, as well as the first.

There is still one confusing error in the translation that you quoted (plus others that are easy to compensate for), but I can't get into Tarotpedia to correct it. In the fourth line from the bottom of your quote, "had preferred" should be "have preferred". People used to go to the Inn of the Mirror (i.e. Wisdom) but for a long time have gone and continue to go to the House of the Fool. Marco and I had a long too-intense go-round on that passage, starting at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=937&start=50#p14147 (if you want, scroll down until you get to Piscina, but it goes on for pages).

Huck: searching for "piquet" at your link http://books.google.com/books?id=TjoUAA ... &q&f=false, five snippets come up, all in the editor's notes. It appears that the game went by other names; but I haven't examined these notes yet.

mikeh wrote:Huck: searching for "piquet" at your link http://books.google.com/books?id=TjoUAA ... &q&f=false, five snippets come up, all in the editor's notes. It appears that the game went by other names; but I haven't examined these notes yet.

Yes, I overlooked a "Picquet" in the text (not Piquet). The linked text comments, that this game should be not the card game Piquet, but another game (Footnote 110 at p. 426). The game "au cent" is related to the card game Piquet by the author (Footnote 10 at p. 395).

However, I've found meanwhile a German IPCS article by Martin Zollinger (2002, 31/3 p. 104), who takes early appearances as "Cent", "Saunt", "Cientos", "Hundert und eins", "Sequenz"; "Ronfa" with some critical distance.

A sort of real presence of the game he sees at the end of the century (precisely 1585). Then he has a few notes of it, one of Jacques Perrache, who also wrote something about the rules of Tarot, but this seems to be not very much notes.
However, a work which lists a lot of games in 1608, doesn't mention Piquet (La mort aux piqueurs, Paris Daniel Guillemot).
Piquet arrives its success with the first card games book (publication 1631, 1632, 1634, 1635, 1642, 1647 and 1652), focussed on the game Piquet. 1654 appeared then the "Maison Academique" as a expansion, which in the later edition of 1659 also contained Tarot and was repeated with variants for some decades.

Researchers, who researched the origin of Piquet, observed a strong French interest from different sides to have the origin of Piquet in France, and to manifest a sort of national card game with it.

I found this note ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=DDkNAAA ... 31&f=false



The writer Père Daniel in 1720 (responsible for a histore de France) seems to have been engaged to settle the opinion, that the French king Charles VII had invented the king's names on the cards, and this seems to have stood in some relation to the Piquet deck, according his opinion.

***********

Earlier in this thread I wrote about my suspicion, that "Tarot in France" had its climax in popularity in 1615, but likely lost some of it in the following time due to the condition, that the new young king of France, Louis XIII, didn't like the Italian customs at his court and part of the Italian customs was naturally the Tarot game.

1631, the publication year of the Piquet book, is just short after the time, when Maria de Medici, the king's mother from Italy, had left the country forever. Maria de Medici had been the natural center of the Italian customs, which the young king didn't like.

An interesting coincidence.

Yes, good, Huck. I assume you meant "1631" instead of '1731" near the end of your post. That was indeed an interesting coincidence. I will go on with my discussion of Dummett.

In Chapter 18, Dummett finds himself ready to take up what the triumphs mean. He has two qualifications: first, he is not going to talk about "hidden meanings", but only "surface meanings", i.e. ones that are "plainly visible". The second qualification is that he is not gong to talk about the meanings of the triumphs as they occur in a sequence with other triumphs, but only "individually", their meanings apart from the sequence. This last may seem like a rather drastic qualification. And I must say, I cannot make much sense of his argument. So rather than paraphrase it, I will quote what he says, from the very the beginning of the chapter, word for word. Here he only addresses the issue of "symbolic meaning of the sequence as a whole", as he has dealt with "hidden meanings" already, in Chapter 5 (I have not discussed that yet, because I agree with Dummett, in so far as I understand him, that any discussion of "hidden meanngs" must first take into account the "surface meanings" (I am not sure what the distinction is, other than "plainly visible" vs. "hidden"; if he is thnkng of Gombrich, he gives no sign of it; however I will keep Gombrich in mind):

Gli occultisti sono del parere che i trionfi dei tarocchi racchiudano un profondo, sebbene nascosto, simbolismo; e questa opinione è condivisa da molti che non hanno propensione per l’occulto. La tesi può essere divisa in due parti: che le singole carte abbiano ciascuna un significato nascosto e che la sequenza nella sua totalità abbia un particolare senso simbolico.

La pretesa che la sequenza abbia un significato particolare acquista maggiore plausibilità se si parte dall’assunto che l’ordine a cui si attribuisce tale significato sia quello originario; in questo caso, infatti, i soggetti potrebbero essere stati scelti con l’intenzione di disporli proprio in quell’ordine. Si deve allora supporre che colóro che in seguito cambiarono l’ordine fossero ignari di tale simbolismo. È molto meno probabile che una disposizione simbolicamente significativa sia stata ottenuta attraverso un cambiamento dell’ordine originario che lasciasse intatti i soggetti. Quasi tutti coloro che hanno tentato di scoprire un simbolismo nella successione dei trionfi hanno preso come base l’ordine del Tarocco di Marsiglia, soprattutto perché ignari del fatto che vi sia o vi sia mai stato un qualsiasi altro ordine. Un’eccezione è Gertrude Moakley, che basa la sua interpretazione sull’ordine di tipo B che, come abbiamo visto, è caratteristico di Ferrara. Un’interpretazione del tutto convincente, pertanto, costituirebbe di per sé una prova che l’ordine su cui si basa è quello originario. A mio parere, tuttavia, nessuna di queste interpretazioni, nemmeno quella di Gertrude Moakley, che pure è la più plausibile, è sufficientemente convincente. Finché non avremo prove indipendenti su quale dei tre tipi di ordine è l’originario, sembra più prudente non tentare alcuna interpretazione della sequenza e io non tratterò oltre l’argomento.

Per quanto riguarda i singoli trionfi, il loro significato, salvo pochissime eccezioni, sembra perfettamente trasparente e non sembra necessario andare in cerca di significati reconditi. Questo non esclude la possibilità di significati più profondi; comunque, i significati di superficie sono lì e ogni interpretazione accettabile delle carte deve tenerne conto. Mentre la teoria di Gertrude Moakley sulla sequenza dei trionfi non è del tutto convincente, la sua interpretazione delle singole carte appare interamente corretta e ad essa ci atterremo.

(The occultists are of the opinion that the trumps of the Tarot enclose a deep, though hidden, symbolism; and this opinion is shared by many who have no appetite for the occult. The thesis can be divided into two parts: the individual cards each have a hidden meaning and that the sequence as a whole has a special symbolic meaning.

The claim that the sequence has a particular meaning acquires greater plausibility if it is assumed that the order in which this meaning is attributed is the original one; in this case, in fact, the subject may have been chosen with the intention of arranging them precisely in that order. It must therefore be assumed that those who later changed the order were unaware of such symbolism. It is much less likely that a symbolically significant provision has been obtained through a change in the original order that would leave intact the subject. Almost everyone who has tried to find a symbolism in the succession of triumphs took as a basis the order of the Tarot of Marseilles, especially oblivious to the fact that there is or has ever been any other order. An exception is Gertrude Moakley, who bases her interpretation on the order of type B, which, as we have seen, is characteristic of Ferrara. An altogether convincing one, therefore, constitutes in itself as a proof that the order on which it is based is the original one. In my opinion, however, none of these interpretations, not even that of Gertrude Moakley, which is also the most plausible, is sufficiently convincing. Until we have independent evidence on which of [end of 409] the three types of order is the original, it seems more prudent not to attenpt any interpretation of the sequence and I will not deal with the topic further.

As for the individual triumphs, their meaning, with very few exceptions, seems perfectly clear and it does not seem necessary to go in search of hidden meanings. This does not exclude the possibility of deeper meanings; however, the surface meanings are there and any acceptable interpretation of the cards must take them into account. While the theory of Gertrude Moakley on the sequence of trumps is not entirely convincing, her interpretation of the individual cards is entirely correct and we will stick to it.

He seems to be saying that if we knew the original order of the triumphs, it might be possible to to find an interpretation of the symbolic meaning of the sequence as a whole. Conversely, if we had a fully convincing symbolic interpretation of the sequence, then that would be a good argument in favor of a particular order as the orignal one.However we have neither.

It seems to me quite true that since we cannot say what the original sequence was, we can't say what its original meaning was. Some people hold that we can say roughly what the sequence was originally, because of the basic similarities among the three orders A, B and C. I disagree, on the grounds that we don't even know what the triumphs were originally. There may have been only 5 or 6 figures, and the rest number cards; or 13, 14, or 16, and one or more may have changed in subject. That makes a difference. Of course Dummett would not have accepted my grounds for agreeing with him, but I can't help that. Otherwise, given the 21 triumphs that are in the A, B, and C orders, and that so many of them never changed position at all, and when they did change, it was only by one or two cards changing its place, it seems to me that we can say quite a bit about the cards in sequence. However this is for 21 triumphs, just prior to the creation of separate orders, with no claim that any of them is the original tarot sequence.

On the other hand, I don't see why we need to know the original composition of the triumphs in order to understand the later sequence. People seem to think of tarot as like a manuscript where we don't know which page came in what order, and what has been altered on the page by inattentive scribes. So the job of the researcher is like manuscript reconstruction, reconstructing the original text based on looking at the existing manuscripts, in this case, incomplete packs and lists given by writers.

It might be like that, but it might not. Complex new inventions often develop and change, some for the better. The automobile is the result of attaching a German gasoline engine to a French frame. Others tried steam. It worked, but did not serve the purpose, or purposes, as well, at least for the people who mattered. The computer is similar, and television.

In the matter of texts, take the three synoptic gospels. They might be three separate takes on the life of someone they knew and admired. They might also be three different attempts to work with one main fragmentary narrative mostly of sayings, combining it with different other fragmentary narratives to come up with something that made sense. It seems to me that the results speak for themselves, and we don't need to go back and reconstruct the previous documents in order to understand what we have, more or less. Such attempts might bring light to some obscure areas but they might also be just as uncertain as what we already have.

The tarot sequences in the three orders would then be like the three first gospels, in being similar presentations, but without words. It seems to me most straightforward, the least speculative, to construct several narratives, each on its own terms. Also, it might not be a narrative in the sense of a sequence of events, but a series of lessons, where each is a little harder than the one before. But he word "triumph" and the use of these cards in the game implies some kind of advance from beginning to end.

For another example, take Shakespeare's Hamlet, surely a creation at least as durable as the tarot. Sometimes scholars try to reconstruct what the original would have been, the Ur-Hamlet, back when it was first referred to in the 1589 and 1595 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Hamlet). Probably it was just a revenge play. Then there is the "second quarto" version and the "folio" version (never mind the "first quarto"). Neither has any claim to being the original, but the "second quarto" was probably earlier. Is the "second quarto" the only one to pay attention to, or did the playwright perhaps improve it over time? Or is "the play" a combination of the two, in all its resulting inconsistency? Or is it what both have in common (thereby rendering it incoherent)? Or is it none of the above, and the play is whatever a particular director or reader chooses, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse? I am inclined to believe that each of the two published versions deserves to be considered on its own merits, and a director may find a way to include the best of one in a performance essentially of the other. The "original" Hamlet needs not be performed at all.

In the case of the tarot, we have only guesses as to what it looked like originally, precisely because it was a new invention and not a continuing phenomenon like events in nature. With new things, we cannot infer that the past at one time was like the past at a later time, just because it was not like the present. That's what "new" means. It might originally have been 5 figures and 8 number cards, and the figures all designed to satirize people in authority. Then someone moralized it properly, to keep it from being banned. Someone else cast it in the framework of Petrarch's poem. Someone else added cards for one reason or another. Then they tinkered with the order. Just as games--like most inventions--develop and become more or less sophisticated, so do the decks they are played with. I am not saying this is the way it was, just that it is as reasonable, given what we know now, as supposing that it was 21 triumphs in more or less the way we have them from the beginning. There are many possibilities.

To understand why changes occurred in the cards, including additions, subtractions, and alterations in what is depicted, we need to understand also humanists' theories of interpretation, which seem to me to lie behind numerous artistic creations of the Renaissance. This is also necessary in order to investigate the symbolic life of the cards apart from the artist's intentions.

Each deck or standard is its own thing; but since the cards are used for a game, they need to look similar to what the players used before, so that the player does not have to get used to a whole new look. He does have to be able to identify the card at a glance. This is not to exclude major changes once in a while, for example when a new regime governs what can be printed.

This is also not to say that there weren't errors. The Hanged Man being presented right side up seems to me, as to Dummett, an error in copying the card. It is a rather incredible one, since "Pendu" was right on the card. However "Pendu" doesn't only mean "hanged"; it also means "stuck to" or "clinging to". Perhaps the designer thought the person was tied up pending a trial. Or there there was a "hidden meaning" that he didn't know about but needed to be faithful to--or one he did know about, but I don't.

Some people might still want to deny that there is any symbolic meaning to the sequence. The cards are simply tokens in a card game, known by whatever will readily identify them, with enough of a pattern that it is not hard to do so. But if so, why weren't they given numbers from the start? And why didn't someone immediately dominate the market by making this obvious innovation, so that no memorization would be necessary? Dummett says in his 1980 book (although he doesn't repeat it) that it just didn't occur to anyone. In a culture that numbered pages, items on lists, hours of the day, and many other things, that is hard to believe. It is especially hard when the cards necessarily do have a sequential order governing trick-taking. And there was abundant precedent for educational games, including ones with cards.

Emilia Maggio writes in a recent article in The Playing card ("The Stag Rider from the so-called "tarot of Aessandro Sforza" at the Museo Civico di Castello Ursino of Catania", 42:12, Apr-Jun 2014, p. 229), after describing a 10th century game with dice relating to the virtues, and before describing a card game of John of Rheinfelden "combining entertainment with learning about ethics":

The argument that also the so-called tarot cards were originally designed as an educational game or study aid seems now widely accepted.

I do not actually support that, but only because I make no suppositions about its original purpose or specific content. But I do support that it probably was the case for the early originally unnumbered cards that we know [added later in day: or at least one of the decks, or a predecessor]. My best guess, like Dummett's, is that it had something to do with the Triumphs of Petrarch; to that I would add: also Boccaccio's triumphs (he added Fortune) and the seven virtues, perhaps in something less than 21 triumphs. As for the whole 21, that requires more work.

With that preamble on the perspective I bring to the meanings of the triumphs, I will begin looking at Dummett's presentation in another post.

DUMMETT ON THE MEANING OF TRUMP ONE, EL BAGATELLA

Rejecting the quest for sequential meaning and hidden meanings, Dummett says what he will do (p. 416):

We are not, however, trying to find hidden meanings. They can be there or not: it will be enough to ascertain the surface meanings, which, with very few exceptions, are clearly visible.

Besides what is clearly visible, there are also literary references, which give verbal equivalents of the cards:

To achieve the originally intended meanings of the triumphs we need to know what names were known in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To this end, we have to rely on literary sources.

For that he gives 16 sixteenth century literary compositions--12 from Venice or Ferrara, 1 from Lombardy, 1 from Piedmont 2 from Rome, 1 from Central Italy--and 3 seventeenth century Bolognese compositions. plus a c. 1550 poem from Bologna discovered by Depaulis (given by Marcos as item 13 at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=552&p=7877&hilit=B ... ieco#p7877). To that might be added the Stramboli of c. 1500 Rome and Alciati's poem in Latin, 1544 Lombardy, which he somehow forgets to mention here (although he did earlier). The sources and names are well enough known that I am not going to repeat them. The only strange one is "Militia" in the Depaulis' discovery.

Actually, these sources--and others of the time that use these words--are valuable not only for the names, but in some cases also for their meanings. Dummet in fact uses a few of the sources for that purpose.

So now I will look at what he says.

For some reason, he starts with the Fool, even though he has repeatedly said that it is not a triumph, at least not originally so. I will skip it until the end, not because I believe it is the last triumph but because it was not part of the triumph sequence in the vast majority of games. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I believe in looking at the cards in the context of their role in the game.

So I start with the card called in the Steele Sermon "el Bagatella". Here is Dummett:

Il Bagatto è talvolta ritratto come un vecchio, talvolta come un giovane; ma è sempre ritto o seduto a un tavolo su cui sono esposte delle mercanzie; a volte non ci sono altre figure, a volte ce ne sono due o tre che contrattano con lui. Egli è, pertanto, un mercante o un saltimbanco, come indica il nome francese «le Bateleur». Sembra probabile che il nome italiano originale, ‘il Bagatella’, avesse lo stesso significato della parola moderna «una bagatella» e si riferisse non al soggetto ritratto, ma al fatto che la carta è la più bassa fra i trionfi e può essere battuta da tutti gli altri; si confronti il nome francese 'le Petit’ (il Piccolo) per questa carta. Così, il predicatore del sermone ‘De Ludo’ afferma:

Primus didtur El bagatella (et est omnium inferior).
[Il primo si chiama ‘Il bagatella’ (ed è il più basso di tutti)].

L’espressione ‘il Bagattino’, già in uso presso i giocatori bolognesi, sembra significare un uomo da nulla, come nel sonetto amoroso a Mamma Riminaldì:

Però dee creder fermamente ognuno Ch’un spirito malvagio habbia costej Sopposta solamente al Bagatino 10.

(The Bagatto is sometimes portrayed as an old man, sometimes as a young one; but he is always standing or sitting at a table on which are displayed merchandise; sometimes there are other figures, sometimes there are two or three who contract with him. He is therefore, a merchant or mountebank [saltimbanco], as indicated by his French name, "le Bateleur". It seems likely that the original Italian name, 'il Bagatella', had the same meaning as the modern word “una bagatella” ["a trifle"] and refers not to the subject portrayed, but to the fact that the card is the lowest among the triumphs and can be beaten by all the others; we encounter the French name 'le Petit' (The Little One) for this card. Thus, the preacher's sermon 'De Ludo' says:

Primus didtur El bagatella (et est omnium inferior).
(The first is called 'El bagatella' (and is the lowest of all) .

The expression 'il Bagattino', already in use by players of Bologna, seems to mean a man of nothing, as in the love sonnet to Mamma Riminaldi:

Però dee creder fermamente ognuno / Ch’un spirito malvagio habbia costej / Sopposta solamente al Bagatino
(But everyone ought to firmly believe / That an evil spirit has her / Following only the Bagatino.) 10

______________________
10. See Tarocchi, p. 108.

Then he goes on to talk about the Popess, Pope, etc. There is a part of this passage that I really like: he is looking at actual cards from the period and actual sentences using the word in an appropriate context. Frequently people still neglect one or the other of these types of sources. It is just the details that I object to.

First, the preacher is simply stating its place in the order, the lowest. Whether he has a double meaning in mind must be confirmed by some other means. It is not ruled out.

Second, in the poem about "Bagatino" here is the rest of the sonnet (Italian from Dummet p. 213, translatio from http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2011/04/ ... stern-art/):

Però dee creder fermamente ognuno
Ch’un spirito malvagio habbia costej
Sopposta solamente al Bagattino,
Per poter dire i buon tarocchi mej
Saran, s’avien ch’io giuochi, et de questi uno
Vo trare il Matto che è cervel divino.

(But surely everybody ought to believe
An evil spirit, following only the Bagatino,
Must possess this woman in order for her
to be able to say: “the good tarot shall be
mine, to be able to play as I please, and I draw
this one, the Fool, who is the brain divine.)

That sounds like a Magician to me, if he can command evil spirits. (Notice also his explanation of the Fool!)

For that word "Bagatino" there is also another tarot appropriati, Ferrara 1540, assigning each of the triumphs to a particular lady (http://www.tarock.info/bertoni.htm, http://www.tarotforum.net/archive/index ... 41639.html):

Il Bagatino
La S. Genevra Calcagnina. - Consiste nel giocar presto con mani.

(Il Bagatino
Genevra Calcagnina. - The game of her hands is quick.)

That is a shell-game artist, or sleight-of-hand conjurer.

It is true that some report that a Bagattino was a small coin in Venice (http://www.etimo.it/?cmd=id&id=1810&md= ... 8a6dfa6220, which that source derives from baca, berry, hence a small object); but if so I don't see the connection to this use. Nothing small is implied in these sentences. There are too many other possible histories of the word that work better, which I will quote later.

Then there is one of Folengo's sonnets, with English translation (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Caos_Del_Triperuno:

Questa fortuna al mondo è 'n Bagattella,
ch'or quinci altrui solleva, or quindi abbassa.
Non è Tempranzia in lei, però fracassa
la forza di chi nacque in prava Stella.

(Fortune in the world is like a Juggler,
who now rises someone, and than brings him down.
There is no Temperance in it, so it crushes
the strength of whoever was born under a bad Star.)

This Bagatella is not exactly a "trifle", or "person of nothing", unless you consider bad Fortune a trifle, as Folengo eventually will.

There is also this stanza in another poem by Folengo, translated by Marco (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=764#p11030):

I leave to you wicked fortune
who acts like a bagattella:
whenever she seems most beautiful,
she slips away as an eel.

This is a person who changes her shape, as sorceresses were good at doing (or appearing to do, in Orlando Furioso).

Marco saw a kinship between the use of "bagatella" in a 1298 poem quoted by Muratori:

Lassovi la fortuna fella
Travagliar qual Bagattella

which Marco translates as

I leave to you wicked fortune
Who acts like a bagattella

Again, the meaning would seem to be "sorceress", someone able to change things from good to bad and vice versa. However it might be a juggler too (things on top going to the bottom, etc.).

This last couplet comes from Muratori (posted by Ross on the same thread, at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=764#p11028), which also quotes a 1398 Latin sentence on a history of bishops, which ends:

. . . Cognomine vocatus el Bagatella, propter ejus cavillationes umbratiles & pueriles , vel quod illam artem noverit Bagattandi.

Here I notice that "Bagatella" takes the masculine article "el", as it does for the preacher of the Steele Sermon. The whole passage in Muratori is translated admirably by Marco (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=764#p11041). After first arguing against a derivation from "bacca" meaning "berry" and then getting attached to pearls, which he calls "pure fantasy") Muratori gives his own conjecture:

If you ask me the origin of that word, I have not found anything reliable: I can only propose a conjecture. The Arabic language has a word “Bakatta”, which adapted to Italian becomes “Bagattare”. According to Gollio, it means “to hurry when speaking or walking”. In Modena they say “Abbagattare” for the Florentine “Acciabattare” [to shuffle?]. The Arabs have one more similar verb, that is “Bagata”, with a single T. It means “to mix food, to confound business or speech”. It is not unlikely that the Italians borrowed “Bagattare”, as they did for many other words, from the Arabs or Saracens, who once ruled on Sicily and Calabria and had much commerce throughout our country. [So the Italians] called trifles and the tricks and games of jugglers “Bagattelle”. Paolo Scordilla wrote “the Lives of the Archbishops of Ravenna” in 1398 ca. At Par.I, Book II, pg. 214 (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores) he writes: “the sower of such discord was Servideus, formerly cantor in that church, known by the nickname 'el Bagatella', on account of his shadowy and childish banter, or as one who knows the art of 'bagattare'”. In 1298 ca, brother Jacopone da Todi, wrote in his Satire I:

"I leave to you wicked fortune
who acts like a Bagattella."

I cannot find anything better.

I would add only that the word that Marco translates as "jugglers" is "Cantambanchi". Here "banchi" means "bench" or "platform", and "cantam" is the past participle of the Latin "cantus", meaning "sing" or "recite". So it is in fact either the salesman or the performer who distracts us with his banter.

I haven't found any modern source mentioning these alleged Arab words; otherwise, he is useful for his 1398 and 1298 examples.

In French, Le Grand Robert), 1985, tells us, the word is "saltimbanque", from Italian "saltimbanco", in both cases meaning "jump on bench". The English "Mountebank" is a good approximation. Another word for a saltimbanque, Le Grand Robert tells us, is banquiste, meaning the person who introduces and praises the performers. It means much the same as the French word "Bateleur", except that that word has a very particular derivation, which I will get to in a moment.

The Grand Robert for "Bagatelle" has

---1547, N. du Fait; Ital. bagatella "tour de bateleur" du lat. Baca, "baie".

"Tour" in this context means "trick", so a Bateleur's trick. This "baca" is "berry" ("baie").again, the derivation that Muratori rejected (although not persuasively, because what he rejected was an alleged meaning as "pearl").

So there seem to be two historical meanings: one, the person who does tricks, and the other, a small object, perhaps not worth much, like the coin. Because of these two meanings, the figure is appropriate as the lowest card. From Folengo and the 1298 poem, however, there is also a sense of someone who has more power to create illusions than a mere slight of hand artist. '

In addition, Robert indicates that "bagatelle" is used with the opposite meaning, as an ironical expression. Similarly, it seems to me, in the game the card is one of the highest point-getters, and in trick-taking power, while the lowest of the triumphs, nonetheless has more power than any of the Kings.

For "Bateleur", I looked for pre-modern uses of the term. Robert says:

XIIIe basteleur, jusqu'au XVIe, d l'anc. franç baastel "Instrument d'escamoteur" (--2. Beteler) orig. incertaine

[/quote]
An "escamoteur" is a conjurer, in the sense of someone who engages in escamoter, making things disappear (http://www.cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/escamoter). So a "baasteleur" is someone who uses that instrument, i.e. a wand-wielder.

The escamoteur's instrument is also called a bâton and a baguette, which is a ""petit bâton", a small baton, Robert says. A "tour de bâton" is "profit secret, ristourne illicite". "Tour" means "trick" in modern French, in this context, so "trick of the wand"..

For the word "baguette" Robert has " n. f. --1510, Carloix; ital. bacchette, de bacchio "bâton" lat. baculum". For the second meaning it has "emplois speciaux: a: baguette magique, baguette de fée; "fée" means a fairy. The Latin "baculum" means "walking stick, rod, scepter". Could "bagatella" derive from "baculum" rather than "baca"? If so, there would a direct connection to the stick that he carries. But probably not: "bagatella" has a second "a" that "baca" has but not "baculum". However the word "Bateleur" does seem to have the connection to that stick, according to Robert

Then the meaning became more general. For the broader meaning of "bateleur", Robert gives a great number of persons who in modern French qualify as a bateleur (although always describing the past): in general, any of those people who got up on stages in the town squares to attract crowds by their antics, but including also charlatans, meaning people who sold health and other (e.g. love) remedies. The clerics who wrote the books considered them worthless, but if everybody thought that, they wouldn't have been in business. Evelyn Welch in Shopping in the Renaissance (2005) says that "the traveling charlatan sold many of the same items as the traditional pharmacist" (p. 57)

Dummett seems to think that the items on the Bagatella's table are for sale ("merchandise"). It is true that the main object of the Mountebank was to sell things. But on most decks these look to me more like the tools of his trade as a prestidigitator.

The connection between magic tricks and the sale of dubious medicines is explained by Welch. I have uploaded this page, which also has on it an engraving of saltimbancos in Venice, at http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bv7C-2zN210/U ... elch57.JPG). If the charlatan sold some of the same remedies as the apothecary, the difference was in the performance (and, I would think, the notion that the seller was a traveler from somewhere else, selling goods that might not be available elsewhere). This created the danger of "being overcome by the pleasure and excitement that came from the performance of salesmanship" (pp 59f). But also, there was the element of magic. Welch quotes from an observer of a Spaniard (a traveler from elsewhre) who sold paper prayers, which he claimed could bring about miracles (p. 57, uploaded at link above). To prove his point, he entered hot ovens carrying unbaked bread; it came out done and he none the worse. Also, he put his hands in hot oil (presumably he had fried a few things) and put lit tapers of flame in his mouth. Viewing such spectacles, a person might be more inclined to believe in the efficacy of the powder he bought there than if he bought it in a shop. Today we know about the "placebo effect"; placebos are in fact good medicine (they do the trick, as we say) in a certain number of cases, deceptive or not.

In the engraving that Welch shows, nobody looks like any of the fellows on the cards. Perhaps he was considered too disreputable to allow in the main center of tourism in Venice. Or the artist didn't want to show so common an image.

Dummett ignores Piscina's and Alciati's names for the card, both of which mean "innkeeper". In that sense, what he is holding would be a quill pen, and the table is his desk or a place where he sells drinks (hence coins and cups). That term is relevant in as much as I have not been able to find images comparable to the Bagatella in earlier art except in two contexts: an inn in which drinks are sold (see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=937&start=70#p15114), and Jupiter as a priest at an altar, or a judge (which I will talk about later in this post). Perhaps in Milan he was seen as an innkeeper, but in Ferrara as a slight of hand artist. What the PMB figure holds does look somewhat like a quill. Which is a misreading of which is hard to say.

Then there is the question of the larger symbolism of the figure, from its position situated at the beginning of the sequence (in every known list). In the 1520s, in a frontispiece depicting an ancient text called the Tablet of Cebes, a magus-looking figure holding up a stick was put at the entrance to a walled city that is symbolic of our life on earth (see my post at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=937&p=14136#p14102). In his other hand he holds a piece of paper, probably the same as what we see, so that the soul (here a naked child) will know, even if not remembering, the pitfalls to come. One might wonder if the analogy was to the beginning of a card game; we are all dealt different cards in life, predetermined by the shuffle, and winning, i.e. going to heaven, is a matter of overcoming the bad and using the good. The game is as instructive as the piece of paper that the figure holds in his hand.

Likewise the tricks of the Saltimbanco were often presented as instruction, for example, proof of the existence of miracles, at least in the sense of unexplained phenomena that depend partly on the belief of the person performing them, e.g. the man impervious to heat that Welch cites. Even Jesus's miracles were meant as instruction.

Comparing life to a card game, there is also the analogy of the four suit signs to the four elements (often made then, although in different ways), and thus the dealer as a kind of unwitting Platonic Demiurge (or Logos of the Gospel of John), mixing the elements that determine our world, by which the soul may prove itself worthy of heaven. The four suit signs were often right there on the Bagato's table, in the PMB and Tarot de Marseille.

I do not think that any of this symbolism is hidden. It is just Platonistically tinged Roman Catholicism. The PMB figure also looks somewhat like a priest at the mass, what with the object covered by a cloth at one side. Seznec shows pictures of Jupiter as a monk administering the eucharist (http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/61 ... 29.jpg.jpg); Panofsky has one that he says is Jupiter as judge, but it certainly looks much like a priest at an altar to me (http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/61 ... 29.jpg.jpg; for the reference see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=937&p=13784&hilit= ... onk#p13784). This is not a hidden allusion, but suggested by the PMB depiction. What was on the card had a certan ambiguity, even then.

Finally, I need to honor one version of the card from which there are survivors suggesting at least an early 18th century origin: he is now an artisan wearing an apron (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v63_BEJlKY8/U ... lisCob.JPG). The card is from Vercelli in Piedmont, Depaulis tells us (in his article "I Tarocchi Piemontese", in Costello dei Tarocchi), c. 1850. Another version is at http://eno-tarot.blogspot.com/2012/03/a ... tarot.html, c. 1835, it says. This site describes him as "an artisan, probably a cobbler" and says it is from Serravalle-Sesia, which is a town in Vercelli. This characterization might explain why in some North Italian dialects the word "bagatt" means "cobbler", an observation Marco opened the other discussion with (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=764#p10900). He is no longer a trickster or a magus but rather an honest artisan. Perhaps the same impulse that sometimes removed the Popess, the Pope, the Devil, and the Tower also removed the Bagatella, replacing him with an honest laborer.

... :-) ...

Dummett ignores Piscina's and Alciati's names for the card, both of which mean "innkeeper". In that sense, what he is holding would be a quill pen, and the table is his desk or a place where he sells drinks (hence coins and cups). That term is relevant in as much as I have not been able to find images comparable to the Bagatella in earlier art except in two contexts: an inn in which drinks are sold (see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=937&start=70#p15114), and Jupiter as a priest at an altar, or a judge (which I will talk about later in this post). Perhaps in Milan he was seen as an innkeeper, but in Ferrara as a slight of hand artist. What the PMB figure holds does look somewhat like a quill. Which is a misreading of which is hard to say.

Dummett and Michael S. Howard ignore the innkeeper + "Poor man - Fool - Gambler - Messenger", as it rather obviously appeared in chess iconography since the time of Cessolis, the innkeeper presenting the pawn in front of the bishop at the Queen's side and the variating Fool figure the pawn in front of the rook (also at thwee Queen's side).

The sixthe pawn whiche standeth to fore the Alphyn on the lyfte syde is made in thys forme. For hit is a man that hath the right hande stracched oute as for to calle men And holdeth in his lyfte hande a loof of breed and a cuppe of wyn And on his gurdell hangynge a boudell of keyes And this resembleth the Tauerners. hostelers. and sellars of vitaylle. And thise ought proprely to be sette to fore the Alphyn as to fore a Iuge For ther sourdeth ofte tymes amonge hem contencion noyse and stryf whiche behoueth to be determyned and trayted by the alphyn whiche is Iuge of the kynge And hit apperteyneth to them for to seke and enquyre for good wyns and good vitayll for to gyue and selle to the byers And to them that they herberowe And hit apperteyneth to them well to kepe their herberowes and Innes and alle tho thyngis that they brynge in to their loggynge and for to putte hyt in seure and sauf warde and kepynge And the firste of them Is signefyed by the lyfte hande in whiche he bereth brede and wyn and the seconde is signefied by the right hande whiche Is stracched oute to calle men And the thirde is representid by the keyes hangynge on y'e gurdell And thyse maner of peple ought teschewethe synne of glotonye.

http://www.edochess.ca/batgirl/Cessolis.html

Folengo in his sonnet also refers to the trump Bagatella as ‘acorn player’*. He refers also to an acorn player in his Baldo epic poem.

In the original (1517) edition of Folengo's "Opus Merlini Cocaii poetae mantuani Macaronicorum", Folengo writes:

In alio quoque saxo ad modum centenari sculpito hanc prosam admirati sumus:

Nec in coelo gratia, Nec in inferno pena datur buffonis, hic ergo vivam Bocalus.

Obstupefacti pro tali epigramate, deliberavimus evolvere lapidem ab ostio sepulture huius, quo facto, ecce videmus hominem macilentum, barbatum usque ad summitates pedum, et cum gallis, bechiris*, nonnullisque bagatellis ludebat.

Which I roughly translate as:

On another stone, sculpted like a milestone, we were amazed by this writing:

Neither the grace of heaven nor the punishment of hell is administered to buffoons, in this case then, Bocalus lives here.

Stupefied by such an epigram, we decided to move the stone from the door of this tomb and having done this, behold, we see a scrawny man, long-bearded as far as the top of his feet, and toying with little playthings, with acorns and cups. (bechiris (lat.,It. macaronic) = becherus--bicchiere --a cup or a glass).

Translating 'bagetellis' as 'little playthings'.

However, in the 1521 edition Folengo has changed this to:

In aliam quoque bandam in urna vel potius in maximo botazzo prosam istam vidimus inscriptam vino, ut ab odoratu pensari poterat:

Nec in coelo gratia nec in inferno poena datur
bofonibus, hic ergo vivam Bocalus.

Obstupefacti pro huiusmodi epitaphio deliberamus evolvere petram instar cocaii stopantem os urnae: quo facto, cernimus en hominem magrefactum, barbatumque usque ad umbilicum, et insuper ludentem secum more magatellantis cum gallis, bechiris, nonnullisque frasculis.

Again which I roughly translate as:

In another area we found this writing written on an urn, or rather on a huge bottle inscribed with wine, judging by the smell of it:

Neither the grace of heaven nor the pain of hell is granted to buffoons, therefore I, Bocalus, live here.

Stupified by such an epitaph, we decided to roll away the rock that was stopping the mouth of the urn like a cork: when this is done, we discern a scrawny man, with a beard down to his navel, and he was playing as magicians do with acorns, cups and little sticks.

So I wonder if bagetellis in the original should be read as ‘little sticks’.

In the macaronic glossary at the end of the 1911 edition of Il Baldo I see it says for magatellare see bagatellare (to perform tricks), as if the one is synonymus with the other?

My somewhat free translation of this episode from Folengo’s Il Baldo is here:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=537&p=15130#p15130

SteveM

*sorte di Focilla

Mondo Stella Rota Fortezza Temperantia Bagattella

Questa Fortuna al Mondo è ‘n Bagattella,
C’hor quinci altrui solleva, hor quindi abbassa.
Non è Temperantia in lei, però fracassa
La Forza di chi nacque in prava Stella.

Sol una Temperata forte e bella
Donna, che di splendor le Stelle passa,
La instabil Rota tien humile e bassa;
E’n Gioco lei di galle al mondo appella.


Costei Tempratamente sua Fortezza
Usato ha sempre, tal che ‘l Mondo e ‘nsieme
La Sorte de le Stelle a Scherzo mena.

Ben può Fortuna con sua Leggerezza
Ir ne le Stelle di più Forze estreme:
Chi sa Temprarsi lei col Mondo affrena.

Roughly translated -

The Fate/Lot of Focilla:

World, Star, Wheel, Strength, Temperance, Magician/Juggler.**

Fortune, Worldwide, is like a Juggler;
she lifts one up, then brings one down.
There is no Temperance in her, she shatters
the Strength of those born under bad Stars.

Only a Temperate, Strong and beautiful
woman, whose splendour surpasses the Stars,
the wavering Wheel holds humble and low,
so she is called in the World an "acorn Player".

This woman has always used her Stronghold
Temperately, so she Laughs at the World
and the Foretellings of the Stars.

May well Fortune, with her Levity,***
be Stronger than the Stars:
one Hardened with the World reins it in.

All five are posted over at AT here:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... stcount=56

* *Bagatella I originally translated to Juggler, however as Folengo described the acorn player Bocalus playing 'as magicians do' (ludentem secum more magatellantis) it could be taken also as magician.

*** Bagatella in the macaronic glossary at the back of the 1911 edition of Merlini Corcai is 'uomo leggero' - a lightweight man. 'Leggerezza' (lightweight) I have translated as 'Levity', i.e., one who treats things light-heartedly, a joker, prankster, trickster as used in reference here to the Juggler / Magician trump.

Huck, no I didn't know about the innkeeper in chess. Looking at the page you referenced, I didn't see anything about the fool and the gambler, although they were frequently associated with the innkeeper, who became a kind of church warden in a satanic mass of wine and cards. And since there is nothing about the other pawns that relates to tarot, I assume that the pieces aren't the point of the analogy, but rather cocasions for moral sermons. In that respect, the passage you cited is indeed of interest. .

And hit apperteyneth to them for to seke and enquyre for good wyns and good vitayll for to gyue and selle to the byers And to them that they herberowe And hit apperteyneth to them well to kepe their herberowes and Innes and alle tho thyngis that they brynge in to their loggynge and for to putte hyt in seure and sauf warde and kepynge And the firste of them Is signefyed by the lyfte hande in whiche he bereth brede and wyn and the seconde is signefied by the right hande whiche Is stracched oute to calle men And the thirde is representid by the keyes hangynge on y'e gurdell And thyse maner of peple ought teschewethe synne of glotonye.

(And it pertains to them [innkeepers] to seek and inquire for good wines and good eats to give and sell to the buyers. And to them that they provide lodgings, it pertains to them to keep well their lodgings and inns and all those things that they bring into their lodging and put it in secure and safe ward and keeping. And the first of them is signified by the left hand, in which he bears bread nd wine, and the second is signified by the right hand, which is stretched out to call men. And the third is represented by the keys hanging on his girdle. And these manner of people ought to show the sin of gluttony.

What I notice is the "brede and wyn" in one hand, reminiscent of the Eucharist, to which the people are also called. The pose in the pictures is reminiscent of that of the Bagato, who in the Piedmont cards holds a cup up in his left hand and a round object lower down in his right. 1476 is not too late to have been influenced by the tarot.But it is a common enough pose without such influence.


Steve: Excellent, on the "little sticks". That's more confirmation of the association to magicians. And more association of innkeepers, fools, and tricksters. As you translate (good rhyming, by the way)

I found a giant urn inside a cavern
which from the smell, came from a tavern.
Inscribed in ink, which stunk like wine,
I saw this stupefying line:

“Neither heaven nor hell may give
a place to fools so here I live.”

Confused by this mysterious talk
I levered off its monstrous cork
and was amazed to see inside
a bearded man with scrawny hide
playing as one performing tricks
with acorns, shells and little sticks.

That last could be the Ferrara card image (d'Este, Metropolitan). It strikes me that his name, Bocalus, might be a macaronic version of "bacalum", stick. Also, he calls himself a buffone, i.e. an entertainer. But why aren't entertainers accepted in either heaven or hell? Does "buffone" mean "gambler" here?

For reference, here is Maroney's translation: http://www.folengo.com/1517%20Paganini% ... 202011.pdf.

That was also very helpful on the Folengo sonnet. I was wondering where the second reference to the Bagatella was there. I see now: "acorn player". But I'm not sure about the precise meaning. You already have the translation on Tarotpedia (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Caos_Del_Triperuno). Here is Moroney's draft-translation (http://www.folengo.com/Chaos%20with%20E ... 202014.pdf):

This Fortune is a Magician, who first
lifts someone up then brings him down.
There is no Temperance in her, so, she shatters
the Strength of anyone born under a bad Star.

Only a Temperate and Strong and beautiful
woman, who surpasses the Stars in splendor,
the fickle Wheel keeps humble and low,
and in Jest calls her poxed in public.

This woman has always used her Strength
Temperately, so that she makes a Game of the
World and of the Fate of the Stars too.*

Well may Fortune with its Lightness go into the Stars
of more extreme Forces: who knows how to Temper
oneself with the World reins her in.*

You have, for the stanza in question:

Only a Temperate, Strong and beautiful
woman, whose splendour surpasses the Stars,
the wavering Wheel holds humble and low,
so she is called in the World an "acorn Player".
.
(Sol una temperata forte e bella
donna, che di splendor le Stelle passa,
la instabil Rota tien umile e bassa;
e 'n gioco lei di galle al mondo appella.)

Here is what I come up with:

"Only a tempered, strong and beautiful
woman, whose splendour surpasses that of the Stars,
can make the fickle Wheel humble and low;
calling her [the Wheel] to the world in a game of acorns."

Or perhaps, for the last line:

"calling her to the world like an acorn-player."

meaning she is so strong she can treat Fortune in the way a shell-game operator treats his dupes. Another possibility:

"Calling her an acorn-player in the world."

In other words, belittling her by association with such a person of little worth, and so a play on the two meanings of "bagatella". What do you think?

mikeh wrote: But why aren't entertainers accepted in either heaven or hell? Does "buffone" mean "gambler" here?

Although Folengo was a catholic monk, he had reformist sympathies and his works are ripe with anti-clerical satire. I think it is possible here he is having a dig at the concept of purgatory, and the abuses the belief in such led to or was used to justify, such as indulgences, and the practice of rich patrons to found 'Maison Dieu', a stipulation of which was that its inhabitants made regular prayers for the souls of their patrons so that their time in purgatory might be lessened. Purgatory (which is neither heaven nor hell) is a place for fools - for the concept itself is foolish and leads to folly.

mikeh wrote: "Only a tempered, strong and beautiful
woman, whose splendour surpasses that of the Stars,
can make the fickle Wheel humble and low;
calling her [the Wheel] to the world in a game of acorns."

Or perhaps, for the last line:

"calling her to the world like an acorn-player."

meaning she is so strong she can treat Fortune in the way a shell-game operator treats his dupes. Another possibility:

"Calling her an acorn-player in the world."

In other words, belittling her by association with such a person of little worth, and so a play on the two meanings of "bagatella". What do you think?

Well, I am not sure and glad to be corrected, but my reading of it is that people mock her and call her or liken her to an 'acorn player',* a trifler and person of little consequence, but this is really a reflection of her virtue, as Fortune tends to keep the virtuous low and people mock the virtuous (the wicked prosper and the virtuous suffer -- but suffering itself is a test and/or a building block of virtue, particularly 'fortitude'). Virtue doesn't protect you from misfortune in this world, it perfects the soul that will have its reward in the world to come, so I think it is Fortune that keeps her 'humble and low', not the other way round (except in as much as she may consider fortune lowly in comparison to wisdom/virtue)?

SteveM

A reference to each trump, directly or by association, occurs in each stanza -- the references to the Bagatella are 'acorn player', 'to mock, jest, laugh', 'a lightweight person, levity'.

mikeh wrote:Huck, no I didn't know about the innkeeper in chess. Looking at the page you referenced, I didn't see anything about the fool and the gambler, although they were frequently associated with the innkeeper, who became a kind of church warden in a satanic mass of wine and cards. And since there is nothing about the other pawns that relates to tarot, I assume that the pieces aren't the point of the analogy, but rather cocasions for moral sermons. In that respect, the passage you cited is indeed of interest. .

And hit apperteyneth to them for to seke and enquyre for good wyns and good vitayll for to gyue and selle to the byers And to them that they herberowe And hit apperteyneth to them well to kepe their herberowes and Innes and alle tho thyngis that they brynge in to their loggynge and for to putte hyt in seure and sauf warde and kepynge And the firste of them Is signefyed by the lyfte hande in whiche he bereth brede and wyn and the seconde is signefied by the right hande whiche Is stracched oute to calle men And the thirde is representid by the keyes hangynge on y'e gurdell And thyse maner of peple ought teschewethe synne of glotonye.

(And it pertains to them [innkeepers] to seek and inquire for good wines and good eats to give and sell to the buyers. And to them that they provide lodgings, it pertains to them to keep well their lodgings and inns and all those things that they bring into their lodging and put it in secure and safe ward and keeping. And the first of them is signified by the left hand, in which he bears bread nd wine, and the second is signified by the right hand, which is stretched out to call men. And the third is represented by the keys hanging on his girdle. And these manner of people ought to show the sin of gluttony.

What I notice is the "brede and wyn" in one hand, reminiscent of the Eucharist, to which the people are also called. The pose in the pictures is reminiscent of that of the Bagato, who in the Piedmont cards holds a cup up in his left hand and a round object lower down in his right. 1476 is not too late to have been influenced by the tarot.But it is a common enough pose without such influence.

OOps, I thought, that you would know it, as I rather often wrote about it. So I just wanted to remind you.

As you say, that you do not know this, I give the story in short.

Chess developed in various forms in Asia. One version spread to Europe, which caused other European versions to be developed. The major difference to Asian chess versions was, that Europe developed a queen. The major version of chess in Europe was the common 8x8 board and the known 6 different figures (King-Queen-Bishop-Knight-Rook-Pawn) with variations in name and outfit. There are older European rules and modern European rules, the major change appeared with some logic in the time of the early printing press (1470-1530), and in this big change the Queen and Bishop were modified from "slow-motion figures" to "quick figures", or in other words, bishop and queen were increased to more strength.

Likely during late 13th century developed a chess version with pawn specification in Persia (each pawn was different to all other pawns and the specification made functionally sense in the played game). "Tamerlane chess", which used this pawn specification, has first notes around c. 1340.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamerlane_Chess

Likely around 1320 the Dominican Cessolis wrote a chess book, and in this chess book he arranged a similar pawn specification (each pawn got a profession), but only for moralising interests and the variated pawn had no function in the played game (at least, as far we know it). Likely Cessolis had captured something about foreign rules in Persia, but didn't their function.
https://sites.google.com/site/carolusch ... t/cessolis

The Cessolis text became very successful during 14th century and later. Chess was after the Apocalypse the most considered theme in 14th century book production.

The playing cards arrived during 14th century in Europe. In 1377 John of Rheinfelden observed a deck with 60 cards, in which the pawns were presented as "professions", clearly imitating the new Cessolis chess and pawn interpretation. John clearly recognized the chess inflence on this deck.
A similar deck with 48 cards was made in c. 1455 with the Hofämterspiel.

Around 1418-1425 the Martiano text was written. It describes the Michelino deck, and the deck has again 60 cards, as the deck described by John of Rheinfelden. Curiously he describes as court cards only 4 kings, different to any other deck. The other 16 court cards were replaced by trumps, in this case Greek/Roman gods. As it seems, the 16 trumps were arranged inside the four suits, the trumps weren't an independent trump suit as in later Trionfi and Tarot versions. But the trumps already had a sequence as the later Trionfi and Tarot card versions.

There's the natural suspicion, that these 16 trumps somehow presented the 16 figures of chess (8 pawn + 8 officers), imitating the already introduced chess iconography in a new manner. Another chess allegory, which also used 16 Greek/Roman gods in Chess context, had been already written by Evrart de Conty in 1398.

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

One of the 8 common Cessolis pawn professions was the Innkeeper, another was a mixture of Poor Man, Fool, Gambler, Messenger.


The poor chess fool, similar poor as the Fool in the PMB.

My quote in old English above is just from the Caxton Cessolis version, the first printed chess book in English. The date is 1476, but this is not relevant. The Cessolis book development has a broad tradition, and it is European, not only local, translated to many languages.

**********

"Wirt" (= Innkeeper) and "Poor Noble Man" (likely the lowest trump) appear also in the funny card deck description of Master Ingold (1432), who also imitated Cessolis in the part of his book, in which he wrote about chess.
http://trionfi.com/0/mi/00/
The funny deck described by Ingold is likely a joke on chess iconography fashion, the Queen-imitation is the Toypel-weib (a hooker) and the King is the Ruffian (the pimp).

"Nun sind auf dem kartenspil fier küng mit iren wauppen, und hat ieglicher under im XIII karten, das macht an ainer sum LII, und hat ieglichü das zaychen irs küngs. Etlich kartenspil hat dar zu fier küngin und fier junkfrawen, etlich haben den ackerman, den edelman, den wuchrer, den pfaffen, die toypel, den riffian, den wirt; und gewint ie ains dem andern ab: dem edelman der wuchrer, dem wuchrer der pfaff, dem pfaffen das täppelweib, dem täppelweib der riffian, dem riffian der wirt, dem wirt der weinman, dem weinman wider umb der pauman der den wein pauwen sol, der nimpt das gelt wider von dem wirt."

Ingold thinks, that this game is a scandal. The same he thinks of a deck, in which the court cards have 4 kings and 4 queens and 4 "junkfrawen".

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

The similarity of chess iconography to Trionfi/Tarot iconography is given by the fact, that the mostly 13 chess figure pictures (only 1 for 2 knights or two rooks or two bishops) are repeated and modified through many edition and that for a rather long time.
Apparently the innkeeper and the foolish messenger with his dice were the most funny of the 8 professions, and it isn't a wonder, that just these both were prolonged into the Trionfi/Tarot game, and others not.

The world of games is so, that, if a person plays chess or another game, that he more likely also plays with cards than a person who has generally no fun with games. The difference between players and no players is greater than the difference between chess players and card players. Everybody, who had once some more practical experience with games, knows that. As some Trionfi/Tarot historians haven't such an extended knowledge about practical games, it's sometimes difficult to explain the trivial and natural behavior of players.

So naturally chess players were present, when Trionfi/Tarot cards were born. Earlier chess jokes should have passed with no great difficulties in the new context. "Innkeeper" and "Fool" come from chess.

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Franco Pratesi in 1998 ..
http://trionfi.com/research-tarot-sources
... spoke of Cessolis as a possible source of Tarot.

Cessolis didn't become a theme in the IPCS, as far I remember this.

The researchers were too much focussed on their objects, playing cards. And the early time of playing cards only seldom was discussed. And it likely was difficult in the 1990s to see much of far spread cess icongraphy. Internet has changed this.