Re: Problems with positing the Papi in the ur-Tarot
Posted: 06 Jul 2020, 16:17
I can't say much about "Eight Emperors," except that it clearly means one of two things: a rule in which eight cards were called "emperors," whether or not they really depicted emperors, or eight special cards that we might naturally take to have been trumps. I tend to the former, since it could therefore be taken as another name for The Emperor's Game (because German), Karnöffel. Of course Karnöffel as we know it choses only seven special cards, not eight, but it could be a small variation from this early date.
A third possibility is a mingling of the two, i.e. four permanent trumps and four kings, all called, in the poetic-ludic fashion, "emperors," because all of them shared the highest point value. My analogy here is stretched because late, but in his German dictionary of 1807, Joachim Heinrich Campe attests the word "Siebenkönigsspiel" - Seven Kings Game - as a name for Tarock. That is, presumably, because the four kings and three counting trumps have the same point value, and all of them are ludically called "kings."
https://books.google.fr/books?id=bpVEAA ... 22&f=false
Whatever the truth about VIII Imperadori, or just Imperadori as it was later referred to (only one time it occurs with the number), I have long argued for the existence of at least a few trump cards, or wild cards at least, prior to the invention of the standard trionfi sequence. Marziano's game is long prior to Trionfi, and it is completely different, but the idea of a hierarchical sequence of distinct, permanent trumps could have been tried. I adduce Fernando de la Torre's single Emperor trump as indirect evidence of it in Florence in the early 1430s - possibly. But a single trump is not much of an improvement on the game, so such limited experiments never caught on widely and have left no trace.
On the significance of the equal-papi rule, it is obviously social commentary of a sort, an observation on the state of the world. I think that cannot be avoided. I just take it as "proverbial," rather than a direct portrait of any immediate reality. The Great (or Western) Schism had only been resolved 20 years earlier, and a new contention had arisen - the Conciliar Controversy, which held Councils to be higher than popes in authority. This is what happened in Basel, and resulted in the election of Felix V. And it is naïve to think that all of Italy loved Eugene; he was literally chased out of Rome. Ask a Roman at the time who was pope, many would probably say "the seat is vacant." The Bolognese chronicle that mentions "dui papi," also says of Eugene " Et in quello tempo era papa Eugenio quarto che steva in Fiorenza, ma havea pocho credito" - And at that time it was Pope Eugene who stayed in Florence, but he had little credit. (another chronicle of the time repeats this, but omits the final slight about him having little credit).
For the references, see this post, near the end - viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=4282&hilit=pedini#p4282
Chronicles A and B, here both columns, page 97 - https://archive.org/details/p1rerumital ... rd/page/96
In fact he did have "little credit," until the Council was touted as an increasingly glorious success, and he had managed to get himself back to Rome in security. The Popes were literally the pawns of princes in exactly those days; Eugene was completely dependent on Medici generosity. We should not confuse religious practices and proclamations with generalized piety; the powerful secular rulers had a completely cynical, or realistic, view of papal power. And the confusion of the schism, then the conciliar controversy, would have led many others to have this feeling. This is what I call "proverbial," symbolized as pope (religious authority) versus emperor (secular authority), once the old very real Guelph and Ghibelline factional wars, now evolved into factional traditions and fracture lines among the nobility of the cities, much like party politics of today (or in the history of all democracies from the late 18th centuries - Whigs, Tories, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans, Labour in the UK and US; in France the parties change names more often, but the idea of "left versus right" comes from the French hemicycle, the parliament, depending on which side the partisans of the nobility or the bourgeois (and after socialism was invented, the working class) sat).
So for me the equal-papi rule doesn't have to reflect an urgent current situation, but can be taken as a proverbial condition, and a somewhat rueful commentary on the power struggles of the highest and mightiest.
A third possibility is a mingling of the two, i.e. four permanent trumps and four kings, all called, in the poetic-ludic fashion, "emperors," because all of them shared the highest point value. My analogy here is stretched because late, but in his German dictionary of 1807, Joachim Heinrich Campe attests the word "Siebenkönigsspiel" - Seven Kings Game - as a name for Tarock. That is, presumably, because the four kings and three counting trumps have the same point value, and all of them are ludically called "kings."
https://books.google.fr/books?id=bpVEAA ... 22&f=false
Whatever the truth about VIII Imperadori, or just Imperadori as it was later referred to (only one time it occurs with the number), I have long argued for the existence of at least a few trump cards, or wild cards at least, prior to the invention of the standard trionfi sequence. Marziano's game is long prior to Trionfi, and it is completely different, but the idea of a hierarchical sequence of distinct, permanent trumps could have been tried. I adduce Fernando de la Torre's single Emperor trump as indirect evidence of it in Florence in the early 1430s - possibly. But a single trump is not much of an improvement on the game, so such limited experiments never caught on widely and have left no trace.
On the significance of the equal-papi rule, it is obviously social commentary of a sort, an observation on the state of the world. I think that cannot be avoided. I just take it as "proverbial," rather than a direct portrait of any immediate reality. The Great (or Western) Schism had only been resolved 20 years earlier, and a new contention had arisen - the Conciliar Controversy, which held Councils to be higher than popes in authority. This is what happened in Basel, and resulted in the election of Felix V. And it is naïve to think that all of Italy loved Eugene; he was literally chased out of Rome. Ask a Roman at the time who was pope, many would probably say "the seat is vacant." The Bolognese chronicle that mentions "dui papi," also says of Eugene " Et in quello tempo era papa Eugenio quarto che steva in Fiorenza, ma havea pocho credito" - And at that time it was Pope Eugene who stayed in Florence, but he had little credit. (another chronicle of the time repeats this, but omits the final slight about him having little credit).
For the references, see this post, near the end - viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=4282&hilit=pedini#p4282
Chronicles A and B, here both columns, page 97 - https://archive.org/details/p1rerumital ... rd/page/96
In fact he did have "little credit," until the Council was touted as an increasingly glorious success, and he had managed to get himself back to Rome in security. The Popes were literally the pawns of princes in exactly those days; Eugene was completely dependent on Medici generosity. We should not confuse religious practices and proclamations with generalized piety; the powerful secular rulers had a completely cynical, or realistic, view of papal power. And the confusion of the schism, then the conciliar controversy, would have led many others to have this feeling. This is what I call "proverbial," symbolized as pope (religious authority) versus emperor (secular authority), once the old very real Guelph and Ghibelline factional wars, now evolved into factional traditions and fracture lines among the nobility of the cities, much like party politics of today (or in the history of all democracies from the late 18th centuries - Whigs, Tories, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans, Labour in the UK and US; in France the parties change names more often, but the idea of "left versus right" comes from the French hemicycle, the parliament, depending on which side the partisans of the nobility or the bourgeois (and after socialism was invented, the working class) sat).
So for me the equal-papi rule doesn't have to reflect an urgent current situation, but can be taken as a proverbial condition, and a somewhat rueful commentary on the power struggles of the highest and mightiest.