The only problem is that they give no documentation of these claims.The manufacture of playing cards in Lombardy died out towards the end of the XVII century, and players subsequently used Tarot de Marseille packs imported from France; Bolognese cardmakers began in about 1740 to produce packs for use in Lombardy, in a slight variation of the Tarot de Marseille; as the economy of Lombardy revived in the mid-century, cardmakers there produced packs in this 'Lombard variant' form, at first with backs on which were the trade-signs of Bolognese cardmakers. The French practice of having the name of each of the trumps and court cards inscribed at the bottom of the card had not previously prevailed in Italy, but in the Lombard variant these names were copied, in French, from the prototypes; from 1810 onwards, Italian equivalents were substituted
The TarotWheel page on Justice, https://www.tarotwheel.net/history/the% ... ticia.html, had a comment related to this issue. It says about a series of Justice cards in the Tarot de Marseille style:
Since the Berti deck rather conspicuously does not follow the Bolognese order, I wondered if it could be for export to somewhere the Tarot de Marseille was used. It seemed to me hardly likely that Bolognese players would use it. There is a nice thread here on that deck, viewtopic.php?f=14&t=769. The link given to the deck on that site no longer works. It is now https://www.britishmuseum.org/collectio ... -4547-1-78. The rest of the cards are accessible at the bottom of the page.From left to right, we see first Justice from the Tarot of Jean Dodal, produced in Lyon in the first years of the 18th Century. Next to her, we have a Justice card from the Tarocco of Francesco Berti, dated to the end of the 17th Century and produced in Bologna. ...
On the thread the dating, of course, was immediately challenged, with 1770-1780 as much more likely, based on Kaplan, vol. 2, p. 220, who lists a Francesco Berti, publishing "al Cervo" and "al Leone" as Bologna 1770-1780. The BM has simply not updated its site from what Wilshire said in 1876.
I am also concerned with the market for which the cards were intended.
Kaplan gives as references Keller, Catalog of the Cary Collection, 1981; Sylvia Mann, "At the sign of ...' Italian style," Journal of the International Playing Card Society, vol XIII, no. 2, and Wilshire. Keller's book is online at https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17389206. In the index, Francesco Berti is listed for decks ITA 30, 31, 66. Here are Keller's descriptions of ITA 30 and 31, in vol. 2, p. 36. (None of these decks seems to be digitalized.) They are classed as PSC style ITA-1.1 and ITA-1.211
This is in the section of the book identified on p. 35 as "Piedmontese Tarot." Of the decks on p. 35 in that section we have on the same page several from Genoa between 1897 and 1911 and one from Rome, 1933
Then after ITA 31 on pp. 36-37 are several from Milan, all 19th century, all type IT-1.211, but many of them given the additional classification of ITA 1.1. We are referred to Sylvia Mann 1966, 32-34 as well as Journal 2, 3 (1974), pp. 1-17. There continue to be decks from Genoa and one from Bergamo. On p. 38, still in the "Piedmontese Tarot" section, there is one from Genoa and one from Turin.
'
The classification ITA 1.1 seems to be for Italian decks called "Tarot of Marseille" as opposed to, or as well as, "Piedmontese". These Italian TdMs designed ITA 1.1 are on p. 34 (see above), mostly listed without a place of production, except one is Turin and one Milan. They start in 1770 and go to 1865. If so, what distinguishes them from "Piedmontese"? From looking on Wikipedia, I'd say the lack of three bars on the Pope's staff, the horses facing each other on the Chariot card, and the face on the Devil card. The Berti cards have only one of these features, the horses.
Let us turn to Keller's IT-66. This is in the section for minchiate decks, which starts on p. 39, as can be seen on the last image shown above. Here are his items 65, 66, and 67. 66 is our Berti, and 67 is also from Bologna. These are at the very end of the section:
The pages in between, from 40 through 43, are uneventful, all from Florence, 1730 onwards, except one from Rome.
So would seem that there are at least two TdMs/Piedmonts and two minchiates made in Bologna now at Yale. The tarocchi, since they are in the Tarot de Marseille language and order, seem certainly for export elsewhere, Lombardy or Piedmont, perhaps even France or Switzerland. The minchiates might be for export elsewhere, because minchiate is absolutely never mentioned in literature written in Bologna. Moreover, Medici heraldics on a deck produced in Bologna would suggest export to Florence. However, in the Bolognese literature "tarocchi" and "tarocchini" were used virtually interchangeably in literary references, so perhaps they; perhaps they included minchiate, not making any distinction having to do with the number of cards.
So let us go on to his references. Mann 1966 is her Collecting Playing Cards, in archive.org. Page 32-33 describe the "Piedmontese pattern," giving the titles in Tarot de Marseille order with their Italian, French, and English titles (i.e. as in the Rider-Waite, except for "Hanging Man" instead of "Hanged Man"). She says:
The rest of the paragraph is about modern two-headed cards. Page 33 and part of 35 is about "Bolognese tarocchino," also called tarocco di Bologna, with the English titles. Page 34 is pictures of two-headed cards. Page 35, continuing to 38 (36 and 37 are pictures) is about "Florentine minchiate." She says the game died out around 1890, and no Florentine she has ever met has heard of it. 90% of the packs were produced in either Florence or Bologna.Until about 1870, the cards were usually narrow and had turnover edges. Cards in this style with French inscriptions came from an area around Bologna. In other parts of Italy, Italian inscriptions were adhered to.
Then there is Journal, Feb., 1974, pp. 1-17. This is by Dummett, presenting his three types A, B, and C, much as in Game of Tarot, except that he had a few more examples in 1980. Pp. 3-6 are about type A.
I could not find G. Beal 1975 online, I assume it is Playing Cards and their Story. Probably it has nothing we don't already know.
So I turn to Mann's "At the sign of ...' Italian style," Journal of the International Playing Card Society, vol XIII, no. 2 (1985). After a short introduction, https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--mPigwflEvw/ ... 2%2529.jpg, she has a very interesting charts on pp. 53-54: She ends with a few notes, of no significance here, https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D0kyf91RlVE/ ... 2%2529.jpg.
What is of interest here is that there is no "Piedmontese"; instead, Berti (given to 1750, but Kaplan is better placed to know better) and other producers are described as making "Lombard" tarocchi. What characterizes "Lombard"? I would presume the use of the Tarot de Marseille images and order, at least before the 19th century with French titles. There is of course nothing of this sort for the end of the 17th century. Nor do I see Dummett and McLeod's contrast between first half and second half of the 18th, as far as Milan vs. Bologna is concerned.
What is clear is that producers in one city made decks for use in other cities. And heraldics, type of imagery, and trump order (by numbers) do not tell us where a deck was made, at least in the 18th century. I see no reason why that wouldn't have been true in the 15th century as well. While enough work has been done on the Bembo workshop's distinctive style, and on Lombard style mid-century generally vs. styles elsewhere at that time, to identify the three earliest decks as Lombard in general and Bembo in particular, that is not true of the other early hand-panted decks. Identifying the characteristic unique styles of individual workshops would help in locating the place of production. That is to say, art-historical methods are the most reliable. Even then, assistants who learn their craft in one city may migrate to another and be sought after precisely for that style. Also, playing cards would seem to make excellent copy-books. But such practices probably need to be demonstrated in the instances under consideration. Otherwise, the main difference between the 15th and 18th centuries, as far as I can tell, is that in the 15th century the styles were rather new. But by the time of most of the decks we know, not that new.
Of further interest is what features differentiate Piedmont trumps from Tarot de Marseille trumps, and how these Bolognese versions fit in with either. In general, Piedmont seem to be TdMII except that a few cards are TdMI: the Pope and the Devil are typically mentioned (the cross doesn't have three bars, and the devil has a face on the belly). In that respect the Berti cards look somewhere between Dodal's TdMI and the Marseille TdMII, except for one detail: the horses face each other. This characteristic seems to be shared by decks produced in Piedmont as well, but not part of the Tarot de Marseille tradition at all. It is Type A. It would be of interest to know when that happened. If in the 18th century, then it can be explained as the Piedmont decks borrowing from decks produced in Bologna for export to Lombardy and beyond. If 16th century or earlier, it could be an argument for Bolognese or Florentine influence on Piedmont even then.