search help corone or chorone

71
Ross Caldwell wrote: 19 May 2022, 07:09 I'm trying to find Franco's discussion of Chorone/Corone cards. Your comments reminded me of an interpretation he had.
There is a research help ... the command ...
site:naibi.net chorone ....copy that to the addressline of the browser

Results:
http://naibi.net/A/112-PURI-Z.pdf
http://www.naibi.net/A/501-COMTRIO-Z.pdf
for chorone

7 results more for corone
site:naibi.net corone

The trick naturally works also for other domains ... for instance

site:trionfi.com "researched word"

????
There is also at http://naibi.net/p/ the article "1445-47: The Riddle of the Crowns. (11.03.2012)", which is no. 17 in the year 2011/12
If you press this file as a link, then comes a pdf-file.
It's easier to get at http://trionfi.com/corona-le-corone

There is here a trionfi.com research for corone
http://trionfi.com/search/?cx=partner-p ... j1022177j6
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

72
Thanks Phaeded for the correction:
Phaeded wrote: 17 May 2022, 00:22
The cards Witz is associated with are not the Hofämterspiel but the Hofjagdspiel; the former has a Bohemia connection - the latter Witz-associated one does not.


This c. 1440-45 Hofjagdspiel deck represents the primary variation from the "common" deck of King/Ober/Unter knaves (or marschali) described by JvR that matches the Mamluk court cards, by inserting a queen after the king.
You are evidently right, it is the Hofjagdspiel, not the Hofämterspiel [and Gisela Wacker does not make the error I made]. I was lost in complexity and, again, too fast [and I admit that my mind is actually more in JvR and in Dante, than at the Council of Constance] - sorry.

In this light, I correct and reformulate the fourth point, because for the statement "playing cards was THE game at the Council of Constance" there is still some content left:


***

Forth, we have
Gisela Wacker “Ulrich Richentals Chronik des Konstanzer Konzils und ihre Funktionalisierung im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert”, PhD Thesis, Tübingen 2002.
She shows, based on documents of the Constance archives, that Konrad Witz attended the Council in person, he was in Constance from 1416 onwards (see op. cit. p. 111). Furthermore, there is highest probability that Konrad Witz was the painter of the original Richental-Chronicles and the painter of the later Ambraser Hofjagdspiel (see op. cit. p. 84, 106f, 108,109, 111, 113), which she shows by comparison of style in Witz paintings, the Richental-Chronicles and the Ambraser Hofjagdspiel (See, for instance, a comparison between a King of this deck and a depiction of King Sigimund, op. cit. p. 109).
The Council was THE place of cultural inventions of this time due to pan-European exchange of cultural ideas in the large, as well for art and for music (op. cit. p. 113). In this light, we are seduced to add: also for the cultural invention of playing cards as manifested in the Kayserspiel.

To sum up: in Constance, cards were first banned in 1379, then reintroduced in the Council as the primary game played by hand (“play cards, not any other game played by hand”), then especially heavily forbidden even in private rooms (!) directly after the Council (“After the termination of the Council the city magistrates even forbade for one year any game playing of cards in private rooms”). This ban puts a special strong emphasis on the game in the Council time.

Finally, an artist attendant of the Council, Konrad Witz, is later on the artist of one of the most famous card games, the Ambraser Hofjagdspiel. At the same time he is a very famous artist of his time, normally painting altar pieces and other respectable pictures. Unlike many northern-Alpine famous Alpine artists, he considers painting cards not as something minor - and he needed to be known by the person paying for the cards as addressable for this task. Combining these elements leads to some support of the hypothesis that playing cards was THE game of the Council.

Furthermore note in this context that Konrad Witz was from Basel, not too far away from JvR’s Freiburg, and note:
Phaeded wrote: 17 May 2022, 00:22 This c. 1440-45 Hofjagdspiel deck represents the primary variation from the "common" deck of King/Ober/Unter knaves (or marschali) described by JvR that matches the Mamluk court cards, by inserting a queen after the king.

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

73
Konrad Witz (1400/1410 probably in Rottweil, Germany – winter 1445/spring 1446 in Basel, in current day Switzerland) was a German painter, active mainly in Basel.
... is a relative common opinion. If one believes this, then Konrad would have been in 1416 something like 6-16 years old. Well, it's not impossible, that he was in Constance during the council. But - is it probable ?????
Do we have any 100% security object, which proves, that Konrad Witz ever produced a playing card deck?

Here we have a work for art, which was produced during the council of Basel. It contains also Konrad Witz paintings.

https://www.schwabeonline.ch/schwabe-xa ... n_5031.pdf

It also contains playing cards of the Ambras Hofjagdspiel. The text gives these to the Werkstatt of Konrad Witz, not to Konrad Witz himself.

The German wikipedia article gives to the Richenthal chronic the following information.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulrich_von_Richental
Aus eigenem Antrieb verfasste er in den Jahren nach 1420 in deutscher Sprache eine umfangreiche Chronik über das Konstanzer Konzil, in deren ersten Teil er sich den wichtigsten Ereignissen im Laufe der Versammlung widmete, um im zweiten Teil alle Teilnehmer namentlich vorzustellen. Als Zeitzeuge hatte Ulrich die Kirchenversammlung miterlebt (beispielsweise im Juli 1415 der Hinrichtung des Jan Hus beigewohnt) und verarbeitete seine Erfahrungen in dem tagebuchartig aufgebauten, dem Kirchenjahr folgenden Werk, das er auf eigene Kosten mit Bildern und Wappen ausschmücken ließ und in dem er außer mündlich Überliefertem und eigenen Notizen vielfältiges statistisches Material aus städtischen Urkunden und Akten heranzog.
This says, that Ulrich von Richenthal wrote council after 1420 ... which makes the question, if the painter Konrad Witz visited the council or not totally a matter of no importance.
Even worse is the following:
Die Konzilschronik Richenthals ist in 17 Handschriften überliefert, die von zwei Ausnahmen abgesehen alle innerhalb kurzer Zeit in der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts entstanden sind.[4] Allein zehn Handschriften stammen aus den Jahren 1460 bis 1475 und lassen sich teilweise auf das Wirken des Konstanzer Chronisten Gebhard Dacher († 1471) zurückführen, das auch noch die 1483 bei Anton Sorg in Augsburg erschienene editio princeps der Chronik beeinflusste.[5] Nach Buck ist die auffällige zeitliche Häufung der Überlieferung in den Jahren ab 1460 ein Zeichen dafür, dass Richentals Werk zum Bestandteil einer „nachkonziliaren kollektiven Gedächtnis- und Geschichtskultur“ in Konstanz wurde, zu einem Zeitpunkt, als die Stadt ihre vormalige politische und wirtschaftliche Führungsrolle eingebüßt hatte.[6] Die Chronik enthält in vielen Abschriften und allen Drucken des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts sehr zahlreiche Wappendarstellungen und ist daher auch eine bedeutende heraldische Quelle; Richentals Wappensammlung hatte Einfluss auf zahlreiche Wappenbücher.
The are 17 handwritten texts, from which 15 are written in rather short time after 1460. After the text follows a list, which presents only one text as written in the mid of 15th century. Which is long after the council.

The wikipedia article is naturally not "evidence". But somehow one gets the suspicion, that the case with Konrad Witz is a matter with much doubts and of no use for the general situation of playing cards during the council.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Gisela Wacker, Richenthal .... Imperatori sources and discussion

74
I found the text of Gisela Wacker ...

Ulrich Richentals Chronik des Konstanzer Konzils und ihre
Funktionalisierung im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert
Aspekte zur Rekonstruktion der Urschrift und zu den Wirkungsabsichten der
überlieferten Handschriften und Drucke
by Gisela Wacker aus Kassel, 2002
https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/ ... 0900/46177

Band_1.pdf 2.42 MB
Band_2_hi.pdf 35.2 MB
Band_2_low.pdf 9.97 MB
The first part is the text, the second are high resolution pictures and the 3rd are the same pictures in low resolution .
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

75
Gisela Wacker's dissertation has a special section on Konrad Witz entitled "III 4b Annäherung an Konrad Witz", p. 104 - p.114. In this section she gives a state of the art art historical presentation of Witz and the Richenthal chronicles, especially to the illustrations of the early ones. It is impossible to give the full 10 pages here in this forum, but everyone who is interested can read her precise art historical analysis using the link given in the post above. She shows that Witz has to be from an art historic perspective the original painter of the early illustrations of the chronicles since he uses techniques and style from the Netherlands school which he can only have had learned in his youth ("Gesellenzeit") at the Council.

Two point are perhaps remarkable in this context:

First, Konrad WItz is ascribed as the personal author of at least some of the cards on p. 108:
Die unterschiedlichen Wendungen der Figuren, mit deren Hilfe der Bildraum in die Tiefe entwickelt wird,
zeigen beispielhaft die Karten des Ambraser Hofjagdspiels.526

Fussnote 526: Röttgen Herwarth, Das Ambraser Hofjagdspiel, in: Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, Band 57 (1961), S. 39-68; zit. als: Röttgen, Ambraser Hofjagdspiel, hier: S. 57 f: Die Hundesuite, die Reiherserie und die Hundezahlenkarten schreibt Röttgen Witz selbst zu. Spielkarten Ihre Kunst und Geschichte in Mitteleuropa. Katalog der Ausstellung der Graphischen Sammlung der Albertina vom 12. Sept.-3. Nov. 1974, S. 39 ff. Feldges-Henning, Uta: Werkstatt und Nachfolge des Konrad Witz. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Basler Malerei des 15. Jahrhunderts, in: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 67 (1967), S. 23-88 und 68 (1968), S. 81- 176, hier: 67 (1967), S. 43 ff.

[The different turns of the figures, with the help of which the pictorial space is developed in depth, are exemplarily shown by the cards of the Ambras court hunting game.526

footnote 526: Röttgen Herwarth, Das Ambraser Hofjagdspiel, in: Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, Band 57 (1961), S. 39-68; cited. as: Röttgen, Ambraser Hofjagdspiel, here: S. 57 f: Röttgen ascribed to Witz himself the dog suite, the series of herons and the dog number cards. Spielkarten Ihre Kunst und Geschichte in Mitteleuropa. Katalog der Ausstellung der Graphischen Sammlung der Albertina vom 12. Sept.-3. Nov. 1974, S. 39 ff. Feldges-Henning, Uta: Werkstatt und Nachfolge des Konrad Witz. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Basler Malerei des 15. Jahrhunderts, in: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 67 (1967), S. 23-88 und 68 (1968), S. 81- 176, hier: 67 (1967), S. 43 ff.]

Second, it is clarified biographically that this is really the painter Konrad Witz who is at the Council on p. 111:
Nach einer neuen Sichtung der Bestände im Konstanzer Archiv hat Miegroet überzeugend dargelegt, daß Konrad Witz, der seit 1416 in den Akten erwähnt wird, in Konstanz als Maler tätig war, mit einem flämischen Künstler, Hans von Brüssel, zusammengearbeitet hat und mit dem später in Basel ansässigen Realisten identisch sein muß. Witz ist, nach den Untersuchungen von Miegroet, bereits in seiner Konstanzer Zeit mit Werken der niederländischen ars nova in Berührung gekommen.543 Auch wenn eine eindeutige Zuschreibung der ursprünglichen Chronikillustrationen an Witz durch den Verlust der Urschrift nicht möglich sein wird, sprechen die vielen gemeinsamen Züge, die unbestritten übereinstimmenden Voraussetzungen und die biographischen Untersuchungen von Miegroet dafür, daß Konrad Witz als Urheber der ursprünglichen Zeichnungen in Betracht kommt.

[
After a new review of the holdings in the Constance archive, Miegroet has convincingly shown that Konrad Witz, who is mentioned in the records since 1416, was active in Constance as a painter, worked in Constance in collaboration with a Flemish artist, Hans von Brüssel, and must be identical with the realist who later settled in Basel. Witz is, according to the investigations of Miegroet, already in his time in Constance in touch with works of the Dutch ars nova.543 Even if a clear attribution of the original chronicle illustrations to Witz due to the loss of the original manuscript will not be possible, the many common traits as well as the indisputable coincidence of prerequisites, and the biographical investigations of Miegroet speak for the fact that Konrad Witz is to be considered as the author of the original drawings.
]
Last edited by vh0610 on 20 May 2022, 20:23, edited 4 times in total.

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

76
@Ross:
Ross Caldwell wrote: 14 May 2022, 10:52 apparent earlier evidence for playing cards in Italy is of doubtful value, […]. Playing cards were frequently written later into pre-existing statutes regulating dice and gambling.
The same holds true for Germany, an often overlooked precise analysis of the dating of the earliest evidence of card playing in Berne (Switzerland) to 1367 is undertaken by Hellmut Rosenfeld in
Rosenfeld, H. (1975). Zur Datierbarkeit früher Spielkarten in Europa und im nahen Orient. Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1975, p. 353-371
In this article on pages 355-356, he meticulously analyses on a language level that this early date is impossible and that it comes from a later insertion of cards into a pre-existing statute regulating dice and gambling – the text was written in 1398 by Konrad Justinger. He dates Berne cautiously to 1379 by comparison with St. Gallen, which is clearly 1379. [I can give details, if you wish.]

In later articles, at least to my knowledge and understanding, Kopp does not really give a precise counterargument to Rosenfeld’s precise analysis, Kopp circumvents this and seems not to have a scientific objection on this level. So at least I cannot ignore Rosenfeld’s arguments.

A word on Rosenfeld seems to be appropriate: we all know that Rosenfeld is a problem. He makes bizarre statements from time to time, which have no justification. But we have to differentiate: My observation is that he makes these bizzare statements in shortcut moments, so when he sketches a picture he likes to see. However, whenever he does a detailed text analysis, his way of thinking is really straight and clear in my eyes – no wonder, for this he got a professorship, this was his profession.

Perhaps in this context, it might be of interest that he did at least two more of these often overlooked precise text analyses:

First, in
Rosenfeld, H. (1970). Zur Vor-und Frühgeschichte und Morphogenese von Kartenspiel und Tarock. Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 52(1), p. 65-94.
he analyses on p. 69 carefully on the language level the 1371 appearance in Catalania as an entry “na-ip” in the rhyme dictionary of Jaume March. He shows that it has to stem from the French “na-if” and has nothing to do with cards. [ I can give details, if you wish.]

Second, in his article
Rosenfeld, H. (2012). Johannes von Rheinfelden. Verfasser-Datenbank. De Gruyter.
he first shows that JvR is not from Rheinfelden, but from Freiburg, because JvR himself says in his treatise that he is born in Freiburg (f. 165v, Basel version) and that he very probably never left Freiburg (there is no entry of him in the Dominican abbey in Basel). Rosenfeld really read JvR in Latin, Basel version.

This is important because Rosenfeld says shortly after in his article that Master Ingold quoted JvR verbatim in some parts in his 'Guldîn spil' (1432) , but highlighted only the sins according to his topic. [ I can give details, if you wish.]

Together with the reference of Ingold to the earliest appearance of cards to 1300 within the book he read on this topic,
Als ich gelesen han, so ist es kumen in teutsch land des ersten in dem iar da man zalt von crist geburt, tausend, drühundert iar.

[As I did read, it [the game of playing cards; vh0610] first came to Germany in the year which is counted from Christ’s birth as thousand, [plus] threehundred.]
this yields: it is clear that this book Master Ingold read must be JvR’s book in view of verbatim quotation and that hence the 1300 dating is wrong and should be 1377 [perhaps due to the fact that the 7 could easily be mistaken for a 0, as I already mentioned in this very forum].

Whether Rosenfeld’s statement holds true can only be verified if someone can read the first part of JvR’s book in Latin (Rosenfeld points to the first part) and compare that to the respective paragraphs of Master Ingold: either it is verbatim quotation or not. This statement is checkable, we only need an expert who can do this [sorry, I do not read Latin like I drink water. And I do not at all read easily these manuscripts in view of their writing style].

As a final remark and taking up the discussion of Phaeded and Ross: more and more it seems to me, that 1377 is the first year of verified documentation of playing card appearance in Europe, the year Decker’s “flurry” (Decker, 1989) starts for me (for Decker it starts in 1375). In 1377, we have the interdictions in Florence, Siena and Paris (Rosenfeld (1970), op. cit., p. 75; he cites Schreiber and d’Allemagne and work of himself together with an expert of water marks).

Note that in Rosenfeld (1975), op. cit., p. 354 – 355, he gives the latin text of the two (sic!) interdictions in Florence on two subsequent days 23 and 24. March 1377. Rosenfeld concludes (p.355 ) that
[…] so zeigt doch das umständliche Zeremoniell, wie wichtig man im Florentiner Rat die Frage des Spielverbotes nahm. Das Zahlenverhältnis der Abstimmung: 98 Stimmen für, 25 Stimmen gegen das Verbot, erweist, wie schwerwiegend die Gründe für das unpopuläre Verbot waren, wie groß also die schon nach so kurzer Zeit beobachteten Schäden des neuen Spiels waren, dass man von mala principia sprechen musste, offensichtlich weil das Spielen um Geld sich verheerend auf die Finanzkraft der Bürger auswirkte.
Das Spielkartenverbot […] in Florenz vom 23./24.März 1377 ist das erste in Europa nachweisbare, aber von 1377 an zieht sich eine Kette örtlicher Spielkartenverbote durch ganz Europa, so dass man auf Grund dieser Verbote eine lawinenhafte Ausbreitung des Kartenspieles in ganz Europa feststellen kann.

[[...] so the cumbersome ceremonial shows how important the Florentine Council took the question of the gambling ban. The numerical ratio of the voting: 98 votes for, 25 votes against the ban shows how serious the reasons for the unpopular ban were, i.e. how great the damages of the new game was, which were observed after such a short time, that one had to speak of mala principia , obviously because gambling for money had a devastating effect on the financial power of citizens.
The playing card ban [...] in Florence on March 23/24, 1377 is the first verifiable in Europe, but from 1377 onwards a chain of local playing card bans ran through the whole of Europe, so that due to these bans one can ascertain an avalanche of card games throughout Europe.]
In other words: Decker’s “flurry” from his article in 1989 has a predecessor in 1975: an avalanche [earlier, Rosenfeld even spoke about an invasion of cards, the “Spielkarteninvasion” in Rosenfeld, H. (1960). Das Alter der Spielkarten in Europa und im Orient.]

An avalanche is a disruptive event, it starts suddenly and grows rapidly. In this light, I propose to consider that in 1377 we have three bans (Florence, Siena, Paris), but that JvR in 1377 is not a ban, he says clearly that this is the year in which the cards came to Freiburg. The next respective bans of the Freiburg region are Constance and St. Gallen both in 1379. Note that the cards certainly came the main trading route from the European south, which is the waterway of the Rhine, i.e. over Constance and the Lake of Constance. St. Gallen is not far away from Constance, approx. 45km and also lies more or less at the Lake of Constance. Hence: It takes approximately between 1 and 2 years between appearance of cards and their ban, at least in the Constance/Upper Rhine region including Freiburg.

This can be the basis for a shorter interpolation: it is max. two years between the arrival of cards and a respective ban (under the assumption of the same effects of card playing in Southern and Northern Europe).

Considering now that the ban 1377 in Florence is based on “how great the damages of the new game was, which were observed after such a short time, that one had to speak of mala principia”, we can also deduce that the Florence ban is undertaken after not too long time of arrival of the cards to Florence. This is probably due to the fact that the novelty of cards is the secret resulting from the two sides of the cards, and its position between chess and dices. This novelty leads to an avalanche, shocklike. Velocity is high in the evolution.

Based on the above arguments: I propose to combine the max. 2 years of the Freiburg region together with the Florence information on 1377 and to conclude: we should date the arrival of cards in Europe as no earlier than 1375, better 1376.

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

77
After submitting my last post, I found in

Thierry Depaulis “Breviari del diavolo so’ le carte e naibi”. How Bernardine of Siena and his Franciscan Followers saw Playing Cards and Card Games” in Sonntag, Jörg. Religiosus Ludens: Das Spiel als kulturelles Phänomen in mittelalterlichen Klöstern und Orden, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110305074:
In fact, the earliest credible dates are given by documents of the 1370, particularly by a few Catalan records of 1371, ca. 1375 and later. Italy soon follows with documents dated 1377, from Florence and Siena, then the Upper Rhine valley with […; JvR; vh0610], also from 1377.
For me, the Catalan record of 1371 is ruled out by Rosenfeld, hence next would be ca. 1375 in Catalania – does anyone knows about this one? Is it a ban or a mention as in JvR? And what means "ca." 1375?

In any case: ca. 1375 would be fine in Catalania with the hypothesis I raised above: earliest arrival of cards in Europe around 1375.

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

78
Addendum: I am not quite sure whether the following argument holds, I ask for help:

we have the interdictions in Tuscany in 1377 (Florence, Siena), and interdiction in Florence is in March 1377. Let us say that we have ongoing card playing in Florence for one or two years. Card playing uses cards, hence new cards are necessary quite often and this induces a market for selling cards. Florence as a kind of capital of these times falls out in March as a big market for cards - if there is no home production as could be possible if cards are relatively new to Europe --assumption is that evolution is very fast-- then ships are on the way bringing lots of cards with them to Europe which do not find any buyer in Florence. Hence, there is a certain market pressure to sell the cards - this is why they go over the Alps in summer time to be sold as soon as geographically possible - which are the trading cities after the Arlberg pass: St. Gallen, Constance, Basel, Freiburg, or over the Brenner pass it will be, amongst others, Regensburg. So they arrive in Freiburg in 1377 in that year as we know by JvR. And they are banned max.
two years after this arrival in St. Gallen and Constance. The Regensburg ban 23. July 1378 is no contradiction, it may be that they had earlier the negative effects and banned one year earlier.

In other words: the market pressure after the bans in Tuscany made the cards go north over the Alps in order to find customers.

Perhaps the same can be said for Catalania (Barcelona)/Marseille as possible ports and Paris.

Can this argument hold???
Last edited by vh0610 on 21 May 2022, 11:28, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

79
Addendum to the Addendum:

the above mentioned argument could also hold, if there is a fast home production of cards coming up in 1376/77 - paper is available in Italy by help of the papermill founded in Fabriano in 1276. Fabriano is in the Marche and ca. 200km away from Florence.

For this possible home production serving a mass market, one also needs an infrastructure which produces the desired amount of cards. The Florence ban (and other bans of that time) leads in any case to a stock of cards which need to be sold somewhere if the producer does not want to loose his investment. If the producer had to fear that the Florence ban will spread out in Tuscany and Italy in view of the observable devastating effects, then he looks for a market which is a little bit farer away - so far that the devestating effects will have not be reported there. Going North of the Alps makes sense, from that point of view.

Re: Imperatori sources and discussion

80
vh0610 wrote: 20 May 2022, 20:46 Addendum: I am not quite sure whether the following argument holds, I ask for help:

we have the interdictions in Tuscany in 1377 (Florence, Siena), and interdiction in Florence is in March 1377. Let us say that we have ongoing card playing in Florence for one or two years. Card playing uses cards, hence new cards are necessary quite often and this induces a market for selling cards. Florence as a kind of capital of these times falls out in March as a big market for cards - if there is no home production as could be possible if cards are relatively new to Europe --assumption is that evolution is very fast-- then ships are on the way bringing lots of cards with them to Europe which do not find any buyer in Florence. Hence, there is a certain market pressure to sell the cards - this is why they go over the Alps in summer time to be sold as soon as geographically possible - which are the trading cities after the Arlberg pass: St. Gallen, Constance, Basel, Freiburg, or over the Brenner pass it will be, amongst others, Regensburg. So they arrive in Freiburg in 1377 in that year as we know by JvR. And they are banned max.
two years after this arrival in St. Gallen and Constance. The Regensburg ban 23. July 1378 is no contradiction, it may be that they had earlier the negative effects and banned one year earlier.

In other words: the market pressure after the bans in Tuscany made the cards go north over the Alps in order to find customers.

Perhaps the same can be said for Catalania (Barcelona)/Marseille as possible ports and Paris.

Can this argument hold???
Why is Florence necessary as a diffusion point into the Upper Rhine? The game is already varied and well known there by 1377, re. JvR.

The preconditions of manuscript production and nascent woodblock printing, albeit of a religious nature:
The Friends of God (German: Gottesfreunde; or gotesvriunde) was a medieval mystical group of both ecclesiastical and lay persons[1] within the Catholic Church (though it nearly became a separate sect) and a center of German mysticism. It was founded between 1339 and 1343 during the Avignon Papacy of the Western Schism, a time of great turmoil for the Catholic Church. The Friends of God were originally centered in Basel, Switzerland and were also fairly important in Strasbourg and Cologne….. The movement grew out of the preaching and teaching of Meister Eckhart, and especially his Dominican spiritual heirs... The group achieved a nascent institutional form in 1367 when wealthy layman Rulman Merswin purchased and restored a derelict monastery in Strasbourg known as the grünenwörth ('Green Isle').[6] Grünenwörth served as a refuge for study for the Friends of God and as a “school of prophets” which produced a number of mystical texts.[7] Merswin is suspected of being the anonymous author The Friend of God from the Oberland.[8] Wiki
But what we have here in the cities of the Upper Rhine is an interest in novel print productions just as cards arrive. One of their texts even lends itself to the idea of pips: The Book of the Nine Rocks uses the metaphor of jumping from rock to rock to illustrate the soul’s journey to God.

I'm still of the opinion that the Dominicans seemed less obsessed with controlling cards than the Franciscans (e.g., St. Bernardino of Siena). In addition to the Friends of Gods, consider the very card-like illustrations of The Speculum Humanae Salvationis or Mirror of Human Salvation (Witz does a painting based on them - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knigh ... avid_Water - and of course, cards), of which scholars believe the author was a cleric, and there is evidence he was a Dominican:
There are, however, good reasons to place the origin of the text in a previous hit Dominican monastery. In Chapter III, the Immaculate Conception is described in accordance with the doctrines of the Dominican Order; Chapter XXXVII tells of the vision of St. Dominic; Chapter XXX includes the theory of the sanctification before birth expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas, a previous hit Dominican next hit, and special honor is also paid to him in Chapter XLII").(Wilson, Adrian, and Joyce Lancaster Wilson, A Medieval Mirror. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984: 10, 27)
.

It is of course no wonder in this milieu that JvR - a Dominican in Freiburg - writes a religious allegorical interpretation of cards. I just don't see why we need Florence here.

I'll take it up in a separate post, but the Knights Hospitallers - a means for the acquisition of playing cards from Mamluk Alexandria - had a chapter house (commandery) near Freiburg and indeed a concentration of such chapters in the Upper Rhine (and Florence had plenty of commercial connections with the Hospitallers' base in Rhodes, but that merely points to the ultimate diffusion point).

Phaeded
cron