I'd say you are reading too much into it, Mike. The aspects of the gods you mention are mythological details, while Marziano explicitly makes Cupid's presence ludic - "the order of our game requires it."

Marziano says about Mars that he "recognizes no superior or equal, except Jove." So now you have to make Mars the second highest trump.

There is also the problem that none of gods is said to beat the Virginities. So are they the highest trumps somehow, too?

Part of the problem with Dummett et al.'s view of the game is that he viewed the conceptual organization into four moral themes, and the actual suits, as the same thing. Marziano didn't have the vocabulary, or he didn't use it, of "suits" and "trumps." Everything is an "ordo." The four themes are an ordo; the kings are an ordo; each of the four suits of birds is an ordo; the 16 gods are an ordo; the play of the game, as in that line from Cupid, is an ordo (ludi nostri ordo sic exigit).

But the conceptual architecture of the game is not the same as the suits. The birds are the suits. The gods are their own suit. The physical deck obviously made that clear, since Marcello compares it to standard Trionfi. The four moral themes are not the same as the bird suits. The four moral themes overlay the whole conception of the deck, but Marziano divides it into two parts: four suits of birds each with a king, and 16 gods. You would have to read the text to know that four moral themes informed the creation of the deck. Just looking at it, you'd see four suits of birds and the suit of gods.

hm ...
Ross ...

Marziano says about Mars that he "recognizes no superior or equal, except Jove." So now you have to make Mars the second highest trump.

I guess, Martiano writes about mythology, and it might be, that he (Mars himself in the imagination of Marziano) perceives nobody higher than himself, except Jove.
Which doesn't mean, that Mars inside the game has the second rank according the rules, that Marziano invents.
Ares loses against Athena in mythologic reality, as far I remember. Ares fights for Troja, and Troja is lost. Apollo plays the trick, that Ares is caught by Hephaistos in a net together with Aphrodite.

Ares is in the row of "Riches" and this, so I think, must be interpreted as elements, that is Earth for Juno, Water for Neptun, Fire for Mars and Air for Eolus. And the ranking is clear, as it is given by row of the gods. 2=15 for Juno, 6=11 for Neptun, 10=7 for Mars and 14=3 for Eolus.

I am responding to Ross (I see that Huck replied while I was writing).

Yes,it it is anachronistic to use the word "suit" in relation to Marziano. It is merely convenient. So let us not speak of suits, but only of orders. My point can be restated in terms of orders, albeit harder for us today to understand, we are so used to thinking in terms of suits as we know them.

My proposed rule is that when a bird-card is led, cards in the corresponding order of deified heroes have priority over cards in other orders of deified heroes in determining who wins the trick. But when a deified-hero card is led, the highest card in the order of deified heroes wins. This is not quite the same as Dummett's, but I like it better.

Then if a Dove is led, and Cupid is the only deified hero in the order of Pleasures to be played to the trick, it wins the trick, even if another player plays Jove.

Or are you saying that the order of Virtues headed by Jupiter is not connected with/has no correspondence in, the order of Eagles, that the order of Riches headed by Juno is not connected with/etc. the order of Phoenices, that the order of Virginities headed by Athena is not connected with/etc. the order of Turtledoves, that the order of Pleasures headed by Venus is not connected with the order of Doves? That is directly contradicted by Marziano, if you take him as speaking ludically as well as morally.

And subordinated to these [four orders of deified heroes] are four kinds of birds, being suited by similarity. Thus to the order of virtues, the Eagle, of riches, the Phoenix, of continence, the Turtledove; of pleasure, the Dove.

What is the point of making these correspondences if they have no role in the game? It is a "learn by playing" type of game, where you learn to connect different types of behavior with different moral categories.

You seem to be assuming that he is only speaking morally. I am doubting that. (Perhaps I misunderstand; if so, I hope you can explain.) I admit that he doesn't say what the connection/correspondence is, ludically speaking (morally, it's clear enough). That's where speculation and hypothesis comes in, as Dummett says.

What is important is that it solves the puzzle of how Cupid can beat Jove and still be the lowest member of the order of deified heroes. It also lends itself to other moral lessons.

While Mars may say that none except Jupiter is superior to him, the context is that of straight-out war, and as suggested by the context: "Though savage and bold ..." And "The whole world could not extinguish his thirst for power, so great was his desire, he attacked heaven." That's when Jupiter defeats him, I presume. In fact, as the game teaches, he can be captured (by trickery, perhaps, as in the Trojan War), or led to submit (in some sense willingly, perhaps, with money, or sexual favors, or poor judgment due to alcohol) in other ways.

And in the same sense that Daphne can triumph over Apollo, all the Virginities can triumph over all the rest of the gods (except other Virginities, which have a definite pecking order).

In both cases, it all depends on what bird-card was led, in particular what order it was in, on Dummett's hypothesis (rephrased to remove the word "suit") or on mine. The bird-card determines the arena, so to speak, of the contest. (That may be what Huck is saying.) While Dummett's rule was that a god-card in an order different from that corresponding to that of the bird-card led can't win at all, I think it would be more fun if it could win if no deified-hero card in the privileged order was played. Otherwise nobody would play Jupiter if a Dove was led, if they could help it. There are probably other stipulations to be made, like when it is permissible to play a deified hero-card (when you are out of the corresponding order of birds?). I haven't actually played the game with this rule with anybody but myself, and that's cheating. It may be that Dummett's rule is better.

I should add that even without my or Dummett's rule there could be a ludic role to the correspondences, namely in the adding up of points. Assuming that combinations of three or more deified-hero cards in the same order get extra points, there could be even more if one also had the King of the corresponding bird-order, and so on down the line. That is enough to justify the correspondences. But it doesn't solve the puzzle of how Cupid can capture Jove and still be the lowest in the order of deified heroes. Moreover, if you're going to treat the bird-orders as extensions of the deified hero-orders (or vice versa) for the purposes of points, it would be just as educational to do so in tricks as well, if it can make an interesting game.

Huck wrote: 01 Jun 2022, 12:33
I guess, Martiano writes about mythology, and it might be, that he (Mars himself in the imagination of Marziano) perceives nobody higher than himself, except Jove.
Which doesn't mean, that Mars inside the game has the second rank according the rules, that Marziano invents.

This is not my serious interpretation. I only wanted to point out to Mike that by following his logic, whereby Aeolus is said destroy the gifts of Bacchus and Ceres, and Daphne resisted Apollo, and Hercules defeated Juno by all his labors (unstated but understood), that since Mars is said to recognize none higher than Jove, Mars must be taken to be the second highest trump.

mikeh wrote: 01 Jun 2022, 12:48 Yes,it it is anachronistic to use the word "suit" in relation to Marziano. It is merely convenient. So let us not speak of suits, but only of orders. My point can be restated in terms of orders, albeit harder for us today to understand, we are so used to thinking in terms of suits as we know them.

I don't think it's anachronistic to use "suit" when translating Marziano. This terminology must have existed when he wrote, he just chose not to use it. He doesn't say "cards" or "naibi" anywhere either, but we know it was a card game from other sources. In the 1420 Milan edict about card games, they use "signs" to mean suits. Marziano doesn't use that, either.

Or are you saying that the order of Virtues headed by Jupiter is not connected with/has no correspondence in, the order of Eagles, that the order of Riches headed by Juno is not connected with/etc. the order of Phoenices, that the order of Virginities headed by Athena is not connected with/etc. the order of Turtledoves, that the order of Pleasures headed by Venus is not connected with the order of Doves? That is directly contradicted by Marziano, if you take him as speaking ludically as well as morally.

And subordinated to these [four orders of deified heroes] are four kinds of birds, being suited by similarity. Thus to the order of virtues, the Eagle, of riches, the Phoenix, of continence, the Turtledove; of pleasure, the Dove.

What is the point of making these correspondences if they have no role in the game? It is a "learn by playing" type of game, where you learn to connect different types of behavior with different moral categories.

You seem to be assuming that he is only speaking morally. I am doubting that. (Perhaps I misunderstand; if so, I hope you can explain.) I admit that he doesn't say what the connection/correspondence is, ludically speaking (morally, it's clear enough). That's where speculation and hypothesis comes in, as Dummett says.

I do think that he is only speaking of a moral relationship when says that the game is designed according to a fourfold order. He justifies the choice of gods by their relationship to one of the four qualities, and by the same principle he picks birds to represent the suits, like in a regular card game. There is no ludic aspect to the four moral qualities.

So I don't think Juno, Neptune, Mars and Aeolus are "connected" to the suit of Phoenices in any way. "The gods are above all of the orders of birds and kings." And the gods rank in their own way. Phoenices are one way to express the theme of "wealth," and Juno etc. is another.

I think the game was played like Tarot, more or less. It depends on how we interpret Cupid's role, since Marziano can only justify his presence because he is "necessary" for some reason. He is not beneficial in any way or a moral exemplar like all of the rest. But the four moral qualities are merely the basis for a full moralization and re-designing of the game of cards. The morality and the rules of play have no necessary relationship. It is up to Filippo Maria to think about the morality, if he wants to, and the imagery of the game is designed to give him ample opportunity, as is the booklet with a synopsis of what deified these particular figures. But otherwise it was a normal card game. For instance, the four virgins are merely four trumps, which can be beaten by those higher in rank.

This is comparable to how the rules of Tarot have no relationship to the symbolism of the images, even though it is delightful to medidate on them and their sequential relationship.

Ross wrote,

I don't think it's anachronistic to use "suit" when translating Marziano. This terminology must have existed when he wrote, he just chose not to use it. He doesn't say "cards" or "naibi" anywhere either, but we know it was a card game from other sources. In the 1420 Milan edict about card games, they use "signs" to mean suits. Marziano doesn't use that, either.

Yes, "suit" fits most card games then well enough; whatever the word, the concept was there. I probably misused the term "anachronistic." But Marziano's game is different. So it is better not to use the word, as though one size fits all. It pre-judges him. "Order" is more accurate.

Ross wrote,

I do think that he is only speaking of a moral relationship when says that the game is designed according to a fourfold order. He justifies the choice of gods by their relationship to one of the four qualities, and by the same principle he picks birds to represent the suits, like in a regular card game. There is no ludic aspect to the four moral qualities.
....
The morality and the rules of play have no necessary relationship. It is up to Filippo Maria to think about the morality, if he wants to, and the imagery of the game is designed to give him ample opportunity, as is the booklet with a synopsis of what deified these particular figures. But otherwise it was a normal card game. For instance, the four virgins are merely four trumps, which can be beaten by those higher in rank.

Well, the different ordering of two of the suits compared to the two others is an example of how the moralizing invades the rules. You can say it is just a convention, but it is a convention with a moral teaching attached to it. It becomes explicit in Boiardo's game, with his "jealousy" and "fear" vs. "abundance" and "love," in his case reflected in the scoring system, where the latter are positive and the former negative. It is the psychomachia in the context of a game. In the Budapest/Metropolitan sheets, there is one strip of kings pointing in different directions: up, down, to themselves. Other court cards have shields up or down. There is no consistent correlation with suits, unfortunately. Emilia Maggio, in her "Stag rider" article (online in accademia, pp. 248-249) speculates that these gestures arose in Germany and were not understood well in Italy. It goes with the unters and obers, which may have had moral connotations as well as ludic ones at some point, extending the the typical opposition of two good and two bad suits. She mentions a German deck with five different gestures. In this context there are the gestures of the attending ladies of the Issy Chariot, different even if we don't know what they mean (I think the four elements, with the lady in the red dress as the quintessence, but that is just a guess).

In general, educational games in the middle ages integrated their allegories into the rules. Chess is an example, with its plodding pawns and mobile knights, able to leap over other pieces like horses, its banners (bishops) and rooks (elephants) charging wherever the way was open, the capture of the king as the objective, "castling," where the king gets protected by his castle. All rather stretched by the fifteenth century, as far as actual warfare.

Maggio describes a medieval game of virtues, 56 of them, using dice. There was also Rithmomachy, the "Philosopher's Game," which taught mathematics at least. Johannes's inventions, or descriptions, are allegorical in nature. There are some articles about others online; I read them a while back and it will take me a while to locate them again. There are also books. One online book blurb says, "Representations of games, and of artefacts associated with games, also often served to communicate complex ideas on topics that ranged from war to love, and from politics to theology." https://history.wisc.edu/publications/g ... naissance/. There is apparently a rather large literature on the subject.

Ross wrote,

This is comparable to how the rules of Tarot have no relationship to the symbolism of the images, even though it is delightful to medidate on them and their sequential relationship.

I disagree on that last point, too, about Tarot. The sequence of tricks represents the course of a lifetime, lived in one particular way. The declaration phase, displaying points before, is recognizing one's natural and cultural advantages from birth that come by the luck of the draw. Counting up points afterwards is how one fares in the afterlife. The role of the "excuse" is symbolically Christ as the "foolishness of God" who sacrificed himself for the sake of others. That he comes back to the one who plays him is the reward of the faithful, if they lived well enough (i.e. won at least one trick). That the Fool makes up for gaps in combinations is how Christ makes acts which would otherwise count for nothing as far as getting into heaven of value for salvation. The Bagatella in Bologna is similar. He is the one whose incarnation tricked the devil, thinking that by bringing about his (Christ's) death he (the Devil) would triumph. He is Christ as trickster, at his table like Christ at the last supper, ready to pull off his biggest trick. So he, too, enhances the value of the cards in combinations: both are contatori. The lowest in the material world (trick-taking) are the highest in the spiritual after-game. That the Angel is high signifies that no one can triumph over the Last Judgment. The World is Christ as Cosmocrater. But those two are high in the material world as well as the spiritual. Together the four are the tarocchi, identical in points and symbolically (a trinity become quaternary).

The role of Heaven as first cause is reflected in the Granda, whereby triumphs lower than the World acquire many points. In that way God is comparable to the Kings in giving worth to their subjects (sequences of court cards had to start with the king, and sequences of triumphs had to start with the Angel). There is also the principle of no action at a distance, necessitating that there be no breaks in the sequence (unless filled by a contatore).

The order of triumphs, which had to be memorized, is in other ways reflective of Christian teachings. That the virtues are above the papi signifies that everyone is subject to the requirements of the virtues. The "Petrarchans", as I call them, at least five of them (the virtues substituting for Chastity) - Love, worldly success, time, death, eternity) represent typical life-concerns to which the virtues are to be applied. The sequence of from Devil to Sun are the transition from darkness to light, represented by Plato in the allegory of the cave and the Neoplatonists in the journey through the spheres, of which Heaven is the culmination and first cause.

If this sounds like the mirror image of anti-tarocchi and anti-cards sermons, yes, they go together. In the same way, the descriptions by confessed "witches" of Satanic rites were mirror images of Christian rites. Neither was very original.

It is true that you could just memorize the order and the rules without thinking about any of this. But people lived their religion in those days, and its symbols were everywhere: the processions, pageants, feast-days, mystery plays (Newbigin describes them), whatever. Moreover, making the allegories explicit would have been a useful teaching tool between parents and children.

This is only part of the teaching. Among other things, tarocchi is also a war game. In Bologna sminchiare (the verb) was a war strategy, to be played when you have enough good cards between you and your partner, using the kings well, capturing/killing the officers and higher, etc. One of the tarocchi poems described 18th century European war strategy in terms of "sminchiare" etc. One could make analogies now to the Ukraine. Many people today, at least in the U.S, think too much in terms of poker: not giving yourself away, whether to call people's bluff, no partnerships, etc. That may have worked for Reagan, but not now. The Bolognese game could teach a few lessons. There is more than one reason why soldiers liked to play cards. It expressed a more realistic version of 15th century warfare than chess.

In that regard (war) I would connect Marziano's game with that of VIII Imperatori. About this game all we know is the two words, VIII and Imperatori, and the social setting. So the rest of this post is going to be pretty speculative. My assumption is that the two games weren't developed and played in isolation from each other.

"Imperatori" already suggests an allegorical game. Imperators were triumphal figures, and another thing about them was that they ruled over more than one state, in the normal course of events, while typically coming from one of them. Ruling over more than one state is comparable to the role of trumps in the game, which have power outside their "suit" (whatever that may be). If kingdoms represent the states in a world or region, then the imperator can range over as many of them as he wants and can. That he comes from one of them is in the game signified by a special relationship to one of the states. The Roman emperor was from Rome. Alexander, who ruled the eastern Mediterranean and established a kind of empire, or at least federation, was from Macedonia. The Persian Emperor was from Persia. The Babylonian Emperor was from Babylon. Johannes talks about a game where the suits represented these four ancient "kingdoms." They were empires, too. There was a version of Karnoffel, around 1453, that used the same four; Huck mentioned it once.

We don't know who the imperators in Imperatori were, but chances are that in the 1423 deck there were eight of them, and 8 is a multiple of 4, for four kingdoms. If so, 2 would attach to each kingdom, probably the Emperor and his second in command. Later the "VIII" is dropped, so we don't know how many there were, but I would imagine a multiple of four, ranked hierarchically within their kingdom.

I like to imagine the imperial cards as being distinguished on the cards by their dress and other regalia, maybe just the hats. Artists then tended to use costumes of their own time. So Holy Roman Empire crowns for one, Greek Orthodox for another, Turbans for a third, and some other Muslim headgear, Turkish or Mamluk, etc., for the fourth (the two bad suits). Different emperors might have had different powers. The Babylonian Empire didn't fight the Romans or the Greeks, for example, while the Persian Empire fought both the Babylonians and the Greeks. Or two of them fought the other two, like the Western and Eastern Christians vs. the Turks and Mamluks. Or they all fought one another. These particulars are just examples; the details are not important, except that it may be that there was only one card that looked like the Emperor card in Trionfi. Or none. They may even have been different species of animals, predators that attacked one another (but don't ask me how that would work).

What is most important are the rules, which are both intrinsic to (in the sense of furthering) and extrinsic to (in the sense of detachable from) the allegory playing out in the game. Rule number one might be that only imperial cards can attack other kingdoms. This is the trump function.

A suit card from a particular kingdom leads. This defines in what kingdom the battle is to be fought. The citizens, nobles, and imperials are divided into four factions, each loyal to a different chief, who is one of the four players of the game (but four is not a necessity). Think of Putin, Trump, and Le Pen as cards in the same player's hand, or those of two partners, the stratified-authoritarian faction, in this case (maybe different then, for example Bessarion with the Medici [for unity under the Pope]; Plethon with Filelfo, Filelfo with Filippo, and I expect different degrees of fundamentalism among Muslims, even in one state). Since the citizens are ranked hierarchically, the highest ranking one wins and takes himself and the others in that particular combat (like gladiators) out of the game. The nobles are part of the factions, too, but if they are captured by a different faction the one capturing them has scored some nice points, depending on the rank. Capturing a King is particularly valuable, because he commands the court figure next below him, and so on, even in captivity. Imperials are valuable for the same reason, in their own kingdom.

When do the imperials take part? Well, if all the citizens and nobles in a particular faction have seen action, then that faction can and in fact has to use its imperials, including imperials from other kingdoms if it has no others. However an imperial from the same kingdom as the card led will know the terrain better and fight to defend it more fiercely than those of other kingdoms. It will beat any imperial from another kingdom, but can't beat an imperial from its own kingdom of higher rank.

When an imperial is led, however, it is a matter of the pecking order among kingdoms, how worthy they are, by standards of nobility or religion. Romans are the most Christian or noble, let us say, Greeks next, Persians/Mamluks next (Mamluks weren't Muslim in their homeland and so aren't very fervent), and Babylonians/Turks last.

This is basically the same game as Marziano's, as I imagine it.

There are other possibilities, maybe even actual variations. It might be that a higher imperial from a different kingdom from the card led can beat a lower imperial from the same kingdom. And in case of two imperials of the same rank from different kingdoms from the card led, the one played last might have priority, or the one from the noblest kingdom wins. The principle of "the one played last has priority" might also extend to the situation where an imperial is led, in which case the imperials would have among them only the rank if emperor and vice-emperor, four of each. The "equal papi" rule is a simplification of that.

I would note that this last game, where the imperials have no rank outside their own kingdom, could also be played with ordinary cards, 56 or 52 or 48. It is just a matter of promoting the cards by two ranks, Kings becoming Emperors and so on.

Imperatori could also have been more like Karnoffel. That is, an imperial of upper rank can beat anything below him, but the second in command could beat anything but a King (partial trump). And some further differentiation among imperials, depending on their kingdom. The main way it is not like Karnoffel is in promoting low cards to high. However, it could have lower nobility beat higher nobility in certain circumstances, for example if two partners each played a lower nobility of the same religion, and the other two could only muster one higher noble. I want to emphasize the this comparison to Karnoffel has nothing to do with who in particular is represented on the cards: devils, popes, etc., all of which could equally well be imperatori. It seems an obvious point, even if Ortalli missed it. One way of defining a game is by its rules.

Well, I am going to have to find some people to play these games with, now that summer is coming and I can be outside with friends. When it comes to Covid, I am still very conservative.

Thanks, you've done a lot of moralizing there. Very interesting and impressive.

I've studied moralizations of games since the beginning of my studies in this field, so I know very well of what you speak.

Of course the practice can be traced almost as far back as writing itself: the Egyptian game of Senet was thoroughly moralized, spiritualized, by the third millenium b.C. Peter Piccione has written the most on it, see e.g. https://www.academia.edu/8169696/In_Sea ... g_of_Senet and https://www.academia.edu/8210038/The_Eg ... f_the_Soul

"More than 5,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians invented a board game almost aselaborate as anything from Parker Brothers today. Beginning simply as a form of recreation, this game was to evolve into a profound ritual, a drama for ultimate stakes...."

I think this is a fine parallel to what happened with Tarot, except that Tarot's moralizations are very numerous, often contradictory, and cannot be summed up in a canonical way. Perhaps the most widespread is Eden Gray's "Fool's journey," but it is very recent.

Yes, moralizations sometimes influence the rules of the game. Narrowing ourselves to Tarot, I argue that moralizations account for at least some of the variations in the standard order of trumps. For instance, B puts Temperance between the Pope and Love, while it raises Justice to between Angel and World. The first was to put a barrier between the Pope and the depiction of lovers, the second to explicitly invoke the Last Judgment, which is not clear in the general resurrection of people in the Angel (and I think this is why they switched the positions of World and Angel; now, after the Judgment, the World implies the New World, Paradise). It could be that Don Messore, chaplain of Meliaduse d'Este before he died (and who went with him on a long trip to Cyprus, the Holy Land, and Egypt in 1440), who is responsible for the changes, being a churchman as he was. In this case the "rules" is probably the wrong word; it is just the ranking of some trumps.

I think those who designed the game of Triumphs intended to create a dignified, moral, and intellectually uplifting pastime, when card games could so easily go the other way. This is why, I suppose, they were larger than regular cards, and often very expensive. But, like everything, degradation easily sets in, especially when it becomes very popular, and you find crappy, careless versions in the woodcuts. Some people found some of the cards morally offensive, for different reasons, as you can read in the Steele Sermon. But, like you say, the presence of moralities on the cards like Bernardino da Siena's "diabolic liturgy" and the Steele Sermon author, implies that the opposite could easily be done, and no doubt were. John of Rheinfelden is an early example, perhaps unknown in Italy, but Marziano is another early moralization of the symbolism.

I don't think that the custom of counting the number cards of half of the suits in reverse ranking is a morality. It is observed in Ganjifa, a trick-taking game without trumps, and in some Chinese games. I think it is just the common heritage of the trick-taking game that came with the cards to India, Persia, and the Levant, finally to Europe. Moralization of the custom came after the fact, like almost all moralities of features of games. Marziano's moralization happens to be the earliest recorded version, but he is a first in a number of respects.

Here is a list of six allegorizations or moralizations of games that I made years ago. All before Cessolis. Short, but it shows the range -

Allegorical games list.

I. Archaic

A. Senet. See the studies of Peter A. Piccione

"GAMING WITH THE GODS: The Game of Senet and Ancient Egyptian Religious Beliefs"
http://piccionep.people.cofc.edu/senetcontents

"Through much of Egyptian history, the senet game had two usages: (1) secular and recreational, in which it was played for fun and enjoyment by two players; (2) sacred and spiritual, in which it was performed--probably by a single person (in the manner of solitaire)--for a religious purpose. The game probably--but not necessarily--started out as a recreational pastime. Then ultimately, the Egyptians added a religious dimension to it, and thereafter the two aspects co-existed side-by-side through Egyptian history."

The article details both of these aspects.

Piccione's dissertation on the game (1990) is available:

"The Historical Development of the Game of Senet and its Significance for Egyptian Religion."

See also:
https://www.academia.edu/8210038/The_Eg ... f_the_Soul
https://www.academia.edu/8169696/In_Sea ... g_of_Senet

B. The Royal Game of Ur (20 squares)

So named because the earliest version was found Queen Pu-abi's tomb in Ur, circa 2500 b.c.e.

Publication: Irving Finkel, "Board Games and Fortunetelling: A Case from Antiquity" in _New Approaches to Board Games Research_ (International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, 1995).

Tablet B(ritish) M(useum) 33333B, from 177-176 b.c.e. from Babylon gives the rules of the game and the meaning of the 20 squares, and the fate of a piece when it lands on each square. 12 squares contain a sign of the zodiac. The reverse of the tablet gives divinatory meanings for the results of landing on some of the squares.

Wikipedia gives a good explanation and links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Game_of_Ur

II. Medieval European

A. Tables - Chronicle of Malalas (c. A.D. 550)
"Palamedes ... first devised the game of tabula from the movement of the seven planets that bring men joys and griefs by the hazard of fate; he made the tabula board the terrestrial world, the twelve squares the number of signs of the zodiac, the dice-box and the seven dice in it the seven stars, and the tower the height of heaven, from which good and evil are distributed to all."

B. Tables - Suida (or Suda): derived from Malalas.

The game of tables (entry under Tabula). "Palamedes invented this as an amusement for the Greek army with consummate ingenuity. For tabula is the earthly universe (kosmos), the twelve squares correspond to the number of the signs of the zodiac, and the dice-box and the seven cubes in it are the seven wandering stars, and the tower is the height of the sky, from which many evils are given in return to all people."
(both translations above from the Suda online at: http://www.stoa.org/sol/ (sixth entry under "tabula"; see also wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suda ))

C. Nard and Dice (10th century)

"Al-Yaqubi (tenth century), in his Tarikh, gives the earliest Islamic account of nard. Here we find, in addition to a description, the symbolic explanation of the game already present in the Chatrang-namak. This is important for our purpose because it includes the symbolism of the die. The board stands for the year. It has 24 points because there are 24 hours to the day. It is arranged in two parts, each with 12 points symbolizing the 12 months of the year, or the 12 signs of the Zodiac. The number of men (in Arabic called kilab, 'dogs') is 30, because there are 30 days to the month. The two dice stand for day and night. The faces are arranged 6-1, 5-2, and 4-3, so that the total of the dots on each pair of opposite faces is 7, the number of the days of the week and of the planets. The same explanation may, we deduce, have been offered for the choice of numbers 1-6, 2-5 on the rectangular die.

What is important is not the sequence of the numbers, but the sum of the opposite faces. This symbolism is further developed in the Arabic treatise on chess Kitab fi al-shatranj wa mansubatih wa malhih ('Book on the Game of Chess, its Positions and Subtleties'), which includes a section on nard, in the British Library.

Regarding the origin of this symbolic explanation, Hyde quotes notes on the Byzantine game oftabia from Greek authors, containing the germ of the astronomical explanation in the Chatrang-namak. Noldeke suggested that the symbolism went back to a Neo-Platonic or Neo-Pythagorean source. The game of tabla, or taula, was probably identical with the Persian and Arabic nard. It is generally accepted that when nard reached the Byzantine empire it was given the name of tabulae, from the draughtsmen with which it was played, thus acknowledging that nard was played with draughtsmen."

(from Anna Contadini, "Islamic Ivory Chess Pieces, Draughtsmen and Dice" http://www.goddesschess.com/chessays/contadini1.html (full references in her article at the link)

D. Chess symbolism in De Vetula (c. 1220)

Rex est sol, pedes est Saturnus, Mars quoque miles, Regia virgo Venus, Amohinus Episcopus ipse est Juppiter, et Roccus discurrens Luna.
"The King is the Sun, the foot-soldier (Pawn) is Saturn, Mars however is the Knight, the Queen is Venus, the Alphin Bishop is Jupiter himself, and the running Rook is the Moon."

mikeh wrote: 03 Jun 2022, 14:21 Maggio describes a medieval game of virtues, 56 of them, using dice. There was also Rithmomachy, the "Philosopher's Game," which taught mathematics at least.

This is Wibold, Archdeacon in Noyon, in the middle of the 10th century. Here is some material I've collected on his game, if you are interested. Not all of the images got preserved, but there is more than enough to understand the concept and rules.

http://www.rosscaldwell.com/games/wibold.pdf

Thanks for the links, Ross. I would distinguish between moralizations or allegoricizations that have little or nothing to do with playing the game and those that are part of what is involved in playing it. Perhaps they would be called intrinsic and extrinsic allegoricizations.

It is one thing to have a game with pieces that look like elephants, horses, and royalty (I refer to the earliest versions) and play corresponding roles in the game. It is another to say that "The King is the Sun, the foot-soldier (Pawn) is Saturn, Mars however is the Knight, the Queen is Venus, the Alphin Bishop is Jupiter himself, and the running Rook is the Moon." That is absolutely not intrinsic to the game. "Castling" makes sense if the Rook is a castle. Not if it's the moon.

But what is the difference? Well, it has something to do with warfare in India or wherever it was developed. It was better, the closer to actual warfare it was. But it's still good, if it corresponds to using different forces with different powers strategically. The Moon is the fastest planet; but it is no faster than a bishop or a queen, if by "running" is meant going far in one move. Moreover, the planets are not easily construed as objects that can be manipulated, like a general with his troops. And chess has only six types of pieces, while there are seven planets.

About board games. Take Monopoly. It would be possible to play the same game without seeing the squares on the board as streets, the penalties for landing on them as rents, the little green things on them as houses, etc. But that's not what Monopoly is: the allegory is part of the game. In the same way Emperors were probably part of the game of Imperatori. And trumps part of Trionfi. And the Fool the most important card of the Bolognese Tarocchi and Minchiate, although perhaps the Bagat (called the Ganellino or Gallerino, in the game of Ganellini or Gallerini) at one time had or shared that role.

I doubt very much whether the fact that the dots on opposite sides of dice always add up to 7 has anything to do with the games that were played, in the sense of something to be kept in mind as one plays. If the board had twelve spaces, that would indicate rolling two dice. How the roll relates to the board otherwise escapes me. If the sum of two dice was important, then the number 7 becomes important, because it is the most common sum. The terminology used for winning and losing combinations is also of significance: "Snake eyes" etc., if they suggest both patterns on the dice and favorable or unfavorable outcomes, would be part of the game.

Then there is Monopoly, which I think counts as educational. It is about using money and investing it thoughtfully. It is not the same game without money. Thinking of it as Atlantic City, for example, is quite extraneous, even if it is modeled on Atlantic City. The same might have been true of the nard board, I don't know. I have read that in ancient Egypt they had 12 hours in daylight and 12 hours darkness, regardless of how the length changed, which at that latitude wasn't much. How the game would incorporate light vs. darkness, and especially the signs of the zodiac, I don't know. If it didn't, then there is no educational function to the interpretation.

I don't know if the divinatory or astrological aspects of the Game of Ur are related to the rules of play. The designs for the "combat" vs "safe" squares clearly do: if there is some other significance to those designs, or other things on the board related to them, outside the game, they would be part of the game's educational function. In the board game Snakes and Ladders there is a clear educational function: the squares with ladders show activities that are considered to help one advance in life, and it is the opposite for the snakes. Those pictures are intrinsic to the game, even if all that is actually needed is to recognize the snakes and the ladders next to those pictures.

If playing the game of senet prepared one for the afterlife, that would be intrinsic to the game when played for that purpose. But I haven't studied it in detail. The same is true of tarot spreads for educational purposes, or even divinatory ones. It doesn't matter if there are contradictory interpretations, even in the same system, as long as there is a way of sorting them out. But I wasn't talking about that kind of game. I was talking about the game in fifteenth century northern Italy.

Most card games today require knowing how to count to ten. Technically, you don't have to have that skill: you could just memorize the order of the patterns on the cards. When there are numbers on the cards, you don't have to be able to recognize patterns and know their order. Even when there are not, being able to count the number of suit-objects on different cards is how you normally settle disputes. Perhaps one could do it just by looking, when the cards involved were the same suit, which is perhaps why only cards of the same suit as the suit led could win the trick. But that seems like a recipe for fights.

Games where you have to add up scores, as opposed to simply pairing equivalents between the two sides, are exercises in more complex skills. You don't have to know them to play, but you do to know who won, unless you have a way of pairing off equivalents. Even that is a skill. To that extent they are educational games, and the symbolism is intrinsic to the educational aspect.

Part of education is what might also be called indoctrination into the ways of the culture. It's also called rationalizing. The positive and negative activities in Snakes and Ladders fit that characterization. So do the afterlife connotations in Senet.

Knowing that crowned heads are higher than uncrowned ones, and males higher than females with the same crown, is indoctrination into the ways of the culture; they make sense of how the game is played and teach doctrines. In the Tarot de Marseille, the temporal vs. spiritual aspect is not intrinsic, because one of them is lowest and the other highest. Any allegories to justify the Popess being lowest and the Pope highest are extrinsic, at least now. At one time there might have been a point of indoctrination: the subservience of the Church to the temporal power rather than directly to the papacy, for example, or vice versa. So perhaps the Popess is just below the Pope in the Papal State, but lowest in places that oppose any special temporal power for the papacy, at least in their realm.

Having Justice between Angel and World is a point of indoctrination about life after death. Having it above Temperance and Fortitude could be indoctrination, too, but of a different sort, ethical, arguable without recourse to religion. Either way, Justice is somehow higher than the other two virtues. There are different ways the order of symbols can be educational. Temperance between Pope and Love might tell an educational story, I don't know. They may have just thought of Pope as in one section and Love in a new section. Milan would have had a different story, something connecting Justice with Love, the card just below. To the extent that edifying stories help in playing the game, connecting images with rules, they are part of the game.

But not everything that helps you win is educational. There might be some algorithm (in the sense of a shortcut formula) that helps one quickly know the probabilities of certain unknowns in the game. In that way the game could help teach the science of probabilities. But if one only learned it in connection with the game, without knowing any way to apply the knowledge outside the game, its educational value is much less. All it shows is that algorithms are useful.

I think the examples I gave of the rules show how playing the game can be educational and indoctrinating. Many moralizations are not normally part of playing the game, i.e. details on the cards that don't relate to their order or point-getting ability. Yes, this is rough and ready and could probably be said better. But I think there is a distinction to be made here.