Re: Tarotica : 1584

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The translation looks nice. I think, the "39" for a four-players-game (Girolamo suggested 19 and a writing error for 39) might be right just for each team of players, one getting 20 and the other 19 cards. The three-players-game seem to know no bidding phase and consequently no partner game "1 player against 2", each player just discards one card and plays then for himself as I understand it.
Stays the riddle with the 189. Possibly the sum, which could be "highest loss" for a single player - which actually would be to get 0 points of 78.
78 = 3x26, 189 = 7x27 ... how does this fit together? Extra points, and the rules are not described? Increased by 3- fold contra (by each of 3 players) and one extra sum for loosing the Bateleur?

Added: "27" is just the winning number in one 78-points-game between 3 players without partnership (26 might be a draw). Maybe there was a convention, that a great game with various single games was finished, when one player reached "189" ... in other words, he got 7 times the "27" and was called "winner". Following this game idea, a single game could have had either 1 or 2 winners (and 1 or 2 losers naturally).
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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Trituratio. I guess it comes from tri-turo, to reduce to three pieces. Metaphorically, to reduce in many pieces. In classic Latin, it was to scratch, to thrash. It is a curious word to be chosen. Why trituratio ? possibly because it recalls a number : 3.
Famosa trituratio, d'Oncieu says. Infamous scratching. In my interpretation, I stressed on the destructive side of the word. Primero was a popular gamble. On the web page http://www.tretre.it/menu/accademia-del ... s-primero/ I have described the XVI century Francesco Berni and Girolamo Cardano's Primero, with abstracts available in my English.

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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marco wrote:I have posted on Tarotpedia an English translation of D'Oncieu's passage:
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/D%27Onci ... orum_Decas

It is heavily based on Girolamo's translation and comments: Girolamo, thank you once again for giving us a chance of making sense of this complex text!
Thank you for referring to my interpretation in your excellent translation. I mean it : you have vigorously translated from the Latin text. I am impressed, it is such a hard text, more than a text it is a jungle. Bravo Marco !

terne extra reponuntur
You say : Girolamo Zorli interprets this expression as a reference to the practice of discarding three cards at the beginning of each hand. It could also describe how tricks where stored during the game.
Interesting ! it could be so. Reponere is a generic "put away". Extra means out. The three card discard is documented by the XVII century to our day. But it could mean both the discard and the trick. I will add your interpretation to my notes.

78 corresponds to the total number of points
Mostly intriguing. I thought 78 cards, not points.
Original tarot scoring is still a good deal mysterious to me. I have no information about a document stating the score before XVII century. Dummett says "di solito 78", usually 78. At page 237 he says "allora (XVIII century Bologna) il gioco prevedeva quattro giocatori in coppie fisse". This observation has been confirmed by the Pedini trascription. See http://www.tretre.it/menu/accademia-del ... hino/#c483. But Terziglio also was very popular : see my Lollio e Imperiali's transcription, datable 1550 ca. http://www.tretre.it/menu/accademia-del ... to-lollio/

I guess that originally they scored the trick. The trick scored the sum of the value of the court cards plus 1 point per each low cards per court. Kings were valued 4. Queens 3, Horses 2, Jacks 1. Example :
King + low+low+low+ = (4+1+0+0) 5 point trick.
Queen + Horse+ low+low = (3+2+1+1) 7 point trick.
King + Horse + Jack + low (4+2+1+1) = 8 point trick.
In fact, the game final score changed depending on how the low cards were taken.

D'Oncieu seems to stress the three-player game, with 25 tricks. But he informs us that in Piedmont Savoy there was a four-player game as well, with 19 tricks. So that possible combination of low cards with court cards changed considerabily the score, not to mention local variations, reduced decks, etcetera. If your translation is right, 78 was a fixed total score for both terziglios and 4-player games ! In other words, in 1584 Savoy there were a fixed value for each cards ! a scoop. Mostly intriguing. Say Kings = 4, Queens = 3, Horses 2, Jacks 1. Court grand total = 40. How do you get the remaining 38 points ?
Alternatively Kings 5, Queens 4, Horses 3, Jacks 2. Court grand total 56, How do you get the remaining 22 points ?

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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SteveM wrote:
GirolamoZorli wrote: D'Oncieu states that 76 is the universe. More or less he adds that, after our life, one day everybody will receive an equal number. The number is an "individuum" number added to or subtracted from 76.
I am not seeing where it mentions 76? Is it stated or deduced from the calculations?

I am translating:

septenari cum uno individuo proportionem huiusmodi,
in this manner one individual (unit) is proportional with seven ? (thus we have the later calculation the 27 * uno individuo (one individual = 7) = 189)?

ut decem septenariis & uno = while ten (containing) seven and one (i.e, 10x7 + 1(x7), or 10+1x7 =77)?

Thus uno individuo = a set of 7 ?

The only other reference to 27 I find in the text is to some mystical signifcance to its being the cube of 3 (the cube of 2 and 3 of course gives us the pythagorean tetractys of 36 - called kosmos - but I can't see that he is referring to that. . . excepting in as much as for kosmos we might read universe?)

SteveM
Thank you Steve. My quickly written posts are often inaccurate. Thanks for your help.

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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GirolamoZorli wrote:
marco wrote:
D'Oncieu seems to stress the three-player game, with 25 tricks. But he informs us that in Piedmont Savoy there was a four-player game as well, with 19 tricks. So that possible combination of low cards with court cards changed considerabily the score, not to mention local variations, reduced decks, etcetera. If your translation is right, 78 was a fixed total score for both terziglios and 4-player games ! In other words, in 1584 Savoy there were a fixed value for each cards ! a scoop. Mostly intriguing. Say Kings = 4, Queens = 3, Horses 2, Jacks 1. Court grand total = 40. How do you get the remaining 38 points ?
Alternatively Kings 5, Queens 4, Horses 3, Jacks 2. Court grand total 56, How do you get the remaining 22 points ?
78 cards ... each card 1/3 point = 26 points
Kings 4 points, Queens 3, Horses 2, Jacks 1 = 4x10 = 40 points
Fool, Paget and highest trump each 4 points = 12 points

26 + 40 + 12 = 78

This counting method appears in common modern French variants, if I remember correctly. It makes more sense for games with 3 players than for games with 4 players. More usual is the point sum 91 instead of 78, but also other systems are known.

Bouts (21, 1, excuse): 4.5 points each
Kings: 4.5 points each
Queens: 3.5 points each
Knights: 2.5 points each
Jacks: 1.5 points each
Other cards: 0.5 points each

This leads to 91 points

7 x 4.5 = 31.5
4 x 3.5 = 14
4 x 2.5 = 10
4 x 1.5 = 6
59 x 0.5 = 29.5
------------------
91
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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GirolamoZorli wrote:Thank you Huck !
The 91 score I know is the one we have playing tarocchino today. 78 point deck back in 1584 is a scoop ! Marco did it !
Thank you Girolamo, but currently the translation of that sentence is just a hypothesis... actually it must be the third or fourth attempt of translating it I have made in the last few days :)

The information about the 78 points comes directly from Sir Dummett. I haven't found the time yet to go through "Il Mondo e l'Angelo" more carefully in order to find out which the relevant sources are.

BTW, I like Huck's interpretation for 39 as the cards given to each couple. In this way "supererunt due de trahendae" would be "two remain to be discarded", while taking 19 instead of 39 I guess it would be "two remain to be dealt". A (minor) problem of Huck's interpretation is that in other sentences "defalcare" instead of "trahere" is used for "to discard". But (in favour of Huck's proposal) I now see I made an error in translating "ut ita in duos tantum versari sors possit": "duos" is masculine, I think it must refer to "two players" not "two cards" (it would be "duas"). So: 39 cards are dealt to each of the couples, and only two players are completely affected by chance (because they cannot discard any card).

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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marco wrote:
... "supererunt due de trahendae" would be "two remain to be discarded", while taking 19 instead of 39 I guess it would be "two remain to be dealt". A (minor) problem of Huck's interpretation is that in other sentences "defalcare" instead of "trahere" is used for "to discard". But (in favour of Huck's proposal) I now see I made an error in translating "ut ita in duos tantum versari sors possit": "duos" is masculine, I think it must refer to "two players" not "two cards" (it would be "duas"). So: 39 cards are dealt to each of the couples, and only two players are completely affected by chance (because they cannot discard any card).
In duos is an interesting masculine. May be Huck's interpretation is the right one : after distributing 5 at a time 15 cards to each player, dealer would give 3 cards to the first two players and 4 cards to the last two players, so that to give a smaller adbvantage/disadvantage to two playeys only, instead to give the full advantage of two more cards to one player only. On the other hand, considering the information I have of the European (French as well) game rules, I think that this way of dealing was JUST A SUGGESTION. Turning discard is recalled for centuries as a typical characteristic of the tarot game. Moreover possit is a subjuctive tense : ut...fortuna possit sounds like "so that chance could" and not "chance can". But I don't remember the consecutio temporum.... :D

Beside, a question : the four players were two couples or were they playing on their own ? That's important in the card games history. It seems that the crossed couple games were unknown until the late XVI century. Is D'Oncieu telling us that in Piedmont Savoy the crossed couple games were already present ?

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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GirolamoZorli wrote:
In duos is an interesting masculine. May be Huck's interpretation is the right one : after distributing 5 at a time 15 cards to each player, dealer would give 3 cards to the first two players and 4 cards to the last two players, so that to give a smaller adbvantage/disadvantage to two playeys only, instead to give the full advantage of two more cards to one player only. On the other hand, considering the information I have of the European (French as well) game rules, I think that this way of dealing was JUST A SUGGESTION. Turning discard is recalled for centuries as a typical characteristic of the tarot game.
Well, we interpret a text. It seems to be one of the oldest, which gives insight in the older rules. Is there anything "real" about a connection between Tarot and "discard function" before 1584? And naturally, Oncieu don't appears really as an expert about the game, he just knows about a way played in Savoy. His topic are not games, but number secrets. In the worst imagined case he might have never played really the game. His description stayed very much on the surface.
Beside, a question : the four players were two couples or were they playing on their own ? That's important in the card games history. It seems that the crossed couple games were unknown until the late XVI century. Is D'Oncieu telling us that in Piedmont Savoy the crossed couple games were already present ?
The author writes 38, not 19 ... naturally this might be an "error", but probability speaks in such cases for "the number is correct". What about Vives and Maldonaldo and their Spanish Triumph game? From Vives it's clear that it's an old way of play, possibly the "oldest" according Vives.
In Maldonaldo's text it's clear: 4 players in partnership rules (2 against 2), sitting in opposition, is in existence in 1538-1541 and if we could believe Vives, it's the oldest card game.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=720&p=10427&hilit= ... ldo#p10427
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=721&p=10428&hilit= ... ldo#p10428

But it is NOT played with Tarot or Tarocchi cards.

But I personally would calculate lots of different rules in the game with Tarocchi cards. As we have only very limited insight in the way cards were really played, I thinks it's difficult to design the historical development of the rules.

I personally played Doppelkopf a longer time, a rather complex game. Any player group defines their "own rules". I would assume, that there are hundreds of minor variants (which actually in some cases could cause heavy changes in the strategy of the game).
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Tarotica : 1584

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Huck wrote: Is there anything "real" about a connection between Tarot and "discard function" before 1584?
Yes, there is the description given by Imperiali, 1550 ca. scarta due carte per fare questa danza
see http://www.tretre.it/menu/accademia-del ... to-lollio/
As a player, I know that reasons of the outstanding success of the tarot games are the exciting ruffle and the discard that changes every hand. As a reader, whatever document I know of stresses on that point. Even D'Oncieu in his words says that the discard "scares" and should be somehow temperate.
Huck wrote: What about Vives and Maldonaldo and their Spanish Triumph game?
.....
it's difficult to design the historical development of the rules.
Of course, Maldonado and Vives, you are right. As you say, it's difficult. Or it is stimulating, depending on the point of view.... :)