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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: Now I agree completely with that, Mike! You can see that the 5x14 theory is highly implausible.
... .-) ... he didn't say that, and the whole question has nothing to do with the 5x14-theory.
Huck also forgot to mention the only card game before Tarot that had a trump sequence, Marziano's, had a hierarchical sequence.
The Michelino deck has a trump sequence, true ... but which number would you give to the trumps? In the case of Michelino deck the trumps are part of the suits and the earlier model, the Johannes-of-Rheinfelden-deck with 60 cards, counted the suits from 1-15. According this hierarchy Jupiter would have been Nr. 14, June would have been Nr. 14, Minerva would have 14. and Venus also. The next row of 4 gods would have 13, the following 12 and the last would have 11.

The Michelino deck stands in its form between two deck types (deck without predefined trump suit and deck with predefined trump suit) and the first clear example with connected number-row might be the 5x14-deck of Bembo. The Michelino deck is not recognized till now as a clear relative to the Chess Tarots.
Even the "trumps" of Karnöffel had an order.

Edited - also Chinese "Chess" cards, which really do have the names of the chess figures, are not used to play chess with cards.
Error - Chinese had chess cards, at least in modern times. Sylvia Mann notes 3 different versions, one with 112, another with 70 and a version with 32 cards from 1936, 1953 and 1970.

Naturally Karnöffel had an order - where's the problem? Did I state, that decks with a sequential order didn't exist?
I've stated, that specific decks, which are known or assumed as early Trionfi cards and play a great role in the question of the origin of the deck, are arrangeable in the manner of chess and that cause of this reason it becomes plausible, that they took a stronger influence of chess.
Chess doesn't need a sequential hierarchy, that's well known. If chess was a dominant influence, perhaps these decks also hadn't a sequential hierarchy.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Good to hear from you, Ross. What I'm not buying is the chess part of the 5x14 theory. What remains is the cumulative payment records in Ferrara, which even together are admittedly weak, and the lack of sufficient remaining cards in the CY and PMB. For me there is also the precedent of the Michelino, with its 16 trumps, all tied to particular suits, a pattern that seems to be repeated in the CY, in the cataloguing inherited by the Beinecke. There is also Visconti's presumed class prejudice which would count against his adoption of a game invented by Bolognese commoners in the last couple of years of his life, when he is deliberately estranged from female relatives. All of these considerations for me point more toward Milan or Ferrara as the point of origin.

Ross, I have some other details about the French female knights. On p. 88, below the caption, which says "French playing-cards signed by J. de Dale," Hind writes "(7) Cards signed by F. CLERC of Lyon (fl. 1485-96), in the Bibl. Nat. of Paris, and others by JEAN PERSONNE (fl. 1493-97) in Dijon Museum." I take that from the scan I made of that page of the book; it appears to be referring to the cards pictured, which is all there is otherwise on the page, even though the person named in the actual caption is someone else. Conceivably it is the title for the next section of the text. But the next sentence, on the next page, starts "Few cards besides those noted can be definitively...the XV century." (The other words aren't in my scan.) In any case, the ones I posted are apparently 15th century, probably Lyon.

Edit added 31 Jan. 2010: Here are Hind's comments about J. de Dale and his cards, which were on the page before their picture, p. 87 of An Introduction to the History of Woodcut, Vol. 1:
(6) Cards signed J. de Dale, acquired by the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, in 1902 (described and reproduced by H. Bouchot, A newly discovered pack of Lyonnese Playing-cards, Burlington Magazine, i., 1903, p. 296 see my fig. 38). JEAN DE DALE appears to have been born at Bresse, and to have worked in Lyon in the second half of the XV century. Natlis Rondot quotes records of him from 1477 onwards, but confuses him with the Master, I. D., an unidentified cutter who worked for the publisher Treschsel at Lyon in a style more influenced by Netherlandish woodcut. Bouchot attributes to Jean de Dale the woodcut series of Les Neuf Preux (S. 1945, see p. 157 and fig. 71.)
In response to Huck's point about the Michelino: Clearly there is a hierarchy of gods within suits. And among the first gods of the suits, based just on what we know about the gods, Jupiter would be first, then Juno, then Minerva, then Venus. How these considerations played out in the actual game isn't said. But some sort of hierarchical ordering seems implied. Whether particular suits take precedence over other suits, or there is some rule to the effect that the first god on a particular level played takes priority, we don't know. Are there any similar situations in other games that we know more about? For example, what about the "four papi"?
Last edited by mikeh on 01 Feb 2010, 04:54, edited 2 times in total.

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mikeh wrote: In response to Huck's point about the Michelino: Clearly there is a hierarchy of gods within suits. And among the first gods of the suits, based just on what we know about the gods, Jupiter would be first, then Juno, then Minerva, then Venus. How these considerations played out in the actual game isn't said. But some sort of hierarchical ordering seems implied. Whether particular suits take precedence over other suits, or there is some rule to the effect that the first god on a particular level played takes priority, we don't know. Are there any similar situations in other games that we know more about? For example, what about the "four papi"?
In a usual Tarot game at least three hierarchies are employed: First the trumps have a hierarchy, second each suit has a hierarchy King-Queen-Knight-Page - 1 till 10 or King-Queen-Knight-Page - 10 till 1. Third there is point hierarchy connected to cards, Kings and trumps 0-1-21 count 4 or 5 points, Queens count 3 or 4 points, Knights 2 or 3, Pages 1 or 2 and additionally each trick counts points. In variations of the basic point hierarchies have developed, for combinations etc.
So the game is formed by combination of different hierarchies. Look just for fun the trump-hierarchy of German Doppelkopf, which has 26 trumps of totally 48, or 24 trumps of 40. It's played with 2 sets of totally 20 or 24 cards and contains Kings, Queens, Pages, Aces, 10's, 9's. If two equal cards meet in a trick, the first wins, if it is the winner of the trick ... however, if heart-10 meets heart-10, then the second wins ... but, not in the last trick ... :-). The row of trumps is as this ...

heart-10
Queen-clubs
Queen-spades
Queen-hearts
Queen-diamonds
Page-clubs
Page-spades
Page-hearts
Page-diamonds
Ace-diamonds
10-diamonds
King-diamonds
9-diamonds ... occasionally not used as a card (used in 48-version, not in 40-card-versions)

So a nice wonderful card hierarchy, all trumps and naturally none of the cards has a trump-row-number, but just the usual signifying signs.

But as points in the game

Aces have 11
10's have 10
Kings have 4
Queens have 3
Pages have 2
9's have 0 points

.. so the trumps totally have only 110 points
.. and the group of the "Fehlfarben" (no-trumps) have 130, although these are less cards (in the 40 card version, these are 40%, the trumps 60% of the cards.

In Tarot it's similar, points are earned mainly with "Fehlfarben", not with trumps.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Huck wrote:
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: Now I agree completely with that, Mike! You can see that the 5x14 theory is highly implausible.
... .-) ... he didn't say that, and the whole question has nothing to do with the 5x14-theory.
I didn't say he said it. I imply that from his reasoning, he can see the implausibility of so many variations of one named game - trionfi - with so many subjects in common (implying an early unity), coming together into standards only 60 years (or more!) later, and supplanting trionfi in every single place it is attested from the 1440s on.
Huck also forgot to mention the only card game before Tarot that had a trump sequence, Marziano's, had a hierarchical sequence.
The Michelino deck has a trump sequence, true ... but which number would you give to the trumps?
The same as Marziano did - Jupiter 1, Juno 2, etc.

1. "But the gods are held to this law among themselves: that who will be first designated below, he should lead all the others following in sequence. (Jupiter)
2. "...Juno ... next in rank" (to Jupiter)
3. "in the third place the inventress of the olive, who is called Minerva and Pallas."
4. "Golden Venus... is seated in the fourth place".
5. "Apollo Phoebus,... fifth in the number of the gods.".
6. "Neptune... holds sixth place among the gods."
7. "Diana... take the seventh seat of the gods."
8. "Bacchus comes to the eighth place".
9. "the ninth, fairly middle place, we appoint for Mercury".
10. "Mars... we will place as tenth".
11. "Vesta, a virgin, will be designated eleventh."
12. "Nurturing Ceres...comes to the twelfth place".
13. "Hercules...filled the place of the thirteenth of the gods."
14. "In the fourteenth place I decided to put the King of the Winds, Aeolus..."
15. "There follows... Daphne".
16. "...an impious and impetuous boy is to be added to the council... so the order of our game finishes."
In the case of Michelino deck the trumps are part of the suits and the earlier model, the Johannes-of-Rheinfelden-deck with 60 cards, counted the suits from 1-15. According this hierarchy Jupiter would have been Nr. 14, June would have been Nr. 14, Minerva would have 14. and Venus also. The next row of 4 gods would have 13, the following 12 and the last would have 11.
How can you make stuff up when the text explicitly gives the ordering of the gods?

The trumps are not part of the suits, which are birds. The fourfold division into four kinds of virtue and vice is a thematic or conceptual division, which applies to the gods and the birds, but the suits and the gods are practically and physically distinct. This is the only thing that could have made Marcello compare it to a Trionfi pack. The gods were clearly ordered in a separate hierarchy.
The Michelino deck stands in its form between two deck types (deck without predefined trump suit and deck with predefined trump suit) and the first clear example with connected number-row might be the 5x14-deck of Bembo. The Michelino deck is not recognized till now as a clear relative to the Chess Tarots.
Marziano makes it pretty clear what the number-row of the gods and heroes is.
Even the "trumps" of Karnöffel had an order.

Edited - also Chinese "Chess" cards, which really do have the names of the chess figures, are not used to play chess with cards.
Error - Chinese had chess cards, at least in modern times. Sylvia Mann notes 3 different versions, one with 112, another with 70 and a version with 32 cards from 1936, 1953 and 1970.
What's the error? - I said the Chess cards are not used to play Chess
http://www.pagat.com/class/chess.html
Image

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
Huck wrote:
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: Now I agree completely with that, Mike! You can see that the 5x14 theory is highly implausible.
... .-) ... he didn't say that, and the whole question has nothing to do with the 5x14-theory.
I didn't say he said it. I imply that from his reasoning, he can see the implausibility of so many variations of one named game - trionfi - with so many subjects in common (implying an early unity), coming together into standards only 60 years (or more!) later, and supplanting trionfi in every single place it is attested from the 1440s on.
We've definite examples, that more than one version was addressed as "trionfi" (Michelino, Mantegna Tarocchi, Boiardo Taroccho poem), so it's plausible, that different versions existed ... not only one game. The later Tarot game was called Taraux and Tarocchi, perhaps to specify it against other types of decks of older origins.
And name changes of games in 15th century were rather common.
Huck also forgot to mention the only card game before Tarot that had a trump sequence, Marziano's, had a hierarchical sequence.
The Michelino deck has a trump sequence, true ... but which number would you give to the trumps?
The same as Marziano did - Jupiter 1, Juno 2, etc.

1. "But the gods are held to this law among themselves: that who will be first designated below, he should lead all the others following in sequence. (Jupiter)
2. "...Juno ... next in rank" (to Jupiter)
3. "in the third place the inventress of the olive, who is called Minerva and Pallas."
4. "Golden Venus... is seated in the fourth place".
5. "Apollo Phoebus,... fifth in the number of the gods.".
6. "Neptune... holds sixth place among the gods."
7. "Diana... take the seventh seat of the gods."
8. "Bacchus comes to the eighth place".
9. "the ninth, fairly middle place, we appoint for Mercury".
10. "Mars... we will place as tenth".
11. "Vesta, a virgin, will be designated eleventh."
12. "Nurturing Ceres...comes to the twelfth place".
13. "Hercules...filled the place of the thirteenth of the gods."
14. "In the fourteenth place I decided to put the King of the Winds, Aeolus..."
15. "There follows... Daphne".
16. "...an impious and impetuous boy is to be added to the council... so the order of our game finishes."
No doubt, this exists, but also exists Martiano's information "Indeed the first order, of virtues, is certain: Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Hercules. The second of riches, Juno, Neptune, Mars and Aeolus. The third of virginity or continence: from Pallas, Diana, Vesta and Daphne. The fourth however is of pleasure: Venus, Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid." , by which the trumps are applied to the 4 suits.
And the long passage about the gods and their ranks follows the explanation
"But the gods are held to this law among themselves: that who will be first designated below, he should lead all the others following in sequence."

As usual the order of the deck is given by suits, a specific trump-suit doesn't exist. I think I've explained that in my previous post, that card games create not only one hierarchy.
In the case of Michelino deck the trumps are part of the suits and the earlier model, the Johannes-of-Rheinfelden-deck with 60 cards, counted the suits from 1-15. According this hierarchy Jupiter would have been Nr. 14, June would have been Nr. 14, Minerva would have 14. and Venus also. The next row of 4 gods would have 13, the following 12 and the last would have 11.
How can you make stuff up when the text explicitly gives the ordering of the gods?
It's an absolute normal circumstance in card games, that trumps have a ranking between themselves, and that an other order exist, according which a card deck is parted in suits. And trumps can be parts of different suits. Later Tarot decks have another quality, as trumps are then presented as an own suit, but this is not given in the case of the Michelino deck. I think, we discussed this detail often enough.
The trumps are not part of the suits, which are birds. The fourfold division into four kinds of virtue and vice is a thematic or conceptual division, which applies to the gods and the birds, but the suits and the gods are practically and physically distinct. This is the only thing that could have made Marcello compare it to a Trionfi pack. The gods were clearly ordered in a separate hierarchy.
In all card games with trump function the trumps have an own hierarchy and beating order, also those, who never used Trionfi or Tarot cards.

... .-) ...If you don't know this, you should play a few of them ... .-) ... best for money, you would quickly learn, which card are trumps or which not.

"How can you make stuff up ..."
... reality at the card-table makes this stuff up, not me. There had been billions of card games with trumping rules (and without Tarot or Trionfi cards or declared trump-suit) running before our time, all the participating players knew, that trumps could belong to different suits and have an own hierarchy between them.

Error - Chinese had chess cards, at least in modern times. Sylvia Mann notes 3 different versions, one with 112, another with 70 and a version with 32 cards from 1936, 1953 and 1970.
What's the error? - I said the Chess cards are not used to play Chess
http://www.pagat.com/class/chess.html
Okay, you know them, nice .. as an historian you probably can imagine, that these cards have probably or at least possibly an older origin and that it should be rather impossible for Dummett or McLeod to decide, if they ever were used for real chess games or not.

Playing cards started in China as domino cards, so it is assumed. Probably domino stones were replaced by cards. Why should it have been impossible for chess figures? Sure, it's more practical to have chess-stones, as the Chinese use them usually. But if you have none or if they are expensive, chess cards would do it also.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Huck wrote: We've definite examples, that more than one version was addressed as "trionfi" (Michelino, Mantegna Tarocchi, Boiardo Taroccho poem), so it's plausible, that different versions existed ... not only one game. The later Tarot game was called Taraux and Tarocchi, perhaps to specify it against other types of decks of older origins.
And name changes of games in 15th century were rather common.
Michelino is the only one, and it's fairly clear why Marcello described it as such - it had a "trump" suit of 16 gods and heroes, and four suits of birds. The subject matter has no relation to the standard subjects of trionfi, so it can only the structure that makes him give the comparison.

Pseudo-Mantegna E and S-Series - AGAIN - is not a "tarocchi", and we only know that name from the late 18th century. You have not shown me this German reference, and I challenged you earlier that if it refers to Mantegna's Trionfi, it is talking about his engravings of the Triumph of Caesar.

Boiardo's poem doesn't use the term "trionfo" to describe the whole game; as far as I know, we don't have Boiardo's manuscript, and rely on Viti's edition, only published in 1523.

With the exception of Marcello's usage, those are pretty lame examples of what you are claiming.

No doubt, this exists, but also exists Martiano's information "Indeed the first order, of virtues, is certain: Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Hercules. The second of riches, Juno, Neptune, Mars and Aeolus. The third of virginity or continence: from Pallas, Diana, Vesta and Daphne. The fourth however is of pleasure: Venus, Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid." , by which the trumps are applied to the 4 suits.
The game is "fourfold", and the gods are 4x4=16; he divides them thus for the moral, thematic purpose of the game. He then adds four suits of birds, also corresponding to the thematic division, each under its king. But the ORDER of the gods is distinct, above the four suits, and does not follow the thematic moral division - it simply goes from 1 to 16. The PRACTICAL, actual and real structure of the game is four suits and a suit of gods. The first thing Marcello notes about it is the 16 gods and heroes - he doesn't first note the four suits and THEN that the highest cards in each suit are gods and heroes.

Even without Marcello's description, this is how I would read the text.

And the long passage about the gods and their ranks follows the explanation
"But the gods are held to this law among themselves: that who will be first designated below, he should lead all the others following in sequence."

As usual the order of the deck is given by suits, a specific trump-suit doesn't exist. I think I've explained that in my previous post, that card games create not only one hierarchy.
A specific trump suit very much does exist, but Marziano didn't have the language for it - as far as I can tell, it constitutes the invention of the idea of an extra, permanent trump suit. It also adds weight to the scenario of Visconti-court invention of the game of Triumphs, a point I was meaning to get back to Mike on.

But despite this weight, and with it the ability to claim the idea of a permanent trump suit was only invented once, I prefer to believe it was invented more than once - another time perhaps in Florence or Bologna, and another time perhaps wherever the Leichtenstein'sche cards were made (taking the position that the Imperial suit is a trump suit). This of course allows you to imagine multiple inventions, which is true - but I would maintain that only one got the name of "Triumphs" when it was invented, and that is the one that gave its name (trumps) to the concept (which pre-existed the name obviously).
It's an absolute normal circumstance in card games, that trumps have a ranking between themselves, and that an other order exist, according which a card deck is parted in suits. And trumps can be parts of different suits. Later Tarot decks have another quality, as trumps are then presented as an own suit, but this is not given in the case of the Michelino deck. I think, we discussed this detail often enough.
I'll state unequivocally - the gods and heroes of Marziano's deck are not part of the suits of birds! They are their own suit. The fourfold theme covers the whole deck, but it has two manifestations - as four suits of birds under kings, and as a suit of gods with its own order. The gods are not "court cards" in the bird suits. Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Hercules are not numbered 15, 14, 13 and 12 of Eagles.
The trumps are not part of the suits, which are birds. The fourfold division into four kinds of virtue and vice is a thematic or conceptual division, which applies to the gods and the birds, but the suits and the gods are practically and physically distinct. This is the only thing that could have made Marcello compare it to a Trionfi pack. The gods were clearly ordered in a separate hierarchy.
Ah, there I said it again.
Okay, you know them, nice .. as an historian you probably can imagine, that these cards have probably or at least possibly an older origin and that it should be rather impossible for Dummett or McLeod to decide, if they ever were used for real chess games or not.
I only know what other people who know of them tell me, since I don't read Chinese and don't know if any history of them is written anyway. If you want to imagine that they were played like chess in the beginning, nothing can stop you.
Playing cards started in China as domino cards, so it is assumed. Probably domino stones were replaced by cards. Why should it have been impossible for chess figures? Sure, it's more practical to have chess-stones, as the Chinese use them usually. But if you have none or if they are expensive, chess cards would do it also.
Yes, but their domino game is also a card game, not like our dominoes. Possibly it was first domino-cards, and then stones - in the same way Mah Jong was invented.
Image

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: Michelino is the only one, and it's fairly clear why Marcello described it as such - it had a "trump" suit of 16 gods and heroes, and four suits of birds. The subject matter has no relation to the standard subjects of trionfi, so it can only the structure that makes him give the comparison.

Pseudo-Mantegna E and S-Series - AGAIN - is not a "tarocchi", and we only know that name from the late 18th century. You have not shown me this German reference, and I challenged you earlier that if it refers to Mantegna's Trionfi, it is talking about his engravings of the Triumph of Caesar.
I've given you earlier a link,

http://trionfi.com/0/m/10/

and if you're not satisfied, you may research more in the web, "Danhausen", "Wolgemut", "Roman Triumphs" will guide you to find snippets here and there, for instance here ...
http://books.google.com/books?id=Gj4zOn ... ut&f=false

And this is a picture of the project ...
Image


And it's said, that there were about 360 woodcuts in the project, from which ca. 60 survived, so they had
with security a broad understanding, what a "Roman triumph" is, and surely not your "only my 22".
Boiardo's poem doesn't use the term "trionfo" to describe the whole game; as far as I know, we don't have Boiardo's manuscript, and rely on Viti's edition, only published in 1523.

With the exception of Marcello's usage, those are pretty lame examples of what you are claiming.
From Viti (and Viti was dead in 1500):
"L’altre veramente tucte sono in due parte divise: una contene vintuno Trionfi e 'l macto; l’altra contiene quaranta carte de quatro giochi, e de esse ancora sedeci figure in sedeci carte depinte: et in questo con el commune gioco de carte esso conviene. Li giochi son quattro: uno è Amore, l’altro Speranza, il terzo Gelosia, el quarto Timore."
http://trionfi.com/0/h/03/
The game is "fourfold", and the gods are 4x4=16; he divides them thus for the moral, thematic purpose of the game. He then adds four suits of birds, also corresponding to the thematic division, each under its king. But the ORDER of the gods is distinct, above the four suits, and does not follow the thematic moral division - it simply goes from 1 to 16. The PRACTICAL, actual and real structure of the game is four suits and a suit of gods. The first thing Marcello notes about it is the 16 gods and heroes - he doesn't first note the four suits and THEN that the highest cards in each suit are gods and heroes.

Even without Marcello's description, this is how I would read the text.


As usual, you may interpret what you want. And possibly you're lucky in this case, that not many are interested in this detail.
... .-) ... Even Michael parted the opinion, that there are 4 suits without specific trump suit.
A specific trump suit very much does exist, but Marziano didn't have the language for it - as far as I can tell, it constitutes the invention of the idea of an extra, permanent trump suit. It also adds weight to the scenario of Visconti-court invention of the game of Triumphs, a point I was meaning to get back to Mike on.
You're right, that the trumping rules in normal games with suits and without extra trump suit "constituted" the really independent trump suit in the course of development... and then it existed as a 5th suit.
But despite this weight, and with it the ability to claim the idea of a permanent trump suit was only invented once, I prefer to believe it was invented more than once - another time perhaps in Florence or Bologna, and another time perhaps wherever the Leichtenstein'sche cards were made (taking the position that the Imperial suit is a trump suit). This of course allows you to imagine multiple inventions, which is true - but I would maintain that only one got the name of "Triumphs" when it was invented, and that is the one that gave its name (trumps) to the concept (which pre-existed the name obviously).
The world is big and there are many persons, it isn't really believable, that the idea of a predefined trump-suit only once jumped out of the hat of the great magician. Actually you can use even a four-card-suit-system in the manner, that one suit is used as predefined trump suit as for instance in the German game Herzblättchen or the English game Spades. This is a very usual idea.
That the genre then was called "Trionfi cards" (probably according a poem of Petrarca) and got a great very specific development likely happened only in Italy.
It's an absolute normal circumstance in card games, that trumps have a ranking between themselves, and that an other order exist, according which a card deck is parted in suits. And trumps can be parts of different suits. Later Tarot decks have another quality, as trumps are then presented as an own suit, but this is not given in the case of the Michelino deck. I think, we discussed this detail often enough.
I'll state unequivocally - the gods and heroes of Marziano's deck are not part of the suits of birds! They are their own suit. The fourfold theme covers the whole deck, but it has two manifestations - as four suits of birds under kings, and as a suit of gods with its own order. The gods are not "court cards" in the bird suits. Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Hercules are not numbered 15, 14, 13 and 12 of Eagles.
Hm ... crying with (!) doesn't help, other persons also have an opinion and an interpretation. We've no confirmation, that Marziano used the numbers 1-15, but Johannes of Rheinfelden did it in 1377 in his 60-cards deck. And we've a broad tradition, that Ober and Unter were used as trumps, as for instance in the special deck of Meister Ingold 1432, but Kings not, although the Kings were higher in the suit - but the Ober and Unter would be higher, if they meet the King in a trick, if a game is played, in which Ober and Unter as trump are used. That might sound paradox to the ears of somebody, who doesn't know such games, but it is simply broad spread custom and no very specific mystery.

Actually we've in the relation of card suits only two alternative logical positions, either an individual trump belongs to an independent trump suit or it belongs to another suit ... in this case each individual trump is assigned to one of the 4 suits and so an independent 5th suit with trump function simply doesn't exist. Now in the actual game Marziano seems to assume, that players always want to play the game, he's thinking of, and he defines a trump row, using court cards of 4 suits as trumps. This is a second rule, which is added to the already existing rule of the 4 suits, not intended as a contradiction ... but probably already far spread custom between players, nothing revolutionary.
When the player arrive and play actual games, they don't ask Martiano, what he thought, how they should play. So there is a third rule and this says, that actually the players anyway use their freedom in the choice of the game. It's to expect, that they occasionally experiment and play new games or try variants. So there is another rule, and that is, that there is no rule, what players do with the cards. Some throw them out of the window, others collect them, some use them as note book, some divine with them. Some even play chess with them. Some others research their history.
The trumps are not part of the suits, which are birds. The fourfold division into four kinds of virtue and vice is a thematic or conceptual division, which applies to the gods and the birds, but the suits and the gods are practically and physically distinct. This is the only thing that could have made Marcello compare it to a Trionfi pack. The gods were clearly ordered in a separate hierarchy.
The suits are combination of birds and other values, like Virtues, Riches, Virginity, Pleasure.
Ah, there I said it again.
Yes.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Huck wrote: Pseudo-Mantegna E and S-Series - AGAIN - is not a "tarocchi", and we only know that name from the late 18th century. You have not shown me this German reference, and I challenged you earlier that if it refers to Mantegna's Trionfi, it is talking about his engravings of the Triumph of Caesar.
I've given you earlier a link,

http://trionfi.com/0/m/10/

and if you're not satisfied, you may research more in the web, "Danhausen", "Wolgemut", "Roman Triumphs" will guide you to find snippets here and there, for instance here ...
http://books.google.com/books?id=Gj4zOn ... ut&f=false

In these links I don't see a single mention of a 15th century source calling these images a "tarocchi", or by Mantegna.

You associate the two in this post
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=5518&hilit=m ... rman#p5518
The Pseudo-Mantegna are NOT playing cards at all, and are not known to have been called "tarocchi" until the 18th century.
They were called "Roman triumphs" 1493 in Germany
By "they" you mean images based on the E or S series, and by "Mantegna Tarocchi" I don't know what you mean.

Since the E-Series was a model-book, of course it was used for designs, including perhaps for the Archetypus Triumphantis Romae.

But I don't see how you get from there to them being by Mantegna, or a Tarocchi.
Image

Re: Bolognese sequence

229
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: In these links I don't see a single mention of a 15th century source calling these images a "tarocchi", or by Mantegna.
???? Did I promise the words "Mantegna" or "Tarocchi" in the document? Really? I think I promised, that it was called "triumph", "Roman triumph", and this was the title of the book project "Archetypus Roman Triumphs" and if you had followed my link, you would have known that.
You associate the two in this post
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=5518&hilit=m ... rman#p5518
This exchange is in the post:
Ross: "The Pseudo-Mantegna are NOT playing cards at all, and are not known to have been called "tarocchi" until the 18th century."
Huck: "They were called "Roman triumphs" 1493 in Germany"

Isn't that clear enough?
I usually call the object with the 50 cards "socalled Mantegna Tarocchi" and you know that, and I do that, as it is the word combination, by which the world addresses it, especially search engines. So it's not necessary to attack me cause of it, I'll not change my behavior, you can spare energy.
I also don't call America "Columbia", although it was Columbus, who detected it and not Amerigo Vespucchi.
But perhaps .. one day I will call the Mantegna Tarocchi Sweynheim - Trionfi, as he seems to be the most logical producer and Trionfi meets the character better than Tarocchi. Probably one should throw the word Tarot out of 15th century, cause the expression wasn't used there. But the search engines ...
By "they" you mean images based on the E or S series, and by "Mantegna Tarocchi" I don't know what you mean.
.. .-) you surely had enough opportunity to learn about my language use in this matter, and if you don't know it, you have a short memory.
... .-) ... Or shall I start to ask you, what you mean with order A, order B and order C?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Bolognese sequence

230
I really like how you two are coming to grips with the issue of whether the gods belong to the four suits--an important issue, I think.

I don't see why Martiano's gods can't both belong to the four suits of virtues, riches, virginities, and pleasures, by virtue of their association with these qualities, and also form a 16 card hierarchy of their own when it comes to winning tricks. (And thanks for quoting the list, Ross; I'd forgotten.) What's the contradiction? Martiano doesn't think in either/or terms; he doesn't know anything about "trump suits." In taking tricks, the gods form a hierarchy of their own similar to the tarot trumps. On the instructional side, if for no other reason, they each also belong to one of the four suits.

I still don't understand how the game was played. If someone leads a phoenix, for example, are the other players obliged to follow suit, unless they don't have any? Does that mean a person has to play Juno, for example, if that 's the only card in the suit of riches that they have? If so, Juno would be both #2 in the hierarchy and, importantly, belong to the suit of riches. And if they can't follow suit, can they still win the trick if they play a god-card, but not otherwise?
Does Marziano say anything about these situations?