I asked Franco for recommendations of old essays of his that are as yet only in Italian that would be especially worth translating for a broader readership. He suggested a few for me to work on, and as we (collaboratively) finish them, I will post them here. They are in roughly chronological order, each with a short introduction by me on what the article is about. All have been previously published in one journal or another, in Italian or French.

Added Nov. 8, 2024: So far, there are six in this thread. Besides the one in this post, they are:
(2) "On the usefulness of swear words for the history of minchiate, from 1993, translation at viewtopic.php?p=26638#p26638
(3) "Florentines, Germans, and Emperors," from 1996, at viewtopic.php?p=26641#p26641
(4) "Orpelli and Naibi," from 1994, at viewtopic.php?p=26643#p26643.
(5) "The Triumphs of Marziano," from 1999, at viewtopic.php?p=26644#p26644
(6) "The first card games in the Florentine Republic," from 2011, at viewtopic.php?p=26648#p26648.

The first in this series is a translation of "Carte da gioco a Firenze: il primo secolo (1377-1477)," from The Playing-Card 19 No. 1 (1990), pp. 7-17, online at https://naibi.net/A/30-PRISECO-Z.pdf. Comments in brackets are my additions, in consultation with Franco, for clarification purposes. A number by itself in the left margin indicates the beginning of that page of his online pdf. Punctuation and spelling in the abstract is British, American in the translation.

PLAYING CARDS IN FLORENCE: THE FIRST CENTURY (1377-1477)

Franco Pratesi – 04.06.1990

ABSTRACT

[Florentine Cards − The First Century] Many documents of the Florentine commune are kept in
Archivio di Stato. Among them several witnesses can be found concerning the first century of cards
in Florence. Here only the main sources and the first results obtained by their study are indicated.
Several Florentine administrations − essentially Podestà, Capitano del Popolo and Esecutore
degli Ordinamenti di Giustizia − kept books with lists of gamblers and corresponding fines. They
are not very useful since often the gambler did not give his particulars or else he escaped altogether
only leaving his cloak to the guards. The same holds for the cash book of the commune. More
information can be found among the sentences passed by Conservatori on gamblers accused by
third parties.

Other sources of relevant information are represented by revenue books (a maker is found in
1430 using wooden blocks for both holy pictures and naibi), notary deeds, and documents from
other places - −as the 1434 record of cards for Niccolo III coming in the renowned Ferrarese court
from Florence.

Essential information derives from legislative acts. Specific sections of the Florentine statutes are
devoted to games and on several occasions the Councils of Florence dealt with problems related to
them. In particular, the strict provision of 1377, prohibiting card games, is tightened even further on
a number of later occasions. The laws of 1432 and 1437 lay down that not only do the officials of
the various town administrations have the power to detain players, but third parties, too, are entitled
to bring charges against them, generally under the guarantee of anonymity and sharing the proceeds
of the fine. A further restriction dating back to 1442 concern peasants, who went to town on market
days and were threatened with serious legal measures.

Later, however, when neighboring communes began to clamp down on card-players, important
opportunities appeared in Florence. 1450 saw the first list of permitted games. They were few but
the names are important: “dritta,” “vinciperdi,” “trionfo,” and “trenta." The inclusion of “trionfo” is
of particular interest. That inclusion means that trionfo had taken on a traditional character and that
the people of Florence (and here we cannot yet speak of a Ducal or a prince’s court) had been
playing it for some time. In 1463 the law was reiterated with the addition of “cricca” and “ronfa.”
1477 saw the promulgation of another important law, the last of the period in question. It is
extremely noteworthy that among the permitted games listed by this law, besides “pilucchino” we
find “minchiate,” referred to by this name. This takes the date of origin back by half a century
compared to what had been thought hitherto (not counting the untraceable letter from Pulci to
Lorenzo the Magnificent, which now takes on a new plausibility). From the same law it can also be
inferred that the rules of “minchiate” must initially have been simpler; payment was made directly
on the basis of the difference between the cards taken.

INTRODUCTION

There is little data on the first century of the diffusion of playing cards. Florence represents one of the main sources of early information. An investigation into the legislation on card games by communities [comuni] in Florentine territory has already been published in this journal (see Vol. 18, 1990). This study was conducted on the statutes, often preserved with subsequent modifications in a single codex. When one moves on to study the subject in relation to the capital, what strikes the researcher first of all is the enormous amount of evidence preserved in the State Archives of Florence. In this case, there are entire series of dozens and dozens of large volumes available in which one can find references to different perspectives connected with games: books of the Podestà [Chief Magistrate] and other

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administrators, communities’ cash books, [legal] judgments, tax declarations, and so on, in addition to usual legislative sources, which consist of statutes and provisions. In this place we will be able to just indicate such sources and mention the main results obtained following their first examination.


Figure 1 - Example of gambling-game prohibition.
BOOKS OF THE PODESTÁ, THE CAPTAIN OF THE PEOPLE, AND THE EXECUTOR OF THE ORDINANCES OF JUSTICE

It is known that the office of Podestà was temporary: the Podestà “family,” consisting of a rather high number of judges, notaries, and officials of various grades serving in the Commune [Florentine territory, Florentine Republic] or a semester carrying out police duties and general administration of justice. The acts were collected in several books that later came to be deposited with the Commune. These are usually volumes uniformly bound in parchment with the coat of arms of the Podestà painted on the front cover. One of them (sometimes it is actually a couple of volumes) is written entirely on parchment and contains the sentences pronounced during the period of office. Thick paper volumes contain the minutes of the trials, with the testimonies of the prosecution and defense witnesses. Sometimes there is a book that contains the list of the items of business dealt with and those that the administration leaves to be completed by its successor. One of the books of the Podestà (not, however, always present, or at least not always preserved) concerns the “inventiones,” containing the list of criminals caught in the act, especially in relation to three crimes: going out at night, going armed, gambling.

The case that interests us is that of gambling [del gioco, literally “of the game,” but here with shades of meaning, here negative, but occasionally not, when referring to allowed games played under allowed conditions], games played in such a way as to constitute gambling rather than merely an innocent pastime: for large stakes, and especially at cards. Sometimes it is found specifically indicated that someone is surprised playing naibi, resulting, therefore, in being sentenced to the established penalty. However, the cases of card players recorded must have been a small part of the total. Indeed, in many cases the term ‘di gioco” ["of game" = gaming, gambling] or “di gioco di zara” [“of game of zara,” a particular dice game but also used to indicate any dice gambling-game] was used in a generic sense and can thus also include games of naibi, assimilated by law to Zara. Furthermore, often

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the name of the convicted player is not reported, but only the penalty; in many other cases only the type of cloak abandoned on the spot by the player who escaped capture is described.

The family of the Podestà was not the only one having the task of controlling gambling; the less numerous families of the Captain of the People and the Executor of the Ordinances of Justice also had similar tasks. Therefore, also in the corresponding books, when preserved, one finds in a similar form lists and sentences of players caught in the act [in flagrante].

CHAMBER OF THE COMMUNE − BOOKS OF THE GIGLIO.

Among the documents of the Chamber of the Commune [probably a room in the Commune’s office building, with its employees] in relation to changes in the account registers, the Books of the Giglio [a Fleur-de-Lys of special design] represent a homogeneous set of 73 volumes that go from 1374 to 1511; 66 volumes for the whole 15th century, often one volume per year. They are all large-format paper volumes bound in parchment and usually have, drawn in red on the cover, the Giglio of Florence inscribed in a circle, in accordance with the name of the series.



Figure 2 –Catasto 1430.

The books record the convictions and then the payment made, for some particular “crimes.” The books begin with the three convictions already seen: for gambling, for going out at night and for carrying weapons. These convictions are listed in chronological order in long lists separated according to whether they were imposed by the “family” of the Podestà, the Captain of the People, or the Executor of the Ordinances of Justice. Other lists of convicted persons follow, such as those found absent from the guard shifts at the gates or the various Councils. These last lists become prevalent over time.

As regards gambling, the same situations already seen in the books of the main magistrates are found here: payment by people who did not want to reveal their names, proceeds

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from cloaks abandoned by players, and so on. A few more notes are given in the rather rare cases in which the condemned person does not pay; in this case the condemned person is sent to the Stinche, the infamous Florentine prison. If the prisoner has not paid after a month, it is assumed that he is unable to do so and is released after a "baptism." Being plunged into the Arno (this is exactly what that baptism consisted of) it must not have been pleasant if it happened in the month of February, as for example happened in 1436 to Domenico da Uzzano and Battista da Caprese. Usually, this punishment was inflicted on foreigners who found no help in the city.

For the purpose of a more thorough study, the schematic nature of the recordings and the frequency of anonymous or fugitives among the condemned mean that the data stored can only be used in part. More information can be obtained from the judgments on players accused by third parties, which we will now examine.

SENTENCES OF THE CONSERVATORS OF THE LAWS

The main task of this magistracy was to control the accusations, anonymous or not, against administrators: a kind of public advocacy in favor of private citizens and especially the poorest against the possible abuses of the men of government. Usually, sentences of this type are exemplary for the care reserved by the reconstruction of the episodes incriminated. But the Conservators of the Laws also responded to the more common “intamburazioni,” denunciations posted in special boxes, of which the main ones were against blasphemy and gambling. Often the two things went hand in hand, and it is not rare to find cases of players who were happy to pay 10 lire and 19 soldi because the data provided and the testimonies collected were sufficient to reconstruct their participation in gambling but not to document the blasphemies uttered which would have entailed a 100 lire penalty.

The magistracy of the Conservators of the Laws was established in 1428 (it will therefore be useless to look here for evidence of the first half century of playing cards in Florence). Furthermore, the collection of the Conservators' sentences becomes autonomous and complete only starting from 1532. Therefore, for the period that interests us here, we must resort to the scattered sentences inserted among those of all the minor magistracies of the city and currently preserved in a dozen files of the series of the Giudice degli Appelli [Judge of Appeals].

If anyone is interested in reconstructing the blasphemies typical of the time, the case history offered by the accusers is quite rich; much less so for the type of games played. The game most often recalled is Condannata [Condemned], but other games also appear such as Pilucchino. From the set of denunciations we can deduce the existence of places preferentially associated with gambling, such as, in the first instance, the Buondelmonti loggia, the city gates, some taverns in the surrounding area (e.g. Monticelli and Peretola). Dice are often mentioned and it seems that Zara or similar gambling-games [with dice] maintained their followers well beyond the introduction of playing cards. For these games and for board games, we can note a greater frequency of Jews among the accused than expected (perhaps due to a lower fear of reprisals on the part of the accusers). However, the possible greater participation of Jews does not seem to extend to card games.

As regards cards, it should be observed that the players only rarely seem to be of a higher social level than the dice players (with the game practiced in apothecaries' shops and the like); normally they are the same urban proletariat that feeds the ranks of the Zara players. Other typical occasions for clashes at the tables, or rather on the benches outside the shops, occurred when cart-drivers or inhabitants of the surrounding area who were passing through Florence stopped in the city. The most severe penalties were foreseen, and were actually imposed, on those who lent dice and boards. Personages of this kind are not usually encountered with reference to card players, who were probably often able to do without gambling establishment managers. Instead, cheaters and counterfeiters of playing cards appear very early: for example, Francesco di Nicolò di Gambassi “a cheating player ... and a falsifier of naibi or cards” [giuochatore baro ...e falsificatore di naibi overo carte] sentenced in April 1458 for blasphemy and gambling (GdA 84, 207).


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Figure 3 – Conservators of the Laws 1432.

TAX DECLARATIONS

In 1427, the first complete and detailed registration of the assets of all citizens, the Catasto, was held in Florence. The real estate and dependents of each head of family are indicated, the credits and debts in progress are also specified and the tax to be collected by the Commune is calculated on the total. Several card makers already appear in this Catasto. A dozen card makers or cartolari are listed in the Index of families, compiled following a demographic investigation. However, it is not possible to deduce whether the manufacturers of playing cards were also listed among these artisans who dealt with paper. Furthermore, it must be remembered that at the time, card games were prohibited in the Commune. However, at least one family head who appears with the explicit wording “fa i naibi” [makes playing cards] has already been reported, like subsequent ones, by Zdekauer.

Subsequently the Catasto had several updates. Another cardmaker, Antonio di Giovanni di Ser Francesco, appears in 1430, and in this case the testimony is more complete. This cardmaker is also very poor, but the tools of the trade that he reports to the tax office are important. Of particular interest is the documentation of wooden blocks for printing both playing cards and images of saints: “I find many wooden forms for naibj and saints with which I inform the naibj and make my art” [Trovomi tante forme da naibj e da santi di lengname chon che informo i naibj e fo l’arte mia]. Also in the Catasto of 1446, another cardmaker appears, “Jacopo di Poggino painter of naibj” [Jacopo di Poggino dipintore di naibi]; it is likely that others are present and not yet been identified.

NOTARIAL ACTS

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A statement in Orioli's well-known article of 1908 is enough to stimulate our curiosity: in the collections of Florentine notarial deeds from the beginning of the fifteenth century, references to naibi − such as finely crafted paintings − are frequent. Unfortunately, the mass of documents to be examined is such that the research is difficult to propose without some more precise indication of the documents to be consulted.

DOCUMENTS FROM OTHER LOCATIONS

Before moving on to the legislation on games, which represents the most traditional source for the initial data on cards, we can cite a further source of information. This time it is external evidence, that is, deriving from the archives of other cities. One of the most important of these documents was published in 1874 by Campori, from the Este archives: "in 1434 the Marquis Nicolò III made pay to Ser Ristoro and companions in Florence seven florins of gold price of two packs of cards [carticelle, i.e. ordinary cards] sent to him in Ferrara" [nel 1434 il Marchese Nicolò III faceva pagare a Ser Ristoro e compagni in Firenze sette fiorini d’oro prezzo di due mazzi di carticelle mandatogli a Ferrara]. The fact that these cards reached the court of Ferrara is all the more surprising, since in Florence at the time playing cards were prohibited: only a flourishing and renowned production or the use of particular cards could explain the maintenance of that tradition.

STATUTES AND PROVISIONS

Florentine legislation on games was of considerable importance, and even very old Florentine statutes dedicate ample space to gambling-games [gioco]. Here we are interested in the first laws valid in the Florentine Commune [i.e. the Florentine Republic], approved especially in the fifteenth century and contained in the Statutes and Provisions of the Commune. Like the current Codes, the statutes collected the laws that the government officials were required to enforce. Every now and then the statutes as a whole were updated by special delegates, approved by the councils and signed by public notaries. As regards the individual provisions, there were also changes at times to such revisions, simply by discussion and voting on the specific Provisions in the major councils, which in Florence were the two of the People and the Commune, with a third, that of the Cento [Hundred], which was added precisely during the fifteenth century.

Figure 4 . Prohibition of 1477.
As far as card games are concerned, the fact that all games of this kind were prohibited from the very beginning in Florence logically avoided the succession of increasingly greater restrictions that

7
were often found in neighboring communities. However, looking through the documents in their chronological order, one finds that Florentine legislators had to consider the problem of card games and how they should be penalized on several occasions. The already rigid provision of 1377, which prohibited card games, was made even more severe on some subsequent occasions. In 1432 and 1437 it was established that not only could officials of the various city administrations arrest players: third parties could also accuse them, usually with the guarantee of anonymity and the collection of a part of the penalty. The unfortunate players accused by informers were given some guarantee deriving from the possible citation of witnesses in their favor and from investigations carried out or commissioned by the Conservators of the Laws. Another restriction of 1442 refers to people from the countryside who came to the city on Saturdays for the market and were threatened with serious legal consequences.

Subsequently, however, when the neighboring communities were still tightening the reins against the players, important cracks opened up in Florence. In the provision of December 10, 1450, the first list of permitted games appeared: few but important, dritta, vinciperdi, trionfo, and trenta. Of particular interest is the presence of trionfo, probably to be identified with tarocco, because it is usually believed that tarocchi [i.e., tarot, in Italian] arrived in Florence from the Po Valley area of origin only towards the end of the century. If trionfo appeared in the list of permitted games, it meant that it had assumed a traditional character and that the Florentines (and here we cannot yet speak of a princely court) had already been playing it for some time. In 1463 the law was reiterated with the addition of cricca and ronfa: the details are easily consultable in the collection of Tuscan laws published by Cantini at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Finally, on March 18, 1477, there is another provision, very important for us, the last in the period under examination. It is of extreme interest that in this law, in addition to pilucchino, the game of minchiate appears for the first time among permitted games, listed with that very name. This date also entails an anticipation by half a century compared to that generally believed up to now (with the exception of the untraceable letter of Pulci to Lorenzo the Magnificent, which now acquires new plausibility). From the information provided, it can also be deduced that the rules of minchiate must have been initially simpler; in fact, payment occurred directly on the basis of the difference between the cards taken.

CONCLUSIONS

The documents preserved on the first century of playing cards in Florence are numerous and allow us to study in detail the formulation of the laws on games and their application to numerous specific cases. From an initial study we obtain information that concerns Florence but that is generally useful for the history of the first diffusion of cards and the games that were played with them. From the research some important new data emerge that can also bring about changes to the consolidated picture of the initial diffusion of the tarocchi. It should be remembered in this regard that according to the current view, tarocchi would have arrived in Florence only at the end of the fifteenth century, to be transformed locally around 1530 into germini, then called minchiate only starting from the seventeenth century. Instead, in the lists of permitted card games in the city of Florence, trionfo appears in 1450 and minchiate, with that name, in 1477. The names of other card games are also found cited at rather early dates.

Advancing to 1993, the following is a translation from Franco's French original, if that's what it should be called, originally "De l'utilité des jurons pour l'histoire du minchiate," published in L’As de Trèfle, No. 52, (1993), pp. 9-10, online at https://naibi.net/p/51-JURON-ZOCR.pdf. He has referred to this 1470 testimony in a couple of other articles posted here, but always as a brief aside. It is always good to get the details and Franco's reflections on them as well, which in this case are rather bold for the time.

The Aretino Franco refers to would be Le Carte Parlanti, 1543, and the poem I Germini would be I Germini sopra Quaranta Meritrice della Città di Fiorenza, 1553, online (in Italian) at http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=887 and a recent edition reviewed here by Nathaniel at viewtopic.php?t=1850. The footnotes (including the asterisk) are at the bottom of the first page, as they were in the original.

I have added, with Franco's help, a translation of the Italian text, left untranslated in the article.


On the usefulness of swear words for the history of minchiate
L’As de Trèfle, No. 52, (1993), pp. 9-10

Franco Pratesi

All historians agree today to admit that minchiate* is a derivative of tarot. Additional cards form a new sequence, inserted in one block inside the usual sequence of trumps. We notice distinctive signs on these same additional cards, probably intended to indicate to the card-seller that these cards were specific to that game. But if we push the examination, many questions remain in suspense, starting with the type of tarot which is at the origin of the figures of minchiate.

Let us first limit ourselves to considering the context in general and especially dates. The first traces of minchiate seemed to date back to the mid-16th century, with quotes from Aretino and the poem I Germini. Thus, it was admitted that minchiate had not appeared under this name, since the first mentions used the synonym germini, which then gave way to the more common term minchiate. [note 1]

In a first study of the question, I had drawn attention to an older reference, going directly back to Pulci, in a letter written to the young Lorenzo de Medici (known as "the Magnificent"). The letter is said to be dated 1466, but as it was lost track of between antique dealers and American collectors, the testimony left room for doubt. [note 2] Subsequently, in studying the communal legislation of Florence, I discovered a testimony that is certain: minchiate is named in a law which lists allowed games!

The date is 1477, and it is sure. The spelling of the word must also be considered sure. Yet we should check if the game has some chance of being the same. In fact, this document speaks about playing "at who makes the most cards," which indicates a simpler way of playing than that which became usual subsequently. [note 3]

I am now able to add a new document to the series of testimonies from the 15th century: this time it is a conviction for blasphemy. The game of minchiate was not prohibited in itself, but it was forbidden to swear while playing (it seems that the two have been commonly associated, especially in the past; nowadays, minchiate no longer exists, and the swear words have lost much of their local color).

At the end of trials, the judgments were transcribed on a sheet of parchment. In many cases, only this transcription has been preserved in the court records. Subsequently, many of these sheets were collected according to various criteria. The section in question is a small series of manuscripts in chronological order, among which is a volume more than 20 cm in thickness containing sentences made by the "Ufiziali Intriseci" from 1464 to 1472, that is to say, sentences pronounced in these years by various urban magistrates. [note 4]

The sheet which interests us bears the number 10 in the second part of the volume. This is a judgment due to the Conservators of the laws (Conservatori delle leggi), judges responsible for monitoring certain aspects of public morality, such as the good conduct of government officials and also, closer to our subject, forbidden games and blasphemy. It is here exactly a matter of a sentence to pay 100 lire, a fine – remarkably high - intended for any swearing. The front of the document has rather faded writing but still readable (when you can decipher it!). The text on the back is better preserved, but its readability is not the best. The main obstacles are due to the writing of the notaries, particularly difficult in this case, for its abbreviations and mixing of Latin and Italian. The technical parts that make up the traditional form of any such judgment are in Latin; the passages which concern the case itself are in Italian. Fortunately, I am not obliged to provide a precise transcription of the entire text!

We can take as secure the transcription of the most interesting passage, which I give here:

In Dei nomine Amen. Anno Domini nostri Yesu Christi / millesimo cccclxxj. Inditione iv, die xx mensis maij. Bartolo- / meo di Giovanni da Vaglia de Mugello provigionato / nel cassero di Cortona com'egli a bastemiato / Iddio et the vergine Maria giuchando chon al- / chuni provigionati and maximamente giuchava alle / minchiate del mese di giugno luglio et agosto e / molte volte etc...

[Approximate translation, added for this translation of the article: "In the name of God Amen. Year of our Lord Jesus Christ / one thousand ccccixxj (1471). Calling 4th, on day 20 of month May. Bartolo- / meo di Giovanni da Vaglia of Mugello soldier / in the fortress of Cortona as he has blasphemed / God and the Virgin Mary playing with some [other] soldiers and maximally played at / minchiate for the months of June July and August and / many times etc."]

This short text presents several interesting aspects. First and foremost, its date: 1471, the oldest that is confirmed (after the unfindable letter from Pulci); moreover, we must not forget that in reality the testimony
_________________
* We have become accustomed, in French, to speaking of "le" minchiate, in the singular. This is to forget that in Italian the word is plural. (Editor's note.)
(1) M. Dummett, The game of tarot, London, 1980, chap. 17.
(2) F. Pratesi, “Tarot in Florence in the 16th century: its diffusion from literary sources,” The Playing-Card, XVI-3, Feb. 1988, pp. 78-83.
(3) F. Pratesi, “Carte da gioco a Firenze: il primo secolo (1377-1477)," The Playing-Card, XIX-1, August 1990, pp. 7-17.
(4) Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Giudice degli Appelli e Nullità, 86.

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relates to the summer months of 1470! Concerning the places mentioned, there is not much to say about Vaglia, in the Mugello. We can also notice that this same valley is the cradle of several illustrious families, starting with that of the Medici themselves and that it was precisely in its vicinity that Pulci wrote the letter already mentioned to Lorenzo the Magnificent.

More interesting is Cortona, an old city, already important in the Etruscan era (and today a privileged place of visit for the Italian stays of the president Mitterrand!). As with many of the Etruscan cities, its position is high up; here, it dominates the wide Chiana Valley. In the Middle Ages, the city was independent or subjugated to Perugia or Arezzo. At the time of our document, it was part of the Commune of Florence, which had bought it back from the King of Naples in 1411. Cortona ended up representing a real frontier town of the powerful Florentine State, which explains the importance of both the fortress and the garrison.

The date and place of these facts are not the only ones that interest us. For example, the very ambiance in which the game is played, day after day, during the summer months, is significant: nothing more ordinary can be imagined. Scenes of card games are quite frequent in artistic and literary descriptions of the activity of garrison soldiers in times of peace, including in the following centuries, throughout Europe.

It is certainly difficult to put forward hypotheses going back further in time. However, this game of minchiate practiced by soldiers garrisoned in Cortona has nothing of the characteristics of a "noble" game of recent introduction: on the contrary, it has all the aspects of a well-known game widely diffused among the population. One usually reads about tarot and minchiate that these games, old and complex, could only have arisen in princely courts and would have been played by an aristocratic, cultured, and intelligent elite. It is assumed that the game then moved into the little people. In Florence, however, we cannot speak of a court limited to a small group of learned people surrounded by an ignorant populace. There were even magistrates at that time whose main task was to ensure that the noble families no longer obtain precedence! Culture, wealth, access to public office had not been the privilege of the nobility for more than two centuries.

In short, if we want to support that tarot was introduced into the courts of Northern Italy and from there would have gone down to Tuscany where, later, it would have been flanked by a variant later known by the name of minchiate..., the only possibility is to admit that the term minchiate was used in the 15th century to designate something different.

But it is also true that a game commonly practiced, as minchiate came to be, does not normally attract the attention of one who records the facts of the city. On the other hand, a sort of general rule is that the first citations of a game represent only a provisional lower limit, still subject to being pushed back in time thanks to new discoveries. The same thing can happen, even if we are in the 15th century: one never reads - nor understands between the lines - that it is a game recently introduced!

But if this is true, and if the minchiate of the years 1460-70 has already acquired the character of a common game widely diffused in the city and the countryside, when did it first appear? For the time being, the answer can only be given in a relative way: a few years would be too few, but a few centuries would obviously be impossible. Let us therefore propose a few decades - say, around 1420, that is, at a date which, according to what we know today, practically coincides with the introduction of the tarot itself...

In reality, what interests us here is not the origin of tarot but of minchiate. Yet, following the documents examined here, their respective origins come closer. We see that the time necessary to ensure the slow propagation of the game of tarot and its variants in various Italian regions is missing!

The next article is a short one from 1996 discussing mostly the social environment of a few games and decks in the first half of the 15th century. The original is "Fiorentini, Alemanni e Imperatori," at https://naibi.net/A/61-FIALEIMP-Z.pdf.

By "cards" without any qualifying adjectives or adjective phrases he is referring to ordinary decks of four suits where the highest card is the king. By "triumphs" he is referring to the decks with special higher cards that he described briefly in the 1990 article that started this thread. Karnöffel is a game with ordinary cards where certain cards in one suit picked at random at the start of the hand have certain trick-taking powers beyond their own suit and rank. You can read more about it in the Dummett chapter Franco refers to, online here at viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1175. To save a lengthy hunt on the page, one search term might be "1426," which discusses what was thought to be the earliest record of that game, in 1426 Nördlingen, Bavaria; a lengthier discussion of the game follows. The 1426 dating, however, has recently been shown to be without basis. Ross Caldwell reported the initial doubts raised by Jonas Richter, at viewtopic.php?p=23550#p23550. There is some useful discussion as you scroll down the page. What remained was to check the archives at Nördlingen. No record of Karnöffel in 1426 was found. Huck reported on this at viewtopic.php?p=24054#p24054. Richter himself has a couple of posts down the page but no further information. The earliest record for the game is now 1446.

Then there is "Imperatori," documented in Ferrara in the mid-15th century and also earlier: Franco has 1434, but there is also the "VIII Imperadori" of 1423, for which see http://trionfi.com/imperatori-cards-ferrara-1423 (which also has data about the mid-century references but not 1434). In both 1423 and 1434 the cards sent to Ferrara come from Florence.

The numbers by themselves in the left margin below are the page numbers of Franco's pdf. Comments in square brackets are mine in consultation with Franco, for clarification purposes.


FLORENTINES, GERMANS AND EMPERORS

Franco Pratesi
Cartophilia Helvetica 11, no. 4 (1996), 11-13.

In recent years I have been able to bring to the attention of experts several documents on the early development of triumphs in Italy. However, I have not yet had the opportunity to find anything new on the spread of the Karnöffel or Kaiserspiel north of the Alps; indeed, I have not even had the opportunity to obtain many of the studies already published on the subject in German. However, it is a fact that these games are, in some unspecified way, related. Originally, one would be a court game south of the Alps, the other a popular game to the north. But in this sector, we witness a curious intertwining of ancient card games, ancient playing cards, and their respective origins.

I have read several times and with much difficulty the comparison between Karnöffel and triumphs developed by Michael Dummett, starting from: The Game of Tarot, London 1980, pp. 184-191. Personally, I have not yet been able to well understand which of these games gave the other the idea of trumps. The discussion on the subject depends on the data available and the mind that elaborates them. Now my mind – although I am rather fond of it - does not even remotely come close to the refinement of that of a Dummett. Perhaps for this reason, perhaps for my own popular origins, but I must admit that I cannot digest all the importance given to the Renaissance courts in this matter.

I understand that ordinary people had little free time to devote to card games; I understand that only the upper classes could afford expensive illuminated cards; I understand that today it is easier to discuss at length the precious cards preserved by the court circles of Milan and Ferrara than those of ordinary citizens, which were much more widespread at the time but have rarely reached us. All this is true, but only up to a certain point.

One thing I am certain of is that the Florentine environment had little to do with that of the courts of Milan or Ferrara: perhaps something of the sort could be achieved later, but at the beginning of the fifteenth century the Medici were one of the many merchant families of Florence, a community where the few nobles of ancient lineage were carefully kept out of public office.

It should be noted that Florence at that time was characterized by trade and the manufacturing activity of the various city "arts." The manufacture of playing cards required a considerable availability of parchment scraps, a particular processing of this or of paper, a large-scale use of painting, an introduction of new and more suitable techniques. But few places could then compete with the possibilities of artisanal processing in Florence, with elevated characteristics in quality and quantity.

In old Florentine documents it is found that people sentenced at the beginning of the fifteenth century to fines because they were caught playing cards were not the first citizens of the city (probably no one would have dreamed of condemning them), but ordinary people, who played at the city gates or in some tavern. With what cards did they play? Certainly not with cards that cost fortunes. Judging by the environment and the frequency of cases, cards must have already become objects of everyday use for some time. In this regard, we come across several obscure points, such as the date of the beginning of the printing of playing cards with engraved wooden blocks. I do not know how far it is legitimate to anticipate, already within the fourteenth century, the appearance of this profession, and therefore the "printed" production of playing cards that had by then become a series. For fabrics, it is written that the "printing" system had already been in use for a long time.

However, I cannot accept that at the same time, in the first half of the fifteenth century, cards could be base material and triumphs noble material. The workmanship was the same, apart from some small complications, all in all secondary, deriving from the additional figures (let us remember that the simplest French system of using perforated stencils for the

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the manufacturing of number cards was still to be invented).

In my opinion, the precious tarots used at court in the mid-fifteenth century - too often described and discussed - were not necessarily prototypes, which only later, and slowly, would have spread to the plebians. I do not see why the reverse could not have occurred, with cards already in use among the people that were also used - in modified versions, in more valuable copies, possibly also, and why not, in unique copies - by the nobles of the courts of the major cities of northern Italy.

The discussion therefore concerns Italy (especially northern courts such as Milan and Ferrara and central cities such as Bologna and Florence), but it also concerns Germany. Experts in paper processing were often registered as Alemanni (which, in the usage of the time, I believe included at least the Swabians, Bavarians and Swiss-Germans of today), and we find them documented early, in Bologna for example. And no one associates these itinerant artisans with princely courts.

What brings Florence and Germany together is first of all their technical ability, the ability to produce cards cheaply and in considerable quantities. It seems to me then that the Germans soon revealed themselves to be better prepared in the traditional working of wooden molds, and that the Florentines were better prepared to work parchment and paper and to paint them. In both cases we are among men of the people, without courts of nobles to dictate laws and customs. The impression is that neither the Florentines nor the Germans needed the court of Ferrara to come up with new ideas on how to improve the production of cards, and possibly the traditional game itself.

A feature that unites cards and games, Florence and Germany, with Ferrara only in the background, is the “imperial” connection, which involves both sectors of playing cards and card games: this occurs with evidence north of the Alps for the “emperors’” game or Kaiserspiel (the Swiss equivalent of Karnöffel) and for the “emperors’” cards to the south.

The main knot to be untied for me is precisely the reconstruction of the "carte da imperatori" [emperor cards], mentioned in the mid-fifteenth century in the expense books of the court of Ferrara but which, in a well-known document, were indeed registered for the use of that court, but after having been purchased in Florence already in 1434 (As de Tréfle, N. 54, 1995, pp. 16-17), that is, more than fifteen years before the oldest known evidence of their production in Ferrara!

Franco's essay in this post gets rather involved, some might find say tedious, unless you're interested either in 14th century techniques for making cheap paintings on parchment that will hold up at least for a while under much handling, or how terminology generalizes to fit new applications. For example, we have tin foil, tin cans, tins of tunafish, etc., of varying strengths and flexibility, long after any of them contained tin. Medieval Italian did the same, and with many other words, for example "charta," later spelled "carta," as Franco's samples show.

Originally "Orpelli e naibi," this essay was written in 1994 and appeared in The Playing-Card in 1997; it is now at at https://naibi.net/A/64-ORPELLI-Z.pdf. Comments in brackets are mine, in consultation with Franco. In the Italian version, most of the long quotations are in notes at the end. However, you really have to at least glance at them in order to follow Franco's comments on them in the text. So for the translation, they are being incorporated into the text. They are also given "bullets" to separate items in lists, as the THF software does not seem to allow indents and bullets are more attractive than underlined blank spaces.

On the 1430 Florentine cardmaker Antonio di Giovanni di Ser Francesco, Franco has a new note just put on naibi.net this month. A translation will follow in due course.

ORPELLI AND NAIBI
Franco Pratesi - 09.10.1994 [October 9, 1994]
The Playing-Card 26 No. 2 (1997) 38-45.

Abstract

A piece of research has been carried out on the early spread in Italy of playing cards, with reference to the specific materials and production techniques involved. It is suggested that the first playing cards entered the market through the arts and crafts already established for the production of orpelli, leaflets of parchment covered by a thin film with the aspect of gold or silver. New documents on these items and their characteristics in the second half of the 14th century are provided from the registers of Francesco Datini, a renowned merchant from Prato. Conditions for the spread of playing cards are discussed.

Naibi

The history of playing cards begins in Asia: the origin, far away in space and time, is little defined in its details and developments; however, it seems that the evolution of the various types of playing cards was slow and that their diffusion on a global scale took several centuries. However, if we limit ourselves to Europe, historians are today practically unanimous in believing that here the diffusion of the first playing cards was instead very rapid, starting from the seventies of the fourteenth century: playing cards arrived in Europe from the Islamic world, most likely from Egypt; in about twenty years, their absence went to a wide diffusion in almost all the regions of central-western Europe.

One of the first testimonies comes from a provision of the Commune of Florence [i.e., the Florentine Republic], a provision having the force of law, which in 1377 prohibited their use. In the Latin text it is explicitly stated that someone noviter innolevit the game of naibi: that is, they had recently introduced it to Florence (in itself, the verb has no nuances of meaning indicating an importation from outside, as can be found in the term naibi [the early name for playing cards in Italy]).

Some historians in the past believed that cards originated in Italy, and so it made sense to discuss whether Florence or another large Italian city had the characteristics best suited to the initial spread of the game and its typical instruments. But if cards come from the East, as we are now convinced, then the Italian testimonies only indicate the transfer of a fashion that began elsewhere and therefore lose a good part of their meaning. When we consider the situation in greater detail, however, there are several open problems. First of all, from the Islamic world we do indeed have some incomplete decks that have a concrete possibility of being prior to 1370, but there is a lack (again for the years prior to 1370) of valid written testimonies on the practice of card games in the Middle East of the medieval period: not only do we not have specific literature, of the kind handed down to us for chess, but not even brief citations in normal literature. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the game of cards was imported as is: to achieve the enormous success it had in Europe, changes to the “hardware” or “software” or both had to be made.

But let's go back to Florence. To interest the legislators, this new game must have reached a worrying size at the beginning of 1377, at least in their eyes. If some merchant had brought a new game from outside and played it with family and friends, it certainly would not have interested the authorities. The problem of how playing cards spread in those years is not an idle one and has implications of a qualitative and quantitative nature. In other cities one might think of a court of nobles who played exclusively with highly valuable cards (that no one would have thought of prohibiting); in the Florence of the time, if a dozen people played with

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cards, it is easy to imagine that soon they became thousands. But then the problem becomes that of tracking down the traces of a new type of merchandise, precisely playing cards.

Unlike many other cities, documents from the period, both public and private, have been preserved in considerable quantities, thanks to the great consideration that the Florentines and their rulers had for documents and archives. A first problem is that it is not entirely clear what to look for: what precise type of objects and under what name. Traditionally, these are the first naibi, and one should think of fairly specific decks of cards: larger in size than what would later become common; made of parchment because it was more common and long-lasting; painted one by one by an artist; something of the kind we know from the Visconti tarots of the following century.

In this case, which is usually considered to be without alternatives, it must have been a question of expensive works of art, to be carefully preserved, to be included in the family treasures. In the archives, one should find traces of them in inventories, wills, and works commissioned to artists. In fact, there is a statement by a scholar that in notarial contracts from the beginning of the fifteenth century naibi are frequently cited as valuable objects (E. Orioli, Il libro e la stampa, II, 1908, p. 110). If one could document this statement with precise references, particularly relating to the end of the fourteenth century, one would have a very useful confirmation of the value of this type of naibi.

Unfortunately, the number of codices in the Archivio Notarile Antecosimiano [pre-Cosimo Notarial Archive] is so high that it is practically impossible to examine them exhaustively. Furthermore, the notarial writing of the time is much more difficult to decipher than those prevalent in other documents and my reading ability often proves insufficient. It is therefore not surprising that the examination of a small sample of fourteenth-century notarial codices (where one might also have found some citations of naibi in the years immediately preceding 1377) provided a disappointing result: I found few inventories of goods and none that contained naibi.

However, there are also other sources that are easier to read, such as the registers of the Magistrato dei Pupilli [Magistracy of Minors]: documents with testamentary provisions, debts and credits, inventories of real estate and even household goods. The detail of these inventories is such that naibi could not be missing, if they had been recognized as having an economic value, even if small. Even in registers of this type, examined for the years shortly after 1377, I have found no trace of naibi.

The situation could have been different, however: the diffusion of cards could have already been widespread, their unit cost low, their quality inferior; if one considers playing cards, as later, consumer goods that easily deteriorate or get lost, no one would have taken them into consideration in the inventories. But in this case, it would have been the quantity that made itself felt, because it would have been a new type of merchandise with one or more Florentine “arts” [i.e. crafts] interested in their manufacture and sale. And so, there are various documents to be examined, starting with the statutes of the potentially interested “arts,” especially that of doctors and apothecaries. Today it is not immediately clear why this “art” was that of so many famous people and artists: the fact is that many professions and trades, even of little importance, sooner or later fell within this major ”art.”

I then searched for traces of naibi in various documents, without success until the already known documentation from a few decades later, such as that of Antonio di Giovanni di Ser Francesco, the cardmaker who in 1430 reported to the Catasto [Property Tax Register] the wooden forms he used to produce figures of naibi and saints. After having frankly admitted that I had found nothing specific, I can, however, say that I am convinced of the context in which naibi must have been inserted, that of orpelli. I do not want to say that orpelli were naibi or vice versa; only that playing cards found, in Florence and elsewhere, a similar genre of commodity in whose manufacturing channels they could be inserted.

Orpelli

The word orpello [from or=gold and pelle=skin] today has full citizenship in the Italian lexicon with the meaning of "ornament of a flashy and brilliant appearance, often characterized by tackiness and bad taste; frill;

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excessive and useless embellishment” (M. Pfister, Lessico etimologico italiano, Wiesbaden, 1990); starting from this meaning, the figurative one of “rhetorical device, elegant literary embellishment, but lacking real expressive consistency” is also common. In reality, even the first meaning is translated from another one that is now little used: “copper and zinc alloy similar in color to gold, used to set precious stones; commercially available in the form of thin sheets.” In short, an alloy, a raw material, with an appearance not too different from orpiment, “arsenic trisulphide in golden yellow crystals.” In these and in some other documented meanings, even when remaining within the scope of concrete objects, the contribution of skin [pelle] has been lost and that of gold [or, in Italian] has been maintained, at least in terms of shine and typically yellow color. Instead, we are interested in still another meaning, which appears to be the original one: orpello to mean sheets of gilded skin.

In this ancient meaning, the term is often associated with another that has had less fortune (not having had as many transformations of meaning): argenpelli [argento = silver, in Italian], the same objects as before, but silvered. Sometimes the color is indicated: white or yellow, and therefore “orpello bianco” was synonymous with argenpello.

I have not found much information on the characteristics and uses of these traditional objects, which clearly are at the origin of the many subsequent meanings of the term. Was the support that provided consistency and foldability, or the coating that gave the metallic shine important? It is certain that thanks to metallization, the objects could replace much more expensive prototypes: actual sheets of gold or silver.

But with the transition from the noble metal sheet to these objects, another transformation occurs: instead of a permanent decorative object, a temporary decoration is obtained, a disposable type of ornament. We should not be surprised, therefore, that the church of San Lorenzo ordered new orpelli for the holidays every year (Cigliana, personal communication), or that we do not find these objects in the inventories of household goods.

The process must not have been simple. Some recipes are preserved among the "secrets" of the manuscript codices; according to one from a later period (BNCFI [Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze], Cl.XVI.121 [Fondo Magliabechiano Classe 16th, #121]), it would appear that starting from various doses of verdigris, ammonium salt and vitriol, it was mixed with vinegar or urine, depending on the case, and the final polishing took place in several stages, alternating them with soot deposits. In other documents the use of gesso [a type of thin plaster] as a substrate is mentioned. I really don't think that today one could obtain good results, at least trying to use the techniques of the time.

From where does this production originate? It is known that gilding and silvering were produced on parchment [i.e., stretched animal skin] and on increasingly thicker supports, up to leather. Gilded leather, also used as a substitute for tapestries, was quite widespread in Europe until the 18th century, and a famous center for their production was Venice. This production is, however, ancient and is generally traced back to the Arabs and Moorish Spain: thus, the red “cordovans” [tablecloths] which took their name directly from Cordoba, were appreciated in the Middle Ages throughout Europe.

Also for silvering there are ancient Iberian testimonies for the use of the related terms: Portuguese argempel from 1253, Spanish argentpel from 1258, Venetian Latin argentumpelle from 1271, Catalan argent pel from 1284, Lucchese argimpello from 1308 (see M. Pfister, op. cit., 1988). In the first half of the fourteenth century, there are also many testimonies of the terms corresponding to orpello.

Testimonies of this type are usually quite distant (and it is not known by how much) from the introduction of the objects; it is obvious that one cannot rely on the chronological order of what is documented today to the point of hypothesizing, for example, a Portuguese origin of the silver and leather goods that would later give rise to orpelli. However, as happened with other goods and fashions and games and sciences, it seems plausible that the manufacturing of orpelli also came from the Islamic world via Spain.

If we recognize that these manufactured objects have something in common with ancient playing cards, we must admit that more than a century before the arrival of the naibi, their relatives, of similar consistency and origin, had already arrived in Europe. From this perspective, the arrival of naibi was not, from a manufacturing point of view, a revolutionary event: the substrate was already widespread, albeit for other purposes. We should therefore not expect the appearance of a new type of merchandise but rather

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a considerable increase in the production of objects already present on the market, thanks to a new type of them and, above all, to an additional use, that in playing games and gambling.

Below are some data extracted from Statutes and original documents preserved in Prato in the Datini Archive. I think they can help us understand better what orpelli and argenpelli were, even if it is not easy today to achieve complete knowledge of these objects, nor of their exact relationship with naibi.

Statutes of the art of physicians and apothecaries

Information on orpello and the manufacturers of similar objects can be obtained from the Statutes of the relevant “Art,” that of the Doctors and Apothecaries, already studied and published by Ciasca. Thus, in the Statute of 1349, in a very long list of productions and trades admitted to the Art of the Doctors and Apothecaries, orpello is already mentioned as a material and the orpellaio as its maker.

And those who make or sell pouches of knives or swords or of any other kind, bags, pouches, trinkets, herbs, sheepskin, skins, cerbolacti [or cerbolatti, literally deerskin, but extended to the skin of small animals] and cerbolactai [cerbolattai, tanners of deerskins and small animal skins] and orpelli makers, jugs, tins, flasks; and those who make, sell, or beat tin, orpello, gold, silver, and the like; ... Then, they are found in the subgroup of merciai [haberdashers, American English: dry goods merchants]: Merciai are and are understood to be... and those who make or indeed sell white or yellow orpello, and of gold, or beaten silver, ...

But even more interesting is that an entire section of the subsequent statutory reform of 1371 is dedicated to orpellai. Evidently, legislators intended to stamp out a recent bad habit: to meet the demand, the orpellai had added to their usual work (tanning, seasoning and subsequent decoration of fresh skins) the recycling of old parchments [to save them the trouble of making new ones], which instead as a rule contained texts worthy of being preserved. The relevant passage from the Reform can be quoted in full.

1. That the orpello makers must observe. Desiring that for the subordinate craftsmen of said art good work be done, and especially for the orpello makers, and also so that the abbreviations [legal documents written in abbreviated form] of dead notaries written in parchment, and also ecclesiastical book and to the divine honor, ordered praises be preserved and guarded and not be sold and cannot be spoiled, with a provided resolution proclaimed and ordered that each and all makers and siricanti [literally, silk decorators, but here just decorators] of orpelli in the city, countryside, and district of Florence are required and must tan the leather from which they make orpelli, well and loyally, as was customary, nor can or should any of them under any questionable reason make or work such orpelli, or work and have made on written or erased membrane paper. And whoever will make against the aforementioned things shall be condemned by the consuls of said guild in 10 soldi of f.p. [fiorini piccoli, small florins] for each dozen, and for each time, to be taken from him by said consuls. And that no one of the said guild and said orpelli made contrary to the aforementioned form dare or presume to sell or keep in his shop, under the aforementioned penalty. And that said orpelli made contrary to the aforementioned form must be publicly burned by said consuls or by their mandate, so that no one in the future dare to make or sell any orpelli on the aforementioned written or erased membranes.

There are also fourteenth-century testimonies from Lucca about the arginpellieri and the need to preserve the traditional method of manufacture.

Also that each orpello maker must maintain the method of making orpelli, argimpelli, which is described and ordered in the Court of Merchants.” (S. Bongi, Prohibitions of Lucca in the fourteenth century. Bologna 1863).

Orpelli and argenpelli of Francesco Datini

Francesco di Marco Datini is probably the most famous citizen of Prato. He began his commercial activity in Avignon, in the years in which the city hosted the papal court and had attracted an entire colony of Italian merchants and artists. From a merchant of arms and armor he transformed gradually into a merciaio [haberdasher], with his shop full of all kinds of objects made of cloth, leather, paper and hardware. His fame is mostly linked to his subsequent activities as a wool entrepreneur and banker, which he undertook upon his return to his homeland. Among the many account books and registers he kept, we are interested in some relating to the Avignon period and in particular two types: the annual registers of the shop stock and household goods, the registers of orders for goods sent to suppliers in various cities.

It is of interest that among the goods that Datini imported to sell in Avignon there are also significant quantities of orpelli and argenpelli. For these objects, the provenance is mainly Florentine, and this suggests that in Florence there was a production that managed to establish itself either for its better quality or lower cost (or both factors at the same time).

Some passages in this regard can be cited, taken from the orders of Francesco Datini.

- 1365 In Florence we ask on 17th August ...
• 60 dozen large orpelli in sheepskin paper in the usual way, i.e. 20 dozen yellow and 40 white let them be firm and very shiny and dry sichonasipichono (= so that they do not stick together).
• 100 dozen yellow ones in small cuoio [hard leather] in the usual way let them be 50 dozen yellow ones and 50 white ones let them be firm and clean with good color and well dry it is said to us that in Rome there is a very great market for them [and] that many of them are produced. (AD [Archivio Datini, Prato] 164 f. 9)

- 1371 We ask in Florence on May 22nd from Nicholo di Matteo and Toro di Berto these things which we will say:
• 20 dozen large white argenpelli in paper [charta] of 24 istagni [or stagni, small metal sheets]
• 20 dozen white argenpelli in paper of 20 istagni
• 30 dozen white argenpelli in paper of 15 istagni
• 30 dozen white argenpelli in paper of 12 istagni
• 20 dozen white argenpelli in paper of 8 istagni
• 5 dozen yellow orpelli in paper of 20 istagni
• 10 dozen yellow orpelli in paper of 15 istagni
• 5 dozen yellow orpelli in paper of 12 istagni
and make sure that all the argenpelli and orpelli are well fixed and have good color (AD 164 f. 43)

- 1385 of July 6 to Lodovicho di Bono.
• 3 dozen yellow orpelli new whole goatskin paper that are large and not too big, they should be whole and of good goats that are quite white, that have good color and fine, usually costing . . .
• 2 dozen white argenpelli in paper of new whole young goat [kid] that are large and thin and of good whole young goats that are good color and light, usual cost.
• 12 dozen yellow orpelli with good color in old sheepskin paper inscribed in 18 to 20 pieces, and make sure that the paper is neither too thick nor too thin nor too old and that it has not been adjusted, usually costing d. [denari] 12 to 13 apiece.
• 12 dozen yellow orpelli with good colors in old sheepskin paper inscribed in 15 pieces in good paper usually costing from 12 to 13 apiece and make sure they are well dried of paint so that when you attach them together they do not stick to each other as we have already had damage.
• 24 dozen white argenpelli in old sheepskin paper, large and beautiful and in good paper of 20 to 24 pieces as you find them usually cost d. 12 apiece ...
• 24 dozen white argenpelli in old sheepskin paper large and beautiful with good paper of 15 to 18 pieces as you will find them usually costing…
• 6 dozen yellow orpelli in goat leather, 12 pieces long, firm and clean, and not thick and of good goat leather, usually cost 30 to 31 soldi per dozen.
• 3 dozen white argenpelli in goat leather 12 pieces long usually cost 28 or 30 soldi per dozen.
• 24 dozen yellow orpelli in goat leather of 6 pieces that are clean and firm and without pieces and with good color from the best master usually costing 13 soldi per dozen.
• 12 dozen white argenpelli in goat leather of 6 pieces that are clean and firm and without pieces and from the best master usually cost 12 soldi per dozen (AD 172 f. 34)

- 1373 September 20. In Florence to Nicholo and Lodovicho di Bono.
• 60 dozen argienpelli in sheepskin paper of 18 or 15 pieces as you find best or you can have them made from my papers you have at yours, let them be made in good papers and good silver color ...
• 40 dozen argienpelli in paper of 12 pieces that are in good paper of mine, you have at yours, and if by chance you have finished them, take as you will find not sending less than 12 pieces but if you find 20 pieces send and let it be this [i.e. and no more].
• 6 dozen yellow orpelli in paper of new rather thin sheepskin like the old ones of 15 pieces in 18 pieces as is best done at the best market you can have and the sooner you find them in new papers because we want to remember that they want these(?) and they can be made in new paper because in old paper they cannot be obtained, make that we have new.
• 6 dozen yellow orpelli of 12 pieces make sure they are clean and firm and with good thin paper of chavretto [young goat] but they don't want to be gessose [pasty, chalky] because most of them (. . . ?).
• 6 dozen yellow orpelli in chavretto [young goat] leather of 12 clean and firm pieces and with good fine color, soft goatskin and not too gessose, of the kind you are used to sending.
• 6 dozen white argenpelli in chavretto leather of 12 clean and firm pieces and with good color and soft leather and not too gessose and of the kind you are used to sending. (AD 166 f. 14)

On the other hand, there exist various annual inventories of furnishings and goods present in the shop and in the house, which also report indications in this regard. In particular, some are collected together in the AD 177 folder:

- Year 1366: Green orpelli and paper.
• 8 dozen and 4 orpelli of white and yellow goatskin of 18 Florentine pieces reckoned worth 18 soldi a dozen, 7/10 ...
• 30 dozen orpelli of yellow and white goat leather of 6 Florentine pieces reckoned worth 6 soldi for each dozen 9/
• 10 dozen orpelli of the same type of leather unless they are not so good or so beautiful, they are reckoned worth 5 soldi per dozen 2/10/
• 15 white orpelli in sheepskin paper of 24 pieces reckoned of 10 denari each -/ 12/6
• 3 dozen and 3 white orpelli of said manner of 20 pieces reckoned at 7 soldi a dozen 1/2/9
• 14 dozen white and yellow orpelli of 15 pieces reckoned value 6 s. dz 4/4/
• 22 dozen yellow and white orpelli in said manner of 12 good pieces reckoned are worth 6 dozen 6/12
• 9 dozen and 3 skins of young Milanese goat for sewing horse harnesses reckoned worth 22 s. dozen 10/3/6
• 3 dozen white and yellow sheepskin paper orpelli of 18 and 12 pieces of several kinds and aged reckoned worth 6 soldi a dozen 1/1
• 5 dozen white and yellow orpelli in said manner of 12 and 8 pieces of several kinds and aged reckoned reckoned worth 4 soldi a dozen 1/2 (AD 177, quad. [= quaderno, notebook] no. 1, f. 13)

- Year 1367. There is a full page with 18 entries of orpelli and argenpelli of various types; the last entry is:

• 130 sheets of orpelli and argenpelli in paper and leather of various kinds, bad and worn-out and made by hand, reckoned at 1 florin (AD 177, quad. no. 3, f. 9)

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- Year 1369 (among other things):
• 7 dozen argenpelli in isolated [isparigliati] parchment of several masters all reckoned 30 soldi
• 13 dozen green parchments of Milan (AD 177, quad. no. 6, f. 12).

In addition to the numerous orpelli and argenpelli, there are other types of skins and leathers [cuoi = stiff, hard leathers], of various animals and from different origins. Among the workshop tools listed in the notebooks of the usual AD 177 there are also some tools that were used to “print” decorations on leather. For example, the following are recorded:

• 1 lead [plate] to be stamped and 1 mallet with three stamps (quad. no. 2, 1367, f. 20);
• 2 mallets with eight stamps (quad. no. 4, 1368, f. 27);
• 1 mallet with 6 stamps for printing not good (quad. no. 7, 1372, f. 24a);
• 1 lead [plate] to print leather goods; 4 stamps with hammers to print leather goods (quad. no. 11, 1387, f. 23).

Plausibly, rather thick skins were “printed,” and it is not certain that these tools could also be used with orpelli, but the principle was not substantially different.

Returning to orpelli and argenpelli, useful information is obtained, even if often not exactly uniquely defined:

1) location: Florence appears as one of the locations with the greatest production and best quality; only exceptionally are orpelli ordered from Pisa; we are informed that in Rome there was a great trade in orpelli; Messina also appears, albeit rarely, as a location of typical manufacturing; instead, the “green parchments” come from Milan, probably a typical local production.

2) processing: the pieces must be made and seasoned well so as not to stick to each other; the color must be uniform; some old orpelli are said to be hand-made, so that it can be thought that usually they had some decoration applied by a mechanical process; there is also talk of isolated [sparigliati] orpelli, that is, not belonging to a series; the hand of different masters is recognizable.

3) assembling: the number of [small] pieces or stagni [metal sheets, from the word for tin but more general] is not [a] fixed [process], indicating a variety of sizes of the constituent elements or of the resulting [big] sheet. Rarely does the number of pieces require a division of the [big] sheet [foglio] into more than two or three vertical columns; the most common correspond to 12, 15 and 18 pieces, suggesting a 3x4, 3x5 and 3x6 configuration, respectively [of small sheets joined into one big sheet].

Discussion and conclusions

It does not seem far-fetched to suppose that the production of naibi took advantage of the pre-existing processing of orpelli. Perhaps at the beginning, naibi were simply by-products. There are, however, some obscure points concerning the production of orpelli and naibi.

It is not clear whether orpelli were made on paper. Sometimes they are mentioned exactly like that, but it can be suspected that the term carta [paper] was used in these cases in place of pecora [sheepskin] or parchment paper; in fact, the term carta di bambagia [cotton paper] or its synonyms, used by Datini for actual paper, was not explicitly mentioned.

It is also not clear why the pieces could be called stagni [normally, pieces of tin], by the adding of which the orpello of the current dimensions was obtained. It seems that stagno could commonly indicate any metallic sheet [like “tinfoil” in English]. It is easy for us to confuse two probably very different things: on the one hand we have the orpello, a metallic sheet obtained by putting together several pieces of parchment or leather, plausibly of standard dimensions; on the other hand, we have the sheet of standard dimensions inside which the pieces corresponding to the playing cards are obtained: here, too, we have a configuration of equal rectangles of the type 3x3, 4x4, 4x8 or similar (H. Rosenfeld, The Playing-Card XXI, 1992, p. 2). The dimensions in the two cases would seem very different, and the idea that the naibi could in some way correspond to the stagni that made up the orpelli, is not convincing.

The substrate is the same, however. We know it from ancient playing cards, made of parchment covered with a layer of gesso and a uniform gilding that in turn acts as a background to the image: this typical workmanship of ancient playing cards did not arrive with the naibi but with the orpelli, yellow or white, more than a century earlier.

As time went by, the production of naibi was to join and surpass that of orpelli themselves. For playing cards to end up achieving the great success that is known to us, several further production developments had to take place, starting from the common basis we have seen. It is not easy to reconstruct exactly whether they occurred in parallel or in sequence, nor where, nor when;


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However, it seems certain that there must have been several stages. Starting from the orpelli, the following can be identified as the main stages.

1) Introduction of figures on sheets of uniform metallic gloss. Images on parchment, with flowers or other subjects, seem to have circulated also in ancient Rome; however, they were not playing cards. It is not clear whether orpelli were already usually decorated with figures painted on top of the uniformly metallic surface. Probably a finish of this kind also spread to the most common decorative use, such as the temporary decoration of churches.

2) The transition from drawing to printing. It is clear that this is a very useful transition for mass production. When we talk about printing, our thoughts inevitably go to Mainz with Fust, Schäffer and Gutenberg working on the Bible. But primitive examples of figures obtained with some mechanical system were much earlier. If the decoration of the surface with the use of molds becomes widespread, there is inevitably a greater tendency for the images to become uniform, with few variations compared to a few more appreciated models, which we can assume to be predominantly of an abstract geometric type or a religious subject.

3) Transition to figures in hierarchical order. This is the transition from traditional figures in arbitrary succession to figures with a universally recognizable hierarchy, with the consequence (intentional or not) of being able to lend themselves more easily to their application in various types of games. In this respect, the naibi (whose originality is therefore understood in this context as essentially linked to their iconography) must have immediately revealed themselves to be decisive for the success of the idea. It should be noted that the main novelty consisted in the numerical character of most of these objects, such that they could be related to the many dice games already in use, permitted or, more frequently, prohibited, as they might be.

4) Transition from parchment to paper. When we have the first information about naibi, paper was already produced in various Italian locations, but it was not yet cheap enough, nor were the metallization techniques already used on leather probably directly transferable. However, the most likely centers for a large production of playing cards must be considered cities where paper was either produced directly or was easily available. In Florence, paper usually came from nearby Colle Val d'Elsa, at an early date and in considerable quantities; but the prized paper from the Marches could also be obtained quite easily.

Certainly, technological progress (and especially the availability of paper in greater quantities and at lower prices on the one hand and the spread of printing techniques such as xylography [woodcuts] on the other) gave a great impulse to the multiplication of playing cards and their uses. But what was missing around 1375 for a wide diffusion of playing cards was not paper and probably not even a primitive printing system. The most important thing that happened at the time was the adoption of a standard series of values, easily recognizable, such as was present in naibi.

Before Franco's 1989 English-language article on Marziano's treatise in The Playing-Card, https://naibi.net/A/25-FIRSTARO-Z.pdf, it was only sketchily known, first from brief notes by Paul Durrieu. His main note in 1911, which can still be read online, was brought to the attention of those interested in the early tarot by Gertrude Moakley in her 1966 book (online with my comments at http://moakleyupdated.blogspot.com/). Durrieu had left the impression that it was only sixteen cards; Franco gave a much fuller account, of course including the four "orders" of birds as well. Ten years later he followed up his original article with the present one, "I trionfi di Marziano," https://naibi.net/A/70-MARZI-Z.pdf, now translated below. He also has a 2013 note in English, which can be found on naibi.net.

Marziano has of course been extensively discussed on THF, as well as being translated twice, first by Ross in The Playing-Card, now with Marco Ponzi and published with the Latin on facing pages as a book, the first 34 pages of which can be read in Google Books, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tr ... frontcover

The numbers by themselves in the left margin are the pages of Franco's online pdf. The footnotes, which in the original appeared at the end, are here put at the bottom of each page. Comments in brackets are mine in consultation with Franco, for clarification purposes.


THE TRIUMPHS OF MARZIANO
Franco Pratesi – 03.12.1999
(Italian original in The Playing-Card 28, no. 3 (1999), pp. 144-151)

ABSTRACT

Some further information is provided on the earliest tarot pack described, resulting from the collaboration of Filippo Maria Visconti, Marziano da Tortona and Michelino di Besozzo. [note 1] The corresponding evidence, coming from a manuscript kept in the French National Library, is described with additional detail. Possible relationships between this peculiar pack and early tarots are discussed. In particular, here the specific iconography is fully reported and commented. The situation in the mid of the 15th century is finally outlined.

PREMISE

The subject of this study is the first Visconti Tarot [that featuring Greco-Roman gods and demigods], which is, at least as far as we know today, the first we have a description of at all. After a brief summary of the relevant documentation, some additions are added here to the discussion presented in a previous study, [note 1] to which we refer for basic information. For general documentation on the subject, the obligatory reference is Michael Dummett, from whom we also have a complete work in Italian. [note 2]

INFORMATION FROM THE MANUSCRIPT

All the documentation on the subject under examination comes from the manuscript Lat. 8745 of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (folios 1-32). Initially there is the transcription of the letter of Iacopo Antonio Marcello; there follows the treatise of Marziano da Tortona on the deification of sixteen heroes, preceded by an interesting preface.

Marcello's letter to Queen Isabella of Lorraine served as an accompaniment to the tarot deck and a book on the same subject, already owned by Filippo Maria Visconti. Marcello writes from Monselice in mid-November 1449 but reports on the events of the previous year, when he was at the head of the Venetian troops sent to support Francesco Sforza in the war against the Milanese.

Marziano, before the treatise, writes a five-page preface. The dedication is addressed to Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan. This reduces the uncertainty about the date to a few years: Filippo Maria's settlement in Milan, after the death of his brother, occurred in 1412, while Marziano's death occurred about ten years later. The treatise can therefore be dated with good approximation to around 1415. It is thus the first known testimony on the trionfi.

The game was conceived as a sequence of heroes, divided into four orders of virtue (Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, Hercules), riches (Juno, Neptune, Mars, Aeolus), virginity or continence (Pallas, Diana, Vesta, Daphne) and pleasures (Venus, Bacchus, Ceres, Cupid). Correlative to these, below them are the orders of eagle, phoenix, turtledove and dove, presided over by four kings. For eagles and turtledoves, the most prevail over the least, while for phoenices and doves, the opposite occurs. The orders do not have power over each other, but that of the gods prevails. Among the gods, the one listed first is the most powerful.

In Marziano's "Treatise on the Deification of Sixteen Heroes," the personages are illustrated one after the other, thus passing recurrently through the orders defined above. In a rather systematic manner, brief biographical notes are provided and the main inventions useful to humanity are recalled (this type of attribution also had a large following at the time). Finally, Marziano dedicates a sentence or two to describing the typical depiction of each personage.

THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE ORIGINS

For this deck of triumphs, it is not immediately clear what the contributions to the ideation (to be shared between Filippo Maria and Marziano) and the concrete realization (between Marziano and Michelino) are. It is above all the role of Marziano that can vary between extreme limits. On the one hand it could be minimal: the idea is Filippo Maria's, the artistic realization is Michelino's; Marziano would have only compiled the brief
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1. F. Pratesi, “The Earliest Tarot Pack Known.” The Playing Card XVIII (1989) 28-38.
2. M. Dummett, Il Mondo e l’Angelo. Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993.


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accompanying treatise, of a literary-mythological nature. On the other hand, Marziano's contribution could have been decisive: from a vague suggestion by Filippo Maria, he would have conceived both the structuring of the whole and the individual figures, then painted (or repainted better) by Michelino.

Since the current use of tarot is predominantly divinatory, we would be tempted to look for a trace of this use right at the origin. We are encouraged to imagine something of the sort by the observation that Marziano was a well-known scholar of astrology, a discipline that also greatly interested Filippo Maria, to the point that he was guided in his state activities by famous astrologers of various origins, welcomed at his court. However, we also know that the Duke himself was an avid player of games, and therefore nothing prevents the triumphs in question from being introduced in a purely gaming environment, as we will encounter them exclusively later, for over three centuries.

NUMBER OF TRIUMPHS AND [ORDINARY] CARDS

It should not be too surprising that there are only sixteen triumphal cards: that they may originally have been fewer than the twenty-two that have become traditional has been suggested by some experts, also to explain the presence of some cards that are different in the Visconti-Sforza tarot. These latter would have been added not to replace lost cards, as is usually supposed, but to adapt a previous deck to the new tradition. An independent confirmation comes from the Estense Archives, where ancient triumphal decks of 70 cards are mentioned. [note 3] Let us then examine the possible composition of this unusual deck, while recognizing that this discussion is inevitably speculative.

Above the numeral cards (not explicitly mentioned but necessarily present to make the indicated descending and ascending hierarchy possible) are the court cards (of which here only the kings are explicitly recalled). For the highest cards, there is a change of role and here also of suit; however, in all respects it is as if each of the 4 suits were extended by another 4 upper cards, in a manner not dissimilar in essence to how in the traditional tarot deck the four figure cards within each suit exceed the ten numeral cards.

The mechanism by which these triumphs were inserted into the [ordinary] playing cards corresponds to an addition of higher court cards in equal numbers for each suit, but probably in such a way as to be able to form a fifth autonomous suit. For such a system to work properly [i.e., with an equal number in each suit], the total number of cards must be a multiple of both 4 and 5, that is, 20. Limiting oneself to plausible numbers, one can start with suits of nine numeral cards and three courts, which would remind us of decks common in Spain today; with the addition of three more higher figures per suit one could obtain a fifth suit of twelve trumps and a complete deck of 60 cards.

But the next alternative appears more plausible, with ten numeral cards and six court cards, for example both male and female personages, as already mentioned by Johannes of Rheinfelden and as would be partly preserved in the well-known Visconti di Modrone deck; four upper cards added per suit, as in the Marziano deck, could alternatively constitute the fifth suit of the triumphs, for a total of 80 cards, as already indicated by Michael Dummett. [note 4] From here, the standard tarot deck could later be obtained by eliminating a couple of court cards and “promoting” six of the highest cards of the four suits to the new suit of triumphs.

THE GODS: THEIR CHOICE, MYTHOLOGICAL TRADITION

The subject was of considerable topicality at the time; in the wake of late Latin treatise writers, various authors had attempted to redescribe the main mythological figures. In particular, euhemerism - with the traditional transformation of pagan gods into “deified” heroes after death for their deeds - was first a weapon against their worship, used by the Church already in the first centuries, and later served to keep alive the no longer dangerous myths connected to the ancient deities. [note 5]

The sixteen personages selected for deification represent a fairly reasonable choice among the many possibilities offered by Greco-Roman mythology. It can be noted that they are approximately half male and half female, so much so that the presence of nine gods and seven goddesses seems almost an oversight.

The absence of gods such as Saturn, Pluto and Vulcan is somewhat surprising. On the contrary, some of the presences, such as Aeolus or Cupid, seem to correspond to an overestimation of
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3. G. Campori, ““Le carte da gioco dipinte per gli Estensi.” Atti e Memorie delle RR. Dep. St. Patr. per le prov. Mod. e Parm. 7 (1874), pp. 123-132. [Online with translation see http://trionfi.com/0/e/16/.]
4.M. Dummett, “A Comment on Marziano.” The Playing Card XVIII (1989) 73-75.
5. J. Seznec, La sopravvivenza degli antichi Dei. Turin: Boringhieri, 1981. [Translated into English as The Survival of the Ancient Gods, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953, reprinted 1972.]

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their role in classical mythology; but it is above all the presence of Daphne that appears alien to the divinities of Olympus, although her metamorphosis had already inspired many artists.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH COMMON TRIUMPHS

It is not easy to understand whether we have here a prototype invented as a variant of the common playing cards, and therefore preliminary to the subsequent affirmation of the tarot, or a variant imagined starting from a deck of tarot cards already existing. Only in the first case would we have direct evidence of the birth of the new game. However, such a distinction is not ultimately decisive. Even if it was a variant of already existing triumphs, these must still have been in a primitive stage corresponding at most only in part to the traditional tarot.

Examining the common Marseille Tarot, one notices that the triumphs are partly full characters, partly scenes in which the personages are more than one and in the background. It can, however, be assumed that at the origin there were minor formal differences between the court cards of the highest cards of the four suits and those of the additional suit of triumphs: predominantly typical mythological or courtly personages.

As a correspondence of figures, some characters can be considered strictly analogous, such as Emperor-Jupiter, Empress-Juno, Love-Cupid, Popess-Vesta, Chariot-Mars; others are obtainable with simple transformations: Strength-Hercules, Justice-Demeter, Fool-Mercury. Continuing along this path, however, considerable difficulties are encountered in matching all the figures of Marziano to sixteen appropriately chosen among the canonical trumps. Surprising again is the absence of Saturn among the sixteen characters, the only one missing of the seven planets, who instead could easily find a counterpart in the traditional triumphs.

On the other hand, triumphs with a markedly negative meaning remain outside of this comparison, as seems logical given that we are dealing here with a deification of heroes: therefore, possible roles are missing for cards such as Hanged Man, Death, Devil, Tower, or ones corresponding to them.

ICONOGRAPHY OF THE TRIUMPHS

The iconography of these images in their entirety appears worthy of attention from experts. Given its relative originality, I thought it useful to summarize its main features in table form.

I. Jupiter. Seated on a throne, he is provided with four celestial insignia, on the right above, the splendor of just reason; on the left, above, the light with which he founded the laws; on the lower right, the bright star similar to Mars that shines in the saviors of the state; on the lower left, the lightning.

II. Juno. Her appearance indicates that she is the wife of Jupiter; her head is veiled in the manner of matrons, and the order of her crown indicates the number of her kingdoms. She is richly adorned, but her beautiful colored garments are evanescent. The chariot and weapons assigned to her by Virgil, seem to be omitted here.

III. Pallas. In her right hand she holds a peaceful olive tree; she wears a multiple amice and a variegated dress (to indicate the changes over time in the opinions of the wise). She holds a light shield made hideous by the Gorgon.

IV. Venus. With a rather lascivious appearance, with loose hair, bare chest and arms, bare knees, to induce love more easily; with a loose amice of lynx skin; with her bow ready and her quiver on her back to hunt and wound the minds of men who wander in the darkness.

V. Apollo. He has an appearance suited to military life; his long-haired head is adorned with laurel according to warrior and poetic rights; he carries a bow and arrows in the use of which he excels.

VI. Neptune. With an old-fashioned regal appearance, he sits on a golden chariot drawn by two dolphins. He has a trident for a scepter to indicate the three characteristics of water.


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VII. Diana. Dressed in a white amice, she wanders with bow and arrows on a golden chariot, drawn by white deer with bright golden antlers. She is depicted with a triune aspect.

VIII. Bacchus. With a face always youthful and his temples adorned with his vines. According to his name, he carries a staff for the support of drunkards. Two tigers draw the chariot.

IX. Mercury. Like the Arcadians, he has his head covered with a galero [wide-brimmed hat]; with his caduceus he separates fighting serpents; he puts on winged shoes.

X. Mars. With his chariot decorated with a thousand ensigns taken from enemies ... He rides with his unsheathed sword covered with blood to show the way.

XI. Vesta. With chaste appearance in the manner of nuns, she stands at the altar before the immortals and prays to the gods.

XII. Ceres. She proceeds in royal dress and the harvest of agriculture alongside; she holds a burning torch in her hand.

XIII. Hercules. With his terrible aspect, his brow crowned with laurel, neglecting any graceful garments, with the spoils of the enormous Nemean lion, a distinguished monument of strength. At his feet lies the anthropomorphic monster of the Strophades, struck by arrows.

XIV. Aeolus. Seated in royal attire among the rocks of his islands, making flames with his sceptre.

XV. Daphne. In virginal dress embracing her Laurel.

XVI. Cupid. In flight to mark the instability of lovers, he is surrounded by human hearts. He wanders naked through heaven and earth with his bow ready to shoot.

In detail, the most ancient traditions of the Aratea [a Greco-Roman astronomical text] are no longer followed, nor those of Arab origin, directly or through Babylonian influences. It would then seem natural to expect a marked fidelity to the Alberic canon which at the time was also establishing itself thanks to the success of the “De genealogiis deorum gentilium.” [note 6]

Instead, the reconstruction of Marziano's images from literary works is mostly autonomous. Noteworthy are Jupiter with four celestial signs on the margins, Venus the huntress dressed in lynx skin, Mars on horseback with a bloody sword (even though his famous chariot is mentioned above), Vesta in a monastic habit now completely "Christianized," Ceres holding a torch to purify the fields.

The depiction of Daphne in virginal dress embracing her laurel is perhaps to be attributed to an oversight by Marziano; usually it is Apollo who embraces Daphne already partly transformed into a laurel.

Even the chariots on which some of the gods are depicted are quite particular: often made of gold, they are pulled by pairs of dolphins, deer, and tigers for Neptune, Diana and Bacchus respectively; we are already on the path that will lead to Zucchi's deities, triumphant on their chariots. [note 7].

THE SITUATION IN LORRAINE AND LOMBARDY IN THE MID-FOURTEENTH CENTURY

The part of Iacopo Antonio Marcello's testimony relating to his own time and initiative presents the following problem: how could these cards have been used at the court of Lorraine if we know that the Tarot arrived in France only later, probably in the following century? It is a question that admits more than one answer, including that the absence of testimonies does not equate to the absence of the game.
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6. H. Liebeschütz, Fulgentius Metaforalis. Leipzig: Teubner, 1926.
7. F. Saxl, ed., Antike Götter in der Spätrenaissance (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), [edition of] Jacopo Zucchi [ca. 1541-ca. 1590], Discorso sopra li Dei de’ Gentili e loro imprese, who also has the chariots of Jupiter drawn by eagles, of Venus by swans, and so on.


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The most plausible reason for the connection is given by the figure of Queen Isabella. Lorraine was not a kingdom, but the Duchess of Lorraine happened to be Queen ... of Sicily. Isabella herself had heroically crossed Italy to assert against the House of Aragon the hereditary rights of her husband René of Anjou, held prisoner in Dijon. Thus, in principle, the queen could have learned about the game of triumphs in Italy; on the other hand, King René was notoriously inserted in a prestigious artistic and literary environment. Later, the queen could have distracted herself with triumphs during long stays in the manor of Launay, near Saumur, where she spent most of those years, until her death (1453).

As regards the history of Tarot in Lombardy, the situation in 1448-49, at the time of Marcello's letter and the events he reports, appears very different from that of Marziano's deck. We are still in early times as regards the body of evidence preserved on Tarot. But the situation has evidently changed: decks of triumphs are in use in the camp of Francesco Sforza and are used to pass the time while waiting for military operations. [note 8] Furthermore, there were already craftsmen specialized in the production of Tarot decks - it is precisely to one of these that Marcello tries to turn for a superior quality examplar. Clearly, towards the middle of the fifteenth century Tarot cards are no longer, even if originally, rare and precious objects. By now among the decks in circulation in Lombardy it is becoming difficult to find an example out of the ordinary, suitable for Queen Isabella.

CONCLUSIONS

The information that can be gleaned from this testimony about the origin of the Tarot is of considerable importance. Unlike other cases, here we are really close to the origin of the Tarot, so close that today any indication of an earlier era can only be considered at the level of hypothesis.

The iconography of the first Visconti tarot [deck] is particular, and together with the selection of “deified” personages in this extraordinary deck, it deserves an in-depth analysis by experts.

In the ongoing discussions among playing card historians, this testimony supports an expansion of the common deck to give rise to the Tarot: the trumps could have been born as an upward extension of a hierarchy already present within the four traditional suits and which would have ended up producing an independent hierarchy, valid only within the added higher figures. It probably took some time for the “triumphal” figures to clearly separate, in terms of images and functions, from the higher figures of the four suits.
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8. Archivio Ducale Sforzesco, Registri delle missive. Milan: Archivio di Stato, 1982, vol. II, no. 4, letter 11.12.1450.

This article is long but rewarding, probably Franco's most comprehensive and thorough account of the subject that I know of. Comments in brackets are mine, for clarification, in consultation with Franco. Numbers by themselves in the left margins are page numbers in Franco's pdf, "I primi giochi di carte nella repubblica fiorentina," published originally in The Playing-Card 40, No. 3 (2012) 179-197, posted at https://naibi.net/A/72-PRIFI-Z.pdf. Footnotes have been moved from the end of the essay to the bottom of the corresponding page.


The first card games in the Florentine Republic
Franco Pratesi – 08.25.2011

English Abstract

The First Card Games in the Florentine Republic

The initial diffusion of card games in the Florentine territory – up to the middle of the 16th century - occurred in the same epoch in which the government of the town extended its control over a lot of towns and villages of Tuscany. Several neighboring villages in the countryside formed leagues, also organized as new communes. Both old and new communes in the region were more or less dependent on the main town, but in most cases they were self-governing, at least for local matters. One of the tasks of each commune was the compilation of a statute and its periodical revision. Almost one thousand of manuscripts with these statutes and revisions are still kept in the Archivio di Stato [State Archive] in Florence. A study has been done in a selection of them on the prohibitions of gambling, with particular reference to card games - which unfortunately are much less frequent than dice games, forbidden since earlier times.
In addition to dice games, board games were sometimes taken into account. With a few exceptions we find that chess and morris were allowed. Board games of the backgammon family were instead generally prohibited with only one traditional game allowed, in which all thirty men are present on the board.
Card games were usually prohibited, but a special care has been dedicated to uncover any information on card games allowed. The information on them is poor, because they are only quoted in the statutes as a few exceptions among prohibited games; nevertheless, it allows us to outline a series of games subsequently played with a remarkable popularity, such as: diritta, trionfo, and germini. The fact that there were traditional card games, commonly played in the early times by the Florentine population, and even in the countryside, is emphasized.
In particular, the game of diritta, with the connected game of torta, appears to be the first card game to be considered as traditional and therefore allowed – for instance, a whole chapter of Volterra's statute of 1459 (here reported in the appendix) has been dedicated to card games. Another finding has been the insertion in the statute of Gambassi of the Florentine law of 1450, which allowed the four card games: diritta, torta, trenta, and trionfo. The time is close to that of the earliest known documents on trionfo, coming from the courts of Ferrara and Milan, but in this case the place is a very small town in the countryside – on the other hand, we know that in the same year these four games were allowed in Florence.
A similar occurrence has been found for germini: the indication of this name for a card game has been discovered in Montecatini Val di Cecina, in 1529, when it was allowed in the statute, a few years earlier than already known from other places. Here again the location is in the countryside. On the other hand, we are acquainted from many other sources with another name of a locally traditional game, minchiate, a name strangely documented either earlier or later with respect to that of germini.
Possible relationships among these traditional games, and the game of tarot, are discussed. The discussion begins on a local basis, but continues in the last section including information from other places. Alternative ways for a plausible reconstruction of the early progress of card games are discussed, with the aim to highlight specific points that more than others require further research, to begin with exactly identifying the different kinds of triumph packs that have been initially used, in addition to those - as the “standard” ones of 78 and 97 cards - which we know from other places or later times.

Premise

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My intention with this article is to pick up the thread of a communication that, exceptionally, I had the opportunity to present to the members of the IPCS in Trieste, at the annual convention of 1989, and which was then published in part in The Playing-Card. [note 1]

On that occasion, I was able to meet in person, among others, the three authors who had stimulated my research the most on the history of card games, making me take it into serious consideration alongside that of board games, which I had already been interested in. Sylvia Mann, who with her book [note 2] had convinced me of the importance of ordinary playing cards, as opposed to the special ones so loved by collectors. Thierry Depaulis, who as editor of L'As de Trèfle was publishing several of my articles, thanks to his preparation and specific knowledge made me understand the importance of studying the historical context of card games. Michael Dummett, the most important for my studies, who with his fundamental book [note 3] had provided me with the necessary criteria to judge the validity of what I discovered in my research: from then on I could consider valid any tile I was able to add to that vast mosaic, even when it did not immediately find a congruent location.


Florentine Republic, statutes and prohibition of games

The period of interest here covers roughly the two centuries from 1350 to 1550. In many respects, Florence was in those two centuries at the cultural, artistic, and even economic forefront in the whole world. First of all, our thoughts today turn to the great works of art that have come down to us from that time. However, they were not centuries of peace; in fact, battles followed one another almost continuously, and, as if that were not enough, the Florentines often waged war among themselves. It is easy to find information on that history in thousands of articles and books. However, I think it is useful to emphasize one point, relating to the political structure: Florence then went from a commune-city organization to one that extended to a large part of Tuscany, a region that was about to become an autonomous state.

In this transition to a government on a regional scale there was no homogeneous type of subjugation and dependence of the communes gradually conquered; to delve deeper into the question one can resort to a detailed work. [note 4] It can be noted that the Florentines exerted an impulse towards autonomy: several of these communes had previously been part of territories subject to old feudal families or to episcopal curias, and only now were they beginning to be able to govern themselves on the basis of their own statutes. This situation went further, to the point of encouraging, on the part of Florence, the formation of countryside [contado] leagues, communes that were not centered on a single town or a large village but on several hamlets or small towns, which had allied themselves precisely with a view to the new constitution of an autonomous commune.

The Florentine government required that each commune, old and new, draw up its own statute and send a copy to Florence where it was approved and kept in a special archive, the Archivio delle Riformagioni. A riformazione was understood to mean a reform, an addition to the statute, which had to be periodically reviewed and, if necessary, corrected. In these operations, the Florentine government had a minor role, while the statutaries, in charge of compiling the statutes and their reforms, were local men, chosen by the population of that commune.

All this enormous documentation of the Archivio delle Riformagioni, with such a widespread provenance, was preserved for centuries inside the Uffizi (the same prestigious building today universally known for the Gallery) and was transferred a few decades ago to the new headquarters of the Archivio di Stato of Florence, where 962 pieces are now available for study in the Statutes of the autonomous and subject communities section, which I will indicate here as SCAS.

There is no exact correspondence between the number of manuscripts and the number of localities: on the one hand, the statutes of some communes are preserved in several volumes; on the other, several communes were in reality leagues that involved several nearby villages in the Tuscan countryside. However, the order of magnitude certainly remains that of a thousand localities involved, a documentation that could be more appropriate for a large empire than for a regional territory of
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For brevity, I have used the following acronyms here [in the notes]:
- AdT for: L'As de Trèfle, Bulletin de l'Association des Collectionneurs de Cartes et Tarots. No.;
- CP for: Personal Communication;
- SCAS (followed by the numbers of the pieces and cards) for: Archivio di stato di Firenze. Statuti delle
comunità autonome e soggette [State Archives of Florence. Statutes of the autonomous and subject communes];
- TPC for: The Playing-Card, Journal of the International Playing-Card Society, Vol.

1. TPC XVII No. 4 (1990) 128-135.
2. S. Mann, Collecting Playing Cards, Baker, London 1973.
3. M. Dummett, The Game of Tarot, Duckworth, London 1980.
4. G. Guidi, "Il governo della città-repubblica di Firenze del primo Quattrocento." In Il contado e il distretto. Olschki, Florence 1981.

3
limited extension. It should therefore always be kept in mind that these communities are mostly very small, up to a few dozen people.

The archive collection in question is not completely preserved: in some cases, there are reforms but the original statute is missing, in others the opposite happens. As the decades passed, the most frequently used language was Italian but in the early days Latin prevailed. The number of pages in each codex varied within wide margins, from a dozen to a thousand. The sheets of paper were variously alternated with those of parchment and the conditions of conservation and readability of the ink also varied within extreme limits. The handwriting of the individual notaries involved in the compilations was also very variable and full of abbreviations, so much so that it is [now] rarely easy to read; it would often require the assistance of a specialist, and indeed of several specialists, depending on the period and provenance.

Many communes have statutes preserved only from dates later than those of interest to us (to be precise, there are about three hundred pieces [i.e., manuscripts] that do not contain any document prior to 1550); on the other hand, there are also some statutes dating back to before the arrival of playing cards. The interest of a given location for our purposes is unpredictable, but a fortunate exception like that of the commune of Sesto Fiorentino, which I reported in Trieste, with only a few reform pages preserved but rich in data on card games, I have never come across again.

Within the commune statutes we are only interested in a marginal part, that concerning the prohibition of games, which could have been absent at the beginning and, still more easily, not be present in the documents preserved.

Fortunately, we have a general indication for the search for that paio [usually “pair” but also applied early on to a deck of cards] of carte [cards] of interest to us within the hundred or thousand carte [folio sheets of a manuscript]. In the original draft of a commune statute, the legal provisions relating to giochi [games, but also meaning “gambling”] often have a fixed location, in the third book, usually entitled Of Malefices [Dei Malefizi]. Of the previous books, the first is typically dedicated to the manner of electing the various offices, their duties and salaries, and the second to regulating social life, in the manner of a civil code. This third book would instead correspond to a draft of a penal code; here the first concern of the legislators is to establish the penalties to be inflicted for the various crimes, treated in a succession of chapters.

One of these chapters is often dedicated to giochi [games/gambling], and in particular, in accordance with the rest of the book, to what penalties should be applied to those who do not respect the law. We are often disappointed by what we can read, with only the indication of the penalty reserved for those who play prohibited games, without any specification of which games they are. Rarely, as in Settimo in 1408, it is added that those prohibited by the statutes of the commune of Florence are considered prohibited. [note 5] In several communes we find one or more holidays indicated on which all games are tolerated.

We cannot expect a subtle distinction of punishments based on individual games, which instead would be what we need most. Even subtle distinctions are made, but they concern times and places (day or night, outdoors or indoors, in a tavern or far away, near a church or far away). Sometimes the age of the player or his origin is taken into consideration. People present as observers can be equated or not to players. Other subtle distinctions can exist on the redistribution of a part of the fine collected by the commune to officials, witnesses and informers.

It is much more difficult to find provisions on games in the reforms added to the statutes at a later time. In this case, it rarely happens that the order of the chapters is respected when listing the changes. It must also be considered that games did not receive priority attention from the statute writers, who in the countryside had above all problems of proper maintenance of fields, pastures and woods, in addition to the regulation of civil coexistence and local trade. Often we encounter a reduction in public offices and personnel, in order to reduce the expenses of the commune. If we find provisions on games in the second half of the sixteenth century, and also in the following one, this usually happens to prohibit their practice in the squares in front of churches and especially during religious functions: an example among many others can be the prohibition of this type for the square of Fiesole in 1569. [note 6]
________________
5. SCAS 848, f. 5r.
6. SCAS 311, f. 130r.

4
We are interested in card games, but to understand the related context it is useful to consider the provisions on games in general, dividing them on the basis of the material used to play.

Dice, board, chess and mill games

Dice were the first and usually the only game instrument that interested the laws of the communes. Collecting them from different times and places we could list at least a dozen names of games that were played with dice in addition to the most cited game of zara. Understandably, we know nothing about all or almost all of them beyond these names. The situation is complex, at least at first glance, and leaves us with a great desire to one day reconstruct and understand the detailed rules of all these games. However, if we look closely, the interest in individual games can be scaled down by the fact that those names were nothing more than individual examples of prohibited games: in fact, we never find the name of a game of dice only that it was allowed. As a rule, after having prohibited the game of zara, a sentence like this is added: "and every other game that can be played in which money or other things can be won or lost."

In this regard, we know of entire lists of prohibited games from later times. It is not a simple solution: faced with any new game, the question would have arisen whether or not to add it to the list. On the other hand, it would not have been difficult for players to gradually invent new games, not present in the lists, and therefore which strictly speaking could not be considered prohibited. The control based on the opposite procedure works much better: only a few permitted games are listed, automatically meaning that any other game is prohibited. This more convenient solution was not necessary for dice games, since none were allowed.

In addition to dice, we must turn to another game instrument, with which cards later had greater analogy: these are board games and especially those that were referred to as table games. We immediately encounter an ambiguity in the very name of tables, which was used more to indicate the pieces of the game than the boards on which they were moved. Let us limit our attention for the moment to the main family that was the same as today's backgammon. Also in this case, the members of the family have been and are numerous: these are games played since time immemorial, well before the appearance of playing cards, and for various peoples, especially Middle Eastern ones, they remained the main game also in succeeding centuries.

What did the commune laws say about this family of games? As usual, since money could be won or lost, and since luck played a part in the game, this family of games was also prohibited. Very important for us, however, is the fact that this rule, like many rules, had an exception. All games in the family were prohibited except one: one could play the game in which all thirty pieces were present and visible above the playing level; this particular game, later better known as tavola reale [royal table], today internationally as backgammon, was often allowed. In reality, there were additional conditions, such as the fact that the game had to be played in public, in an open place or a lodge, during the day, far from taverns and far from churches - in the end, it was the exact measure of these distances that was discussed in the legal provisions.

What is the reason given, when it is spoken of, to justify this unusual authorization to play the game? This game is allowed because it is a traditional game, handed down from father to son; evidently the legislators, if not [also] others of the time, feared the dangers connected with new fashions, with customs coming from outside capable of profoundly modifying the traditional “culture” of the commune. In at least one case, in Borgo San Lorenzo in 1398, the justification that is otherwise implicit is made explicit in the commune with chess: «except for the game of tables and chess because it is a very ancient thing». [note 7] What is implied instead is the ingenious nature of the game in question, which requires knowledge of strategies capable of at least partially balancing the random result of the roll of the dice.

In conclusion, the single game of tavola reale (not yet called that) ends up being accompanied in the laws no longer by the other members of its own family - who instead end up
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7. SCAS 92, f. 91r.

5
usually assimilated to only games of dice - but to the game of chess. Often, they simply speak of chess and tables, implying that by tables they mean only the game type tavola reale; this was done even before the arrival of playing cards, as for example in Vellano in 1367. [note 8] Several times the game of tables also appears alone, without the accompaniment of chess, as in the statute of Impruneta of 1415. [note 9]

Chess has some positive features: it is a game that does not depend on chance and is old, handed down from generation to generation. As a logical consequence, the game of chess has always had a role of its own in commune statutes: in many it is not taken into consideration (because only prohibited games are considered), but where it appears it is generally permitted. In practice, this reverses the situation of other games, which were prohibited except for exceptions; for chess, the prohibitions are exceptional. Typically, the game of chess can be prohibited if played in particular conditions, or with dice, as for example in a statute of Volterra [note 10] (the manuscript in question is a copy from the 16th century, but the original should be one or two centuries earlier).

Rarely do other games appear that are allowed alongside chess. The most frequent is the game of tables [tavole], but in this case it is immediately possible to refer the term to the already encountered game type backgammon. with dice and thirty pieces in play. There are also cases in which the statutory officials are more lenient than usual, as in Cerreto in 1412. [note 11] The chapter on prohibited games, after the usual penalties against zara and similar games of dice only, ends in a very permissive manner: "and notwithstanding the aforementioned things they decided that everyone is allowed to play with dice at every game of tables and chess in the castle and village of Cerreto." It is a pity that it does not mention naibi, because this could have been the right time to see it permitted.

We know that at a certain point, alongside chess, and indeed becoming even more popular in the following centuries, the game of dama [checkers] appeared. However, it probably did not yet exist, at least in the first century, at the time that interests us here; it certainly did not exist with the name by which we know it later.
In other cases, very rare, a different game is explicitly indicated, in which, as in common chess, dice do not come into play. An example is mulino [mill], which was played with nine pieces each. Of this game, a more advanced variant of the children's game of filetto with three piece, are also reported positions in medieval chess manuscripts. Another game, or perhaps the same game under another name, is the game of smerelle, permitted for example together with chess in Cortona in 1411. [note 12] The same could have been the ludus marellarum [game of smerelle] permitted in San Pietro in Mercato in 1398. [note 13] In the same privileged position next to chess, another name for a game appears in the statute of Donoratico in 1407. [note 14]: in the Latin text it is a genitive plural that follows ludus and is connected to the following, schachorum, but the reading “alcarum” is not certain. The word should probably be read as “alearum,” and these aleae [gambling games, originally just dice] could correspond in this specific case to particular board games or even to playing cards.

Naibi, diritta, and vinciperdi

At this point we are able to better understand how playing cards were received in those same commune environments. As far as we know, the cards arrived suddenly, around 1375. [note 15] When playing cards appeared alongside dice in the hands of players, the usual reaction of the statutes-men was to simply add the name of the new game instrument next to the old one: no longer were dice games prohibited, but dice and naibi games. On the one hand, many games that were based on dice points could be transferred to the new medium by using card points; indeed, the possibilities became more numerous - it would have been an ingenious stratagem to transform oneself from dice player into card player … if it had been legal to use them. On the other hand, no card game could boast a long local tradition: not even one [such game] could have been traditionally played by fathers and grandfathers. In short, several reasons lead to the logical conclusion that, having verified that playing cards could be used for gambling games as was done with dice, these too had to be prohibited.
____________
8. SCAS 920, f. 22v. 9. SCAS 370, f. 31r. 10. SCAS 943, f. 183r. 11. SCAS 222, f. 26v. 12. SCAS 280, f. 89r. 13. SCAS 790, f. 92r. 14. SCAS 299, f. 13r. 15. TPC XVII No. 3 (1989) 107-112.

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It would seem that even initially there were conflicting opinions, due to the fact that cards have different characteristics from dice and can possibly also present didactic aspects, in addition to being used for "innocent" games. The fact is that in some statutes that I already reported in Trieste (San Pietro in Mercato, Campi, Santa Maria a Monte) the sentence was indeed extended to dice and naibi, but the penalty for the game of naibi compared to that for dice was half, or in any case of a reduced amount.

Also in the case of cards, however, different games could be played. As with dice, some names of card games appeared as examples of other possible ones. The first, or one of the first, was condannata [condemned]; many others followed gradually. If the situation had been only of this type, playing cards would have remained only a second means of gambling that from a certain point on accompanied the more ancient one of dice. In short, we would still have had a set of names of games with the usual challenge of understanding what they were and to reconstruct their rules as much as possible. As before with dice, the importance and complexity of the situation could have been scaled down, since, whatever the specific name, all these games would have been intended only as examples of a set of games that are all prohibited.

For cards, unlike dice, this did not happen: some card games were then allowed and over time cards actually changed their “category”: first they were assimilated, more or less completely, to dice, then they became assimilated to tables. In other words, just as among the table games one had established itself that was traditionally allowed, also among card games, some established themselves that became traditionally played by the population and as such authorized, like chess and tables. Let us then forget the naibi understood as an alternative to dice and see them as a family comparable to tables. Then we are no longer interested in the individual names of prohibited card games, such as condonnata or terza e quarta [third and fourth], which will continue to appear and become more numerous. Instead, it is the individual names of permitted games that interest us much more.

Among the card games that could be allowed, there was a very strict selection, linked to the condition that it was a game traditionally widespread among the population: in short, it went well beyond all possible foreign passing fads or the short-lived adoptions of new games.

When diritta and vinciperdi are met in the statutes, these names are made to correspond to two games, and often to the only two games allowed. The case that I like the most, although it is more recent than others, is the one present in the Volterra statute of 1459. [note 16] (see Appendix). Here the usual single chapter that in the third book of the statute is dedicated to games is reasonably divided into three successive chapters, numbered from LIX to LXI. The first chapter reports the typical prohibitions of dice games, with related cases and penalties; the second is exclusively dedicated to card games, and thanks to this fact, which is praiseworthy for us, and to the other not secondary fact that the spelling is extraordinarily clear, I transcribe it in its entirety as an appendix (in this way you can also read some accessory provisions that with some variations are found in many other statutes); the third chapter prohibits games in the vicinity of sacred places and precisely defines the territorial limits of the six main churches with annexed monasteries, cloisters and gardens.

The same “second” game that we find here indicated as vinciperdi [wonlost], in other statutes or documents is indicated as torta [crooked, twisted], similarly opposed to diritta [straight, straightforward]. Evidently torta and vinciperdi are two names used for the same game. It is not enough. In my opinion, even for diritta and torta it is not actually two different card games, but the same game in which the method of counting and winning is changed, and therefore also its strategy. There have been many, and still are, games that can be won by choosing to score more or fewer points. Unfortunately, I am not as sure about the type of game this is because there are different ways in which a game can be won or lost: even if it is a trick-taking game, you can count either the number of cards or the number of points scored by assigning particular values to certain cards; it is not even entirely certain that the game was actually a trick-taking game, even if some evidence in favor can be found.
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16. SCAS 939, ff. 136-138.


7
Incidentally, the very ease of playing to win or lose, in a certain sense inverting the ranking of the cards, makes me think of the traditional order of the numeral cards of ancient trick-taking games and tarocchi, with the larger cards taking the smaller ones in the two “long” suits of swords and batons and vice versa in the two “round” suits of cups and coins; almost as if the concept of win-lose had somehow come to influence the values of the cards themselves.

One thing is certain: this game of diritta or torta had by now become the game of fathers and grandfathers, the popular card game that was played for fun and not to win or lose large sums of money. I had also encountered a game with the same name in Milan, as far back as 1420, and I had reported it to the experts, hoping to read useful comments and more convincing reconstructions. [note 17]

In conclusion, it is true that other names of card games have been documented before this one - and immediately the names of condonnata and terza e quarta come to mind - but these are forbidden games, examples rather similar to the even more ancient names of the various dice games, also forbidden. The first card game to gain the seal of official tradition among the Florentine population is precisely that of diritta or torta.

I would like to take another small step in the reflection on these names of games. What games could be played when playing cards were available? It is not possible to answer with certainty, also because we know that many dice games had been in vogue for centuries, and quite a few of these were based on mechanisms that were easily transferable to the new playing cards. Furthermore, it must not have been difficult with cards to continually invent new games, as well as to retrace the previous ones.

In my opinion, however, it is an important fact that a few years after the arrival of cards there was ONE game that did not even require a specific name, because it was THE game that was commonly played with naibi. There was only the choice of playing diritta or torta, to score more points or fewer, but that was the game, and it was played in cities and towns. If cards were not used for games like dice, that was the game they were used for, openly or clandestinely depending on the times and places.

One can even hypothesize that cards arrived together with the common way of using them. I don’t mean to say that the very first naibi decks already had a sheet of instructions for playing, but if someone had brought the cards to Florence from places where they were already being used in a game, they would have seen how they were normally used. We don’t know the name of this “primitive” game; it is known to us thanks to the fact that, at least from a certain point on, you could play both to win and to lose. What could it have been called before? In my opinion it was called the game of naibi, but I understand that this name could be misleading, especially because of the possibility of using the same cards in other ways.

Trionfo and derivatives

Later on, other names of games appear, but no one knows how different these could have been from the “primitive” game already encountered. In particular, a serious problem is encountered a few years later with the appearance among the new permitted games of trionfo. There must be something in common with the previous game, given that sometimes in the statutes of other regions the rectus triumphus or rectus ludus triomphorum is permitted, which can only be that game played “in the manner of diritta” [alla diritta]. Diritta as a popular game disappears rather quickly, and in its place, one might say, comes trionfo, played, as almost always implied, in the manner of diritta.

I had already encountered trionfo in Florence in 1450, together with other permitted games. [note 18] Now I find that same Florentine law with the four permitted games - diricta, torta, trionfo, trenta - transcribed within the statute of Gambassi. [note 19]

Even the appearance of a new name for a card game, trenta, the “fourth” permitted game, creates a problem for us, with the risk of losing the thread, already tangled, of the discussion: we find this name associated with a card game in various Italian cities (and even before, as in Milan in
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17. AdT 51 (1993) 4-5. 18. TPC XIX No. 1 (1990) p. 16. 19. SCAS 348, f. 161r.

7
1420 [note 20] and Lucca in 1436, [note 21], sometimes allowed, sometimes forbidden. Furthermore, with the passing of time, variants appear such as trenta per forza [thirty by force], trenta degli ebrei [thirty of the Jews], and others. It is immediate to suppose that the number thirty indicates a limit to be reached by adding the points of the cards played or in hand, because a game of this kind already existed with dice; or it could have been a new game that, like flusso and cricca, recorded a few years later, moved in the direction of primiera. Was there perhaps also a change of opinion beginning to be made about some of the card games that had initially been prohibited because they were similar to dice games? That it was a variant of the other three, remaining in the family of trick-taking games, would seem less plausible; however, even in favor of this alternative reconstruction a clue can be found: in 1465 in Orbetello, el trenta diritto was allowed [note 22]. Evidently, the possibilities for alternative reconstructions are not limited to triumphs, which are of greater interest to us.

Whatever the situation in detail, the deck with which the inhabitants of Florence and Gambassi played must have been of ordinary quality. However, if in 1450 trionfo had already become a popular game, it could not have been a very recent invention, with decks of cards necessarily very expensive, used - and usable - only for a few months in the exclusive environment of the princely courts of Ferrara and Milan!

In the Florentine law of 1450 inserted in the statute of Gambassi there is another very significant detail, which clarifies even better the context and its abysmal distance from the noble courts. The notary draws up the statute in Latin, as often happened. He could then easily have used the Latin names for the games too, which after all would not have been too different from the Italian ones, perhaps: rectus, versus, triumphus, triginta - yet he doesn't do it; for these plebeian games, he inserts only their vulgar term, and writes it expressly:

«salvo quod praedictae penae et condemnationes non habeant locum ludorum ad tabulas cum taxillis seu ad ludum cartarum vel nayborum alter tamen ex infrascriptis quatuor modis ut vulgo dicitur alla diricta et alla torta et al trionfo et al trenta [at torta and at trionfo and at trenta]. In ceteris vero modis intelligatur ludum esse prohibitum ut supra.»

Perhaps this is why rivers of indoctrinated ink still flow around Ferrara and Milan. At the moment, I am not following closely the developments coming from the other disciplines involved, but at the suggestion of Thierry Depaulis, I can point out from the history of art a countercurrent contribution by Cristina Fiorini, [note 23] to be associated I think with the youthful courage of a doctoral author and understandably soon criticized in more traditional terms by Ross Caldwell. [note 24] Of that courage in anticipating the times of the Florentine production of triumphs to 1420, I was particularly struck by the refusal to compromise between using the last years of Giovanni di Marco's life (died 1437) for the dating, with the corresponding significant approximation to the middle of the century, an approximation that would have made the toad easier to swallow for the experts.

A different way of approaching the dates in question could be to think of one of the many craftsmen and shop assistants who could continue the style of a master for years, especially for small orders. The great works of art of the Florence of that period are remembered, but the production of artifacts, in quantities that are difficult to even imagine, by the minor craftsmen tends to be underestimated. In quantitative terms, there is a deep abyss between the oft-cited press introduced in Ferrara within the Este court specifically for the production of playing cards and the manufacturing possibilities of the many Florentine workshops.

Coming back to us, if you are bothered (not so much for me) by the idea of an expanded deck that became so quickly available and popular, consider the hypothesis of a trionfo played with the ordinary deck. Accepting this alternative reconstruction, one can find support in the Spanish trionfo, which was played with the common deck: some scholars of that nation - of the following century, however - maintained that the game was born together with the cards themselves [note 25] and perhaps before. Over time, triumphal games have also been differentiated into several types, often of a regional nature. Already from the years between the 15th and 16th centuries, Italian documents have come down to us in which various games of trionfo [note 26] are clearly indicated, and even without special cards.

Then we know that in some way from trionfo we pass to tarocchi, or rather for the Florentine region, we pass to either germini or minchiate. As regards the "standard" tarocco we can notice at
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20. AdT 51 (1993) 4-5. 21. TPC XXIV No. 5 (1996) 134-141. 22. T. Depaulis, CP August 2011.
23. TPC XXXV No. 1 (2006) 52-63. 24. TPC XXXVI No. 1 (2007) 51-62. 25. TPC XV No. 4 (1988) 117-25.
26. T. Depaulis, CP July-August 2011.

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Florence its rarity, even of the word. On the other hand, we are in a city where the commune in 1419 began to build in the convent of Santa Maria Novella the “Florentine Lateran,” that is, apartments of the popes, who stayed there often, and sometimes for a long time. It would seem implausible, for example, to tolerate here the inclusion in those years of a female pope among the playing cards.

So either germini or minchiate - I say one or the other because it is not easy to establish the chronological priority between the two terms and it seems that I myself have contributed to the confusion in this regard: without some of my findings it would be out of the question to affirm that we find germini first and minchiate after.

At the beginning of my research, I strongly suspected that the letter from Luigi Pulci to Lorenzo the Magnificent, where the name of the minchiate appeared a century earlier than usual, had been transcribed badly and I despaired at not being able to find and check the autograph text of the letter, disappearing among private collectors.[ note 27] I later found other indications confirming the popular diffusion of a game with that name (in particular, one that was not easy to find: Bartolomeo di Giovanni da Vaglia played it in Cortona for several months in the summer of 1470) [note 28], which made the presence of that word in that letter plausible to me, even without rereading it in person in the original.

I must say that I have never found the name of tarocco in the SCAS and for now also not that of minchiate, a name that even appeared among the games permitted in Florence in 1477; however, I recently found that of germini in a 1529 reform of the statute of Montecatini Val di Cecina, dedicated specifically to games. [note 29] It seems to me that the place and time are of great interest, together with the fact of how that game is mentioned. The ninth section is entitled: Punishments for those who play cards or dice, and begins as follows.

“The aforementioned statutes also ordered that no person of said Castle or in this habitation or its court may play or gamble at any forbidden game such as cards or dice where money is involved except at games of tables in which all the tables are used and at large triumphs or at germini, and whoever does this, if it is during the day, shall pay the penalty for each time . . .”

Incidentally, in a previous statute of 1472 [note 30] in that locality, all dice and card games were prohibited except the “usual” game of tables [tavole].

“Punishment for anyone who plays dice or cards. The statute is ordered that no person should play or gamble at any prohibited game, whether dice or cards, where money is lost or won or paid, except at a game of tables in which all the tables . . . sap . . . [only three letters readable] are used.”

The only card game indicated in 1529 as excluded from the prohibitions is, in my opinion, one of the natural successors of that game of diritta and torta, which a century earlier had already become traditional and allowed in several places. Everyone knows that germini later became, like minchiate, the Florentine card game par excellence, but that they were then in a town like Montecatini Val di Cecina, lost among thick woods and poorly cultivated slopes, was not a given. It may then be useful to remember the performance staged with its tarocchi by Notturno Napoletano in Sansepolcro in 1521, which has now become easier to interpret directly with minchiate, knowing that it had already been present for some time. [note 31]

Now that we have learned that germini was considered the large triumphs [trionfi grandi], what and of how many cards was the little triumphs [trionfi piccoli] that was played with as an alternative? Of course, it is much easier to imagine that the deck of litle triumphs corresponded to tarocchi with fewer cards than minchiate, rather than to the common deck without special cards: in short, the comparison with the previous deck of trionfi is more convincing if this already had added cards. The hypothesis of two different decks of 97 cards of small and large size respectively is also not very convincing (as happened decades ago with the now obsolete difference between the 40 Florentine cards larger than the corresponding Tuscan ones).

To recap, the sequence we encounter for the most traditional card game in Florence and its surroundings is, over time: diritta, trionfo, minchiate, germini, minchiate. The easiest and most well-known interpretation concerns the last two terms: everyone agrees that it is the same game,
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27. TPC XVI No. 3 (1988) 78-83. 28. AdT 52 (1993) 9-10. 29. SCAS 471, f. 42v. 30. SCAS 470, f. 17r.
31. TPC XVII No. 1 (1988) 23-33.

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which simply changes its name from germini to minchiate, still to be associated with the peculiar Florentine deck of 97 cards. It is more difficult to determine whether and to whom to associate the “normal” deck of 78 tarocchi cards (in my opinion, no one, but I could be wrong). In some ways, we unwittingly go back to the dilemma of the two possible alternative reconstructions of trionfo. If trionfo is associated with the ordinary deck, the first vogue for the name minchiate could be associated precisely with the 78-card deck or, I would say better, with a similar one. Indeed, the term minchiate could have even indicated various decks with special cards added, different in number or type; among these decks with special cards, that of germini would later become popular, so much so that it took back for itself the name of minchiate previously used for the whole family. It is also possible to consider the poetic suggestion of Alfonso dei Pazzi to the cardmaker Padovano [note 32], which would indicate the introduction of the special cards of minchiate as substitutes and not additional to those of the ordinary deck.

If instead we assume that trionfo was already played with additional cards (not necessarily twenty-two), the name minchiate of the years around 1470 would correspond to a first use of that name for the new deck of 97 cards, a use that would then be resumed after an interval of half a century in which the term germini was used as an alternative. (My impression is that the term minchiate never completely fell into disuse, but here too I could be wrong.) Some doubts remain, however, because it makes little sense to use two different names alternatively for the same game and even less to use those names together in some legal provisions of 1545 and 1577 in the Sienese territory, in which one reads both minchiate and germini as if they were referring to two different games. [note 33]

As you can see, there are still some knots to be untied, and moreover they are linked: to do so you need either a mind like that of Michael Dummett, capable of easily building a system that is not only complete but also coherent, or you need to find other documents that allow, more easily yet, to eliminate some of the hypothesized reconstructions that may still find supporters.

Trumps [Briscole] and Trionfi

My research mainly concerns the Florentine, or rather Tuscan, environment, but the discussion can be extended to an even broader and more complex context by taking into account what we know from other locations. The way in which the “triumphal” cards were added to the ordinary deck and their number were in fact different for different times and places. It can be certain that for trionfo and derivatives there were not only the 52-card (48 for Spain), 78-card, and 97-card decks mainly examined so far...

To begin with, the first deck of triumphs with added cards that I have knowledge of so far was 16. [note 34] In that case, we are far from Florence, but I would not be too surprised if it was recognized that it was precisely from here that Marziano da Tortona had drawn some details of his specific culture. Primitive tarot decks with 70 cards have been documented in Ferrara and interpreted as consisting of five suits of 14 cards. At the court of Ferrara, in particular, I know that research on the origin of the triumphs has been carried out, thoroughly and of a high academic level, also thanks to the work of Adriano Franceschini. [note 35] In my humble opinion, however, we must be careful in using those documents and in placing them in the context of fifteenth-century civilization, which did indeed have some noble courts as important centers of culture and artisanal manufacturing, but no longer in such an exclusive manner as actually occurred, for example, in the neopalatial stage of the great Minoan civilization.

Let us not forget that shortly before the first known mentions of triumphs, imperatori cards were imported to Ferrara from Florence (and not vice versa!) as I have had occasion to recall [note 36] and later to comment on. [note 37] I do not see why in Florence one could not play the new game of trionfo using a local deck of imperatori cards, or one similar.
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32. AdT 38 (1989) 9-10. 33. T. Depaulis, CP August 2011. 34. TPC XVIII No. 1 and No. 2 (1989) p. 28-38.
35. A. Franceschini, Artisti a Ferrara in età umanistica e rinascimentale. 1: Dal 1341 al 1471. Corbo, Rome-Ferrara 1993.
36. AdT 54 (1995) 16-17. 37. Cartophilia Helvetica, 11 No. 4 (1996) 11-13.


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Decks of other types have been reported or hypothesized but it is obvious, even if not for everyone, that those known today in full are only a completely negligible fraction of those that actually existed.

Returning to Milan, the “strange” deck of Marziano preceded by decades the more famous ones of the mid-fifteenth century, also connected to the Visconti, for some of which the number of “triumphal” cards in the original composition remains the subject of profound discussions, indeed precisely those most frequently debated among the numerous experts of the various disciplines involved, starting with the history of art.

Discussions on these topics should, however, first clarify the transition from the “primitive” game of naibi discussed above, to that of trionfo. That was the most important change and would remain so, in my opinion, even if the idea of triumphs [trionfi] had been born “simply” within the same deck as the naibi.

In particular, there were two innovations compared to the naibi, not easy to understand if and how they were separated: on the one hand, that of introducing additional triumphal cards and on the other, that of assigning trump [briscola] functions to single cards or to an entire suit, fixed or to be determined from one hand to another in the naibi deck. The question of which of these two innovations was introduced first (if it was not just one and the distinction occurred later, for example by eliminating the added cards and reusing the old deck for the new game) is a bit like the classic question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.

Seen from the perspective of later events, it can be concluded that the two innovations led to significant but different results: in the field of subsequent traditional card games, up to bridge, it was the concept of trumps within the ordinary deck that was probably more successful, while the additional cards in turn opened up new avenues that led them, among other things, to later be referred to as “arcana,” a name that was already in itself highly indicative of a further semi-serious and completely different use. (I spontaneously wrote “semi-serious” so as not to say unserious, but I should perhaps correct it instead to “very serious,” judging by the rivers of ink, even mixed with erudition, that continually flow on that subject, and certainly not on [their function as] trumps [briscole].) It is easy to hypothesize, even thinking back to Marziano's deck, that the two concepts of trumps and extra cards may have had a connected origin. The new “fifth suit” may have been the result of a different placement of those same cards originally added in each of the four suits above the standard cards: the first known deck with additional cards had the sixteen deities that could be considered both as a fifth suit of sixteen added cards, or as four groups of four cards added within the four pre-existing suits. [note 38] For such a mechanism to work without problems, the total number of cards in the new deck with five suits must be equal to that of the old one with four suits, each with a given number of cards added. The possibilities are few because that number must be a multiple of 4 and 5: for plausible total numbers of cards, you get a deck of 40 (4x10 or 5x8), or 60 (4x15 or 5x12), or at most one of 80 (4x20 or 5x16).

A primitive deck of trumps constructed in this way, so to speak in a theoretical way, would then have been modified differently in different times and places, to the point of reforming some regional tarot standards such as the Milanese, Bolognese, Sicilian and the richer one of minchiate, popular here. After the masterly analyses of Michael Dummett, the various possibilities of these developments and the related intermediate steps are still the object of detailed studies by experts at all levels.

In particular, the documentation and discussion that can be found on the Internet is becoming increasingly richer in this regard: there is now so much knowledge stored there that the risk of losing one's own knowledge becomes concrete. Confessing my limited frequentation of those enormous repositories (I mean in this field; they have long been essential to me and in current use in other sectors of interest), there are some names that I feel like mentioning: Andrea Vitali [note 39] and Girolamo Zorli [note 40], who finally dedicates some attention also to the popular manufacturing of Bologna (and the second also to the technique of the

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game); also Lothar Teikemeier [note 41] for his persistent and boundless research in all environments, especially, unfortunately, in those of the literati and the courts.

It is difficult to find today on the issues discussed above an authoritative opinion of the few very competent (and, why not, also of the many not very competent) who are interested in them, such as to be more convincing than another. In such cases, not even the criterion of considering the opinion with the majority of supporters as more valid is reliable. In short, you are still authorized to independently give yourself the answers that convince you most. While you decide for yourself, I will continue to search for some other information in the archives, with the hope of narrowing down the field of validly sustainable hypotheses.
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38. TPC XXVIII No. 3 (1999) 144-151.
39. http://letarot.it
40. http://www.tretre.it/menu/accademia-del ... -di-carte/
41. http://trionfi.com

Figure 1 – State Archives of Florence.
Appendix

Statute of Volterra, 1459. [note 42]

Chapter LX. That cards may not be played except in two games.
It is also provided and ordered that no one dares or presumes in the future to play any card game of any kind or type of cards of whatever name and method of playing called by any fashion, except that type of game which is commonly called at [alla] diricta and also at [a] vinciperdi, in which two methods one can freely and without penalty play under penalty of five lire to each violation [contrafacente] or otherwise playing in fact to be taken away and to be applied to the commune of Volterra for the two parts and for the other fourth part to the rector who collects and makes it come to the commune and for the other fourth part to the accuser or denouncer to whom also secrecy is kept.
These two quarters, that is, of the collecting rector and of the accuser or denouncer, the general treasurer of the chamber of said commune, once they have reached his hands, can and must pay without further assessment, and the notaries of the chamber can freely put [it] in output [ad uscite ponere, in other words, enter in the account book as cash outlay] and without penalty and according to the form of the other orders of said commune.
Even though all the individual penalties, clauses, dispositions, provisions and similar chapters speak and provide in some way against those who play the forbidden game and at zara have no place at all

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42. SCAS 939, f. 137v.

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against those who play at the game of cards excepted the said two ways and types of playing above permitted and conceded, namely at diricta and vinciperdi, in which it is possible to play legally and without penalty.
And just as it is said to be known and to be proceeded with and to be punished, it can be done as also for prohibited games in any statute, provision and ordinance is disposed and ordered.

Now comes another series of notes, these all from 2015, the time immediately before I started translating Franco's notes and articles. The first one is a translation of "1542: Arrone - trionfi grandi," at https://naibi.net/A/409-ARRONE-Z.pdf. Comments in square brackets are mine, in consultation with Franco, for explanatory purposes.

1542: Arrone – Large Triumphs


Introduction

Arrone is an ancient Umbrian village located on a hill about twenty kilometers from the administrative seat, Terni. Here we are interested exclusively in a phrase contained in the municipal statutes of 1542, relating to the penalties against gambling. The origin of this interest was a reference present in a well-known Latin dictionary, [note 1] in which there are 14 pages under the entry ludus with indications of the individual games and some references for each one. The entry ad triumphos, triumphorum begins with a definition that appears rather misleading: "card game according to the suit [colore] of the card, called trionfo [triumph], discovered at the beginning of the game." Naturally, this definition is not entirely wrong, because triumph games of this type, with the use of an ordinary deck of cards, really did exist. In the discussion that follows, however, that term is intended to refer to what later became better known as the deck and game of tarocchi.

Among the references cited by Sella, one caught my attention:

“ludus ad triumphos magnos vel smegnatas,” Arrone 1542, f. 24v. [note 2]

From there, a new study began, which is nothing more than another step in a journey undertaken years ago.


Large triumphs [trionfi grandi]

A distinction between small and large cards is found already in the naibi, in the early times of their use; for example, in an account book of an Arezzo merchant from the beginning of the fifteenth century. [note 3] However, it is not at all clear whether, for triumphs, the distinction between large and
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1. Sella, Glossario latino italiano, Citta del Vaticano 1944.
2. Ref. 1, p. 335.
3. http://trionfi.com/evx-arezzo-giglio-di-bettino

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small also consisted only of the difference in the size of the cards. Let us focus on the large triumphs without exploring the possible attributions of the adjective small.

A few years ago, it was reported that in the statutes of Montecatini Val di Cecina of 1529 there is mention of trionfi grandi overo germini [large triumphs or germini]. [note 4] This is a very important association, because, for the first time, we find written that trionfi grandi could be identified with germini, the Florentine tarocchi of 97 cards. Only after some time did I have some doubts about the conjunction “overo” [or]: it cannot be completely excluded that it is instead here to connect two names of different games, both the game of large triumphs, trionfi grandi, and the game of germini. Also because in some other statutes one can find the indication of both games, precisely as if they were two different games. An example of this kind can be found in the statute of Castel del Piano of 1571: some games were excluded from the usual prohibition, and, in particular, it was permitted to play a li trionfi piccoli e grandi di nove carte et al gioco de’ germini [at trionfi small and large of nine cards and the game of germini]. [note 5]

Any confirmation in one sense or the other was highly desirable. Now in Arrone we find a confirmation for the same game identified with two different names.


The game in the statutes of Arrone of 1542

With a quick bibliographical search, you can find a book dedicated specifically to the statutes in question. Unfortunately, this book is not available in bookstores or even in the major Florentine libraries. However, you can find information about it in the fundamental book (for our sector) edited by Alessandra Rizzi: Pirro's book has not, in fact, escaped the attention of the curator and her collaborators, who comment as follows.

The text does not contain editions of statutes; however, on pp. 47-48, it reports in translation rubric 153 containing games.

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4. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2012), 179-197.
5. http://naibi.net/A/401-NOVECARTE-Z.pdf
6. L. Pirro, 2: Gli statuti del 1542. Arrone 1984.
7. A. Rizzi (ed.), Statuta de ludo. Treviso and Rome 2012, p. 31.

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In short, the book may be important, but we already know that it does not contain the original Latin text of the statutes we are looking for. While waiting to read those two pages of specific interest, I looked for where the manuscript with the Statutes could be found. The fact that Sella cites f. 24v means that the original still existed and can probably be traced. With today's Internet tools, it was not difficult to identify the current location of that exemplar. [note 8]

Thanks to the kind availability of the librarian Alessandra Casamassima, I was able to promptly receive a copy of the paragraphs in the study. The writing is clear but faded, to the point of becoming illegible at the end of the page; the text in question corresponds exactly to what is reported in the Sella reference. In particular, the part of interest is copied below.

De poena ludentibus ad ludum vetitum et prohibitum.
Statuimus et ordinamus ut [+++] blasfemiae et propter inutile tempus quod ludendo amittitur quod nulla persona cuiuscumque conditionis et [+++] et status sit audeat vel praesumat ludere // ad aliquem ludum vetitum et prohibitum; videlicet ad cartas et aleas seu ludum taxillorum. Et qui contrafecerit puniatur poena librarum decem trium pro quolibet et vice qualibet, et simili poena puniatur qui praestiterit cartas et aleas, et dominus domus in qua ludetur; et de nocte poena duplicetur . Et liceat officiali auferre denarios, quos tenerent in ludo ipsi lusores. Et simili etiam poena puniatur qui prestiterit pecunias dictis lusoribus, vel fecerit eos ludere pro se in parte vel in toto. Liceat autem cuilibet ludere ad triumphos magnos vel smegnatas impune sine blasfemia omni tempore. Et volumus etiam quod omni tempore unicuique liceat ludere ad dictos ludos vetitos pro uno scopto tantum, valoris unius grossi pro quolibet lusore, dummodo non ludant pecuniam et non blasfement ipsi lusores. Item liceat cuilibet impune ludere ad omnem ludum in festa nativitatis domini nostri Iesu Cristi cum octo diebus sequentibus sine blasfemia ut supra. Et hoc prae gaudio ipsius nativitatis domini nostri. Necnon liceat impune cuilibet ludere ad omnem ludum sine blasfemia per totum mensem augusti cum licentia curiaearum.

[On the punishment of those playing at a prohibited and forbidden game.
We decree and order that [+++] blasphemy and because of the useless time that is lost by playing that no person of any condition and [+++] and status shall dare or presume to play // at any forbidden and prohibited game; namely at cards and dice [aleas] or the game of dice [taxillorum]. And whoever contravenes shall be punished with a penalty of thirteen pounds [librarum] for each and every occasion, and with a similar penalty shall be punished whoever provides the cards and dice, and the owner of the house in which the game is played; and at night the penalty shall be doubled. And it shall be lawful for the official to take away the money that the players themselves hold in the game. And with a similar penalty shall also be punished whoever lends money to said players, or has them play for himself in part or in whole. But it shall be lawful for anyone to play at large triumphs or smegnatas [sminchiate] with impunity without blasphemy at all times. And we also want that at all times anyone may be permitted to play at said forbidden games for a scopto [=scotto, a meal], of the value of one grosso for each player, provided that they do not play for money and that the players themselves do not blaspheme. Likewise, anyone may be permitted to play with impunity any game on the feast of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the eight days following, without blasphemy as above. And this out of joy at the same nativity of our Lord. And also may anyone be permitted to play with impunity at any game without blasphemy throughout the entire month of August with the permission of the courts.

Let us try to summarize the main points. It begins, as often happened, with the prohibition of games [that are]... prohibited, which here are at least
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8. Rome. Biblioteca del Senato, Statuti MSS 27.

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exemplified by carte [cards] (by now we no longer speak of naibi, assuming that they were previously indicated as such also in Arrone) and dice. For dice games, both typical terms are used as synonyms, the older aleae, and the more recent taxilli. [note 9]

Of course, the definition of the penalty is important, with all the associated cases and exceptions. The general case is 13L [Libre=Pounds]. for each player and for each time. The amount of the penalty already deserves a comment, because it does not correspond to the most frequent values. It seems that it was obtained by successive halvings starting from 100L, which corresponded to the very high penalty often set for blasphemy. By halving a couple of times, we find 25L, which was not rare as a penalty for players; but here it is halved again and rounded to 13L. The same penalty is inflicted on anyone who lends cards or dice and also on the owner of the house in which the game is played. Even anyone who lends money to play or has someone play in his place is sentenced to the same extent. The same penalty, the only one for all the cases indicated, is, however, doubled if the game is played at night.

There are nonetheless several important exceptions, valid in any case only if the game is not accompanied by blasphemy: this additional condition is so indispensable that it is invariably repeated for every occurrence. In the meantime, there are some permitted games: one can play with impunity at large triumphs or sminchiate [triumphos magnos vel smegnatas, with a possible transition from “nchi” to “nghi” to “gn”]. Furthermore, the same prohibited games can be played if one plays only for a meal, with a limit equivalent to one soldo of silver. Other exceptions concern the days to be considered so festive that even the prohibited games become legal: for Christmas, and the eight following days are also added, meaning that in this way Jesus Christ himself is celebrated; then the entire month of August is also added, without explaining who the one celebrated would be.


Discussion

In mathematics, if a = b and a = c one can usually conclude that b = c, and then, if this transitive property were also applicable to our
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9. L. Zdekauer, Archivio storico italiano, 18 (1886) p. 23.

5
case of the statutes of Montecatini and Arrone, it would be immediately proven that germini was equal to minchiate, which, moreover, cannot surprise historians of playing cards. In reality, some small probability that there were minimal differences between germini and minchiate had to be taken into consideration, also in view of the use of the term minchiate already in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, when almost all historians do not believe that germini could already exist, nor even that minchiate known from the following century.

In fact, the names germini and minchiate usually indicated the same deck of Florentine cards, and on the other hand, no one will doubt that the Latin term we find here of smegnatas indicated precisely minchiate. Point after point, we end up transferring attention from the names of the games mainly to the conjunctions that bind them: Italian overo, and Latin seu [and vel]. It seems to me that the Latin seu reinforces the Italian overo in the meaning of ossia, that is, or, which already seemed the most plausible.


Parentheses on tarocchi

The noun tarocchi has not been mentioned so far, but over time it was precisely this term that prevailed over the others to indicate these decks of cards and also the games in which they were used. In the tarocchi deck, there are the "normal" cards that are also found in other common decks and that cartomancers later called minor arcana, and the special or superior cards, which some call triumphal cards or triumphs, while they are known as major arcana among cartomancers. Originally, the corresponding nouns were used rather the other way around: the entire deck was called triumphs, and only sometime later is the noun tarocchi attributed to the superior cards documented; shortly after, and with some distinction depending on the location, the noun tarocchi came to include the entire deck and the related game.

Tarocchi decks are known in many different forms. The best known is the “standard” one of 78 cards, of which the so-called Marseille Tarot can be considered the typical example. The enormous success that this particular deck has received in recent times among cartomancers and collectors has

6
led to the production of countless examples, sometimes in addition with artistic ambitions. However, throughout history, different tarocchi [decks] have existed (and in part are still used) not only by the design of the figures but also by the number of cards contained in the deck; indeed, often the difference in the number of cards was the determining characteristic. In Bologna, 62 cards were used, in Florence 97, in Sicily 64, in Austria and neighboring countries often 54. Sometimes the tarocchi [deck] had a specific name, as in Florence where it was mostly called minchiate.

I don't think the Florentine triumphs were ever called tarocchi; they were either indicated with the generic name of triumphs or then, probably in the new local variant, with their name of germini or minchiate. Even for the Florentine decks of germini or minchiate, the noun tarocchi is found assigned, in this case, to the upper cards. In years of research, I have found only one law, in 1606 in Florence, where there is talk of decks of tarocchi and germini as two different decks. [note 10]

However, if we move from official public documents to accepting as valid documentation also that found in literary works, sometimes less reliable, we find at least one attestation of games in which, next to the triumphs, which may have also maintained their generic meaning, both tarocchi and sminchiate appear. Obviously, here, too, the problem is not that of reading sminchiate as minchiate, also because other attestations of these two ways of writing the same name can be found.

Viso proprio di tarocco colui a chi piace questo gioco [dei tarocchi] che altro non vuol dire tarocco che ignocco, sciocco… degno di star fra fornari e calzolai, e plebei a giuocarsi in tutto un di carlino in quarto a Tarocchi, o a Trionfi, o a Sminchiate che si sia; che ad ogni modo tutto importa minchioneria e dappocaggine, pascendo l'occhio col sole e con la luna e col dodici, come fanno i putti. [note 11]

[Let him look to it, who is pleased with the game of Tarocco, that the only signification of this word Tarocco, is stupid, foolish, simple, fit only to be used by Bakers, Coblers [sic], and the vulgar, to play at most for the fourth part of a Carlino, at Tarocchi, or at Trionfi, or any Sminchiate whatever: which in every way signifies only foolery and idleness, feasting the eye with the Sun, and the Moon, and the twelve (signs) as children do.]

As with overo and other conjunctions, here, too, the reading lends itself to multiple interpretations. It is not at all certain that the text should be
________________
10. http://trionfi.com/evx-germini-tarocchi-minchiate
11. F. Berni, Capitolo del gioco della primiera col comento di messer Pietropaulo da San Chirico. Rome 1526. [Translation by Samuel Weller Singer, Researches into the History of Playing Cards, London 1816, p. 28, in Google Books.]

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read as if it really indicated three different decks or games – Tarocchi, Trionfi, Germini – coexisting at that time. Between three games and just one, it cannot be ruled out that two are indicated, but it cannot be excluded that the author lists three synonyms of a single game; indeed, to me this last interpretation seems the most plausible.

Only in Florence was the situation so ambiguous that among triumphs (possibly with different compositions for small and large), tarocchi, germini and minchiate, it is not possible to reconstruct in a complete and reliable way what the identities, differences, and corresponding chronology were. For the other cities there is only the doubt of how long the local triumphs could have remained unchanged to the time in which they became better known as tarocchi.


Conclusion

We compare two communal statutes from the sixteenth century that identify the trionfi grandi, large triumphs, as the Florentine tarocchi known as germini or minchiate; we then introduce into the discussion a literary text by Francesco Berni from a few years earlier. Despite the small increases that can be recognized in the availability of information on the subject, we still lack a reliable document that can allow us to reconstruct in a unique and convincing way the possible compositions of the decks of the first triumph cards and their evolution, especially in the Florentine territory.

Franco Pratesi – 13.06.2015

Here is the second in the new series of notes, this one a translation of "1405: Firenze – Condanne del Capitano per carte o naibi," at https://naibi.net/A/413-CAPINAIB-Z.pdf, dated July 3, 2015. Comments in brackets are mine, in consultation with Franco, for clarification purposes.


1405: Florence – Convictions by the Captain for cards or naibi

Introduction

This investigation was carried out on some Books of the Captain of the People [Libri del Capitano del Popolo], compiled between the 14th and 15th centuries and preserved in the ASFi. In Florence, the office of Captain of the People is of rather undefined origin but had certain recognition from the mid-13th century; the main task of this magistrate was to coordinate the companies of citizens in arms and to organize their interventions whenever necessary, therefore essentially a military role. With the passing of time, the military function became less and less important, and more than the coordinator of citizens organized for battles the captain became the defender of citizens now organized in corporations. The archive collection studied is itself called Captain of the People and Defender of the Arts, and for a short period there were even two different magistrates for the two functions mentioned.

The captain was usually a nobleman from another city, but because of his position, he was naturally closely linked to the factions that governed the city and therefore had a very important political role, especially in the fourteenth century when he presided over the main city councils. The functions of the captain of the people were then essentially political, but in the period that interests us, at the end of the century, they were practically reduced to the judicial sphere. Civil and criminal jurisdiction was exercised within defined limits and was mainly reduced to the civil sector after the creation of the Otto di guardia e balia [Eight of guard and, possibly of limited duration, dictatorial power] in 1378 (the very year of the beginning of the present research). However, the captain's “family” continuously carried out police functions, and among these, particular attention was paid to the control of those who carried weapons, who went out at night, who gambled; these are the same crimes that in Florence, as in the smaller towns, were controlled by the podestà [chief magistrate], but here the “families” of the podestà and the captain acted independently.

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The Libri inventionum [Books of discoveries] examined

The drafting and keeping of the books was the duty of the captain's notary and basically followed a well-established practice, which was very similar, if not identical, to that adopted by the podestà's notaries. Different books were kept separately for the various matters, not only civil separated from criminal, but also trials, recorded in separate books for the various phases of the trial itself, including special books for accusations, inquisitions, defense witnesses, prosecution witnesses, and finally the books of sentences, often the only ones still in parchment. The number of Books of the Captain usually exceeded a dozen, and the last in the series was dedicated precisely to the inventory of all these books, which at the end of the captain's six-month term of office were delivered to the commune [i.e. the Florentine Republic].

Among so much documentation, that of specific interest for gambling (unless there were actually trials in which gambling was involved) is a minimal part, the registration of those whom the captain's “family” had discovered with weapons, or at night, or, indeed, gambling. In the Inventorio [Inventory} [note 1] of this archive collection, only in a few cases is there indication of the Liber inventionum, precisely the book of our main interest. The "discoveries" are obviously the occasions in which the criminals are caught red-handed by the patrol of the captain's policemen, or berrovieri.

About the fact that the Liber inventionum is not listed in the Inventorio for many years: it may be that in some cases, the book in question is present but registered differently; even more likely is the hypothesis that the book is not listed simply because it was not compiled and bound alone. It seems to be excluded with certainty that the entire six-month period of the captain's office passed without "discoveries," but all those that occurred could have been registered separately and then collected in another book, and the most probable in this regard is another in the same section of the Ufficium extraordinariorum [Office of extra-ordinary matters]. Usually in one of these books, which is almost always present, the captain's declarations are recorded, starting with the general one on the occasion of his installation, the positions and missions of the delegated officers with the relative changes, the various missions and embassies, various political and administrative commitments, and so on.

The purpose of this research was to investigate over the course of several years whether
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1. ASFI Inventario V 500

3
there was any certain evidence of the first diffusion of playing cards in Florence, and therefore it was considered sufficient to examine only the cases in which the Liber inventionum is explicitly indicated in the Inventorio. The books examined are the following, with the corresponding year in brackets: 1096 (1378), 1786 (1389), 1832 (1390), 2197 (1402), 2213 (1403), 2227 (1403), 2240 (1404), 2261 (1405), 2280 (1405), 2322 (1407).

From the examination of the books listed above, some general observations can be drawn and then some particular cases can be highlighted.


General observations

In all the books examined, one observes the recurrent use of set phrases, stereotyped expressions that are only exceptionally altered. Only occasionally are there substantial differences, which will be reported later and which are explained by the fact that these are books written by different notaries under different captains. For the same notary, the same general structure is regularly maintained, and also the form of the individual entries is recorded according to a punctually followed practice. Usually, one finds a sort of verbalization of all the outings of the captain's “family,” including those in which they do not encounter crimes for convictions.

The subject of our interest, those convicted for gambling, always corresponds to only a part of the recorded convictions, often the most frequently indicated. Let us limit ourselves to this part of greatest interest to us. Worthy of note here is the fact that the sentence imposed is never recorded: those convicted are reported to the Chamber of the Commune, where they will have to pay the fine imposed, and there the sum of money received will then be recorded. The lack of the figure corresponding to the conviction is a serious gap for us, because it does not allow us to understand if and by how much the sentences could have been different in the various cases.

The gambling for which the criminals are convicted is always indicated in the same way, even if different spellings can be seen, sometimes even in the handwriting of the same notary: çardum, açardum, aççardum, less frequent çare: in a considerable number of cases for each of these nouns the letter z is found instead of ç [two different spellings, pronounced the same, in words for the dice game of zara]. More rarely, the ludus is found written taxillorum or tassillorum [dice], which, however, most likely indicated the same game as zara. In particular, we cannot

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understand with certainty whether that recurring name could refer to various games and in particular those of naibi. Of course, if we are talking about ludus taxillorum, the naibi cannot be included in the denomination, but even in the statutes and in the bannimenta [declarations of prohibitions], next to the noun çardum it is often indicated that all games of a similar nature are meant in this way. Among games of a similar nature to zara, the transition to other dice games is easy and understandable; the transition to games of naibi is much more difficult to hypothesize, but not impossible. In fact, the terminology used to define prohibited games, even in the communal statutes, often becomes so broad as to include everything, as it recurrently refers to all games "in which money or other goods are lost or won."

As a rule, each entry relating to convictions begins with the names of the condemned, and therefore we encounter a notable number of names of gamblers. It would be interesting to verify with a more complete study, better if extended also to the books of the six-month periods that were not considered, how many of these gamblers caught in the act were habitual gamblers. Perhaps this would be even more interesting in the case of the convicted coming from other cities, who appear quite frequently in the conviction entries. The cities of origin are various, perhaps more frequent from Emilia and Romagna, but also from other cities, as far as Naples. In these cases, it is not clear whether they were professional gamblers who came to fleece the Florentines, or vice versa, if they were unwary foreigners, passing through Florence, even easier to catch in the act by the captain's “family.”

The names of the players, however, are not always recorded. Sometimes, of a company of several players, the fact that some did not give their names is written; on other occasions, it is recorded that some managed to escape. Of these players who escaped or did not give their personal details, the exact number is always indicated. In these cases, it is easy to imagine that those convicted [together] with the registered name also had to pay the penalty for the others who were not identified. The deduction that can be drawn is that it was a single and equal sentence for each player: regardless of the number of those convicted, each had to pay the same sum; otherwise, the precision in indicating also the number of those who could not be identified could not be explained.

We also encounter more numerous cases than we could have expected of players who do manage to escape, but in a different way, which today would seem to have occurred with the complicity of the police;

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instead of the name of the fugitive, which could not be recorded, what the fugitive left behind on the spot before fleeing is recorded: depending on the season, a heavy cloak, or a light overcoat (for which we usually find the noun chlamys, well known from classical civilization), or other items of clothing. In all these cases, the type of object is not written simply, but at least its color is indicated. These items of clothing went to the Chamber of the Commune as pledges to be sold, cashing in the proceeds if the convicted person did not show up to redeem them by paying the penalty for gambling. One can imagine that it was a sort of compromise, such that it was convenient for the player to pay the penalty in kind in advance. Certainly, whatever the background, these cases were quite frequent.


Special cases

By special cases it meant here anything different that can be found in one of the captain's books compared to other similar ones, and therefore it may be useful to briefly review them one after the other.

• No. 1096 (1378). Contains the bannimenta gathered in the first part of the book, while the second contains the “discoveries.” Here we find some indications of the extent of the punishment, set at 7L.10s. and there are recorded cases of insolvent convicteds who end up in the Stinche prison and are released only with “baptism,” the punishment of bathing in the Arno, even out of season.
• No. 1786 (1389). The book is thicker than usual, with 123 folios, restored after being flooded, so much so that several parts are difficult to read; it contains more bans of the captain. The most common spelling here for gambling is ludus çare [game zare]. Very rarely do vague indications appear about the place: quadam logia, hostia aperta [a certain loggia, open gate]. Among the various convictions, there are some curious cases, such as that of two unfortunates caught urinating next to the Chamber of the Commune (capti mingere prope logia communis [captured urinate near the commune loggia]); one can suppose that it was the “where” rather than the “what” that prompted the conviction. After all, it would not be a strange case, and not even for the following centuries; on the contrary, it seems strange that this crime is found only in exceptional cases, unless dealing with such trivial infractions was part of the duties of the captain's “family.”
• No. 1832 (1390). It does not differ much from the others, as it contains the general declaration [bando] at the beginning and others later interspersed with the usual

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• reports of the outings of the captain's “family.” The game is typically referred to as ludus azare. There is one thing, however, that is present here as in no other of the books examined: the identification of the city location where the players were caught in the act. Thus, numerous citations of the type in logia Brunalleschi, in foro veteri, in platea comunis, in via larga, in via Amoris, ad pontem Refredi, in platea de Srozzis [in the loggia of Brunalleschi, in the old forum, in the commune square, in the via larga, in the via Amoris, at the Refredi bridge, in Srozzis square]. It is known that in Florence, there has never been a public gambling establishment [baratteria] authorized by the commune, unlike other cities that derived proceeds from the related tax; however, in some limited areas of the city, the captain's “family” could go on practically a sure shot when they wanted to hit gambling.
• No. 2197 (1402-03). A bundle of only six written folios. It is referred to as a ludus zardi and rarely taxillorum; in one case, tabula [board] is spoken of, but it seems that only the surface on which the dice were rolled is meant. We encounter the usual cloaks abandoned by fugitives.
• No. 2213 (1403). A bundle of nine folios bound in parchment with the captain's coat of arms. It is often repeated that the game was played sub quodam porticho [under a certain portico], without further indications of the location. The same notary writes ludus azardi, but also zardi.
• No. 2227 (1404). As usual, zardi is spoken of, or also azardi. We rarely find the localization per viam [by the street], but it is almost always specified that the game took place sub quodam porticho [under a certain portico], assuming that one can speak of a specification. In Florence, the porticos were less numerous than in other Italian cities, but these recurring reports, without indicating which portico was in question, remain completely useless for an actual location.
• No. 2240 (1404). A file without a cover, of only seven written folios. A crime that would certainly have been common, but which we never find, is stone-throwing with a sling (lapides cum archo tenso). Otherwise, the rule of ludum zardi sub quodam porticho [playing zara under a certain portico] is spoken of.
• No. 2261 (1405). Coverless file of only seven written folios. The games are systematically indicated as ludum azardi sub quodam portico. However, the first of all these cases is different, and will be discussed later because we finally meet the naibi. Among others, there is also a super quodam tabulerio [on a certain board], but it is specifiedthat they played the usual ludum azardi; the board [tabulerio] is mentioned only because it is on that board that the players abandoned tres soldos [three soldi]. Convictions for weapons are fewer than others. But this also occurs in other books.

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• No. 2280 (1405-06). A bundle with ten written folios bound in parchment with the captain's coat of arms. Ludus azardi is normally used for gambling. The cards are not numbered, but on what would be f. 3r there is the specification of the ludus cartarum sive nagibum, which will be discussed in the next section.
• No. 2322 (1406). There is a record of coins confiscated from players, or abandoned by them when they fled, as in September, two grossi of silver on the 13th, and thirty-one soldi on the 20th.

Cards [carte] and naibi

Since the information we were looking for was that on the naibi, it is time to focus on two of the many captures by the captain's “family,” which are found in books No. 2261 and No. 2280, relating respectively to the beginning and end of the year 1405. (To be precise, the first months of the year are still indicated in these documents as 1404, since the Florentine New Year was set on March 25, ab Incarnatione [from the Incarnation, i.e. after Jesus entered Mary’s womb].) First, the original Latin text is reproduced for the two cases.

In Book of the Captain No. 2261, this is the second case listed among all the convictions, on the first folio.

Die xviii februari (1405). Quam plures homines ad ludum cartarum sive naibulorum super quodam banco et propter timorem arripuerunt fugam et dimisserunt duos grossos argenteos et unum par cartarum et missi fuerunt ad cameram communis.

[On the 18th of February (1405). Several people at the game of cards or of naibi on a certain bench and because of fear [of seizure] took flight and left two silver grossi and one pair [deck] of cards, and they were sent to the chamber of the commune.]

Well, in this case, it cannot be written that the players were playing dice, because in addition to two silver grossi they left an entire deck of playing cards on the table. The deck was still indicated as a pair, so that when at the time we find a mazzo di carte indicated [which later meant “deck of cards”], the expression should be read as “a bundle of sheets of paper.” The usual naibi are indicated here as naibuli, barring possible reading errors. In this case, the treasurer of the commune will have to put in the takings a sum linked to the value of the two coins and the cards rather than collecting the usual equal sum for all the players, who, in this case, we don't even know how many there were.

In the Book of the Captain No. 2280 on folio 3r (not numbered), we read the following.

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Die xxii Novembris (1405). Ser Cola de Menale milex soctius praefati domini Capitani iens et rediens in et per civitatem Florentiae retulit michi notario casse se invenisse
Micchaelem Benedicti populi S. Donati et duos alios qui noluerunt dicere nomen eorum ludentes ad ludum <azar deleted> cartarum sive nagibum contra formam statutorum civitatis Florentiae et per Francischictum de exculo? qui iurant ad sancta dei evangelia scripturarum corporaliter manu tactis se invenisse.

[On the 22nd of November (1405). Ser Cola de Menale, knight, partner to the aforesaid Lord Captain going and returning to and through the city of Florence reported to me notary of takings that he found.
Michael Benedict of the parish of St. Donatus and two others who did not want to say their name playing at the game of cards [cartarum] or nagibum against the form statutes of the city of Florence, and [with Cola] through Franceschetto from exculo[?], who swear to [what] they found, physically touching the hands on the holy gospels of the scriptures.]

In reading the text, some uncertainties remain, especially deriving from the abbreviations used by the notary. Thus, it is possible that instead of nagibum one should more plausibly read nagiborum, while the scripturae may be in a case other than the genitive plural. Of some interest is the correction, with the deletion of azar, that habit had caused to be written automatically, as always. Instead, in this case, the only finding, the notary corrects himself: it was not a game of zara, but instead of dice they were using playing cards. Also of some interest here is the use of the synonym, to leave no room for misunderstanding: carte sive naibi [cards or naibi]. In this case, thanks to the sive, but also to the sense, there is no doubt that they are the same thing; they are in any case playing cards, which were also called naibi.

By the way, the Latin term for these playing cards is written here in one case naibuli and in the other nagibi, two different ways among the many in which this name is indicated, confirming, if there was any need, its foreign origin, still relatively recent.

Perhaps even more important than the fact that playing cards are referred to respectively as naibuli or nagibi is the fact that they are also directly called cartae. This would seem natural, since, then as now, it was easy to pass the name from the material used to produce the object to the object itself; moreover, the Italian term carta had been known and used for a long time. A similar double denomination for “carte e naibi” was found in Prato in a document from 1410; [note 2] but in Florence, playing cards were normally referred to as naibi, with all the associated difficulties in correctly writing that unusual name, of which the exact spelling no one could know. On the first occasion in which we find the term cartae here, it should be noted that not only is it the first of the two synonyms to be listed, but it is also the only term that remains when referring to the deck of cartae abandoned on the bench by the fugitive players. If one
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2. https://naibi.net/A/411-PO400-Z.pdf.

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were to judge only from these testimonies, one could conclude that the primitive name of naibi was already about to be replaced by that of cartae, but we well know that in Florence the name of naibi resisted much longer.


Other Books of the Captain

In addition to the Libri inventionum, explicitly indicated as relating to the captures of interest to us, an initial survey has been carried out on some books that could have contained at least some of the same material. In particular, books 1563 (1384), 1733 (1388), 1807 (1389-90), 1983 (1393), 2089 (1398) have been examined, but in none of these were the corresponding discoveries [invenzione] identified, even though both the captain's declarations and the news of the outings of the “family” are usually found there. As a curiosity, it can be noted that in the general declaration of No. 1983, the first place in the list of crimes is taken by one that is usually completely absent: no heretic may stay in the city!

In No. 2089 we find instead on f. 3r a more detailed list than usual for the prohibition of games: ad aliquem ludum taxillorum, azardi, aliossorum, vel aliud ludum prohibitum [at any game of dice, zara, knucklebones, or any other prohibited game]. If, to avoid misunderstandings, they add games with knucklebones or astragals, of very ancient tradition, it would seem strange that naibi were not also explicitly added, if they had been considered among the prohibited games at the time.

A detail that would require a statistical analysis is the order in which the crimes are listed in the general proclamations. The crimes are generally listed in less than ten articles, each of which is reserved for blasphemy, gambling, going out at night, carrying weapons, seditious gatherings, counterfeiting money, disturbing the public peace, not respecting the laws and customs, and possibly others. They are always the same points, or almost; however, the order is not preserved: the first article itself on the list, the one to which the captain most draws the citizens' attention, changes depending, it seems, on the political situation. Gambling is always found among the first crimes on the list, but we find in first position, depending on the case, either blasphemy or gatherings; evidently, the danger of riots and citizen revolts was felt more in some of those rather turbulent years.

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Conclusion

Research was conducted on the Books of the Captain of the People between the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. The main aim was to trace the presence of naibi among the convictions for prohibited games. The books examined are those indicated in the Inventorio as Liber inventionum and a few others, selected from those that seemed most similar. The first two explicit mentions of naibi found so far are from 1405, and naibi are also already indicated in both cases with the synonym of carte. Unfortunately, these documents do not indicate the extent of the punishment, and therefore it is not discovered whether naibi were punished to the same extent as zara. The first impression is that the frequent convictions of players only concerned zara and possibly similar dice games: however, further research is necessary to distinguish whether before 1405 card games were tolerated by the “family” of the captain of the people or whether they were instead included among the convictions for games, also using in a generic sense for naibi the same name with which dice games were indicated. The issue is important because the period of time that remains to be documented is almost thirty years; it would be useful to know better what the popularity of playing cards in Florence was, starting from the same urban environment in which they were mostly used since the early years of their diffusion.

Franco Pratesi – 03.07.2015

Now comes the translation of "1595: Fierenze - Carte speciali da Venezia," https://naibi.net/A/415-BOSISO-Z.pdf, dated August 8, 2015. This is the 15th note of 2015. The previous one, on the Books of the Captain, was number 13. It is perhaps worth noting that in between, his note 14, is his "1499-1506: New Information on Florentine cards," published in The Playing-Card in Italian and translated, I think my earliest for Franco's essays, at viewtopic.php?p=16459#p16459 and a few posts following. It also appears in one piece at http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com ... on-on.html. I plan a revised translation of that essay shortly.

The present essay explores the ambiguity of the word "carta" in the late 16th- early 17th century, not only between paper and card, but in the type of material this "carta" consists of. Comments in brackets are mine, in consultation with Franco, for clarification purposes.


1595: Florence – Special cards from Venice


Introduction and foreword

Usually, it is recommended for any writing to limit the first-person intervention as much as possible; in this note, the two parts, subjective and objective, are both present, indeed the first-person contribution is more extensive than usual, although it can be kept quite separate from the objective data, here constituted simply by a letter from the end of the sixteenth century, with an accompanying sheet [foglio].

It is necessary to begin with some background, which could be connected to the objective data only through the transfer of information. A short time ago, I submitted a question of mine to the judgment of Gustavo Bertoli, a scholar of history and archives who for many years has put up with my intermittent requests for opinions and assistance. My question was formulated as follows: why did playing cards keep the foreign name of naibi when they arrived in Florence and were not immediately called carte [cards]? My first attempt at an answer was that they could not yet be called cards, because they were not made of paper [carta], something that only later became customary. It can be recalled in this regard that we have news of imports of naibi together with bundles of skins (for example in Rome in 1428). [note 1]

Here the problem concerns parchment [pergamena] above all. It seems plausible to maintain that the first naibi were made of parchment and not paper, but it is probable that a thin sheet of parchment could also be called… paper [carta]; not for nothing was parchment normally called parchment paper [cartapecora, literally sheep-paper]; for the term paper [carta] not to be applicable, one would have to assume sheets of thicker skin, if not even leather. Of course, playing cards similar to shoe insoles would have been too thick to be handled properly, but there can be intermediate thicknesses, as were most likely those of orpelli and argenpelli [skins beaten thin and coated with gold- and silver-colored paint]. [note 2]
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1. http://trionfi.com/evx-oldest-known-nai ... rt-to-rome
2. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, 26 No. 2 (1997) 38-45.

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As expected, Gustavo Bertoli reacted to my bizarre hypothesis by pointing out its low plausibility.

What does the above premise have to do with the content of this note? The fact is that the document presented and briefly discussed here was found by Bertoli himself, a few days after the exchange of ideas mentioned above. It was precisely as a result of this [exchange] that the author of the discovery wanted immediately to point out the new document to me, with the more than reasonable warning that there is a distance of two centuries between the two cases and therefore relating them is very risky. Let us then keep the two cases separate: let us leave in the world of fantasy the cards [carte] not of paper [carta], and perhaps not even of thin parchment, of the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and let us enter the real world with real objects, even if documented only at the end of the sixteenth century.


The Medici of the Principality collection

The archive collection involved is not just any of the more than 600 present in the ASFi [State Archives of Florence]; this collection represents a part of the archive of the Medici, at the time already Grand Dukes of Tuscany; therefore any document present here, even of a private nature, ends up assuming a public value, usable for the history of the Grand Duchy itself.

The volume under examination [note 3] is part of a series of similar books containing letters and requests addressed to the Grand Duke through his secretary Lorenzo Usimbardi (Colle Val d'Elsa, 1547 - Florence, 1636). The same secretary kept all this correspondence of his office in good order, and therefore we find many letters of various types bound together. The one that interests us here is a letter sent to Usimbardi on 9 December 1595 by Giovanni Uguccioni, from Venice.

The Uguccioni family was a rather important family in Florence and had the family palace right in the Piazza della Signoria (see Fig. 1); at the time, Giovanni Uguccioni must have had some public functions in the grand ducal administration. The grand duke then was
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3. ASFi, Mediceo del Principato, 1250.


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Ferdinando I de' Medici (Florence, 1549-1609), a person who held several important roles: cardinal of the Holy Roman Church from the age of thirteen, he later became grand duke of Tuscany from 1587 until his death; in 1589 he married Cristina di Lorena, after having, understandably, laid down the purple. Already in the first years of his stay in Rome, the cardinal had begun to collect art objects, and in Florence also, he was noted for his patronage and support of artists, musicians in particular. It seems that the objects we will encounter later could also be included among the artifacts of that high-quality craftsmanship that was particularly appreciated.



Figure 1 – Florence: Piazza della Signoria. Uguccioni Palace.
The letter

Examining, at f. 356 of the book indicated, the letter addressed by Uguccioni to Usimbardi, one finds something that has almost the opposite character compared to the usual pleas present in the bundle of letters

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sent to the secretary of the Grand Duke and collected together with this one. It almost seems in this specific case that it was the Grand Duke himself who was pleading for something. It appears, in fact, that Uguccioni had been urged in two recent letters, dated November 24 and December 2, to get in touch with Paulo Bosiso, to convince him to return to Florence. It is easy to deduce that this return to Florence of the interlocutor was an action strongly desired by the Grand Duke himself.

Giovanni Uguccioni then reports that he had been interested in the matter several times, and even on the very day he wrote the letter he had spoken at length with Bosiso to illustrate all the positive aspects connected with his return to Florence. The task of convincing him was proving to be very arduous, so much so that the person solicited had decided to write down a series of requests to be forwarded directly to the Grand Duke. Only the acceptance by the Grand Duke himself of the “conditions that he wants to be guaranteed without reductions” could have made Bosiso decide to return to Florence. Thus, together with Uguccioni's letter, we find, at f. 357, an attached sheet with the document containing the requests to be submitted to the attention of the Grand Duke.


The attached document

Together with the letter of Giovanni Uguccioni, we can read Bosiso's written autograph, which is the main subject and reason for this note. Given its importance in the context under consideration, it seems useful to transcribe it in its entirety before submitting it to a brief discussion. {Here the first few words of each new point, most beginning with "and," extend to the left of the rest. I have used a line separation instead.]

Praise God

To go I paulo bosiso to Florence to make my own carte [cards, paper] for the service of said and his state, which is to make carte [cards, paper] from wool and silk, and it is a very necessary art for those countries and I, desirous of serving you, expose myself to leave my country and relatives and friends and very good profit, but with this

That I be paid here and before I leave for my expenses, and damages I have had going to Florence twice with two workers and craftsmen to make carti [paper, cards] and other goods and expenses that I have to undertake going to Florence with goods and furnishings, and

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my family, including my wife and two children, 200 scudi.

and for my provision practicing this art in said that I be given 12 scudi per month, and 30 scudi for the house and that upon my arrival from there I be accounted a provision of 6 months, to accommodate me to my business.

and said provision will last for 20 years to me and my heirs, and to others who are with me while I practice this art in Florence, with the proviso that no one may, during the years mentioned above, come to make papers or have them made in Florence or in the state, only my person and my heirs after me.

and that it is possible to export [trar=trarre=estrarre] the carti [cards, paper] of Florence to all its state and outside of the state while the city of Florence with its state does not suffer that I will always be obliged to make that it is served both to maintain it for its needs and to make beautiful and good stuff, on par with any other.

and to have good leather for making carti [cards, paper], it will be necessary for HSH [His Serene Highness, SAS in original] to give me permission to buy leather from cowhides and to have them prepared in my own way, so that it is needed that HSH makes it done by his command from those who tan [consan=concian] leather and from those who are not good at making carti (because it cannot be that all of them will succeed), so that I can sell them [cards or sheets of paper] to whomever I can and that I moreover will be given for bringing workers an additional 5 scudi for each one.

As is evident, the spelling and grammar are not the best, so much so that both the Italian and Venetian languages appear in the text in a considerably distorted form; however, despite the many inaccuracies that can be observed, it does not appear necessary to add a "translation" of the text into current Italian.

Discussion and comments

The writer of the document in question is Paulo Bosiso, at least that is how he personally writes his name (even if it would sound a little more familiar to us if it were written Paolo Bosisio instead). Only from this document can we learn his profession and the precise reason for which his return to Florence could have been welcomed. Rather surprisingly, we thus learn that Bosiso was a simple manufacturer of carte [cards or paper] and that precisely as such was his return to Florence desired, after his first stay in Florence had not been given the welcome he could have hoped for based on the assurances he had received.

Were they actually playing cards? This is the most important of the various problems that arise when reading this document,

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ultimately the only one that would require a clear positive answer, so that this discussion can return to the theme of the history of playing cards. In the Florentine territory, there had been a flourishing paper production in Colle Val d'Elsa for centuries, while in the city there were several manufacturers of playing cards; so in this case, it must have been an extraordinary production.

If we could conclude that these were special sheets of paper, to be used for any purpose, there would be practically nothing left of interest for the history of playing cards. Let us then try to continue the examination by accepting the hypothesis that our Bosiso was, in fact, a manufacturer of playing cards; in this case, the information provided on the workmanship becomes very important and significant, which evidently corresponds to unusual objects and of a quality much higher than average. We find practically nothing of what we could have expected: even the paper [carta] of the playing cards [carte da gioco] is missing!

Three materials are mentioned, each one stranger than the last in this context. Starting from the last one, we find leather [or skin, pelle]. Now, finding playing cards made of parchment is not entirely extraordinary, because that is exactly what the first playing cards we know of must have been like. But more than two centuries had passed since then, and the use of parchment had long been reserved for completely extraordinary cases, while cards were made of common paper and had long been called (playing) cards. The parchment itself is not “normal”: here we are talking about leather and cowhide, and however thin that leather could become due to the way in which the tanning was carried out (so special that only Bosiso knew it), imagining it reduced to a very thin sheet is not easy.

If the leather leaves open some doubts, perhaps at least as many remain regarding the other two materials indicated, wool and silk. The very fact that paper is not mentioned among the materials is in turn so enigmatic that it suggests the use of wool and silk precisely to produce a special type of carta [card, paper], instead of using the usual rags made of fabrics of vegetable fibers. In the end, the alternative hypothesis, that here we are dealing with exclusive methods for the production of sheets of paper and parchment, which had been left outside the door, we find returned through the window.

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Conclusion

The document presented, thanks to its being reported by Gustavo Bertoli, makes it clear that the Venetian craftsman Paulo Bosiso was willing to move to Florence for his work as a manufacturer of high-quality carte [cards, paper] which would seem to have been previously appreciated by Grand Duke Ferdinand I. After an initial stay in Florence that had not been successful, the craftsman now asks that precise conditions be respected, also going into detail about the payments required for his transfer to Florence with his family and some workers. The materials mentioned for the production of these special cards [or, this special paper] are only wool, silk, and leather. It seems possible, but far from certain, that they were playing cards; in this case, the materials used, and the leather in particular, recall those probably used in the production of the first naibi, more than two centuries earlier.

Franco Pratesi − 08.08.2015

Now comes the translation of "1398: Firenze – Primi naibi nei Libri del Giglio," dated Aug. 26, 2015, online at https://naibi.net/A/416-GIGLIO300-Z.pdf.

It is the first of a series of notes on naibi, carte, and trionfi in the Books of the Lily, of which the others are:

4/20. "1401-1425: Firenze - Condanne per i naibi nei Libri del Giglio" (24.09.2015), at https://naibi.net/A/420-GIGLIO400-Z.pdf.

4/22. "1426-1499: Firenze - Condanne per giochi di carte nei Libri del Giglio" (01.10.2015), at https://naibi.net/A/422-GIGLIO450-Z.pdf, translated at http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com ... rence.html.

4/24. "1440-1450: Firenze - Condanne per giochi di carte nei Libri del Giglio" (12.10.2015), https://naibi.net/A/424-GIGLIO444-Z.pdf, translated at http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com ... rence.html. In this last are also found some arrests for playing trionfi.

Comments in brackets are mine, in consultation with Franco, for clarification purposes.


1398: Florence – First naibi in the Books of the Lily

Introduction

The inspiration for this investigation came from rereading an article published a quarter of a century ago and now forgotten by everyone. [note 1] In that article, the Books of the Lily [Libri del Giglio, where the Giglio was a specially designed fleur-de-lys serving as an emblem of Florence] were indicated as among the useful sources for reconstructing the early history of playing cards in Florence, and it is precisely these books that have now been re-examined. For the moment, this series of books has been restudied only for the fourteenth century.

The Series Books of the Lily

The Books of the Lily can be introduced in the same way as they were in the article cited.

Among the documents of the Chamber of the Commune [probably a room, with its employees, in the office building of the Florentine Commune, i.e. the Republic of Florence] in relation to changes in the account registers, the Books of the Lily represent a homogeneous set of 73 volumes that go from 1374 to 1511; 66 volumes for the whole 15th century, often one volume per year. They are all large-format paper volumes bound in parchment and usually have, drawn in red on the cover, the Giglio [Lily] of Florence inscribed in a circle, in accordance with the name of the series. The books record the convictions and then the payment made, for some particular “crimes.” The books begin with the three convictions already seen: for gambling, for going out at night and for carrying weapons. These convictions are listed in chronological order in long lists separated according to whether they were imposed by the “family” of the Podestà, the Captain of the People, or the Executor of the Ordinances of Justice. Other lists of convicted persons follow, such as those found absent from the guard shifts at the gates or the various Councils. These last lists become prevalent over time.

The series is part of the important books of the Chamber of the Commune, the most official and complete one could wish to find preserved. They are usually books not only of large format, but also that use paper of a thickness above average; they are compiled
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1. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, 19 No. 1 (1990) 7-17. [Translated here at the beginning of this thread, viewtopic.php?p=26635#p26635.]

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carefully and bound in parchment. Of all the series of books of the Chamber of the Commune, that under examination is the most suitable for our studies, since only the cases of convictions by foreign rectors and a few other officials are recorded. In other words, we find here all the convictions for going out at night, for carrying prohibited weapons, and - precisely those of our specific interest - for gambling. The same convictions could be recorded in the corresponding books, either by the Podestà [chief magistrate], by the Captain of the People, by the Executor of the ordinances of justice, or by the few other officials who also carried out certain police functions in the city; but the most useful thing is that they are all found here together and without the many records of other kinds that are found in the books of the foreign rectors mentioned.

For our type of research, we could not ask for anything better. However, knowing that perfection is not of this world, we are not surprised if here, too, we encounter gaps. Two appear to be the most serious: the beginning of the series at a time already advanced for our purposes and the lack of the necessary detail on the type of gambling involved. As a rule, we can assume that it was the game of zara [a dice game], the great favorite of the most avid gamblers of that time, even if by the end of the fourteenth century, it was already declining in popularity and participation. [note 2]

Of this series, there is an old Inventory [note 3] in the ASFi [State Archives of Florence] which remains valid for the registration of the archival units and for a first general overview; in particular for its dates, the following list of the archival units of interest can be obtained.

Chamber of the Commune, Provveditori, then Massai [titles of officials involved], Books of the Lily

No.----Years
1-------1374-80
2-------1397
3-------1398
4-------1399
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2. G. Ortalli, Barattieri. Bologna 2012.
3. ASFi, Inventario V/500

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No. 1 of the series presents itself as the most important book of all for finding the very first attestations of naibi among gambling convictions, as the period covered goes from 1374 to 1380, coinciding precisely with the first testimonies of naibi in Florence. Unfortunately, this first archival unit is missing from the ASFI. Even the data of the relatively long interval between 1380 and 1396 do not appear to have been recorded in books of this type, or if they were, the corresponding books have not been preserved. In conclusion, the fourteenth century is documented here only from 1397, and in only three books. On the other hand, the fifteenth century is documented from the beginning and often with one book per semester.

The registration begins in January, for example of 1396 in No. 2, corresponding, however, to 1397, according to our system of counting the years from the first of January, and not from the 25th of March as in Florence at the time. The dates of the first months will therefore be transcribed in our notation, and by doing so we obtain the result that the books end up corresponding not only, as they already are, to a single year, but also to a year that for us is indicated with the same number, from January to December.

We can also note a gap that exists for 1400, which ends up simplifying our task: the intention was to limit this study to the fourteenth century and when we get to the year 1400 we encounter the usual hesitations as to whether to attribute it to the fourteenth century, as mathematically correct, or to the fifteenth century, as comes naturally to do. Well, in our case the problem does not arise: when, in book No. 5, we read that it begins in the first months of 1400, it is actually our 1401, and therefore we are sure that it no longer belongs to the fourteenth century in any case. It also happens that the book that was probably compiled between No. 4 and No. 5 does not exist in our series, and therefore we can only study the years 1397-99.


A typical Book of the Lily

The books in this series are very similar to each other. Let's take a look at one in particular, No. 3, so as to gain information that could be extended with minimal variations to all the others. The

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structure of the book is summarized in the following table.

Section---------------------Initial page------Final page
Podestà-------------------------2r----------------15r
Captain------------------------41r----------------53v
Executor-----------------------80r----------------88r
Officer of the Grascia------110r --------------114v
Bargello----------------------120r---------------121r
Official at the gates--------128r---------------142r

It is immediately evident that the notary who records the individual entries takes care to prepare the book by writing even before starting to insert the relative entries day after day. In fact, the book is divided into sections dedicated to the various officials, with an index at the beginning that immediately refers to the page where the section searched begins. It can be immediately noted that the same number of pages are not prepared for the various sections; it is believed that more convictions will be inserted in some than in others. In the end, this initial structuring will prove to be sufficiently valid, although the number of pages that remain blank between one section and the next is quite different from case to case.


The magistracies involved

The other books in the series are also structured in successive sections, separated by a variable number of blank pages. The order in which the various sections are distributed appears particularly significant, clearly corresponding to roles of decreasing importance. A brief recap of the rectors involved in enforcing the laws within the city may be useful; we will not follow the order of the book taken as an example, but we will see the official of the Grascia after the Bargello, as in other books.

The Podestà was the most important of all: he held the office of the oldest institution, which in smaller municipalities was the only office existing for the administration of justice (the term of office was


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six months). As a rule, the Podestà was a nobleman coming from another city or from one of its countryside fiefdoms, who moved from city to city with his “family” [entourage] of notaries, judges, and various agents.

The Captain of the People had lost the military function that had characterized him since the mid-thirteenth century, and also as “defender of the arts [i.e. trades]” he was losing much of the political power that he had had throughout the fourteenth century. As administrator of justice he still had a certain importance in civil matters, and above all in the police functions in which he supported the other magistracies, starting with the Podestà.

The Executor of the Ordinances of Justice was established with the specific function of defending the Florentine people from the arrogance of the magnates [nobles], whose power was strongly hindered in the city, so much so that they were excluded from the main public offices. What we see in the Books of the Lily derives, however, exclusively from the police activity of the Executor's “family,” which therefore supported the two previously indicated.

The Bargello was a figure of the head of another city police “family” that had joined the previous ones. Only in later times did this position become stable: it can be recalled that the Palazzo del Bargello in Florence was born and had been known as the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo. Unlike the others, a collection of the books of the Bargello has not been preserved, also due to the intermittent nature of the position, active only for short periods.

If we examine the four different magistracies encountered so far, we can see that they were all equally involved in the modest sector of our specific interest, the control of gambling. It is not even immediate to establish a sort of ranking in their respective activities of contrast, especially because a notable variation already existed within a single magistracy, with the “families” involved that could be more or less active, one independently of the other, depending on the rector who was in office at the time. Therefore, the hypothetical ranking with the Podestà as more active than the Captain, and so on down for the Executor and Bargello, is only valid as a first approximation, as a general rule that presented several exceptions.

If we move on to the last sections of the Books of the Lily, these are of much less interest for our purpose. The official of the

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Grascia [word meaning “food supply,” which was these officials’ main concern] in the books examined in practice almost exclusively sentenced two categories of women: servants who wore dresses with sleeves wider than those permitted by the sumptuary laws, prostitutes who went around the city without wearing gloves or bells, obligatory signs of distinction. The officials at the gates, in turn, ensured that the guard shifts were duly respected, sentencing citizens absent from service. The most frequent annotations in this regard are whether the absence had occurred once or more times, with the related sentence varying accordingly.


Review of the books examined

It may be useful to examine the three books studied one by one and highlight their particularities. First, some common characteristics can be noted, starting with the format of the sheets which presents minimal dimensional variations around what would correspond to our A3 [297 mm x 420 mm]. These large sheets of paper are also quite thick, with a final thickness of each book of 4-6 cm, including the parchment binding.

No. 2 – First book preserved, already with separate sections for the various officers. This first book preserved is not even complete. Probably some pages are also missing after f. 117, the last present; however, the absence of the first 65 pages is certain, probably containing the sections reserved for the Podestà and the Captain. As regards gambling, only per giuocho [literally, for game] is usually written, and the corresponding sentence is 10L [lire]. In some cases, the sum is not paid, or is not paid within the terms of the law, for which reason one often finds marginal notes indicating seizures or “baptisms” [immersions in the Arno or a cold shower]. Rather rarely, but a little more often towards the end of the year, one finds it specified that the game in question was dice or zara.


No. 3 − Book of 144 folios, with the typical lily painted within a shield on the cover, which in this case is very faded. In addition to the usual term per giuocho, the addition of zara is often found, or a zara [at zara], rarely azzara. A couple of sentences of the Podestà are moved among those of the Captain at the request of the captured. On 10 February,

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a sentence of 5L for sassi [throwing stones] is found. In several cases, money found on the board is recorded (for example, 32s. [soldi] on f. 50r) and there are cases of sentences ending with “baptism” [when the fine was not paid in due course]. Among the sentences of the Captain and the Executioner, there are some for naibi, described below. There is also a section reserved for the Bargello, but in this case, only those sentences for going out at night are found, with rare exceptions.

No. 4 – Book with the evident red lily, of 95 ff. [folios]. Sometimes it is specified that the game of condemnation is that of zara. Among the captures for the game carried out by the Executor there are two unusual cases in San Pietro a Montebuoni: a player captured in the house of his residence and another in his own house.


The amount of the penalties

The information that can be obtained from the numerous gambling convictions that appear in the first four sections of the Book of the Lily considered above is not very detailed. Usually, one encounters a recurring phrase of the type: taken for gambling on said day by said family, in which “said family” will be that of the Podestà, the Captain, the Executor, or the Bargello, depending on the section in which it is recorded. There is, however, one piece of information that is inevitably always present, precisely because of the accounting documentation nature of this collection: the amount of the penalty. So we can add this important piece of information, which we were missing after studying the books of foreign rectors. In those, sometimes greater detail was found, but the amount of the corresponding penalties was never reported.

Here, we can see that the typical penalties paid for going out at night were 3L, and those for gambling were 10L; for weapons, different values are found, but the most frequent is a sentence of 50L. Naturally, if the players caught playing were more than one, each had to pay 10L, including those who had not provided their personal details; for those who had escaped, the captured companions usually paid.

On the other hand, one finds in the books many different figures, smaller than usual, for the money obtained from the resale of various objects left on the spot. It seems likely that in these cases, the money transfers involved more people, to the advantage of those who dealt with the

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sale, perhaps the cops themselves, and in any case, a loss certainly smaller for the player.


Convictions for the game of naibi

If the convictions for gambling [per gioco] correspond to a considerable part of all the convictions recorded, in the particular case of the game of naibi, or with naibi, these are real exceptions. This leaves us uncertain in the interpretation of the data. In particular, the hypothesis arises that among the players convicted for zardum (or a similar name, for a game nominally associated with zara) there were also some who instead of dice were using playing cards; this becomes even more logical to imagine once it is ascertained that the penalty for the game of naibi was in these years exactly the same as that for dice games. Ultimately, we do not know how exhaustive the examination of the particular cases in which naibi are explicitly named can really be; in any case, it seems useful to briefly review all these cases, few but certain, in which in the o the capture is explicitly indicated as due to the game of naibi.

January 9, 1398 (Book No. 3 f. 41r – among the Captain's sentences): Meo di Nanni da Siena fu trovato giuchare anaibj. pagho adj 18 di giennaio L.10 [Meo di Nanni da Siena was found playing at naibi. paid [pagho=pagò] on day 18 January L.10]. This is the only catch of that day, and not just the only player caught with naibi.

September 21, 1398 (Book No. 3 f. 84v among the Executor's sentences): Per Giuliano di Checho popolo S.ta Lucia dognissanti preso per giuocho anaibj. pagho adj 19 dottobre L.10 [By Giuliano di Checho, parish of S.ta Lucia of Ognissanti, taken for game at naibi. paid on day 19 October L.10]. This corresponds to the only naibi player convicted that day, together with eight other convictions for gambling, for six of which zara is explicitly indicated.

1398 (Book No. 3 f. 86r among the Executor's sentences): Antonio di Francecoleso(?) popolo San Friano preso a giucho di naibj. pagho L.10 questo(?) di 29 di marzo 1399 [Antonio di Francecoleso(?), parish of San Friano, taken at game of naibi. paid L.10 this(?) day of March 29, 1399]. On that day, naibi are indicated only in this case; the two following entries concern two players of other games, who were later “baptized.”

Conclusion

The series of the Libri del Giglio represents a precious source for research on gambling [giochi: also = games] because it records together the sentences of all the various “families” of policemen who systematically patrolled the city in search of violators of the legislative provisions on nighttime outings, the carrying of prohibited weapons, and, in fact, gambling, which is our focus, especially with regard to the game of naibi, recently introduced in Florence. Unfortunately, the first volume of the series is missing and the second only begins with the year 1397, so only three of the last years of the fourteenth century can be studied in the three books preserved for the period. The most important data that can be obtained is the amount of the penalty: going out at night was usually punished with 3L, gambling with 10L, and carrying weapons with 50L. The game of naibi appears mentioned very rarely, only for the year 1398, and the corresponding penalty is the same 10L as imposed for dice games. The extension of the study to the more richly documented early fifteenth century is planned