Tarot History Forum

Perhaps you're referring to the fact that the numbers that the BM put next to the cards in their little book are Tarot de Marseille rather than Bolognese. Well, I noticed that right away, as soon as saw them. I assumed it was a reflection on somebody in the 18th or 19th century, not the BM now. The BM is not going to erase those numbers just because they are wrong. The book itself is a historical document of whatever time. And museums are more concerned to get the dating of their objects right than little things like card order. But when I look at their reference, Wilshire in 1876, it seems more likely that he simply passed on an earlier error, not knowing himself when exactly the Moors appeared or even how many there were, and nobody's thought to change it since. If that is what you are saying, OK. It seems odd to me that they'd notice the Moors and not check on them further, whenever they were setting up the website. But probably they just gave the job to a typist. I'm too used to being my own.

I have not been able to get the BNF link you gave to take me to the BNF Alla Torre cards. A few clues there might be of value, since I really would like to know how to use that site.

mikeh wrote:But when I look at their reference, Wilshire in 1876, it seems more likely that he simply passed on an earlier error, not knowing himself when exactly the Moors appeared or even how many there were, and nobody's thought to change it since. If that is what you are saying, OK.

Bingo! Right; and you inferred the correct reason, too.

Note that neither of Willshire's main sources for the Bolognese cards, Cicognara and Merlin, know that it was Cardinal Ruffo in 1725 who demanded the change from papi to mori.

He quotes Merlin on page 81, under I.6, speculating that since the Bolognese recognized Papal sovereignty in 1513, it was after this date that the papi (which he thinks were the Pope, Popess, Emperor and Empress) were changed to mori.

Under I.11 and I.12 (pp. 86-88), Montieri's geographical pack, he even quotes Cicognara on the events of 1725, but this latter doesn't seem to know what really happened, and doesn't mention the Legate's (Ruffo) objections.

So Willshire was unable to make the connection between 1725 and the change. It was not until either 1895, in the much larger Lady Schreiber Playing Cards of Various Ages and Countries, volume III, p. 14, which I have not been able to see (hence my uncertainty as to what the catalogue says), or finally 1909, in Gian Battista Comelli's 1909 paper "Il 'governo misto' in Bologna dal 1507 al 1797 e le carte da giuoco del Can. Montieri", in Atti e Memorie della Reale Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Romagna, ser. 3, vol. XXVII, pp.1-39, that the explicit time and reason for the change was finally published.

It seems odd to me that they'd notice the Moors and not check on them further, whenever they were setting up the website. But probably they just gave the job to a typist. I'm too used to being my own.

Yes, you could tell from the bibliography "Willshire I.8" that it was out-of-date information. It wasn't a playing card specialist that put up the information, that is clear.

I have not been able to get the BNF link you gave to take me to the BNF Alla Torre cards. A few clues there might be of value, since I really would like to know how to use that site.

Do you get the page with the search fields to fill in?

Here is the link to the older thread, from 2010, with these cards.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=549&hilit=bnf

If you put "bolonais" in the search field of the link DennisClay gives, it takes you to the images.

http://images.bnf.fr/jsp/index.jsp

Yes, that link does the trick. I still can't get the other one to get me there with those search terms (bolonais or tarot bolonais), but it doesn't matter now. Also, I hadn't thought to tell Google to find "tarot bolonais" for me.

Thanks also for the background on why Wilshire wasn't aware of the particular circumstance that occasioned the introduction of Moors into the deck.

Wilshire's book is online, at https://archive.org/stream/cu3192403252 ... 6_djvu.txt

About this deck, he says (translated into OCRese):

I. 8.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY?

SERIES of diminutive cards, thirty-eight in number. It is composed
of an aiiiUi suit (twenty-two), and the sixteen figure cards belonging
to the numeral suits, apparently of a tarocchino sequence.

The latter may be infeiTcd from the circumstance that two Moors,
or satraps, displace Le Pape and La Papesse in the atutti suit.

The designs and execution are of common character; the pieces are un-
coloured.

[ 1 _'^ X i in.] [Backs plain.]

However Wilshire is not wholly to blame for the misdating. The BM left off his question mark!

hello

I understand that the four Bologneses popes were called pope one, pope two, pope three, pope four. By the way, something similar happened in Florence but there were five popes, including magician and love, even if without one papal figure (pope or popess, because Strambotto dispenses with Popessbut the papal figure of Minchiate looks like a woman). The four Bologneses popes were the Emperor, the Empress, the Popess and the Pope. We know those four figures because they are in Tarocchino Dalla Tore, before replacing themselves with four different Moors. These four Bologneses popes have the same value during the game according to the regulations, that is, they occupied the same hierarchical step in the sequence of triumphal cards. However, if they were named with numbering (Pope one, dad two ...) then the players knew which papal or imperial figure corresponded to each name? For example, perhaps they knew that Pope four was the emperor.

In any case, we can assume that before the four popes had the same hierarchical range, they followed an especific order in different steps, similar than in other traditions, where this cards have also some especific sequence in four steps. For example, this is evident to Dummett, whether it was a game of Boloñés origin as if it came from another place. So, I would like to know what order had those four cards in Bologna. I read a study by Pratesi about that, where he commented on different ancient poems that reflect a different order according to the place and the time. That allows us to know a Ferrara order (type B) with slight old variants and also an order of Venice, in addition to Milan, where the poems are not very early. All of that is summarized with three denominations or traditions, according to Dummett: Type A, type B, type C. The Pretesi article does not clearly say what order it had in Bologna early. I think that once I read a current comment that proposes an order of the popes in Bolaña but I do not find that publication. Rosenwald has those four cards in order type C, that is, in the Marselle order that supposedly came from Milan but possibly is a variation of an older order such as type A of Bologna and Florence.

What order did those four cards had early in the type A tradition, that is, in Boloña and in Florence? especially in Boloña, what order did they have? Do you have any suspicion please?

By the way, I do not think that early (1440-1460 approx) there were 22 allegories in the triumph game but less, as the two Rothschild leaves and the Tarot of Lucca (Orpheus) that I suppose is the inspiration for Mikeh when he mentions a brief sequence of 13 wins suggest. I am in favor of the 5x14 theory as an intermediate stage. I think that the decks of 70 cards in Ferrara (1457) had 14 triumphs but I accept that could have 48 cards and 22 triumphs, as an alternative to the beautiful hypothesis of the 14 wins, which I accept. People never write this option. True? My question about the order of the four Bologneses popes can be answered by anyone, regardless of their beliefs. For example Ross, which does not seem to accept the 5x14 theory, possibly has suspicions about the order of the popes in Florence and Bologna. We know that the order of the four popes was different in type B tradition and in type C. But what order had originally or early the popes in Bologna?

Magic Moon wrote,

Rosenwald has those four cards in order type C, that is, in the Marselle order that supposedly came from Milan but possibly is a variation of an older order such as type A of Bologna and Florence.

The order of the Rosenwald also conforms to that of Florence, as far as it is known. However, no one has found any verification of a Popess in Florence. Since the Rosenwald has other Florentine characteristics, it is assumed that Florence did have a Popess, in 2nd position, which was later removed. But this is not sure. The Rosenwald also reflects Bolognese characteristics - notably the Strength card, and the order of the virtue cards on the sheet, which goes Temperance, Justice, Strength, which is Bologna and not Florence. So the Rosenwald is just as much evidence of a hierarchical structure in Bologna. Which is to say, not much of either. The sheet was found among other sheets printed in Perugia, its likely origin. All would be type A.

Magic Moon wrote,

By the way, I do not think that early (1440-1460 approx) there were 22 allegories in the triumph game but less, as the two Rothschild leaves and the Tarot of Lucca (Orpheus) that I suppose is the inspiration for Mikeh when he mentions a brief sequence of 13 wins suggest.

I did not understand the relevance of the two Rothschild sheets (actually, one Rothschild and one Beaux Arts) sheets and the Lucca. Huck thinks the Orfeo decks are relevant, but I think they are too late to use for any origin theory. I think the two sheets in Paris are the last 12 triumphs of a Bolognese deck, not all of them. Another two sheets could have been like the Rosenwald, with three Queens, or two and a Fool.

I think that the decks of 70 cards in Ferrara (1457) had 14 triumphs but I accept that could have 48 cards and 22 triumphs, as an alternative to the beautiful hypothesis of the 14 wins, which I accept. People never write this option. True?

Pratesi pointed out that option in one of his essays, I forget which. But it is not said enough.

Magic Moon wrote,

My question about the order of the four Bologneses popes can be answered by anyone, regardless of their beliefs. For example Ross, which does not seem to accept the 5x14 theory, possibly has suspicions about the order of the popes in Florence and Bologna. We know that the order of the four popes was different in type B tradition and in type C. But what order had originally or early the popes in Bologna?

Ross has a good, fact-filled essay on the "equal papi" rule in Bologna in the 2022 book edited by Andrea and me that I cite often, Bologna and the Tarot. (He also has many posts on the subject in this Forum.) In that essay, he says that the earliest documentation of the rule in Bologna is 1746 or a little after, in a rule book by Pedini. However, Pedini says he is basing himself on a "molto antico" manuscript, and he calls the four by the term "papi," so it would have been at least before 1725. How much before 1725 qualifies as "molto antico"? Experts have given varying guesses, from Depaulis at no earlier than 1650 to Cuppi who thinks the third quarter of the 16th century or earlier.

The earliest documentation of the "equal papi" rule anywhere is 1565, in Piedmont, in the Discorso of Francesco Piscina (the relevant section is online, p. 17). Since they used French cards there, which put the four in hierarchical order, the rule must have been very entrenched by whenever French cards with numbers on them were introduced there. When was that? Well, the earliest document with the word "tarot" as a card game says that tarot decks were sent to Piedmont from Avignon in 1505. But did they have numbers on them? The Cary Sheet is from that era and might be French, but it doesn't have numbers. Catelin Geoffrey's cards in 1557 do have numbers. That narrows it down, but not by much: the rule would probably have been introduced at least a generation, or 30 years, before 1505-1558. Ross thinks that this argument brings back the introduction of the rule even earlier, to "a decade or two" after the introduction of the game, which for him would mean by the late 1450s; that seems to me a stretch, given that we don't know when numbers were put on French tarot decks, but it certainly possible.

Whenever the rule was introduced in Piedmont, would it have gone from Bologna to Piedmont or the other way around? Directly or indirectly? How? Ross suggests most likely from neighboring Lombardy. If so, the "equal papi" rule might have been everywhere, until it wasn't.

In his essay, Ross shows how the "equal papi" could have been part of the Bolognese game very early. But the only documentation is that the rule was seen in terms of the medieval Guelf-Ghibelline struggle, with its rival popes and rival emperors. The rule itself is not mentioned. And even if that is what they are talking about, it might have been a justification for the rule after the fact. But the fact would be before the justifications. Those justifications don't go back farther than sometime in the 16th century, if that. The earliest is some inserts in a family chronicle, inserted between 1581 and 1620, the second entry, so "it may be closer to 1581 than 1620," Ross says.

We also have to ask why such a rule would have been part of the game, just for these four cards, given that trick-taking card games depended on there being a hierarchy, at least within one of the suits, and that society was organized on a pervasively hierarchical basis. Was there some kind of feminist sentiment against the subordination of women? Perhaps: the Stuttgart hunting deck had two suits with all-male courts and two with all-female. Bologna and Florence had Pages of both genders. But in those games, the two sexes didn't come against each other, as they could in tarocchi. A more interesting case is the Visconti di Modrone, knights and pages of both genders in all suits. So they could come against each other. Perhaps they had equal power somehow. But that may just be an isolated case.

Ross points to the unity conclave in Florence 1439-1440 as perhaps influential in this early milieu of the trionfi. The two emperors were declared equal. Likewise the two churches were considered equal. Is that enough to make for an "equal papi" rule? The problem is that in the game the end is invariably, if they are in the same trick, one of them capturing the other. That is not what the conclave was allegedly about - and it was just such fears that doomed the conclave to failure, when the people of Constantinople rejected the merger, which would have made the Pope the head of both churches.

Ross also cites one more contention between alleged equals, about who was the head of the Western Church at that time. The Duke of Milan, who ruled Bologna then, had a different idea from those who organized the conclave in Florence and Ferrara - namely, that his father-in-law, the former Duke of Savoy, was the legitimately elected pope, in 1439. A satirical trionfi player could well have thought, let them fight it out, and the last one standing wins. In the Bolognese game, the last papa played in a trick wins, which is close enough. This is just another in the pope/antipope struggles, of which Bologna already had plenty of memories. It could have instigated the rule - or not. In 1506 the Pope drove the Ghibelline Bentivoglios out of Bologna. Anti-papal sentiments would not have been driven out. Those holding them could have instigated the rule themselves, to undermine the authority of the pope - because that's what the rule does, reducing him to one power-grubber out of four.

Even then, the rule doesn't seem to have taken hold completely. Giulio Cesare Croce in 1602 has a list of triumphs with an Empress below an Emperor and no other "papi" - showing how sensitive the issue was). Sivello in 1594 speaks merely of "papi" (their compositions are in Andrea's and my book, but I think also online, the first, Lotto Festivole fatto in Villa, is in BUB Digitale). That sounds like a rule gradually winning adoption, until a century later the victory is complete, thanks to people like the Bentivoglios and the Pepolis - and perhaps to a convention not to speak of cards called Pope or Popess, as a opposed to a vague "important personage," a common meaning of the term "papa." On the other hand, it could be an opposing, pro-papal hierarchical version trying to gain a foothold until finally, its reason for being forgotten, it dies.

In the latter case, we could even look earlier than 1440. We cannot forget Prince Fibbia. His great-grandfather, if genealogies are to be believed, was one of the mighiest Ghibellines of all, who in fact lived at a time when there were two rival popes (later even three) and two rival emperors. I speak of Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli, scourge of the Florentines, of whom Wikipedia says, "At his death in 1328, the fortunes of his young children were wrecked in the Guelph triumph." What if a game originating in subversion traveled in disguise to the city of the enemy?

It would have to have been in disguise, hiding its "equal papi" rule, because In Florence, the Ghibellines had been defeated and rendered powerless, not like in Bologna. Why would the Guelf power base want to undermine the authority of the pope by making him one power-grubber out of four? Nor Ferrara - they were part of the papal state, but had a happy accommodation with the papacy until the end of the 16th century; tarocchi seems to have died out there when the d'Este were forced to restrict themselves to Modena and Regio. Lombardy is a different matter, especially after the Emperor didn't recognize Francesco Sforza as Duke. Lombardy and Bologna were connected both under the Visconti (until 1442) and the Sforza (both allies of Florence). An awareness of how nominally equal powers can attack one another by surprise isn't bad to have in an otherwise hierarchical game. Lodovico "Il Moro" would seem to have forgotten its lesson.

I am not yet to the point of explaining why the same rule was in Piedmont by the early 16th century and likely earlier. I doubt if there is a convincing answer to your question, Magic Moon. I do have a theory of my own, in favor of its being an "original or early" (I like that phrase) feature of the game, at least in the form practiced in the major centers of the game. It would probably put the origin of the rule in Florence, but has nothing to do with the politics of the time.

Magic Moon ...

I think that the decks of 70 cards in Ferrara (1457) had 14 triumphs but I accept that could have 48 cards and 22 triumphs, as an alternative to the beautiful hypothesis of the 14 wins, which I accept. People never write this option. True?

MikeH ...

Pratesi pointed out that option in one of his essays, I forget which. But it is not said enough.

Pratesi had "70 cards" in one of his articles. He had this from Gherardo Ortalli. Ortalli knew the work of Franceschini.
Ortalli, Gherardo. "The Prince and the playing cards. The Este family and the role of the courts at the time of the Kartenspiel-Invasion", Ludica 2: Annali di storia e civiltà del gioco. Fondazione Bennetton Studi Ricerche, 1996. Ortalli pointed to Francesschini.

About Ortalli: http://trionfi.com/the-prince-and-the-playing-cards

A small note in Ortalli's article about "carte 70 per zogo", in its importance not understood by Ortalli himself, is the first known number of the Trionfi cards used at this time - it indicates, that Trionfi cards were used in 70 cards packs with a 5x14 structure and not - as later common - in 78 cards packs with a 4x14+22 structure.

Franceschini (1441 and 1457)....
http://www.trionfi.com/0/e/nof71/00B.html
14 figure in 1441 .... http://www.trionfi.com/0/e/nof71/00B.html

1441 [1st of January payment to Sagramoro for painting "14 figure"]:
E adi deto (1 gennaio) lire due, soldi cinque marchesani, contanti a Magistro Iacopo de Sagramoro depintore per XIIII figure depinte in carta de bambaxo et mandate a Madama Bianca da Milano per fare festa la scira de la Circumcisione de l'anno presente... L.II.V.
Preliminary translation (by Ross Gregory Caldwell)
"And on the said day (1 January) two lire, five soldi marchesane, reckoned to Maestro Jacopo de Sagramoro, painter, for 14 figures painted on cotton paper and sent to Lady Bianca of Milan, to make festive the celebration of the Circumcision of the present year ... L. II. V."

70 cards in 1457 .... http://www.trionfi.com/0/e/nof71/16.html

1457 [21 July – payment to Gerardo di Andrea da Vicenza]
Maestro Girardo de Andrea da Vizenza dipintore de avere adi 21 de luglio per sua fatura et spesa d'oro fino, coluri, de avere depinto para due de carte grande da trionfi, che sono carte 70 per zogo, le quale sono mese d'oro fitamente, et fate tute de coluri fini et brunide, et depinte de roverso uno paro rosa, uno paro verde. Le quale ebe Piedro de Schiveto per uxo de lo Signore ; de quale dito dimanda ducati 8 del paro, a soldi 56 per ducato, fano lire 22, soldi 8 ; et Galioto li tasa lire 28. Se n'abate soldi 2 per lira, sono 2, soldi 16; resta suo credito…L.25.4.
[Franceschini 1993 n. 823m (p. 485) ; cf. Campori 1874:10 (otherwise 127-128), and Ortalli 1996b:186]
Preliminary translation
(by Ross Gregory Caldwell)
Maestro Gerardo di Andrea da Vicenza, painter, having the 21st day of July, for his making and expense in fine gold, coloured, for having painted two packs of big triumph cards, which are 70 cards per deck, covered thickly with gold, and made entirely of colours fine and rich, and painted on the reverse one pack red, one pack green. The which had Piedro de Schiveto for the use of the Lord; the which said [Gerardo] asked 8 ducats per pack, at 56 soldi per ducat, totalling 22 lire, 8 soldi; and Galeotto the tax 28 lire. Subracting 2 soldi per lira, which is 2, 16 soldi; remains to his credit … L. 25. 4

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriano_Franceschini .... https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriano_Franceschini
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gherardo_Ortalli .... https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gherardo_Ortalli
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Pratesi .... https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Pratesi

The 5x14-theory developed in 2 weeks in May 1989, before "a good access to the internet" and only on the base of Stuart Kaplan's Tarot Encyclopedia I. Contact to Franco Pratesi developed in spring 2002, I believe. A single web report about the Marziano deck led to a search of the original author (this was Pratesi), and he was found on the email list of an Italian go player (Franco Pratesi had then started to work on the history of the Go game in Europe). Interestingly I knew this Italian go player from my earlier go-career.
Franco's note about "70 cards" arrived 3 years or more after the birth of the original 5x14 theory and this already was based on good ideas, which didn't need much confirmation.
As far I remember, it was Michael Hurst, who was the first with the idea, that the "70" in 1457 might mean "48 suit cards with 22 trumps" in 2003.

.... not finished ...

Thanks for the information about Ortalli, etc., and about Hurst, Huck. I'll be looking forward to more. One place Franco mentioned 22 + 48 is in "On Triumphs, Trumps, and Tarots," published in 2012 on trionfi.com. He does not attribute any originality to the observation, saying, "I guess that somebody has already proposed it in the past." This piece is at https://naibi.net/A/126-TRITARTRU-Z.docx.

I want to finish what I started in my post preceding Huck's, where I said that I had a hypothesis about the "equal papi" rule. The simplest way is for me to quote something (slightly revised) that I wrote in the book Andrea and I published in 2022. After describing the Guelf-Ghibelline conflict as a source of the rule, I said:

There is one more type of source: other card games with trumps. A game called VIII Imperadori is recorded in 1423 Ferrara, purchased from Florence; nothing else is known but that it was ordered by the Marchexana, who would have been Parasina, age 18 or 19, wife of Marquess Nicolo III, and that a game called Imperatori again came from Florence in 1434, appearing again in Ferrara in the 1440s [now apparently of local manufacture].54 Pratesi has speculated that two Imperatore figures might have been assigned to each suit, as the highest cards in their suits, or else as trumps. 55 As Emperors, it seems to me they would likely have been entitled to range outside their own kingdom and capture cards in others. As such they need not have formed a separate hierarchy; they could all have been equal, or four of them higher than the other four, one set higher than Kings, the other set higher than Queens, for example. In that case priority among equals might have been decided by which was played last.
________________
54. On 1423: Adriano Franceschini, Artisti a Ferrara in età umanistica e rinascimentale. Testimonianze archivistiche. Parte I dal 1341 al 1471 (Ferrara: Corbo, 1993), Camera Ducale Estense entries for 1422-24, lines 137ff under “i.” On 1440s: Francescini, “Note d’archivio sulle carte ferraresi,” Ludica 2 (1996), pp. 170-74. Both cited and trans. by Ross Gregory Caldwell, http://trionfi.com/imperatori-cards-ferrara-1423. On 1434: Pratesi, “Les ‘Imperatori’ des Florence à la cour de Ferrare,” L’As de Trèfle, N. 54 (1995), pp. 16-17, at http://naibi.net. [and earlier in "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. translated at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2743.)

55. Pratesi, “In Search of Tarot Sources, Part 2,” The Playing-Card 27:3 (1998), p. 112, online in
http://naibi.net; Pratesi, “Altri Commenti sui Trionfi” (2016), same website, trans. at
http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com ... about.html.

I would add one thing. One way in which all eight could be equal, besides being equally superior to Kings and below, is for Emperors to be superior to male cards below them and Empresses to female cards. In Pythagoreanism, odd numbers were considered male and even numbers female. For each to be superior to the same number of suit-cards below them, there would have to be an even number of court cards and an even number of number cards - either four or six, but not three. With six courts in each rank, both male and females of the same rank there, the same potential for the card played last winning exists. This schema might have been too hard to get used to, however. I mention it only as a possibility.

There is then the question of how these "empires" would have been imagined. It does not really matter, but in fact there were four major empires around the Mediterranean then, each of which was attacking the other from time to time: the Holy Roman, to which all the Western Christian lands could be considered a part in virtue of the Pope's jurisdiction over them; the Byzantine Christian; the Turkish Muslim; and the Mamluk Muslim. Turks and Mamluks fought in the area where their two empires met. Latins fought against Greeks to win souls for the Pope, setting up little kingdoms inside the Byzantine Empire, while the Byzantines eyed southern Italy, which had formerly been part of Byzantium and where many still spoke Greek. Perhaps two male emperors would have had turbans and two of them crowns - or whatever they wore as signs of royalty-, while two of the empresses would have worn veils and two of them crowns, distinguished from their husbands in dress or beardlessness. They also could have been all male and looked much the same, each holding his suit-sign, but one of the two for each sign holding it higher than the other. Or something else.

Otherwise, these cards need not have been in any hierarchical relationship among themselves, and so not constituting a trump suit, if the winner among equals was decided by which was played last in a trick.

The hypothesis then is that these "Imperatori" are the foundation for a trump suit, coming later as other cards with extra powers are added, its subjects ones that already appeared hierarchically arranged. The four cardinal virtues were a hierarchy, although differently in different sources. The most respected would have been Aquinas's: Prudence high, then Justice, then Fortitude, then Temperance. Above them Charity was high, then Hope, then Faith. This order is even in the table of contents of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. The six Petrarchan triumphs were also in a hierarchy. All of them didn't have to be in the sequence, depending on how many were desired altogether 7 virtues plus 6 Petrarchans plus 8 imperatori would be 21, with 4 imperatori 17, etc., since both numbers are one more than a multiple of four, one would either be absent or not connected with a suit at all. There would have to be at least two Imperatori, to have the "equal papi" characteristic. It could well have been the same principle everywhere, so naturally in Piedmont, too.

That the imperatori were initially non-hierarchical everywhere is suggested not only by the evidence of Bologna and Piedmont, but by how the position of the Popess varies in those places that made them as hierarchical as the other trumps. While every place had the Pope highest and the Emperor above the Empress - one major reason for making them hierarchical, using the game's potential for indoctrination - the Popess varied. With four equal "imperatori", the Popess's position, for indoctrination purposes, is undefined and so indeterminate, then subject to different attitudes on where she would fit. Putting her next to the Pope seems to have been Ferrara's determination, perhaps as the Pope's mistress - or wife, as the Church legally was. Putting her farther away makes her, still as the Church, subordinate to the Emperor and even the Empress, and so to secular powers as well as the papacy. France historically supported the latter (i.e. control over ecclesiastical appointments), as did the Holy Roman Empire and Venice. So in those domains, including Milan as a duchy of the Empire (unlike Ferrara), she would be low. If Florence also put her low, as suggested by the Rosenwald, that might have been seen as a mistake, resolved by quietly removing her from the sequence altogether.

The question then is, was the tarocchi sequence a matter of adding the hierarchical cards to the non-hierarchical imperatori (reducing the number of the latter at the same time), or of combining two separate sequences, retaining the non-hierarchical aspect for four of them (or fewer) of but not the others? It seems to me more likely the former, and this is my doubt about Nathaniel's 14 + 8 hypothesis. It looks, from the evidence of Marziano, that trumps early on were conceived in groups associated with suits, not just an unbroken sequence. Also, trumps are a major innovation; as such, it is something that would most likely have occurred in stages, one aspect at a time. Third, in the scoring as recorded later, trumps behave much like court cards as far as getting extra points: 3 or 4 of the same rank - king, queen, knight, page - and now 4 papi, at the beginning of the sequence (the Bagatino in the scoring, like the Fool, serves as a wild card), and at least 3 of the last 4 trumps. It is similar in minchiate. That makes it likelier that the trumps originally were special court cards.

This is just a hypothesis for the origin of the "equal papi" rule, an alternative to the Ghibelline-Guelf hypothesis, but one that seems to me at least as probable. It could be either as 4 (or fewer) imperatori, to which are added 4 (or more) virtues and 6 (or one more or one less) Petrarchan-type, to which later are added 5 more, perhaps drawn from a later version of imperatori - my hypothesis; or as 7 virtues + 7 Petrarchan-types, to which later are added 8 imperatori - Nathaniel's hypothesis, in which I have not seen the "equal papi" rule included. But it is easy enough, just by supposing that the 4 high dignitaries, since they remained together, retained the characteristic I have assumed for them in the previous game, while the other 4, scattered through the sequence, did not. I tend to agree that the negative "imperatori" - the Hanged Man, the Devil, the Fool, the Bagatella, the Thunderbolt (representing its creators), and yes, I know that's five - could have been inspired by a Kaiserspiel-like version of "VIII Imperatori".

Hello.

Thanks, Huck and Mikeh. Mikeh's explanation is very detailed. I like it. I think it is necessary to imagine details about hypothetical origins of tarot. It is very important. I wonder if Dummett was really able to imagine and describe so many details for the Emperor deck. I should look for that text if I haven't already read it in his book. Congratulations, Mikeh, on your hypothetical explanation. And congratulations, Huck, on your great contribution with the 5x14 theory, which is very useful for understanding the origins of the Tarot in the 15th century.

I wrote something in my notes to put here and it got deleted. I'll try to be brief so it's easy to understand. Thanks for Pratesi's article on emperor cards in 1434. I can't find any emperor cards from 1440, as I think you say in the trionfi.com link. From 1443 onward, people talk about emperors or emperor, according to the document. Fernando de la Torre mentioned a common deck of Latin suits with only one emperor. Kaiserspiel means "Emperor's Game" according to Pratesi, but I think in German it would be written the same way as "Emperor's Game." Kaiserspiel has four emperors, which are the four 10 cards with a flag drawn on them. I'm confused by all this. I think that possibly after 1423, the emperor game had fewer than eight emperors. I suppose there were four emperors or just one emperor. Can we talk about emperor cards if there are eight or four emperors? Perhaps yes, but there could be just one emperor, as Fernando says. I thought that perhaps documents from 1443 onward mention emperors when more than one deck is purchased, but I doubt this criterion is followed, if each document specifies how many decks there are. The old text is a litle confusing to me. So, I think perhaps the number of emperors decreased over the years. I think possibly in 1423 there were four emperors and four empresses, but perhaps later there were no empresses in the emperor cards because Ferdinand applied the emperor card to a Spanish marquise. If there had been an empress card, he would have mentioned it, rather than the emperor.

Another detail. Theoretically, there's a design problem with the supposed emperors of each suit. Specifically, the Emperor of Pentacles and the Emperor of Staves could have two similar symbols, one in each hand. If the emperors each have a wand or staff of power, then the Emperor of Staves has a staff in each hand. If the emperors each have a globe in one hand, then the Emperor of Pentacles has a circle in each hand. Perhaps this is resolved by the two Muslim emperors wearing turbans? Then the Emperor of Pentacles and the Emperor of Staves would be the Moorish emperors. Do you have another solution for these two emperors? You mentioned the crown, which could be special and distinguish the emperors from the kings. I don't think the kings or emperors were standing, because both are seated in the ancient Italian designs we know, for example, Rothschild cards. Perhaps they were Roman emperors, but that's not the aesthetic preserved in the two imperial tarot cards.

On another note, I want to make an important observation. I believe you're talking about the elimination of the Popess when the "Minchiate Germini" deck emerged (the Germini was surely already quite similar to the Earlier Minchiate, which was later consolidated). Apparently, the Strambotto poem (around 1500) mentions the Pope and omits the Popess. However, the Germini poem of 1553 seems to describe a Popess (IV) because it mentions a cloth, and there are tarot designs of the Popess with a cloth behind it (for example: Marsella designs). This is my observation, but I don't know why Danilo Romei also interprets that card as a Popess in his translation I found in PDF. Perhaps he's simply basing it on the appearance of that card in the Earlier Minchiate. This is what I mean. The papal card (IV) from the Earlier Minchiate seems to have a woman illustrated. I don't know why Giordano says it's a Pope. I think there's a custom of thinking that the Popess was eliminated, but I don't know what basis there is for that claim. The Minchiate Anterior lacks a Pope in card IV. I don't know if the Popess was initially eliminated or if Strambotto saw the Popess card and called her Pope, as Giordano and other writers later did. It's strange that the Popess is above the Emperor, but you only have to look at the image of trump IV in any Minchiate Anterior deck. The Chilean scholar Amparo Aguirre studies the Minchiate and says that the papal figure is a woman. My girlfriend knows nothing about cards, and I asked her what figure she saw. She told me it was a woman. Other contemporary authors are also making this observation. But it seems that for a long time scholars have said that this figure is a Pope. The confusion is understandable if we consider that the Pope and the Popess in the Bolognese tarocchino (dalla Tore) apparently have their sex or symbolism reversed, compared to the usual symbolism of both cards in other tarots. I didn't want to go into this topic because it takes a lot of energy and is complex to identify the three pope cards in the Anterior Minchiate, but it's a detail that could have implications for the entire topic we're addressing about the four popes. Also, I'm interested in your opinion on the subject. Do you think the female pope of the Minchiate is a man? In the Later Minchiate, she's a man with a beard. Perhaps this has caused confusion, extending to the Anterior Minchiate without looking at that card closely.

As for the rest, I love the hypotheses you put forward, although perhaps I have slightly different ideas on a speculative level, due to my own observations and theories. Your reflections are very good and very useful. I'll think about it. Thank you!

Next day: something about Imperial Cards is deleted here and edited in the next publication here.