Tarot History Forum

Huck wrote: 30 May 2025, 14:37
The Lucca Tarocchi had 13 trionfi cards and totally 69 cards
The Sola Busca has 22 trionfi cards and totally 78 cards. The artist had split the 22 trionfi.cards in 2 groups, one with 9 and the other with 13 cards. If one takes the group of 9 cards out of the game, one gets a game with the structure of the Lucca Tarocchi.

Your 13 / 9 division of the Sola Busca is subjective nonsense & the resulting 13 69 dating is not history but numerological idiocy at its most absurd, and contrary to what actual history is known. I am astonished that you seriously present such as a serious argument : but even more so that anyone else with a brain-cell would give it the time of day.

Hello

I'll try to explain what I understand from Huck. The emperor visited Lucca and other places in Europe. Apparently, this coincides with the existence of early playing cards in those places. The emperor could have spread common playing cards in Lucca or encouraged the development of a fondness for playing cards there. The emperor returned home. So, in Lucca, they continued playing cards. Possibly, Prince Fibbia knew card games from childhood because he had family in Monteggiore, and I suppose he visited them. We don't know where Fibbia lived as a young man, but he surely moved to another city several times, living with his father, who moved to another city. Later, Fibbia married and lived in Bologna, where he could have spread a card game that he invented or that he had learned in Monteggiore or Lucca, since Monteggiore is close to the city of Lucca, in the same region. For example, I imagine that perhaps that game was played with a common deck of four suits and gave a hierarchy to the court figures, or perhaps considered one suit superior to the other three suits. Later, perhaps that game evolved into the Bologna trump game. Huck observes that perhaps the structure of the 69-card deck, which includes 13 allegories, was a tribute to the traditional celebration of 1369 in Lucca. The observation about the numbers and year may be interesting, but perhaps it's a coincidence and no one noticed the detail. This game continues later as Lucca Tarot (Orfeo). This estructure of deck existed in Italy in XV century if we accept that probably BAR was a Lucca Tarot. Roman Academic (or somebody from there that was in Ferrara) toke the Lucca Tarot structure and remplaced 13 alegoric trionfi puting 13 heroes and added 9 heroes: Sola Busca deck was created. This academy was in Roma and inspire to choose roman heroes becouse This academy was interested in old roman culture.

Mikeh

About minchiate, there is a comment where we read that "minchiate" is a game with 4 suits deck. Right? It is in a diccionary: "The worlde of wordes" (London, 1598) by John Florio. Is it a mistake? You or Pratesi or anybody have an opinion about that?

Girolamo Zorli inform about that:
viewtopic.php?p=10907#p10907

Zorli say that:
"Ah, important, I forgot. I sense a trap. The name of the game. In XVI century we have, from Aretino on, several documents citing Germini. Was the Rosenthal sheet a 96 card Germini pack ? was it called by us Minchiate pack just because we usually take for granted that Minchiate and Germini are the same thing ? in fact, from the middle XVII century on, they were the same thing. Aretino and Cardano (De ludo Aleae, about 1530) do not seem to agree. Even John Florio, in his World of Wordes (1599 or so), says : Germini, a tarot game. Minchiate, a card game.
Interesting"
He say "Rosenthal" but he eants to say "Rosenwald".

Later, Huck answer to Zorli and say that Rosenthal is created in 1500 aprox. I dont know if Huck is thinking about Rosenwald or about Rosenthal. This confussion is interesting. Rosenthal is made in similar date (perhaps) but it dont have lot of strange triunfi as Minchiate Germini. Huck answer:
viewtopic.php?p=10910#p10910

Is possible that first Minchiate (1466) were a game with only 4 suit cards (regular deck)? This idea is a strange sorprise.

*************

Mikeh, then do you think that Sola Busca is from Ferrara/Venice or what is your idea? Probably you wrote about that.

And Steve, have you wrote where was the origin of Sola Busca? Probably it is in other part of the forum.

**********

If you agree with 5x14 theory, when do you think that the sequence was complet?

Huck say that probably the tarot sequence existed in 1487 when Boiardo Poem was wrote with 22 triunfi that not are the tarot triunfi.

I think that probably Steele Sermo is the oldest evidence about 22 alegoric cards. Right? This is not a easy solution becouse Nathaniel say that Steele Sermo is older that 1470. Now I think that probably the Tarot structure (22 alegories) was accepted between 1490 and 1502. Anybody agree with that? I think that probably first Minchiate had 20 alegories. Not more. Probably I have to change my ideas. To connect everithing is dificult.

If the 5x14 theory were right, then the original sequence in Bologne had 14 triunfi. Not more. It were the first moment in Bologne Triunfi Game. What was the 14 bolognese triunfi in the origin?

Thanks

Right, in the communication was an error with Rosenthal, which actually was Rosenwald.

Franco had started with our cooperation november 3, 2011, the article with 1453 in the title.
http://trionfi.com/franco-pratesi
Nr. 3 had the title "ROSENWALD’S FOURTH SHEET" and was from November 18, 2011
http://trionfi.com/rosenwald-tarocchi-sheet
In the background discussion of this article the idea dived up, that the Rosenwald was a very practical solution, producing with four 24-cards-sheets 3 different
decks:
1. a 48-cards game (normal playing cards with 4x12 structure)
2. a 72-cards game (a trionfi game with 72 cards or less... 69?)
3. a 96-cards game (Minchiate deck without fool)

The 2 additional Rosenwald sheets were new to us. but not for Franco. The fourth Rosenwald sheet was only an hypothetical addition.

1st New sheet: 3 suits number cards 2-9
2nd New sheet: 1 suit number cards 2-9, 4 Aces, 4 Kings, 4 Knights on horses, 2 male Fante, 2 female pages / no Queens, no 10s
The old sheet: 21 trumps, the Fool is merged with the Magician, 3 Queens / the 4th Queen is missing
The hypothetical 4th sheet: 19 missing trumps (3 theological virtues, 4 elements, 12 zodiac signs), four missing 10s, 1 missing Queen. NO FOOL

This was the state of 18th November 2011.
Girolamo Zorli had arrived at December 14, a month later.
viewtopic.php?p=10896#p10896.

It was a later personal triumph, that the 48 card Assissi deck was detected in an older IPCS work with the quality "missing 10s" by Michael Dummett and John McLeod. It consisted of the both sheets, which were new to us in 2011.
viewtopic.php?p=18118#p18118
.... this is a longer development, one has to read a few contributions.

The follow-up contains also a note about the number 69 and its appearance as Lucca Tarocchi ...

Franco's ideas about it has possibly slight differences. I see some relation of this (hypothetical) 72/69-card-deck to the later Lucca Tarocchi, which also had 69 cards, but in another composition. And also some relation to the 70-cards of the the 5x14-theory, and 72 cards (5x14+2 special cards) of the Master PW-deck.
The reason for this scheme might be, that 72 is just a pleasant number in the production of playing cards, 3x24, 4x18, 6x12, 8x9 for different woodblock sizes.

Here is a Rosenwald card

[/quote] And here is the correspondent Assissi card
.... and here are more hares with dogs
viewtopic.php?p=18343#p18343

Magic Moon wrote

Mikeh

About minchiate, there is a comment where we read that "minchiate" is a game with 4 suits deck. Right? It is in a diccionary: "The worlde of wordes" (London, 1598) by John Florio. Is it a mistake? You or Pratesi or anybody have an opinion about that?

Girolamo Zorli inform about that:
viewtopic.php?p=10907#p10907

Zorli say that:
"Ah, important, I forgot. I sense a trap. The name of the game. In XVI century we have, from Aretino on, several documents citing Germini. Was the Rosenthal sheet a 96 card Germini pack ? was it called by us Minchiate pack just because we usually take for granted that Minchiate and Germini are the same thing ? in fact, from the middle XVII century on, they were the same thing. Aretino and Cardano (De ludo Aleae, about 1530) do not seem to agree. Even John Florio, in his World of Wordes (1599 or so), says : Germini, a tarot game. Minchiate, a card game.
Interesting"
He say "Rosenthal" but he eants to say "Rosenwald".

In my opinion Zorli (if his intent was to interpret "card game" as meaning a game with only 4 suits, as the equivalent in Italian would have done) was reading too much into Florio. In English, the term "card game" applies to tarot as much as to cards with just the four suits. Here is Florio 1598 (https://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio1598/169small.html: words in brackets below are by me, giving the modern spelling)

Germini. ...Also, a kinde [kind] of playing-cards which we call terrestriall [terrestrial] triumphs.

As you can see, he considers Germini a particular kind of playing-cards.

He doesn't actually define the word "minchiate" as such:
https://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio1598/249small.html does not include that word. However, if we go to "menchiatte" (https://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio1598/245small.html) we find:

Menchiatte. The name of a game at cards.

This does not imply that "Menchiatte" is played with just the four suits, because even "germini" is a "kind" of cards (unlike in Italian, at least at that time). Most likely Florio does not know the nature of the game, as the term "menchiate" was used less in the Italian literature Florio had seen, and not used by Italian players of his acquaintance for a game they played. It is a word he has seen, but not in a context that describes the game or the deck used other than as a card game.

It is inconceivable to me that in 1598 it was a game with four suits only, but before (sometimes as "sminchiate," as in Berni 1526) and after is the same as germini was before. "Germini" was simply a more dignified term for the same game as "minchiate", I think, at least by 1526, or at least one played with the same deck (I would not disallow changes in the rules as a reason for using a different name).

Why Florio would describe the game as "terrestrial triumphs" I don't know, since the zodiac is not terrestrial. Maybe because it has the four elements.

And yes, it seems to me reasonable that the Sola-Busca deck was commissioned in Venice or Ferrara, and that the painted version we know, at least, was done for a Venetian recipient, whether as a gift from Ferrara or not I hesitate to say, nor precisely when, but near 1491. The Brera Gallery thinks that the visual designer was a particular painter active in Venetian territory, in the Marche (Ancona?); whether the style is that unique I cannot say, as I am not familiar enough with all the different artists of Ferrara/Venice/etc. The artist Marco Zoppo of Ferrara is similar enough that it could have been an artist in Ferrara.

Magic Moon: And thanks for summarizing Huck's argument for me. I somehow thought he was making an additional claim about Rome, pre-1400, but I see that I was wrong.

Hi Mikeh, thanks for sharing the pages of that former dictionary and for exposing your way of understanding the problem. Now I understand much better. Zorli's Commotario was a summary that causes confusion out of context. Anyway, I have sought without success that Dummett was based on saying that Sminchiate was a word used by Boloñese players because now I have a doubt. Perhaps the Boloñeses used the word "Sminchiate" playing with a common deck of four sticks or we know that it was a game of allegorical triumphs, that is, the boloñes tarocchino? In other earliest contexts, the word sminchiate significantly minchiate and we think that Dummett was wrong. However, I think we still accepted that Dummett was right by saying that the Boloñeses used that word during a game, to suggest the couple that throws a powerful letter on the table. Could it be a common boloñes deck? Quuzas is very evident but I think I had not asked me this question before.

****

The name of the Minchiate game already existed in 1466 and in 1477. I think I know no evidence of the name of the game minchiate during the rest of the century (1478-1500). I have always thought that this game existed from 1466 until Germini emerged in 1506 but perhaps it was a game of little importance that disappeared around 1480, for example. After the name of the Germini existed (1506) there is still used some time the name of the game Minchiate, as Pratesi indicates in the article that Mikeh indicated. If the first Minchiate (1466-1477) had no more triumphs than the common tarot and disappeared in the fifteenth century, then surely the occasionally mentioned Minchiate in the 16th century would be extensive as in Mazo Germini. However, if the first Minchiate existed until 1500-1506, then I am not sure what Baraja was the Minchiate mentioned in the sixteenth century, because perhaps could be the minchiate of the fifteenth century (1466) that he had no more than 22 allegorical cards.

Mikeh says that Minchiate and Germini are similar or equal decks in the 16th century. However, the Minchiate of the fifteenth century was possibly psrecido to a common tarot. Some think this. True? Pratesi use the name "Minchiate-I" (since 1466) that is different to "Minchiate-II" (since XVI or XVII).


****

About tarot word, here...
viewtopic.php?p=23949#p23949
... Mikeh wrote:

In 16th and 17th century Italy the verb taroccare, in various spellings, meant to argue, to shout, to blaspheme (in Sicily). Applied to a person meant a foolish person, either because their emotions made them irrational or because they were of low intelligence, or low intelligence of a particular sort. So the macaronic poets of Piedmont in the late 15th century, used the word in both senses. An official is called tarocco because he is unreasonably trying to extort money from someone. Another is tarocco because he has no idea he is being cuckolded"

I thought that now the italian verb "taroccare" means "to do a falsification". Where did you find that this verb means fool person? I thought that "tarocho" (wood or stupid person) is diferent than "taroccare" (to do falsification). It is interesting if this verb had (centurys ago) a signification similar to fool or stupid.

Hi Mikeh, thanks for sharing the pages of that former dictionary and for exposing your way of understanding the problem. Now I understand much better. Zorli's Commotario was a summary that causes confusion out of context. Anyway, I have sought without success that Dummett was based on saying that Sminchiate was a word used by Boloñese players because now I have a doubt. Perhaps the Boloñeses used the word "Sminchiate" playing with a common deck of four sticks or we know that it was a game of allegorical triumphs, that is, the boloñes tarocchino? In other earliest contexts, the word sminchiate significantly minchiate and we think that Dummett was wrong. However, I think we still accepted that Dummett was right by saying that the Boloñeses used that word during a game, to suggest the couple that throws a powerful letter on the table. Could it be a common boloñes deck? Quuzas is very evident but I think I had not asked me this question before.

****

The name of the Minchiate game already existed in 1466 and in 1477. I think I know no evidence of the name of the game minchiate during the rest of the century (1478-1500). I have always thought that this game existed from 1466 until Germini emerged in 1506 but perhaps it was a game of little importance that disappeared around 1480, for example. After the name of the Germini existed (1506) there is still used some time the name of the game Minchiate, as Pratesi indicates in the article that Mikeh indicated. If the first Minchiate (1466-1477) had no more triumphs than the common tarot and disappeared in the fifteenth century, then surely the occasionally mentioned Minchiate in the 16th century would be extensive as in Mazo Germini. However, if the first Minchiate existed until 1500-1506, then I am not sure what Baraja was the Minchiate mentioned in the sixteenth century, because perhaps could be the minchiate of the fifteenth century (1466) that he had no more than 22 allegorical cards.

Mikeh says that Minchiate and Germini are similar or equal decks in the 16th century. However, the Minchiate of the fifteenth century was possibly psrecido to a common tarot. Some think this. True? Pratesi use the name "Minchiate-I" (since 1466) that is different to "Minchiate-II" (since XVI or XVII).


****

About tarot word, here...
viewtopic.php?p=23949#p23949
... Mikeh wrote:

"In 16th and 17th century Italy the verb taroccare, in various spellings, meant to argue, to shout, to blaspheme (in Sicily). Applied to a person meant a foolish person, either because their emotions made them irrational or because they were of low intelligence, or low intelligence of a particular sort. So the macaronic poets of Piedmont in the late 15th century, used the word in both senses. An official is called tarocco because he is unreasonably trying to extort money from someone. Another is tarocco because he has no idea he is being cuckolded"

I thought that now the italian verb "taroccare" means "to do a falsification". Where did you find that this verb means fool person? I thought that "tarocho" (wood or stupid person) is diferent than "taroccare" (to do falsification). It is interesting if this verb had (centurys ago) a signification similar to fool or stupid.

" An official is called tarocco because he is unreasonably trying to extort money from someone."

That's in the story of the macaronic author and is the oldest appearance. The date of the poem is not clear, but is very important for the interpretation of the text.

The scene takes place in Vercelli, a location, in which in reality talking about the future after the battle at the river Taro took place between France and Milanese delegations. The macaronic poet is pro-Milan and contra-France, that is clear. A French army was still on Milanese territory captured in a Milanese city, which they had conquered before. In the new situation they had nothing to eat and had already slaughtered their horses. Finally they were released, but the way to Vercelli was rather far and they had to walk and it was a hot Italian day. Not everybody reached Vercellii. Some of the French soldiers had Syphilis.
This were the current heroes from the Taro river. They looked not very victorious.
Both sides had claimed, that they had won the battle at the river Taro. The French escaped and their treasures stayed in the hand of the Italian party.

Perhaps the search words "Vercelli" and "1495" lead to some results. Here is an old discussion ...
viewtopic.php?p=9153#p9153

Here is the battle at the river Taro, mostly called battle at Fornovo:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_Fornoue ..... the French perspective, big victory for France
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fornovo .... copies the French opinion
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battaglia_di_Fornovo .... humble victory of France
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlacht_bei_Fornovo .... copies the Italian results
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalla_de_Fornovo .... increases the losses on both sides

Added later: My memory had exchanged "Asti" for "Vercelli" in the earlier version. I've to excuse for this error.

Hello Huck

The war in Taro river seems interesting but how it is connected with the game Tarau or Tarocho? Probably Taro river was important as Tarot name origin but I dont know exactly how it happened. The name Taro inspired to choose Taroccho name for the game? This is not very similar. Or the name Tarau was choose for the game by french people? It sounds similar in french. How french people wrote the name Taro for the river? Perhaps: Taro (the same that italians).

Probably italian people created Tarot game (with structure: 21+1). Not french people. But french people created the name of the game? Probably italian people created the name Tarocho for the game. They intended to make a double meaning with the name of the river and with the french stupid people (tarocho) who lost the battle and said to have won?

But probably the game existed with 21+1 special cards before creating a name. Sermo Ludo cum Aliis have the cards 21+1 and dont use the name Tarocho/ Tarocchi/ Tarau/ Taraux/ Tarocco. Sermo dont use the name Tarot becouse it is wrote in latin? Sermo could have used some word in latin (taraxi?) or in italian (tarocho). Then, probably the game and structure Tarot existed before than the specific name for the game Tarot. Do you agree with that?

*****

Mikeh

In The Playing Card magazine (volume 50, number 1) there is an article text about Minchiate. It say that 1598 dictionary show Germini and Menchiate as synonyms. And probably Dummett say that. I think that it is wrong or perhaps it is in the part of the dictionary with english words that are translated to italian, it this part exist. I have to look for this possibility in your link.
... it seems that only exist from italian to english in this dictionary. Not from english to italian. Then I supose that it is a mistake in the magazine The Playing Cards. Germini and Menchiate are not synonyms in this dictionary (1598). I put bottom the picture from the text in the magazine (about synonyms Menchiate-Germini and Dummett).

Something more...
When Berni uses the word sminchiate, perhaps the phrase was not a three-game enumeration. I have a different idea. Quuzas The meaning was: play Tarocchi, either with triumphs or with sminchiate. That is, the word sminchiate perhaps was used to bet on the lowest triumph. This theory exists? It seems logical to me.