Tarot History Forum

Magic Moon: You have cited Monzali's article in The Playing-Card 50:1 correctly. What you cite deserves some attention.

For others who may come across this post: I discussed the 1598 dictionary a few posts back in this thread, at viewtopic.php?p=27281#p27281. It is the one by John Florio.

As is clear when you compare the two definitions, the dictionary does not consider "menchiatte" and "germini" to be synonyms. Florio defines "germini" in a way that sounds like the game later called minchiate. Florio simply says that "menchiatte" is a card game. He does not know anything more about it.

Monzali does not say where specifically Dummett claims that for Florio the two words were synonyms. All I know is that Dummett cites Florio in relation to those two entries in his book Il Mondo e l'Angelo, p. 257. He writes:

Dopo il Berni non sentiamo più parlare da alcuna fonte fiorentina del gioco dei Tarocchi, ma solo dei Germini; ma di questi ne sentiamo parlare moltissimo. Divenne un gioco molto famoso non solo in tutta la Toscana, ma anche a Roma e in tutti gli Stati Pontifici, inclusa Bologna. Sia il nome «Minchiate», nella forma «Menchiatte», che il nome «Germini» compaiono nel dizionario italiano/inglese di John Fiorio, A Worlde of Wordes, pubblicato a Londra nel 1598.

In English:

After Berni we no longer hear from any Florentine source of the game of Tarocchi, but only of Germini; but we hear of these very much. It became a very famous game not only throughout Tuscany, but also in Rome and in all the Papal States, including Bologna. Both the name «Minchiate», in the form «Menchiatte», and the name «Germini» appear in John Fiorio's Italian/English dictionary, A Worlde of Wordes, published in London in 1598.

Dummett does not say that Florio considers them synonyms. I doubt if Dummett said that about Florio anywhere else. Dummett himself considers them to be synonyms, but he does not attribute that belief to Florio. Florio enters in only in the regard that the word "menchiatte" existed by 1598 as a card game. Since after that the similar "minchiate" described a game that sounds much like what various 16th century sources called "germini", probably both words described the same game by that time. That is Dummett's inference, not Florio's.

Magic Moon: I do not think that your theory about "sminchiate" is correct, not only for the reasons that Pratesi gives, but also because of what else Berni goes on to say about "sminchiate," namely, his mention right afterwards of the "minchioneria" of having before one's eyes "the sun, the moon, the twelve", which of course describes minchiate (http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1816__singer___r ... _cards.pdf, pp. 27-28 (46 and 47 of the pdf)). This part was left out by Dummett in the passage from Berni that Pratesi quoted. Here is Singer's English, quoting from Berni. It is important to be aware that "Tarocchi" was the word for the 40 or 41 special cards of the game of Minchiate (a point that Dummett makes in the paragraph before the one I just quoted), as well as the 78 card game. Also important is the Italian word translated as "foolery", minchioneria, which seems to me to suggest "minchiate". I highlight the omitted part in bold. Here is what Singer says, referring to Berni:

But what also is an important feature in this singular little book, is the mention which is made of the Tarocchi. "Another," says he, " as more pleasing, prolonging the entertainment, and giving pleasure to the company in looking at the paintings, has found that the Tarocchi are an excellent game ; and he seems to be in his glory, when he has in hand to the number of two hundred cards, which he can scarcely hold, and which, not to be overlooked, he shuffles as well as he can under the table. 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, 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."

Here is the Italian, given in a footnote:

Un altra più piacevolone di costui per intrattenere un poco più la festa, et dar piacere alla brigata, a guardare le dipinture, ha trovato che TAROCCHI sono un bel gioco, et pargli essere in regno suo quando ha in mano un numero di dugento carte che a pena le può tenere, et per non essere appostato le mescola cosi il meglio che può sotto la tavola, viso proprio di Tarocco colui a chi piace questo gioco, che altro non vuol dir Tarocco che ignocco, sciocco, balocco degno di star fuor fornari e calzolari et plebei a giocarse in tutto di un Carlino in quarto a Tarocchi, o a Trionfi, o a Sminchiate che si sia, che ad ogni modo tutto importa minchioneria et dapocagine, pascendo l'occhio col Sole, et con la Luna et col Dodici come fanno i puti.

After this, Singer puts Sig. D, as though to credit an Italian of his acquaintance for the transcription.

Magic Moon wrote,

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?

The name of the game before it was called "tarocchi," at least from a little before 1440, was "trionfi," documented in numerous sources. Why the name changed in Italy is unclear. Some say it is because another game, making one of the four suits into trumps, came to Italy from Spain, so that another name was needed for the original one. However, we don't know when the name change was; it may have happened before the Spanish game entered Italy. Also, it would be easy enough to distinguish between "triumphs" and "Spanish triumphs". Another theory, suggested by Andrea Vitali, is that there was a change in the rules, so that there needed to be a distinction between the game with the new rules and that with the old.

Berni, in the 1526 quotation of my previous post, trades on a common meaning of "tarocco" as "foolish", and the same with "sminchiate" in relation to "minchionerie," foolishness, behaving like a child. In that case, tarocchi would be the game of the fool. To me that suggests a rule change about the role of the Fool, so that it plays a great and unique role in the game. Either it got its role as the "Excuse," i.e. being able to substitute for another card in a trick, or else its rule as being able to substitute for any card in sequences, or both.

There is then the problem of how to account for the word "taraux" in Avignon of 1505. French does not adapt -cco words in Italian to French by dropping the -cco, but by changing -cco to -que, i.e. "barocco" to "baroque." This is true in every known case, as Depaulis showed in an article of his that you can look up.

The "Taro River" theory would say that the card and paper makers from Pignerole had picked up the word "taro" from French troops passing through on their way back to France, who had named the Italian game after the place they lost most of their booty, perhaps already knowing the Italian "tarocchi" and the meaning of "fool." The people from Pignerole conveyed the name orally. However, the notary, being French, spelled it "taraux," using the plural form because he also knew the game as "tarocchi" or "trionfi".

I have a couple of other hypotheses. One, this part not original with me, is that "tarocco" came from the Arabic "tarakh", which meant "subtraction", in the sense of subtracting the weight of the container from the weight on a scales, to get the weight of the product itself. It came to mean a person who was mentally deficient. In Italy, this is also seen in the past participle of tarare, meaning to subtract the weight of the container, but in the past participle tarato had the meaning "crazy". The same held for the French "tarer" and the Spanish "tarar" (as "tarado") and also "tara". For latter, see the Real Academia Española – Edìcion del Trìcentenarìo (2020) at https://dle.rae.es/tara:

Voce Tara: Del ár. hisp. ṭár[a]ḥ, y este del ár. clás. ṭarḥ ‘acción de quitar, restar o apartar,’, Defecto físico o psíquico, por lo común importante y de carácter hereditario. f. Defecto o mancha que disminuye el valor de algo o de alguien.

Also, in a Provencale dictionary I found the forms"taro" and "tarous", which may have been pronounced like the French "taraux".

TARO (rouerg.), (rom. cat. esp. port. tala, cat. esp. port. it. tara, ar. talah, défaut, vice), s.f. Tare, déchet, v. dessouto, destaro, embaisso; dégât causé par des bestiaux, dommage, perte, malheur, v. auvàri, daumage; défectuosité, imperfection, vice . . . /
TAROUS. TAROUSO, adj. Qui a des tares, taré. [Frédéric Mistral, Lou trésor dóu Felibrige; ou, Dictionnaire provençal-français, embrassant les divers dialectes de la langue d’oc moderne, vol. 2 (Aix-en-Provence: J. Remondet-Aubin, 1879), p. 959, in archive.org.]

In Avignon the language spoken was Provencale. So it might have been that taracco became tarocco in Piedmont, equivalent to "taro" or "tarous" in Provence, become "taraux" in French. Unfortunately I do not know enough about 15th century Provencale to evaluate this hypothesis.

Another hypothesis, which I developed further from a dictionary etymology for "taroccare" found by Vitali (see http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=317&lng=ENG, beginning just before my photo of a page from a Greek-Latin lexicon), is that "tarocco" came from the Greek "tarachos" and the Latin "taraxia" meaning mentally agitated. The Greek would either have been from the influence of southern Italy, where Greek was still spoken (not my idea, but that of the historian Franco Motta), or from the macaronic poets' discovering the word in the new Greek works, especially by Plato, that were coming into the Italian universities, to which they associated "ataraxia", the opposite of "taraxia", found in the works of the Latin Stoic philosophers (these sources, for the macaronic poets was my idea). The Piedmontese poets where the word "tarocco" first appears were fond of turning Latin words into invented Italian ones for the sake of the rhyme, rhythm, and humor.

Another hypothesis is that the word came from a word that in the Lombard dialect meant "stump" or "block of wood," which then became like the English "blockhead." You can read this theory on THF by searching for "stump" or "blockhead."

What I favor is the equivalence tarous/tarocco between Provencale and Piedmont, both from the Arabic "tarakh", because it accounts for both words, "tarot" and "tarocco." So does the "Taro River" hypothesis, but that one seems too contrived for me.

We've in 1495 and 1499/1500-1512 and 1515-1525 French troops in Milanese territory and occasionally also elsewhere in Italy. In this time we have not much Tarocchi or similar Tar- documents and we also have not much Trionfi or similar appearances in the context of playing cards. The background is the French development, nothing else.
It wasn't the best time for Italian playing card producers.

... after the battle of Fornovo at the river Taro ....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Novara_(1495) .... 1495
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_W ... %80%931504 .... 1499-1504
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_th ... of_Cambrai .... 1508-1516
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Sforza .... 1512-1515
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_W ... %80%931526 .... 1521-1526
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pavia .... 1525

Huck wrote:
"The background is the French development, nothing else"

France ... interesting. Are you choosing Provencal Theory explained by Mikeh? Huck, can you develop that phrase? (You mean the name came from Provence and developed in France? Or do you mean that the structure and designs of the Tarot were developed in France in that time?

Mikeh wrote:
"So it might have been that taracco became tarocco in Piedmont, equivalent to "taro" or "tarous" in Provence, become "taraux" in French".

Hi Mikeh. Thanks for developing several theories. It looks interesting. I knew some of this but I lacked some detail and I did not know the Provencal Theory. When you say "tarAcco" in this frase about Piedmont, where do you take that word tAracco? Perhaps there is a mistake and you wanted to say tarOcco. In another phrase you say that Tarocco is registered in Piedmont for the first time. This first record of Tarocco refers to the game or is it a word with a general meaning in another context? Probably, I dont know this document. Perhaps it is in a text studied by Andrea but I dont remember it. If you could mention where to find, it would be interesting. On the other hand, I also like Tarocho theory. I wonder how was wrote the tarocho (wood, cut tree) word in plural.

PD: I have to study more Provencal Theory that you propose because it sounds interesting but it seems a bit complex.

thank you!

********

Regarding the chess board and the Croatia flag, Huck knows that the Pistoia flag has chess similar to Croatia?

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistoya

Magic Moon wrote:

Mikeh wrote:
"So it might have been that taracco became tarocco in Piedmont, equivalent to "taro" or "tarous" in Provence, become "taraux" in French".
Hi Mikeh. Thanks for developing several theories. It looks interesting. I knew some of this but I lacked some detail and I did not know the Provencal Theory. When you say "tarAcco" in this frase about Piedmont, where do you take that word tAracco? Perhaps there is a mistake and you wanted to say tarOcco.

The Provencal theory is mine, although Andrea found it worthy enough to include in his study of the subject in the book we edited together. I don't know of anyone else who has mentioned it. When I said that "taracco" became "tarocco" in Piedmont, yes, I think that was a mistake on my part. I should have said that the Arabic "tarakh" became "tarocco," with an extended meaning of "demented," in Piedmont.

Magic Moon wrote (right after the foregoing):

In another phrase you say that Tarocco is registered in Piedmont for the first time. This first record of Tarocco refers to the game or is it a word with a general meaning in another context? Probably, I dont know this document. Perhaps it is in a text studied by Andrea but I dont remember it. If you could mention where to find, it would be interesting. On the other hand, I also like Tarocho theory. I wonder how was wrote the tarocho (wood, cut tree) word in plural.

It was not in the context of a game, but as a word with the general meaning of "fool/ crazy person" in a couple of poems. Ross found one and Andrea the other, both Piedmontese. The first is from the Maccheronea (dedicated to Gaspare Visconti, d. 1499) of Bassano Mantovano:

Erat mecum mea socrus unde putana
Quod foret una sibi pensebat ille tarochus
Et cito ni solvam mihi menazare comenzat.

Ross's translation: "My mother-in-law was with me, and this idiot thought he could get some money out of her, so he started threatening me."

The poem elsewhere refers to the peace negotiations then going on between the Italian and the French, which occurred around 1495. It is from the area around Asti, in the Piedmont region.

The second instance is in a type of song known as Frotula. It, too, is from around Asti, but its date of composition is less certain. Written by Giorgi Alione, it was published together with other "farces" and other works in 1521. But according to one critic, the farces "were written at the time of Charles VIII's descent into Italy, that is, toward 1494". Charles VIII seems to have been in Asti from Sept. 9 to Oct. 6 of 1494, after which he entered Lombard territory and descended toward Naples after concluding a treaty with Milan the same month (See Ross's timeline for Charles at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic ... =10#p11133). But that it was written then is admittedly just one person's opinion. Here is the relevant stanza.

Marì ne san dè au recioch
Secundum el Melchisedech
Lour fan hic. Preve hic et hec
Ma i frà, hic et hec et hoc
Ancôr gli è - d'i taroch
Chi dan zù da Ferragù.

For translation and interpretation, I refer to Andrea's essay on the origin of the word "tarocchi" in the book that he and I edited in 2022 (the translation is mine based on his interpretation:

Husbands do not know how to give the toll
According to Melchizedek
They do hic, the priests hic and hec,
But the friars hic, hec, and hoc
There are still some fools [taroch]
Who give down from Ferragù.8

And Andrea's gloss:

Husbands do not know how to give the toll = do not know how to do their
duty with their wives at the tolling, that is, when the bell announces
midnight
According to Melchizedek = according to what would be right: “My King is Righteous” is in fact the main meaning of the name Melchizedek, an emblematic character of the Old Testament.
They [husbands] do hic [are drunks, with an onomatopoetic sense], the priests [do] hic and hec [drink and go with the wives. Hec in place of the correct lat. fem. haec] but the friars, [do] hic, hec and hoc [they drink, go with the wives and perform many more acts of lasciviousness, just as there are many more case-forms of the Latin word hic than these three.]
There are still some fools who give down from Ferragù = who are made of the same pasta as Ferragù, i.e., oafs [rozzi].9
_________________
8 Giovan Giorgio Alione, “Frotula de le done,” in Opera Iocunda (Asti, 1521)
9 To understand the word taroch in this work, we have made use of Enzo Bottasso’s translation of many words of the Frotula in the work edited by him, Giovan Giorgio Alione, L’Opera Piacevole (Bologna: Libreria Antiquaria Palmaverde, 1953). For taroch he gave sciocchi (fools). So the line with the word taroch, “Ancôr gli è - d’i taroch” must be translated as “There are still some fools” (probably in reference to betrayed husbands). Ferragù is an oafish character, perhaps from a tradition north of the Alps around the life of Charlemagne (personal communication from Prof. Bruno Villata).

mikeh wrote: 10 Jun 2025, 11:31 It was not in the context of a game, but as a word with the general meaning of "fool/ crazy person" in a couple of poems. Ross found one and Andrea the other, both Piedmontese. The first is from the Maccheronea (dedicated to Gaspare Visconti, d. 1499) of Bassano Mantovano:

The scene of the work is at a river, which runs at the eastern side of vercelli (at the border of Piedmont at a bridge, which crosses the river). The tarochus demands money for the use of the bridge. The poet isn't interested to pay this and reacts in his work in a negative manner with the use of the word "tarochus".

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspare_Ambrogio_Visconti

Gaspare Ambrogio Visconti (Milano, 1461 – Milano, 8 marzo 1499) è stato un poeta e letterato italiano, gravitante nell'orbita culturale di Ludovico il Moro e Beatrice d'Este.

The poet is a man of Milan with good connections to the Milanese leader of the time 1495 - 1500, which is known for bad relations between France/Piedmont (Vercelli) and Milan. There was a bloody war and finally the occupation of Milan for more than 20 years.

You cannot call the work "Piedmontese", when the author is clearly hostile to the Piedmont.
Part of these hostile relations was the Italian-French battle at the river Taro .

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

Mikeh

Thanks. I did not know the poem found by Ross. Both poems use the written word: Taroch. However, you said Tarocco in Piedmont. The written word Tarocco is registered in Boloña later for the Tarot game but Tarocco early in Piedmont is not the same as Taroch. True? Well, maybe Tarocco and Tarocho were two writings for the same pronouncement. I dont know. But Taroch does not end in a vowel, that is, he differs more from Tarocco than Tarocho.

P.S. When I study the poem found by Andrea, it seemed to me that the meaning of Taroch is not easily deduced by the context. In addition the construction of the phrase is strange and that increases the difficulty of interpreting it. I conclude that the word Taroch in that poem does not approach the meaning of crazy but perhaps to the stupid and rather that of cuckold (spanish: cornudo) which is an insult to the husband whose woman is unfaithful. I understand that the cuckold husband can be considered stupid (fool, ignorant) but not crazy. The two symbolic horns can be made of wood as the piece of wood called Tarocho (in Lombardy or Piedmont or both?). This is my personal idea about that complex poem who use "taroch". Andrea's interpretation seemed little forced or I did not understand her at all well.

Perhaps this two poems are not of Piedmont but of Lombardia. Huck points in that address, at least, with respect to Ross-poem. Maybe in Piedmont was also spoken the Milan's dialect? Mikeh say that "tarocco" was in Piedmont when the word was "taroch" in Lombardy. Right? But perhaps "taroch" was used in Milan and Piedmont...

Huck, do you say that there was politically conflict between Piedmont and Lombardia or only do you highlight the enmity between the poet and Piedmont?

It is a very interesting topic. It seems that we are close to the secret of the Tarot, it is, the origin of the name.

Huck: the poet is Bassano Mantovano, not Gaspar Visconti, who is only the dedicee, of interest because of his date of death, 1499. Mantovano is surely writing from an anti-French perspective, but whether his vocabulary is Milanese is not clear. I thought he was Piedmontese, but I can't find him in treccani. [Added later: I do find one after all, listed under another name, but "detto", i.e. called, Bassano Mantovano; he was born in Mantua and has the right dates. I will do more investigation. The name suggests Mantuan origin.] Wherever he is from, perhaps the Latinization "tarochus", if a neologism, is based on a word in both Piedmont and Lombardy for "deranged". That is not excluded. Piedmont is supported by the other poem. MORE TO FOLLOW.

Magic Moon: "tarochus" is macaronic Latin, that is, Latin with much of it in odd spellings or made up on the spot to sound like Latin, influenced by what is needed for poetic affect, e.g. rhyme, rhythm. It becomes "tarocco" by an Italianization of the word: it could have gone either way, "tarochus" to "tarocco" or "tarocco" to "tarocchus". In the latter case, the original word might even have been "tarachus" (from the Arabic tarakh") or "taraxia" or the Greek "tarachos", adapted by the poet for his own purpose. The shift from the "a" of the Arabic, classical Latin, or Greek to "o" is either by the poet or some natural tendency, as it seems to have gone to "o" in Provencale, and there is a similar word with "a" in Spanish, as I indicated. Whatever the origin, the point is to account for the "cc" in "tarocco". In my hypothesis, it is linguistic shifts, whether in speaking or writing, that account for both "tarocchi" and "taraux", either natural or for specific occasions by a poet or notary (in the case of "taraux" in Avignon), as opposed to a battle at the Tarot River.

"Taroch" is similar: here the requirement of the rhyme has stronger support. It could become "tarocco," by a very natural process. It might even have been in the Ferrara court. I have read somewhere that the Duchess, Lucrezia Borgia, was fond of frotullas. Perhaps Beatrice d'Este had the same tastes in Milan.

There are in general two types of mental derangements: one involves more agitation than normal, the other, less. One derangement can be overly distrusting, the other overly trusting. Andrea has done a detailed analysis of words in Italian related to "follia" and "matto," unfortunately not currently online. However, some of the sense of it is in the essay on the Fool. The English word "crazy" is not strictly speaking relevant, but while the word tends to be used more with the former cases, it also can apply to the latter: "mentally deranged" is the encompassing definition, which can take the meaning of "mentally unsound," which encompasses a variety of unsoundnesses.

In the second case, with "taroch", the context would suggest that the word meant a dullard in the sense of someone who is does not attend to his surroundings, like a block of wood (hence the relevance of the Lombard word found in a dictionary). The word "Farrugu" interpreted as "rozzo" suggests courseness. In that case, the dullness would be in particular a lack of imagination, i.e. not imagining that his wife might consult a priest for some other reason than a religious one.

MikeH wrote ...

Huck: the poet is Bassano Mantovano, not Gaspar Visconti, who is only the dedicee, of interest because of his date of death, 1499.

There are two poets and two different works, as I understand it. The date of the work of Gaspar Visconti is not given. I think, that this work is from 1495 or at least inspired by the situation of 1495,
Bassano Mantovano has another context.

Added:
The situation of 2025 is so, that French and English wiki have the idea, that the loss of Italians in the battle at the Taro river was about 4000 and the loss of French troops was 100-200. Which means, that on 1 dead French soldier came 20-40 Italians. If one believes this opinion

Another view of German and Italian wiki is, that there were about 1000 dead French soldiers and 2000 dead Italian soldiers, although there were about 10.000 living French and 20.000 living Italians before the fighting.

Both sides had claimed, that they did win the battle. The French escaped, the Italians took the considerable booty, but lost more men, cause it was dangerous to cross the river.
Likely it was of high importance, that the French soldiers looked good.
As everybody could see, that the Italian adventure ended as desaster.

I have altered my comments above somewhat, because I did find a "Bassano Mantovano" in treccani after all, a poet of Mantuan origin. Researching further, I find the poem in a book that is in archive.org, https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_SGym ... 5/mode/2up: Maccheronee di cinque poeti italiani del secolo 15. Tifi Odassi, Anonimo Padovano, Bassano Mantovano, Giovan Giorgio Alione, Fossa Cremonese, Milano, 1846.

The section on Mantovano starts on p. 61. The editor, P. A. Tolsi, says he found it in a very rare book in the Trivulsian Library in Milan, published under the title Collectanee de cose facetissime e piene de riso: de quale ogni lectore ne concepirà piacere suavissimo. Et sono quesle cioè: Macheronea nova composta per Bassano da Mantua etc. Stampato in Goga Magoga a le spese de Lucretio Numitore per Jo. Ang. dia rog stampa, in- 8.. So he does seem to be from Mantua. Another indication is in an epitaph to the poet by another poet, Pamphilo Sasso:

Inclyta laetata est gemini bis Mantua vate
Carmine Bassani: Carmine Virgilii:

Inclyta tristata est gemini bis Mantua vatis
Funere Bassani: funere Virgilii.

Google translate:

The famous Mantua bard rejoiced twice
Carmine Bassani: Carmine Virgilii:

The famous Mantua bard grieved twice
Funere Bassani: funere Virgilii.

I think "carmine Bassani" means "Song of [or: coming from?] Bassano" and "funere Bassani" something like "Death of [or: coming from?] Bassano". My bracketed alternative is because of what I see for "ablative" on Wiktionary: separation from. Anyway, it is rather clear that our poet is Mantuan.

The editor finds this comparison to Virgil excessive, but adds:

Però la sua Maccheronea, che contiene una piacevole novelletta accadutagli a Vercelli, al passaggio della Sesia, è scritta con una facilità ed eleganza non indegne dello stesso Folengo.

(However, his Maccheronea, which contains a pleasant little story that happened to him in Vercelli, at the crossing of the Sesia, is written with an ease and elegance not unworthy of Folengo himself.)

Folengo was also from Mantua. And we see that the incident in question was in Vercelli, as I think Huck meant to say; where it was written remains obscure to me. Vercelli is in eastern Piedmont, language a version of Piedmontese; in the late middle ages it was tossed between Monferrato and the Visconti, but under Savoy since 1427.

The dedication reads:

Ad magnificus dominus Gasparus Vescontus de una vellania que fuit mihi Bassanus de Mantua ab uno Botigliono Savoyno apud vercellis et de una piacevoleza que ego Bassanus fecivi sibi Botigliono.

(To the great lord Gasparus Vescontus, concerning a piece of rudeness [villainy?] which was given me, Bassano of Mantua, by one Botigliono [?] of Savoy near Vercelli, and concerning a pleasure which I, Bassanus, made Botigliono himself.)

It begins:

Unam volo tibi Gaspar cuntare novellarli
Que te forte magno faciet pisare de risu
Quidam vercellis stat ala porta botigliono
Omnes qui sessiam facit pagare passantes
Et si quis ter forte passaret in uno
Ter pagare facit: ...

(I want to tell you, Gaspar, a story
Which will probably make you laugh a lot
one who at Vercillis is [?] at the gate, the botigliono [?]
Makes everyone pay passing the Sesia {?}
And if someone passes three times in one
Makes them pay three times:)

...
Non invenies quisquam poltronior ilio
Non habet hic viduis respectum riec maritatis
Sed neque pedonibus: nec cavalcantibus : omnes
Menat ad ingualum sicut lasagnia natalis :

(You will not find anyone more arrogant than he.
He has no respect for widows or married people.
But neither for pedestrians nor for those who ride horses.
He leads all to the abyss like a Christmas lasagna.)

After about a page more we come to the "tarochus":

Quis poltronus ego? tu. mi? si. deh ruffiane
Erat mecum mea socrus unde putana
Quod foret una sibi pensebat ille tarochus;
Et cito ni solvam mihi menazare comenzat.

From Google Translate plus Wiktionary I get various things:

Who is a poltroon [coward], I? You. Me? Yes. Oh, you ruffian
My mother-in-law was with me, where the whore was [or: where did she go]
That there would be one for herself [or: that she would be one for him], thought that tarochus;
And quickly, if I did not pay, he commenced to threaten me.

That is not quite what Ross got, and I am more out of my depth than ever.