Tarot History Forum

Ross wrote,

Whether this allows us to tentatively date the Rosenwald sheet to the 1460s, I don't know.

In April you wrote, quite accurately (viewtopic.php?p=26850#p26850)

The "Rosenwald sheet" in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is of unknown provenance, but it has a heavily damaged twin in the Deutsche Spielkartenmuseum in Leinfelden-Echterdingen. In 2016 Franco Pratesi looked into it and its origin, and found that it was discovered together with pages from a book printed in Perugia in 1501. Therefore the cards themselves were most likely printed in Perugia as well. See F. Pratesi "Il terzo foglio Rosenwald" at https://www.naibi.net/A/516-ROSEN3-Z.pdf; Mike Howard's English translation here https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.co ... ne-27-2016)

(Actually, the translation is at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.co ... rugia.html.)
Supposing that the Leinfelden sheet's twin is 1460 seems quite a stretch, unless the twins aren't close copies of each other. However, something like it, on a different sheet, seems quite possible. Saying anything more definite seems to me speculative; these Baldini prints would have circulated widely and could have been used as models at any time. But at least the Baldini dating is secure: the British Museum even says c. 1464, because the earlier version came with a calendar of the dates of Easter starting in 1465 (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collectio ... 1086427001):

The dating of these works is known because the original set must predate the cruder and smaller size copies, which can be fixed to the year 1465; indeed, the BM group of copies has a calendar frontispiece that reports the dates for the Easter from 1465 to 1517.

mikeh wrote: 11 Jul 2025, 15:31
Supposing that the Leinfelden sheet's twin is 1460 seems quite a stretch, unless the twins aren't close copies of each other. However, something like it, on a different sheet, seems quite possible. Saying anything more definite seems to me speculative; these Baldini prints would have circulated widely and could have been used as models at any time. But at least the Baldini dating is secure: the British Museum even says c. 1464, because the earlier version came with a calendar of the dates of Easter starting in 1465 (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collectio ... 1086427001):

The dating of these works is known because the original set must predate the cruder and smaller size copies, which can be fixed to the year 1465; indeed, the BM group of copies has a calendar frontispiece that reports the dates for the Easter from 1465 to 1517.

Indeed, 40 years or even decades seems too long for a sheet of paper to have been stored and then used to stiffen a cover. I dimly recall Franco writing somewhere that he might expect only one or two years between the writing of the stuffing paper and when it was used. But this seems too short, since the Palermo Empress would then have to have been made circa 1430, since the visible dates on the scrap paper are 1428 and 1429. But dating the Catania set to c. 1450 then presumes that the paper was stored for such uses for at least 20 years, which again puts decades into play.

The Leinfelden sheet is an exact twin, as far as I can tell, but reversed. Look at the Chariot in the middle, you can see the angle of the chariot.

http://www.rosscaldwell.com/rosenwald/leinfelden01.jpg

http://www.rosscaldwell.com/rosenwald/leinfelden02.jpg
http://www.rosscaldwell.com/rosenwald/rosen1.jpg

Ross wrote,

Indeed, 40 years or even decades seems too long for a sheet of paper to have been stored and then used to stiffen a cover. I dimly recall Franco writing somewhere that he might expect only one or two years between the writing of the stuffing paper and when it was used. But this seems too short, since the Palermo Empress would then have to have been made circa 1430, since the visible dates on the scrap paper are 1428 and 1429. But dating the Catania set to c. 1450 then presumes that the paper was stored for such uses for at least 20 years, which again puts decades into play.

Not only Franco, but also Depaulis, according to a private communication that Franco reports in the essay. In any case, why do "1428" and "1429" on the Catania mean that those dates were written on the paper then? Is there other writing there that suggests that they were? I mean, couldn't they be historical dates, in someone's narrative? I read somewhere that they were legal documents. Is that known? Even then, the dates could be historical: someone's birthdate, or the date a family first acquired a property, etc. Please enlighten me.

Another factor is that the 1428 and 1429 are handwritten, not printed. Handwritten material such as diaries, wills, deeds, and the like are kept for a long period, until they are deemed no longer of interest or superseded by something later. The material with the Leinfelden was printed, and as such, if the pages are duplicates or had errors, they could be disposed of quickly.

Another difference, however, is that the material with the dates was in the middle of the cards, hence written on before the cards were made. In the case of the Leinfelden, the sheet was used to reinforce the binding of the quarto volume, so it could have gone either way. The date of the printed material is quite precise, a work whose first edition was in 1501-2. See p. 4 at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.co ... rugia.html (quote from Depaulis). It is possible that a sheet sat around for decades until finally used to reinforce a quarto volume in 1501-2 (or later). However, neither Depaulis nor Pratesi think this to have been likely. (The title of Pratesi's essay is "1501-1521: Carte da Perugia e città vicine.") If the pages were printed first, on the other hand, then the date of the sheet would be securely after 1501-2.

Hello

I think the Catania letters were painted when those papers ceased to be legally valid. I think they were the painter's personal papers. What Pratesi says about the papers reused as filler in the bindings seems different. That refers to leftover paper from the printing presses, which was resold and reused more quickly.

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It seems clear that the German sheet is like the Rosenwald sheet, but reversed. I don't understand how the same woodblock can be printed symmetrically on two papers. Someone suggested that perhaps the German photograph is reversed. This should be confirmed at the museum. In any case, it would seem more interesting if the Rosenwald photograph was reversed, as that way the Roman numerals would be read correctly. The error of not reversing the numbers seems rather clumsy for a craftsman. I thought those numbers were added to the woodcut with small pieces of wood or metal, but someone said that hypothesis is doubtful. I was inspired by someone (THF) who said that Rosenwald could be an early design (around 1465, I think) where numbers were added in 1501. Kaplan had thought that the Rosenwald numbers were added by hand, but that has been ruled out because the numbers on the German sheet look the same. I tried to superimpose the Wheel card from both sheets because it would be interesting to find out if that card had a printed number. When I tried to superimpose them, it seemed to me that the distances between different parts of the illustration were different on the German sheet. So, I assumed that the German sheet had that part of the paper torn and a little wrinkled. Perhaps I'm wrong. This could be studied and discussed in more detail. My intention in this paragraph was to summarize the Rosenwald affair, based on my recollection.

It seems clear to me that Rosenwald and the German sheet date from around 1501, as you claim. However, it's likely that the same or a similar design had been printed previously. I understand that this is the speculation that perhaps Rosenwald dates from 1465. The game name Minchiate existed in 1466, and Baldini's print of the clown magician is from 1464. These dates are close together, which suggests that perhaps the game called Minchiate in 1466 could have had a clown magician like the one by Baldini preserved at Rosenwald (perhaps Perugia, circa 1501). This suggests that perhaps the Rosenwald sheet of trumps resembles the designs that the mysterious Minchiate of 1466 had. We have said that it does not seem likely that there were 40 Germini trumps early on (1506). That is, probably the 40 trumps of the Germini deck did not yet exist before 1500. However, it seems that before 1500 there were 21 trumps plus the Fool, which were called Tarocchi. It's easy to get confused because the name Minchiate was used before and after the Germini name. There's no evidence that the deck called Minchiate in 1466 has the same structure as the later Germini deck that later came to be called Minchiate. Pratesi makes this caveat, which is an important observation. Therefore, Pratesi proposes distinguishing the 15th-century Minchiate by naming it Minchiate-I. If Minchiate-I didn't have 40 trumps because it had fewer trumps, then it possibly already had a trump structure similar to what was later called Tarocchi. This hypothesis isn't obvious, but I can't think of anything more logical. Please don't think of Germini or Minchiate-II when you read Minchiate-I. That thought would be very confusing and requires proving that there were 40 trumps in 1466, which seems too early. Right?

I believe Minchiate-I already had almost the same number of trumps as the Sermon Steele trump set, which later became known as Tarocchi or Tarot. Mikeh didn't claim this, and he's right to point it out, but that's my view. It may seem speculative, but I wonder if there's another possibility, given that we've already accepted that Germini's 20 trumps were possibly invented after 1500.

It's arguable whether Rosenwald had only the trumps preserved on that sheet or whether he also had more trumps that we know of in Minchiate-II (17th century), which possibly already existed in Germini (16th century).

However, that discussion may be more difficult and less important than the discussion we are having now, trying to guess and reach a consensus on whether Minchiate-I (1466) only contained the trumps we know already existed at that time or if there is another, different hypothesis.

The Visconti Sforza Pierpont deck had 20 allegorical cards (including the Fool) when the second commission was issued (perhaps 1465). This means that in 1466, the 20 allegorical cards of the Visconti Sforza Pierpont already existed. That is, Minchiate-I possibly contained the trumps preserved in the Visconti Sforza Pierpont deck and also the Rook, which is preserved in the Charles VI deck (perhaps 1463). The Rosenwald deck has 21 trumps that have a structure similar to the Visconti Sforza Pierpont but with some differences, that is, Rosenwald has the Fool and the Magician combined in a single card and has two cards that we do not know if they existed in the Visconti Sforza Pierpont: the Rook and the Devil. The Rook already existed in the Charles VI deck (perhaps 1463) and the Devil already existed in the two BAR decks (perhaps 1495). The Sermon Steele (perhaps 1470?) mentions all of Rosenwald's cards but separates the Magician and the Fool into two different cards, as in the Visconti Sforza Pierpont deck. We know that the Fool in the Sermon Steele is out of the sequence, with the number zero (0). We do not know what function or what position the Fool occupied in the Visconti Sforza Pierpont deck. I don't know if the Tarot structure (Sermon Steele) existed before or after the Minchiate-I structure, but possibly both decks emerged close together or just a few years apart, given your dating of Sermon Steele, although it seems that the name Tarocho for the game came decades later.

In short, it seems reasonable to assume that perhaps the Clown Magician printed in Rosenwald came from the Minchiate-I deck of 1466. Possibly, the Popess had not yet been eliminated in 1466, nor in 1501, as we see in Rosenwald. I don't think it's correct to assume that the Minchiate-I in 1466 lacked a Popess because the Popess didn't exist in the 17th-century Minchiate-II. It is true that the Popess is not mentioned in Strambotto, which reflects that Strambotto was indeed written when the Popess was beginning to be phased out but Germini's 20 trumps had not yet been added to the Minchiate-I or the Tarot.

Magic Moon wrote

The Visconti Sforza Pierpont deck had 20 allegorical cards (including the Fool) when the second commission was issued (perhaps 1465).

How do you know this? Perhaps it had both the Devil and the Tower, but they are now missing.
You go on:

This means that in 1466, the 20 allegorical cards of the Visconti Sforza Pierpont already existed. That is, Minchiate-I possibly contained the trumps preserved in the Visconti Sforza Pierpont deck and also the Rook, which is preserved in the Charles VI deck (perhaps 1463).

We also don't know whether there was a Devil originally in the Charles VI. The numbers go up to 20, but that is because they start at 3 for the Emperor. For them to go up to 20, the Devil would have had to be card 14 at the time the numbers were added (even if in fact it never was made). (Incidentally, your word-processing program took the wrong word for the Tower card: "Rook" is a term in chess.)

More generally, I am having a hard time understanding your hypothesized "minchiate-1" of 1466. You seem to be saying that it would have been identical to the deck used for the game of triumphs, with the one exception that in minchiate-1, the Bagatto and the Fool were merged into one card, trump 1. In other words, there was no unnumbered Fool card with the properties associated with the Fool, of never winning a trick and being able to substitute for other cards in tricks and/or scoring combinations. Instead, trump 1, the lowest trump, may have been called the Fool, and thus the name of the game, minchiate, would have been taken from the word for trump 1. Is that your position?

I have an alternative view of this possible "minchiate-1": that its deck would have been defined by the presence of the theological virtues, Prudence, and the absence of the Popess, to play a more archaic game than Trionfi. If so, by 1466 its deck could have had 24 trumps plus the Fool (surely a card called the Fool would have existed, because of the name "minchiate"). Or even, lacking the celestials (so perhaps also called "terrestrial triumphs"), 21. According to Pratesi, in 1477 the game called "minchiate" legalized then counted only the tricks won and lost (https://www.naibi.net/A/30-PRISECO-Z.pdf). It may not have been a simpler game than trionfi: the rules for trick-taking may have been more complicated. With that definition, a deck whose trumps were similar in look and composition to the Rosenwald's would not have been a "minchiate-1", but the Visconti di Modrone might have been (even if not called by that name).

Hello.

Thank you for understanding my theory. What you say about my point of view seems correct. Anybody think similar to me about Rosenwald and Minchiate-I? I don't know when the Tower and the Devil were created, but we know the oldest evidence of those two cards, as I said. Thank you for explaining your theory about an early deck with theological virtues. You pose two options: a deck with 24 trumps or a deck with theological virtues that didn't yet have celestial cards, which I assume refers to the luminaries, the stars, or the high tarot cards. How many trump cards could this second option have, according to your suspicions? Which trionfi cards it had? Probably you published it when we spoke about Visconti Modrone structure.

PD: what is BM? Is it a deck from British Museum? I think that you wrote BM few days ago.

Magic Moon: I don't have a definite hypothesis about how many cards a minchiate-1 would have had, even in a specific year, such as 1466. It might have included the four elements, for example. Or fewer than 21 trumps. Just significantly fewer trumps than 40. And simpler scoring rules. The number might have increased over time.

I am still intrigued by Florio's phrase "terrestrial triumphs" in his definition of "germini." "Terrestrial" could exclude the zodiac and the celestials. Of course, that's contradicted by the poem about the 40 prostitutes, but he might have known only a different version and associated "minchiate" with the full 97. There is also Berni, who only mentions the Sun, the Moon, and the 12; could they (and the Star) have been newly added to sminchiate/minchiate?

By "celestials," I meant the Star, Moon, and Sun. By "BM" I meant the British Museum.

Thanks for clarifying your position on the Devil and Tower, that you can't say when those cards were created, just what their earliest evidence is.

Hi Mikeh

When I said there were 20 cards in the Visconti Sforza Pierpont, I didn't mean the Devil and the Tower didn't exist. I meant there's certainty that 20 allegorical cards existed with certainty at that time. That's quite a few cards, especially considering that previously, decks may have only had 14 trumps. It's true that we can't say when the Devil and the Tower cards were created. We don't know if the oldest evidence coincides with the creation of both cards, nor do we know how many years earlier they could have been created. We don't even know if they were both created at the same time. However, it seems logical to me to estimate that the Tower was created around the same time as the other three luminaries: star, moon, sun.

For this matter, the dating of Sermon Steele seems important. Nathaniel (and others) considers Sermon Steele to be slightly later than the Fluxus card game, which I suppose suggests that the 21+1 structure existed before 1470. The surviving copy of Sermon Steele is supposedly based on an older text, written around 1470 (?), where the 21+1 cards that later became known as the Tarot were supposedly already recorded. I don't remember the exact supposed dating. I think Nathaniel even goes as far back as 1460, but it seemed to me that such an early date lacks solid justification. It's possible that the 21+1 tarot structure emerged around the same time as the Minchiate deck, which already existed in 1466. The dates seem close for Minchiate I and Sermon Steele. Right? I suppose there was no more than a five-year difference, or perhaps they were even the same deck. I thought Minchiate-I had one or two fewer cards than Tarocchi, but if the Sermon Steele is from the same period, then I can consider other hypotheses. In another thread on this forum, I spoke a bit with Nathaniel about the dating of the Sermon Steele, but I wasn't able to delve into his theory regarding the notes made in the manuscript margins. However, it seems that other scholars accept the dating Nathaniel mentioned.

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You mentioned the possibility that Minchiate-I had 24 trumps or fewer. Rosenwald sheet has 24 cards.
I was thinking about your theory about Minchiate-I, and I was surprised to observe the following: The Rosenwald card has three queens, which, in some way, could perhaps be considered equivalent to three theological virtues. The Popess of Rosenwald could be equivalent to Prudence.


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Regarding the terrestrial or earthly trumps, I noted and reported that Florio's dictionary mentions them twice: in the definition of Germini (as you saw) and in the definition of Tarocchi (see image below). Logic suggests that these earthly trumps exist in conventional tarot, that is, they weren't specific cards in the Germini deck. This makes sense, since the cards added in Germini are celestial. However, the earthly trumps of the Tarocchi are also in Germini. I suppose perhaps the term "terrestrial trumps" refers to the non-celestial trumps below the Tower, that is, the cards about the earthly life of humans on Earth.


*******

Thank you for Tommaso Puri's explanation of the term "naibi doppi." It's possible that it's not important, as you say. However, there's a big difference between the two expressions, at least in current Spanish. A double deck would be two decks, but a deck of double cards is a deck where each card is considered two cards. I hope the English translation of this explanation is understandable. Two identical decks are not the same as one deck with cards twice as thick (or something similar). I thought the original expression in the document might help rule out the various hypotheses about naibi doppi. In any case, I was interested in writing correctly about this matter. They are two different expressions, and I wanted to know the correct one. Thank you.

Some days ago, we spoke about a poema that Ross found. All of you were translating the text. It was here... viewtopic.php?p=27325#p27325

This part of the poem is interesting:

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

I tried to translate this part:

"mea socrus unde putana
Quod foret una sibi pensaba ille tarochus"

I think that it is possible to translate it like that:

"a whore she was for him, that fool thought" (spanish: una puta que era para el, pensó ese tonto)

Magic Moon wrote,

A double deck would be two decks, but a deck of double cards is a deck where each card is considered two cards.

I do not understand what you mean by "a deck where each card is considered two cards." Can you give an example?

Your translation of the verses seems ok; it is the same as what SteveM proposed at viewtopic.php?p=27325#p27325.

I had forgotten that Florio defined "tarocchi" with the same phrase "terrestrial triumphs" as he did germini. I am out of ideas about "terrestrial."