Tarot History Forum

Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Jul 2025, 11:11 The Grida (decree, proclamation; Martinus actually writes "Crida", which means the same thing) which mentions "fluso" is dated 2 September 1557.

It is the manuscript in the Archivio consolare di Trento that is numbered 1467.

Thanks for this Ross. I actually discovered this myself more than three weeks ago but I got sidetracked by various other things and consequently didn't think to share the information here.

However, you have prompted me to share the other finding I made on that same day, concerning the dubious-looking 1409 reference to Flusso from Statuta de ludo: le leggi sul gioco nell'Italia di comune, secoli XIII-XVI, 2012, ed. Alessandra Rizzi. I checked the source (Enrico Adami, "Statuti di Murazzano", Bollettino della società per gli studi storici, archeologici ed artistici nella provincia di Cuneo, LXXI, 1974, pp. 33-80) and found that the 1409 date was indeed quite unfounded. The manuscript of the "Statuti di Murazzano" that contains the reference is from 1534, with another copy from 1547. In that manuscript, Adami dates only a "Giuramento di fideltà" clearly to 1409. The rest of the Statuti are dated 1487. Much of the text is also contained in another set of laws, from Paroldo in 1474. But Adami notes that the relevant section 30, "De Ludo", is one of many sections that contain additions that are not in the 1474 text from Paroldo. So the Flusso reference could actually be from as late as 1487. There is certainly no suggestion that it is any earlier than 1474.

mikeh wrote: 22 Jul 2025, 14:33 My problem has to do with the phrase translated as "recently invented," which seems to refer to "fluxus." How recent is recent?

Mike, as you yourself noted, the Garzoni quote from Volteranno is not very relevant, because Volteranno must have been using that expression in a very different sense to the author of the Steele Sermon. Volteranno was probably contrasting card games with Roman games like dice, as Dummett surmised. But the author of the Steele Sermon is listing various card games and noting that two of them have appeared only recently. I don't think there's really any reason to be unsure about what he meant by that: he means the particular card games in question are quite new, whereas the other card games are not. I don't think he means that Flusso was invented 15 years previously!

Also, the 1456-8 date for the "first artist" Visconti-Sforza doesn't mean a lot.

I find your argument here confusing. Perhaps you have not quite understood my reasoning? The Visconti-Sforza Angel card made in 1456-8, especially in conjunction with the World card from the same deck, looks like the result of someone moving God the Father from the World card of some earlier deck to the Angel card. If that was the case, then there must have been a deck in existence in the years before 1456-8 that showed God the Father on the World card – probably not many years before. Therefore, the Visconti-Sforza Angel card can be seen as supporting a date in the 1460s for the Steele Sermon.

The ca. 1465 "Prima Causa" card, in the E-series, did not have the four evangelical creatures; that was the later one, the S series, dated to 1475 or so, and where it was made is unclear. Lazzarelli has them in his manuscript, completed 1471 (before the death of the original dedicee Borso), and then he went to Rome. Perhaps they were his contribution, and he was involved in the S-series production.

You're right that the E-Series "Prima Causa" does not have the four evangelical creatures – I actually had a vague memory in my head that it did have them and someone had mistakenly thought that it didn't, because the copy they were looking at had omitted them, and that this had caused a widespread misconception that the E-series lacked the creatures. I'm not sure where that memory came from; I can't find anything like that in my notes now...

However, in any case, as you have noted, Lazzarelli's manuscript dated to 1471 does show the S-series "Prima Causa" image with the four creatures. You've speculated that this could mean that the S-series version was influenced by him, but it seems far more likely that Lazzarelli's image was copied from the S-series version, which therefore must have existed by 1471. This means that Jay A. Levenson could have been correct when he argued that the S-series was created around 1470 by a Ferrarese contemporary of the E-series artist ("Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art", 1973, p. 89).

The Lazzarelli image and the E-series Prima Causa, when taken together, are thus consistent with my argument that the World card appears to have been associated with God the Father in 1460s Ferrara.

Nathaniel wrote,

Mike, as you yourself noted, the Garzoni quote from Volteranno is not very relevant, because Volteranno must have been using that expression in a very different sense to the author of the Steele Sermon.

I do think that the Garzoni quote is relevant. My point was that the word "noviter/recently" is in contrast to "not recently," and that is context-dependent. It depends on what things are being contrasted, by whom, and when. It is not true that every time the context changes the word gets a different sense: it is the same word, with the same meaning, different context, different contrast. I googled "recent definition". It gave two meanings:

1. having happened, begun, or been done not long ago or not long before; belonging to a past period of time comparatively close to the present.
2. Geology: another term for Holocene.

"recent" in Geology means roughly within the past 10,000 years. Well, as a technical term in geology, that is a different meaning. Since the context is not geology, that leaves only one other meaning, with a lot of "or" conjunctions in it. The key term is "comparatively." But compared to what?

I clicked on the question: How recent is recent. Here is what AI said, which seems to me right:

"Recent" refers to a period of time in the very near past, but its exact length is relative and depends on the context. For example, in a conversation about daily activities, "recent" might mean within the last few hours or today. In a discussion about scientific research, it could refer to studies published within the last few years. In some cases, "recent" might even span a few decades.

However, this is modern usage. In the past, it could include many centuries. That was the point of my bringing in Garzoni. It all depends on what the things "not recent" are, vs. the things "recent." That's why I quoted the paragraph to which the phrase "noviter inventus" attached. The context was card games. Those that were not recent or undetermined were ronfa, cricca, vinciperdi, and others I don't know. When did the annotator think they were invented? Unclear, but the unit of measure would most likely be the decade: so perhaps a couple of decades in between at least. If they were assumed to have been invented before, say 1420, "new" might be after 1440, 1450 - or more. I would think 1450 or a little later, around the time of the Peace of Lodi, because that is when the politics of northern Italy changed- "new" times with much trade, travel, and communication vs "old" times of warring states. Hence "recent" could be said any time between the dawn of the new times and two or three decades after. Many languages go one, two, three, many: in English, there are words used often for once and twice, a single or solo and a couple or pair, but then the use goes down: thrice, triple, less used, quadruple as a noun hardly ever. There are also twin, triplet, etc, for births; threesome, foursome, for games; and trio, quartet, etc. for music, but those are special applications. I am not sure about Italian; there are "paia" and "coppia"; there is also "trio" and "terzetto", less common, then just "quartetto", even less common, and it seems to stop there, except in music. So perhaps the annotator could say of the time of "fluxus" as "recent" if it were invented within a decade or two after 1453, or even three. 1455-1480 seems like enough, from this perspective.

My other reason for bringing in Garzoni is that when he said "di nuove inventione" he is citing Maffei, and therefore it is from Maffei's perspective, not his own. I think it likely that the annotator is saying "noviter inventus" from the perspective of the preacher: it was recently invented at that time. There is no reason to worry about how soon after the sermon the first annotation was done, or the second. We have no way of knowing in any case. So if the annotator thinks that these new games were "recently invented" at the time of the sermon, with s there sufficient separation between new and not-new, the same is true of the sermon.

Nathaniel wrote,

I find your argument here confusing. Perhaps you have not quite understood my reasoning? The Visconti-Sforza Angel card made in 1456-8, especially in conjunction with the World card from the same deck, looks like the result of someone moving God the Father from the World card of some earlier deck to the Angel card. If that was the case, then there must have been a deck in existence in the years before 1456-8 that showed God the Father on the World card – probably not many years before. Therefore, the Visconti-Sforza Angel card can be seen as supporting a date in the 1460s for the Steele Sermon.

Yes, I misunderstood - I thought you were saying that the shift from World to Angel had something to do with the image of God in playing cards being offensive. Apparently not. The offensiveness was just your explanation for why we don't have extant examples of the World card with God the Father and only one with God on any card. (Even though the Pope and Popess were also offensive, and even the Angel without the Father.)

Let me try again. It takes a special collection of assumptions to say that the Father on the Angel card "looks like" it was moved from the World card. It never would have occurred to me. You are saying that since having God the Father on the Angel card is quite unique, it must have gotten there because someone moved it from the World card. They would have moved it because Francesco Sforza thought that the Father should be on the last card, which in his estimation was the Angel card. So his World card, which was much like the one painted later, lacked the Father. Is that the argument?

One problem I have is that the "second artist" world card, painted sometime around 1470 for the Bon family, would have looked like the one painted for Francesco Sforza. A "New Jerusalem" theme suggests to me that the Bon family, familiar with the Venetian order, thought that the World card should be last, and therefore should reflect conditions after the Last Judgment. That says nothing about what the card looked like in 1456-58, or in Francesco Sforza's decks (and Malatesta's) of 1452, much less before then. The Modrone World card arguably looks like it would have come before the Last Judgment, since a personification of Fame is on top (before Petrarch's Eternity) and the scene below looks this-worldly, with people separated by a lake, a person slinking down in a boat, etc. Which is not to say that the central figure is not earning eternal fame - just that such fame is earned in this world, before the Judgment. Even then, there is no God the Father on the Lombard World card: that is another leap. It may well have been the Bon family's card that induced Milan to put the World card last, adding their design to the clones they had some workshop produce. I don't know if that's true: I am merely offering an alternative speculation that seems as good as yours.

Also, I don't see why you have to invoke a prior God the Father on the World card to explain the God the Father on the Angel card. On the Modrone Angel card, there is a saintly-looking figure on the middle of the card, arguably Jesus coaxing his faithful out of their graves and reminding them of what is going on. But, it might have been reasoned, that's not judgment. To express that activity visually (as opposed to words on top of the card) it is better to shift from an encouraging figure to a judgmental figure towering above the scene.

Nathaniel wrote,

The Lazzarelli image and the E-series Prima Causa, when taken together, are thus consistent with my argument that the World card appears to have been associated with God the Father in 1460s Ferrara.

I do not doubt that the Prima Causa was associated with God the Father, as opposed to other aspects of God: that's what a patriarch is, a primogenitor. But what is at issue is the association of God the Father with the cosmos (one meaning of "mondo"). Usually it was Christ that was shown above the world, as in the one holding compasses to make everything circular: the Logos, translated into Latin as "Verbum". This is in accord with John 1: (Douay-Reims translation, corresponding to the Vulgate):

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God... 3. All things were made by him ...". 10. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

And so on, describing Christ's mission. But it begins with Christ as the world-maker. It was William Blake who turned him into God the Father - a rather nasty Father, if I recall. Of course Christ is not the Prima Causa, First Cause, by his very definition as "son". But it is he who is suggested by the d'Este card's winged orb-holding putto, as well as the Bolognese triumphator/Mercury (who traveled from the world to heaven and hell and wasn't always portrayed with a caduceus), not to mention whatever inspired the Vieville. On the other hand, there were images that did show God the Father on or holding the world, as I mentioned, at least in 15th century Florence. The designer of the Mantegna may well have been aware of the woodcut Triumph of Eternity and others with God the Father with a globe. I doubt if the preacher was aware of them, because they were Florentine. Unless you can show differently, it would appear that the preacher's association of the figure on the World card, if any, and whatever it looked like, with God the Father as Prima Causa would have come from the Mantegna itself, so probably after 1465, with no specific cut-off date, except possibly a little after 1473, when the d'Este made him a winged infant. So now I have 1465 - 1475. But 1460-1480 is probably better.

mikeh wrote: 23 Jul 2025, 13:06 It all depends on what the things "not recent" are, vs. the things "recent." That's why I quoted the paragraph to which the phrase "noviter inventus" attached. The context was card games.

Indeed. The context was card games. People in the Renaissance played a lot of card games, as this list of them in the sermon testifies; the list in Rabelais' Gargantua is further evidence of that. Given the large number of card games that were evidently in widespread use at any given moment back then, it appears that new ones must have been invented at least every few years, and quite possibly even more frequently. Most would have had relatively short lifetimes, disappearing again without achieving widespread popularity; it is only the more successful ones that would have been mentioned in lists like those in the sermon or in Gargantua.

That is the context against which we must interpret "noviter inventus", which literally means "newly invented". If new games were appearing (and in most cases disappearing again) at least every few years, then the author could not have referred to a ten-year old game as "newly invented". There are simply too many games known from this period for them to have been invented at a rate of only one every ten years or so. They must have been appearing rather more frequently than that, for so many of them to have come into widespread use throughout the course of the era. This is why I reacted with such incredulity at your suggestion that Flusso could have been 15 years old and still be considered "new". That just feels completely absurd, considering the crowded card game landscape of the time.

I think it likely that the annotator is saying "noviter inventus" from the perspective of the preacher: it was recently invented at that time.

That is not at all my impression of the text. On the contrary, the annotations read very much as though they were meant entirely from the perspective of the annotator. When he says "newly invented", he means at his own time of writing, not the time of the sermon author.

But this makes little difference to the point we are discussing. Given when Flusso must have first appeared in the Ferrara region, the time in question – whether from the preacher's perspective or the annotator's – cannot have been much more than a few years after the writing of the sermon, if the annotations were written in that region. The sermon by St James of the Marches on which it is based is thought to have been written sometime around 1460 (as noted by Depaulis, "Early Italian Lists of Tarot Trumps", The Playing-Card 36 no. 1, 2007, p. 40) so the Steele sermon was presumably written no earlier than that. Flusso was banned in Ferrara in 1470, so it was probably known there by 1469 at the latest. So no matter whether you think the annotator is referring to his own time or the preacher's time, the annotation implies that the sermon was written in the 1460s (assuming that the place of writing was the region of Ferrara).

Hello

This is an interesting chat. I'd like to briefly explain the three stages that all of you apparently admit. My goal is to make it clear so I don't confuse myself or others. I think that the reader of this chat can sometimes confuse or mix up some of these three stages. Also, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or if there ar doubts.

James or Santiago or Jacobus or Giacomo of the Marches:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_of_the_Marches

The three stages are:
1.- text by Santiago de las Marcas (text known) dated 1460.
2.- anonymous text that you call Steele (not preserved but we assume it existed) dated with doubts.
3.- manuscript found by Steele (preserved) dated around 1500.

I will explain it now. James of the Marches (link above) wrote a long text around 1460, one of whose chapters deals with board games and is titled "De Ludo." This chapter is copied in the Sermon Steele, but the author of the Sermon Steele added the entire text dealing with the game of trumps and which sets forth the sequence later called Tarot. The surviving copy of the Sermon Steele was created around 1500, according to studies of the paper (watermark), which was also manufactured in Venice. The Sermon Steele says that the Flusso game was recent at that time. Flusso game existed in 1467, as we read in a text published in Trento in XVI century. Flusso game arrived to Ferrara between 1467 and 1470 (perhaps 1469) becouse it was banned in Ferrara in 1470.

I agree that a new game can be up to ten years old (perhaps between 5 and 15 years), although this is subjective information. In short, we are accepting that the copy of the Steele Sermon is not the original manuscript and we assume that the true author of the Steele Sermon (whose name we do not know) wrote the Steele Sermon after 1460 but before 1500.

With that in mind, I'm guessing that the original manuscript of the Steele Sermon was probably written between 1470 and 1480. This is debatable because we don't know if the anonymous author knew the game existed ten years before arriving in Ferrara. Doubts lead us to propose dates between 1460 and 1490 for Steele's Sermon. Right? I hope I'm not wrong in summarizing what you're saying.

On the other hand, I note two details. Steele's Sermon (written in Latin) uses the name Juego de Triunfos. It seems evident that it was written before someone invented the name Tarocho for that game, which occurred as early as 1502, according to known documents. We don't know how long before 1502 the name Tarocho (or similar) was used for that game. The text of Steele's Sermon is written in Latin, but I suppose the name Tarocho would be written in Steele Sermon if that name had already existed when the sermon was written.

The other detail I notice is the following: the text of Sermon Steele doesn't say that the trump card game is new. This is logical because the game already existed in 1440. The 21+1 structure could have been new when Sermon Steele was written. The text doesn't say whether it's a new game or a new structure. However, the anonymous author seems scandalized. He warns people about this satanic ladder of trumps. I imagine that possibly the 21+1 structure wasn't very old or very popular before the anonymous author wrote Sermon Steele. It is also possible that the 21+1 structure existed as early as 1440, but I think there is no evidence to confirm this with certainty. Possibly, the set of trumps had fewer than 20 allegorical cards before approximately 1460, as somebody thinks. Several options are hypotheses. Now we try to date and understand the creative process of Sermon Steele.

The list of triumphs was not in the text of James of the Marches, but it is in the surviving Sermon Steele. It seems very likely that the list of triumphs was already in the original text of the Sermon Steele (that is not preserved) becouse of the literary structure. The 21 steps mentioned in Steele Sermon is similar in dice games and in trionfi cards game, it is, the author mention 21 steps in both games.

I suppose that Nathaniel has already checked that the note on Flusso does not yet exist in the text of James of the Marches.

Note: mistake about Trento edited next day.

Nathaniel wrote,
The sermon by St James of the Marches on which it is based is thought to have been written sometime around 1460 (as noted by Depaulis, "Early Italian Lists of Tarot Trumps", The Playing-Card 36 no. 1, 2007, p. 40) so the Steele sermon was presumably written no earlier than that.

About St. James of the Marches, since he was born in 1393, he would have had a lot of time to give sermons before his suppression in 1462 (see Ross's recent post in this thread). Depaulis says around 1460 for the sermon in question. How much of a guess is that? Why not 1455? Is there something about the other sermons in the collection and its placement among them that says "1460"? And when would they have been available for others to copy - after 1462 at the earliest, or before then - and for how long? Depaulis seems to think 1480 was perfectly reasonable.

Nathaniel wrote,

Indeed. The context was card games. People in the Renaissance played a lot of card games, as this list of them in the sermon testifies; the list in Rabelais' Gargantua is further evidence of that. Given the large number of card games that were evidently in widespread use at any given moment back then, it appears that new ones must have been invented at least every few years, and quite possibly even more frequently. Most would have had relatively short lifetimes, disappearing again without achieving widespread popularity; it is only the more successful ones that would have been mentioned in lists like those in the sermon or in Gargantua.

That is the context against which we must interpret "noviter inventus", which literally means "newly invented". If new games were appearing (and in most cases disappearing again) at least every few years, then the author could not have referred to a ten-year old game as "newly invented". There are simply too many games known from this period for them to have been invented at a rate of only one every ten years or so. They must have been appearing rather more frequently than that, for so many of them to have come into widespread use throughout the course of the era. This is why I reacted with such incredulity at your suggestion that Flusso could have been 15 years old and still be considered "new". That just feels completely absurd, considering the crowded card game landscape of the time.

You say that "noviter" means literally "new." Yes, but the literal meaning is not at issue. What is relevant is what it actually meant by the term in this context. Wiktionary says "newly, recently." These words have slightly different meanings in modern English; they are not interchangeable. "Noviter" apparently encompasses both. So I will translate it as "newly, or at least recently."

You define "newly invented" vs. "not newly invented" in relation to how frequently a new card game came along at the time of the sermon.I don't see what the rate at which games are invented has to do with how long a time is meant by "recently." I could say that few games were invented recently in Bergamo, but many games were invented recently in Ferrara. The time period obviously remains the same, however long it is, regardless of how many games are produced.

Today my wife and I visited our old neighborhood and marveled at how many new, and newly built, buildings there were. Here "new" is in relation to when we were there last, or perhaps since we lived there (even I am a bit vague), but not to the rate at which the buildings were built. When we visited Eastern Europe, noticing the buildings, the old vs. new context (for us) was before and after the fall of communism, and before and after World War II. When we visited Western Europe, it was just before and after World War II. In Spain, I would imagine it would be before and after Franco. In northern Italy, for the preacher's annotator, it is hard to say when "new" would be, but possibly before and after the Peace of Lodi, because peace is a stimulant to new merchandise, except for war. For Garzoni it seems to have been before the fall of the Roman Empire vs. some indeterminate time later.

I don't know where you get the idea that I posited, or am forced to posit, only one new game per decade.

In some contexts, you would be right. For recently elected American presidents, I might go back as far as Clinton. There isn't a new one that often, and I know when they were elected. For recently elected legislators, it would be less.

In the preacher's case, there is the list of games in the same paragraph. Lists are an important context for what "recently" comprises. Let's say I talk about television programs I have liked. This is a case where major wars don't intervene. However, it is not quite parallel, because we know when they were created: buildings are a better example. So let us suppose I am talking to another baby-boomer (or odler) without actually mentioning the dates. I mention The Lone Ranger (1949-1957), Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963), The Honeymooners (1955-1956), and Perry Mason (1957-1966), and along with them Midsomer Murders (1997-2024) and Death in Paradise (2011-). Can I say that the latter two are newly, or at least recently, created TV series, and the others not? I think so. The Crown (2016-2023) surely would be. New television series come out in rapid succession, many quickly disappearing, roughly comparable to card games. So while the last ones are not new, or at least recent, compared to tv shows that have come out since these started, they are in relation to the other programs I mentioned. Likewise, in the context of a list of games, it makes no difference whether a card game is invented every month or every decade. What matters is how old the other games in the list are, in comparison, as is evident from the definition of "recent" that I cited earlier. And also the customs of the time, as opposed to now.

Andrea Vitali, who is familiar with the literature of the period, tells me 15-20 years for "recently invented" (noviter inventu), applying what he wrote in an essay no longer on the LeTarot website, "Tarocchi di nuova invenzione." He also, in a recent email, acknowledges 1460 as possible.

It seems to me that "noviter inventu" means much the same as Garzoni's "di nuova invenzione", where "new" was in comparison to ancient times. It's not that the phrase has a different sense with every comparison being made. It's not like "capital" in "The Corinthian capital was invented in Corinth, the capital of modern Corinthia." It is more like "tall" in the sentence "The Rock of Gibraltar is tall in comparison to its surroundings, but not tall in comparison to the Alps": that is to say, relative to what it is being compared with.

Magic Moon wrote,

The 21 steps mentioned in Steele Sermon is similar in dice games and in trionfi cards game, it is, the author mention 21 steps in both games.

I misinterpreted the number of "stanze": 21 games, but only 6 "stanzi", so just the dots on one die. This is not very important, but I thought I'd mention it.

Also, the relevant part of St. James of the Marches' sermon is reproduced at the end of Depaulis's article, which is free online. St. James does not mention fluxus. I think we can assume that the other games he does mention, not many, are not new. Depaulis says that most of the games our preacher mentions are in a 1458 list, but not fluxus. It would be helpful to know if any on that list are "newly invented," and also where it was written. It provides some evidence that the sermon is post-1458; against that is the 1409 statute that Ross found, which might or might not have interpolated "flusso" later.

Ross wrote,

When Thierry was working on his Early Italian Lists of Tarot Trumps in 2007, which includes his discovery of the reliance of the Steele Sermon author on James of the Marches' own sermon on games, he mentioned to me that James "stopped writing sermons" after a certain date. I don't remember the year and I can't find that email despite my best efforts so far (those keywords are too common for Hotmail and Gmail to give reliable results, and they don't search for quoted phrases).

If that date were 1462, when James was accused of heresy and defended himself before Pius II, without a final judgment, it may have been that date. If so, and if he stopped preaching after then since he had not been exonerated, 1462 might be taken as a rough terminus post quem for the Steele Sermon. I say "rough" because we don't know when he wrote the sermon or how long it had been circulating in Franciscan circles.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, James didn't show up for his initial defense, but doesn't say whether he showed up before Pius II.

A few years later, on Easter Monday, 1462, St. James, preaching at Brescia, uttered the opinion of some theologians, that the Precious Blood shed during the Passion was not united with the Divinity of Christ during the three days of His burial. The Dominican James of Brescia, inquisitor, immediately cited him to his tribunal. James refused to appear, and after some troubles appealed to the Holy See. The question was discussed at Rome, Christmas, 1462 (not 1463, as some have it), before Pius II and the cardinals, but no decision was given.

It seems to me that the matter of his appeal is important, because it suggests that he was defiant against those who would shut him up. He might have stopped preaching as a precautionary matter, but zealots are not known for being careful. The Catholic Encyclopedia also says that he started preaching in 1420 and continued for half a century, which would be in 1470 (at an age of 77!). Another source, which I will quote later, says 1467. Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia's account:

Having finished his novitiate at the hermitage of the Carceri, near Assisi, he studied theology at Fiesole, near Florence, under St. Bernardine of Siena. On 13 June, 1420, be was ordained priest, and soon began to preach in Tuscany, in the Marches, and Umbria; for half a century he carried on his spiritual labours, remarkable for the miracles he performed and the numerous conversions he wrought. From 1427 James preached penance, combated heretic, and was on legations in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia. In the last-mentioned country he was also commissary of the Friars Minor.

If it was 1467 or 1470, then a 1480 date for the Steele Sermon, or later, would be perfectly reasonable, if the sermons then started to be copied for circulation, which would have taken a few years. Aside from an unexplained "c. 1460," Thierry says only that it is Sermon 10 and is known from two autograph copies, although other copies are known:

According to Maarten van der Heijden and Bert Roest on their website “Franciscan Authors, 13th-18th century: a catalogue in progress”, 7 manuscript collections of sermons by St. James of the Marches are to be found in Naples, Monteprandone, Falconara (Ancona), Modena, Foligno, Rome, Padua, and Venice.

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The link given in footnote 7 no longer works, but googling the title, I see that it is now at https://franciscanauthors.rich.ru.nl/index.html. According to them, about the controversy on the blood of Christ:

In 1462 he became involved in a controvery around the veneration of the Blood of Christ with Jacob of Brescia OP. Eventually, Pope Pius II had to order both parties (both inquisitors) to keep silent on the subject.

About how long he preached:

Studied theology with John Capistran under Bernardine of Siena and was active as popular preacher in Toscane, Umbria and the Marsh of Ancona from ca. 1426 onwards (first sermon held in 1420 near Florence, on the feast day of Anthony of Padua), until 1467 [Cf. the autograph MS BAV Vat.Lat. 7780 f. 1v: ‘Ego frater Iacobus de Monteprandone ordinis minorum etate viginto duorum annorum in nomine Domini ingressus sum in [ordinem] sancti Francisci de mense julii 1416. Et incepi predicare in festo sancti Antonii de Padua in sancto Salvatore prope Florentiam 1420. Et dimisi predicationem in festo sancti Bernardini de mense madii 1467, manu propria; habens etatem septuaginta quinque annorum’ After May 1467 Giacomo did no longer embark on large preaching trips, yet it would seem that he did continue to preach locally on sun- and feast days (in the S. Maria La Nuova at Naples.

In the list of manuscript works, I notice one in 1442 and another in 1450. These are very particular, not a general collection of sermons, and "Do Ludo" is not mentioned. "De Ludo" does appear in the Sermones Dominicales, as tenth out of 99. This is in the edition of Lioi, 1978-1982. Added later in day: This edition is based on the two "autograph" editions (the Dutch authors say that this claim is controversial), where the date 1467 appears, at least in BAV Vat.Lat 7780. Here is Google Translate's English for the "Ego frater Iacobus . . . septuaginta quinque annorum" quotation just given (previous quote), which appears on f. 1v:

I, fr. Iacobus de Monte Prandone or. mi. at the age of twenty-two years in the name of the Lord, entered the order of St. Francis, in the month of July 1416. And I began to preach on the feast of St. Anthony of Padua in S. Salvatore near Florence in 1420. And I left preaching on the feast of St. Bernardino, in the month of May 1467, with my own hand: - having the age of seventy-five years.’ (Lasic, 478).

Otherwise, it is in the Sermones Quadragesimiles manuscripts, as follows:

Sermones Quadragesimales: MS Foligno Biblioteca Comunale C.A.IX.i.ii (Cod. II, 103 sermons. Cf. R. Lioi, ‘I ‘Sermones Quadragesimales’ di S. G. della Marca in un codice della Biblioteca comunale di Foligno’, Annali del Pontificio Istituto Superiore Scienze e Lettere S. Chiara 10 (1960), 37-137); MS Rome, Biblioteca Angelica 187 (cf. Pacetti, ‘I sermoni quaresimali di S. G. della Marca contenuti nel codice 187 della Bibl. Angelica di Roma’, AFH 46 (1953), 302-340); MS BAV Vat.Lat. 1239 ff. 38-48, 85v-87v; MS BAV Vat.Lat. 7488 ff. 116r-158; MS BAV Vat.Lat. 7642 (123 sermons, of which no. 21-123 are the same as in the Foligno manuscript. [It would seem that this Vatican manuscript represents a copy of a more or less final version of this Quadragesimale series. The manuscript has received a description in Dionysius Lasic, ‘Sermones S. Iacobi de Marchia in cod. Vat.lat. 7780 et 7642 asservati’, AFH 63 (1970), 476-565 (516-565). The Vat.Lat. 7642 collection, which has an extensive tabula sermonum (not alphabetical but following the sun- and weekdays for which the sermons are meant) on ff. 246r-v, contains 123 sermons on religion instruction in the quaresimal period:

In the list after the colon, "De Ludo" is on ff. 166va-168va. The folios of sermons start on 1a and go up to 245vb.

We might wonder if in fact the sermon on games was from St. Bernardino's time, given the personal ties. That would explain why Lioi (or James himself?) put it tenth out of 99. A church in New Jersey named after him writes on its website https://stjamesofthemarches.com/who-is- ... he-marches:

Together with St. Bernardine of Siena, James of the Marches countered the widespread superstitions of amulets and charms by promoting the Name of Jesus. They wrote the letters, IHS (Iesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus, the Savior of Humanity) on parchments which they touched to the bodies of the sick and infirmed.

I do not see this claim elsewhere, but surely James was aware of Bernardino's sermons and would have found them inspiring. More information is needed about this sermon of James, especially pertaining to when it would have been circulated in manuscript copies.

I notice that Thierry had no problem with 1480 for the Steele Sermon, even though he surely noticed the "noviter inventu" (transcribed by Steele) and had an assumed date of before 1467 for flusso. I am not of course defending "c. 1480" for the Steele Sermon, merely a date range going that late.

Note added later in the day: If you read this post before I added the part in bold, translating the autograph statement indicating that the "autograph" manuscripts are 1467 or later, please take a look.

James of the Marches preached until 1467, but the sermon could have been written years earlier. We don't seem to know when he wrote De Ludo. However, that doesn't greatly affect the dating of Steele's Sermon.

I just remembered a detail that could be useful for dating the supposedly original handwritten sermon, which is lost and was later copied into the surviving manuscript known as Sermon Steele.

It is said that the author of Sermon Steele was a friar who admired Saint Francis, since the text speaks of his stigmata. It is said that there were followers of Savonarola in towns near Ferrara, and it is estimated that the original Sermon Steele was possibly written by one of those friars from the rural setting near Ferrara. Savonarola studied oratory in 1488, I believe I read on Wikipedia. I understand that Savonarola began to gain popularity after studying oratory at that time. We know that Savonarola was very popular from 1490 onwards. From this point of view, it seems that the original text of Sermon Steele was not written before 1488 or 1490.

If we take that into account, and also the mention of Flusso as a recent game, then we rule out dates after 1490.

I don't know if there is any evidence that the preserved manuscript is not the original, but it seems that we accept the assumption that an earlier original text existed, which was later than De Ludo wrote by James. Some of you mentioned the marginal notes mentioning the game Flosso in Steele Sermon. That seems a bit confusing, but it's possibly not the only clue that the original text predated the surviving Sermon Steele.

The Steele Sermon is sometimes said to date from 1490–1500. The paper dates from around 1500. Therefore, the 1490 date implies that a lost original copy was written before the surviving copy. The 1490 date was possibly estimated before the paper was studied, but I am making this reinterpretation of those dates.

In short, perhaps the original text of the Steele Sermon was not written before 1488. Before that year, Savonarola's oral sermons were not very good and bored people. Afterwards, Savonarola was very popular between 1495 and 1498, but we assume that those dates are too late because Flusso was no longer a new game at that time. Savonarola was known in Ferrara because he was born there. So, the friars of Ferrara could have known him before he became famous in Florence.

So, I guess the original text of Steele's Sermon could have been written around 1488. All of our arguments are a bit weak, but perhaps putting them together gives us a somewhat solid conclusion.

Nathaniel says that the trump card game had the structure 21+1, years before than the original text of Steele's Sermon was written. However, this should not confuse us when dating Steele's Sermon. Perhaps the supposed World with God card illustrated still existed in 1488. Afterward, the popular Florentine decks were burned in the bonfires organized by Savonarola.

Savonarola seems to me probably too late to use in dating the Steele Sermon. Wikipedia says he was preaching in Regio-Emilia when Pico heard him, just before his invitation to Florence in 1490, so I guess 1488-90. Influence is problematic. Before then is unlikely, as he was a Dominican and in Florence and San Gimignano and does not seem to have been popular, as you say. But you are right to take into account other preachers besides James of the Marches. There had been other preachers on the same themes, especially the Franciscan Bernardino, of whom a new biography had been published around 1472, which explicitly mentioned (perhaps inaccurately) triumphs as among the games Bernardino condemned and had burned. All of his biographers mentioned one or more of Bernardino's sermons on games, I believe (one mentioned playing cards, one trionfi, and one neither); the sermons themselves were widely distributed and surely would have influenced many, especially Franciscans. See Andrea Vitali's "San Bernardino and the Cards," http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=227&lng=ENG, also in Italian.

The main influence on the preacher of the Steele Sermon, however, was James of the Marches, Bernardino's pupil and follower. The preacher lifted many passages verbatim from James's "De Ludo", as you can see from Depaulis's article, as well as the general structure. If on the first page of James's autograph collection of sermons says he preached from 1420 to 1467, then the collection is after 1467 and creates a strong presumption that the "De Ludo" sermon would not have been generally available even to Franciscans before that year and probably even later, as it would have taken some time for him to transcribe them all. So now 1468-1485 seems reasonable (if not to 1490), and Steele's ca. 1480, unchallenged by Depaulis, seems in general validated, although a date range around it would be more accurate, given the evidence.

Mikeh wrote:

"If on the first page of James's autograph collection of sermons says he preached from 1420 to 1467, then the collection is after 1467 and creates a strong presumption that the "De Ludo" sermon would not have been generally available even to Franciscans before that year and probably even later, as it would have taken some time for him to transcribe them all. So now 1468-1485 seems reasonable (if not to 1490), and Steele's ca. 1480, unchallenged by Depaulis, seems in general validated".

You seem to be mentioning the date 1468-1485 in relation to the sermon written by James. Right? I don't understand why you think James didn't write his sermon book before he stopped giving sermons (1467). If he started giving sermons in 1420, he could have started writing them in any year. Right? Perhaps there's some solid argument I'm unaware of. You're making some insinuations, but I don't fully understand the logic or the need behind that assumption. You say that James's text was not disseminated before 1467. How do you know that? The date of the surviving copies may be useful.

Then, you say that 1480 seems a reasonable date for Steele's Sermon. I don't think you're referring to the surviving copy. You're referring to the time when Steele's Sermon was first written. However, you mentioned 1485 for James. It doesn't make sense that James could be later than Steele. I think something is confusing in my understanding of your text. To avoid confusion, I marked three stages: James, Original Steele, Preserved Steele.

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I am rereading Nathaniel's explanation of prudence and malice in the poem wrote by Imperiali.

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Nathaniel says that the Old Man is Prudence and the Hanged Man is Malice. He admits that the correct order is the other way around. Mikeh disagrees with these two correspondences and argues that the Old Man is mentioned later in the correct place in the poem. I, too, have doubts that the Old Man should be identified with Prudence in that poem. However, something Nathaniel says is interesting. He claims that two other sources (arround 1550) use the name Prudence for the Old Man and the name Malice for the Hanged Man. Do we know which two sources these are?

I wonder if there was a popular tradition linking the Hanged Man with Prudence, or if perhaps this rumor (or the same association later made by Gébelin) came from an interpretation of Imperiali's poem. It seems a little strange to me that Prudence was a name for the Old Man and that Gébelin later associated that same name, Prudence, with the Hanged Man. It's strange, but it's possible, and I can try my best to understand it. The use of the name Malice for the Hanged Man seems to me a very valid idea for understanding the poem, especially if the Hanged Man was called Malice in two ancient sources that Nathaniel knows.