Tarot History Forum

I could complete this:

Page 32-33




"Anche le carte da gioco spesso arrivano per mare, «carte da giocare» in grandi quantità: «20 dozzine di carte da giocare» (valore 4 duc.), «1 caratello di carte da giocare» (7 duc), «3 cieste di carte da giocare» (su una caravella ...



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Page 51

...proceeds with "Di quando in quando vengono importate «immagini» o «tavole» della Madonna, «carte depinte», «figure de gesso», «teste de marmore», ecc" ... so the theme playing cards is finished there.

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"... fra cui bandiere230; fino al 1464, nei registri doganali viene menzionato ancora con ogni ben di Dio: «merce minute di Milano», tele di Costanza, stamigna francese, bonette, triunfi («para 309», «para 24») ed altre carte da giocare, ..." is before
Page 63


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finishes with
"I Della Casa, presenti così precocemente in Curia235, sono praticamente scomparsi: però un Francesco porta anche merci particolari: «figure di donne», «carte depente», «triunfi», specchi ed altra «merce de Fiorensa»236."

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p. 65





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I learned, that there is a useful trick to bridge the "snippets" ...

If you've one snippet, you could make a request for the last or first words of the snippet ... but only at books.google.com, not google.com (it doesn't work). Likely you get a passage "before the snippet content".

If you go then back to the book itself and make a research for these words, you get the "new snippet" before or after the "old snippet".

Also I noted:
You can quote the snippets directly ... they are images, and you can present them as common images

Portuguese ship with playing cards near Rome


If I look at this ...

The earliest known reference to playing cards in Portugal dates from 1490.

http://www.wopc.co.uk/portugal/index.html
(I don't know, if these are the latest words about Portuguese playing cards)

... then we have here ...

Page 32-33

"Anche le carte da gioco spesso arrivano per mare, «carte da giocare» in grandi quantità: «20 dozzine di carte da giocare» (valore 4 duc.), «1 caratello di carte da giocare» (7 duc), «3 cieste di carte da giocare» (su una caravella Portuguese) ...

... likely a much earlier date in a document which indicates (not proves, cause the Portuguese ship might have just served as transporter of foreign playing cards) Portuguese playing card production.

Michal Dummett and John McLeod in their book to Tarot rules ..
http://www.tarotgame.org/

page 10


page 359 in chapter "Rome and Nples"


... reflect, how Portuguese designs of suits and courts might come to Italy. A year like c. 1465 (?) appears not in their calculation.

However ... the emperor Fredrick III. married 1452 a Portuguese princess. Another early marriage connection is drawn between Portuguese and Burgundian court is made with Philip III the good and another Portuguese princess.

B1. Philippe III "le Bon", Duc de Bourgogne (1419-67), Comte de Charolais (1404-1419), Comte de Tonnerre (1419-1435), Comte d'Artois, Comte de Boulogne, Comte de Bourgogne, et Comte de Flandre (1419-67), Comte de Namur (1421-67), Duc de Brabant et Duc de Limbourg (1430-67), Comte de Hainaut, Comte de Hollande et Comte de Zélande (1433-67), Grand-duc d'Occident (1435-67), Duc de Luxembourg (1443-67), *Dijon 30.6.1396, +Bruges 15.6.1467, bur Dijon; 1m: Paris VI.1409 Michelle de Valois (*11.1.1395 +8.7.1422) dau.of King Charles VI of France; 2m: Moulins-les-Engelbert 30.11.1424 Bonne d´Artois (*1393 +17.9.1425); 3m: Bruges 7.1.1430 Isabella of Portugal (*21.2.1397 +17.12.1472)

The resulting son Charles the bold became a dominant European figure in the 1460s and 1470s. A Portuguese ship (with Portugal in this time famous for their maritime technology) with playing cards (possibly made in Burgundy, which had a very early woodcut and playing card tradition) around 1465 in a port near Rome isn't really surprising.



Henry the Navigator (1394-60), son and brother of Portuguese kings, brother also to Isabella, who married to Burgundy, and uncle to Leonor, who married the emperor.
http://genealogy.euweb.cz/capet/capet48.html#J1

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btw. a "caratello" as in "1 caratello di carte da giocare" is likely a ...


http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caratello

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Portuguese playing cards have the old national symbol of a dragon at the aces and "female fante" ...




http://www.wopc.co.uk/portugal/index.html

Minchiate has a dragon centaur as one of the chevaliers and two of four fante are female

At page 50 I read ...



... the words "per esempio" and then follow a few words about imported Triunfi and other playing cards. "Per esempio" naturally means nothing else than "for instance".

At page 32 I decipher something like ""carte da giocare in gran quantità."

I think, both passages are enough to conclude, that the author doesn't present all the material, that he had seen in the relevant archives, which is understandable in his own interests (he is not a playing card researcher), he wrote about general trade and he just wishes to give examples.

So in an unknown manner there is more material, which is of interest to us. So what can we do, that we get information about this unknown treasure, after we have spend long years and much hours about the use of mass production for the Triunfi cards?

Have we any information, if these import lists are complete? The author uses for his time frame the specification 1445 - 1484:
"Economia, cultura materiale ed arte nella Roma del Rinascimento:
studi sui registri doganali romani, 1445-1485"

Huck wrote:"5 bol. = 1,4 duc."

... would make 1 Bolognini = 0.28 Ducato
... would make 1 Ducato = a little more than 3.5 Bolognini

... would be near to the worth, which I once learned for Lira Marchesana in Ferrara ( 2.8 Lira = 1 Ducato for the time of c. 1475; if I remember correctly)

... but the values changed (probably) dramatically. In this report for a later time

compare
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=654&p=9753

I'm only using the values Esch gives on p. 90, which I quoted above -

A Roma il fiorino di camera e il ducato di camera allora avevano lo stesso valore (entrambi a 72 bolognini romani: per es. reg. 45, f. 75v, anno 1472: «ad rationem 72 pro floreno seu ducato», e questo vale per tutto il periodo trattato.), il bolognino diviso in 16 denari.

"In Rome the fiorino di camera and the ducato di camera thus had the same value (both at 72 Roman bolognini: for example, Reg. 45, f. 75v, anno 1472: "divided as 72 per florin or ducat", and this holds for the entire period concerned), the bolognino divided into 16 denari."

Fiorino/ducato "di camera" = 72 bolognini.
Bolognino = 16 denari

But in the prices on page 50-51, he says 16 para triunphi, 5 bol.", valore dunque 1,4 duc.: "16 packs of triumphs, 5 bol(ognini), valued therefore at 1.4 duc(ati)."

So in this place he seems to using a system where a "bol." is worth 0.28 ducato.

There must be something missing in our understanding.

However, relatively speaking, even without knowing the smaller denominations, we can say that the third (16 packs) is estimated at the cheapest. 16x3=48, or 4 dozen. So 4 dozen of the 16 = 4.2 ducats (1.4 x 3).

The first 3 dozen (called dozenali or "cheap") are worth somewhat over one ducat per dozen (to allow for the dozen regular playing cards in the same line to be cheaper), so they are slightly more expensive than the 16. Similarly, the 4 dozen of the second and fourth kinds are 6 and 5.5 ducats, or between 1.375 and 1.5 ducats per dozen, which puts them all in the same price range.

Whatever the price per pack (in bolognini or denari), these were what were considered "cheap cards" in Rome in the early 1460s.

Huck wrote:At page 50 I read ...

... the words "per esempio" and then follow a few words about imported Triunfi and other playing cards. "Per esempio" naturally means nothing else than "for instance".

Yes, that's in the first quote I posted. carte da gioco. Nei registri doganali romani del resto non si chiamano mai “naibbi” o “tarocchi”, ma sempre solo “carte da giocare” e “trionfi”; sono trattate come due cose diverse (quindi divise nella stessa fornitura, per esempio “para 30 di triunfe et dozine 4 di carte da giochare”), contate in “dozine” o “para”, e portate sopratutto da fiorentini e da nordici.

"Playing cards. In the Roman customs registers, however, they are not called either "naibbi" or "tarocchi", but always only "playing cards" and "trionfi"; they are treated as two different things (therefore divided in the same record, for example "30 packs of triumphs and 4 dozen packs of playing cards"), counted in "dozens" or "packs", and brought above all by Florentines and northerners."

At page 32 I decipher something like ""carte da giocare in gran quantità."

Anche le carte da gioco spesso arrivano per mare, «carte da giocare» in grandi quantità: «20 dozzine di carte da giocare» (valore 4 duc), «1 caratello di carte da giocare» (7 duc), «3 cieste di carte da giocare» (su una caravella portoghese); 20 para, 37 para, 190 para di carte da giocare ecc.,

Playing cards often also arrived by sea, "playing cards" in great quantities: "20 dozen packs of playing cards" (valued at 4 ducats), "1 caratello of playing cards" (7 ducats), "3 chests of playing cards" (on a Portuguese caravella; 20 packs, 37 packs, 190 packs, etc.

They're cheap, regular playing cards, not trionfi, of course.

I think, both passages are enough to conclude, that the author doesn't present all the material, that he had seen in the relevant archives, which is understandable in his own interests (he is not a playing card researcher), he wrote about general trade and he just wishes to give examples.

Sure. But they are very good examples.

So in an unknown manner there is more material, which is of interest to us. So what can we do, that we get information about this unknown treasure, after we have spend long years and much hours about the use of mass production for the Triunfi cards?

Have we any information, if these import lists are complete? The author uses for his time frame the specification 1445 - 1484:
"Economia, cultura materiale ed arte nella Roma del Rinascimento:
studi sui registri doganali romani, 1445-1485"

Not sure what you're asking - that we write him? Perhaps you can, since his native language appears to be German.

For the timeline on Tarot's arrival in Rome, Esch's information does push it back about 40 years from Dummett's "around 1500". However, Thierry had already found a date of 1474 in Esch's earlier work, when he published his paper "Playing Cards in Rome - 15th to 17th centuries" (The Playing Card, 36 no. 3 (2008), so that was already 30 years earlier than Dummett had estimated before.

The same goes for the arrival of Portuguese cards in Rome (or Italy in general).

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:

Huck wrote:
So in an unknown manner there is more material, which is of interest to us. So what can we do, that we get information about this unknown treasure, after we have spend long years and much hours about the use of mass production for the Triunfi cards?

Have we any information, if these import lists are complete? The author uses for his time frame the specification 1445 - 1484:
"Economia, cultura materiale ed arte nella Roma del Rinascimento:
studi sui registri doganali romani, 1445-1485"

Not sure what you're asking - that we write him? Perhaps you can, since his native language appears to be German.

Well, before writing to an author, one should know, what one could know.

There is this Jstor-article (has somebody a complete version ?).
http://www.jstor.org/pss/751505


From this it is clear, there's a lot of material. Now the period of 1470-80 might be less interesting for us, than that, what appears before before 1464.
Esch speaks of "are more or less continuous for about thirty years", but in detail there are special holes in the development of the registers.
The interesting key word seems to be "Rome, archivio di stato, camerale 1, camera urbis" (see Esch)

http://www.maas.ccr.it/PDF/Roma.pdf
.. says to "camera urbis"

< Camera urbis > 1443-1446, 1459-1464, 1472-1486, 1492, 1548, 1685-1697 e
1718-1721 regg. 13 e libri-mastro 2: nn. 4, 5, 11-14, 21-23, 26, 29-31, 154 e 155
(Camera urbis). 1 libri-mastro e 5 registri appartengono alla Dogana dello studio
nel periodo in cui fu amministrata in comune dalla Camera apostolica e da quella
capitolina. Per alcuni pezzi l’appartenenza alla Camera urbis è soltanto probabile
(vedi Camera urbis, p. 1081).

[/quote]

1443-1446 = last years of Pope Eugen, with 1447 missing
missing years = Pope Nicholas V, Pope Callistus
1459-1464 = Pope Pius II
missing years = Pope Paul Ii
1472-1484 = Pope Sixtus IV
1485-1486 = begin of Pope Innocenz VIII
1492 = begin of Pope Alexander VI
1548 = another begin of a reigning pope

However, this presentation contradicts in some details with the footnotes at the first page of the Jstor article from Esch (which has something for 1469 for instance). For earlier registers Esch points to another text of himself, which is not available.

Another description of the custom system is here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=C2rucN ... ra&f=false

And it speaks of a change of the custom statutes in 1463, but gives no information to missing registers.

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Perhaps one might with some insecurity conclude, that, cause of missing registers in the times of Pope Nicholas, Pope Calixtus and Pope Paul II, ...

missing years = Pope Nicholas V, Pope Callistus
1459-1464 = Pope Pius II
missing years = Pope Paul Ii

... only the registers of the period 1459-1464 should be of greater interest (in matters of the early development of Tarot) - the later imports of the 70s could just confirm, that mass production had started).

My "rather innocent impression" is, that the "missing registers" partly not really miss, but perhaps never really existed (or only in other, more simpler form ?). After Eugen was driven out from Rome, surely not much were interested to pay import taxes. When he came back (much later), he need some time to install himself. Perhaps in 1443 he was ready to establish a functioning import tax.
For Pope Paul II it is known, that he reduced bureaucracy to spare the money for the papal writers (who lost their job). Perhaps the import tax and its documentation was considered as "too complicated". For Nicholas and Calixtus perhaps the interest existed to keep prices low, and both had possible the dominant interest to develop Rome as a splendid capital of Christianity.
I don't know, just my stupid idea.
For the later time it seems to have been custom to have installed tax collectors, who paid for this right a fixed sum. So a papal register (and the connected bureaucracy) wasn't necessary. The short living attempts in 1492 and 1548 (new popes) seems to have had the intention to get more money, but the practical experience with it soon seems to have suggested to use the other less bureaucratic system.

Can you check Thierry's article? I have lost my copy for the moment.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Can you check Thierry's article? I have lost my copy for the moment.

I've a similar black hole for a few of the issues, and this belongs to them ... but ...
http://www.tarot-as-tarocchi.com/carte_ ... v_sec.html
... is a version on Italian.

Okay, the problem of "5 bol." being valued at 1.4 ducats is solved, thanks to clarifications on conventions that Esch uses in his article "Roman Customs Registers 1470-1480: Items of Interest to Historians of Art and Material Culture", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 58 (1995), pp. 72-87.

The perceived problem: "Un fornitore regolare di carte da gioco è il fiorentino Pierozzo di Ser Francesco: "dozine 3 de triunfi dozenali et dozine 1 de charte da giochare", valore stimato quasi 4 duc.: "dozine 4 de triunfi senza oro", valore stimato quasi 6 duc.: "16 para triunphi, 5 bol.", valore dunque 1,4 duc.: "para 48 de triomphi, " circa 5,5 duc. di valore stimato."

The solution:

Often the duty levied on imports is recorded, and occasionally the registers give an estimated value for the goods. Land duties were set at 5 per cent, and harbour duties at 6 1/2 per cent, of the value of the goods. Therefore, if the amount of duty paid is known, the value of the goods, or, to be more precise, the official estimated value, can be easily calculated. In the case of land tariffs, for example, a payment of 36 bolognini (half a ducat) in tax meant that the goods were valued at 10 duc. (p. 74)

So 5 bolognini is the duty paid, which means that the estimated value of the 16 packs of triumph cards was therefore 1.4 ducats.

1.4 ducats = 100.8 bolognini.

5 per cent (the land tax) on 100.8 bolognini is roughly 5 bolognini (actually the value is exactly 100 bolognini, which is 1.3888 ducats, which Esch understandably rounded up to 1.4 ducats).

I knew there was a solution.

I got - foreign friendly spirits - the complete article of Esch (the mentioned "Roman Customs Registers 1470-1480: Items of Interest to Historians of Art and Material Culture") and indeed he said something about playing cards:



Our earlier notes to the Depaulis findings were:

http://trionfi.com/0/e/33b/

Rome 1474 - 1478 (3 notes)

Thierry Depaulis found these last year, published in a 1995 article by Arnold Esch: The entries from the Roman Customs Register refer to Trionfi cards being imported from Florence. Besides some notes about normal playing cards, Esch noted only a few sentences:

"Also mentioned are trionfi, that is, printed or painted tarock cards: for example, a Florentine brings in 'quattro parra de trionfi et carte indorate e doi para de trionfi.' Another Florentine imports 'una cassetta de trionfi et carte da jocare,' with an estimated value of 6 duc 18 bol and '23 para triunfi' with a value of 7 duc 54 bol. In other cases 'para trionfi' are assessed at 7 1/2 bol, or 10 bol, or 23 1/2 bol. - differences in value are to be expected in goods of this sort."

Again it jumps in the eyes ... Esch uses "for example", which likely means, that he knew also other notes about Trionfi.

In the footnotes (Footnote 37 and 38 should contain all those relevant for "Trionfi") we find then ...



... a lot of references, which finish with an "etc." ... indicating, that there is much more. But anybody, who would visit the archives would have (likely) a plausible chance to find at least the given passages. I count totally 16 references and an "etc."

Dogana da terra
---------------
reg 52, fols 8r, 10r, 21r, 23v, 47v, 62v, 68v, 70v, 73v, 122v, 123v,
reg 53, fol 24v
reg 54, fol 121v
reg 55, fols 36r, 56r, 377r

What does the number of the registers say? Are these an indication of time?