Estensi Tarots...start with Parisina Malatesta D'Este and playing cards for children

Cerulean

1. Parasina Malatesta D'Este and card playing in Ferarra

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/pe...stories/women_renaissance/Pastimes/index.html

Women were often avid card players. Parisina Malatesta, the young Duchess of Ferrara, ordered an expensive hand-painted pack for herself in 1423, and a year later sent off for two cheaper packs for her little twin daughters, Lucia and Ginevra.



2, Other notes on playing cards for her/children

'The Story of Ferrara

http://www.archive.org/stream/storyofferrara00noyeuoft/storyofferrara00noyeuoft_djvu.txt

Circa 1425

Paragraph 4 speaks of 'playing cards for her children'...


...Madonna Parisina entered her new home in
an ill-omened hour, received almost in silence by a
people mourning the ravages of two dreadful years of
pestilence. She seems to have been a joyous and
gentle creature, full of interest in life. With the
tolerance of the age she accepted the care of the
Marquis's large family, and governed his household
with most exemplary discretion, passing her life in
domestic duties, surrounded by her twelve women,
whom she ruled virtuously and trained in all house-
wifely knowledge and skill, at the fitting time finding
a husband for each maiden and dowering her with
fifty ducats and a well-filled marriage chest. The
clothing of all the inhabitants of the palace, from
prince to scullion, was the special occupation of this
great lady of the fifteenth century and was no light
task. A strange penury and lack of comfort, and even
of mere decency, underlay the apparent splendour of
the Court of Ferrara at this time. Throughout his
reign Niccolo was straitened for money, his father's
extravagance and the wars of his youth having left
the treasury empty ; and even later on the famous
magnificence of the Estensi did not go much deeper
than outward show. Parisina's closets were crowded
with gorgeous garments, stiff with gold and lined with
costly furs ; rich tapestries, carpets, precious silver
vessels worked by the most excellent craftsmen lay
piled upon the shelves, only to be brought forth for
some special festivity, when the chambers would be
hastily apparelled in great magnificence, and the
Marchesana herself would lay aside her ordinary gown
of homespun such as her women wore and appear in
cloth of gold. Niccolo himself was never seen except
in splendid array, but the young princes and princesses
went sadly short of garments. Borso's governors had
to plead for a new tunic for him, since he had but his
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From War to Peace

green one which he wore every day, and Meliaduse,
sent by his father to Padua on some occasion, wrote
to ask for four yards of cloth, that he might not lack
hose altogether. Their beds were covered with rich
stuffs, but the mattresses were of straw, the coverlets
in rags, the pillows gnawed by rats. Their numerous
attendants were still worse off. Parisina had to order
cloth to be given to Meliaduse's tutor, that he might
make himself a vesture, a pair of hose, and a hood,
since he was so to speak naked, and it was not for the
honour of the Marquis that his son's companion should
go about in such a plight. The pages, children of
noble birth, sent to be trained in courtly exercises in
this famous home of chivalry, all slept huddled together
on a little straw, and their long red hose and doublets
embroidered with the white eagle of Este were often
ragged.

Parisina herself did not lack the luxuries of the age.
She would send to Venice, the emporium of all the
precious merchandise of the East, for delicate per-
fumes, ivory and tortoiseshell combs. She loved and
encouraged all the arts, and the first dawn of the
Renaissance in Ferrara casts its faint light around the
figure of this princess. Many excellent painters worked
for her.

They decorated coffers, caskets, household
furniture, painted playing cards for her children,
triptychs for her oratory. Her favourite books were
the " istorie francesi " with which the palace was well
furnished. For the French romance literature con-
tinued to hold sway in this Court, steeped in the
chivalrous ideas which had come to it from the north
with the troubadour and minstrel of earlier days. As
she sat embroidering with her maidens, the Marchesana
would bid one of them recite some long familiar tale
of King Arthur, of Lancelot, or of Charlemagne
and his Paladins, or the mythical heroes of Este,

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The Story of Ferrara

Foresto, Accarino, Rinaldo, or perhaps she would
open some richly miniatured volume, and with Ugo
d'Este, a youth of her own age, who often joined her
in her bower, she would read the sad story of the
loves of Tristan and Isolde. Parisina was always
kind to her husband's children, but Ugo, the firstborn
of the Marquis and Madonna Stella, she specially
favoured. The young prince was beautiful and win-
ning, and had been carefully trained in knightly
exercises and courtesy. He was beloved by the people,
and was destined by his father, who adored him, for
his successor. Ugo, unlike his brothers and sisters,
lacked for nothing. He went always splendidly
arrayed ; the Marchesana would command fine gar-
ments for him, of her own favourite colour, green.

Placeholder for Bolognese/Estensi cards, family notes and the variations of the 'tarot' card pattern in this thread.