Happy New Year

Huck

Autorbis posted the following at LTarot (given with permission of the author):



"Winter was in the time of renaissance the time of playing. Naturally ... the farmers had free time and the days were too dark and too cold to do much at the outside.
Rainer Müller in his essay about the early distribution of chess

http://webdoc.gwdg.de/edoc/p/cma/5-02/mueller.pdf

in German language reports, that for at least one German city the 1st of January had special playing activities - constituted in the city laws, probably relevant to the late 14th century, in the time, when playing cards started their great distribution in Europe.

The Augsburger Monatsbilder, painted begin 16th century, when Augsburg was the rich "city of the Fuggers", show for the month of January a scene full of players, cards, chess and backgammon are recognizable:

http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/kurzweil/ikona/win01.jpg

As already told, the appearance of plays during winter is very natural, not specifically remarkable.

The following was detected by Ross Gregory Caldwell in the course of the past year, when we were in cooperation researching possible roots of the 5x14-decks, which, according to our opinion, were the origin of the later Tarot with 22 trumps.

The text is from one of the Ferrarese account books, of course it is written in Latin, of course handwritten, so that there are unsecurities, if the text was correctly identified. We didn't see the original, only the transcription of Andrea Francesschini (the source is given at http://trionfi.com/01/e/r71/ at the menu point "references").

The text is:

E adi deto (1 gennaio) lire due, soldi cinque marchesani, contanti a Magistro Iacopo de Sagramoro depintore per XIIII figure depinte in carta de bambaxo et mandate a Madama Bianca da Milano per fare festa la scira de la Circumcisione de l'anno presente... L.II.V.

The translation of Ross is this:

"And on the said day (1 January) two lire, five soldi marchesane, reckoned to Maestro Jacopo de Sagramoro, painter, for 14 figures painted on cotton paper and sent to Lady Bianca of Milan, to make festive the celebration of the Circumcision of the present year ... L. II. V."

The Circumcision is celebrated at the first of January. The year of the entry is 1441.

Maestro Jacopo de Sagramoro is the same painter, who about one year later appears as the painter of the 4 first noted "Trionfi decks":

"Maestro Jacomo, painter, called Sagramoro, having on the 10th of February for his recompense, for having coloured and painted the cups and the swords and the coins and batons and all the figures of 4 packs of small triumph cards, and for making of the backs one pack red and 3 packs green, decorated with roundels made in oil, which our Lord had for his use; deducted 1 precii by Galioto de l’Asassino chamberlain of the aforesaid Lord by commission of the Lord; at the rate of five lire per pack ........ L. XX"

This entry refers to the 10th of February 1442, one year later

For the entry of 1.1.1441 it might be assumed, that Leonello is the commissioner of the "XIIII figure depinte in carta de bambaxo". Leonello is at this time a possible husband-in-spe for "Lady Bianca of Milan", the illegetime daughter of Filippo Maria Visconti. She is at that time 15 years old and at a 1/2-year-visit in Ferrara - and she is the Lady Di of that time. As Filippo has no mail heirs, her husband might become Duke of Milano and with that the probably richest and most influential man of all Italy.
Well, we know, that Bianca Maria married Francesco Sforza later and not Leonello, but at the begin of 1441 none of the participants of the situation knew, how this year of decision would finally turn out. Francesco Sforza was opponent in war to Filippo Visconti in spring 1441.
Leonello was a serious alternative. His first wife had died one year before, he was free and he was the most attractive possible husband, that the reality of 1441 knew: Intelligent, the heir of Ferrara, cultivated.
Probably he tried his luck with the 14 paintings.

Carta da Bambaxo (cotton paper) is a material suitable for playing cards. The note in the Ferrarese account books mentions, that these 14 Figure are for the "amusement in the evening" or for the "party at night", it leaves the question open, what the intended use of the pictures was. "Playing cards" would be a natural solution for the riddle, it's winter and an accepted time for playing. The document of 1441 mentions "14 figure" - the same expression "figure" is used in the Trionfi-document one year later.

14 figure - we were in search for a further proof of the 5x14-deck.

In the year 1457 the following document appears in Ferrara:

"Maestro Gerardo di Andrea da Vicenza, painter, having the 21st day of July, for his making and expense in fine gold, coloured, for having painted two packs of big triumph cards, which are 70 cards per deck, covered thickly with gold, and made entirely of colours fine and rich, and painted on the reverse one pack red, one pack green. The which had Piedro de Schiveto for the use of the Lord; the which said [Gerardo] asked 8 ducats per pack, at 56 soldi per ducat, totalling 22 lire, 8 soldi; and Galeotto the tax 28 lire. Subracting 2 soldi per lira, which is 2, 16 soldi; remains to his credit … L. 25. 4."

It clearly talks of 70 cards, not of 78, and this it does 16 years after the document of 1441.
The Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Tarocchi only knows 14 trumps painted by Bembo, the other 6 existing trumps are painted by a second unknown artist, probably some years later.

The document of 1441 doesn't talk of Trionfi cards - why should it, we've no evidence of a use for this name before 1442.

The scene of 1441 might be the "scene of invention of a new kind of deck". It even doesn't state "playing cards". Perhaps they were just creating the deck, perhaps they started with big pictures, fighting with the choice of the "correct" motifs.

Happy new year.

Lothar

For reference:

http://trionfi.com/01/e/r71/
menu points: "Figure"
"document 1"
"document 16"
http://trionfi.com/01/f/

***************************

forwarded by Huck
 

catboxer

Huck:

Your researches leave little doubt that there were some early triumph decks configured in the five-by-14 patterns. However, I have problems associating this pattern with the Visconti-Sforza, mainly because it plays havoc with any possible trump order.

Eliminating the Devil and the Tower, and the six cards painted by an artist other than the original one leaves the following:

Il Matto / Il Bagatto / Papessa / Empress / Emperor / Il Papa/ Love / Lo Carro / Tiempo / La Rota / Il Impichato / Death / Justice / Judgment

I think you'd agree that Judgment has to be the highest trump, and that Death is the only card that has a place in the sequence that can be occupied by no other -- 13.

If Il Matto is numberless, that is, designated as the excuse card for purposes of playing this deck, and the trump order is what I've proposed above, then Death would fall at place 11. If Il Matto was assigned a number -- one -- then either Death would be at 12, or Justice would have to be placed somewhere previous to Death in the order for the latter to occupy place 13, which makes no sense.

I think there must have been at least one or two more trumps which have been lost. This is certainly within the realm of possibility, since a couple of the suited cards -- Knight of Coins and Three Swords -- are lost.

Of course, that would have meant that the suit of trumps would have more cards in it than the other suits, which would have been very unusual for the time. But then again, that was a development that definitely occurred at some point, because differing numbers of cards in the trumps and the suits is what we ended up with.
 

Huck

catboxer said:
Huck:

Your researches leave little doubt that there were some early triumph decks configured in the five-by-14 patterns. However, I have problems associating this pattern with the Visconti-Sforza, mainly because it plays havoc with any possible trump order.

Eliminating the Devil and the Tower, and the six cards painted by an artist other than the original one leaves the following:

Il Matto / Il Bagatto / Papessa / Empress / Emperor / Il Papa/ Love / Lo Carro / Tiempo / La Rota / Il Impichato / Death / Justice / Judgment

I think you'd agree that Judgment has to be the highest trump, and that Death is the only card that has a place in the sequence that can be occupied by no other -- 13.

If Il Matto is numberless, that is, designated as the excuse card for purposes of playing this deck, and the trump order is what I've proposed above, then Death would fall at place 11. If Il Matto was assigned a number -- one -- then either Death would be at 12, or Justice would have to be placed somewhere previous to Death in the order for the latter to occupy place 13, which makes no sense.

The considerations of autorbis, which are a marathon, to this point (only in short):

The first idea was:

1 Magician + 4 figures (numbers 1-5)
central figure: 1 Magician with 4 suit signs at the table

4 states + one wheel (numbers 6-10)
central figure: Wheel with 4 figures turned around

+ 4 additional dark signs:

Fool: Stupidity
Hanging Man: Treason
Death: Death
Angel: Judgment

which is a normal mirroring of the already known suit structure:

5+5 number cards - 4 courts

With mirroring the normal suit system 10 figures already were numbered, just by the invention idea. Difficult are the other 4 cards.

From the Johannes of Rheinfelden manuscript (in 1377) we know,
that already at his time the idea was common to count the number cards from 1-10 and the courts (he has 5 courts in his 60 cards game) with 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15.
The Hofämterspiel has similarities withe Johannes-deck (professions), but only counts from 1-10 and leaves queen and king unnumbered. Interestingly the 4 Fools are "down", but have the number one.
The Michelino-deck knows also a row, but no numbers.

From this it might have been natural to count the following cards 11, 12, 13, 14 (or simply not counting them, both is possible and is known by comparition to the other known decks).

The natural starting idea for the 4 additional cards would be to find 4 counter-figures for Kings, Queens, Knights, Pages.
Probably they had this idea:

Pages - Stupidity - 11
Knights - Treason - 12
Queens - Death - 13
Kings - Judgment - 14

It is not naturally true, that the row-idea was dominant in the game development. Perhaps all 4 extern figures had just special functions - like we know it in modern rules for the Fool and the Pagat and World.

Perhaps we might suspect the following:

Fool was originally the Fool, of course.
The traitor (Hanging Man) had the Pagat function - perhaps he was considered low in the row, but getting the last trick with him would cheat the others in their victory. Naturally it's good "to capture the traitor" in practical life - in actual card-games you get special points to capture the Pagat (perhaps originally the traitor - he hangs "captured" at a tree). Judgment naturally should have had the function of the later "World" - just the highest trump. A special function for the death is not known by modern games, but easily imaginable, if one desires to find one.

So far the rules with a counting from 1-14 doesn't have difficulties. An early association of 13 with death "before Tarot" is given as far I know.

Then - so autorbis - a number change must have taken place. Counting 1+2+3 .... + 14 gives the result 105, which is not elegant (105 is not a "nice number").
Also it was a problem to count high numbers. It must have been attractive to have numbers, which are easier to count.

So they changed:
11 Fool becomes 0
14 becomes 20

0 and 20 are easy to count. The total number is now 100.
"100 is elegant". Players like elegant numbers, they like to count easy.

105 + (-11+0) + (-16+20) = 100

There is no easier way to change the numbers effectively. The only difficult-to-count-numbers are know 12+13.

This step in game development can only concluded by knowing what happened later. Of course we've no document.

Actually autorbis states, that he was 99% convinced from the 5x14-theory, when realising the hidden number-trick, because it was not imaginable to him, that this development or feature of the 14 remaining cards happened accidently. The 70-card-note from Ferrara, the informations about the Michelino-deck, the Johannes-report, the 14 figure in Ferrara, they all came later and was only found in their worth, cause the eye had learnt to look from the right perspective.


I think there must have been at least one or two more trumps which have been lost. This is certainly within the realm of possibility, since a couple of the suited cards -- Knight of Coins and Three Swords -- are lost.

Of course, that would have meant that the suit of trumps would have more cards in it than the other suits, which would have been very unusual for the time. But then again, that was a development that definitely occurred at some point, because differing numbers of cards in the trumps and the suits is what we ended up with.

We have 74 cards, and 6 of them didn't exist in the original. So we have 68 of 70 original Bembo-cards. One card is lost in this century, so in the year 1900 we had 69 of 70 of the original Bembo-cards.
The trumps are simply complete, and the other cards are nearly complete. I think, there is no reason to assume any more trumps.

But one might assume, that not only one creative deck existed at the same time. Probably there were variations in the motifs, perhaps also in the structure - humans love to be creative. The decks were handpainted and "singles", it was easy to advice the card-maker "I don't like the Fool" or "I wish to have a Visconti-Snake instad of ... or additionally some cards". No big problem, just a matter of personal taste. This is possible and can't be excluded as possible development, we with our few decks from 15th century look through a small hole at a complex action.
Probably the change from 14 to 22 and (don't forget the Minchiate) 41 just developed from the collector's viewing point ("I want to have them all"). Different decks merged and suddenly it were 20 and then 22, perhaps also other numbers. The deciding step to the standard developed from mass production, hand-painted decks for the rich courtly clients didn't need this step. The locations were far from each other, the communication was slow, everybody could do what he prefered to do.
And all what we know, they had different standards and different opinions about numerology etc., when standard was established.

This is all difficult. What really is easy, is the original Bembo-Tarocchi. It gives full information, nothing is hidden. It has a simple idea. All things start simple.
 

Ross G Caldwell

My own idea of the order of the 14 Bembo cards uses the distinction between ordinal and cardinal numbers.

None of the cards have *cardinal* numbers - that is, numbers One, Two, Three etc. They have no numbers at all, and the value in play is unknown. Perhaps, like modern trumps, only the Pagat and the highest card (here Judgement), had any point value.

But the cards must have been arranged *ordinally* - that is, First, Second, Third etc., to know which beats which in a hand. Thus they don't bear numbers (One, Two, Three), they just have a relative relationship (First, Second, Third). This way, the Fool doesn't have to have a number (Zero), he is just the lowest or first, and Death can still occupy the Thirteenth place.

First Fool
Second Bagato
Third Empress
Fourth Emperor
Fifth Papess
Sixth Pope
Seventh Love
Eighth Justice
Ninth Chariot
Tenth Fortune
Eleventh Hermit
Twelfth Traitor
Thirteenth Death
Fourteenth Judgement

(I'm not sure of the orde of seventh to tenth in this, or the position of the Papess, but I'm sure of the last four).

It would only have been when someone wanted to print numbers on the cards (cardinal numbers), that the problem with this counting, and the position of Death, became apparent. Hence the need to add more cards to keep Death at 13.

Ross