Huck
The statement that there are only two decks with 22 trumps in the 15th century is a little bit crude. The statement should be "we have only one 15th century deck of which 22 trumps survived (Sola Busca) but we have a strong indication from the Boiardo poem that there existed decks with 22 trumps". Another indication is the Steel Sermon, possible also from the late fifteenth century.
The Charles VI deck has 16 surviving trumps. The Este deck has 8 surviving trumps of which two are different from the Charles VI deck. So we have 18 trumps surviving out of 22. Both decks might have been, although manufactured in different towns, ordered by the same person, Ercole I of Este. I strongly believe that both decks were the first examples of the 22 trump structure. The oldest one is probably the Charles VI deck, manufactured possibly between 1460 (when Ercole I returned to Ferrara from Naples) and 1465 (latest date proposed earlier in this discussion) in Florence.
The Sola-Busca probably had the date of 1491 (arguments given by Kaplan). The date of the Boiardo poem is globally given by various interpreters between 1461-1494, but there are good reasons to assume the date "around January 1487".
You should find one of my earlier argumentations for this point here ...
https://www.google.de/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=boiardo 1487 huck
For the Steel manuscript exist this note of the owner of it:
http://trionfi.com/0/p/17/
It's a crucial point to have the first appearance of the deck structure 4x14+22 (as far it can be known with very high security). So I noted Sola Busca and the Boiardo poem.
There's no way by history methods to exclude the existence of this deck structure for the year 1400 or 1401 or 1402 etc. There is also no way to exclude the existence of the deck structures 4x14+23 or 4x14+24 or 4x14+25 etc. in the same years. If somebody prefers to believe, that Caesar played Tarocchi with Cleopatra, we cannot prove the contrary.
Everything is possible, the state of research likely will have always the condition, that we don't know all decks, that once were produced.
We can keep only to that, what we definitely know, and from that we can develop theories and arguments about the development of playing cards with some probability.
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The poet Luigi Pulci is the first, who noted the word "Minchiate" in the context of games (1466 in a letter to the young Lorenzo di Medici). From here the suspicion is given, that Pulci might have something to do with the production of playing cards. Pulci was commissioned by Lucrezia Tornabuoni (mother of Lorenzo di Medici) to write the Morgante, a longer poetry work about the hero Orlando, who made friendship with a giant called "Morgante" (around 1460).
The Pulci family had a mill in the Mugello, in c. 5 km distance to a Medici villa ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Medici_at_Cafaggiolo
... where Lucrezia likely spend holidays time with her children. The later great friendship between Lorenzo and Luigi Pulci likely explains from the condition, that Pulci was used to guard the children in the forests around the villa. Lorenzo's young troop never lost their enjoyment about hunting later, also they developed literary skills, which likely were developed under the guidance of Pulci. One poem of them describes the scene, that Pulci searched for himself a stump of a tree to sit upon for constructing poetry, while the kids searched for adventures.
The Morgante (a giant, gives its name to the title), whatever literature experts later made out of it, is a poem for children, adventures, heroes and battles and fun. Morgante (somehow Pulci, grown up) is the friend of Orlando (somehow Lorenzo, a boy).
The poem made quick progress. Literature experts found out, that around 1463 about 15 chapters were ready. Then the life of the children became more serious, deaths in the family forced a quick adolescence. The development of the poem stopped and took a slow progress.
Around 1471 Pulci might have reached 23 chapters, one of the manuscript found its way to Ercole d'Este in Ferrara (in 1474, I remember). Short after this Boiardo (living at the court in Ferrara) started to work on his Orlando poem. Meanwhile Pulci got serious trouble in Florence, he was found then in the service of the Milanese condottiero Roberto Sanseverino. The relations to the poets in Florence were stressed. Around 1479 Pulci was reconciled with the Florentine society and the final Morgante had then 28 chapters. From Boiardo we know then an excessive development with his Orlando.
The Charles VI (assumed is the year 1463) has a Fool giant, who is involved in a stone throwing battle.
The friendship between Morgante and Orlande (Pulci poem) starts with a stone-throwing battle.
A second friendly giant of the poem, Margutte, isn't present in the first 15 chapters. He appears in chapter XVIII.
The Charles VI has only one giant, the Fool card, the Bagatello card is missing.
The Este cards have 2 giants, Fool + Bagatello. The Este knew the 23-chapter version of the Morgante.
The Rosenwald Tarocchi (suspected to have its origin possibly around 1463 in Florence, possibly as the first Minchiate) has a figure, which unites Fool (Fool's cap) and Magician (table). It's suspected, that no other fool or Magician was used (as in the 16-trumps-Charles VI), so that this deck (probably) had only 96 cards.
Two other Fools with similar outfit were detected by Michael J. Hurst in calendars of the years 1464/1465 (as "children of the moon")
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2010/09/close-up-magic.html
... both with Fool's cap and Bagatello table. The coincidence in time (1464/65) might count as an indication, that the Rosenwald indeed might have its origin around 1463 or little later.
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A later legend about the origin of the Medici palle:
http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediat...gini_della_famiglia&id_cronologia_contenuto=1Information about the Medici family prior to the mid thirteenth century is fairly scarce and is also dubious since it is not supported by documents or reliable sources. The studies devoted to this, one of the most famous historic families of all time, have rarely ventured to trace the effective origins and reconstruct events prior to the period of the great economic and political ascent of the Medici. Generally, the sources and the literary tradition record that the Medici originated from Mugello, the area to the north-east of Florence that now comprises the municipal territories of Barberino di Mugello, San Piero a Sieve, Scarperia, Borgo San Lorenzo and Vicchio. However this information has no certain documentary foundation and is based on the fact that, from the fourteenth century on, the Medici prove to be landowners in the area. It was in fact normal practice for the merchants of the thirteenth century, who nurtured their economic fortunes in the city, to purchase land in the rural area from which they originated.
On the other hand there are numerous legends about the Medici, which flourished above all in the Grand Ducal period (sixteenth-seventeenth century) when the imagination and the pens of the court literati were artfully employed in giving lustre to the origins of the reigning dynasty of Tuscany. According to a seventeenth-century manuscript now in the Biblioteca Moreniana, in the early Middle Ages the Medici were connected with the Ubaldini, who were powerful feudal lords in Mugello at the time, and from at least 1030 possessed the castles of Castagnolo and Petrone situated in the environs of modern-day Scarperia. The same source also records a story of fabulous accents, designed to ennoble the origins of the Medici stock and its coat of arms. This type of courtly romance presents as the founding father a certain Averardo de' Medici � a name that was later recurrent in the family between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries � who was a captain in the army of Charlemagne, emperor and also "founder" of Florence. The story goes that the valiant Averardo, while he was engaged in liberating the Tuscan territory from the invasion of the Longobards, defeated a giant called Mugello who terrorised the area of the same name in the upper valley of the Sieve. During the clash the giant Mugello drove his spiked mace (or possibly the balls of his flail) into Averardo's gilded shield. The impression left on the knight's armour then suggested the heraldic emblem of the balls or "bisanti" (round gold spangles) of the Medici escutcheon. Thus, after the mythical exploit of Averardo, the distant forbears of Cosimo il Vecchio and Lorenzo il Magnifico moved to the region of Mugello.
However, the fact that the Medici settled in Mugello at such an early date appears to be undermined by another, more reliable, piece of evidence. In fact, in the Libro di memorie written by Filigno de' Medici in 1374, the writer records that the first significant purchases of land in Mugello were made by the Medici between 1260 and 1318, while they had already owned property of a certain importance in Florence from at least 1169.
Utilising the scarce data available, it is in any case difficult to establish whether, at the dawn of their history, the Medici were extremely affluent landowners who sought new opportunities to grow and prosper in the city, or whether instead they were wealthy citizens who, to redeem their own humble extraction, made propitious alliances with noble families and investments in the countryside.
This later story seems to be inspired by Pulci's Morgante, "Mugello", "Charlemagne", "giant" (started to get more attention with Pulci in 1460), and with the choice of a more fixed Medici heraldry (1465).
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Margutte, the second giant, is marked with a great interest in cooking and eating. The Bagatello card was later associated to the "innkeeper".
Actually "Innkeeper" and "Fool" were inspired by chess iconography and pawn professions:
... professions: Gambler, Messenger, stands in front of the rook at the Queen's side
... profession: innkeeper, stands in front of the bishop at the Queen's side