"Lo Scheggio", playing card producer 1447-1449

Huck

The painter "Lo Scheggio" alias Giovanni di ser Giovanni appears in ......
Franco Pratesi:
http://trionfi.com/naibi-on-sale
... as a playing card producer in Florence in the years 1447-49.

The article is announced here with some additional information ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=16234&page=21

a short biography ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_di_ser_Giovanni_Guidi

Here I try to collect some pictures of him.

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Scheggia%2C_trionfo_della_fama%2C_met.jpg

Birth picture of Lorenzo de Medici 1449. Triumph of Fame. The painter is possibly the yellow figure in the middle.

scheggia.jpg


05-frederick-th.jpg

Crowning and triumphal march Fredrick III. 1453
Description at:
http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/winter2009/features/marriage.html
Large picture here:
http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/winter2009/images/features/photoessay/05-frederick.jpg

Image551.gif

Cassone "Triumph of David with two Hercules scenes, 1467
Description at http://www.carnesecchi.eu/Scheggia.htm

Lo_scheggia%2C_desco_da_parto_col_gioco_del_civettino%2C_pal_davanzati.jpg
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lo_scheggia,_desco_da_parto_col_gioco_del_civettino,_pal_davanzati.jpg
Part of "gioco del civettino", somehow in context of ...

13142OP577AU20866.jpg

"I triumviri interrogano l'oracolo"
... http://www.atlantedellarteitaliana.it/author-577.html
Palazzo Davanzati
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Davanzati
Cassone Adimari
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassone_Adimari
(more pictures there)

612px-Lo_Scheggia_-_Game_of_Civettino_%28a_Birth_Salver%29_-_WGA20983.jpg

Another version of Gioco del Civettino

717px-Lo_scheggia%2C_trionfo_dell%27amore.JPG

This and other Petrarca Triumphs and other pictures at ...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lo_Scheggia

Further a series of pictures here:
http://www.arcadja.com/auctions/it/ser_giovanni_di_simone_giovanni_lo_sc/prezzi-opere/64542/


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Special attention to this one:
800px-Lo_Scheggia_-_Reclining_Youth_-_WGA20987.jpg
"Reclining Youth", said to be from "first half of 15th century"
!!!! The way to paint the breasts looks rather similar to the strange Temperance on a stag in the Alessandro Sforza cards.

t_3.jpg

Alessandro Sforza Tarot, card Temperance ... till now NOT identified as from Lo Scheggia

compare this ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ana_sudani/4325875310/in/photostream/
and this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ana_sudani/4325134829/
... some other Scheggia pictures in the menu
(copyrighted pictures)
 

Teheuti

I'm rally struck by the resemblance between the last two images above. Perhaps we have another tarot artist here.
 

Huck

I'm rally struck by the resemblance between the last two images above. Perhaps we have another tarot artist here.

Yes, this seems probable. "Lo Scheggia" appears as playing card producer, who works with "gold" in playing card production, in the new series of playing card productions notes in Florence 1447-49. From partly gilded cards to Trionfi cards the steps are not far.

Did you note the (now 2) articles to Filippo di Marco? That's definitely a Trionfi card producer between 1453-1458. And he has similar as much Trionfi card notes as Sagramoro.

All at http://trionfi.com/es00

*******

Further it's clear, that Lo Scheggia painted lots of Cassone pictures, and these Cassone pictures often had "triumphal celebrations" topics and as Petrarca's "Trionfi" motifs.

You find a lot of them, when you go to the Christie page and search for "Scheggia". Sales are often from "above 100.000" and occasionally even above "500.000".

The nickname "Lo Scheggia" might indicate "Splinter", but also "lightning" or just quickness.
If the latter was the meant association, the name possibly indicates, that Lo Scheggio was known for very quick working style.
One should think, that a playing card producer has to work very quick.
 

Teheuti

Huck, I have to admit that my own interest in Tarot history focuses on what can help me be a better/deeper tarot reader, plus my bad memory means that it is hard to keep all the details straight. What I would love to see is an article that summarizes the main discoveries made in the past 10 to 20 years in language anyone can understand. It seems like the focus for early tarot production has switched to Florence and that more tarot artists have been (possibly) identified. We also have more examples of the cards viewed in allegorical ways. A summary of the main trends would be helpful.
 

Huck

Huck, I have to admit that my own interest in Tarot history focuses on what can help me be a better/deeper tarot reader, plus my bad memory means that it is hard to keep all the details straight. What I would love to see is an article that summarizes the main discoveries made in the past 10 to 20 years in language anyone can understand.

... :) ... history naturally generates complexity and hates simplicity. Cause the old history had been in each time complex with the participation of millions of persons, and not so simple, that you can remember everything.
Actually it's difficult to describe one single soccer game with 22 men running around a humble ball. Likely each one-minute description is already difficult.

Tarot history is simpler, as there are only documents and these don't have feet to run ... luckily. But with each new document the situation naturally becomes more complex and actually it's that, what is desired: research progress.

Let's describe the progress in numbers, that keeps things easy. If you knew in 1980 possibly 500 cards related to the Trionfi game question (15th century only), you possibly know today 520, 550 or 650 ... Well, this are NOT counted values, but just only tools to describe, how progress might be estimated.

If it would be 520 ... it would be 4% progress
If it would be 550 ... it would be 10% progress
If it would be 650 ... it would be 30% progress

As we all know, great progress in matters of cards is rare. As large steps might be counted:
Franco Pratesi went to a Parisian library and found the Michelino deck. 60 new cards ... only in description. But 60 new cards. And Ross translated the texts.
Trionfi.com initiated the translation of the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (the translation was then mainly done by Marco Ponzi, also active here). 78 new cards. These weren't really unknown, but each person with interest and no Italian was hopeless to know, what's inside.
Leber Tarocchi. Kaplan forgot it. Nowadays more or less available.

Well ... the progress is here defined from the perspective of the common English reader, who c. 1978-1986 bought Kaplan I + II.

Some single cards were really new, but availability got a large help by the introduction of internet, we all know that. With some luck you find much more, as Kaplan could present.

New cards are rare ... we know that.

*********

It's better with documents. When the Trionfi.com project started, to present all "Trionfi" documents till 1463, it were in the beginning something like 25-30. A lot of these already weren't known for the reader of the Kaplan books, as the whole Ferrarese development weren't included and also some findings of Franco Pratesi. Later we expanded "till 1500" and it became something between 50-60. Then we stopped to list them and nobody found fun to make all the web work, cause other research interests were more demanding. And - let's speak it out - it's really not so interesting to work always for this silent and not-reacting public. Last year 2011 had been a climax of universal sleepiness in matters of Tarot history. These Tarot History Forums had become a dying place, both, which are relevant to us.

Anyway - the internal progress was unbelievable. Andrea Vitali exploded in his activities (well, the internal communication of Trionfi.com and Andrea Vitali plays a role in this), there are so many new articles at his webpages and also there are some of importance for the evaluation of 15th century Trionfi card development. A further increase of maybe about 10 new Trionfi notes.
This documentary level of the single notes didn't really exist in Kaplan's work.

Now in the last 3 months: First Ross found some new Trionfi notes in a work of Arnold Esch. This caused the internal Trionfi.com development, that Franco Pratesi was raised in his interests to return back to his earlier archival studies. First a further Triunfi card export 1453 was found in the Esch book. Then about 10 other Trionfi notes about Filippo di Marco 1453-58. A very important finding about playing card sales in 1447-49 in Florence, not directly Trionfi card related, but perhaps the biggest single finding in all Italian playing card history till now and it delivers the name "Lo Scheggia" as a playing card producer. Further other card producer names. Now the note from Depaulis, that 1440 is a new "first date of Trionfi cards" ... indirectly related to Franco's new expansive publications.

It seems like the focus for early tarot production has switched to Florence and that more tarot artists have been (possibly) identified. We also have more examples of the cards viewed in allegorical ways. A summary of the main trends would be helpful.

Kaplan and Dummett had more or less nothing about Florence. Then Franco Pratesi (from Florence) started to write about "Italian discoveries" in the late 1980s and reported a lot of things, which were not known before. Inclusive some notes about the Florentine region. He worked some time about playing cards and retired then. He was interested in Go then. In 2002 a dialog started between Franco and the Trionfi.com founder and we got some information about his earlier researches. So Trionfi.com could follow the earlier ways and the first very interesting object was the Michelino deck. This - reported 1989 by Pratesi - was then in the web with a half-page article. With the engagement of Trionfi.com this developed as a rather long article series inclusive the translations of Ross.
In winter 2007/2008 appeared the idea, that the Charles VI Tarot was from Florence and NOT - as otherwise suggested - from Ferrara. This caused a lot of internal developments in the research of Florence, and between others - on my side - the development of the Chess-Tarot theory, which assumes, that beside the 5x14 deck there were also Trionfi deck versions with 16 trumps (a very expanded theory). Franco Pratesi became interested to restart his earlier activities.

New documents were rare in the following time. The finding of the Esch text only few months ago, which gave evidence for Triunfi card exports from Florence to Rome, caused the already described revolutionary development with lots of new data.
 

Teheuti

Thank you so much for going over everything with us. I also appreciate all the attention you pay to events and personalities. Just like with any fad, particular forms can emerge and disappear quite quickly, and then re-emerge again years later. We don't usually get that when looking back so far.
 

Huck

Recently ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=3029244&highlight=brancacci#post3029244
.... I pointed to a specific picture of Masaccio, who had been the brother of "Lo Scheggia" ...

One of Masaccio's famous paintings is this ... Adam and Eve are driven from paradise

Masaccio-TheExpulsionOfAdamAndEveFromEden-Restoration.jpg


Left the forged version, at the right the reconstructed version.

The picture ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_from_the_Garden_of_Eden_(Masaccio)
is located as a fresco in the Brancacci chapel ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brancacci_Chapel
... and the Brancacci chapel is part of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_del_Carmine_di_Firenze
... so there's some guarantee, that many persons of Florence have seen it often

450px-Cappella_brancacci%2C_cacciata.JPG


The Minchiate cards of 18th and 19th century showed then these motifs:

m-minchiate-1.jpg


m-minchiate-2.jpg


m-minchiate-3.jpg

Now I stumbled about an older thread, in which I already wrote about the Brancacci chapel:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=90080
POST 8

brancacci.jpg


Between the picture left (Adam + Eve driven out of paradise) and the picture right (Adam and Eve in paradise) there's a picture, which earlier captured my interest, cause it contains the only portrait of Luigi Pulci (at the lower row, the second from left).

Luigi Pulci was the first, who used the word Minchiate in playing card context (1466) and there's some suspicion, that Pulci took influence on the development of Minchiate and that he also had influence on the Charles VI Tarot.

2007 - long ago - I wrote:

But Pulci appears at another picture, at least Vasari had this opinion:

theo_pet.jpg


Pulci in discussion at the left:
pulci.jpg


"Vasari had already identified a number of contemporary figures in those painted by Filippino: the resurrected youth was supposedly a portrait of the painter Francesco Granacci, at that time hardly more than a boy; "and also the knight Messer Tommaso Soderini, Piero Guicciardini, the father of Messer Francesco who wrote the Histories, Piero del Pugliese and the poet Luigi Pulci."

At the same picture appears also Masaccio himself in portrait:

Masaccio_Self_Portrait.jpg


scheggia-pulci.jpg


It's the story of the Brancacci chapel, that Masaccio started to paint the frescoes, but died young in 1428. About 50 years later the young Filippino Lippi proceeded with the work. Around that time Luigi Pulci returned to Florence, after he had in the years 1474/75 a great break with some persons in Florence (between them Ficino), which left him isolated and searching services outside of Florence.
Pulci was accused to be a "kabbalist", between other accusations.

At the left Pulci seems to be a little dominating, at the right it's Masaccio, who's the one, who looks to the observer. ...

What do we know?

1. Masoccio was the greater talent than his brother Lo Scheggia. Likely Lo Scheggia profited from his 5 years older brother.

2. Lo Scheggia definitely made playing cards 1447-49.
http://trionfi.com/naibi-on-sale

3. Lo Scheggia made the birth celebration picture for Lorenzo de Medici (1449). This might be an inication, that Lo Scheggia was close to the Medici ... and possibly also to Lorenzo.

4. Lo Scheggia made many triumphal celebration pictures, inclusive Petrarca's "Trionfi" motifs, such, which also appeared at Trionfi cards.

5. There's suspicion, that the Adam+Eve motif of Masaccio might have entered the early Minchiate.

6. There's suspicion, that Luigi Pulci might have influenced the Minchiate.

7. There's suspicion, that Luigi Pulci influenced the Charles VI, another Florentine Trionfi card deck (my Chess-Tarot-theory).

8. There's suspicion, that this was made for the Medici (Medici heraldic at triumphal chariot).

9. For the moment I don't see a concrete relation between Lo Scheggia and Filippino Lippi by their life descriptions, but then, when Filippino Lippi worked on the frescoes in the Brancacci chapel (starting c. 1479), Lo Scheggia was already an old man (* 1406). It would be natural, that Filippino Lippi would have talked with Lo Scheggia in this context, as it seems likely, that Lo Scheggia worked already in the workshop of his brother, when Masaccio got the commission to make the frescoes. Naturally Filippino Lippi had to study the old plans. So there's a very naturally road, how Lo AScheggia might have influenced the finishing paintings of Filippino.

10. We have this similarity ...

800px-Lo_Scheggia_-_Reclining_Youth_-_WGA20987.jpg


t_3.jpg


... whereby above it's a clear Lo Scheggia work, and below it's clear a playing card in "Charles VI deck context", belonging to the Ursino cards, also called "Alessandro Sforza" cards, and some of the cards of this deck are copies of the Charles VI.

11. So there's a very "STRONG" suspicion, that Lo Scheggia had something to do with the production of the Charles VI deck, and if this was so, then there's also the suspicion, that Lo Scheggia had some relation to Pulci.

12. And ... under these conditions ... the picture in the Brancacci chapel is of great interest.

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Added: a link to the chapel with a description and analysis of the picture:

http://www.casasantapia.com/art/masaccio/brancaccichapel.htm