Thanks for your engagement in the matter of the Rosenwald Tarocchi.
The Bologna document of 1477 is the latest appearance of decks with 5x14 structure (or "latest indication of decks with 5x14 structure") in Italy. From a later appearance we know only the deck of Master PW in Germany with round cards c. 1500 ... with very different pictures and two additional cards, so 5x14 + 2. One of the additional cards has the heraldry of the city of Cologne, the other shows a nude woman captured by Death. The suits are 3 different flowers (for Spain, France and Germany) and rabbits (the Ottomans) and parrots (the Moors).
From the few notes to the life of Master PW we may assume, that for some time he worked for the court of the emperor Maximilian or more for the court of the wife of the emperor, Bianca Maria Sforza. This empress was very dedicated to playing cards, and she had trouble to learn German and a lot of Italians were at her court. Around 1500 she lost her political influence, cause Milan was taken twice by France in 1499/1500. The emperor reduced her court costs considerably, a lot of the courtiers had to leave. Master PW, as it seems, returned to Cologne (plausible he had his origin at the region of the lower Rhine).
Woman with Death
Salve Felix Colonia with three crowns for the "3 holy kings"
Moorish king
Ottoman king
http://koeln-tarot.trionfi.com/03/ ... German text to the cards
http://koeln-tarot.trionfi.com/06/ ... more cards
I've seen a description of the wedding night, according which Bianca Maria showed Italian playing cards to her bridegroom at this occasion. A regesten record notes, that bride and bridegroom played with cards at the following day.
Another playing card operation was made for the wedding of Maximilian's daughter to the Spanish thrown. One of the suits are Pomegranates, celebrating the victory of Spain against Granada.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/resear...21622001&objectId=3357576&partId=1#more-views
Another German deck possibly from the same period (1494-1500, when Bianca Maria and her faible for cards had an an influence) used pictures of the Schedel'sche Weltchronik (published 1493) and combined these with results of the throw with 2 dice (or with domino stones) ... this naturally demanded 21 pictures:
... a few pictures of this not complete deck appeared in "Il Castello di Tarocchi" ...
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=219&lng=ita
German playing card history (as far it is known) doesn't show much clear reaction on the Italian Trionfi card / Tarocchi production. Since c. 1750 it becomes a big and dominant movement to produce "Tarock cards" ... well, that's rather late.
But "History" is made from that, what is still known. And that's only a very, very, very small part of that, what really has happened. So in research large changes of the current interpretations are possible. The presence of an Italian empress on the German throne meant an open door for Italian influences in Germany ... for a short period. Switzerland has its first "Troggn" (= Tarot) notes in the early 1570s and after that it got a clear presence in Switzerland culture. The evidence of Tarot in France stays thin till the same period ... the actual strong movement started in 1574, when a future French king Henry III crossed Italy on his journey from Poland to France. Henry got a strong interest in Italian fashions.
About the Charles VI deck. I fully agree it has been made by Florentine artists, but in my opinion it was probably the later Duke Ercole I of Este who ordered this deck. Ercole was an extremely highly educated person and he moved in 1460 back to Ferrara. Before this date we have no indication whatsoever of the existence of 22 trumps. The 22 trump structure is a very sophisticated world model (see my pages about the Tarot Wheel). In my opinion the Charles VI deck was the first example of a 22 trump structure that Ercole ordered in order to explain his views on the world view behind the structure of the Triomfi trumps. The Page of Swords was added as a style example for those people who wanted to produce cards build on this deck. Even the Este cards made at the occasion of the marriage between Ercole I of Este and Eleanore di Aragona did not contain the pip cards. The court cards (with many heraldic elements of both families) were realized to emphasize the Union between the Duke Ercole I of Este and the King of Naples who gave his daughter in marriage to this Duke.
Any theory is good until there is a better one.
Iolon
An alternative interpretation derives from the strange condition, that 17 cards make the Charles VI, 16 trumps (including Fool) and only one court card, a somehow strange composition, if one assumes an accidental loss.
It makes logic to assume, that the buyer of this deck wasn't interested in cards, which were not trumps. Occasionally it might have been the case, that somebody bought only the trumps to add them to another deck, which he already had, possibly a deck with own heraldry. Possibly the buyer got one additional card for free (the lonesome court card), given in the hope of the selling party, that the buyer might change his opinion and possibly would buy finally the full deck. Or another curious story which explains the single court card.
The extant Charles VI survived in France, not in Italy. It's a reasonable speculation, that the buyer might have been a French person. Possibly the objective of the buyer was to collect these cards, not to play with them. It's not really necessary, that the buyer lost cards, it might have been trumps of a complete deck (with 16 trumps).
The deck has "strange numbers", possibly or likely added by a later hand. These numbers indicate a Florentine number system based on 22 cards ... but there's no guarantee, that the numbers would be of the same time.
The chariot of the Charles VI has Medici heraldic with "7 palle" ... the Medici used this only till May 1465, when they took "6 palle" and one palle decorated with a French Fleur-de-Lis. Background for this change was a contract with the French king Louis XI, which Louis needed to defend himself against an advancing conflict with Burgundy.
From this one might conclude (or speculate, cause such heraldry use are not always totally secure in dating processes), that the deck had its origin before 1465.
Well, there are other points, it's a complex meditation on this deck ... to keep it short ...
Cary-Yale Tarocchi
with a larger and readable version at ..
http://a-tarot.eu/pdf/cy-jpg.jpg
Charles VI Tarot
with a larger and readable version at ..
http://a-tarot.eu/pdf/ch-jpg.jpg
It also involves the earlier Cary-Yale deck. It's assumed, that generally chess played often (not necessarily always) a role in the development of the Trionfi cards, and that not all Trionfi decks followed the same style, but were often enough just "individual experiments", an evolutionary development till a final state, where some experiments had survived and others had died.