Interesting research on Mary Jones, the 20th century Visconti, and Cary, Rosanne.
No, I did not pursue Mary Jones’ interest in the clothes. I was guessing that knowing it would prove unfruitful as far as dating the CY. Your research verifies my assumption. But there are other reasons for associating Pisanello with the cards.
If you do a search for “Pisanello” on the “5x14” thread on THF, you will see that I have three or four posts there discussing his possible relationship to the CY, in two respects: the clothes and the coins. You only read the first one, apparently. Read the others, and I will be happy to discuss the issues further.
The clothing connection is that Pisanello's drawings of clothing, 1432 or earlier, are similar to those of the CY and Brera-Brambrilla. The coins' connection is that Filippo's "rearing horse" design on his ducats, introduced c. 1435, is stiff and unnatural, compared to those on the CY cards. There is a better match to a similar design on Francesco's own ducats of 1450. Perhaps both (the 1450 ducats and the coins on the CY) were stylistically influenced by Pisanello's medal-making visit to Milan c. 1440, or his later, very naturalistic work with medals in Ferrara in the mid 1440s. My conclusion is that at least the CY Coins were probably done post-1440. And since those cards are much like the others, probably they were all done post-1440.
So let me make it clear that I do not maintain that the CY even in part was made in 1428. I make no unqualified statements, other than agreeing with Tarotpedia's 1420-1460. Drawings of clothing are easily copied by others. Marco Zoppo copied Pisanello’s drawings of CY-style clothes as late as the 1460s, in Venice or Bologna. If the CY had been made for Maria of Savoy, she would not likely have left it in Lombardy after the Sforza takeover; she was hostile to Bianca Maria and would have been well aware of how such cards could be used propagandistically in favor of her husband. But a deck could also have been made for Filippo's mistress, from whom it easily could be passed on to Bianca Maria.
But besides the CY itself, we have to consider the possibility of CY-like predecessor decks. The main reasons for c. 1428 for such decks are (a) still, the clothing and (b) the heraldic devices above the lovers on the Love card.
On (a), to me a good argument that the clothing style of the CY is pre-1435 is precisely the Zavattarri frescoes that Huck just cited. According to Roettgen (Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance, p. 167), the same artists started the series in the early 1430s, maybe as early as 1430 (I am not talking about the vault, which was done earlier), and finished in the mid-1440s. (If Filippo was doing fertility magic, he didn't waste any time.) If you look at the progression of scenes at Monza, there is a definite evolution of clothing styles, with the ones done earlier corresponding more closely to the clothing of the CY and those later approaching those of the PMB. I made this point in May of this year on the thread already mentioned (search "Monza")--I think it is original with me, although Tolfo's comments on Milanese fashions may have been influenced by such considerations. If you want to discuss fashion design, take a look at my post of May 14. I'd love it if someone said something about this take of mine on the Monza frescoes, either for or against.
On (b), 1428 happens to have the strongest example of a marriage (until 1468) when those heraldics could have been appropriately displayed to signify the two marriage partners. (Yes, I know that the white cross on a red background was associated with Cremona: but that was Bianca’s city, and before that Filippo’s; it could not serve to signify the joining of two houses.) But I see no reason why even a predecessor deck would have been done just then. It could have been made to commemorate the marriage, on any anniversary, even as late as 1441 (when it also would have commemorated the marriage city).
Another, much weaker argument for c. 1428 (for predecessor decks) is (c) the close correspondence between the CY and the so-called "Michelino," which people date to 142-1425. Martiano might have written out the design for the CY before he dropped out of view around 1425. That is one reason for thinking that the faint lettering on the Hope card might have been “MART,” as a kind of designer’s signature—or repudiation of him as a heretic by a later commisioner, as Tolfo suggests (again see THF thread). Huck suggested that the letters actually spelled the name of a Muslim king Murad, reigned 1421-1444. All this is fairly speculative on both sides.
The Sforza fountain heraldic that appears in the male Lover and Staves courts, as well as the Sforza quince device in Swords (Kaplan Vol. 1 p. 107)--suggest that the CY itself was made at least by the time of the betrothal of Francesco and Bianca Maria in 1432. However these heraldics are not intrinsic to the cards' design and could have been added after the design was already set, pre-1432.
If the CY itself was made after 1449, the 1441 marriage of Bianca Maria and Francesco could also have been signified by the two heraldics above the Lovers, given that Francesco had by then acquired Pavia for himself, which had the white cross on red background as its heraldic (Kaplan vol. 1 p. 196). It would have seved a double function as reflecting back onto the Visconti marriage of 1428, showing the continuity of regime. The Sforza heraldic devices in Swords and Batons, contrasting with Visconti devices in Cups and Coins, also make sense then, the Visconti devices retained to show to the Lombard nobility the new regime's continuity with the old and its respect for the prior power structure.
The coins suggest post-1449 to Andy Pollett, although not definitively, because of their resemblance to Francesco's coins of 1450. As I have said, they reflect Pisanello’s naturalism, in contrast to Filippo’s cruder design of c. 1435; he could have influenced the improved design on the cards with coins directly in 1440 or indirectly any time thereafter.
It is not at all certain that Bonifacio Bembo did any cards at all, or much of the artwork attributed to him. Read art historian Evelyn Welch’s argument in the “Bonifacio Bembo” entry to the 1996 Dictionary of Art, or search for “Welch” in the “5x14” thread for my summary. What is more defensible is that the Bembo workshop was involved, and sketches kept in the shop saved for possible later commissions. Since the workshop was started at least one generation before Bonifacio and his brothers and/or cousins, it could have been involved in 1428.
I tend to agree that the CY itself is post-1438. However I urge you to consider the evidence for CY-like predecessor decks in Milan before then, and also the evidence for dating the CY itself to 1450 or later (but hardly after 1460). And to be sure, 1441-1444 is not excluded, for reasons mentioned by others.
