Tarot development- Mhchelino, Mantegna, Sola Busca, Minchiate?

Huck

List of Documents with "Trionfi (or similar) related to cards:
**************************************************

All documents with details at
http://trionfi.com/0/e/
Report to Michelino deck
http://trionfi.com/0/b/

1418 - 1425 Michelino Deck production, Martiano da Tortona text

14 Figure Document, 1.1.1441
October 1441 Marriage Bianca Maria Visconti
December 1441: Leonello new Signore in Milano

01 1442/1 Ferrara/Sagramoro/Leonello
First note Trionfi, mentions the suits

02 1442/2 Ferrara/Kids

03 1449/1 Marcello letter (Nov. 1449)
The Michelino deck ist called a Trionfi deck

04 1450/1 Ferrara/Sagramoro
16.3.1450 Trionfi cards are paid
25.3.1450 Leonello visits Milan
After 8 years pause suddenly Trionfi decks production in Ferrara

05 1450/2 Florence December 1450: Trionfi allowed
06 1450/3 Sforza letter
07 1451/1 Ferrara/Sagramoro
07b 1452/1 Siena/Emperor-visit
08 1452/1 Malatesta/Sforza
09 1454/1 Ferrara/Sagramoro
10 1454/2 Ferrara/Sagramoro
11 1454/3 Ferrara/production
12 1454/4 Ferrara/production
13 1454/5 Ferrara/production
13b 1455/1 Padua / preaching
14 1456/1 Ferrara/Trotti
15 1456/2 Ferrara/Sagramoro - Last Sagramoro document

16 1457/1 Ferrara/70 cards
second information about the structure of the deck

17 1457/2 Ferrara/Vicenza
18 1458/1 Ferrara/Vicenza
19 1459/1 Ferrara/production
20 1459/2 Bologna - First "real" document outside of the courts)
21 1460/1 Ferrara/Vicenza
22 1460/2 Ferrara/Vicenza
23 1460/3 Ferrara/Vicenza
24 1460/4 Ferrara/Vicenza
25 1460/5 Ferrara/Vicenza
25b 1460/6 / 1513(?) Ancona - allowance
26 1461/1 Ferrara/Vicenza
27 1463/1 Ferrara /Vicenza

28 1463: The law, which allowed Trionfi in Florence, is repeated
29 Mantova 1465, inventory

Minchiate (since 1466)

30 Polismagna - relates to the Decembrio Manuscript
31 Vita di San Bernardino 1472
32 Naples 1473 (Aragon court)
33 Naples 1474 (Aragon court, Beatrice)
33b 1474 - 1478 Rome /Trionfi-Import from Florence
34 Milan 1475, Letter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza
34b Fabriano 1476, request for allowance
35 Bologna 1477, printed decks
36 Bologna 1480
36b Recanati ca. 1480
37 Naples 1482, "Cartaio" Francesco
38 French dictionary, 1482
38b Cicognara-note (? forgery)
39 Brescia, 1488 - allowance
40 Salo, 1489 - allowance
41 Bergamo 1491 - allowance
42 Letter Ippolito d'Este, 1492
43 Rene d'Anjou II, France, 1496
44 Reggio, 1500 - allowance

1505 Tarot used for the first time

**********
From all these documents only 3 give informations to which kind of deck the word refers.
1. Document 1 (Leonello Febr. 1442) gives the kind of suits
2. Document 3 (Marcello's letter) calls the Michelino deck (which has 16 trumps and is very curious) a "Ludus triomphorum"
3. Document 16 (Ferrara 1457) speaks of 70 cards

Now Michael analyses:
"It appears that people used the term [Trionfi] in both a specific sense (what we would call Tarot) and on at least one occasion in a looser sense. This latter example is very rare, (apparently unique), and therefore necessarily idiosyncratic and not particularly helpful."

It's true, that any information about the kind of deck, that the word Trionfi refers to, is very rare (only 3 of the documents give any attribution to it).

However, much more rare is the use of the word Tarot in 15th century (no document at all).

Well, if somebody would approach the problem of these documents without any knowledge of 15th century playing cards or Trionfi cards, what could he analyse for the term "Trionfi" from this situation?

1. Trionfi decks can have different suits (Doc. 1 speaks of the usual 4 suits, the Michelino deck has birds as suits)
2. Trionfi decks can have differences in the number of cards: (Doc. 16 speaks of 70 cards, the Michelino deck has 60 cards)
3. The trumps series has the iconography of Gods (information Michelino deck)
4. The number of trumps is 16 (or 14, what the visitor might read with some consideration in the "70 cards" note)

Only in one point the imagined visitor meets that, what really belongs to the later Tarot, the information of the usual suits in Document 1.

If we go a little further and we give our visitor a little more information, that about Sola Busca and the Boiardo Tarocchi (the both only complete Tarocchi informations from 15th century, as far the structure of the deck is concerned), how would this influence his analysing situation?

1. Trionfi decks can have differents suits (birds, Boiardo suits, the usual suits, which now appear twice, in Doc 1 and Sola-Busca)
2. Trionfi decks can have different number of cards (60, 70 and 78, and the 78 appears twice, in Sola-Busca and Boiardo)
3. The trump series can be rather different (Michelino-Gods, Boiardo Figures, Sola-Busca-Figures)
4. The number of trumps can be different (16, 14 and the 22 as trump-number inclusive the Fool appears twice)

Slightly he could recognize, that 50% or 2 of 4 of his informations favour the usual suits and that also 50 % prefer the number 22 as trump series, but generally he should perceive, that Trionfi cards are more or less a very creative activity and that one cannot make any prediction about the nature of the deck, if one only knows that it is called a "Trionfi deck".

Well, the experiment can be proceeded. We can give our visitor now all handpainted decks of 15th century (which are all from fragmented decks, so he will not get security about the structure 21-1-56) and we reassure some security, that he will identify, that the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Tarocchi trumps are painted by two different painters, so that the 20 trumps becom an unreliable information to him.
What will happen? What will be his final analysis? What would he believe from this deck called Trionfi? Our imagined visitor is of another world, he never heard of Tarot before and doesn't know, that this is a famous card game with a 21-1-56-structure.

This is rather complicated to predict, as there are many factors now in the game. But I guess, that the visitor will have big problems to find out any big dominance of the 21-1-56 structure. Surely he finds, that the 56 has been used very often (Boiardo, Sola-Busca, Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo, Brera-Bambilla should turn this clear with some irritation by the Cary-Yale-structure and the Michelino deck) but the 22 special cards are mainly only transported by Sola-Busca and Boiardo Tarocchi and these are in there iconography rather different. As additional difficulty: The devil as trump is generally missing.

Now back to Michael:
"It appears that people used the term [Trionfi] in both a specific sense (what we would call Tarot) and on at least one occasion in a looser sense.
This latter example is very rare, (apparently unique), and therefore necessarily idiosyncratic and not particularly helpful."

This "latter example" is one of very few (actually 3) informations, that we really have. And the general situation demands, that we have to assume some fundamental creativity in the Trionfi deck development.
So it is not allowed in research to fill the appearance of the word "Trionfi" with the addition "that is the Tarot, what I'm thinking of". This is simply a wrong translation - in each case it demands further research, if it is possible, or the simple explanation, "that it is unkown, what kind of deck this really was at this occasion".
Naturally there will be the tendency in the real history of the cards, that later notes of "Trionfi decks" really refered to objects which were similar to Tarot, as the development of the card deck definitely did run to this form of deck, but we're in a very insecure state in the case of the earlier documents - and actually we have to assume, that these earlier documents describe the evolution of the final deck, not the later documents, which have a far greater chance to refer to the result of the evolution.

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Michael,

mjhurst said:
People use terms "loosely speaking" all the time, and referring to a unique item as something else, something with which it is vaguely related, seems perfectly normal. Is that usage really implausible to you?

Hmmm, no, but with qualifications.

If things are vaguely related, don't they have something in common?

I said: "the deck possessed something in common..."
You said: "something with which it is vaguely related...".
and seem to view this as a point of contention, of contradiction in fact. It seems to me we are saying the same thing - what hair are you trying to split?

Presuming we are in agreement here, yes, he was using the term Triumphs loosely, but "loose" doesn't imply *hopeless* vagueness. The loosest term he could have used would have been "ludus cartarum" or even just "ludus" - but he didn't, he explicitly compared it to *Triumph* cards, a type of cards he presumes Isabelle had never seen before. Terms are used loosely only when precision is unnecessary or would be confusing, or when comparing knowns with unknowns. And there are implicit rules in using terms loosely too (which have probably been studied by somebody).

For instance, you could say that Baseball is a kind of Cricket, or Cricket is a kind of Baseball, but you wouldn't say that Baseball or Cricket is a kind of Lacrosse, even though all three are team sports that use sticks and balls. How loosely can we speak of ball and stick games before comparisons become meaningless - i.e. fail to convey any idea at all?

In other words, by first introducing the name of the "unworthy" cards as "Triumph", Marcello is telling Isabelle, in a private, formal letter, his first known to either her or her husband (not a chatty history for general consumption), and then introducing Filippo's game as a "new kind (genus) of Triumphs", he is drawing an *obvious* comparison for her, like between Hockey and Lacrosse, not Cricket and Hockey.

So - is he speaking so loosely that he just means it is just a funny new kind of cards? If you think so, you agree with Huck - any non-standard deck *could* have been called "Triumphs", since the distinguishing feature - a fifth suit - doesn't have to exist to merit the comparison.

Since the iconography had zero in common with tarot, what *did* exist to merit the explicit comparison?

Thus the "loose" seems just as I explained - it has to be a comparison based on *some* similarity besides the widest and vaguest possible - any cards at all (or he would have said that). That similarity is not in the iconography, so it has to be in the structure - as it appears immediately to the viewer upon first looking at the cards.

Marcello himself confirms it, when the first thing he notes is that "It has sixteen celestial princes and barons." He doesn't say "It has four suits, the highest of which are four celestial princes and barons in one order, which are then arranged in a different order of sixteen." The first thing that struck him was the 16, just as the first thing that strikes somebody looking at a tarot deck are the 22 trumps.

Given that we know, from the description of the Marziano-Michelion deck, that the structures are completely different,

It has to have had the same "loose" structure as the other Triumph deck, or the comparison would be useless - or it would imply that the term Triumph itself is hopelessly vague, i.e. Huck's argument.

What other basis for a loose comparison - "comparing the unknown with the known" - can you think of? Since the iconography was 100 per cent different, what is the basis for comparison, however loose?

the subjects of the suit-signs are different, the fact that the trumps are also suited cards is different,

I don't read the trumps as suited cards. The theme was four moral qualities, the design was five parts.

I guess it comes down to how you would picture the deck. From my reading, it seems that the 16 would have stood out by themselves, and were probably even numbered. Their only relation to the suited cards was that the 16 were divided into 4x4 and each assigned to part of the fourfold scheme - but I don't imagine that anyone without the book would have figured that out from the iconography.

You have told me before that you imagine there could have been an eagle symbol in the corner of each of Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and Eolus, and so on for the other series, but I don't see that. There is no indication from Marziano that that would have been meaningful - the gods were their own series. The ONLY ranking that mattered was that of 1-16; there is no indication of a ranking of, for instance, Eagle pips 1-10- Eagle King - Eagle Eolus- Eagle Mercury - Eagle Apollo- Eagle Jupiter.

That doesn't make any sense at all to me. Marziano's Trumps were part of the fourfold *thematic* scheme of the game, but they weren't part of the *bird* suits. Both parts, separate and distinct from one another, were *related* (thematically, symbolically) by the fourfold scheme, but one does not fall into or become part of the other.

and so on, we know that he was using the term loosely... don't we?

Only inasmuch as you accept what I said about "looseness" above! LOL

Anyway, anything we "know" comes from the text and its primary interpreters, of whom there are only four - Durrieu, Pratesi, Olsen, and yours truly. Durrieu started a mess himself, followed by Moakley and Dummett until 1990, in reporting only the 16 trumps, and ignoring that there was another part to the deck. This indirectly indicates that he read the evidence the same way I do - i.e. that the 16 gods and heroes formed a distinct part of the deck (similar to the way that tarotists often only ever talk about the trumps when they talk about Tarot).

We can't argue about an iconography none of us has seen, so we can only argue about the intention of the designer, and the execution of the design according to the hints of the only witness, from this text. I disagree with your interpretation of the trumps in this deck being somehow indistinguishable from the suits. As I see it, the fourfold *theme* is like a gauze overlay over the whole deck, which is composed of two parts - suited cards on one side, and gods and heroes on the other, each part following their own order (and suborder), but being united by this throughgoing moral theme.

The first part of that seems a bit misleading, focusing on "permanent" trumps. You have searched for a limiting factor which does not appear germane but which can be used to say, "only two".

Is there a Tarot game without permanent trumps? Isn't "set of permanent trumps" germane to the defintion of what makes a Tarot deck? It seems to be an irreducible factor, which would therefore seem to be a limiting one. What's wrong with that?

And if you agree, then there are only two, which might in fact be related.

We know of at least five different forms that trumps appear to have taken in the 15th century, and it seems less polemical to simply state that there was obviously a desire for trumps and various inventions were tried out. Inventing a hypothetical evolutionary development where none seems to exist is fun and all, but there seems no basis for it in terms of either the Marziano-Michelino deck nor Karnoffel. Perhaps four-suited decks, five-suited decks, and Tarot, might be considered a plausible sequence of development, as in each case an entire suit was used as trumps. It is easy to see how five can develop from four or how special cards could develop from a fifth suit. The other two types of trumps, however, stand apart as striking aberrations from this pattern of development.

I did mention Boiardo and Sola Busca in my post - maybe I was too obtuse, or thought it was obvious that they are *dependent* on tarot's structure, so we know that their inspiration was tarot. If not, we must assume there was a hunger for adding just 22 special cards to the deck - which really raises the question of the significance of 22. Rather than wondering "why 22 independently three times in 50 years?", I think it's easier to believe that Boiardo and the Sola Busca were inspired by the already existing standard deck.

There's nothing wrong with fun in speculation, conjecture, what-have-you - is there? In fact, I admit, part of the reason I like to do this is because it's "fun" - it sure doesn't pay the bills. If something suggests itself - like the *concept* of "permanent trumps", combined with uniqueness, and coincidence in time and place, you're damned right I'm going to have fun with the musings that arouses.

However, I fully agree with your conclusion about the coincidence of time and place. On the one hand, there is no connection between the design of the Marziano-Michelino deck and Tarot, but on the other hand there appears to be a good probability that some of the same people were involved in designing both. Milan may be the best candidate for the invention of Tarot based on other factors, so this has always been a plausible scenario.

Glad there's something we agree on in this issue! But my own feelings go further than just saying the same people might have done it. I think they probably developed some ideas too, not just throwing old ideas away into the void. In other words, I think the development of certain basic concepts of tarot is probable. I don't think it fell from the sky sui generis in every aspect, although (unlike Huck) I *do* think that the 21=Fool design did. But not the *idea* of permanent trumps at all (nor the addition of the Queen).

Best regards,

Ross

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Huck,

Huck said:
You're summary is good, but ...

... you forget to mention a few things

* the complete Michelino deck
* the complete Sola-Busca
* the complete Boiardo
* the Guildhall-Goldsmith fragments
* the falconer
* the Visconti-viper
* Caritas- Spes - Fides - Fama (Cary-Yale)
* the early Minchiate 1466 (whatever this was)

I did mention Michelino, and Sola Busca, and Boiardo, and the Cary Yale.

Because Boiardo and Sola Busca have 22 Trumps, there are only two explanations for the choice - either all three (and presumably many more) were invented who just happened, independently, to pick this number of trumps (and if so, why?) - OR - these two decks were inspired by the standard deck already existing - and like so many today, they used the structure for a new theme. I like the second explanation, so I think these two decks shouldn't be used as examples of the variety of different tarots - CONCEPTUALLY - in the 15th century. The concept I mean is that of an additional set of permanent, iconographically distinct according to whatever theme, trumps.

Guildhall and Goldschmidt might not be Tarots at all, i.e. they may a variant kind of regular suited cards, like so many German ones. Same for Falconer.

I did mention Cary-Yale, and the problems with interpreting it. As I see it, it could be an adaptation inspired by the standard tarot, or it could be (this is Dummett's suggestion) the original tarot, which was later shortened (courts and trumps).

well, there is no document, which states that the Sola-Busca was a Trionfi deck ... or the Boiardo ... or the Guildhall-Goldsmith ... or the "early Minchiate"

okay - you speak only of standard triumphs, but a standard didn't exist or at least we cannot define it's beginning. We have (by accident) much Milanese decks and the Milanese decks became apparently standard, so we cannot decide, if a card belongs to the pre-standard-period or to the after-standard-began-period.

It wasn't accidental that the Milanese decks were preserved - they were carefully guarded and traded in secure ways. It is the Sforza Castle cards that are "accidental". We know that accidents are the tip of an iceberg of forever lost evidence.

I think there was a standard series at the beginning because we know cards were lost or destroyed, or sold, and when taken in their totality, all the surviving luxury decks from the first 20 years show the complete series, except for the Devil. But the printed sheets (accidents for sure) show the Devil right where he should be, so it is hard to believe there wasn't also a Devil in the sets that the luxury cards were based on.

It has to be no more than 30 years for these luxury cards; this kind of fad doesn't last forever. I think the last painted cards, truly commissioned for play (or showing off to guests that is (I am excluding forgeries)), were done in the 1470s (Ercole d'Este). The biggest period was probably the 1450s, then it dwindled. Boiardo's poem probably witnesses the time when these cards already seemed old fashioned, and something new was desired.

And completely it leaves aside the number-of-trumps-trouble, caused by the 5x14-theory. And this is strongly related to one of the oldest decks, Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Tarocchi.

well... all we can do is argue, since there has been no further data from this early period to cast more light on it. We can only use argument from here on in, until a new document or artifact comes to light. Cristina Fiorini's idea seemed ready to shake things up, but nothing further has come from that quarter lately. She helped establish Florence, but no one I know is buying the 1420 dating.

Ross

Ross G Caldwell

Huck said:
30 Polismagna - relates to the Decembrio Manuscript

Polismagna (=Carlo di San Giorgio - Bertoni in 1918 finally noted (first hand) what I too found in the Este records (in Franceschini)) is an even better witness than Marcello for the contention that "carte da trionfi" could mean any kind of special cards - because he didn't even *see* the deck (probably).

If you want to read it that way. Polismagna was big at the Este court just as the luxury Trionfi fad started to fade. So he knew what he was saying when he wrote expressly for Borso, that these cards were "carte da trionfi".

He did it independently of Marcello, whose letter he could not have read, and who sent the deck off anyway at least 15 years before Polismagna made his translation of Decembrio's Vita for Borso.

So what in Decembrio's text made him compare these cards to Triumph cards?

Decembrio just says that it was a "ludus" in which "there were painted images." He mentions the "ludus" again in the next sentence, without qualifiers, except to describe the ludus as being composed of Gods and birds.

But Polismagna says "carte da trionfi" for both of these! So Polismagna had a description of a "game" with painted Gods and birds beneath them, but he decided to translate it for Borso as "Triumph cards."

It could well be that standard cards were already being changed at the Este court in the 1460s - Boiardo's poem is dated as early as 1461. So to describe such a strange deck as Decembrio writes about as Triumphs might have made sense. Additionally, since Decembrio gives no number or structural information, Polismagna could have assumed it was one of these new-fangled decks, modeled on a standard tarot. Bird suits must have been known from German decks that some of the rich surely had, and perhaps Polismagna, Giorgio, as a patronized artist, might have seen (if not Borso of course, during his long life and varied travels).

But Polismagna does raise the question - more than Marcello - of the potential of exoticism in novel tarot designs in the 1460s. Perhaps, just as we should suspect.

Ross

Huck

Ross G Caldwell said:
Because Boiardo and Sola Busca have 22 Trumps, there are only two explanations for the choice - either all three (and presumably many more) were invented who just happened, independently, to pick this number of trumps (and if so, why?) - OR - these two decks were inspired by the standard deck already existing - and like so many today, they used the structure for a new theme. I like the second explanation, so I think these two decks shouldn't be used as examples of the variety of different tarots - CONCEPTUALLY - in the 15th century. The concept I mean is that of an additional set of permanent, iconographically distinct according to whatever theme, trumps.

We've all the time various editions of Tarot, Animal Tarot or Tarock and much other motifs in competition to the prefered series. We've simply different versions. The question is the begin and at which occasion the 21+1+56-version started... and that's the ORIGINAL VERSION for that pattern (Michael's standard pattern is undenyable the successful version - but that's not interesting, if you're interested in the origin).

Guildhall and Goldschmidt might not be Tarots at all, i.e. they may a variant kind of regular suited cards, like so many German ones. Same for Falconer.

...? ... somehow you seem to forget, that there is a World between them, rather identical to the World of Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Tarocchi
Kaplan p. 104
Kaplan puts this outside the other 3 Guildhall cards, but Dummett explains these as 2 pairs of two decks cause reasons ofthe extensions. Dummett, p. 73
http://trionfi.com/0/c/50/

... and there is a Falconer in the Rosenthat Tarocchi, Kaplan p. 99

I did mention Cary-Yale, and the problems with interpreting it. As I see it, it could be an adaptation inspired by the standard tarot, or it could be (this is Dummett's suggestion) the original tarot, which was later shortened (courts and trumps).

Well, there is the possibility of a 5x16-deck

It wasn't accidental that the Milanese decks were preserved - they were carefully guarded and traded in secure ways. It is the Sforza Castle cards that are "accidental". We know that accidents are the tip of an iceberg of forever lost evidence.

I think there was a standard series at the beginning because we know cards were lost or destroyed, or sold, and when taken in their totality, all the surviving luxury decks from the first 20 years show the complete series, except for the Devil.

And there are some more additional cards in the luxury cards, Fama, Caritas, Spes, Hope, Falconer, Visconti-Viper, all the Guildhall-Goldschmidt-series, the unusual Temperance and possibly more cards in the early Minchiate.

I don't take the "standard-deck-at-the-begin"-story, you know it.

Actually I would think, that there were more unusual motifs or complete unusual decks between these "Trionfi" mentioned in documents. We're in the "handpainted domain" - it's technical easy to realize a private personal edition, likely the strange Temperance was part of such a very private version - "a virtue naked on a stag" - that's quite a contrast to the general idea of Temperance, that has an erotical domain.

Look at the German decks ... first very much creativity, later standards, today more or less all one deck type, which is played and bought. The general development for playing cards goes from very special and specified to unified, as far it are practical decks.

But the printed sheets (accidents for sure) show the Devil right where he should be, so it is hard to believe there wasn't also a
Devil in the sets that the luxury cards were based on.

It has to be no more than 30 years for these luxury cards; this kind of fad doesn't last forever. I think the last painted cards, truly commissioned for play (or showing off to guests that is (I am excluding forgeries)), were done in the 1470s (Ercole d'Este).

No, I would say, that the deck, which Bianca Maria Visconti showed to Emperor Maximilian in the wedding night 1494, was handpainted, surely. I imagine, that the card in the Kestner Museum in Hannover might be a card of her - the style is different to other Visconti-Sforza cards and comparable to bookpaintings painted in the 90ies.

Also it's a question, how Tarocchi cards found their way into a Polish Museum - Bona Sforza? That would be rather late.

The biggest period was probably the 1450s, then it dwindled. Boiardo's poem probably witnesses the time when these cards already seemed old fashioned, and something new was desired.

...

... The biggest period (of handpainted decks) was surely not the 50's with its still living wars, but before the climax, when the deck went to massmarket, early 70's, naturally in a phase of much peace with much young rulers.

well... all we can do is argue, since there has been no further data from this early period to cast more light on it. We can only use argument from here on in, until a new document or artifact comes to light. Cristina Fiorini's idea seemed ready to shake things up, but nothing further has come from that quarter lately. She helped establish Florence, but no one I know is buying the 1420 dating.

This early-standard-theory is simply a dead end and leads to nothing - simply cause it's wrong. And that "new document or artefact" is already there and it simply states "70 cards in Ferrara in 1457" and it tells "take the early-standard-theory off the table and start to rethink the process".

Huck

Ross G Caldwell said:
Polismagna (=Carlo di San Giorgio - Bertoni in 1918 finally noted (first hand) what I too found in the Este records (in Franceschini)) is an even better witness than Marcello for the contention that "carte da trionfi" could mean any kind of special cards - because he didn't even *see* the deck (probably).

If you want to read it that way. Polismagna was big at the Este court just as the luxury Trionfi fad started to fade. So he knew what he was saying when he wrote expressly for Borso, that these cards were "carte da trionfi".

He did it independently of Marcello, whose letter he could not have read, and who sent the deck off anyway at least 15 years before Polismagna made his translation of Decembrio's Vita for Borso.

So what in Decembrio's text made him compare these cards to Triumph cards?

Decembrio just says that it was a "ludus" in which "there were painted images." He mentions the "ludus" again in the next sentence, without qualifiers, except to describe the ludus as being composed of Gods and birds.

But Polismagna says "carte da trionfi" for both of these! So Polismagna had a description of a "game" with painted Gods and birds beneath them, but he decided to translate it for Borso as "Triumph cards."

It could well be that standard cards were already being changed at the Este court in the 1460s - Boiardo's poem is dated as early as 1461. So to describe such a strange deck as Decembrio writes about as Triumphs might have made sense. Additionally, since Decembrio gives no number or structural information, Polismagna could have assumed it was one of these new-fangled decks, modeled on a standard tarot. Bird suits must have been known from German decks that some of the rich surely had, and perhaps Polismagna, Giorgio, as a patronized artist, might have seen (if not Borso of course, during his long life and varied travels).

But Polismagna does raise the question - more than Marcello - of the potential of exoticism in novel tarot designs in the 1460s. Perhaps, just as we should suspect.

Ross

Boiardo's poem very likely should be considered together with the marriage of Lukrezia, illegitime daughter of Ercole d'Este, in 1487 with a Bentivoglio-son ... as it was discussed and presented here in December 2007.

But you're right ... Polismagna knows of birds and gods (and the number of cards ?) and translates "Trionfi deck". Nice, I didn't thought of that. A further piece of evidence, that the term "Trionfi" as card deck could refer to very much different objects ... between them also that series or variations of that series, which later was specified as Taraux or Tarocchi.

Good finding. Considering the few "speaking data" between all these data is is really a good observation, thanks.

Actually the German attempted book production of Wolgemut, which used partly motifs of the Mantegna Tarocchi (to keep Michael calm, "socalled Mantegna Tarocchi"), in 1493 spoke of "Roman Triumphs" and when we consider the illustrations of the wedding book for Camilla d'Aragon in 1475, it's quite sure, that the public also spoke of "Triumphs". The term was simply "free floating", whenever a motif of a specific genre was illustrated on whatever material, the term appeared quite naturally. Playing cards were just a media as other media. And the whole process was creative, grabbing always for new motifs.

The specific preference for the Tarocchi series, as it became successful, is only explainable by massmarket regulations, and the practical desire of players to recognize the cards easily in their value. As long the "representative character" of the "very expensive" Trionfi cards dominated, surely the desire to express individuality and heraldic and personal ideas was stronger.

Ross G Caldwell

Perhaps something else to be inferred from Polismagna's use:

Decembrio calls the ludus "painted". This could have been the reason Polismagna used the term "carte da trionfi", if printed trionfi cards were already, when he wrote (I think, around 1465, but could be as late as 1470), the most common kind, obviously with a standard pattern. That would mean that when Polismagna saw the term "painted deck", he related it to the only kind of painted cards he knew - triumph cards, irrespective of iconography.
(This contradicts the German bird suit conjecture.)

The silence of the Este records concerning triumph cards after 1463, as Ortalli noted, does seem to indicate that the fad for painted triumphs had then passed (if only in the Este court, of course). But the passion for cards didn't, so something must have taken their place in the court - printed and imported cards of whatever type, would seem to be the answer.

Ross

Ross

Huck

Ross G Caldwell said:
Perhaps something else to be inferred from Polismagna's use:

Decembrio calls the ludus "painted". This could have been the reason Polismagna used the term "carte da trionfi", if printed trionfi cards were already, when he wrote (I think, around 1465, but could be as late as 1470), the most common kind, obviously with a standard pattern. That would mean that when Polismagna saw the term "painted deck", he related it to the only kind of painted cards he knew - triumph cards, irrespective of iconography.
(This contradicts the German bird suit conjecture.)

Polismagna must have been astonished mainly about the price mentioned by Decembrio and everybody else, too. Probably the price was enough for anybody to recognize it as a Trionfi deck.

There is this deck made for the Spanish marriage of the Habsburger in 1496. By function it's a "Trionfi deck" (it accompanies a triumphal opportunity), by it's iconography it's unusual and precious, and by it's structure it's very normal - no specific trumps-row. If any Italian got knowledge of the story, he probably would have recognized a Trionfi deck, not caring about a missing trump row - possibly.

The "Trionfi" activity generally was a much talked about topic, 1000's of people visited them and kept the events in memory for years and even longer. The question how a deck should be classified was in contrast surely of minor importance for any speaker, generally the public should have been used to see unusual cards. Each city had its own cards, each card designer probably, too. And cheap self-made painted cards of low quality in the lower part of society should have been still common at the end of 15th century, naturally very individual productions.

In a Jewish document of begin at 16th century self-made-production is still mentioned.

Summarizing all this, we cannot be sure, that we have Tarot similar object, when we meet the term "Trionfi deck" in a document.
In the early time it might be probable, that we have an object related to triumphal occasion, possibly with cards which also appear in the later Tarocchi decks, but not necessarily with the same structure.
In the later time it may be probable, that's it's a deck with greater similarities to the later Tarocchi series.

The silence of the Este records concerning triumph cards after 1463, as Ortalli noted, does seem to indicate that the fad for painted triumphs had then passed (if only in the Este court, of course). But the passion for cards didn't, so something must have taken their place in the court - printed and imported cards of whatever type, would seem to be the answer.

I would guess, that there are too much reasons imaginable, why we don't have Trionfi notes after 1463 in Ferrara. For instance Ercole and Sigismondo turned back in 1460 from Naples ... from a court, where card-playing probably was prohibited. It's imaginable, that their appearance in Ferrara changed the customs for some time. Or Borso feeled "too old" for card playing. Or the customs of the bookkeeper changed. Many reasons imaginable.
Ortalli mentioned arguments, that perhaps in 1454 (or 55) and 1459 Trionfi cards were printed.
The Rothschild cards were preprinted with woodcut - didn't Ortalli tell this (we cannot be sure, that these were Trionfi cards with Tarocchi motifs)?

There may have been experiments with Trionfi cards and printing technique. Nobody tells us, that they have been a success in the way, that the related deck was reprinted so often, that it formed the "successful version".

Sweynheim & Pannartz arrived 1463 ... but the number of books, that they produced till 1472 are countable, these books alone couldn't transform society. The explosive start of book-printing is given with 1470 , so this is the revolutionary change of society (in the 70's), which opened ways of mass-production and the connected woodcut and copperplate engraving followed this trend. Connected to this positive mood in the society are the many festivities in the early 70ies, when much money was spend from many sides to participate in this progress. And connectable are the many young rulers (the young Medici, Ercole in Ferrara, the Sixtus nephews, the children of Ferrante in Naples, Galeazzo Maria in Milan) with reasons for festivities. They all looked towards a glamorous future and 1475 became another Jubilee year.
1476 saw then the assassination of Galeazzo Maria and 1478 the attack on the Medici brothers and the early 80's the war against Ferrara. The expected glamorous times wasn't as glamorous as exspected.

The point, when the individual glamour changed to cheap mass production is in the 70's - generally.

samten

Sola-Busca Tarocchi

An interesting article:
Zucker, Mark, “The Master of the Sola-Busca Tarocchi…etc” Artibus et Historiae 18, no.35, 1997, pp. 181 – 194.
Available online from JSTOR.
Also:
Zucker, Mark, The Illustrated Barsch 24 (Commentary) Early Italian Masters, pt.1 (1993b), pt. 2 (1994), New York.
Colour illustrations of the Sola Busca have been publish in FMR, Number 90 - I think, but I have not been available to find a copy - and further colour illustrations in a Catalogue, published in Milan .. details will follow.
Samten de Wet

DoctorArcanus

The FMR issue n.90 was published in 1998. I bought a copy online on http://www.fmronline.com. It seems that now there is a new version of the site that does not work as well as the previous one. I think you should be able to get a copy writing to servizioclienti@fmrarte.it
The photographs in the magazine are beautiful (and the Franco Maria Ricci magazine always is a great pleasure for the lovers of art).

I would love to know more about the Sola Busca paper by Zucker. A few months ago I wrote to Artibus et Historiae hoping they had a back issue, but they don't. Can I buy a single paper on Jstor?

Marco

Tarot development- Mhchelino, Mantegna, Sola Busca, Minchiate?

Huck

Ross G Caldwell

Ross G Caldwell

Ross G Caldwell

Huck

Huck

Ross G Caldwell

Huck

samten

DoctorArcanus