catboxer
There's a lot to look at at Trionfi/.01/e, and I'm sifting through it kind of slowly.
Document number one, the February, 1442 payment authorization, disburses, I think, 20 lire to a painter "Jacomo" (called something else), for making four sets of cards, each containing four suits and "the figures." We can assume the figures to be trump designs.
I believe that painter was probably Jacopo Bellini of Venice, and that "Jacomo" is a misspelling, since that name is usually spelled Giacomo. Jacopo was a well-known early Renaissance figure, and the father of the more-famous Gentile Bellini. He was active in Venice starting in about 1424.
The Renaissance painters were sort of like today's movie stars and rock stars. In 1441, Jacopo Bellini travelled from Venice to Ferrara where he engaged in a contest against a local rock star, Pisanello. He won, and the noteriety he gained from such an event certainly would have attracted the attention of the local rulers.
Jacopo was a competent, if not a great painter. His portrait paintings look like typical late Gothic work, but his drawings and sketches are more interesting. In them, he is more concerned with solving technical problems such as linear perspective, than with rendering authentic human figures. These are the kinds of concerns that dominated the minds of artists of the time. If he was the author of the d'Este cards, his work for them would have been mature and fully realized.
You can see his stuff on Olga's site: http://www.abcgallery.com/B/bellini/jacoppo.html
She mentions that his drawings collections and sketchbooks can be seen at the Louvre. They might shed some light on the contents of these card decks, which I assume are now vanished without a trace.
Document number one, the February, 1442 payment authorization, disburses, I think, 20 lire to a painter "Jacomo" (called something else), for making four sets of cards, each containing four suits and "the figures." We can assume the figures to be trump designs.
I believe that painter was probably Jacopo Bellini of Venice, and that "Jacomo" is a misspelling, since that name is usually spelled Giacomo. Jacopo was a well-known early Renaissance figure, and the father of the more-famous Gentile Bellini. He was active in Venice starting in about 1424.
The Renaissance painters were sort of like today's movie stars and rock stars. In 1441, Jacopo Bellini travelled from Venice to Ferrara where he engaged in a contest against a local rock star, Pisanello. He won, and the noteriety he gained from such an event certainly would have attracted the attention of the local rulers.
Jacopo was a competent, if not a great painter. His portrait paintings look like typical late Gothic work, but his drawings and sketches are more interesting. In them, he is more concerned with solving technical problems such as linear perspective, than with rendering authentic human figures. These are the kinds of concerns that dominated the minds of artists of the time. If he was the author of the d'Este cards, his work for them would have been mature and fully realized.
You can see his stuff on Olga's site: http://www.abcgallery.com/B/bellini/jacoppo.html
She mentions that his drawings collections and sketchbooks can be seen at the Louvre. They might shed some light on the contents of these card decks, which I assume are now vanished without a trace.
