Huck: I am finally replying to your post of a few days ago. I had to get together a lot of research on the history of the period 1450-1476, and it took me some time. First, thanks for the links. I had guessed that the 13 cards in 1422 were extras, to go with the suit cards, but I appreciate the full...

Marco and Robert: After reading your posts, I did a Google search for Nino and Nineveh. Ninus was the legendary founder of Nineveh, a city notorious for its idolatry and rejection of the true God. Nino was a female saint whose intense faith healed the Queen of Iberia (modern Georgia) and thereby cau...

This is the 3rd post of 3. The one before it was "Amplifications of Tolfo on the CY." OBJECTIONS TO TOLFO ON THE CY My chief objection to accepting Tolfo's list of 12 special cards for the CY is that it seems incomplete. I think we need to add some cards, so that there will be 16, just as ...

This is part 2 of a 3 part series of posts. The first one was "Tolfo on the CY." AMPLIFICATIONS OF TOLFO ON THE CY Tolfo does not connect her thesis with her previous point about Martiano's name. But it seems to me that if the CY was created in the context of the Miehclion. Then there shou...

Thanks for the link to Ross's translation of Martiano, Huck. I had read it before, but I forgot about it this time around. It occurred to me when I read your quote about Aeolus that I should find it again, because Martiano not only was paraphrasing the passage in the Aeneid that I had quoted before,...

Of Tolfo's exposition of the Michelino (discussed in my previous post), here is the relevant Italian plus my version of Google’s translation, sentence by sentence: Il Re e la Regina erano legati al seme che rappresentavano, ossia “il Re dei Falconi” o “la Regina dei Cervi”, e richiamavano alla mente...

Hi Huck. One comment about your last post: Tolfo cites the same orders for decks that you do, and one or two more. The question is, what decks were these orders for? She has a different idea from Trionfi. It turns out that Tolfo does have a more detailed web-page about the early Milan decks. Here I ...

Before we get much further, I want to give you my report on the Italian web articles you referred me to at http://www.storiadimilano.it/Arte/minia ... 0Zavattari (added in 2012: it may be accessed at http://www.storiadimilano.it/Arte/miniatori.htm#I%20Bembo), so that others may benefit from its info...

Good research on Chaucer's trip to Italy, Huck. Chaucer's poem was in English. Did Petrarch read English? I don't know. They would have spoken in Latin. Perhaps he just knew the title and general theme of Chaucer's book; that would have been enough to suggest to him including "fame" in his...

Steve: Yes, I'm sure you're right about dice. I didn't think about that. When I hear "ace," I assume cards; I wasn't aware the 1 was called the same thing in dice. But it makes sense. The context is certainly that of lows and highs, and a six is not high in the card games I know. Huck: Aeo...