Re: Questions ...

1
"De remediis utriusque fortunae"
https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Liber:Pe ... tunae.djvu

... Kaplan's argument isn't valid, as the text also doesn't note the game of chess (a game, which isn't a game of luck, but a game of skill; the text is especially about fortune, not about games).
Cards might have been known by Petrarca, but possibly these early experiments weren't identified as "games of luck".
Petrarca had been in Prague and there are reports, that in Prague playing cards existed as early as 1340 ... it's insecure, if these reports are correct.
http://trionfi.com/0/p/95/
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Questions ...

2
What argument of Kaplan's? Where? What text? Where? Why do you have to write in riddles?

If by "Kaplan" you mean Encyclopedia vol. 1 p. 34, where he points out that Petrarch in a "treatise about gambling" (a lazy reference) doesn't mention cards, and the "text" is De Remediis (which is indeed about fortune, which would include gambling), surely Petrarch would have mentioned cards, if he knew about them. That they were used in games of pure chance, and very susceptible to cheating, is probably why there were so many prohibitions. If it was so in 1370, then probably also 1340, if playing cards existed in Prague then. It is to be expected that he wouldn't mention chess, as a game of skill.

Re: Questions ...

3
I didn't start the thread, I answered somebody. I don't know, where his post has gone to. Suddenly it looks, as if I has started the thread. The earlier post mentioned Kaplan and his statement indirectly.

Yes, it was Kaplan I p. 34.
The situation in Bohemia (where Kaplan might have been acquainted with cards) was so, that Bohemia had a variously reported gambling problem with dice for a long time. This is said to have started with soldiers from Kärnten (Carinthia) around the year 1309. This seems to have been still a problem in the early 1370s, when soldiers of Charles IV were involved in a bloody fight with others in Mainz in a gambling case (with dice, the case became a scandal). There are indications in the report of Hübsch, that playing cards were not used for gambling in Bohemia.
In Italy (later) it seems, that card playing was less persecuted than dice-playing. If it was prohibited, then the connected fines were less than in dice cases (Franco noted such relations).

Hübsch noted:
Unter den gangbaren Spielen, die in den königl. Verboten namentlich angeführt werden, und für die es schon unter K. Johann Unterrichtsanstalten gab, befinden sich verschiedene, deren Beschaffenheit nicht zu ermitteln ist. Würfel und Kugeln gehörten zu den verbotenen; Karten zu den erlaubten. Um der Spielsucht Einhalt zu thun, die damals unter den Jüngern Bürgern immer mehr einriss, verordnete Karl, wer immer im Würfelspiel verloren, der sollte durch volle 3 Jahre das Recht haben, den Verlust zurück zu fordern ; ja, wenn er hierin in den ersten zwei Monaten keinen Gebrauch gemacht, sollten an seiner Stelle die nächsten Anverwandten dazu befugt sein. Harte Gefängnis- und Geldstrafen standen auf alle verbotene Spiele. Wer bei falschen Würfeln ertappt wurde, verlor den Daumen der rechten Hand, doch konnte dieses in eine Geldstrafe verwandelt werden. Die Geistlichkeit eiferte gegen die Spielsucht. Erlaubt waren solche Spiele, bei denen Gewinn und Verlust nicht ganz vom Zufall abhängt, sondern das Meiste auf Klugheit und Nachdenken ankommt.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Questions ...

4
Hubsch says "Würfel und Kugeln gehörten zu den verbotenen; Karten zu den erlaubten.," which I cannot exactly translate but he seems to be saying that dice and something else were among the forbidden, and cards were permitted. Then he says that games which were pure luck were forbidden, and those that were not were permitted. One might infer that since cards were permitted, the games played with them were not pure luck. If so, they would not count as a game of chance and so wouldn't be mentioned by Petrarch, who was solely concerned with people who trust in fortune. The problem is that even if a card game is not pure chance, still, people do trust to fortune, if they haven't the necessary skill and resources. I am reminded of a friend of mine who had studied a proven system for winning at blackjack. He brought $100 to the blackjack table, bet the minimum each time, and lost it all within half an hour. The system required resources of more than $100; my friend had a series of really bad cards. People bet on anything. So they would have bet on card games. And many would have lost a lot, like my friend. Petrarch would have mentioned it. But yes, in the beginning perhaps it was only certain people who knew about cards, and they didn't bet large sums, perhaps, because they didn't want their pastime to be forbidden, and anyway hadn't developed systems for winning yet. There is a little loophole here. I guess that is your point.

Too bad the question disappeared. I'm glad I asked.

Re: Questions ...

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The question wasn't so interesting, he just asked for the text of Petrarca and noted Kaplan, which was answered with the link to the text of Petrarca.

The game "Kugeln" might have been something similar to Boccia, Petanque or Kegeln, somehow connected to balls or round objects. It's strange, that it is not allowed, but it might have been connected to heavy gambling/betting. Cusanus, who later wrote "de Ludo Globi" (which might have been the same or a similar game), took the game as "positive", but somehow indicated, as if it was considered otherwise as negative occasionally (at least this was my impression).
Trotti in Ferrara 1456 evaluated the Trionfi cards similar as Hübsch/Bohemia/Charles IV. evaluated the new playing cards for the very early period 1340/1356.

An interesting fact is, that the English king in the 1330s prohibited all games in favor of military exercise, especially bow-shooting, which had the consequence, that the English army got excellent bow-shooters and on the other hand a prohibition for card-playing, which endured till the 1460s.
Huck
http://trionfi.com