Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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The US has an Independance Day, since 4th of July 1776
France has a day for the storm of the Bastille, since 14th of July 1789
Britain has no national celebration day.
Italy has a day for the foundation of the republic, since 2nd of June 1946
Germany had a 17th June since a not lucky rebellion in 1953 in East-Berlin and then a 3rd of October after the 9th of November 1989, when the Wall of Berlin was destroyed.

Lucca had the foundation of a Republic at 8th of April 1369, after some military activities against Pisa some days before. A deciding role played Emperor Karl IV, who was present in Lucca for a period of 5 months. The 8th of April was the Sunday after Easter in 1369, so the celebration day was set on the Sunday after Easter and this is changed from year to year according a moon calendar , which was used for the Easter celebration.
The Republic of Lucca endured till 1799, the annual festivity of the day endured till nowadays, as demonstrated at this page.
https://www.twopartsitaly.com/blog/2019/5/5/1369

Here are the relevant entries in the Regesten of Karl IV:
Image
The entries to 4th, 7th and 8th of April are relevant. Full text:
https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bs ... &seite=451
Last edited by Huck on 05 Feb 2021, 09:26, edited 2 times in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Huck,
I've been trying to post a reply in the other Lucca Orfeo deck thread [I'm being blocked for some reason - nevermind: did a work around by snipping the text as jpegs and pasting them in as "[img]"] and from that forthcoming post is this illuminating article on politics and early operas in that city, Peter N. Miller, "Stoics who sing: Lessons in Citizenship from Early Modern Lucca", Historical Journal, 44, 2001
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... EAE067122F

Available via the author's academia.edu page, here: https://www.academia.edu/8195292/Stoics ... dern_Lucca

Within it are couple of literary societies in Lucca worth researching: the Lucchese academies of the Oscuri and Accessi.

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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hi Phaeded,

following is the case: 3 contexts and one observation

A.
A picture in Bologna gave us notice about a Prince Fibbia, who shall have invented the Tarocchino from Bologna.
FRANCESCO ANTELMINELLI CASTRACANI FIBBIA, PRINCIPE DI PISA, MONTEGIORI, E PIETRA SANTA, E SIGNORE DI FUSECCHIO, FILIO DI GIOVANNI, NATO DA CASTRUCCIO DUCA DI LUCCA, PISTOIA, PISA & FUGITO IN BOLOGNA DATOSI A' BENTIVOGLJ, FU FATTO GENERALISSIMO DELLE ARME BOLOGNESE, ET IL PRIMO DI QUESTA FAMIGLIA CHE FU DETTO IN BOLOGNA DALLE FIBBIE, EBBE PER MOGLIE FRANCESCA, FILIA DI GIOVANNI BENTIVOGLJ.
INVENTORE DEL GIOCO DEL TAROCCHINO DI BOLOGNA: DALLI XVI RIFORMATORI DELLA CITTÀ EBBE PER PRIVILEGIO DI PORRE L'ARMA FIBBIA NELLA REGINA DI BASTONI E QUELLA DELLA DI LUI MOGLIE NELLA REGINA DI DENARI. NATO L'ANNO 1360 MORTO L'ANNO 1419.

(Francesco Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia, Prince of Pisa, Montegiori, and Pietra Santa, Lord of Fusecchio, son of Giovanni, born of Castruccio Duke of Lucca, Pistoia, Pisa & fled to Bologna in service to Bentivoglio, was made commander in chief of the Bolognese army and the first of this family, which was called Fibbia in Bologna; married Francesca, daughter of Giovanni Bentivoglio.
He was the inventor of the game Tarocchino of Bologna. By the XVI City Reforms he had the privilege of putting the Fibbia coat of arms on the Queen of Staves [card] and that of his wife’s on the Queen of Coins. Born in the year 1360, he died in the year 1419)

http://letarot.it/page.aspx?id=107

According Andrea Vitali and an expert for the history of costums Dr. Elisabetta Gnignera: "The work was painted by an unknown artist around the 30s of the 17th century."
According playing card research Prince Fibbia hardly could have invented the Tarocchino of Bologna, but it is possible that he designed a game with some similarities to the later Tarocchino.
Well, the possibility exists, that Fibbia brought from his old home, where he had a reason to flee from, a type of a unusual card deck. And this region and this old home might have been Lucca or some location near to it.

B.
The researcher F.L.Hübsch wrote in a work about trade in Bohemia till the year 1400 also a few sentences about playing cards in 14th century. He knows, that playing cards were in Bohemia in the year 1340, and Polish nobility played with them already before 1340. Hübsch knows not that playing cards were produced in Prague in the first time, but they were imported from Nuremberg. He knows, that a playing card producer, Jonathan Kreysel from Nuremberg, arrived in Prague 1354. And some other statements.
None of the statements could be completely confirmed, although they are almost plausible. I persecute the hypothesis, that Karl IV. distributed playing cards on his journeys. In 1365 he was in Bern on his journey to Arles, and 2 years later (1367) appeared a playing card prohibition in Bern. In 1376/77 he made 2 journeys, one to Aachen (crowning of the son Wenzel as Roman king) and another to Paris. The result of them is (just my opinion) that, what John of Rheinfelden observed in Freiburg . And the half brother of Karl IV., Wenzel I. of Limburg and Brabant, started a well documented playing card production at his court.
The 3rd journey of Karl IV. to Italy is the one of 1368-1369, which I addressed in the starting article ...
viewtopic.php?t=2035&p=23280#p23279
... and it is the one, which caused Lucca to become a republic in 1369. and I'm still in search for a sign of playing cards for this journey.

C.
This is the Lucca Tarocchi, which was proposed by Sylvia Mann in the 1980s as a possible deck in Lucca, a Tarot deck with reduced trumps, possibly taken from a Minchiate deck.
Image


She wrote: "There were 69 cards, 56 numeral cards and 13 Trumps."

The 13 Trumps and a backside "Orfeo":
Image


A selection of the other cards ...
Image
still in work
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Huck wrote: 05 Feb 2021, 10:01 hi Phaeded,

following is the case: 3 contexts and one observation

According Andrea Vitali and an expert for the history of costumes Dr. Elisabetta Gnignera: "The work was painted by an unknown artist around the 30s of the 17th century."
According playing card research Prince Fibbia hardly could have invented the Tarocchino of Bologna, but it is possible that he designed a game with some similarities to the later Tarocchino.
Well, the possibility exists, that Fibbia brought from his old home, where he had a reason to flee from, a type of a unusual card deck. And this region and this old home might have been Lucca or some location near to it.
Interesting notion. Is there enough overlap in the trumps of the two reduced packs to suggest a causal link?:

Tarochhino - red = not in Lucca deck:
Trump Name of the card
(20) Angel (Angelo)
(19) World (Mondo)
(18) Sun (Sole)
(17) Moon (Luna)
16 Star (Stella)
15 Lightning (Saetta)
14 Devil (Diavolo)
13 Death (Morte)
12 Traitor (Traditore)
11 Old man (Vecchio)
10 Wheel (Roda)
9 Strength (Forza)
8 Justice (Giusta)
7 Temperance (Tempra)

6 Chariot (Carro)
5 Love (Amore)
(1=4) four Moors (Moretti)
(0) Magician (Begato)

Fool

So the Lucca version mainly has no "Papi" or virtues, nor the Magician and Love.

The preoccupation of Lucca's social life via its politics and operas (I highly recommend that Peter Miller article - I would regard it as fundamental for understanding Lucca's unique cultural milieu) suggests the "magician" would be out of place there with the more lofty subject of neo-Stoicism on their minds, and of course the papal influence in a papal polity like Bologna is irrelevant to Lucca so they could care less about Moors/papi (they were "Republican"). They were strongly motivated by the primary theme of Virtues vs. Voluptas with an eye towards maintaining just citizens, so the virtues absence would suggest they were "in" the player, and that virtue should go with the one who won the game. The "Love" trump has been removed in the Lucca deck but is essentially present as the naked woman on the Chariot, now Virtue's conquered trophy of sorts (as Cupid sits bound on Chastity's chariot/processional cart).

Again, Orpheus as the primary cardback, with prone lion, matches the virtue of Strength (Orpheus also musically connects to the operas at the center of Lucca cultural life). One of the other 2 cardback options features prudence (woman with compass); ergo, the 2 of the 4 cardinal virtues as "outside" the game as cardbacks, would suggest the game was to be approached from the perspective of the virtues, perhaps providing an arena within which one's virtuous mettle was tested.

As for Fibbia, maybe he brought this game to Bologna as suggested, and its presence along with papal pressure produced the reduced Tarocchino deck? One scenario might be pressure from the papal governor on the card-playing crowd to use the reduced Lucca version which had no sacrilegious "papi", but the fans of traditional tarot insisted on some form of them and settled on the Moors, and to keep it on the up and up (religiously speaking), retained the virtues as well (that would leave only the retention of Love and the Magician in need of an explanation, perhaps allegorized as "life's distractions"/street theatre, leading one away from the Church and virtue, hence wholly negative) .

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Phaeded,
Chariot has Nr 9 in Minchiate, so also in Lucca.
16-20 have no numbers in Lucca, as 36-40 in Minchiate have no numbers.

**********

As far I know we have no date, when Fibbia appeared in Bologna, so any interpretation of details is just speculation. There is also no security, that the Lucca Tarocchi of 18th century was in existence in 14th century.
What we have is an observation.

A few days ago, after I had realized, that the year 1369 was of high importance for the Republic of Lucca, I detected, that the Lucca Tarocchi with its 13 Trumps and totally 69 cards had a strange number similarity to the year 1369 (13 .... 69). From this observation one may conclude, that there is a high probability, that the game designer, who arranged the game structure, knew something about the importance of the year 1369. The arrangement of the cards, if it was not just done by accident, could have done it as early as 1369 or as late as early 18th century.

Naturally we try to find further arguments, which possibly give some idea, that we can get a clearer picture of the development.

One of the arguments:
Between the decks, which were described by John von Rheinfelden, there is one, which has 5 suits and probably 13 cards in each suit. If one of these 5 suits was connected to the trump function, possibly just by declaration and not by very special decoration as in Tarot, then we would have in essence a Trionfi deck.
As I already noted, these decks of JvR have their chance to have been developed in the Bohemia of emperor Karl IV. Also this 5x13-deck ....

This would be describable as (T stands for Trump) ....
T13-13-13-13-13
Very similar to the Lucca Tarocchi ....
T13-14-14-14-14
The addition of 4 Queens might have been the step from a 5x13-Trionfi deck to the Lucca Tarocchi structure.

This can't be taken as a 100% secure evidence, it is just an evaluation of the situation.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Huck wrote: 05 Feb 2021, 21:40 As far I know we have no date, when Fibbia appeared in Bologna, so any interpretation of details is just speculation. There is also no security, that the Lucca Tarocchi of 18th century was in existence in 14th century.
What we have is an observation.

A few days ago, after I had realized, that the year 1369 was of high importance for the Republic of Lucca, I detected, that the Lucca Tarocchi with its 13 Trumps and totally 69 cards had a strange number similarity to the year 1369 (13 .... 69). From this observation one may conclude, that there is a high probability, that the game designer, who arranged the game structure, knew something about the importance of the year 1369. The arrangement of the cards, if it was not just done by accident, could have done it as early as 1369 or as late as early 18th century

Worst idea yet. You're trying to push back the first appearance of trumps some 80 years on the flimsiest of coincidences, into a period void of evidence.

The Fibbia possibility is worth exploring but much of that data appears retrodated from the 17th century; Vitali:
The work was painted by an unknown artist around the 30s of the 17th century (1 = 'dating of the painting is by Dr. Elisabetta Gnignera'). The painting shows the Prince standing near a table holding some whole-length Bolognese Tarocchino cards ....We know that the Fibbia and the Bentivoglio (coat of) arms, as the writing on the painting affirm, were printed on the 17th Century Queen of Staves and Queen of Coins, for example, in the “Alla Torre” tarocchini, dated to the XVIIth century, where the Fibbia (coat of) arms appeared on the Queen of Staves (the Queen of Coins is missing from the pack). These (coats of) arms also appear in the same cards in many decks from the XVIII century, such as “Al Mondo” (figure 5 - figure 6) (16) and “Alla Colomba” (figure 7) (17). The ability to insert coats of arms of any nature, noble or not, in the oldest decks of cards was not subject to particular authorizations, so that any printer could do it. On this point one must wonder why these emblems inserted were those of the Fibbia and Bentivoglio, if not based on a tradition that saw in the Fibbia and their allied family the origin of these cards. http://letarot.it/page.aspx?id=107&lng=ENG

Lacking evidence, the default answer for now has to be that was an invented tradition. I would also note the guesstimate 1630s date for the painting coincides with the emergence of Lucca's political/opera tradition with which their cards might be linked...its diffusion to Bologna and there the invention of non-Lucca origins is not out of the realm of possibilities. Again, Peter Miller, who notes a political crisis experienced in Genoa and Venice caught on in Lucca, who channeled their own political anxieties into a new constitution and the production of political operas in conjunction with the new three day election festival of their republic (the emergence of a new deck of cards in this atmosphere would not be unexpected, but this would push an early dating of the decks, with perhaps just later ones surviving) :
But the constitutional reform of the early 1630s in Lucca did produce a body of political thinking, and one utterly unlike anything found in Venice, Genoa, or for that matter anywhere else in Europe....Eighty-nine little books, or libretti, produced for these semi-staged concerts over a 150-year period, have survived. This is Lucca's political thought. For the first twenty-five years these texts were short, about sixteen small quarto pages, and their contents allegorical.(315).

Of some relevance may be this series of paintings designed at the time, per this paper Miller draws our attention to but which I can't find on-line: Elizabeth Cropper, 'Pietro Testa and Lucca: mythology of a republic', Grafua Grajica (1977), pp.88-109

Incidentally Cropper's married to Charles Dempsey whose books on Italian Renaissance art and poetry have been referenced here several times. Her academia.edu page does not have the article in question: https://nga.academia.edu/elizabethcropper

Perhaps our Lucca card maker - asked by his home city for a series of paintings after he became famous in Rome that were adapted into the cards insome way?: Wiki: Pietro Testa (1611–1650) was an Italian High Baroque artist active in Rome. He is best known as a printmaker and draftsman....Born in Lucca, thus sometimes called il Lucchesino. Testa moved to Rome early in life.

An example of Testa's art - An Allegory of Fortune (but the right figure is clearly Occasio):
Image


Certainly Orpheus charming the animals with violin beneath a tree (as on the cardback), with lion present, was common enough in the 1630s; can't find one of Testa's (lost?) but these are typical for the period:
Alessandro Varotari Padovanino / 'Orpheus', First half 17th century,

Image

Antonio Tempesta, Italian (Florence, Italy 1555 - 1630 Rome, Italy), Orpheus Charming the Birds and the Animals
Image

Antonio Tempesta, again - Orpheus' death: Orpheus seated with his violin beneath a tree, fending off a group of Bacchantes who attack him with sticks.by women (why there is a nude female - apparently bound - on the Lucca Chariot in lieu of the bound Cupid theme)
Image

Phaeded

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Huck:
The arrangement of the cards, if it was not just done by accident, could have done it as early as 1369 or as late as early 18th century
Phaeded:
Worst idea yet. You're trying to push back the first appearance of trumps some 80 years on the flimsiest of coincidences, into a period void of evidence.
You're definitely wrong.
a. You've forgotten the Michelino deck
b. Also JvR gives signs, that he knew trumping. Trumps exist, when cards are defined as trumps during a game, which uses trumping . They must not look like Trionfi cards.

The persons of 14th played chess, table games and simple running games since centuries . They knew, that figures could bring other figures off the board. Do you think, they had difficulties with trumping rules, when they played with cards instead with board figures?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Huck wrote: 07 Feb 2021, 07:16 Huck:
The arrangement of the cards, if it was not just done by accident, could have done it as early as 1369 or as late as early 18th century
Phaeded:
Worst idea yet. You're trying to push back the first appearance of trumps some 80 years on the flimsiest of coincidences, into a period void of evidence.
You're definitely wrong.
a. You've forgotten the Michelino deck
b. Also JvR gives signs, that he knew trumping. Trumps exist, when cards are defined as trumps during a game, which uses trumping . They must not look like Trionfi cards.

The persons of 14th played chess, table games and simple running games since centuries . They knew, that figures could bring other figures off the board. Do you think, they had difficulties with trumping rules, when they played with cards instead with board figures?

a. The subject is the Lucca Tarocchi which is a subset of tarot trumps - nothing to do with Marziano/Michelino (which preceded Tarot by some 20 years, not 80).
b. "when [pip/court] cards are defined as trumps during a game" they still aren't tarot's trumps.

There is no genetic connection between trump-esque precursors and the subjects that became tarot's trumps.

If you want to discuss the relationship of Lucca Tarocchi to the historical conditions of Lucca in the 17th/18th century and their possible relationship to other abbreviated decks (the Bologna variant) I'm all ears, but if you want to persist in positing a connection between that deck and JvR you're on your own.

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Phaeded wrote: 07 Feb 2021, 20:55 a. The subject is the Lucca Tarocchi which is a subset of tarot trumps - nothing to do with Marziano/Michelino (which preceded Tarot by some 20 years, not 80).
b. "when [pip/court] cards are defined as trumps during a game" they still aren't tarot's trumps.

There is no genetic connection between trump-esque precursors and the subjects that became tarot's trumps.

If you want to discuss the relationship of Lucca Tarocchi to the historical conditions of Lucca in the 17th/18th century and their possible relationship to other abbreviated decks (the Bologna variant) I'm all ears, but if you want to persist in positing a connection between that deck and JvR you're on your own.
What's the difference between a deck with ...,
5 suits (possibly) including a trump suit ...
[(T)13-13-13-13-13, reported by JvR] ...
and a deck with 5 suits including a trump suit ...
[T13-14-14-14-14, Lucca Tarocchi structure] ...
and a deck with 5 suits including a trump suit ...
[T14-14-14-14-14, first part of Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo-Tarocchi]?

Well, the difference is one Trump and 4 Queens. That's not a big difference. The Lucca Tarocchi is simply something beween a 5x13-deck and a 5x14-deck
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Lucca Tarocchi / Repubblica Lucca

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Huck wrote: 08 Feb 2021, 04:52
Phaeded wrote: 07 Feb 2021, 20:55 If you want to discuss the relationship of Lucca Tarocchi to the historical conditions of Lucca in the 17th/18th century and their possible relationship to other abbreviated decks (the Bologna variant) I'm all ears, but if you want to persist in positing a connection between that deck and JvR you're on your own.
What's the difference between a deck with ...,
5 suits (possibly) including a trump suit ...
[(T)13-13-13-13-13, reported by JvR] ...
and a deck with 5 suits including a trump suit ...
[T13-14-14-14-14, Lucca Tarocchi structure] ...
and a deck with 5 suits including a trump suit ...
[T14-14-14-14-14, first part of Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo-Tarocchi]?

Well, the difference is one Trump and 4 Queens. That's not a big difference. The Lucca Tarocchi is simply something beween a 5x13-deck and a 5x14-deck
The outlier of those examples - "5 suits (possibly) including a trump suit [(T)13-13-13-13-13], reported by JvR]" - has zero specifics with which to properly judge it. Its all Rorschach, except your don't even have the inkblots....

Again, I'm not interested in any theory where you are imagining what the JvR phantom trumps actually were. We'll never know. And I don't regard the replacement trumps in the PMB as indicating an earlier "abbreviated PMB" deck that was expanded (that is your pet theory far-removed from the consensus opinion). Moving on....