... I'm a little disappointed by the missing reaction on my request for French readers at ...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=611

... which really in an interesting topic. So let's turn a little bit: Which are the first known French Tarot players?

I've have here one, and it might be a forgery, but anyway, it's very early ...

Über den genauen Ursprung des Casino Spiels herrscht Uneinigkeit. Da das Wort ‘Bakkarat’ sowohl im Französischen als auch im Italienischen ‘Null’ bedeutet, sehen sich beide Länder als Erfinder. Sicher ist, dass das Spiel seit dem 15. Jahrhundert existiert und ursprünglich mit Tarot-Karten gespielt wurde.

http://www.onlinegamblingpal.com/de/spi ... at-regeln/

Die Benennung Bakkarat kam aus der altitalienischer Sprache und wird ins Deutsche wie 'Null' übersetzt. Bakkarat wurde bereit im Mittelalter in Italien gespielt, man brauchte Tarot-Karten dabei.

http://bakkarat.net/uber-herkunft-von-b ... nline.html

The baccarat origins are most often traced back to 15th Century Italy and famed Italian gambler, Felix Falguerein. It is widely accepted that the first baccarat games were played with tarot cards instead of today's traditional 52-card deck (which itself is derived from the four suits of the tarot).

http://www.gamblingcity.net/casino-game ... istory.php

Baccarat History

The name "baccarat" means Zero, and old Roman legends spoke of a young virgin who was to roll a nine-sided dice. These legends were written down before the 1st Century. If the virgin rolled a Nine or an Eight she was to become a high priestess, other wise, if it is was a Seven or a Six she was to be banished from religious services, but if she rolled any lower number she was killed, a sacrifice to the gods, who sentenced her fate by the nine-sided dice. This legend is the first literary piece which describes a game similar to Baccarat.

Most evidence point that baccarat history evolved from Pai Gow, a Chinese tile game. In this game players had to "Pai Gow" - Chinese for "make a nine". It is possible that the game migrated to Italy with merchants from the Far East, and there it was played with tarot cards instead of tiles, soon it became popular and it spread with merchants and pilgrims.

Though little can be said about the baccarat history with complete confidence, it is most likely that modern baccarat had evolved from the game played with the Tarot cards. It was played in Italy in the 14th Century and later on it migrated to France, where it was accepted by the aristocrat class. From France baccarat had split to two versions: One is "Chemin de Fer", a baccarat variation which is played solely in France, and the second is the European baccarat.

http://www.em-re.com/origins-of-baccarat

* 1. Baccarat was invented by Italian gambler Felix Falguiere during the middle-ages.
* 2. Falguiere originally played the game with Tarot Cards.
* 3. Historical references indicate that the first forms of Baccarat were introduced to France by Italy during the reign of Charles VIII of France (ruled 1483-1498).
* 4. Three accepted variations of the game exist namely: Chemin de fer (railway), baccarat banque (or a deux tableaux), and punto banco (or North American baccarat).
* 5. The game of Chemin de fer was first played in the United States at the racetrack at Saratoga and the Palm Beach resort in 1911.
* 6. Baccarat was introduced to Vegas in 1959 at the Sands, who lost $250,000 on the tables that night.
* 7. More than 70% of high rollers visiting Baccarat tables in Las Vegas gaming are Asian, mostly employed as industrialists or bankers.
* 8. Baccarat is named after the worst hand, a zero, rather than a winning combination or other.
* 9. The main plot of 007's Casino Royale is centred around the Baccarat Table.
* 10. In Rush Hour 3, Chris Tucker's character mistakes Baccarat in a Paris Casino for Blackjack.

http://www.succeednow.com/baccarat-trivia.html

hm ...
I would guess, there are 100's of these notes in the web, just request "Baccarat Trot".
It's interesting to observe, that I found this story never in Tarot circles ... which seems to tell, that Tarot enthusiast doesn't gamble Baccarat.

The best dating identification runs back to something like 1484-86. The often mentioned name of the inventor, who often is written different, seems to have been a soldier for Renee d'Anjou II., who 10 years later is really playing Tarot, and who in the 1480's really had been in Italy.

http://trionfi.com/0/e/43/

There is some competition to other stories about the origin.

... .-) ...

... ...

Well, in my researches I came to ...

The theory of gambling and statistical logic 1967
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZGpqAA ... =de&pgis=1
... as the possible major distribution way of the story.

unlucky not completely available at books.google.com, also not (at least to me) at amazon (there's a second later edition, the first edition seems from 1967.

Hi Huck. Here's the whole paragraph, and the next, from that book you were trying to read. I had to pick up something from the library anyway.



Colorful, but a repetition of what you'd already read. While I was at the library, I looked up the word in Le Robert Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise. Here is what Monsieur Robert had:



You will notice the date 1851, which I take to be the earliest known use in French. I also checked the Oxford English Dictionary. Their first use of the word was 1866.

Thanks ...

The text of 1967 has no reference (as I assume). According my researches it looked as the text, which might have spread the story.
Around 1967 Tarot became rather popular, possibly it had been of interest for the distribution of Baccarat to connect to the game ... so just a promotion story. But ... one never knows.

There had heavy gambling stories in Rome around 1480-90, perhaps this inspired the story ... in the case, that it is a forgery.
The son of the pope, Franceschetto Cibo, lost so much money, that one of the Riario cardinals could build a large palace from it. The palace still exists.

Well, there was one reference, to the sentence ending "nine gods." I inadvertently left it off. That sentence also contains the other information, about 1490, etc. But the writer's reference is only for the Etruscans' "nine gods," to Macaulay's poem, "Horatius on the Bridge." Macaulay lived 1800-1859. Here is the relevant stanza in the poem (which I get off the internet)

Lars Porsena of Clusium, by the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it, and named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and West and South and North,
To summon his array.

Search "Macaulay Horatius on the Bridge"; it's the first stanza.

No documentation at all for anything else in the paragraph. It's hard to say whether the writer made it up himself. It's primarily a book on the application of statistics to various forms of gambling. I suspect he got his information from some equally unsubstantiated source, that was, yes, cashing in on the popularity of tarot.

The 9 Etruscans gods appear here, a modern source ...
http://books.google.com/books?id=LhrYIZ ... 22&f=false

This seems to go back to Dr. Westcott, so Golden Dawn, possibly this passage:

http://books.google.com/books?id=EMjRt8 ... us&f=false

"the 9 gods of the Etruscans (Juno, Minerva, Tinia, Vulcan, Mars, Saturn, Hercules, Summanus, Vedius)"

... between 3 unusual names Tinia, Summanus, Vedius

Summanus
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Summanus
http://www.mythindex.com/roman-mytholog ... manus.html

Tinia (was possibly seen by Romans as "Voltumna" according German Wiki)(also Vertumnus, according Varro)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinia
http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tinia.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertumnus

Vedius = Veiovis
http://www.mythindex.com/roman-mythology/V/Veiovis.html

In the sources it seems, that Ovid played a major role and also the Fasti of Ovid.

The Fasti of Ovid were a topic to Domitianus Calderinus ...
http://www.repertoriumpomponianum.it/po ... derini.htm

... and to Ludovico Lazzarelli, who wrote his own "Fasti" especially during his time in Rome ... a major work, taking more than 5 years.
http://trionfi.com/0/m/07/

So we're in the circle of the accademia Romana and Pope Sixtus IV and his nephews, who show great resposibility for the gambling activies in the 1470's and 1480's in Rome.

On the other hand:

Westcott's participation gives an indication, that the whole story was arranged in the 1950's and 1960's, when both, Tarot / Golden Dawn and Baccarat, became popular in US-America.

"Herculean Ferrara: Ercole D'Este (1471-1505) and the Invention of a Ducal Capital"
by Thomas Tuohy ... 2002 - 568 pages
http://books.google.com/books?id=zk5KjC ... navlinks_s

... seems to be a rather good book with lots of details about Ferrara.

I've stumbled in it about a person "Gilbert de Bourbon Monpensier", also called "il Delfino", in 1485 called a French ambassador, who was in 1485 guest in Ferrara. He was married to Chiara Gonzaga, a sister of Gian Francesco Gonzaga, who was then engaged to Isabella d'Este (and married her in 1989).

The wedding took place either February 1481 or 1482. Gilbert seems to have had some importance for the French king Charles VIII, he got important positions then. Finally he became Vice-king of Naples in 1494 (during the invasion of Charles VIII in Italy), was taken prisoner and died of fever in 1496.

Chiara seems to be the earliest Mantovan princess, which married to the French region. As already noted earlier, a much later Gonzaga princess became of importance for the first Tarot rules in 1637, a relationship, which developed, when a 3rd son of the Gonzaga-family married a French heiress in 1561.

http://genealogy.euweb.cz/gonzaga/gonzaga2.html
F5. Chiara (or Clara), *1.7.1464, +2.6.1503; m.24.2.1481 Gilbert I de Bourbon Cte de Montpensier, Duca di Sessa (*1443 +15.10.1496)


Clara
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Gonzaga
her husband
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert,_C ... ontpensier

one of her children, Charles III., duke of Bourbon (rather prominent, fought in Pavia at the side of Charles V., emperor, against France ... was killed during the Sacco di Roma)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II ... of_Bourbon



From the description of a Milanese ambassador, who visited the French king, the surrounding persons of the king Charles VIII were fixed on card playing, and the king allowed this playing in his own presence (the Milanese ambassador found this rather "without respect").

I'm not aware of another important (high nobility) French-Italy marriage after the Trionfi time of c. 1440 ... naturally there is Valentina Visconti some time earlier, and the Visconti marriage, which was negotiated 1361 by Petrarca before.
There's also Galeazzo Maria Sforza with Bony of Savoy, who was educated in France at the court of her sister.
(... maybe one should look for them, perhaps there are more ...)



This picture from Mantegna wandered likely with the bride to the French church, where the wedding took place.