Phaeded wrote: 01 May 2022, 18:30
I'd suggest this urban fresco was to remind those in the city of the leisurely pursuits in the beauty of somewhere like the alpine lake of Lago Maggiore, where they may have had a villa or were invited as guests to the Visconti castle there (and as privileged guests celebrating that fact with a game the Visconti were fond of):
I wrote something similar in a response I never got around to posting (in
bold below) -
The arguments against it being Trionfi are that there no trumps shown, and there are not enough cards visible.
The arguments for it being Trionfi are the large cards, the people playing, mixed sexes, and the traditional name. I'd add Galeazzo Maria Sforza's similar fresco showing ladies playing ball and Trionfi as a relevant analogy.
The argument against seems stronger on the face of it, although I don't give much weight to the absence of trumps. So it boils down to counting the cards.
The argument for it being Triumphs is entirely circumstantial, and has to imagine what the artist was instructed to show. Were the instructions “show ladies and men playing cards” or “show ladies and men playing Trionfi”? Sforza's instructions were explicit on the game, but not the cards to be shown. Was the noble setting and the character of the players enough to identify the game without showing specific trumps, or was the artist, Bonifacio Bembo, also given oral instructions later?
I do not find it hard to imagine a varying number of players. The inventors of the game themselves no doubt experimented with different numbers of players.
I do not find it hard to believe that neither patron nor artist cared to depict figure cards, whether courts or trumps.
The setting is idealized; the fresco is in a room in downtown Milan, nowhere near hills and lakes. The purpose was to take their minds to a pleasant place away from busy affairs, not to explicitly depict a specific card game, in case anyone were unsure what kind of cards they were using.
The choice of Coins may be as subtle and sophisticated as the dynamics of the painting itself, suggesting wagers. This is an idealized scene of a cultured group at play, not a tavern scene of men gambling, so, while they may have played for trinkets or small coins in a real game, it was not pictured. The suit of Coins substitutes for it by allusion. The Savoyan code of 1430 explicitly allows this small-stakes gambling in card games with both sexes playing:
“Mulieribus tamen ad recreationem et viris cum eis iocantibus ludum cartarum permittimus, dummodo tantum fiat cum spinolis.”
Nevertheless, we allow women to play cards and men with them, so long as it is only for pins.
Statuta Sabaudiae, Liber III, Cap. XXXV, De Ludis & lusoribus.
(Chatto gives examples of how “pins” is generic for “small articles of pins' worth:”
“Menestrier refers to the statutes of Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, 1430, forbidding all kinds of gaming for money within his territories, though his subjects are allowed to amuse themselves at certain games, provided they play only for meat and drink. 'With respect to cards, they are forbidden; nevertheless, they are allowed to women, with whom men may also play, provided that they play only for pins,' - “dum ludus fiat tantum cum spinulis” - pins – literally, but would take it to mean any small articles of pins' worth. In France, about 1580, the
douceur given by a guest to a waiter at an inn was called 'his pins' – 'épingles;' and the proverbial phrase, 'Tirer son épingle du jeu,' seems to allude rather to 'pin-stakes,' than to the game of 'push-pin.'”
William Henry Chatto,
Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards, London, 1848, pp. 80-81.)