Re: Tarocchi Players of Palazzo Borromeo

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As a practical condition, it is, as least as a subjective opinion, much more fun to play games with 4 players than with 3 players, at least in trick-taking games. But it is only easier to get 3 players with free time than having 4 players with free time. 2 against 2 has more communicative fun than 1 against 2. Is there a situation with 5 available players, then the situation is often solved by the rule, that one olayer sits and gives the cards only. Next round another player player sits and gives cards. So this is again only a game with 4 players.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Tarocchi Players of Palazzo Borromeo

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I would be inclined to see the picture as evidence that the game was sometimes played by 5 people at that time.
I too might be "inclined to see the picture as evidence that the game [of tarot] was sometimes played by 5 people at that time" if there were any other evidence to suggest that the game in the picture was tarot, other than its dubious name. But given that the evidence in the picture itself strongly points to the conclusion that the game is not tarot, I must instead view the fact that 5 people are playing it as further support for that conclusion.

Of course it is theoretically possible for tarot to have been played by 5 people at that time. Nearly anything is theoretically possible. But none of the earliest accounts of the game provide evidence of it being played by 5 people—and neither does anything in this painting.
Anyway, whatever game those folks were playing, we are still talking about it. And that's something, isn't it?
Indeed. I did say it is a beautiful and fascinating painting. It is, among other things, testimony to the prestige of card games in Milan in the time of Filippo Maria Visconti, a time when many people of high status in Europe held card games in contempt or viewed them as sinful. As we know, it's just one of a number of pleasant frescos of people playing cards that were painted at this time in this region. How many other regions in Italy can boast that? Filippo Maria's Lombardy seems to have been a good place to be if you enjoyed playing card games like tarot...

Re: Tarocchi Players of Palazzo Borromeo

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glennfwright wrote: 13 Apr 2022, 15:28 If you say, oh a bunch of trumps would be clearly visible, I would say maybe they were once upon a time. This image has been much altered, which was one of my points. I would also say, maybe identifying the deck as Tarot or any specific deck was neither the object nor was it necessary. The point is that it was a trick-taking game, and since we know the timeframe of the painting, it is reasonable to think it was tarot. That was the game, or really games, of the moment.

I think it would be helpful for everyone to recall something. The painting achieves a number of purposes, but it is mainly a statement of status for the family paying to have it made. And they are not going to have their richly attired young folk playing with some grubby street cards or card games that do not match the status of the players.
Just read this thread and some minor ideas/observations:

To your first point on the lack of trumps - painting figures (every trump has people) at a small scale on angular planes would have been a chore. Two circles (the 2 of coins at center) is indicative of which direction the artist decided to go: the simplest way to depict cards as pips, from the simplest suit. I think your "bigger picture" point is right on - cards, with trumps or not, were a leisurely actively important enough to be writ large as a fresco.

I think it was Ross who suggested the central figure may have been more of a "dealer" role. Her balzo is enormous and it would be in keeping with the times to put the most important figure in the middle, like a Mary flanked by saints. Perhaps she was the matron of the house, supervising/chaperoning two young couples and playing some minor role in handling the cards placed at the center of the table, as she was closest?

Finally, it appears in the low-res Burlington photo that one can make out buildings stacked upon a mountainside in a high landscape, especially in the upper left, while a slightly curving horizontal line going behind the heads of the players on the left may indicate a shoreline (the current restoration only shows a row of low hills such as one find in the cards themselves, and may have inspired said restoration). 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):
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Perhaps the fresco even celebrated betrothal events, as the woman on the left does not have the ballooning balzo hairstyle but instead one that is a braided stacked hairsyle, similarly facing right, that matches the profile of the one we find in the Cary Yale Love trump, albeit covered in gold brocade (which I regard as related to Bianca and Sforza's wedding, and this fresco was painted after that so the artist could have known that trump):

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The Borromeo did not acquire what is now called the 'Rocca Borromeo di Angera' until 1449 (I think the balzo was out of fashion by then) and the 'Isola Bella', which you also included a photo of, obviously even much later. However, in 1439 Vitaliano Borromeo (the dedicatee of Filelfo's 'On Exile', c. 1440) acquired the fortified town of Arona, across the lake from the Visconti castle in Angera, which the family inherited - that would be the logical setting of the fresco. At all events, the now vanished landscape of the fresco is not the immediate vicinity of Milan.

Thank you very much for sharing your research here Glenn.

Phaeded

PS Since 2017 one can apparently view the frescoes as part of a jewelry boutique (which in this section once again indicates the setting of an Alpine lake)
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Re: Tarocchi Players of Palazzo Borromeo

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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.)

Re: Tarocchi Players of Palazzo Borromeo

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 02 May 2022, 10:46 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.
And looking at that ball-playing fresco ago, presumably looking north, up the N-S oriented Lago Maggiore, that would also mean Arona would be on the left (SW corner of the lake), behind the hitter, and Angera on the right, where the three ladies are prepared to catch the ball in their dresses, almost as if the ball were an apple and they were the "judgement of Paris." I think you're right about the lack of commissioning actual detail - those places are merely suggested, but to the knowledgeable, it would mean the Borromeo shared the same privileged geography and leisurely pursuits as the Visconti. Vitaliano Borromeo's purchase of Arona in 1439 is most likely where the Borromeo would have decamped to in the 1440s, but again, they felt no need to tediously spell that out in the fresco. Contrast the 14th century Sienese who were proud to advertise their acquisition of the port of Talamone on their famous fresco in the Hall of the Nine by Lorenzetti (ignore the year on it - a theory that the sea coast was changed to a lake at a later point):
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Re: Tarocchi Players of Palazzo Borromeo

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Phaeded wrote: 03 May 2022, 01:47
And looking at that ball-playing fresco ago, presumably looking north, up the N-S oriented Lago Maggiore, that would also mean Arona would be on the left (SW corner of the lake), behind the hitter, and Angera on the right, where the three ladies are prepared to catch the ball in their dresses, almost as if the ball were an apple and they were the "judgement of Paris." I think you're right about the lack of commissioning actual detail - those places are merely suggested, but to the knowledgeable, it would mean the Borromeo shared the same privileged geography and leisurely pursuits as the Visconti. Vitaliano Borromeo's purchase of Arona in 1439 is most likely where the Borromeo would have decamped to in the 1440s, but again, they felt no need to tediously spell that out in the fresco. Contrast the 14th century Sienese who were proud to advertise their acquisition of the port of Talamone on their famous fresco in the Hall of the Nine by Lorenzetti (ignore the year on it - a theory that the sea coast was changed to a lake at a later point):
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I've never been to Arona, although I went to Angera. Indeed it could be that an appearance in the fresco implies possession (like Siena's possession of Talamone), which would have been presumptuous in the mid-1440s.

I am convinced that the frescoes in Milan represent scenes from the Rocca Borromeo in Arona. I took some streetview screenshots from Google Earth, taken by tourists at the now-ruined castle. There are quite a few, some with views across the narrow way to Angera.
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http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/borr ... arona1.jpg
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http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/borr ... arona2.jpg
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http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/borr ... arona3.jpg

Re: Tarocchi Players of Palazzo Borromeo

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 03 May 2022, 08:12 I've never been to Arona, although I went to Angera. Indeed it could be that an appearance in the fresco implies possession (like Siena's possession of Talamone), which would have been presumptuous in the mid-1440s.

I am convinced that the frescoes in Milan represent scenes from the Rocca Borromeo in Arona. I took some streetview screenshots from Google Earth, taken by tourists at the now-ruined castle. There are quite a few, some with views across the narrow way to Angera.
My first inclination was to say the castle; then I remembered Vitaliano Borromeo, but of course we'll never know either way.

I believe Napoleon blew up Arona, so not much to see. I think we saw the same things - Angera, principally the castle, no time for the medieval hermitage further up on the east side you need a boat to get to, but at least for me, did see Isola Bella. The villa there has an interesting painting of the Medici mother of Saint Charles Borromeo and all of her children, which is not hung anywhere prominently and the only thing I can find on-line is a detail of the little saint (of course no one knew at that point that his family would buy him a sainthood some day and he was merely the youngest in the family, tucked down in the corner of the painting, tugging on her hem). Wouldn't it have been nice to see them all playing a hand of cards? Oh well...
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BTW: Charles was born in the original Vitaliano villa in Arona; Isola Bella was built much later from 1632-71, but might be the most beautiful place I've ever set foot, especially considering it was spring and the wisteria, etc., was everywhere.
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And with the white peacocks strutting around on the north side, one would like to causally drink a bottle of vino while playing a hand of Marziano's deck (not that we'd know how exactly). Not sure why Mariano left peacocks out, but at least a good setting for a deck with suits of birds...
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