Re: Franco Pratesi, "Pairs of cards, 16th century and beyond"

121
mikeh wrote: 11 Dec 2024, 14:17
A very special case is that of a paio di scacchi [scacchi = chess, chess pieces, chess set]. Michael Howard has drawn attention to the expression un paio di scacchi included in dictionaries as an example of cases in which the term paio could also be applied to objects composed of a number of parts that is not only different from two, but

2
also not precisely defined. [note 1] In fact, the parts of a chess set [gioco di scacchi] can be one if we mean the chessboard [scacchiera] (possibly with the pieces on it) or thirty-two if we mean the chess pieces [pezzi degli scacchi].

I have searched for decades in books and manuscripts for references to chess in Italian literature, even before researching card games, and to tell the truth, I have never encountered a paio di scacchi. Yet, if you search today for that expression on Google Books you will find 63 citations, deriving mainly from the many digitized editions of dictionaries. [note 2]

Checking further, one finds that all those definitions in the dictionaries date back to the first edition of the Crusca dictionary: “Sometimes paio is said of a single body of a thing, even if it is divided into many parts, like a paio of playing cards, a paio of chess” [Talora si dice paio a un corpo solo d’una cosa, ancorché si divida di molte parti, come un paio di carte da giucare, un paio di scacchi]. [note 3]

But the most significant fact is that in that same dictionary, the origin of all subsequent entries, the compiler does not report any quotation taken from Italian literature, but indicates the expression "paio di scacchi" only as an example proposed by himself.
Pair with chess [as chess set] appears in several inventories of the 15th,16th & 17th centuries.

I only have a snippet view, but for example, from an inventry from Sienna, c1603, two beautifull wooden chess sets [para] :

... due para di scacchi di legname belli , diversi vasi di christallo , terra e d'altre qualità , borse antiche e moderne , quattro scabelloni sopravi le nominate statue , dieci scabelli bassi di noce , diversi piedi di legno sopravi ...

https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=ut ... AF6BAgGEAI

See also:

SULL’ESPRESSIONE UN PAIO DI NOZZE by Alessandro Parenti, page 103 published in Serie II: Linguistica :
Oppure nei Giornali di ser Giusto Giusti d’Anghiari, in una registrazione del 1440: «Venerdì a dì 16 settembre donai al magnifico signore messer Gismondo un paio di naibi a trionfi, che io avevo fatto fare a posta a Fiorenza con l’armi sua, belli, che mi costaro ducati quattro e mezzo».138
Quanto a un paio di scacchi, l’espressione indica ‘l’insieme costituito dalla scacchiera e dai pezzi degli scacchi’ e si trova in diversi inventari di beni redatti fra Cinque e Seicento. In uno di Palermo del 1535, ad esempio, oltre a «uno joco de scacchi di osso», si trova «uno paro di scacchi di ligno».139

Nell’inventario di Villa Medici di Roma del 1588 si parla di «3 para di scacchi che un paro mancono e pezi».140 E in un inventario senese del
1603 si registrano «due para di scacchi di legname belli».141

138 N. NEWBIGIN, I Giornali di ser Giusto Giusti d’Anghiari, cit., p. 66.

139 LIBORIA SALAMONE, Un viceré ed il suo notaio: Ettore Pignatelli e Giovanni De Marchisio, «Quaderni. Archivio di Stato di Palermo, Scuola di Archivistica, Paleografia e Diplomatica», IV, 2001-2002, pp. 149-250: 226 e 227.

140 La Villa Médicis, IV, Le collezioni del cardinale Ferdinando, a cura di A. Cecchi e C. Gasparri, Roma, Académie de France à Rome, 2009, p. 461.

141 BERNARDINA SANI, Un episodio di mecenatismo a Siena tra la fine della repubblica e il principato mediceo: Marcello e Ippolito Agostini, marchesi di Caldana, in L’ultimo secolo della Repubblica di Siena. Arti, cultura e società, a cura di M. Ascheri et alii, Siena, Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 2008, pp. 241-270: 269.

Re: Franco Pratesi, new publications (since 2023)

122
I am cross-posting with you Steve, but I see that you've confirmed some of what we suspected so far.

Here I am responding to your post of yesterday.

SteveM wrote,
There are also french equivalents for a wedding, flights of stairs etc, also 'a pair of seven psalms,une paire d'habits to mean a complete suit [ composée d'un pourpoint, d'un haut de chausses, et d'un manteau d'un justaucorps vestis completa]

See here, the author argues against the idea that such usage is based upon some inherent quality of duality in the set, p131:
https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=EK ... &q&f=false

[The discussion on pairs in french begins in the last column of the previous page]
Thanks for that link, Steve. I found it quite persuasive. From my limited knowledge of Italian, his examples in French apply also to Italian. While in many cases a duality can be contrived, there are too many cases where it cannot, and the same principle applies to both types, namely they were in general words that lacked singulars with the same meaning.

Here is my paraphrase of the argument, from an English-speaking perspective.

In English, we say "a pair of pants," but "pants" is plural: it has no singular, except in combination with "leg", "cuff", etc. Likewise for scissor. We have "one half of a pair of scissors," awkward but hardly ever needed. With "paper", we can say "some paper" but not "one paper", at least not with the same meaning; although singular, it takes a plural number word (like all uncounables). In Italian, "scacchi," meaning "chess set" or "chess pieces," has no singular, except meaning "to put the king in check" (and likewise in French): it is "pezzo di scacchi" for one chess piece. And what if you wanted to speak of two chess sets, scacchi, rather than one? Like "pairs of pants," people said "pairs of chess," in effect, with one chess set as "uno paio di schacchi" (or "un paire des echecs").

"Paper" in Latin is "charta," singular. In that case, I do not know what the equivalent plural would be, with the same meaning.

This principle applies to a great many nouns in French, many with parallels in English. "Pair of proverbs," for example, meaning the whole biblical book of Proverbs, but as something there could be more than one of: booklets distributed to students, for example, or different collections of proverbs. So two such booklets or collections would be "pairs of proverbs." I would assume that the same was true in Italian, but I don't know.

A weakness in his argument is that he deals with "cartes" as a plural with no singular, in the context of playing cards. But surely the singular is "carte", with no change in the type of object being referred to (and correspondingly in English and Italian). I think we have to go back to a time before there were playing cards, and there was the material that cards were made of, "charta," which has no plural in that sense. It is the same in English. It is also of interest that we use what would normally be a plural number adjective before it: "some paper" -i.e. a bunch of paper - as opposed to "a paper". The problem then is how to make a plural out of "some paper," i.e. two bunches of paper. So "pair" again comes in handy, for "two pairs of papers".

Here is my Google-assisted translation of the essay Steve linked to. The French follows.
IV The word "< PAIRE and French nouns that do not have a singular.

The Revue des langues romanes publishes a work by Mr. Ch. Revillout, which will greatly interest our readers. We give most of it. The learned philologist took the text of the unpublished letters of Joseph Scaliger, published by Mr. Tamizey de la Roque, to discuss the word "pair", which he encountered in the following sentence: Sir, wrote Scaliger to Pithou, of three pairs of letters, which I sent you recently, it is impossible that you did not receive any. Mr. Tamizey says about this passage: the word pair was formerly masculine. This is to draw from an example of the 16th century cited by Littré, a conclusion that is too general. It is certain that this noun is sometimes found in the masculine in our old authors and that it is still so in Saintonge, where we say un paire de piacettes. We even find it with this gender in the middle of the 17th century, and the gazetteer Loret relates, in 1000, that Cardinal Mazarin offered a pair of gloves to the widow of the Duke of Chaulnes. But the word was more usually feminine, and Scaliger, by using it in the masculine, uses it against the most common usage. Already in 1564, that is to say about nine years before his letter to Pithou, a dictionary made for children expressly includes une paire of something whatever.

What is no less worthy of observation than the use of the masculine is the strangeness of the turn of phrase: three pairs of letters to say three letters. By using this form which astonishes us, Joseph Scaliger expressed himself as was still commonly done at the end of the 16th century. Do we not find in Nicot's Dictionary this example that I transcribe in its entirety, because of its archaism: "give a pair of letters to the one who was charged with giving them. Epistolam vel litteras reddere."

How did our fathers come to use such a singular expression? Du Cange, and after him the authors of the dictionary of Trevoux, explain it by saying that a letter being folded seems to be double; but this specious interpretation seems to me to be implausible. Our word letters, in fact, has not only been put in the plural to designate missives; it is still the case when it signifies the culture of the mind, the knowledge [plural in French] that study provides.

{p. 231, first column:]
It is even found in the Middle Ages in the sense of inscription engraved on a monument. Obviously the idea of folding in two does not lend itself to its various meanings. Is it not more natural to consider this old word letters [lettres], or rather the Latin term litterae from which it came, as a plural which contains and signifies a certain number of characters, united to make a whole?

The explanation given by Du Cange is therefore not satisfactory in the particular case of pairs of letters; it is much less so finally when it comes to accounting for these bizarre expressions: pair of weddings, pair of delights, pair of wheats, pair of news, and so many others. Let us try to follow the generation of ideas which could have led to their use.

The primitive meaning of the word pair is not doubtful to anyone. It signifies two similar things, which are ordinarily joined together. A pair of stockings, shoes, gloves, cuffs, earrings, spectacles, garters. After similar objects came those that couple together, are paired, and rarely go one without the other. a pair of cattle, a pair of chickens, a pair of pigeons, a pair of wheels, a pair of andirons, a pair of stirrups, pistols. From this meaning to that of an accidental meeting of people or things, the passage was not difficult: Rabelais said un pair of friendship; we ourselves say a [une] pair of friends; the English still call the sonnes or throw of the dice that brings together the two sixes: a royal pair. The expression then extended to things that form only one whole, undivided, composed of two similar parts: a pair of tweezers, scissors, pincers, cuffs. In medicine, we also say a pair of nerves, to name each division of similar nerves which have a common origin. Later, from this habit of giving the name of pair to a single object, we passed to the use of applying this denomination to things which, although forming a single whole, were, whatever the number of parts which composed this whole, designated only by a plural word. Thus we say a pair of arms [une paire d'armes] to signify an armor [armure = suit of armor], that is to say the union of several defensive and harmless armes; a pair of steps [une paire de degrés], in order to designate the set of steps which compose a staircase, and this form has been maintained in the English language. Later, when playing cards were invented, the union of the pieces which constituted the same game was called a pair of cards [une paire de cartes]. Finally, we use the word pair simply with nouns which had no singular; and one says a pair of weddings [noces], a pair of letters [lettres]. Some of these nouns used only in the plural came from feminine or masculine Latin nouns, such as délices, lettres, noces, ténèbres.

Others, in greater number, display nouns and especially adjectives, neuter in Latin, which had been assimilated to French feminines; thus orgues [organ], obsèques [funeral], espousailles [nuptials], fiançailles [engagement], etc. A third category contained words which, without coming precisely from Latin plurals, were only used in the plural in old French, such as trèves [truce], descrottoyres [waning], escriptoyres, etc. Finally, as today, came nouns which had a different meaning in the plural than in the singular, such as cartes, ordres, tables (game of backgammon), tablettes, etc.

When one wanted to attach the idea of unity to these nouns lacking a singular, one was not embarrassed. They were preceded by the article ungs, unes, imitated from the Latin uni and which was used only before plurals. One therefore said ungs yeulx, ungs bras, to designate the two eyes, the two

[p. 131, 2nd column]
arms, etc.; ung gantz, ungs souliers, unes monches, instead of saying a pair of gloves, shoes or sleeves; unes cards, in order to signify a deck of cards, etc. All the epithets which related to these nouns are then put in the plural.

But, if the words uni and unae had been passed from Latin to French, as the same had not been done with the other distributive adjectives, there was no way of counting nouns devoid of singular. To be able, it was therefore necessary to resort to a collective term which would be joined to most of them, in order to make them quantities capable of being numbered. Paire presented itself quite naturally. When one had to speak of only one object, it was used in competition with ungs and unes; When there were several of these factitious units, could one not, in the absence of articles, also use them and accompany them with a number name? A single [set of] armor [armure] was called indifferently one armor [unes armure] or one pair of arms [une paire d'armes] : two [sets of] armor [armures] could therefore be called two pairs of arms.

This is why one was led to say not only three pairs of letters, instead of three letters, but three pairs of weddings, to designate three weddings. I have been, says a contemporary grammarian of Charles VIII and Louis XII, to three pairs of weddings [nopces], to the ones [unes] of my brother, to the others [auitres], of my son, and to the thirds [aux tierces], of my nephew. Which he translates into Latin by the following sentence, which leaves no doubt: Interfui ternis nuptiis, unis filil mei, alteris fratris, tertiis nepotis. Three pairs is used, as we see, to replace the distributive article ternis. Similarly, the Chronicle of Saint Denis bears these words: Luy venunt deux pairs de mauvaises nouvelles, for two bad [pieces of] news [nouvelles = literally "news”].

I cannot guarantee that pair was thus used before all nouns devoid of singular; but, without speaking of words which carry with them an idea of duality, I have encountered it before a very large number of nouns which have only the plural. Thus one said une paire d'armes, une paire de cartes, une paire de délices, une paire d'heures, une paire de paternôtres, une paire de lettres, une paire de noces, une paire de loins [long ways], une paire d'orgues, une paire d'armoires [auimoires], une paire de vergettes [?], une paire d'écritures [writings]. And let no one pretend that these words presented an idea of duality; that we say, for example, a pair of hours [paire d'heures] to designate a book which contains the office of the day and that of the night: this explanation, which could be satisfied with great rigor as regards a collection of prayers (1), would not be appropriate for most of the nouns listed above. What idea of duality, for example, does the word délices offer? How, on the contrary, can we not find that of plurality in a pair of armes, which had the same meaning as armor and was composed, says Trévoux, of a helmet, a breastplate, armbands, tassets, etc.? From this use of the word pair to give plural nouns the meaning of the singular and to allow the things they represent to be counted as so many individual objects, a new meaning was born, no less strange at first sight. This expression was considered to designate, no longer a couple, but an assortment of objects forming a whole, and we say a pair of clothes to designate the collection of clothes necessary for the toilet (2)

1. But how to explain in this way a pair of seven psalms, a pair of vigils, cited by Trévoux.
2. A pair of clothes which is composed of a doublet, an aut-de-chausses and a coat of a justaucorps, beslis completa. (Trévoux.) Today we would say "a complete."
The question is to what degree this applies to Italian. Certainly notizie = nouvelles = "news" or "pieces of information"; and cartes = carte and "échecs = scacchi. paternôtres = paternostri.

In particular, would this practice have extended to illustrations, prints, engravings, etc.? Or could "1 paio di trionfi in carta pechora di messer francesco petrarcha" have simply referred to the same type of object as the "1 Libro di trionffi del petrarcha choperto di rosso" of the other inventory Franco cited 15 months and 69 folio pages earlier in the same book of inventories.

Here is the French:
IV
Le mot «< PAIRE et les noms français qui n'ont pas de singulier.
La Revue des langues romanes publie un travail de M. Ch. Revillout, qui intéressera vivement nos lecteurs. Nous en donnons la plus grande partie.
Le savant philologue, a pris texte des lettres inédites de Joseph Scaliger, publiées par M. Tamizey de la Roque, pour disserter sur le mot « paire », qu'il a rencontré dans la phrase suivante: Monsieur, écrit Scaliger à Pithou, de trois paires de lettres, que je vous envoial dernirement, il est impossible que vous n'en alés receu quelcun.

M. Tamizey dit à propos de ce passage: le mot paire était autrefois du masculin. C'est tirer d'un exemple du xvIe siècle cité par Littré, une conclusion trop générale. Il est certain que ce nom se trouve parfois au masculin dans nos anciens auteurs et qu'il l'est encore en Saintonge, où l'on dit un paire de piacettes. On le rencontre même avec ce genre en plein xvII siècle, et le gazetier Loret raconte, en 1000, que le cardinal Mazarin offrit un paire de gants à la veuve du duc de Chaulnes. Mais le mot était plus habituellement féminin, et Scaliger, en l'employant au masculin, s'en sert contre l'usage le plus commun. Déjà en 1564, c'est-à-dire neuf ans environ avant sa lettre à Pithou, un dictionnaire fait pour les enfants porte expressément une paire de quelque chose que ce soit.

Ce qui n'est pas moins digne d'observation que l'emploi du masculin, c'est l'étrangeté de la tournure: trois paires de lettres pour dire trois lettres. En usant de cette forme qui nous étonne, Joseph Scaliger s'exprimait comme on le faisait couramment encore à la fin du xvi siècle. Ne trouve-t-on pas dans le Dictionnaire de Nicot cet exemple que je transcris tout entier, à cause de son archaisme: « bailler une paire de lettres à celuy qu'on nous avoit enchargé de les bailler. Epistolam vel litteras reddere. »

Comment nos pères ont-ils été portés à se servir d'une locution aussi singulière?

Du Cange, et après lui les auteurs du dictionnaire de Trévoux, l'expliquent en disant qu'une lettre étant pliée semble être double; mais cette interprétation spécieuse me parait peu plausible.

Notre mot lettres, en effet, n'a pas été seulement mis au pluriel pour désigner des missives; il l'est encore quand il signifie la culture de l'esprit, les connaissances que procure


[p. 131, column 1]
l'étude. On le rencontre même au moyen Age dans le sens d'inscription gravée sur un monument. Evidemment Tidée de plier en deux ne so prête point à ses diverses acceptions. N'est-il pas plus naturel de considérer ce vieux mot lettres, ou plutôt le terme latin fiftere dont il est venu, comme un pluriel qui renferme et signifle un certain nombre de caractères, réunis pour faire un tout?

L'explication donnée par Du Cange n'est donc pas satisfaisante dans le cas particulier de paires de lettres; elle l'est bien moins enfin quand il s'agit de rendre compte de ces expressions bizarres: paire de noces, paire de délices, paire de blés, paire de nouvelles, et de tant d'autres.

Essayons de suivre la génération des idées qui ont pu conduire à les employer.

Le sens primitif du mot paire n'est douteux pour personne. Il signifle deux choses pareilles, qui se joignent ordinairement ensemble. Une paire de bas, de souliers, de gants, de manchettes, de pendants d'oreille, de lunettes, de jarretières. Après les objets pareils, venaient ceux qui s'accouplent ensemble, sont appariés et ne vont guère l'un sans l'autre. une paire de brufs, une paire de poulets, une paire de pigeons, une paire de roues, une paire de chenets, une paire d'étriers, de pistolets. De cette acception à celle de réunion accidentelle de personnes ou de choses, le passage n'était pas difficile: Rabelais a dit we paire d'amitiê; nous disons nous-mêmes une paire d'amis; les Anglais appellent encore le sonnes ou coup de dés qui réunit les deux six: a royal pair. La locution s'étendit ensuite aux choses qui ne forment qu'un tout, non divisé, composé de deux parties semblables: une paire de pincettes, de ciseaux, de tenailles. de manchettes. On dit aussi, en médecine, une paire de nerfs, pour nommer chaque division de nerfs semblables qui ont une origine commune. Plus tard de cette habitude de donner le nom de paire à un objet unique on passa à l'usage d'appliquer cette dénomination à des choses qui, bien que formant un seul tout, n'étaient, quel que fat d'ailleurs le nombre des parties qui composaient cet ensemble, délgnées que par un mot pluriel. Ainsi l'on dit une paire d'armes pour signifier une armure, c'est-à-dire la réunion de plusieurs armes défensives et inoffensives; une paire de degrés, afin de désigner l'ensemble des marches qui composent un ercalier, et cette forme s'est maintenue dans la langue anglaise. Plus tard, quand les cartes à jouer curent été inventées, la réunion des pièces qui constituaient un même jeu se nomma une paire de cartes. Enfin l'on employe le mot paire simplement avec des noms qui n'avaient pas de singulier; et l'on dit une paire de noces, une paire de lettres.

Quelques-uns de ces noms employés seulement au pluriel venaient de noms latins féminins ou masculins, comme délices, lettres, noces, ténèbres. D'autres, en plus grand nombre, étalent des substantifs et surtout des adjectifs, neutres en latin, qu'on avait assimilés à des féminins français; ainsi orgues, armes, obsèques, épousailles, fiançailles, etc. Une troisième catégorie contenait les mots qui, sans venir précisément de pluriels latins, n'étaient employés qu'au pluriel dans l'ancien français, tels que trèves, descrolloyres escriptoyres, etc. Enfin venaient comme aujourd'hui, des noms qui avaient au pluriel un autre sens qu'au singulier, tels que cartes, ordres, tables (jeu de trictrac), tablettes, etc.

Quand on voulait attacher l'idée d'unité à ces noms manquant de singulier, on n'était pas embarrassé. On les faisait précéder de l'article ungs, unes, Imité du latin ni et qui s'employait seulement devant les pluriels. On disalt donc ungs yeulx, ungs bras, pour les deux yeux, les deux

p. 131, column 2
bras, etc.; ung gantz, ungs souliers, unes monches, au lieu de dire une paire de gants, de souliers ou de manches; unes cartes, afin de signifier un jeu de cartes, etc. Toutes les épithètes qui se rapportaient à ces noms se mettalent ensuite au pluriel.

Mais, si l'on avait fait passer du latin en français les mots uni et una, comme on n'avait pas agi de même avec les autres adjectifs distributifs, on n'avait pas de moyen pour compter les noms dépourvus de singulier. Pour le pouvoir, il fallait donc recourir à un terme collectif que l'on joindrait à la plupart d'entre eux, afin d'en faire des quantités susceptibles de numération. Paire se présentait assez naturellement. Quand on n'avait à parler que d'un seul objet, on l'employait en concurrence avec ungs et unes; lorsque l'on était en présence de plusieurs de ces unités factices, ne pouvait-on pas, en l'absence d'articles, s'en servir aussi et l'accompagner d'un nom de nombre? Une seule armure s'appelait indifféremment unes armes ou une paire d'armes: deux armures pouvaient donc se nommer deux paires d'armes.

Voilà pourquel l'on fut amené à dire non seulement trois paires de lettres, au lieu de trois lettres, mais trois paires de noces, pour désigner trois noces. J'ai esté, dit un grammairien contemporain de Charles VIII et de Louis XII, & troys paires de nopces, aux unes de mon frère, aux aultres. de mon fils et aux tierces de mon nepveu. Ce qu'il traduit en latin par la phrase suivante, qui ne laisse aucun doute: Interfui ternis nuptiis, unis filil mei, alteris fratris, tertiis nepotis. Trois paires sert, on le voit, à remplacer l'article distributif ternis. De même la Chronique de saint Denis porte ces mots: Luy vinrent deux paires de mauvaises. nouvelles, pour deux mauvaises nouvelles.

Je ne puis garantir que paire ait été ainsi employé devant tous les noms dépourvus de singulier; mais, sans parler des mots qui emportent avec eux une idée de dualité, je l'al rencontrée devant un très grand nombre de substantifs quin'ont que le pluriel.

Ainsi l'on disait une paire d'armes, une paire de cartes, une paire de délices, une paire d'heures, une paire de patenôtres, une paire de lettres, une paire de noces, une paire de reins, une paire d'orgues, une paire d'armoires (auimoires), une paire de vergettes, une paire d'écritures.

Et que l'on ne prêtende pas que ces mots présentaient une idée de dualité; qu'on disalt, par exemple, une paire d'heures pour désigner un livre qui contient l'office du jour et celul de la nuit: cette explication, dont on pourrait se contenter à la grande rigueur en ce qui concerne un recueil de prières (1), ne serait pas de mise pour la plupart des noms énu. mérés plus haut. Quelle idée de dualité, par exemple, offre le mot delices? Comment, au contraire, ne pas trouver celle le pluralité dans une paire d'armes, qui avait le même sens qu'armure et se composait, dit Trévoux, d'un casque, d'une cuirasse, de brassarts, de tassettes, etc.?

De cet emploi du mot paire pour donner à des substantifs pluriels le sens du singulier et permettre de compter les choses qu'ils représentalent comme autant d'objets individuels, naquit une nouvelle acception, non moins étrange au premier abord. On considéra cette expression comme désignant, non plus un couple, mais un assortiment d'objets formant un tout, et l'on dit une paire d'habits pour désigner a réunion des vêtements nécessaires à la toilette (2)
1. Mais comment expliquer ainsi une paire de sept psaumes, une paire de vigiles, cités par Trévoux.
2. Une paire d'habits qui est composée d'un pourpoint, d'un aut-de-chausses et d'un manteau d'un justaucorps, beslis completa. (Trévoux.) On dirait aujourd'hui "un complet."
Last edited by mikeh on 21 Dec 2024, 12:06, edited 1 time in total.

Re: paio

124
I wrote
What is "two" about a string of rosary beads (also called "paternostri")? I suppose you could say the string and the beads, but that strikes me as stretching it. The primary object is the beads, to count how many "Our Fathers" one has said. The string merely holds them together. It could even be knots in a rope.
Franco, private communication, offers a speculative but seemingly possible explanation for "paio di paternostri" as follows:
With rosaries I have a possible explanation why the beads can be called a paio. You state that the prayer goes by repeating the pater noster. Actually it does not work so here. As far as I remember, there is something similar to a week: a series of working days separated by Sundays. Rosary is essentially dedicated to Madonna with many sets of Ave Maria prayers, separated by special/different and normally larger beads for Pater noster prayers. A paio of beads is a complete set formed both by Ave and Pater beads.

A paio di nozze (never found myself, but understandable) is equally made by two companies. It is not a usual dining of a company of many fellows; in this special event there are two distinct companies of fellows, the relatives and friends of the wife together with the relatives and friends of the husband – two different sets that will not meet otherwise.
And for the word "gioco" applied to a set
As for the word gioco it is rather often found with the meaning of a set, but not for any set. This special set is such as to represent a series of items which can be used separately and can became a gioco whenever the set is complete. Typical examples are measuring items, unit weights for a scale, different bottles for liquids.
Last edited by mikeh on 25 Dec 2024, 12:00, edited 3 times in total.

New discovery: the oldest known detailed inventory of a card maker's possessions

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Now comes one more discovery of Franco's, another Florentine inventory, this time one which Thierry Depaulis, in correspondence with Franco, has declared to be "the oldest detailed postmortem inventory of a card maker with his tools." Franco has recorded the inventory verbatim in its original language at https://naibi.net/A/8-37-ANTONIO.pdf, in his note "Notizie su Antonio di Luca (Firenze 1385-1428)." Franco and I have tried to translate all its items into modern English. Of the Italian original, I have reproduced only the items pertaining to the card maker's trade.

Comments in brackets are, as usual, mine in consultation with Franco, for explanatory purposes, except for an Appendix added here (originally in Italian) by Thierry Depaulis. In this translation, footnotes 1-9 are as in Franco's Italian pdf. Footnotes A-D are in reference to Thierry's comments about the inventory and specific items within it, which form an Appendix that we have added after Franco's own presentation. Probably this essay and its Appendix will be published sometime in the future in The Playing-Card, but meanwhile, here it is for readers of THF.

Information about Antonio di Luca (Florence 1385-1428)

Franco Pratesi

1. Introduction.

There is little information about the artisans who produced naibi in Florence in the first decades after the introduction of playing cards, documented only from 1377 (which is one of the oldest dates known for Europe). Werner Jacobsen's book on the painters of the time can be cited, [note 1] as well as some details that I reported years ago; [note 2] this information has recently been re-discussed and better inserted into the Florentine context by Ada Labriola. [note 3]

Here I intend to add some information about Antonio di Luca: in particular, in the first section I expand on what is already known from the Catasto of 1427, and in the second I report the data resulting from an inventory, also kept in the State Archives of Florence (ASFi), of everything found in the house after his death.

Contrary to the usual, I did not locate the inventory in question personally; in this case, the collection is the Notarile antecosimiano [pre-Cosimo Notarial Archive], which for my non-professional level is too vast and usually impossible to read. As has already happened in a couple of previous cases, the discovery is due to a friend who knows my research sector, and who, for his studies, can read these papers with ease.

2. Information from the Catasto

If you search for Antonio di Luca on the Tarot History Forum site, you will find a notice by Ross Caldwell. [note 4] The reference is to an old publication by Ludovico Zdekauer, republished by Gherardo Ortalli, [note 5] based on the Florentine Catasto [Property Tax Register] of 1427.

In addition to the internal catalogues of the ASFi, a detailed inventory is also available for the Catasto by Brown University, which can be consulted online; [note 6] our Antonio di Luca can be identified among a few namesakes. What immediately distinguishes him is above all his surname: Fainarbi. In fact, the Florentines who had a family name already at the time were a small minority; typically, the patronymic was used, often with the addition of the paternal grandfather's first name.

This surname of Fainarbi is not familiar in Florence, but it is immediately understandable for those who know that “narbi” was an incorrect transcription of naibi, also documented in printed texts. Then two important things are understood.

The first is that it is not the surname Fainarbi, but the profession "fa i naibi" [makes the naibi]. The second is that serious scholars, of academic level, do not know enough about either the narbi or the naibi and can therefore fall into the trap. This also means that there may be a lot of information about our naibi that has escaped the attention of the few users of the archive able to read even the most difficult writing.

Zdekauer confirms only the gonfalone [subdistrict] of the Golden Lion in the quarter of San Giovanni and the 42 years of Antonio di Luca who, correctly in that case, “fa i naibi”. The online inventory adds other data, in addition to the fact that in 1427 Antonio was 42 years old: in particular, that he was the head of a family of three, that he lived in a rented house, and that he did not have a taxable income; enough, in short, to understand that he was not the master of a flourishing workshop, but a poor craftsman.

I wanted to check the Catasto better; it can be consulted in the internal photo library of the ASFi. The data I can add is not much, but it is quite indicative.
___________________
1. W. Jacobsen, Die Maler von Florenz zu Beginn der Renaissance. Munich 2001.
2. For example, Playing-Card Trade in 15th-Century Florence. IPCS Papers No. 7. North Walsham 2012.
3. In: Tarots enluminés. Paris 2021, pp. 113-121.
4. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=5526&hilit=a ... luca#p5526
5. L. Zdekauer, Il gioco d’azzardo nel Medioevo italiano. Florence 1993.
6. https://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/ ... d=50006649


2
The three members of the family were Antonio, 42 years old, his wife Sandra, only 21, and a Luca, 12. The wife Sandra was evidently too young to be Luca's mother, but that Luca was Antonio's son is also suggested by the fact that, as often happened, he was baptized with the name of his paternal grandfather. So, it must be assumed that Antonio had remained a widower with little Luca before marrying this Sandra as a second wife.

Image


ASFi, Catasto, 78, f. 214v


It appears from several examples that the profession of naibi painter was usually passed down from father to son, but in the family under examination it appears evident that there could not have been a proliferation of craftsmen specialized in that production. Limiting our attention to Antonio, we can still recognize, also using Jacobsen's list, that he was one of the first to practice that profession. From the Catasto we obtain other data of a certain interest. In particular, we read that the house that the family lived rented ‒ for seven florins a year ‒ was located in Campo Corbolini, at the beginning of the current Via Faenza, a location distant from the one around Borgo Santi Apostoli where several painters' workshops were concentrated. On the other hand, in the case of Antonio di Luca, his production could have been carried out within the same family home.

The essential part of the Catasto is the economic balance sheet determining the tax to be paid to the Commune [i.e. the Republic of Florence]. The sum of the debts is thus recorded (to an apothecary, a grain seller, a stationer, a dyer, and four haberdashers [merciai, American English: dry goods merchants]), the amount owed for the house and for the three "mouths" of the family. Usually, the painters sold groups of packs of cards to the haberdashers, who resold them at retail at increased prices; therefore, the fact that our Antonio found himself in debt with the haberdashers presents itself as a further demonstration of the poor economic performance of his business.

In the end, the balance sheet is completely in the red and Antonio only has to pay the minimum tax of 3 soldi.

3
3. Information from the notarial deed of 14 September 1428

The document in question is preserved in a manuscript with the protocols of the Florentine notary Lodovico di Antonio. [note 7] Fortunately, the inventory that interests us is compiled in Italian, as is the rule, also using a handwriting that is easier to read than the remaining part of the text of the deed, written in Latin and with frequent abbreviations. After the initial part of two pages, the inventory occupies a page and a half (the first in two columns); immediately after the line of greatest interest to us, the last of the actual inventory, the difficult-to-decipher Latin writing begins again, which continues for another two pages. [note A]

Image


ASFi, Notarile Antecosimiano, 11848, f. 134v-135r

At the beginning, we read the personal details of Donna Sandra: daughter of the late Lapo di Nicola, a shoemaker, and widow of Antonio di Luca, a painter of the parish of San Lorenzo. In the notarial deed, we read, repeated several times, the reference to the dowry of seventy gold florins (a below-average amount). In a deed from 1421, cited with the references, six artisans from the neighbourhood [note 8] had been reported as guarantors of the bride and her dowry; now the widow does not become the deceased's heir but has the right to the return of the dowry. In this notarial deed, Donna Sandra declares herself satisfied with maintaining possession of the goods present inside the house as equivalent to the dowry and therefore forever frees the six artisans from their guarantee on the dowry itself.

As has been found in other cases, it is not this most relevant part of the deed that interests us, but practically only the detail of the inventory of the household goods in Italian, and indeed even of that especially a minority part.

I propose, however, to transcribe the entire inventory, in which we find all the objects present in the home, both for domestic use and for work, as follows.

_________________
7. ASFi, Notarile antecosimiano, 11848, ff. 133-136.
[A. See point A of the Appendix.]
8. Giovanni, son of Paolo, was a barber; Dato di Cristofano Pucci was a wool worker; Mirco, son of Matteo, was a carpenter; Corsino di Ventura was a shoemaker; Giovanni, son of Simone, was a blacksmith; Sandro, son of Giovanni, was a shearer.

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[indented lines indicated with four dashes: ----]
Five wine barrels / Twenty bottles [with straw covers] / One bucket with pulley /
(f. 134v first column) Two trestles [table-legs and supports] with broken tabletop /
One chicken coop / Two crates for goods / One small basket /
Two small tables and a cooking pan /
One small loom and one small plate from Mallorca [da majolica] / 1 colander /
Four arm-lengths of large boards /
Two trestles with the old table /
One chest for [making] bread /
1 Chest ["Chest" crossed out] wooden tub for flour /
One bowl and two trays
----of earthenware / 1 oil jar /
One barrel /
Two [copper] cauldrons / 1 copper jug
----and 1 pair of tongs /
One overused double-locked chest /
Two overused chests /
One overused chest / 1 terracotta measuring cup /
One half quarter [measuring bottle for liquids] /
four bushel containers for milling [of grain] /
One basket and 1 bench /
One commode chair /
One cheese cage / two
----Earthen basins / 1 Mattress
One bag mattress [2 sheets sewn together and stuffed] / 1 Quilt /
Two feather mattresses / 1 vermilion cloth /
One white blanket /
Two cane chairs /
One standard bench / 1
----Shelf with bowls and
----cutting boards
Two grain barrels with
----1 bushel container of grain
Two iron andirons / two tripods
----of iron /
(f. 134v second column) Two pans /
One coat rack / 1 iron candleholder /
One bed frame/ two chests nearby /
One chest of 3 arm-lengths / 1 women’s undergarment /
Two pillows with mesh pillowcases
----hemmed with cloth / 1 men’s garment with
----black sleeves with 3 buttons
----of gilded silver /
One old doublet /
One cap / 1 small jar /
One painting of Madonna/
One pillow with pillowcase /
Three hats / 4 pairs of breeches /
One tablecloth / two belts /
Two belts / 1 with black band with
----buckle and tongue and six belt loops [?], the other


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----with its/on top [??] band with flowers with buckle and one tongue
----and four gilded belt loops [?]
Two rows of black amber rosaries /
Three brass candleholders /
One used light grey cloak /
One used women’s dark brown robe /
One used black cloak
One double coarse grey cloth robe / 1
----women’s Romagna skirt / 1 Double
----dark brown robe of smooth cotton fabric /
One women’s red dress with 52 buttons
----of gilded silver / 1 used pink hood /
One boys’ double tunic of pink fabric
----with two silver buttons and one cast
One boys’ grey tunic with twelve
----silver eyelets / 1 doublet of
----good white cotton blend / One boys’
----little striped double cloak in wool
----with two silver buttons
(f. 135r) Three pairs of shears / 1 flat brass basin /
Three tin plates and one small plate /
VII supper plates / 1 tablecloth / 1 Towel [or other cloth] /
Two towels / 1 napkin / two shirts, 1 men's
----and 1 women’s / one cap of velvet and pink fabric
----with silver cups in stitching / three handkerchiefs
One used double light grey robe [or tunic] of smooth cotton fabric /
One used hood of pink fabric / One used men's simple
----white tunic / Five used men’s stockings / Two
----yarn towels / Five used children’s towels /
Two caps and one with cups on the seam /
Four hundred and forty painted cards of the Virgin Mary
----stories and saints / One small Marble with two grinders /
Two pairs of used sheets / 157 pounds of low-quality paper,
----new / forty-six pounds of fine paper [or: cards of the fine type] /
One hundred pounds of royal[-sized] sheets written and unwritten / 72 woodblocks
----for naibi and saints both small and large

[Here is the Italian original for the last six lines of the inventory, which relate his activity as a card maker:
Quatrocento quaranta carte dipinte di vergine maria
----storie e santi / Uno Marmo piccholo con due macinatoi /
Due paia di lençuola usate / libre 157 di carte da straccii
----nuove / libre quarantasei di carte fini nuove / libri
Cento di fogli reali iscripti e non scripti / 72 forme
----da naybi e santi tra piccholi e grandi]
The information that can be obtained from this notarial inventory is decidedly detailed, and we are especially interested in the products and work tools. The few objects of clothing and household use, often overused, are consistent with what could be expected from the data in the Catasto: he was truly a poor craftsman. [note B]

More indicative are the few objects of work and what was being worked on at the time of the craftsman's death. It can be said in this regard that at the very least, a line of information on the work of Antonio di Luca has been added: "72 woodblocks [forme] of naibi and saints both small and large."

This simple element already contains several useful pieces of information. The initial number of 72 is much higher than we could have expected. The forme at this time could only have been the woodblocks used for xylography [woodcut printing]: this technique for paper is not documented from much earlier, but it seems that it had been used on fabrics for centuries. For playing cards, considering their typical dimensions, it is unthinkable to use a woodblock for less than a number of cards close to ten.
________________
[B. See point B of the Appendix.]

6
Finding naibi together with saints is not unexpected news, because we know that sacred images, such as those on playing cards, were among the first to be reproduced in series. However, finding them mixed together like this creates some problems for a plausible reconstruction. Certainly, this promiscuity makes us understand how easy it was to move from a pack of naibi to one of triumphs: it was enough to combine the naibi with prints of equal size available to the card maker with other subjects ‒ sacred or profane ‒ present together.

Even the attributes of small and large are not precisely definable. On the one hand, we know that naibi were produced in different sizes; there was not, nor could there be, a standardization of sizes as was achieved later, so that at most each card maker could produce his packs of cards in a size of his choice, depending on the sheets he used and the number of cards he obtained from each woodblock. For the sheets, there could have been some standardization, but for the woodblocks I believe there could only have been approximation.

Since the same naibi painter could produce packs of cards of different sizes, we arrive at a multiplication of the forms by a factor of two or even three. Furthermore, it is probable that new or nearly new woodblocks coexisted alongside others that had been used for a long time, perhaps considering different qualities of workmanship. In this way, the number of woodblocks whose presence would be foreseeable can be multiplied; but even so, arriving at 72 is not possible.

It would then be concluded that it was above all the sacred images that required more woodblocks for production: for example, it is clear that a playing card cannot reach the size of a sheet of paper similar to our A4 to A3 format [210 mm x 297 mm to 297 mm x 420 mm], while this is possible, if desired, for a sacred image of the type of the painted cards with the Madonna present in the workshop.

For the images of saints, there is also a peculiarity different from that of playing cards. For the different saints, it would not have been easy to consider them of equal importance, as happens for the individual playing cards, of which equal numbers must be produced to use the available paper without waste. The saints are appreciated and sought after in very different ways, from the patron saint of the city to saints considered protectors of individual villages, parishes, or families. In this case, a diversification of the number of specimens is as important as that of the differentiation of dimensions.

There is one last factor to consider. In the line under consideration, only naibi and saints are mentioned, but in the sheets with the Madonnas, in addition to the saints, there are also stories. Images with chronological episodes would require woodblocks other than those already considered, and in quantities that are difficult to predict. This has the consequence that the number of woodblocks necessary increases significantly.

Although the added details allow us to get a little closer to the starting number 72, I still cannot explain so many woodblocks at the painter's disposal. In particular, this overabundance of woodblocks also appears to be in contrast with the scarcity of all the other objects of use. I had encountered one case, for example, in which seven woodblocks were in question, of which only four seemed essential to produce a pack of cards. [note 9]

Some comments can be made on other entries in the inventory. Thus, the one hundred pounds of royal sheets written and unwritten [fogli reali iscripti e non scripti] appear to be directly linked to the craftsman's production. It would seem that for printing, the large royal sheets were especially used, which had a size similar to our A2 format [420 mm x 594 mm, double the size of A3, which is double the size of A4], with one sheet corresponding to four A4 sheets placed side by side.

The unwritten sheets were those on which the images would be printed and then painted. With the written royal sheets, we encounter another problem of interpretation. We can think of the participle “written” as meaning “already printed”, with the images ‒ perhaps still to be painted or perhaps already painted ‒ present on the sheet, certainly still to be cut. The alternative of considering them as royal sheets written by others and then discarded seems unlikely because these large sheets, folded in two, were used only for writings of great importance, to be preserved for a long time. We also encounter sheets of other types of paper, which were evidently also necessary for production. [note C]
______________________
9. http://trionfi.com/cardmakers-woodblock-trial
[C. See point C in the Appendix.]

7
Among the products, the high number of 440 Madonnas, saints, and stories stands out. In this case, however, it must be kept in mind that paintings or bas-reliefs of Madonnas were hung in several rooms of each house, and this type of image was probably the cheapest.

Among the other objects, the presence of the three pairs of shears is well understood, considering the need to cut out the individual playing cards from the group printed and painted together. The marble with grinder could be a mortar, [note D] necessary to reduce the dyes used to paint the images into a very fine powder.

It is not certain, but it seems likely, that the 46 pounds of new carte fine [fine, i.e. good quality, paper, or: cards of the fine type] are in fact new playing cards of the fine type, ready for sale. In those years, using the names of naibi or carte for the same objects is already documented. If so, a little more detail would have been useful.


4. Conclusion


That the painter Antonio di Luca produced naibi was already known by the nineteenth century, but the source of the information, present in the Florentine Catasto of 1427, had been used only to a minimal extent. The re-examination of that source has allowed us to obtain further information on the family’s economic situation when Antonio was 42 years old.

Even more important was the discovery of the inventory of what was present in the house of Antonio di Luca the following year, immediately after his death. The objects of clothing and household use confirm the indigent state of the family, while we obtain other important information from the presence of work objects.

In particular, the sheets of paper used for production are documented, as well as the associated woodblocks. Production was mainly aimed at two parallel sectors, sacred images and naibi. In both cases, the outlines of the images were printed on the sheets, which were then painted and cut to size.

The number of woodblocks present for the production of sacred images and playing cards is 72, so large as to create problems of interpretation. Other more convincing hypotheses will be possible in this regard, or perhaps further data will be found, in order to obtain the desired precision.

However, the information that has been added in this study to the little that we knew about the personage and his production is already of considerable interest, also because it informs us, albeit indirectly, about the production of his fellow painters specialized in the production of sacred images and playing cards, about whom we know even less.

Florence, 12.11.2024
________________
[D. See point D in the Appendix.]


[APPENDIX

Thierry Depaulis has shared with me [Franco] the following comments regarding this study.

A. This is the oldest detailed postmortem inventory of a card maker with his tools. It is the 3rd oldest written, dated reference to woodcuts, and here again for playing cards (and saints). (The 1st in Palermo in 1418, the 2nd also in Palermo, in 1422.)
B. I am not sure Antonio is that poor, with 72 woodblocks and some expensive garments, as well as a commode chair, a clear element of snug comfort.
C. Antonio has: 1) fine paper, which he probably uses for the front and back of his cards; and 2) 157 pounds of “carte da straccii nuove”. The latter is what until the late 19th century was called littress by English and American card makers, derived from the French l’étresse; it was similar to what is now called “kraft paper”. Also called main-brune [brown-hand] in the 18th century, it is the middle paper, grey or brown, made with little glue, that forms the core of the card.
We may add that straccio (plural straccii) or straccia is the same as Provençal estrasse (probably through Piedmontese strassa), and estrasse became estresse (later étresse) in French.
D. The “Marmo piccholo con due macinatoi” is a grinding stone (or grinding marble), as found in later French inventories. The grinder is generally called a “molette”. For me, it is not a mortar. {For more on molette, see French Wikipédia, which has a picture. The term translates roughly as “serrated wheel”.}]

Added Jan. 6: The translations of a few of the items in the inventory have been changed, based on the opinion of an archivist Franco consulted. "Small [dining?] table" is just "small table." "Small plate of majolica" is "small plate from Mallorca." "One small frame" in the same sentence should be "one small loom." "Women's board" is deleted, in favor of just "painting of Madonna."
Last edited by mikeh on 07 Jan 2025, 04:37, edited 3 times in total.

Re: Franco Pratesi, new publications (since 2023)

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Thanks for drawing our attention to Franco's latest work, Mike. His prodigious output never ceases to amaze me.

The seemingly high number of woodblocks in this printer's workshop doesn't surprise me, however. Most of those 72 woodblocks were probably quite small. As Franco says, it would have been the religious images that were responsible for most of the woodblocks—not so much because they were available in many sizes, however, but simply because most of the religious images were probably engraved on a single small woodblock, rather than several of them being engraved on one large woodblock. This would have allowed the printer greater flexibility.

This is because the fluctuations in demand probably varied considerably from one religious image to another, so for most of them, it would have been impractical to print numerous copies of a set of different images at the same time (unlike the playing cards, where that would have been the only practical option). Also bear in mind that the printing technique used at this time both for playing cards and for religious images was rubbing (and not the printing press), so it would have been quite easy for the printer to create multiple images from the same (small) woodblock on a single sheet of paper, if so desired.