Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi document

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Giusto Giusto appears in the earliest Trionfi document, which got our attention around the begin of year 2012.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773

Franco Pratesi has written:
Studies on Giusto Giusti
http://trionfi.com/giusto-giusti

Michael J. Hurst has written:
The First Tarot Aficionado
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2012/08/ ... onado.html

"Phaeded" has expressed an opinion, that the Giusto Giusti deck might have been the first Trionfi deck type, made after the battle of Anghiari and in relation to it:
1. thread Casa del Petrarca:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=868&p=12773&hilit=anghiari#p12773
starting at 6th of September 2012
proceeding in
2. thread "Petrecino, page of duke Borso 1457", later renamed "Petrecino etc... mutated to "Anghiari 1440 deck"
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=888&p=12965&hilit=anghiari#p12965
starting at 9th of October

I'd earlier already expressed the opinion, that the Giusto Giusti deck might have had something to do with the Anghiari battle, but I didn't relate to it as the "first Trionfi-deck" .
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t= ... t=anghiari

Giusti Giusto has a biography at treccani.it:
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giu ... iografico)

As a summary with my own remarks for the early biography till 1437:

Studying Giusto Giusti, then I get, that he was a little notary with occupations outside his home town (Anghiari). He had short occupations in Foiano (1427-28), a Figline (1428-29), a Tizzano (1431), a Bibbiena (1432) (all near to the Anghiari region) and a short stay in 1428 in Barbialla, far in the West of Florence (160 km distance to Anghiari). The longest time (5 years) he had in Bibbiena, which has a distance to Cesena of c. 110 km. and a distance to Anghiari with c. 40km. There he was married (since 1430), but the woman died childless. Giusto Giusti married again (May 1437) and then we find him in Anghiari as the cancelliere of Giovanni Pagolo di Morelli (this seems to be the same, who with a short note about naibi and children wrote playing card history in his "Ricordi"). The literary activity of Morelli might have inspired the younger Giusto Giusto, cause in this year 1437 (precisely April 1437, a few days before he married for the second time in May) he started to record his diaries.
The father of Giusti Giusto had a well running shop for armor and weapons at the market place in Anghiari. This is likely the key for the further career of Giusto, which finds him near to some of the famous condottieri (who - according their profession - should have had a natural affinity to a man, who traded with armor and weapons and naturally also to the son of him with some juristic qualifications). Anghiari was positioned near a trade way, which led from Rome to Perugia to Citta di Castello to Cesena, very near to the border of Tuscany, likely in this frontier region it was a very good position to have a trade with armor.

Giusti Giusto had then commissions from Gregorio and Agnolo d'Anghiari, two brothers, both from Anghiari and both condottieri.

http://www.condottieridiventura.it/cond ... LO%20D.htm
http://www.condottieridiventura.it/cond ... IO%20D.htm

The first record of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in Giusto's diary (the versions, to which we have access to, is a reduced diary (?), as I get it, and not the original) appears in October 1439 (see Pratesi's article to Giusto Giusti).
Mercoledì 28 ottobre mi disse Agnolo che voleva che io andassi a Rimini
a visitare il signore Gismondo da parte sua.

Sabato 31 ottobre la mattina mi partii da Verucchio e andamo a Rimini
a ora di desinare, e detto dì favellai al signore Gismondo13 e raccomandâgli
Agnolo. Fecemi buona accoglienza e gran’ proferte, e mi disse
che sua intenzione era di fare ad Agnolo altro che parole e che io andassi
con lui a Cesena e che mi darebbe risposta più a pieno di sua intenzione
ecc. B, c. 11v]

Lunedì a dì 2 di novembre favellai in Cesena al signore Gismondo.
Dissemi che io dicesse ad Agnolo che deliberava volerlo per buon fratello e
dargli qualche buon castello.

Lunedì a dì 16 di novembre venimmo la sera alla Pieve a Santo Stefano
e passammo da Casteldelci e ragionammo con Londedeo che teneva
quel luogo e accordammo con lui di comperare da lui Casteldelci, Sanatello
e la Fagiola per Agnolo per 4000 ducati veniziani.
As far I get it, Sigismondo in a war against Urbino had captured three strongholds, which he very quickly sold to the Condottieri brothers (4000 ducati veniziani ... the brothers either worked either on own interests or in coordination with Florentine interests).

I could identify 2 of the locations (lonesome in the mountains, just controlling a road):
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=4786 ... ra=ls&z=14
East of Anghiari, so not on Tuscany territory. Distance to Anghiari: c. 45 km

Malatesta's life at condottieridiventura for October 1439 (Rimini against Urbino):
Toglie a Federico da Montefeltro tre castelli sull’alto corso del Senatello: Casteldelci, Senatello e Faggiuola.
For November1439:
Perde Tavoleto che è messa a sacco dal Montefeltro e da Baldaccio d’Anghiari. Il Malatesta irrompe a sua volta nel Montefeltro e vi conquista otto castelli (Castelnuovo, Montefotogno, Piatramaura, Pennarossa, Viano, Savignano di Rigo, Rontagnano e Tivizzano, che è devastato)
So there was a lot of action, and with some free money one could make a good, though risky, business. It seems, that Giusto brokered the deal and all were happy (likely not the people in Urbino). At 22th of November the news appeared, that Piccinino had captured Verona. At 24th the news arrived, that Sforza had freed Verona immediately. War was not only in Rimini and Urbino, but especially around the Garda lake, here Sforza and Piccinino were the major opponents.
This period of the war in late 1439 had been likely the most intensive in all of the many war activities of Filippo Maria Visconti.
In the war between Urbino and Rimini Malatesta sided with Sforza, Venice and Florence, Urbino (which in this time wasn't ruled by Federico Montefeltro, but by his father), and Urbino somehow with Milan and Flippo Maria Visconti, though to other parts this seems to be a local conflict between enemy neighbors.

The war in the North finished for 1439 with the usual winter pause. The war Rimini against Urbino settled in April 1440 in a peace. The latter was connected to the new activity of Piccinino, which depended on a secret plan of Filippo Maria Visconti. Filippo Maria Visconti considered, that a small army in the North could hold the established positions, but a strong army send to the South against Florentine territory would urge Sforza to follow him. As we know, this strategy didn't work out. Sforza had deciding victories in the North, and Piccinos Southern adventure ended with Anghiari, which had been an expensive loss. This result, which occurred mainly in June 1440, naturally wasn't known in March 1440.
Then the Florentine position was indeed surprised and had difficulties to organize itself against the strong army of Piccinino. Sigismondo Malatesta politely turned to have a friendly face against Piccinino (so the peace with Urbino).

An army with 10.000 men and more could cause easily a lot of trouble at a thin populated region with many mountains, especially when some in the attacked region had interest to help in the invasion.

The diaries of Giusto Giusti mirror the hectic development, since March 1440. Gregori d'Anghiari, one of the two Condotteri brothers, for which Giusto Giusti worked, became immediately prisoner in early April, when he attempted to defend Modigliano.

Macchiavelli describes Piccinino's army in this way:
http://historymedren.about.com/library/ ... encev6.htm
In the meantime, Niccolo Piccinino, the affairs of Romagna being settled, purposed making a descent into Tuscany, and designing to go by the mountain passes of San Benedetto and the valley of Montone, found them so well guarded by the contrivance of Niccolo da Pisa, that his utmost exertions would be useless in that direction. As the Florentines, upon this sudden attack, were unprovided with troops and officers, they had sent into the defiles of these hills many of their citizens, with infantry raised upon the emergency to guard them, among whom was Bartolomeo Orlandini, a cavaliere, to whom was intrusted the defense of the castle of Marradi and the adjacent passes. Niccolo Piccinino, finding the route by San Benedetto impracticable, on account of the bravery of its commander, thought the cowardice of the officer who defended that of Marradi would render the passage easy. Marradi is a castle situated at the foot of the mountains which separate Tuscany from Romagna; and, though destitute of walls, the river, the mountains, and the inhabitants, make it a place of great strength; for the peasantry are warlike and faithful, and the rapid current undermining the banks has left them of such tremendous height that it is impossible to approach it from the valley if a small bridge over the stream be defended; while on the mountain side the precipices are so steep and perpendicular as to render it almost impregnable. In spite of these advantages, the pusillanimity of Bartolomeo Orlandini rendered the men cowardly and the fortress untenable; for as soon as he heard of the enemy's approach he abandoned the place, fled with all his forces, and did not stop till he reached the town of San Lorenzo. Niccolo, entering the deserted fortress, wondered it had not been defended, and, rejoicing over his acquisition, descended into the valley of the Mugello, where he took some castles, and halted with his army at Pulicciano . Thence he overran the country as far as the mountains of Fiesole ; and his audacity so increased that he crossed the Arno, plundering and destroying everything to within three miles of Florence .
I would assume, that "plundering and destroying everything to within three miles of Florence" might be exaggerated (Piccinino hadn't so much time). Leaving this aside, we get perhaps this movement of Piccinino's major army, whereby it's likely, that the army split in different groups, which made the robberies on their own risk and initiative, avoiding well defended places.

https://maps.google.de/maps?saddr=47015 ... =2,4,7&z=9

Piccinino spend a lot of energy in the region of Bibbiena (a region well known to Giusto Giusti, who had lived there), near to the domain of the allied Pippo. They took and destroyed a stronghold Castel San Niccolo ...

Image

http://www.mondimedievali.net/castelli/ ... nicolo.htm

... but it took much time (32 days) and is seen as a major mistake in the war strategy. It's close to the location Pippo (after the Pippo family, which reigned there) and Bibbiena. Piccinino's influence went then till Rassini, south of Bibbiena. Suddenly he disappeared (on his way to Perugia, likely intending to get more soldiers there; it's said by Macchiavelli, that Piccinino went there with 40 horses, so the major part of the army seems to have rested near Sansepolcro - about 10 km to Anghiari - , which was friendly to them; Citta di Castello - which he met at his journey to Perugia - stayed friendly to Florence; Perugia itself gave only some money).

Back to Giusto Giusti. Gregorio d'Anghiari had become prisoner with the fall of Modigliano at begin of April. So Giusto Giusto lost one of his commissioners.

....
(will proceed)
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi documen

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Huck wrote:
"Phaeded" has expressed an opinion, that the Giusto Giusti deck might have been the first Trionfi deck type, made after the battle of Anghiari and in relation to it...."
Just to clarify: I believe the first wave of trionfi occured under the auspices of Cosimo Medici (possibly jointly celebrating the Papal court then headquartered in Florence and which participated in the battle) as a Florentine civic celebration of the battle of Anghiari. Anghiari itself is totally incidental to the fact that both the external and internal enemies - Visconti/Albizzi - of Florence/Medici were defeated in one fell swoop; the battle would have been just as meaningful if it happened in Pistoia. This first "wave" of trionfi in 1440 may included cheap packs for the public but definitely hand-painted decks, the first and most elaborate most likley going to F. Sforza., deemed the overall victor of the campaign by the commune's herald (a poem undoubtedly vetted before Cosimo's circle first). Like Malatesta, Sforza was not present at Anghiari so his abscence is hardly an argument against a deck also commissioned for him. Giusti's commison was merely one of an unknown quantity of trionfi decks that were made in 1440 (but likely a small number if the Medici's warrior friends were targeted - perhaps Cardinal Trevisano who lead the papal contingent, Cosimo's distant cousin Bernadetto who held the standard at a key moment in the battle, Neri Capponi, Michele Attendolo, and few others).

Four primary points to my rationale:
1. Soldiers were a likely significant consumer group of playing cards (more on this in another post soon); Giusti was a procurer of soliders.
2. The earliest known trionfi decks were all apparently gifts to the leaders of soliders: condottieri (i.e., the giver of the gifts saw embellished decks of playing cards as appropriate for this profession - and we have no record of one ruler{s} giving trionfi to another ruler{s}). Trionfi visually commemorated a condotte between the prince or commune and their condottiere.
3. The Anghiari victory of 1440 was an event of utmost significance to warrant this unusual innovation (it solidified the power of the Medici which they quickly followed up on in celebrating their relations with the available military powers at hand - condottieri). The only other event that qualifies as equally significant enough was the 1439 East-West Union in Florence.
4. Ross's own research points to "within 5 years of 1442" and the term Giusti used for a deck of trionfi as a hapax (I presume he meant unique to the Florentine dialect): not only is there no evidence for earlier trionfi proper (Michelino's deck was called "trionfi" in 1449 by Marcello but was clearly not a trionfi deck nor a model for CY) but neither was there a corresponding term. Ross's original comment: "the name Giusto uses is the one he knew to ask for when he commissioned the pack; that is, triumph cards were commonly known as "naibi a trionfi". This term is so far completely unique, a hapax."
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773&start=10
Yes, Giusti knew he could order a trionfi deck but that does not imply anything more than than they were being made in Florence at that time , after the late June battle of 1440. And the fact that he uses a heretofore unknown term suggests this is something utterly new.

Phaeded

Re: Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi document

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Phaeded: how your conclusion follows from the language of Giusti escapes me. How does Giusti's use of a previously unknown (to us) term, "naibi a trionfi," a Florentine term for trionfi playing cards ("naibi"), imply that the game was not known to him previously, either by the same term, not recorded in surviving documents, or some other term? That Giusti does not add anything to himself about what the term refers to suggests the contrary, that it was a game readily identifiable to him by means of that term, thus already a game known to him from other instances. It seems to me that this point has already been made by Ross.

As for your statement "Michelino's deck was called "trionfi" in 1449 by Marcello but was clearly not a trionfi deck nor a model for CY", Ross has at least relaxed his view about the Michelino to the extent that he can see it as a model of a sort for the first Florentine tarocchi, to the extent of having trumps plus suits that are not trumps, by way of someone such as Brunelleschi, who "was summoned" by Filippo twice, once in the early 1420s and once in the 1430s: viewtopic.php?p=24807#p24807 and other posts following. If Brunelleschi could have been so stimulated, he might well have expressed his thanks to Filippo, who it is not unreasonable to expect might want to do something similar but in his eyes better.

Re: Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi document

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mikeh wrote: 21 Oct 2022, 07:09
As for your statement "Michelino's deck was called "trionfi" in 1449 by Marcello but was clearly not a trionfi deck nor a model for CY", Ross has at least relaxed his view about the Michelino to the extent that he can see it as a model of a sort for the first Florentine tarocchi, to the extent of having trumps plus suits that are not trumps, by way of someone such as Brunelleschi, who "was summoned" by Filippo twice, once in the early 1420s and once in the 1430s: viewtopic.php?p=24807#p24807 and other posts following. If Brunelleschi could have been so stimulated, he might well have expressed his thanks to Filippo, who it is not unreasonable to expect might want to do something similar but in his eyes better.
I wouldn't characterize myself as having "relaxed" my position vis-à-vis the relationship between Michelino's deck and the invention of game of Triumphs in Florence. I was never against it on principle, it's just that there was no substance to the speculation. In Brunelleschi, I found a plausible connection in his visits to the duke in Milan. And I would not have thought much of that connection itself, which I knew long ago, unless I had discovered that Lo Scheggia was Brunelleschi's friend (a much younger friend, but one in which Brunelleschi would have taken an interest not least because he was Masaccio's younger brother, Masaccio being an artist he respected very much and mourned at his untimely death), and had come to know through Franco Pratesi's discoveries that Lo Scheggia had painted cards.

I was always open to the possibility of the influence of Marziano-Michelino's conception on some Florentine or other visitor. But without some tangible evidence, a name and date, of a connection to a creative circle in Florence, it remained only a possibility, which could not be weighed as to its plausibility. Because of Brunelleschi's associates, as well as his own character and that of Filippo Maria, it seems to me now to be a very plausible scenario of how the conception of a "trump suit," different from the other suits of the deck, could have been transmitted from one place to the other. Another factor was my discovery of other copies of Marziano's text in Italy, which allows us to imagine that the text itself, even if not Michelino's deck, had greater circulation than anyone had thought until now. It is short, so there is no reason why Brunelleschi, if he played the game with the duke, might not have asked for a copy. If so, he would have also needed a translation, which is something that one of his closest long-term friends, Toscanelli, could have done for him easily. Thus the existence of an "Italian Marziano" becomes plausible (Filippo Maria himself would have probably needed a translation, but this speculation keeps us in the court, and the document very probably lost in any case, whereas a Florentine one might very well still be out there, waiting to be discovered).

Re: Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi document

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Ross: Yes, there are no doubt many documents out there waiting to be discovered.

About your previous position relative to Marziano and Trionfi in Florence, it seems to me that by going from "possibility" to "plausibility" you have "relaxed" (my word) a previously more negative view about there being a connection between the two games. Earlier, by your present report, you found no "substance" to the "speculation" (your terms), a rather negative-sounding position, even if not totally dismissive, whereas now you find that it has significant "plausibility," a more positive position. Truth to tell, I can't remember precisely what terms you used before, but it seems to me that they were on the negative side. It would be better if I could quote what you actually said previously about the possibility/likelihood/substantiality/plausibility of a connection between the two games, but I am unable to think of a search term that will get me there (most are declared "too common"). In any event, thanks for spelling out for us again your current view.

Phaeded writes
Ross's own research points to "within 5 years of 1442" and the term Giusti used for a deck of trionfi as a hapax (I presume he meant unique to the Florentine dialect): not only is there no evidence for earlier trionfi proper (Michelino's deck was called "trionfi" in 1449 by Marcello but was clearly not a trionfi deck nor a model for CY) but neither was there a corresponding term. Ross's original comment: "the name Giusto uses is the one he knew to ask for when he commissioned the pack; that is, triumph cards were commonly known as "naibi a trionfi". This term is so far completely unique, a hapax."
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773&start=10
Yes, Giusti knew he could order a trionfi deck but that does not imply anything more than than they were being made in Florence at that time , after the late June battle of 1440. And the fact that he uses a heretofore unknown term suggests this is something utterly new.
I of course cannot see how using a "heretofore unknown" - to us - term suggests that a term refers to something utterly new, or even that the term therefore did not exist before then, to refer to a game. And even if the term did come into use then, we cannot infer that what it refers to is utterly new. Take the term "tarocchi". If the term is unknown to us as the name of a game before 1502 in Brescia, it cannot be inferred that the term was invented that year, or that the game it refers to was invented then either. Nor even within 5 years, or however frequently the term appears as a game in documents available to us after 1502 (probably much more often than every 5 years, if only in lists of permitted or condemned games).

I use this example precisely because we know for sure that the game called tarocchi did exist before 1502, in some form, because we have decks from before then that conform to the structure associated with that term in the writings. The only thing we don't know is whether there was something about the game itself that induced the name change - say, certain rules, perhaps pertaining to a certain card called Il Matto - or something about other games, say, a need to distinguish it from some other game that appropriated the earlier name "trionfi."

Another example pertains to when playing cards entered Europe. From the fact that the first reference is 1377, it cannot be inferred that this is when playing cards entered Europe in that year. Historians and linguists have made this clear many times. For example, speaking in this case of the arrival of playing cards in Europe, linguist Walter Haas observes (Review of La Carte à jouer en Catalogne. XIVe & XVe siècles, by Jean-Pierre Garrigue, in The Playing-Card 44:2 (Oct.-Dec. 2015), p. 23), of the various recorded playing card prohibitions:
And so all these early dates do not give the years of the arriving of the cards in Europe, but the years of their becoming socially noticeable. This presupposes an incubation period (“Inkubationszeit”) of ten to twenty years after arriving (Hoffmann 1998: 30 [ per the bibliography, this is Schweizer Spielkarten 1. Die Anfänge im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert - MH]), and it is by no means probable that the cards arrived at only one point and that this point was a port on the Western Mediterranean – even when Garrigue’s detection of playing cards in the legacy of Catalan (seafaring?) merchants yield beautiful stories indeed. (

I may have quoted this passage before, I don't know. The search engine for this Forum declares that "inkubationszeit" is too common a term here to provide a link to (although it might really be because the word has more than 14 letters: so for future tracking I will pretend it is spelled inkubationzeit , with a space after the t for good measure).

Checking Hoffmann, I do not see the word "Inkubationszeit," or mention of a period of 10-20 years. However, what Hoffmann says is consistent with Haas: Hoffmann argues that the documentations of playing cards that we do have, from playing card prohibitions, just mean that "to these places the card game became socially conspicuous in such a way that it was no longer tolerable" ("an diesen Orten das Kartenspiel in einer solchen Weise sozial auffällig wurde, dass es nicht mehr tolerabel war"). The documentation for tarot cards is not of this sort, but the distinction between "social conspicuousness" (as in a gift deck for a war hero) as opposed to "arrival" is what pertains to both cases, "arrival" of playing cards being replaced by "invention" in the case of trionfi.

Terms travel at different speeds, somewhat unpredictably, and to get relative estimates we have to rely on other means. I would expect that dictates and policies of civil and church-related bodies about urgent matters travel quickly between jurisdictions. So if a church body in Florence sees that playing cards are prohibited there, this news will likely travel quickly to Viterbo, Rome, and other places where the Church has significant presence. It is not surprising, accordingly, that prohibitions should occur in various places in rapid succession - even if the actual spread of playing cards may vary among them. Even then, in places where playing cards are largely unknown the news may not reach the public, for the simple reason that the powers that be might wish to avoid publicizing this new evil.

When asked, the historians who attest to the "Inkubationszeit" principle in general readily agree that it applies to terms like "naibi a trionfi" or "trionfi" by itself, applied to a card game. Andrea Vitali has cited and quoted some at http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=942, note 45 and associated text (in Italian, the term is "pratica d'uso").

Inventions sometimes travel more slowly than news of policies and evils. Andrea gives the example of eyeglasses, surely an item of much value to the Church, in which one of the two earliest reports (at about the same time in different places) even says that the invention was 30 years earlier.

As for the "5 years" principle, based on the frequency of occurrence after 1440, that seems to me another fallacy. Ross in his Playing Card article of some years ago extrapolated from records of tarot documents and decks after 1440 to what could be expected before 1440, during the period of formation but before the documentation Giusti gives us. But it is perfectly natural that there would be less documentation earlier than later, less and less the closer the date was to that of the invention, simply because the invention in question was less known; speed of transmission, moreover, is stratified by city, class, etc.; therefore any statistics about that later period have less and less application to the earlier, unless there is some special reason to think otherwise. It is not like risings in the east of the sun or moon in the last 4 billion years or so, which have been quite regular. It is more like their risings while the solar system, or the moon's relation to the earth, was still in formation. To know about the sun or moon in relation to the earth in the formation period, it is necessary to understand the principles governing such periods, not those governing (or not) later ones. The "Inkubationszeit" is one such principle.

Re: Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi document

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mstjim wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 11:42 Really interesting and unexpected for me. I did not know that the first mention of Trionfi was in 1442, in Ferrara. By the way, thanks for sharing this good source.
hi, welcome,
The first note of the word "Trionfi" in playing card context is meanwhile at 17th of September in 1440, Giusto Giusti bought a Trionfi deck in Florence and gave it as a present to Sigismondo Malatesta. Before there were two notes in Ferrara in 1442.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi document

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Oct 2022, 16:58 In Brunelleschi, I found a plausible connection in his visits to the duke in Milan.... had discovered that Lo Scheggia was Brunelleschi's friend (a much younger friend, but one in which Brunelleschi would have taken an interest not least because he was Masaccio's younger brother, Masaccio being an artist he respected very much and mourned at his untimely death), and had come to know through Franco Pratesi's discoveries that Lo Scheggia had painted cards..

Beyond Marziano's Milanese "trumps" not matching trionfi in subject matter nor in number, and why Florence and Milan would emulate one another in the bellicose period leading up to and extending after Anghiari (a further note on that below), there is the all-important issue of art projects and patrons, of which Brunelleschi was not. The idea of trionfi's spontaneous generation from the card-playing taverns or art studios remains suspect, with no notable comparables of which I'm aware besides Ghiberti's 'gates of Paradise' but even there he had to compete with Bruni's own proposed program for the baptistery's doors in submitting them for approval to the commissioning Opera del duomo. Guilds, confraternities, etc. commissioned the subjects of the St. John's edifici - the artists executed them.

The Medici commissioned projects; Brunelleschi was a contractor, however illustrious, who carried them out. Lo Scheggia was yet another "art contractor" known to the Medici, perhaps thought of in the second rank or even below a Castagno.

Relevant Medici commissioning events, most of which concern contracts related to S. Maria del Fiore where Lo Scheggia worked leading up to 1440.

* After the 1434 return of Cosimo to Florence, the Medici more or less controlled state commissions.
* July 1434 Castagno was commissioned by the state/Medici to paint the defeated Albizzi traitors upside down - impiccati - on what is today the Bargello, on the processional route from the Piazza della Signoria, to the Duomo.
* 1433-1436: S. Maria del Fiore funerary fresco 'monument' to condottiero Hawkwood. The original fresco was initially commissioned in May 1433 by the Albizzi government, just months before the regime's collapse; subsequent to Cosimo's triumphant return to Florence, in May 1436 the Medici regime hired Uccello to replace the Albizzi artists.
* Between 1436 and 1440, Lo Scheggia collaborated on the intarsia designs for cupboards in S. Maria del Fiore.
* With that commission at an end in 1440, Lo Scheggia was free to do the ur-tarot...at the behest of Medici and their partisans, which after Anghiari certainly included Chancellor Leonardo Bruni, with whom Guisti had direct contacts per his journal.

* 1449. Medici commission Lo Scheggia to paint the deschi da parto for Lorenzo de' Medici's birth.
* 1450 Castagno commissioned to paint a caritas for Bernedetto Medici, the hero of Anghiari, at the vicariato at Scarperia (B. was vicar of the Mugello that year)
* 1456. Medici commission Castagno to paint in S,. Maria del Fiore a fellow equestrian Monument of condottiero Niccolò da Tolentino to go along side Ucello's from 1436.

The Medici regime's guiding fingerprints are all over these projects (Castagno details provided as an apt comparable to Lo Scheggia), several of which are precisely where Lo Scheggia labored for four years, right before the emergence of trionfi - in S. Maria del Fiore.

None of these examples are of an artist taking the initiative in painting "on spec." And this list of commissions is hardly an exhaustive one of Medici-controlled state commissions, but needless to say the painters were not selecting the subject matter - they were commissioned to execute/paint via a contract. To posit that Lo Scheggia,a Medici creature at this point, was contracted to paint a novel series of figures to celebrate the victory at Anghiari over the hated Albizzi/Visconti forces, perhaps via the Dieici (the "Ten of War") on which both Cosimo and Bruni sat, requires no special pleading.

Back to why belligerents Florence or Milan would copy one or the other c. 1440 - my theory contextualizes the borrowing in a wholly antagonistic context: following the 'insult' of the ur-tarot that essentially celebrated his defeat at Anghiari, F. Visconti commissioned a variation to celebrate his military coup of sorts in stealing Sforza away from being in Cosimo's pay and into a contract with him, and cemented via marriage to his daughter with an appropriate wedding gift of dominions (Cremona and Pontremoli). This too does not require special pleading. Malatesta was also gifted a trionfi deck, a trifling gift (forthcoming condotti would be more meaningful) because the Medici were keenly aware of losing Sforza and needed him back in the fold.

That Visconti was indeed celebrating his acquisition of Sforza precisely in 1440 via other art works is witnessed in the Pisanello medals made for Filippo and Sforza that year:

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Re: Giusto Guisti: For the moment the oldest Trionfi document

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If Cosimo can commission Lo Scheggia to produce a "novel set of cards" to celebrate something, surely Scheggia could ask his friend Brunelleschi if he had any ideas for how he will fulfill the commission.

Also, we have to ask, wouldn't Cosimo have specified something more specific than "a novel set of cards"? In general, commissioners at least gave the subject matter, for example "the sacrifice of Isaac". Likewise Ghiberti's "gates of paradise" were surely done to a pre-selected set of subjects. It is probably not that Ghiberti's own program was chosen over Bruni's, even if he was given "a free hand" in its execution. There is a good argument that the program was Traversari's: see my post at viewtopic.php?p=15800#p15800 for the sources. For a set of cards, there would similarly be a specified series of subjects. Why couldn't Cosimo have been picking Brunelleschi's brain? He was a contractor, for sure, but also an innovator, a source of new ideas, and an inventor of playful verse.

Of course the involvement of the Medici at all depends on your thesis that the Guisti was the first deck, a subject on which I have already said enough. But in the context of Guisti and the Medici I cannot resist interjecting another hypothesis, that if the game had already been invented in Filippo's court, perhaps inspired by Marziano, Francesco Sforza would be likely to have carried around a pack or two when he came in 1436. Since Sforza and Cosimo were friends, Cosimo could have suggested that Scheggia or somebody else, such as Dal Ponte, make an improved version, to his or Bruni's (or some other humanist's, e.g. Traversari's) specifications. That is another way of making a connection between Marziano and Guisti, at least as plausible as attributing the invention to Brunelleschi.
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