Re: Visconti snake

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Huck wrote: How you define "standard"? How you define "rules"?
A standard is a thing against which other things are measured, or by which they are defined.

A secondary meaning is that it is the most common object in its class - for instance, when we might say in English "a standard pack of playing cards", we mean the 52-card "English"-suited (really French) pack, with four suits - Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades, and three face cards, Jack, Queen and King. But this pack is SO "standard" that we don't even say "standard", we just say "a pack/deck of cards." Many people don't even know there is anything else.

For people to have known what carte da trionfi were, used to play the game of triumphs (or just "triumph"), there had to be a standard object to which they were referring.

This explains why Marcello called Michelino's cards a "new kind of triumph cards" - it wasn't the iconographical content he was comparing it to/measuring it against, so it had to be the structure. The gods and heroes were obviously distinct from the suits, just like the trionfi were distinguished from the suits in a pack of standard carte da trionfi.
We have even a complete Tarocchi deck from 15th century, the Sola Busca. We have complete descriptions of two others, the Boiardo Tarocchi poem and the Michelino deck. We have complete Mantegna Tarocchi in great number, also some, which are complete.
You ignore, that complete German decks from the time have survived.


The E/S Series are not cards, and not a game.

Sola Busca and Boiardo both have 22 trumps, which shows they too are based on the standard triumphs. Both are free re-creations of the standard series, just like many modern Tarots are.

The German and Flemish packs are also based on the regular model of playing cards - pips and courts in a suit. It doesn't matter that they are unique or beautiful, they are still based on a model and a number that everyone understood. They weren't just wild inventions doing anything they wanted. Ultimately, they are playable for normal card games.
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Re: Visconti snake

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mmfilesi wrote: Standard order A ||

(0) Bagatto
(1, 2, 3, 4) - quattro Mori || iiij - il Papa [ii in Steele] + iij - l'Imperatore
(5) Amore || v - l'Amore
(6) il Carro || viiij - il carro <- One problem
(7) la Temperanza || vij - la Fortezza
(8) la Giustizia || viij - la Giustizia
(9) la Forza || vj - la Temperanza <- One problem
(10) la Fortuna ||
(11) il Vecchio/Eremita || xj - l'Eremita
(12) il Traditore || xij - l'Impiccato
(13) la Morte || xviij - la Morte
(14) il Diavolo ||
(15) il Fulmine (Torre) || xv - la Torre
(16) la Stella ||
(17) Luna || xvij - la Luna
(18) Sole || xviij - il Sole
(19) Mondo || xviiij - il Mondo
(20) Angelo (Giudizio) || xx - l'Angelo
There are variations in all of the orders, A, B, and C. It is important first to grasp the importance of Dummett's accomplishment in reducing the various lists to three families of orders, and at the same identifying them with three cities - Bologna, Ferrara, and Milan, respectively. This is a triumph of scholarship.

The order of the Virtues in A only varies between Temperance, Justice and Fortitude (Bologna, Rosenwald sheet) and Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice (Charles VI, Minchiate). There doesn't seem to be much information to be gleaned from the transposition of Justice and Fortitude in the A orders.

Dummett's "standard" for A was the Bolognese order, which has Il Carro numbered 6. The Florentine orders, judged in 1980 from the Rosenwald Sheet and the Minchiate order, has the Chariot at number X, above the Wheel of Fortune. Recently Thierry Depaulis discovered a poem, a Florentine strambotto of 1500 or earlier, that listed the Chariot below the Wheel of Fortune. The same poem lists all the trumps, in order, but omits to mention a Popess. This allows us to imagine that the order of the trumps in Florence evolved over time, dropping the Popess, raising the Chariot at least twice, and transforming all of the remaining papi into male and secular figures.

In the Charles VI, the number on Il Carro is "X", not "ix" or "viiij".

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The previous literature, relying on Dummett, and Depaulis in 1984, is likely to be confusing, so Thierry Depaulis decided to clear it up in 2007 -
A list I have left apart is the so-called Tarot de Charles VI. As has been remarked, some of the trumps bear handwritten numbers. These numbers have sometimes been misinterpreted (notably by myself), and I want first to set the list as exactly as we can do. The main point is what number the Chariot bears.I (wrongly) published it as "IX" in Tarot, jeu et magie (1984), while Michael Dummett read it as "viiij" (in Il Mondo e l'Angelo, Naples, 1993, p. 277), both for nine. Ross Sinclair Caldwell is of the opinion that the only possible reading is "x".It is certainly not "viiij", and cannot be "ix" because "the number system uses the additive not the subtractive method - so [...] the World (19) is "xviiii" not "xix". Thus if the Chariot was 9, we would expect 'viiii' not 'ix'." (Ross Sinclair Caldwell, private email, 16/03/2006. I am grateful to Ross for having called my attention on this. What one can read on the Chariot looks like the lower part of a large X. In any case it cannot be the bottom of a "viiij" as Michael Dummett assumed.)
Thierry Depaulis, "Early Italian Lists of Tarot Trumps", The Playing Card, vol. 36, no. 1 (July-Sept. 2007), pp. 43-44.

The numbering of the Chariot in the Charles VI deck (I am trying to get it called the Gaignières deck) shows that it follows a Florentine A ordering. Since several of us suspected, for iconographic reasons, that these cards were made in Florence, the numbering is no surprise and a pleasant confirmation. Since the Moon, Sun, World and Angel are also numbered, and since the Popess seems to have been dropped by 1500, the Gaignières set was numbered at a time when the Chariot had been popularly elevated above the Wheel of Fortune, but before the Minchiate series was invented. I guess between 1500 and 1520.
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Re: Visconti snake

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Perfect, thanks for the info, Ross :) .

-o-
ecently Thierry Depaulis discovered a poem, a Florentine strambotto of 1500 or earlier,
Do you know where I can find it? I am very interested in this.

-o-

In any case, I still think that the scenarios of this deck and her strange numbers are many. For example, again, I can't find a reason to not thinking he could be a minchiate in origin. I repeat myself :) .

Then, what we can said about the pattern of this deck? I think, nothing. Not 16, not order A... But nothing since we find new documents.

-o-
is important first to grasp the importance of Dummett's accomplishment in reducing the various lists to three families of orders,
I need to understand this well, please, help me. I analyze these documents:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=552

And I dont find the order A in the XV and XVI centuries. This is correct? We only have about it the Rosenwald sheet?

And another problem, exists any date written on the sheet Rosenwald or a document in which said when are made or...?
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: Visconti snake

44
mmfilesi wrote:Perfect, thanks for the info, Ross :) .

-o-
ecently Thierry Depaulis discovered a poem, a Florentine strambotto of 1500 or earlier,
Do you know where I can find it? I am very interested in this.
Start here
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&start=180#p5618
It is printed with other such songs in an anonymous, undated little book of around 1500, entitled Strambotti d'ogni sorte & sonetti alla bergamasca gentilissimi da cantare inuse liuti & variati stormenti [sic] (8) (no place, no date...). The text of the song appears on the seventh page and reads thus:

Strambotti de triumphi

Miracomãdo aquel angelo pio,
al mõdo al sole alla luna & lostello
alla saetta & aquel diauol rio
la morte el traditore el vechiarello
la rota el caro & guistitia di dio
forteza & temperanza & amor bello
al Papa Imperatore & Imperatrice
al bagatello al matto più felice.(9)

(8) "Very nice songs of various kinds and Bergamo style sonnets, for singing with the lute and other various instruments". Stormenti is clearly a mistake; it is corrected as instrumenti in what seems to be a slightly later printing (BnF, Imp., RES- YD- 623).
(9) Here given from BnF, Imp., RES- YD- 623.

Four different printings of the book are known to exist,(10),... A close inspection of the typographic material allows book historians to identify the printers who are behind these pamphlets. A copy now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, Dept. of Printed Books, in New York (Sander 7095), is assigned to Eucharius (Eucario) Silber who came to Rome in 1480 and was active until 1509, when his son Marcello took over his workshop. It is not unreasonable to date it "around 1500". The BnF Rothschild IV. 2. 54 (or "Picot, Rothschild, 1029" = Sander 7094) copy is attributed to another German-born printer active in Rome, Johann Besicken, who was in business between c. 1500 and c. 1508. The BnF Réserve des Imprimées copy, with corrected title, might have been printed at a later date by Eucario Silber's son Marcello, who is known as a printer and publisher in Rome from 1510 to 1527.

(10)Max Sander, Le livre à figures italien, depuis 1467 jusqu'à 1530 : essai de sa bibliographie et de son histoire, III, Milan, 1942; rp. Lodi, 1996, nos. 7093-7095, to which must be added the Réserve des Imprimées copy (RES- YD- 623), probably a post 1510 printing.

A fourth printing, assigned to Verona and dated "c. 1500" by Sander (Sander, 7093), must be in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele in Rome. Most of its contents was published by Mario Menghini in his edition of Serafino de' Ciminelli's poems. Here is how Menghini published the "Song of the Tarot":

(the one already posted)

A strambotto is a kind of Italian song, usually composed of a single stanza of eight hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) lines. It is considered as an ancestor of the madrigal as well as a source for the French Renaissance chanson. Serafino de' Ciminelli, known as Serafino Aquilano (1466-1500), was one of the main composers of strambotti in his time. Some of his works were published together with other, generally anonymous, songs. The booklet Strambotti d'ogni sorte & sonetti alla bergamasca gentilissimi includes some of Ciminelli's works.

In any case, I still think that the scenarios of this deck and her strange numbers are many. For example, again, I can't find a reason to not thinking he could be a minchiate in origin. I repeat myself :) .
Good reasons for not being a Minchiate might include -

The highest cards in the Charles VI are numbered like a standard A Tarot sequence. The highest cards are not numbered at all in any Minchiate deck.

There is no Pope in the Minchiate deck.

The Sun card features a pair of lovers in the Minchiate; in Charles VI, it is a woman spinning wool (i.e. just like the Bolognese Tarot).

The Minchiate Tower shows people running from a burning building; the Charles VI shows a more conventional lightning-struck tower.

There are no cards surviving from the 15th century that belong particularly to the Minchiate decks of the 16th century. This is unlikely since there are 20 of them - i.e. the same amount as the standard series. SOME of the Minchiate Zodiac, Elements, Theological Virtues, and Prudence, should have survived (don't argue "Cary Yale" here, because Minchiate doesn't have female pages and knights either - the Cary Yale is unique and apart).

I'm sure there are many more arguments I could come up with for why the Charles VI is not a fragment of a Minchiate.
Then, what we can said about the pattern of this deck? I think, nothing. Not 16, not order A... But nothing since we find new documents.
It IS order A!!! It is the earliest evidence of the order, and the iconography, of A. Along with Catania.

Maybe I'm not understanding you, but Charles VI and Catania are very much A, Southern, Florentine cards, from the 1450s or early 1460s.
is important first to grasp the importance of Dummett's accomplishment in reducing the various lists to three families of orders,
I need to understand this well, please, help me. I analyze these documents:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=552

And I dont find the order A in the XV and XVI centuries. This is correct? We only have about it the Rosenwald sheet?
The A order and iconography is attested by the Charles VI and Catania cards; by the strambotto poem; by the rules for Bolognese tarocchino dating from the mid to late 16th century.

It is slightly better attested than the C family, which is first given by Alciato in 1547.

For understanding Dummett's importance, the only thing I can recommend is getting Game of Tarot and studying it. It takes time to fill your mind with all the essential facts to actually start thinking about theoretical proposals. Each specific question has to be chased to its origin.


And another problem, exists any date written on the sheet Rosenwald or a document in which said when are made or...?
No, not that I know. Everybody just says "late 15th - early 16th century".
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Re: Visconti snake

45
Thanks, friend.

Well, that's mind, if I understand well, for two centuries (+/- 150 year), we have the order A documented for this direct documents (and not conjectures):

1. Rosenwald sheet

A sheet without dates: uncertain origin, uncertain date. With this order (incomplete):

[0] x
[1] El bagatella
[2] La papessa
[3] Imperatrix
[4] Imperator
[5] El papa
[6] L'amore
[7] La temperantia
[8] La iusticia
[9] La fortezza
[10] Lo caro triumphale
[12] El gobbo

2. Medici deck aka Charles VI deck

We dont know when someone put the numbers. Only know he dont know well the deck and for this reason he need put this ugly numbers in a luxury deck.

3. Catania deck

:-o This deck have numbers? Surprize!

4. by the rules for Bolognese tarocchino dating from the mid to late 16th century.

Sorry friend, what rules? I only know this document: Ms. of Carlo Vicenzo Maria Pedini (Ms. Gozz. 140, 40v-55r. de la Biblioteca dell'Archiginnasio de Boloña) from 1746.

5. Florentine strambotto of 1500 or earlier

Miracomãdo aquel angelo pio,
al mõdo al sole alla luna & lostello
alla saetta & aquel diauol rio
la morte el traditore el vechiarello
la rota el caro & guistitia di dio
forteza & temperanza & amor bello
al Papa Imperatore & Imperatrice
al bagatello al matto più felice.(9)

¿Where are the World?

EDIT; this "al mõdo" maybe is "al mondo".

Thats minds, If I understand well, in 150 year only exist one solid document for the order A, the florentine Strambotto, and its strange, a rara avis similar with minchiate (no papisa).

Instead, we have many documents similar to C order for these centuries:

- finished in the World
- with the virtues spread
- four different characters in the human court.

My conclusion, therefore, based on documents and not speculation, is not exists the "order A" in the XV and XVI centuries. At least, until we discover new documents. And this bring the numbers of the Medici deck aka Charles VI deck more time after since the born of the deck.

Thats mind: are not representative.

I need continued after ten minutes...
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: Visconti snake

46
Good reasons for not being a Minchiate might include -
Thanks for answer :) .

Well, we can classified your arguments by two criteria: (1) iconographic and (2) order and the type of triumphs.

1. Iconographic doubts:

The oldest minchiate deck I know is the Etruria deck, from 1725. Exists another older? I don't know? If exist, please tell me.

If we accept that the Medici-Charles VI deck is from century XV (I think between 1461-1465), thats mind exists too long time for iconographic comparisons. In +/- 250 years, and more in Florence, the city of artists, the iconographic experimentation may have been endless.

2. order and the type of triumphs:
The highest cards in the Charles VI are numbered like a standard A Tarot sequence. The highest cards are not numbered at all in any Minchiate deck.
I think the numbers, put long time since the born of the deck are irrelevant. The deck can be a Minchiate, and the person who put the numbers discarted some cards.
There is no Pope in the Minchiate deck.
Well, I have strong doubts about when disappeared the Pope of the florentine's deck (in general). I think its after Savonarola, but is only a conjecture. In any case, we dony know if the Pope exist or not in XV centuries. Dont have documents about it (or yes, but I dont know):

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=588&p=8527
There are no cards surviving from the 15th century that belong particularly to the Minchiate decks of the 16th century. This is unlikely since there are 20 of them - i.e. the same amount as the standard series. SOME of the Minchiate Zodiac, Elements, Theological Virtues, and Prudence, should have survived (don't argue "Cary Yale" here, because Minchiate doesn't have female pages and knights either - the Cary Yale is unique and apart).
I dont understand well this argument, sorry. Its my f*ing English prehistoric...
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: Visconti snake

47


For understanding Dummett's importance, the only thing I can recommend is getting Game of Tarot and studying it. It takes time to fill your mind with all the essential facts to actually start thinking about theoretical proposals. Each specific question has to be chased to its origin.
I read some chapters of the Game of Tarot, and all Il Mondo e il Angelo. And I have many doubts with Michael Dummett, as her "orders". He employed a circular arguments, but I dont have forces and knowledge of English sufficient to explain my doubts here, sorry very much. For me its very, very dificult write in English.
It is slightly better attested than the C family, which is first given by Alciato in 1547.
Well... when I read the documents about the order of triumphs in century XVI, with Papisa become bishops, emperors over the popes (Piscina and anonymous), with... all this diferences, I have only one conclusion: in the XVI century the tarot had NOT standardized. Not enough, at least.
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: Visconti snake

48
Well, I continued mi last travel around the Doubts Sea... :)

In last post I said:
There were standard subjects, a standard number of them, and variations in ordering among those same subjects, for the deck of cards and game known as Trionfi.
Well, I think this is a very powerful argument. But maybe we must restrict the time frame.

Before continuing, We are agree with these dates?

Karnöffel: at least, 1426
Das spiel guldin: 1432
Carte da VIII imperadori (Ferrara): 1423
Michelino: +/- 1424

If we agree with these dates, we can advertising around 1420-1430 exist an explosion of creativity with the cards. It's a experimentation phase very intensive. In addition, we can think of a long bridge between northern Italy and Germany (political and economic: ambassadors, councils, as the Council of Constance, the paper industry <- closely related to the cards).

First problem: So, why we have not found any reference to 22 triumphs for this phase?
Nobody answered, so I answer myself:

Marcos 2: Exists decks with 22 triumphs, but we not find any text, any deck, nothing of nothing, to prove it directly.

Or maybe exists this document, but I dont know it.

Ok. Thanks, Marcos 2, now I understand.

Well ... I still with my doubts :) .

-o-

In the Michelino deck exists 16 triumphs. Maybe we can ask ourselves: why?

It seems clear that Filippo Maria was looking for a symmetry for the four suits. This left these options: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24... triumphs. But he chose just 16. Why?

Well, its only a conjectures, but, as Huck said,we have:

- Filippo Maria likes very much the chess and in this game the number 16 is very important.
- Filippo Maria likes very much the geomantia and in this magical technique the number 16 is very important.

- and the Michelino deck can be put in relationship with chess and geomantia. For example:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&hilit=geomantia&start=200

+

- Its very probably, the number 16 its a lucky number for (the very, very, very superstitious) Filippo Maria. For example:

> He (probably) kill her brother Giovanni Maria Visconti on 16 May.
> He is designate duke of Milano on 16 Jun, st. Giuletta, since that day declared holiday in Milano.
> On 16 Jan of 1425, he celebrated the born of Bianca Maria...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&hilit=geomantia&start=170

Another interesting question is the relationship between Michelino deck and the tarot. As explained Huck, this can be found in Daphne:

http://trionfi.com/daphne-in-tarot

(And I think Dafne is her "masculinity" questioned, but this is not important now)


-o-

The next steep is the CY deck. We all agree is earlier than 1447?

This deck have sure 11 triumphs, but it seem an strange number. So, we can ask ourselves if this deck have more triumphs. Well, we don't have any document explain how much are the triumphs of CY, but, as Huck said, we know:

- Exists a previous deck with 16 triumphs
- With 16 triumphs the deck can fits into a chess scheme
- And, very important, if the deck is made in 1441, in occasion of the Bianca and Francesco married, we have this curious coincidence. In 1441, Sforza are 40 years old; Bianca, 16; and the difference is 24. (Now I can't find it in trionfi). And, remember, for Filippo Maria the numbers are very important.

So, we have an strange deck with an unknown number of triumphs. They maybe are 22 or any another number, but all the tracks indicate they were 16.

And I repeat my doubt for this second steep: why we have not found any reference to 22 triumphs for this second phase (+/- 1435-1450?
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: Visconti snake

49
mmfilesi wrote: 3. Catania deck

:-o This deck have numbers? Surprize!
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Image


These two - Chariot "10", Hermit "11" - are enough to show that it agrees with the Charles VI, and Minchiate orders.
We would already have suspected that, since they are A style and are now attributed to Florence.
4. by the rules for Bolognese tarocchino dating from the mid to late 16th century.

Sorry friend, what rules? I only know this document: Ms. of Carlo Vicenzo Maria Pedini (Ms. Gozz. 140, 40v-55r. de la Biblioteca dell'Archiginnasio de Boloña) from 1746.
You know the reasoning for the 16th century dating, which is also given in the Cuppi transcription of the Pedini manuscript on the Tretre website (written by Girolamo Zorli) -

"La datazione dell'originale è oggetto di congetture. Michael Dummett e Lorenzo Cuppi retrodatano l’originale alla fine del Cinquecento. D'accordo con questi ricercatori, noi aggiungiamo che l’aggettivo “antico” allude a cose di cui si è persa la testimonianza dei vivi, quindi pertinenti a parecchie generazioni precedenti. Le cose del nonno sono vecchie, non antiche. L’avverbio ‘molto’ di Pisarri sembra confermare la perdita della memoria dei tempi della redazione del documento originale. Un sessantenne del 1746 era nato nel 1686, suo nonno nel 1626 ed il bisnonno nel 1606. L’originale va retrodatato almeno all'ultimo quarto del Cinquecento."

For instance, I would call my great-grandfather's letters from World War I "old", not "antique" or "ancient".

I agree with the reasoning of the discoverer of the manuscript, Professor Lorenzo Cuppi, as well as Michael Dummett and Girolamo Zorli. The manuscript Pedini copied dates at least from the end of the 16th century.
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Re: Visconti snake

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mmfilesi wrote: My conclusion, therefore, based on documents and not speculation, is not exists the "order A" in the XV and XVI centuries. At least, until we discover new documents. And this bring the numbers of the Medici deck aka Charles VI deck more time after since the born of the deck.
The iconography of the Charles VI is A. Compare it to the printed cards of the A family - Beaux-Arts/Rothschild sheets (BAR), and Rosenwald. Then compare it to the Bolognese cards of the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. There is remarkable continuity for around 550 years. This is the Bolognese A family, closely related, perhaps identical, to Florence at the beginning.

The numbering only confirms what we would suspect anyway - the person who numbered them, numbered them according to an A sequence, which seems to be transitional (since probably lacking a fourth papa) between the standard series and that which was used as the basis for the Minchiate (three Imperial figures and Chariot above the Wheel). Thus, the numbering was done in the first decade or so of the 16th century.

The cards themselves are the are the earliest evidence - iconographic and literary (numbering) - for the A family. The strambotto is the earliest documentary listing of the sequence.

There is no reason to doubt that A cards were in an A order. The later numbering ON the cards confirms the theory.

The assumption that Bologna and Florence used an A order from the beginning does not need to be proven, because this is what they always HAVE used (well, Florence went to Minchiate and now no longer plays any native Tarot game) and the iconography remains very stable over time; there is no reason to suspect the opposite. Since you assert the opposite, the burden of proof is on you.
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