È una storia delle carte, non dei giochi, e, in primo luogo, delle carte usate per giocare; solo alcune sezioni sono dedicate alle carte destinate a scopi carto- mantici e occultistici e solo due capitoli sono dedicati ai giochi, nei quali mi limito ad illustrare lo stretto indispensabile per la comprensione della storia delle carte.To my mind this book represents a further development of his thinking beyond Game of Tarot. Yet it is not readily available, even in Italian, in fact out of print. Fortunately I managed to secure a copy. In the summer of 2014 I started discussing it on the Internet a Tarot History Forum, with ample translations of passages I thought said interesting things going beyond what he said in GOT. Now it is a year later; on this blog I am rewriting my posts there, to incorporate comments by others and also so as to make them more accessible to people not intimately versed in tarot history; here Dummett's book itself is a model, because it assumes no prior knowledge. I am going to go through the book chapter by chapter, with translations of some passages and summaries of others; however I will take up topics, and chapters, in a different order. At the same time I will be engaging with the text myself, adding information that has become available since its publication in 1993 and my own reflections. Since I am not an expert translator, I will include Dummett's relatively easy Italian for the passages I quote.
(It is a history of the cards, not the games, and in the first place, the cards used for playing; only some sections are devoted to cards intended for cartomantic and occultist purposes and only two chapters are devoted to games, in which I limit myself to illustrating that which is indispensable for understanding the history of the cards.)
In the section headings for this blog I include page numbers. These are for what is translated in the section, not for the chapters that are the section's main focus, which typically are longer.
WHAT IS THE TAROT?
On the first page of Chapter One (p. 12 of the book), Dummett explains why he is writing the book. It is also why it needs to be read by anyone interested, for whatever purpose, in tarot decks before the 20th century:
Nelle note alla Terra desolata T.S. Eliot scrisse: «non conosco la costituzione esatta del mazzo dei tarocchi». Non esiste, in realtà, nulla del genere; esistono più forme distinte del mazzo dì tarocchi, ciascuna diversa dall’altra per composizione.In other words, there is no such thing as "the" tarot pack. There are only particular tarot packs used at particular times and places, with a variety of imagery and sequential orderings of the 22 special cards and even some variations in the suit cards. Anyone who wants to understand the history of the tarot, including the symbolism of historic decks, has to understand it in relation to these historical contexts
In the notes to The Waste Land ,T. S. Eliot wrote: "I do not know the exact constitution of the tarot deck." There is, in fact, nothing of the kind; there exist several distinct forms of the tarot deck, each different in composition
Chapter One asks, "Che cosa sono i tarocchi?"--"What is the tarot?" After describing the composition of a typical deck used today in Italy, the Piedmontese, he states the main thesis of the chapter:
Il mazzo dei tarocchi fu inventato nell’Italia del Nord nella prima metà del XV secolo. Questa origine italiana sembra probabile dal numero relativamente alto di carte da tarocchi ita-[end of 13]liane del Quattrocento che ci sono pervenute, e dai numerosi riferimenti ad esse in documenti quattrocenteschi italiani. Sebbene esistano numerosi riferimenti ad esse nella Francia del XVI secolo, per il XV non ce n’è alcuno al di fuori dell’Italia. L’argomento davvero conclusivo è che il sistema di semi usato nel mazzo dei tarocchi è tipicamente italiano.The first actual report of a tarot deck so far known is in 1440 Florence, a hand-painted deck for the Lord of Remini, who was one of two main military leaders for Florence at that time. The documentation, published in 2002 in an article on a Tuscan diarist, came to the attention of readers of internet tarot forums only in 2012 (see http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773&p=11085&hilit=Giusti+1440#p11085. When Dummett was writing in 1993, the first known reference was Ferrara 1442, the sale of a deck to the Ferrarese court from a Bolognese merchant. Two years makes little difference. Dummett assumes as a realistic possibility that tarot was invented several years before, even a few decades, but not as far back as the first reports in Europe of regular cards, which goes back to the 1370s. He says (p. 23, including the footnotes for completeness):
The tarot deck was invented in northern Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century. This Italian origin seems likely by the relatively high number of Italian tarot cards [end of 13] of the fifteenth century that have come down to us, and the many references to these documents in fifteenth-century Italian. Although there are numerous references to them in France of the sixteenth century, in the fifteenth there is none outside Italy. The really conclusive argument is that the system of suits used in the tarot deck is typically Italian.
When the 22 special cards were added so as to make a tarot deck, the packs so formed reflected the same characteristics as the normal pack used in the region. For example, in Bologna a 40 card pack was used in many games. The tarocchi pack, called tarocchini, i.e. little tarocchi, used the same 40 cards with the addition of the characteristic special cards. So the tarot pack is simply the regular pack with the cards called "triumphs", later "tarocchi", added.Le carte da gioco comparvero per la prima volta in Europa nel 1370 circa 6. Non ci è pervenuta alcuna carta del XIV secolo (con al massimo un’eccezione 7); dei molti riferimenti ad esse in documenti dell’epoca, uno solo ci dà qualche informazione sul loro aspetto. Si tratta del celebre Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, scritto a Basilea, probabilmente nel 1377, da un frate di nome Giovanni (di solito indicato come Giovanni da Rheinfelden).
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6. Il primo documento contenente la parola «naips», che significa ‘carte da gioco’, è il Diccionari de rims (Vocabolario di rime) del 1371 del poeta catalano Jaume March (pubblicato a cura di Antoni Griera, Barcellona, 1921; si veda p. 63). Cfr. Jean-Pierre Étienvre, Figures du jeu: études lexico-sémantiques sur le jeu de cartes en Espagne (XVIe-XVIIie siècle), Madrid, 1987, pp. 19, 68. Étienvre cita un altro riferimento alle carte da gioco nel Llibre de les dones di Francesc Eiximenis, «probabilmente dello stesso anno».
7. Si tratta di due fogli antichissimi stampati da matrici di legno e non tagliati nell’Instituto Municipal de Historia a Barcellona: si veda Simon Wintle, ‘A «Moorish» Sheet of Playing Cards’, The Playing Card, Vol. XV, 1987, pp. 112-22. È probabile che questi fogli risalgano al primo decennio dei XV secolo.
(Playing cards appeared for the first time in Europe in about 1370 (6). No card of the fourteenth century still exists (with a maximum of one exception (7)); of the many references to them in documents of the time, only one gives us some information on their appearance. This is the famous Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, written in Basel, probably in 1377, by a monk named Johannes (usually indicated as John of Rheinfelden).
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6. The first document containing the word ‘naips', which means 'playing card', is the Diccionari de rims (Dictionary of rhymes) by the 1371 Catalan poet Jaume March (published under the editorship of Antoni Griera, Barcelona, 1921; see p. 63). Cf. Jean-Pierre Étienvre, Figures du jeu: études lexico-sémantiques sur le jeu de cartes en Espagne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle), Madrid, 1987, pp. 19, 68. Étienvre cites another reference to playing cards in Llibre Francesc de les dones by Francesc Eiximenis, “probably of the same year”.
7. There are two sheets printed from ancient wood matrices, uncut, in the Instituto Municipal de Historia in Barcelona: see Simon Wintle, 'A Moorish Sheet of Playing Cards', The Playing Card, Vol XV, 1987, pp. 112-22. It is likely that these sheets go back to the first decade of the fifteenth century.)
I should perhaps say something at the outset about the role of the special cards added to the regular deck. Although there is no documentation of the specific rules of the game with the special cards until 1659 (http://www.tarock.info/maison_academique.htm), the role of the special cards is clear, both from that document and others: they served as a permanent "trump" suit; that is, any card in that suit beats any card of the four other suits in a "trick", meaning a round in which each player puts in a card, following suit where possible, and the high card takes the others. This practice may be inferred from the account of another game that also had special cards of this nature, designed for Duke Filippo Maria Visconti in 1420s Milan, where there were 16 such cards, each representing a particular Greco-Roman god or demi-god, in a numbered hierarchy of precedence (http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona-tractatus-de-deificatione-16-heroum). The main difference is that for purposes of "following suit" in a trick, 4 of each of the special cards were assigned to each of the four suit. This characterstic is not mentioned in 1659 or any other time in relation to the game of tarot, so if it persisted it cannot have been for long, because by the latter part of the 15th century there were 22 such cards, a number not divisible by 4.
"STANDARD MODELS"
The regular deck (i.e. without the special cards of the tarot) exists, and has done so almost from the beginning, in "standard models" (p. 14):
In ogni paese del mondo le carte da gioco prodotte per uso ordinario si uniformano a particolari modelli grafici stereotipi, con pochissime variazioni fra pn fabbricante e l’altro.This is not only true country to country, but in some cases region by region within countries. It is because players need to be able to identify the cards at a glance, regardless of what is on them. They want the cards to be familiar. He continues (p. 14)
(In every country in the world playing cards produced for ordinary use will conform to particular stereotypical graphical models, with very little variation between one manufacturer to another.)
Pertanto, i modelli standard sono di solito estremamente conservatori. A volte cambiano, ovviamente; in qualche caso all’im- prowiso, più spesso così lentamente che i giocatori non se ne rendono neppure conto. La storia della grafica delle carte da gioco è quindi, prima di tutto, la storia dell’evoluzione e diffusione dei modelli standard.There are French suits, German suits, and Latin suits, each with various standard models. Rather than go through Dummett's detailed descriptions, I will post some examples, taken from the site http://collectorsplayingcards.blogspot.com/.
Therefore, the standard models are usually extremely conservative. Sometimes they change, of course; in some cases unexpectedly, more often so slowly that the players are not even aware of it. The history of the design of playing cards is then, first of all, the history of the evolution and spread of the standard models.
German suits in the beginning had much variation, but settled on Leaves, Acorns, Hearts, and Bells. With their origin in Germany, they are used primarily in Central Europe.
Latin suits have Swords (in Italian, Spade or Espade) Staves (Bastoni), Cups (Coppe), and Coins (Denari). They in turn divide into Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, each with a characteristic way of depicting the suit-objects. In this case, he says, these terms are of convenience and do not imply the country of origin. It will turn out that while Italian suits did originate in Italy, but the others are more complicated.
Italian suits (directly left) are used in many parts of Italy, especially in the North, where they probably originated. Within Northern Italy, there are variations in suits among regions.
Spanish suits (lower left) are used in Spain and Spanish America, as well as central and southern Italy and the eastern part of the region bordering Spain in France. The Staves have knobs and neither Swords nor Staves intersect.
The Portuguese system (not shown) used to be the national system of Portugal and Portuguese colonies and trading partners, but is now almost extinct, used only in Sicily. However most Asian cards are descended from it. In it, Dummett says, the Swords are straight, as in the Spanish system, but intersect, as in the Italian. The Staves also intersect; they are smoother than the Spanish but not as smooth as the Italian.
WHERE PLAYING CARDS CAME FROM
Dummett argues that playing cards came to Europe from the Islamic world. First, the earliest documented mention in Europe is in Catalonia of 1371, followed in 1377 by Florence, Basel, Siena, and Paris. Several of these mentions stress that it is a new game. Speaking of playing cards (p. 26):
Frate Giovanni da Rheinfelden dichiara apertamente che esse furono introdotte nella regione di Basilea l’anno stesso in cui egli scriveva, il 1377; le Cronache di Viterbo parlano della loro introduzione nel paese nel 1379; un editto di Valenza del 1384 fa riferimento alle carte come a «un nuovo gioco»; e l’editto più antico, quello fiorentino del 1377, le descrive come «recentemente introdutte in queste parti»10.If so, from where? He continues (still p. 26):
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10 Si vedano Ludovico Zdekauer, ‘Il giuoco in Italia nei secoli XIH-XIV e specialmente in Firenze’, Archivio Storico Italiano, ser. IV, Vol. 18, 1886, pp. 20- 74; Francesco Novati, ‘Per la storia delle carta da giuoco in Italia’, Il libro e la stampa, anno n, 1908, pp. 54-69; Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber, Die àltesten Spielkarten, Strasburgo, 1937, p. 74; H. Rosenfeld, ‘Zur Datierbarkeit Friiher Spielkarten in Europa und im nahen Orient’, Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1975, pp. 353-71; F. Pratesi, ‘Italian Cards: New Discoveries’, n. 8, The Playing Card, Vol. XVII, 1989, pp. 107-11.
(Friar John of Rheinfelden says openly that they were introduced into the Basel region the same year in which he wrote, 1377; the Chronicles of Viterbo talk about their introduction into the country in 1379; an edict of Valencia in 1384 refers to the cards as "a new game"; and the oldest edict, that of Florence in 1377, describes them as "introduced recently in these parts" 10.
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10 See Ludwig Zdekauer, ‘Il giuoco in Italia nei secoli XIH-XIV e specialmente in Firenze’, Archivio Storico Italiano, ser. IV, Vol. 18, 1886, ['Games in Italy of the XIH and XIV centuries -especially in Florence ', Italian Historical Archives, ser. IV, Vol 18, 1886], p. 20 -74; Francesco Novati, ‘Per la storia delle carta da giuoco in Italia’, Il libro e la stampa, anno n, 1908 ['For the history of card playing in Italy', The book and the print, year no, 1908], p. 54-69; Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber, Die àltesten Spielkarten [The Oldest Playing Cards] Strasbourg, 1937, p. 74; H. Rosenfeld, 'Zur Datierbarkeit Friiher Spielkarten in Europa und in nahen Orient', Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1975, p. 353-71; F. Pratesi, 'Italian Cards: New Discoveries', n. 8, The Playing Card, Vol. XVII, 1989, pp. 107-11.)
Affermare che qualcosa fu introdotto in Europa da qualche altro luogo nel tardo Trecento può solo significare che fu introdotto dal mondo Islamico: o dalla Spagna moresca in quella cristiana, o dall’Egitto mamelucco attraverso il grande porto di Venezia. Non c’è dubbio che le carte da gioco erano conosciute fra i Mamelucchi: i più antichi accenni in documenti, che risalgono all’anno 1400 circa, li troviamo negli Annali di Ibn Taghri-Birdi, in cui sono chiamate kanjifah.The Mamluks had been imported from Central Asia as slaves of the Egyptians, used for military purposesm until they revolted successfully against their masters (http://a_pollett.tripod.com/cardsc.htm). A set of 16th century Mamluk cards is in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. They have 52 cards in 4 suits: swords, coins, cups, and polo sticks. Polo was unknown at that time in Europe. As for the courts (p. 29):
(To say that something was introduced to Europe from some other place in the late fourteenth century can only mean that it was introduced by the Islamic world: from Moorish or Christian Spain, or Mamluk Egypt through the large port of Venice. There is no doubt that playing cards were known among the Mamluks: the oldest references, in documents that date back to 1400, we find them in the Annals Ibn Taghri-Birdi, in which they are are called kanjifah.)
Nel mazzo di Istanbul ci sono tre figure per ogni seme: la più alta è il Re (malik) e, sotto di lui, ci sono il Viceré {na’ib ma- lìk) e il Secondo Viceré (thani na’ib).Not coincidentally, the first term for playing cards was "naipes", by which they are still called in Spain (p. 29).
(In the deck of Istanbul there are three figures for each suit: the highest is the King (malik) and, under him there are the Viceroy (na'ib but-lik) and the Second Viceroy ( thani na'ib)).
Inoltre, la più comune parola italiana tre-quattrocentesca per indicare le carte da gioco è «naibi», affine alla parola spagnola «naìpes», usata ancora oggi, e a forme analoghe che si trovano in antichi documenti francesi e catalani.Similarly, in the document of 1440 published in 2002, the reference to the tarot deck does so with the phrase "un paio di naibi a trionfi", i.e. "a pack of triumph cards" (http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773&p=11085&hilit=Giusti+1440#p11085).
(Moreover, the most common Italian word to indicate playing cards is "naibi," cognate with the Spanish word ' NAIPES', still used today, and similar forms found in ancient French and Catalan documents.)
Also there is no trace of the evolution of playing cards from something else in Europe. The Mamluks, however, called their cards kanjifàh, from the Persian ganjifeh, which itself is probably not an indigenous word, he says. So from there playing cards can be traced even further back.
In Chapter 4 Dummett tells us more, that playing cards originated in China and worked their way west. Here I want to give an exact quote, because I also want to indicate some problems with his account (p. 146):
There are really two theses here. First, that it is certain that the idea of four suits came from the Islamic world somewhere. . Second, more speculative, he is saying that perhaps the Malmuks, in the Mediterranean, added the third figure in each suit. In that case the suits would have come first to southern Europe, and then, in the suits there, to Northern Europe. I will address only the second point.Le carte da gioco non sono un’invenzione europea. Come suggeriscono i titoli di molti libri scritti sull’argomento, il problema della loro origine ha affascinato gli studiosi per duecento anni; ma, in realtà, esso è posto in termini ambigui. Le parole «carte da gioco» possono essere usate in senso generico, comprendendo quindi le carte per Cuccù e Mercante in Fiera; è praticamente certo che le carte da gioco intese in questo senso furono inventate in Cina, dove, dopo tutto, fu inventata la carta e scoperta la stampa. Ma le prime carte da gioco cinesi rappresentavano i Domino, anch’essi un’invenzione cinese. Possiamo dunque porci un problema diverso, quello cioè dell’origine del normale mazzo a quattro semi usato, in forme diverse, nei vari paesi d’Europa. Abbiamo visto che, quasi certamente, esso giunse in Europa dal mondo Islamico, nella forma del mazzo di cinquantadue carte. Fu inventato lì, oppure, come gli scacchi, venne da zone ancora più a Oriente? Come sorse l’idea di fare un mazzo di carte da gioco diviso in semi, contraddistinti da segni di seme? Perché le carte di ciascun seme sono divise in carte numerali e figure? Non siamo ancora in grado di rispondere con certezza a queste domande, ma mazzi di carte da gioco con le stesse caratteristiche erano noti in India fin dai tempi del primo imperatore mogol Babur, e vengono ancora usati in quel paese. Questi mazzi indigeni hanno dieci carte numerali e due figure per seme; nella forma Mogol originaria, ci sono otto semi, mentre le versioni Hindu hanno dieci o dodici semi. Analoghi mazzi a otto semi furono in passato usati anche in Persia, più o meno dalla stessa epoca (inizio del XVI secolo). Questi mazzi sicuramente non derivano da quelli europei, ma altrettanto sicuramente hanno in comune con essi l’origine, forse da un tipo scomparso con quattro semi e quarantotto carte. Secondo questa ipotesi, i Mamelucchi aggiunsero una terza figura ad ogni seme, mentre i Persiani raddoppiarono il mazzo: il prototipo a quarantotto carte sarebbe venuto da qualche luogo più a Oriente, forse dall’Asia Cen-[96]trale. Tutto questo è pura speculazione: ma è certo che il mazzo a quattro semi non fu ideato in Europa ma importato dal mondo Islamico.
(Playing cards are not a European invention. As suggested by the titles of many books written on the subject, the question of their origin has fascinated scholars for two hundred years; but, in reality, it is put in ambiguous terms. The words ' playing cards' can be used in a generic sense, thus including cards for Cuccù and Mercante in Fiera; it is is virtually certain that playing cards in this sense were invented in China, where, after all, paper was invented and printing discovered. But the first Chinese playing cards depicted dominoes, also a Chinese invention. So we can set ourselves a different problem, namely, of the origin of the regular deck in four suits used in different forms in the various countries of Europe. We have seen that, almost certainly, it arrived in Europe from the Islamic world, in the form of a pack of fifty-two cards. Was it invented there, or, like chess, came from areas further to the East? How did the idea arise of making a deck of playing cards divided into suits, marked by suit-signs? Why were the cards of each suit divided into numeral cards and figures? We are not yet able to answer these questions with certainty, but decks of playing cards with the same characteristics were known in India since the time of the first Mughal emperor Babur, and are still used in that country. These native decks have ten pip cards and two figures per suit; in the original Mogul iorm, there are eight suits, while the Hindu versions have ten or twelve suits. Similar decks of eight suits were formerly used in Persia, more or less from the same era (early sixteenth century). These decks certainly did not derive from European ones, but just as surely have a common origin with them, perhaps from a type that has disappeared with four suits and forty-eight cards. According to this hypothesis, the Mamluks added a third figure in each suit, while the Persians doubled the pack: the prototype to forty-eight cards would have come from somewhere further east, perhaps from Central Asia. [96] All this is pure speculation, but it is certain that the deck in four suits was not conceived in Europe but imported from the Islamic world.
A SECOND TRADE ROUTE, DIRECTLY TO CENTRAL EUROPE?
The problem is that there are other reasonable alternatives to the scenario Dummett sketches out. The main issue is whether playing cards came by only one route, from Islamic Persia or India to Egypt and the Islamic Mediterranean, then to Christian Southern Europe, and finally to Northern Europe, or perhaps by other routes as well, including an overland route from Central Asia directly to Central Europe. "Huck" on THF has brought our attention to the 19th century researcher of central European trade F. L. Hübsch, who stated, unfortunately without supporting references (he apparently didn't see what he was saying as unusual or controversial), that the first producer of playing cards in Bohemia was a certain card-painter Jonathan Kraysel from Nuremberg in 1354 (http://trionfi.com/0/p/95/). He also mentions playing card production earlier in Poland, and in Bohemia by 1340, as well as some playing card prohibitions enacted by Charles IV (reigned 1346-1378). "Huck" has more recently posted a passage from Hübsch in which he says that dice and playing cards were known in Bohemia since 1309 (http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1064#p16340). He has also found other publications, from 1599 and subsequent centuries, saying the same thing (starting at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1064#p16332). It seems to me possible that Hübsch was merely relying on one of them. Another historian, Schreiber, writes of three card-players struck by lightning in 1303. This, to be sure, is the kind of tale that often is invented for moralistic purposes. And even if playing cards were in Central Europe this early, they still could have gotten there from points south, such as Venice.
There is then the question of how much development had already occurred by the time playing cards reached Central Asia.
Here is "Andy's Playing Cards" (http://a_pollett.tripod.com/cards8.htm), on Chinese playing cards, after its account of domino cards. The "Wilkinson" mentioned was a late 19th century Sinologist, first initials "W. H.", who was a diplomat in China:
Another type of deck had four suits and two of these special subjects, corresponding to "Red flower' and "White Flower", for 38 cards total. Still other decks had numeral cards and additional "honours" in each suit, plus special cards:Another early pattern is known as Gun Pai ("stick cards" or "cane cards"), likely referring to their shape.Wilkinson maintained that these cards were created from early books, whose pages were made individually detachable for an easier reference; later on, their use as an amusement would have caused their size to be reduced. According to his theory, this kind of books came into use in China by the mid 8th century; if this proved correct, the Gun Pai might have been created before the domino cards.
The structure of this pattern was described as based upon three suits, whose cards featured signs from 1 to 9 (but one suit had numerals). The suits were identified by Wilkinson as Jian (or Qian) "coins, money", Tiao with a meaning of "long things, sticks", and Wan meaning "myriads, 10,000".
Three more subjects named Qian Wan ("Thousand Myriads", also known as "Old Thousand"), Hong Hua ("Red Flower") and Bai Hua ("White Flower") completed the set.
A full deck contained four duplicates of each subject (120 cards in total) plus, in some editions, a variable number of special loose cards, up to six per pack, whose function in play - according to Wilkinson's report - was the same as that of Western jokers, i.e. they acted as wildcards that could replace any standard subject.
There were as many as 5 of these special cards, not attached to any suit.The main features of the group are: three suits, given the Western names of Coins, Strings and Myriads; values running from 1 to 9, plus a number of honour cards, of higher rank; some decks also have one or more special subjects.
It seems to me reasonable to hypothesize that some decks were developed that used two "honour cards" per suit, from which the Mogul decks descended, while other decks used three in each suit. The Malmuks had originally come from precisely Central Asia.
"Andy's Playing Cards" presents evidence that the Malmuks' suit signs come directly from Chinese characters for the suits (unfortunately I cannot post the Chinese characters on Andy's site (http://a_pollett.tripod.com/cardsc.htm):
So the three court cards may have come from China to Central Asia, and from there gone south to Egypt but also perhaps into North-Central Europe directly.But why the signs of the suit of Tûmân were chalices, or cups? Wilkinson suggested that the choice of cups as the suit's distinctive sign might have sprung from a misinterpretation of the Chinese and Manchu character which, turned upside down (), has indeed the shape of a chalice. A detail matching this theory is the position of these signs, always in the top part of the cards in Chinese patterns, while in Arabic courts they are featured below, as in a Chinese card turned upside down. Many scholars rejected Wilkinson's theory; however, in the case it was true, we should think that the earliest decks that reached the Arabs still had suits spelt with Chinese glyphs (not clearly understood by the Arabic players), thus the cards would have not come from Persia, but likely from a region further east.
Since all the suits of the Oriental system are related to money or coins, the symbolic meaning of Tûmân may have a similar relation, as well. For instance, more than the shape of a chalice, the meaning may be the metal which the cups featured in Mamlûk cards are likely made of, i.e. gold. It is probably not a coincidence that also the Persian Toman was a golden piece.
Also for the Chinese suit of Tens, Shi, only found in 4-suited patterns (see the Chinese gallery), it is impossible not to see this cross-shaped character as a stylized sword with its hilt. In fact the corresponding suit in the Arabic deck bears the name of Suyûf, whose meaning is "swords" or "scimitars".
A further coincidence seems to concern the three "special" cards of the money-suited packs, also called honours, and named Old Thousand, Red Flower and White Flower (see the Chinese gallery, page 1); they may have a relation with the three courts of the Arabic deck (king, deputy and second deputy).
Even the idea of special cards not attached to any suit seems to be Chinese. It might be that they are just wildcards, but perhaps they were more than that. Further research is needed before we can say, with Dummett:
However it is certainly clear that even if the Chinese had a special suit more powerful than the others, there is no trace of its being used by Muslims or Europeans.Il mazzo di carte normale non fu un’invenzione europea, ma il mazzo dei tarocchi indubbiamente sì. Non c’è la minima traccia di prova che qualcosa di anche vagamente simile al mazzo dei tarocchi sia stato conosciuto al di fuori dell’Europa prima del XIX secolo.
(The normal deck of cards was not a European invention, but the tarot deck undoubtedly yes. There is not the slightest trace of evidence that anything even vaguely similar to the tarot deck has been known outside of Europe before the nineteenth century.)
WERE EUROPEAN PLAYING CARDS ORIGINALLY ALL LATIN-SUITED?
If playing cards entered Europe only via the Mediterranean, it would be expected that at first all playing cards would be Latin-suited. This is in fact a thesis Dummett defends. (p. 31):
And later, more fully (p. 36):(Sfortunatamente Frate Giovanni, nel suo Tractatus de moribus, mancò di indicare quali fossero i segni di seme; ma per quanto ne sappiamo oggi, è logico supporre che i segni ‘latini’ fossero usati in tutta Europa nei primi decenni di diffusione delle carte da gioco.)
Unfortunately, Brother John, in his Tractatus de moribus, failed to indicate what the suits signs were; but as far as we know today, it is logical to assume that the 'Latin' signs were used throughout Europe in the first decades of the spread of playing cards.
So the argument seems to be lack of evidence to the contrary, including places (extant cards) where evidence of independent, non-Latin derivation would be expected to be found. If he is right, any spread of cards from a non-European source was so minimal as to be undetectable. However he seems not to have known about Hübsch.Quale che sia la verità sulle diverse versioni del sistema di semi latino, è ampiamente dimostrato che carte con semi latini, nelle varie forme, erano l’unico tipo conosciuto in Italia, Spagna e Francia fin verso il 1470. Se accettiamo l’ovvia ipotesi che, quando le carte da gioco fecero la loro prima comparsa in Europa, esse avevano dappertutto lo stesso sistema di semi, ne consegue che questo poteva essere soltanto il sistema latino: si potrebbe giungere a questa conclusione anche senza saper nulla a proposito delle carte mamelucche.
Ci è pervenuta una notevole quantità di carte tedesche e svizzere del Quattrocento e primo Cinquecento, in maggioranza databili dopo il 1450. In entrambe le aree si producevano carte con semi latini e non solo per l’esportazione; erano tuttavia ben lungi dal predominare. In nessuna delle due aree, tuttavia, esiste un sistema alternativo che lasci in alcun modo supporre di essere stato il modello rispetto al quale gli altri siano deviazioni. Anzi, troviamo in Germania e, in misura minore, anche in Svizzera, tracce di frenetica sperimentazione con i segni di seme e altri tratti del mazzo di carte: innumerevoli oggetti diversi sono utilizzati come segni di seme nell’uno o nell’altro mazzo. Quello che doveva diventare il sistema di semi tedesco fu ideato intorno al 1460, e quello svizzero risale forse alla stessa epoca; ma fu solo verso la fine del secolo che il primo fu elevato a sistema standard — e quello svizzero qualche decennio più tardi. Niente di tutto ciò porta conferme definitive alla nostra ipotesi, ma tutto è coerente con essa. È probabile che le carte da gioco tedesche e svizzere del Trecento fossero a semi latini; nel Quattrocento iniziò una lunga ricerca di un sistema di semi più consono alle culture nazionali.
(Whatever the truth about the different versions of the Latin suit system, there is ample evidence that cards with Latin suits, in various forms, were the only type known in Italy, Spain and France after 1450. If we accept the obvious hypothesis that when playing cards made their first appearance in Europe, they were everywhere the same suit-system, it follows that this could only be the Latin system: one could come to this conclusion without knowing anything about Mamluk cards.
A significant quantity of German and Swiss cards of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century have come down to us, the majority dated after 1450. In both areas, cards with Latin suits, and not just for export, were produced; however, they were far from being predominate. In none of the two areas, however, is there an alternative system which lets us in any way suppose it to have been the model against which others are deviations. Indeed, we find in Germany and, to a lesser extent, also in Switzerland, traces of frantic experimentation with suit signs and other parts of the card packs: countless different objects are used as suit-signs in one or another pack. What was to become the German suit-system was invented around 1460, and the Swiss dates perhaps to the same time; but it was only towards the end of the century that it was elevated to a standard system – and that of the Swiss some decades later. None of this leads to final confirmation to our hypothesis, but everything is consistent with it. It is likely that German and Swiss playing cards of the fourteenth century were Latin-suited; in the fifteenth Century there began a long search for a suit-system best suited to the national cultures.)
QUEENS AS A CHARACTERISTIC OF TAROT DECKS AS OPPOSED TO NORMAL ONES
A peculiarity of the tarot pack is that it always, so far as known, had Queens as part of its court cards. But at the time when the tarot was invented, this was generally not true of regular packs in Italy. In previous writings, he had made the presence of a Queen in an incomplete surviving deck a strong indicator that the deck is a tarot, because normal Italian decks didn't usually have Queens. His reasoning was that all the normal decks that have survived lack Queens; but since other countries did have such decks--German decks, before 1500, and French suits, from whenever French suits were invented--probably a few in Italy did as well, until after 1500. On this point he now cites two early documents that "suggest" [suggerita] by "hints" [accenni] Queens in normal decks (p. 21).
Here is footnote 5:È tuttavia possibile che fossero occasionalmente usati nell’Italia del XV secolo mazzi normali contenenti le stesse quattro figure del mazzo dei tarocchi; anche se nessuna carta ci è pervenuta a sostegno di questa ipotesi, essa è suggerita da due accenni in documenti (5).
(However it is possible that there occasionally were used in Italy of the XV century normal decks containing the same four figures as tarocchi deck; even if no card has come down to us to sustain this hypothesis, it is suggested by two hints in documents (5)
In these quotes, "regum" means "king" and "regina" means "queen". These hints do not, however, prevent him later on from using Queens as a likely indicator that a deck is a tarot. I will get back to this point later in this post.5. Marzio Galeotti di Nami (morto nei 1478) usa l’espressione l’espressione «regum reginarum equitum peditumque potentiam», senza far cenno ai triumphi, in un passo relativo alle carte da gioco (De doctrine, promiscua, Firenze, 1548, cap. 36 in fondo). Analogamente, San Bernardino da Siena, nel suo sermone contro il gioco d’azzardo («contra alearum ludos») predicato nel 1423, nomina, a proposito delle carte da gioco, per primi «reges atque reginae» e poi « milites superiores et inferiores», ancora una volta senza alcun accenno a triumphi si veda S. Bernardini Senensis O.F.M. Opera Omnia, a cura dei PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, Vol. II, Firenze, 1950, Sermo 42, p. 23. È ovviamente possibile che l’uno o l’altro dei due autori avesse in mente le carte da tarocchi, ma non vedesse ragione di nominare i trionfi; questa è, tuttavia, un’ipotesi poco probabile.
(5). Marzio Galeotti di Narni (died in 1478) uses the expression "regum reginarum equitum peditumque potentiam," without mentioning the triumphi, in a passage relating to playing cards (De doctrina promiscuo, Florence, 1548, ch. 36 at the bottom). Similarly, San Bernardino of Siena, in his sermon against gambling (‘contra alearum Ludos’) preached in 1423, names in passing some playing cards, first "reges atque reginae" and then "milites superiores et inferiores', again with no mention of triumphi. See S. Bernardini Senensis, Opera Omnia, edited by PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, Vol II, Florence, 1950, Sermo 42, p. 23. It is of course possible that one or other of the two authors had in mind tarot cards, but did not see any reason to name the triumphs; this is, however, an unlikely hypothesis.)
Another question, for me, is why the tarot, originating in a country where the normal deck usually didn't have Queens, managed so firmly and uniformly to have suits with Queens. I suspect influence from Germany, just as in France. But if so, why not normal decks as well? Here what Dummett says about the putatively 1377 Basel text Tractatus de moribus is relevant, with its discussion of female courts. I highlight the relevant parts in the quote below (although the whole passage is relevant to the issue of Queens) (p. 24f):
However Dummett thinks that a corresponding change did not usually happen to normal decks in Italy, despite his quotes from St. Bernardino and Marzio Galeotti di Narni--except in the case of tarot decks, and then always. Dummett's basis is the lack of surviving normal decks with Queens. There are, to be sure, surviving Italian decks that have Queens and no triumphs, but they are "probably" tarots. But there are many more that don't. To evaluate Dummett's claim, we would have to know how many other surviving normal decks contemporary with the tarot decks there are, how many cards are extant in each deck. He says that surviving hand-painted tarot decks outnumber handpainted normal decks 2 to 1. So if there are around 27 surviving tarot decks, there are around 9 normal decks without Queens, vs. 2 with Queens and 2 documents. I have no idea how to compute the odds that the ones without Queens have survived by chance. But it does look like normal decks lacked Queens more than they had them. IIf so, how did tarots get Queens but not normal decks?Il Tractatus de moribus ci è pervenuto solo in un manoscritto del 1429 e in altri tre, tutti del 1472 (8). Ci sono pochissime varianti fra questi quattro testi, ma, se l’originale è veramente del 1377, essi devono contenere interpolazioni, forse del copista del 1429. Da questi testi e da un certo numero di antichi mazzi tedeschi pervenutici, veniamo a conoscenza di un alto grado di sperimentazione nella composizione del mazzo normale nella Germania del Quattrocento, e fu in seguito a questi esperimenti che la Regina fece il suo primo ingresso nel mazzo di carte. Ai sostentori della liberazione della donna farà piacere sapere che essa fu originariamente introdotta non come inferiore al Re ma come di pari grado. Il Tractatus de moribus descrive mazzi in cui nei quattro semi, o in due su quattro, tutte le figure erano femminili. Un famoso mazzo quattrocentesco dipinto a mano, prodotto fra il 1427 e il 1431, è uno degli esempi a noi pervenuti di questo secondo tipo. In altri mazzi ancora troviamo Unter femminili. Attraverso quella che fu probabilmente una fase di sviluppo successiva, si giunse a mazzi in cui tutti e quattro i semi hanno Re, Regina, Ober e Unter. Esempio di questo è un mazzo dipinto a mano, datato 1440-5, noto come mazzo di caccia Ambraser 9; e ci sono molti altri mazzi tedeschi quattrocenteschi con quattro figure per seme. Il Tractatus non ne fa cenno; esso fa riferimento, tuttavia, con grande entusiasmo, a un tipo che non ci è pervenuto, con quindici carte in ciascuno dei quattro semi, compresi Re, Regina, i due Marescialli e una Servetta (ancilla) come carta più bassa fra le cinque figure. Quando, nel 1470 circa, i fabbricanti di carte francesi introdussero la loro grande innovazione, il sistema di semi francese, essi presero a prestito la Regina dai mazzi tedeschi con quattro figure, in sostituzione del Cavaliere del mazzo con semi latini; fu questa la sua comparsa insieme col Re in un mazzo con solo tre figure per seme.
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8. Cfr. Sir Edward Augustus Bond, ‘The history of playing-cards’. Athenaeum, n. 2621, 19 gennaio 1878, da p. 87, col. 3, a p. 88, col. 2; Peter Kopp, ‘Die frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz’, Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte, Vol. 30, 1973, pp. 130-46; e Hellmut Rosenfeld, ‘Zu den frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz: eine Entgegnung’, ibid., Vol. 32, 1975, pp. 179-80. Più recentemente, Ronald Decker in ‘Brother Johannes and the Year 1377, The Playing Card, Vol. XVIII, 1989, pp. 46-7, ha proposto un’emendazione del testo, secondo la quale la data 1377 sarebbe quella in cui le carte da gioco arrivarono per la prima volta nella sua regione; il trattato quindi potrebbe essere stato composto un po’ dopo, forse intorno al 1400, oppure nell’anno 1429 della prima copia. Comunque, come rilevato da David Parlett nella sua lettera alla Playing Card, Vol. XVHI, 1990, p, 73, altri brani del trattato convalidano l’anno 1377 come data della sua composizione; si veda anche la risposta di R. Decker, The Playing Card, Vol. XIX, 1990, pp. 20-1.
(The Tractatus de moribus has survived in only one 1429 manuscript and three others all of 1472 (8). There are very few variations among these four texts, but if the original is really in 1377, they must contain interpolations, perhaps by the 1429 copyist. From these texts and a number of old extant German packs, we learn of a high degree of experimentation in the composition of the normal pack in Germany in the fifteenth century, and it was following these experiments that the Queen made her first entry into the card pack. Supporters of women's liberation will be pleased to know that she was not originally introduced as inferior to the King but as of equal rank. The Tractatus de moribus describes packs in whose four suits, or two out of four, all the figures were female. A famous hand-painted fifteenth-century pack, produced between 1427 and 1431, is one example presented to us of this second type. In which feminine Unters are found. Through what was probably a later stage of development, she entered packs in which all four suits have King, Queen, Ober and Unter. An example of this is a hand-painted pack dated 1440-5, known as the Ambraser hunting pack (9); and there are many other fifteenth century German packs with four figures per suit of which the Tractatus makes no mention; it refers, however, with much enthusiasm, to a type that has not survived, with fifteen cards in each of the four suits, including King, Queen, the two marshals and a Servetta (ancilla) as the lowest card among the five figures. When, in 1470, manufacturers of French cards introduced their great innovation, the French suit-system, they borrowed the Queen from German packs with four figures, in place of the Knight in the pack with Latin suits; this was an appearance together with the king in a pack with only three figures per suit.
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8. Cf. Sir Edward Augustus Bond, ‘The history of playing-cards’, Athenaeum, no. 2621, 19 January 1878, from p. 87, col. 3, to p. 88, col. 2; Peter Kopp,‘Die frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz’, Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte, Vol. 30, 1973, pp. 130-46; and Hellmut Rosenfeld, ‘Zu den frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz: eine Entgegnung’, ibid., Vol. 32,1975, pp. 179-80. More recently, Ronald Decker in 'Brother Johannes and the Year 1377’, The Playing Card, Vol XVIII, 1989, p. 46-7, proposed an emendation of the text, according to which the date 1377 would be the one in which playing cards arrived for the first time in his region; so the treatise may have been composed a little later, perhaps around 1400, or in 1429, the year of the first copy. However, as noted by David Parlett in his letter to The Playing Card, Vol XVIII, 1990, p, 73, other parts of the treatise validate the year 1377 as the date of its composition; see also the response of R. Decker, The Playing Card, Vol XIX, 1990, pp. 20-1.)
In the passage I quoted, the parts I highlighted might have a bearing on what city the tarot originated in, or at least acquired Queens in. We know, if nothing else, that tarot decks had Queens. Some had other female courts as well. One whole subtype of normal decks, called "Portuguese" but probably originating in Spain, had female pages in two suits. In the tarot, we find that feature in the Minchiate and in the Budapest/Met woodblock sheets, so probably it was not common in Italy before the second half of the 15th century, perhaps via Aragonese influence (from normal suits in Aragon, where the "Portuguese" type is documented). Or vice versa. And where the Arogonese would have gotten it is another story. Given that Friar John had described a full complement of female courts in his 60 card pack, it is conceivable that it came from Germany. In the 15th century Spanish suited cards made in Germany were exported to Catalonia, just where Portuguese suits were also found.
The oldest surviving tarot deck, the so-called Cary-Yale, of c. 1442 Milan, had a full complement of female courts in all four suits; this is almost as many as Frater Johannes has in the deck of 1377. Here I ask, which cities in Italy had the closest connection with Germany in the first half of the 15th century? Milan, Mantua, and Modena (and hence Ferrara) had court connections. Many cities, including Florence, in the first half of the century, made a point of distancing themselves from Germany, due to the old Guelph fear of the Emperors. There were, to be sure, connections via the printing of cards, both in Germany and by Germans moved south. But they normally printed whatever the local market wanted.
For this new experiment, whether in Milan or elsewhere, of adding a fifth suit, it seems reasinable, they also experimented with the German innovation of female courts, not only the Queen, but, in Milan at least, other courts. Such experimentation, however, requires an openness to German practices.
HOW OLD IS THE FRENCH SUIT SYSTEM?
Compared to the 1980 Game of Tarot, Dummett revises his estimate of when French suits were invented, from about 1480 to "probably not earlier than 1465" [probabilemente non è anteriore al 1465"] in 1993 (pp. 34f). In his footnote to that remark, he gives his reasoning:
20. Un mazzo dipinto a mano del XV secolo, venduto all’asta da Sotheby nel 1984, è probabilmente il più antico mazzo finora pervenutoci di carte da gioco prodotte in o per la Francia. Una descrizione dettagliata del mazzo è nell’articolo di Tom Varekamp, ‘A XV-Century French Pack of Painted Playing Cards with a Hunting Theme’, The Playing Card, Vol. XIV, 1985-6, pp. 36-45 e 68-79. Si tratta di un mazzo completo di cinquantadue carte con segni di seme non standard, tutti collegati alla caccia (comi da caccia, collari di cane, cappi doppi e rotoli di corda). Minuziose ricerche da parte di Varekamp e di altri hanno fissato, per questo mazzo, la data del 1470, con un margine d’errore molto ridotto. La sua importanza per noi è dovuta al fatto che la sua composizione è esattamente quella di un mazzo di semi francesi: ciascun seme ha dieci carte numerali e, come figure. Re, Regina e Fante. Ciò rende probabile, sebbene naturalmente non certo, che il mazzo di semi francesi esistesse già all’epoca in cui questo venne prodotto, perché non si ha notizia di un tale gruppo di figure in alcuna altra forma standard di mazzo normale.
(20. A hand painted pack of the fifteenth century, sold at Sotheby's auction in 1984, is probably the oldest pack of playing cards that has come down produced in or for France thus far. A detailed description of the pack is in the article by Tom Varekamp, 'A fifteenth-Century French Painted Pack of Playing Cards with a Hunting Theme', The Playing Card, Vol XIV, 1985-6, pp. 36-45 and 68-79. It is a full fifty-two card pack with non-standard suit signs, all linked to hunting (hunting horns, dog collars, double knots and coils of rope). Painstaking research by Varekamp and others have set a date of 1470 for this pack, with a very small margin of error. Its importance for us is the fact that its composition is exactly that of a pack of French suits: each suit has ten pip cards and the figures King, Queen and Jack, making it likely, though of course not certain, that the French-suited pack already existed at the time when this was produced, because there is no notice of such a group of figures in any other standard form of normal pack.)
So he is saying
that French suits not only probably didn't exist before 1465, but
probably did exist by 1470. On p. 37 (passage quoted below) he is even more precise: the French
system "appeared around 1465".
His idea is that the French system got
the Queen from the German system--as well as adapting the German
suit-signs to the greater simplicity of the French. That system didn't
become fully developed until "around 1460", he says. This point then leads to another, having to do with the tarot pack.
The tarot would not have been commonly known in France until "after the Latin suit system was forgotten over time". First, as in GOT, he says it is a "reasonable assumption" that the Latin suit system was used all over Europe until replaced by other systems in Germany and France. In particular, the French system would have taken over in France very quickly after its invention (p. 38f): it could be produced much more cheaply, needing only stencils for the numeral cards, as opposed to woodblocks. Then he says, (I highlight the most important new inference) (p. 39):
This of course gives him a lead-in for his next chapter, which discusses the earliest extant tarot decks, from Milan. It is also possible that he is providing ammunition for his later contention that the French learned about the tarot from the Italians at the time of their military forays into the Italian peninsula, and not before, i.e. not earlier than 1495.Se il mazzo dei tarocchi fosse stato noto in Francia, Svizzera o Germania al tempo in cui il sistema di semi italiano, o una sua leggera variante, era d’uso comune in quei paesi, i segni di seme usati per i tarocchi avrebbero dovuto seguire la stessa evoluzione di quelli dei mazzi normali: avrebbero dovuto esserci mazzi di tarocchi con semi tedeschi e svizzeri e, già nel Cinquecento, mazzi con semi francesi. Solo se i mazzi dei tarocchi si diffusero in quei paesi quando ormai i segni di seme latini erano stati dimenticati da tempo è possibile spiegare la sopravvivenza di quei segni di seme per le carte da tarocchi in tutta Europa fino alla metà del Settecento.
(If the tarot pack had been known in France, Switzerland, or Germany at the time when the Italian suit-system, or a slight variation, was customary in those countries, the suit signs used by the tarot would have had to follow the same evolution as those of normal packs. There would have been tarot packs in Germany and Switzerland with German and Swiss suit signs, and then, as early as the sixteenth century, with French-suited signs. Only if the tarot packs spread to those countries when the Latin suit signs had already been forgotten over time [erano stati dimenticati da tempo], can the survival of Tarot cards with those suit signs throughout Europe until the mid-eighteenth century be explained.)
In any case, Dummett's point seems to me rather speculative. Elsewhere in the book, he gives an examples of a particular deck surviving because it is attached to a particular game, namely Aluette. He writes (p. 35):
L’ipotesi che, prima dell’invenzione del sistema di semi francese, si utilizzassero comunemente in Francia carte con semi spagnoli è confermata dal gioco di Aluette, ancora oggi fiorente sulla costa occidentale della Francia. Per il gioco di Aluette si usa un mazzo con semi spagnoli, in un modello standard che è diventato caratteristico di questo solo gioco; il mazzo è ancora prodotto dai fabbricanti di carte francesi. Il gioco è molto antico (le prime tracce risalgono al 1502), ma ogni tentativo di attribuirgli origine spagnola è fallito — non sembra che ci sia mai stato un gioco simile in Spagna. Non può quindi esserci altra spiegazione per l’uso di carte con semi spagnoli per questo gioco che il tradizionalismo dei giocatori; quando vennero introdotte le carte con semi francesi, essi si rifiutarono ostinatamente di smettere di usare il tipo di carte a cui erano abituati.The tarot deck, with its customary 14 cards per suit, quaint designs, and aristocratic pedigree, is for tarot. The French deck of simple suit cards of 13 cards each is for other, more commonplace games.
(The hypothesis that before the invention of the system of French suits commonly in France people were using cards with Spanish suits is confirmed by the game Aluette, still thriving on the west coast of France. For the game Aluette, using a deck with Spanish suits in a standard model thas become characteristic of this game only, the deck is still produced by manufacturers of French cards. The game is very old (the first traces date back to 1502), but any attempt to ascribe Spanish origin has failed – not it seems that there ever was a game similar in Spain. There can thenbe no other explanation for the use of cards with Spanish suits for this game than the traditionalism of the players; when they were introduced to cards with French suits, they refused stubbornly to stop using the type of cards to which they were accustomed.)
There is also the issue of what designs might have inspired the French system, and why. Dummett says: (pp. 37-38):
Il sistema di semi francese, che comparve verso il 1465, va certamente considerato un adattamento del sistema tedesco, con le Picche (Piques) al posto delle Foglie, i Fiori (Trèfles) al posto delle Ghiande e, naturalmente. Cuori francesi (Coeurs) al posto di quelli tedeschi. Le forme dei segni di seme francesi, in tutti e tre i casi, sono versioni normalizzate di quelli tedeschi. L’unica corrispondenza mancante è quella fra i Quadri (Carreaux) e le Campane; e, anche in questo caso, uno dei primi mazzi francesi — prodotto da Francois Clerc di Lione fra il 1485 e il 1496 e di cui la Bibliothèque Nationale conserva un foglio non tagliato — presenta Mezzelune al posto dei Quadri, avvicinandosi così maggiormente alla forma rotonda delle Campane.I would observe only that Crescents do not look much like bells, and Flowers do not look much like Acorns. Where Crescents came from is anybody's guess, and what their relationship to Diamonds is, is another. It could also be that Carreaux (Diamonds) came from the shapes made by intersecting Italian Bastoni, and Flowers (Clubs) from the flower pattern inside Italian Coins. Below are examples from each: Bastoni from the "Catania" and "Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo" tarot decks, both 1450s, and a 1499 Milanese 2 of Coins compared with Clerc's way of depicting the suits of Trèfles and Piques.
Questa variazione fu un colpo di genio commerciale da parte dei fabbricanti francesi. I segni di seme italiani, spagnoli, portoghesi, svizzeri e tedeschi sono tutti rappresentazioni, sia pur stilizzate, di oggetti concreti, di solito multicolori e di forma variabile a seconda di quanti devono comparirne sulla [end 37] carta; sulle figure, essi compaiono spesso come parte integrale del disegno. I segni di seme francesi sono sagome monocromatiche, di dimensioni costanti e forma semplice, e non sono mai tenuti in mano da alcuna delle figure, come accade frequentemente nelle figure degli altri sistemi di semi e come nei primi tempi doveva essere usanza universale. Questa innovazione rappresentò un enorme vantaggio commerciale. I fabbricanti francesi e spagnoli avevano per lo più già eliminato dalle carte numerali del mazzo di tipo classico ‘spagnolo’ la maggior parte delle decorazioni floreali o delle vignette superflue che abbellivano i mazzi italiani e tedeschi. I fabbricanti francesi le eliminarono completamente dalle carte numerali dei nuovi mazzi con semi francesi. Ne derivò un impoverimento estetico, ma fu un colpo commerciale di prima grandezza.
Per comprenderne la ragione, è necessario rendersi conto di quale fosse il metodo standard di fabbricazione delle carte da gioco fino all’inìzio dell’Ottocento, ovvero, la stampa su matrice di legno. Su una singola matrice di legno si incidevano i profili di un certo numero di carte; le matrici venivano inchiostrate e i disegni stampati su un foglio. La colorazione avveniva per stampinatura, con tanti stampini quanti erano i colori da usare. Alla fine, quando i colori si erano asciugati, si ritagliavano le singole carte del foglio e si formava il mazzo completo. Se i dorsi portavano un disegno, anziché essere lasciati in bianco, bisognava preparare fogli di disegni per dorsi che venivano poi tagliati e incollati dietro a ciascuna carta.
Per i mazzi che usavano sistemi di semi diversi da quello francese bisognava stampare una sagoma per ciascuna carta del mazzo; occorrevano quindi almeno due matrici di legno per ciascun mazzo. Una volta inventato il sistema di semi francese, tuttavia, non fu più necessario usare la matrice di legno per stampare le sagome delle carte numerali: ciascuna di esse, infatti, poteva essere prodotta usando stampini. Di conseguenza, una matrice di legno per stampare i disegni di un mazzo con semi francesi doveva contenere solo i disegni per le dodici figure.
(The French suit-system, which appeared about 1465, must certainly be considered an adaptation of the German system, with Spades (Piques) in place of leaves, flowers (Trèfles) instead of acorns and naturally, French Hearts (Coeurs) instead of the German ones. The forms of the French suit signs, in all three cases are normalized versions of the German ones. The only thing missing is a correspondence between Tiles (Carreaux) and Bells; and even in this case, one of the first French packs - produced by Francois Clerc of Lyon between 1485 and 1496 and of which the Bibliotheque Nationale retains an uncut sheet - has Crescents instead of tiles, thus approaching more the round shape of the Bells).
This change was a stroke of commercial genius on the part of French manufacturers. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss and Germans suit signs are all representations, although stylized. of concrete objects, usually multicolored and of variable form depending on how many must be placed on the [start p. 38] card; on the figures, they often appear as an integral part of the design. French suit signs are monochrome silhouettes, of constant size and simple form, and are never held by the hands of any of the figures, as frequently happens in the figures of the other suit-systems, and as in the earliest time had to be the universal custom. This innovation represented an enormous commercial advantage. French and Spanish manufacturers had mostly already eliminated from the numeral cards of the classic 'Spanish' pack most floral decorations or superfluous vignettes that graced Italian and German packs. The French manufacturers eliminated themcompletely from the pip cards of the new packs with French suits. The result was an aesthetic impoverishment, but it was a commercial hit of the first magnitude.
To understand why, it is necessary to take into account the standard method of making playing cards until the early nineteenth century, i.e., printing on a wooden matrix. On a single wooden matrix are carved the profiles of a number of cards; the matrices were inked and the designs printed on one sheet. The coloring was done by stencil, with as many stencils as there were colors to use. At the end, when the colors had dried, the individual cards of the sheet were cut and formed into the completed pack. If the backs bore a design, instead of being left in white, they needed to prepare sheets of designs for the backs that were then cut and pasted behind each card.
For packs that used suit-systems other than the French ones, it was necessary to print a card template for each card of the pack; thus it took at least two wooden matrices for each pack. Once the French suits were invented, however, it was no longer necessary to use the wooden matrix to print the silhouettes of each of the pip cards; they, in fact, could be produced using stencils. Consequently, a woodblock print design for a pack with French suits had to contain only the designs for the twelve figures.)
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