This post is devoted to a translation of Franco's note, "Firenze fine Ottocento – Conti di gioco," posted May 19, 2024 at https://www.naibi.net/A/ALESSANDRI.pdf.
It is a study of wins and losses at various games, all studiously
recorded by the player himself. The "Conti" of the title refers to his
accounts, preserved over the past 125 years and more in the Florentine
archives. There might be a pun here, since "Conti" could also be
translated as "Counts of Games," meaning noblemen of a certain title, as
it turns out this individual was.
As usual, comments in square brackets are mine, in consultation with
Franco, who was also consulted about various points in the translation.
That is not to say it is perfect, or even as good as can be, and any
errors are on me. These translations are corrections of what Google
Translate spits out, often time-consuming but at least not wearing out
the fingers; there may be erroneous but plausible wordings that I don't
notice. As usual, numbers by themselves in the left margin are the page
numbers of Franco's pdf, and the notes are found at the bottom of these
pages.
Florence, late nineteenth century – Gambling accounts
Franco Pratesi
1. Introduction
Let us imagine a passionate card player who can dedicate a few hours
every day, or almost so, to his favorite pastime. Let's imagine we can
follow him from behind while he plays cards. Imagine being able to
record all his wins and losses for about twenty years. What would be the
result of our fantasy? Before concentrating on imagining the scene, a
preliminary distinction is necessary: what kind of games and players are
we talking about?
It is clear that, if our player limits himself to tavern games with
the win or loss of a few glasses of wine, the result, even if it were
skewed towards an overall loss, would not lead to the ruin of the
family. If, however, he were strongly unbalanced towards winning, this
could perhaps lead him to exaggerate towards cirrhosis; however, these
would be exchanges of money of minimal size, which would not even
justify their registration.
However, there are, and have always existed, card players who did not
play as a pastime, or just as a pastime, but who paid great attention
to the aspect of possible income deriving from the game. In this case,
the passion for gambling could push behavior to be destined to certain
losses beyond reasonable limits. There were then recommendations on the
destinies of some games: suitable only for princes or rich aristocrats,
able to withstand enormous losses without having to change their
lifestyle, by the simple fact that they had extraordinarily high fixed
incomes. At the other extreme, there were professional players who, even
without reserve capital, managed to earn at the gaming table, thanks to
superior experience, and perhaps with incorrect practices, which also
required a certain professionalism.
Let us then set limits to our imagination, and to facilitate the
task, let us imagine an intermediate case closer to our times. Let us
imagine a gentleman from a rich Tuscan family in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century who lived on an income and took every opportunity to
dedicate himself to the pleasure of gambling. We can then glimpse him
playing in city clubs with the same companions, and also playing in
similar environments every time he is in different cities. Wherever he
is, he does not give up his almost daily occupation. We would like to
guess which game he plays in particular and what his balance of losses
and winnings is. Well, as much as we can reflect, we struggle to
reconstruct the situation in a convincing way.
Here, however, we find an incredible booklet with all this precise
data, systematically recorded by our gentleman for all that time, and
then we really have to follow his activity.
For now, we are only missing one important piece of data, the
certainty about the name of our player, who certainly belonged to the
noble Florentine family of Alessandri, or Degli Alessandri, but he could
have been called Carlo or Giovanni. His account book, preserved in the
State Archives of Florence, [note 1]
is a kind of agenda or diary of limited dimensions (about a current A6
format [roughly 4” x 6”]) and, above all, with very thin sheets, so much
so that in a small thickness the written pages exceed one hundred.
Not only that, a twin diary is preserved in the same archive unit; Copies de lettres is stamped in gold on the spine of the first, and Notes
on the second, which is reserved for recording travel expenses; even
the most minute are listed there, such as some tips and barber expenses.
Furthermore, the two twin diaries are written by the same hand, and the
dates of the trips correspond exactly to the places and days that we
find recorded in the first diary, the one of the games, on which I will
focus my attention.
If we are not certain of the player's identity, we have a lot of
information and archive documents on the Degli Alessandri family. In
reality it would not be included among the oldest noble families of
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1. ASFi, Alessandri, 2066.
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Florence, but this is simply due to the fact that it was a new branch of the prestigious Albizzi family, as we read in Spreti's Encyclopedia. [note 2]
The ASFi Alessandri collection contains 2082 archival units and 218 parchments. A large part of the collection is dedicated to the administration of the family's farms, located in several parts of the Tuscan territory, but documents from other families that arrived in the Alessandri archive following marriages also appear.In the year 1372 Alessandro and Bartolommeo di Niccolò degli Albizzi renounced the Consorteria, changed their coat of arms and called themselves degli Alessandri. From the assumption of the new surname, they gave 21 Priors and 8 Gonfaloniers of Justice to the Republic, and two Senators to the Principality.
. . . Gregory XVI wanted to confirm the comital title (mf.) to GAETANO di Simone and his descendants in 1845, and the Grand Duke recognized this concession with a rescript dated 28 February 1846. The Alessandri family wore the habit of Malta in 1628; and in 1752 there was described in the Golden Book of the Patricians of Florence (mf.)
a) GIOVANNI di Cosimo and desc.[descendants] (Patr. Di Firenze [Patrician of Florence] mf.).
b) CARLO di Gaetano and desc. (Count, mpr, Patr. Di Firenze, mf.).
In the relevant inventory N/486, the archival unit in question, among the latest in the collection in the Miscellaneous section, is cataloged as follows.
2066 - (fn 1601) 1. Travel expense diary presumably of Cosimo di Gaetano Degli Alessandri (1859-1883); 2. Gambling expense diary presumably of Carlo di Gaetano or Giovanni di Cosimo Degli Alessandri (1875-1891); Travel expense diary presumably of Carlo di Gaetano or Giovanni di Cosimo Degli Alessandri (1878-1892)1859-1892 [first and last years of entry]
Of course, the element of greatest interest to us is No. 2.
Florence, late nineteenth century – Gambling accounts ASFi, Alessandri, 2066, 2 and 3. The two agendas studied (Reproduction prohibited)
2. V. Spreti, Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana Vol. 1. Milan 1928.3
Of the two personages suspected as authors of the diary of our interest, we read that Giovanni di Cosimo di Gaetano Maria (1852-1894) married Anna Maria Palffy Daun de Erdöl (1864-1927), who was guardian of their children Cosimo and Ginevra after her husband's death. Inheritance documents are various. Instead, for Carlo di Gaetano Maria di Simone (1829-1895) only a book of income and expenditure of the estate for the years 1894-1908 is listed, therefore actually relating to his inheritance (a check, however, showed that it was not his estate but that of Giovanni di Cosimo, bequeathed to his minor children, initially under his administration).
At this point we run into the problem that if the death dates given for the two characters are correct, neither of them can be our player, because the diary entries continue until 1897, by which time both candidates would have been long dead. If there was an error in the death dates indicated in the Inventory, this error would only be possible for Carlo, because Giovanni's widow was active as guardian of his children in years prior to 1897. The alternative, if the dates are correct, moves towards the search for a third candidate. We will then see that, thanks to the numerous documents preserved in the Alessandri collection and what can be found on the internet, it will eventually be possible to trace precisely the identity of Carlo Degli Alessandri for our player.
2. Summary of the game accounting
The numbers recorded are in such quantity that it is impossible for me to reproduce them in full, and therefore for the time being, I will limit myself to inserting a table with the final results of the balance sheet of this activity, year by year, recorded as in Florence, for centuries, all commercial activities and farm administrations were.
3. Principal details
Registration begins on 1 October 1875 and the gaming venue is the
Casino Borghese (a stone's throw from the family palace in Borgo degli
Albizzi) and remains so until the entire month of the following February
with two exceptions: a stay in Rome from 10 to 18 December with Caccia
indicated as the playing venue, and then from 17 to 31 January in Monte
Carlo. On February 27th the Club Ecarté appears, and in the following
months we see it regularly alternating with the Casino Borghese as the
Florentine gaming venue. In this case, we have information on the game
as well as the place, and it is not strictly a gambling game. From 10 to
14 March we find Monte Carlo again, where the daily figure is not
recorded but that overall. In the first visit, he had recorded a loss of
18,000 lire; in the second he reports, let's say unexpectedly, a win of
the same amount.
In April another game, Goffo, appears in several different places in
Florence: we mainly read about a Club Goffo, but Strozzi Goffo and
Riccolellis Goffo also appear. Also Roma Goffo, the first two days of
May. In the middle of the month two more days appear with Rome: the
first Ecarté, the second Goffo. However, the main venue is again the
Circolo Borghese. On 7 August, he lost 1,400 lire in Livorno at B.
Am.no; in December, a win appears, at the unusual billiard club, and
from the 19th to the 28th we find our player back in Monte Carlo with
daily records of wins and losses often exceeding ten thousand lire, but
with an overall win.
In February 1877, he recorded a total loss of 30,000 lire, again in
Monte Carlo. New games appear in May, in particular Club baccarat, and
Montughi macau. For Christmas and the following day he loses 8,000 lire
at the Casino Risorti.
January 1878 he began in Monte Carlo from the 10th to the 19th; he won
1700 lire on the first day but lost more than 20 thousand on the
following days. The Club whist appears at the end of February. In which –
as with Ecarté, also a trick-taking game – wins or losses are less
important. The fixed gaming venue in Florence becomes the Accademia dei
Risorti, sometimes indicated with the specification of baccarat, and
continues for 1879 and 1880. In July 1880 we find, without indication of
the days, a loss of over 2,000 lire in Paris at Cercle International.
From 1881 to 1885 the Ecarté Club prevailed, but with frequent
appearances by the Baccarat Club as well.
In 1886 the Goffo joined the Ecarté with a few exceptions of other
games. In July we read of a loss of 400 lire in Lucerna-Baraque. In
1887, mixed records appeared, i.e. with the win or loss figure for the
same day divided into two games, such as for example a loss of 10 lire
explained as Ecarté +100 and Goffo -110. Goffo, especially, and Ecarté
prevail; among the exceptions there is a loss of 950 lire on August 20th
in Lucerne - Baccarat.
In 1888 even Ecarté rarely appears, while Bezique appears several times,
always with Goffo the main game. On September 3, a win of 644 lire was
recorded at Lausanne Baccarat.
In 1889 Bezique and Goffo continue to dominate at the beginning of the year, with also mixed recordings such as
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a win of 120 lire divided into Bezique -145 and Goffo +265. Then
Baccarat prevails, also in Florence after the experiences abroad, which
begin on July 18th in Lucerne, to continue from August 21st in Spa and
from September 4th in Paris, almost two months of Baccarat which
continue in November and December at the Club Borghese, after and before
the Florentine practice of other games, Goffo especially.
ASFi, Alessandri, 2066, 2 (Reproduction prohibited)
1890 continues with Goffo and Baccarat, and Pharaoh also appears a
couple of times. In 1891 Baccarat found itself in Lucerne from 17 July
to 7 August with four days of play and four losses, but less strong than
usual. In Florence, Ecarté reappears as a secondary game alongside
Goffo in addition to Baccarat. In 1892 Baccarat seems to become the main
game followed by Goffo, which however takes first place again in the
years 1893-95 when there is greater alternation between various clubs
and games.
In 1896, an unusual series of entire weeks dedicated to Ecarté and
Whist appear, which are not gambling games, and in which our player
seems to be able to assert superior gaming practice, so much so that
winnings are the rule; Unfortunately for him, they are usually not as
big wins as those that were possible at the betting and banking games.
1897 is the last year present in the register and continues the trend
of the previous year with Ecarté as the main game. The last date of
registration is March 6, 1897.
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ASFi, Alessandri, 2066, 2 (Reproduction prohibited)
4. Comments
The first comment goes not to the game and the player but to the
accountant. In Florence, keeping daily account books was a universally
widespread practice in shops and families, already in the late Middle
Ages. All citizens, or almost all, were able to keep these accounts,
because the abacus schools of Florence were very good and very popular,
on par with or perhaps better than the schools where reading and writing
were taught. Later, most of these account books were recycled or
destroyed, but even today more are found in Florence than in other
Italian and foreign cities. Only this traditional habit, continued in
the family with the administration of the farms, can explain the care
with which our player recorded and preserved the information written in
his diary.
Still with reference to accounting, it seems necessary to understand
how heavy the losses and winnings recorded were. Today we are no longer
familiar with the value of the lira at the time, but the necessary
information can be found on the internet. The period of time considered
is large enough to suggest significant variations in the value in
question. The approximate today value of one lira of the years indicated
is shown in the following table. [note 3]
___________
3. https://inflationhistory.com/it-IT/?cur ... &year=1875
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YEAR - EURO
As far as betting games are concerned, here Goffo reigns supreme. Many years ago I studied the literature in Italian and saw that books with instructions for this game had been published in various seaside cities, Genoa first. [note 4] The fashion for Goffo has some unusual characteristics, because it was not a new game. In particular, it is not clear whether there were substantial differences between Goffo, already remembered in the Renaissance era, and the Goffo that appears, or reappears, in a series of games apparently derived from Primiera. It seems that players, as soon as their favorite game was banned, changed some of the rules and the name, so as to be able to claim that it was a new game that was not banned; and so Bambara, Buia, and then Goffo saw the light, among others.
The fame of each of these games was erased by the next one, and it happened to our Goffo, too; later the same fate occurred when one or another form of Poker was imposed on an international scale, in years when the USA was now dictating the law on the matter.
Last, we encounter the banking games, which in reality should be the first in the ranking for an assiduous player of this type. Especially with these games you can play hard, with bets at the limit of what is bearable for a gentleman and completely unacceptable for an ordinary citizen. To try to win you have to be ready to lose significant sums without losing your composure, and this requires above-average personal assets and strength of character. An invitation to get involved comes precisely from this ability to feel among the few capable of "playing" at these levels. This type of game can no longer be considered a pastime but only maintains the character and tension of a challenge, a challenge above all to one’s luck but also to one's own experience and specific knowledge, which is often overestimated.
The long history of banking games seems to begin with Lanzichenecco or Zecchinetta, which would give rise to the Bassetta, and then to Pharaoh [Faro], the first of the series to appear in the case in question. Pharaoh had introduced at least a couple of advantages compared to Bassetta: instead of the thirteen cards for each better, there was the dealer with a single series of thirteen cards of one suit in front on which to place the bet, which was decided by each bettor and could also be split across two or more cards. Pharaoh had its greatest diffusion in the eighteenth century and by then [Alessandri’s time] had been forgotten almost everywhere.
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4. L’Esopo, No. 41 (1989) 65-74. https://www.naibi.net/A/23-ESGOFF-Z.pdf
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Baccarat was a further element in the series, evidently the most popular at the time considered here. There was Monte Carlo, the Mecca for players of this type, but gaming venues where one could play Baccarat existed in all the main cities, and even in Florence there was more than one of them, including those that one would not have imagined, at least in times with greater rigor in controls on gambling.
Baccarat has only been documented since the 19th century in France and has split into multiple variations, some of which are still played in casinos around the world and even online. The main rules of the form played in the nineteenth century are the following. Two or three decks of 52 cards are used, which count only for the numerical value, going from 1 to 9 for the numeral cards and becoming 0 or 10 (which is the same thing because in numbers with two digits only the second is considered) for the 10 and the three figures. The bettors are divided into two groups, one to the left and one to the right of the dealer, but the game takes place between the dealer and one bettor per group, then moving on to the next pair of bettors. The dealer usually deals two cards to two players and the same number to himself. At the time, it was possible to ask for a third card, and in any case between the dealer and the bettor, the one who gets closest to 9 wins. The dealer only sees the possible third card of the two bettors and the bets made, which are clues capable of guiding his decision whether or not to ask for a third card. The sum of the bets of all the players cannot exceed that put into play by the dealer. It is possible to ask for Banco, that is, a bet equal to the total put into play by the dealer, and this bet has priority over the others.
If you want to better understand the game and its variants, you can find many details in the specific literature, [note 5] including the pages of pagat.com on the Internet, [note 6] which can also be used for all the other card games named. You can also find an extensive discussion of gambling games in a historical perspective, up to the Second World War, with special attention to the environment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. [note 7] For more recent times, the literature becomes extensive, the principal origin is in the USA, but it goes beyond the period of interest here.
5. Identification of the Alessandri involved
A final comment is needed for the player himself. He was evidently a real enthusiast of playing cards. It is astonishing that he was able to move without distinction from one environment to another and from one game to another, even of very different types. As far as the environments are concerned, however, this is not unusual, because we never imagine him in a tavern gambling away a glass of wine. The company in which he found himself playing was still that of gentlemen, capable of welcoming fellow citizens, or even foreigners, as long as they were decently dressed and perhaps introduced by some members of the group. Even abroad one could find the right environment, just as passing foreigners and foreign residents who were of a fairly high social class could play in Florence.
In Florence, different environments of this kind could be found, often with centuries-old traditions, starting from the ancient academies which sometimes excluded, nominally at least, games (and gambling ones even more so) from their activities, which were mainly theatrical or literary. and artistic in general. Only the Lorraine grand dukes fought an open war against gambling, with notable results; before and after, the relevant laws, however severe, often remained on paper.
My impression is that he was a member of the noble Alessandri family, but from a cadet branch or something like that, so that he had a good income, but few obligations and commitments and therefore had been able to dedicate a large part of his thoughts and time to satisfy his passion for games. However, not to the point of dispersing his assets, but always with satisfactory control over the limit of the losses.
However, I wanted to make sure by carefully examining an enormous file of documents preserved in Carlo's name in the Alessandri collection. [note 8] I must admit that the surprise was great. It is
___________________
5. D. Parlett, The Oxford Guide to Card Games. Oxford 1990.
6. https://www.pagat.com/banking/baccarat.html#banque
7. M. Zollinger, Geschichte des Glückspiels. Vienna 1997.
8. ASFi, Alessandri, 308. Documents relating to Carlo di Gaetano Maria degli Alessandri: confraternities, charitable works, diplomas, political elections 1870-1885.
9
not possible to indicate all the commitments, positions and titles of this personage. Certainly count, commander of the order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, (and so far one could have foreseen), but also member of the national Parliament, major of the National Guard, fighter in Trentino with Garibaldi, vice-president of the Banca del Popolo of Florence, president or honorary member of a huge number of institutes, associations, bodies with active participation in their respective proposals and decisions. Something truly incredible.
A notable part of the documents concerns the national elections for Parliament, in which he was a candidate for the constituency of San Casciano (which also included the municipalities of Greve, Barberino, and Montespertoli). He was elected twice, in 1874 and 1876, while in 1880 he withdrew his candidacy in favor of that of Sonnino. In this regard, there are many letters both of congratulations and of supplications and requests for intervention to support local needs. There are also documents on some fraud that occurred in the elections, with much more detail than what appeared in the Parliamentary Acts later, in which it was discussed whether or not to annul his 1874 election. [note 9]
Searching the internet we find that as a boy, he was present among the pages of the grand ducal court [note 10], while we will later find him among the conspirators against the grand duchy. An important piece of data that we find on the internet [note 11] is his date of death, March 17, 1897, so the initial dilemma is resolved in Carlo's favor, and there will be no need to look for a third member of the family.
In a folder with a few documents in the same archival element 308, with the title “Personal curiosities,” I identified a loose sheet of paper that resolves all doubts; a true unicum that establishes a connection between the player's diaries and the parliamentary documents. It is a copy of two short letters in French from June 1878 [note 12] in which it is clarified that the rumor was incorrect that a player (not Alessandri, but a certain Wurtz Wuncler or a similar name) had been excluded in Paris from the Cercle de la rue Royale, while the one-month deadline for his permission to access the games as a non-member foreigner had simply expired, and at the same time his irregular way of playing had been explained only by an insufficient knowledge of the rules, so his winnings were confirmed.
In conclusion, we can now unify the two separate documents and recognize that this important and famous personage, extremely active in the social field of every circle (at least political, military, administrative, philanthropic, sporting, theatrical, musical and who knows how many others), was exactly the same personage who, surprisingly, found time to play card games so often, up to ten days before his death.
Florence, 05.19.2024
9. https://www.google.it/books/edition/Att ... frontcover
10. https://www.google.it/books/edition/Alm ... frontcover
11. https://www.google.it/books/edition/Gio ... frontcover
12. Lettres de Mr. Le Duc de La Trenouille à Mr Wurtz Wuncler. Copies.
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