Jan.-March 2019: Comments on the Regole delle Minchiatta

 Here is the second in a series of articles published in The Playing Card, 2018-2023, on various extant 18th-19th-century booklets on how to play minchiate. Like the others in the series, it is out of order on this blog - in the middle of Franco's 2024 notes first published on naibi.net - because I didn't notice them earlier, or rather, had seen them in the journal but then forgotten about them when I returned to translating Franco in late 2023.

This one on a lazy Italian translation of a booklet in German by someone who didn't fully understand Italian or, consequently, the game. The original, preceded by an English summary, is "Commenti sul Regole delle Minchiatta," which can be viewed at https://www.naibi.net/A/81.pdf. Comments in square brackets are my explanations, in consultation with Franco, of points that may not have come across very well in the translation. The essay originally appeared in The Playing-Card 47, No. 3 (Jan-March 2019), pp. 176-179). In the translation below, the numbers by themselves in the left margin are the original page numbers in that journal. The footnotes, highlighted in red, are at the bottom of these pages.

Comments on the Regole delle Minchiatta

Franco Pratesi


English Summary. A well-known German book on Minchiate was published in 1798 in Dresden; in 1830, there appeared an Italian version, which has remained unknown to the experts. In the Italian edition there are several strange terms applied to the game. Most of these were already present in the German edition, but the very fact that they have not been corrected when rendered into Italian can be indicative. In particular, we note the presence in the text of new Italian names that are definitely inappropriate, such as cartelli applied to the suit cards except for the King. The 1830 booklet deserves in any case a remarkable place in the meager literature specifically devoted to instructions for playing the noble game of Florentine Minchiate.

The book Regeln des Minchiatta-Spiels on the rules of minchiate - printed in Dresden in German in 1798 - has long been known and used by experts who usually consider it to be the clearest and most complete game regulation [note 1]. Several short descriptions of the game of minchiate and also handwritten Regeln, have been published, but there were only four printed editions dedicated exclusively to the game of minchiate, all anonymous. The first appeared in Rome in 1728 with a long title that began with Regole generali [General Rules] and had re-editions in Rome (1742 and 1773) and in Macerata (1746). The second was the Capitolo [Chapter] in verse, printed in Livorno in 1752. [note 2] The third, printed in Florence in 1781, again with a title that began with Regole generali, was followed again in Florence by re-editions of 1790, 1807, 1820, and 1852. The fourth and last is this Dresden edition of 1798, compiled, however, in German.

Due to its systematic nature and the extraordinarily useful presence of comments on entire hands, it must be recognized that the last of the four editions dedicated entirely to minchiate was also the most complete, so much so that it is even found at the basis of the recent presentation of the game by the Accademici de’ Germini [Academicians of the Germini]. [note 3]

Also in Dresden but in Italian, another edition, Regole delle Minchiatta, was published in 1830. The final examples are missing here, which represents a significant deficiency; however, everything else appears to have been translated entirely, as can now be easily verified thanks to the insertion of this edition online by the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar, where the only known copy is kept. [note 4]
__________________
1. https://www.tarock.info/Minchiatta.htm
2. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card 47, No. 2 (2018) 103-113.
3. http://germini.altervista.org/
4. https://haab-digital.klassik-stiftung.d ... 8279489/2/

177
An initial first comment that can be made on this 1830 book is that barring errors, its existence has so far escaped all experts on the game. Other comments become necessary after an examination of the text and a comparison with the original German edition.

In the Italian text, we encounter unusual terms quite often, and the problem sometimes arises whether these are errors due to typographical composition - understandable by workers unfamiliar with the Italian language - or whether instead, the peculiarities of the text should be traced back to the author of the translation himself, perhaps due to the use of uncommon dialect forms.

An example that makes one think of the typographer is the wording Dell'Girare instead of the correct Del Girare. Several cases of this kind could be cited, but basically we can ignore all the examples of words mangled with the introduction of one or two letters different from the ordinary. However, there are technical terms that require some comment.

The first such term, Minchiatta, already existed in the German original and corresponds to the name of the game itself and the corresponding special cards. If it were a correct Italian term, it would sound better if used in the singular; instead, here it is used in the plural, exactly like "our" term of minchiate. Only in Dresden is Minchiatta written instead of minchiate.

178
As occurs with Minchiatta, we find other terms in improper Italian, transferred unchanged from the German original to the Italian translation. If their presence in the German text could perhaps be explained by a German author's insufficient knowledge of a foreign language, whoever then translated everything into Italian should have made the necessary corrections.

In general, we note several references to internationally popular card games that could offer useful analogies to simplify explanations. Thus, to introduce the ascending or descending order of trick-taking power within the suits, it is added: “Just as in Ombre”; and to explain what the Versicole are, it is said that they are "like the honors in Whist, the Matadori in Ombre, and the Napolitane in Trisette." Alternated with the more common terms punti [points] and ponti [as a misspelling of the previous], the term points, used in the original German [with that spelling], is sometimes left. For individual tricks, the term bazze is regularly used, but levées is also found, as in the original German.

For the Matto [Fool], its alternative name of Squisse is added. The jack of coins is referred to as Fantina, but in minchiate also the jack of cups would typically be depicted as a maid. Also, the partner in the game is called a compagnone, a term left unchanged from the Compagnon of the original German, which could only denote dialectal use.

The term colori is used to indicate the four suits. There isn't much to comment on here because in fact the Italian terms used in this regard in the old (and new!) descriptions of card games are quite varied. As happens in other cases, the four suits are grouped two by two: cups and coins on one side, batons and swords on the other. Rather strangely, the attributes Rosse [Red] and Longhe [Long] are used respectively. Longhe for long doesn't cause problems, but it should be flanked by short or round, or similar, for the other pair. Instead, calling cups and coins Rosse would seem precisely due to their transformation into the corresponding "French" suits of hearts and diamonds, which could then be indicated as red, but in contrast with the other two suits, the black ones.

The Versicole are called that and not Verzicole, as is more commonly found in descriptions published in Italy. In fact, if we interpret that term as a derivation from "versicolore" or similar, with the meaning of combination of various suits, the reference would be to "diverso" and not to a non-nexistent "diverzo"; one would then have from Dresden, ultimately, an . . . Italian lesson.

Curiously, but not very, the term Tarocchi is used in an ambivalent way. On the one hand, that name applies (as documented in the most ancient texts) to the high cards of minchiate, those that would be added to an ordinary deck; on the other hand, it is used to indicate the entire "normal" tarocchi deck, as in the usage that has become common.


179
Perhaps the term that leaves the greatest doubts about the linguistic competence of the author or printer is impicciare, used together, predominantly, with impiccare. “Impiccare il re” [Hang the king] is the technical term in the game, introduced during the eighteenth century; if instead the term impicciare had been used in the sense of "to put the king in trouble, or in embarrassment," there would ultimately have been nothing too strange. However, “impicciare the kings” is read only in this description [of the rule], which derives from the technical term [impicieren, already present [mistakenly] in the German original, without understanding its meaning and origin.

A perhaps even more indicative case is found in the naming of the cards: the term Cartelli is used, very unusually, to indicate the cards without value, all those in the four suits with the exclusion of the kings. The corresponding term, the one most commonly read in Italian descriptions, is cartiglia, a noun which, however, has no other uses. In the German version, Cartillen was used, and cartelli evidently comes from there, but it would require an inexperienced translator. The suspicion is that here an incomprehensible Italian word has been replaced with one in common use, albeit with a different meaning.

In conclusion, in this Italian edition of 1830, we note several "strange" terms applied to the game of minchiate. Most of these were already present in the corresponding German edition of 1798, but the very fact that they are not corrected when switching to the Italian language may be relevant. In particular, we note the presence in the text of decidedly inappropriate Italian names like cartelli applied to the minor cards.

Overall, these are clues that could lead to a better understanding of the origin and use of both the German edition of 1798 and its Italian version published in 1830. For other editions on minchiate, similarly published anonymously, significant progress is being made today towards a convincing identification of the author. In the case in question here, the task of tracing the individual responsible for the compilation is practically impossible. However, from the linguistic peculiarities of the text, experts will be able to obtain some indications about the local environment.

The critical success that this edition receives today from experts at an international level should not lead us to imagine that the same was true originally. In particular, the examples that can be found today can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Regeln des Minchiatta-Spiels, 1798: Universitätsbibliothek, Erfurt; Landesbibliothek, Coburg; Det Kongelige Bibliotek, København; University Library, Cambridge. Regole delle Minchiatta, 1830: Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Weimar.

The diffusion of this work certainly remained at a local level and very limited, so much so that the appearance of the Italian re-edition of 1830, now resurrected, is rather surprising, as it is not plausible that, despite the language, it had been printed for export to Italy.