In this post I present my translation (with Franco's help) of Franco's article at https://www.naibi.net/A/84.pdf, "Minchiate, Le Regole Generali di Roma e Macerata," originally published in The Playing-Card
48, no. 3 (Jan-March 2020), pp. 96-102. Comments in brackets
are mine, after consultation with Franco, usually for clarification for non-Italian readers. Numbers by
themselves in the left margin mark the beginnings of pages as numbered in that
journal, with the notes for each at the bottom of that page. The essay, originally in Italian, is preceded in the original by a short summary in English
Minchiate: the General Rules of Rome and Macerata
Franco Pratesi
English Summary
The Italian book Regoli generali del nobilissimo gioco delle minchiate
is a small handbook containing the rules and the laws of the Minchiate
game, which had three editions in Rome (1728, 1742, 1773) and one in
Macerata (1746). Here these various editions have been studied and
compared. The book appeared without the name of its author, but an
unknown Luigi Bernardi was first indicated (without any personal
information) in a scholarly book on anonymous works. Some information is
provided here for the first time about this author: Luigi Bernardi was
actually a Count Abbot from Ferrara, thus a fellow citizen of Pio Enea
degli Obizzi, the author of the Capitolo (published in 1752, anonymously too), which offered instructions on Minchiate in poetic form.
Introduction
The three Roman editions of the Regoli Generali examined here are known to gaming historians and were already listed in the well-known Bibliografia of Alfredo Lens. [note 1]
A fourth, which remained unknown in the sector, was printed in
Macerata; there is therefore a total of four editions, which came out
around the middle of the eighteenth century and precisely from 1728 to
1773. The essential elements of these four editions will be provided and
the changes to the text introduced in subsequent editions will be
highlighted. Particular attention will be dedicated to the search for
the author of this work, which was published anonymously, and some
information will be provided on Luigi Bernardi, the supposed author,
whose name had been indicated but without any biographical data and
without even citing the sources used for attribution.
The Regoli Generali was the best-known
reference text for the game of minchiate. There were not many different
texts that could be used together or alternatively. In the middle of the
century the Capitolo of the Ferrara noble
Pio Enea degli Obizzi appeared, which provided the essential
instructions for the game, even using the poetic form; that short text
also had several editions. [note 2] These Regoli Generali were, however, the most complete reference manual available to Roman minchiate players in the eighteenth century.
Before the third Roman edition, another work was published in Rome, by
Don Francesco Saverio Brunetti da Corinaldo, in which the instructions
for the game of minchiate occupied the main part; [note 3] this book has a different structure and content than that examined here and requires separate study.
The fact that these editions were printed in Rome is immediately
justified by what we know about the diffusion of the game, which had its
greatest flowering in that city at the time (along with Florence, the
homeland of that version of the tarot, where, however, books with the
instructions for the game were published later).
Editions of Rome and Macerata
The three Roman editions (and the similar one published in Macerata) must be considered together and at the same time separately from the five Florentine editions that were published subsequently with a similar title and which in turn are easily comparable with one other.
The examination of these books begins with the first Roman edition for which the name of Raphael (printed here Raffaelle) Peveroni as printer is certain, and the name of Luigi Bernardi as presumed author is rather uncertain.
______________
1. A. Lensi, Bibliografia italiana di giuochi di carte. Florence 1892.
2. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, Vol. 47 No. 2 (2018) pp. 103-113.
3. F. S. Brunetti, Giuochi delle minchiate, ombre, scacchi, ed altri d’ingegno. Rome 1747.
97
Finding an example of this first edition is not easy, but the same can be observed, as we will see, for most of the subsequent editions.
Rome 1728
This new book of “general rules” had several subsequent editions. In these cases it often happens that the different editions differ only in some additions of new ways of playing that later became popular. A similar situation is also observed for this treatise.Regole generali del nobilissimo gioco delle minchiate con un modo breve, e facile per ben imparare à giocarlo. [General rules of the noble game of minchiate with a short and easy way to learn how to play it.] Rome, Raffaelle Peveroni 1728. In 16, pp. 136. (Lensi 1892, n. 148 p. 38).
The Roman edition is very different from the subsequent Florentine editions with a similar title, already from a formal and structural point of view; here, all the material is presented in discursive form without any division into chapters and indication of the relative titles. In short, the author inserts his "general rules" into a long discussion that extends without pauses throughout the book, up to p. 136, where we read “THE END.”
We can try to reconstruct a sort of index of the volume, but we have to settle for an approximate list like the one below because the transitions from one topic to the next are rarely clear and distinguishable with certainty in the book.
A fundamental distinction can be recognized considering a first part of "general theory," understood as laws of the game, with a whole series of errors, deceptions, and related penalties. The clear need of the author is to propose a single solution for the various cases that can give rise to discussions between players accustomed to1 Title page
3-5 Kind Reader
(Part One – Rules to be observed in the game)
7-15 Youth in our times
15 Historical notes on the origins of the game
16 Motivations for writing the book
18 Different ways of playing
21 Fola and its justification
24 Tarocchi [trumps] and cartiglia [suit cards except Kings]
27 Verzicole [combinations] - declaration and role of the fool
29 Formation of pairs and start of the game
30 Cutting [alzare] and robbing [rubare]
33 Dealing the cards
34 Robbing
35 Of some abuses no longer in use
39 The discard for robbed or taken [prese] cards [taken from the fola, presumably]
48 Possible fraud for different numbers of cards and related penalties
58 Card dealer's mistakes
60 What to do if a counting card is missing among the cards in play
63 How to behave if the person who robs or takes does not discard
69 Cutting
(Part two – On the manner of play)
72 Start of the game. Responding to the suit
73 Refusal [Rifiuto] and related penalties
76 When and if to reveal cards
78 More on refusal
88 Play of the Fool
91 Obligation to give the king on trumping in the first trick of the suit
93 From theory to practice
94 Honors in hand
95 How to play “jealous” [or delicate] cards [cards that put a verzicola in jeopardy] in various cases
101 Game with Trumpet [Tromba]
108 Game with World
112 Game with Sun
119 Game without honors
120 Game for signaling between partners
125 Strong game simulated for deception
126 Game with a lot of cartiglia
129 Various examples
134 Final considerations.
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following different rules. Equally clear is the need to provide an explicit justification for each rule adopted, which leads to the recurring presence of long digressions in the text.
This is followed by a second part (which is not separated in the text) of "practice" for which the author announces that he cannot offer similarly general rules because the situations of the game are very different from case to case, and only experience can teach better behavior. Therefore the second part provides only some elementary advice, with an examination which also gradually extends to the examination of some particular cases.
Rome 1742
The comparison between the editions of 1728 and 1742 shows that the main difference is the addition in the second of a final part that was absent in the first. Therefore, the comparison between the two editions consists in verifying any differences in the common part and above all in studying the content and meaning of the additional part.Regole generali del nobilissimo Gioco delle Minchiate osia istruzione necessaria a perfettamente giocarlo con l’aggiunta in fine delli principi elementari di detto Gioco a Comodo de Principiante [General rules of the noble Game of Minchiate or the instruction necessary to play it perfectly with the addition at the end of the elementary principles of said Game at Comodo de Principiante], In Rome: for the heirs of Ferri, 1742 In-16, pp. 164. (Lensi 1892, n. 149 p. 39).
The first three pages of text, from p. 3 through p. 5 inclusive, contain in both editions a kind of introduction entitled To the Courteous Reader. The text is identical in the two cases, but in the second edition slightly smaller characters are used, and therefore there is more empty space on the last page.
From p. 6 to p. 136 (which corresponds to the last page of the first edition), the comparison between the two editions indicates that the content is exactly identical, page after page, with even the same words truncated to the same syllables at the end of all the pages. Finding a difference between the two editions here is a puzzle pastime task; we can cite an example, which would also not be explained by the correction of an error: at the end of p. 15: “l’hanno” [they have it] in the first edition becomes “l’anno” in the second.
The section added at the end, from p. 137 to p. 164, is very significant. It is noted here that the text of the first edition met with the approval of the readers, and therefore a re-edition appears justified; however, it is considered necessary to additionally present a kind of short and systematic summary of the entire text, which had been compiled in discursive form and without interruptions.
This addition is considered particularly necessary for beginners: thanks to the individual chapters of the added part, presented with their titles, in which the main technical terms of the game also appear, they will be able to carry the booklet in their pocket during the first few games, to open it to the chapter with the topic on which they encounter particular difficulties in understanding or agreeing.
For this new section, added only starting from 1742, the list of topics covered can therefore be presented by simply copying the titles of the chapters present.
99137 Introduction to Elementary Principles
139 Chapter I Of the Game of Minchiate in general
140 Chapter II Of Cartiglia
142 Chapter III of the Tarocchi, or Triumphs
146 Chapter IV of the Verzicole
152 Chapter V of the Refusal [Rifiuto]
154 Chapter VI On Robbing [Rubbare], the Fola, and Discarding
157 Chapter VII On Marking [Segnare – keeping track of points earned or lost during play?] and Counting [at the end?]
162 Chapter VIII and final Special warnings to beginners.
As you can see, this is not the addition of new material, but rather a schematic recapitulation of the essential part of the entire first edition.
Macerata 1746
The news of the existence of this edition was found in the Catalog of the Cardinal Pietro Maffi Archiepiscopal Library of Pisa. [note 4] From the same source we have further indications. The booklet is bound in cardboard and inside the front plate is an ex-libris of Pietro Leopoldo Rosselmini.Regole generali del nobilissimo gioco delle minchiate o sia Istruzione necessaria a perfettamente giocarlo; con l’aggiunta in fine delli principj elementari di detto gioco a comodo de’ principianti. [General rules of the noble game of minchiate or the education necessary to play it perfectly; with the addition at the end of the elementary principles of said game for the convenience of beginners]. In Macerata: for the Heirs of Pannelli, 1746. 164 p.; 12° (13.5cm).
The fact that the work comes from that private library is not strange, because there are numerous publications inherited by the Archiepiscopal Library of that family. Count Pietro Leopoldo Rosselmini (1773-1833), from Pisa, was a passionate bibliophile who collected a large number of very rare books; those editions found in the library of the cardinal archbishop were studied especially for the oldest part of incunabula and sixteenth-century works. [note 5]
The edition of our interest is not as old, but evidently could compete in terms of rarity, so much so that its existence has so far escaped all experts in the sector. Among the many books of Latin and medieval literature with the ex-libris of Pietro Leopoldo Rosselmini, this booklet may appear out of place, but it is not the only one of recreational interest, being found together with, for example, Gregorio Ducchi's Il giuoco de gli scacchi [The Game of Chess]. In the Library are a few other eighteenth-nineteenth century books on chess and card games collected by other bibliophiles, also from the same Rosselmini family.
As printers active in Macerata, the Eredi del Pannelli [Heirs of Pannelli] produced many publications in the eighteenth century, even if, as Elena Cinti Federici reminds us,
The typographical data present in the Catalog already allow us to advance the hypothesis that the Macerata edition is not appreciably different from the second Roman edition, with which it shares, in particular, the same number of overall pages. With a specific check within the Library, it was possible to confirm the close similarity hypothesized. This is a re-edition that uses slightly smaller font sizes, so that the printed text here only occupies a surface of 9.6x5.5 cm, correspondingly smaller than that of 11.7x6 cm.they are all printings devoid of artistic merit and high literary interest; poetic compositions for doctorates, brochures for illustrious weddings, religious celebrations, arrivals of personalities, funerals, around thirty musical dramas and a dozen sacred oratorios illustrating the lives of saints. . . . From 1717 onwards the Municipality entrusted its commissions to them until towards the end of the century. . . . They were public, episcopal printers for the Holy Office, as is written in their publications." [note 6]
On at least a dozen occasions, the Macerata edition takes the opportunity to slightly modify the spelling towards a form considered more correct: so hora becomes ora [now], havete becomes avete [you have], puole becomes puo [it/he/she can], mà becomes ma [but], ò becomes o [or], etc. The correspondence of the text inserted on each page is not perfect, and sometimes the interruption at the end of the page is not the same [in the two editions], but one perceives the intention to reach
___________
4. leonardo.isti.cnr.it/ bib_maffi /catalogo.html
5. M. L. Orlandi, in: G. Rossetti et al. (eds.) Pietro Maffi arcivescovo di Pisa. Pisa 2012, pp. 107-132.
6. in: A. Adversi (ed.), Studi sulla Biblioteca comunale e sui tipografi di Macerata. Macerata 1966, pp. 232-233.
100
again quickly the same content in the following pages, reaching an exact correspondence again as soon as possible, until the end of the volume.
Unfortunately, no examples of this third Roman edition of 1773 have yet been found. [Since this article was published, one has been found, reported at https://www.naibi.net/A/UGHI.pdf but not yet examined.] While waiting for an effective comparison with the others, it seems logical to assume that this third edition was nothing more than a reprint almost identical to the second and also to that of Macerata. Both the similarities systematically verified between the other editions and, above all, the number of pages, identical in all the editions that appeared in Rome and Macerata after the first in 1728, lead to this conclusion.Regole generali del nobilissimo giuoco delle minchiate con un modo breve, e facile per ben’ imparare à giuocarlo [General rules of the noble game of minchiate with a short and easy way to learn how to play it.] Rome typ., Lorenzo Capponi and Giovanni Bartolomicchi 1773. In 16, pp. 164. (Lensi 1892 n. 150 p. 39).
Search for the author
The attribution of the text to its author required quite complex research. The starting fact (and perhaps only that) is indisputable: the edition appeared anonymously. As with many other works of the genre, there have been scholars who have been interested in researching the author, and in this specific case the "solution of the mystery" is due to Gaetano Melzi, who attributed the work to Luigi Bernardi. This result is indicated in his principal work [note 7] in all simplicity, without even the slightest mention of the source or other information on this alleged author.
Melzi's seriousness is unanimously appreciated by experts, so much so that Luigi Bernardi appears, usually in parentheses, as the author of these Regoli Generali in almost all the catalogs that list one or another of the editions in question. No one has questioned that attribution, which indeed is from an authoritative source, but at the same time no one has provided us with any useful information about this author.
The only information we find in the catalog OPAC SBN for this personage is <fl. 1728-1781>. It is not reported where those two dates of the beginning and end of his documented activity were taken from, but it will not be a random coincidence if they are the same as the first Roman and Florentine editions printed on the game of minchiate with the title of Regole Generali.
To remove the doubts about this author we finally find our Regole listed in an anonymous Letter, recognized as written in 1772 by Giovan Battista Minzoni (1709-1791), several years before the date of printing, probably 1786 [note 8]. In a very long list of works by Ferrara authors we read on p. 58: “Sig. Co. Luigi Bernardi: Regole generali del gioco delle Minchiate.” So with this simple citation we come to receive two new very useful bits of information: our author Luigi Bernardi was a writer from Ferrara and had the noble title of count.
We also find confirmation in a previous eighteenth-century Ferrara bibliography, a manuscript compiled by Giovanni Andrea Barotti (1791-1772). [note 9] Among the authors, listed in alphabetical order, we meet our Luigi Bernardi and, in addition to the complete transcription of the long title of his work on minchiate, we even read the typographical data here. In fact, the Roman edition cited, with the underlined addition senza nome dell’Autore [without Author's name], is that of 1742, which we know as the second, while it would seem to be the only one known to Barotti.
Having thus been able to focus on this Luigi Bernardi in the noble class of Ferrara, some further archival research among the documents preserved in that city becomes possible. For example, from two archival units of the Antonelli Collection, we have details on a dispute and related challenge which saw Count Abbot Bernardi pitted (together with Count Alfonso Novara) against the Marquis Guido Bentivoglio d’Aragona, of the Ferrara branch of the family, former lords of Bologna [note 10]; it was Duke Rinaldo d'Este himself who resolved the dispute, from Modena with his "laudo" of 1732, preserved among these documents. [note 11] We can limit ourselves to extracting from all the verbose documentation the information that our author in those years in Ferrara played billiards and comported himself as a knight serving several ladies, with or without a mask. (The origin of the dispute was precisely an excuse, which proved unjustified, for not serving in disguise the wife of the Marquis Bentivoglio d’Aragona.)
A particular document from 1762 is preserved in the Municipal Historical Archive of Ferrara: the allocation of 6 scudi was approved for a gift to be offered to Abbot Luigi Bernardi, who had not requested other compensation or indemnification for having made available, to the Criminal Lieutenant
____________
7. G. Melzi, Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime di scrittori italiani. Milan 1852, Vol. 2, p. 419, col. 2.
8. [G. B. Minzoni] ] Lettera di un ferrarese ad un suo concittadino, Venice [1786]
books.google.it/books?vid=IBCR:BC000044830&redir_esc=y [where I find it: https://books.google.com/books?id=zI63m ... &q&f=false]
9. Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Biblioteca Degli Autori Ferraresi D’Opere stampate Composta Dal Dottor Giovann-Andrea Barotti. Cl. I, 182.
10. Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Collezione Antonelli n. 98.
11. Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Collezione Antonelli n.173.
101
temporarily assigned in Ferrara, an apartment adjacent to his own. [note 12]
The documents preserved on the Bernardi family in the Pasi Famiglia Archive [note 13] are much more numerous and important: there are thirty-six documents, ranging from 1554 to 1845; in what follows, the number of the document in question is inserted in square brackets. The eighteenth century is the century with the majority of family documents preserved, including several relating to our personage, which allow us to immediately insert him into the family tree: we can start with grandfather Lodovico, followed by father Giovan-Luigi, who has three sons Carlo, Giovanni-Francesco and Luigi; Francesco and Cesare descend from Carlo [13]; Giovanni Francesco is no longer found in subsequent documents, Abbot Luigi understandably has no direct descendants.
An important document [9], probably the most significant for our purposes, is a very detailed act of 10 February 1719, Divisione Bernardi [Bernardi Division], on the distribution of family assets among the children. His father Giovanni-Luigi had died a few years ago, and his eldest son Carlo, 24 years old, took care of the administration of the family estate with an administrator. Now, all the assets are inventoried to divide the ownership equally, considering the two younger brothers, Giovanni-Francesco, aged 16, and our Luigi, aged 13. Following this distribution, the two cadets find themselves with a guaranteed personal patrimony and at the same time definitively placed in the Collegio Penna of Ferrara - a private institution, but run by the Jesuit fathers - in order to receive an education in accordance with their noble rank.
From the 1730s, the second brother disappears from the documentation and the third, Luigi, reappears as count abbot. Among the documents, we find a deed of emphyteusis in favor of Abbot Luigi of a house and shop of the Compagnia del Carmine [11]; the complete will of his brother Carlo [15]; the report of an official expert on the increase in value for the improvements made by the abbot on some properties in Voghenza [19]; affairs of the two nephews in which the uncle abbot is involved [16, 21]; the administration of the inheritance of our abbot count starting from 1781, which we can assume as the year of his death [20], and little else of possible interest.
Unfortunately, among all the documents found, there is no information on the 1720s, nor on any Roman stays of our Luigi Bernardi. The only possible reference to Rome preserved in documents is much later: a brief by Benedict XIV from 1745 which grants the count abbot the use of an inheritance in Ferrara [11]. So far nothing has been identified that explicitly links the count abbot with the Roman salons, where the game of minchiate was fashionable even in the most prestigious of them and where, already in 1728, the first edition of the book appeared, compiled in discursive form but without previous printed works of comparable extent.
Only by using a good dose of imagination can we arrive at an attempt at reconstruction by supposing that our Count Luigi, at the end of his adolescence, had completed his ecclesiastical-theological education with a long stay in Rome, frequenting even as a young abbot those famous Roman salons where minchiate was a fashionable game then.
The situation is reminiscent of that of his fellow citizen Pio Enea degli Obizzi, also the author of an anonymous work on the game of minchiate. It was not easy to trace the works to the authors and check who the two personages were of whom only the name was indicated in the inventories. It must be recognized that the information found is not much. In particular, these were not anonymously published works by a famous writer; for both Pio Enea degli Obizzi and Luigi Bernardi, the task of discovering their other writings is arduous. In the end, the relevant fact is that the two instruction books for playing minchiate that were most widespread in Italy were both written by an author from Ferrara, and just over twenty years apart from each other.
However, a considerable difference between the two works in question must be underlined, in addition to the evident structural and formal diversity. The book printed in Rome in 1728 is aimed at players active in "conversations" (which we know were particularly numerous in the Roman environment at the time), and its main aim is to provide "general rules" capable of drastically reducing disparities in rules followed at the various tables. The Capitolo printed in Livorno in 1752 instead aims to make the game of minchiate known in Lombardy (with wider borders than today) where it was still practically unknown.
All in all, the situation still remains surprising. The most important book that has ever been written on the history of tarot has the subtitle [From Ferrara to Salt Lake City; [note 14] this was justified by the fact that the great Dummett saw the birth of the tarot as most likely in Ferrara. Today that reconstruction appears less convincing. Without it being possible to assume any direct relationship, unthinkable at a distance of centuries, it is nevertheless surprising that the two most important works, published anonymously in Italy in the eighteenth century, exclusively
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12. Ferrara, Archivio Storico Comunale, Serie Patrimoniale.
13. Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Archivio Pasi famiglie, b. 3, fasc. 197.
14. M. Dummett, The Game of Tarot. London 1980.
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on minchiate, a game in vogue in Florentine gatherings and Roman salons, must today be recognized as due to the commitment of two writers, the first a count, the second a marquis, both abbots from Ferrara.
Preserved copies and their locations
Today, we have catalogs, easily consultable on the Internet, that allow us to identify even the few specimens preserved in distant locations. However, the overall number of these editions still present in public libraries remains small, understandable only by considering the small format and the content itself, not taken into particular consideration by bibliophiles.
1728 Rome:
Biblioteca Giovardiana - Veroli, Frosinone (OPAC)
Nordiska museets bibliotek - Stockholm (WorldCat, LIBRIS)
Harvard University, Houghton Library - Cambridge, MA, USA (WorldCat)
[Since the publication of this article there is one more, reported at https://www.naibi.net/A/UGHI.pdf, Appendix: Biblioteca dell’Istituto Centrale per Il Patrimonio Immateriale - Rome.]
1742 Roma:
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale - Florence (OPAC)
Bibliothèque nationale de France - Paris (WorldCat)
Biblioteca Vaticana - Roma (OPAC Vaticano)
Biblioteca Comunale “A. Saffi” - Forlì (62-VII-53)
1746 Macerata:
Biblioteca Arcivescovile Cardinale Pietro Maffi - Pisa (32.4.23)
1773 Rome:
No indications of the presence of copies of this edition were found in any of the catalogs consulted. [Since the publication of this article, one has been located, reported at https://www.naibi.net/A/UGHI.pdf, Appendix: Biblioteca dell’Istituto Campana – Osimo.]
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