Old Essays 4, 1996: Florentines, Germans, and Emperors

 he next article is a short one from 1996 discussing mostly the social environment of a few games and decks in the first half of the 15th century. The original is "Fiorentini, Alemanni e Imperatori," at https://naibi.net/A/61-FIALEIMP-Z.pdf.

By "cards" without any qualifying adjectives or adjective phrases he is referring to ordinary decks of four suits where the highest card is the king. By "triumphs" he is referring to the decks with special higher cards that he described briefly in the 1990 article that was first in this series of "old articles." 

Karnöffel is a game with ordinary cards where certain cards in one suit picked at random at the start of the hand have certain trick-taking powers beyond their own suit and rank. You can read more about it in the Dummett chapter Franco refers to, online at viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1175. To save a lengthy hunt on the web-page, one search term might be "1426," which discusses what was thought to be the earliest record of that game, in 1426 Nördlingen, Bavaria; a lengthier discussion of the game follows. The 1426 dating, however, has recently been shown to be without basis. Ross Caldwell reported the initial doubts raised by Jonas Richter, at viewtopic.php?p=23550#p23550. There is some useful discussion as you scroll down the page. What remained was to check the archives at Nördlingen. No record of Karnöffel in 1426 was found. "Huck" (Lothar Teikemeier) reported on this at viewtopic.php?p=24054#p24054. Richter himself has a couple of posts down the page but no further information. The earliest record for the game is now 1446.

Then there is "Imperatori," documented in Ferrara in the mid-15th century and also earlier: Franco has 1434, but there is also the "VIII Imperadori" of 1423, for which see http://trionfi.com/imperatori-cards-ferrara-1423 (which also has data about the mid-century references but not 1434). In both 1423 and 1434 the cards sent to Ferrara come from Florence.

The numbers by themselves in the left margin below are the page numbers of Franco's pdf. Comments in square brackets are mine in consultation with Franco, for clarification purposes.


FLORENTINES, GERMANS AND EMPERORS

Franco Pratesi
Cartophilia Helvetica 11, no. 4 (1996), 11-13.

In recent years I have been able to bring to the attention of experts several documents on the early development of triumphs in Italy. However, I have not yet had the opportunity to find anything new on the spread of the Karnöffel or Kaiserspiel north of the Alps; indeed, I have not even had the opportunity to obtain many of the studies already published on the subject in German. However, it is a fact that these games are, in some unspecified way, related. Originally, one would be a court game south of the Alps, the other a popular game to the north. But in this sector, we witness a curious intertwining of ancient card games, ancient playing cards, and their respective origins.

I have read several times and with much difficulty the comparison between Karnöffel and triumphs developed by Michael Dummett, starting from: The Game of Tarot, London 1980, pp. 184-191. Personally, I have not yet been able to well understand which of these games gave the other the idea of trumps. The discussion on the subject depends on the data available and the mind that elaborates them. Now my mind – although I am rather fond of it - does not even remotely come close to the refinement of that of a Dummett. Perhaps for this reason, perhaps for my own popular origins, but I must admit that I cannot digest all the importance given to the Renaissance courts in this matter.

I understand that ordinary people had little free time to devote to card games; I understand that only the upper classes could afford expensive illuminated cards; I understand that today it is easier to discuss at length the precious cards preserved by the court circles of Milan and Ferrara than those of ordinary citizens, which were much more widespread at the time but have rarely reached us. All this is true, but only up to a certain point.

One thing I am certain of is that the Florentine environment had little to do with that of the courts of Milan or Ferrara: perhaps something of the sort could be achieved later, but at the beginning of the fifteenth century the Medici were one of the many merchant families of Florence, a community where the few nobles of ancient lineage were carefully kept out of public office.

It should be noted that Florence at that time was characterized by trade and the manufacturing activity of the various city "arts." The manufacture of playing cards required a considerable availability of parchment scraps, a particular processing of this or of paper, a large-scale use of painting, an introduction of new and more suitable techniques. But few places could then compete with the possibilities of artisanal processing in Florence, with elevated characteristics in quality and quantity.

In old Florentine documents it is found that people sentenced at the beginning of the fifteenth century to fines because they were caught playing cards were not the first citizens of the city (probably no one would have dreamed of condemning them), but ordinary people, who played at the city gates or in some tavern. With what cards did they play? Certainly not with cards that cost fortunes. Judging by the environment and the frequency of cases, cards must have already become objects of everyday use for some time. In this regard, we come across several obscure points, such as the date of the beginning of the printing of playing cards with engraved wooden blocks. I do not know how far it is legitimate to anticipate, already within the fourteenth century, the appearance of this profession, and therefore the "printed" production of playing cards that had by then become a series. For fabrics, it is written that the "printing" system had already been in use for a long time.

However, I cannot accept that at the same time, in the first half of the fifteenth century, cards could be base material and triumphs noble material. The workmanship was the same, apart from some small complications, all in all secondary, deriving from the additional figures (let us remember that the simplest French system of using perforated stencils for the

2
the manufacturing of number cards was still to be invented).

In my opinion, the precious tarots used at court in the mid-fifteenth century - too often described and discussed - were not necessarily prototypes, which only later, and slowly, would have spread to the plebians. I do not see why the reverse could not have occurred, with cards already in use among the people that were also used - in modified versions, in more valuable copies, possibly also, and why not, in unique copies - by the nobles of the courts of the major cities of northern Italy.

The discussion therefore concerns Italy (especially northern courts such as Milan and Ferrara and central cities such as Bologna and Florence), but it also concerns Germany. Experts in paper processing were often registered as Alemanni (which, in the usage of the time, I believe included at least the Swabians, Bavarians and Swiss-Germans of today), and we find them documented early, in Bologna for example. And no one associates these itinerant artisans with princely courts.

What brings Florence and Germany together is first of all their technical ability, the ability to produce cards cheaply and in considerable quantities. It seems to me then that the Germans soon revealed themselves to be better prepared in the traditional working of wooden molds, and that the Florentines were better prepared to work parchment and paper and to paint them. In both cases we are among men of the people, without courts of nobles to dictate laws and customs. The impression is that neither the Florentines nor the Germans needed the court of Ferrara to come up with new ideas on how to improve the production of cards, and possibly the traditional game itself.

A feature that unites cards and games, Florence and Germany, with Ferrara only in the background, is the “imperial” connection, which involves both sectors of playing cards and card games: this occurs with evidence north of the Alps for the “emperors’” game or Kaiserspiel (the Swiss equivalent of Karnöffel) and for the “emperors’” cards to the south.

The main knot to be untied for me is precisely the reconstruction of the "carte da imperatori" [emperor cards], mentioned in the mid-fifteenth century in the expense books of the court of Ferrara but which, in a well-known document, were indeed registered for the use of that court, but after having been purchased in Florence already in 1434 (As de Tréfle, N. 54, 1995, pp. 16-17), that is, more than fifteen years before the oldest known evidence of their production in Ferrara!