Sunday, January 12, 2025

Old 13, Oct. 9, 2015: 1377: Florence - Convictions of players of naibi

The last in the present series (Old Essays 7-3) is one I have already translated once, in 2016, and forgot that I had done so. This translation is probably slightly better and more readable, so I include it with the others here. It is of "1377: Firenze – Condanne ai giocatori di naibi," dated Oct. 9, 2015, https://naibi.net/A/423-1377-Z.pdf. 1377 is the first year in which playing cards are documented in Florence, in a prohibition of the same year. The note was first published in The Playing-Card 44, no. 3 (Sept-Oct. 2015), pp. 166-173. Comments in square brackets are mine for clarification, in consultation with Franco.

1377: Florence – Convictions of players of naibi

Franco Pratesi

English abstract

Two books of the Podestà of Florence, with records from July to October 1377, have been examined for this study. In addition to the expected captures of gamblers playing the dice game of Zara − about one hundred − a dozen captures can be read there for players of Naibi, at such an early stage. All these players were Florence dwellers, living in six different parishes all around the town. The spread of the game in Florence is commented on, as well as the implicit confirmation that a remarkable production of playing cards was already established there.


Introduction

In the history of playing cards and card games, the Florentine provision of March 1377 has a peculiar role. In the older contributions, this law was not known; when it was known, there were many uncertainties and inaccuracies before the document was checked against the originals and recognized as valid; for a long time, it was considered the oldest testimony for all of Europe. More recently, the genuineness of other documents has been recognized, and the Florentine testimony seems to have lost its primacy, but it remains, in any case, one of the oldest documentations in this regard.

Here we are not concerned with other cities, and the Florentine provision of 1377 remains the natural starting point. A study on that document appeared years ago in this journal; [note 1] rereading it after a quarter of a century, I find it still valid overall. One of the points that should be retouched concerns the idea that the word naibi was practically unknown in Florence, for the reason that even in official documents it was written differently; this remains true, but only in part, because writing naibi or naibj cannot be attributed to ignorance of the term, but only to an alternative way of writing the final letter I, which is also observed for the most familiar names.

Reading the provision leaves us with strong doubts about the situation in previous months, if not also several years before. That we can go back much further in time, at least for Florence, is excluded both on the basis of documents from other sources, and for reasons internal to the text, considering that it speaks of noviter in(n)olevit [recently implanted] and that noviter is there to demonstrate that it could not have been a long Florentine tradition. However, it is also true that if the new game was spreading in the city to the point of worrying the city councils, it could
__________________
1. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, 17 No. 3 (1989), 107-11 [in English, https://naibi.net/A/20-INTROFLO-Z.pdf].

167
not have been something isolated, known only to a few, perhaps a merchant who had brought back to his family, or to his business partners, a deck of playing cards found in an exotic location.

Assuming that such an event actually occurred, before playing cards took on the character of a mass game, so much so as to be taken into consideration by city councils, a lot of time would have been needed. In fact, the presence of a souvenir object was not enough; for its reasonable use in the game, knowledge and acceptance of the relevant rules was indispensable, to be observed in agreement by the various players; furthermore, the number of decks of new cards had to be multiplied in some way.

In short, what happened in Florence before March 1377 remains a mystery to be investigated; now, however, we can leave aside any possible hypothesis in this regard and move on to reading other documents from that same year 1377, simply moving from spring to summer.


The books of the podestà studied

This study is part of a larger investigation conducted in the State Archives of Florence (ASFi) on documents relating to the history of card games in Tuscany. One branch of this research has concerned the books of foreign rectors and the Books of the Lily [where the Lily, Giglio, was a specially designed emblem of Florence] of the Chamber of the Commune; most of this documentation studied so far concerns the fifteenth century, but some data relating to the end of the fourteenth century has been extracted from the Books of the Lily [note 2] and from those of the executor; [note 3] however, the books of the captain and the podestà [chief magistrate] have not yet provided useful results for those years.

As regards the series of books of the podestà, considerable difficulties are encountered in selecting the units of possible interest, and also in being able to consult them once selected. In particular, the books that, from reading the old Inventory [note 4] available in the ASFi, appear to be dedicated to inventiones [discoveries], that is, to the capture of offenders caught red-handed, are very rare; when these archival units are not found indicated, it remains to be verified whether the related documents were inserted into any book of the Officium extraordinariorum.

An attempt in this direction led to the choice of two units for the year 1377, the same year as the first Florentine testimonies on naibi. The aim was not to find others so early, but only to check the situation of gambling convictions at the time when naibi were introduced. These are two books that are practically identical externally, with the same dimensions of 30x23 cm and with a parchment cover on which are painted a central coat of arms and four similarly sized ones at the vertices.
_____________________
2. www.naibi.net/A/416-GIGLIO300-Z.pdf [translated here at viewtopic.php?p=26690#p26690.
3. www.naibi.net/A/417ESECUTOREZ.pdf [translated here at viewtopic.php?p=26691#p26691].
4. ASFi, Inventario N/26.


168
The first book, [note 5] of 28 folios, contains the registration of various activities and, above all, the bans [declarations of the prohibitions and other matters] with the standard formulas that record both their promulgation and their notification to the citizens by the official herald. On the part of the podestà's “family,” there are no arrests of citizens caught with weapons or out at night or gambling, precisely what would interest us; these registrations are in the second part of the other book examined. This second book, [note 6] of 48 folios, begins with a couple of folios relating to the installation of the new podestà, Marquis Pietro of the marquises of Monte Santa Maria. The podestàs of Florence were chosen from among the foreign knights of more or less ancient nobility; in this case the marquis was undoubtedly from an ancient family and also of imperial nomination.

The notary who wrote this book is Matteo di Pizzica, and he comes from the same marquisate of Monte Santa Maria from which the podestà came; his handwriting is particularly beautiful and clear, apart from some of the abbreviations. As usually happens, we immediately find a summary list of the delegations conferred by the podestà to the various officials and employees. Of interest to us are the three knights (indicated by the corresponding medieval Latin term milex sotius) Aloisio, Antonio, and Bellaccio, and above all, the notary delegated to extraordinary matters, as we read on f. 3r: “Item elegit et deputavit in suum notarium extraordinariorum viz. Ser Guelfutium Francisci de Civitate Castelli” [Also, he chose and deputed as his extra-ordinary notary, viz. Ser Guelfuzio son of Francesco of Città di Castello].

On folios 4-10, all the sessions presided over by the podestà are recorded; these are stereotyped texts, usually inserted five or six per page, in which the only significant detail is the date. The second part of the book, starting from folio 12r, corresponding to July 10, contains the records of the outings of the podestà's “family” in search of potential violators of the laws on weapons, nighttime outings, and gambling. Finding these convictions in a podestà's book cannot cause great surprise, because similar convictions can be found recorded in previous decades. However, there was a huge surprise in finding that in this early period, already some convictions of naibi players are recorded.


Gambling convictions

The three knights of the podestà regularly take turns on their inspection tours of the city, leading the “family” of berrovieri [police], and a continuous record of all these outings is kept in the book under examination, specifying in the header when the inspection took place at night. Many times it is recorded, with a standard and also rather verbose formulation, that the “family” returns without having made any captures. The captures by the knights recorded are exclusively for carrying weapons and for going out at night. At the end of August, a fourth name of a knight of the podestà appears, Blaxius, probably to be read in Italian as Blasio. It seems that the new arrival has a
___________________
5. ASFi, Podestà, 2261.
6. ASFi, Podestà, 2262


169
more zealous behavior, so much so that among his captures are also included some zara [a dice game] players, those indicated in the following table in italics and with an asterisk.

All the data in the table with convictions for gambling, excluding the three mentioned above, result from the activity of a single officer of the podestà, the notary Ser Guelfuccio, delegate for extraordinary cases, coming from Città di Castello, a town not far from Monte Santa Maria. Clearly, this officer is particularly dedicated to captures for gambling. In particular, among those convicted by his action, none appear for night-time outings, while these are the most frequent convictions for the knights of the podestà; but this can immediately be explained by the fact that there are no nocturnal outings of the “family” under the command of the notary. Apart from two cases in which Ser Guelfuccio has men convicted for carrying prohibited weapons, all his convictions are for gambling and are of great interest to us.

------------------------------------[Day-----Naibi-------Zara--------Weapons----------Folio
------------------------------------------in the months of July-October 1377]

 
170


Unlike previous years, here naibi appears next to zara. In the Latin text, zara is systematically indicated as ludus çardi, but ludus tassillorum [game of dice] also appears at times, which probably did not indicate a different game. The game of naibi, however, is always indicated as ludus nayborum. As was to be expected, the sentences for playing are largely associated with the game of zara. For this game, it was quite common at the time to find quite large groups of players captured together, something that would become less and less frequent as the years went by; here, the number of zara players captured simultaneously varies from one up to even thirteen.

In particular, a clear decline in captures can be noted towards the end of the period. This also occurs for the other officers of the podestà, so much so that the last recorded capture is for one surprised at night by Blasio on 30 September, while in October there are eighteen recorded outings of the podestà's “family,” all without captures, until the last one on 9 October on f. 46r, followed only by a couple of blank folios.

The captures for the game of naibi might seem to be a negligible contribution, but they are not. Even numerically, they represent a good ten percent of the total, eleven cases compared to the 105 total of zara, and this is certainly not a small thing for a new game compared with the most popular one during the entire Middle Ages; in short, the game of naibi had evidently already become familiar among Florentines.

171
The players of naibi


The Latin text of the book is not transcribed here, but it is necessary to at least report the names of these first Florentine card players of whom we have news. It should be noted in this regard that the passage from Latin to current Italian can lead, among other things, to the confusion of the patronymic with the surname: the families who at the time had a surname were relatively few, and therefore it may be that in the table one should read di Donato, di Cecco, etc. A reference number is inserted in the last column, which has the sole purpose of making the related parish seat more clearly visible in Fig. 1.

Name--------Name of the father-------Parish---------[Ref.] No.
------------------or the family

Francesco--------di Jacopo -------San Pier Maggiore--------1
Domenico----------Donati----------Sant’Ambrogio--------------2
Nanni-------------di Bartolo---------Sant’Ambrogio--------------2
Bettino--------------Ciardi-----------Sant’Ambrogio--------------2
Antonio -------------Cenni----------San Pier Maggiore---------1
Lorenzo----------Benincasa--------Santa Reparata------------3
Ceccandrea--------Cecchi---------Santa Reparata------------3
Lodovico--------di Giovanni--------San Giorgio-----------------4
Pierozzo--------di Francesco------San Giorgio-----------------4
Cione--------------di Lapo-----------Santa Felicita---------------5
Giovanni---------di Sandro---------San Frediano---------------6

It may be significant that in all cases, the players were Florentine, because in the captures for the game of zara the presence of foreigners is frequent. Again, comparing the data on naibi with those on zara, one can note a smaller variation in the number of players captured for the infraction: in our case it goes only from two to four. These data are certainly not sufficient to conclude that the game of naibi was for two, three, or four players. If one thought it possible to deduce participation from the number of those captured on the basis of later testimonies, one would have to conclude that naibi could also be played alone, which is clearly absurd. However, it remains significant that for naibi one never encounters, not even later, captures of large groups of players, as sometimes happens for zara.

172
Unlike other cases of this kind, the profession of these Florentines is never indicated in the document under study; however, their popular character is confirmed by their names and the parishes they come from.

Eleven players from six parishes are encountered, which are distributed across a wide radius of the city. The first three are on the right bank of the Arno (S. Ambrogio, S. Pier Maggiore and S. Reparata), the last three on the left bank (S. Felicita, S. Giorgio, S. Frediano). Most of these churches still exist; only S. Reparata was demolished, for the construction of the new cathedral, and S. Pier Maggiore, because the structure had become unsafe. Fig. 1 shows the position of the churches within the last circle of the city walls, built half a century earlier; compared to the previous circle, they are almost all located outside. The wide dispersion in the city is evident, but of particular interest is the fact that both the peripheral areas richer in manufacturing are represented, with large employment of low-level workers, who also had their poor homes precisely in these two rather unhealthy areas, let's say to the E and SW of the ancient center.


The spread of playing cards


So far we have seen how the documents studied could provide us with useful information on Florentine card players and how the new game had already spread throughout the city. Alongside this aspect there was inevitably another, equally important: the production and trade of playing cards. There are significant elements, again in Florence, that indicate how it was precisely in this city that a rapid development of the new game would have been possible. Here, we must be clear: in any location, a new game could have quickly taken hold of the population and gained its favor; but this was not the game of morra, which is played with the fingers of one hand: also, new cards were needed to be able to play.

In this regard, it is often read that the first playing cards were not only new objects, but also expensive and valuable, made with sheets of parchment with chalk primer, perhaps covered in gold, as well as having paintings on the front face so beautiful that they were usually sought after in court environments. (It is very often forgotten that the testimonies from those high-level environments were recorded and then also preserved more and better than any testimonies from popular environments.) And so it is assumed that it took a more or less long time before playing cards could "descend" to the common people, if only because of their high cost, which prevented widespread distribution among the people.

On the court environments and the related testimonies, I have nothing to add to the too much that can be read, but on the popular character, yes. First of all, I would like to point out that in Florence there was a typical and highly appreciated production of orpelli and argenpelli [animal skins, pelli, beaten and then coated with metallic paint simulating gold, or, and silver, argento], which as objects, apart from their different use, were not very different from naibi. Florentine production was

173
highly appreciated, and even Francesco di Marco Datini and his associates and successors in Avignon imported hundreds of dozens of them from Florence over the course of several decades in the second half of the fourteenth century. On this point, I must refer to a previous study of mine, also published in this journal. [note 7] In fact, going from a bundle of orpelli to a pack of naibi would not have entailed great variations in workmanship.
Image
Figure 1 – Schematic layout of the churches mentioned in the text.

Conclusion

Two books of the podestà of Florence for the period July-October 1377 have been studied. Among those caught red-handed by the podestà's “family,” those convicted of gambling were selected: around one hundred captures were recorded for the game of zara and eleven captures for the game of naibi, surprisingly, considering that only in March of the same year had the provision prohibiting them been approved. The eleven players were domiciled in six different parishes in poor areas of the city. The spread of the game in Florence is commented on and the logical consequence is deduced that there was already a notable production of playing cards; this could have been based on the experience gained over several decades by Florentine artisans in the sector of working with paper and leather (including orpelli and argenpelli).

Florence, 9 October, 2015

No comments:

Post a Comment