Below is my Google-assisted translation of Franco's "Firenze 1462: carte da gioci in una merceria," in Italian at https://www.naibi.net/A/CORSELLINI.pdf. Actually, in this case I had some prior assistance from "Huck" on Tarot History Forum, who posted Google Translate's version, but with no attempt at correcting it. I thank him for this incentive. You can see his version on Tarot History Forum in the posts before my version, which is at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26358#p26358. He also took the initiative, in private emails, to finding the most efficient way of inputting Franco's Italian original. That is a long story I won't get into. Suffice it to say that if you want to see what Google Translate does with an essay that he has posted a link to at https://www.naibi.net/p/index.html, download the pdf or docx from his site and then use the "documents" option on Google Translate to produce the translation, such as it is. Actually, Google Translate now does a fairly good job with Franco's own prose; it is just his quotations from old documents that it can't handle very well.
A few things by way of introduction: a "merceria" in Franco's Italian title is a shop principally devoted to fabrics and sewing supplies, but also sells paper goods; in the UK, it is called a "haberdashery", in the U.S. a "dry goods shop" or "notions shop." Now that people don't do much sewing, they've been replaced, in the U.S. by "crafts" shops, while Tarot cards are usually found either in bookstores or New Age shops.
Another term is "fondo". In reference to archives, the closest English equivalent is "section" or "collection," I am indebted to Franco for supplying the meaning of some of the obsolete terms in the documents. Any remaining errors are mine, and I hope people will point them out.
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Florence 1462: playing cards in a dry goods shop
Franco Pratesi
1. Introduction
After a long break, I started visiting the State Archives of Florence
[ASF] again. The collections of documents preserved are so numerous and
rich in information that studying in that environment is very promising
for useful findings, whatever the specific sector of research. There is
also a further possibility, impossible to encounter in any home search
on recently digitized databases. In the ASF, you can meet scholars and
researchers willing to share the results of their research. Years ago, I
happened to meet one, Lorenz Böhninger, who informed me of one of his
findings with interesting news for the history of playing cards. [note 1.]
With the distance of time, a friend once again reported to me one of his
discoveries, an inventory of a dry goods shop in the Antecosimian
[before Duke Cosimo I] Notary. Over many years I have had the
opportunity to investigate many ASF sections, but I have always stayed
away from the Notary. In truth I have looked for things even in that
section, for example Giusto Giusti’s [footnote 2] documents, but only in
a limited number of cases and for a specific reason. I have more than
one justification for this laziness of mine. The enormous number of
documents that have been preserved, and even more, the fact that they
are usually protocols or abbreviations - copies of documents quickly
written by the notary to keep them in his books, therefore easy reading .
. . but only for the one who wrote.
As if that wasn't enough, I had the opportunity to talk with a scholar
who for professional reasons had leafed through hundreds of these books.
To my question, if she had come across any information on playing
cards, she replied that she had never encountered any. Here the question
is complex, because in the old literature we read that some scholars
instead reported having found numerous attestations of the naibi
precisely in that section, without this being of any interest to them
for their research and without indicating precise references. One
possible explanation is that if archivists come across terms like naibi,
or trionfi, or germini, they will hardly be able to connect them with
playing cards if they do not know their very old history.
In many inventories of the period that I have examined in other
collections, playing cards are never present, or almost never. I would
have concluded on a statistical basis that decks of playing cards were
either kept only in taverns, where players borrowed them for a game, or,
if they were present in private homes, they were considered perishable
goods - in short, non-inventoriable, worthless material.
Obviously, the situation is different if the inventory concerns what is
kept in a dry goods shop, or (a case which has not yet occurred in the
fifteenth century to my knowledge) in a card maker’s workshop. However,
my friend found playing cards [i.e., decks with just the ordinary four
suits] with their "modern" name in the fifteenth century, and also
triumphs. This discovery concerns the inventory of a dry goods shop, of
which I will limit myself to examining the playing cards.
2. Comment on the data recorded
The occasion for drawing up the list of goods contained in the dry goods
shop in question is the death of the dry goods shopkeeper, Matteo di
Paolo Corsellini, and the need to list all the goods in the shop to pass
them on as an inheritance and satisfy the creditors. In this
circumstance you can be sure of the correspondence between the goods
listed and the goods actually contained in the shop. I copy below from
the inventory of 1462 (note 3) only the entries of specific interest for
playing cards.
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1. The Playing-Card, Vol. 44, No. 1 (2015), 61-71. https://www.naibi.net/A/IPCS44N1.pdf
2. http://trionfi.com/giusto-giusti; https://www.naibi.net/A/127-GIUSTI-Z.docx.
3. ASF, Notarile antecosimiano, 17967, pp. 240r-242.
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65 paia di carte da giuchare del dona
17 paia di carte di Meo di Tingho meçane
2 paia di trionfi g° da Giovanni
10 paia di trionfi piccoli g°
11 paia di carte meçane da g°
5 paia di carte piccole d.g°
12 d. di carte picole rimbocchiate da giuchare
3 paia di carte g° doppie del dona
1 cassetta di piu naibi spaiati
(65 pairs of playing cards of [or by] donaThat a deck of cards was referred to at the time as a "pair" is known from many other documents. I think that the abbreviation g° stands for “game,” that is, “for playing.” The cards folded over were those where the margins of the larger rear sheet were folded over and glued onto the front sheet of the card, making the union of the two glued sheets more stable, usually along with an internal piece of cardboard. We are left perplexed by the abbreviation d, which in cases of this kind always means dozen - in this inventory, there are many such, so many that one suspects that by writing d. he had understood “pair” [i.e. deck] instead of “dozen,” because in this context it is more reasonable to expect twelve decks of cards rather than 144.
17 pairs of Meo di Tingho middle-sized cards
2 pairs of triumphs g° of [or by] Giovanni
10 pairs of small g° triumphs
11 pairs of middle-sized playing cards
5 pairs of small d. g. cards
12 d. of small folded-back playing cards
3 pairs of doubled g° cards of dona
1 small case [or box?] of several odd [or unmatched] naibi]
As can be seen, more than a hundred decks of playing cards are listed in the inventory, divided by type and origin. A notable part is made up of cards “of dona.” I imagine that Dona is simply the nickname for Donato, as is done even in recent times, especially among friends and close acquaintances. It is not possible to trace from this name the personage involved, who could be a card maker unknown to us, or a retailer, including of playing cards, typically a dry goods shopkeeper colleague of Corsellini.
Among the cards “of Dona,” the ratio of 65 to 3 between “cards” and “cards doubled” suggests that the latter were of a more expensive and less used type. In the past, I have encountered "Naibi doubled" several times and also discussed various possible hypotheses in this regard. (Footnote 4)
The “odd naibi” are quite surprising, starting with how the name appears in a context in which "cards for playing" already appear. The different term would suggest leftovers from an older card model, now outdated by the fashions of the time. The term "odd" [also "unmatched"], however, would be better explained if applied to a set of individual decks completed by different manufacturers rather than to individual cards. Incomplete decks are not compatible with the game, and furthermore, storing spare cards in the shop to replace any damaged or lost cards for customers seems unlikely.
A particular case, probably the most important of all, is that of the two decks of triumphs “of Giovanni.” Here we find very interesting data. Let us begin with the reduced number of two decks. This fact is enough to make us understand that these were something different from the usual, different, too, from the five times more numerous small triumphs based on the same model. We do not know the exact number of cards in triumph decks of the time. Experts debate the question, with hypotheses ranging from a deck of 70 cards consisting of the four standard suits and a fifth new superior "suit," all five of 14 cards, up to the 78-card deck that we know of later on. In any case, it was a deck used for a particular game, with few or no variations, and which certainly required a greater commitment in manufacturing. From other sources we know that the cost of these decks was higher, and we also know that they were produced in rather limited quantities, facts which are confirmed here.
Of further interest is the name of Giovanni, due to its origin. One can't be one hundred percent sure on the identity of this Giovanni, but in fact there was a famous Giovanni at the time,
________________
4. http://trionfi.com/naibi-doppi-scempi; https://www.naibi.net/A/115-NAIBATTRIB-Z.pdf
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who in his vast and varied production appears to have also produced triumph decks. (5) It would be none other than the younger brother of Masaccio, Giovanni di Ser Giovanni of Castel San Giovanni, known as Scheggia. (6)
What remains are the decks of cards of uncertain origin and the seventeen decks of Meo di Tingo. Looking for a Meo di Tingo in the usual repertoires, also online, we find several, but some are clearly from years too far away. The one most commonly mentioned is the Meo di Tingo of Brucianesi, who was responsible for the transport of the Portinari triptych from Pisa to Florence by water in 1483. (7) In this case, it would not be a card maker, not even the keeper of a dry goods shop, but a carrier, who appears in any case involved with the transport of works of art - at least on that occasion. You could then imagine an ancillary activity for him as a distributor of packs of cards in the various locations that he went to for work; however, the different profession and the years between this inventory and the transport of the triptych are such as to leave strong doubts about a hypothesis of this kind.
3. Other people involved
There are two other people involved, the notary and the keeper of the dry goods shop. The notary, Donato Rimbotti, is of some interest, because he was a notary from San Miniato [then outside the city – trans.]. It would seem easier for a Florentine notary to operate in the countryside than vice versa, but from reading the notarial deed it is certain that this dry goods shop was located in the center of Florence.
The keeper of the dry goods shop had a surname - which in itself was indicative of a higher family level than average ‒ that of Corsellini. In the Florentine Tax Registry [Catasto] of 1427 there is another Corsellini, Bonacorso, son of precisely Paolo and furthermore a dry goods shopkeeper. (Footnote 8) One can then think of the same dry goods shop with ownership passing from an older sibling to a younger sibling; such a direct kinship remains, however, impractical, due to the temporal distance of several decades. If the relationship existed, it was of a different type. Interestingly, however, this Bonacorso Corsellini was not just any dry goods shopkeeper: at 74 years of age and with an income much higher than average, he was the head of a family of eighteen; it could be a kind of family clan in which several related families practiced the same profession of dry goods shopkeeper, with greater or lesser success. Ultimately, staying firm with the profession, it is of secondary importance whether it involved one or more workshops.
4. Conclusion
Some information has been commented upon about playing cards and triumphs present in a dry goods shop upon the owner’s death in 1462. Considering the research sector, the main people involved are obviously the card makers, but of these we have sufficient information only of Scheggia (if it is him, as is probable), because among his works there are several that were highly appreciated at the time and have been the subject of multiple studies, including recent ones; therefore, to consider him a manufacturer of [ordinary] playing cards seems very reductive. The most interesting datum here, however, is the presence of triumphs almost certainly produced by him. The fraction of these special cards out of the total - in reality in rather limited numbers - is in agreement with the recorded data in other documents preserved from the time, which confirms the greater value and lower production of these cards. Of the other two named, Dona and Meo di Tingo, I found no information for the first and very uncertain information for the second; specifically, it is not at all certain that they were card makers.
Florence, 02.12.2023 [Dec. 12, 2023]
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5. http://trionfi.com/evx-lo-scheggia.
6. L. Bellosi, M. Haines, Lo Scheggia. Florence 1999.
7. C. De Benedictis (ed.), Il Patrimonio artistico dell'Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova di Firenze. Florence 2002.
8. https://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/ ... d=50000028.
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