Below is a translation
of Franco's "Paia di carte nel Cinquecento e oltre," originally in Italian at https://naibi.net/A/8-38-PAIACARTE.pdf, done, as usual, with considerable consultation with Franco. Comments in brackets are
mine, for clarification purposes. This translation also appears at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26661#p26661, where some discussion of "paio/paia" occurs both before and after that post, which I have summarized or linked to in my comments after the translation of Franco's note.
Pairs of cards in the 16th century and beyond
Franco Pratesi
1. Introduction
At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the fourteenth-century paio di naibi [“pair, i.e. pack/deck, of naibi”, cards] changed to paio di carte, but the current expression of mazzo di carte [pack/deck of cards] began to be found only from the mid-sixteenth century. We encounter four nouns ‒ paio, naibi, carte, mazzo
‒ each of which requires clarification and commentary. As associations
of these words, I do not believe that we will ever encounter a mazzo di naibi [deck/pack of naibi], because from paio di naibi we soon changed to paio di carte and much later to mazzo di carte. I intend to examine here one by one those terms and the changes in use that occurred over time.
Finally, I add three examples, well into the seventeenth century, of the expression paio di carte still used.
2. The meaning and use of the four nouns
As I said, I intend to first examine the four nouns under consideration, one at a time.
2a – PAIO [PAIR]. The fact that paio and the plural paia are also written as paro and para
does not create any problems for us (except perhaps for the related
change of gender, of which other examples can also be found such as uovo and uova); in fact, there are many Italian words for which, in different times and places, the final -io or the final -ro prevails; it will be enough to cite the example of notaio [notary].
Let's take a closer look at the uses of the term paio
by taking examples from clothing and its accessories. The situation is
rather complex because two different categories of application are
encountered: cases in which the objects are truly two, and cases in
which the two parts (necessarily present!) end up forming a single
object.
Many examples of the first type are used for the feet: shoes, clogs,
boots, slippers, stockings and socks; for hands there are gloves; for
ears earrings, and other objects could be added to this already long
series. More intriguing is the second type [of application], used to
say a pair of trousers, underwear, and also glasses.
We can also encounter a third type, in which the use of the term paio does not correspond to any pair of elements present, in whole or in part, at the origin. These are potential pairs [paia], so to speak. Remaining in the field of clothing, we can think for example of handkerchiefs. Is there a pair [paio] of handkerchiefs? More likely, there is a dozen. But we can always ask the shopkeeper to sell us “a pair [paio]
of handkerchiefs”; this pair of objects exists as such when it is
purchased, but did not previously exist as a pair in the group in which
it was found. The same can be true for any other object, such as a pair
of oranges, a pair of books, a pair of jars, a pair of anything, in
short. The meaning of paio in these cases is always equivalent to the number two.
The dictionaries also list further secondary meanings, such as the case of “a couple of hours” [un paio d’ore] or “a couple of kilos” [un paio di chili],
which obviously means two hours or two kilos, but only approximately,
and therefore is indefinite and no longer has a precise “pair” as a
reference. However, whether you find an exact or approximate two, it is
always a two, even if in this case it could be, if verified precisely,
any number typically between 1.5 and 2.5.
When thinking of a paio di carte [pack/deck of cards], one cannot even begin to see a paio of the first type, and even recognizing a paio
of the second type requires some help from the imagination; the third
type is out of the question; the fourth would be fine for cards if
instead of a paio one said about forty [una quarantina].
However, that the attempt should be made is strongly suggested by the fact that one cannot suppose a use of the term paio without
some specific motivation, that is, without recognizing any binary
character, even partial, in the object to which it is applied.
A very special case is that of a paio di scacchi [scacchi = chess, chess pieces, chess set]. Michael Howard has drawn attention to the expression un paio di scacchi included in dictionaries as an example of cases in which the term paio could also be applied to objects composed of a number of parts that is not only different from two, but
2
also not precisely defined. [note 1] In fact, the parts of a chess set [gioco di scacchi] can be one if we mean the chessboard [scacchiera] (possibly with the pieces on it) or thirty-two if we mean the chess pieces [pezzi degli scacchi].
I have searched for decades in books and manuscripts for references to
chess in Italian literature, even before researching card games, and to
tell the truth, I have never encountered a paio di scacchi.
Yet, if you search today for that expression on Google Books you will
find 63 citations, deriving mainly from the many digitized editions of
dictionaries. [note 2]
Checking further, one finds that all those definitions in the
dictionaries date back to the first edition of the Crusca dictionary:
“Sometimes paio is said of a single body of a thing, even if it is divided into many parts, like a paio of playing cards, a paio of chess” [Talora
si dice paio a un corpo solo d’una cosa, ancorché si divida di molte
parti, come un paio di carte da giucare, un paio di scacchi]. [note 3]
But the most significant fact is that in that same dictionary, the
origin of all subsequent entries, the compiler does not report any
quotation taken from Italian literature, but indicates the expression "paio di scacchi" only as an example proposed by himself.
One might then suppose that perhaps the expression does not exist and
that it is only due to a proposal of the compiler, presumably erroneous.
In fact, introducing the “many parts”, without limitations, seems to me
at least rash. However, I want to assign to that compiler a certain
reliability, and that is, I want to admit that in fact one can say “un paio di scacchi”.
However, the discussion must continue: if we maintain that that
expression can really be used, a justification must also be found for
it.
There is one game, one board, 32 pieces, and where is the two? Upon
reflection, there is a justification, however, and it is the usual one
for the pair [paio] of scissors: a single
object made up of two parts. In chess, the two is found, and very
clearly, in correspondence with black and white: there are two armies
taking part in the battle.
In the end, if a citation is not found in the literature, it is also
true that it could have been found; perhaps it will be found soon,
perhaps in some manuscript not yet digitized. If it is found, the
meaning will still be the one indicated above.
We can then return to the paio di naibi. That particular paio has always given me food for thought. [note 4] In my opinion, the term paio
could not be used at random, not even in that example; somewhere the
binary character had to be present. So the conclusion at this point
becomes easy.
I admit that between the situation of chess, which is entirely
hypothesized, and that of naibi or cards ‒ only partly hypothesized
because the expression is actually found several times ‒ there is a
substantial difference, because in chess there are two armies, while,
usually, in cards there are four suits, thanks to which the division of
the deck into four is evident, while a division into two seems rather
forced. True. In my opinion, however, the use of the term paio forces us to give a meaning to the two pairs [coppie - another word for "pairs"] of suits much greater than the one with which we are used to seeing them today.
Just as in chess one can assume that it is the white field against the
black field, so in playing cards one must give prominence to the
presence in the four suits of the game of two pairs [coppie], those which centuries later would become the red pair [coppia] and the black pair [coppia] and which at that time could be recognized as the pair [coppia] of suits with the round signs [segni tondi: coins and cups] and the pair with the long signs [segni lunghi:
swords and batons], even with associations of the two pairs of suits
with, respectively, feminine and masculine characteristics.
We then encounter a consequence. If what has been said is convincing, we
must continue with another related hypothesis. To give so much
importance to the division between round and long suits, there must have
been a different role for them in the game in which the naibi were
used. In short, in the rules of the first or main game of the time, the
difference within the pairs [coppie] of short [corte] and long [lunghi] suits must have been of little importance, while the difference between the two pairs [coppie] must have been large.
In this regard, the rule sometimes preserved of the descending or ascending value of the cards of the two pairs [coppie] could be at least a secondary clue.
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1. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2683&start=85
2. https://www.google.it/search?hl=it&tbo= ... 22&num=100
3. Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca. Venice 1612, p. 585.
4. http://trionfi.com/paro-paio-para
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2b – NAIBI. The term naibi,
whatever its exact origin and meaning, is certainly foreign to the
Italian lexicon. The unfamiliarity with this term is demonstrated by
several coincidences. One is that it is found documented only in a few
areas and in short intervals of time. Another is that the word is
sometimes found distorted, mainly as narbi, and not only in manuscripts but also in printed works.
There are studies on the origin and meaning of the term with several
reconstructions and proposals, which can be considered as known, because
here we are interested in the next phase, the transition to the term carte.
2c – CARTE [CARDS].
Paper [carta]
is a commonly used material; however, speaking of “una carta” is not
sufficiently defined; it is sometimes used to indicate a sheet [foglio], or a sheet of paper [foglio di carta], when one means an element of a group that contains, or could contain, many of them.
Simply speaking of “una carta” implies
that one is using technical language, such that it is not necessary to
add the specification, that is, whether it is a geographical map [carta geografica], or a playing card [carta da gioco], or a sheet [carta] such as a manuscript page, or baking paper [carta da forno], or sandpaper [carta vetrata], or tin foil [carta stagnola], or other cases.
We are only interested in playing cards, and in particular the transition from the name naibi. The change of name is very simple: once the emphasis is placed on the material, that is, naibi are objects made of paper [carta], and therefore cards [carte], they only need to be specified as “playing cards” [carte da gioco]
whenever their use is not made clear by the context. That change is
also facilitated by the fact that the original term was a name
completely foreign to common vocabulary.
It remains to be seen, however, whether together with the change of
name, and as a further motivation for the change itself, there was also
some change in the cards that accompanied the change of their name, and
which could consist, for example, in a different number of cards in the
deck, or in modified figures (for example, it is not easy to imagine naibi with women among the court cards, as is instead found later).
However, it is known that the transition from naibi to carte
occurred early, and the old name was preserved for a longer time, often
together with the new one, only in a few areas, such as in the
Florentine territory where the naibi had spread earlier.
2d – MAZZO [DECK, PACK].
While the name change from naibi to carte typically occurred a few decades after the introduction of playing cards, that from paio to mazzo took several centuries. I am still unable to determine a precise date for this name change. The Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana cites a passage by Tasso as the oldest occurrence, [note 5] but it cannot be ruled out that earlier ones may be found. However, it is certain that the term paio is still encountered in the sixteenth century and beyond, as in the examples given below.
Today the term mazzo, in addition to playing cards, is used especially for bunches of flowers, bunches of keys and the like, but the term mazzo
has, and has had, more than one meaning; moreover, it was encountered a
long time before it took on the meaning that interests us here.
A curious thing about this is that in the old manuscripts that I have studied for decades, I have sometimes found the term mazzo associated precisely with sheets of paper [fogli di carta]. For example, one inventory entry that remained in my mind was “A bunch [mazzo] of Sangiovanni” which was meant to be read as a group, or bundle [fascio],
of images on paper of St. John the Evangelist, patron saint of
Florence. This meaning of the term is also listed as entry 3 in the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, with citations from the Middle Ages. [note 6]
The circumstance is truly singular: the term existed centuries before, it was even used for generic “bunches of cards” [mazzi di carte],
but it could not yet be applied to the particular decks of playing
cards. Why? In my opinion because at that time it indicated any group of
elements, without their being present in a predetermined number.
The mazzo of playing cards is a special
case, in which the number of cards is instead fixed; only after a long
time did the same word, already in use, also take on this “new” meaning
of mazzo [as pack, deck] understood as complete, and only as complete.
_________________
5. https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... df&parola= Item 4, p. 984.
6. https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... df&parola= Item 3, p. 984.
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3. Examples of “pairs of cards” [paia di carte] in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
3a – From the Magistracy of Minors
An example of the use of “a pair of cards [un paio di carte]”
at the beginning of the sixteenth century is one that I have found in
one of the voluminous registers of the Magistracy of Minors prior to the
Principality, in the State Archives of Florence. It is the same No.
182 from which I had already obtained the information on a rich deck of
triumphs [mazzo di trionfi].
The deceased was named Mariotto di Piero di Nicholo Neli. On May 14,
1505, the same date as the inventory, the officials of the magistracy of
the Commune of Florence [i.e., the Florentine Republic] accepted the
guardianship of the orphan son, Francesco, about thirteen years old.
This note is about some terms in 14th-17th century Italian that do not translate well into modern English and are even puzzling in modern Italian: certain uses of "paio" and derived terms, "carte," and "mazzo": pair, cards, and pack (of cards). I have kept the Italian terms as much as possible as in the original, except in the title, where the expression "Pairs of cards" seemed appropriate, since the expression "paia di carte" is as obsolete in current Italian as "pairs of cards" is in current English, and hence paradoxical in both.
Unfortunately, in this case the information on the person and the environment is very meager; neither the profession of the deceased (even if from some objects present in the inventory it would seem that he was a goldsmith) nor the location can be read.The inventory transcribed is simply that compiled by the administrator of the estate on behalf of the magistracy of minors. Afterwards, we read annotations for the "revised justifications", that is, citing accounting updates with a new balance as of 31 May 1508. The 1505 inventory appears transcribed in the register only in 1508 because from the initial sheet, it continues in the blank space under the note of 1508 and also occupies page 159v, left empty after the insertion of another inheritance, again in 1508. I consider the part of interest.
The inventory follows from there [i.e. from the previous page]
_____________1 brush and 1 head of St. John in earthen
relief and 1 jug of iron and 1 jug
of copper and 1 book of epistles and gospels
7. ASFi, Magistrato dei Pupilli avanti il Principato, 182, ff. 155-159.
8. https://www.naibi.net/A/GINEVRA.pdf
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3b – In a sacred representation1 bound French booklet for women
1 booklet made of good paper with seven psalms
1 booket by Fra Girolamo and 1 Giovanni / <Gresoie
mei?> [parts of words not read] and 1 miracles of Our Lady in
parchment and 1 shelf for said books
1 lute with a case and 1 box full of
goldsmith’s tools above the coat rack
1 box with a Saint Jerome inside
1 ball for canopy 2 armets 1 of iron
and 1 of brass
II tin cups and 1 small basket, within it several
writings and 1 deck of cards [paio di carte]
V balls for lamp, that is, three together
1 tin container with antidote to poison
Among the many sacred representations, that of Santa Uliva had several printed editions already in the sixteenth century in Florence, and even more in the following century. I have not examined those editions in detail, but the reference I was looking for is present in at least some; [note 9] I take it from the critical edition edited in the nineteenth century by Alessandro D'Ancona. [note 10]
This paio of cards can only be a deck of playing-cards, as also confirmed by the association with the game-board in the other hand. In short, in the sixteenth century in Florence the deck of cards was not yet called that.And while he is confessing, bring out a woman dressed in cloth, on top colored and beautiful, and below an old, dark brown dress, with chamois shoes on her feet, and a pair of very beautiful slippers; have her have four faces, all different and of a woman, that is, an old mask on one side, very old on the other, and behind ordinary, or rather less old, and in front the face without a mask, and on her head a diadem that covers all four foreheads and is of various colors; have her have a lighted fire in her right hand, in her left a knife with a cord around it. You will dress likewise a young man, dressed in cloth, adorned as much as possible, with a sword at his side, and have said young man have in his right hand a paio of cards [carte], and under his left arm a board, and in his left hand a purse. Third, you shall bring forth a man with a long, dark robe, half-dressed and barefoot, with a large mask and a long white beard, with similar hair, with his right hand on his cheek; and with him come forth another man, dressed in a long black leather robe with fur outside, and on his feet a pair of felt socks, with leather gloves in his hand, with a finger to his mouth signaling silence, and on his head a fur hat, with a black mask and a long beard. Dress likewise a man in bad disarray, with old and torn clothes, with a twirled beard full of feathers, and likewise the head and the clothes; and besides, another, dressed in stained and dirty clothes, and with a fat red face, with nothing on his head, and in his hand some birds and chickens, and on his shoulder a spear [or roasting spit]; and after this, dress a man with two faces, one in front and the other behind, and let his clothes appear of clean and neat cloth in front, and of bad and torn cloth behind, and let some daggers and knives also appear behind, with a hat on his head; and let said persons be kept in the middle on every side, as if they wanted to look at the woman with the four faces.
__________________
9. For example: LA RAPPRESETATIONE DI SANTA VLIVA, nuouamente mandata in Luce. Florence, 1568.
10. A. D'Ancona (ed.), La rappresentazione di Santa Uliva riprodotta sulle antiche stampe. Pisa 1863.
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3c – In Florence at the Pitti Palace
Finding playing cards [carte da gioco], already called so or still naibi, in inventories is a very rare occasion. In the case in question, their presence is justified by the richness of the specific set, and also of the other objects with which it is inventoried. [note 11]
The inventory under examination concerns the objects found in the apartment of the Pitti Palace occupied by Cardinal Giovan Carlo de' Medici, immediately after his death (Villa medicea di Castello, 23 January 1663). I have also recently had the opportunity to present something about the cardinal's interest in gambling. [note 12]
I studied this inventory already years ago for its interest in chess and board games, [note 13] reporting these playing cards [carte da gioco] already then. I can repeat what is read about it in that case.
--– A book with black leather cover lined with gold, and inside a box with two decks [para] of Cards for playing games, and three dice made of rock crystal marked with gold (f. 57).
The documentation on playing cards is unusual. It is not a fundamental piece of information, nor early, given that cards had been used for three centuries. The fact is that playing cards do not usually appear in these inventories of various household goods, probably because they were considered consumer goods of short duration. Here, too, it is very likely that cards are spoken of only thanks to the valuable container: a system of preservation that can also be found later and also for chess. That the prince cardinal liked to play various card games is confirmed by various testimonies.
It won't seem strange if I agree with the author of the comment.
___________________
11. ASFi, Miscellanea Medicea, 31/10.
12. https://www.naibi.net/A/8-33-GRANDUCA.pdf
13. “I giochi del principe cardinale”, Informazione Scacchi, 8 N. 4/5 (1998) 111-113. https://naibi.net/b/138.pdf
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4. Conclusion
The transition from the expression paio di naibi to that of mazzo di carte via the intermediate expression paio di carte has been discussed. Examples are known for each of these expressions, but it seems rather surprising that the term mazzo,
which had been used for centuries for similar objects, when applied to
playing cards appears so far first documented from the second half of
the sixteenth century.
As special cases, two Florentine examples with “paio di carte”
still present in the sixteenth century were presented and commented on,
and one with “para di carte” in the second half of the following
century.
Florence, 06.12.2024
COMMENTS, FOLLOWED BY FRANCO'S REPLY
"SteveM" (Steve Mangan), at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26657#p26657, offered the example of a wedding, citing the Treccani online dictionary's 4th meaning of the term "paio" (https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/paio/):
Paio di nozze, espressione pleonastica per il semplice nozze, cerimonia o festa nuziale: si scontrarono in una brigata di belle giovani donne e ornate, che da un p. di nozze venieno (Boccaccio).
The Boccaccio text, from La Novella delle Papere, is at https://letteritaliana.weebly.com/la-novella-delle-papere.html. Steve explains:
A boy raised by his Hermit father is taken into Florence for the first time and is asking questions after questions - they see a group of women coming from a wedding [or wedding party] and the boy having never seen a woman before asks what they are, his father, not wanting to arouse sinful thoughts in his son, says they are ducks, and the boy asks that they take one home and give it something to peck at. [see 35, note 9]
I followed this one up with the example of "paio di paternostri" for a rosary, i.e. a set of rosary beads. which I find at https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14205/1/503303_vol1.pdf, p. 53, n. 35 (original in English, with quotations in Italian):
An
unmarried woman was allowed '[ ... ] un paio di Pater'nostri d'oro o di
granati senza smalto, non passando con la fattura di scudi 6 [... ]"
while a 'donna contadina' was restricted to '[ ... ] una corona di pater
nostri, che non passi la valuta d'un mezzo scudo.'
The first quotation, translated, is "a pair of gold or garnet Ourfathers [Rosaries] without enamel, not passing with the value of 6 scudi [... ]'. The second, for a peasant woman: "a crown of our fathers [rosaries], not passing the value of half a scudo.'
I also found I find "paio di cornamusa", bagpipes, in the "comments" section of at least one web-page:
https://www.reddit.com/r/bagpipes/comments/zansj4/it_would_be_really_nice_if_the_you_want_to_learn/?tl=it:
Non
ha senso fornire un muro di testo, perché nessuno lo legge, come
dimostra il flusso costante di post qui che dicono "hey guyz ho appena
pagato $ 200 per un paio di cornamuse, sono così emozionato di
iniziare".
(There's no point in providing a wall of text,
because no one reads it, as evidenced by the constant stream of posts
here saying "hey guys I just paid $200 for a pair of bagpipes, I'm so
excited to get started.")
But I don't know if this is originally in Italian or a Google translation from English.
I
also found "paio di cassetti" with pictures of cabinets with drawers,
some with three or four drawers, but on a website in Spanish, at
https://depositphotos.com/es/vectors/paio-di-cassetti.html?offset=700.
But again, I don't know if this is a translation from something in
another language.
When I first brought up the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana's definition 4 of "paio" at https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... arola=paio, it was in the context of an inventory with "paio di trionfi In charta pechora di messer franc° petrarcha" (charta pechora = sheep paper = parchment) at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2683&p=26502&hilit=paio#p26502, one which also, in its second part, viewtopic.php?p=26503#p26503, brought up for comparison the famous Rosselli inventory with its item "1° giuocho del trionfo del petrarcha in 3 pez" - 1 game of the triumph of Petrarch in 3 pieces - (the Italian original of this inventory is on p. 5 of https://naibi.net/A/TRIOPETR.pdf). "Giuocho" here, however, refers not to a game or deck of trionfi, but to a set of three metal plates with a pair of illustrations of Petrarch's six Trionfi poems on each, on the two sides of each sheet, which would produce 6 in all. Ross, too, made the connection, raising the issue at viewtopic.php?p=26504#p26504:
And I replied (viewtopic.php?p=26508#p26508):Franco's remarks about "giuocho" meaning something besides a literal "game" are correct in the case of Rosselli, at least as art historians understand it. But his new discovery of a "paio" of Petrarch's Trionfi adds another wrinkle to the question, then. Could paio have the same range of meaning as giuocho?
Well, that was my thought, about "paio". I confronted him with the GDLI, p. 381, the fourth definition.
https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... arola=paio. This is the continuation of the definitions of "paio", which started on the previous page.
So Franco's note can be seen as Franco's reply to both of us.
He
dealt again with "paio", this time in the context of weddings and
rosaries, and "gioco" in an email to me whose content I posted, with his
permission, at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26670#p26670. He wanted
to emphasize that the explanation is speculative.
Franco, private communication, offers a speculative but seemingly possible explanation for "paio di paternostri" as follows:
With
rosaries I have a possible explanation why the beads can be called a
paio. You state that the prayer goes by repeating the pater noster.
Actually it does not work so here. As far as I remember, there is
something similar to a week: a series of working days separated by
Sundays. Rosary is essentially dedicated to Madonna with many sets of
Ave Maria prayers, separated by special/different and normally larger
beads for Pater noster prayers. A paio of beads is a complete set formed both by Ave and Pater beads.
A paio di nozze
(never found myself, but understandable) is equally made by two
companies. It is not a usual dining of a company of many fellows; in
this special event there are two distinct companies of fellows, the
relatives and friends of the wife together with the relatives and
friends of the husband – two different sets that will not meet
otherwise.
And for the word "gioco" applied to a set
As for the word gioco it is rather often found with the meaning of a set, but not for any set. This special set is such as to represent a series of items which can be used separately and can became a gioco whenever the set is complete. Typical examples are measuring items, unit weights for a scale, different bottles for liquids.
I myself am not convinced of these explanations for "paio," even for a pack of cards. See my post at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26663#p26663.
Another explanation, which Steve found, is offered by a nineteenth century French philologist for a similar phenomenon in French, at https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=EKg_AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA131#v=onepage&q&f=false, which I have translated at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26666#p26666. The author's explanation is that "paire de ..." was devised as a way of making a singular for a word only used in a particular meaning with the plural, or making a plural for a word that only exists in the singular in a particular meaning. He gives many examples in that language that do not suggest twoness. Similar ones also exist in English, e.g. "une paire de sept psaumes," and in English, "a pair of Proverbs" to mean the biblical Book of Proverbs used as a school book for learning how to read, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The Italian philologist Alessandro Parenti, in "Un Paio di nozze", 2015 (in Academia), gives the same explanation with similar examples in Italian (and their equivalents in medieval Latin): an organ is "uno paro d’orghani"; a priest's outfit is "un paio di vesti"; alternatively, three sets of vestments are "tre para di vestimenti"; a suit of armor is "uno pero d’arme." Two deeds are "Due para di decretali"; a flight of stairs is "un par de scali"; a set of keys is "un paio di chiavi"; two letters (missives, as opposed to letters of the alphabet) are "due paia di letere."
I suppose we can ask, why should these nouns, in the desired meaning, have this property of lacking one of either a singular or a plural? Could it be that at some time in the distant past a suit of armor had two pieces, vestments two pieces, etc., steps came in pairs, and so did keys and the pipes of an organ, etc. The linguists do not delve into this area.
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