This highly important essay was one of the first of Franco's that I translated, back in 2016. As such, there were various deficiencies that experience since has made me become aware of, so that I have extensively revised it here. The discoveries will be obvious from the English abstract. It was originally published in The Playing-Card, vol. 44 no. 1 (April, 2015), pp. 61-71, as "1499-1506: Nuove Informazione sulle carte fiorentine," online in Italian at https://naibi.net/A/426-FI1473-Z.pdf. Below, comments in brackets are mine, in consultation with Franco, for clarification.
1499-1506: Florence - New information on Florentine cards
Franco Pratesi − 10.07.2015
English abstract:
New information is provided for the history of playing cards in
Florence, deriving from the records of two repossessions of goods from a
local cardmaker in 1499 and 1506, respectively. Packs of Trionfi,
Germini, and common playing cards are included among the objects listed.
They provide a new insight for particular aspects, to begin with the
unheard-of mention of "trionfi alla franciosa" at such an early stage.
Moreover, we obtain a quotation of the Germini name already in 1506,
which in particular gets close enough to the first documents on
Minchiate known from the second half of the 15th century. The new
information is discussed in the framework of an updated view of the
history of card playing in Florence.
Introduction
Historians interested in the early days of the distribution in Italy of playing cards, and tarot [tarocchi,
in Italian] in particular, have paid great attention to the Tarot of
Visconti and similar objects of great value, extending the study from
the Milanese court to the Este of Ferrara, from which came the first
known documentation for triumphs, of 1442. At the foundation of
knowledge in this regard, there are still some fundamental works, such
as, above all, the book by Dummett (and Sylvia Mann), [note 1]
which, more than any other, has served as a valid point of departure
for subsequent research. A useful update can be found in a book written
recently by the historian now most competent in the matter: [note 2] in a hundred pages he says all the essentials. For Florence, there can also be reported a recent collection of various studies. [note 3] Again
with particular regard to the Florentine environment, in this note, new
data are communicated and placed in the context of what has been
recently acquired. It should be noted immediately in this regard that in
this case the playing cards are intended as an instrument for games
widely distributed at the civic level - as indeed they were - and thus
have little or nothing to do with the much-studied courts of the Este
and Visconti-Sforza.
Triumphs [trionfi]
For the triumphs, the most important recent progress has occurred in the
alert by Thierry Depaulis of the presence of a document in this regard
already
________________
1. M. Dummett, The Game of Tarot. London 1980.
2. Th. Depaulis, Le Tarot révélé. La Tour-de-Peilz 2013.
3. F. Pratesi, Playing-Cards Trade in 15th-Century Florence. North Walsham 2012. (IPCS Papers 7).
62
in 1440 [note 4] (to be precise, the
Journals of Giusto Giusti containing that reference had already been
transcribed in 1991 in the thesis of Lucia Ricciardi [note 5]).
The two years "gained" from the previous Ferrarese attestation are
almost negligible, but very significant is the shift from the ducal
court of Ferrara to an unknown Florentine card maker who in 1440
produced decks of triumphs, beautiful and expensive, yes, but which had
as practically the only special thing about them the coat of arms of the
recipient: this was the military leader Sigismondo Malatesta, already
known to historians of playing cards for some subsequent requests,
precisely for packs of triumphs of Lombard production. [note 6] We
can then speak of triumphs in Florence of that time as a game known and
practiced locally, so much so that in 1450 it was included in the small
number of card games allowed by the laws of the commune [i.e. the
Florentine Republic], which shows that it already possessed the
traditional character required for any such authorization.
In the future, it is possible also to anticipate Florentine testimonies
(and possibly from other cities), but it is not plausible that the
introduction of triumphs occurred many years before; therefore, even
more than reconstructing what happened just before 1440, it seems
necessary to define better what happened later, with the appearance of
several variants of those packs of cards and the related games, also
with significant differences between the various Italian cities and
regions. These same triumphs were soon distinguished into small and
large, and there appeared alongside them other names of the same or
similar decks, starting with that of tarocchi, which then became
universally established. In Florence, moreover, germini and minchiate
are also met, with further difficulties for a precise reconstruction; it
may be worthwhile to recapitulate the essentials of what has been found
or proposed in recent years in this regard.
Tarocchi
The tarocchi [tarot] has become the most important deck of cards of all
in this context, above all because of the great use that has long been
made of it for divinatory purposes. The so-called Marseille Tarot deck
is usually considered to be the typical one, with 22 “higher” cards
associated with 56 common cards (in reality not too common, due to the
four picture cards in each suit instead of the usual three). No one
knows for sure whether this "standard" tarocchi deck already
corresponded to the first packs of triumphs named in documents. The
issue is important, because in varying degrees, different Italian
regions are involved, including those which adopted a tarocchi with a
number of cards other than 78. In the present context, focused on the
environment of Florence, the issue is rarely encountered, because the
name “tarocchi” was used to indicate, at some point, only the major
cards of the triumphs [trionfi]. Out of a considerable number of documents studied on playing
_________________
4. forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773
5. L. Ricciardi, Feste e giochi cavallereschi nella Firenze laurenziana attraverso le memorie di Ser Giusto Giovanni Giusti d'Anghiari. Facolta di Magistero, Universita di Firenze, 1990/91.
6. trionfi.com/giusto-giusti
63
cards in Florence, the decks of tarocchi called by that name have been
encountered on only one occasion, at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. [note 7]
Later on, it is still possible to find in Florence the name tarocchi
associated with a deck of cards, but then it is the cards of minchiate.
Even for Florence, there exists some doubt, as for other cities, about
the actual composition of the first triumphs [trionfi];
however, in the specific case of Florence, there are other decks and
games to take into consideration and place within the historical
development of the whole family of triumphs.
Germini
The testimonies from the Florentine environment of succeeding epochs
explain that the now obsolete term germini was first used locally
instead of the term minchiate, which became more common. It is not
certain that the two names always referred to the same deck or game, and
in this regard, several hypotheses have been put forward. However, what
can be safely said is that if there was a difference between germini
and minchiate, it could only have been a minimal one, so that it can be
neglected, at least win/as a first approximation. (A stimulating idea
would be to indicate in one case the deck of 96 cards, without the fool,
and in another case that of 97, with the new card; but it is not
confirmed.) The first attestations of the term germini were noted in the
years slightly after the middle of the sixteenth century; but recently
some before then have been reported, such as one in 1529 in which they
are assimilated to the large triumphs [trionfi grandi] [note 8]
and subsequently that of 1517, found by Lothar Teikemeier, the oldest
known today, with the germini in the hands of Lorenzo de’ Medici, nephew
of the Magnificent. [note 9]
Subsequently, the use of the term germini decreased, replaced in Tuscany
by that of minchiate, but it can still be found attested even in the
mid-eighteenth century and in none other than the official documents of
the Florentine card maker Antonio Giovanni Mollinelli. [note 10]
Minchiate
For minchiate the situation is much more complex. The first attestation
known is 1466, in a letter from Luigi Pulci directed to Lorenzo the
Magnificent. All searches to reread the quotation on the original sheet
have been in vain, but it has been verified that the letters written by
the same hand in nearby times are perfectly legible, which increases the
plausibility of that quotation. [note 11]
In the early studies about it, it seemed impossible that that word
would be used in that year, more than half a century before any
additional proof. However, in subsequent research, there were discovered
citations of games referred to as minchiate in years shortly after,
both among the laws of the commune [note 12] and in a
_______________
7. trionfi.com/evx-germini-tarocchi-minchiate
8. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2012) pp. 179-197. [Online at https://naibi.net/A/72-PRIFI-Z.pdf, translated here at viewtopic.php?p=26648#p26648.
9. trionfi.com/germini-1517-1519.]
10. http://trionfi.com/evx-minchiate-export-tuscany
11. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1988), pp. 12-15 [actually, pp. 78-83. Online at https://naibi.net/A/08-FLOLITE-Z.pdf, in English.]
12. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1990), pp. 7-17. [Online at https://naibi.net/A/30-PRISECO-Z.pdf, translated here at viewtopic.php?p=26635#p26635.]
64
conviction for blasphemy. [note 13] On
the one hand, this additional information is sufficient to support the
plausibility of the quotation from the letter by Luigi Pulci, today
untraceable, but on the other hand, this additional information is
insufficient to eliminate all doubts about the identification of this
game of the second half of the fifteenth century with that documented
only well into the next century. Several historians of card games, even
among the most competent, suggest that it was two different games and
decks; obviously, the identification with the same game will be all the
more convincing the more intermediate documents are successfully
discovered.
The Court of the Merchandise [Tribunale della Mercanzia]
The history of Florence is known to many people who have some interest
in works of art; but an importance at least equal to the contribution
must be attributed to the civic Arts: to manufacturing production of
noteworthy value, to trade in goods, and also to banking and financial
activities in general. To regulate the innumerable disputes that those
activities involved, there were various city courts with their civil and
criminal sections, and moreover, each Art had its own courts to resolve
disputes involving members of the guild. Above the courts of the
individual Arts was, in a dominant position, the Court of the
Merchandise, which was set up especially to defend the interests of
Florentine businessmen in relation to foreign markets. In practice, the
Merchandise was institutionally called upon to resolve commercial crises
on the interstate level, starting with [cases of] reprisals against
Florentine businessmen who located abroad or [of Florentine businessmen]
who were prosecuted from there.
At the head of the institution was the Officer of the Merchandise,
initially a notary, then a jurist who always came from other cities; he
was assisted in his deliberations by the Council, made up of
representatives of the five major Florentine arts. Making up the
workforce of the Merchandise was at least one other foreign notary as
coadjutor, a treasurer, six foreign policemen paid directly by the
Officer, and at a later time also appraisers, who decided the value of
pledges [pawned items]. The details of the functions of this important
magistracy changed repeatedly over time, and in particular bankruptcy
cases also fell within its competence; to the Merchandise often fell the
task of settling the most various commercial disputes arising between
Florentine businessmen. [note 14]
The site of this important court was, from 1359, the Palace of the
Merchandise (Fig. 1, next page), known to many tourists today as the
Gucci Museum, founded in 2011. Even among Florentines, there are not
many who know the activities that once took place in that building,
located at the eastern side of the Piazza della Signoria, behind the
bronze statue of Cosimo I on horseback. In Roman times the great civic
theater was located there; in the era in question,
______________________
13. F. Pratesi, L'As de Trefle, No. 52 (1993) pp. 9-10 [online at https://naibi.net/p/51-JURON-ZOCR.pdf, translated into English at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2024/12/old-essays-2-1991-on-usefulness-of.html.
14. R. Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze. I primordi della civiltà fiorentina, Parte prima. Florence 1973, pp. 513-534.
64
the palace had on the piazza a richly decorated portico, on par with the internal rooms, which was later demolished during one of the repeated reconstructions that followed.
The books of the Merchandise [Mercanzia]
In the State Archives of Florence [ASFi] is preserved the archive collection of the Merchandise [Mercanzia], comprising 14,168 units with an extreme range of dates from 1306 to 1770; for its consultation, an old inventory in two volumes is still used, dedicated exclusively to this collection. [note 15] The numbering of the archival units obeys a criterion of division into successive sections where the volumes are grouped by similarity of material. The initial sections are: Statutes, Matriculations [enrolling of new members into the various Arts], Squittini ["election sessions," i.e. gatherings where representatives were chosen], Tratte ["extractions of candidates," meaning occasions on which names of eligible citizens were drawn by lot to be considered for particular offices], Resolutions of the Foreign Officer, Speeches of the Officer and the Six of the Merchandise, followed by larger sections of Acts in ordinary cases and Acts in extraordinary and executive cases, at which you arrive somewhere in the middle of the Inventory. Another thirty brief sections follow, divided by topic. The section that concerns this study is that of Pledges and Demands of Payment. It is a section which, like the others, contains within it units in chronological order, beginning, however, in relatively recent times: its first archival unit, where the inventories presented and discussed in this work are found, covers the years 1485-1506; [note 16] it can be said that, with a few exceptions at the beginning, the series as a whole begins only from the sixteenth century.
The inventories found by Lorenz Böninger
Studying the book mentioned above, Lorenz Böninger identified, among others, two inventories that are linked together, if only for the common activity
___________
15. ASFi, Inventario N 35.
16. ASFi, Mercanzia, 11585.
66
of the production of playing cards. The first inventory is located at f. 117v and, except for errors, can be read as follows.
The second inventory of objects of this study is at f. 190r, the third to last of the whole book, and can be read as follows.Sinubaldo<Giovanbattista> di Francesco Monaldi chartaro fu gravato questo di 18 di novembre 1499 [...]
3 paia di forme da fare charte
1 lima
1 paio di cesoie
1 paiuolo p.
1 fastelo di fogli non dipinti et parechi dipinti
[Sinubaldo <Giovanbattista [deleted word]> di [son of] Francesco Monaldi card maker was encumbered this day November 18, 1499 [...]
3 pairs [paia] of templates [forme] for making cards
1 file
1 pair of shears
1 cauldron p.
1 bunch [fastelo] of unpainted sheets and many painted ones
[...].]
Giovanbattista di Francesco Monaldi fu gravato questo di vi dezembre 1506 [...]
36 paia di germini e tr(i)onfi
1 paio di tr(i)onfi alla franc(i)osa non finiti
117 paia di charte
2 mazi di fogli bianchi
40 chanoni dipinti
11 libri tra grandi e piccoli
1 paio di manicha nera
1 beretta nera
1 chonellino bianco di suantone da fanciullo
I faldi?
1 maza finita
1 paio di vanghonle? sanza <manicho> maza
10 pezi di pronte di pionbo
26 forme tra grandi e piccole da germini
più chartoni
5 chasette tra grandi e pichole, e 1 chiave
[Giovanbattista di [son of] Francesco Monaldi was encumbered this day of 6 December of 1506 [...]
36 packs [paia] of germini and tr(i)umphs [tr(i)onfi]
1 pack [paio] of Frenc(h) tr(i)umphs [tr(i)onfi alla franc(i)osa, meaning "in the French manner" but made locally] unfinished
117 decks [paia] of cards
2 bunches [mazzi] of white sheets [fogli]
40 painted altar cards [chanoni]
11 books both large and small
1 pair [paio] of black sleeves [manicha]
1 black cap
1 skirt [chonellino], child's white suantone [some type of textile]
1 Faldi? [perhaps falde, "brims," as in the brim of a hat]
1 finished bunch [maza]
1 pair [paio] of vanghonle [a tool: "kicker"?--] without <manicho ["manicho" deleted but still readable]> maza [mallet handles?]
10 pezi [pieces] of lead stamps [pronte=impronte]
26 templates [forme] both large and small of germini
some cartons [chartoni]
5 boxes [chasette] both large and small, and 1 key]
Both inventories are preceded and followed by short sentences that are
difficult to read, first specifying those who make the demand for
payment, and then indicating the results of the operation. These parts
will be subject to further research, when it is decided to define better
the life and work activity of this Florentine card maker.
The card maker Monaldi
A piece of information that could be useful concerns the same card maker involved. Of the Florentine card makers [cartai], or “naibai,”
as they were usually called, at least a dozen are known, also of the
previous generation. For some of them, biographical and also financial
information has already been collected, obtainable especially from the
Florentine Catasti [property registers for tax purposes], beginning with the first, of 1427. A group limited to Naibai is present also in a voluminous study on Florentine
67
painters; [note 17] among them,
Sinibaldo or Giovanbattista Monaldi is not listed. The name of
Giovanbattista is present the second time alone, but is deleted and
replaced by Sinibaldo in the first document. It seems likely that they
were two brothers, but it is also possible that it was the same person
who had a precise baptismal name, but who was familiarly called by a
different name, as often happened at that time and even up to today. As
for the name of the father Francesco, it seems that in the Monaldi
families, it was quite common, so much so that in the first Castasto of
1427, there were already two householders called Francesco, out of the
four Monaldi families then present in Florence.
That we are in the presence of a card maker is explicitly indicated in
the document and confirmed by the material confiscated. It might seem
that this is just a few objects, certainly not comparable with those
listed in the noted inventory of Francesco Rosselli of 1528. [note 18]
However, the two cases are not comparable. Already to start with, that
was a big shop; this one looks like a workshop that could be contained
in a normal room of a house, as happened a few years earlier for the
card makers Filippo di Marco and Benedetto Spigliati; [note 19] in that case, the seven templates [forme]
of contention had to be kept in the home of Benedetto, and Filippo had
to go precisely there every time he wanted to use those wooden blocks.
However, if we meet our card maker in this book, and in the section on Pledges and encumbances,
his economic situation must have been in a very bad state. Probably one
can find more information about him and his debts, such as to lead to
the confiscations recorded in this documentation. For the moment we can
make do with what is present in his shop, objects that provide us
important information beyond expectations.
Items of the inventory
It is worth examining the specific items before discussing them in the
context of the history of the games. In the first case, the elements are
few and of limited interest: tools and material of work, of which only
the 3 pairs of “forms,” or blocks of wood used for the production of
cards, have a certain importance. which will be discussed later.
Much more illuminating is the list of objects of 1506. The 36 decks of
germini and trionfi appear immediately as an interesting item, to which a
specific section will be dedicated. A deck of triumphs in the French
manner, "trionfi alla franciosa," is perhaps the most surprising element in the entire list, because in Florence, playing cards “in the French manner” [“alla francese”]
were a noteworthy part of local production ... in the eighteenth
century! To find a fashion of French origin in this context was not at
all predictable.
___________________
17. W. Jacobsen, Die Maler von Florenz zu Beginn der Renaissance. Munich-Berlin 2001. p. 54.
18. A.M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving. Part 1, Vol. 1, London 1938. pp. 10,11, 305-308.
19. Ref. 3, pp. 21-25.
68
The 117 “bunches of cards” [mazzi di carte]
correspond to an important quantity. It was found that the Florentine
card makers often sold the cards they produced to haberdashers [dry
goods shops] or even to minor silk dealers, who resold them in their
shops. [note 20] One might assume
that this practice entailed that there remained only a few examples in
the house of the card maker; the fact that here they exceed one hundred
suggests significant direct sales, from producer to consumer.
The two “bunches of white sheets” [mazzi di fogli bianchi] are especially significant for the use of the term in the sense of fascio [bunch/bundle]: so when "un mazo di charte" is written in the inventories of the time, one should not commit the error of reading it, anachronistically, as "un paio di naibi" [a deck of cards].
The 40 painted cannoni [“chanoni”
in the inventory] seem to belong to an accessory production of the card
maker. These cannoni may have been of the types of spools on which
thread was wrapped, silk in particular, and which then constituted the
unit most commonly used for work payments; they were usually made of
cane, in accordance with the name. [Thierry Depaulis has since pointed
out in correspondence with the author that "chanoni" are altar cards.]
The “books both large and small” [libri fra grandi e piccoli]
are not easy to identify; it seems likely that the books were only for
personal use, kept for the mandatory registration of accounts, with the
usual lists of debtors and creditors gradually updated; probably other
books were objects of production, to be decorated with illustrations, if
not with truly fine miniatures, not very compatible with the ordinary
quality of the cards.
Then we find listed a few clothes: some sleeves, a cap, a skirt for a child, (faldi?) perhaps falde [brims]. There follow items of particular interest that seem tools of the trade: a mallet [mazza], a tool with the name vang... ["kicker ..."], impossible to read with certainty, but if it was completed by a handle [manico] and bat/mallet [mazza], then a kind of mallet [mazzuolo] or hammer [martello]. Moreover, there are pieces of lead, with “pronte”
to be understood as stamps, used in the production in the manner of
punches or stencils. Regarding these last, one can imagine a variety of
applications; but the technique used was certainly not an innovation,
considering that objects likely very similar had already been used at
the time of Francesco Datini more than a century earlier, even before
playing cards. [note 21] Then we find an item that is of great interest to us, the 26 templates [forme], which will be discussed later. Finally, various cartons and boxes.
Germini and triumphs
The 36 packs of germini and triumphs are already indicative of a sort of
contrast: they are too different from the common cards to justify being
listed separately, and at the same time they are so similar to each
other that they do not yet justify a separate counting of different
packs; in short, the germini are
____________________________
20. Ref. 3, passim.
21. F. Pratesi, The Playing-Card, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1997) pp. 38-45. [Online at https://naibi.net/A/64-ORPELLI-Z.pdf, translated here at viewtopic.php?p=26643#p26643.]
69
not the “normal” triumphs, but they are very similar to them, in quality
and price. The fact that the germini packs are counted together with
the triumph packs is very significant and can bring to mind the
indication of [the term] “large triumphs” [trionfi grandi] used for germini. [note 22] Assuming
that we have moved from the commonly assumed 78 cards of triumphs to
the equally commonly assumed 97 of germini, we see that the need for an
additional template did not have much of an impact, nor did the clear
increase in the upper cards, which were more complex in outline and
coloring. By now, production had long been standardized and only the
distinction from the reduced pack of normal cards remained valid. An
interesting detail that can be deduced from the data presented in this
study is the ratio between the number of decks of triumphs and germini,
considered without distinguishing them, and that of all the cards
produced; in this case, the ratio on the overall production corresponds
roughly to a quarter. This is a high value, comparable to that
frequently encountered also among Florentine card makers and players in
the eighteenth century.
Triumphs [trionfi] in the French manner [alla Francese in modern Italian]
It may be useful to point out that for France, the game of tarot is
documented in Avignon in 1506; and the greatest expert on this history
suggests that it was known in Lyon – an important production center for
playing cards - at the beginning of the century.
But no one could have imagined then that there was already a typically French manner of designing and producing triumphs, and still less that it was also adopted in Florence, together with the manner of the local tradition. With a little fantasy, one would rather have imagined the inverse, that Lyon was producing triumphs in the Florentine manner ...; but imagination can be wrong, while this document speaks clearly, albeit catching us, as usual, rather unprepared because of the many remaining gaps in the documentation so far brought to light.La plus ancienne mention connue du tarot en français date de décembre 1505. Elle se lit dans un acte notarié d'Avignon, […]. Les cartiers d'Avignon étaient en relation étroite avec Lyon, d'où venaient leur savoir-faire et leurs modèles. Il est donc permis de penser que le mot s'entendait à Lyon aussi et que le jeu y était connu autour de 1500. [note 23]
[The oldest known French mention of tarot dates to December 1505. It is written in a notarial act of Avignon, [...]. The Avignon card makers were in close relationship with Lyon, from where their expertise and their models came. It is therefore permitted to think that the word was understood in Lyon also and that the game was known there around 1500.]
Germini and minchiate
It seemed useful to add this section entitled "germini and minchiate," even in the absence of the second term in the documents studied. The reason why minchiate cannot be excluded from the discussion is precisely the date of the second document: 1506 is a year that anticipates by eleven years the first known evidence of the term germini applied to typical Florentine cards.
_______________
22. Ref. 8, p. 191.
23. Ref. 2, p. 36.
70
This is already new, original, useful information; at the same time, however, this evidence fits into that intermediate zone that is still devoid of information about the game of minchiate. If after a few statements from the third quarter of the fifteenth century, we skip to the second or third quarter of the sixteenth century, the experts who suggest that these are two different decks in the two cases may be justified; but if the two separate sets of information end up reunited thanks to the discovery of new documents, that interpretation will become less and less plausible. The gap in time is not yet fully covered, but you can see the result; with patience, other attestations will be found, and one will be convinced not only that germini and minchiate were the same thing (save minor differences, not very significant) but also that Florentine minchiate was introduced shortly after the "normal" triumphs.
Templates [Forme] for making cards
To find, at the end of the fifteenth century, that a card maker was using wooden templates [forme] to produce playing cards cannot be considered a discovery, because the first evidence of this kind already dates back to the 1420s in Palermo and shortly after in Florence itself. A reference closer in time is that involving Filippo di Marco and Benedetto Spigliati. [note 24] The wooden blocks in use in that case were seven, and it was not easy to imagine a deck of cards that required so high a number of blocks. The simplest hypothesis was that these blocks were used, in most sets, for different types of cards. The number of four wooden blocks that is at the end of that document, on the other hand, suggested that four templates corresponded to the minimum number that allowed a card maker to print the cards. The term stampare [printing] should not be understood here as in the typical printing processes realized when working with a specialized press: on these templates, inked, they laid the white sheet on these inked templates and, if needed, with a roller passed above the sheet.
Here are two new pieces of information, rather different. The first, of 1499, records three pairs [paia] of templates. In this case, the pair [paio] counts more than the 3, due to the fact that the templates are counted in pairs; and it is not possible to avoid the mental association with the related deck [mazzo, in modern Italian] of naibi, which also was always referred to as “a pair” [un paio]. [note 25] Again reasoning in terms of pairs of templates, the preserved Rosenwald deck shows (albeit not in an explicit or direct manner, but as a suggestion of the possibility in such cases) that a deck of 96 cards of minchiate could have been produced with two pairs of wooden templates. [note 26] Instead of having to produce 97 cards, the problem is immediately met that 97 is a prime number, and thus it becomes impossible to use a "reasonable" number of forms of the same type. Of course, nothing prevents one from using templates of different sizes, with the only limit being the size of the sheet of paper that
_____________
24. Ref. 17, p. 552.
25. trionfi.com/paro-paio-para
26. trionfi.com/rosenwald-tarocchi-sheet
71
was used with it. The same cards could be produced in different sizes, requiring more pairs of templates.
In the second document, however, we find an impressive and unexpected figure, which cannot be mentioned without discussion: the number of 26 templates of germini, in fact. The number of 97 cards has already been met, a very "uncomfortable" one, for using similar templates. But also 26, dismantled only in 2x13, is an "uncomfortable" number, too. In short, understanding why this card maker had a total of 26 wooden templates is not immediate, and one has to think of several types of cards produced. One case that comes immediately to mind is that different templates were needed for large and small triumphs; but what we are talking about is triumphs but not large and small; unless, as is likely, the germini were precisely those decks that alternatively were called large triumphs in the Florentine territory. Certainly, the same need to also produce triumphs in the French manner will have made its contribution to increasing the templates to be utilized. We can also think of different hypotheses, such as the simultaneous presence of duplicates of templates, possibly with varying degrees of wear, or even templates for the production of different objects, such as those santini [holy pictures] that several card makers also produced, together with naibi, in the past.
Conclusion
Some useful information has been obtained for the history of playing cards in Florence in the passage between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Among the most important pieces of information, we can point out the production of germini packs in 1506, earlier than previously known, with templates large and small, and again the most unexpected production, triumphs “alla francesa,” at a time when France is just beginning to get the first vague information about them. More research is needed to better define the craftsmanship activity of the card maker implicated in the confiscations described, for which we so far do not have sufficient information.
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