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Playing-Card Trade in 15th-Century Florence Franco Pratesi with a foreword by Thierry Depaulis

ABBREVIATIONS AOIF: Archivio Storico dell'Ospedale degli Innocenti di Firenze ASF: Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Florence BNCF: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Florence CRSGF: Corporazioni religiose soppresse dal Govemo francese, a section of the ASF ABBREVIATIONS IN THE TABLES SIZE GRA grandi, large MEZ mezzani, middle MZL mezzanelli, the same as mezzani, or slightly different PCI piccini, small PIC piccoli, small KIND CAR charte/carte, cards (not as naibi) DOP doppi, double DOR dorati, messi a oro, gilded DOZ dozzinali, ordinary FIN f i n i , fine quality FOR d i or a forma, printed from woodblocks MIX mixed, "di ph) ragioni", more kinds together ORO a oro (gilded) RIM rimboccati, with folded edges SCE scernpi, single TRI t r i o n f i VAN vantaggiati, improved (?)

MOST-OFTEN QUOTED REFERENCES

Corti & Hartt 1962: Gino Corti, Frederick Hartt, "New documents concerning Donatello, Luca and Andrea della Robbia, Desiderio, Mino, Uccello, Pollaiuolo, Filippo Lippi, Baldovinetti and others," The Art Bulletin, 44 (1962), pp. 155-167. Covi 1978: Dario A. Covi, "Nuovi documenti per Antonio e Piero del Pollaiuolo e Antonio Rossellino", Prospettiva, No. 12 (1978), pp. 61-72. Esch 2007: Arnold Esch, Economia, cultura materiale ed arte nella Roma del Rinascimento. Rome, Roma nel Rinascimento, 2007. Jacobsen 2001: Werner Jacobsen, Die Maler von Florenz zu Beginn der Renaissance. Munich, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2001 (Italienische Forschungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 4. Folge, 1). 12

1 1453 - AN EARLY ARRIVAL, OF TRIUMPHS INTO ROME Many thousands of pages have been written on the origin and first spread of tarot. Instead of summarising the main "theories", let me start with a rather recent article, which lists the relevant places and dates involved."' Two figures of that article are an excellent starting point: one is a map of Italy with regions shadowed in two ways: dark grey, in which trionfi was known before 1452; light grey up to 1475. The second figure is a table in which places and dates, from 1442 to 1482, are put in order. The initial presence in Rome is marked at 1474 and it is this date which is the most interesting here. It is well known that the best documented initial spread of tarot refers to Ferrara. The documents of the Este court have been preserved and studied for a long time. Most recently, card historians have been able to avail themselves of the extraordinary works of Adriano Franceschini(2) and to find there further information. A similar work on local documents has been made by Arnold Esch for Rome, with special attention to customs data. He published several articles with new information and discussion, and recently a whole book on the topic."' The book includes extended versions of articles already published (in particular extending the investigated period from 20 to 40 years) and the insertion of an unpublished list of items of interest for the fine arts as chapter V: "Pittura, scultura, artigianato artistico nei registri doganali di Roma 1445-1485". The various items are listed there in chronological order, as one or two lines of text without comments. As it occurred for Ferrara, these works about Rome have been found to be a useful source by card historians. As far as I know, the first who used them has been Thierry Depaulis, who stressed their relevance to the early history of tarot and made them known to card historians and collectors."' In October 2011, Ross Caldwell found in the publications of Esch further data concerning the import of cards and triumphs into Rome and discussed them with Lothar Teikemeier and other experts on the web.") The discussion pointed to the fact that the known dates of the first introduction of triumphs in Rome had now to be set about ten years earlier than previously accepted. Moreover, the fact that a trade of dozens of "common" packs existed at the 13

time was a proof that a standard type of tarot existed earlier than accepted till now. Lothar Teikemeier informed me of this discussion and I was thus induced to check if further information was present in Esch's book. Indeed, I was able to find two lines on page 270, which correspond to another step backwards in time. "1453. Giovanni da Pistoia. 12 imagine di legnio e 8 paia di triunfi da giochare. 30 bol (=10 ducati) Reg. 48, fol. 45v, luglio." It is impossible to deduce from this information the exact price of the imported triumph packs, 36 bolognini (half a ducat) corresponded to the 5% import tax, but we do not know how the total value of 10 ducats could be distributed between immagine and triunfi; in any case, these triumphs could not be considered as precious items. The fact itself that they were imported as a stock of 8 packs (similar or even identical) is sufficient to indicate a manufacturing and a trade already well established. Moreover, the fact that a tax was paid is a proof that these items were addressed to "common" people and not to the papal court—they got imports without paying any tax. On the basis of this new data, the map of Italy mentioned above keeps its validity (for the moment at least) just because the limit between dark and light grey had been set precisely at the year 1452. The first and direct consequence of the new information is a change in the position of Rome among the earliest documented places in which triumphs were played. The second, less direct, consequence is connected with the seemingly Florentine provenance of these items: they may thus prove that Florence had a major part in the early spread of tarot. I have spent a lot of time researching a rich store of documents here in Florence comparable to those studied for Ferrara and Rome. Hopefully, the names of the Florentine merchants involved in the Roman imports of cards and triumphs will help me find something useful. 03.11.2011 NOTES (1) Ross Caldwell, The Playing-Card, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2007), pp. 51-62. (2) Adriano Franceschini, Artisti a Ferrara in eta unianistica e rinascimentale. Vol. 1, Rome/Ferrara, 1993. (3) Esch 2007. (4) Thierry Depaulis, The Playing-Card, Vol. 36 No. 3 (2008), pp. 205-211. (5) http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=743. Ross Caldwell and Lothar Teikemeier cooperated in the collection and presentation of all known Trionfi card notes of the 15th century in the web:see http://trionfi.com/0/e/01.

14

2 1453-1458 - FLORENTINE TRIUMPHS BY FILIPPO DI MARCO INTRODUCTION In the previous year, namely a half month ago, I concluded a note"' with the following sentence. "I hope, however, that somebody else - following one or another of the paths here outlined - may obtain the wanted results." The question itself was simple: after the discovery of imports of Florentine cards in the registers of Roman customs, can we confirm this trade with similar documents from the town of origin? I was convinced that such documents existed and could not escape my search, but after that I did not find any of them. My closing opinion was that some further years were needed before the question could obtain a satisfactory answer. Now I have found with great amazement that my question has already been answered, and exactly... a half century ago! Let me describe this "new" progress, coming from so long ago. Two GERMAN BOOKS I have recently read with great interest a book on the German people living in Florence in the early Renaissance or, to be more precise, in the late Middle Ages.'2' This is a hardbound book of 412 pages. Unfortunately for us, the main profession of German people living in Florence at the time was that of shoemaker. The Via Nazionale, which now leads directly to our railway central station, or Stazione di Santa Maria Novella, was once called Via dei Tedeschi, because many of them lived there and there had their factories or shops. As a result, we cannot be surprised if most pages of the book are devoted to these workers, their families, their trades, their social life among fellow countrymen, within the town and also in neighbouring places. More interesting for us is Chapter 4: "A minority within the minority: the qualified professions." Here we find merchants, people involved with manuscripts and the earliest printed books, and so on. In particular, section 2 is here dedicated to workers in a) metallurgy, and b) fine arts. Thus we have reached our field of interest too: unfortunately for us, "our" section VI.2.b. only covers five and a half pages of the whole. Obviously, among art 15

objects of various kinds, the production of playing cards must be considered merely as a "minority within the minority". The advantage of this text is that it is based, as is most of the information in the entire book, on the accurate and original study of this author on the primary sources kept in Archivio di Stato di Firenze. We can thus obtain a few names of German and Dutch workers involved in the production of printed figures (independent of their use, typically as religious images) such as Giovanni da Miessen dipintore, Guglielmus Guglielmi de Brabante pictor in cartis, Pietro di Rinaldo di Brabante tedescho fa charte dipinte, Rienere d'Adammo (?) maestro di charte, Rinaldo the vende le charte, and others (p. 278-279). In this section, most interesting for us however has been to find the reference to another book written by a German author. "Werner Jacobsen, the art historian from Munster, has recently described the various professional specialisations in the painting arts for the Florentine Renaissance in a widespread research: to the modest house-painters were associated painters of tables, furniture, weapons, glass, playing cards, textiles, and still some others."''' It is thus time to pass from the first German author to the second one. Again, we are in front of a remarkable work, even heavier than the previous one, bigger format, a lot of illustrations, and also some original work on the primary sources. The fact that we are here interested only in artists involved in playingcard production may be considered a big advantage for us. The amount of information to examine thus becomes approachable: only two pages deal with our specific topic. We obtain here a lot of information, precisely of the kind that I personally have been involved in researching. In the particular case of playing cards, however, what is the most relevant part is not the fruit of an original research of this author, but is mostly summarised from an old article that is quoted there."' ONEOLDARTICLE WITHANCIENT DOCUMENTS I could read the article quoted myself and use it for further study. You can probably imagine my surprise in finding that all the new information precisely derives from the account books kept in the Archivio Storico dell'Ospedale degl'Innocenti (AOIF), which I had began to study a few weeks ago. (I might add that the sole Cambini's "Quaderno" that I had leafed through was No. 266, whereas this new information derives from the Nos. 264, 265, 267, and 268. However, it is likely that even if I had instead examined one of these four volumes, my conclusion would have been the same.) I will now continue the discussion with the help of the information that can be directly derived from the article mentioned above. The article is struc16

tured in a first part compiled by Hartt with discussion and comments, and in a second part, written by Corti, with a selection of documents taken from the account books. In the following paragraph, I copy the part of the selection of documents inserted in the original article that is of interest for us. I have labelled these quotations A to G, but have kept in brackets the numbers used in the article. A (3). Estranei 264, c. 226, left side Bartolommeo di Paholo Seragli de' dare... E adi 10 di marzo [1452/53] f. otto, per lui a Pipo di Marcho porta contanti, sono per uno paio di trionfi richi ebe da lui. f. 8. B (5) Estranei 264, c. 241, left side Bartolomeo di Pagholo Seragli de' dare... E adi 21 di marzo f. uno largo, per lui a Filipo di Marcho dipintore, porta contanti, sono per parte di lavoro gli a fato. f.1 s.4. C (6). Estranei 265, c. 27, left side Bartolomeo di Pagholo Serragli de' dare... E adi 31 di marzo [1453] f. 5 larghi, per lui a Filippo di Marcho dipintore, porta e' detto contanti, sono per resto di 2 paia di trio[n]fi fatogli, come dise Ghaspare da Ghiaceto. f. 5 s. 18 d. 4. D (13). Estranei 267, c. 35, left side 1455 Bartolomeo di Pagholo Seragli de' dare... E adi 29 di marzo f. quatro, porta e' detto, sono per paghare a Filipo di Marcho, per 3 paia di trionfi e 2 paia di charte. f. 4 E (15). Estranei 267, c. 98, left side 1455 Bartolomeo di Pagholo Seragli de' dare... E adi 6 di settembre f. due, per lui a Pipo dipintore, porta Giovanni di Domenicho contanti, per trionfi. f. 2. E adi 20 detto f. uno, per lui a Pipo dipintore, porta Giovanni di Domenicho contanti, per trionfi. f. 1. E adi 27 detto f. dua larghi, per lui a Pipo di Marcho dipintore, porta Giovanni di Domenicho contanti. f.2 s.6 d.7. E adi 10 d'otobre f. uno largho, per lui a Filipo di Marcho dipintore, porta contanti, per un paio di trionfi operati. f.2 s.6 d.7. 17

.... E adi 21 detto, L. trenta, per lui a Filipo di Marcho dipintore, porta contanti: sono per resto di trionfi auti da lui insino a questo di. f. 7 s.- d.8. F (17) Estranei 267, c. 206 Bartolomeo di Pagolo Seragli de' dare... E adi 17 detto [April 14561 L. sedici piccioli, per lui a Filippo di Marcho dipintore, porta chontanti, e quali dise gli prestava per trionfi gli deve fare. f.3 s.20 d.6. E adi 30 detto f. quatro larghi, per lui a Filippo di Marcho dipintore, port?) contanti, dise per parte di trionfi gl'ane a fare. f.4 s.26 d.7. E adi 15 detto [May1 L. died, per lui a Filippo di Marcho dipintore, porta contanti, dise erono per trionfi the da lui. f.2 s.9 d.8. G (22). Estranei 268, c. 217, left side 1457 Bartolomeo di Pagholo Seragli de' dare... E adi 17 detto [April 1, 14581 L. quatordici s. X piccioli, per lui a Filippo di Marcho dipintore, port?) contanti, sono per 2 paia di trionfi. f. 3 s.10 d.6.

First of all, we have to understand the function of Bartolomeo Serragli in this trade, and for this we can directly use the "explanation" provided in the article. "The most striking patron to emerge from this group of documents is the little-known Bartolommeo di Paolo Serragli, who commissions in rapid succession from 1455 through 1457 (Documents 3-22) a fantastic amount of sculpture from Desiderio da Settignano, Andrea della Robbia, and Donatello himself, and paintings from Filippo di Marco and Filippo Lippi, all to the tune of about three hundred florins (including Donatello's materials but not the final price for the statue), a handsome sum for a family that had just survived ten years of exclusion from public offices and seven years of exile imposed by Cosimo de' Medici. Corti's new discoveries provide the solution: Bartolommeo Serragli was an art dealer, one of the earliest of whom we have any such exhaustive record.""' This dealer was particularly active towards the South of Italy, down to Naples and its royal palace. Some comments can be added now. Interesting enough is that these particular cards were of various qualities and values. Together with rather cheap items, we find pricey ones: remarkable among them is the first pack encountered, in 1453. One could simply conclude that 18

at this rather early time it was still a new and costly kind of production, but also the contrary opinion can easily be supported: the very fact that this pack was indicated as unusually rich may prove that more current ones existed already. "Oddly enough, the only project to vie with the Donatello statue in expense in this entire series of entries is the so-far completely baffling set of trionfi for which Filippo di Marco is paid very nearly fifty florins at intervals from March 10, 1452/3 to April 1, 1458 (Documents 3, 5, 6, 13, 15, 17, 22). At this moment Filippo di Marco is a personality of the utmost obscurity. We know nothing of him beyond his matriculation in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in 1447 (Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexicon..., XI, 1915, p. 564) and none of the triumphs can be identified with any certainty; for the moment I will not try. From the documents it is not even possible to count them, although one cannot help noting that they generally seem to turn up in pairs. [This author clearly did not know the denotation of paio as a card pack. FPJ There may have been as many as eight of these pairs, one pair is listed as richi (Document 3) and another as operati (Document 15). The phrases suggest scene-painting or designs for masques or parades rather than pictures, but in the absence of any evidence speculation had best stop at that point. Perhaps they were paintings after all, and if they can same day be identified among the various homeless Quattrocento panels representing such subjects, we will be the richer by one more minor master."") Rather astounding may be the fact that just in one case can "simple" playing cards be found as manufactured and acquired. We had rather expected the contrary situation, in which ordinary cards were the rule and triumphs the exception. Apparently, triumphs were precisely the kind of playing cards most looked for, at the time, in this particular kind of trade. Somewhat surprising is also the fact that all these different packs were produced by one and the same cardmaker, Filippo di Marco. We can imagine him as a kind of "Florentine Sagramoro", but clear dissimilarities appear, to begin with the actual customers, not a Duke of the Este family, but just an art dealer, who could further sell these cards practically anywhere. CONCLUSION Of course, this new information is not enough to obtain a satisfactory view of the production of playing cards and triumphs in Florence in the middle of the 15th century. In particular, the packs we have just run into here can be considered as the tip of the iceberg, if taken as a selection representing the Florentine production. These were items commissioned for export, together 19

with several other costly art objects. Incomparably many more, and cheaper, card packs were by then produced for local purchase and use by common people, triumphs included. 12.01.2012 NOTES (1) "Early playing card export from Florence?", http://trionfi.com/ card-exportflorence (2) Lorenz Boninger, Die deutsche Einwanderung nach Florenz in: Spat mittelalter, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2006. (3) Jacobsen 2001. (4) Corti & Hartt 1962.

Fig. 1—From the AOIF. Part of the Estranei section. (Photo Franco Pratesi) 20

3 1463 - CARDMAKERS AND WOODBLOCKS ON TRIAL INTRODUCTION This note can be considered as a continuation of a previous one, which was structured as a three-stage rocket: we had there the first stage consisting in Boninger's book, the second in Jacobsen's book, the third in Hartt and Corti's article. The most useful information there derived precisely from the third stage mentioned. This may explain the fact that at the time I only focused my attention on the two pages that in Jacobsen's book'2)are dedicated to painters of playing cards. More information is however provided there in the 'Anhang' part, toward the end of the book. The step backward that I have now to take is precisely to extract further information from that book, using its final part. FLORENTINEPAINTERSOFPLAYING CARDS Jacobsen deals with the painters active in Florence in early Renaissance and divides them according to their main activity. It appears that many specialised sectors of this handicraft existed, even if one can easily imagine that most painters could be active at the same time in a variety of these sectors. Understandably, painters of playing cards were not among the most renowned artists of the time, but we can find therein specialisations that can be even more unexpected, such as painters of arms or of tall church candles have been for me. As for the painters of our specific interest we find on page 485 of the book the following complete list, to which I add - taken from the same book their dates of birth and, when we do not know the year of their death, the last date in which they are found still alive. Baldo di Piero di Antonio di Baldo (1425->1458) Donnino di Giovanni di Francesco (1370->1447) Filippo di Marco di Simone (1435->1458) Francesco di Gabriello di Nuccio Francesco di Piero (c1360->1410) 21

Franco di Piero (1364->1433) Giovanni di Donnino di Giovanni (1405->1433) Giovanni di Franco di Piero (1426-1448) Iacopo di Poggino di Luca "Paparello" (1398-1481) Piero di Donnino di Giovanni (1413->1447) I am certain that a few names can be added to this list, to begin with those already found by Zdekauer and/or Kristeller more than a century ago. For instance, Antonio di Luca, present in the 1427 Catasto; Antonio di Giovanni di Ser Francesco, who declared the possession of woodblocks in the 1430 Catasto; moreover, Benedetto di Antonio Spigliati, who is introduced by Jacobsen himself (see below) but is absent in the list, because his activity flourished after the time interval studied. It is likely that some further names can soon be added to the list. In particular, it is evident, as also remarked by Jacobsen, that some of these names can be regrouped into families, in which the sons first worked together with their father and then took his place in the job. Searching further along family members will doubtlessly provide additional names. However, I have never found a list as long as Jacobsen's one in my studies on this topic. For all these artists, Jacobsen provides additional information, mainly family data derived from the Catasto, which were their estates and possessions, how were their families composed, and so on. The last pages of the book are dedicated to schematic maps of Florence in various years, with marked the locations where the painters lived and had their workshops. On the whole, in this book we find a lot of information collected together that may induce me to make another "step backward" later on, in order to recover further essential data of possible interest. Now, I wish to halt my attention on a very particular case, involving painter Filippo di Marco, the maker of the triumphs documented in the Cambini account books,") until recently practically unknown to playing card historians. THE FILIPPO-BENEDETTO LAWSUIT In his 'Anhang' on Filippo di Marco, p. 552, Jacobsen presents a verdict (which had been found in notary archives of the time and communicated to him by Doris Carl) concluding a suit that Filippo had with Benedetto di Antonio Spigliati. ''' The date is stated as 28 febbraio 1462, but must be read as 1463, owing to the Florentine use of beginning the New Year "ab Incarnation", on 25 March. Benedetto had been a coworker of Filippo and their association had functioned for some time. At a given point their agreement breaks down and they 22

come in front of the court. Benedetto requires some money that Filippo owes to him; Filippo demands that no less than seven woodblocks used in card making be given back to him, their owner. The corresponding judgment is not as simple as we could expect. The judge, Angelo Del Pace, examines the account books of the company and concludes that indeed Benedetto has to receive 15 gold florins from Filippo, who is given one year time for settling this account. "Condempnamus dictum Pippum ad dandum et solvendum dicto Benedicto hinc ad unum annum proxime futurum dictam quantitatem florenorum XV auri." As soon as the amount is given, Benedetto must return the seven woodblocks to Filippo. "Item reperto quod dictus Benedictus habet penes se settem tabulas actas ad formandum cartas pro ludendo, vulgariter dicendo naibi, declararnus dictas settem tabulas pertinere et esse dicti Pippi,.. condempnamus dictum Benedictum ad dandum et restituendum..." If the full year passes without payment, then the seven woodblocks remain as a property of Benedetto. "Et in casu quo dictus Pippus non solveret infra dictum tempus dicto Benedicto dictos florenos XV auri, in dicto casu elapso dicto tempore, ex nunc dictas settem tabulas adiudicamus dicto Benedicto pro dictis florenis XV auri." (This part of the verdict has been inserted as a marginal note in the page.) Up to here, everything is clear enough. There are however some complications now. The first is that in the course of this whole year Benedetto must allow that Filippo enters his house and uses the seven woodblocks for his work, whenever he so wishes. "Durante dicto anno dicte tabule sint penes dictum Benedictum et quod dictus Pippus durante dicto anno possit ire in domum dicti Benedicti ubi dictus Benedictus haberet dictas tabulas ad formandurn cartas prout sibi placuerit, et quod dictus Benedictus non possit denegare dicto Pippo quod non formet dictas tabulas prout sibi placuerit." (These meetings we can easily imagine as embarrassing enough.) The second complication is that even if payment has occurred and soon after the woodblocks returned to their owner, the matter is not concluded: Filippo has to provide Benedetto with four woodblocks designed by himself, within a further eight months. "Et ultra predicta, in casu quo dictus Filippus rehaberet dictas tabulas et postquam sibi tradite fuerint, condempnamus dictum Filippum ad designandum quatuor tabulas pro formando naibi et dare dicto Benedicto infra otto menses postquam rehabuerit dictas tabulas, videlicet otto menses postquam rehabuerit dictas tabulas." This is a rather strange, hardly Solomonic, decision. If the seven woodblocks could balance the fifteen florins in case the money was not given, I don't understand why the same woodblocks are worth a lot more than the 15 florins if they are given: the final judgment sounds as if Filippo had to 23

confer to Benedetto the 15 florins AND the four woodblocks, which I imagine that he produced with the least possible care. We can stop here with the discussion of the judgment; after all, comments on the various verdicts have always been a recurrent topic for discussion, in every epoch. Let us instead use this debate for extracting a few indications of our specific interest. USEFULINFORMATIONFROMTHE VERDICT The verdict is for us a useful event, in so far as it can help us in better understanding a few topics that are still debated among the various experts. 1) First of all, we learn that woodblocks were in common use for the production of playing cards. This cannot be considered as particularly important news, because we knew that this was already the case, in Florence at least from the 1430 declaration to the Catasto of Antonio di Giovanni (or from even earlier documents in Palermo). Here, however, we get further information, as follows: 2) The woodblocks in use are no less than seven. I am not able to imagine a card pack requiring such a high number of blocks to be printed. I prefer by far to imagine the simpler case that these blocks were used, in different groups, for given kinds of different card packs. 3) The number of four woodblocks that we find at the end of the description above is also indicative. In this case it seems to correspond to the minimum necessary for a cardmaker to work with. If the reader knows my comment on Rosenwald cards"', it is easy to understand how I imagine these four blocks to be; by the way, from the Cambini account books, we know Filippo precisely as a maker of triumphs. To satisfy all disbelieving or sceptical experts, I can suggest an alternative possibility: to regard the four blocks as two pairs, suitable for printing two different kinds of "common" naibi packs, as piccoli and grandi. 4) Interesting is also the fact that the seven woodblocks were kept at home. Filippo had to come to Benedetto's house if he wished to use the woodblocks. Probably, it was also there that the same woodblocks had been used earlier, when the partnership was active. This is an important indication as to the whole production system. Apparently, parts of the production could be "subcontracted". Now we do not need to discover an entire workshop where playing cards were produced. (I have looked for one of them for years, while "wandering" through the Florence of that time.) A given worker could do his part of the job at home, and then pass the product to another worker, who could do his part of the job at home, and so on. This may well explain why until now I could not see a group of these makers at work. 5) Filippo is not only a painter: if he must design four woodblocks for 24

Benedetto, this means that he is able to do that as well, not simply paint the figures on the paper. Jacobsen reminds us that cardmakers were sometimes matriculated as lignaioli (carpenters) or forzierinai (cabinet makers). Maybe Filippo could complete the job by himself, maybe he could seek assistance from a wood engraver, better probably if coming from South Germany. (It is also possible, on the other hand, that everyone in the job was able to do everything and the specialists were sought only in case of high demand, or for items of higher quality.) 6) In the Latin text, we find two words for indicating playing cards, cartas (or better cartae for readers familiar enough with correct Latin, and its nominative plural case) and naibi. This is neither surprising nor new information. Somewhat interesting may however be the fact that still in 1463 naibi is indicated as the more popular word, vulgariter dicendo "commonly called". CONCLUSION We have extracted from the mentioned book on painters active in Florence an interesting list of cardmakers for the first half of the 15th century. The main part of the present note deals however with a lawsuit concerning woodblocks. Seven of them belong to Filippo di Marco, but are kept at home by Benedetto Spigliati. The former has to pay at least 15 gold florins to the latter in order to get the woodblocks back. Several parts of the verdict are discussed, and further information deduced, which for card experts may turn out the more useful, the less sceptical they are. 21.01.2012 Noms (1) See Chap. 2: "Florentine triumphs by Filippo di Marco", p. 15. (2) Jacobsen 2001. (3) ASF NA 19079, c. 212. (4) "Rosenwald's fourth sheet", http://trionfi.com/rosenwald-tarocchi-sheet.

25

Fig. 2 - Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence.

Fig. 3 - Account books of Puri traders. AOIF 12618, 12619, 12620, 12621, 12622.

26

4 1447-1449 - NAIBI ON SALE INTRODUCTION This research has been carried out in the Archivio Storico dell'Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence (AOIF), issuing from lengthy research stimulated by new data on imports of Florentine playing cards into Rome in the middle of the 15th century!" The Ospedale degli Innocenti, in Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, is a celebrated building, thanks in particular to the reputation of its architect, nobody less than Filippo Brunelleschi, better known for his Cupola del Duomo!21 Many documents in the AOIF concern the specific activity of this Hospital, where the foundlings of the whole town have been accepted for centuries."' It is now rather common for the AOIF to receive visitors absorbed in the rather difficult task of reconstructing their family roots. As a matter of fact, most of the documents there are related to the many children that entered the Hospital and were followed by the administration during their growth. Of course, in the course of about six centuries of continuous activity, countless administrative documents have also been kept. The main sponsor of this institution was the Florentine Arte della Seta, which included members of the renowned silk manufacture and trade. All of them had to pay a tax to the Hospital; some of these families even left their heritage to it. This tradition was also followed by some families belonging to different categories or professions. As a result, we have now in the AOIF a whole series of account books and other documents collected in the section labelled as "Estranei"; this name clearly derives from the fact that these documents did not directly belong to the administration of the Hospital, but got there from "extraneous" sources. If we were interested in the history of silk manufacturing and trade, we could find a lot of interesting documents here, but let us be satisfied with just the minority of books coming from some of the other professions. In particular, I intend to report something interesting from the account books of just one family of merciai, the Puri family. PURIAND OTHER MERCIAI It is not easy for me to define exactly what a merciaio is, and what a mer27

ciaio was. The word directly comes from merce, and merce has an English equivalent in goods, wares, so that the shop may be intended at once as a shop where any goods can be sold and acquired; merchant (or mercante here) has exactly the same etymology, but is used for bigger trades. In the course of time we have witnessed a kind of specialisation, so that a shop of this type still exists nowadays, and is owned by a merciaio, or more often a merciaia, his female counterpart. The major part of the goods on sale is addressed to those few women that still maintain the old habit, and ability, to sew something by themselves: here they can find everything they may need, from clothes to ribbons and bands, from buttons to a few metal objects such as pins and needles, and so on. Many other metal tools were once available at a merciaio, from nails, shears and knives, up to various professional tools, which now are commonly on sale in a hardware shop. Both in the UK and the USA I have only spent a few days, and am not familiar enough with the local tradition of similar shops, and corresponding names. I am not sure that the sole word that I find for merciaio in my Zanichelli dictionary, haberdashery, is enough to convey the idea of the particular "shop" we are dealing with here. On the other hand, the English word mercer, which has the same origin and probably corresponds - or corresponded - better, is not even present in my Penguin English Student's Dictionary. What I have tried to justify above is that in the store that we intend to visit now more goods are likely to be found than we are ready to expect, and that in particular it will be possible to find there packs of playing cards too. Maybe some information on the family of the owners, Puri, would be useful; this family however is not among the best known in Florence, and I could find no particular information on them. I must however frankly admit that I have only verified that this family was not present among those recorded in the 1427 Catasto. I did not undertake further research, and thus it is not surprising at all that I did not yet find anything about them - especially considering that I am finding little or nothing even when I do search. On the cover of the book that will be used below we find a sentence that is noted also in the catalogue of the archive clearly indicating that the owner left Florence and moved to Milan. "A di 12 novembre 1451 si parti Maso da Firenze et ando al nome di Dio a Melano." After all, let us neglect the information on the family and focus only on the account books that they have left in the AOIF; who they were is not so interesting to us as what they were trading. Another point that might be useful to discuss concerns the purchasers. As far as I have understood it, most of the trade, or at least most of the trade of our interest, was from merciaio to merciaio. I have not been able to locate the destination of all the goods sold: in most cases, only the name of the pur28

chaser is indicated, often together with the indication that he is a merciaio. In a few cases, I have not been able to read the place where the purchasers were active, even if is indicated. However, I am certain that a remarkable part of the playing cards that we will encounter below were sold to purchasers who did not live in Florence. Two of them were certainly from Pisa, one from Pistoia: these three purchasers together may account for a significant part of the trade of our specific interest, say about one third. For instance, the big sale of no less than 160 packs of different qualities recorded on 8 November 1447 was to Nicholo merciaio in Pisa. Another purchaser was active in Dicomano, and another in San Casciano, both small country towns not far from Florence, and this is a clear proof that using these cards at the time was current in the countryside too. One thus gets the impression that, at least for certain goods, our store acted as a wholesale seller, whereas their colleagues purchased from them for retail sale. In any case, it is evident that any merciaio coming from a smaller town to get a fresh supply of specific goods in Florence was carrying out a reasonable kind of trade. I am not sure at all that one can also deduce from the above that playing cards were only produced in Florence at the time; it is of course easy to imagine that here one could find a wider choice of items and prices. • THEACCOUNT BOOKS Six books have been preserved for the Puri family. Let me briefly describe them, using also the corresponding entries in the inventory mentioned.''' 12617 - 16/09/1413 - 12/11/1457 "Ricordanze A" —cc. 54. This contains private annotations by Piero di Francesco Puri, who was a merchant, matriculated at Arte di Calimala. At the same time, he was employed by the Commune as a donzello. This book can be considered as a special case, with the five following ones representing another set, associated with his son Tommaso. The following books mostly correspond to Tommaso's activity of merciaio in a few years near the middle of the 15th century. I took a photo of this "set", if it can be thus named. Actually, the five books are very different, both in shape and contents (see Fig. 3, p. 26). 12618 - 18/11/1442 - 20/01/1465, "Memoriale G"—cc. 89. This is a kind of intermediate book, in the sense that it appears to have been compiled by both father and son. The various entries in this book appear rather to belong to the domestic administration of the family than to that of their trade. We find, among the most various matters, purchases of poultry, of wine, of Parmesan cheese, and so on. The Hospital emerges as beneficiary of several accounts of money and then half of Piero's heritage. 29

12619 - 05/09/1447 - 09/08/1450 "Libro rosso A" - cc. 90. This is probably the most important of the series, as also indicated by its dimension, the greatest that could be obtained with the available sheets of paper. We find here more or less long lists of entries collected under the same name of customers or suppliers. Everything is recorded here, but in a form that is not the best for our purpose, because for any entry (corresponding to a further line in the page or part of the page dedicated to the given person) we find the date, the amount of money, the reference to the page of another book where the trade is described in further detail, and nothing else. 12620 - 09/08/1447 - 14/02/1450 "Richordance A" - cc. 161. This is OUR book! In all the other books indicated I could find no mention of playing cards. (Attention here; this is different from stating that they are not mentioned!) In this book we find many lists of sales, often with enough detail on the various goods, and long lists with their amount and price. 12621 - 01/10/1450 - 29/10/1451 "Quaderno di ricordi" - cc. 43. This book seems to be the simplest of the series, already on the basis of its unusual dimension, more than 30 cm in height, just about 12 cm wide. It seems to have been used for a first recording of items to be copied later on into the more "serious" books. We find noted various goods, ribbons, knives, bucks, caps, and so on. 12622 - 09/09/1447 - 22/07/1449 "Portate A" - cc. s.n. In this book we find many receipts and quittances noted down day after day - about ten for a page - with attention to names and money amounts, not so much on the items traded. Before reading the "Richordance A" book, I had leafed through many others, including several account books, and including a few that apparently were dealing with these kinds of objects. Up to now, I had never seen an account book so useful for us as this one, which is the basis for all the information that I report below. The only other place where I could think of finding it is in my bed, in the middle of the night, while sleeping deeply. Two university professors involved in academic studies on these kinds of books had warned me that looking there for playing cards was the same as searching a needle in a hay-stack. I went on nevertheless, but ultimately I was inclined to believe that I was exactly searching in a hay-stack, where absolutely no needle was present. When I was ready to close this research for ever, there emerges a stack full of needles, in the book of this merciaio, who by the way - was precisely selling needles, in large amounts too. Let me thus extract from "Richordance A" what is most interesting for us. NAIBI "DOZZINALE" As a matter of fact, the materials collected in this book are extremely var30

ied. Each entry also has a different length, from a single item to long lists of them, in a few cases longer than a whole page. The nature of the goods is evident on first inspection, and exactly corresponds to both kinds of wares indicated at the beginning. On the one hand we have lists of textiles and similar goods, on the other hand long lists of ironware; in a number of cases, we cannot be surprised to find, gathered together, items belonging to both of the types indicated. Fortunately for us, there are further objects too, and more than once we can read a word that is not at all familiar to common readers, but is one of those most hunted by us: naibi! To find this word in common use far from Florence requires a long travel to Spain or Portugal, but here it lasted longer than in other towns nearby. The frequency of these references is easily seen, together with the relevant data, in the following two Tables, which I have extracted from "Richordance A" (obviously, entries recorded there on the same day are part of the same sale). I prefer to report these items in two different groups, common and special cards - something that is known, in a way or another, among card collectors. Here I need however first to define what I intend here as common cards, because some of them may actually be little known, or even not at all. To explain what I mean here for common, I need to introduce another word, the Italian attribute of dozzinale. In my Zanichelli dictionary I find for it: cheap (-looking), second-rate, commonplace. Probably, its meaning is correctly translated, but I would insist on the origin of our word, directly from dozzina or dozen, namely something that is commonly sold by the dozen, something that, as a corollary, cannot be of a particularly high quality. Precisely by the dozen were sold most of the cards recorded in our book, and I keep them separate from the others, even if most of you will find more than one half of these packs to be far from common. The problem is that a remarkable part of these packs sold by the dozen are not single (scempio) packs, but are double (doppio) packs. We possibly find again a slight difference between English single and Italian scempio. Maybe another short digression on the Italian lexicon is thus required, about this scempio attribute: it is not a very common word, also because the opportunities to use it are not many. If you ask for a given item to be sold as "scempio", this implies that it is NOT usually sold as such. To exaggerate a little, it is as if you ask for acquiring just one cigarette instead of a pack, or if you ask for just one rose taken out of its bunch. (In the present case, the word is used in comparison with a pair, not a whole bunch, but its meaning remains the same - at the moment, I am not able to recall to my mind something usually sold as a pair, out of which you may just ask for a single item.) 31

We are now ready to inspect the following Table, where these cards are listed: they are all of the dozzinale kind, but more than half of them cannot be considered as common, I mean if seen from today. On the other hand, here we find no difference in dimension: all packs belong to picholi, the smaller version. FOL

DATE

13r

1447/09/22

18v

1447/10/03

19v

1447/10/05

21r

1447/10/06

22v 35r

1447/10/07 1447/11/08

41r 49v 56r 59v 63v 114v 115v

1447/11/20 1447/12/14 1447/12/29 1448/01/02 1448/01/10 1448/03/02 1448/06/28 1448/07/04

116v

1448/07/11

117v 119r 120v

1448/07/17 1448/07/29 1448/10/02

151r

1449/03/18

DOZENS

KIND

SOLD!

1 1 2 2 2 2 1 3 1 6 6 144 1 3 6 5 3 ',4 2 2 3 3 144 144 2 2 1/2

DOP SCE DOP SCE DOP

22 14 21 13 21 _13 22 13 13 21 13 21 20 22 20 20 20 20_ 21 13 20 12 12 13 21 13 20

SCE DOP SCE SCE DOP SCE DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP SCE DOP SCE SCE SCE DOP SCE DOP

I have indicated the date in the format yyyy/mm/dd (also for an easier control of the required year change for its first months). The third column shows the corresponding amount in dozens and the last one gives the price of one dozen packs. The money amounts are indicated in the book according to the common Lire/soldi/denari system, but I have only used here s. or soldi. 32

It is evident that this kind of trade was more active in the first months, than later on. It is also possible that we see greater changes than actually occurred, owing to the presence of less detailed records in the last months. It is not clear, on the other hand, if these items became somewhat cheaper or some reduction was offered for greater sales; in any case, the price variation in the course of time was very small, just plus or minus one soldo, with respect to the price of 21 s. for doppi and 13 s. for scempi. It is easy to verify that more packs of naibi "doppi" are sold than "scempi": 42 dozens with respect to 30. It is not sure that the resulting ratio of 58% is statistically reliable. A possible influence could be that maybe scempi could be easier to find in nearer places. We have to remember the case of other sales in which many triumph packs were recorded together with a single entry of common cards.''' Anyhow, we must conclude that the double pack was by then in common use, if not really more used than the single one. As for these double packs: please, do not try to convince me that either their width or height could be twice as usual. You may try and suggest such a possibility for thickness, thinner for scempi, thicker for doppi. In this hypothesis too, however, the number of cards in both packs would be the same and it would be easy to change just one of the intermediate sheets within each card, at about the same cost. On my part, I must confess that I still believe in arithmetic, and that for me twice 48 is 96. Whether these 96 cards could be an early version of "our" 97-card pack, independent of the existence and use of the name with which it became known a few years later, is a decision so hard to reach that I must leave it open to the profound reflection of the various experts. By the way, however, it is known that one possible explanation of the word germini itself has been recurrently traced back to Gemini, or Gemelli, that is twins; now, the distance from a double pack to a twin pack is rather short. To anybody, who is not yet ready to accept this "peculiar" view of our double pack, the following very simple solution is available. Precisely as today we are accustomed to play some games (for example of the Rummy family) either with a single pack or a double one, we can imagine that we had then in Florence a fashion game that required either single or double packs, with the double one just intended as containing two identical single packs together present. For another possible explanation, see Postcript on p. 49. In conclusion, the cheapest packs here on sale (if considering their price reduced to a single card) may become the most surprising of them all. Not only was our "double pack" already in current use, not only was it addressed to common people, but it was also already produced with exactly the same cheap systems of the most common card packs: the cheapest single card produced belonged precisely to this double pack. 33

NAIBI "FINI" There is not only one kind of playing cards indicated under the common denomination of naibi: we find more different packs than we could expect. Let us first conclude our discussion of the "simple" playing cards with a last point worth noting. At the time, one could acquire different kinds of cards, at different prices. When I was a child, a few years later than one could actually visit this merciaio store in person, we had two kinds of local cards, of course Florentine grandi, but also Toscane piccole, with exactly the same figures appearing on the cards. I did not imagine that this difference in card dimension could have had such a long tradition. It would be too simple to have just to decide between small or large cards: we find more than two kinds of specimens; mezzani or middle are also on sale, if we move to packs of better quality. If we have enough money, in the middle of the 15th century, we can buy products sold at various prices; when they are indicated as richi, or fini, there is no doubt about their superior quality. I have thus kept all the cards that were sold as single packs, instead of by dozen, separately listed. When introducing low and better quality, the problem of choosing the most suitable pack may become an embarrassment of riches—there could hardly be a limit toward the best qualities that one could look for. The variation in price for a given pack is thus very high, as it can be verified in the following Table: here you can select one pack that costs remarkably more than a whole dozen of the previous ones. FOL

DATE

08r 19v

1447/09/07 1447/10/05

29v

1447/10/23

35r

1447/11/08

51v 1447/12/16 107v 1448/03/31

PACKS

12 4 3 2 2 12 2 2 2 4 4

KIND

SOLDI

picholi 5 101/2 fini mezzolli? fini 6 18 chorone 27 messi aoro picholi fini 5 messiaoro tinte le fighure 26 16 messa oro le chorone 51/2 ? 71/2 grandi picholi dan.o di do.? 51/2

MAKER

GSG PAP PAP GSG CH CH ? GSG ADD

Makers: GSG = Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, PAP = Paparello, ADD = Antonio di Dino (?), CH = chorone Several columns are the same as in the previous Table. We have first the number of packs (instead of the dozens as in the previous Table) and their 34

individual prices. The middle column here (KIND) adds some indication on the pack in question. In the last column the makers are indicated, with GSG for Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, PAP for Paparello, and CH where chorone (crowns) are mentioned. It is worth noting that the time interval for these records is reduced to half a year, end 1447-beginning 1448, remarkably shorter than for dozzinale packs of the first Table. Again, it is not clear if any reliable conclusion on card trade can be deduced from this, because there are further variables to consider, such as a shorter notation for the last entries. We find here both picholi and grandi, but no mention of either scempi or doppi. This is a problem of understanding which these packs were from that point of view, but the ratio, slightly less than two, that would exist in corresponding prices is not so big, with respect to the higher ratios between these prices and those of dozzinale packs. A possibility is that the Paparello-chorone packs at s.16-18 were seemp1, whereas those at s.26-27 were doppi, but there is another plausible explanation for the more expensive packs, which not only had gilded crowns, but also carefully painted figures. What seems to me particularly interesting is that you enter the store and have the choice among various kinds of packs, all of them ready to be sold. This is not so surprising for the cheap items, sold and bought by the dozen. There is however something else, also available onto the shelves, something of an increasingly better quality. Among the corresponding makers, we find names that can easily be compared with those renowned masters, who at the same time were producing their famous packs for the courts of Milan and Ferrara: Giovanni and Paparello were at least at their level. There is a big difference, however. Here, any merciaio can enter the store and acquire a pack made by one of the best painters, and without having to order it and waiting for weeks that it is finished. Almost one half of these entries corresponding to costly packs are associated with Giovanni di Ser Giovanni as a painter. Apparently he provided the workshop with a large stock of packs ready to be sold, in a way that may be considered intermediate with respect to dozzinale packs. Indeed, we find in no less than two cases that his packs are sold in groups of twelve - nevertheless they are numbered and priced on the basis of single packs and not of dozens. Their price of s.5 is intermediate between the packs of the first Table and the remaining ones, made with seemingly better quality and additional gold decoration. One maker (an.o di do.o? for Antonio di Dino?) I have not been able to read. The painter who provides the most expensive packs is Paparello, whom we met in the list by Jacobsen lc'. I read for some of these packs the word oro and the words le chorone. In my opinion, the simplest interpretation 35

is that the personages on these cards had their crowns directly gilded. In one case we find both chorone and Paparello in the description, and it seems possible that Paparello was the painter in all cases in which chorone are mentioned. In any case, the highest price corresponds to both gilded crowns and painted figures. AN EXTRAORDINARY CARDMAKER Several names of cardmakers and painters of playing cards who were active in Florence in about those years can be found here and there, but in "Richordance A" we find one, who may be more interesting than all the remaining ones: Giovanni da San Giovanni. San Giovanni Valdarno is the present name of a country town that near the end of the 13th century had been built by the Florentines, with the name of Castel San Giovanni, as a fortified settlement in front of Arezzo (not to forget that San Giovanni Battista is still considered the patron of Florence). Our Giovanni painter was born there but, as it occurred for many artists, he lived and worked in Florence; this he did after having been active as a soldier in his youth. His outstanding plus point is not so much due to his personal value as a painter, however remarkable, but rather to that of his elder brother, nobody less than Masaccio. For Masaccio, let me add here just his dates of birth and death, 1401-1428 - he was so great an artist that it is easy to get whatever information one may wish about him. His full name was Tommaso di ser Giovanni Guidi da San Giovanni; his younger brother was born in 1406, soon after the death of their father, so that he could take the same first name: Giovanni di ser Giovanni, then nicknamed "Lo Scheggia". I was able to read no less than three whole books dedicated to him,(7-8.9) where I could not find (yet) any trace of playing cards. It may be worth noting however that, while he is not known as a painter of triumphal cards, he is renowned for some of the triumphal processions that he painted on cassoni, the large, finely decorated trunks that were part of the marriage settlements of the brides. Art historians should be warned not to expect that the revolutionary style of Masaccio should be passed to his brother as a painter of playing cards. Here no revolutionary improvement in style is welcome: the aim of the work is just to satisfy the conservative attitude of the players, who always prefer, and by far, that their traditional images are changed as little as possible. I feel that the last practical point is not taken sufficiently into account by art historians, when they pay some attention to playing cards, en passant. It is therefore a pleasure for me to provide them with the documented name of a painter, whom they already know from different productions. Even if art historians have written few or no pages at all about him as a card painter, I 36

feel certain that they will soon find their remedy to this, with new hundreds of pages. There is an additional advantage: I give them exact dates for these cards, but thanks to the long life of this artist, it will be unlikely for them, in this case, to attribute to a painter cards produced before his birth or after his death. CONCLUSION The records of Florentine playing cards imported into Rome has stimulated me to carry out a research"' in the Florentine archives. After reading many books of various kinds with no useful result, I could find one of them overloaded with the wanted detail. We thus learn several new facts on the trade of playing cards in Florence, in the middle of the 15th century. There were various kinds of packs on sale, to begin with ordinary ones, sold by the dozen. They all belonged to the piccoli kind, with mezzani and grandi only present among the more costly specimens. However, we unexpectedly learn that double packs were already in common use, and it is rather demanding not to associate them with the typical Florentine pack, later known as Minchiate or Germini."' These were common packs by then, even if most of my readers, accustomed to hang around the princely courts of the Po valley, may not be prepared to absorb this information promptly enough. Alongside with these "common" packs, there was a whole choice of more costly ones on sale, even signed by renowned painters of the time. Some of these painters, as Paparello, we already knew as involved in card production, but here we find another painter, Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, nicknamed Lo Scheggia, the brother of Masaccio, who is already well known among art historians. As a concluding comment, let me state that what I have listed is certain: I have mentioned all the cases in which I found naibi in the book "Richordance A"; I can also add that I recorded only these cases. However, I am not able to finish this statement in the usual way: I cannot swear to have reported all the naibi mentions that exist in the book. Maybe you will soon visit the archive and find, even in the same book, a lot of new entries that escaped my observation. Good luck. 27.01.2012 NOTES (1) "Early playing card export from Florence?", http://trionfi.com/card-exportflorence (2) http://en.wildpedia.org/wiki/Ospedale_degli_Innocenti (3) http://www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it/?q=content/inventario (4)SeehoweverPostscripton p. 49. 37

(5) Jacobsen 2001; see Chap. 2: "Florentine triumphs by Filippo di Marco", p. 15. (6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_di_ser_Giovanni_Guidi (7) Laura Cavazzini, 11 fratello di Masaccio : Giovanni di Ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia. Florence, Maschietto & Musolino, 1999. (8) Luciano Bellosi, Lo Scheggia. Florence, Maschietto & Musolino, 1999. (9) Alessandro Delpriori, La giovinezza dello Scheggia e una Madonna col bambino all'alba del Rinascimento. Florence, Frascione arte, 2011.

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Fig. 4 - Entries in Puri account book. AOIF 12620, "Richordance A", 1447-1450 (1447)1. 35r.

s

5 1450s - NAIBI WITH ATTRIBUTES INTRODUCTION Years ago, an article of mine was published on the introduction of playing cards into Florence and the spelling of the corresponding word naibi in the earliest documents."' My position was that this name was so new and exotic that it was hardly understood by the copyists and thus differently written, even in the same document. Indeed, apart from the possible use of j for i in the end of the word, naibi could be read along with forms like naibbi, naibbe, and also narbi, with the last spelling that even entered the relevant literature in printed form, later on. At present I am no longer convinced of the significance of the various spellings, after having encountered, for example gioco alongside not only giuoco, probably more correct but now outdated, but also in previous centuries with giuco, and with the letter c in all three cases possibly substituted by ch; of course, this was not a new or exotic word. The same can be found for many other words, so that the various forms of naibi writing may have had less significance than I attributed to them at the time. Now I am continuing the study of the early times of playing cards, which, especially in Florence, were called naibi for a longer period than elsewhere (except for Spain and Portugal, of course). I knew this and was thus not surprised in encountering this strange word in the documents under examination. Something associated with it however has been very surprising to me, the number of different attributes that could be used together with the word naibi. These attributes had the evident aim to specify a given card pack and to distinguish it from the similar ones. The need to indicate the kind of naibi in a more precise way derived from the presence of various packs on the market, which were dissimilar for dimension, quality, production method and, correspondingly, price. In other words, to indicate in account books which kind of pack was sold and at what price was unavoidable, except of course in the many cases in which only the total amount of the sale was recorded, without mentioning its single items. All the pertinent words are in Italian. However, we cannot find most of them in a common dictionary, because their usage is now obsolete, or their 39

meaning has changed in the meantime. Therefore, I think that some description may be useful, especially for people with a mother tongue different from Italian. PICCOLI, MEZZANI, GRANDI The most frequent attribute of a given pack of naibi is related to its dimension. There are more than a pair of such attributes, which for many cases are used just to distinguish whether the cards are small or large format. This is familiar to me from personal experience: here we had two different packs on sale with exactly the same figures but with different shape: Fiorentine, larger, and Toscane, smaller. I can now suppose that this was a residual usage of a very old tradition. I have not yet studied the actual origin of these formats, but I imagine that they can directly be associated with the current formats of the paper sheets available at the time. When you have on sale two kinds of paper sheets, of different dimension, and then you fold or cut them into the same parts (for instance 3x8), you have automatically formed both grandi and piccoli naibi. If this reasoning is correct, we should expect the same ratios between the dimensions of the paper sheets and the various naibi cards. This is not however a necessary consequence: naibi piccoli, mezzani or grandi could be obtained just by differently folding or cutting a given sheet of paper. Let us begin with piccolo that we find usually written as picholi or piccholi in the documents. They were the cheapest and more frequent version acquired. Whenever no attribute for dimension is provided, we can assume that they were piccoli. Somewhat puzzling for me is the further attribute of piccini. Actually, the meaning of this word is exactly the same as that of piccoli. I would say that in the language of nowadays piccini is somewhat more informal than piccoli, but there is hardly a difference between the two attributes. If sometimes we find the use of piccini, instead of piccoli, this might be understood as exactly the same pack. However, at least in one case, I find in the same sale some packs with the picholi attribute, others with piccini, and this may be interpreted as if piccini corresponded to an even smaller version than piccoli. The question is however not limited to the distinction piccoli / grandi, because there were intermediate formats too. These were mostly called mezzani - hopefully this attribute was not devoted to any intermediate measure between piccoli and grandi, but just to a single size, so that a third standard dimension was offered on sale. The mezzani format was not frequent and it appears that it was only used in particular cases. The prices of the corresponding packs can be expected to 40

be similarly intermediate, as for their dimensions. Sometimes we also find a slightly different attribute, such as mezzanelli, that may indicate the presence of more than one intermediate format. As for grandi, their occurrence greatly depended on the quality of the pack: this attribute can hardly be found among the cheapest cards, but becomes much more frequent among the higher level products. DOPPI, SCEMPI Here we find two unexpected attributes: naibi could also be distinguished as either scempi or doppi. At once, I understood this to mean single or double packs, with direct reference to the number of their cards, 48 and 96 respectively. In other words, I saw some kind of Minchiate already present, so early, alongside of simple naibi.12' Thierry Depaulis considered instead that naibi doppi could correspond to packs with the same number of thicker cards, instead of a double number of them!" After some pondering on the corresponding dates, I have to admit that his suggestion appears to be more reasonable, as it often happens. Nevertheless, let me go on discussing the possible alternative interpretations of double packs; in particular either as formed by thicker cards, or by a double number of cards with the same thickness. Previously, we have somehow endeavoured to find a solution to the puzzle of the pair of cards."' Now, we have to go on for a further step, how it is possible to pass from naibi scempi to naibi doppi. This I have already discussed and interpreted as passing from a simple to a double pack.''' As for dimensions, neither width nor height appears to be suitable for introducing a doubling with respect to the ordinary shape. The only remaining dimension is thickness: here it is possible to imagine two different packs, the former with thinner cards, the latter with thicker ones—obviously with all cards of each pack having the same thickness. We find however a problem that involves the actual making of any playing card. It is obvious that any playing card cannot consist in just one sheet of paper. The minimum is to have one front sheet and one back sheet pasted together. I n order both to avoid any see-through possibility and to strengthen the card itself, a thicker intermediate sheet was considered as a necessary addition. In many cases, a composition of four sheets was suggested as preferable, something we know from the documents on card making preserved in the South of France.''' It is evident that with such a multilayer product passing from single to double thickness can be obtained in various ways. What appears the simplest one, namely to multiply by two any sheet present in the single card, becomes at once untenable, because after all we only need one front and one 41

back sheet, even in a double card. What about doubling the number of intermediate sheets? Here again it appears as a simpler way that of substituting just one intermediate sheet with another one, of a greater thickness. In my opinion, this substitution could be made easily and without a remarkable cost increase, also because it was not at all necessary that this thicker sheet of paper had any special characteristic (it was not even required that this was a white paper). In other words, if the number of the cards in our two single and double packs is kept constant, their prices should be very similar. I am not thinking of identical prices, because there could be additional costs in the production process, including pasting and stiffening of the cards. If on the other hand a double pack is such because it contains a double number of cards, there is no reason to expect a difference in costs between one double pack and two single ones. Again, there are reasons to expect some small differences, but justifications can be imagined for changing the total price of the double pack both toward higher and lower prices with respect to the total price of two identical packs: however, the difference with respect to a 2 ratio should be low in that case. Here we approximately find a 1.7 ratio instead of 2. If you maintain that this ratio is too low and the difference with respect to the "expected" ratio of 2 is too big, I can understand this, but on the other hand the same ratio appears too high to me, with respect to what could be justified for the same number of thicker cards. A somewhat different interpretation would be thinking of a different way to make the cards, for example as naibi rimboccati. In this case too, the difference in price appears a little too high. In any kind of explanation we have probably to introduce not only the cost increase due to the material used for the cards, but also that of the production process itself. DozziNALI I had already introduced this attribute in a previous note' It was there a definition provided by me, not yet encountered in the documents of the time, but only present in the current language for items of that kind. Dozzinale simply means sold by the dozen and it may be interpreted as lowquality, mass produced. The same word can thus be applied to anything even if not actually sold by the dozen - of minor value with respect to the best items of that kind. This particular word I have then found applied at the time to naibi explicitly. If you read naibi dozzinali, they were sold by the dozen, or at least were of the same quality as any object that could be sold in that way. The great lesson of Sylvia Mann,'6) still far from widespreadly recognised 42

among collectors, was that precisely packs of this kind are the most interesting for the history of playing cards. Unfortunately, when we reach the bottom level of the production, we obtain objects that more than extraordinary products are predestined to be thrown away in a little while. It is no surprise that thousands of pages have been written on Visconti tarots, but the weakness is that anything deduced from those unique items can be misleading with respect to the ordinary channels of trionfi production and trade. FINI This attribute is at the same time the easiest to understand and the most difficult to evaluate with precision. If naibi are indicated as fini, this means that they are of a superior quality with respect to ordinary ones. How much superior? Clearly we have here a contrast between two trends. On the one hand, there may be a tendency to the best possible masterpiece made by the most skilful artist. In this direction, one can imagine an endless series of increasingly better products, whose prices could similarly increase in a continuous way up to very high limits. As a matter of fact, we see naibi on sale at greatly different prices, corresponding to a quality that could increase from ordinary to very high levels. One special pack of naibi, with the use of gold and fine painting, could be sold at the price of fifteen or more ordinary packs. This trend seems to have occurred, but only in special cases. On the other hand, we have of course the dissimilar trend to get a standard product even for the packs with improved quality, so that they could be traded with a fixed price, current in various workshops and places. In several cases, a renowned painter could regularly provide the seller with packs that were both fini and standard. PARTICULAR CASES Messi a oro, messi doro, dorati. This is a certain indication of gilded cards. What remains unclear to me is whether the gold foil covered the whole surface of the card and the picture was applied on top of it, or we had first the painting and then the gold foil on the background parts that had been left free. Another doubt that I have is whether the gold foil could be substituted by a gold paint, or even a gold-like material or paint. What I know is that goldbeater workers (battiloro) were very active at the time, and also often associated with the manufacturing of silk products. Lechorone. It seems that this attribute corresponded to the smallest contribution of gold to the painting. These were not gilded cards: gold paint (or foil) was only applied to the crowns of the personages. This small change was enough to significantly increase the price of the pack. 43

Tinte le figure. All the figures were painted. This is clear, but I am not sure of the exact meaning of this attribute, when coming to the detail. First, it is unclear to me whether for figures only the court cards were intended or all of the cards. Second, I am uncertain whether packs without this attribute were either printed without any painting, or just painted in a simplified way with respect to these. AVANTAGIATI This attribute is not easy to understand, even though the word "advantage" is in any case connected with it. First of all, some preliminary facts must be examined: in the language of nowadays, no goods on sale are marked as "avvantaggiati" any longer. It is an obsolete word. When this attribute was applied to objects on sale, this did not only occur for naibi. I have read of other goods offered in the "avantagiati" version. We can discuss, with the help of dictionaries and common sense, what exactly this attribute could indicate. The understanding becomes rather hard, because the connected "advantage" could be of various kinds. A possibility is that the attribute was seen from the point of view of the purchasers: you have an advantage in buying these specimens, typically because they are offered at a reduced price. This could be associated with a slightly inferior quality, or to particular conditions of sale for items of the same quality. In this case, we should find a reduction, however little, of the mean prices of these packs, which is contrary to the available evidence. The interpretation that appears to be more likely is thus connected with an "advantage" present in the given pack — and here it becomes easy to imagine a somewhat better quality. Even this kind of advantage, however, could assume several forms. If we include other goods in the search of its meaning, we find that it could also correspond to items of greater dimension, larger shape. This meaning is hardly associated with our naibi, for which we already had such attributes as piccoli, mezzani, and grandi. In my opinion, some "improvement" on the shape of the pack is implied, such as with some additional cards, with a more careful production, with special paper, and so on. However, I admit that the easiest way to interpret this attribute is to consider it as a—nobody knows how significant— variation of the fini attribute: typically a better drawing and/or painting. Only if one is searching (as I am) for some sort of trionfi before this name became used, it is possible to see them already present here, but this may be a kind of mirage. RIMBOCHATI The attribute rimbochati (at present, rimboccati) can be understood with 44

the help of two independent items. The first, their price, is very important. As a matter of fact these packs appear to have been sold cheaper than usual packs. This fact is enough to let us exclude some simple alternative explanations. The second item is represented by the objects for which the same attribute, and the correspondent verb, are still used nowadays. Rimboccare ("to tuck-up" in my dictionary) is mainly used for the bed. If you have suffered from bad dreams and your blankets and bedspreads are in disorder, it will be fine if someone tucks your bed clothes up. Similar cases may be rolled up sleeves, turned up trousers, tucked up skirts. Now, with both elements working together it seems to me that the solution is one and only one. If we have two packs, one "simple" and the second "rolled up", it is the latter that we expect to be more expensive. In our case, however, the contrary occurs, and my interpretation is that these rimboccati cards had already been used and then treated, instead of being thrown out, as second-hand items that could merely be sold again with a new larger back sheet folded around the edges of the old front one. A FORME This attribute immediately reminds us of the woodblocks used for producing the playing cards. They were usually precisely called forme. In this case, however, what is for me rather hard to admit is the absence of this attribute for most of the naibi encountered. At the time, I suppose that the making of cards without the use of blocks had disappeared from any current production. On reading the entries in the lists of items sold, it could appear that, on the contrary, the packs made with woodblocks still were a minority of the production. This interpretation, however, could be easier for me if the date were at least a half century earlier. I would prefer, for the moment, to suppose that this attribute was usually unexpressed. DA IMPERATORI; OTTO IMPERATORI I have not yet found this attribute among those recorded in Florence for naibi. This particular way of mentioning some Florentine packs is known from a few purchases of Florentine cards acquired for the court of Ferrara. It is thus possible that a pack that in Florence did not require a special attribute, did so when imported into other towns. The meaning of this attribute is better understandable than usual: emperors are explicitly implied. It is not tenable that these packs were so called because they were of a such superior quality that they could be made not only for a king but for someone at an even higher level. This superior social place could be better related to additional cards in a 45

pack, where certainly kings and very probably queens were already present. What about a pack provided with such additional cards? In my opinion, we are moving toward a trionfi pack. In one reference, we obtain the additional information of eight emperors. This is somewhat surprising, because eight is a number that is already high for kings: to get eight kings together is already a task that doubles their common presence in a card pack. The simplest explanation that I can find for the number of eight emperors is to imagine two emperors per suit, either a young and an old emperor or maybe better an emperor and an empress. I say the simplest explanation just because I feel some reluctance in admitting that no explanation can be found. The only pack in which we find additional emperors has only one of them .° Now, as for additional cards, eight may be too many, if referred to emperors, but one appears to be too little to provide a new attribute of imperatori to a naibi pack. I have the impression - but nothing more than that - that some Florentine packs had additional figures that were not fully understood in other towns. Another possible explanation is that this pack was a "simple" one as for the number and kind of cards, but it had some peculiarity that allowed it to be accepted by card players, who were addicted to games of the Kaiserspiel family, using at the same time a standard pack and special names of personages associated to some of those cards. A TRIONFI

I never encountered this name used as an attribute for naibi before now. It has been a praiseworthy discovery of Thierry Depaulis''' to find its presence in the Diaries of Giusto Giusti.(9) This attribute has a huge historical importance. People exist who think of tarot as something of a much higher level with respect to simple playing cards. Something that could be offered to cultivated persons as a kind of spiritual tool. Only a few of the tarot experts are ready to admit that it originated instead within the current environment of playing cards. Now we have the proof of that origin. Naibi a trionfi exactly explains that trionfi only were a particular kind of playing cards, a version of naibi, to be similarly used by common card players. I am not yet certain of the exact date of the origin of trionfi. The first naibi packs that we now find indicated with that attribute in 1440 could only be among the first that had got this name. One can imagine that some kind of trionfi existed earlier, without this special attribute, or name. Now, after naibi a trionfi, we are ready to accept a further change, from the 46

attribute to the name itself. For these cards, the name of naibi is no longer necessary and the trionfi attribute quickly becomes the name itself of this naibi pack. Some experts may expect that these extraordinary packs were much more expensive than common naibi. Even at the customs of Rome, carte and trionfi were taxed separately."' Here we find instead that in the middle of the 15th century ordinary trionfi existed on sale at about the same price as ordinary cards of a similar quality. If one hunts for trionfi significantly more expensive than ordinary naibi, the hope remains to find prices corresponding to that situation in previous years. Of course, I am speaking of Florence—in other towns it is possible that a "simple" pack of trionfi was not so cheap, or even did not yet exist. PRICES The price of a pack of naibi cannot be basically considered as an attribute, in the same sense as all of the attributes previously indicated. Recently, however, I found naibi mostly quoted in account books of sellers, and reading here the sale price of a given pack corresponds to knowing a most significant of its "attributes". Actually, price is something more than that. On the basis of the different prices, we can obtain such quantitative evaluation that no common attribute can provide: a "usual" attribute simply gives us a black and white condition, whereas with prices we get countless possible nuances. If I insert the price among the attributes, this means that I use it in a particular way. Typically, I check whether the price is higher or lower with respect to what may be considered as the standard price of a pack. This simple additional "attribute" is usually enough to solve doubts about the meaning of another attribute provided together. Your pack is mentioned as X and you are uncertain about the meaning of this X (as it has been discussed above for avantaggiati for instance): simply with the help of the corresponding price you can eliminate some alternative explanations. Different from all the other attributes, the price "attribute" has the additional advantage that it is always present, at least whenever card packs are individually recorded in the account books that I have examined. CONCLUSION Playing cards were called naibi in Florence for a long time. Often, one or another attribute was added to this name, in order to better identify to which kind of playing cards they actually corresponded. In the present work I have collected and discussed the attributes that I am finding in my present study. As a general comment, it can be added that only few of them were already known, and that the exact meaning of some of them remains rather uncer47

tain. Further research may provide more precise explanations... and further attributes. 25.02.2012 NOTES (1) Franco Pratesi, The Playing-Card, Vol. XVII, No 3 (1989), pp. 107-112. (2) See Chap. 4: "Naibi on sale", p. 27. (3) Thierry Depaulis, personal communication, 30.01.2012. (4) See http://trionfi.com/paro-paio-para (5) Jean-Michel Mehl, Les jeux au royaume de France, du XIlle au debut du XVIe siecle. Paris, Fayard, 1990, pp. 159-164. (6) Sylvia Mann, Collecting Playing Cards. London, Bell, 1966. (7) Ross Sinclair Caldwell, The Playing Card, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2010) 35-56. (8) Thierry Depaulis, personal communication, 31.01.2012; http:// forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773&sd=d&start=20; http://tarotforum.net/ showthread.php?t=171059. (9) Nerida Newbigin, in Letteratura Italiana Antica, III (2002), pp. 41-246. (10) Esch 2007.

48

POSTSCRIPT Let me comment again on the scempio-doppio question discussed above. Now, I see my reasoning at the time as the result of a kind of mirage. A possible justification is that we have no firm evidence of the use of the 78-card Tarot pack in Florence, where the name itself of tarocco has hardly been documented. Everybody knows that the typical Florentine tarot pack was the 97-card Minchiate, possibly known as Germini earlier on. It has not yet been exactly extablished which was the trionfi pack originally used in Florence, and if and when it really changed into the Minchiate pack. Whereas Germini and Minchiate have always been recognised as the product of a time well into the 16th century, I happened to find Minchiate mentioned in several Florentine documents around 1470. Now, we have here an axiom that sounds like: "one must not set limits to providence". To me, even earlier times are acceptable, provided that we can support any such suggestion with a precise document. The scempio-doppio feature cannot be considered as a satisfactory piece of evidence. At the time of writing the preceding article, I held an interpretation of a naibi pack as being formed by 48 cards, and the original Minchiate pack as made of 96, instead of 97. Such being the situation, when reading about card packs that were either scempi or doppi, my immediate conclusion was that there could exist a correspondence between scempi and naibi on one hand, and doppi and Minchiate on the other. I was aware that this suggestion was hard or impossible for the experts to accept. However, no different convincing interpretation came to my mind. Now, I have another interpretation for scempi and doppi, and am thus ready to forget about any indication of Minchiate being present at the time. Now I imagine (a second mirage?) that a scempio pack has only a design on the face of each card, whereas a doppio pack would have an additional design pictured on the backs of the cards. Something similar to the rimbochati attribute. One may at first suppose that having either a uniform back, or a back uniformly pictured, corresponds to a rather similar situation; however, the problem is just in the very uniform way that is necessary for decorating the back of the cards. It is of course to be avoided that any card can be identified by small differences in its back. This was a significant difference only during a given period of time. Later on, we can easily suppose that only doppi packs were produced, with no further necessity to designate them as doppi. 07.10.2012 49

Fig. 3 - Ricordanze books of the silk-dealers. AOIF 12794, 12795, 127946.

Fig. 6 - Entries in silkdealers' book. AOIF, 12796, "Ricordanze C", 1446-1457 (1453) L 113r.

50

6 1439-1454 - NAIBI SOLD BY SILK-DEALERS INTRODUCTION This note reports some new data from a series of researches that I am performing the in Archivio dell'Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence (AOIF). There is no need to repeat here what I have already described about this archive in a previous note' There is however something that distinguishes this research from the others. The particular sellers encountered here no longer belong to the merciai, but are two associated silk-dealers, Lorenzo di Bartolo and Matteo di Zanobi. This does not greatly change the situation: silk-dealers could offer some "additional" goods in their workshops too, and playing cards could also be acquired there. Another distinguishing fact for this research is that this particular source has been indicated to me by Thierry Depaulis,''' who found the corresponding quotation in an article' where several unpublished documents on trades and contracts were discussed involving renowned painters and sculptors of the time. This has been the determining indication, because for the moment I was searching only among the merciai account books. I had planned to check also some account books of silk-dealers (more frequent in AOIF, especially for later times), but only after those of merciai. The suggestion by Thierry Depaulis has thus introduced a significant change in the schedule of my researches, and he deserves part of the credit for the results obtained. Let me get by without any further comment on the fact, already mentioned, that I have been led to this Florentine research by Thierry Depaulis, a historian living in Paris, and by Dario A. Covi, a professor of the University of Louisville, Kentucky. THEACCOUNT BOOKS Seven account books of the series, "Entrata e uscita" (1437-1461), can be found in the inventory of the AOIF (4) for the association of two silk-dealers, Lorenzo di Bartolo and Matteo di Zanobi. As usual, these books belong to different kinds, among which I had already found that of "Ricordanze" to be the most useful for us. Here, more than in the other parts, long lists of the individual items of a given purchase can be found. Our playing cards are 51

items that could easily be sold without being mentioned, among many other more important goods, silks in this case. There is only one of the seven books, which exactly covers the time interval indicated by Covi. (3) This is book No. 12793, titled "Uscita C" (17/10/1446 - 02/11/1461). I just leafed through this book, postponing a detailed study of its contents to later times, and focused instead my attention to the following series of three books of "Ricordanze", which appear to have been compiled one after another: No. 12794 "Ricordanze A" (01/03/1437 17/11/1441), cc. 96, No. 12795 "Ricordanze B" (27/06/1441 - 05/10/1446), cc. 142, No. 12796 "Ricordanze C" (12/10/1446 - 23/03/1457), cc. 136. I have also leafed through the three remaining books: further data can be extracted from them as well, and a sort of continuation of this note is likely to appear in the next months, if I should have time and patience enough. Let me limit myself now to describing and discussing the information on naibi sales recorded in the three "Ricordanze" books indicated. THESALESOF NAIBI Quite a bit of information can be deduced from the list of sales of these silkdealers. First of all, it is easy to ascertain that these were different kinds of sellers with respect to merciai. It is true that we could also find playing cards on sale, but the choice of goods offered was more limited than in the case of a merciaio store. Most sales were really concerned with silks; if other items were present, usually they only corresponded to a small part of the sale. If I should mention something more frequent than usual, besides the silk goods, I would say knives and penknives. Other "unusual" goods were also sold, such as cymbals or ivory combs. Understandably, the greatest difference with respect to a merciaio store is the almost complete absence here of ironware and tools. The sales of playing cards had here a particular character. A few merchants, among those who acquired silks at this workshop, sometimes inserted in their lists also playing cards. It seems that we have found here the starting point corresponding to what had been found in Rome:(c) we obtained there a list of merchants who mainly imported wool and silks; sometimes, playing cards were present in the set of goods passing the customs. The size of trade here in Florence was however much less: makers and sellers of this kind were called setaioli minori, different from setaioli maggiori, with much greater goods and money exchanges. Naibi only were a little part of the whole trade: here, nobody comes to the shop to acquire just naibi. Moreover, merchants who acquire naibi are few. I believe that anybody in Florence had better suppliers, whenever he wanted to acquire naibi packs, to begin with the makers themselves. We are now ready to analyse the three following Tables, which I have 52

extracted from the three Ricordanze books. For reducing the size of the Tables, I have used many abbreviations: their meaning is explained in the corresponding list. The records have been listed in ten columns: 1) the folio in the book, 2) the date, in the format yyyy/mm/dd, 3) the number of packs sold (using packs as unit, even in the few cases in which they were sold by the dozen), 4) the attribute indicating the card size, 5) any attribute defining the kind of cards, 6) the unit price in soldi, 7) the makers, 8) the purchasers, 9) the place where the purchasers were active, 10) any additional information or comment ("note"). As f o r prices, t h e money system w a s t h e Lira /soldo/denaro (Pound/shilling/pence) with 12 denari making 1 soldo and 20 soldi making 1 Lira. I have reduced all these prices to soldi (s.), and this explains the many cases of decimal values, typically corresponding to the presence in the price of d.4 or d.8, namely 4/12 or 8/12 of ls. respectively. Playing cards are currently called naibi here, as usual, but the more modern word of carte can often be found for them, with its normal spelling of charte. Whereas naibi has but one meaning, the use of the carte name may be misleading, because it was attributed to paper sheets as well. In the case of 2 March 1442, the usage of the "pair" unit may help: if you have one pair that costs twice the unitary prices, as here, this is probably two paper sheets, because one pair of naibi corresponds to just one unit. It is however possible that there is a mistake in this record, because new paper sheets were not sold by pairs, but rather as reams, and carte dipinte or painted cards, usually of religious character, are not present in other trades here. The sales of cards are not constant with time; in some years we find many packs sold, less in other years, and not at all in 1441, 1448, 1452 and 1453. The probability that playing cards were sold also in those years is nevertheless high; again, more than a question of sales, it seems to be a question of the corresponding records — especially for the last two years mentioned, we observe less and more concise records for other goods too. NAIBI PURCHASERS Particularly remarkable is the fact that the number and kind of buyers of playing cards were only a small fraction of those recorded in the books. Most of them were silk-dealer colleagues. Cards can be found as acquired together with silk and other goods within rather long lists of goods that were purchased by a given merchant, often to be further sold far from Florence. In the course of time, we encounter the following purchasers: "Antonio di Brunetto e Brunetto suo figliuolo," "Bernardo d'Uguccione Comp. merchatante," 53

12794 FOL DATE P A C K S S I Z E K I N D S O L D I MAKER BUYER PLACE NOTE 36v 1439/09/11 " " " " 47r 1440/02/06 50v 1440/03/23 II

14 2 11 5 3 1 6 6 2 1 1

" " " 53r 1440/04/08 8 " 9 " 7 56v 1440/05/20 6 " 6 57v 1440/05/30 2 " 4 " 3 ? 64v 1440/09/12 5 2 4 " " 10 " 8 " 7 70v 1440/11/09 4 " 2 " 6 1440/11/22 2 " 1

PIC PIC

PIC G R A MEZ MZL MEZ MEZ PCI G R A P I C M E Z P I C P C I P I C M E Z PIC PCI MEZ

P C I M E Z P I C M E Z D O

1.08 N I A 4.33 P I E N I A 9 A D D N I A 10 N I A DOP 2.17 N I A DOR 3 3 • G E R 2.67 • L A P RIM 2.17 L A P RIM 4.5 P I E L A P 10 A N T L A P 5.5 A N T L A P 1 2 ANT GID GID 7 ANT 6

GID 9 . 6 7 A N T N I C 5 . 3 3 A N T N I C 5 . 5 LAP ANT ? 2 . 1 0 * LAP LAP 4 P I E N I C N I C DOP FIN 4.83 FOR 2.67 N I C FOR SCE 1.08 N I C DOR 9.33 A N T + P I E N I C 10.33 N I C 4.33 PIE NIC 6.5 PIE NIC FOR RIM 1.67 NIC 6 . 6 7 * P I E N I C R N I C

FIE " " " C I N " a PRA PRA PRA PRA PRA PRA PRA b FLO FLO PRA PRA PRA c FLO FLO FLO FLO FLO FLO CIN FLO FLO FLO FLO d FLO

Notes and comments to the Tables a - 1 pajo di najbi messi doro grandi per Lls.13 dachordo. b - 7 pain di najbi dj piccjno per s.6 it paio. c - 4 paja di najbj piccholi purgati(?) e 3 paja di najbj mezanj purghati per s. quattordici d. otto tuttj. d - In this case, the average price is for the 2+1 different packs. e - The cost is twice the unitary price. f - Apparently this entry has been corrected with the two following ones. g - Charte di piU ragioni, cards of several kinds, with total price agreed. 54

12795 FOL DATE P A C K S S I Z E K I N D S O L D I MAKER 34v 1442/03/02 1 G R A CAR 5 x 2 A D 55v 1442/10/05 1 2 M E Z CAR FOR 1 . 8 3 A N 56r " 1 2 M E Z FOR 1.83 G A 105r 1444/09/12 6 G R A CAR 1 0 " 4 P I C (CAR) 6 115r 1445/01/23 4 ( CAR 10) ADD " 3 PIC CAR 6 ANT " 1 GRA CAR TRI 25 117r 1445/04/17 2 M E Z 1 0 5 P I C DOP 6 A N T 122r 1445/07/12 4 P I C D O P FIN 1 0 A D

BUYER PLACE NOTE B e B ANC A ANC? GAA A N C ? GAA A N C ? MAG A N C ? MAG A N C ? MAG A N C ? MAG A N C ? MAG A N C ? B -

t

12796 FOL DATE P A C K S S I Z E K I N D S O L D I MAKER BUYER PLACE NOTE 06v 1446/11/14 6 G R A CAR 1 0 CIA A N C " 1 M E Z CAR 6 GIA A N C 11v 1447/01/07 4 M I X 8 * G I S ANC g 14r 1447/03/02 4 G R A CAR 10 ADD PIG A N C " 2 11 ANS PIG A N C " 8 P I C 6 PIG A N C 61r 1450/01/22 2 T R I 1 2 * B E R h 87r 1451/0/513 2 T R I 10.67* LEO V E N 1 ,, 4 A D S " V E N 90r 1451/07/22 4 P I C DOP 5 . 5 P I E ROB P R G " 4 D O P 1 0 A N S ROB P R G 94r 1451/12/04 6 G R A F I N 8 R O B PRG 6 M E Z CAR 5 R O B PRG 115r 1454/03/18 14 PIC 4 MAB PIA 1 " 6 MEZ 6 PIA " 6 PIC TRI 9.5 PIA " 2 12 PAP PIA " 2 PIC 8.33 PAP PIA -

h - Trionfi da gugliare (?). i - Dise per portare a Vinegia. j - One reads s.48 a pair, but must be for a dozen. CIN Cincluzglie (?) (?) uncertain spelling of the previous word. " price for single packs, deduced from the total price indicated as agreed upon. the word inside can be read, but appears as deleted 55

ABBREVIATIONS SIZE GRA grandi MEZ mezzani MZL mezzanelli PCI piccini PIC piccoli KIND CAR naibi recorded as charte or carte (not as naibi) DOP doppi DOR dorati, messi a oro FIN f i n i FOR a forma MIX more kinds together RIM rimboccati SCE scempi TRI trionfi MAKER(S) ADD Antonio di Dino ANS Antonio di Simone ANT Antonio MAB Matteo Ballerini PAP Paparello (lacopo di Poggino di Luca) PIE Piero Piccino PLA (place) ANC Ancona FIE fiera de la Vemia FLO Florence

PRA Prato PRG Perugia VEN Vinegia BUYER(S) ADB Antonio di Brunetto e Brunetto suo figliuolo BER Bernardo d'Uguccione Comp. merchatante GER Gerardo d i Pagholo e comp. Setaiuoli GIA Giannino d'Antonio gharzone di Giano merciaio da Bergamo che usa per la Marca GID Giovanni di Datto (?) e comp. chorregiari GIS Giannino di Simone merciaio da Berghamo che usa per la Romagna LAP Lapo di Curino (?) speziale a Prato LEO Leonardo di Tomaso forzerinaio MAG Martino di Giovanni di Pellegrino da Bergamo merciai NIA Nicholo di Nardo e Antonio di Iachopo merciai NIC Nicholajo di Chalvano setaiolo in piazza dei Signori PIA Pier Antonio d i ser Barnaba e comp. merciai PIG Piero di Giovanni di Pellegrino da Berghamo c h i a mato Barchetto merciaio sta a Ancona ROB Ruberto d i ser Bartolomeo da Perugia e comp. mercatanti

"Gerardo di Pagholo e comp. Setaiuoli," "Giannino d'Antonio gharzone di Giano merciaio da Bergamo che usa per la Marca," "Giovanni di Datto(?) e comp. chorregiari," "Giannino di Simone merciaio da Berghamo che usa per la Romagna," "Lapo di Curino(?) speziale a Prato," "Leonardo di Tomaso forzerinaio," "Martino di Giovanni di Pellegrino da Bergamo merciai," "Nicholo di Nardo e Antonio di Iachopo merciai," "Nicholajo di Chalvano setaiolo in piazza dei Signori," "Pier Antonio di ser Barnaba e comp. merciai," 56

"Piero di Giovanni di Pellegrino da Berghamo chiamato Barchetto merciaio sta a Ancona," "Ruberto di ser Bartolomeo da Perugia e comp. mercatanti." One family of purchasers is present more than once and may be taken as a useful example. This family comes from Bergamo and is often indicated with the name of the grandfather, Pellegrino, or maybe with a family name Pellegrini— in each case we find as purchaser one of his sons or grandchildren, or one of their boys, as Giannino d'Antonio. At the time, Bergamo, like Milano and Brescia in the same area, was a typical supplier of ironware, but these merchants had moved the centre of their activity to Ancona. Moreover, they are indicated as active not only in that town, but in the whole Marche region; one of them (if he did not belong to another family from Bergamo) is indicated as active in Romagna. One of their purchases is particularly indicative: these goods were taken to be traded in a fair, fiera della Vernia (?). Following the purchases of this family provides a more complete and correct view of the situation, with respect to what may be deduced simply from the Tables extracted from the book. As a matter of fact, we find many more purchases by this family than recorded in the Tables. This has two different reasons: the first is that sometimes they buy a more or less long list of items, without any card packs included. This is not too misleading for us, since we are just interested in their purchases of playing cards: if they come and buy nothing of this kind, it is exactly the same for us, as if they had not entered the shop at all. There is however a second reason, which does not allow us to analyse these data in a statistically reliable way: sometimes, the list of the goods acquired is not reported at all. We find the date, the names, and the total amount of the purchase; it could even contain card packs, but we cannot deduce anything about their number, kind, and price. Something similar I had already indicated for Puri n:erciai, whose account book became more concise for the last months."' Something similar could have occurred for any seller and any purchaser: the account books were kept for balancing purchases and sales: it was essential to record the overall value of the goods, but not the single items traded. Other purchasers come from different places. Ruberto or Roberto di ser Bartolomeo is a merchant from Perugia, Lapo from Prato. We have thus established that most naibi packs were purchased for a further trade, far from Florence. Possible explanations are that more suitable dealers existed in Florence for acquiring cards for local use, or even that any sale for local use was forbidden. (We have to remember that only in 1450 four card games, including trionfi, were allowed here.) 57

The presence of one purchaser is however enough to let the latter hypothesis become hardly tenable: Nicolao di Galvano is a fellow silk-dealer, active in the very centre of Florence. His location is stated as in front of Palazzo dei Signori, now Palazzo Vecchio. Moreover, in all the cases, in which the place of origin or activity of the purchaser is not indicated, it may be assumed to be Florence. CARDMAKERS (MAKER) We obtain useful information on cardmakers. Some packs on sale in part were directly designated with the name of the maker. This was not the case for the cheapest cards, but it became increasingly the rule in correspondence to higher prices. This was not however an exclusive property of the most expensive packs sold for s.10 and more; also middle-priced packs at around a half of those prices can be found with the name of their maker. Evidently, these painters did not only produce costly packs on demand, but provided the sellers with some "standard" supply of their continuous production. It is somewhat surprising that the number of makers that we find quoted in the course of about fifteen years is relatively small, as follows: Antonio, Antonio di Dino, Antonio di Simone, Matteo Ballerini, Paparello (lacopo di Poggino di Luca), Piero Piccino. It is possible that another maker is mentioned, CIN Cinchaglie(?). The problem here is that on the one hand I am not sure to have read correctly this name, possibly a nickname; on the other hand, it is also uncertain whether this name could instead be attributed to some quality of the cards. Antonio, when quoted without family or father name, could be identical with one of the two following ones, or else with Antonio di Giovanni di Ser Francesco, or with Antonio di Luca, known from the 1430 and 1427 Catasto records, respectively. Piero is sometimes present here (for ex. 12794, c.64v) with the nickname of Piccino and thus we cannot be sure whether we are in the presence of one or two Piero makers. Known from the literature is Piero di Donnino di Giovanni, and it is hard to say at present how many Pieros were involved in the production of playing cards at the time. Surprisingly, most of the makers recorded in these books were unknown to us. On the other hand, we find no trace of other renowned painters of naibi, such as Giovanni di ser Giovanni, or Filippo di Marco di Simone. The impression is that for suppliers, as well as for purchasers, our silk-dealers had adopted some privileged channels for their trade. TRIONFI Most readers may consider particularly interesting the information on trionfi, in view of the relative early times for their occurrence on sale. 58

The first sale in which I have found the word trionfi mentioned here is on 23 January 1445 to Martino di Giovanni. First we find a line of text with "4 paia di charte d'Antonio di Dino a 10s. paio". To this line no total price is associated and, even if it has not been deleted, I believe that this line was actually replaced by the two following ones: "3 paia di charte pichole d'Antonio per s.6 paio montano L.-s.18", and "1 paio di trionfi di charta grandi per s.25 paio montano L.1s.5". Of course s.25 is much more than s.6 of the other packs. However, we have two variations to take into account, from piccoli to grandi and from carte to trionfi, in either case with about a doubling of the price. Instead of the s.40 that we could deduce from the "mean" sale of 4 packs at s.10, we only have 3 additional soldi to pay. Interesting is the explicit mention of carta to be intended here as paper; this appears to me justifiable by either of the following explanations: trionfi made with paper, as if other kinds, typically using vellum, were also common at the time; trionfi di carta, as the other frequent indication of trionfi da giocare, in order not to confound them with other triumphal objects or occurrences—I prefer the latter explanation. Then we find two packs of trionfi sold on 22 January 1450 to Bernardo. In this case trionfi have an attribute that I could not read with certainty "2 paia di trionfi da gugliare (?) a s.24 tutti dachordo—L.1s.4". The price of 12 soldi for a pack has been agreed upon. As soon as I became convinced that the attribute could be read as da guchare, giuchare, giocare— which is indeed a rather common attribute for trionfi cards—I have asked two experts for assistance and confirmation: they have both rejected my reading and left me with an unknown word to explain! The following sale of 13 May 1451 has some further useful information. The purchaser is Leonardo di Tomasoforzerinaio and he interestingly informs us that these goods he buys are to be forwarded to Venice: "dice per portare a Vinegia". The leading role of the Venice international market is well known, but few early Venetian documents are available on our subject. Leonardo acquires "dua paia di trionfi e 4 paia di naibi d'Antonio di Simone per tuto dachordo L. tre et s. quatro". Namely, the total price has been agreed upon, in a way that does not allow us to derive the exact price of trionfi. Also the indication of either piccoli or grandi is missing. Let us speculate on possible prices: if the four naibi packs were grandi, at a reasonable price of s.10 a pack of trionfi could be priced at s.12; if the four naibi packs were piccoli, at a reasonable price of s.6, a pack of trionfi could be priced at s.20 I thus suppose that the two cases indicated of s.12 and s.20 may be taken as reasonable limits for the price of these trionfi. Then we arrive at the last mention that I have found up to now, Piero 59

Antonio di ser Bernaba on 18 March 1454. "6 paio di trionfi picholi a s. nove d. 6 paio —L.2s.17." The maker is not indicated but all the packs of naibi bought together were made by Paparello; this may suggest a relatively high quality for trionfi too. Nevertheless, their unit price of s.9.5 appears rather low, even if the piccoli format has to be considered. The simplest deduction here is that the production of trionfi had already become widespread, as may be indicated also by the ratio 6 to 4 of trionfi to naibi packs acquired in this case. It must however be reminded that the packs of trionfi recorded here are still too few to allow any indubitable deduction, not to mention a statistical evaluation of prices and qualities. One conclusion appears to be possible, nevertheless: there was a greater divergence in prices between packs of "simple" naibi differently produced, than one could find between naibi and trionfi. In other words, a pack of trionfi already was a rather current pack of cards. CONCLUSION The information that I have extracted from the account books of silk-dealers is of the same kind as that derived from the merciai."' Again, playing cards are only a very small part of the trade, possibly even less important here. Moreover, it appears as a certain fact that an unknown fraction of the playing cards sold was recorded: for many purchases, the total amount was indicated without recording the single items traded. With respect to the previous note, we find here a longer time interval, covering almost fifteen years. Some useful information has been derived on the purchasers and the locations where they were active. Also a few names of cardmakers have been collected from these records, most of them unknown up to now. Alongside naibi, we find a few packs of trionfi among the items sold. These packs had prices not remarkably different from those of naibi of a similar quality; seemingly, there was a decrease of trionfi prices in the years involved. 03.03.2012 NOTES (1) See Chap. 4: "Naibi on sale", p. 27. (2) Thierry Depaulis, personal communication, 04/02/2012 (3) Covi 1978. (4) http://www.istitutodeglinnocentilt/defi/Isis?Conf./opt/defi/DefiConf/defi. (5) Esch 2007.

60

7 1452 - A DOZEN OF NAIBI DI TRIONFI INTRODUCTION This is a short note, just to communicate as soon as possible something that can support the recent discovery by Thierry Depaulis of the earliest quotation of trionfi known at present."' This new information has been found in an account book that had been indicated to me by the same historian, after an unknown article (I mean in our field) written by Dario A. Covi.(2) For a description of the Archivio dell'Ospedale degli Innocenti,''' and even of the account book in question, I can directly refer to a previous note."' There I reported and discussed a lot of new data about naibi sold by silkdealers. At present, I am near to finishing this whole research with a similar study on the naibi packs acquired by the same silk-dealers and am compiling a report on this. As stated at the beginning, this is preliminary information from that source, which seems to me more urgent to be known. 1440-1621 ENTRY As I wrote a few days ago,(5) we have recently got a new list of dates: 1440 first record of naibi a trionfi in the original Giornali by Ser Giusto Giusti; 1621 oldest extant copy by Carlo Strozzi; 2002 transcription by Nerida Newbigin; 2012 retrieval of the previous info by Thierry Depaulis."' Obviously, the most important of the dates above is 1440, the earliest date known for a game of trionfi, except the special Milanese pack introduced by Marziano. However, there is no possibility to discover the original manuscript written by Giusto Giusti. Not only. Out of the five manuscripts taken into account by Nerida Newbigin, the relevant text is only present in one and only one of them.(6' Therefore, when I wanted to check this quotation, I only could verify that the paragraph in question was really absent in three of the four manuscripts found in Florence. I could not check its absence in the fifth manuscript, kept in Paris, but this is stated to consist in just a couple of leaves, and with chronicles of a different date. I could thus check the relevant text in the only one manuscript where it is still preserved. The idiom "naibi a trionfi" is clearly readable there and can61

not have been transcribed wrongly, except the use of initial capital letters or similar small differences that have been introduced, intentionally, in the printed version. The problem is thus reduced to discuss whether this text, written in 1621, and only recently known, could exactly correspond to an original version of almost two centuries before. Of course a copyist of the 17th century could interpolate one or two words in an earlier text. I would say that this could be much more likely than the case of a writer of the 15th century interpolating a text of the 17th— I have inserted this illogical example, because for me the probability in our special case is practically the same in both directions. Actually, nobody in the 17th century could think here of naibi a trionfi, if he did not have this outdated and forgotten expression under his own eyes. In conclusion, I feel certain that the unknown writing of 1440 exactly corresponded to what has been kept in the 1621 copy. If however the same virtual comparison is extended to the whole paragraph, something may have been different in the two versions; namely, the price. In my opinion—but may be wrong—the word ducati was not written in the original as a whole word, the same as we read in the copy. I rather imagine that the usual symbol for L. was present there, a price of L.4 s.10 (or of s.90, as I am recently accustomed to write the costs of our card packs), is already high enough for an artistic pack, ordered as an individual item of finer quality and also painted with the coats of arms of the beneficiary. The question is however worthy of further discussion, remembering some prices of Florentine cards from the Este archives: "nel 1434 it Marchese Nicola III faceva pagare a Ser Ristoro e compagni in Firenze sette fiorini d'oro prezzo di due mazzi di carticelle mandatogli a Ferrara" (Campori 1874). I feel further data are needed before a definite solution can be found. What follows may be included in that discussion too. It does not come from 1440, but one dozen years is a much shorter time interval with respect to two centuries, as indicated above. THE DOCUMENT The entry in question is transcribed below. The handwriting is easier than average to read and naibi di trionfi can be read here. It is not likely that this expression should instead be read naibi a trionfi, but the form and the meaning is practically the same. Here is the quotation. (A photo of the handwritten text will be published in The Playing-Card, Vol. 41, No. 2.) "Sabato adi 29 di luglio 114521 1...1 Antonio di Dino fa i naibi L. otto e s. otto sono per dodici paia di naibi di trionfi a s. xiiii paio porta Dino contanti L . viii s. lviii - missingr (7) 62

The fact that the sum of s.8 is not reported near the L.8 on the right border is something that is not common, but is not very rare as well. On the basis of other data, a unit price of s.14 for a pack of trionfi in that year is not surprising at all. Of course, it is impossible to extrapolate in a reliable way from here towards earlier times, for which records of trionfi and their prices have not yet been found. However, even before trionfi appeared on the market, there was a rather unexpected great variation in the prices of naibi, depending on their quality. The most expensive among naibi packs could easily pass the value of s.20. CONCLUSION I have discussed here just one entry recorded in one account book of silkdealers, already described,'" and which will soon be the source of new data on the trade of naibi and trionfi in Florence in the 15th century. Its date in July 1452 is not too early, a dozen years later with respect to the similar mention, written in the Giornali of Ser Giusto Giusti."' A particular advantage of this new document, and its date, is that it supports the idiom naibi a trionfi, or the alternative form naibi di trionfi, which we only knew directly from the copy of 1621 by Carlo Strozzi. The special value of these expressions is that they explicitly, and definitely, insert the appearance of trionfi into the mainstream of playing cards. 02.04.2012

NOTES (1) Thierry Depaulis, personal communication, 01.02.2012; http:/ /forum. tarothistory. com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773 (2) Thierry Depaulis, personal communication, 04.02.2012 ; Covi 1978. (3) http://www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it/defi/Isis?Conf=/opt/defi/DefiConf/ defi.sys seeChap.4: "Naibi onsale", p. 27. (4) See Chap. 6: "Naibi sold by silk-dealers", p. 51. (5) "Germini among other games", http://trionfi.com/germini-1517-1519 (6) BNCF, Fondo Nazionale, II, II, 127. (7) AOIF, 12793, "Uscita C", (1446-1461), 1452,1.64r.

63

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8 1431-1460 - NAIBI ACQUIRED BY SILK-DEALERS 1. INTRODUCTION This note can be read independently of any other, but to associate it with a previous one can be useful;") actually, most of the subjects encountered here are well know to anybody, who remembers what has been found in the former note. The archive studied is still the AOIF (2) with its useful inventory of the account books kept there,(3) including the "Estranei" section of our interest. Not only this, but the books studied here still belonged to the same associated silk-dealers, Lorenzo di Bartolo and Matteo di Zanobi. As acknowledged in the previous note mentioned, one of these books had been indicated to me by Thierry Depaulis,(4) on the basis of an article by Dario A. Covi,(') already utilized in another note of mine.16) Most of the goods traded in the store are of course silks, but our specific interest is focused on a secondary part of the trade, playing cards, which seemingly have nothing to do with silks. In my previous note I had collected much data on naibi, taking them out from the long lists of various goods sold by our silk-dealers. Now I intend to go on. It is essential however to understand the special emphasis of this continuation. Indeed, I have gathered here a very rich set of information on playing cards traded, which goes beyond a mere prolongation of the former set. Instead of a continuation, we should speak here of the other face of the trade: in the former study, I described all the card packs that I found sold by the silk-dealers; here, I intend to report information on all the cards packs that I have found recorded as acquired by the same silk-dealers, in the same years. We are now ready to inspect these records directly, as collected in the following tables. The abbreviations used should already be familiar to readers of the previous notes. The date is in the format yyyy/mm/dd. All prices are reduced to soldi (s.), changing into non-existent cents their fraction in denari (d.), one of which was 1/12 of 1 soldo. (This explains the frequent appearance of n.67 or n.33 or similar approximate values.) An asterisk indicates that the price is an average value derived from the total amount recorded; it may be present for a single pack too, in case its price has been agreed upon. 65

There are several words that I am not sure to have read correctly and they are indicated as Name[?]. This should not be discouraging for further studies in these books: actually the handwriting is here more legible than average! 2. PRELIMINARY DATA 2.1 From book 12791 - "Entrata e Uscita" A This book (71seems to be the first of a series of three similar books, but actually is of a different kind. Its contents are actually various: initially we have about thirty leaves of receipts, then four leaves beginning with number 25 with entries of the same kind as the following books, then many further pages of expenses for production, and similar matters. In other words, this whole book is interesting for us only due to its leaves 25 to 29, and it is from there that I have deduced the following table. 12791 - Entrata e Uscita A FOL 25r

25v 26v

27v 28r

28v 6v

DATE PACKS SIZE 1431/12/29 2 PIC 1432/01/12 12 PIC 1432/01/18 12 PIC 1432/01/22 12 2 1432/01/31 6 PIC ,, 1 PIC ,, 6 PIC 1432/03/11 6 1432/03/11 12 1432/03/15 15 PIC ,, 6 1432/03/22 6 PIC 1437/11/02 4 -

KIND RIM RIM RIM RIM RIM RIM RIM RIM -

SOLDI 6 0.83 0.83 0.83 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 4 3 20

SUPPLIER Uno fanciullo Grosso[?] Grosso[?] Grosso[?] fa i naibi Luigi rivenditore Luigi Luigi Luigi Uno fanciullo Uno fanciullo Luigi Grosso[?] Luigi Simone di Ser Antonio Fazi

The corresponding dates are earlier than the limits indicated for the book and also earlier than most of the other records that I could study up to now - even the suppliers are not the same as we find later on. Luigi rivenditore certainly was not a cardmaker, but just a small retailer. Grosso[?] is thus the only maker recorded here; we have not yet encountered him elsewhere, and even his name, or nickname, is uncertain. Uno fanciullo, a boy, as a supplier of goods, is a rather frequent occurrence; unfortunately for us, any such indication does not help to trace the makers of the products. The last entry corresponds to a purchase of four packs of naibi from 66

Simone di Ser Antonio Fazi; his profession is not indicated, but we can assume him to be a cardmaker. It is unavoidable for us to connect him with Antonio di Simone, maybe his son, whom we find later on as a maker of expensive cards. Important is that we find here his family name too, and it has been possible to find him in the 1427 Catasto, the known series of books with much information on Florentine families.(8) I could read there that he was 33 and lived together with his wife, 25, and a third person; I was certain I would find his child Antonio di Simone recorded together with his parents - but unfortunately for us (and maybe for him) the third person of the family was instead by then... his mother-in-law. 2.2 "Uscita" B and C books Compared to the others, the account book already examined is earlier and different. First let me first describe what the following books that I have studied are. The main sources of the following data are books 12792'°' and 12793(10); the latter one is precisely the book that was suggested by Covi as a useful source of data for naibi trade. These books are "Uscita" books, where expenses and purchases are recorded day after day; obviously, we find playing cards inserted along with the most various goods, mostly of silks trade. It is possible that a single entry for a cardmaker corresponds to several kinds of packs, and sometimes we find only the total cost. In these cases, sometimes I used an average cost (with an asterisk); in other cases, instead of the unit price, I have inserted the total amount denoted by a "t" after the soldi number. Often the cardmaker brings his packs in person to the store. In many cases, however, the packs are recorded as brought by a child or a boy of the workshop, and sometimes it becomes difficult to recognise the name of the artist involved or even that the entry corresponds to playing cards. In a few cases, the price recorded corresponds to a part of the value of the cards, and it is impossible to deduce the unit price of the packs. The same occurs when the supply consists in different kinds of packs, without any further specification on the relative amounts. I have inserted a question mark in the columns of packs and/or soldi when it was impossible to deduce the actual values. Sometimes we find the same cardmakers recorded for trades different from playing cards. Due to some limits - of space, time, and principally of my patience - I have only copied all the occurrences of playing cards that I have noticed, and nothing else. It has already been a painstaking job, especially because it has been practically impossible, for me, to avoid omissions and mistakes.

67

2.3 Ricordanze books and the silk-and-cards trade In addition to the mentioned series of books, I have again examined another one: the same three books of "Ricordanze", 12974"", 12795 '1" and 12796"3', which I had already used as source of data on the naibi packs sold by the silk-dealers,"' looking for them within the long lists of various goods sold. Here the entries for naibi are again different: below one or more entries with goods acquired by cardmakers, we find more or less long lists of payments by instalments, mostly by means of naibi packs. It may be rather unexpected to see how playing cards enter the trade. If our silk-dealers sell playing cards too, as we had already verified, they have to acquire some supply of them; this is obvious, but, at the same time, has apparently nothing to do with silks. What we find is rather different, at least in some cases, and one has to reflect on the habits of the time in order to fully understand the situation. Typically, it is first for our cardmaker to play the purchaser role. He acquires something from the silk-dealers and is debited with the corresponding money amount. In the account book this is the first line of an entry that includes many lines, with a more or less long list of the several subsequent instalments necessary for paying his debt off. These cases are not an exception. Most trades, of any goods, were settled by instalments and what distinguished the single cases was how many portions we find recorded and how many of them paid in cash or in kind. On the whole, it may be rather surprising - seen from nowadays - that, relative to the countless number of money transfers recorded in these books, few coins were actually exchanged. To find playing cards among payments of cardmakers becomes thus obvious, and we can even understand that in some cases we also find playing cards offered by mercers. It is more probable than usual that several of the last cases have escaped my attention. 2.4 My assemblage Now I have to explain why I have reported the data from these books in an unusual way; namely, collecting them here according to the single makers who supplied cards to the silk-dealers. As a matter of fact, this seemed to me the nearest approximation towards a possible reconstruction of the account books of the cardmakers themselves - instead of those of the silkdealers - and that trade is by far the most interesting for us. This is a very fascinating and new approach to our historical investigation and almost corresponds to what I hoped to find, after realising that many packs of playing cards, seemingly (or sometimes explicitly stated as) produced in Florence, were imported into Rome." 68

Of course, the result has only a partial character—since we can just verify what cardmakers supplied to our silk-dealers— but this point of view is certainly new and more rewarding than we could ever have expected up to now. The information is in some cases redundant, with the same packs of naibi recorded in different books; this occurs in particular whenever the same trade is recorded (or should be recorded) both in "Ricordanze" and "Uscita" books. Initially, I was happy to find this occurrence of double entries, because it allowed me to verify that the trade had been correctly recorded and, what is more, that I had found it and read correctly. Now, I leave to readers the task to find what is clearly wrong in my tables, and what should be checked again. Let me add a suggestion how to proceed. A first approach would be to behave as young pupils, who have just learnt the meaning of gcd and lcm. You have preliminarily to chose either only to take the data that appear alike in both tables, or instead all the different data, which is present in any table, clearly with dissimilar results. An alternative way is however more right and proper for adults: I hope that somebody is soon able to discover all the omissions and mistakes made in the books of the AOIF by the silk-dealers, and further multiplied by me. 3. SUPPLIERS,PACKSAND PRICES 3.1 Antonio di Dino Antonio di Dino is usually mentioned as "fa i naibi", he produces naibi. This is a usual indication for the corresponding profession. In other cases, we find dipintore or painter, mentioned, but this is found more frequently for painters of boxes and cases, than of cards. If possible, it is useful to understand, which the original profession of the maker had been: the simplest case is when we find a new cardmaker who is the son, or the younger brother of a known cardmaker. The case of Antonio di Dino is somewhat particular, because the first time that we find him in the "Uscita" books he did not supply cards at all. He was then mentioned as a maker of abaci, or counting frames (12792, 2r—1442). Later on, when he supplied the silk-dealers with playing cards, we find him indicated on one occasion as a tavolacciaio, maker of tables (12793, 25r—1449). Apparently, his production corresponded to an intermediate level, not as expensive as the cards produced by Antonio di Simone, but not as cheap as those of Niccole di Calvello, listed below. A particularly interesting trade is that of 13 October 1441: the cardmaker supplies a fine pack of naibi as part of a payment. This pack is of the finest quality made by him, as the four packs supplied a few months before; they 69

FOL D A T E

P A C K S

S I Z E

K I N D

SOLDI

4

G R A

D O R

2 4

1

G R A

D O R

2 4

12794 Ricordanze A 56r 1 4 4 1 / 0 5 / 0 9 12795 Ricordanze B 3r 1 4 4 1 / 1 0 / 1 3

are priced at s.24, higher than usual, but are naibi both gran& and gilded. Probably, however, the most interesting indication for us about this special pack is its destination. As a matter of fact, we learn not only that this pack passes directly from the painter to the silk-dealers, but also that they intend to send it to Venice, where evidently it could be sold, and probably in more favourable terms; this town was very active at the time as an international market, even of artistic productions. 12792 Uscita B FOL D A T E

P A C K S

2v 1442/04/24 4v 1442/05/30 7v 1442/07/21 llv 1442/10/10 12r 1442/10/27 13v 1442/11/23 14r 1442/12/18 14v 1442/12/24 1443/01/04 15r 1443/01/12 16v 1443/02/15 1443/02/16 17r 1443/03/02 18v 1443/03/30 20r 1443/04/30 22r 1443/06/14 1443/06/22 24r 1443/08/03 24v 1443/08/07 26r 1443/09/11 26v 1443/09/27 27v 1443/10/15 1443/10/19 28r 1443/10/24

10 6 2 6 7 10 12 6 12 8 12 10 12 12 12 12 8 4 8 6 6 8 4 6 6

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI

PIC MEZ PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

3 9 CAR 8 5 CAR 5 5 5 CAR 5 5 CAR 5 5 5 DOP 5 5 CAR 5 5 CAR 5 DOP FIN 5 CAR 5 5.50 5 5 CAR 5 CAR 5 CAR 5

FOL D A T E

P A C K S

28v 1443/11/04 29r 1443/11/13 29v 1443/11/23 1443/11/27 29'v 1443/12/09 30r 1443/12/17 30v 1444/01/02 31r 1444/01/10 31v 1444/01/11 1444/01/15 32r 1444/01/16 32v 1444/01/25 33r 1444/01/28 di

34r 1444/02/15 35r 1444/02/29 37r 1444/04/06 41r 1444/06/22 43r 1444/08/25 45r 1444/09/12 47v 1444/10/23

4 6 6 8 8 4 6 8 4 2 8 8 2 10 2 6 6 4 8 16 6 10 3 13 4

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC MEZ PIC PIC PIC MEZ PIC GRA MEZ PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC GRA MIX

(a) There is a mistake in the folio numbering, with 29 being present twice.

70

CAR CAR CAR CAR CAR

5 5 5 5 5 (a) 5 5 CAR 5 DOP 9 5 CAR 5 5 9 5 9 9 5 5 5 CAR 5 5 5 9 74t CAR 5

12792 Uscita C FOL D A T E

P A C K S

49r 1444/11/10 1444/11/13 50r 1444/11/23 50v 1444/12/05 51r 1444/12/10 51v 1444/12/19 52r 1444/12/29 52v 1445/01/15 53r 1445/01/28 53v 1445/02/11 55v 1445/03/22 57r 1445/04/22 57v 1445/05/08 59v 1445/06/09 60v 1445/07/02 65r 1445/11/17 1445/11/19 65v 1445/12/10 66v 1446/01/28 67r 1446/02/05 68r 1446/03/16 70r 1446/06/18 70v 1446/06/25 1446/07/09 74r 1446/10/05

4 4 6 4 4 2 6 4 4 2 8 6 4 12 4 12 10 10 12 12 8 10 4 10 2 6 12 16 8 18 8

12793 Uscita C

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI

GRA PIC GRA PIC GRA GRA PIC PIC GRA PIC PIC PIC PIC GRA PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC MIX PIC GRA PIC GRA PIC MEZ MEZ MEZ GRA MIX?

CAR DOP

DOP DOP DOP

DOP DOP DOP DOP

5 9 5 9 5 9 9 5 5 9 5 5 5 5 9 5 5 5 5 5 38t 5 9 5 9 5? 5 5 5 5 9 80t

FOL D A T E

P A C K S

7r 1447/01/28 8r 1447/03/04 9v 1447/04/15 13r 1447/08/26 18v 1448/05/29 19r 1448/06/10 1448/06/15 22v 1448/11/15 1448/11/20 23v 1448/12/11 24r 1448/12/14 1448/12/30 25r 1449/01/27 1449/02/01 26r 1449/03/13 28v 1449/04/03 30v 1449/07/18 31r 1449/08/23 32r 1449/10/22 33r 1449/11/14 34r 1449/12/16 37r 1490/03/04 38r 1450/03/24 38v 1450/04/04 39r 1450/04/18 1450/04/24 44r 1450/09/26 45r 1450/10/12 1450/10/29 47r 1450/12/19 48r 1451/01/26 51r 1451/04/08 56r 1451/10/30 57v 1451/12/18 58r 1451/12/24 60v 1452/04/01 61v 1452/05/06 62v 1452/05/27

16 6 24 15 8 5 8 6 6 8 8 20 6 9 5 24 8 20 16 8 20 20 23 6 10 6 4 12 10 24 11 15 13 2 19 12 6 18 54 8 8 45 4

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI

PIC C A R PIC D O P PIC D O P PIC -

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC MIX PIC PIC GRA PIC

DOP

DOP DOP DOP

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC MEZ PIC MEZ PIC MEZ PIC PIC MIX MEZ PIC PIC MEZ PIC MIX MEZ

DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP

TRI CAR DOP DOP DOP

PIC TRI

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6* 5 6 8 5 9 6* 5 5 5 5 5.01* 5 5 9 5 6 5 2.92* 5 3 5.62* 14 5 5 9 5 5.89• 9 7 5 14 71

FOL D A T E

P A C K S

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI

FOL D A T E

64r 1452/07/29 1 2 T R I 1 4 65v 1452/09/20 6 M E Z D O P 16 P I C 4 1452/09/22 6 T R I 336t 19 M E Z 11 G R A 9 P l c 67v67v1452/12/09 2 P I C D O P 2? M E Z 9

P A C K S

67v 1452/12/12

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI

8

T R I 8 8 MEZ 9 5 5 6 PIC CAR 4 6 P I C DOP 5 4 G R A DOP 9 12 PIC 5 2 G R A DOP 9 3 P I C DOP 5

68v 1453/01/11 69v 1453/02/19 1453/02/23 73r 1453/06/22

3.2 Niccolo di Calvello This cardmaker, "Nicholo di Chalvelo fa i naibi", provides the greatest amount of cards, more than three thousand packs. His supplies are always on a dozen basis - in practice, card amounts that another maker provided in terms of packs, he was able to provide in terms of dozens. Apparently, he had developed a system of production that allowed him to supply most of the packs and at the smallest cost. Only in one case his cards are indicated as di forma, but I imagine that all of them were produced with woodblocks (and possibly not even painted). 12792 Uscita B FOL iv

D A T E

P

A

1 4 4 1 / U / 1

llr 1 4 4 2 / 1 0 / 0 6 14r 1 4 4 2 / 1 2 / 1 8 15v 1 4 4 3 / 0 2 / 0 6 16r 1 4 4 3 / 0 2 / 0 8 17v 1 4 4 3 / 0 3 / 0 9 18r 1 4 4 3 / 0 3 / 2 6 1443/03/27 18v 1 4 4 3 / 0 3 / 3 0 22r 1 4 4 3 / 0 6 / 1 5 22v 1 4 4 3 / 0 6 / 2 1 23v 1 4 4 3 / 0 7 / 2 0 24v 1 4 4 3 / 0 8 / 0 9 60v 1 4 4 5 / 0 7 / 0 2 1445/07/08 61v 1 4 4 5 / 0 7 / 2 4 63v 1 4 4 5 / 1 0 / 0 5 1445/10/07 53v 1 4 4 5 / 0 2 / 2 0 Mr 1 4 4 5 / 0 2 / 2 2

C

K

S

48 24 24 24 24 24 12 48 48 24 48 36 48 24 60 24 48 12 12

S

I

Z

E

K

I

N

D

S

CAR SCE CAR DOP CAR DOP CAR DOP CAR SCE CAR DOP CAR DOP CAR DOP MEZ

PIC PIC PIC

PIC

CAR FOR CAR SCE DOP FOR DOP SCE DOP DOP FIN SCE DOP (a) DOP (a)

O

L

D

I

1.05*

1.67 1.67 1.67 1.04 1.67 1.67 1.04 1.67 1.67 1.04 1.67 1.19 1.83 40t 1.83 1.83 1.08 1.83 1.83

(a) Actually these packs are purchased from Puchiorl di Calvelo fa i naibi, maybe

another member of the family. 72

12793 Uscita C FOL

DATE

10v 1447/05/24 13v 1447/09/30 14r 1447/11/04 15r 1447/12/23 1448/01/05 15v 1448/01/23 16r 1448/02/28 19v 1448/07/06 20r 1448/08/03 21r 1448/10/05 21v 1448/10/26 23v 1448/12/07 26r 1449/03/08 1449/03/20 30v 1449/07/16 1449/07/18 31v 1449/10/04 32r 1449/10/24 1449/10/30 38r 1450/03/28 39v 1450/05/05 42r 1450/07/01 42v 1450/07/24 43r 1450/08/04 44r 1450/09/10 1450/09/17 1450/09/26 45r 1450/10/19 49v 1451/03/02 54r 1451/07/12 55r 1451/09/18 55v 1451/09/25 56v 1451/11/20 1451/11/27 62r 1452/05/20 62v 1452/06/10 63r 1452/06/19 66r 1452/10/14 1452/10/26

PACKS

SIZE

36 36 48 24 24 24 24 36 48 48 48 72 60 24 36 24 48 36 48 24 48 48 36 60 12 12 48 48 108 72 84 60 60 48 48 60 36 48 60 36

-

12793 Uscita C KIND S O L D I

CAR DOP 95t CAR SCE CAR DOP 1.67 CARSCE 0.96' PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 CAR 1 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 001' 1 . 6 7 PIC 1 DOP 1 . 6 7 DOP+SCE 88t PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP CAR 1.67 DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 PIC DOP 1 DOP 2 PIC DOP 1 . 8 3 DOP 1 . 8 3 PIC DOP I MEZ DOP 1 . 6 7 MEZ DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 1.67 DOP 1 . 6 7 DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 6 7 PIC DOP 1 . 8 3 PIC DOP 1 . 8 3 PIC DOP 1 . 8 3 DOP 1 . 8 3 PIC DOP 1 . 8 3 DOP+SCE 96t PIC DOP 1 . 8 3

FOL

DATE

66v 1452/11/04 1452/11/10 67r 1452/11/21 68r 1452/12/15 69v 1453/02/10 70v 1453/03/31 71r 1453/04/18 73v 1453/07/30 74r 1453/09/20 76r 1453/12/13 85v 1455/08/02 90r 1455/11/26 91r 1456/03/24 91v 1456/06/12 1456/09/07 1456/10/23

PACKS

SIZE

KIND

SOLD!

24 48 36 24 36 12 60 36 84 12 12 36 24 24 60 24

PIC PIC PIC PIC

DOP DOP DOP DOP CAR CAR

1.83 1.83 1.83 1.83 1.83 1.83 1.83 1.83 1.67 1.67 1.67 1.58 1.58 1.58 1.58 1.58

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

CAR CAR CAR DOP DOP DOP

PIC

12796 Ricordanze C FOL

DATE

PACKS

Illr 1453/11/17 24 1453/12/14 48 1454/01/19 36 1454 /02 / xx 24 1454/03/09 24 116r 1454/10/12 24 1454/10/31 24 1455/02/26 12 1455/04/05 24 1455/06/21 24 1455/08/02 24 1455/08/23 96 1455/09/07 36 132v 1455/10/29 120 133v 1455/11/26 36 1455/12/22 36 1456/03/20 24 1456/06/12 12 1456/09/07 12 1456/10/23 24

SIZE

KIND

SOLDI

PIC 1.67 PIC CAR 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC CAR 1.67 PIC CAR DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.67 PIC DOP 1.58 PIC DOP 1.58 PIC DOP 1.58 PIC DOP 1.58 PIC DOP 1.58 PIC DOP 1.58

73

3.3 Antonio di Simone Antonio di Simone is usually indicated as "fa i naibi", but among cards supplied by him we seldom find more than a dozen packs; usually he brings to the store a couple of packs, or a little more. On the other hand, his prices are remarkably higher than those of the other makers. We find surprisingly little variation around a unit price of s.9. In the course of time, this will be nearer to the common price of trionfi, than of naibi. I suppose that the biggest difference with other products mainly (if not only) consisted in a more accurate decoration. These packs are seldom mentioned as fini, and never as gilded, but some justification should have existed for a price that was about the double than that of packs produced by Antonio di Dino, and five times the usual price for those of Niccolo di Calvello. Probably the indication of mezzani that we find in some cases should be extended to all these packs, because of the constant price; the same for doppi, whereas the fact that we find sometimes these packs mentioned as charte instead of naibi does not appear as a significant difference (still due to the same prices). 12792 Uscita B FOL

DATE P A C K S

3r 6v 7v 10v 10v llr

1442/05/02 1442/07/07 1442/07/24 1442/09/27 1442/10/01 1442/10/02

4 3 2 2 2 3

SIZE

-

12793 Uscita B KIND S O L D I

FOL

DATE

CAR 1 0 CAR FIN 9.67 CAR FIN 8 DOP FIN 8 CAR FIN 8 DOP 8

24v 25r 28v 30v 32r 32v

1449/01/02 1449/20/1? 1449/04/09 1449/08/21 1449/10/30 1449/11/08

12793 Uscita C FOL D A T E

P A C K S

7r 1447/01/26 1447/01/31 7v 1447/02/09 1447/02/11 1447/02/13 1447/02/23 16v 1448/03/16 1448/03/28 17r 1448/03/30 22v 1448/11/14 23v 1448/12/11 24r 1448/12/17 1448/12/11

74

3 6 6 3 3 7 4 3 2 10 2 2 2

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI

9 9 CAR 9 9 CAR 9 DOP 9 DOP FIN 8 MEZ DOP 8 DOP 8 MEZ DOP 96t DOP 9.50 DOP 9.50 DOP 9.50 CAR

33r 1449/11/14 1449/11/19 Mr 1449/12/05 35r 1450/01/16 35v 1450/01/21 1450/01/24 36v 1450/02/07 1450/02/15 37v 1450/03/14 38v 1450/04/02 40v 1450/05/22 1450/05/26 41r 1450/06/01 1450/06/06 41v 1450/06/13

PACKS

SIZE K I N D S O L D I

7 4 5 18 2 11 2 4 4 3 2 1 2 4 2 4 6 4 10 4 3 2 2

DOP DOP MEZ MEZ

GRA

DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP

DOP DOP DOP DOP MEZ

DOP DOP

MEZ

DOP DOP

9.50 9.50 9.50 9.33? 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 6 9.50 9.50 9.33 9.17 9.17 9.17 9 9.17 9.17

FOL

DATE

41v 1450/06/19 43r 1450/08/12 1450/08/17 44v 1450/10/10 45v 1450/11/06 60r 1452/03/24 1452/03/30 1452/04/01 61r 1452/04/08 1452/04/15 1452/04/19 1452/04/22 61v 1452/04/26 1452/04/29 1452/05/06 62r 1452/05/15 1452/05/19 1452/05/20 1452/05/22

PACKS

6? 2 3 2 2 2 2 4 2 4 6 6 6 4 4 15 6 16 4 3

SIZE

KIND

MEZ MEZ PH: MEZ PIC MEZ MEZ MEZ MEZ

DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP

MEZ MEZ PIC MEZ

DOP DOP DOP DOP

SOLDI

9.17 9.17 9.17 9.17 9.17 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.33 9.33 9.33 9.33 9.33

FOL

DATE

62v 1452/06/06 63r 1452/06/10 1452/06/22 66v 1452/11/16 67v 1452/12/09 1452/12/12 68r 1452/12/16 1452/12/23 1452/12/30 68v 1453/01/13 69r 1453/01/22 69v 1453/02/23 71v 1453/04/30 1453/05/04 72r 1453/05/16 1453/05/24 73r 1453/07/07 83v 1455/04/26

PACKS

3 23 6 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 2 2 4 2 2 4

SIZE

MEZ PIC PE

KIND

SOLDI

DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP

9.33 9.33 9.33 9.50 9.50 9.50 9.50 12 12 9.50 12 12 9.50 12 9.50 9.50 12 12

MEZ DOP

GRA MEZ GRA Ph:

GRA

DOP DOP EKA? DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP DOP

3.4 Matteo Ballerini Matteo is indicated in a rather confusing way, more often as Matteo di Bartolomeo or Matteo Ballerini. These names could already correspond to two different makers, and further ones might be present when we find Francesco as his father's name. I am nevertheless fully persuaded that we are in the presence of a single maker, variously mentioned, even if we are not accustomed to finding anyone indicated as son either of Francesco or of Bartolomeo. The situation is similar for his profession, although this is not too different from other artists: in 1451, he is recorded in the book as "fa i naibi" on 25 September, and as dipintore on 5 October. (Actually he is regularly mentioned as dipintore in the latest entries.) Matteo appears relatively late as a supplier to our silk-dealers, and his production seems to be at the same level as that of Antonio di Dino, or of Giovanni di Domenico. His main product was naibi piccoli and doppi, and we can suppose this product to be present whenever his packs were not explicitly indicated in a different way. Also the use of al; )arte, instead of naibi, as in other cases, does not appear to represent a significant distinction. Naibi mezzani have a price that oscillates from s.5 to 6. Trionfi change from s.9 to 10 and it is remarkable that gilded trionfi were priced about the double than those without gold (as supported from other cases too). 75

12793 Uscita C FOL D A T E

P A C K S

35r 1450/01/08 55v 1451/09/25 1451/10/05 57r 1451/12/08 1451/12/11 58v 1452/01/29 59r 1452/02/12 1452/02/19 59v 1452/03/08 60v 1452/04/01 61r 1452/04/08 61v 1452/04/26 65r 1452/09/04 1452/09/15 65v 1452/09/22 1452/10/06 66r 1452/10/07 1452/10/14 1452/10/19

1452/10/25 67r 1452/11/18 1452/11/23 1452/11/24 1452/12/02 67v 1452/12/05 1452/12/08 68r 1452/12/20 1452/12/30 68v 1453/01/05 1453/01/16 69r 1453/01/20 Of

1453/01/27 69v 1453/02/03 1453/02/10 70v 1453/03/24 71r 1453/04/18

76

6 4 16 5 6 12 12 28? 25 3 5 3 6 12 14 20 14 25 26 2 6 12 4 3 12 8 3 32 24 6 6 3 6 1 8 4 4 11 5 12 10

SIZE

KIND

PIC PIC

DOP 3.33* 5 CAR 4 DOP 4 6 DOP 4 DOP 4 4 96t 4 DOP 4 DOP 6 4 DOP 4 4 4 DOP 4 DOP 4 DOP 4 DOP 6 4 DOP 4 DOP 4 4 DOP 4 DOP DOP 5 DOP 6 DOP 4 DOP 4 DOP 6 9 6 4 TRI 18 6 TRI 14 DOP 4 DOP 4 4 4 DOP 4 141

PIC MEZ MZL PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

PIC PIC PIC MEZ PIC PIC PIC PIC MEZ MEZ PIC PIC PIC GRA MEZ PIC GRA MEZ PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

SOLDI

FOL D A T E

P A C K S

/Iv 1453/04/28 72r 1453/05/19 1453/05/26 1453/05/30 72v 1453/06/09 1453/06/20 73r 1453/07/07 73v 1453/07/24 74r 1453/08/07 1453/08/22 74v 1453/09/22 74v 1453/09/26 76r 1453/12/15 76v 1453/12/24 1454/01/12 77r 1454/02/08 77v 1454/02/23 82r 1455/02/11 83v 1455/04/19 84r 1455/05/24 84v 1455/06/04 90r 1455/12/16 90v 1456/02/04 91r 1456/03/13 1456/03/24 1456/04/10 92v 1457/07/04 1457/10/12 93r 1458/07/01 1458/07/12 93v 1458/10/15 1459/12/20 1460/04/01 1460/05/09 1460/05/28 1460/10/04

3 16 2 4 6 12 4 12 ? 8 11 6 8 6 18? 12 2 4 3 2 3 24 6 14 34 6 7 19 2 8 3 12 1 10 2 6 6 13? 4 12

S I Z E K I N D SOLDI M E Z

MIX GRA PIC MIX

PIC MIX PIC MEZ PIC PIC MIX PIC GRA MEZ GRA PIC PIC MIX MEZ PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC MEZ PIC MEZ PIC MEZ PIC PIC PIC PIC

6 65t CAR 9 CAR 4 35t DOP 4 TRI 16? 4 56t 4 CAR 4 DOP 6 4 CAR 4? 100t 4 9 4 9 TRI 14 TRI 10 36.67t? CAR 5.50 DOP 4 MIX (a) 174t DOP 3.33* 3.33• CAR 2.11 TRI 10 DOP 3 DOR 6 DOP 3 DOR 6 D O P

DOR DOP DOP

6? 3.33 3.33

TRI CAR

? ?

(a) Among these packs of various kinds we find u n k n o w n quantities o f gilded cards and trionfi.

12796 Ricordanze C FOL D A T E

P A

C

108v 1453/07/21 1453/08/04 1453/07/31 1453/08/04 1453/09/22 1453/09/28 1453/10/22 1453/11/02 1453/11/19 l i l y 1453/11/24 1453/12/12 1453/12/15 1453/12/24 1454/01/10 1454/01/20 1454/02/09 1454/02/23 1454/03/09 1454/03/26 1454/04/15 1454/05/11 1454/06/24 1454/08/03 121r 1454/10/12

1454/10/26 1454/11/09 1454/11/16 1455/01/11

K

S

12 12 12 12 12 6 4 9 12 8 10 ? 7 ? 12 4 2 12 12 2 10 4 8 ? 8 ? 13 6 1 4 3 5 2 2 12

SIZE

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC MEZ PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC MEZ PIC PIC MEZ PIC GRA MEZ MEZ PIC PIC GRA MEZ GRA MIX GRA PIC PIC

K I N D

SOLDI

3.33 DOP 4 DOP 4 DOP 4 DOP 4 DOP 4 6 DOP 4 TRI 9 4 4 TRI ORO 132t DOP 4 14t DOP 4 4 6 DOP 4 4 6 4 9 6 CAR 20t DOP 5 CAR 100t CAR ? DOP 3.33 TRI 18 CAR 5 CAR 8 DOR (a) 17.13' 8 TRI 10 DOP 3.33

FOL

DATE

121r 1455/01/25 1455/02/01 1455/02/08 1455/02/22 1455/03/29 1455/04/05 1455/04/19 1455/05/10 1455/05/24 1455/06/04 1455/06/20 1455/06/23 1455/07/05 1455/07/24 1455/08/02 128r 1455/09/02 1455/09/23 1455/12/16 1456/02/04 1456/03/13 1456/03/24 1456/04/10 1457/07/04 1457/10/12 1458/05/20 1458/07/01 1458/07/12 1458/10/15 1459/12/20 1460/04/01 1460/05/09

PACKS

SIZE K I N D

SOLDI

6 PR: D O P 3.33 6 PIC D O P 3.33 3 PR: T R I ( b ) 10 4 PR= D O P 3.33 2 MEZ 5 8 PR: D O P 3.33 2 PIC T R I 10 24 PR:+MEZ 2.50* 9 PR: 3.33 MEZ 2 5 12 PR: D O P 3.33 12 PIC D O P 3.33 6 PIC D O P 3.33 TRI DOR 18 1 6 PR: D O P 3.33 6 PIC D O P 3.33 6 PR: D O P 3.33 MEZ 5.50 4 8 PIC D O P 3.33 PR: D O P 8 3.33 6 PIC D O P 3.33 7 PR: D O P 3.33 19 3.33? 2 PR: T R I DOR 10 8 PH: 3 3 MEZ 6 PR: D O P 12 3 ? 4 TRI MEZ D O P 1 6 10 2 MEZ 6 6 PR: D O P 3.33 6 PR: D O P 3.33 PR: D O P ? 6? 4? PIC D O P ?

(a) Only part of the packs are gilded. (b) Sanzoro, not gilded.

77

3.5 Minor suppliers a. Antonio Trinchaglia [?] This is one of the many Florentine cardmakers, "che fa i naibi", with name Antonio. He may coincide with one or more of the other makers found here and there under the same name. I could not read the name of Trinchaglia, possibly a nickname, with certainty. 12792 Uscita B FOL

DATE

2v 6r

1442/04/27 1442/07/02 1442/07/03 1442/08/27 1442/09/04

9r

PACKS

SIZE

KIND

SOLDI

10 5 5 2 2

GRA GRA

CAR FIN CAR FIN CAR FIN -

5.25 10 9.8 8 8

12793 Uscita C FOL D A T E

73v 1 4 5 3 / 0 7 / 1 4

PACKS S I Z E

KIND S O L D I

4

CAR 9 . 5 0

b. Meo di Ghoro Meo di Ghoro che fa i naibi is a cardmaker that supplies naibi to the silkdealers only for a few months of 1442. I could not find his products even in other stores that I have "visited" up to now. His prices were in the high range, comparable to those of Antonio di Simone, who was apparently preferred as a regular supplier—starting from about the same time. 12792 Uscita B FOL

DATE

2v 3r

1442/04/27 1442/05/02 1442/05/05 II

4v 9v

1442/05/30 1442/06/02 1442/08/30

PACKS S I Z E

K I N D

6 G R A C 4 6 GRA 4 PIC 5 G R A C 4 M E Z C 5 C

A R CAR A R A R A R

SOLDI

8.75 8.75 67.67t 8.73* 8.75' 6

c. Giovanni di Domenico We only meet Giovanni di Domenico at the end of 1449 and he enters the records in an interesting way. He is at once indicated as dipintore, a painter, and his first supply contains both six packs of trionfi and eight packs of naibi doppi. Trionfi packs had already been sold by the silk-dealers, but these seem 78

to be the first packs recorded as acquired. The total price is L.4 s.18 and if we assume that the naibi were priced at s.4 as those acquired a few days later, a unit cost of s.11 can be deduced for trionfi, a relatively low price, very similar to the s.9 d.6 cost of naibi made by Antonio di Simone. It seems that the production of Giovanni could substitute, trionfi apart, that of Antonio di Dino, at a similar level of overall quality, but he did not become a frequent supplier, except for a few trionfi. For unknown reasons (maybe just more purchases of silks), Matteo Ballerini was apparently preferred to Antonio di Dino, whom we find also later on. 12793 Uscita C FOL

DATE

34r

1449/12/09 „ 1449/12/18 1450/04/04 1452/05/31 1453/06/28

38v 62v 73r

PACKS

SIZE

KIND S O L D I

6 8 7 3 6 12

PIC PIC

11* TRI DOP 4* 4 TRI 9 TRI 9 . 3 3 TRI 9

d. Various suppliers Sometimes we find cards from other suppliers, different from the "usual" cardmakers. Also a mercer (typically Manetto d'Agnolo) could sometimes pay part of his debts with playing cards that he had acquired from elsewhere. Manetto d'Agnolo merciai 12796 Ricordanze C FOL

DATE

109r

1453/08/22 ,, 1454/06/21 1454/08/23 1454/11/17 1454/12/18 1455/03/19

113r

PACKS

SIZE

KIND

SOLDI

N

4 24 4 2 2 6 6

GRA+MEZ MEZ GRA GRA MEZ PIC

TRI

366t

(a) (b)

TRI TRI DOR TRI TRI TRI

25 40 40 25 25

* *

(a) The total recorded is L.18 s.6 which would give s.13* as average value for the three different packs. I could not find how to convincingly divide it into the three parts mentioned. Assuming s.25 for trionfi the average for grandi and mezzani would be too high at s.11.08*; more likely appear s.40, and s.8.58*, respectively. (b) these cards are indicated as being by Paparello.

79

the demand of the silk-dealers for this particular product, but to be sure we should find some confirmation from other sources. 4. DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS 4.1 About the artists In comparison with previous notes, the situation is now somehow reversed. We no longer have to study who the buyers of card packs recorded were, nor where they were active. In other words, apart from a few interesting exceptions, we now collect no information on the destination of the playing cards. We see the contrary movement, where the cards came from. In principle, one could expect that the cards traded were totally or in part produced elsewhere and just arrived in Florence along one of the many trade channels that were already active for centuries. Fortunately — or unfortunately as it may be considered — we do not obtain interesting information on any place of card production... except for Florence itself. In a few cases, our silk-dealers acquired the cards for their workshop from other traders. Generally, however, they acquired the packs to be sold directly from the Florentine makers themselves. This is for us a very important situation. It almost corresponds to the fulfilment of a dream: to inspect the account books of Florentine cardmakers! Indeed, the packs that we find listed in our accounts books, and their prices as well, are exactly the same as those that we could have read in any of the account books of the cardmakers. (The obvious important difference is that we get no idea of how many further buyers of our cardmakers' packs there were.) It is worth noting that the situation of cardmakers in Florence was different from that of other places. Here we find no indication of a kind of guild of cardmakers, as it existed in about the same time in other German, French, or even Italian towns. On the contrary, we find several kinds of craftsmen mentioned as involved in card making. This could correspond to real differences in their activity, but could also correspond to makers who had chosen to matriculate in a different Arte. Painters were accepted in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali, but the entrance fee was higher and many of them preferred to matriculate in a minor Arte, as forzerinaio, legnaiolo, or even not to matriculate in any Arte. This could change for the same person in the course of time, with upwards changes in the "degrees" mentioned, in connection with a remarkable success of their activity. This particular situation is described in some detail in a book dedicated to the Florentine painters of the time.'''' It seems that the best attribute for a cardmaker was that of dipintore, or painter. This we find in some cases, but more frequently any artist thus men81

tioned provided the silk-dealers with painted boxes and cases, or similar products. The most frequent indication for card suppliers we find just as "fa i naibi", makes naibi. Evidently, there were craftsmen who had already become specialists in this production; often this activity passed from father to son and continued in the same family. My impression is that these makers did not work in the same way: for instance, some of them produced low-cost packs, others high-quality ones. Moreover, it is possible that further specialisation already existed, with the production process divided into several stages, with craftsmen experts in each of them, to end with the painter, who would only be present for painting the figures on the cards. On the other hand, we find evidence that a cardmaker could even produce different objects, such as for instance Antonio di Dino, who at least initially was an expert in the production of tables; or as lo Scheggia, whom we knew as a "normal" painter, in case dedicated to the production of cassoni, and only recently have discovered to be a naibi painter."6) 4.2 Competition among suppliers For the same purchaser, we find several suppliers. How did they compete for improving their own trades? Of course, we have no direct or complete information about that. When examining the trades, we clearly see that the various makers mainly offered different goods. My impression is that no serious competition existed with other Florentine makers, whom we never meet here. The reason why a limited number of makers supplied our silkdealers with playing cards is unknown. I imagine that some marginal cases were excluded at once: no maker was needed who provided cards cheaper and in bigger quantities than Niccolo di Calvello; no maker was needed who could provide more expensive and precious cards than Antonio di Simone. How many makers were thus eliminated I cannot evaluate exactly. It is possible that nobody in Florence could produce cards cheaper than Niccolo; on the other hand, we do know from other sources Florentine makers, who produced more expensive cards and trionfi, to begin with Paparello and Filippo di Marco; in particular, the prices for some trionfi made by the latter artist in the 1450s are incomparably higher than those recorded here.''" Sometimes we find different makers supplying packs on the same day. Was this by chance, or did it correspond to a requirement of larger supplies by the silk-dealers? The only fact that I am certain of is that our silk-dealers had not summoned the different makers by phone. However, I more like to suppose that whenever the cardmakers met in the store of the silk-dealers, this occurred by chance. 82

If any cardmaker was not interested in silks by any means— after all, a conceivable situation — he plausibly had a clear disadvantage in supplying his production to our dealers. These particular cases could have somewhat adjusted the usual rule that any purchaser changes supplier, whenever he finds a new one who provides better specimens at the same cost or lower prices for the same quality. 4.3 Prices of the cards It is possible that in a near future the numbers of packs reported traded here will be further augmented after a more accurate inspection on the books; it is a pleasing idea for me that somebody may be stimulated to study these books further. However, this data should already be enough for some analysis by interested readers. As for the change of prices in the course of time, we should also allow for the corresponding changes in purchasing power of money. This I can do later on, especially if I realise that the difference is significant enough. For the moment, I am satisfied with the appearance of rather constant prices for the various qualities of packs on sale. This may well be a first approximation only, but my impression is that we are in front of a stable market with continuous supplies and purchases, at fairly stable prices. What should not escape attention is also to examine the difference of prices, between packs coming in and out of the store. As obvious, the same packs are seen as higher-priced when sold than when acquired by our silkdealers, but the difference is not much greater than 10%, something that now might be only enough for some outlet stores, whereas we are here in front of modest retailers. The difference in comparison with present-day sellers can easily be explained by increased expenses in keeping an active store nowadays, but also at that time mark-ups were more common in the range of 20-25%. 4.4 Frequency of the purchases I have collected so much data on card packs acquired in the course of more than twenty years, that some kind of statistical analysis becomes feasible. In particular, we have now made a great progress in comparison with the packs sold by the same silk-dealers: in that case, we were certain that only a fraction of the packs sold had been recorded. In the present case of packs acquired, we can instead rely on a fairly complete knowledge of the entire stock of packs that entered the store. Nevertheless, we find in this data some information that is somewhat confusing and leaves us with the necessity of a special attention in deriving conclusions from these numbers. 83

Let me take the frequency of purchases as an example, or the frequency of sales, if seen from the cardmakers point of view. This is not a continuous function, with a regular shape: only for certain months the sales have a constant behaviour, with cardmakers who bring their products in almost the same amount and about at the same time intervals. More often we see periods in which no more packs are offered, or acquired, alongside of other time intervals, in which the trade is many times more active than usual. Unfortunately, we have no information on the reason of such changes. We do not even understand whether this could depend more on the makers or on the purchasers. In other words, we should never forget that we are not really in front of the account books of the cardmakers, which we would like so much to discover, but only of a part of them, and nobody knows how large this fraction could be! In particular, we can easily imagine that the amounts of packs purchased were related to the amounts that the silk-dealers expected to sell and therefore we could directly see whenever naibi were more or less used, in general. However, we have seen that a bigger supply of packs from a maker could instead just indicate that the maker himself had bought something more expensive than usual and had to pay his debt with more packs than in other times. 4.5 Trionfi For many experts, trionfi represent a very special field for study, much more interesting than ordinary playing cards, as if the two articles had little —nearly nothing — in common. Actually, the situation might appear to be worse: lots of experts are not even interested in the whole family of trionfi packs, but just in one and only one of them, which had 78 cards exactly. (By the way, the most important trionfi packs that have been used widely, and for centuries, in the Central-Italian regions of my focal interest had either 97 or 62 cards.) Let me thus comment on a few points concerning trionfi cards. First of all, one may recall the idiom naibi di trionfi, which ought to compel the above-mentioned experts to situate their study in the more general field of playing cards. In our account books, there is at least one such quotation for Antonio di Dino, on 29 July 1452, already communicated in a note of mine.'°' (A photo of this document will be published in The Playing-Card, Vol. 41, No. 2.) The similar idiom naibi a trionfi had already been recorded a dozen years earlier, in the very first case (to our knowledge) in which the name trionfi ever appeared."N) I understand, however, that trionfi may induce a greater interest in most readers. They find here an unbelievably rich source for their customary debates. To find more than one hundred and fifty trionfi in these early years 84

was probably unexpected by everybody (except for me and a couple of other historians). To me personally, the most puzzling data in these long lists is that which is ... missing there. I mean, it is important to see when trionfi appear in these lists, but it may be even more important to verify when trionfi did not yet appear. These records, which must be considered as early for the trionfi subject, are not early enough for my expectation— I imagined that earlier dates could have been found here, down through the 1440s, and possibly the 1430s. When Ser Giusto Giusti had his trionfi pack made in Florence in 1440,("' he introduced into his "new" pack nothing other than the coat of arms of its beneficiary. This pack was extraordinary for that reason, and possibly for a greater care in producing and painting. However, makers of trionfi were already active in Florence and nobody knows for how long. It is even possible that trionfi were introduced as a new pack before this name was attributed to them. Unfortunately (for me) I don't see here suitable names before trionfi: av(v)antaggiati is not enough, doppi I saw at once as a possibility, but must acknowledge its negligible plausibility, corone or crowns hardly could correspond to something of the kind, imperatori I have never found in these lists. In particular, it is interesting to check when our cardmakers began to supply trionfi to the silk-dealers (which should not be assumed however as the initial date of their production, and even less so for other makers). If I have seen correctly, I can quote: Giovanni di Domenico December 1449, Antonio di Dino January 1451, uno dipintore June 1452, Antonio-Chico November 1452, Antonio fra forzerinai January 1453, Matteo Ballerini January 1453, trionfi resold by mercers August 1453, Cetina [1 August 1453, Maybe a couple of these dates correspond to the same maker, but in any case they appear rather near to each other. Regular suppliers Niccolo di Calvello and Antonio di Simone were seemingly uninterested in that production, perhaps for different reasons: the former because he was clearly specialised in low-cost items, the latter maybe for the contrary reason — any trionfi pack made by him would have been priced too high for the market. Of course, our present basis within the store of the silk-dealers may well be rather unsuitable for checking the local spread of trionfi in a reliable way. However, if in the early 1440s, or even earlier, this pack was already commonly produced and used, some trionfi should have passed through the store of our silk-dealers, be it only for sending them... to Venice, if they were too expensive for the local market.

85

5. CONCLUSIONS With the results of this research a new large set of card packs has been found recorded for the 1430s to the 1450s. In principle, this should correspond to that already provided with the previous research on cards sold by the same silk-dealers— only corresponding prices should be lower for cards acquired. However, we knew that all packs recorded were only a part of those actually sold (apart from the fact that anywhere I may not have noticed some of the packs recorded). Therefore, the new research on cards acquired brings now a lot of additional data. A new interest is moreover provided by the fact that the cardmakers themselves are directly involved in this trade. Never before had I arrived so close to the workshop of a Florentine cardmaker of that time, and its production. We could not obtain a complete view of the whole production, but at least we did obtain a partial insight. This is much more complete and near to the target than any other information that I know from elsewhere. The fact is that here we are not in front of makers who produced a few card packs: we find that the local production was already at a high quantitative level. On the other hand, as for already producing card packs at a high qualitative level, this could easily be expected by anyone familiar enough with the works of the Florentine artists of the time. NOTES (1) See Chap. 6: "Naibi sold by silk-dealers", p. 51. (2) Istituto degli Innocenti / Research; also Chap. 4: "Naibi on sale", p. 27. (3) http:/www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it/defi/Isis?Conf./opt/defi/DefiConf/ defi.sysn (4) Thierry Depaulis, personal communication, 04/02/2012. (5) Covi 1978. (6) See Chap. 7: "A dozen of 'naibi di trionfi'", p. 61. (7) AOIF, 12791 "Entrata e uscita A", 13/03/1437 - 16/05/1441. (8) ASF, Catasto, 69,1.432-433. (9) AOIF, 12792, "Uscita B", 17/04/1442 - 22/11/1455. (10) AOIF, 12793, "Uscita C", 17/10/1446 - 02/11/1461. (11) AOIF, 12794, "Ricordanze A", 01/03/1437 - 17/11/1441. (12) AOIF, 12795, "Ricordanze B", 27/06/1441 - 05/10/1446. (13) AOIF, 12796, "Ricordanze C", 12/10/1446 - 23/03/1457. (14) "Early playing card export from Florence?", http:/trionfi.com/card-exportflorence (15) Jacobsen 2001. (16) See Chap. 4: "Naibi on sale", p. 27. (17) See Chap. 2: "Florentine triumphs by Filippo di Marco", p. 15. (18) Web discussion: "Florence 1440 - New Earliest Reference to Tarot" (http:// forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=773)

86

9 1415-1455 - NAIBI TRADED AT LAPINI STORE INTRODUCTION The setting involved here is already known from a previous note,"' in which both the AOIF archive and the typical goods on sale in mercer workshops have been described. The data on sales of playing cards obtained up to now is rather limited, especially for the time interval involved, and thus to extend the horizon of time and, possibly, places, would seem to be a useful undertaking. In this case, I was able to collect data from times earlier than ever before, approaching the beginning of the 15th century. THEACCOUNT BOOKS Among the retailers that I am studying, the Lapini family was active for a longer time, more than a century. In the 16th century, they changed family name and also the kind of trade, from merciai to speziali, corresponding of course to a somewhat higher level. Let us neglect, at least for the moment, the later developments and limit our attention to their account books of the 15th century. In the inventory of the AOIF(2) we find no less than six books, which however do not cover the whole time interval involved. They are attributed to different traders, as follows: - Lapino Lapini (1415-1442), two books; - Agnolo di Antonio Lapini, Andrea di Niccolo (1452-1469), three books; - Lapino di Agnolo Lapini (1479-1510), one book. Already from this list it is evident that a continuous sequence of records, extending over a whole century, cannot be expected, because of lacking entries for at least two decades, corresponding to the changes of the owners. Moreover, as for other cases, only a few of these books are particularly interesting for us, because in most of them entries with records of playing cards traded are absent, or at least difficult to discover. We had already seen that the "Ricordanze" were the most suitable books to study among the account books, and unfortunately only one of these books is of that kind. We are fortunate enough that it deals with the first part of the period, corresponding to the earliest times of playing cards, precisely when documents are rare, or missing. 87

Therefore, the main source of the data reported here will be the book 12709.'3' A second book, in which I found interesting records, is that numbered 12713.'4' It is worth noting that, after my first studies on the former book, a university researcher is at present carrying out a detailed study of it, and will soon publish a paper of the whole trade reported there.15' These two books can be examined independently one of another, as follows. I cannot exclude that further data can be derived from the remaining books, which for the moment I have not checked accurately enough. NAIBI SOLD IN 1415-1422 The book in question is the first of the series, and in principle should cover the long time interval from 1415 to 1441. Unfortunately, its second part has been severely damaged and only the lower part of the pages can be read; moreover, the records themselves are there less detailed and complete. The handwriting is less fine than average, everywhere, but in the second half of the book it becomes hard to read. In conclusion, we should be satisfied, at least for the moment, with the few years for which I have been able to get the data of the following Table. As in other notes, the date is expressed as yyyy/mm/dd and the price everywhere in soldi, with an approximation to hundredths of them, which did not correspond to any coin of the time (thus, for ex. s.8.67 should correctly be read as s.8d.8). As mentioned before, the main cause for satisfaction is that these years are so early for playing card production that this new data becomes particularly interesting. This is evident just at the very beginning: thinking for July 1415 of a single purchase of no less than 240 naibi packs, to be further sold in Lucca, is probably much more than anybody could have expected. Apparently, a local production was necessary to support a similar trade, and not of the kind of the single cardmaker who little by little produced one pack after another in the course of several months, as we were ready to expect. I have already discussed the various attributes associated with naibi.(6) Dozzinali, sold by the dozen, is a clear sign of a rather low quality. Here we have both normal packs, needing no attribute, or provided with that of dozzinali, and vantaggiati, those of a better quality. The corresponding costs should indicate if the better quality was on its turn a standard quality at a superior level, or instead the vantaggiati attribute was used for several nuances of increasingly higher quality. For these cards, the indication is somewhat confounded by the presence of different sizes too, with different prices on their turn. However, the impression deriving from the various prices present here is that several degrees of better qualities were present. As for makers, we find only one of them mentioned here: the entries with 88

AOIF, 12709 FOL 4v

6r

DATE 1415/07/10 ,, ,, 1415/09/06 II

7r 7v 10v

1415/09/07 ,, 1415/09/10 1415/1/025 If

18r

40r 129r 130r

135v

„ 1416/04/30 ,, ,, 1417/06/12 ,, 1421/05/23 1421/06/02 " ,, 1421/10/05 II

146r 146v 148r 157r

1422/03/16 1422/04/11 1422/04/11 1422

PACKS SIZE 120 72 48 6 1 12 6 4 12 24 6 1 2 2 4 6 2 2 6 6 2 8 12 2 2 6

PIC MEZ GRA PIC GRA PIC GRA MEZ GRA PIC GRA MEZ PIC GRA GRA MEZ PIC MZL MEZ -

KIND

SOLDI

DOZ DOZ DOZ DOZ VAN VAN VAN VAN VAN VAN VAN VAN VAN DOZ

1.17 1.5 4.17 1.67 4 1.17 4.17 9 4 1.08 8.67 21 12 8.50 5.50 8 15 12 2.67 1.25 12 1.83 9.50 10 10 2.08

BUYER CRI CRI CRI AGN ? CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI ANG ANG LEO LOR LOR LOR FRA FRA ANS TOM DAD ?

NOTE 1 1 1

1 1 1

Note 1: Cards indicated as made by Antonio. BUYERS: CRI = Cristofano d'Agnolo, merciaio in Lucca. AGN = Agnolo di Bartolomeo. ANG = Andrea di Giovanni, forzerinaio. LEO = Leonardo, merciaio. LOR = Lorenzo d'Antonio, speziale a La Lastra. FRA = Francesco, merciaio. ANS = Andrea Stefani, merciaio in Lucca. TOM = Tommaso di Francesco, merciaio. DAD = Daddo d'Antonio, merciaio. 89

packs made by him are only about one fourth of the total; however, the proportion greatly increases, up to about three fourths, if the number of packs is taken into account. His name, Antonio, is the most frequent among Florentine cardmakers. However, in 1415, several of the cardmakers with the same name, whom we find in records of later times, were too young or even not yet born. It is unexpected that we do not find this maker associated with the more expensive cards; on the contrary, he seems to have been able to provide this seller with great quantities of standard cards, to be sold at the lowest prices of the market. No pack of the vantaggiati quality is indicated with its maker's name. It is apparent however that these were supplied by at least a second maker, and a confirmation we find below, when dealing with packs acquired. The purchasers are also interesting. They are always indicated with name and profession, sometimes with their place of activity too. The profession is often the same or similar to that of the suppliers, merciai, let us use the literally corresponding term of mercers. We could thus be in the presence of a trade from gross-dealer to retailer, but - at least for our naibi - it seems rather to have been a trade among retailers. When the place is not indicated, we can assume it to be Florence. La Lastra I prefer to associate to a small village close to Florence in the North direction, rather than Lastra a Signa, farther to the West. Lucca is easy to identify, even if I had no idea of any such predominance for the destination of these sales. Among the purchasers, this big town is even represented by two different mercers. In particular, we can verify that these purchases occurred at short intervals of time - this implies that these cards were quickly sold out in Lucca. Of course, this data is not enough to deduce that in other towns, of dimensions similar to Lucca, some local production of cheap cards had been established already. I would only deduce that any such activity was not yet developed in Lucca, whatever its cause could have been. The prices that we find recorded are also of great interest, because we (or let me better write I, to be sure) had no idea how expensive naibi packs could be at the time. Surprisingly enough, what we find here indicates that the production was already established at a level comparable to that of one or two generations afterwards. The vantaggiati packs apparently corresponded to the fini packs of later years; this is not surprising - surprising may be that their prices were of the same order. Even more unexpected is that naibi dozzinali were already produced at such low prices, as we know for later times, when the total production seems to have greatly increased. At the time, there was some inflation in the cost of living and the same 90

nominal prices for 1415 and 1450 did not have the same real value. However, the difference can be dealt with as corresponding to a second approximation, and an increased precision in comparing prices can be delayed to a subsequent study. NAIBIACQUIRED IN 1415-1418 Information on cards acquired by our mercers is more difficult to detect in the book, because the corresponding trade is of a different kind. Packs are typically sold directly by cardmakers, who used them for "paying" some goods previously acquired in the store. This "payment" occurred, as usual, in successive installments, which could be recorded in the course of several months, as follows. AOIF, 12709 BOIL D A T E

P

A

9r 1 4 1 5 / 1 1 / 1 3 1415/12/02 1415/12/24 1416/01/11 1416/01/24 1416/04/30 1416/09/04 lOr 1 4 1 5 / 1 0 / 1 8 1415/10/21 1415/10/22 1415/11/21 26r 1 4 1 6 / 0 9 / 1 9 1416/10/16 1416/11/21 1416/12/05 1417/01/25 1417/02/09 1417/03/06 1417/03/20 1417/04/03 36r 1 4 1 7 / 0 7 / 0 5 1417/12/30 1418/0/129 1418/07/02 58r 1 4 1 8 / 1 2 / 1 7

C

K

S

2 2 2 2 1 2 1 ? ? ? ? 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 2 1 2 4 2

S I Z E

K I N D

GRA MEZ MEZ G R A V

VAN VAN DOZ VAN VAN DOZ DOZ DOZ DOZ DOZ DOZ A N

S O L D I

8 8

M A K E R

P D A , ,

8

I

I

8

I

I

20 , , 8 „ 20 „ 7t A D F 12t , , 16t I I 29.50t , , 20 P D A 8 , , 20 , , 20 , , 2 0

2

I

I

8 , , 8 , , 8 , , 8 , , 8 P D A 16 „ 8 , , 8 , , 0 P D A

PDA = Piero di Antonio - ADF = Antonio di Francesco 91

In the Table, a letter t after the soldi amount indicates that this is the total amount in soldi paid for an amount of packs that was not recorded. We are in the presence of two makers, Piero di Antonio and Antonio di Francesco. The latter was likely the same indicated above as the maker of several packs sold in the store. We find only the record of the total price of his cards here, without any indication on unit prices. Piero di Antonio, on the other hand, appears as the supplier of the more expensive packs. Apart from one case of naibi mezzani recorded at s.16, all his packs were either dozzinali, priced however as high as s.8, or vantaggiati at 20. Apparently, he was not yet involved in any mass production, and the slow rate of his supplies may be a confirmation. In other words, the two makers here encountered can be assumed as representative of two different ways of production: many packs of inferior quality or few high-class packs. Unfortunately, we do not have further data up to now, coming from any other cardmaker, already active in the town. We can however imagine that any additional maker, if already existing, could have employed one of the two mentioned kinds of production. NAIBI TRADED IN 1453-1455 In the second book examined, we find a different and more familiar situation, corresponding to the middle of the 15th century. This is easier to compare with other account books already studied. However, there is something unusual in this book, which is thicker than similar ones, with more than three hundred leaves. It seems that the trade changed in the time of these records, with increasingly more entries concerning production rather than small trades of the shop. I have collected in the following Table all the packs that I could find in the book; namely, in its initial part. We can observe that low-quality packs still exist, but have rather become an exception among packs recorded here; only one dozen packs priced less than s.2 are present in the entries that I have seen in this store. Also at the other extreme we find a reduction of entries: the most expensive pack sold is one of naibi doppi priced at 19s. Other naibi packs have prices in the middle range. Interesting is also a case in which we see three naibi packs acquired and sold on the same day, 27 December 1453: this immediately provides us with the information of the small mark-up adopted in this trade, less than 10%. The appearance of trionfi is remarkable; as it was easy to expect, they are priced higher than corresponding naibi. However, we may note further details: apparently a price of s.14 had already become a standard price for them. These trionfi seem generally to correspond to the mezzani size, even though this is explicitly stated in just one occurrence; in the only one case in which we find the grandi size indicated, the corresponding price only 92

increases from s.14 to s.16 d.6, still below that of several packs of naibi vantaggiati. CONCLUSION Information is provided on the early trade of naibi: both numbers of packs sold and corresponding prices appear of some interest. It may be surprising that we begin in 1415 with a sale of no less than 240 packs of naibi to be sold in Lucca. Also information on naibi packs acquired in the store is interesting, because in this part of the trade the cardmakers themselves were

AOIF, 12713 FOL

DATE

2v

1453/01/01 II

II

8v

llr 14r 21v

1453/02/17 ,, ,, 1453/03/06 1453/05/11 1453/06/26 II

45v 59v 60r 62v

1453/10/06 1453/12/18 1453/12/18 1453/12/27

72v

1454/02/08 1455/03/18

96r

PACKS

SIZE

KIND

14 7 2 10 4 1 16 2 4 12 12 12 4 6 6 1 6

PCI MEZ MEZ MEZ GRA PIC MEZ MEZ MEZ GRA

TRI TRI TRI DOP TRI CAR CAR DOP CAR DOP TRI

SOLDI

5 8 14 8 14 16.50 4.33 16 14 3.33 3.50* 1.67 4 4.33 4 14* 8

NOTE 1

2 3 1 1

3 4 5

1 6

Notes: price for single packs, deduced from the total price and/or indicated as agreed upon. 1. Maker: Antonio di Dino. 2. Attribute added: begli, or fine. 3. Supplier: de la Lisa(?). 4. Buyer: Agnolo d'Antonio, active in San Gimignano. 5. Supplier: Pagholo Corsellini, merciaio. 6. Attribute added: I could not read it.

93

involved in person. From a second account book, some new data has been taken for the years 1453-1454, when trionfi were sold as well as naibi, at comparable prices. 10.04.2012 Nuns (1) See Chap. 4: "Naibi on sale", p. 27. (2) http:/ /www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it/defi/lsis?Conf=/opt/defi/DefiConf/ defi.sysn (3) AOIF, 12709, "Ricordanze A" (13/05/1415 - 01/06/1441). (4) AOIF, 12713, "Giomale A" (01/01/1453 - 20/11/1461). (5) Alessia Meneghin, personal communication, 01.02.2012. (6) See Chap. 5: "Naibi with attributes", p. 39.

ABBREVIATIONS IN THE TABLES SIZE GRA grandi, large MEZ mezzani, middle MZL mezzanelli, the same as mezzani, or slightly different PCI piccini, small PIC piccoli, small KIND CAR charte/ carte, cards (not as naibi) DOP doppi, double DOR dorati, messi a oro, gilded DOZ dozzinali, ordinary FIN f i n i , fine quality FOR d i or a forma, printed from woodblocks MIX mixed, "di phi ragioni", more kinds together ORO a oro (gilded) RIM rimboccati, with folded edges SCE scempi, single TRI trionfi VAN vantaggiati 94

10 1461 - CARDS AND TRIUMPHS IN A CAMBINI SHIPMENT TO VENICE INTRODUCTION This note reports one further mention of playing cards and trionfi in the account books of the Cambini family, kept in the Archivio dell'Ospedale degli Innocenti (AOIF). These account books have been carefully studied by several researchers; in particular, Sergio Tognetti, university professor, has been the author of a whole book, in which much of the data from these account books has been reported and discussed."' I asked for his opinion on the presence of any trade of playing cards in these books and he answered that he did not remember having found any playing cards mentioned there, and concluded that my search was like looking for a needle in a hay-stack.''' The same judgement, with exactly the same saying, has been suggested to me later on by other professional scholars, who had performed similar researches. I had already searched in this series of books, however, because these Florentine merchants were among those mentioned for their imports into Rome by Esch in his study.''' First, I found nothing in these account books;''' then, in a German book on Florentine painters"' I read the reference to an old article,'' in which trionfi and playing cards had been found—a half century ago!—precisely in these books, with other art objects sold by Cambini. I thus wrote another note' to inform card historians about this old data. Somewhat surprising was the fact that all the packs traded had been produced by one and the same painter, Filippo di Marco. Just in one entry "simple" playing cards were recorded, while most mentions were for trionfi, seemingly the cards most sought at the time. Now, after examining the account books of other merchants,'"' I have again taken up the study of Cambini's ones, in the hope of finding new data on our topic of interest. 1. SEARCHINGFURTHER ENTRIES I first examined a small part of the trionfi quotations already reported by Corti and Hartt.'") I could thus check that these records really existed. 95

However, the word trionfi was often written in a way that required an expert eye to read it, and, moreover, it was only incidentally present in some lines of records, which mostly were devoted to different goods. My impression, as soon as I verified them, was that I would probably not have been able to find these useful records, without the exact indication given by the previous authors mentioned. Except for card experts, it is not evident that the word trionfo could correspond to playing cards. For instance, we can find the same Italian word associated with a typical centre-piece for fruits or cakes. Even if we limit the term to any representation of triumphal subjects, something besides paper cards might be underlying the entry, mostly wooden tables, such as were used for cassoni or small boxes. In other words, a trionfo could be any figure with a triumphal subject, painted anywhere, as a decoration. On the other hand, the associated word paio or paro is of no help, if one does not know that it was used for a pack, instead of mazzo, as it was known later on. Not surprisingly, authors who found trionfi in Cambini books did not realise that they were just playing cards. This misunderstanding was present in the first article,(6) but it was repeated in a more recent review (9' of documents kept in the "Estranei" section of AOIF that are of great interest for the history of fine arts. For us, the meaning of trionfi is clear, and we are thus very interested in finding any entries of this kind in the many books kept. It was obvious that finding further entries of our interest would have been much better than verifying entries already found long ago, even if only recently brought to the knowledge of card historians. I have thus selected further books to examine, and leafed through several of them. I could not avoid repeating to myself, in front of every further book, that I really was searching for a needle in a hay-stack. To better explain my situation, I have to admit that leafing through account books without finding any useful entry is for me far from an exceptional case. It is instead the rule in the last months, in which I have "studied", if using this verb is acceptable in this case, dozens of account books of various merchants, without finding anything of interest to us. I am thus getting accustomed to search much and retrieve little or nothing - I can accept this work, after all compatible with the activity of a retired person. Cambini were however among the most efficient exporters to Rome, as indicated by Esch,(3) and their sale of trionfi made by Filippo di Marco had already been communicated. '6) These should have been hay-stacks full of needles, comparable or even better than the books of Lorenzo di Bartolo and Matteo di Zanobi." I have thus been much disappointed not to find a lot of "our" records in these promising Cambini books. Up to now, I only found one useful entry, in one account book. The book 96

is described as follows in the AOIF catalogue: "'Ricordance M' 09/12/1461 24/12/1462 'Relativo a merci acquistate e vendute su varie piazze nazionali ed europee e a memorie di promesse e contratti attinenti, di Francesco e Carlo di Niccolo Cambini'."" 2. THE SOLEENTRY FOUND After a long search, I could pin down an entry of interest to us.'"' I feel that some time will pass before I search again in Cambini books, after finding there the following small needle. Let us examine it in some detail. Richordo chome insino adi 19 di febraio 1461 che not ricevemo nel maghazino da Tomaso di Santi sceglitore? di lana queste chose che apresso esprimo? 6 dozine di scharselle di chuoio 3 scharselle choperte di veluto 5 dozine di paia di charte 8 dozine di trionfi 10 dozine di palle grosse scempie 51/2dozine di ghonfiatoi 4 charnaiuoli a picholi 20 dozine di palle alesine sechondo che disse Tomaso di Santi A? di detto si messono le sopra dette chose in una chassa e mandamola a Vinegia a Girolamo Chorboli. [In a few places I transcribe as "e" a letter that one could easier read as "i".] What a scarsella is should already be known to readers of Notturno's performance." It was precisely in his scarsella that Castalio, one of the players, was keeping his pack of trionfi: "Tacete i n'ho trovato una pilt Bella Vo che faciamo de triomphi un gioco Chio gli ho qui apunto meco in la scarsella." Thus, a pocket or a handbag. Six dozens of them are in leather, three further similar items are coated with velvet. Then we have five dozen card packs and eight dozen trionfi. Ten dozen big balls follow (scempie I imagine is associated to a single shell, instead of a double one) with sixty-six gonfiatoi (I suppose they were the corresponding pumps, but am not sure). Then, carnaiolo is an obsolete word for carniere, the term now in use for a game-bag. Maybe a piccoli was a smaller version, suitable for fowl. Twenty dozen balls follow. (I read alesine well, but do not know its meaning.) Secondo che disse Tommaso di Santi, according to his suggestions. On the same day, the items mentioned were put in a box and sent to Girolamo Corboli in Venice.

97

3. DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS On the packs made by Filippo di Marco and sold by Cambini(61 I wrote the following comment: "These were items commissioned for export, together with several other costly art objects. Incomparably much more, and cheaper, card packs were by then produced for local purchase and use by common people, triumphs included."' Here we apparently have some specimens of the latter category: even if no price is indicated, it is clear enough from the contents of the shipment that these were ordinary packs of cards and trionfi. The destination of Venice has a certain interest, because we have little information on the local trade of playing cards at the time, even though Venetian cardmakers apparently were well-organised and ready to protect their products from foreign imports. (The importance of the Venetian production will become better known, and more evident, in the following century.) It is not clear for us, on the other hand, which was the particular utilisation of these items by Corboli. In particular, the quantity is somewhat intermediary, too small for a big trade, but at the same time by far too great for a personal use. It could thus be useful to know something more about the receiver of these cards. Actually, we are fortunate enough to find him mentioned many times in Tognetti's book."' He appears to have been a merchant out of the ordinary; to begin with, he was a Florentine who did not belong to a family of merchants, as was the rule in similar cases. Coming from a rather low status, he had been selected nevertheless as the main Cambini agent in Venice, for all kinds of trade, including great financial operations. Let me copy a relevant paragraph from Tognetti's book. "Dalla Serenissima verso Firenze affluivano grana greca e cotone siriano, allume e tele, ma anche schiave tartare, piombo, vetrerie, argento silimato, cuoiame tedesco, rasce. Nel complesso tuttavia i quantitativi erano modesti; praticamente nulli quell esportati dalla Toscana verso la capitale veneta, la quale era ancora, per gli uomini d'affari fiorentini, un polo essenzialmente finanziario. Per i Cambini, anche negli anni sessanta, dirigeva un notevole traffico di lettere di cambio Girolamo di Francesco Corboli, a cui era intestato non solo un normale conto corrente, ma anche una serie di 'conti a parte' su cui transitavano rilevanti somme, oggetto di particolari operazioni finanziarie; decine di migliaia di fiorini venivano annualmente addebitate e accreditate sui suoi conti con il banco ed é molto probabile the il Corboli fosse in rapporti d'affari anche con altre ditte fiorentine."") "From Venice to Florence flowed not only Greek grain and Syrian cotton, alum and cloth, but also Asian slaves, lead, glasswork, mercuric chloride, 98

German leathers, and woolen rash. Overall, however, the quantities were modest; practically nothing was exported from Tuscany to the Venetian capital, which, for Florentine businessmen, remained essentially a financial hub. For the Cambinis, even in the 1460s, Girolamo di Francesco Corboli handled a considerable traffic of bills of exchange, which were addressed not only to a normal bank account, but also to a series of 'separate accounts' which dealt with particular financial transactions; tens of thousands of florins were annually debited and credited to his account with the bank, and it is very likely that Corboli had business relations with other Florentine companies." (Translation by Ross Caldwell.) CONCLUSION It is certain that also rich bankers and merchants, as Cambini really were, were involved in the trade of playing cards; this fact may be useful for obtaining, in particular, new data on the early spread of trionfi. The account books of these merchants have been kept, at least in part; however, finding playing cards recorded there is not a frequent occurrence. In this case, I could only add to the small data already known the shipment of a box containing various goods to Venice in 1461, with—our specific interest—sixty packs of playing cads and ninety-six of trionfi. 15.08.2012 Nous (1) Sergio Tognetti, II banco Cambini: affari e mercati di una compagnia mercantile-bancaria nella Firenze del 15° secolo. Florence, Olschki, 1999. (2) Sergio Tognetti, personal communication, December 2011. (3) Esch 2007. (4) "Early playing card export from Florence?, http://trionfi.com/card-exportflorence (5) Jacobsen 2001. (6) Corti & Hartt 1962. (7) See Chap. 2: "Florentine triumphs by Filippo di Marco", p. 15. (8) http://trionfi.com/franco-pratesi (9) Richard A. Goldtwhaite's contribution in: Lucia Sandri, Gli Innocenti e Firenze nei secoli. Florence, Studio per Ed. Scelte, 1996. (10) Chap. 6: "Naibi sold by silk-dealers", p. 51, and Chap. 10: "Naibi acquired by silk-dealers", p. 79. (11) http:/ /old.istitutodeglinnocenti.it/defi/Isis?Conf=/opt/defi/DefiConf/ defi.sysn (12) AOIF, "Estranei" 12640 c. 117v. (13) "Notturno revisited", http: / /trionfi.com/notturno-tarocchi

99

Fig. 8 - The new building of the Archivio di Stato di Firenze seen from Porta alla Croce. (Photo Franco Pratesi)

100

11 1451 - ONE COMMON PACK OF TRIONFI INTRODUCTION I have recently restarted my studies in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, ASF.") In searching in some of the account books kept there, I found a record that appears to me of great interest. In particular it supports my old convinction that trionfi had an early spread among common people, at least in Florence. The present note describes and discusses this recent finding. 1. ZOOM IN 1.1 One archive - ASF Archivio di Stato is the name that now indicates any section of the public archives of Italy, present in all the main towns of the country. The ASF is thus now just the Florentine section of this whole net of archives;"' its oldest part was however the great archive of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and for earlier times of the Florentine Commune. Not surprisingly, there are thus kept almost countless books and files of documents, from the middle ages to nowadays; they are so numerous that can be better indicated in an unusual manner - we read in the descriptions of ASF that they are... more than 75 km long. It is feasible for me to think of archives that contain even more pieces, or that contain older documents. If however we assign an increasingly greater weight to the documents as a function of their age, I am pretty sure that to find other archives as rich as this one is a hard task. Many people have visited the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, but few of them know that this was just the top floor of the great building designed by Giorgio Vasari, the Uffizi, the Offices, where the old documents were carefully kept, for centuries.'2' I could visit the archive only a few times there; out of the past visitors in that place, I fear that few are still alive. In the late 1980s all these materials were translated in a new building, located near Porta alla Croce, one of the old gates of the town (this gate was kept in its place while the city walls were demolished for obtaining a wider avenue, when Florence became the chief town of Italy). To become really familiar with this whole archive, I fear that a full life is 101

not enough. First, one has to become old (and this requirement I have satisfactorily observed); second, one should have visited the archive day after day for many hours (and this has not been my case, because for several decades I did not enter the archive at all). As occurs for most archives, the material is organised in sections, which are inevitably many; in this case, more than six hundred. Here only one of these sections is of interest, but it is a big one. 1.2 One Section— CRSGF After the French revolution and the following wars, Tuscany had for some years a French government; with two Napoleon decrees (24 March 1808 and 13 September 1810), the Tuscan institutions of monasteries, nunneries, and other religious corporations were suppressed. In particular, the countless books that had been preserved in all these religious institutions were collected in public archives: if they had some literary interest, they went into one the main public libraries of the town (and many of them can now be studied in our Biblioteca Nazionale); if they were administration books, or similar documents, they were addressed to "Direzione centrale degli archivi di Stato", and can now be examined in a dedicated section of the Florentine Archivio di Stato. (A comment, maybe superfluous, is that in the two last institutions the word Stato corresponds to Tuscany or Italy, respectively.) This section, "Corporazioni religiose soppresse dal govern° francese", CRSGF, contains almost ten thousand books and files. In general, a numbered series of archive pieces is associated to a given convent, or religious corporation; the correspondence is nearly perfect, even if in a few cases we find two series for a given monastery. Now, when we search in the corresponding inventory (four big volumes, by the way), we find 253 series and 4 appendices. The amount of books kept for each series varies from a few books to hundreds of them. In this vast archive of documents, there are two circumstances that enormously reduce the books of our specific interest. A first selection can be made on a simple basis—let us eliminate all items which probably are not of our interest: they are more than 99%! As a matter of fact, most account books contain records of the administration of the convents, or of their possessions. Now, finding monasteries where playing cards have been produced or even simply acquired does not seem to be the most reasonable of the researches. (I put down this suggestion here as a correct one, even if I have found a lot of nuns engaged, within their nunneries, in one or another of the single steps of the silk fabrication—especially those involving the most of patience 102

and the best of craftsmanship. Without any stimulation for further research, as yet, I can thus easily imagine some nuns taking care of pasting or painting playing cards, in case in addition to religious images.) As a consequence, only the few monasteries remain of our interest, which have kept account books of merchants and retailers working outside of the convent, in the same way as the "Estranei" section in the AOIF.(11 Having thus greatly reduced the scope of our search, there is a second step available for further reducing the selection: we can go farther by inspecting the relative dates of the account books. Most of them belong to the following centuries, especially from the 17th and later ones. They can be useful for other studies, but are clearly of no interest for the initial spread of playing cards and trionfi. As a result, less than 1% of the books of this section are interesting for us. 1.3 One Convent—Santa Maria Novella Let me limit here my attention to Serie 102, corresponding to the convent of Santa Maria Novella, one o f the greatest and oldest o f Florence."' Nowadays few Dominican friars live there and most of its buildings are becoming a public museum.''' However, the professor of physics in my first studies in the university was Mario Galli, precisely a friar living there—a few years after the middle ages. More important was of course the stay there of the whole papal court, especially in the years of the Council, in the late 1430s and early 1440s. In the time of our interest, we had i n Florence another convent of Dominican friars, which became even more important for the cultural life of the town, the Convento di San Marco. Maybe it is mostly known thanks to Savonarola, but it had been the preferred location for the cultural activity of Cosimo dei Medici, it Vecchio. These friars followed the Osservanza rule, a kind of reformed section of the traditional way, represented, up to present days, by Santa Maria Novella. The time of interest corresponds to the flourishing of Renaissance and some of those masterpieces are kept in the church, such as the Masaccio's fresco of some years before, or the upper part of the facade by Leon Battista Alberti, of some years later. Not surprisingly, the number of pieces coming to the ASF from this big convent is great, reaching a little more than 500, more than 600 with the Appendix. However, with our very useful first criterion not to consider the administration of the convent, we are left with a little section of books in the "Eredita" subsection. Moreover, for the second criterion, only to consider the 15th century, we are practically left with one family to examine: "Eredita Bandini", just three account books. 103

1.4 One Family - Bandini Bandini is a rather common family name in Florence. In the phone directory for 2011/12 we can count no less than ninety entries at this name. If we go back in time for sixty years, one of my dozen friends of the school-days had this family name. We have however to go farther, towards even earlier times. Searching in the Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, we still find a score of people belonging to this family.(6) In these cases, better than with a single family, it would be more correct to deal with its several branches. In particular, considering the popularity of this family name, it is easy to expect that they had many branches and that it would become a difficult task to track, for each of them, its expansion and, in case, its extinction. In our specific case, it is rather the extinction of a family branch that is involved, because this is the most frequent instance for churches, convents, or hospitals receiving the inheritance of heirless families. It may be worthwhile to directly jump to the renowned 1427 Catasto, the first complete list of the Florentine families, with records of their possessions, and so on. There we find two Bandini families. The first, with no less than 14 members (or bocche as they were mentioned in these documents), was headed by Francesco di Romolo, dealer in cloth. The second family, with a more "modern" four members, was headed by Giovanni di Lorenzo, a young notary.° 1.5 One Author - Ser Giovanni Bandini The person of our interest is precisely Ser Giovanni Bandini di Ser Lorenzo di Ser Agnolo. The profession of notary had seemingly an almost hereditary character in this family: as a matter of fact, both Giovanni's father and grandfather were named with the typical Ser label. We are lucky enough to have met him already in the 1427 Catasto. The family lived in Quartiere Santa Maria Novella, Gonfalone Leone Bianco. By then, it was a very young family, formed by Giovanni 23 years old, wife Pantassalea 18, brother Luigi 5, son Lorenzo 1. This situation however corresponds to twenty-four years before the event of interest here; I had to follow him in the next editions of the Catasto and search for other documents. Fortunately, I discovered in time that this project had already been completed recently. A lot of information on this notary has actually been obtained thanks to... Boccaccio's Decameron: Marco Cursi has studied in detail the extant manuscripts of this masterpiece, beginning with his doctoral dissertation, and has then written a whole book on them.18) More recently, the same author has succeeded in retrieving the name of the copyist of a manuscript kept in Paris,(9) nobody less than our Giovanni Bandini. The situation thus reached has some ground-breaking character: on most 104

of these manuscripts the name of the copyist can be found directly written in the book, and then no further information can be discovered on these persons; here, on the contrary, we do not find the name of the copyist (only first derived by Cursi from other copies signed by him), but then much information could be added on his life.'"' The main source for the life of Ser Giovanni has been another book arrived in the ASF from Santa Maria Novella.""' It is not included together with the three books of the inheritance, and I only leafed through it when I had already read the main information in Cursi's article. Something for later times, after Giovanni's death, can be deduced from another book of the inheritance." It was compiled later on by Agnolo, son of Giovanni (he too a notary by profession), who mentions both his mother Pantassalea and his brother Marco. Anybody wishing to know more about Ser Giovanni, should just study the article mentioned, in which detailed information can be found.'") As for his family, I had written that it appeared as a "modem" one, but matters went differently: the parents had no less than nine children, six of whom died however very young, from a couple of hours to a couple of years old, or only slightly more. Two books of deeds written by Ser Giovanni are kept in ASF.(12) I have leafed through the second of them and verified that the number of deeds greatly decreased after 1440. We know the reason, described and discussed in some detail in Cursi's article. In that year the career and the life itself of Ser Giovanni changed abruptly: he became infirm and deformed and had no relief by any treatment in the following years. As a consequence his limited possessions rapidly dissolved and he had to change to a great extent his profession, after he had to give up his public offices. His following workplaces as a notary for private deeds - indicated in the course of time at Montughi, Campi, La Lastra, Badia fiesolana, Montelupo, Calenzano - were only suitable for a lesser activity. Together with, or instead of, his travelling around for his job, he had to combine with it that of a copyist of manuscripts, working at home and hardly making a living for his family. In addition to the frequent deaths of his children, and his poor health conditions, Ser Giovanni met remarkable troubles to marry off Tancia (his only daughter, born in 1428, absent in both Catasto editions quoted here), and Agnolo as well. It would be of some interest to report the details, be it for nothing else than to allow a comparison with the court marriages reportedly connected with the most famous trionfi. This I am handing down to people more inclined to expand real facts into stories and novels, and am referring again to Cursi's article.'"' 105

I have looked for the composition of the family in the Catasto of 1451, the year of our interest: it was formed at the time by Giovanni 47, Pantassalea 42, Agnolo 20, Marco 7, Ridolfo 3."" As in some previous cases, Giovanni asks to be recognised as too indigent to be taxed and adds some comment on his present poor state, due to his infirmity, which began a dozen years before. In conclusion, Ser Giovanni Bandini was not a particularly remarkable personage. As a person involved with public charges or affairs, it is easier to find some information about his father or his son Agnolo. On the other hand, he cannot of course be considered as an illiterate labourer. We can distinguish and conclude that in comparison with an average social state, his education was higher and his prosperity lower. 1.6 One Book—Pezzo 419 We have seen that only three books have been kept for the Bandini inheritance. Now, only the first of them is of interest for us, because the other two books belong to following times: No. 420 dealing with years 1466 to 1468; No. 421 from 1467 to 1487. Our book" is a thin book of a rather small format: only 36 leaves, with a large part of them left blank; dimensions of the leaves are 15x21 cm. A large parchment leaf has been used as a cover, and an official deed can still be read in its internal face. The handwriting of Ser Giovanni is easier than average to read. On the first page we read the usual presentation of the book begun on 1st May 1450 at La Lastra, together with the beginning there of an office. Below, three lines indicate that it had to be compiled as three subsequent sections: debit and credit, beginning at fol. 2, incomes from fol. 15, outcomes from fol. 30. The three sections programmed have been respected only in part, and the sections have remarkably different amounts of records. Section one contains some intermediate blank pages and ends on fol. 7v; then we have a continuation of the third section, from fol. 8r to llr (1st April 1461); section two only occupies half page of 15r, with just four records; section three, on the contrary, runs from 30r (2nd May 1450) up to the last page of the book, fol. 36v (9 February 1451—actually 1452) and then continues as indicated. Each page of the third section contains about twenty entries, often with the sum of the corresponding values, of about L.30, indicated at the bottom. The page with the record of our interest does not have a total greater than others; in case, it is slightly less than the nearest previous and following ones. I have not calculated the exact average value for each entry, but it should not significantly differ from about one and a half lira, or 30 soldi. The expenses are mostly associated with food. Logically, each element 106

acquired is not individually recorded, so that we find reasonable combinations of two to four elements among bread, meat, chickens, pigeons, eggs, sausages, lasagne, and so on. Sometimes we find firewood, shoes, or one of a few other items. The impression is that all expenses were limited to cover the most essential needs. 1.7 One entry—16th in fol. 35v Here we finally reach the real focal point of the whole study, just a line of text, a single record, corresponding to a single item among so many similar short entries of various goods acquired for personal use, most just for everyday nourishment. On fol. 35v, we find a list of twenty entries, out of which only the 16th is of specific interest to us. (We cannot be disappointed, nevertheless, because it is an unusual and very useful record.) We read there: "A di detto per 1° paio di trionfi per mio spasso s. 12." The day, indicated in previous entries, was 5 August 1451. Our goal has been reached, we have hit the very central point of our target. This point of arrival can actually become, on its turn, the starting point for further comments. Now, it is time to zoom again; at this point, in the contrary direction, that of extending the perspective and the discussion. 2. Zoom OUT 2.1 Trade For the trionfi pack considered here, the buyer is known, and the corresponding information has been outlined above. On the other hand, the seller regrettably remains unknown to us — unless he belonged to the family of Lorenzo d'Antonio, grocer at La Lastra, who already acquired naibi from Lapino Lapini thirty years before.(15) The seller could be the maker himself, who probably was happy of any possible sale of his products, and could likely gain a higher price from an individual purchaser, in comparison with that granted by retailers who acquired his cards for trading them further. On the other hand, the source could likely be one of the local stores— we have already encountered c a r d packs sold at the time in several kinds of shops, sometimes rather unexpected, such as silk-dealers. In any case, the impression is that this purchase was a simple one; in other words, we can deduce that acquiring a pack of trionfi was by then as simple as acquiring the other items recorded i n this account book. Apparently, they were acquired locally, in a way similar to what may happen nowadays. 107

The same situation would have been easy to understand in the case of a pack of naibi, because they already had a circulation lasting three fourths of a century. Our author did not acquire however a common pack of naibi, he acquired a pack of trionfi. In my opinion, this expression must be completed as follows: he acquired a pack of trionfi, which had already turned into common packs as well, available to any card player! 2.2 Date Nobody knows when the new card pack of trionfi was first introduced. Most historians now believe that the packs that got the name of trionfi already were the same (or very nearly the same) that we later know as Tarocchi. This is probable, because hypothetical experimental patterns with additional cards that varied in number and figures from town to town apparently were not compatible with the intense card trade that already existed at the time of the first quotations known to us. However, the first trionfi pack recognised up to now, due to Marziano da Tortona, used sixteen gods on the triumphal cards, and several other packs could have existed containing triumphal cards different from the Tarot sequence (for instance, imperatori or corone packs).'''' Possible experiments apart, the first document on trionfi has been associated for a long time with the date 1442 in Ferrara, but now this has been substituted by Florence 1440, indicated by Thierry Depaulis, when Ser Giusto Giusti had a trionfi pack made according to his directions— with the coat of arms of its beneficiary, Sigismondo Malatesta."7' We do not know yet how long trionfi packs were made and used in Florence before 1440. A few years later, trionfi packs were also produced in other places and we have information about them from documents or cards of the North-Italian courts, especially Ferrara and Milan. 2.3 Price In the present book, we have the opportunity to compare the price of this pack of trionfi with any other purchase recorded by the same buyer at the same time or very near to it. In general, we could expect that this price was located among the most expensive items acquired. Let us try and verify the actual situation. In comparing the price of this trionfi pack with the other entries, it is apparent that this record is not at all more expensive than the average value of all the entries. It is true that here we have a single item, and not the combined cost of a few elements (as occurring for food), but the cost of these cards is comparable with the cost of a loaf of bread with some meat acquired together. 108

We can do more than this, and examine for comparison other records of trionfi sales at the time.''' What we can reasonably expect is that this pack is not among the most precious ones, packs made for exports, as were those made by Filippo di Marco and recorded in Cambini account books."") On the other hand, it is similarly reasonable to expect a price somewhat higher than that offered by traders who had to further sell the same item. When compared with the known prices at the time, this is in satisfactory agreement. Actually, only very few trionfi packs could be traded at a somewhat lower price at the time, and this value of 12 soldi can be considered as compatible with an average price. 2.4 Pack We would have been interested in many further details about this pack. Everything concerned with the cards, including their total number, their figures, the techniques employed for their production, and so on, is regrettably missing here, as on the other hand we are accustomed to find in any report of the time. It has been a common mistake of most historians to suppose that trionfi were first introduced around 1450 for an exclusive utilisation within the North-Italian courts. This was mainly supported by the very few artistic packs preserved from that provenance. Artistic value apart, it is a real pity that the pack found here in the domicile of Ser Giovanni has not been kept instead of those precious ones. Card historians could have derived from it more useful and correct information! Except that the countless books and articles by art historians on early tarots would have had even less reason to be written. Unfortunately, only few researchers have learnt the great lesson given by Sylvia Mann, that precisely the common playing cards—whenever available—represent the most useful source of the historical information on the subject. 2.5 Utilisation We can deduce something additional and useful from the short comment added for this purchase: per mio spasso, "for my own amusement". This is an important annotation for us. This pack has been acquired just for personal use, exactly as we might have done in our days. In contrast to the pack acquired by Ser Giusto Giusti eleven years before; t h i s pack had nothing of special value; it was not intended as a present for some public figure. At present, evidence for a widespread and early use of trionfi by common people is scarce or missing. Many authors still believe that at the time trionfi still were an exclusive pastime for court ladies and other few personages of the high society. 109

It is therefore essential that Ser Giovanni Bandini states in his record that this pack was instead acquired just for his personal use, thus a rather ordinary playing set for a rather ordinary person. Moreover, even much more so than in our days, this pack acquired for personal pleasure could not be intended for playing Patiences. The purchase had been for personal use, but not for being used by an individual player. We have seen that the family of Ser Giovanni was formed at the time by two parents and three sons, two of them still in their earliest years. We can freely assume that this pack was used by the family, possibly together with one or another friend coming from neighbouring families—in any case, a familiar circle. It is rather fatiguing for me to insist once again to suggest that for the early history of cards (trionfi included) we need first of all to find new documents, because in the presence of data coming only from the courts we are predisposed to make the common mistake of assuming that the game was typical of the courts, and only of them. It is just the documentation left that mainly comes from these high-class environments. (The likelihood of making the same mistake becomes even greater when people base their reasoning on the few precious cards preserved up to now.) 2.6 Suggestion Many historians, and especially the plentiful category of art historians, are interested in the masterpieces of the Renaissance. In order to improve our knowledge about these precious art objects, some of these historians are even ready to spend hours and days in leafing through the ancient documents. Recently, the economic aspects connected with the production and trade of art objects have thus acquired an increased attention by several researchers. In their search in the account books of the greatest merchants, they can hardly find an information on the small trade of such trifling objects as ordinary packs of playing cards. If one looks for data of interest to us, account books of a particular kind have to be searched. We have seen cards and trionfi traded by mercers, grocers, and even silkdealers, in any case retailers, with small trades.'" The last finding has gone farther away from the main channels: trionfi have been found in the records of the everyday shopping done by a private person. Of course, I cannot invite all historians to verify the presence of trionfi or other playing sets in these scarce account books—they are not promising and rewarding enough. What I am able to invite researchers of the subject is again to come down from the court palaces and just try and imagine, as 110

much as they can, how many more playing cards and trionfi were circulating at the time, possibly anywhere in Italy, and certainly in and around Florence. CONCLUSION I have described the finding of the purchase in 1451 of an individual pack of trionfi, in an account book of domestic management. The specific evidence clearly shows how at the time trionfi packs had turned into common playing tools in Florence. Several further comments have been provided, as well as some indication for future research. 15.09.2012 NOTES (1) http://www.archiviodistato.firenze.it/nuovosito/ (2) http://www.uffizi.org/museum/history/ (3) http://trionfi.com/franco-pratesi (4) http: / /www.smn.it/arte/convent.htm (5) http:/ /www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/santa_maria_novella-cloist.html (6) http:/ /www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/tag/bandini/Dizionario_Biografico/1/ (7) ASF, Catasto, 77,1. 254. (8) Mario Cursi, 11 Decameron—scritture, scriventi, lettori: storia di un testo. Rome, Viella, 2007. (9) Mario Cursi, Studi sul Boccaccio, 38 (2010), pp. 1-28. (10) ASF, CRSGF, 102, 82. (11) ASF, CRSGF, 102, 421. (12) ASF, Notarile antecosimiano, 1524 and 1525. (13) ASF, Catasto, 710,1. 143. (14) ASF, CRSGF, 102, 419. (15) See Chap. 8: "1415-1455 - Naibi traded at Lapini store, from 1415 on", p. 87. (16) "On trumps, triumphs, and tarots", http://trionfi.com/trumps-trionfi-tarots (17) "Studies on Giusto Giusti", http://trionfi.com/giusto-giusti (18) See Chap. 2: "Florentine triumphs by Filippo di Marco", p. 15.

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PERSONAL MEMORIES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Let me finish this booklet in an unconventional way, on the personal side, with some comments and memories before the more conventional acknowledgements. The aim of this part is to place this compilation more clearly within my research activity in the field. Thinking of life as a parabola — admittedly not a very original idea — when I began my research on the history of games, I was already walking downwards, in its descending part. A "revolutionary" step was then due to the great Italian chess historian Adriano Chicco. He had some envy for the various collections of ancient printed books and manuscripts that I had available in Florence and succeeded in convincing me that leafing through their pages was not necessarily a task reserved to professional specialists. This occurred in the early 1980s; later on, it was actual practice over several years which taught me how to pass from reading old printed books to deciphering handwritten texts of five or more centuries ago. After a short time, other board and card games games entered the field of my research, in addition to chess. I needeed guides, especially to realise whenever a new finding was really new or it was such only for my limited knowledge. My bibles were Murray's and Dummett's books, for the history of chess and of playing cards, respectively. In addition to the various stores of manuscripts available in Florence, I could visit other ones in many Italian towns, much less abroad. Whenever I found something that appeared to me as new and interesting, I wrote a short note for a journal of the sector. Let me thus recall my publications of those dozen years, limiting the list just to my contributions dealing with playingcards and Florence. What is missing here concerns other games and other towns. The Playing-Card has been one of the best destinations for my writings. Sylvia Mann, in particular, was delighted by my contributions and gave to the series the name of "Italian Cards—New Discoveries". Then also L'As de Trefle published some of my notes, and its editor, Thierry Depaulis, worked amicably also as translator and revisor. A few other articles appeared elsewhere. (See list p. 114.) I systematically insisted by then on the relevance of the Florentine environment for the early history of naibi and trionfi, at a time in which most or all of the experts called attention to other places. My articles were acknowledged as a useful contribution to the subject and therefore the IPCS accorded to me its honorary fellowship. At the same 112

time, I was awarded the Modiano prize for the best research of the year without having stood as a candidate. This activity lasted for a little more than a dozen years, after which I considered my experience with the ancient manuscripts as finished for ever. I continued my studies at home, especially on the history of Go in Europe. For this, I had a lot of specific literature in my collection, or I had to visit a couple of libraries in Holland. At the same time, I have written a few booklets, on didactic subjects, and even on such trifling matters as God. Rather unexpected, after an interval of about fifteen years, the second half of my game with the manuscripts has arrived. I may quote a couple of specific events that have let it be possible, apart from having still some life, mind, and interest available. First, on 1st October 2011, 71 years old, I definitely became a retired person and had some impulse to change my everyday habits. The second fortuitous event has been that somehow I regressed back to the school years: after more than half a century, I again became familiar with the local transit! It seems as if precisely for me they have introduced again a tram line in Florence, after many years of suppression, now that using my car is no longer feasible as it had been earlier on. My recent research has begun with a continuation of my old studies on the laws against gambling in the late Middle Ages, both in Florence and in Siena territories. After that, I was inspired to find in Florence the same kind of customs books, or similar inventories, which expressed as exports what Arnold Esch had found in Rome as imports. Now, the Roman archive of that kind is a real exception, impossible to find elsewhere with the same rich detail at the time. However, litlle by little, I found new records of the playing-card trade, as in part documented in this publication. After having duly acknowleded the contribution of both retirement and tramway to this work, I have to do the same for several persons, who assisted my research during the last year. It is a normal situation that any curator of the archives is ready to assist a visitor in his second childhood, but Lucia Ricciardi must be cited here for her patience and specific learning. Essential for passing from the lines written with pencil on my blocknote to published notes has been the box offered to me by Lothar Teikemeier in the web pages of trionfi.com. This has allowed me to write my comments without having to wait too long. The English language that I have been using for a long time unfortunately echoes Latin lexicon and Italian syntax, when I succeed in avoiding real mistakes, so that a revision by Ross Sinclair Caldwell - who perfectly knows the subject - has been a providential help. Last but not least, to Thierry Depaulis goes the credit for proposing, editing, and formatting this issue, after having entered the research itself with 113

several suggestions. Here too, a kind of second half of the game, because he had already done something similar in the 1990s, with L'As de Trifle, as mentioned above. Florence, 21 October 2012

ARTICLESPUBLISHED IN THE PLAYING-CARD XV, No. 2 (1986) 29-34: Whist Against Minchiate in Florence During the 19th Century. XVI, No. 3 (1988) 78-83: Tarot in Florence in the XVI Century: Its Diffusion from Literary Sources. XVII, No. 1 (1988) 23-33: Notturno's Gioco di Triomphi. XVII, No. 3 (1989) 107-112: On the Introduction of Playing Cards in Florence. XVIII, No. 4 (1990) 128-135: Early Laws on Card-Playing in Towns under Florentine Influence. XIX, No. 1 (1990) 7-17: Carte da gioco a Firenze: it primo secolo (1377-1477). XXI, No. 4 (1993) 126-135: Florentine Cardmakers and Concession Holders. XXVI, No. 2 (1997) 38-45: Orpelli e naibi. XXVII, No. 2 (1998) 64-8; No. 3 111-116: In Search of Tarot Sources 1,2. ARTICLESPUBLISHED IN L'As DE TREFLE No. 38 (1989) 9-10: Padovano et les "nouvelles" cartes florentines. No. 40 (1990) 6-8: Cartes florentines rescapees du deluge. No. 42 (1990) 8-9: La memorisation des numeros du minchiate. No. 51 (1993) 4-5: Au commencement fut la diritta. No. 52 (1993) 9-10: De l'utilite des jurons pour l'histoire de minchiate. No. 54 (1995) 16-17: Les "Imperatori" des Florence a la cour de Ferrare. ARTICLESPUBLISHED ELSEWHERE II Gioco Italiano dei tarocchi e la sua Storia. in: G.Berti, A.Vitali, I Tarocchi (1987), pp. 111-129. Ancient Card Tricks with Minchiate, Playing-Card World, No. 50 (1987), pp. 23-24. Passatempi fiorentini di meta Ottocento, Rassegna storica toscana, 39, No.1 (1993), pp. 181-191. Miracoli per giocatori, Cartophilia Helvetica, 10. Jahrgang (1995), Bulletin No. 3, pp. 26-28. Fiorentini, Alemanni e Imperatori. Cartophilia Helvetica, 11. Jahrgang (1996), Bulletin No. 4, pp. 11-13. 114

INDEX

This index only lists the most relevant persons for the early history of playing cards in Florence. For example, buyers on p. 89 have not been inserted.

Agnolo di Antonio Lapini 87. Antonio 58, 80, 85, 90. Antonio Chico (?) 80, 85. Antonio di Brunetto 53. Antonio di Dino 34, 35, 58, 59, 62, 69, 74, 75, 77, 82, 84, 85, 93. Antonio di Francesco 91, 92. Antonio di Giovanni di Ser Francesco 6, 24, 58. Antonio di Luca 6, 58. Antonio di Simone 58, 59, 67, 69, 74, 77, 82, 85. Antonio Trincaglia (?) 76. Baldo di Pietro 21. Bartolomeo di Paolo Serragli 17. Benedetto di Antonio Spigliati 22, 24, 25. Bernardo d'Uguccione 53, 59. Cennino Cennini 9. Cetina (?) 80, 85. Cincaglie (?) 58. Cristofano di Meo 80. Domenico Botticini 6. Donnino di Giovanni 21. Filippo Brunelleschi 27. Filippo di Marco 7, 17, 21, 24, 25, 58, 82, 95, 98, 109. Francesco Cambini 97. Francesco di Gabriello 21. Francesco di Nicole 80. Francesco di Piero 21. Franco di Piero 22. Gerardo di Paolo 56.

Giannino d'Antonio 56. Giannino di Simone 56. Giorgio Vasari 101. Giovanni Bandini 104, 105, 106, 109, 110. Giovanni da Miessen 16. Giovanni da Pistoia 14. Giovanni di Datto 56. Giovanni di Domenico 17, 75, 76, 77, 85. Giovanni di Donnino 22. Giovanni di Franco 22. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, Lo Scheggia 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 58, 82. Girolamo Corboli 97, 98, 99. Giusto di Giovanni 80. Giusto Giusti 8, 46, 61, 63, 85, 108, 109. Grosso (?) 66. Guglielmus Guglielmi de Brabante 16. Jacopo di Poggino, Paparello 6, 22, 34, 35, 36, 37, 58, 60, 79, 82. Lapino Lapini 87, 107. Lapo di Curino 56. Leonardo di Tommaso 56, 59. Lorenzo di Bartolo 51, 65, 96. Manetto d'Agnolo 77. Martino di Giovanni da Bergamo 8, 56, 59. Marziano (da Tortona] 61. Masaccio 36. Matteo Ballerini 58, 75, 77, 85. Matteo di Zanobi 51, 65, 96. Meo di Goro 76. Nicole di Calvano 56. 115

Nicole di Calvello 69, 72, 74, 82, 85. Nicole di Nardo 56. Paparello, see lacopo di Poggino. Pier Antonio di Ser Barnaba 56, 59. Piero di Antonio 91, 92. Piero di Donnino 22, 58. Piero di Giovanni, Barchetto 57. Piero di Francesco Puri 29. Pietro di Rinaldo di Brabante 16.

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Piero Piccino 58. Ruberto di Ser Bartolomeo 57. Scheggia (Lo), see Giovanni d i Ser Giovanni. Sigismondo Malatesta 8, 108. Simone di Ser Antonio Fazi 66, 67. Tommaso Puri 29. Vasari, Giorgio, see Giorgio Vasari.

FRANCOPRATES! ONLINE From November 2011 to October 2012, Franco Pratesi has published 35 notes (including those which are printed here) that were posted on the website trionfi.com. They are easy to access : just type trionfi.com in Google, and you'll find them. 1. 1453 - An Early Arrival of Triumphs into Rome, 3.11.2011 2. Florentine Card Production in about 1840, 18.11.2011 3. Rosenwald's Fourth Sheet, 24.11.2011 4. New Information from a Sicilian Journal, 05.12.2011 5. 1433 - Diritta and Pilucchino before the Court, 11.12.2011 6. 1486 - Giovanni da Pistoia di Bari, 17.12.2011 7. 1521 - Notturno Revisited, 26.12.2011 8. Early Playing Card Export from Florence?, 29.12.2011 9. 1453-1458 - Florentine Triumphs by Filippo di Marco, 12.01.2012 10. Palazzo dei Diavoli and the Tower, 17.01.2012 11. Cardmakers and Woodblocks on Trial, 21.01.2012 12. 1447-1449 - Naibi on Sale, 27.01.2012 13. Naibi by Pairs, 07.02.2012 14. Naibi by the Dozen, 12.02.2012 15. Naibi with Attributes, 25.02.2012 16. Naibi Sold by Silk-Dealers, 03.03.2012 17. 1445-1447 - The Riddle of the Crowns, 11.03.2012 18. 1791 - Production and Sale of Playing Cards in Tuscany, 24.03.2012 19. 1517 - Germini Among Other Games, 28.03.2012 20. 1452 - A Dozen of Naibi di Trionfi, 02.04.2012 21. 1429/30 - Naibi Traded in Prato by a Notary, 06.04.2012 22. Naibi Traded at Lapini Store, from 1415 on, 10.04.2012 23. 1431-1460 - Naibi Acquired by Silk-Dealers, 20.04.2012 24. 1451 - New Laws Against Gambling in Siena, 24.04.2012 25. The Italian Game of Cud', 05.06.2012 26. On Trumps, Triumphs, and Tarots, 10.06.2012 27. 1440 - Studies on Giusto Giusti, 09.07.2012 28. In Search of Tarot Sources - After 15 Years, 11.07.2012 29. Chess and Playing Cards, Tarot Included - Selected Opinions, 09.08.2012 30. 1461 - Cards and Triumphs in a Cambini Shipment to Venice, 15.08.2012 31. 1456 - Curious Shipments by Andrea Banchi, 18.08.2012 32. 1451 - One Common Pack of Trionfi, 15.09.2012 33. 1779 - Atlante Tascabile e Minchiate, 01.10.2012 34. 1674-1685 - Minchiate at the Evangelista Academy, 20.10.2012 35. 1693-1698 - Minchiate at the Aquilotti Academy, 26.10.2012 117

IPCS Papers Published by THE INTERNATIONALPLAYING-CARD SOCIETY Web: http://i-p-c-s.org No.1: Antal Janoska. Card-Makers in Hungary 18th-20th Century. 1992 No.2: Wolfgang Suma. 500 Jahre Leipziger Spielkarten. 1994. (out of print) No. 3: John Berry. Taxation on Playing-Cards in England from 1711 to 1960. 2001. (out of print) No. 4: Thierry Depaulis. Cartes et Cartiers dans les Anciens Etats de Savoie 1400-1860 [Playing Cards and Cardmakers in the former Savoy States 1400-18601. 2006 No. 5: Nicola Antonio De Giorgio. Le carte da gioco nel Regno di Napoli (1734-1860) / Playing-Cards in the Kingdom of Naples (1734-1860). 2009 No. 6: Jeff Hopewell. Ganjifa - The traditional playing-cards of India. 2010 No. 7: Franco Pratesi. Playing-Card Trade in 15th-Century Florence. 2012

FRANCO PRATESI, Playing-Card Trade in 15th-Century Florence Supplement to the journal of The International Playing-Card Society Price: £8 (IPCS members) / £12 (non-members) plus postage and packing