I have shared with other historians, on the occasion of the great international exhibition about tarots that took place in the Este Castle of Ferrara in 1987, the hypothesis that the game of Triumphs had been conceived in Ferrara or in Milan about in the first half the XV century (Information and video of the exhibition at the link: The Cards of Court. Tarots).
From that time, the researches have brought to light numerous documents that, even if they don't clearly attest the place of origin, have made rise some perplexities about what had been taken for granted until then. Today I believe that the palm of the invention of the game of Tarots is up to Bologna, as I will have way of clarifying later on.
First of all I need to make understand that the date of the first historical discovered document in which tarots are quoted, cannot be considered their 'date of birth', but it simply constitutes a terminus ante quem: and it means that we know that in that date tarots existed, but we cannot say with certitude since how much time.
Regarding the cards of the triumphs, thanks to the documents discovered until today, we know that on February the 10th 1442 at the Este Court an order for "a pair of card of triumphs" (pare uno de carte da trionfi) was quoted in the chapter III of the Registers of the Orders and that in the Register of Wardrobe were annotated four pairs of cards of triumphs: "Master James painter called Sagramoro to day February the 10th must have his remuneration for his work of having painted and coloured 4 pairs of triumphs cards,... which serve to our Lord for his use..." (Maistro Iacomo depentore dito Sagramoro de avere adi 10 fiebraro per sue merzede de avere cho(lo)rido e depento.... 4 para de chartexele da trionffi, ... le quale ave lo nostro Signore per suo uxo...) (figure 1). This document exclusively attests that in Ferrara in those years someone played with the triumphs and not that the triumphs have been invented in that city and in that period.
In reference to the above mentioned manuscript, we don't know of how many and what cards composed the triumphs, since 22, their canonical number, was not standardized in that epoch yet. We know in fact that the various courts rather invented personal card games, as it happened, for instance, in Milan between 1415 and 1420 when the duke Filippo Maria Visconti commissioned to Marziano of Tortona a deck of new conception, according to the habit of Filippo Maria and his court to invent new decks of cards with relative rules of game. We are informed about this by Pier Candido Decembrio (1392-1477), man of court and diplomat, to whom is due the Life of Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan from 1412 to 1447.
Marziano da Tortona commissioned the job to Michelino from Besozzo (1370 ca.- 1455 ca.), painter and miniaturist, considered today one of the greatest exponents of the Gothic art. Marziano wrote a manual of accompaniment to the game (now in the National Library in Paris), the first to be known combined to a deck of cards. But oddly he didn't write about the rules of the game, but exclusively of the allegorical contents of the figures. We are able in fact to define those cards, unfortunately lost, as an ensemble of icons structured on philosophical and moral contents, and for what concerns the numeral cards of the four seeds, composed by Eagles, Falcons (or Phoenix), Doves and Turtledoves, the author combined figures taken from the Greek - Roman mythology with allegorical values: the Eagles were led by Jupiter, Apollo, Hermes, Hercules (Virtue); the Falcons (or Phoenix) by Juno, Neptune, Mars, Aeolus (Wealth); the Turtledoves by Diana, Vesta, Pallade, Daphne (Chastity) and finally the Doves led by Venus, Bacchus, Ceres, Cupid (Pleasures). This deck, later called of the gods, was then purchased by a Venetian captain named Jacopo Antonio Marcello that in 1449 gave it to Isabella of Lorena, wife of Renato d’Angiò. In his letter of accompaniment, Marcello defined the deck "novum quoddam et exquisitum triumphorum genus", a deck of triumphs therefore, even if it didn't have nothing to do with the canonical triumphs that we know.
The deck of cards called of the VIII Emperors was requested in Florence in 1423 by Parisina, Lady of Ferrara, but we don't know with precision how it was structured. However we cannot define as a canonical game of triumphs the most ancient known Milanese deck, the so-called Visconti of Modrone deck (now in the Library of Yale). Of this one remain sixty seven cards of which eleven triumphs and seventeen figures, but among the first ones we find allegories that don't belong to the classical tarots, as Charity, Hope and Faith, theological virtue that we will find once more in the later Minchiate of Florence. Besides the cards of court are six instead of four, with the addition of a Horse Rider Woman (figure 2) and of a page for each seed. We don't know therefore of how many triumphs the deck was composed that was certainly based on rules of game different from those of the triumphs of tarots, also for the greater number of cards of court in it.
In an Este book of the Commissions, at the date of January 1st 1441 we find: "... to Master Jacopo of Sagramoro painter for XIIII figures painted in cotton paper de and sent to Madam Bianca from Milan to celebrate on the evening of the Circumcision of this year" (...a Magistro Iacopo de Sagramoro depintore per XIIII figure depinte in carta de bambaxo et mandate a Madama Bianca da Milano per fare festa la scira de la Circumcisione de l'anno presente). Also in this case we don't know which game it was, but only that the game was composed by 14 cards. Lothar Tekemeier sustains that those 14 figures were realized to be unit to a traditional deck of four seeds (swords, staves, cups, coins), as a further and fifth seed composed by triumphs. This theory of his, said 5 X 14, find me completely in accord, even more considering that the twenty triumphs of the more famous Visconti- Sforza deck, now preserved between the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York and the Academy Carrara in Bergamo, were drawn by two different artists of whom the first one created 14 triumphs and the second one 6 and moreover in a later epoch (The card of the Devil is lacking).
This means that the Ludus Triumphorum was initially formed by 14 allegories.
A further document from Ferrara dated on July the 21st 1457, reports the following information: "Master Girardo de Andrea da Vicenza painter must have today July the 21st because he has done two big Triumphs card decks, 70 for each game” (Maestro Girardo de Andrea da Vizenza dipintore de avere adi 21 de luglio ... de avere depinto para due de carte grande da trionfi, che sono carte 70 per zogo) which is to say 14 cards of seeds and 14 triumphs.
After this investigation we can formulate some important considerations and that is that the Courts invented triumphal games with no connection with the triumphs of tarots, that the number of these triumphs varied in base of the kind of game, that the triumphs in the beginning in the canonical game were 14 and that only later became 22. Such increase was due certainly to the necessity of structuring the images according to a hierarchy of values that reflected the concept of Mystic Christian Staircase (please, read The Celestial harmony inserted in the essay History of Tarots).
To be able to understand when this increase happened, in my opinion we need to analyze the so-called Tarots of Charles VI (now in the National Library in Paris) of the second half of the XV century, so called because in the XIX century it was wrongly identified as a deck mentioned in 1392 in a book of counts of the French king. Only 17 cards remain of which 16 Triumphs and the Page of Swords. The order that makes distinguish these cards, to which shortly later were combined Romans numbers, results to be that of the Bolognese Tarot with the Angel to dominate the World and with minor variations in the numbers of cards of the Chariot, Strength and Temperance. In the illustrated scheme (figure 3) their order is compared with the traditional one of Bologna. The substitution of the Popess, of the Pope, of the Emperor and of the Empress with Four Popes, was effected in the XVI century because the four figures possessed a same value of taking.
Some of these cards have iconographic versions typical of the traditional Bolognese Tarot, with least variations: in the Chariot we find a standing warrior on a cart dragged by two horses with a sword in the sheath and a halberd in his hand (figure 4); Strength is connoted by a young girl in the action to break a column according to the iconography of the Fortitude, Christian virtue (figure 5); the Hanged man holds in his hands two pouches of coins as we find again in a tarot of Bologna of the XVI century (figure 6); Death is represented by a skeleton on a horse (figure 7); the Tower possesses the same aspect of a door-castle (figure 8); the Moon is connoted by the presence of astrologers (figure 9); the Sun by a woman who is spinning (figure 10). Finally in the card of the World we find a woman (Fame) set with her feet above the earth represented inside a circle (figure 11).
In addition to this deck of miniated cards, we find 22 triumphs in so-called Sola-Busca Tarot of the end of the XV century and in the work Cinque Capitoli, sopra el Timore, Zelosia, Speranza, Amore et uno Triompho del Mondo (Five Chapters on Fear, Jealousy, Hope, Love and one Triumph of the World) written by Boiardo approximately in 1461 and published for the first time in 1523. The first four chapters allude to the seeds of the cards while the fifth, structured on 22 triplets, refers to the triumphs. It would be difficult to couple this work to the tarot without the presence of two sonnets placed at the end of his essay: in the second of these, called Sonetto excusato (Excuse Sonnet), he apologizes with the readers for this composition, while with the first entitled Argumento de li detti capituli di Mattheo Maria Boiardo sopra un nuovo gioco di carte (Argument over a new card game), the author offers the real key to interpreting the work. The relationship between the figures of the triumphs and the abstract beings which give the subject to all triplet is not immediate and this means that Boiardo, in composing his verses, referred to a tarot deck-type fantasy.
Even the Sola-Busca cards can be considered fantastic tarots because the author (probably the miniaturist Mattia Serra from MS monogram engraved on many cards) didn’t represent the traditional figures in the triumphs, but apart from the Fool, warriors and figures of classical antiquity (Lempio, Catullus, Nero, Sabino, etc) while in two cases the figures derive from the biblical tradition: Nabuchedenasor (Triumph XXI) and Nenbroto ((Triumph XX). About Nenbroto it is possible create a parallel with the significance of the Tower because he is portrayed in front of a column hit by a fire descending from heaven. The 56 minor cards show scenes of everyday life and fantasy. We do not know how these cards were used. From the presence of historical figures it is possible to think that it was an educational game, entering in this way within the category of those cards realized on encyclopaedic subjects of moral and ethical character.
At the beginning the Ludus Triumphorum was not an exclusive prerogative of the nobility as the survival of illuminated cards would let suppose, but it was known and practiced also in a popular level. The fact that only illuminated cards of triumphs have come to us it doesn't mean that these have been the first ones to be used. It is evident that being considered, then as today, as real artistic works, the nobles who possessed them, preserved them with the due respect. The lack of popular cards of triumphs of the XV century is easily justified by the fact that these, being constituted by simple thick paper and being continuously used, quickly got consumed. When they became useless they were thrown away since they didn’t have an artistic value. If, as we know, in Florence in 1450 a Provision connected to the permitted card games included also the triumpho and even before, in 1442 (as we will see later) the Court of Ferrara bought by merchant in Bologna a deck of triumphs of popular type, it means that the Ludus Triumphorum was already known and practiced for a long time by common people, an the same time in which in Ferrara and in Milan the nobility could afford illuminated cards.
So, if in 1442 they were illuminated cards and the popular cards of triumphs, this means that their origin is to be found in the preceding decades. It is in fact a formulation based on the historical method of attribution for which, in this case, it is necessary to consider the time needed for this game to become so popular to be produced even as works of art in the greatest Courts of Northern Italy. The dating of the invention of the canonical triumphs is therefore to be anticipated at the first decade of XIV century, a date that corresponds to a series of situations in Bologna from which we can hypothesize that it was that city to give them birth.
The Documents
The famous sermon preached in Piazza Maggiore in Bologna during Lent in 1423 by St. Bernardino from Siena against the games had as a result the burning of numerous recreational objects offered by people instigated by the convincing words of the Saint, cards composed by "reges atque reginae, milites superiores et inferiores" that means by the figures of court of the four seeds. The Actas Sanctorum of the Bollandisti (1) that report three lives of the Saint and also talk about Triumphales charticellae (2), but it seems that the insertion of these last ones has been operated only later, that is in the Life composed in 1472 and that it was not there in the first one in chronological order dated 1445. However, a doubt remains.
On July 28th 1442 the court of Ferrara paid Marchionne Burdochi, merchant of Bologna, for the supply of "a pair of cards of triumphs; preserved by James, the crossed - eyed footman, for Mister Erchules and Sigismondo brothers of the Lord" (uno paro de carte da trionfi; ave Iacomo guerzo famelio per uxo de Messer Erchules e Sigismondo frateli de lo Signore). Footmen, (from Latin Famulus) were adopted men who lived and served in the Court. In this case, the deck of cards were kept by James, crossed - eye, who, if necessary, gave the deck to the brothers mentioned above.
The document refers to a relatively cheap deck since it was at a price of nearly five moneys. The main point is to consider that while the Este Court just in that year ordered to the painter Sacramoro, as we have reported above, a deck of illuminated tarots, in Bologna a merchant sold cards of triumphs of popular manufacture. This means that those cards must have been present in Bologna from numerous years.
Bologna at that time was a populous and resourceful city-state with a university frequented by students coming from the whole Italy and Europe. In such situation it was inevitable that the number of taverns and inns was very elevated, cantinas but also places where to play cards and triumphs. A way of life belonging even to noblemen. In fact if the Este Court addressed to the merchant Burdochi to purchase triumphs for the court it means that also the nobility of Bologna played, a nobility that later will contended to have even invented tarots (Referring to this, please, read what has been written about Francesco Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia in essay The Prince).
A document of 1427 reports that Giovanni da Cologne, manufacturing in the city of "cartesellas depictas to ludendum", broke a jug of water on the head of the supplier Zohane from Bologna, manufacturer of paper. Girolamo Zorli affirms that “The presence of a German cards producer in Bologna opens suggestions of technologies up-to-date about the standards of the innovative and flourishing industry of the German press. In 1463 the definitive deck of the triumph-tarots was constituted already by a long time. The printing Houses were at work and they primarily produced it in series for the use in Emilia and Tuscany. Italy, Milan as well, conformed to the model of Emilia". Continuing with the retrieved documents, from the judicial chronicles we know that a servant of the Governor of Bologna, a certain Floriano profession barber, was blamed by Bindo to be a theft. Tortured, the suspect confessed his own guilt and the following search at his place brought to the discovery, among the other things, of unum par cartarum to triumphis (a card of triumph) (3).
In 1477 the notary Alberto Argellata stipulated a contract among Roberto Blanchelli from Rimini, who lived in Bologna, as buyer, and the teacher Pietro Bonozzi, mace - bearer of old people. This last forced himself to make his son observe some pacts concerning "the profession of game cards and triumphs" with the aim to provide Blanchelli a certain quantity of playing cards of two different kinds, and that is normal cards and Triumphs.
Here is the summary of what is specified in the contract, as Emilio Orioli reported in 1908: "In this contract, besides the agreed price, also established the way the cards had to be made, according to a prepared model preserved by a third person; so that if they were not identical or badly done, Pietro Bonozzi was forced to commit them again; they must not have on their back some paint but had to be perfectly white. Master Pietro was also forced not to allow his son or some other people to work or sell cards to others, unless for Blanchelli, neither to help or give advices to other people about such profession neither to teach it to others; he instead promised that for the following eighteen months he would entirely dedicated to prepare cards and triumphs on behalf of Blanchelli; who, in his turn, must supply paper and the necessary cardboards to do, "cards or real triumphs" Besides the agreed upon payment Blanchelli had also to add eighteen moneys for the expenses, every one hundred twenty decks of cards or for as many decks of correspondents triumphs, anyway keeping in mind the greater number of pieces needed to form a deck, since "the deck of triumphs has more cards than the simple one " (4).
In 1588 the papal authorities granted to Achille Pinamonti the right to receive tributes on the playing cards in the measure of 10 moneys for a deck of tarots (5).
A document present in the State Archive in Bologna that doesn't directly concern the Bolognese tarot, but that reports emperor Theodosius’s figure (figure 12) as it is in the so-called Mantegna Tarots (figure 13) it is the manuscript code Constitutions and privileges of the Bolognese study of 1467 (6). Actually, the series of 50 incisions of the Mantegna Tarots (ca. 1465) represents a case apart, special, because it doesn't deal with a real deck of tarots. A wrong nineteenth-century evaluation attributed it to Mantegna, but the historians of the art are in agreement to assign it to an author from Ferrara next to Francesco del Cossa. Nevertheless the order of the figures, that illustrate the human Conditions, the Virtues, the liberal Arts, the Muses and the celestial Spheres dividing them in five well separate groups, expresses still in more finished sense the same meaning of Mystical Staircase present in the cards of the tarots, that we find again in this series with 15 images.
In the Medieval Civic Museum in Bologna there is a stone bas-relief (7) of the same epoch and it introduces Charity (figure 14) with the Misero (Miserable) and the Zentilomo (Gentleman) as represented in the Mantegna Tarots (figure 15 - figure 16).
At Palazzo Poggi in Bologna some frescos painted by Niccolò dell’Abbate (1512-1571) represent men and women playing. One of these shows them while playing cards of which are easily identifiable Six of Coins and of Swords and the Four of Staves, but since some images of triumphs are missing we don't know if the game was the one of tarots. Bartholomeo Crivellari starting from these frescos created some incision copies inserted in the work of Giampietro Zanotti The Paintings by Pellegrino Tibaldi and by Niccolò Abbati, printed in Venice in 1757 (figure 17).
Concerning the documentation on the tarots used as a game, we have to observe that the first description regarding rules and methods originates really from Bologna. This precious information is due to Lorenzo Cuppi, researcher and historian of the academy of the Bolognese Tarocchino. It had already been quoted in 1754 by Carlo Pisarri in his Istruzioni necessarie per chi volesse imparare il giuoco dilettevole delli tarocchini di Bologna (Necessary Instructions for the one who wants to learn the delightful game of Tarocchino in Bologna) (8), but it had been unknown until the research conducted by Lorenzo Cuppi in the Library of the Archiginnasio has allowed to track a copy of it in the ms. Gozzadini 140, written by the Prior of the Serviti Vincenzo Maria Pedini at the end of summer 1746. Various passages allow identifying that the document is a copy of the same manuscript by Pisarri (9). The fact that Vincenzo Maria Pedini and Carlo Pisarri, at the distance of little time, have seen and copied the document defining it ancient (10) besides many other observations among which the mechanism of the mails and the absolute silence to be observed during the game (even facing the big quantity of the permissible expressions of the half of the XVIII century), have pressed Cuppi to date the original document, that nobody has found till now, to the half of the XVI century (11). Since the deck already appears to be reduced to 62 cards it has been considered as terminus a quo the beginning of the XVI century. And more, since Pisarri and Pedini after consider it ancient - term that all the dictionaries (12) from the beginning of the XVII century to the first years of the XIX century invariably define with the expression "that has been a great deal time before: past since many centuries " - they should not be crossed the limits of that century.
Other fundamental works that have dealt with the methods of the game are: Il gioco pratico (The practical game) by Raffaele Bisteghi, appeared in Bologna in 1753; Lettera d’un dilettante della partita a tarocchi ad un Amico desideroso d’apprendere un metodo facile per conteggiare colla massima sollecitudine li diversi giuochi, che in essa si apprendono (Letter of an amateur of the game of tarots to a Friend desirous to learn an easy method to count with great promptness the different games, to be learned by reading it), by Camillo Cavedoni stamped in Bologna in 1812 and finally Il Tarocco, ossia gioco della partita (The Tarot or the game) by T. Verardini Prendiparte (1841).
However there is not doubt, that since the deck was shortened, around half millennium ago, the system of the game, in its popular form called by Pisarri Partitaccia remained unchanged in Bologna until today, while a modality nearest to that of the XVII century is used in the ancient enclave of Castel Bolognese.
The Tarocchino
In the XVI century was made a reduction of the Bolognese deck that brought the total number of the cards to 62, with the elimination of the numerals cards from 2 to the 5 of every seed, giving so origin to the so - called Tarocchino (Small Tarot) deck. This happened after the introduction in Italy of a fashion coming from Spain that spread anywhere: the Sicilian tarot counts 22 triumphs against 41 cards of seed, the Austrian tarots 22 against 32 cards of seed, while the Germini (or Minchiate of Florence), count even 41 triumphs against the 56 cards of seed. These variations, each one independently born by the other, are clearly been originated from the great interest that the game assumed increasing the power of the seed of triumphs, that has function of trumps, on the other seeds through an arithmetic mechanism of game.
In the new order that derived from it, defined type A, we find the Angel as higher card while the three virtues are gathered together:
The Angel
The Worl
The Sun
The Moon
16 The Star
15 The Arrow
14 The Devil
13 Death
12 The Traitor
11 The Old Man
10 The Wheel
9 Strength
8 Justice
7 The Temperance
6 The Chariot
5 The Lovers
The Four Popes
The Magician
The Fool
Towards the end of the XVII century was added the numeration mentioned above, where it is possible to see that the last four and the first five triumphs remained with no number. The cards of the Pope, the Popess, of the Emperor and the Empress, were called Popes, habit due to the use of playing, where each of these cards had the same value. The substitution of the figures of the four Popes with four Moors happened, as we will see later, in 1725.
Certainly two sheets of the XVI century come from Bologna, one of which is in the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, the other one in the Rothschild collection in the Louvre Museum, both belonging to the same deck in which we find the Sun, The World, The Hanged Man, The Wheel, the Angel, The Hermit in the first one (figure 18), the Tower, the Star, the Moon, the Devil, the Chariot and Death in the second one (figure 19). These images are really similar to those of the Bolognese Tarocchino of the XVI century, as Michael Dummet has wittily underlined: even in the smaller details, such as the characteristic groups of concentric arches on the two superior corners of the cards” (13).
A wonderful example of the Bolognese Tarot of the XVII century is conserved at the National Library of Paris: it is a deck composed by 56 cards (total 62) engraved on wood and stencil painted that report the writing Fine Cards Dalla Torre in Bologna (figure 20 - figure 21). The images are really similar to the ones present in the cards of the two sheets mentioned above and the figures of the Four Popes highlight very well the masculine and the feminine aspect, the imperial or papal authority that connote them. On the Queen of Staves appears the coat of arms of the Fibbia Family (figure 22) (About this, please reed the essay The Prince).
The first complete example of Tarocchino cards belong to the XVIII century, when the famous engraver Giuseppe Maria Mitelli created a deck, between 1663 and 1669, for the Bentivoglio family. Subjects concerning cards and players were not unusual for Mitelli, who produced several engravings on this matter such as a Considerable Conversation that shows us various caricatures of card players around a table (figure 23), the engraving Who plays for money looses for necessity with a man who is going to denude himself since he has lost all his goods (figure 24), and even an incision, drawn from the series The twenty four hours of Human happiness of 1665 representing a player almost dancing near a table on which there are cards, dice and money, elements that are on the floor as well (figure 25). Under the figure there are two quatrains as moral teachings. The first one, with the title The Player, has the following verses: “Playing has always been my fun and care / since we have good time playing / and I earn from playing much more than from every other else activity / and even if I’m not Jewish, I live on usury”. In the second one, whose title is Death, it is written: “from youth to old age / playing is for man is an unsettle fortune, / and even if you can earn from it / more often you loose your soul for it”.
The Game of Cards of Tarocchino was engraved by Mitelli in six tables: two for eleven cards and four for ten. The iconographical variants in comparison to the precedent decks concern several cards: in the World there is Atlas; in the Sun Apollo; the Hermit shows us a wayfarer under a starry sky with a burden on his shoulders and a lamp in his hand: in the Tower a man is stroke by a lightening that substitutes the fall of the fortress door; the Hanged Man-Traitor shows us a man while beating a sleeping person on his shoulder with a great hammer, evident recall to the biblical tale of Cain and Abel; Fortune is connoted by a naked girl who sits on a wheel with her right arm up and in her hand a bag from which coins fall down; in the Chariot we find again a woman who holds the rein tied to two birds; Love is represented by a bandaged Cupid with arch and arrows while he is raising, with his left hand, a burning heart, according to an ichnographical version of the Renaissance; the Magician becomes a kind of dancing jester (figure 26 - figure 27 - figure 28).
The substitution of the Four Popes - Popess, Empress, Emperor, Pope - with as many Moors happened in 1725 by a sacristan named Montieri who published a geographic Tarocchino, combining to the small images of the triumphs, painted on the upper parts of the cards, with geographical information concerning Italy, Europe and the whole world inserting coats of arms in the cards of seeds. This game, called L’Utile col diletto, ossia geografia intrecciata nel giuoco de Tarocchi con le insegne degl’Illustrissimi ed Eccelsi Signori Gonfalonieri ed Anziani di Bologna dal 1670 al 1725 (The useful and the fun, or weaved geography in the game of Tarots with the insignia of the Illustrious and high Lords standard - bearers and Seniors of Bologna from 1670 to 1725) gets into an habit of the XVII and XVIII centuries, that aimed to teach about various arguments through the cards, according to the concept of the ars memoriae. We have to remind, as an example, the famous deck Game of Geography engraved by Stefano della Bella for the French King.
Montieri illustrated “The ten principal parts” of Europe, America, Africa and Asia with figures of Moors that represented, even better than Popes, the exotic aspect of the last three continents. In the game booklet, united to the deck, that was printed on August the 6th 1725, he explained that “the four Popes have changed into four Satraps, and these make the same game of Popes, that is one takes the other” (14).
Really, as the Cardinal Ruffo ordered, the good man was arrested, and together with him, everybody who was involved with the publishing of the deck, since he had described in the card of the Fool (figure 29) as mixed the Govern of Bologna that since time was part of the Papal State, even if according to a deal it was autonomous since 1447. The bull, emitted on September 12, 1725 quoted “thousand of useless irregularities, and improper ideas, deserving the most exemplary punishment, as well as burning them, and to forbid using them, and the commerce with our Bull”. Fearing that a hard punishment would have been interpreted as a too much repressive behaviour, the sacristan and the other persons who had been imprisoned were freed by the authorities in a short time (15). After that event all the printer of Bolognese Tarocchino inserted the Moors at the place of Popes, valuing as a possible and further retaliation of the Papal authorities because of the presence in the deck of the figures of the Pope and the Popess.
The production of cards in the XVIII century was very wide. The workshops that manufactured cards didn’t produced just popular cards or tarots for Bologna, but even various decks to be exported outside the region, such as the Florentine Minchiate. There were many workshops, whose name came from the symbol hanged on the top door outside the shop, such as the Lyon, the World, the Eagle, the Dove, the Soldier, the Emperor, and in these shops worked famous artists as Davide Berti, Giacomo Zoni, Antonio Comastri, Angelo Marisi and Gaetano Dalla Casa. The cards production made in “the way of Bologna” represented, as we would say today, a guaranty of quality, because of the used materials and of the care of painting and the colouring. In the second half of the XIX century Alessandro Grandi, Luigi Montanari, Gaetano Provasi created cards, and at the end of the century there were Emilio Nardi, Pietro Barigazzi, Federico Rinaldi and Pietro Marchesini to make them.
Notes
1 - Tome XVI (May, Vol. V), Antwerp 1685, may 20
2 - Ibid., p. 267, col. 1
3 - E. Orioli, Sulle carte da giuoco a Bologna nel secolo XV (About the game of cards in Bologna in the XV century), «Il libro e la stampa» (The book and printing), year II, 1908, pages. 109 - 119, p. 112
4 - E. Orioli, op. cit., p. 113
5 - L. Frati, La vita privata di Bologna dal secolo XIII al secolo XVII (Private life in Bologna from the XIII to the XVII century), Bologna, 1890, p. 133
6 - COD ms. 40, c. 2r
7 - Inventory 1571
8 - In particular at the pages 5-9
9 - Some examples can be found in L. Cuppi, Tarocchino bolognese: due nuovi manoscritti scoperti e alcune osservazioni (Bolognese Tarocchino: two new discovered manuscripts and some observations) «The Playing- card» 30 (2001- 02) in particular at page 84
10 - Cfr. Ms. Gozzadini 140, 40v, Bologna, Archiginnasio Library and C. Pissarri, Istruzioni necessarie per chi volesse imparare il giuoco dilettevole delli tarocchini di Bologna (Necessary Instructions for the ones who want to learn the funny game of Bolognese Tarocchino), Bologna, 1754.
11 - Cfr. L. Cuppi, op. cit., 82-83
12 - Compare for example: L. Salviati, Dictionary of the Crusca Academicians, Venice 1612; A. Cesari, Dictionary of the Crusca Academicians, I, Verona 1806; even the Bolognese P. Costa - F. Cardinali, Dictionary of the Italian language, I , Bologna 1819
13 - M. Dummett, Il Mondo e l'Angelo (The World and the Angel), Naples, 1993, p. 222
14 - Pag. 10. The booklet was printed in Bologna " per il Bianchi alla Rosa" (by Bianchi alla Rosa)
15 - A complete report of this event can be found in Gian Battista Comelli, Il «governo misto» in Bologna dal 1507 al 1797 e le carte da giuoco del can. Montieri (Mixed govern in Bologna from 1507 to 1797 and The game cards of Montieri), «Atti e memorie della Reale Deputazione di storia Patria per la Romagna» (Acts and memories of the Royal Deputation of native land History for Romagna), series 3, Vol. XXVII, 1909