To summarize thus far: Marziano proposed a game based on a 4x4 grid connecting cards of superior trick-taking power with four suits, in four rows of four cards each, also ordered among themselves from 1 to 16, in four columns. In the case of the tarot subjects, the four cardinal virtues, because of certain objects in their standard depictions (swords, sticks or columns, cups, and round looking-glasses) lend themselves to being connected with suits (swords, batons, cups, and coins), while trans-national dignitaries lend themselves to being positioned above Kings while having a special relationship to one kingdom themselves. Petrarch’s hierarchy of triumphs lend themselves easily to being put into a hierarchy of cards in a trick-taking game. These groups of cards, 4 plus 4 plus 6, also, except Pope and Death, vary in their position in the sequence from region to region, reflecting a time when individual self-assertion of regions was more important than collective action, while the other cards mostly reflect a time when the opposite was the goal.
Marziano had four “orders” of gods, each linked to a suit of birds and one of the four rows of a grid. In the new game of Trionfi, to play a similar game, there will be four such rows of cards, linked to the four suits by the one virtue card in each row. That is in the horizontal direction. At the same time, the triumphs relative to one another are numbered from 1 to 14. That is the vertical direction, in four columns. The order of those 14, on my hypothesis, will be determined by the order in which they occur in the full 22 as given later in lists in the three regions, an order that varies considerably from one region to another and even varies slightly within the region itself.
Let us continue. In Dummett’s A region (Florence and Bologna), the virtues go
one after the other. [1] If
so, in a four-by-something matrix the virtues will automatically be in four
different rows. So it is a good place to start a reconstruction.
In Florence it happens that while the early lists of the order are not identical, the difference only affects cards that are not among our chosen 14, principally the Wheel, which is sometimes just above and sometimes just below the Chariot. And all have the dignitaries lowest, then the virtues, then the Petrarchans, with one exception: the lowest Petrarchan, Love, goes between the dignitaries and the virtues. It is as though the virtues substituted for Petrarch’s Pudicizia, which he had described as a kind of militant chastity subduing Love. The order of the Petrarchans is then the same as Petrarch’s in his I Trionfi except that Fame (the Chariot) and Time (the Old Man) go before rather than after Death, as discussed in section 4.
The main uncertainty here is where to put Prudence. The order of the virtues in Florence is Temperance lowest, then Fortitude, then Justice. That order corresponds perfectly to the hierarchy in which St. Thomas Aquinas ordered them, with Prudence added as the highest of the four.[2] Another possibility is Plato: for him Temperance, for the appetites, was lowest, then Fortitude, the virtue governing the heart and lungs. Wisdom (corresponding to Prudence) was for the head; yet Justice was perhaps higher, as the virtue governing the soul as a whole.[3] But let us provisionally use Aquinas.
Type A, Florence, 14 triumphs (virtues and corresponding suits in bold)
|
12 Death |
8 Justice |
4 Pope |
Swords |
|
|
13 World (Eternal Glory) |
11 Old Man (Time) |
7 Fortitude |
3 Emperor |
Batons |
|
|
10 Chariot (Fame) |
6 Temperance |
2 Empress |
Cups |
|
|
9 Prudence |
5 Love |
1 Popess (?) |
Coins |
If the educational point of the game is to teach the use of the virtues in major life concerns, the vertical order in Florence does not do a good job by itself, since it is just one group after another. But there are also the horizontal rows. To remember the privileged trumps in tricks, or combinations that add to the score, as dictated by the rows (see the end of section 3, above), players must learn which dignitary, Petrarchan(s), and suit attach to each virtue. It is a matter of putting the requisite four subjects in a memorable sentence that also conveys a lesson.
For example, the Pope warns that the Angel of Judgment is coming after Death, when souls will be weighed on the scales of Justice. Emperors, old age, and the road to glory (World) require Fortitude. Those who enjoy worldly Fame should manage its rewards with Temperance (i.e., moderation), following the moderating influence of the Empress. Love, besides being ruled vertically by Temperance, is controlled by considerations of Prudence, a virtue gained through knowledge, of which the Church, in canon law the Pope’s wife, is the chief repository. [4]
In Florence there is no verification of a Popess in any of the lists or decks; hence the question mark above. For her precise place in the order, our only clue is in the c. 1500 Rosenwald sheet, where she is the lowest of the four. If she was absent early on, it makes no difference except in the narratives. In that case, to keep the number at 14, the Wheel might have been there, or the Sun as a second card for Petrarch’s Time. Admittedly the presence of two blank spaces in the grid is odd. There might have been one less column, putting World and Angel above the grid, perhaps as extensions of the top row, with a corresponding chance to win extra points.
Alternatively, there might have been no blank spaces in the grid, following Marziano on that point. The Sun, Petrarch’s main personification of Time, could have been there below the World, and the Wheel before or after Chariot. Or a deck with the three theological virtues could have arisen early on, as a second form of the game, a kind of proto-minchiate (or even the earliest version of all). In that case the Popess would be absent, and the four cardinal virtues all be in the same column, a nice result, for 16 total.
Then at some point Prudence got removed from the tarot sequence. In that case, to avoid confusion among players of both games, Prudence could go with the cards that were different, while not changing rows, just by sliding it over one space:
Type A, Florence, 16 triumphs, proto-minchiate
|
16 Angel |
12 Prudence |
8 Chariot |
4 Love |
Coins |
|
15 World |
11 Hope |
7 Justice |
3 Pope |
Swords |
|
14 Charity |
10 Death |
6 Fortitude |
2 Emperor |
Batons |
|
13 Faith |
9 Old Man (Time) |
5 Temperance |
1 Empress |
Cups |
This seems to me a nice explanation for how Prudence in minchiate would have become inserted between Hope and Faith. If the Wheel was absent, such a deck, existing alongside the Trionfi of 14 trumps, would have been quite early, before the Florentine order had expanded to the 20 or 40 trumps (not counting the Fool) it later had. Even if minchiate did not exist until later, when the Wheel, Hanged Man, Devil, and Tower had been added, the same matrix would explain the odd placement of Prudence, moving it two rows instead. (But it would have to have been all four, because otherwise Prudence would be in the same row as some other virtue.)
Needless
to say, there do not have to have been any trans-national dignitaries at all
in the grid: the seven virtues could start the order, beginning with
Temperance and ending with Charity, followed by the Petrarchans, the
Wheel inserted in their middle, for 14 total. Or one dignitary and no Wheel.
Bologna had a different order. For one thing, all the dignitaries were equal in rank,[5] a practice at such variance from the rest of the order that it was likely an original feature there.[6] Happily for my hypothesis, this arrangement is also consistent with their having originated as extensions of the four suits, if the suits themselves were unranked. It is then also likely that they were originally four. If they were equal, they would not have had to be distinguished by gender or even type of crown. All that would necessary, in the beginning, is that each be distinguishable from the others, in order to know to which row of the grid they belonged. (In the next phase, even that will be unimportant.)
When two papi were played in the same trick, the last one played took priority.[7] In Florence of 1438-1440, such a rule would have caused problems, because it would have been easy to interpret them allegorically as Greek church and state vs. Latin church and state, one or the other triumphing if two came together, when the professed goal at the council was principled unity. So the game there would likely would not have had warring equals, but rather a hierarchy, all tactfully Western.
A 16th or 17th century Bolognese interpretation had the four as contending pope, antipope, emperor, and excommunicated emperor.[8] Bologna, more than Florence, felt the partisanship of the papal schisms of the late 14th - early 15th century, due to its position as part of the papal state rather than an independent commune like . Bologna, to gain more independence, often sought the Visconti as protectors, as well as sometimes allying with Florence. At the beginning of the century, there were opposing claimants for Emperor, with the Visconti on one side and Florence on the other, until one died in 1410. In that year Bologna found its papal legate and long-time resident ecclesiastic Baldassare Cossa elected pope (John XXIII), whom others declared an antipope. Both resigned, and there was a new election. But Bologna continued to feel the long arm of the Empire, by way of the Visconti, and of the papacy, by way of papal legates. Sometimes one got the upper hand, sometimes the other, with the Bolognese caught in the middle. Florence, on the other hand, was more consistently anti-Visconti and less affected internally by the opposing forces.
A list by the Bolognese writer Giulio Cesare Croce in 1602 included an Emperor and an Empress but left out the papal cards, perhaps to avoid offense.[9] What those two woulf have been called, besides papi, is unclear. Both looked rather effeminate, at least in their standard 17th century form, but their images were visually distinct: one held the keys of St. Peter and gave a papal blessing, while the other held a book and not the papal three-barred staff but a staff with just one bar, two elements also associated with the theological virtue Faith (e.g., in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua). The suggestion might be that if either can triumph over the other, sometimes the Pope’s will is not that of the Faith.
Another difference from Florence is that in Bologna Fortitude was above Justice. If so, the order of virtues is consistent with that of Wisdom of Solomon 8:7: “sobrietatem enim et sapientiam docet et iustitiam et virtutem” in the Vulgate, sobrietatem as temperance, sapientiam as prudence, iustitiam as justice, and virtutem as fortitude; so temperance, prudence, justice, fortitude.
In Bologna, that the Chariot was originally above the virtues, as in Florence, is attested by Croce in the list previously cited. Such a placement is also suggested by the Chariot's presence among two sheets in Paris containing eleven cards of the last twelve in the order.[10] If eleven cards are among the last twelve, probably the twelfth is, too. But by around 1650 the Chariot is reported below the virtues, as though considering the Charioteer’s lust for power as just as much in need of tempering by the virtues as the other appetites. But for the earlier order we have:
Type A, Bologna, 14 triumphs (or at least 13 and at most 16)
|
Angel (Eternity) |
Death |
8 Justice |
Papa Four |
Swords |
|
World (Eternity/Glory) |
11 Old Man (Time) |
7 Prudence |
Papa Three |
Coins |
|
|
10 Chariot (Fame) |
6 Temperance |
Papa Two |
Cups |
|
|
9 Fortitude |
5 Love |
Papa One |
Batons |
The differences from Florence are weak evidence that Bologna’s order was earlier than Florence’s. Four dignitaries of equal power make sense if they are extensions of the suits, which are also equal. Putting them in a hierarchy rationalizes them, makes them follow the same principle as the rest. In a similar way, when what matters about virtues is their correlation to suits, their order is of lesser concern, and the order in Wis. Sol. 8:7 is as good as any. But from a hierarchical point of view, putting Fortitude higher than Justice goes against the best authorities (Aquinas, Plato). It makes sense to change the order so that Justice is higher; it isn’t good pedagogy the other way around. The passage in Wis. Sol. is just a list, whereas Aquinas and Plato had hierarchies, along with arguments in favor of them.
The horizontal associations here are easier, in that the placement of the dignitaries is not a factor. Again it is a matter of narrative sentences: Love requires fortitude; Prudence is the virtue of age and toward mastery of the World; Justice again comes after Death with the Angel. The educational value might have been a selling point for the parents who are buying it – and for the local authorities, whom the card makers hope will approve the game.
6. The C order: Lombardy
I will take the Lombard order next because there is actual verification of many of the cards present early on: the two earliest surviving decks known are from Lombardy, both with Visconti emblems and thought to be from the time of Filippo Maria Visconti. The Brera-Brambilla (BB) has 14 cards per suit, so, on the current minimal hypothesis, 14 triumphs, of which only two are extant. Given what they are, the Emperor and the Wheel, it might have been an “imperatore” style deck, with four or eight triumphs. In that case the Wheel could be an Imperatore card in virtue of its top personage, a ruler. But the other eventuality, that 12 are missing, is more likely, because all the extant cards are quite similar to those of the Cary-Yale (CY, also known as the Visconti di Modrone). The presence of the Wheel, however, still presents a problem: while similar to the six Petrarchans, it is not one of them, and so is not a member of any of the three groups postulated so far. To keep the number at 14, one of the original 14 would have been dropped. The obvious candidate is the Popess, always a controversial card with preachers and confusing even to the ordinary person.
What remains is to demonstrate whether a Marziano-type grid is plausible that matches suits to virtues horizontally and corresponds vertically to one or other of the orders later recorded in Lombardy in the 16th century. To complicate matters, there are two such orders. One is that of an anonymous series of three-line verses dedicated to 21 ladies of Pavia, probably no later than 1540. The other is a short stanza referring to all of the triumphs in order, by the jurist Andrea Alciato in 1544.[11] They are the same except in two instances: (1) Fortitude appears immediately above Justice for Alciato, but one card higher for “Pavia”; and (2) Alciato has the Popess before the Empress, while for “Pavia” it is the reverse. Such small variations are commonplace, but they complicate the demonstration.
Another issue is whether Angel or World would have been last. If the Angel was last in Piedmont, as suggested by Piscina’s 1565 Discorso,[12] written there, the same might have been true in adjoining Lombardy early on: in most other respects they had the same order, with the exception that Lombardy, unlike Piedmont, by then ranked its dignitaries. The scene on the CY World card supports Piedmont’s placement, in that it presents a this-worldly scene of a knight with castles and in the distance ships at sea, clearly before the Last Judgment. Since neither card is a virtue, it does not make much difference in which order they were.
Where to put Prudence is a different matter, and a bit difficult. In 1986 Dummett suggested that the Popess might have substituted for Prudence.[13] That has the merit of not only giving a place for Prudence but also putting another card, one not among the extant cards in either the BB or CY, in the right place in the order later on as its substitute. It also selects for omission the card that was the least liked by clerics. Here is how that would work, following Alciato’s order (it won’t work for the “Pavia” order, which has the Chariot 7th and Fortitude 8th, because that would put two virtues in one row and none in another). Below, you will find the cards not extant in either the BB or CY put in italics:
Type C: Brera-Brambilla (BB), Alciato order, Prudence in place of Popess. Cards not extant in BB or Cary-Yale (CY) in italics (not a likely configuration).
|
14 Angel (Eternity) |
12 Temperance |
8 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
4 Pope |
Cups |
|
13 World (Fame) |
11 Death |
7 Fortitude |
3 Emperor |
Batons |
|
|
10 Old Man (Time) |
6 Justice |
2 Empress |
Swords |
|
|
9 Wheel |
5 Love |
1 Prudence |
Coins |
The problem is that while this substitution, putting Prudence in the Popess’s place, will work for the BB, it puts two virtues in one row in the CY, as will be seen when we get to that deck.
A solution that will work in both decks is to move Prudence from 1st to 12th in the grid. In the BB that makes Justice 5th, Fortitude 6th, and Temperance 11th: a virtue in each row. Here it is essential that the Wheel be present; otherwise Temperance and Fortitude would be in the same row. (For how this works in the CY, see below, Cary-Yale with Prudence after Temperance.)
In the “Pavia” order, there is also a workable substitution for Prudence. This one seems hinted at in two late sources. Piscina, in nearby Piedmont, says that the Hanged Man is in the order “to demonstrate the bad end of those who despite prudent [prudenti] advice.”[14] The other hint is in a c. 1550 poem, attributed to a certain Vincenzo Imperiali, that incorporates the titles of each triumph in order from the top, in the Ferrara order. He does not mention the Hanged Man, but fits in the word prudenza between Death and the Old Man:
Then comes Death, and makes another dance,
and prudence [prudenza] and malice down here.
and everything’s equal on the scales [bilancia].
But the wise old man seizes Fortune . . .[15]
The term bilancia, “scales,” is not a reference to the Justice card, because Imperiali already referred to it, the second from the top. The word Bilancia is to show that a sovereign who sends a traitor to the gallows (“another dance”) prudently restores the balance between sovereign and subjects.
It is not inconceivable that traces of a former title might survive in the collective memory and find a place in a poem. But that is not so important. What is important for my hypothesis is that the Hanged Man, just before Death, does make sense as a later substitute for Prudence, because this placement of Prudence results in one virtue per row, as we can see.
Type C, Brera Brambilla (BB), “Pavia” order. Cards not extant in BB or Cary-Yale (CY) in italics
|
14 Angel (Eternity) |
12 Temperance |
8 Wheel |
4 Love |
Cups |
|
13 World (Fame) |
11 Death |
7 Fortitude |
3 Pope |
Batons |
|
|
10 Prudence |
6 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
2 Emperor |
Coins |
|
|
9 Old Man (Time) |
5 Justice |
1 Empress |
Swords |
Fortitude and the Chariot have to be in the Pavia order as opposed to Alciato’s, because reversing them would put two virtues in one row and none in another.
This array offers an explanation for why the Wheel would have been added. If the intent was to alternate virtues and Petrarchans vertically, so as to increase the associations between virtues and life-concerns, there will be a virtue in each row only if a card is added in the middle, between Fortitude and Prudence. There are then some interesting horizontal associations. Temperance controls Love, while it also suggests holy communion, the key to Eternity. Fortitude is required in the face of Death and is needed to attain Fame. Prudence dictates Pudicizia and is needed by Emperors. Justice needs to be Timely, or administered by those with the most experience (Old Men).
In the CY the three theological virtues are extant cards, a situation that appears otherwise only in the much-expanded sequence of minchiate. So let us assume its placement of them, but with the BB’s order otherwise. If so, the following array will show why in the CY Prudence could not have gone where the Popess will be, on the present hypothesis. There will be two virtues in one row. Nor can Prudence be in place of the World, for the same reason. Nor can the three theologicals go before Death. Nor have I found any other placement of the three theologicals that works, provided they all appear together.
Type C: Cary-Yale (CY), Alciato order, Prudence in place of Popess, theologicals after Death (an unworkable solution, in the “Pavia” order as well). Cards not extant in BB or CY in italics
|
16 Angel (Eternity) |
12 Hope |
8 Wheel |
4 Love |
? |
|
15 World (Fame) |
11 Temperance |
7 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
3 Emperor |
Cups |
|
14 Charity |
10 Death |
6 Fortitude |
2 Empress |
Coins |
|
13 Faith |
9 Old Man (Time) |
5 Justice |
1 Prudence |
? |
We could try placing Prudence in a different position, without Pope and Popess. In Alciato’s order there will be one virtue per row if Prudence is 4th, 5th. 6th, 11th, or 15th. In one of these cases, where Prudence is 11th, it can be replaced with one (or all) of the cards from Devil to Sun and still have one virtue per row. That placement of Prudence, as we have seen, also works in the BB. Here is the resulting CY grid:
Type C: Cary-Yale (CY), Alciato order, Prudence after Temperance, then theologicals. Cards not extant in BB or CY in italics
|
16 Angel (Eternity) |
12 Hope |
8 Old Man (Time) |
4 Justice |
Swords |
|
15 World (Fame) |
11 Prudence |
7 Wheel |
3 Love |
Coins |
|
14 Charity |
10 Temperance |
6 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
2 Emperor |
Cups |
|
13 Faith |
9 Death |
5 Fortitude |
1 Empress |
Batons |
Here we can again draw connections between virtues and other cards in the row: Justice should be served in Time, but if not, it may be Hoped for at the Last Judgment. Prudence is necessary to protect against ill Fortune, especially in Love, and to achieve Fame. Temperance is necessary for Pudicizia and to save enough for Charitable giving. Fortitude is the virtue needed both in the face of Death and tests of Faith.
The other solution is in the “Pavia” order, Prudence in the Hanged Man position:
Type C: Cary-Yale (CY), “Pavia” order, Prudence in place of Hanged Man, theologicals after Death. Cards not extant in CY or BB in italics.
|
12 Hope |
8 Old Man (Time) |
4 Justice |
Sword |
|
|
15 World (Fame) |
11 Temperance |
7 Wheel |
3 Love |
Cups |
|
14 Charity |
10 Death |
6 Fortitude |
2 Emperor |
Batons |
|
13 Faith |
9 Prudence |
5 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
1 Empress |
Coins |
As in the BB, the pattern is an alternation of virtues and Petrarchans, except where the Wheel has had to be added. For Justice, the associations are as in the Alciato grid. Temperance mitigates ill Fortune and controls Love and the desire for Fame. Fortitude is still a virtue in the face of Death, now with the hope of Charity. Prudence dictates Faith in the hereafter and wives’ Pudicizia. Not only is there a female Charioteer with a jousting shield (see section 3), but an Empress with the same in the same row, reminding us of Filippo’s first wife’s alleged indiscretions, for which she was executed. In either solution, the CY’s choice of subjects also offers a nice analogy to the 16 chess pieces, which would have pleased Filippo.[16] And of course the array is 4x4, like Marziano’s.
These Lombard orders also serve to connect cardinal virtues and Petrarchans in a vertical direction as well as horizontally, a process already seen in the A order’s placement of Love below Temperance, and achieving maximum association when no two virtues follow each other. The CY Love card offers an explanation for why Justice rather than Temperance trumps Love: the couple are depicting shaking hands, as if to seal an agreement. What binds love now are the duties of each spouse to the other, with their fulfillment a matter of justice. If Filippo had his first wife executed for adultery, it was a matter of justice, decided in a court of law. The next virtue, Prudence, is that which triumphs over the whims of Fortune. Temperance is the means for a temporary triumph over death, and its cups also suggest the communion cup, for a more permanent victory.
7. Reports from Yale putting the theologicals before death
So far, I have assumed that the theological virtues occurred in the same place in the Cary-Yale’s order as in Minchiate later. However, a couple of reports cast doubt on that assumption.
William Keller’s 1981 catalog of the Cary Collection lists the Cary-Yale cards in the following order:
Empress, Emperor, Love, Fortitude, Faith, Hope, Charity, Chariot, Death, World, Judgment. [17]
This same order appears on the Beinecke website's presentation of the cards. Before April, 2019, the last two had no titles on the website, uniquely among the extant cards of that deck, but the order was the same. Currently [2023] they have the titles "World" and "Judgment," as in Keller's catalog. It is not an order I know from any other book or article, for any deck. In some respects it is like that of minchiate. It has minchiate’s order of World and Judgment, even if minchiate calls the latter the Angel, and does use minchiate’s term “Love” rather than “Lover.” Moreover, if the Wheel was there, as is likely, its unusual placement below the Chariot is one also found in minchiate. Also, of course, like minchiate it has the theologicals. But they are in a different place.
There is also Martha Wolff in “Bonifacio Bembo and the Minchiate Cards Painted for Filippo Maria Visconti,” a Yale Master’s Thesis of 1974 on the Cary-Yale. She has (Appendix A, n.p.): “The Empress, The Emperor, The Triumphal Car, The Lovers, Fortitude, Charity, Hope, Faith, Death, The Judgment, The World.” This order, except for the theologicals, seems to be based on that given by Gertrude Moakley in 1966, an order both assumed, incorrectly, was the same as that of the Sermo de Ludo and of all the early decks (see here Wolff p. 6, where she gives this order, and her n. 13, where she says she is taking it from Moakley, p. 61, as well as Steele, 1900, who transcribed the Sermo.) The Sermo in fact has the Lovers before the “Triumphal Car,” unlike the order that Moakley gives on p. 61 of her book, which is from a 16th century "versified tarocchi" reported by Bertoni. Wolff calls the deck an early Minchiate, in an experimental stage. Minchiate, however, has the theologicals after Death. If so, why would she put them before? The only reason I can think of, except that of an arbitrary decision (although otherwise she gives reasons for everything she says), is that they were that way in some source at Yale.
I e-mailed William
Keller, the cards’ curator in the 1970s, about the order of trumps for this
deck in his catalog of the Cary Collection, which give no correlations to suits
but did correspond to the odd order on the website. He replied:
I would have to say that the order of the trumps in the catalog entry probably reflects the order I saw in notes, inventories or articles available to me in the years during catalog preparation. It does not represent my estimation of a particular authority or viewpoint. Sorry to be so vague. I’m sure you have seen everything Dummett and Decker wrote by now. It’s possible I may have simply picked up the order presented in one of their Playing Card Society Journal pieces.[18]
In a follow-up he added that “I was mostly concerned with listing rather than order.”[19]
Yes, Keller’s order
might have been just a list he invented and not an order based on some criteria
or other; but that is not true of any of
the other lists that he gives in his catalog, all of which are quite standard
for their place, time, and composition. He denies making up hypotheses of his
own; it is possible that someone else did, in the centuries between their
creation and their resting place at Yale, and their notes are what Keller used. It is also possible that this order reflects the original one for those cards.
In a 4x4 grid, it is possible to add the missing cards to this order in a way that puts
one virtue in each row and is consistent with the later Lombard order.
|
16 Angel (Eternity) |
12 Old Man (Time) |
8 Charity |
4 Justice |
Swords |
|
15 World (Fame) |
11 Prudence |
7 Hope |
3 Love |
Coins |
|
14 Temperance |
10 Wheel |
6 Faith |
2 Emperor |
Cups |
|
13 Death |
9 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
5 Fortitude |
1 Empress |
Batons |
|
Cups |
Coins |
Batons |
Swords |
|
It is also of interest
that the virtues are also each in a different column, an arrangement not possible in
the A order, or even in C if the theologicals are in the Minchiate order. By
columns, it is much easier to remember the groups: it is just a matter of remembering
that the first four are Swords, the second four are Batons, third, Coins, and
fourth, Cups.
This fact leads to another point of interest. Before April of 2019, the Cary-Yale cards were actually assigned on the Beinecke’s website to the four suits in precisely the way above. On the web-pages with scans of the cards, first came the numeral and court cards in Swords. Then came the Empress, with the caption “Empress of Swords,” then the Emperor, called “Emperor of Swords” – neither, of course, carried a sword. Then came “Love (Swords),” again with no sword. Then came the suit cards in Batons, followed by “Fortitude (Batons),” “Faith (Batons),” and “Hope (Batons).” Fortitude was with the lion and no stick or column. Then came the suit cards in Cups, followed by “Charity (Cups)” and “Death (Cups).” Then the suit cards of Coins, followed by two cards with no captions at all, but the first clearly the World and last the Angel. These cards would, if the assignments followed those of the other three suits, have been given to Coins. (My report on this order can be seen in a long quotation from me in an essay by Pratesi of January 2016, to which he added a diagram, one long column with the suits of each marked. [20])
This result suggests a
different grid, with Prudence in the last column and Temperance in the third,
assuming that Temperance is correlated with Cups, as suggested by the the two vessels on the card, and Prudence with Coins, as suggested by the Ringhieri and the attribute of the mirror in the Visconti funeral oration.
Type C: Cary-Yale (CY), theologicals before Death, by columns, Prudence high.
|
16 Angel (Eternity) |
12 Temperance |
8 Hope |
4 Justice |
|
15 |
11 Death |
7 Faith |
3 Love |
|
14 World (Fame) |
10 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
6 |
2 Emperor |
|
13 Prudence |
9 Charity |
5 Fortitude |
1 Empress |
|
Coins |
Cups |
Batons |
Swords |
In the above, Prudence
could be anywhere in the last column, as could the missing card. Fortitude and
the missing card in the second row could be reversed. One of these missing
cards is Time (Old Man), the other the Wheel. It is not clear which goes where. One solution would be to
put Time in its Petrarchan placement, at 15, leaving the Wheel at 5 or 6. This placement
of the Wheel is of course not in accord with the later Lombard order. But if
the Theologicals are excluded, it is only one position out of order, a
variation often found in orders within the same region. And the Chariot does
come after the Wheel in some A orders, notably Minchiate and the handwritten
numbers on the Charles VI, if the theologicals are removed. It is not hard
to see the Old Man as a card that would have first been in its Petrarchan
position and then moved to a lower position. Another card that is out of order is Prudence, on the assumption that it was replaced by the Hanged Man.
Nonetheless, the CY in such an order could have been one that was very limited in its practice, even the earliest order of all; then, when the game expanded to a mass audience, its order and composition changed, perhaps responding to changes elsewhere. In particular, the above order might have been limited to the duke’s immediate family, expanding to his favorite military leader. Let us recall here that Francesco Sforza, after becoming engaged to Filippo’s daughter in 1432, in 1436 went into the service of Florence. There the game could have spread among other important people, while also changing its order and dropping the grid. Meanwhile Filippo would have changed the order somewhat in Milan itself, as it reached a wider audience. In that case the CY might have been a kind of commemorative deck from Filippo to his daughter, a work of art memorializing their time together. This is a different origin story, but still one based on the hypothesis of a connection to a Marziano-style grid. It could also have gone the other way, the Beinecke grid being Filippo’s first variation on a more complicated grid originating elsewhere.
Is there any chance that this peculiar set of associations to suits then found on the Beinecke website actually goes back that far? In hopes of finding out more about its provenance, in the years before April 2019 I had emailed the cards’ curator, Timothy Young, a few times, starting in 2008. In that year he wrote back just a very general statement:
Cataloging information about the cards was received with the collection when it was given by the Cary family to Yale. The author of the printed catalogue to the Cary Collection used their descriptions when he created fuller catalog records.
In 2018, having looked again on the occasion of moving the files to a new location, he wrote:
I had hoped to find more evidence about how the Cary family acquired their sets of tarot cards, but unfortunately, there was nothing more. The notes by the person who created the catalog were basically a form that was filled out to be entered into a database - and that had the same information as appears in the online database. So I don't have any more information than what appears online. It would be extremely helpful to my work to have a better paper trail for the cards, but they weren't retained with the collection.
He also endorsed again the statement quoted from 2016.
I asked again in 2019, with the same reply, until after I had contacted Keller and Wolff. Then he e-mailed me some further thoughts:
I did some more checking on your question about the suits assigned to the trump cards and it may well be that there was some confusion due to the cataloging and housing of the cards. Each suit is stored in a separate box (there are four of them) with extra spaces in each box to house a few trumps. I believe that The Emperor, The Empress, and Love are stored with the Swords suit, so when scans were made of the cards, the cataloger may have assumed that the suit needed to be added to the names of the trumps. I can double-check this.
In his view no significance should be attached to the triumph to suit correspondences: it was merely a cataloger’s misinterpretation of an accident of storage. Since the sole instance of these assignments of trumps to suits was in that very digital library, he would have the website changed to remove them. (For a while, not only were the suit assignments removed, but the order of the cards was made quite random. Later, by sometime in 2022 when I first noticed it, the 2019 order was thankfully restored and only the "of Swords," etc. on the triumphs removed.) I ran this hypothesis by Wolff, who said she thought he was on the right track. She commented “When I worked with the cards the trumps were not integrated with the suits.” I asked Young how old the boxes were. He said they “were created by conservators at the library sometime in the 1970s or 1980s.”[21]
A fourteen-card version by columns of the Brera-Brambilla, with the presence of the Pope,for the
Brera-Brambilla, would have to have Love after Justice, in order for Justice to
be in the first four cards. That is also
possible for the Cary-Yale. After that, the order could be precisely the same, but with four cards in two rows
and three cards in two rows. Again Prudence is not twelfth in the order.
Type C: Brera-Brambilla (BB), by columns. Cards not extant in CY or BB in italics.
|
14 Angel (Eternity) |
|
|
4 Justice |
|
13 Old Man (Time) |
10 Temperance |
7 Wheel |
3 Pope |
|
12 World (Fame) |
9 Death |
6 Fortitude |
2 Emperor |
|
11 Prudence |
8 Chariot (Pudicizia) |
5 Love |
1 Empress |
|
Suit cards, Coins |
Suit cards, Cups |
Suit cards, Batons |
Suit cards, Swords |
8. The B order: Ferrara
Now I will return to the previous way of conceptualizing the hypothesis, with groups by rows, while adding to it the alternative. The earliest account of the order in the Ferrara region is the Sermo de Ludo.[22] With Prudence just before Death, one of the solutions for Lombardy, there is the nice result of two spaces consistently separating the virtues, as opposed to one or two, assuming that Justice can go in the bottom row. In this case the other Lombard solution, that of putting Prudence just after Death, won’t work. As in Lombardy, the Wheel must be present for this grid to work; so there are at most three dignitaries.
Type B order, Ferrara-Venice, 14 cards
|
|
12 Angel |
8 Wheel |
4 Temperance |
Cups |
|
|
11 Death |
7 Fortitude |
3 Pope |
Batons |
|
14 World |
10 Prudence |
6 Chariot |
2 Emperor |
Coins |
|
13 Justice |
9 Old Man/Time |
5 Love |
1 Empress |
Swords |
Here Justice is highest, as in Plato’s order. The horizontal association of Justice, Love, and the Empress would have satisfied Niccolò III in Ferrara as much as the vertical association would have satisfied Filippo Maria in Milan: both rulers executed their wives for adultery. Inserting the Hanged Man in place of Prudence would have been a shrewd move: the threat of rebellion from Leonello’s legitimate brothers was real enough that Niccolò did not formally name him as heir until shortly before his death. The picture of a Hanged Man is a more vivid reminder of the consequences of betraying one’s lord than a lady with a mirror.
The above grid could also have served to link its columns to suits, as in the case of the Beinecke titles. With fourteen cards, it could have been two columns of four cards each and two of three (the middle two columns).
Leonello’s successor, Borso d’Este, associated himself in particular with the virtue of Justice, starting early in his reign.[23] In that case, with the association going by rows, it might have seemed unsatisfactory to have Justice, the highest virtue, in the bottom row. But it can be in the top row if one card is added below the line. To preserve the allegory of the two Imperial cards ruling over the suits, that card would be a new one, necessitating the Pope’s removal.
Type B order, Ferrara-Venice, 14 cards, alternative
|
14 World |
13 Justice |
9 Old Man/Time |
5 Love |
Swords |
|
|
12 Angel |
8 Wheel |
4 Temperance |
Cups |
|
|
11 Death |
7 Fortitude |
3 Emperor |
Batons |
|
|
10 Prudence |
6 Chariot |
2 Empress |
Coins |
Putting the Bagatella below the line
suits his vocation as an itinerant trickster, moving from place to place one
step ahead of the law. This card, called by the name of his trade, bagatella,
also meaning “trifle,”[24] will remind people that he is the "lowest of all" in the
hierarchy, as the Sermo de Ludo called this card.[25] The odd feminine ending for a male subject is seen only in Ferrara: in
Florence and Lombardy it was bagattello,[26] which seems like a deliberate change, giving a masculine ending to a
masculine subject. To deliberately change the title to bagatella, for a
card depicting a male subject that already had a title with a masculine ending,
would be odd.[27] So bagatella, wherever the
card was introduced, seems the original form. That it persisted only in Ferrara
is some evidence for its having arisen there: words tend to survive in their
original form when there is a linguistic community to reinforce their survival;
a new linguistic 
community lacks that element and will tend to make words
conform to the natural tendency there, for words designating males to have
masculine endings.
There is another array that would have made Prudence’s replacement by the Hanged Man especially appropriate: one making him 12th. Twelve was the number traditionally associated with Judas, typically mentioned last in Gospel lists of the disciples (Matt.10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16). The A region cards in fact showed the man clutching bags of coins (at right, Beaux Arts Sheet, Bologna, and Charles VI, Florence). There was also Antipope Giovanni XXII’s “shame poster” against Muzio Attendola (Moakley 1966, 95), Francesco Sforza’s father, speaking of his “XII treasons,” with a picture of a man hanging by one foot. [28]
Type B order, Ferrara, 16 cards
|
16 World |
12 Hanged Man/Prudence |
8 Chariot |
4 Popess |
Coins |
|
15 Justice |
11 Old Man/Time |
7 Love |
3 Emperor |
Swords |
|
14 Angel |
10 Wheel |
6 Temperance |
2 Empress |
Cups |
|
9 Fortitude |
5 Pope |
1 Bagatella |
Batons |
Here exchanging Chariot and Love would make a nicer narrative in the context of the rows: the Popess could be interpreted as the ill-fated Pope Joan, done in by Love and killed by the faithful as a Traitor to God. That order is in fact found in many B lists.[29] At any point the Fool could have been added, either in the hierarchy but below the line, or outside it altogether, as the wild card that later defined him.
At this point we have all 14
surviving “primary artist” triumphs of the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo deck (PMB,
also known as the Visconti-Sforza and Colleoni-Bagliati), plus three more
(Temperance, Fortitude, World). Decker suggested that those 14 could have made
a complete sequence;[30] Dummett found that implausible, arguing that with Fortitude in the
Cary-Yale, “it cannot be that all the virtues were dropped when the PMB was
first designed, since Justice was by the primary artist.”[31] But Lothar Teikemeier has a nice reply:[32] the so-called “Justice” card in the Visconti-Sforza is different from
most in having a young man on a white horse in the background. This alteration might
have converted it into a card for Fame (in the cause of Justice), one of the
Petrarchan triumphs and also a subject actually named as such in a few lists
(Alciato, Pomeran). In defense of that view Teikemeier points to the
scales sometimes seen in illustrations of that Petrarchan triumph. The result is
a deck of 14 triumphs without virtue cards. In a grid, however, the four
virtues could all still be there, represented by the Kings of the four suits,
it seems to me.
I
am aware of no reason for supposing that the theological virtues were
part of any Ferrara-order tarocchi deck. However, there is no difficulty maintaining a cardinal virtue
in each row with 14 cards, as long as there is some flexibility about where the blank spaces go. For example:
Type B Ferrara order, all seven virtues, 14 cards
|
|
Charity |
| 7 Fortitude | Batons |
| 14 World | Faith | 10 Prudence |
3 Chariot |
Coins |
| 13 Justice |
Hope | 9 Old Man/Time |
2 Love |
Swords |
| 12 Angel | 11 Death | 8 Wheel |
1 Temperance |
Cups |
However a 16 card version would run into difficulties, assuming two dignitaries:
Type B Ferrara order, all seven virtues, 16 cards
| World |
12 Faith |
8 Old Man/Time |
4 Love |
---- |
| Justice |
11 Hope |
7 Wheel |
3 Temperance | Cups, Swords |
|
14 Angel |
10 Death |
6 Fortitude |
2 Emperor | Batons |
|
13 Charity |
9 Prudence |
5 Chariot |
1 Empress |
Coins |
Assuming two dignitaries, there is no way to avoid Temperance and Justice from being in the same row.
9. Conclusion
We can expect that as the vertical placements took on more of the associations between virtues and Petrarchans, the rows would have stopped being used, with perhaps a transitional form such as that suggested by the former Beinecke assignments (see section 6). In such a situation the special cards can quickly become one suit above all the rest.
A problem with stopping at 16 is the
sudden jump from Death to the Last Judgment. Petrarch had two steps between the
two. The Cary-Yale had the theological virtues; but the later tarocchi did not go
that way. In the medieval cosmograph, between the earth and the angels were
air, fire, and the heavens.[33] Dante’s journey went from hell’s devils to purgatory’s fire (“Fire” was one
early name for the Tower card) and then to the celestial spheres. The
Apocalypse preceding the Judgment also had devils sending down fire, and then the
“woman clothed with the sun,” the moon at her feet and crowned by stars (Rev.
12:1). All three scenarios can be accommodated by the five cards between Devil
and Sun. The celestials also serve to put Petrarch’s cosmic time back into the
series. That they occur in the order right where the theologicals occur in minchiate,
and there are no surviving tarocchi decks or lists with members of both sets, suggest
that the former substituted for the latter. Also, the Visconti-Sforza
celestials (at right below) have visual similarities to the Cary-Yale theologicals (at left) that would
have helped the players recognize the new cards that replaced them: Charity and
the Sun both have infants, both ladies of the Hope/Star pair gesture toward an object in the upper right corner of the card; and the arm positions of the two ladies of Faith/Moon are similar. 
There are also allegorical associations between the
two sets: in the Star card, the men below it in some versions (Bologna, D'Este,
minchiate) suggest the Star of Bethlehem and the birth of humanity’s Hope; the
Moon guides us through a dark world, like Faith; and the Sun’s return in the
spring brings forth new life, like God’s charity in relation to the soul,
replacing the thread of mortal life as woven by the Fate Clotho, who seems to be depicted on
some Sun cards, with eternal life (below, Beaux Arts card, Bologna, left; Triumph of Death tapestry, with the three Fates, and a printed Sun card of Ferrara or Venice).
With the grid done away with, point-getting combinations can still occur with various groupings, e.g, court cards of the same rank or sequences of triumphs. These still occurred in the Bolognese game of the 18th century and in minchiate, either of high triumphs or the low ones. Since three out of four is harder to attain than the three out of five of the former game, the Fool and Bagatella could serve as substitutes, as recorded in Bologna later.
If the scoring of horizontal combinations disappears without a trace, one might ask, why postulate such an intermediary structure between Marziano and the game as later known at all? One answer is suggested by my experience with the Beinecke Library, where evidence not backed up by other sources, some of which were not saved, is made to disappear. More generally, new things do not appear out of nothing; they emerge from new combinations of old things to which more new things are added, and from which over time old things are discarded, yet still leaving traces, albeit not unambiguously.
There remains the problem of whether the building blocks were seven virtues rather than four, and of whether the four dignitaries of a later time were all present at the beginning. A 4 by something grid would suggest four and four rather than seven and seven. And if Petrarch was indeed an inspiration, six more would make fourteen, the same as the number of cards per ordinary suit. Moreover, a
Marziano-type grid in four rows can explain
why in the tarocchi there would be four papi and not fewer, and four virtues instead of
seven, with the mention of “prudence” in connection with the card below Death
as a trace of the fourth. The grid also can explain
the presence of the non-Petrarchan Wheel and Hanged Man, as a necessary addition in Lombardy, as well as the curious
placement of Prudence in minchiate, with the theologicals but in the same row. To be sure, one could also say that these
were designers’ whims. But that could be said about many placements, whereas
the grid offers a general framework that explains the specific cases.Yet since the cardinal virtues are part of the seven, and they are all that is needed to correlate triumphs with suits, a seven plus seven arrangement cannot be excluded entirely (with the Wheel or Emperor as the seventh Petrarchan-like triumphator), or even a seven plus seven plus two (as in the proposed Cary-Yale), or a seven plus six plus three (as in an ur-minchiate).
Part of the hypothesis is the number of cards that would have been in such a grid: 14 to 16, with 14 as most likely. Let us review the evidence. There are the two references in Ferrara, 1441 and 1457, and the 14 first-artist cards of the Visconti-Sforza. Admittedly, two of the three are rather late, the 1450s, but we cannot expect that 14-triumph decks would have disappeared all at once. There are the three well-known groups of subjects that add up to 14. There is also the fact that most of them (except the Pope and Death, which are at natural dividing points) do not keep to the same place in the order among the various lists, whereas the eight others are in the same places everywhere (except in two Florentine sources the Wheel, probably an early addition). The invariances make sense as additions at a time of greater interregional cooperation. On one side of the divide is the Cary-Yale, with its theologicals and Prudence, and on the other side the decks that follow, with the five subjects from Devil to Sun, removing the theologicals and Prudence except in minchiate, where it and the theologicals appear just where the celestials are in the tarot. As for the variations, they make sense in a four by something grid defined by the four virtues, which are either all together or, most likely, interspersed with Petrarchans at regular intervals. There is also, such as it is, the coincidence of the pre-2019 triumph-to-suits labels of the Beinecke cards, as well as that of the order of triumphs in Keller’s 1981 catalog of the Cary Collection, which is consistent with the historical virtue to suit correlations for at least two of the four virtues, if not all four. None of this is proof, just grounds for a reasonable hypothesis, enough so that we cannot have confidence in simpler ones.
A separate question is that of which city’s order came first,
given the present hypothesis. As already indicated, Bologna’s “equal papi”
rule seems more primitive than the hierarchy and more reflective of Bologna’s
politics than Florence’s. That Fortitude is Bologna’s highest virtue also seems
more primitive than in Florence.Also, Milan’s and Ferrara’s orders need the non-Petrarchan Wheel, while to
explain minchiate's placement of Prudence in a 4x4 grid, the Wheel needs to
be absent. If so, an order without the Wheel would be temporally prior to one with it. On the other hand, if, as in the
Beinecke's order, it was the columns of the grid that were linked to the suits
rather than the rows, then Milan's order is exactly what is needed. These considerations, however, are not much, compared to considerations about which we may still be ignorant.
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR PART II
ALCIATO, Andrea (1544) Parergōn iuris, Libri VII. Posteriores. Lyon: S. Gryphion. In Google Books.
BERRY, JOHN (1987) “Book Review and Discussion: Tarot Symbolism by Robert V. O’Neill” The Playing Card 15, No. 3, 95-99.
BERRY, John (2004) “The Tarot Myth.” The Playing-Card 32:6, 225-227. Both Berry pieces can be read at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=16427.
CROCE, Giulio Cesare (1602) Lotto festevole, fatto in villa fra una nobil schiera di cavalieri, & di dame, con i trionfi de' tarrocchi, esplicati in lode delle dette dame, & altri bei trattenimenti da spasso. Bologna: Vittorio Benacci. Online at http://badigit.comune.bologna.it/GCCroce/sfoglia.asp?start=841.
DECKER, Ronald, (1974) “Correspondence.” Journal of the Playing-Card Society 3:1, 23-24, 48.
DEPAULIS, Thierry (2007) “Early Italian Lists of Tarot Trumps.” The Playing-Card 36:1, 39-50. Online in Academia.
DEPAULIS, Thierry (2013) “The Tarot de Marseille – Facts and Fallacies Part II.” The Playing-Card 42:2, 101-120. Online in Academia.
DISCORSO (c. 1565) perche fosse trovato il giuco et particulormente quello del Tarocco: dove si dichia: ra a pieno il significato di tutte le figure di esso giuoco. In Ross Sinclair CALDWELL, Thierry DEPAULIS, , and Marco PONZI, ed. and trans., con gli occhi et con l'intelletto: Explaining the Tarot in Sixteenth Century Italy, lulu.com, 2019, pp. 42-63.
DUMMETT, Michael (1980) The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City, London: Duckworth. Pp. 65-90, 388-434, and 164-201 (in that order) at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1175.
DUMMETT, Michael (1986) “Tarot Triumphant.” FMR 8, Jan/Feb. 1985, 46-59.
DUMMETT, Michael, (1989) “A Comment on Marziano.” The Playing-Card 18:2,73-75.
FERRETTI, Cinza, ed., I memoriali dei Mamellini, notai bolognese legami familiari, vita quotidiana, realità politica (secc. XV-XVI) (Bologna: CLUEB)
GHINASSI, Ghino (2006) “Un dubbio lessicale di Baldassarre Castiglione.” In Paolo Bongrani (ed.), Dal Belcalzer al Castiglione: Studi sull’antico volgare di Mantova e sul Castiglione 5, L. S. Olschki: Biblioteca Mantovana.
KELLER, William (1981) A
catalogue of the Cary Collection of Playing Cards in the Yale University
Library / 2, Text. New Haven: Yale University Library. Online at https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17389206.
MOAKLEY, Gertrude (1966) The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza Family. New York: New York Public Library. Online at various sites.
MOIRAGHI, Pietro (1897) "Rime ed imprese dedicate alle dame pavesi del sec. XVI." In Pietro Toldo and Pietro Moiraghi, Memorie e documenti per la storia di Pavia e suo Principato, Vol. II, fasc. III, 1897, 63-73.
PISCINA, Francesco (1565) Discorso sopra L’ordine delle figure de Tarocchi. Monte Regale (Piedmont): Lionardo Torrentino). In Ross Sinclair CALDWELL, Thierry DEPAULIS, , and Marco PONZI, ed. and trans., con gli occhi et con l'intelletto: Explaining the Tarot in Sixteenth Century Italy, lulu.com, 2019, pp. 10-33 (18-33 in Google Books).
POMERAN, Troilo (1534) Triomphi de Troilo Pomeran da Cittadela composti sopra li Terrocchi in Laude delle famose Gentil Donne di Vinegia. Venice: Zuan’Antonio di Nicolini da Sabio. Online at letarot.it.
PRATESI, Franco (1987) "Ferrarese Tarot in the 16th Century: Invective and Answer." The Playing-Card 15:4, 123-131, at naibi.net.
PRATESI, Franco (1992) “Le tarot de Marseille: retour à Milan.” L'As de Trèfle, n. 47/8, 10-12, at naibi.net.
PRATESI, Franco (2016) “Cremona 1441? – Elucubrazioni sui tarocchi Visconti di Modrone o Cary-Yale.” Online at naibi.net.
RENIER, Rodolfo (1894). “Tarocchi di Matteo Maria Boiardo.” In N. Campanini, ed., Studi su Matteo Maria Boiardo (Bologna, 1894), online at http://www.tarock.info/renier.htm.
ROSENBERG, Charles V (1979) “ The Iconography of the Sala degli Stucchi in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara.” Art Bulletin 61, No. 3, 377-384.
VITALI, Andrea (1986) “Lo Appeso.” Online at letarot.it with English trans.
VITALI, Andrea (2005), “I Tarocchi in Letteratura I.” Online at letarot.it with English trans.
VITALI, Andrea (2012) “El Bagatella, ossia il simbolo del peccato.” Online at letarot.it with English trans.
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[1] For the usual Florentine placement of the virtues (except of course Prudence), see here the table “Type A, Florence,” below. For the C and B positions of those virtues, see the tables for those types, in sections 6 and 7.
[2] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II.II. q. 123, art. 12.
[3] Plato, Republic 427C-445B. For Aquinas, Prudence, Summa Theologiae II.II, q. 47. was Wisdom in human affairs:
[4] Thomas Aquinas, Contra impugnantes, pars. 2 cap. 3 ad 22: "Et ideo Papa, qui obtinet vicem sponsi in tota Ecclesia, universalis Ecclesiae sponsus dicitur" and "Unde Christus et Papa et episcopus et sacerdos non computantur nisi unus sponsus Ecclesiae." Cited by Marco Ponzi on Tarot History Forum (search impugnantes).
[5] Pedini c. 1746, Cap. V: “Ne Papi non v’è ordine, solo che frà loro l’ultimo giocato vince il primo” (In Papi there is no order, only that among them the last played beats the first).
[6] Caldwell 2020, 67, adding that if the rule was original everywhere, it would explain how far-away Piedmont happened to have it, too.
[7] See here n. 57.
[8] Among others, Giulio Cesare Mamellini, sometime between 1581 and his death in 1620, in Ferretti, 2008, 171, cited by Caldwell 2020, 67-68: “I tarocchi dunque, sotto di una politica intrecciata otusità di cose, tengono ascoso tutto il gran negotio de i guelfi et ghibellini, che erano a Bologna le fationi de Geremei et Lambertazzi, essendovi papa et antipapa, vero et scomunicato imperadore, con le città del l'una e l'altra lega...” (The tarot, then, under an intricate politics of obtuseness of things, keeps all the great business of the Guelphs and Ghibellines hidden within it, which in Bologna were the factions of Germei and Lambertazzi, being there [in the tarot] pope and antipope, true and excommunicated emperor, with the cities of the one and the other league…) The Geremei and Lambertazzi were the papal and imperial factions in 13th century Bologna, at a time when there was one of each. “Guelf” and “Ghibelline” are more generic terms for the same throughout Italy. Similar to Mamellini is Giuseppe Maria Buini in 1597, quoted by Vitali 2003-2017, n. 24.
[9] Croce 1602, 4, left side.
[10] These are the sheets now at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts and in the Rothschild Collection at the Louvre.
[11] For “Pavia” titles and order, see Moiraghi, 1897, Depaulis 2013b, 113-114; or Dummett 1980, 401. For Alciato, see Alciato 1544, Libro VIII, 90; Depaulis 2013b, 113-114; Pratesi 1992. Pratesi relates Alciato’s Latin titles to the usual ones.
[12] Piscina 1565, 24-25.
[13] Dummett 1986, 47.
[14] Piscina 1565, 20-21: “per dimonstrar avisar il pessimo fine che fanno i speratori de i prudenti consegli.”
[15] Vincenzo Imperiali, “Risposto” to Alberto Lollio’s “Invettiva,” transcribed by Pratesi 1987: “Vien poi la Morte, et mena un’altra danza, et prudenza e malicia attera, Et pareggia ciascuno alla bilanza, Ma 'l vecchio saggio la Fortun' afferra…” For the entire passage in English and Italian, see Vitali 1986.
[16] Proposed by Lothar Teikemeier at http://a-tarot.eu/pdf/cy-jpg.jpg, to which I add that the Old Man, plus another on the Wheel might correspond to the pieces known in Italy as banners, in English as bishops.
[17] Keller 1981, 53.
[18]William Keller, email 1 of March 28, 2019.
[19] Keller, email 2 of March 28, 2019.
[20] Pratesi, “Elucubrazioni” 2016, 12-14
[21] Young, email of March 21, 2019.
[22] Dummett 1980, 400.
[23] Rosenberg 1979, 380-382.
[24] For the double meaning, see Vitali 2012.
[25] http://www.tarock.info/steele.htm: “Primus dicitur El Bagatella (et est omnium inferior).”
[26] Renier 1894 erroneously transcribed the “Pavia” title as bagatella, corrected by Moiraghi 1897, p 70, confirmed by scans of the ms. graciously provided by the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris. For Florence, see Depaulis 2007, 43-44.
[27] On the normal meanings of the word, see Ghinassi 2006, 206, and Vitali 2012. Bologna’s Bagattino, the word for a coin of small value, is similarly contrived, having no relation to what is pictured on the card but only to its place in the sequence.
[28]. Moakley 1966, 95.
[29] Some of these sources are given in Dummett 1980: 389. 390, 400); there is also Pomeran, 1534.
[30] Decker 1974, reaffirmed by Berry 1987 and 2004.
[31] Dummett 1989, 75.
[32] http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=17682#p17682 (21 Oct, 2016).
[33] See Piscina 1565, 22-23.
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