My discussion divides into two parts. First, about Depaulis's claim that his discovery is poor evidence for the spread of tarot in France more than a couple of years or so before 1500, and second, about the cards he bring up. Part one was originally presented at
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1091&sid=81cf3e46991d4b644e165bf2656d9c13#p16774, part two at
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1091&sid=81cf3e46991d4b644e165bf2656d9c13#p16776
1. The spread of triumphs in France before 1500
he inventory actually implicates more "of Savoy" women than just Marie
and Bona. There was also the person conducting the 1477 inventory,
Marguerite of Savoy, who knew what the object was, a cheap tarot deck.
All three grew up, at least part of the time, in the milieu of the Savoy
court. Depaulis says they are unlikely to have learned tarot there (p.
206).
Pour autant, Marie de Savoie
(Turin, 20 mars 1448 - Bohain, aout 1475), fille du duc de Savoie Louis,
en dépit du lieu de sa naissance, n'est pas une princesse «italienne».
Elevée en Savoie, entre Thonon, Geneve et Chambéry, Marie est imprégnée
de culture francaise, encore tres gothique. En outre, le roi Louis XI a
fait venir a la cour, des 1463, les soeurs de la reine, Agnes (née en
1445), Marie (née en 1448) et Bonne (née en 1449), puis Marguerite (née
en 1439). Elevées a la francaise, Marie de Savoie et ses soeurs devaient
tout ignorer du tarot.
(However, Marie of Savoy (Turin, 20
March 1448 - Bohain aout 1475), daughter of Louis Duke of Savoy, despite
the place of her birth, is not an "Italian" princess. Raised in Savoy,
between Thonon, Geneva and Chambery, Marie is steeped in French culture,
still very Gothic. In addition, King Louis XI brought to his court, in
1463, the sisters of the queen, Agnes (born in 1445), Marie (born in
1448), Bonne (born in 1449) and Marguerite (born in 1439 ). Raised in
the French manner, Marie of Savoy and her sisters would have been
ignorant of the tarot.)
But there was another
woman in Savoy who would have known how to play tarot, namely, their
aunt, also named Marie of Savoy. She had been in Milan as the wife of
Filippo Maria Sforza from 1428 until his death in 1447. At some point,
probably very soon, she would have returned to her family. I say "very
soon", because the Duke of Savoy, Louis, very soon attacked the
Ambrosian Republic by force of arms, with the object of taking it, but
was beaten back by the forces of the Republic (see Wikipedia on Louis of
Savoy). He seems to have been based in Turin at that point, because
that is Marie the younger's birthplace in 1448. He would not have
attacked if the older Marie was still there, it seems to me. A Duchess
of Milan would have made a good figurehead ruler. Marie lived until
1469. This was time enough not only to teach her niece Bonne, born in
1449, but also her older sisters, Marguerite, born 1439, and Marie, born
1448. It is not excluded that the tarot pack was sent to Maria by Bona,
but I see no reason to assume, as Depaulis does, that any of the three
would not have been familiar with the game before their marriages. Marie
was married to Louis de Luxembourg in 1466 (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_of_ ... _Saint-Pol).
And before that she had been considered for a marriage to one of the
Sforza children, Filippo Maria, betrothed when she was 6. Although that
betrothal was annulled, she may have been considered for other Sforza
children. That would have been one reason to learn the game. As for
Marguerite, she married Pierre de Luxembourg, the son of Louis de
Luxembourg, sometime after the death of her first husband, the Marquess
of Montferrat, in 1464 (so yes, she is her mother-in-law's older
sister). As Depaulis points out, she would have played tarot in
Montferrat (a small principality between Savoy and Lombardy), but even
before her 1458 marriage she could have learned the game from her aunt,
it seems to me.
The once prosperous city of
Saint-Pol-sur-Tournois, county seat of Saint-Pol, no longer exists,
having been destroyed by Charles V in 1537 (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise). All that is left is a small town, population 5000 today (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise).
But its location is of interest because it is within about 12 miles of
the earliest record, until the new one of 1477, of "triumphe" in France,
the one in 1480, which is a directive regarding two nobles arrested in a
brawl while playing "triumphe". This took me some dot-connecting
between various texts to find out, plus Google Maps.
Depaulis
does not say that this event, the brawl, is the one he means, but I do
not know what else it could be, for 1480. He assumes it was a game with
the ordinary deck (p. 203):
Il a été suggeré que ce triumphe
pouvait désigner le tarot. Mais il n'est pas possible d'être
affirmatif, car le jeu de triomphe, attesté dans les sources françaises a
partir de 1480, connaît une longue serie de citations aux XVIe et XVIIe
siècles dont certaines sont assez éclairantes: il s'agit d'un jeu de
levées simple, joué le plus souvent à quatre avec des cartes ordinaires.
Il serait étonnant que cet emploi de 1496 fasse exception. Mais il est
vrai que nous sommes en Lorraine, duché d'Empire, et non en France, oh
sont localisées les autres references. Si René II n'a pu connaître sa
grand-mère Isabelle de Lorraine, morte en 1453, alors qu il n'avait que
deux ans, nous savons qu'il a passe sa jeunesse à la cour de son
grand-père Rene d'Anjou, entre Angers et la Provence. La tradition du
tarot aurait pu y survivre et lui être transmise. La question reste done
un peu en suspens.
(It has been suggested that this triumphe
could designate the tarot. But it is not possible to be affirmative,
since the the game of triumph, attested in French sources from 1480,
knows a long series of quotes in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, some quite illuminating: it is a game of simple raises,
played mostly by four with ordinary cards. It would be surprising if
this use of 1496 were an exception. But it is true that we are in
Lorraine, a Duchy of the Empire, not in France, where the other
references are located. If René II could not know his grandmother
Isabelle of Lorraine, who died in 1453, when he was only two years old,
we know that he spent his youth at the court of his grandfather René d
'Anjou, between Angers and Provence. The tradition of tarot could have
survived and been transmitted to him. The question remains therefore a
little open.)
But is that one instance of
"triumphe" in France of 1480 securely the one that used the ordinary
deck? Here is Dummett, 1993 (original and footnotes at
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15164&)
The
first reference appears in a lettre de rémission (grace of the King for
an offense committed) dated 1482 (8); it describes a fight that broke
out in the town of Bethune, near Lille, due to a game of triumphe among
four members of the aristocracy, one of whom killed another during the
altercation (9). Now as far as I know, the word "tarocchi" had not yet
been introduced in Italy. ...
On the other hand, the expression
"triumphos cum chartis” is found in a statute of Reggio Emilia of 1500
in a context in which reference must be made to the game of Tarot, by
analogy with similar ordinances of Salò, Brescia and Bergamo dating back
to 14S8, 1489 and 1491. The possibility therefore remains open that the
game mentioned in the lettre de rémission was not one that will be
later practiced with the name of Triomphe and a normal deck, but a game
of Tarot.
However Dummett still leans toward
thinking the game near Lille is the one with the ordinary deck. In
justification he cites the same 1496 document that Depaulis now leaves
"a little open", plus another in 1498, when "the office of the
Archdeacon of Paris mentions la triumphe as a prohibited game in Paris".
That reference is equally unclear; since it is after the French
invasion of Italy, it could be a reaction to the game's new mass
popularity; by then, it could also be the Spanish game. After that, of
course, there is the new word for tarot.
Bethune, as it
happens, is about 30 miles from Lille. But it is a mere 12 miles or so
from St.-Pol-sur-Ternoise, which at that point was not legally part of
France but obviously controlled by it.
So which game was it, in
1480? One problem is that it is commonly assumed, since Dummett in 1980,
that the word "tarot" or "tarocchi" was invented to distinguish the
game with the ordinary deck, called "triomphe", from the game with the
special cards, which had been called "trionfi" in Italy, and now
"triomphe" in Cambrai (another city on the border of Burgundian
Flanders, in 1477 temporarily occupied by France). If so, then either
the word "tarot" is much older than commonly thought, or there weren't
two games called "triumphe" in Bethune. So which was it?
In Italy, the game with ordinary cards was considered Spanish: "Triumpho Ispanico" (Vives, c. 1538, documented by Vitali at
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=238&lng=eng).
Connections between Italy and Spain were rather better than between
Italy and France, given that Spain controlled half the country; even so,
the name change doesn't appear there until 1505. The game is described
in detail by the Spanish writer Maldonado in 1541 (
http://www.naibi.net/A/13-MALDO-Z.pdf.
In England the game is referred to in Hugh Latimer's "sermon on the
cards", attested, probably reliably, to be of the year 1529 but not
published until 1563 (see
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1050).
If the game were in France by 1480, one would expect earlier
documentation in England, which then had much interaction with France in
precisely this part of the country. Nor would it have gotten to nearby
Burgundian Flanders by way of Spain. At the time Flanders was not yet in
the ambit of Spain, which started in 1496 with the marriage of Joanna
of Castile to Phillip the Handsome of Burgundy (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_of_Castile).
It
is easier to explain the migration to Bethune of tarot than it is of
the game with the normal deck. Besides these two Savoy sisters, in
communication with a third in Milan, another sister, Agnes, also married
into the Northern French aristocracy, in 1466. Her husband was François
d'Orléans-Longueville (1447–1491), "Count of Dunois, Tancarville,
Longueville, and Montgomery, Baron of Varenguebec, Viscount of Melun,
Chamberlain of France, Governor of Normandy and the Dauphiné, Constable
and Chamberlain of Normandy" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Dunois,
under "progeny"). Her husband's position had been created by Charles
VII for his father, the "bastard of Orleans", famous as the stalwart
companion-at-arms of Joan of Arc. She lived, at least some of the time,
in Longueville, which is just north of Rouen, later a famous
card-producing city. I cannot find it on Google Maps, but it would
probably be about 70 miles from St. Pol.
There was also a fourth
Savoy sister in France, Charlotte, born 1441, married at age 9 to the
Dauphin of France, later King, against his father's wishes (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XI_of_France).
The marriage was not consummated then, of course, but she must have
been raised in her husband's court, at first in Dauphiné, which is next
to Savoy, and then in Flanders, as her first daughter was born in the
Chateau of Genappe, Brabant (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_France).
Again, there is much opportunity for contact with her family, whether
in France, Savoy, or Milan. and ample opportunity for her to have
learned to play tarot. She and her husband both died in 1483.
Charlotte
connects with the tarot in two other ways. First, she shows up in
tracing the two decks that Marcello sent to Isabelle of Lorraine--who
didn't live in Lorraine but rather in her husband's homeland of Anjou
(Depaulis says she was residing in Saumur at the time). After her death
in 1453, Depaulis says, her possessions went to her husband, René I.
Upon his death, he willed everything to his cousin Louis XI (p. 202).
René
semble avoir hérite les biens d'Isabelle, morte en 1453, puis, René a
son tour decide, en 1480, ses collections allérent pour la plupart
enrichir celles du roi de France Louis XI, son cousin. Le livret seul a
survécu, aujourd'hui dans les collections de la BnF.
(René seems
to have inherited the property of Isabella, deceased in 1453, and René
decides its turn, in 1480, that his collections would go mostly to
enrich those of King Louis XI of France, his cousin. The booklet alone
has survived, today in the collections of the BNF.)
Depaulis
doubts that Isabelle actually played either game, and that they would
have appeared as "artistic curiosities without other utilization", in
which the tarot was even considered secondary. However it seems to me
that the Michelino at least would have been saved on the basis of its
artistic merit, and if so, then likely the other as well. There is also
the possibility that Rene II knew the game, based on the 1496 document,
learned from Rene I. When the decks got to Louis XI in 1480, assuming
they did, he probably would have deferred to his wife, considering their
Italian origin and that they were games suitable for women and
children. She would have been familiar with the tarot from her family,
just as the other sisters would, and probably even known something about
the famous Michelino work from her aunt.
From there, Depaulis
loses the thread (or perhaps just interest). However the trail can be
picked up by means of another connection, at least visually, between
Charlotte and tarot that did survive, a painting done c. 1472 in which
Charlotte is put with St. Francis adoring the Christ Child (
http://www.cornettedesaintcyr.fr/html/f ... 1&aff=1&r=).
There is no dispute about her identity, as she is named in the title of
the painting in the inventory of her goods after her death (above
website), and her monogram and that of Louis XI are on the back. I
expect that this sale was recent, as the part of the painting with
Charlotte has only recently appeared on Charlotte's Wikipedia web-page.
(Yes, I check it regularly. This is not the first time I have written
about her. But it is the first time I have seen the painting there, as
opposed to an engraving of her taken from the painting.) It is judged by
the expert who has written on the painting, Charles Sterling, to be
"school of Savoy".
The
association to the tarot is by way of the Goldschmidt cards,
specifically the "lady at a kneeler", who might correspond to the Popess
(far right below).
.
She
bears a likeness to Charlotte in the painting, although
looking a bit older. (Also many such ladies at kneekers were painted in this period.) I would observe also that one of the Goldschmidt
cards has the arms of the Dauphin and Dauphine itself, a stylized
dolphin. Other noble houses also had such arms, to be sure, but the
combination of the two is striking. Charlotte before 1461 would have
been the Dauphine. The pigment analysis done on the cards in the 1950s
by the Doermer Institute also places it near that time: "mid-15th
century"; but such analysis gives a lower limit rather than a specific
date, given that paints continue to be made and kept after they have
been superseded by other paints. There was rapid technical advance in
paint at that time; but Savoy, if that is where the deck was painted,
perhaps by a foreign artist, was not a center of artistic fashion. The
dolphin bears a distinct resemblance to one of the cards of the late
"PMB clone" decks, such as the Bartsch and the Rosenthal (assuming it is
a true copy of something now lost), as Huck and Phaeded showed us (
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=691&p=16391&hilit=dauphin+Rosenthal#p16393
and the post before). It seems to me that they were most likely done
after 1480, which is when the art historians say that the PMB "second
artist" cards were done (the artist, Antonio Cicognara, is one of the
few things, when it comes to these decks, they all agree on).
This period was in fact a time of considerable connections between France and Milan. Here is Wikipedia (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XI_of_France):
Despite
his connection by marriage to the royal house of Savoy, Louis XI had
continuously courted a strong relationship with the Francesco I Sforza
Duke of Milan, who was a traditional enemy of Savoy. As evidence of this
growing close relationship between Milan and the King of France,
Sforza, the Duke of Milan sent his own son, Galeazzo Maria Sforza at the
head of five thousand (5,000) foot and horse soldiers to aid Louis XI
in his war against the League of Public Weal in 1465.[43] Recently,
differences had arisen between France and Milan, that had cause Milan to
seek ways of separating itself from dependence on the French. However,
with the downfall of Burgundy in 1476, France was seen in a new light by
Milan. Milan now hurriedly scuttered back into its alliance with Louis
XI.[40]
Venice, Naples, and the Papal States also
entered into favorable relations with Louis. Wikipedia's Footnote 40,
like many others in the article, is to a book called
Louis XI: The Universal Spider, 1971.
Perhaps
the Goldschmidt was done for one of Charlotte's children, either Anne,
who was regent for her brother Charles VIII until he attained his
majority, or else Charles himself, who was Dauphin until 1483. Either
way, Charles would have known about the tarot. That also might explain
why, of all the gifts that the city of Florence could have given Charles
on the occasion of his rather fearful visit in 1494, it was thought
that a handsome illuminated manuscript of Petrarch, including the
Trionfi, done originally for Lorenzo de' Medici would be one sure to please him (see
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1060&p=16250; my information comes from Pellegrin,
Manuscrits de Petrarque dans les Bibliotheques de France,
p. 328f). In that case, the falconer might be Charles the Bold as the
Fool wild card (the Burgundy coat of arms has diagonal yellow slashes,
although the other way and alternating with blue; see
http://www.burgundytoday.com/historic-p ... rgundy.htm,
which says that he "loved hunting"). And Anne of Brittany as the Queen
with the castle, representing Brittany, greatly desired by France. As
for the card with the bishop (corresponding to the Pope , but the
anchor, seen also on the Cary-Yale, also suggests Hope), two of
Charlotte's brothers were Archbishops. But there are many problems in
dating and interpreting the Goldschmidt.
The painting with
Charlotte ended up, until the mid-19th century, in a curious place. The
auction house blurb describes how that would have probably happened:
Très
probablement resté dans sa descendance, Anne sa fille et Suzanne sa
petite fille, installées au château de Bourbon-L'Archambault; ...
(Most
likely remaining with her descendants, Anne her daughter and Suzanne
her granddaughter, installed at the Château de Bourbon-Archambault;...)
It
remained until 1852 or a little earlier (it is first reported, with an
engraving of Charlotte, in a book published in 1851). Perhaps Isabelle's
cards took the same route. Suzanne, married to the Duke of Bourbon,
died without heir (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_France).
The castle where the painting hung is the ancestral home of the
Bourbon kings, from Henri IV to his son Louis XIV and so on until the
bitter end. We know that Louis XIV was not fond of things Italian, tarot
in particular. By then the decks would have been forgotten, until
someone found the moldy things. It would have been a good time to get
rid of them. In any case, they are gone. I see no particular reason to
blame Isabelle or Rene.
Anne housed and educated several very
powerful women, such as Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria.
Margaret became the queen of the Spanish Netherlands who is thought to
be featured in the famous Flemish painting of a noblewoman holding cards
in her hands, all of them pips, while in back of her various men look
upset (my interpretation: it is not in the cards that I will marry
again). It is possible that one of them was given those cards.
Finally,
we must not count out Louis of Savoy's sons as carriers of the tarot to
France. Janus (1440-1491) married Helene of Luxembourg (d. 1488),
daughter of the decapitated Louis de Luxembourg, another connection to
the North of France. They had a child, Louise of Savoy, in 1467. Another
son, Jacques, was a close friend of Charles the Bold (Louis XI's enemy)
and became Governor of Burgundy in 1473. He continued to serve
Burgundy, a losing cause, after Charles' death. But in 1484 he married
Marie de Luxembourg, daughter of his sister Marguerite of Savoy (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_II, ... _Saint-Pol),
granddaughter of the decapitated Louis de Luxembourg. (He seems to have
married his niece! I'm not sure that falls within the rules of
consanguinity.) Having lost his own lands, Charles VIII gave him Saint
Pol plus other territories, including ones in Flanders (then briefly
French).
Another connection to the tarot is that the 1477
inventory was done by Marguerite on behalf of the children of Marie and
Louis. Helene de Luxembourg was one of them, as was Pierre II. Or
Marguerite might have been allowed to keep the deck herself, to give to
her daughter, Marie de Luxembourg. This point is less about the deck and
more about how knowledge gets passed down through generations.
In
short, we have a series of coincidental overlaps involving the children
of the dukes of Savoy and the ruling family of Anjou. It seems to me
likely that the tarot deck was in fact used in France in the second half
of the 15th century, and considerably before 1500, in this still rather
narrow milieu, plus whatever spill-over there would have been from
Chambery into neighboring aristocracies (also, in Avignon, some of the
Church leaders, if connected with Italy, might have known the game). If
it was the army of Charles VIII that popularized the game, it was likely
already known and approved by its leader. The wood blocks for "taraux",
of Avignon 1505, were destined for a city in Piedmont controlled by
Savoy (birthplace of Marguerite of Savoy, coincidentally), thus a likely
point of entry--with occasional waits--into Italy for French troops.
2. The two cards
First, on the cards found by Lambert. Depaulis offers four criteria for distinguishing French from Italian cards.
On
pense a Lyon a cause de la dame de coupes qui presente quelques
affinités, dans la forme du bras et de la main, le traitement du visage,
le voile sous la couronne, avec des reines de cartes lyonnaises. En
outre, ces cartes sont a bords francs, sans trace de rabat des dos si
typique des cartes italiennes.
(One thinks of Lyon because of
the Queen of Cups, which presents some similarities in the shape of the
arm and hand, the treatment of the face, and the veil under the crown,
with the queens of Lyon cards. In addition, these cards have blunt
borders, no trace of the flap of the back so typical of Italian cards.
(1) similarities in the shape of the arm and hand;
(2) treatment of the face;
(3) veil under the crown;
(4) straightforward borders, without trace of the flap of the back
By
(4) he means larger borders which can be folded over onto the other
side to provide a firm connection between front and back, e.g.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PvPFGdJdOzg/V ... age-09.JPG.
Depaulis
gives no examples of how French cards and not Italian ones fit these
criteria. However Gallica does have cards from Lyon of that period, c.
1500 and a little before. They all have French suit symbols.
So
let's compare the two cards (above) with Italian and French samples from around the same time
period. First, Italian, two rows of the "Budapest" sheet (Kaplan, vol.
2, p 274), and the Rosenwald Sheet's row of Queens. I do not give the
Rosenwald Old Man because he is on crutches, quite different from
Lambert's card. I give the Rosenwald Queen only for the profile view of
the face. In most tarots, including the Tarot de Marseille, the Queen of
Cups is full-face, although still looking at the cup.
The
Budapest Queen is similar to Lambert's in the drawing of the arm and
hand. Also, alone among the Queens, it has the "veil" on both sides of
the head.
The Rosenwald is similar in giving a profile view, but nothing else.
The
cups are all somewhat different. In the case of the Old Man, the style
of the Budapest and Lambert's is very similar, as well as the fact that
both use a cane. This is something carried over from the PMB (
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UxFhOBrAdSg/ ... rotDET.jpg).
The PMB has a pronounced hunched posture; whether it is actually a
hunchback I am not sure. In the Budapest, the posture is better; there
may be a bulge in his upper back, but it might be either the flow of the
coat or a pack on his back. Berti and Vitali in
Tarocchi, Arte e Magia give a colored version of the sheet from the Metropolitan Museum:
In
this detail Lambert's card is quite unique in having what looks like a
green bundle on his back. shaped like a round pyramid of three levels.
The only thing comparable is the shape of what is on the Cary Sheet's Fool and Magician (in the case of the Magician, there is a monkey in front; in discussion, SteveM thought it was a "monkey with a turban" however the "turban" is much larger than the head, and extends to the monkey's shoulders):
There
are no especially wide borders on any of these cards. That there are
numbers on the Italian Old Man card and not on Lambert's is not a
problem, because the Italian card can simply have derived from a model
without the number. Dummett observed that "the designs of the triumphs
of the 'Budapest pack' are probably prior to the addition of numerals,
considering the awkward way in which the numerals were forced into every
available space" (1993, original Italian at
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15166) Also, the Cary Sheet didn't have numbers.
So
now French cards. Most examples of Queens, at least on Gallica, of that
period are standing figures not looking at all like Lambert's, e.g.
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WTq81QaxZYs/ ... um155.jpeg,
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bweb0CYW1Wc/ ... bnfTop.jpg,
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5zrEx3oPyZc/ ... bnfDET.jpg.
However there was one card-maker, Jean de Dale, given variously as 1480 (Gallica) and c. 1485 (Hoffman,
The Playing Card, pl. 45) that at least had them sitting, even if on horses, as well as occasionally in profile.
Here
only one of the ladies has the "veil" going down the sides of her
crown, although of a different style, and her face, if done in profile,
has a certain similarity to that of Lambert's. There is also quite a bit
resemblance in the arms and hands. Two other of these Queens are in
profile, although they seem older and less attractive than the on with
the "veil". In the context of these cards by Dale, there is indeed
something French about Lambert's Queen.
So
it is at least possible that Depaulis is right. However, there are also
similarities with the Budapest/Metropolitan and even the Cary Sheet, in
regard to the bundle on the Old Man's back--although neither of these
is securely Italian, especially the Cary Sheet. Lambert's cards are
clearly proto-TdM, but beyond that It is hard to say, it seems to me,
whether it is Northern Italian or somewhere else, not necessarily
Lyon--there is also Piedmont/Savoy, of which we know nothing.
I
have not much to say about the documentation of "cartes francaises" that
Depaulis cites from Northern Italy. The later two clearly refer to
cards with French suits. The de' Pazzi poem seems to imply that they are
a new phenomenon in Florence of his time, i.e. the second quarter of
the 16th century. What the quote from Lorenzo is referring to is unclear
to me. It could be cards with French suits, as they are "alla franceza"
in a way that cards with Latin suits would not be, at least so clearly.
Dummett in 1993 thought that French suit signs were in use starting
1465-1470 (
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15133&hilit=Varekamp#p15133).
That was based on a dating of the Cloisters Hunting Deck (from the same
region as the Savoy siblings) of 1470. It is nowadays given to a little
later, c. 1475-1480 (
http://www.wopc.co.uk/france/flemish-hunting-deck);
that is still not far away from the time of Lorenzo's letter. We have
no examples of what French suit symbols would have looked like in their
previous "Latin" form. It is possible that they resembled the Spanish
or Portuguese suit symbols we do know about, and which are noticeably
different from Italian suit symbols.
